Branwyn's North Carolina: A Study in Shaky Crap Photos
I tend to spend a lot of time outside. Even now at this time of year, because, as bread_whore and silent_sybil and anyone else who's ever lived with me can attest, I have ice water in my veins and don't really perceive cold like normal human beings.
Lately, for no apparent reason, I've started carrying the digital camera around with me and taking pictures of the places where I spend the most time, such as Wendell Park and the Raleigh Rose Garden.
I thought I'd show them off to you guys, both because they're pretty and because yesterday I got lost in the woods as I was taking the second set of pictures and figure if it happens again one of you can tell the police where's the most likely place to find my body.
Hello and welcome to the Raleigh Rose Garden, the only civilized spot north of the Beltline. That white building is the Raleigh Little Theater, Raleigh's only pretention to culture. The theater's lord and master is Ira David Wood, Evan Rachel Wood's father. Raleigh has to grasp for distinction where it can, because unfortunately the statue on the lawn of the Capitol building looks nothing like Clive Owen.
The view from the picnic table where I normally sit.
You only actually get to see the roses if you get up and walk a bit, though.
Every freakin' time I go there I find myself dodging photographers and grumpy people in formalwear getting their wedding portraits made.
UNEXPECTED ROSE.
So yesterday I had this adventure, where I'm strolling through the woods on the "nature trail" in Wendell Park, and I veer off from the path a little bit and discover a dip of clear land between two stands of trees. There's a road stretching as far as the eye can see in both directions, and no houses or people in sight. A startling reminder that, by most people's standards, I actually do live in the country.
It was about an hour or so from nightfall, but what could I do? I couldn't not see where it went.
At the point where I came out of the woods, startling a bunch of deer. The road, stretching behind me.
And the road before me.
I walked about half a mile before I came to a fork. One way went straight ahead, the other up a fairly steep hill. Which I climbed.
On one side it was green and groomed and stuff.
On the other side it was...scrubby. And kind of eerie, the further in you went.
There was a clear sort of path thing that I followed for a bit, until I saw what looked like a road sign in the distance. At which point I turned back and took the path filled with mudpuddles.
I followed that path to its end. It ended up going down the side of the hill again, and I started walking back the way I'd come, and at a brisk pace, although it didn't stop me getting lost and turned around in the middle of the woods in the pitch black.
I was listening to "Zagreus" on my iPod the whole time and since I already felt a bit like I'd wandered into another dimension it did occur to me to keep a weather eye out for a materializing police box somewhere near the top of the bluff.
And then, randomly, because I can: my sophomore year of college, I had a slight...obsession with Shakespeare and Ophelia and may have written a honking huge paper that never went anywhere but anyway the point is that I had
My very impressive poster collection (that half of the desk was mine, that's my old, dead laptop sitting there, and my inveterate collection of post-it notes and poems and postcards and things that accumulate whenever I nest somewhere).
My Ophelia installation art. The doll in the bowl was actually presented to me in a sealed Tupperware container full of water, as a Christmas present from bread_whore. She was later transferred to a large pickle jar, and then to a huge martini glass. I made that willow wreathe myself, cause that's the sort of person I was at 19.
That's the view of the mountains I had from my windows my freshman year.
Lately, for no apparent reason, I've started carrying the digital camera around with me and taking pictures of the places where I spend the most time, such as Wendell Park and the Raleigh Rose Garden.
I thought I'd show them off to you guys, both because they're pretty and because yesterday I got lost in the woods as I was taking the second set of pictures and figure if it happens again one of you can tell the police where's the most likely place to find my body.
Hello and welcome to the Raleigh Rose Garden, the only civilized spot north of the Beltline. That white building is the Raleigh Little Theater, Raleigh's only pretention to culture. The theater's lord and master is Ira David Wood, Evan Rachel Wood's father. Raleigh has to grasp for distinction where it can, because unfortunately the statue on the lawn of the Capitol building looks nothing like Clive Owen.
The view from the picnic table where I normally sit.
You only actually get to see the roses if you get up and walk a bit, though.
Every freakin' time I go there I find myself dodging photographers and grumpy people in formalwear getting their wedding portraits made.
UNEXPECTED ROSE.
So yesterday I had this adventure, where I'm strolling through the woods on the "nature trail" in Wendell Park, and I veer off from the path a little bit and discover a dip of clear land between two stands of trees. There's a road stretching as far as the eye can see in both directions, and no houses or people in sight. A startling reminder that, by most people's standards, I actually do live in the country.
It was about an hour or so from nightfall, but what could I do? I couldn't not see where it went.
At the point where I came out of the woods, startling a bunch of deer. The road, stretching behind me.
And the road before me.
I walked about half a mile before I came to a fork. One way went straight ahead, the other up a fairly steep hill. Which I climbed.
On one side it was green and groomed and stuff.
On the other side it was...scrubby. And kind of eerie, the further in you went.
There was a clear sort of path thing that I followed for a bit, until I saw what looked like a road sign in the distance. At which point I turned back and took the path filled with mudpuddles.
I followed that path to its end. It ended up going down the side of the hill again, and I started walking back the way I'd come, and at a brisk pace, although it didn't stop me getting lost and turned around in the middle of the woods in the pitch black.
I was listening to "Zagreus" on my iPod the whole time and since I already felt a bit like I'd wandered into another dimension it did occur to me to keep a weather eye out for a materializing police box somewhere near the top of the bluff.
And then, randomly, because I can: my sophomore year of college, I had a slight...obsession with Shakespeare and Ophelia and may have written a honking huge paper that never went anywhere but anyway the point is that I had
My very impressive poster collection (that half of the desk was mine, that's my old, dead laptop sitting there, and my inveterate collection of post-it notes and poems and postcards and things that accumulate whenever I nest somewhere).
My Ophelia installation art. The doll in the bowl was actually presented to me in a sealed Tupperware container full of water, as a Christmas present from bread_whore. She was later transferred to a large pickle jar, and then to a huge martini glass. I made that willow wreathe myself, cause that's the sort of person I was at 19.
That's the view of the mountains I had from my windows my freshman year.