Last week in Raleigh

Five years later...it's my last week in Raleigh.

I feel very very torn. I talked to Kristie for a while yesterday and it helped (look, people leave and go on to live healthy and normal lives!). I'll miss this place like crazy - these people, this city, my life here. It's great and it's glorious and God blessed me SOOOOOOO much here - He sought me out, and I have this amazing community of friends and Brothers and Sisters in Christ. But...I know that there are plans for me that involve tearing myself away from this place I love. I sincerely believe it is the will of God for me to go, now. I'm just leaving a lot behind, and trusting that God really does have the best in mind for me, and that He will abundantly bless me where ever I go.

I'm working on finding a church in New Haven...that's the biggie that's totally unsettled. I've got the list down to a few, but I am also hoping to find some places to check out once I'm there. I'm really into churches that realize that they are not a building, but the Body of Christ, and the people who serve really are the church. Not the easiest thing to ID from afar.

Big big bummer...

I just woke up (11:15 AM).

This means I slept through my last Sunday at Grace. :(

Modern Living / Neurotica series

Modern Living / Neurotica series

Interactive, kinda creepy, black and white flash animations. Just odd.

How to tell you've worked at your job a long time

So the power flickered during the thunderstorm this afternoon - more than enough to turn the power on most of the machines off.

Everyone walked around, testing this machine and that machine, getting it all back going. After that people started to just go back to work.

Then it hit me - it was waaaay too quiet. Something big and loud was missing.

Sure enough, the -80 was totally off. Turns out that even though it is on the emergency generator, the flicker tripped the circuit. Disaster-avoided.

I feel like Wonder Woman today. :)

Itchy and scratchy and Andi's my girl

Andi is a beautiful, wonderful, servant and daughter of the God on High.

She happily picked me up last night and carted me to Rex to the ER.

I really thought I was going to make it out of Raleigh without a trip there.

So the verdict: IgE mediated hypersensitivity to Nantucket Nectar's Organic Cloudy Apple Juice.

I'm going to be itchy for my last week in Raleigh and perhaps a bit splotchy too. And I have enough drugs to make anyone sleep through the whole thing, but they never do that to me usually (whohoo). Out of the woods for anaphylaxis, despite my giant swollen tongue - that would have been a very immediate reaction.

Now off to try to work (yes, I'm nuts but it's better than lying in bed thinking "I itch I itch I itch."

The worst day ever...

PCRs mysteriously stopped working.

Thought life was bad.

Then I had a serious allergic reaction to *organic* apple juice.

sigh

At last

Finally got that haircut. Nice to have it all gone.

Slipcovers and sweet views

I spent pretty much all day yesterday with Andi, and she is, in fact, one of the most amazing women alive. She's moving into a new place, so I made her slipcovers. The little sewing machine that could from Greengate held up great (but they aren't done yet...) and Andi and I took a couple breaks and had some very very good talks enjoying the deer and great views of downtown from inside the beltline.

Three more Sundays at Grace, including today. I'm just a little bit scared. But that's okay. At the moment, Raleigh seems like the most perfect place on Earth, and I must be CRAZY to leave, but when facing the totally unknown, of course the familiar is idealized.

I really like art.

I think most people don't realize this, but I really dig art. Especially modern art.

My love affair with art started in June 1999, when I was in Scotland and saw Van Gogh's Olive Trees: Bright Blue Sky. This crummy online picture doesn't even start to do it justice.



What got me was the color, and the brushstrokes. Oh, the brushstrokes. I think I would love the painting even if I had only seen two square inches of it. There's texture and there's life and...oh. Beauty.

But really, these days, that's not the art that gets me going. Don't get me wrong - making it to MOMA to see the Van Gogh's was very important to me when I was in NYC back in February. Van Goghs still take my breath away, and I nearly wept at my first sight of Starry Night. I walk into a room and they call me, draw me in.

Conceptually, though, more modern art is what actually gets me firing on all cylinders.

I've started to develop quite a love of photography. Albelardo Morell does really cool camera obscura work. I adore one of the photos under "recent work" - 'Hourglass 2004".

At a mere $2500 for a print, I think I'll be enjoying it online for a while.

More later on the stranger stuff...

Ducks!

Top of my wish list.

When to get a haircut

I'm very glad that I'm not a boy.

See, I hate going to get haircuts. I never like the cut at first, and it's another thing I have to make time to do. I'm bad at finding time to do things.

I haven't had a haircut since January. Remember the disasterous one right before the Penn interview?

Now it's too long and a little ratty but I still keep putting off the haircut.

Maybe tomorrow.

Monday-Friday-Wednesday

Today was a Monday.
And a Wednesday.
And a Friday.
All in one.

Can't remember what we were doing, dumb mistakes.
Halfway to Friday!
2 hour lunches a la Friday.

May the rest of the week be just as laid back.

Photos and Cars

I got to talk to Teresa a long time last night, which was awesome. :)

Today my mom and I went over to her (recently deceased) mom's house and went through a lot of pictures. It's still strange she's gone...I saw the death certificate for the first time today and that was kind of odd. It's not til you see "ovarian cancer" printed on there that it really rang home for me - cancer SUCKS.

My mom and I went to see Cars (I'm actually four at heart) and had a GREAT time. Such a cute little movie, and growing up in Nascar country makes it even funnier. Pixar totally blows me away. They're not only technically superior to every other CG animation studio out there, their stories are second to none. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

It's also nice to have "hillbilly hell" as another potential name for my hometown.