In the thick of the night / Take me out of the cold
First - greetings to the new people I have added. I don't have a fancy "get to know me" entry like some people do (when did those become en vogue, anyway?), but regardless, everything one needs to know about me is in my profile. I've been busy recently so I might be incommunicado here and there. Now, moving on....
I went for a walk this evening. Though it was getting late, the sun had not yet begun to set. It's clearly summer now, then. While I was out I took a look at the gardens... I found it strange how different the gardens are here in comparison to back home.
The plants are different. The streets nearby are narrow and lined with enormous trees, so everything is shady and cool down in there. So people plant begonias and impatiens, of course, but there are also all these unusual perennials that I hardly ever see, tiny pretty blue or white things that I can't identify, and some white variety of poppy that I can't name. Lily of the valley, too - I saw an enormous cluster of them in someone's garden today, and I stopped and stared at them a while, as I'd never seen them in real life before.
Don't see that kind of thing back home, not much. The streets are wide and unless you're close to the greenbelt the trees are small, so most places don't have a lot of shade cover. This means people tend to go for the showy sun-loving annuals - geraniums, petunias, marigolds, dahlias, alyssum. They're all right, nice if you want something that'll be very visible from the street, but... tends to get a bit dull after a while, seeing the same thing everywhere.
Ugh, I can hardly wait until I can move into a home, a real one, where I can have a garden. But that won't be for a long while yet. The best I can hope is that I'll get an apartment with a balcony, or maybe a really sunny window. Still, that would be an improvement over what I have now. Can't grow a damn thing in this apartment, not when I have to keep the curtains closed all the time - not just because of the heat, but also because I have a street-level apartment. But someday, yes, someday I might have a balcony. I could get myself some planters, maybe. Bright red geraniums and lobelia. The flowerbeds full of perennials will have to wait, unfortunately.
Spent much of this evening reading. I should do it more often; I've been very stressed out recently (again), and it helps me calm down. I've been making my way through Anderson's fairy tales, and soon after that I'll probably tackle another volume or two of Black Jack, or possibly Persepolis, as I now own both volumes. I studied Persepolis in a class a few years ago - it was on comics as literature - but we only did the second volume for reasons that I can't quite recall. Maybe just because my professor was a bit crazy. Anyway, I never got the chance to read the first volume until now.
On the fandom front, been keeping up with indexing, but haven't been writing. I've been trying, but my heart just hasn't been into it these past few days; I can barely get a sentence out. Well, I'll let it be for now, I suppose. I've other things to be thinking about. I might try editing some old things, though; polishing them up a bit. We'll see.
While I was out I came across a poster that caught my attention - an advertisement for the local pagan midsummer festival. I was surprised and pleased - tempted at first to look into it, but then decided, no. It would be awkward for me, and besides, it costs money to go - money I should save for other things. Best let it be. I'll celebrate Solstice by myself in my usual way (possibly with the new addition of firecrackers). Still, it does make me feel good, knowing that the community here is large enough that something like that can exist. In the other places I've lived, there weren't really enough people to support something like that. So, it's nice knowing I'm not alone.
I went for a walk this evening. Though it was getting late, the sun had not yet begun to set. It's clearly summer now, then. While I was out I took a look at the gardens... I found it strange how different the gardens are here in comparison to back home.
The plants are different. The streets nearby are narrow and lined with enormous trees, so everything is shady and cool down in there. So people plant begonias and impatiens, of course, but there are also all these unusual perennials that I hardly ever see, tiny pretty blue or white things that I can't identify, and some white variety of poppy that I can't name. Lily of the valley, too - I saw an enormous cluster of them in someone's garden today, and I stopped and stared at them a while, as I'd never seen them in real life before.
Don't see that kind of thing back home, not much. The streets are wide and unless you're close to the greenbelt the trees are small, so most places don't have a lot of shade cover. This means people tend to go for the showy sun-loving annuals - geraniums, petunias, marigolds, dahlias, alyssum. They're all right, nice if you want something that'll be very visible from the street, but... tends to get a bit dull after a while, seeing the same thing everywhere.
Ugh, I can hardly wait until I can move into a home, a real one, where I can have a garden. But that won't be for a long while yet. The best I can hope is that I'll get an apartment with a balcony, or maybe a really sunny window. Still, that would be an improvement over what I have now. Can't grow a damn thing in this apartment, not when I have to keep the curtains closed all the time - not just because of the heat, but also because I have a street-level apartment. But someday, yes, someday I might have a balcony. I could get myself some planters, maybe. Bright red geraniums and lobelia. The flowerbeds full of perennials will have to wait, unfortunately.
Spent much of this evening reading. I should do it more often; I've been very stressed out recently (again), and it helps me calm down. I've been making my way through Anderson's fairy tales, and soon after that I'll probably tackle another volume or two of Black Jack, or possibly Persepolis, as I now own both volumes. I studied Persepolis in a class a few years ago - it was on comics as literature - but we only did the second volume for reasons that I can't quite recall. Maybe just because my professor was a bit crazy. Anyway, I never got the chance to read the first volume until now.
On the fandom front, been keeping up with indexing, but haven't been writing. I've been trying, but my heart just hasn't been into it these past few days; I can barely get a sentence out. Well, I'll let it be for now, I suppose. I've other things to be thinking about. I might try editing some old things, though; polishing them up a bit. We'll see.
While I was out I came across a poster that caught my attention - an advertisement for the local pagan midsummer festival. I was surprised and pleased - tempted at first to look into it, but then decided, no. It would be awkward for me, and besides, it costs money to go - money I should save for other things. Best let it be. I'll celebrate Solstice by myself in my usual way (possibly with the new addition of firecrackers). Still, it does make me feel good, knowing that the community here is large enough that something like that can exist. In the other places I've lived, there weren't really enough people to support something like that. So, it's nice knowing I'm not alone.