Bellingham Complicates the Situation

Jamie and I went to Bellingham this weekend and I feel more confused about my looming decision.  I keep telling myself to STFU and decide already but I can't!  We stopped at Tulip Town outside of Mount Vernon for the annual Tulip Festival.  I needed to check this off my "Things to do in Washington before I leave" list.  It was a typical spring day, with unpredictable and blustery weather.  We left after I finished working on Saturday, so we passed most of the crowds as they were leaving and we were entering.  The rain left and the sun came, lighting the sky in that surreal way as though after a storm with a faint rainbow.  The tulips were beautiful, of so many shapes, sizes, colors.

We continued on to Bellingham, where we stayed in a (too) expensive, (too) tacky hotel by the freeway.  I agonized over where to eat and decided on Boundary Bay, if only for the beer sampler.  Yes, the ESB is still my favorite.  The next day--an obscenely gorgeous spring day--we went to the Mount Bakery (vegetarian Eggs Benedict!) and walked around Western.  I had to show Jamie the legendary MHB statue, the fountain where I skinny-dipped after graduation, my favorite study place in the library.  We walked down to Boulevard Park from Fairhaven, lounging in the grass like days of old, watching the undergraduates engage in adorable flirtation and frisbee dates.  We dined at Flats, an excellent tapas bar in Fairhaven that lived up to my memories of the place.

Now for the confusion: I love Bellingham!  I don't want to live there now, but spending time there again reminded me of so many things that I did enjoy about the nature of the town, and many of the things that are lacking in Seattle.  Yes, I did remember some of the things that I didn't like--the incestuous nature of the place (I only saw six people I recognized on this trip), twenty-one-year-olds running around everywhere on Saturday night.  It made me confused about Ann Arbor, which is larger than Bellingham but is probably similar.  This was the largest hesitation toward the University of Michigan.  But on Sunday, sitting in the sun outside the Firehouse Cafe, I wanted it again.  As I've said before, with every day comes a different idea of what I want.

Now For a Coin Toss

I mailed forms declining admission to Indiana, Simmons, and Rutgers this weekend.  I panicked slightly as I pushed them into the outgoing mail slot--am I narrowing my future?  (Well, yes, but I have to choose just one.)   Remaining: University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan.  The deadline for Pittsburgh has been extended to April 30, giving me more time to not think about it.  I have had two phone interviews for internships in Pittsburgh and should hear back by the end of the week--hopefully making my decision easier.

I am tired of receiving advice from people who know nothing about me, or the programs, cities, or all of the above.  I feel conflicted: after a recent conversation with an LIS professor at the University of Washington about the two schools, I was certain (for about twenty minutes) that I should go to the University of Michigan.  Apparently, in the elite world of library science academia, Michigan is more prestigious.  Whenever I mention that it is one of my final contenders, people seem very impressed.  And I like it.  Until I remember that I don't really care about prestige.  I went to Western (anyone who went to WWU and has friends who went to UW understands) and loved it.

My future is starting to freak me out again.  Maybe it's just the decision that still must be made.  Or the huge change that comes with the decision.  When I started this process last summer, I started dreaming about the grand trip I would take before I started school.  Ideas of Russia, Argentina, Japan, or anywhere.  This isn't going to happen, which is realistic and sensible (money, money, money).  The plan is for a great American roadtrip to the school of choice.  Which is good.  But the epic trip seems so far away.

PDX

When I learned that I had an entire (*gasp* entire *gasp*) weekend off, Jamie and I immediately booked Amtrak tickets to Portland for us and the bikes.  I hadn't been there in years, and had certainly never biked it, or navigated it myself.  I love weekends and I love Portland. And trains.

We spent the weekend eating, biking, and doing touristy things in the sun.  We stayed with Jamie's friends, Laura and Jeff (and Clarke and Pot Pie), in Northeast Portland by Alberta street.  The neighborhood felt so comfortable, with adorable 2- and 3-bedroom houses, constantly reminding me of the neighborhood where I grew up in Olympia, and so different from everything I've seen in Seattle.  Within walking distance to their house, we ate at three places and had coffee at two.  Everything was great but the winner: Extracto Coffeehouse.  It's a small roastery...  Their single-origin Ugandan espresso with hints of blueberry...  No one plugged into a laptop...

We biked into downtown, visited the end of the farmer's market at PSU, then went to the Saturday Market, then headed to Rogue Brewery for a sampler.  After several games of Uno with newly-made friends living in Olympia, two samplers and a shot of hazelnut rum, we zig-zagged to Voodoo Doughnut for a vegan powdered sugar doughnut and a bacon maple bar.  Back over the river for dinner with Laura, Jeff, and Laura's aunt and grandmother.

The next day we spent hours in Powells, miraculously leaving with only two cookbooks.  Next to Deschutes Brewery for their sampler and some Black Butte, with lunch, before catching the train, in a less-than-straight motion, back to Seattle.

I knew I shouldn't really ever visit Portland because I would want to pack up and move there (or just never come home).  It's true.  If I wasn't moving across the country in the fall, I would seriously consider moving down the I-5 corridor to the home of Stumptown Coffee.

Names in a Hat

Now to decide.  It's really always the most difficult part: the decision.  Decisions with deadlines.  As it stands, I am choosing between the University of Michigan, University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University, and Simmons College.  I'm leaning away from Indiana University because Bloomington does not seem as interesting/exciting as Ann Arbor, Pittsburgh, or Boston.  The acceptance deadline for both Simmons and Pittsburgh is April 15, before I will be able to visit any of the schools.  Partially, it doesn't matter because all of the programs are good.  But I will be spending two years there (or more) and I want it to be incredible.  But any of the four would be new, different from anything I've ever experienced.  But cornfields or the Great Lakes?  Allegheny National Forest or the Atlantic coast?  It doesn't matter, maybe, because no choice is a bad choice.

What to do, what to do.  This determines my future for the next few years.  Better make it good.  But it's close, nearly tangible.  When I make a decision, it will make it real.  I will be leaving in the fall, going back to school so that I never have to work a minimum wage service job again.  Anything, everything about this is an adventure.  I'm agonizing over the decision, yeah, but it'll be fine.  It's exciting.

Amy and Jamie and Food (blog)

The food blog has just begun.  It will be a collaborative effort between Jamie and myself involving food, cooking, photography, experimentation, failure.  After several months of development (read: brief conversations about starting the blog), we started the blog several days after our self-imposed deadline.  Please read!

In other personal news: I have been accepted into the MLIS program at Indiana University.  Which means (dunh dunh dunh) that I have a place to go in the fall!  I knew it was coming, but there is now an end in sight.  Although this one is still often obscured by the too-bright February sun (spring in winter!) or the foam of one too many lattes, there is an end.  It only follows that I will also be accepted elsewhere.  Even if not, I like the program at IU and will enthusiastically move to Bloomington in August. 

I will also be leaving my wonderful, temporary, frigid basement/dungeon room of the last ten months and cohabiting with Jamie soon.  We've sewn curtains.  Watch out.

Ayyyy, Cochecito

My car now sits in front of my house.  I received a call from the SPD during work, telling me that my car was found about five blocks from my house.  Weird, because it wasn't parked here when it was stolen and... wtf?  Why not joy ride it at least a little further away?  At least out of north Seattle or something.  Nothing was stolen (thank goodness the scuffed cds and old blanket were still there!).  The plastic around the steering column is gone, leaving wires and such indecently exposed.  The ignition doesn't work with the key, but after a little investigation, I figured out how to start it and why it's so easy to steal Civics.  Come on, Honda!  So I drove it home, and I hope it doesn't get stolen again--like a silver, Japanese sitting duck.

It's all strange.  There was barely any gas gone, nothing taken, not even the low quality cd player (that's probably why).  Now I get to deal with the insurance company and getting it fixed. 

My favorite part: the radio was tuned to Kube 93.3.  This makes me believe that it was several high school boys.

Hasta luego, Mexico

Once again, that letdown.  I'm back in Seattle, after an incredible trip, wanting to be back where I was twenty-four hours ago.  Of course, there will be next times, many of them.  As I left one wonderful place after another, I lamented the parting, consoling myself with, "Next time."  It is part promise, to the place, that I will return and uncover more.  It is part promise to myself, that I can find this feeling again.  The sentimentality, so soon forgotten.  I'm not sure if I have time in my life, were I to travel until the end, to experience everything I want to see, and return to the places to which I have whispered this promise.  During each step of the return journey (bus to Puerto Vallarta, airport, boarding plane), Jamie and I looked at each other, daring the other to make the choice not to return home so soon.  At a different juncture, I would not have returned so easily.  Alas, here I am.  How responsible.

I am left with daydreams of overnight buses to Mexico City, mole in Oaxaca, Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, arches on the Baja Peninsula.  Next time.