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ontologySo, my birthday.
I've been feeling especially out of sorts the past several days, and I didn't want to write it in that mood and sound cross all throughout; I'm not feeling precisely fabulous today, but it's been long enough, and I don't want to forget anything.
The week since has not been excellent, except for a few bits which were (mostly Sunday), but -- blimey, that's a day I've been savouring for a while.
I've been feeling especially out of sorts the past several days, and I didn't want to write it in that mood and sound cross all throughout; I'm not feeling precisely fabulous today, but it's been long enough, and I don't want to forget anything.
So, I was trying very hard to come up with something really special to commemorate the date, because, eighteen, you know? (And there's this ridiculous thing with me and ceremonies you likely all know about by now.) But I couldn't come up with anything much; there weren't any concerts playing in the area, we did the art museum already last year, and this town is fairly dull when one is looking for phantasmagorical birthday commemoration things. (It's fairly dull in general, but especially when you want it to be exciting.) I tried to think of when it was that I felt most myself and happiest and alive: a lot of those times are completely incapable of reconstruction (the first time I listened to Little Earthquakes; star-watching after Nickel Creek's set at Grey Fox; reading Madeleine L'Engle's Two-Part Invention and taking a long, long walk afterwards; Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet's set at Merlefest; the night I slipped out of the house with my iPod on shuffle and took an impromptu walk to the lake while the sun set over the water and the windows of the church on the other side lit up) -- but there were common elements. I realised that what I wanted the most was to be in the city somehow, and wander about, and take photographs, and discover things, but I didn't really know how to accomplish that. We made some vague, tentative plans to maybe go to State College and the bookstore, but nothing terribly specific -- and then Victoria called (well, emailed first, then called) and said, hey, we're going up to Pittsburgh, would you like to come along? As soon as I made sure I'd still have plenty of time to celebrate with my family, I jumped at it.
I woke up really, really early, which was weird. I think Leandra may have woken me; it was still mostly dark, so I just lay in bed a while and dozed, with all of those strange half-awake thoughts running round in my head. (I often wake up and can't remember what I was thinking so intently about before, and it frustrates me, because it feels as though it was something complicated and important and maybe even something I couldn't get at when I'm awake, but I can never remember anything except the fleeting ghost of the taste of it.) After a while I stopped trying to be asleep and openedlady_moriel 's presents instead. (DRAT YOUR SPARKLY WRAPPING PAPER. THE NOTEBOOK HAS CONSEQUENTLY NAMED ITSELF EDWARD AND IS PONCY. ♥)
I wandered downstairs after a while to make breakfast (for lo, I was hungry), which was sausage, egg, & cheese biscuits (I'd made buttermilk biscuits for this express purpose), and some for Mum and Dad, too, when they got up, and this is a very dull bit, I apologise. The Nielsons were coming for me at ten, so I opened presents from siblings before I left.
I woke up really, really early, which was weird. I think Leandra may have woken me; it was still mostly dark, so I just lay in bed a while and dozed, with all of those strange half-awake thoughts running round in my head. (I often wake up and can't remember what I was thinking so intently about before, and it frustrates me, because it feels as though it was something complicated and important and maybe even something I couldn't get at when I'm awake, but I can never remember anything except the fleeting ghost of the taste of it.) After a while I stopped trying to be asleep and opened
lady_moriel 's presents instead. (DRAT YOUR SPARKLY WRAPPING PAPER. THE NOTEBOOK HAS CONSEQUENTLY NAMED ITSELF EDWARD AND IS PONCY. ♥)I wandered downstairs after a while to make breakfast (for lo, I was hungry), which was sausage, egg, & cheese biscuits (I'd made buttermilk biscuits for this express purpose), and some for Mum and Dad, too, when they got up, and this is a very dull bit, I apologise. The Nielsons were coming for me at ten, so I opened presents from siblings before I left.
Timmy's blank book of art-deco awesome. (The hot pink makes it very Marie Antoinette The Movie, doesn't it?) And Leandra gave me Peppermint Patties! (With a lot of help, I'm sure.) There was also a metal vintage handbag wall decoration, a miniature Converse with a clock face on the side, and a knit hat, from Heidi.
Then, segueing away from all of the dull expositionary stuff about getting in cars and going here and there to pick up people, I went to Pittsburgh. Have I mentioned that I love long car rides? So long as there are no small children or the small children are blessedly quiet, and I don't get sick, and suchlike, I mean. They're very good for thinking, and listening to music, and when there are people about with whom to converse, it is even nicer.
Then, segueing away from all of the dull expositionary stuff about getting in cars and going here and there to pick up people, I went to Pittsburgh. Have I mentioned that I love long car rides? So long as there are no small children or the small children are blessedly quiet, and I don't get sick, and suchlike, I mean. They're very good for thinking, and listening to music, and when there are people about with whom to converse, it is even nicer.
I listened to the birthday mix bornofstars made for me (♥!), and it was appropriately lovely and reflective, and I had a bit of a wonder moment listening to beautiful cello work and looking out my window for just a moment to see trees swaying under a stormy sky. Oh yes, there were rumours of thunderstorms for much of the day -- great bruise-like clouds hovering ominously over everything -- but we never got one. I for one was slightly disappointed.
bornofstars made for me (♥!), and it was appropriately lovely and reflective, and I had a bit of a wonder moment listening to beautiful cello work and looking out my window for just a moment to see trees swaying under a stormy sky. Oh yes, there were rumours of thunderstorms for much of the day -- great bruise-like clouds hovering ominously over everything -- but we never got one. I for one was slightly disappointed. We talked some, and read some, and some of us did a bit of writing. I think we sang Rest in Peace at some point. It's sort of becoming traditional.
We dropped Mr Nielson off at the airport, and soon afterwards got into the more visually exciting parts of the city. Spectacular architecture!
Then there was an interlude at a fabric shop, where cloth was sought for a dance dress for Hannah, and we looked at various sequiny fabrics attempting to decide which would be most suitable for an Edward Cullen plushie. There were feather boas, and nifty buttons. I designed a lot of exciting clothing in my head.
And I took a picture of me, cos, uh, I could? Anyway I was wearing a lot of my favourite clothing. :p (Victoria's back snuck into my mirror.)
When that business was finished, we went to this lovely little coffee shop, because Mrs Nielson needed coffee.
It was really very attractive and cosy. I was persuaded to try soda that isn't in a can, and it turned out to be brilliant. (It was orange cream, sort of like orange-soda-you-get-at-the-supermarket except good, and without a weird, lingering aftertaste. There was also a softness that must have been the cream influence.) And there was a brownie. It was an excessively good brownie and I ate it very, very slowly in the car.
Did I mention how my soda was in a very, very pretty bottle?
There was more city architecture. This church was spectacular. Especially the multi-coloured roof.
Entering the heart of the city gave me a tiny tiny flicker of one of my wonder moments. I don't love Pittsburgh nearly the way I love Boston -- it's much grimier, and grey-er, and the culture and history don't have the same tang, but it's a city, and it's lovely and strange. One of the things that I love most about cities is how they are composed all many, many disparate things that somehow fit when they're together. Last year I was impressed by the massive trees growing up all over the place, either disrupting the sidewalk or being peacefully built around. Trees being cut down make me sad, and trees in the city are endlessly fascinating. It is completely the fault of last year's birthday wandering in Pittsburgh after the art museum and sighting a glorious tree right in the middle of everything that the short story I am trying to write that is currently blossoming into a short novella is about a dryad in an unspecified city.
Hannah and Victoria, and Rebecca and Georgiana (the younger sisters of the aforementioned, respectively) had dance class, so they were all dropped off, and Mrs Nielson took me to what she referred to as "the hippie grocery store", which was full of fascinating foods and other odd items. I loved it. Even the vegetables were attractive.
And then there was Magical Spike Seasoning, which...made me have convulsions in the middle of the aisle.
After that, we wandered a bit more. This photograph illustrates a lot of why I love the city.
Then? THEN Mrs Nielson and I went to the most phantasmagorically awesome place in the history of EVER. There were bits and pieces of houses for sale -- doors and windows and railings and hinges and bathtubs and sinks and lighting fixtures and here and there furniture and little odds and ends and it was beautiful. Apparently when people demolish houses or replace parts of their houses (such as windows, or doors, or bathtubs, or lighting fixtures), they can take the old ones to a place like this and other people buy them and put them in their houses, or, quite possibly, make awesome ramshackle urban art out of them, which I would totally do if I had a) some disposable income, and b) had any idea how to make awesome ramshackle urban art, which I really want to do now, actually.
First, there was this door, covered in bits of painted wood and pennies. Furthermore, A SLOT WHAT SAYS LETTERS FOR PUTTING LETTERS IN. I would use this door every day. (Mostly because it's a door and one tends to use them a lot whether or not one wants to. But also because it's brilliant.)
The view from the entrance.
I loved this grimy old sink, with all of the mechanical bits, and the grime. Thinking about it as a sink -- i.e. a receptacle in which to wash oneself -- positively horrifies me, but as something to photograph it's fantastic.
GIANT ARCH. From a church, most likely. (IF I MADE HOUSES FROM SCRATCH I WOULD BUY THIS. SERIOUSLY. AND BUILD A FOLLY.)
A long line of doors. I kept saying to myself, perhaps a bit pretentiously, "...as if the world gave up the secret of its skeleton!", and thinking of Sally Sparrow, breaking into old abandoned buildings to take photographs ("sad is happy for deep people").
This bathtub is, again, a world of wrong in regards to a receptacle of cleanliness, but gorgeous as a piece of art, and strangely, spookily fascinating. I loved the faucet and plumbing, like a heart and lungs of rusty metal.
Windows!
There were a lot of old mirrors, and I took pictures of my shoes in them.
This was one of my favourite contrasts of the entire place. The imaginary Folly in my head has a special place for that stained glass window.
A lovely old age-stained, age-cracked print, which I loved almost as much for the clear agedness as the painting itself.
So, yes. That was far more magnificent and magical than I could have planned. Of course it makes explaining What I Did For My Birthday That Made It Brilliant somewhat difficult -- "I wandered around looking at discarded windows and doors and mirrors and things at a glorified junkyard for, like an hour.Then I was kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best birthday ever!" But it really was perfect, and strange, and phantasmagorical -- I've always had a fascination with objects outside of their natural elements -- people playing large instruments in fields, or furniture by the shore, or even flowers growing out of cement. Here, seeing the bones and limbs of houses, was like stumbling into some odd, in-between world, one of those non-linear books about the nature of story and the universe, a place where anything might happen or be.
After the House Graveyard, we went back to the dance school to pick up the girls; Victoria was the only one whose class had finished just then, so we went wandering off downtown to poke into various shops of the sort one never finds anyplace else but cities.
This particular shop was NOT GOOD. It was overflowing with fantastic, whimiscal, unique, odd clothing of the sort I am always on the look-out for -- often the kinds of fantastically weird stuff I can rarely find at Goodwill -- and made me want to spend great quantities of money I don't even have. (The prices, however, were not actually bad at all, especially as things got cheaper the longer they remained in the store. Someday I shall have to find my way back there.)
I had a massive attack of clumsiness and knocked things over at least three times. It was rather embarrassing, but fortunately nothing was broken. Victoria carefully steered me out, but not before I found and purchased a gorgeous and very steampunk clock pin for only two dollars. (I had been admiring it, but the price tag said ten dollars, and I said, oh no, not for a pin; maybe if I had a disposable income, but the sales-lady said all of a sudden "by the way, all pins are two dollars", and I says, "OH-HO!", says I.)
There was another shop full of strange things that were all obscenely expensive, which was sad, because many of them were fantastic, and I love the way these second-hand shops are full of all sorts of disparate things all jumbled together, leaning on one another and crowding around.
Then we went back to fetch the others, and headed to A Place With Noodles to purchase some dinner. (That wasn't its actual name. I don't remember its actual name.)
Have I mentioned how I love the city? (Yes, I lagged behind everyone else to take this photograph. Shut up.)
This is where we picked up the food we ate. It was delicious. I only ate bits of what other people had, because Mum was making Hungarian goulash for dinner at home. (ALSO WHY I LOVE THE CITY. Lots of little independent restaurants! And bakeries! Gorblimey, I miss the bakeries.)
I wanted a photograph of me, to commemorate that I Was Actually There, and Victoria obliged in the restaurant while we were waiting for our food, because it was that pretty. (Also, clock pin!)
We sat about waiting for a) the food to be finished, and b) Mrs Nielson to come back from fetching the little girls to collect it and us. Victoria briefly borrowed my iPod, and I briefly borrowed her iced tea.
Then there was lovely food (the spring rolls were especially notable, especially as I'd never had them at all before), and the drive back, wherein Moony was borrowed again, and we listened to bits of the Marie Antoinette soundtrack, and some Hannah Fury, and most of Solas' The Edge of Silence, and talked a great deal and wrote some.
Dad had got a Crisis call just before I got home (he works for a counselling hotline as a side job, which means, in a nutshell, that he has to go to people's houses when they've called the emergency counselling number), so fortunately I got back just in time for him to be able to be around while I opened my presents. Now, Mum had been brimming with conspiracy all week, which is not unusual (my mother thrives on conspiracy), but this was a particularly interesting conspiracy, because apparently she was communicating with "some guy" (her words) who needed directions to our house for some reason. I came home and THE BIGGEST WRAPPED PRESENT I HAVE EVER SEEN was sitting in the living room.
I opened it up to reveal...
A GIGANTIC ANCIENT TRUNK.
Inside of it were all of my other presents. Including the trunk and the keychain Mum put on the trunk as a tag, there were eighteen presents in total -- purposefully, of course. Some of them were small and some of them were not as small, and some of them were practical, and some were delightfully frivolous. There was a pair of throw pillows for my bed in attractive Art Deco patterns, and A REAL PILLOW ADSLHGFHG --
-- which was very welcome and important because for the past very long time I have been sleeping on a pair of ancient, flat, hard pillows which give me no comfort at all.
Plus, my favourite pens. (Aside from fountain pens. Which are not entirely practical to carry everywhere, or use on the bed.) And cinnamon Pop Tarts of my very very own that nobody else can eat (it's been a week and they are still in the cupboard! -- Not that I haven't eaten several packets already), and things like picture frames and votive candles and a pink-and-black Art Deco-y message board for my bedroom wall, and Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet's album, which YAY, THANK YOU DAD. ("THAT WAS THE ALBUM I WANTED ABSOLUTELY THE MOST!" says I. "I thought as much," says he.)
ALSO. My own copy of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, 1962 edition. With which I am WELL PLEASED. We have had this cookbook in our family for decades, running through two copies -- the second one is now in tatters. A great percentage of the cookie recipes that have become family classics came out of this book. I was worrying about leaving home without one. There are new editions, to be sure, but THEY CHANGE THINGS. Such as WHICH RECIPES THEY INCLUDE.
Fortunately Betty Crocker's recently began reprinting the 1962 edition, due, I imagine, to urgent requests from people such as myself. And now I have MY VERY OWN. (The page with chocolate crinkles fell out of the old family one and GOT LOST.)
After the unwrapping festivities were finished, Leandra had a party of her own in the trunk.
Then there was dinner, which was delicious, and filling, and afterwards my favourite ice cream (peppermint and chocolate -- it was Andes Mint specifically, but any mixture of mint and chocolate will automatically be my favourite), and I went to bed happily exhausted and cosied up with my new CD, which is probably one of the ten best albums I have ever heard, and it was good.
First, there was this door, covered in bits of painted wood and pennies. Furthermore, A SLOT WHAT SAYS LETTERS FOR PUTTING LETTERS IN. I would use this door every day. (Mostly because it's a door and one tends to use them a lot whether or not one wants to. But also because it's brilliant.)
The view from the entrance.
I loved this grimy old sink, with all of the mechanical bits, and the grime. Thinking about it as a sink -- i.e. a receptacle in which to wash oneself -- positively horrifies me, but as something to photograph it's fantastic.
GIANT ARCH. From a church, most likely. (IF I MADE HOUSES FROM SCRATCH I WOULD BUY THIS. SERIOUSLY. AND BUILD A FOLLY.)
A long line of doors. I kept saying to myself, perhaps a bit pretentiously, "...as if the world gave up the secret of its skeleton!", and thinking of Sally Sparrow, breaking into old abandoned buildings to take photographs ("sad is happy for deep people").
This bathtub is, again, a world of wrong in regards to a receptacle of cleanliness, but gorgeous as a piece of art, and strangely, spookily fascinating. I loved the faucet and plumbing, like a heart and lungs of rusty metal.
Windows!
There were a lot of old mirrors, and I took pictures of my shoes in them.
This was one of my favourite contrasts of the entire place. The imaginary Folly in my head has a special place for that stained glass window.
A lovely old age-stained, age-cracked print, which I loved almost as much for the clear agedness as the painting itself.
So, yes. That was far more magnificent and magical than I could have planned. Of course it makes explaining What I Did For My Birthday That Made It Brilliant somewhat difficult -- "I wandered around looking at discarded windows and doors and mirrors and things at a glorified junkyard for, like an hour.
After the House Graveyard, we went back to the dance school to pick up the girls; Victoria was the only one whose class had finished just then, so we went wandering off downtown to poke into various shops of the sort one never finds anyplace else but cities.
This particular shop was NOT GOOD. It was overflowing with fantastic, whimiscal, unique, odd clothing of the sort I am always on the look-out for -- often the kinds of fantastically weird stuff I can rarely find at Goodwill -- and made me want to spend great quantities of money I don't even have. (The prices, however, were not actually bad at all, especially as things got cheaper the longer they remained in the store. Someday I shall have to find my way back there.)
I had a massive attack of clumsiness and knocked things over at least three times. It was rather embarrassing, but fortunately nothing was broken. Victoria carefully steered me out, but not before I found and purchased a gorgeous and very steampunk clock pin for only two dollars. (I had been admiring it, but the price tag said ten dollars, and I said, oh no, not for a pin; maybe if I had a disposable income, but the sales-lady said all of a sudden "by the way, all pins are two dollars", and I says, "OH-HO!", says I.)
There was another shop full of strange things that were all obscenely expensive, which was sad, because many of them were fantastic, and I love the way these second-hand shops are full of all sorts of disparate things all jumbled together, leaning on one another and crowding around.
Then we went back to fetch the others, and headed to A Place With Noodles to purchase some dinner. (That wasn't its actual name. I don't remember its actual name.)
Have I mentioned how I love the city? (Yes, I lagged behind everyone else to take this photograph. Shut up.)
This is where we picked up the food we ate. It was delicious. I only ate bits of what other people had, because Mum was making Hungarian goulash for dinner at home. (ALSO WHY I LOVE THE CITY. Lots of little independent restaurants! And bakeries! Gorblimey, I miss the bakeries.)
I wanted a photograph of me, to commemorate that I Was Actually There, and Victoria obliged in the restaurant while we were waiting for our food, because it was that pretty. (Also, clock pin!)
We sat about waiting for a) the food to be finished, and b) Mrs Nielson to come back from fetching the little girls to collect it and us. Victoria briefly borrowed my iPod, and I briefly borrowed her iced tea.
Then there was lovely food (the spring rolls were especially notable, especially as I'd never had them at all before), and the drive back, wherein Moony was borrowed again, and we listened to bits of the Marie Antoinette soundtrack, and some Hannah Fury, and most of Solas' The Edge of Silence, and talked a great deal and wrote some.
Dad had got a Crisis call just before I got home (he works for a counselling hotline as a side job, which means, in a nutshell, that he has to go to people's houses when they've called the emergency counselling number), so fortunately I got back just in time for him to be able to be around while I opened my presents. Now, Mum had been brimming with conspiracy all week, which is not unusual (my mother thrives on conspiracy), but this was a particularly interesting conspiracy, because apparently she was communicating with "some guy" (her words) who needed directions to our house for some reason. I came home and THE BIGGEST WRAPPED PRESENT I HAVE EVER SEEN was sitting in the living room.
I opened it up to reveal...
A GIGANTIC ANCIENT TRUNK.
Inside of it were all of my other presents. Including the trunk and the keychain Mum put on the trunk as a tag, there were eighteen presents in total -- purposefully, of course. Some of them were small and some of them were not as small, and some of them were practical, and some were delightfully frivolous. There was a pair of throw pillows for my bed in attractive Art Deco patterns, and A REAL PILLOW ADSLHGFHG --
-- which was very welcome and important because for the past very long time I have been sleeping on a pair of ancient, flat, hard pillows which give me no comfort at all.
Plus, my favourite pens. (Aside from fountain pens. Which are not entirely practical to carry everywhere, or use on the bed.) And cinnamon Pop Tarts of my very very own that nobody else can eat (it's been a week and they are still in the cupboard! -- Not that I haven't eaten several packets already), and things like picture frames and votive candles and a pink-and-black Art Deco-y message board for my bedroom wall, and Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet's album, which YAY, THANK YOU DAD. ("THAT WAS THE ALBUM I WANTED ABSOLUTELY THE MOST!" says I. "I thought as much," says he.)
ALSO. My own copy of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, 1962 edition. With which I am WELL PLEASED. We have had this cookbook in our family for decades, running through two copies -- the second one is now in tatters. A great percentage of the cookie recipes that have become family classics came out of this book. I was worrying about leaving home without one. There are new editions, to be sure, but THEY CHANGE THINGS. Such as WHICH RECIPES THEY INCLUDE.
Fortunately Betty Crocker's recently began reprinting the 1962 edition, due, I imagine, to urgent requests from people such as myself. And now I have MY VERY OWN. (The page with chocolate crinkles fell out of the old family one and GOT LOST.)
After the unwrapping festivities were finished, Leandra had a party of her own in the trunk.
Then there was dinner, which was delicious, and filling, and afterwards my favourite ice cream (peppermint and chocolate -- it was Andes Mint specifically, but any mixture of mint and chocolate will automatically be my favourite), and I went to bed happily exhausted and cosied up with my new CD, which is probably one of the ten best albums I have ever heard, and it was good.
The week since has not been excellent, except for a few bits which were (mostly Sunday), but -- blimey, that's a day I've been savouring for a while.
