Cranked on that 'D', yo!

Freaking gorgeous day today.
New way to get high:
Step 1. Deprive yourself of sunlight for 9 months
Step 2. Ride your bike around in the sun and drink a beer on a hill overlooking a lake for the first time in 9 months (See Step 1 for reference)
Step 3. Never repeat Step 1.

The Deer Hunt

Many moons ago (SO many!), I took a day trip up to Dyrehaven, a nature reserve just north of Copenhagen -and also the name of one of our most frequented bars (at least Daniel and me, anyway). One of Denmark's kings bought up the land, forrested it, and stocked it with deer for his hunting pleasure. Here are some photos from that magical day all the way back in... November? December? Seriously, my backlog of blog entries is mind-blowing...

I went with three awesome people. Two friends from work Daniel and Tiffany, and my friend Michael - a completely non-Henning Larsen affiliated Danish friend!

After walking around for quite some time, we spotted deer! I tried to sneak up on them...

Then we found the holy-grail of deer. Look at how happy we are!

Spring is Such a Tease

The sun is starting to tease us here. Yesterday, we were able to eat lunch outside on Henning Larsen's balcony in the sun, and I could have even ditched the light sweatshirt I was wearing. Spring? Is that you?

I was beginning to feel like I would never be warm again. And after being in a snowstorm in Helsinki, Finland on Tuesday, I've never been more excited to see -and feel! -the sun.

You should have seen me. I went to Christiania with a friend the other day, and I damn near lost my mind seeing some little flowers begin to bloom. It was the cutest/happiest thing I'd seen in a long time, and definitely the most excited I have ever been about seeing flowers bloom.

It'll be nice to return home and not take any of the sun and flora for granted.

I used to think seasonal depression was a myth. How could the weather really affect how you feel? That's absurd!

But it's been a rather tough winter for me. Pathetically enough, this has technically been a mild winter, but in conjunction with transitions, coping with loss, not having the usual familiar faces to rely on (but the accumulation of a few really good new ones!), and a whole lotta introspection, winter has felt heavy, endless, so dark, and a bit like a flashback to the teen angst of 9th grade.

Still, just like that, with a little sun poking through my window, warmth hitting me while I sit at my desk at work (sitting next to a huge wall of windows has also verified the effect the sun has on my mood. On gloomy days, I'm much more tired, less productive, and a little sad for no reason. When the sun comes out? I perk right up! Wild!) things feel markedly different.

I'm about to go for a run outside (!) in the park. Something I haven't been able to do for months.

I wanna catch the sun before it goes away and snows again. It's supposed to freeze again this weekend. Why!? Can't spring just stay? Oh Spring, you tease!

Backbends and Backsliding

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I think that after an entire year (and then some) of hitting my head against the same wall, convincing myself that something will miraculously change if I just word things differently, give it more time, model empathy and compassion, sacrifice just a little more, all I've derived is that my head fucking hurts (excuse my language... eh... no. We're all adults here).

I am the Anne Sullivan to your emotional Hellen Keller.

But I am no miracle worker, and you would be better equipped to sense me if you were deaf and blind rather than as you stand before me (or against me) as Narcissus himself.

I catch myself dancing a furious pas-de-deux, alone, interpreting all emotions, feeling for two, phrasing and rephrasing in terms so simple and over-enunciated that even the comatose would wake up from his vegetative state to tell me "quit beating that dead horse, I got it!" and respond accordingly. But, sadly (understatement), a chair makes an effort to listen, empathize, and react appropriately more than you ever could.

It's heavy shit, but true.

Sometimes people fall in love with illusions, and sometimes, in the worst of scenarios, people are intimidated and manipulated into falling in love with illusions.

And then one day, you hit your head hard enough against that same wall, and just like that, you see straight again. The illusion vanishes. And all you're left with is a killer headache and the realization that some mysteries are better left unsolved. Some injustices better left uncorrected. Time better spent alone than reasoning with the unreasonable.

The Coffee Snob Returns

I've already made a bit of a name for myself as a coffee snob in the office.

Early on, I turned my nose up at the free, office coffee machine (I should have been happy to have found something free in this city! Alas, I have detrimentally discerning taste buds.) and brought in a french press, which my good friend Daniel and I have made a tradition of pressing every morning. Actually, in a hurry on the morning I left to go to Aalborg, I shattered the glass in the french press I brought, so Daniel brought one in and has been diligently in charge of making the coffee every morning, usually before my sleepy butt even arrives to the office. It's probably better this way. When we used to do it together, I used to criticize the way he made it -"No, you have to stir the beans first! Don't heat the water up to boiling or you'll burn the beans! You have to let it sit for 5 minutes before you press!" -Annoying, right? I'm sure he's happier now that he gets to make coffee in peace, without me, the fascist dictator of the morning brew.

Anyway, we try and buy fancier beans so we don't have to resort (as we often do) to just french pressing what the office already has. I've been hearing about Coffe Collective, a direct trade coffee roaster that is proclaimed to be the best coffee in Copenhagen (all of Denmark, maybe?).

I was supposed to go venture there last weekend with my roommate to pick up some beans, but after delaying and delaying, we both finally admitted to each other that the weather was just too grim to bike the 20 minutes to Norrebro just for coffee.

This morning we had our first big snow. Everything is white and gorgeous, but damnit is it cold. This was taken at 7 this morning, when I was awoken by a man shoveling outside my window.

I take back everything I said the last 22 years of my life. I will gladly live in Southern California for the rest of my existence. What a magical place -so sunny, so temperate all the time! I bet there are even leaves on the trees there right now!

But here, even with 2 pairs of gloves on, my hands were so frozen they felt like they were on fire after biking only 3 blocks.

This was taken at a cute coffee shop across the street from my work that has great espresso. The guy working had taken a toaster oven out of the back and set it up in the seating area, cranked it up high, and sat in front of it as if it were a radiator. Genius! But clues you in to just how cold it is here.

So today, I decided to stay in. I ran across the street for milk this morning. Woo! Big moves! But Ryan (the roommate) said he was going to finally go to Coffee Collective, and I propositioned him to pick some up for me. Something mid-range. Latin American.

Well, some freshly ground (we don't have a grinder, and investing in one here would set me back 5 times as much as one in the states, and would only be useful for the next few months. Sadness!) Finca Vista Hermosa Guatemala came back from its trip through the tundra and I just pressed a fresh pot. The verdict? Delicious! Almost worth the 79 DKK (about $14) for 250 grams (about a half lb). Bright and floral with notes of lemon and almond (it smells strongly of marzipan! incredible!). Sorry for how pretentions that was.

I have to say, Intelligentsia in LA still owns my heart, but this place will definitely make it a little easier for this coffee snob to get through the next 5 months.

... but a little harder financially. Goodbye paycheck. I'll just make a few sacrifices. Snowboots / coffee? Snowboots / coffee? Coffee. Definitely coffee. I just won't leave my apartment, curled up with a blanket and a cup of coffee.

Fun Fact!

I keep thinking there's random, patchy snow on the ground, but it's not. It's salt.

All of these cute little trucks drive around, all over the city, sprinkling the bike paths with salt to keep them from getting icy, so that people with bikes without snow tires (don't look at me...everyone keeps saying my bike is so impractical for weather, but I've been fine so far *spits on finger twice*) don't slip and slide and eat shit all over the place.

Fun fact: The bike lanes (more like semi-elevated bike freeways along every street), still used by most throughout the winter, have priority over lanes for cars. When it gets below freezing or snows, the city sends out a fleet of salt trucks to blaze a trail for all of us bikers before they clear a path for cars.

At least this is what I hear. It hasn't snowed that hard yet.

I guess that's less of a fact, and more hearsay.

Digital Sticky Note

Note to self:

People change, situations change... memories don't.

And sometimes, that's the pits.

Cryptic enough?

Perhaps inappropriate for the bloggosphere, but I wanted to remember this and couldn't find a piece of paper to jot this down on fast enough, and I would have misplaced that piece of paper anyway.