blustery

Little hiccups are getting in my way this morning. I left the house without my lunch (leftover yams from Saturday's Orphan's Thanksgiving) and the CD I wanted to listen to. I have the little fountain I dug out of storage (nowhere in the apartment for it) to take to my office (the white noise might help distract me from the other noises that comes through the thin walls), but no distilled water for it (our hard water would gunk it up but good). Though my sickly symptoms have receded, I'm still getting moments of losing my voice, and the lymph node swelling hasn't gone away entirely. Even my writing style this morning seems a bit hiccup-y (though I blame that on the parenthetical remarks). All in all, kind of a growl-worthy start. Nothing major--just enough to irk me.

Nevertheless, it's a strangely pleasant morning out there. I walked out and thought it was spring already. When I passed the Bryce Jordan Center, the marquee read 62 degrees. But it's windy--really windy. Push-your-car-off-course windy. Grey, overcast, and wet from yesterday's rain, it doesn't look like a pleasant morning, but somehow it manages.

verge of sick

I've been sitting on the verge of sick for most of this week. I say "the verge of," because if I'm actually sick, it isn't that bad.

On Monday I noticed one of my lymph nodes was getting sore. Just one. Then I remembered that I'd woken up with a little bit of a sore throat the day before. After work, I decided to take a nap. I went to bed at five and had no trouble sleeping until seven a.m. the next day, when I had to get up for work. Fourteen hours in all.

Since then, I've been sleeping pretty normal, around-the-eight-hour-mark nights. The one sore lymph node migrated into the other. The good news is that the original isn't swollen too much anymore. The bad news is that the other has taken its place.

Other than those symptoms, I'm not noticing much amiss. My energy's fine, concentration's intact, I don't feel woozy or sluggish. The thing that irks me most is that I let this get in the way of my usual exercise regimen, such as it is. I figured my body needs the energy to fight off this whatever-it-is. Now I'm wondering how long this will last, and if I'll be able to pick up my regimen again without a problem.

J. suggested I might have the flu. I don't remember ever having the flu before this except possibly once in my sophomore year of college--but in that case, it was either the stomach flu or a minor case of food poisoning. Nothing like this. So I have nothing to compare to. If I do have the flu, the good news is that it's minor, and I'll get over it eventually (at least I'm crossing my fingers that I will), and that then I'll be immune to this strain. The bad news is that it feels like it's taking forever to run through my system, though I know it's only been a few days.

I also worry about spreading it around the office. Sure, I wash my hands as much as humanly possible, try to avoid touching my nose and mouth, never touch doors with my hands, all that nonsense. But the attitude around the office toward being sick is nothing short of bipolar. My direct boss takes pride in working even if he's really ill. As long as he can make it to the car, he comes in. My grandboss seems to be much more of the school of "if you think you can pass it around, don't." And one of the other folks on my boss's level on our team has the same theory, and has in the past urged me not to come in when I'm feeling at all ill. I found this out after I'd gotten really knocked-out sick just after I started this job (and came in anyway). Amazingly sick. I hadn't been that sick in years (and at the time, I didn't even keep a can of chicken noodle soup around the house--silly me). At the time, I blamed it on the students returning for spring semester, having brought all their ailments from all the different corners of the globe. This time, I've got no such excuse.

I have no patience for this kind of sick. When I'm really sick, I have no problem with staying in bed or on the couch, eating chicken noodle soup and drinking therapeutic hot teas. I get some reading or DVD watching done. I surf the Web. Oh, the horror. With this kind of sick, I feel like I barely have an excuse to take care of myself, because I mean, come on, it's not like I'm really sick. All I can do is stay home (which itself kind of feels like a punishment), bundle up in flannel pj's, a sweater, my trusty sheepskin slippers and then wrap myself in a down blanket and take it easy. But then I feel like I'm slacking. Have I mentioned that I feel the need to multitask constantly? A discussion for another time, perhaps.

But really, at this point, I'm split between just get sick already and get over it. Let's hope the latter wins out.

the beginning of winter

So, on Monday, when it was beautiful and warm enough to wander around without a coat on, C. (a co-worker) warned me that winter was about to start.

On Thursday (today). I thought he was kidding.

He wasn't kidding.

When I walked out to my car, it was snowing. When I walked into my office, it was snowing. Walking around campus during the day, the air was cold enough to make my lungs hurt. When I walked back to my car after work, it was exactly 32 degrees Fahrenheit, without taking into account the wind.

Winter has arrived, kids.

It's days like these when I wonder why I haven't moved to warmer climes.

of apples and bypasses

I'm munching on a Corland apple for lunch today. This weekend at the grocery store, I noticed my beloved Nittany apples weren't in their usual spot, and suddenly feared losing them altogether, so figured I should probably branch out now, while I have the chance. I'm finding the Corlands to be a bit too soft for my tastes. But sweet, which is good. I thought the Nittanys were local, which is why I first picked them up--I prefer to buy local if it's convenient, which is why I love the concept of Stone Soup. Unfortunately, Stone Soup's not always convenient for grocery shopping, nor do they always have the produce I commonly eat. Upon a quick Google search, though, I find out that the Nittany apple is actually grown in New York, usually, and is a hybrid combining Golden Delicious and York. Whatever they are, Nittanys make excellent apples: crisp, clean, and sweet.

I ran to Lemont again a few minutes ago to mail off another little package: a small gift based on the spoon theory, which I'll go into in more detail here later (if I remember). It occurred to me then how well I know the area and how many methods I know to get to wherever I'm going around here. I love getting to that point when living somewhere long enough. Here, though, I can mark it in periods: pre-bypass and post-bypass, and pre-Blue Course Drive extension and post-.

When I got here, Atherton (Route 322) was the main drag through town. Moreover, it was the only drag all the way through town. There was literally no option if you wanted to go from the north part of town to the south part of town, or vice versa (despite 322 running east/west). During this time, I learned all the little back-alley ways to cheat that (Corl Street, for example--which has since been closed, I believe, for the part that actually connects it all the way through the south stretch, though it had always been closed in winter, since it wasn't maintained for snow). I learned to cut through Lemont to get to the mall or Bellefonte, which is also how I discovered the post office out there, which nowadays is much more convenient for me to hit up during my lunch hour, since the State College post office usually has huge lines and is downtown, so traffic can be a bit irritating.

I have my friends to thank for these tricks, and I'm thankful I made them so quickly, and that they were native, having lived here a long time (as opposed to the transient student population). I'm also thankful (though wasn't, necessarily, at the time) that one of those early-made friends lived outside State College, so I got to see more than just the immediate area.

Then the 322 bypass was finished, and sure is helpful. You can now get from the north side to downtown much more quickly, and getting to I-80 to go anywhere outside the state is also much more simple now. Then the Blue Course Drive extension was completed, giving folks a route around the other side, going north/south. Also extremely helpful. Both of these relieved some of the Atherton congestion.

I have to say, though, that I'm thankful I lived here previous to both projects. I would've never discovered so much around the area otherwise.

Nor could I get places as fast as I do now.

deer

This morning on my usual drive, the car in front of me slowed almost to a stop right after having passed through Toftrees, but before passing the mansion. There's forest (or at least part of one) on either side of the road right there, but at first I thought the person was slowing down because of the speed limit. True, that section's a downgrade, and it's easy to speed accidentally, but that kind of slowing was ridiculous, I thought.

Then I saw the deer bounding into the forest in front of the car. Nice catch, I thought, and proceeded forward slowly after it did.

The one place I've hit a deer wasn't too far away, both distance-wise and time-of-the-year-wise. If my next turn had been left toward the airport instead of right toward campus, I would've been headed in the right direction on the same curvy backwoods highway it first happened on.

It was Halloween a few years ago, if I remember correctly. L. was in the car with me, dressed up as a Flemish nobleman. I don't remember if I'd gotten dressed up yet or not. We were on our way to pick up J. from the airport, after some conference of his. I was cruising fast around a corner, and saw it standing stock still in the headlights. I slowed fast, but still bumped it head-on going around 30-35, if I were to guess.

It was a young one, and I'd thankfully bumped it off the road. I stopped, put my flashers on, made sure L. and I were both all right, got out, looked at it--still moving, though barely--looked at my car, couldn't see any dents in the dark, and tried to figure out what to do--all while adrenaline was coursing through my system like mad. In the meantime, an older car cruised to a stop a few yards in front of me. A man got out, and came back to talk to us, to make sure we were all right. Once he ascertained the reason we were stopped, his questions turned toward the "are you going to call anyone?" and "are you going to report this to your insurance?" variety. I couldn't figure out why he was asking these things until he asked if we minded if he took the deer.

The guy wanted the meat. After some bantering, including debate about whether or not it was dead and him providing me with his phone number in case I wanted a cut, he picked up the young deer (I was struck with the fact that there was no blood, just dead deer) and slung it on top of his trunk (as if he'd done this sort of thing before), then drove away slowly. L. and I looked at each other. For me, it took a few beats before I grasped the absurdity of the situation. I still shake my head about it.

So I'm left with a minor divot in my hood that most people don't notice unless they're really looking (which is why I couldn't see it in the dark), and a story, though a relatively short and not especially exciting one, at that.

another day, another drive

Another gorgeous drive this morning. Dark clouds dominated the landscape, except for one break that hit the rise of mountains I was heading towards (and then traveling next to) this morning. The mansion I pass on the drive had sunlight slanting into it, hard. Mount Nittany was in shadow, though, as it's on the opposite side of the valley--the sun usually peeks over a mountain right next to it in the morning. I should really learn the name of the range on the opposite side. I've lived here, what? Four and a half years, and I still don't know the names in local geography as well as I should. Though few people, other than hikers, really know those names, I don't think. Nor do they come up often in conversation.

I listened to 90s punk on the way in today. Better than five cups of coffee in the morning. Though I haven't tried it, I wonder if some Thelonious Monk might work as well--but differently, of course. Then again, that may just cause me to be a little off-rhythm all day.

I think I'm going a little too fast for my co-workers at this hour. Hopefully, after their coffee, they'll catch up to me. Though I rarely have trouble getting up to speed in the morning, and I don't drink coffee. I don't even drink tea regularly, though I have tons of it in my office. Well, tons probably isn't the right word. I've got a selection of at least six off the top of my head, though. I'd say I should get back to drinking it, but I've never really liked having caffeine in my system--nor do I like seeing the effects of not having it once you're dependent on it (headaches for no good reason other than not having had caffeine are not pretty). Nor do I usually have any trouble getting up and moving in the morning, thankfully. It's sustaining it through the normal afternoon dip that's a challenge. I'm optimistic about today, though. I feel like I've gotten enough sleep, for once.

scent memory

This morning, while walking from my car to my building, I caught a whiff of Denmark.

I'm not kidding.

While I lived there, for part of the time I lived near a gelatin factory out in the country. The smells that came out of that place were fascinating: rotting fish and orange peel (which I found not as unpleasant as it sounds), and this tinge that doesn't smell quite like anything else, but other things sometimes smell just a little bit like it--enough to bring it to mind. That happened not half an hour ago.

My aunt (who was born in Denmark, as was my Dad) asked me after I got back if I missed the smell. She said the smell there is different than here, and she was right. I imagine it has something to do with the land being surrounded by water so closely (we all lived on Sjælland, one of Denmark's many islands, during our separate times there). I'm sure, though, that the Denmark she had in her scent memory is different than the one I have in mine--the time we spent there was separated by about fifty years, and even though Denmark is quite environmentally conscious, I'm certain development had an effect on air quality. At the same time, I'm reassured by that connection to her: that I recognized something in her land of birth that she remembered, and missed.

Shortly after she passed away, I moved here. In the early days here, I kept smelling her perfume, with no discernable reason for it to be in the area. She wore Pheremone, I believe, exclusively. I kept catching whiffs of it in hallways and stairwells across campus, once very powerfully in the stairwell of the building my office was in. I made an entry about it at the time, and someone commented that it seemed like I was being haunted by her. But I know now that wasn't the case--she would never do that, not in the way that most people think of haunting, anyway. Yes, she was in my mind a lot (still is), and yes, there were things left unresolved that make me sad even now, but she wouldn't deliberately haunt me. Though if anyone could, I'd believe she could. She was that sort--spiritual, connected, but ultimately practical. I'd believe that she'd hover, observe, sometimes take a gentle step to help (which sometimes I believe she has), but not haunt, not like all that's come to mean.

I miss her.

Outside this morning, trying to pin down the scent that evoked the memory, I drew in deeply, and though it still niggled at my mind, couldn't find it again. It had left as quickly as it had arrived, escaping me entirely. But I'm still dwelling on it, and all it had brought to mind.

There's so much I miss, but I'm also so glad for all I have. (Yes, I mean you, Dad, among many other things and people. I wish I could give you a hug right now. Much love. -A.)