If this is the sort of thing that causes civic distress and multiple phone calls to City Hall in Thomasville, I’m either very sorry or very relieved that I don’t live there.
Random Thursday night stuff:
- Happiness is…having a late afternoon meeting at Wake Forest which makes for only a ten minute commute home after work.
- I like 3rd Rock from the Sun. However calling it “science fiction”–as Netflix does–is a bit of a stretch.
- I’ve been approved to submit a book chapter for publication. That’s sort of like getting permission to apply for a job that doesn’t pay anything. Ah, the things we do for tenure…
- …or maybe just to stay employed.
- Why is it that anytime Bank of America comes into my life I wish I’d had some lube?
Sorry. That’s all I’ve got tonight. I had a big essay written that was (gasp) actually about something but I didn’t like it so it’s not here. Maybe it will be eventually.
In case you care. This would include that extra set of Atlanta photos that I promised a few weeks ago.
Lots of interesting stuff this morning:
- Clips of history, a click away
Digital library project will place 40 hours of Hub TV newscasts from 1959-2000 at your fingertips. - Drive-ins roared into L.A. County, but only one remains
They were once so hot that some had cameo roles in movies, but modern times caught up with them. - Bringing Past, Present and Future Into Focus
Perhaps the most obvious use of a smartphone app is to tell you what is nearby. But a number of apps will also tell you what used to be nearby. - South Square
South Square was a two level enclosed mall, Durham’s first, that opened in 1974.
Is it really “action” if no one has wood?
Jeez, how much do I love this woman:
Well, they were wrong, again. Around noon, the clouds rolled in for good. Some sprinkles in the afternoon that made me think about packing it in, finding a motel, and sleeping for about 12 hours. But I toughed it out. I convinced myself that I’m out here as a documenter not an art photographer. I need to record what’s still here since half of it might be gone by the next trip. So, I continued, taking more photos than any other day of the trip so far. Grey ones. A depressing amount of “reshoot in sun” notes on my list from today.
I’ve been keeping up with her for years, but for some reason, her most recent trip has really inspired me to get my ass back on the road again, where it belongs and where it hasn’t been nearly enough in recent years.
And soon, dammit…
Basement 4.0 (Geeky Bachelor Pad Edition) is almost complete. Inspired by the need to merge a good bit of furniture from Pittsburgh into the house in Winston-Salem and the need for a space that actually feels like me after a year of perpetually “staging” the house, I’ve been converting the basement into my office/workspace for the past few weeks. I’m almost done, save for hanging cool stuff on the walls.
Today’s accomplishment included getting a lot of reference books down here from my old office, getting my collection of TV Guide dating back to 1960 on shelves in chronological order, and getting that long run of Progressive Architecture and Architectural Record we purchased a few years ago a little more presentable.
I’ve been working upstairs, too. I guess I’m sort of “reclaiming” the house (my life? my independence? choose your own metaphor…) and maybe trying to get more comfortable with the fact that I probably won’t be selling it in the near future. I may even do some painting. It’s definitely time for a transformation. I do love the house. And I always wondered how it might look if I had a really big house all to myself and could let my collection of crap run rampant. Maybe I’m about to see.
More basement photos after the jump.
Goodbye, house…
I think I already mentioned it, but the Great Pittsburgh Experiment (2009-2011) came to its conclusion a few weeks ago as Mark and I met up to dismantle the house we’d been so excited to buy two years earlier.
The reasons are clear: we’re no longer a couple and one of us lives on the other end of the country. And the one who lives on the other end of the country is the one who was more excited about having a house in Pittsburgh to begin with. Not that I didn’t love the house too, but it was always more Mark’s fantasy than mine, and he did all the painting and the renovations, etc. Pittsburgh is a place I’d still consider living should an opportunity arise. I really like it there. But I probably won’t visit much now that we’ve sold the place; part of the fun was “playing house.” It just wasn’t enough fun to justify paying another mortgage.
One benefit of moving is that I got lots of nice new old furniture to use in Winston-Salem. The former owner left a fair amount of stuff in the house when we bought it, including an amazing “Brady Bunch Hawaiian Adventure” bedroom suite which has now migrated southward to the Carolinas. I got custody of a much newer and better mattress too. Thanks to Mark for driving the truck and helping to load and unload all this stuff. It’s inspired me to do a makeover.
It was sort of a sad weekend, obviously, as one more part of the life we used to have together was ending. But it was something we had to let go. I wish I’d taken some time to spend a few days up there before we gave up possession of the house, just to have a few more breakfasts at Barb’s or lunches at Smallman Street. I felt very much a part of Pittsburgh, strangely enough, even with my limited time there. Years from now, I’ll probably see these two years of owning two homes as a sort of surreal period, much like 2005-2006 in Charlotte but probably with fonder recollections (except maybe for the ones that involve driving through 250 miles of West Virginia each visit). I’ll miss Pittsburgh, but I’ll miss what it symbolized even more.
It’s amazing how appealing some tasks you might otherwise regard as rather unpleasant can seem when you have a project you can’t seem to get going on and you’re looking for yet another way to avoid it. When I was in grad school, the toilets were never so clean and the carpets never so vacuumed as when I had papers due.
All of which means I really need to get moving on this book chapter I’m supposed to be writing, but I’ll probably just have dinner with Mom and Dad and then do laundry tonight instead.
Forgot to mention it but I back-populated some old posts from the past few months over the last week or so. I do this pretty regularly with posts that don’t “go live” for one reason or another–either I don’t finish them to my satisfaction or the timing seems wrong or whatever. I usually just pop them into place where they should have gone in sequence. That way, they’re included for completeness (the “public record of my life,” blah blah blah) but I don’t end up calling undue attention to old news in my RSS feed. etc. And yes, this makes you have to do a bit of work if you really want to read them. Sorry. I’ll give you a pointer to one of them, OK?
So what else is new in the life of yer humble host?
- Work is good. Somehow in the middle of a major state budget crunch, I’ve ended up with an extra full-time person starting tomorrow, someone who was transferred to me from another department. I assume that’s a vote of confidence. Once in a while I start pondering the fact that they’re giving an awful lot of responsibility to someone who is, after all, still pretty much just out of library school. But I’m running with it.
- I’m planning a semi-large road trip in late September or early October. The general direction will be northward. It may include places like Schenectady, Boston, Buffalo, and Toronto. I’m excited because I haven’t done a really major road trip in a long time. And frankly, I’m very excited about doing it alone because I haven’t done that in a long time either. That’s not to say I won’t be visiting friends and maybe even taking someone along for a leg or two. I’ll keep you posted.
- Having also finally finished a writing project I’ve been
avoidingworking on for several weeks, I’m also going to take a short trip somewhere next weekend. Suggestions? - A couple of people in recent weeks (many of whom really should have known better) have asked me if I’m “dating anyone” these days. Honestly, the thought of “dating anyone” or “a relationship” or even “fucking someone” hasn’t even crossed my mind. This is partly because “alone” is my natural state in life; the last ten years were the exception, not the rule. It’s also partly because I’m still not in the best state of mind just yet, and jumping into anything right now would probably make things much worse for me and for my hapless victim. It’s not like riding a bicycle or falling off a horse. And let’s be honest: There’s not a long line of men outside my front door anxiously waiting for me change my mind, anyway. I left the Triad years ago in part because of the lack of interesting and available men here. Twenty years and many pounds later, there’s probably even less interest now, from them and from me. I’m not nearly anxious or horny enough to make trolling the depressing collection of local queer bars (or the internet) a priority. In fact, I’m not really anxious enough to go to any effort at all. So no, I’m not “dating anyone.” I’m not likely to be doing so for the foreseeable future. My life needs to be about me now, not about a co-star. You should not feel sorry for me because of this. I don’t (Here’s the original full-length version of this bullet point).
- Anyone for leftover birthday cake? The icing balloons are quite tasty although they’re getting a little crunchy with age. But then again, so am I….