summer time

In Seattle, you know that summer has finally arrived when the temperature skyrockets into the upper 60′s and the sun shines for several hours at a time, causing thousands to strap on their Chacos (as opposed to formal sandals, like Birkenstocks, that make appearances at more upscale events like weddings or the ballet) and hit the outdoors, ready to make the most of the 100 days of sun that grace our fair city each year.

And, on brilliantly sunny 61˚ Friday afternoons such as this, I of course remain true to Seattle form, throwing on shorts and Tevas and heading on bike into Ballard, ‘enjoying’ the sunshine by sitting near the open door at Caffé Fiore.  Now, most of the way through my iced double tall americano, I reflect on the best parts of summers past, and kick off summer 2010 with a small bucket list.

• The BEST things about Seattle in the summertime (order does not indicate importance and/or awesomeness):

-sunset watching from many vantage points, like Carkeek Park

-FOURTH. OF. JULY.

-iced coffee

-going out to dinner and eating on the restaurant’s patio like a fancy person

-WATERMELON!

-fantasizing about rad hiking and backpacking opportunities but realistically only doing it once or twice

-watching movies outdoors, like the Neill Family Film Festival, which happens, obviously

-sunglasses

-swimming in lakes

PAUSE: A 4 year old just walked by me in this coffee shop and stated “That’s what she said!”  HAHAHAHAHA

-sunlight until like 9:30pm

-being able to go biking without bringing along a rain jacket “just in case”

-lots of colors, specifically green and blue, which replace the gray

• In lieu of the best parts of summers in the past, I feel inspired to name a few of my goals for Summer 2010:

-Go to a drive-in movie in Renton, or several.  This, clearly, requiring a pickup truck jammed with chairs and blankets and sleeping bags in the bed.

-Spend an entire day on a speedboat on Lake Washington, with cheap beer consumption starting at precisely 10am

-Float a river (probably also involving cheap beer…pattern developing?)

-SUNSETS

-learn to be responsible enough with money that by the end of August I can afford to pay rent every month

-FOURTH. OF. JULY.

-show my friends visiting from Europe (Larissa & Charlotte) that we know how to party in the Pacific NW!

-probably at some point a road trip to California, let’s be honest

someone once told me

Sometimes lately in life I want to become a writer.

(Which, I suppose, makes blog ownership oddly self-serving.  My own personal little publisher, never sending back drafts with corrections or suggestions.  And of course herein lies my distaste with the internet giving a voice to some people who ought not have one, like the infinity of YouTube commentators who make me fear for the future of our nation and the world.  But I digress…)

Back to the subject at hand.  Writing.  I have been chewing on the thought a lot recently.  Granted, it’s not the first time I have actually considered it as some kind of income-generating occupation, but it is somehow the first time that I am pondering what it would mean to take it semi-seriously.  Perhaps because the first time it entered my head I was battling the frigid European winter, cooped up in my luke-warm apartment in Lyon, France, and the thought of professional writing was bookended in the same week by notions of acting and singing professionally, all three ideas which at the time and to this day I accredit to a lack of self-expression that comes with speaking a second language in a foreign culture.  All that to say, I attributed my own partial insanity to my mild case of writer’s envy.

So, I was a bit surprised several weeks back that this thought again creeped into the front of my mind, making me do a mental double-take. I mean, things are different now, more normal.  I’m back in Seattle, speaking English, living at the Neill Family Ranch, barista-ing and house sitting to pay bills and child support, etc.  Which means that maybe there’s something to that whole “express yourself with written words” nonsense.

As a self-proclaimed extrovert, my natural first response was to begin bouncing this off various people, pestering friends and co-workers with questions about the feasability of being paid to write.  What do I write about?  Who is my audience?  What is my medium (columnist, book, professional blogger, food critic, etc.)?  How do I even get started?  Is this just something I do on the side?

Ultimately, most of those questions are ridiculous to ask from this vantage point.  Or at least ridiculous to try and have answers for.  But of the various conversations I had on this subject, one of those most useful tips I received was from a coworker (and poet) at Diva.  She told me that if I want to write, it shouldn’t be too much for me to try and jot down one thought I have per day.  And to start with what I have, or at least what I know.

Alright, then.

Here’s what I know:

1) I generally enjoy writing, and in various forms, excepting fiction, because I’d rather not create something from scratch.  But I enjoy putting words down, kind of like making a case for my thoughts.  It could be a dry, detail-laden scientific report, or a play-by-play recounting of some dumb-assery in which I was involved.

2) I probably have at least one thought, if not five or six, that I want to write down each day, but I often lack the pen in hand to do it justice.  That’s something, right?

3) I have an audience.  You, obviously, if you’ve made it this far in my dronings on about questions of how to pass the time.  But, importantly, myself.  Sure, it is crucial to understand the possibility that people will read my words, and that words are impactful.  But, you all are hard to satisfy, you ruthless hordes you, and no matter how pleasing the prose, there will always be a critic.  Maybe sustainable writing has to not be ultimately concerned with external reactions.  At least that’s what I believe for now.

I could go on, but I’ll stop for the moment.  Just know that I am going to try to be more consistently writing.  That may mean posting on this blog, and it may not.

Mostly it means that you should probably get my signature while you still can, before I publish some amazing, depth-filled and thought-provoking column in the New Yorker and become disgustingly famous.

so…

Here we are.

It has been a hefty chunk of time since my last post, and upon reflection it has felt much longer.  Time is funny like that, or at least the experience of time; when mere moments stretch on for hours, or conversely years somehow become magically collapsed into inappropriately small pieces of information, so curt and dismissive and void of detail.  Lately I hear myself saying “I went to college at SPU,” which I suppose effectively communicates education level and geographic location and my ability to speak English, but wholly neglects so many other things, like meals in Gwinn or that one time Marshall and I drove to San Francisco in a weekend or what it felt like to graduate.

I kind of hate that about time, about memories.  I hate that profoundly significant past experiences, like pain or joy, are reduced to a mere summing up.  And actually, hate is too strong a word.  It just bothers me, that’s all.  Because I understand that it would be far too much to handle, always holding memories at the front of our minds.  Things have to be put on the back burner to allow us to encounter and cope with the present, to not constantly be laughing and crying with massive headaches while our brains try to sort out all emotions and colors and scents and feelings that we’ve ever experienced or will possibly experience.

But all the same, it has been 3.5 months since my return from France, and all of the life that has occurred in that space–moving home, jobs, friends, family–has meant that my memories from that time are becoming a bit more blurred.  It’s harder to taste the coulommiers cheese, or hear the strained voices of French children trying to speak English, or remember the feeling of sitting on a high-speed train zooming to somewhere new and unexplored.

I guess that’s okay, because Seattle is a good place, with good people.  It’s good to move forward, to embrace change, or at least take it in stride.

And I’ve found that even when the present is so so different from the past, there are still brief instances, little reminders that yank us back in time.  Take the other day, for example.  In the middle of my shift at Diva Espresso, a French woman came in to meet another customer for some private tutoring.  As she ordered a drink in English, I mentioned that I had lived in Lyon for 5 months, and without hesitation she began speaking in French, asking me about my experiences in Europe.

Just like that, I was transported across the world, enjoying a small moment à la française.

photoblog

After being repeatedly harassed by an old friend, I have finally caved and started a photo blog:

timneillphoto.wordpress.com

Enjoy!

i’m still an animal

stank

You know you’re in France when you may encounter, at any given moment, natural odors of the human body.

That’s right; I’m talking about B.O.  It shows up most anywhere, without discretion.  Choir practice.  The post office.  Riding the train.  Sitting in a café.  The French, as a people, seem to not be habituated to wearing deodorant.

So, when two weeks ago I ran out of my supply of Old Spice “Pure Sport”-scented deodorant that I brought with me to France, I wasn’t really worried about sticking out from the crowd.  In normal circumstances, I would have solved this problem with relative speed, as I generally find personal hygiene and odor control to be an important habit.

However, as you may have noticed from the last almost four months of blog entries, I am not living in normal circumstances.  Whereas in Seattle one can easily find the sprawling deodorant section at local Safeways, Fred Meyers, Bartells, and maybe even some convenience stores, there isn’t necessarily a section designated for deodorant in French grocery stores.  At least that’s what I discovered when buying some food at a store called “Ed” (?) near my apartment several days later, shocked that after several attempts I could not find where the deodorant was.

Thus, in an attempt to live life à la française (or maybe more due to laziness), I simply gave up the search for a while, instead considering that perhaps Americans are crazy, and maybe armpits don’t really smell that bad.

Let me pause here before we get any farther: Americans are absolutely, completely, 100% correct about body odor and the need for deodorant.  I would even go so far as to argue that it is sometimes more necessary than the things Americans deem most important, like freedom or big screen televisions or breakfast.

In the 1.5 deodorantless weeks that followed, I came to learn that, much to my dismay, my armpits emit a potent stench.  Often, and at inconvenient times.  In the middle of a lesson, for example, when I had to pause while writing on the chalkboard to hide my face of personal disgust.  Or when passing the salad to one of my roommates at dinner and hoping that the odor didn’t contaminate the defenseless lettuce and tomatoes.  Or even in the freaking shower, after having already scrubbed my armpits.  What the crap?!?

For a while, I simply put up with it, not caring enough to make the mall trek to the big grocery store, Carrefour, and finally buy some deodorant.

But, it all came to a head yesterday at a department store as I tried on some dress shirts for my choir concert.  This process, involving raised arms and removing and putting on shirts, exposed me to my own smell for about 10 minutes straight.  It was terrible.  So terrible, in fact, that I actually stopped what I was doing and left the store, finally forced by necessity to buy some new deodorant.

Five minutes later, I was skimming the pitiful selection of the foot-wide, two-shelf deodorant section in Carrefour.  No Old Spice.  Actually, the only American brand was Axe, but if you know me, you know that I don’t like the smell of douchebag and/or junior high boy.  There were only weird French brands, and they were expensive.

But the circumstances were dire, and I couldn’t bear my own B.O. any longer.  So, I found a half-decent-smelling stick, coughed up about $6.50 and waited 25 minutes in the longest grocery store line of my life to alleviate the deep physical and emotional trauma I was experiencing.

For the record, never in the 2 weeks sans deodorant did I receive one comment, nor did I feel out of place or insecure.  As I said, it’s not unusual to disregard B.O. in this country.  And even if someone had made a comment, I honestly don’t think it would have changed anything.  It was only when I became bothered did I spring into action, because the only people who suffered day in and day out were me, myself and I.

That’s one of the great things I’ve appreciated about France, actually: learning how to simply not care what other people think of you.

I exercised this complete disregard as I left Carrefour, literally stopping in the middle of the mall, setting down my bag, and raising one arm at a time and sticking the other under my shirt to apply the sweet-smelling substance to my stank pits.  It was instant satisfaction, even amid stares and comments from confused mall shoppers.

jumping

In a moment of boredom, I realized that I have photographic documentation of me jumping in a variety of locations around the world.  It’s kind of disturbing, actually.  Sorry, world.

Xunantunich, Belize – 2007

Half Moon Caye, Belize – 2007

Badlands National Park, South Dakota – 2008

The Acropolis, Athens, Greece – 2008

Napflion, Greece – 2008

Naxos, Greece – 2008

Smuggler’s Wreck, Zakynthos, Greece – 2008

Sami, Kephanolia, Greece – 2008

Paris, France – 2009

Grenoble, France – 2009

Salzburg, Austria – 2009

Prague, Czech Republic – 2009

ice

Hi, I’ll have an iced grande vanilla latte, please.

Or, conversely, “Bonsoir, une grande latte vanille glacé s’il vous plaît.”

Usually, when one orders an iced drink at Starbucks, the barista doesn’t follow up with questions clarifying specifically how the drink should be “iced.”  I mean, I thought it was pretty apparent all these years.  ”Iced.”  You know, containing ice in it, making it cold and refreshing and delicious.

So, at Starbucks earlier today, I was surprised after ordering an iced vanilla latte when the barista began asking me something about cold milk, which was hard to decipher given the Starbucks soundtrack blasting in the background.  As I often do in France when I don’t fully understand what is happening, I simply nod in agreement, and so I nodded and said “Yes, I want cold milk.”

This seemed to surprise the barista, who turned around and then commented about this to everyone, who looked confused, glancing between her and me and talking rapid-fire to each other.  After about 1 minute, I was handed a vanilla latte, with cold milk but, get this, NO ICE.

I stopped, examining this strange phenomenon.  An iced drink without ice. How French of them, I thought. What is it with this country and the complete lack of ice in beverages?

When I then asked for ice, the barista looked at me, shocked, and blurted out “But you asked for no ice!”

Oh, I realized.  That’s what she asked me about.  She wanted to know if I would rather have just cold milk OR cold milk with ice.  And apparently she thought I just wanted cold milk.

After sorting it out, and getting my freaking ice, I sat down, perplexed.  Apparently, it’s not enough to want a drink “iced.”  You have to really want it, to the extent that you must verbally defend your right to not only cold milk, but REAL ICE, too.

Goodness.  I go to Starbucks seeking some familiarity, and am yet again encountered with just how different this place is from Seattle.

A Dahlstrom Christmas

The Dahlstrom family atop the Festung Hohensalzburg castle in Salzburg!

I just got back last night from 10 days with the Dahlstrom family in Austria and the Republic of Czechoslovakia.  It was basically the best possible second-place scenario to spending Christmas back at home, for several reasons:

1) Unexpectedly having the chance to use Richard’s skiis and Noah’s snow gear to go skiing in the Austrian Alps in the town of Schladming.  Twice.

2) Playing card games such as Skipbo and Rook.

3) Participating in Dahlstrom family traditions, such as watching “A Muppet Christmas Carol” on Christmas Eve.

4) Attending an 11pm Christmas Eve service in Ramsau, to which we were summoned by church bells.  And we sang Silent Night in German to close the service.

5) Witnessing firsthand Richard D’s need to ingest protein at regular intervals, which took the form of sausage, kielbasa, ribs, chicken wings, etc.

6) Spending three days with the whole family (minus Noah, who had to stay behind in Austria for work) in Prague.  Fantastic.  And surprisingly cheap…

7) Going to the Prague State Opera house to see the ballet perform Swan Lake.  Incredible.

There are of course more.  Those are the ones I can come up with right now.  Thanks Dahlstroms for being incredibly welcoming and generous, and for allowing me to sit in on your family vacation.  I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

it is cold where i live

Currently, the outside temperature is -2˚C.  That’s below freezing.  I have the space heater in my room cranked up high, as well as the regular heating system, to combat four old, single-paned windows that serve more as heat vacuums these days rather than light facilitators.

BUT, one great thing about the cold is snow.  It’s been snowing all day today, which is something I quite enjoy.

Mostly because snow was something so few and far between in my temperate-climate childhood.  I remember the extreme rarity of snow back then, the kind that was light and soft, forming smooth expanses that in non-sub-zero conditions would be interrupted by rocks or uneven ground.  The kind of snow that makes one loathe cruel neighbors who tread across the lawn and make footprint blemishes on its otherwise clean, unflawed surface.

I used to envy friends or cousins who grew up regularly experiencing winter snow.  But, after many years of empty promises from weather forecasters and the relieved face of a mother who feared that school closure could potentially strand all four of her children at home, I’ve realized that snow, just as much as when I was a child, brings with it a sense of curiosity and general amazement.

So this evening, before going to meet some friends for dinner, I stood alone outside my apartment in the snowy Lyon night with my face pointed skyward, laughing as I tried to catch snowflakes on my tongue.  And of course, I took the time to create a perfectly round, smooth snowball to chuck at my friends when I saw them.  I missed.