BEDA 24: Happy Birthday Mom!/Seattle

Today, like John Green, is my mother's birthday! It is also my aunt's and grandmother's. You heard that right. My mom and my aunt, twins, were born on my grandmother's birthday. I love August 24th. I wore my Pizza John shirt around Seattle in hopes of coming upon a fellow Nerdfighter. Sadly, I did not.

Speaking of Seattle, yesterday was wonderful! The weather could not have been more perfect: the sky was clear and there was a slight breeze and it wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold.

My mom and I boarded the plane from Tucson to a connecting flight in Phoenix at 8:00 am yesterday. The flight to Phoenix is about 45 minutes. Ridiculous. On the flight to Seattle I slept a bit and then started reading my next Michael Chabon adventure: Wonder Boys. Before I knew it we were landing, getting our bags (or rather my one bag) from baggage claim, and on our way to the light rail to get to downtown Seattle.

You know what? I was right. It really felt like I never left. Walking from the light rail through downtown to the Best Western Loyal Inn was so familiar I could have done it blindfolded.

The first thing we did was go to my favorite favorite place in the whole world: Top Pot Doughnuts. I got a glazed ring and a small coffee, my mom got a raspberry bullseye and a small coffee, and I got my dad a pound of coffee because he is truly, madly, deeply in love with Top Pot's Coffee. After that we were off Science Fiction Museum, another of my favorite places.  I was crestfallen to discover than their new Avatar exhibit was the ONLY THING THEY HAD. Where was the Hall of Fame?! RUINED. THE SCIENCE FICTION MUSEUM IS RUINED. I swear, they better put everything back. I. Hate. Avatar.

After that we went walking around the Seattle Center because it was so beautiful I wanted to see this place in the pretty sunlight.

After that we went down to Pike Place and I went to the Comic Book place downstairs, I'm not sure what it's called, and I got a Flight of the Conchords poster. The LAST one in the store! Total score. Then we went to Zeeks and met my friend Leila there!!! Hooray! That was swell. After dinner I walked with Leila up to Capitol Hill (because I miss it) and to her apartment.

I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got back to the hotel; I fell asleep immediately.

Today my mom and I got everything out of our storage unit, packed it into a rental car (still not sure how we got everything in there), gave Leila some crates and a bookshelf I didn't want, got my mom a salted caramel cupcake from Cupcake Royale for her birthday, and hit the road to McMinnville!

And now here we are. We went to Shari's for dinner and I had to twist their arm until it fell off to get a salad WITHOUT meat on it. Seriously, that's not an option? But it was Free Pie Wednesday, and I got Marionberry and I'm in love with Marionberry, so it was okay. Well, not completely, because they should have vegetarian options, but it was slightly better. After dinner we went over to Linfield and drove around the campus and it's so gorgeous and I'm so so so excited to move in tomorrow!!

Days until school starts: 5

Also, I need a count down or something to keep track of on this blog.... Suggestions?

BEDA 16: One Week

That's right, it's been one week since you look at me. Cocked your head to the side and said I'm angry.

Wait, that's not right is it? That is so not right.

What I meant was, one week until I go back to the land of the flying fish and the needles that reach space. It's funny, I'm not even going to be there for 24 hours and I have so much planned:

• Reunite with Leila and give her some of my crap that I don't want to take to school with me.
• Go to Top Pot
• Go to Science Fiction Museum
• Go to Cupcake Royale for Mom's birthday (August 24 just like John Green HEY-O)
• Photobooth Project (sekrit)
• Eat dinner somewhere Seattle-y. We had originally planned on the Hurricane because my mom is in love with their pancakes but we're planning on going to Waffle House before our flight and that would be overkill. So if you have any ideas on where we should eat dinner, you should share said ideas with me. 
• I would really like to go to the library because they have the cutest things in their gift-shop and I'd like some Seattle Library-themed things but I don't know if we'll have time for this. Erg.

Hm I guess that's it. It seemed like there was more, but maybe this is a lot for a less-than-24 hour period. In fact I'm sure it is a lot.

I am, of course, also excited for moving in to my new school and meeting my new roommate and learning all kinds of awesome new stuff. But I'll be more excited for that once the Seattle Reunion has happened and the Moving to School is happening.

This was the quickest summer of my life.

(Actually, my whole life is Summer, because, like, my name.) (I make more jokes about my name than anyone else.)

Days until I go back to Seattle: 7
Days until school starts: 13

BEDA 9: Memorieeeees, All Alone in the Mooooonlight

Two weeks from today I will be getting on a plane and going back to the place that for the last year I have called my home. Even though I'm back at the home where I grew up (and, let's be honest, will always be my home no matter where I find myself) and even though I am going to be living somewhere else this year, I still consider Seattle my new Home. When I first thought about what it would be like to go back there after three-ish (pretty much four) months away, I thought that it would be the weirdest thing. To be back there and not live there, to be back there and not have Ellie there... Those concepts will still be irksome when I'm back. But, I think that when I'm finally there, it will be just as familiar as if I lived there and just hadn't left my house in a while. It will definitely be warmer than the last time I was there, and who knows, maybe it will be sunny. But I definitely think that it will feel like I never left.

It's weird being away somewhere for eight months and then coming back to the place you've been for 18 years. When you come back, you feel like all the things you did and all the adventures you had never happened. Like they were all apart of your overactive imagination. When I go back I expect all the feelings those adventures instilled in me to come flooding back. I'll walk downtown once getting off the Light Rail and walk past the spot where Leila slipped that time after the snow on our way to the Light Rail to go home for Thanksgiving. I'll walk up Capitol Hill and think of all the times Ellie and I walked all over the place, whether it be after a Brandi Carlile show or to go to IHOP or to get Vegetarian Thai Food and instead be given Chicken. There are memories over every inch of that city, and I'm excited and terrified to be remind of all of them.

Days until I go back to Seattle: 14
Days until school starts: 20

The Smell of my Pumpkin Spice Tea Makes Me the Happiest Person Alive

It reminds me of fall. It reminds me of the smell and the cool but not cold air and it reminds me of a time when I was happy doing what I was doing. I had just moved to Seattle and everything was fresh and new and exciting. It reminds me of getting out of tech rehearsal early and walking down Broadway and the sun was shining the gentlest of breezes was blowing and I was filled with an elation that only the changing of the seasons can bring.
I miss that time. I miss being happy just because it was autumn and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
I hope that this feeling returns this fall, when I'm at a new school studying what I've always known in my heart I should be studying. Everything will be beautiful.

Blog Ideas

This is a kind of interim blog post, if you will. I have a ton of blog ideas and a few unfinished drafts. I have been so obscenely busy with school that every time I start something, I stop so I can do homework. And it's not even homework I enjoy. I wish I liked my classes. But I don't. I am just really excited to get out of here (three and a half weeks to go!) and go study what I love. 
That's not to say that I don't love Seattle. I adore Seattle, more than words can say. I am really going to miss this place. But, next year, I will only live about four hours away, and I know that I will be back here again. So I am not as heartbroken as, say, my friend Ellie, who is going to go to school in Nashville next year. (As far as she knows, at least.)


Anyway. This is a blog post saying that there will be more blog posts soon. So hold your breath! I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat. 

One Month to Go...

Today is April 6. One month from now it will be May 6.

Wait. I think I'm moving too quickly. Can you keep up? Are you keeping track? Okay? Good.

Anyway. The point I am trying to make is that there is exactly one month of school left. Two days later, I will get on a plane and go back home to the wasteland that is Tucson, Arizona. Okay, it's not really a wasteland, but compared to Seattle, it's the fucking Sahara.

Sitting here on my bed* all I can think about is how I am pretty much drowning in how much I have to do in the next four weeks. And it's Art School, so that means every final is a fucking project. Oh, how I long for literary analysis and essays, essays, essays.

Just to give you an idea, here are all of the things I need to have done before the end of the year:

• Research paper on Absurdist Theatre (rough draft due tuesday, have not written anything.)
• 1960s shift dress** (I have to sew it from scratch. Just obtained the pattern today.)
• Ground plan for a theatre (Bane of my existence. You don't even understand my hatred. It's all I ever talk about.)
• Research paper on Prohibition in Seattle in the 1920s (For my BS, pass/fail Humanities class. I could probably just spit on a piece of paper and turn that in and pass the class.)
• Play review
• Three response papers for plays that I have yet to read
• "Metaphor" Project (...I don't even fucking know. I know I have to paint something. I. Cannot. Paint.)
• Pack up my room
• Move out

Holy fuck I just stressed myself out.

I think I need one more night of slacking off before I seriously buckle down. Tonight is that night. I'm going to talk to my friend Lorrie for a while, watch an episode of Doctor Who, and read Books of Adam. Tomorrow, shit's getting real.

I apologize for the gratuitous profanity in this blog post.

*Why do I even have a desk? It's basically just a flat storage unit. I don't sit there. My chair is a coat rack.

**This thing: