My only aunt on my father's side is in a bad way. She has been there for quite some time now, having battled three different kinds of cancer. She is not expected to last the next week. Two if time stretches.

It's hard to put in to words what this women meant to me. I only ever saw her maybe once every few years and increasingly not even then ( Read more... )

Change is on the air. I can almost smell it, like petrichor after the rain.

I spent last weekend in Portland finding bits and pieces of myself. A shimmer under a rock over there, a speck on a shadow fading away as I reach out, a birds feather floating down to rest in my palm. It was an event called the World Domination Summit and it restored a bit ( Read more... )

I can finally feel the delicate whisper of spring finally finally sweeping in. For all that I am still voiceless with a nasty cold and winter clothes strewn about, clompy snow boots by the door and rain jacket hung in near proximity, I am finally starting to feel a hint of warmth settle into my bones.

Today is the first day I have been able to ( Read more... )

It took less than a day to lose my voice; the evening of day one, in fact. But here I am, in Paris. It doesn't really feel much like I am in Paris because I have been having really chill days hanging out in my friend's apartment for the most part. I haven't done a single touristy thing yet. And unsurprisingly I'm ok with that. I'm sure eventually ( Read more... )

My weekend was pretty darn great. I won VIP tickets to see X Japan at Madison Square Garden. I already had a floor ticket so I was going one way or the other but I can't say no to VIP!! Thus I found myself Saturday night front row on the left-hand side of the stage against the railing about as close to the stage one can get as an audience member. ( Read more... )

A quick note: I give up on Sri Lankan visas. I have called the ETA people three times in Sri Lanka (nope, can't help - call Immigration), Immigration so many times it's not even funny (got through once, didn't happen, and then busy, busy, busy all day because I suspect someone left their phone that way on purpose??), and I even stopped in to the ( Read more... )

For the first time since I've moved to D.C. I went to the Mall and watched the fireworks in the most touristy area of the city. Space was acquired on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and I had a great view of the fireworks show straight ahead of me with the Washington Monument a bit off to the right. It seemed quite patriotic, really, and I was ( Read more... )

I'm on my second full week of work now and starting to settle in, just a bit. It is full of reporting and reconciliation and trying to make databases talk to one another. It seems to be a far more technical job than my last but I think I will learn a lot from it. I am also trying to see it as a way to broaden my work experience into humanitarian ( Read more... )

I had a really nice weekend. Saturday I had a picnic with one of my very good D.C. friends at a lovely European-style park near my house. We ate wraps and popcorn and iced coffee and made friends with a squirrel brave enough to come close enough for us to throw him some popcorn. And we talked about inconsequential things as the breeze blew gently ( Read more... )

Tonight was one of those nights where everything seemed to work out and a dreamy pall was cast upon everything. My flatmate/best friend and I went out for dinner at our usual haunt a couple blocks away and I just had the perfect meal. It was one of those times where you ordered exactly what you wanted and it came out exactly as you had hoped for. ( Read more... )