Seattle?

For some reason in the last few months, I have the idea of Seattle in my head. I have never been there, but I do remember Lisa and Ken pointing in the direction of Seattle when I was visiting Portland in May. Back a few years ago, when I was checking out postdocs, I did meet with a neuroscientist who I really liked whose lab is in Seattle. At the time, I found the thought of moving way up to a place like that scary, and the professor even said originally it wasn't his first choice, and the reality is that I really liked UCLA, the research, and my boss and I have no regrets. Sometimes I do think what it would have been like to work in Cambridge in the UK and be able to travel so much-but then again I would probably have been working my ass off in either case. Well I digress-I think that I couldn't consider Seattle at the time because it seemed so far away from Tucson. Funny-considering I came all the way from the ecoast to grad school in Arizona. You get very comfortable in a place and it's hard to change and change jobs, etc, it took me probably 6 months to feel completely at home in LA and not miss Tucson and my friends there. I love LA but already I think about the time when I will be finishing my postdoc and contemplating my next step-a 2nd postdoc in Seattle perhaps? I have heard that it is a mix of LA and Portland and that appeals to me. The other day my boss mentioned that Duke University is hiring 11 new faculty in its psychology/brain depts (note to all of you neuroscientists), so in other words, I should keep my eyes open. I told her that I was far from being a competitive applicant at this point but the idea of taking that big step is scary-committing to a place for the rest of your academic career (assuming you get tenure of course). Plus, I kind of made up my mind about where I want to be-on the ecoast, NYC or Boston, on the west coast, somewhere in California, or now, thanks to my trip to the northwest, somewhere there. I realize that I like being in cities-but living in casual niches of the city. People think LA is a big dirty crowded city and certainly there are parts of it like that, but the area around me feels like a small town. Every now and then I am reminded of the fact that I live in a city.
Case in point-on Monday while gardening my neglected back yard, I went to get the garbage can and found my garage door wide open-and the lock broken near it. Yup, someone broke in but the joke's on them-my car wasn't parked in there, there were just empty boxes, and a really old vacuum cleaner. It wasn't worth it for the police to file a report but they did tell me this kind of crime was common around here, and I went and talked to alot of my neighbors too about it. I'm mobilizing the 'hood. The nice thing is that bad things like this do balance with the good and having nice neighbors helps. I was dog-sitting this weekend for my neighbor-it breeds the desire to get a dog right out of me although having a dog is like a security blanket.

So LA is a city but again, sometimes it reminds me of Tucson. Last Friday evening I was walking with a date and saw a stream of people on rollerblades going down a popular street-it was cool-it reminded me of bike nights in Tucson. I do wish that I had biked more in Tucson-it was a combination of laziness and fear of being hit (or not seeing at night without my glasses). But living in a big city makes one braver and in all of my return trips to Tucson, I have gone biking.

This weekend has been really mellow-just doing what I want and when I want which has included eating junk food, watching the women's tennis final on tv, going for walks, and last night I met up with a guy that I went out with a few times in the fall, a good guy, and just as friends we grabbed dinner at the famous Counter. Rather, it was super crowded so we got takeout and ate outside in a park. I've been working 10 hour work weeks so I was so tired and also starving having not eaten much during the day. One of the most amazing feelings in the world is to eat food when you're famished-it tastes amazing.

I am feeling restless again and I just went on vacation in July and finally cleared all of my credit cards. So, to ward off the restlessness, I decided to throw a big party next weekend. It's to usher in the fall properly, and more importantly, let different groups of people that I have met in LA thru different associations to mingle. I even have these Aussie gals whom I just met coming to it (my bro and I are talking about going to Australia later this year). Of course I will get all neurotic before the party but it will be worth it. A friend of mine made me a guest member of cosco so I will be going there for party essentials. I do have a momentary evil fantasy of inviting a few guys that I have dated recently, who've become my buddies, to the party-one amusing incident at work involved my labmates asking me how I keep them all straight or if I ever mess up and call them by their wrong name. I am not that bad-it's just that the people at work are in longtime relationships so they're fascinated by my dating. I did have one horrible date recently-where the guy talked about himself nonstop while I was falling asleep-completely not interested in him even if he was a NYorker which is my type.

Ahhh-the life of a single gal. I should maybe start filming my life for youtube.com-it could be better than that whats her name controversy-lonelygirl which in reality was created by these filmmakers-totally dishonest but I guess it's entertainment.


Julie