It’s frickin’ AUGUST. I am officially panicking about the move. I had planned to be half packed by now, with most of my belongings neatly stored in (labelled, documented) boxes and ready to go into storage. I have .. not done this. I half-heartedly packed some boxes this week, but it’s just stressing me out even more beccause I’ve barely made a dent in the sheer volume of STUFF in my office alone. Also, it’s hot. Sifting through the chaos of my life is sweaty business.

I really need to kickstart myself into gear. I am overwhelmed, but I know if I can just get into a groove it’ll be easy (and fun, because I’m weird like that). I think some deadlines will make things move faster: I’ve booked a junk truck to come haul away the things we can’t rehome, I’ve got some boxes ready to be packed, and an upcoming long weekend with no plans. I did pack up five boxes of stuff so I could deal with the furniture, but that’s just depressing: my Optimus Prime shelf is all packed away, and the death cubes in my office are almost empty. Still, it’s a start.

In other news, I finally got my trip to Seattle in. I had planned a weekend away so I could see the Kasuma Infinity Mirrors exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, and the weekend went off without a hitch. We stayed in a hotel in downtown Seattle, did a lot of walking, ate some foods, and saw some art. The exhibit itself was really cool: I love Kasuma’s work, and the infinity rooms were super awesome. Some downsides, though: long, long lines and a very short amount of time in each room (like, 20-30 seconds each). This was by design and made sense given the sheer volume of people, but I wished for a less rigid experience: there were so many RULES. Every Art Guard in the place had a huge list of things you couldn’t do, from touching (obvious) to leaning against a blank wall while waiting in a long line (what). I was lucky to find a way to game the system, by being a loser with no friends: because I was by myself, the Art Guards would let me skip the lines and go to the front to join a smaller party in the room. I got into the light room multiple times this way.

The exhibit was cool and totally worth the membership I bought to the SAM, but it doesn’t really compare to the Kasuma exhibit we saw in Tokyo. For starters, it was about 8 times the size, had a lot more paintings and sculptures, and the infinity room was more of an infinity hallway that had no time limits (and is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen, period). I feel ridiculously lucky that I got to see both exhibits within four months of each other.

We stayed in Hotel FIVE, which has a weird backstory. When we checked in, I had this overpowering dejavu thing going on. It bugged me all day, until I had a fleeting thought and chased it down. Many many years ago – like, in 1999 or 2000 – there was a LAN party at the old Speakeasy office in Belltown. It burned down in May of 2001, so LANsanity would have had to have been well before then. Ed and I flew to Vancouver, then drove down to attend the LAN with Heather and George – Heather was a clanmate in QGirlZ, and George and Ed were both fairly well-known Quake players. This LAN party was the first for a lot of things: the first time Ed saw Vancouver, his first time meeting people who would become life-long friends, the first time a half-naked Ed was dogpiled by three girls with body paint, etc. You know, typical LAN things. Anyway. The reason the hotel was so familiar was because we had stayed there before, during LANsanity. The hotel changed hands a bunch of times and had been updated all over, but the shape of the building had remained. The memory is a funny thing.

Also, if you’re ever in Seattle looking for some good eats, Max’s Cafe in Hotel FIVE has these incredible waffle sliders on the breakfast menu. SO GOOD and totally worth a visit.

Healthwise, things are getting better. There were more crossed wires, but eventually people realized I wasn’t on any medication outside the nightly insulin. That has since been remedied, and my blood seems to be improving: I went almost two straight weeks of green single digit numbers (until yesterday, when my blood was having a tantrum) and while I still have the occasional bout of uncooperative blood, I am within the normal range more often than not. This is good, but instead of getting sad when I have a bad day, I get angry. Fuck you, blood! I feed you salad and protein all the damn time! How dare you be full of sugars?!

I also went for an ultrasound for my heart in late June, and I haven’t heard anything from the doctor so I’m assuming this means my heart is totally awesome and all healed and stronger than ever. Who wants to test this with me?

We leave for Ireland in 43 days. It can’t come soon enough. I am wallowing in limbo for a number of reasons, and it’s stressing me out a lot so I could really use some epic views of an angry sea. Yes, I can see the ocean from here, but it’s not really angry – just sort of perpetually peeved, like when the coffee shop is out of agave nectar and you have to use honey like a commoner. That sort of thing.