New laptop!

Yesss… At last.

Heave a sigh of relief and stomp your feet

You know what? I’ve complained heaps and tons about Bellingham, about how I’ve been here forever, about how I’m going to die here, and about how all these crazy yuppie developers are taking over my town and turning it into yuppie/retiree city. Yes. These complaints are not particularly related, I know. But still. Sometimes I get feisty, and when I do, I don’t necessarily check my facts.

Lately, though, I notice I’ve been developing a certain fondness for Bellingham-as-she-is–not Bellingham, “my hometown,” or Bellingham, “that place I’ve lived since the beginning of time”–and I’m learning not to take this lovely town, sandwiched elegantly between the water and the mountains, for granted.

Mostly, the spectacular music scene has brought this to my attention, and the fact that, for every venue/store that closes (Smash Your Guitar, Viva La Vinyl, the 3B, The Factory), another good one opens (Acoustic Tavern, Chiribin’s, the Nightlight)–and by the other fact that, for all my bitching about Cellophane morphing into Everyday Music, I was just humbled by the discovery that Everyday Music has this fantastic Local Music section, chock full of bands you know and love and have seen at the Wild Buffalo, or have never heard of and can’t possibly imagine being interested in (who knew Bellingham had its very own white rapper?).

There are Mondays at Boundary Bay with the Gallus Brothers. Perpetual Open Mic at the Acoustic Tavern. Pretty big-name bands at the Nightlight, and little local nobodies at Fantasia, where they lend floorspace to artists just starting out. I am presently taken with The Tanglers (how does one describe their music? Accordian, banjo, bass–that’s the best I can do. Haunting) and Pirates R Us (“songs of modern piracy”).

Even the development doesn’t seem quite so bad. Fairhaven looks different, sure but reduced view of the bay and all, I have to admit that it looks gorgeous. Even the new Starbucks on Railroad lends an interesting element to the downtown atmosphere. There’s no excuse, still, for the monstrosity they’re turning the Bellingham Inn into (an improvment, perhaps, but an ugly one), but the Farmer’s Market, even with the coming structure running behind schedule, looks great this year. Big. Organized. Big. Overwhelming, for all five senses.

Mitch has also brought it to my attention recently that I’d probably die of loneliness if we moved somewhere where I didn’t know the name of one third of the people I encounter on a daily basis–the kind folks who pour my coffee, refill my wine, recommend books for me–and where I didn’t stand the chance of running into somebody I know every time I leave the house.

This used to terrify me–the small talk that so often ensues whenever somebody taps my shoulder at the Newsstand and says my name in that distinct tone of surprise–but I’ve met so many stellar people in the past year or so that more often than not, I’m happy to stop and chat. Undoubtedly, somebody will say something interesting and the conversation will evolve into an exchange worth pursuing, rather than follow the “haven’t seen you in years” formula:

Person 1: So…what’ve you been up to?
Person 2: Oh, you know, um–not much. Working [or school]. You?
Person 1: The same.
and so on.

Painful. Really.

All this I was realizing yesterday, as I wandered aimlessly around downtown on foot, drinking far too much coffee in far too many coffeeshops, and I admit that the sunlight probably had an awful lot to do with my gracious mood. But really, I do love it here, and I think I’m learning that Bellingham will be what it will be. It’s a town, after all, and it cannot cater solely to me.

Heck yes

I don’t think I’ve mentioned, here on the bloggiest of blogs, that I’m getting a new guitar. Yes! It’s true. A friend of mine, who was once my high school chemistry teacher, is building a guitar for me and I am so excited that I occasionally burst out in spontaneous dance. He just sent photos. Here they are:

The neck | The sides

The Pacific Northwest strikes again

My Beck CD went missing. It occurred to me yesterday to check under the front passenger seat of the car.

Now, since we bought our trusty Subaru, there’s been a mysterious water leak on the floor directly behind the front seat that we assumed was coming from the back door somehow. When we were commuting every day for work and/or school, this didn’t matter much, because we were at least somewhat diligent about airing out the floor mats and letting the carpet dry.

In this winter of buses and biking and foot travel, I’m not sure we’ve even looked under the front seat since August.

I looked under the front seat yesterday.

There were honest-to-goodness mushrooms growing in the floor of our car.

Tomorrow night, at Fantasia…

…I’ll be having a show. Starts at 7pm, Thursday Apr. 13, at Fantasia Espresso & Tea on Cornwall Ave. It’ll be a good ole time, I promise–I’ve been practicing my stage patter. Got some really good knock knock jokes lined up, and a bitchin’ fake mustache for “flair” (really? No, sorry. Just kidding about the knock knock jokes).

It’s been a long time (but not that long)

So. As you may have gathered from reading my previous posts, I’ve spent more time recently playing guitar and writing songs than I have blogging, but I thought I’d do you the decency of a catch-up post. I am cyclical with my hobbies–for months straight, I will make more jewelry than the entire town of Bellingham could wear in a year, and then I will drop that in favor of novel-writing and blogging, which will hold my interest for, say, six months, before losing me to music.

I am now lost to music.

As well as playing a few shows and open mics around town, I have been teaching myself to play the harmonica, which was a hobby picked up last summer and then dropped until last month. For this, I’m sure my neighbors hate me. In case they can tolerate the harmonica, I’ve also picked up the spoons.

That’s right. The spoons.

Yesterday Morgan came over and we made breakfast and then we sat around for something like forty-five minutes, teaching ourselves to play the spoons. It was glorious.

Speaking of breakfast, Mitch and I saw V for Vendetta on Friday, and I am now all about making “eggy in the basket.” Formerly, my favorite weekend breakfast has been two eggs fried over medium (I’ve gotten quite good at this: the yolks should be just barely runny, and slightly salt- and peppered) with a cup of black coffee.

Now I love “eggy in the basket.”

And I do really think you should see V for Vendetta. Very good, I thought, though you never could accuse the Wachowski brothers of understatement. If you’re expecting lots of action, you’ll wait until the last, oh, ten minutes of the movie but then–goodness. You’ll get it.

Since we’re on movies, I finally (finally–this is shameful) saw the extended versions of both The Two Towers and The Return of the King. We had an honest-to-nerdliness LOTR marathon with some friends last weekend, and even though we skipped The Fellowship and started with Towers, we still logged something like eight hours in front of the TV, drinking and eating too much fancy cheese. It was great.

And at last, it’s here. My birthday month. I’ve been making jokes all weekend about kicking off the “thirty days of Thea” celebration, but nobody seems to be buying the idea that we ought to start celebrating now. My mom, whose birthday is two days after mine, actually told me the other day that I was getting old. Twenty-three. She said that’s almost twenty-five, which is almost thirty. I’m not scared of thirty.

I did point out, though, how old she‘ll be.

In closing, I give you a photo of the kitties, who are precious as ever, and big. And, apparently, alarmed.