Feeling of vertigo

First off, I’m gradually switching my web hosting over to shiftright.com, and transplanting my e-mail over is proving kind of tricky so be patient if you’re trying to send me mail over the next few days. Interestingly, the company is run by a guy I knew back in high school (but not actually from Memo) and I guess he was lucky with his timing that he told me about it just as I was reevaluating my hosting. (Hostica has been perfectly awesome for something like four years now, but they don’t offer shell access with any of their hosting plans, which I require, so the switch is unfortunate but inevitable.)

Anyway, it’s Labour Day weekend, which means I get tomorrow off of work. I can probably use it, since this weekend is already piled high.

Friday night I left work early to drive out to Leavenworth in order to visit a good friend and see her show… Leavenworth is one of those cities that exists pretty much only as a tourist destination (in fact, the city ordains that every shop must be Bavarian-themed in signage and decor, which makes for a rather ornate-looking McDonald’s logo) and their theatre festival runs all summer long and is a pretty big deal. As you can see, it’s more than a two-and-a-half hour drive from where I live by the numbers alone, but when you’re going up on the Friday of Labour Day weekend during rush hour those numbers are a bit under-inflated.

To get to Leavenworth you have to drive through mountains. Now I’ve driven around mountains before, both on the east coast and out here, but never anything like this. You are right in them, and the majesty of them all made it downright scary to drive at times. I’m peeling around curved highway, and to the right is a cliff-like slope that dwarfs the tallest New York skyscrapers, and to the left the earth simply drops away into unfathomable void. You get a bit of a feeling of vertigo, which doesn’t help when you’re trying to make good time in order to counterbalance Labour Day traffic. I do wish I’d brought my camera, as it was easily one of the most scenic places I’ve ever been… you really get a taste of the glory and insurmountability that made the ancient Greeks believe this was the sort of place the gods called home.

I saw the show and then wound up staying over at my friend’s place, so I spent Saturday with her touring around Leavenworth for a bit. Again, I wish I’d had my camera. We fed one of the three billy goats that lived under a bridge (yes, it’s that much of a storybook kind of town), went to The Hat Shoppe, and went to the trout hatchery to watch the fish swarm at the food pellets we threw. Mountains and rivers envelop everything… even though I see mountains around me every day out here, it feels like you’re visiting an entirely different continent when you’re actually in them. The drive home wasn’t any easier.

Today I would have slept in until about noon except I was woken up by another cheerful domestic disturbance in our complex. We seem to get the best types out here. I am starting to worry because my lease expires in a couple of months and I don’t want to renew it, but that means moving somewhere else and I haven’t even started looking for a new place. *sigh*

Today I need to do grocery shopping and tonight I have a birthday party to attend, then tomorrow I’ll probably try to take a day to do absolutely nothing for a change. That sounds nice.

I recently started reading books by Neil Gaiman, and my appreciation for him is growing rapidly, although I’ve had mixed results so far. Good Omens (cowritten by Terry Pratchett) was funny but was split into several storylines, and I found a couple of them to be extremely boring. Neverwhere was kind of plodding but told a really interesting story. I just finished Anansi Boys last night, and it was absolutely fantastic… I would recommend it in a heartbeat. Even when I don’t like his stuff, he’s a real craftsman and it’s thoroughly enjoyable to read such talented writing.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Have a good Labour Day, everyone!

Dan.

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