Dear Web-Surfers,
Today was a boring day where nothing happened, so I'll just talk about my walk. I just came back from walking around my apartment complex/the nearby lake and trail. A few months ago, I discovered a mysterious corridor-like clearing in the woods behind my apartment. You have to trudge through some mud and brambles, and then walk through a small ditch lined with a mossy tarp, and then pass through a portal formed by vines looping off an old magnolia tree. (You have to hold your breath when you walk through the portal so you don't end up in an alternate universe where everything is the same but your dining room table is 3 feet to the right.) After that, you will end up in the clearing, which parallels the trail that I take to school. It's very mossy and beautiful, especially on rainy days like today. When I walk through there, I can pretend I live in the pacific northwest instead of a suburb in the south. I love the way the evergreen shrubs fuzz around the barren branches of the deciduous trees, making the entire understory seem like it's been steeped in moss. It was a little bit foggy today too, which makes even the most familiar landscape seem brand-new. Even though this path is right next to the greenway that I bike/run on every day, I find it far more interesting. The perspective is different, so I always notice things that I never would have paid attention to otherwise.
Some things I saw: 1. A tiny waterfall formed in a tiny stream that ran into the flooding creek, which babbled at a volume much larger than its size would imply. 2. A trashcan full of water and sticks inside of a crate that was grown over with brambles. 3. A bright blue tent hidden just a few hundred feet from the complex. I didn't go near because I didn't want to bother whoever was inside, but I hope they are staying dry. 4. Another portal. Had to go through this one too, and it was way smaller. Probably not nearly as powerful as the other portal but still held my breath just in case. 5. A deer corpse half submerged in the water. It was nearly all bones, but some bits of fur and gristle hung onto the skeleton where the creek was slightly deeper. The antlers were small, half-formed, and it made me wonder what had happened. Coyotes? Injury? CWD? It was macabre and beautiful at the same time. 6. Four living deer who ran away when I walked towards them . One of them made a snorting noise to warn the others and they scattered like a gunshot had just gone off. 7. A huge waterfall rushing out from the dam that controls the lake. For something so industrial, it was quite grand. I threw my walking stick into the rush and watched it fly downstream.
Overall, a good walk. I listened to "exploration" from the coraline soundtrack on my mp3 player the entire time. I just discovered a file of the original score which I downloaded before my walk, and I only put that one song in there, but it set a good vibe regardless. It was nice to get out of the house and spend time exploring my surroundings. I hope to drink my morning coffee at the lake this weekend. Tommorow I have to go into work early because I didn't have the energy to deal with my car today. Magnolia is gonna drop me off at 7! because that's when she goes into work and so i'm just gonna have to wait at the cafe until my shift starts at 10 :(. I hope they don't expect me to hop on the line and start working if we have a rush. I close tommorow and so i'm gonna rip some more of my CDs to listen to while I sweep and mop and wipe and scrub. Then, I'm gonna make some bulgur while magnolia cooks salmon for dinner. I should get started on that now.
Do svidaniya, Caroline!
-Violet
Hello Diane,
Well, I took my stupid quiz today. It went better than I thought it would but probably not amazing- we had to ID the wet specimens I was talking about and it's like 20x harder than photos because they turn this kind of amorphous gray color that makes them completely indistinguishable from each other. My head is buzzing with scientific names and morphology and frog calls. One update- my car isn't working! I think there's a problem w the starting motor or the battery or something but I hope it's not too serious. I really can't afford a new car anytime soon. Gonna get it towed to the shop before I go into work on friday morning and hopefully they can fix 'er up! I've been watching twin peaks w/ the old lady. I'm really liking it so far- we just started season 2 and I'm ready to get weird. I don't have much to say about it other than I think it's funny and sad and strange and overall a great vibe. My favorite characters are Audrey, Harry, and Dale Cooper. Oh and also the log lady and Pete the poodle. And I LOVE the soundtrack. I've been listening to the soundtrack for years and i'm just now getting around to the show. I spend a lot of time analyzing the books I read and discussing them, but I watch stuff a lot less critically. I have friends who can parse out the hidden meaning of a movie using the tiniest most innocuous symbols that completely go over my head, but I mostly just enjoy every movie I watch without much thought. TV shows are a little bit more hit or miss for me, but i'll watch pure garbage if the time calls for it. I watched the entirety of the summer i turned pretty last semester while doing my GIS (geographic information services) coursework and it was like I was glued to the couch against my will. Me and my coworker at the cafe spent like 3 months only talking about TSITP. One day, she was like "we're like old friends who only talk about drama from their high school, but instead of high school, its the summer I turned pretty." It might be the worst show in the world. However, I will be attending the movie the SECOND it enters theaters. I love going to the movies. The next film i'm going to see is minions 3. I've been a fan of the critically acclaimed motion picture franchise despicable me (and minions) since the first movie, which I saw at the drive in with my cousins. I currently have 7 minion themed items in my collection and hope to pick up some new merch at the showing. So yeah, I don't really have the best taste in television or cinema, but I have fun watching the tube. Tommorow I don't have any assignments due so i'm mainly gonna focus on my car. And run. I've been getting back into daily running, which usually only lasts a couple of weeks and then fizzles out to 3-4 times a week. Ive just been telling myself "you ALWAYS feel better after a run. you never ever regret going on a run." and that's seemed to be working so far. I fantasize often about running a marathon but I feel like I need a more stable schedule to train consistently. I've really been enjoying updating this webpage. I got 2 new followers which is awesome. I feel self concious about my jumbled thoughts i've written down here but I really wanna keep this stream of conciousness style and not get too crazy with it or i'll give up. Gonna wash dishes and read until 1 or so.
Farewell,
Violet
Dear Netizens,
This is my first entry to this online journal. I was really inspired to start an online diary after reading Kimya Dawson's on (I think) livejournal. I know that not many people will see this, so it's like I'm writing to the void. I am having an interesting sort of day. I woke up on time, but had to join my class via zoom because I forgot about a quiz I had to complete before going in. I always seem to forget about the time it takes to get to a place when planning out my day. Going to that zoom meeting means that I have to miss my in-person wildlife stats lab, which is okay because they don't take attendance and the TA says that I can just do it online, but I still feel like a lazy bum for missing both of my classes. Anyways, in my zoom meeting, I told my project partner that I started using HTML and that I could code a website for our project. I don't know if he would have agreed to that if he had seen this website beforehand lol. I'm really stressed right now because I have a lab quiz for vertebrate natural history and I haven't started studying AT ALL! It's on amphibians and I need to know 30 different frogs, toads, and salamanders. We looked at the wet specimens in lab and they were so gross, like slimy four legged gray pickles that had been sitting out for too long. I almost threw up before lab ended but I guess I can say I've seen a hellbender (albiet a dead one) IRL now. I don't really care for reptiles and amphibians. Like, theyre cool and stuff, but they don't really interest me the way that a lot of other taxa do. I think I'm gonna head to the library and lock myself in there for a couple of hours. I always start off the semester with a good attitude, like "im gonna be on top of my shit this year!" and then 5 weeks in it all falls apart and i'm playing catch-up until break. I'm excited to be done with college honestly. Like, on one hand, it's such an interesting experience that can only be captured in this very specific environment, and I'm gonna miss that when it's all done, but I struggle a lot to complete school work and go to classes. I have a really hard time motivating myself to do anything that isn't really interesting to me. Did I mention I have ADHD? Lol. I just want to be able to work full time because I thrive in that kind of rigid, structured environment that comes with a consistent schedule. All that to mention that i'm having a rough (hopefully) final semester. I got diagnosed with PCOS yesterday, and that's been hard for me to wrap my head around. It's such an under researched condition and it feels like I'm going to have to rigidly track every health metric until I die to prevent all of the different symptoms that come along with it. Writing this and posting it online feels really vulnerable! I don't think many people will read this, and it's completely anonymous (to my knowledge), so I shouldn't feel so scared. I don't think anyone will care so much about what goes on in a relatively boring persons life. Anyways, im off to go on a run and then camp out in the library until these damn frogs are cemented into my brain.
Peace,
Violet