Chrissy's Blog

My co-workers and I all went out to Rack ‘N’ Pins, a bowling/pool place. We were celebrating and mourning the complete destruction of our department. While most departments in the hospital are being either eliminated or altered significantly, ours is a combination of a lot of factors. Our pre-admit staff is being replaced by nurses. Our manager was transferred to the ER. Our lead got a much-deserved promotion. Three other registration girls found jobs elsewhere. I put in my notice that I am moving to New York City. Essentially only four of my co-workers will still be in that department. This is not the whole group, and I look like a goober, but it’s the only picture of the “Roseview Wreckers” I have so it will have to do.

This is a picture of my parent’s real garden. Like outside. I love those little frogs.

This is what my parent’s call their garden. They have a real one they are starting in the backyard. But, first, they had this Star Trek sort of thing. It lives in my father’s office, which is across the hall from my bedroom. When I leave my room in the middle of the night, it always freaks me out. I’m not ready for this fancy space age we live in where basil can be grown in the upper bedroom that also houses a computer, an exercise bike, and dozens of books about the Civil War.

I went to Great Basin Brewery for some delicious beer. Even though I had eaten a healthy dinner at home, I felt inclined to top my beer off with something greasy. I didn’t want a full meal or one of those monster appetizer platters. The cheapest thing in the appetizer category was the deep-fried dill pickles. I like pickles. Most everything that is deep-fried and dipped in Ranch is delicious. I’ve had rattlesnake, crocodile, sheep testicles. All delicious deep-fried and dipped in Ranch. Plus, the menu said that it was a classic Southern treat. I’ve always pictured myself as a closet Southern Belle. So after everyone else ordered their fish and chips and porter beers, I quietly ordered a Pilsner.

“Anything to eat with that?” the waitress asked.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll have an order of the willy dillys.” I don’t know why I whispered those last two words. I just felt like a goober ordering it. It was delicious though.

Desert rainstorms have really grown on me over the years. The clouds are usually pretty epic and come rolling in all dark and apocalyptic. Then it pours for an hour. (This particular day, it also happened to hail balls of ice the size of tic-tacs.) I was driving home and knew that as soon as I get there, I was going to take an amazing nap. The kind you can only take when it is gloomy in the middle of a hot day.

I loved waking up to this view. Like sleeping under a spider web, protecting me from the falling needles of those trees peeking through our vents. I kept expecting some sort of a creature to suddenly peek through those vents, much like I accidentally am peeking into the picture. Sleeping in a tent, on an insidiously deflating air mattress was actually somewhat peaceful, not to mention the warm arms that held me after two weeks of sleeping alone. I type these words as I am at the beginning of a six-week separation. Sleeping alone in that big bed…it just isn’t as warm.

Campfires. Another plus to camping. S’mores. The inevitable accessory to campfires. Arguably the best part about camping. I do supposed that could just be my inner fat kid speaking though.

Fire is so thought-provoking. I can’t help but stare into the crackles of it trying to figure out exactly what I am looking at. I mean I know what I am looking at, but what exactly is fire? Hot gas? Changing elements? Why can’t you bottle fire? I didn’t take much science beyond high school, and I am sure there is some scientific definition and explanation of it all, but I am not interested in that.  I enjoy the ethereal-ness of thinking of fire, of how it is beyond us; it defines us as a species, yet is so out of our control.

My thoughts about fire inevitably end up on the first verse of a Peggy Lee song.

“I remember when I was little girl, our house caught on fire. I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face as he gathered me up in his arms and raced to the burning building out on the pavement. And I stood there, shivering in my pajamas, and watched the whole world go up in flames. And when it was all over, I said to myself, ‘Is that all there is to a fire? Is that all there is?’

Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends,
Then let’s keep dancing,
Let’s break out the booze,
and have a ball,
if that’s all there is.”

-Peggy Lee

EASILY one of my favorite songs of late.

Believe me, I know how far I have fallen behind on the Project 365, but this is by no means a forfeiture. I have been continuing to take pictures every day, and I am determined to post them. I just need to catch up. I will do it!

This is my camping picture. Travis’ coworkers wanted to take him camping for a going-away sort of thing. One of the things he has acknowledged that he will miss about Nevada is the outdoors, the nature. There are simply no mountains or large, quiet lakes in or around New York City. Mostly it’s a big city, but even the nature that one can find outside the city is different. Camping and the such are a big pastime for him in his hometown.

I am not a big camper, but I wanted to spend what time with him I could. So I went. It wasn’t so bad. I choose to not dwell on the unpleasant aspects of roughing it, especially since they are all expected: no showers, gross bathrooms, cold at night, bugs, etc. Overall, it was a fun experience, and I liked being outside. The sunsets were beautiful. The lake was warm enough to swim around. I liked the night noises.

When I was 16, I wrote an opinion article for my high school paper called “Suburban Life: Unhealthy and Unnatural.” It was a sad attempt to show everyone just how over this place I was. Now that I am back among the endless rows of identical houses, I feel much the same, made worse by the fact that I have now lived in cities and know what I’m missing. More than anything, I miss being able to walk places. Being within a fifteen minute walk to parks, restaurants, interesting shops, gelato, grocery stores, bookstores. Sometimes when I was frustrated, I would just leave my apartment and walk, making turns at will, seeing where my feet would take me. In Prague, I was able to find Strawberries and Cream at a tiny underground cafe. In Seattle, I would walk to Greenlake and sit alone on a bench watching people walk by me, eavesdropping on their conversations. I could feasibly leave my house now and walk, but it’s always the same old, same old, and I always feel like people look at me strange, like, “Where the heck is she going?” Sometimes I almost feel trapped, like I have nowhere to escape to. Like that picket fence is more like a cage.

Boxes stacked in the corner of my room, preparing to depart for a new part in the world. I have a love/hate relationship with packing. It frustrates me that things don’t fit perfectly into square boxes. Those harsh edges are so unforgiving to me and my things. Deciding what stays and goes can be stressful as well. I find myself staring at a tank top I haven’t worn since high school, telling myself, “But it looked so good that one time I wore it, and I felt cool in high school in it.” Then another voice says, “Dammit, throw it away hoarder!” “But if I wore it with a cardigan, I could be cool again.” “You haven’t worn it in years, and face it lady, you don’t fit into it.” “What if I miss it, though?” Much wasted time has spent agonizing over my junk. On the other hand, I like packing and knowing that I am going somewhere new. I like thinking not about me and where I’ve been and where I am going. I like to think of it through my object’s perspective, as if Toy Story is documentary instead of a children’s movie. My bobbleheads all turning to one another talking about New York, and how it is going to be okay because their record against the Yankees is usually pretty good. My books roll their eyes and search their pages for quotes on their soon-to-be-home.