Busy Is Only A State of Mind

[amalthya]

My Maryland Schedule
Originally uploaded by amalthya.

Well, despite being woken up early today by Debby (shakes fist) I'm sort of recovering from my endless bouts of travel. And my week of almost-no-sleep to accommodate my schedule (pictured).

I will say, without a doubt, that you, my friends, made my trip home absolutely incredibly fantabulistic.

I should just bullet point everything because if I write everything out it'll be the hugest entry and it'll kill the internet.

• Seeing Bodies was absolutely awesome. I told everyone about it afterwards, mostly because it was showing the human body as art itself instead of "making" art from the human body. And, for me, the eager anatomist, I was just rushing from scapula to central nervous system to da blood with glee. reverend_dave accompanied me and my mom and made for a fun time.
  
  
• After Bodies David was introducing films at Brooklyn Museum's Target Saturday. I'd never been to the Brooklyn Museum before, and, in addition to feeling ultra-cool and New Yorker by hitting 2 museums in one day, I actually really like Rodin and seeing his sculptures rocked my socks. Oh, and they had a William Wegman exhibit. Now, I know he photographs weimerhauners (sp?) but what was really cool was his postcard work.
  
  He'd basically take a bunch of postcards and affix them to an enormous canvas and actually just continue whatever the scene depicted was. So, if it was a boardwalk, he'd continue by painting the boardwalk on its regular trajectory off the postcard. Even cooler was the fact that he connected all these different scenes together in this one enormous postcard WORLD. I was very inspired, and impressed. As a concept, it's brilliant and it was perfectly executed.
  
  Oh, and David and I did art and dance workshops together. Really, it was just perfect AND now I know how to do the hustle (even though David illegally tried to dip me many times).
  
  For a list of the exhibits at Brooklyn Museum right now, check here
  
  
• Sunday was Amy's wedding, and, after some delays, limo-smushing and general funniness, we made it up to Purchase, NY for Amy's nuptials to Mark. Considering I'd never met Mark, he really made an effort to come over and talk to me at the reception and everyone was asking me questions about Uganda and Congo and I kept being like "Let's talk about Amy!"
  
  I loved being with her again, though. She and I literally grew up together and have been friends for what feels like a hundred years, although it's really only been like... 20. For pictures of me and Amy from long ago, check out petridish.
  
  Everyone was somehow amazed that I'd come back for the wedding, but really, it didn't seem to me like there was any other choice. I'd never have wanted to miss that for her, and everyone liked my tailor-made Ugandan dress. I will, one day, blog about the nightmare to get that dress finished. Anyway, the wedding was exquisite and beautiful (the flowers especially) and I stuffed myself silly. Oh, and cried. But everyone who reads this knows that I'm a sap.
  
  After the wedding, it was really late and there was more food festivity to be had back at Amy's parent's Purchase house, and I figured since I'd come a really long way to see Amy that I'd want to spend all the time with her that I could. Also, being back with her funny hilarious family was too much to pass up.
  
  So I spent the night there. How funny to think of her brother and sister as adults (both of them are over 21 now) so I took the opportunity to get to know them while Amy and Mark went off to their lux hotel ;)
  
  
• In the morning, I was taken back to the city in a car service car and I headed to Fred & Vlad's to clean pack up to get my 10:30 am bus to Maryland. I managed to make it and the busride down was unexceptional. Once I actually started getting INTO Silver Spring, though, I got entirely mega-excited, and even though I've never eaten there, passing Mrs K's Tollhouse Restaurant, suddenly made me wild with glee and I really actually felt like I was home.
  
  Chris came and picked me up at the Silver Spring greyhound station and had actually cleaned out his car to accommodate my suitcases. And had presents. Sooooo exciting. We went and ate lunch at the Tastee diner, but Angela (our regular waitress) wasn't there. It was still yummy and I picked up my little Dodge Neon rent-a-car. Which was awesome and I tooled around like a fool.
  
  Chris and I planned with Jesse for bowling extravaganza even though dshadow, arterich and grysar were otherwise occupied. I still didn't break 100, but I bowled pretty well and made Jesse smile, which is all that's important. He was having a bad week.
  
  After bowling, Chris and Jesse and I headed up to Jesse's place, enjoyed his bar, I got somewhat drunk on too-strong drinks prepared by my ever-boobie-loving bartender and Andrew and grysar came by. We played Outburst which ended up being far funnier when one ingested alcohol, and my Pedantic Grammar Nazi-ism was validated when, single-handedly, I managed to get all 10 punctuation marks in practically 10 seconds.
  
  
• Tuesday was spent in Manassas visiting friends and their baby. I played MarioKart 64 for the first time and, of course, kicked ass. I just need to convince Jesse to play now. God I love MarioKart. I even managed to drive back to Silver Spring myself and talk on the phone in traffic! Woohoo!
  
  
• Tuesday night, as per tradition, is Armand's Pizza Buffat, where you can get all the pizza you want to eat for $6.50. Mason and I went pretty much every week and wouldn't eat for the whole day leading up to it. Anyway, I went this past Tuesday with booksymagnifico, pattiejoe and Chris.
  
  Afterwards, we wandered to Silver Plaza and I exited to spend some time with reene and bannoubunkacoby. They work early/sleep early, so I left them around 10 pm and met up with the 3 amigos back in Silver Spring to see V For Vendetta.
  
  Now, albeit that my standards for movies have lowered to "no Chinese subtitles and no ripping-of-movie-in-crucial-scene" but I really enjoyed it. Mason and I had fun whispering during parts of the movie about how certain things were made or done. Oh! And I saw Ashton and his fiancé Laura who are actually hitching up at the end of July. So, if I'm back by then, I'm totally invited. w00t! It was certainly funny (and fortuitous) that they were at a 10:20 Tuesday night showing of V. I love Silver Spring.
  
  
• On Wednesday, my mom had schedule me to visit my Aunt Healy in Baltimore. Of course, some sort of wackiness ensued and she wasn't aware I was coming, but it all ended up okay anyway. pattiejoe came along for the ride, and we ate a gorgeous lunch at Gertrude's which is in the Baltimore Museum of Art. The desert was art in and of itself and I think that there should be a new joke of "How many Columbia students it takes to disassemble a wheelchair."
  
  
• After seeing Aunt Healy, we drove down to visit JARRY, my most lovely and beloved dog, who has been living in Upper Marlboro with two big fluffy Norwegian Elkhounds. He recognized me and was playing and so happy and I couldn't imagine how I'd lived without him. He was sad again when I left and barked bemoanedly as I pulled away. It was heartbreaking! He is certainly very happy being an outdoor dog, though, and his coat has gotten exponentially fluffier. He is also a bossy asshole sometimes. Poor elkhounds. He apparently was thieving food from them!!
  
  
• I dropped pattiejoe off at the shack and met up with mindymay. I got to see her photos and laugh and catch up, and, of course, help her with her computer (which is Big Pimpin' -- my old desktop -- who is on loan to her). I drove her to White Flint Mall where she was having dinner, so we got car catchup time (as well as quickie shopping time). Yay!
  
  
• At White Flint, I met up with gatsbys_regret and we had dinner at Dave & Buster's. Many jokes were had because our waitress had a sticker on her shirt that said "I'm Super Special" so, of course, everything for the rest of the night had to be super special too. After dinner, we debated what to do and ended up driving to see F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald's shared grave in Rockville. And to think I didn't even know they were buried there! It was also nice to catch up over coffee in the Rockville Barnes and Noble, and we actually managed to find squishy chairs, although they were in the cooking section. Bastards
  
  
• I watched Surface with my friend Chad afterwards, one of the shows that reverend_dave had bestowed upon me in my Pirate Spindle of Love™.
  
  Overall, it felt like a LONG day!
  
  
• Thursday morning I headed down to the new JGI offices in Ballston to check out the digs and give them some chimpie photos. Nona wasn't there, nor was Rob or Diane. Bryce was there, though, and it was awesome to see him. Oh, and Mary Paris! The new office is indeed very nice and it was somewhat difficult to navigate being so enormous and cubicled. Bryce and Naomi are about to have a BABY too -- I of course had to give them one of my mom's famed crocheted baby blankets.
  
  
• After rushing and having too many things to do at the JGI office, along with no cellphone reception (man it felt like old times) I had lunch with Don W, who I met in Uganda when my dad was here.
  
  
• Once lunch was all finished, I decided to head back to the JGI building which happens to be the offices for The Nature Conservancy where my Kemp works. So I got to see him too and laugh and angle for a good job there if I ever want one since he's all managerial now!
  
  
• Around 2:20ish, I got back on the metro (I'm so urban) and met up for hangout with satchmojuju. After that, I drove my ass up to Laurel to play Lasertag at XP Lasersports in Laurel. I was late and apparently some discussion was had about what my summoning spell would be to make me arrive. I won't mention what was decided, but I do sort of feel like pinching bkleber and Andrew... hard. Or maybe a well-placed kick?
  
  Lazertag was AWESOME. Sure, our first two games were cluttered with small unruly (and loud) children. Between dshadow and myself, though, I think we yelled them into fear. I pretended like it was strategy to be quiet. Either way, Losing first two games was sucky.
  
  But our second two games -- MUCH better since it was just kamalloy, grysar, bkleber, dshadow, lilinthra and me. Oh, and 4 random people. I managed high score on the last game and wow, we just kicked ass. dshadow was getting all wild and body checking people left and right and a guy from XP lasersports took photos. It was exhausting too, though. I'll say my enthusiasm for running up ramps to snipe waned considerably on the third and fourth games.
  
  
• Hooters after Lazertag was somehow appropriate and Shimin, Jesse, Greg and Rich, while not playing The Tag, joined in for The Eating.
  
  I contemplated hitting Jesse's after dinner for games like we had on Monday after bowling, but I was already so tired I couldn't imagine how I'd get home. Damned driving.
  
  
• On Friday, I made up for missing lunch with reene inadvertently on Thursday (my head was boggled) by driving down to pick her up at work and we went and ate in Chinatown. It was so nice to see her one-on-one and actually spend quality time. We also hit some stores to run errands while the rain was stopped. Oh, and I parallel parked the best I ever have in my life. Seriously! I'm a bird!
  
  
• Since Friday was also our traditional Dork Lunch day, Jesse and grysar and I, I ALSO had a second lunch. I mean, if hobbits can do it, why the hell can't I? At least they were like, an hour apart. So we hit the Parkway Deli, eating delicious Jewish Deli Food.
  
  
• Mason's premiere of Blood Bound was supposed to be at 5:30 pm in Annapolis so I popped into Greg's house to take a shower. Various traffic foibles caused Mason and I to be late to Michael's (mostly my fault too) but it was still awesome to sort of meet Michael himself since i'd heard so much about him. He has a beautiful house which seems somehow half-finished right on the bay and a theater room in the basement that's fit for flopping while watching enormous movies. Really, it's just ideal.
  
  And, seeing the movie was incredible. For my full thoughts you can check my post on the Bloodbound Blog.
  
  
• It was really late when the movie ended and, even as such, Michael put on more movies. Embarrassingly, I fell asleep and Mason said I snored and made cute/funny noises but that everyone understood. I mean, it had been a long week after all. He drove me back to his house in Baltimore and we stayed up chatting, catching up and showing pictures/videos until like, past 2 am.
  
  I woke up at 7 am the next day so we could go have breakfast but we decided instead to eat in and it really felt a lot like old times. I meant to leave at like, 8:30 am to drive back down to Silver Spring, pack, check out of my hotel, return my rental car, and catch my 10:30 am bus back to New York to catch my 6:15 pm bus [ie a 4 pm check in when the bus gets in at 3 pm] ... tight, huh?
  
  Well, I was sucked into the thrall and I didn't leave til nearly past nine. So, stressed and rushed, I raced to get back to Silver Spring. Of course, I didn't count on the HELLRAIN and it meant I actually had to drive slowly.
  
  Mason, ever the gentleman, assured me that, if I missed the bus he'd drive me to New York. In retrospect, I almost wish I'd just opted for that instead because it would have given us more time.
  
  
• I made it to Silver Spring by about 9:45 and literally just packed in a blitz. I managed to return my rent-a-car to the closer Enterprise office and conned them into driving me to the bus station. I had WAY too much stuff to even carry myself since I'd packed so badly quickly. So, when the pouring rain caused my paper bag to rip, I was so frazzled that I was ready to lose it
  
  I slept the whole way despite not even knowing I was tired, and, unfortunately, I hadn't charged my RAZR so it died mid-trip. I did manage to phone my dad and beg and plead with him to meet me at Port Authority and please, please bring me some sort of duffel bag. The bus drove really slowly because of the rain, so I didn't get to NY until 3:30 pm -- 30 minutes before I should have been at the airport. My dad was there, as promised, so I could deposit my various breaking bags into the duffel. We took a cab to the airport, getting there at nearly 5 pm but, well, I managed to get onto my plane in one piece.

And now here I am! I'm sure I've forgotten things, but I'll fill them in eventually. Also, if you haven't noticed, I did manage to tag all the photos from this past week (although weeks before that are sorely missing titles/tags/descriptions). It does seem like load sharing is at a minimum in Entebbe right now, so I hope to get to that... eventually.

And, if you couldn't tell, the trip felt idyllic. Oh, and I met with Columbia deans and am feeling v. confident about returning there in the fall.

I do feel strange being back too, mostly because the room/home that I had/felt when I was here pre-Congo is well, "gone" and I feel like I'm a drifter. I hate being unable to unpack. Or feel like I don't have ... space... to myself. I feel productive, but like, well, I'm already mentally planning for my return to the States. I'll post a full entry on this later, but I'm imbued with motivation for the "next" chapter of my life, which might include more Africa but is more definite in its inclusion of wildlife and hands-on animal care. I've had so many experiences here, and well, something feels "completed" ...

Again, I'm being vague because it's not all sussed out in my head. Anyway... I do sort of already miss Maryland, but there's hidden emo in there that I'm not in the mood to discuss either. Either way, enjoy the photos from:

Week Thirty Six -- Respite From Africa