(no subject)
I greatly enjoyed my evening constitutional, as usual.
I've been trying to make a habit of walking every night, since there's no more chill in the air to bruise and bite me, thus I have no excuse... and there are such nice things to look at, too.
I've been exploring the streets in my general neighborhood, admiring the excessive turn-of-the-century architecture of the old houses, which ranges from handsome to downright weird. Of course, they are only what passes for "old" in this country -- 100 years or so.
The houses I like most are from 1865 through 1915 or so. (As with the literature I like best, and the art...) The period of the 1880s-1890s is the best in American Victorian architecture, I think, especially the styles known as Queen Anne (I prefer Masonry to Carpenter Queen Anne), Chateauesque, and Second Empire.
Here are two pretties to admire, from where I was just walking tonight. These aren't my photos of course, since it was dark, but I found the addresses online.
Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
And one famously weird one in the same area, not exactly to my taste but certainly...eyecatching:
Exhibit C
They don't look it in the pictures somehow, but these are very big houses. At least by my impoverished standards.
Like _siddal_, I've enjoyed smelling the sometimes sweet/sometime strange fragrances of blooming flowers and trees on my walks. Lilac is my favorite, though it's over now. I can't identify many of the other smells; I think I smelled honeysuckle back in May.
Earlier in the spring, the air was alive with what seemed like simply hundreds of delicate, beckoning, magical floral scents, but as the year turns towards summer this has changed, and now I detect powerful "green" smells, unpleasant "doggy" smells, and many more which I can't classify. But tonight and last night, I noticed there's something blooming which smells very much like -- I'm not kidding -- semen. Which I suppose could be good or bad, depending on your perspective.
I've been trying to make a habit of walking every night, since there's no more chill in the air to bruise and bite me, thus I have no excuse... and there are such nice things to look at, too.
I've been exploring the streets in my general neighborhood, admiring the excessive turn-of-the-century architecture of the old houses, which ranges from handsome to downright weird. Of course, they are only what passes for "old" in this country -- 100 years or so.
The houses I like most are from 1865 through 1915 or so. (As with the literature I like best, and the art...) The period of the 1880s-1890s is the best in American Victorian architecture, I think, especially the styles known as Queen Anne (I prefer Masonry to Carpenter Queen Anne), Chateauesque, and Second Empire.
Here are two pretties to admire, from where I was just walking tonight. These aren't my photos of course, since it was dark, but I found the addresses online.
Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
And one famously weird one in the same area, not exactly to my taste but certainly...eyecatching:
Exhibit C
They don't look it in the pictures somehow, but these are very big houses. At least by my impoverished standards.
Like _siddal_, I've enjoyed smelling the sometimes sweet/sometime strange fragrances of blooming flowers and trees on my walks. Lilac is my favorite, though it's over now. I can't identify many of the other smells; I think I smelled honeysuckle back in May.
Earlier in the spring, the air was alive with what seemed like simply hundreds of delicate, beckoning, magical floral scents, but as the year turns towards summer this has changed, and now I detect powerful "green" smells, unpleasant "doggy" smells, and many more which I can't classify. But tonight and last night, I noticed there's something blooming which smells very much like -- I'm not kidding -- semen. Which I suppose could be good or bad, depending on your perspective.