The duck is not an April Fools' Joke

[eredien]

[Note: this post was originally written in the first week of March. Today it is April; I planted hyacinths, narcissi, and tulips in the yard.]

This is really cute. Really cute, but also a little strange.

But I'm a horrible sucker for ducklings (I still scream "DUCKIES!" like a six-year-old at Easter displays), so here he is:

Meet Stumpy (How horrible. Don't the people who name baby animals have any imagination? I would definitely have gone with "Slepnir." (Amusing: searching for "Slepnir" on Google gives you an ad link pointing to Ebay. Searching for "A bridge in China," as far as I can tell, does not.))

--
Where have I been for six months, and why is my first post in all that time about a duck?

First, I've been dealing with my life. I'm trying to get a new job, and thinking about going to graduate school, for Museum Education in 2008. I'm trying to go out more with friends in and around Boston. I've been celebrating the first dating-anniversary of raxvulpine and myself (!). I've been trying to deal with my parents, who are worried about their parents and about me. I've been doing research for a essay on C.S. Lewis (the Space Trilogy are wonderful books, and are making me think about God differently than I have in a while, I think). I've been reading a lot, which is a wonderful rediscovered pleasure. I've been involved with Bryn Mawr alumnae-type official stuff for the local chapter of the Alumnae Club. I've been giving some serious thought to my relationship and ideas about God, lately, and have also been trying to keep in touch with old friends, plan trips, do origami and embroidery and probably clay sculptures again. I or one of my housemates have also been ill for a largish portion of Jan. and Feb. Oh, and two days a week I do taiji. I have also been cooking a lot.

Also, my old computer (purple Compaq, c. 1999, RIP) decided that 1 GB of new memory was more than it could handle. I have given up trying to rehabilitate it, Frankenstein-like, with new parts--it would work if I hooked it up the way it was before, but as that was so slow as to be nearly useless anyway, and I couldn't play movies or CDs, I decided to save the hard drive and basically scrap the rest, waiting for the end of the year to (hopefully) buy a new laptop. So, I end up using a kind of dying old laptop loaner. [Note: this problem has been somewhat fixed, as I can now access my files through a windows machine, and I'm slowly working on setting it all up the way I want.]

Thirdly, I type all day at work. When I get home, I don't want to, and in some cases can't manage to make myself, type for another two hours.

Fourth--and this is the important one--I find my life changing. For most of my adolescence and early college years, I was a very lonely child. Now I am discovering people for the first time.
They're really interesting and fun.
This isn't to say that I don't care anymore about the internet or the people I've met through it.
It's just to say that my life is full of other things now, too, and so that's not my only or even my preferred way of making connections to people anymore.
It's kind of nice.

Comments

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Oo! You live!

And there must definitely be lunch sometime. And we should talk about religion. This apartment has been filled with theology lately.

[cold-in-august.livejournal.com]

i don't remember you ever screaming "duckies!!!" when we were six, but i do remember that ANY mention of horses, real or fictional, would cause you to jump from your seat shouting "HORSES!!!"

i am at a similar crossroads/turning point. i wonder if there is some truth to the phrase "quarterlife crisis". i am losing my job tuesday & starting my career as a (hopefully not too often) starving artist. i have naive & ambitious plans, a small chunk of money, and reserves of body fat to start me off.

have fun in the real world!

ps---i am teaching a pysanky workshop at the boston skillshare & should be in town 4/20 (friday night) to 4/23 or 4/24.

[eredien]

What happened to the job? That's rather bad.
Do your art plans involve pisanki? Those eggs are really rather nice.

[cold-in-august.livejournal.com]

i could no longer do the job that they hired me fore (child protective services) cause the subject matter was fucking with my disability, and they wouldn't/couldn't provide me reasonable accomodations. that, and it was sucking my soul to work at the county building, where it is a huge beauracracy & every worker in the building (seriously, we're called "workers" & assigned numbers) has their own personal raincloud hovering above their heads. it's super depressing to hear all day long how everyone hates their lives.

for the first time in my life, i feel ready to live on my own terms. i am going to attempt more mindful & simple living, and take steps to reduce my need for income, like buying land & installing solar power. today i made a cat toy using catnip (which i'm starting to grow), garbage (clean wrappers i was going to throw out), and felt. i'm bringing some of those to boston to sell, along with the pysanky.

[kaypendragon.livejournal.com]

I'd like to point out etsy.com to you, if you haven't already heard of it. It probably can't be your only source of income, but it's helpful if you're trying to live off art and handcrafts.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Hi! I wondered what had happened to you. I'm glad to hear that you're well.
Happy anniversary.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

Great to hear from you again!

Change happens to all of us, and the best we can hope for is that it's good change. It sounds like that's the case, and I'm glad to hear it. :)

[sovay]

Meet Stumpy (How horrible. Don't the people who name baby animals have any imagination? I would definitely have gone with "Slepnir."

Seriously. Even so, it's a six-limbed duckling: it's adorable and vaguely dragonlike.

[axonfuel.livejournal.com]

Good to hear from you again. :>

[eredien]

Hi! Love your icon. What have you been up to lately?

[axonfuel.livejournal.com]

I sent you a response from my new email. Look out for it.

[aneslin.livejournal.com]

I thought slepnir had six legs

[eredien]

Well the duck has four feet and two wings...

[daisho.livejournal.com]

Thinking about one's beliefs is generally good. Frankencomputers are good if they work. And since RL(enjoyable) > Internet, more direct interaction with people is good, too.

Jolly good. :)