Marvelous A Version 28.0

I'm counting down a number of things, passing pensively through a simultaneous array of last days. Tomorrow evening around 8 p.m. I'll be 28 years old, and it's sad to see my 27th year end. It was a very good year. Maybe my best yet.

I only have a few days left in this hobo-infested basement apartment, my home for the last four years. I only have a few more payments left on my college loans and credit cards. I only have a few more months to enjoy the Cadillac and her eight roaring cylinders and 4.9 liters before I'm down to four cylinders and 1.8 liters and a lot less cargo space. I only have 10 lbs. to go before I'm at my original target weight, which sounds so neurotic but has never prevented me from consuming cake, so it can't be that unhealthy. I only have a few more days of summer. I caught a metallic tang on the air this morning, and the breeze was sharply cool.

All these endings make way for beginnings. I am beginning too many things to get into tonight, but you may rest assured that in my 28th year there will again be music. I got a call from Judge Mealey as I was leaving the plant today, and he said they're starting up the big band again and he thought I might like to play bass trombone. Would I? Our first rehearsal is next Wednesday.

So that will help to pass the time while I tick off my last days in Evanston, which may still number in the hundreds, but you never know. I don't know what to wish for when I blow out the candles tomorrow, because at the age of 27 I got everything I've ever wished for. But at least I know that 28 is not nearly the end of all things.

It's only the beginning.

August

The muley scared me first.

Sludge shower.

Cattails on the lagoon.

Sunset on I-80.

Rose helped mow the lawn.

Two more reasons to move out of the basement... or two less. Take your pick.

Jeffspressive

A: I can't believe they dropped the speed limit on this street to 25 mph.

Jeff: Ain't that just son-of-a-bitchin' hideous?

Movin' Up

Who needs a house out in Hackensack?
Is that all you get for your money?

I've never given the apartments above me much thought. Except, of course, on those occasions when I have been forced to call the police on their occupants. (Remember the night that trashy girl upstairs broke the window and jumped out to avoid the manic, befuddled, shirtless addict at her back door, who subsequently came down the stairs and rattle my door knob in an attempt to gain access to her apartment? Good times.) But now it seems I'll be forsaking these cool, damp, cramped 360-or-so square feet for the bigger, brighter trappings at the back of the house. Jeremy's leaving, Dean's been evicted, and Mary suspects Kathy will ruthlessly send me packing soon so she can pull off what passes for renovation in her mind. And it occurred to me recently that some agency somewhere should probably enforce some code or other that says Kathy can't rent these apartments in the basement because each only has one exit. Also, there's no foundation. Oops.

So I'm movin' out, but not far. I'll pay $50 more a month for an additional 150-or-so square feet and still not break $300, and all my utilities will still be covered. You get what you pay for. But I've had a look at #2, and it's not so bad: spacious and bright, with old, muted carpet that could be worse, cupboard space I've only dreamed about for four years, and a little mudroom off the back porch with handy peg board on one wall and coat hooks on the other. Plus, I get the gravel driveway at the back of the house- no more shoveling Monte and the Cadillac out after the plows go by. It'll be hotter up there in the summer, but if I have my way I won't be here that long. Oh, there's another thing.

I put in for a job in upstate New York. There's only a slim chance I'll receive even a politely formulated e-mail acknowledging their receipt of my resume and the cover letter my talented darling revised for me (I have a tendency to wax excessively baroque when composing official correspondence). The title is Circuit Rider, and the job description is broad and complex, but basically I'd be doing what Leroy does for Wyoming Rural Water- visiting small utilities all over the northeast to consult about problems and offering technical help whenever possible, arranging and conducting training, and connecting small systems with financial aid and other assistance.

There are other things on the list, but that's the bulk of it. I am at once under- and overqualified, but I'm not sure they're going to find exactly who they're looking for at the salary they're offering. But I'm enthusiastic about relocating to the east coast for a while, having become so enamored with it last fall. It would just take the right job at the right price to get me out there. So there's that.

I'm exercising my iron will and waiting until I have a substantial down payment to order the car. Financial self-discipline is its own reward, and I'm going to enjoy owning the car a lot more when I know I've earned it. So more on that as things develop, too. Seems like it's all a waiting game. As usual.

But Morgan promised me two different kinds of cake for my birthday, and you know how I feel about cake. It's possibly the only consumable I love more than mayonnaise. Or avocados. Mmm. Too bad you can't make an avocado cake with some kind of mayo-based frosting. I just don't think that would work.

And it seems such a waste of time,
If that's what it's all about.
If that's movin' up then I'm movin' out.

I'll Never Catch Up

These are gllimpses into the summer I haven't had time to blog about, dating all the way back to May when I went to Thermopolis with Morgan and Kelly for a WWQ & PCA meeting. I am almost organized. Honest.

Just what everybody needs.

Thermopolis geology.

Oh give me a home...

Horse skeleton in Thermopolis.

Seagulls at Bear Lake in July.

Church window in Mountain View, Wyoming.

Condensed 4th of July.

Cordale lights off fireworks (smudge stick filter).

I had to plug Johnny Depp's nose to get him to take his medicine. (Sorry I mocked your pillow case, Ku.)

The painting I donated to the Renewal Ball in June. I don't know who bought it or for how much, and I don't particularly care. Just another sign of the dreadful apathy that has taken over where anything related to Evanston is concerned- except, of course, for its drinking water.

Sailboat on Fremont Lake

I bet you've never seen such adorable sisters.

They found me under a rock (in Thermopolis, Wyoming, in May).

Jeff got splattered with sodium hypochlorite last week. It has about 15% available chlorine, compared to the 5% or so in household bleach. Those pants will disintegrate if washed.

The storm that almost got me in Denver last weekend.