For those of you who don't know, there's an abandoned pool on the campus of LSU. After some badgering of the LSU facilities crew, they relented and granted access. I took the photos for this post in April and early June, and now after much procrastination I finally have done the post for Abandoned Baton Rouge. Please check it out.
I wasn't a little girl who dreamed about my wedding day. I'm not sure what I was daydreaming about as a kid-- probably ghost stories, and come to think of it, new places I wanted to go. Not so different from now. I think this lack of lifelong dream wedding scenario worked to the benefit of how the day went. It didn't go perfectly, and in not being perfect, it was just right. It was a day that represented us, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.
[Photo by Kristina Carter, Vrai Photography]
Continue reading "Wedding Weekend: Imperfectly Perfect Times" »
Pictured, in middle ground: One dog, mixed breed, so kindly adopted from the streets by yours truly and Mr. Fiance. In the foreground: one Kenneth Cole dress shoe, purchased just over a week ago, intended to be worn by the groom at our wedding this Saturday. You will notice that some creature has chewed the shoe beyond repair. Can you guess who it was? We did.
Also pictured: dirt on the floor, which can be swept, mopped, or vaccuumed up but never goes away for long with two dogs who go from inside to outside and back all day. Not visible, but present: untold number of fleas, apparently immune to Advantage, Frontline, diatomaceaous earth, nematodes (which finally did the trick last year), showers, anti-flea spray, anti-flea shampoo, yelling, and Raid flea bombs. We also tried feeding the dogs garlic in hopes their blood would become distasteful to fleas, using the pre-chopped stuff from Family Dollar. I doled out very generous dollops and only later after reading the label realized I'd given the dogs the equivalent of about 60 cloves each, or say about 5 bulbs of garlic. So that should turn out well later today....
I was in NYC this weekend with the fiance to take care of some last-minute pre-wedding business such as haircuts and tying one on with bffs to celebrate getting married. And now, a photo-intensive retrospective.
It's June 3rd. That means buzz o'clock has just started up again, as has hurricane season (again!?). It also means there's about 360 or so days til we move back North. That means that by this time next year, soon-to-be husband and I will be back in our apartment in Brooklyn, surrounded by moving boxes and two very discontent, suddenly yardless dogs.
It's an appropriate time to look forward and back. Too bad there's not much time for that, as our wedding is in less than three weeks, and it occupies a lot of my time and brain space right now. The final weeks of preparation have just boiled down to an ongoing "OK what else needs to be done" state of semi-alert. I can only compare it to the last few hours before you have a big party, when you're running around cleaning and cooking and going down the list of errands and tasks, when everything has to happen before the first guests arrive, only this event is exponentially larger, and in a different part of the country, and way more expensive.
But! By way of commemorating this "one year left" mark, a brief look back and ahead.
We haven't been here a full two years, but it's been two full school years, and time has gone both slow and fast. Sometimes this place seems frozen in time, but it's in constant flux, even if that flux is encroaching plant life and decay. New businesses and homes do appear, and the sun and the moisture do their utmost to soon age color to that pastel and undermine that wood.
It's been a long enough stretch that the sign for Glorious, seen here in October 07:
Is now in a state of faded and peeled glory.
(Many times I've feared the same affect on myself, though lately not.)
I was just walking along State Street after work the other day, observing the run-down and occasional pleasant-looking domiciles such as this one, when I spotted signs on every telephone pole and some trees, like above.
(Click photo below to read sign.)
I don't think it's serious, what with the whimsical title, the double-exclamation point-smiley, and ending threat with alternative spelling "beginnin." But why bother? Also, why the junkie bigotry? Some of our finest musicians are were junkies.
A few shots from around campus (you know, LSn?), where my weekdays are now spent.
As you might imagine, usage of purple and gold is epidemic.
But it's not all as fuggo as the ubiquitous pairing of purple and gold.
The students are clearing out from the LSU campus, and Mr. Fiance has completed year 2 of grad school (!!!!) So the one-year-left-to-go-in-the-South look back/look forward/ countdown begins at the end of this month!
Meanwhile, I am heading to campus to work. (Say, someone should make a humorous movie about an adult going back to college many years after he or she first went, and all the hijinks that ensue. It should be called, "Back to College.")
Q. How many Mike the Tigers can you spot in the photo above? Click to enlarge.
Give up?
Cleaning my office yesterday was empowering. I took the power back from the piles of papers and books and folders, not to mention the dog hair and dirt tracked in daily as the dogs traipse inside and out via my office's French doors. That clutter was having a serious effect on my sense of sanity and ability to accomplish anything.
Now, with dozens of magazines stowed in a sturdy box, thousands of papers organized in hanging files in a banker's box, and hundreds more in a vintage tin Porta-file in the official color of the 1970s and my life, avocado, I feel like I can do it. I have a lot on my plate, but I can either surrender to being a crazy or I can deal with each task at hand.
This cleanse was also theraputic. This calendar year has not been a good one as far as my writing career, but it was so helpful to see, via old paychecks, writing contracts, and magazines where my writing has appeared, where I've been and how far I've come. And it felt cathartic to shred my old pay stubs, the records of wages I got to sit in a tiny cube each week, each one gone in less than two seconds. (Not so theraputic was sorting through bills, wondering how many times over I've paid for whatever it was I charged on credit cards over the years.)
