My life, updated, informationized, whether you read it or NOT.

In a few minutes, I'm going compile a list of people to email the link of this blog to. I feel very securely that it's the right thing to do, because I suck at staying in touch with people, but the internets is a great communicative device that doesn't carry too much obligation on either end. So there you have it. I'm having some anxiety about the list of people I'm emailing, because maybe someone out there is going to tell their friend they got an email from me with my blog link, and that friend is going to be like all "omg wtf idk what you're talking about does she hate me?" (all of those acronyms pronounced fully, of course). But I am deciding at this moment to not worry too much and be content with the fact that I am Putting Myself Out There.

So, bookkeeping first: I spent almost the whole summer in Ithaca, NY, adding data and analysis to my former thesis project. That was good and all, but I felt deeply pulled to move away from Ithaca for a while before I thought about loving it properly. I have been bouncing between home and Sister for a month or so, but on Tuesday I am moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico. See older posts (below) for some annoying (read: I'm psyched about it) stuff about that place. I'll be working at a place called the Mind Research Network, where I will be a 9-5 Research Assistant slash fMRI Cowgirl. I'll probably be there for two years, but I will definitely be there at least for one. At this point, I would like to give a shout out to Dr. Geoffrey Miller, for serendipity's sake (and for: thankyouthankyou); I remain amazed that things have worked out so well in terms of how I landed this job. And thanks to Rex Jung for thinking I was worth his while, I'm mad excited, won't let you down :)

Take-home message: I live in the city of Albuquerque, if you are passing through or need any kind of break from the place you are in, VISIT me. We can go chase roadrunners, coyote style (official state bird, hell yes).

Anyway, at the moment I'm chilling on my bed in the house that I grew up in. My geriatric and awesome cat is here, and the fan is on, and I smell like campfire because I spent the evening chilling around one with my Mom and Dad, and with Mr. Vickner (hi, Irene!).

I also feel the need to relate what I consider to be a shocking incident that happened to me this morning. I rolled over in bed and kicked something, and suddenly a voice near my foot was saying, "yo rachael happy twenty-first birthday you old motherf-"--I am not an early riser, and I have rarely bolted upright with that kind of urgency. Story goes, Micah McLaughlin gave me a build-a-bear for my birthday two years ago, and that's what its voicebox said (apparently build-a-bear did not allow swear words to be sold on voice boxes, it literally gets cut off--or, he did it on purpose. Micah, if you ever read this, please weigh in). Anyway, it scared the bejeeeeesiz out of me, but then I was just happy that I had found it (my bed at home is a veritable field of pillows and blankets and stuffed animals that I have collected over the years at college).

Maybe the point of the story is that, here is me and the bear:





(Happy saturday, happy Cornell homecoming... time to binge on my sister's Californication DVDs... also Aaron I hate you for being at the Ryan Adams concert only I don't really hate you I just WISH I WERE THERE...the following is mostly for me, and partially explains the name of the blog, sort of. yeeeah.)




Cards Live from Wilson Wolf on Vimeo.

state nicknames

New Mexico is officially nicknamed, "The Land of Enchantment".

Okay.

Unofficial nicknames include (but I will see to it are not limited to the following):
Cactus State
The Colorful State
New Andelusia
Land of Sunshine
The Outer Space State (YES)
The Spanish State (I WILL LEARN)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_nicknames

(note that New York is the only state on the list with only one nickname... what up with that?)

More facts! Albuquerque is known as Bee'eldííldahsinil in Navajo. Oooooooooo

and, it is home to the world's largest hot air balloon festival, which is next week, which means I get to go! They fly hundreds of glowing balloons at night and everything oh man it is going to be awesome.

inspired by Foggy

I get this feeling, right before a big trip, this weird sense like a space inside of me has shifted states without my permission. It isn't that a part of me is already navigating the waters far away in the place that I'm traveling to, not quite--it's more like something inside me that is normally bouncing off the walls just gets really quiet, like radio static not quite tuned to the right frequency.

(hey, I think I just got a whole extra understanding of that THS song "Stuck Between Stations")

I'm also doing that thing where I push the clock back farther and farther every night until my body settles on its (apparently) innate preference: to bed at 4am, to rise at 1pm. When I get up, breakfast food feels ridiculous. Today I woke up and ate a peanut butter and cucumber sandwich for "lunch".

I haven't been doing much at home. I run, I watch tv on hulu, I read, I invent new ways to use the overabundant supply of tomatoes in the garden. I learned to crochet hats, but anyone who knows me will tell you that for all of my excellence in acquiring a skill and beginning a project, I'm not so hot on the follow through. There are about 6 different spools of yarn lying around my room with little round doily-looking hat-tops hanging off of them--but no hats--so sad.

Today I went with my mom to look at new cars for her, and then we visited my sister and ate mexican at one of those awesome tiny-and-dirt-cheap-pay-at-the-counter places where they serve your food in baskets lined with wax paper. I want more now.

In moving news, my temporary housemates seem awesome. They are going to be lucky to ever get rid of me after saying on gchat that their weekend plans were, "a nice cigar, scotch, and 'The Last Unicorn'" I almost fell off the bed.