February blues.

Today is the last day of the month, and only now am I hauling out the February blues. I didn't plan it that way; it just happened. It's been difficult to be blue the rest of the month because of all the good things that have been happening, and I have cereal in my cupboard. My definition of blue = lack of Raisin Bran. Or, even worse, when I got a package of Raisin Bran that was seriously lacking in raisins. Oh, there were raisins. But there were not enough. I had to wonder what the point of it all was.

It's a completely dreary, rainy day today - perfect for the last day of February. Of course, I have to go out in it, because I ran out of room in my notebook. It's week 7 and I have taken 175 pages of archaeology notes. I have a permanent bump on the ring finger of my right hand from writing. I write a lot and I press way too hard. I kind of like it, though, because of the possibility that it will still be visible in my skeletal remains when archaeologists dig me up in a couple of centuries, and they'll call it an "occupational marker" and theorize that I was some kind of 21st-century slave-scribe.

That's what I've taken from reading this, anyhow:


Notice that this book is blue. I told you that I was bringing out the February blues today, and here is further evidence. I think this sweater is purple, but the pictures say it is blue, and pictures, like skeletons, do not lie.



Other things of interest for today: my Frida Kahlo poster. I haven't featured it on this blog for a while. The string of pictures I
hung up is drooping and now crosses over Frida's face. I kind of like the effect.


Also: this was the picture on my calendar for February. It's "Love Song At New Moon" by Paul Klee.


Do you want to know what's really infuriating? Try Googling "Love Song At New Moon." You will not see any Paul Klee. Instead, you will see pictures of wussy vampires.

On Friday, I made a new silhouette of myself for the New Year (a bit belated, I admit). I considered making new ones of my mom and dad but they haven't really changed. I, on the other hand, am growing out my bangs.



Now I have to force myself to go out in the rain for that stupid notebook so that I can have it in time for my Sunday study party. My Sunday study party includes one other person, and that is just the way I like it. I plan on spending the rest of the afternoon like this:


Plus yogurt, at some point. Yogurt would make my life complete.

Evolution of plant.

In first week, I bought a plant. Today is the last day of sixth week.

Behold:















Fin.

Snapdragon.

Today I took my new Snapdragon tam on a journey around Oxford to find a good place for a photo shoot. It's very, very difficult to take pictures of a hat that you're wearing. I'd ask my friends to do it, but frankly it's too embarrassing. Taking a million pictures of myself in public, on the other hand, is just the right amount of embarrassing.

First I went to the graveyard.





After lunch at Greens with a friend, I went to the Wadham gardens.


Then, after various errands, I trundled home and took some more pictures.



The tam itself is lovely. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay silk blend, which has a wonderful drape to it. The pattern, which is by Ysolda Teague, is genius.

Things.

It snowed:



Piles of vegetables:


I found the comfortablest shirt ever (from Gap):

Winter -> Spring.

I really want spring to come. It's not that I don't like winter; in fact, I love winter. But what is going on in Oxford right now is not winter. There are no huge snow drifts, and no one I know has been grievously injured falling on ice. This cannot be winter - this is something else.

But it's still stupidly cold, so I find myself wearing things like this:


When I really would like to wear things like this:


I miss the simplicity of dressing for warm weather. There's something wonderful about being able to put on 2-3 items of clothing and thus be ready to go out.

This is essentially a nothing post, written in between chapters in my Egyptology tome. Reading it, I came to a very belated realization. Remember the Book of the Dead in "The Mummy" movie? It couldn't have existed. Not just because there was no one Book of the Dead (it was a text that was commonly inscribed on items in a funerary setting) but because the Ancient Egyptians didn't have books. Like, obviously, because the codex wasn't invented until the 2nd century AD or so, and because "The Mummy" is a movie. Those are both things that I knew, but failed to really realize, until now.

Has that ever happened to you? You know something, but don't realize it till after. The first time I saw "The Mummy," I must have been ten or so and the Ancient Egyptians' use of books and evil plague-causing mummies all seemed perfectly plausible to me. When, long afterward, I learned about the history of book-making, I didn't immediately make that connection. This is much like my experience with "Hamlet" - I was obsessed with the movie when I was little, then did not see it for years, after which I was shocked to find out that Hamlet had been Mel Gibson all along.

Four.

4 places I lived in:
1. My parents' one-bedroom apartment, from age 0-10 months.
2. My grandmother's house, which became my parents' house, and is next-door to what used to be my great-grandparents' house.
3. Bronxville, NY
4. Oxford, UK

4 places I like to come back to:
1. Maine
2. Vermont
3. Arizona
4. Home!

4 favourite dishes:
1. Chicken panini
2. My dad's pizza
3. My own special homemade chicken pesto burger
4. Hummus and falafel sandwich

4 dishes I can not stand:
1. Anything spicy
2. Red meat, although I don't know if that's fair because I don't know what it tastes like; I do know I don't like the smell.
3. Sushi
4. Cucumber - they're just so tasteless.

4 hobbies:
1. Writing
2. Knitting
3. Drawing
4. Genealogy

4 places I would go if I had a chance:
1. A bunch of Scottish islands
2. Iceland
3. Stonehenge - I may get the chance very soon!
4. Portland, Oregon

4 TV series, programs I like
1. Fringe
2. The Daily Show
3. Buffy
4. Strangers with Candy

4 places of work:
1. Clerical generalist at my local hospital (2008-present)
2. Research assistant for one of my professors (last year)
3. Intern at a local museum of art (senior year of high school)
4. There is no 4.

4 things I'd like to do:
1. Get a Ph.D
2. Get married
3. Have children
4. Own a house

4 favourite movies:
1. Cold Fever
2. Monty Python & The Holy Grail
3. Little Miss Sunshine
4. Malcolm X

4 favourite acts:
1. Peter Case
2. Freedy Johnston
3. Liz Phair
4. Syd Straw

4 things I do first when logging on online:
1. Gmail
2. Facebook
3. Ravelry
4. Weather

Archaeology socks.

My toes are starting to poke through my favorite pair of socks, so I decided to make myself a new pair. Behold, the Archaeology Socks:

Rain on the city.

Today started out so gloomy. It was raining when I woke up, and I was tired all morning. My Tuesday morning pot-washing got canceled but I didn't feel like going back to sleep, so I did some reading (this week's archaeology essay is on Ancient Egypt) and worked on a pair of socks. Then, at about 1.30, I got some FANTASTIC news, and the day was totally turned around.

I found out that I got into an archaeology course at Cornell. I'll be excavating this summer! I can hardly describe how happy this makes me. I love reading about archaeology, and I love the process of uncovering artifacts and bones from beneath layers of dirt in pot-washing. To think that I will be involved in actually taking things out of the ground - of being the first person to see and touch them after hundreds of years and to use them to reconstruct a culture - well, it all makes me terribly excited. Excavation gives you the chance to discover things about the past that no one has ever considered before. The possibility of new evidence, leading to new knowledge, is ever-present. Plus, you actually get to touch history. History that looks like this:


That is, if you're excavating a site from prehistoric Egypt. I don't think that anything I will be digging up in Ithaca will look like this, although it's not impossible.

After hearing the good news, I set off into town to meet a friend for tea at Vaults and Gardens. This was another high point of the day, as there were scones involved. I left much earlier than needed in order to afford time to stroll through the University Parks and, of course, take the obligatory macro shots of plants after the rain.











After a lovely tea, I trundled home to study and knit some more, take a shower, and make housing arrangements for the summer. I may even eat dinner somewhere in there.

P.S. The title of this post is from the new album by Freedy Johnston. You should check it out.