Entries from September 2007 ↓

I didn’t really want to move out of my downtown Minneapolis apartment, but I had little choice. The management was getting worse by the day, I had no where to park my car that wasn’t threatened by towing (though I didn’t have to take the car, either, but life is better with a car), and most of my neighbors were creeps. I liked that I could walk to Target, however. I liked that I could meet Kristi for Happy Hour at the 8th Street Grille then stumble home. I liked the bus ride to work. I liked all of the SPACE of that large one bedroom apartment. I was happy there… but the surrounding environment worried me.

Of course, now I live in a teeny-tiny studio apartment on the southeastern edge of Uptown. Aside from the size and my insane cat (who might not have enough room to grow) it’s been great. I love my screened-in porch that Ellipses and I can enjoy together. I love my bathroom; it’s so much nicer than the bathroom in the downtown apartment. I love my new neighborhood: it’s quiet and residential and I don’t have to worry about getting run over by rush-hour drivers. I have my own parking spot, where I won’t get towed for parking illegally and I won’t have to worry about moving for snow emergencies. My house-mates are all girls and even though I haven’t met most of them, I’m 99% sure that they aren’t creeps. So, overall: living on Bryant Avenue is nicer than living on an exit for 394.

There is another bonus: Nature in the City. I am visited by neighborhood kitties, loads of squirrels and a variety of little, squeeky birds. I was thrilled on Tuesday night, when a family of three raccoons wandered into my backyard and hung out in my tree. And last night I was awestruck as I figured out what my neighborhood Cardinals were wildly discussing: an owl had stopped to rest. (I think it was a Boreal Owl.) I don’t think I’ve seen a live, not-in-a-zoo owl before.

I barely had any sort of nature when I lived downtown (in the year and three months that I lived there, I had a couple visits from Roundface and a couple mice and Reggie the Toad).

Just a couple videos I want to share with the world (which my instructor, Sarah Steil, shared with me/my class)…

… except on this little journal. I’m keeping myself busy with two classes, lots of work at the Bell, and petting Ellipses lately. I lost my free (stolen) wireless internet connection at home, which stinks. But that also means that I’ve been neglecting anything that isn’t homework (like editing/uploading the remainder of my photos from Washington and Canada). I have a problem: if the computer is on, I want to play with it. But I don’t necessarily want to be productive. So, without internet, I’m playing too many Bejeweled-esque games. It’s gotta stop.

My classes so far seem great! I’m taking a typography course (first assignment in the photo) and a general computer applications course (currently working on a sort of illustrated image book). My instructors aren’t that much older than me, and my classmates seem about a million years younger than me… but the experience I’ll get from these classes will be awesome. Hopefully awesome enough for a second go-round with graduate school admissions. Only time will tell.

Ellipses is good. He’s mad at me for being so busy and away from home lately. Yesterday he met my neighbor Amanda’s cat, Louie, through the screens on our porch. Lots of low growling and confused staring (and, actually, some yawning, too) but no kitty drama yet. I’m sure we’ll see Louie around the porch again.

This weekend is a going away party for Johanna, who is forsaking Minneapolis for Toledo, Ohio. The party will be great, the saying “farewell (for now!)” won’t.