This past weekend Lauren and I visited my parents' place. It was relaxing and nice! I didn't get annoyed at anyone like I usually do. Everyone just seemed to have their cute little idiosyncrasies and trademark characteristics. Even my little nephew, who's always very serious and focused on his own activities, smiled at me and seemed happy to see me.
The house itself though, still seems to object to my presence. Every time I go there I get pretty bad allergies, and this time was no different. Coughing, sneezing, sniffling, the works. No one else has a problem, and I can't figure it out.
If it were the dust, then I'd expect to have a similar reaction in my own apartment. My parents used to live here too, and most of the stuff in the main area of the apartment is still theirs. Same books, same carpets, same dust. But for some reason, I'm fine here, while I can't last a day in their current house without major symptoms.
On the other hand, Kat usually comes by with many dogs. It's dogs-a-plenty when I visit, and that's not the case here. Maybe I'm just allergic to dogs. I don't know.
So I'm back home, still symptomatic, and really it's looking like the allergies have morphed into a real-live rhino virus. I've been taking vitamin C by the handful - probably 20 grams of it just this morning. I'm one of those people who believes in vitamin C.
The odd thing about today though, is all the stuff I'm scheduled to do. I've got a magazine article to finish today - and today really is the last day before it's too late. I have a therapy appointment this morning, followed immediately by a visit from josette, followed in turn by a massage with Jen, and then dinner with Lena! Starting at 9AM, I'm booked solid till evening.
So I've been trying to work on my article, but getting distracted thinking about what a nice time I had with my family, and how weird that was, and also trying to figure out how on earth I will possibly finish my writing before today's deadline. A normal person might consider flaking out on everyone, and just working all day... or maybe a normal person might decide that it's OK to miss the deadline after all... but somehow or other my intention is to not flake on anyone, and still get the article done on time. And that seems to be how it goes each month. Somehow I always get the article in on time, in spite of whatever insane schedule I've created for myself.
Oh well. At least it was fun seeing my family. No fighting, no bickering, no resentment; just enjoyment and appreciation. What a refreshing change!
2013-01-08
2013-01-02
Museum Of Natural History
On Sunday I met up with my friend Marah at the Museum of Natural History. She gave me a holiday gift - a little microfiber cloth to wipe my glasses. I made a joke of pretending to wipe my contact lenses while they were still in my eyes; but actually it was a very nice gift. It related to an earlier time we'd hung out with Phil and a couple of his friends on his birthday, and watched a movie on my bedroom wall. At one point the picture started to get weird, and we were all thinking this might be the end of the film for us. But Marah got out her microfiber cloth and cleaned the disk, and after that it worked fine. Everyone cheered how she saved the day. So this gift was like a reminder of shared adventure with a happy outcome.
She especially wanted to see the bio-luminescence exhibit, so we headed over there first. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to spoil it for her, but I was actually very disappointed. The exhibit was just a dark room, with small installations sprinkled throughout. Each installation had little light bulbs that would turn on and off at regular intervals; and panels of wood with text explaining some bit of trivia about a bio-luminescent creature. Some of the installations had computer screens that gave more information - but not much more.
All the information I learned in that exhibit would have fit onto a single typewritten page. When I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Kar, they had bio-luminescent creatures swimming live through enormous tanks, and we got to watch them and see what they really looked like, and how they really behaved. And not just a few creatures, but big schools of creatures.
Actually those are not representative videos. The real thing was way more incredible. Apparently no one's posted videos on youtube that really capture what it was like.
So that was disappointing, but we also wandered around the museum for quite awhile after that. It turned out to be a favorite haunt of both of ours when we were kids. Her parents used to let her run off by herself at age five, and get lost in the museum for as long as she wanted. That's pretty much how my parents were too. Those were the days. Before the child harness and other horrors of modern parental psychosis.
So we wandered through the diorama area. That was always my favorite as a child. I could look in those little glassed worlds for hours. I used to wonder how the museum people got everything to be so real, and yet to stay so still. Right down to rushing water. For me, that museum was a place of infinite dreams.
It was a lovely hangout, and it was made even more lovely by having someone there to talk to, who had also had similar experiences as a child. It was like we were both rediscovering a lost fairy land - and thus proving it hadn't been a dream, but was real.
We even went to the downstairs cafeteria, which was almost like another visit to the Monterey Aquarium. The cafeteria itself is this giant tank, and great shoals of people swim madly with the currents, and it's always feeding time. In the seating area, families display their private home-life scenarios proudly for the viewing public. Marah and I got a pretty good table out of the way, but even so it was pretty hilarious to think of this chaos and display, right below the motionless, elegant dioramas of beautiful creatures frozen in time. I think a little piece of that cafeteria may always be with me now.
She especially wanted to see the bio-luminescence exhibit, so we headed over there first. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to spoil it for her, but I was actually very disappointed. The exhibit was just a dark room, with small installations sprinkled throughout. Each installation had little light bulbs that would turn on and off at regular intervals; and panels of wood with text explaining some bit of trivia about a bio-luminescent creature. Some of the installations had computer screens that gave more information - but not much more.
All the information I learned in that exhibit would have fit onto a single typewritten page. When I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Kar, they had bio-luminescent creatures swimming live through enormous tanks, and we got to watch them and see what they really looked like, and how they really behaved. And not just a few creatures, but big schools of creatures.
Actually those are not representative videos. The real thing was way more incredible. Apparently no one's posted videos on youtube that really capture what it was like.
So that was disappointing, but we also wandered around the museum for quite awhile after that. It turned out to be a favorite haunt of both of ours when we were kids. Her parents used to let her run off by herself at age five, and get lost in the museum for as long as she wanted. That's pretty much how my parents were too. Those were the days. Before the child harness and other horrors of modern parental psychosis.
So we wandered through the diorama area. That was always my favorite as a child. I could look in those little glassed worlds for hours. I used to wonder how the museum people got everything to be so real, and yet to stay so still. Right down to rushing water. For me, that museum was a place of infinite dreams.
It was a lovely hangout, and it was made even more lovely by having someone there to talk to, who had also had similar experiences as a child. It was like we were both rediscovering a lost fairy land - and thus proving it hadn't been a dream, but was real.
We even went to the downstairs cafeteria, which was almost like another visit to the Monterey Aquarium. The cafeteria itself is this giant tank, and great shoals of people swim madly with the currents, and it's always feeding time. In the seating area, families display their private home-life scenarios proudly for the viewing public. Marah and I got a pretty good table out of the way, but even so it was pretty hilarious to think of this chaos and display, right below the motionless, elegant dioramas of beautiful creatures frozen in time. I think a little piece of that cafeteria may always be with me now.
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