Month: December 2008
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What I Learned In 2008
Long-distance friendship and short-distance friendship are both very good and very different. When dealing with immigration, there’s always a document you forgot, or a form you didn’t sign, or a paper you didn’t copy in triplicate. Just try to space out your heart attacks. Vote! And, you know, give a damn about politics. If you…
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Its Own Level Of Tiredness
I took the bike over to the Quiet Gardens today, just to get out of the house for a while, and brought my book and my paper journal with me. I amused myself for a while counting the iguanas (ten) and monitor lizards (three) and sandhill cranes (three) and egrets (three or four) and ibis…
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Christmas Or Otherwise
Since it’s been a few years since I had Christmas at home it’s nice to see that all my wee family’s non-tradition traditions have held up so nicely. We don’t make a big deal out of the holidays but it’s still nice to do nice stuff together. This morning my sister and her partner came…
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A Few More Weeks To Go
This time next month, with all due consideration of time changes and the International Date Line, I’ll have just got into Wellington from San Francisco. I’ll have a couple of weeks before I start work–a couple of weeks to hug all my friends and to see if I recall how to get around the city,…
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Contingency
The last week or so, I guess, after I had to resubmit the visa, I was just starting to allow the concept of not going back to Wellington to lick at the edges of my brain, quickly and cautiously, nervously. After yet another paperwork-related mistake last Wednesday that involved panicked calls to the New Zealand…
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Family-Based Something
I spent the weekend with my mom, visiting my only living grandparent in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they have real winter weather. I haven’t been there for a couple of years but not much has changed about the structure of the visit: we get up for an early flight, we shiver, we sit in the tiny…
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By Then
Your evening tea-and-ginger-nuts habit has adhered dispite all the anti-tea sentiment in America, and you’re almost out, so you take a quick walk over to the store in the close clinging night. Sleeveless, still, two weeks to Christmas. The palm trees really do wave overhead and the full moon really does shine as you walk…
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Can’t Stand It, I Know You Planned It
I can still hardly think about this without freaking out, so just the bare bones: The visa was returned to me yesterday. They were unable to process it because I, working on some faulty information and neglecting to cross a few Ts and dot several Is, didn’t include everything I was supposed to include. Luckily…
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More Background Noise
When will the visa get here? Monday? Next Friday? I know someone whose visa came in a week and someone whose visa came in six weeks. When will mine come? Tuesday? Thursday? Three Wednesdays from now? How many pairs of black shoes—black wedges, black sneakers, black heels, black flip-flops, black sandals—do I really need? What…
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December Tuesday
I just got home from an evening walk to return some library books, for which I put on a sweater and closed-toe shoes, for the first time in months. I am not a huge fan of The Holidays in general but I couldn’t help smiling when I went by the “village green” (otherwise known as…