swordBeatsPaper

There is a possibility I will have to postpone my flight.

Let’s start at the beginning. The US made changes to their student loan system this summer, so they didn’t let me apply for a loan until July. After that, it took my school a while to send me the official papers that say I have a confirmed loan. I had to send those papers to the UK Border Agency in Los Angeles with my visa application (on top of that, I had to send them my original passport). This whole process led to me sending in my visa application a little later than I’d hoped. They told me it would be 5 to 15 days processing, plus return mail time. They’re going to send me an email with a UPS tracking number when they put my visa and passport in the mail.

Let me make this clear. They do not talk to you about the status of your application. There is no email to contact. If you want to call to ask questions, you don’t talk to the people in LA, you talk to some other person who doesn’t know a thing about your specific application. And you are charged by the minute.

Yesterday was the 15th business day, and I still haven’t heard anything. Since their offices are in LA, that’s about 2 to 3 days mailing time. My flight is this Sunday. If I don’t hear anything by email today, I’m going to have to change my flight. I better hear something by Friday, so that I know the date I can change my flight to. I’m really hoping this whole thing isn’t going to be terribly expensive.

The good thing is, the only things I’ll be missing in Scotland are those silly introductory talks and icebreaker socials. I would be able to go to PAX, the gaming convention here in Seattle, instead of flying, since my dad already has tickets. I just hope I won’t have to reschedule my adviser appointment, which is in about a week at my university in Scotland.

The thing that bothers me the most is that this is not my fault at all. It’s the government’s. Their different agencies do not talk to each other. I really shouldn’t have to pay whatever fees Travelocity makes me pay.

By the way, this is my first post at my new URL (paperbackdragon.blogspot.com)! Check back soon for an update on my travel plans.

Photo: A shot I took from our friend’s houseboat on Lake Union this past weekend. How I wish I was on that plane…

Some people don’t like airplanes because of their fear of crashing, or the stress of travel, or the lousy complimentary peanuts and pretzels. I, on the other hand, enjoy flying very much, and it’s not necessarily because I find it a thrill, or because I like airplane food.

Once you’re seated, all of your bags are packed, allowed on the plane, and stowed away safely. There is absolutely nothing you are supposed to be doing. No work, no cleaning, no need to look at that to-do list. It’s free time to do whatever makes you happy, whether it’s sleep, reading, writing, listening to music, or bothering your neighbor. You still don’t really know what it’s like to be at your destination, so all of your hopes for your travels are still possible. The little time it does take to fly across the world on an airplane still gives you some in-between time to adjust being in a new place. If we ever manage to find an instantaneous way to travel, it would be hard on people, I think. BAM you’re in Italy, BAM you’re in Alaska, BAM you’re in South Africa. We need time between our source and destination to adjust.

I’m telling you all of this because I’m really wishing I was on my plane right now. My room would be all packed up and ready to store or take with me, my manuscript editing would be done, and I would have received my passport and UK visa in the mail (which they still haven’t mailed to me, and you can’t contact them about the status of your visa, which is worrying me a little too much). But perhaps I need this time, like I was saying, to transition. If my room was sorted and packed instantly for me, I would feel less like I was letting go of old things to make room for new. The ritual of it is probably good for me, despite the looming hours of hard decisions.

One week from tomorrow I will board the plane to Scotland.

Eleven days and a wake-up.

Then I board the plane to Scotland.

It’s a little unreal. I haven’t packed yet. We did a garage sale this past weekend, but I didn’t sell much more than an old HitClips keychain music player and a Russian nesting doll shaped like a cat (the smallest doll inside it was a mouse). My mother sold more of her stuff. We’ve started going through old photos and other boxes, since my mother’s moving too, in about a month. But it doesn’t really feel like I’m leaving. Sure, when I went to Canada, it felt like a big step. I was finally leaving home to live somewhere else for a while. But this time? When I come back, my house won’t be here. There will be people I can stay with, but the building that really feels like home won’t be mine anymore. You could say that I’m officially moving out.

I’ve moved a lot in my life, and not just houses. I went to three different elementary schools, two different middle schools, and then I got out of high school early (sort of) and went to community college. Now, I’m going to my second university. I can’t say that I’m used to it, but I’ve done this before. Leaving everything I know behind and starting new, making new friends along the way. But before, it was all around the Pacific Northwest. This time, it’s halfway across the world.

It’s been a dream of mine to spend time somewhere in the UK or Ireland. A lifelong dream. Sure, I’m not that old. But I’ve had this dream since before I can remember. Now that it’s here, I constantly wonder. Will it be as amazing as I hope?

ATTTENTION: I have made the decision to move my blog to a new URL in about a week, just before I leave for Scotland, to paperbackdragon.blogspot.com. There will be one or two more blogs from me in the meantime, at the current URL. I’ll keep you posted.

Photo: The Doctor’s red converse. If you’re a Whovian, you’ll know what I mean. I’ve started taking more photos these days, since I got a new camera. This one I used as my “deviant ID” on the new account I started at deviantart.com. Go check out my photos. I’ll leave a link on the left side of my blog, too. I may post more photos there before too long.

In the past few days, I’ve been considering changing my twitter username. @robotofdoom is a rather dead inside joke for me now, and it doesn’t really reflect who I am. I also want to make this name consistent across all the other social networking sites I use, including blogger. I want a name that sticks, like @coollike and @nerimon have (who are worth looking into). As I mentioned in my last blog, I’ve also been starting to collect dragon things. So, I want to have my name be dragon-themed, if possible.

While I was brainstorming about this new online name, I remembered the children’s book I used to read and love, the Paper Bag Princess. I forgot the story, so I went and looked it up. It’s the typical save-the-girl-from-the-dragon story, but with a gender role switch. Prince Ronald, the betrothed of Princess Elizabeth (which is my middle name, interestingly enough) is taken away by the dragon. The dragon also burns all her clothes, so she is forced to wear a paper bag. Princess Elizabeth tricks the dragon into flying around the world, burning all the forests, but then the dragon tires out and sleeps, and she is able to sneak into its lair and take back Prince Ronald. But by this time, her prince does not think she looks like a princess anymore. So, she leaves him behind, deciding she’s better off without him.

I’m falling in love with this story all over again, so I thought of making my new name @paperbagdragon. But I realized that rhymes with @paperbackdragon, which I think I like better. I prefer paperback books to hardback books, and I like to horde them like a dragon hordes jewels.

Look out for my new “handle,” paperbackdragon.

I do not like summer for the one thing most people associate it with.

Heat.

If summer was not hot, but perhaps occasionally mild and sunny, I would be happy. Summer, to me, does not mean just warmer weather. It means a break from work, perhaps a vacation, time for things you don’t otherwise have time for. And this summer, though it seems like it with my writing, I’m not working that much. I couldn’t even really get a job. So I don’t need this much heat, making me feel like I couldn’t get anything done even if I wanted to.

Sun is good, I know. It keeps you from getting too depressed, and it occasionally makes your skin less pale, even if that means lobster-red instead. But it’s not good when it’s making you sweat and keeping you from going anywhere. And it’s worse when you don’t have anyone to fry in the sun with. So, if I’m going to spend my summers alone, especially when I want to get work done, I want it to be cooler.

It’s another reason Scotland is the place for me to be, I suppose. Apparently their summers are cooler than Seattle’s summers, which I bet is hard to believe for most people. Even for me, it is. But it’s also appealing.

I’ve also been working–but not too much–on getting rid of stuff. It’s necessary since, for all intents and purposes, I’m permanently moving out this September. One box I found was the one with all my Ty Beanie Babies. Remember those good ol’ days? I found a dragon that I forgot I had, which I am definitely keeping, but otherwise I’m going to try to sell them at our garage sale next weekend (if you are interested in any, please let me know, and I can send you a list of the ones I have). It’s sad to see them go, but all I can do with them at this point is put the box back in a closet somewhere, and they deserve to be loved.

I have four chapters left of my book to revise, and then I’ll give it a once-over and call the second draft done. The more meticulous third draft is far off on the horizon.

Stay cool! If you’re in the northern hemisphere, anyway.

CLICK HERE for the final installment of my Elizabeth Muir story and tell me what you think in the blog comments. Or, if you haven’t read all the other parts, please do. It didn’t end like I expected it to, but I suppose how it was meant to.

Photo: Scorch, the Ty Beanie Baby that I found in the box. I’ve decided I want to start collecting dragon things. I already have a good start, considering my necklace, poster, mini-statue, and grocery bag. Here is the poem in Scorch’s tag, which I thought was incredibly cute:

A magical mystery with glowing wings
Made by wizards and other things
Known to breathe fire with lots of smoke
Scorch is really a friendly ol’ bloke!

My short trip to Portland, Oregon was, in every sense of the word, wonderful. The weather (which is a perfectly fine starting point for any conversation, in my opinion) was rather cool most of the time, but the sun would make its appearances. On one such afternoon, I sat outside with my godparents eating dinner, and we watched a squirrel pluck a golden plum from their tree and eat it down to the core. Their cats are the sweetest things, one named Mr. Whiskers and the other Sweetie Pie. They get along quite well, occasionally grooming each other or racing around the house like madbeasts (I think fantasy-fiction vocabulary is getting to me). These two are relatively new, because when my godparents married, one had four cats and the other had two, and so they had their six cats for many years. Over time it dwindled down to one, Smokey, or Pokey as she was affectionately called, until she passed away recently. These two are the new felines in the house.

For some reason I consider Portland more of a “cat” city and Seattle more of a “dog” city. Maybe I’m biased because our closest family friends in Portland have cats, and I see a lot of dog walkers around Seattle. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of dogs in Portland as well. But Portland feels more laid back, content to just be. Like a cat. Sitting and watching a squirrel eat a plum, or people-watching in Peet’s Coffee & Tea, or browsing Powell’s bookstore, is a fine way to spend your day. In contrast, Seattle is more like an energetic dog, always something to do, somewhere to go. Eat, sleep, run around, poo, meet people, eat, sleep.

Speaking of Powell’s, we stopped there briefly on our way back from Seattle, and I picked up their free “Map & Guide to Powell’s City of Books.” It almost looks like an old graphic novel, all pretend-faded and everything. It was too cute not to take. Free stuff = good. The back claims “Once you visit… you won’t want to leave the City of Books!” I have to agree. The main store downtown has 77,000 sqft of space, 4 floors, and an amazingly organized system. Even their Neil Gaiman section had the largest selection of his works I’d ever seen in one bookstore. The Gold and Coffee Rooms, “Scenes of Discovery in ‘Golden Grounds'” (as the pamphlet advertises) are by far my favorite. Sci-fi/Fantasy/Manga/Mysteries right next to the coffee. Score.

There is one book in particular that has caught my eye recently, if only because I see it everywhere and I can’t help but be drawn in by the title, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. I haven’t seen the movie, I want to read the book first. I went to try and put a hold on it at the library, and I was number 600 in the hold’s list, and they had over 200 copies. Outrageous. My godmother found an article in The Oregonian about their local library having over 1,000 holds on this book, and being unable to keep up with the number of copies they need to buy. So, people have to be prepared to wait quite a while to get their hands on it. Instead of waiting an obscene amount of time, I decided to buy it, since it is out in paperback, at the local Barnes & Noble. I’ve heard its a gripping thriller, so I’m going to save it for my long plane flight to Scotland, and hopefully I’ll be able to get a break from the feelings of extreme excitement and fear I’m certain to have that day. Though, it is a thriller novel. Please share anything you’ve heard about this book in the comments! Was it worth a buy?

If you haven’t seen it yet, CLICK HERE to read the three parts of my new blog-story, with more to come (no new parts if you’ve been keeping up, I’ll get one up in the next day or two).

Photo: From the left, Mr. Whiskers and Sweetie Pie zonked out on the guest bed. My godmother quilted the comforter.

Let’s see, where are we… I’ve started the arduous process of getting a UK visa, finished Anansi Boys, and not been in the right frame of mind for writing, so didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. But I did go somewhere interesting last weekend.

Mom and I met with her cousin at Teahouse Kuan Yin, a marvelous little shop in Wallingford (for those not in Washington, it’s a little neighborhood of Seattle). They have hundreds of teas, most of them served loose-leaf in a teapot on a tray. Also on the tray is a small hourglass telling you when the tea is done steeping, tiny little cups, and a strainer. You put the strainer over the cup while you pour the tea to catch the tea leaves. I’ve been told this is the “English” way of making tea. Or possibly the “correct” way. They even put a tea cosy over the pot. I’ve never seen one in a cafe before. I bet I’ll see another one soon enough.

If you ever go to the Wallingford or Fremont area and you like Japanese food, there are about four Japanese restaurants on this one street, not even a block away from each other. One of them is dingy-looking, one is quite fancy, and the two others are very reasonable and very delicious. The one we always go to, Musashi’s, was closed for lunch, but the one a few buildings down–Kozue, I think–was open, taking advantage of the other Japanese restaurants being closed. It’s typical for a Japanese restaurant to close from about 3pm to 5pm, before dinner. For some reason I’d never been to this other place, and I was glad to discover it was nearly as good as Musashi’s. I ordered hamachi, albacore, and salmon nigiri, and ate the omusubi that came with my mom’s nabeyaki udon. Yum…

CLICK HERE to see the new installment of my short story blog, in which Elizabeth learns of another meaning for the word ‘brownie.’ Or catch up and read the other parts, too.

Photo: Another picture from my Rattlesnake Ledge hike. I thought it looked rather Japanese. I rather liked it.

So, today I was reading Anansi Boys, the sequel to American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, and his amazing writing got me inspired to try something new. It’s going to be a new blog, entitled “The Story of Elizabeth Muir, and Other Sudden Inspirations.” I want an outlet for stories and maybe even poems that aren’t related to my big novel project. I have a desire to write new things, and I haven’t been doing that, since I’m editing my novel. The first major story I want to write for this new blog will be in multiple installments, the number of which I don’t know yet, since the whole story isn’t planned out. I’ll just go post by post, and see what happens. Here is the link for my new blog. I may post every day for a while, or once a month, I don’t really know. It’s just an experiment. But I highly encourage you to check it out, and give me feedback (perhaps in comments)! I have links to it also on the left side of the page, and you can see there when I post new segments of the story. It’s the one way you can read stuff I’ve written, since my novel isn’t really going to be available for that until it’s published. One day.

I hadn’t gone hiking in months, and I had a free day with my dad today, so we decided to go. My dad went on a hike a few weeks earlier to Rattlesnake Ledge with a group of friends, and so he suggested we try it again. The hike was very popular, and we passed by people speaking many different languages. Most I couldn’t make out, but I recognized German, more Eastern European ones, and some Asian ones. Dad speculated that it was because this hike was popular with tourists. Or perhaps, this area was more diverse than I thought. There were crazy people that ran the whole way up and down, old folks in great shape maneuvering with hiking poles, large families, small groups of friends, couples, and what I guessed was a boy scout group of some kind. There were lots of kids and dogs. Some people nod to you, some smile and say hi, some only glance. I like people-watching on hikes as much as I do at coffee shops.

The views at the top were just spectacular. It was a large rocky ledge, with almost 360 degree panoramic views of the Snoqualmie River valley and the gorgeous Rattlesnake Lake below at the trailhead. Even the ledge was packed with people. There was a large crevasse in the middle, and you had to be careful when you jumped over it (if you were brave) or went around it (if you weren’t). While we sat and enjoyed the view and some trail mix–which is always necessary on a hike–we met a dog whose owner had been to Glasgow once. He shared a story about how he got lost and stopped in Glasgow for direcitons, but for the life of him couldn’t understand this Pakistani man with a thick Glaswegian accent. Near the end of the climb to the ledge I was exhausted, but I surpsied myself at how quickly a 4-mile round-trip hike went by, with less pain and breathlessness than I expected. The way down was really easy. If you’re ever in Seattle, look this place up. It’s worth a visit.

Also, yesterday, I completely filled my first 70-page notebook, the one I started three years ago. I decided I want to try and fill up an entire new one before I leave in September, so that Scotland will have its own notebook. If I do 3 pages of freewriting a day, I should be able to do it! Now that I’ve told you, hopefully I’ll be more likely to do it… Tomorrow, I am thus going to start a new notebook, which I always love doing… I chose the orange one, by the way. If you were wondering.

Photo: Part of the view of the Snoqualmie River valley from the top of Rattlesnake Ledge.

The novel’s going well. I’m getting more done this week than I expected. Either I work through a whole chapter, editing bits here and there, or I’m rewriting scenes, doing at least 500 words/day. I got through three chapters this week, 10-12. If I have 27 chapters, at this rate, I’d be done… *gets out calculator*… by the end of the summer! That’d be awesome if I could keep up this pace…

In other news, I’ve gotten my UK Visa started, and I set up my appointment for them to get my “biometric data,” a.k.a. fingerprints. I waited this long because the way they set up school loans changed in July, and I couldn’t start that process until then. But now things are moving. As long as I don’t get worried about it, red tape is almost exciting, since I can’t really do anything else to prepare for Scotland. Except clean out my room. Which I don’t want to do.

I don’t really have anything big and amazing to talk about, since I’ve mostly been an anti-social hermit this week (not that I can be anything else, with most of my friends either miles away or so busy they can’t hang out). But I feel like I want to make a plug for a new musician I’ve discovered. Her name is Amanda Palmer, and she’s engaged to my favorite author, Neil Gaiman. They make the cutest couple, by the way. Crazy rock star meets thoughtful, quiet writer. I think they mirror each other’s inner personality. You can follow them both on twitter, @neilhimself and @amandapalmer. Amanda Palmer, former member of the Dresden Dolls, has been releasing solo stuff, and her newest EP is a few covers of Radiohead songs on her ukelele. The whole thing is available online (not in CD format), for 84 cents. For the whole album. It’s exactly how much it costs them per EP, partly to pay Radiohead to be able to cover their songs. They make it easy for you to pay more than that, in case you’re feeling generous, which I did. I’m always happy to support musicians, especially one with this much heart and soul in her work, not afraid to be who she wants to be. Check it out.

She makes me want to get a ukelele and learn how to play it.

Photo: The cover of Amanda Palmer’s EP, the vinyl version. “Amanda Palmer performs the popular hits of Radiohead on her magical ukelele.” Quite a title.