I am too busy playing Scrabble on facebook, which means that the words come one at a time, in single letters. This whole paragraph thing seems evasive.

     Today at work, I sorted through piles and piles of  floppy thin eighties children's books, Benji and Pound Puppies and Jem and Wuzzles and things like that. The couple that brought them in had a kid aged maybe seven or eight, a normal little girl who talked to us some and then went off looking for a Sailor Moon book. The couple seemed like a nice couple of grown-ups. They talked like people who pay bills and have a good community around them. They were pleasant, they were adults, and when I took a form of identification to pay out the money for their books, I realized that they were my age. And I kind of felt like a fuck-up, dear reader. But in an inspiring way, truly.
     I felt like maybe I am tired of being the girl who has spats and sulks, who languishes and burnishes and strews detritus around on any available surface. How many deadlines and whole-hearted promises have I half-assed on? What sort of things have been broken in my care?
   The house today is cluttered. It has been for a couple weeks, I think, now. The significant man of the house came home one day and felt the need for a fresh start, and he was correct in that. We've lived in my floor plan for ages, and he shuffled up the furniture and committed the sacrosanct act of vacuuming under the bed, rousing the generations of dust that tufted up around abandoned ARCs and lonely shoes. But we didn't follow through, because he took the biggest bite possible. The bedroom is sparse and clean, the living room is rearranged and reordered, but piles abide in the dining room, in the office, around the doors.
    I have taken great pleasure in being able to assemble a cacophony of myselfs from the pieces I have tucked away in this place. But  it's one thing to relish all the different folks I could become by scrummaging and ravenging through the piles and dark corners, and it's quite another thing to rid myself of the excess and just flat-out become that clean-cornered person.
   

Tags: bookstore, cleanliness, godliness, thoughts
Current Location: Behind a desk, softly

I have small totems of calm, that ease and relax with just a simple application of their balm. Herman Dune is one of those things The song Choir Vandals is another. The Tao of Tea is a place, but it is another. I think trains do it. Eef Barzelay. A hand on the back of my neck.  The ocean. Being in bed. The band Karate.  Cats.

Tags: small animals, small things, things

   And maybe it is hypocritical of me to become unnerved.

  But he was a man with a peacoat and a heavy slouch, and when he saw me in the back of the store, he abruptly turned away. I walked by  the Ethnic Studies section with a book in hand, and there was something sweet and alcoholic in the aisles.  He looked up and I glimpsed a ring of red in his eyes.

   We found an almost emptied bottle of port tucked away in the children's section when we opened, and so we had our suspicions. It wasn't that cheap of a bottle, either. The man didn't look to be in cahoots with our street's typically disheveled winos. He had kept to himself, coming in last night and shifting throughout the store. He was reading a book , which made it more convincing that he was just a typical customer, but his eyes were hangdog, and first thing this morning he tucked himself into another corner of the bookstore, with a shopping bag alongside.

Tags: alcohol, bookstore

I'm not sure where it snuck in from, but apparently there's a new year, and it's mostly sparkling.

Let's cover the notable past, firstly.

• I sold a piece of art. It was hanging in the bookstore coffeeshop, and it was the Hardy Boys running in terror away from a looming Cthulu. It was called The Good Looking Young Men and the Cosmic Evil.
• We went to Canada, Dave and I did. We took our bikes, we took the train, we took our sweet time getting there, and then we stayed a week, pedalling around the city, pretending we were naturals, and watching the fireworks.
• I learned how to do quite a few fancy things on the computer, including the wide world of vector illustration, which helped a lot in my substantial fiddlings at Soupcycle.
• Learned a few of the nuances involved with playing Scrabble on facebook.
• I became severely infatuated with Viso. I haven't proselytized that much since the Mountain Goats, but it has that rush of caffeine that just can't be beat, and I could gaze into the deep blue pools of the bottles for like, ages. Plus 100% of your daily vitamins and minerals!
• I made a couple hundred wedding invitations for some rad folks.
• Took a writer's workshop, wrote a few bajillion words, and then stopped.
• We finally made it to the Japanese Gardens, and I cursed myself for ever having judged it by the Chinese Gardens. It's absolutely huge, and where the Chinese Gardens are like a dollop of calm in the messy sundae of Downtown Portland, the Japanese Gardens are like being bathed in a pool of milk. That simile went offcourse somewhere, but the Japanese Gardens of Portland are just truly serene and amazing.
• We got a new roommate...who's a ninja! Yeah, in your face, suckers.
• Went to a garden party, but most of the people knew my name and recognized me. I looked the same.
• Oooh, we went camping, too, up at Lost Lake. Only for a night, really, but it's such a gorgeous location, tucked away right below Mt.Hood. The next day, we paddled around on the water for the whole morning and watched the salamanders wriggle up and down from the bottom of the lake.
• We dogsat, and catsat, and basically just lived in people's houses for a couple weeks. Litterboxes were cleaned, walks were taken, poop was scooped, and it was as if we were responsible adults for a change.
• Did I see any live shows? Geez, that's a tricky one. I finally saw Little Wings,  I went to see a friend's band, but other than that? Drawing lots of blanks for live music.
• I survived Snowpocalypse 2008, and all I got was this rad recipe for a hot alcoholic drink: Hot apple cider plus Tuaca plus whipped cream equals intoxicating apple pie in your mouth. 

Here's a list of famous people I met this year:
Neal Stephenson is a good listener.
Art Spiegelman told me a great story about P.K. Dick.
Stephenie Meyer made a terrific joke about her fans fighting each other to the death, Thunderdome style.
Carson Ellis' child started to cry while I was trying to convey how much I liked her art, but she didn't pass him off to Colin Meloy.
Michael Pollan happened to walk into the room just as I was opening up my tupperware full of pasta-roni. 
The guys who wrote "Stuff White People Like" were really nice, and one of them gave me a piece of candy. Also, they invited everyone at the reading to stop by the bar afterwards and have a drink with them.
I couldn't find "Go Ask Alice" for Saul Williams and his daughter, but to be honest, that book irritates me, anyway. 
I have problems recognizing Chuck Palahuniak with his new beard.
Charles Bock's "Beautiful Children" garnered some amazing poster art. 
I think Shannon Wheeler and I almost count as old friends by now.
I'd just about say the same about Lord Whimsy.
One of the original Merry Pranksters called me "dear". 
Sarah Vowell was coming down with something. 
Jane Kirkpatrick and I agree about her book covers.
Eoin Colfer is just as charming as everyone says.
Jim Wallis knows people in Portland.
I've got to learn to recognize Tom Spanbauer on sight. 
Graham Salisbury loves rebound books.
Blake Nelson promises he'll bring me a poster. 

Tags: famous people, lists, new year
how i feel: donuts & milk of magnesia

In case of blackout, proceed as follows:

The store will fall inky dark. Streetlights will reflect off of the glossy mylar covers. Customers will mill about quietly, and some customers won't even think of leaving. This is where you come in. Make a sign for the front door: "power outage: temporarily closed". Locate a flashlight. There's one by the registers, with glow-in-the-dark tape around its handle. Pick it up, switch it on, plunge into the bowels of the bookstore, beam bobbing in and out of the aisles. Apologize for the profusion of stepstools, direct people towards the exits, announce game of flashlight tag for all bookstore employees, beginning in 5 minutes. Herd people out of the coffeeshop, use flashlight to find the barista's flashlight. Go all the way to the back of the store, where it's the very blackest and quietest. Hear the distant conversation of the folks at the front. Imagine how absolutely g-d terrifying it would be if something hurled itself out of the shelves in Western Civ, clawing and scratching and hissing. Think about the dead mouse you saw on a top shelf yesterday, stiff but softly curled, dead and at peace by a book on the early settlers of Oregon. Turn the flashlight off. Stand for a minute, in the darkness, listening. Wonder if you'll get to go home early. Go get some cheese puffs and sit on the front counter, dangling legs and textmessaging in the dim light until you get to leave. Walk home in the thick rain, but only step fullfooted into one puddle. Make hot cocoa.

Tags: blackout, books, bookstore, rain, winter
Current Location: home

      Last night we decided to pay a visit to the food cart corner of Hawthorne and 12th. We had grabbed a steaming paper box of poutine a week or so earlier, and although it was surprisingly delicious, the other late night options had caught our eye, too. 
    We pulled up and parked, and made a circuit of the carts. Mexican, soup, potato-based fried things, and an anarchist cart named YARP which just reminds me of that trail mix recipe, GORP.  I got drawn in by the neatly lettered sign advertising Q BBQ. They have a rotating menu, and this week's special was brisket. Saucy, steaming, brisket. I got a smear of dark barbecue sauce on my sweater, but so help me, it was a gorgeous pile of soft meat on a bun, and it was the best thing I've eaten in just about forever.
    Tonight, Dave came by the store as I got off of work, and when we wandered into the Fred Meyer to buy gum, I asked if he was hungry. He wound up admitting that he had gone by and gotten some more brisket, right before he picked me up. I struck a deal, right then and there. I would buy his gum, he would take me back by the food carts for my own brisket. When we both got into the car, I could still smell the sauce lingering in the air. "You wouldn't have gotten away with it for long," I said.
   As I waited for my brisket, Dave crossed the street to Burgerville. He came back with a bag of sweet potato fries and a milkshake, and by God, if life wasn't truly perfect at that moment in time, there would be no reason to ever assume perfection was possible. Brisket,  thick berry milkshake, and sweet potato fries.

Tags: awesome, brisket, food, milkshakes
Current Location: the other side of hungry

  It was a small loud day of famousness.

A sharply dressed man asked about the poetry section, and I noted his upturned collar, and as I pointed him past philosophy, I started to wonder. But I shook it off, pretty sure that the local population of nattily dressed black men had taken a pleasant uptick, but not willing to bet on it being one particular man in general. A handful of minutes later, at the register, I rustled through my coworker's receipt tape.
   "Hey, did that guy use his credit card?" And in a few seconds I was pointing out the name on the slip to her, and her eyes got real big, and then we were just bursting, tapping our friends' shoulders, playing it as cool as possible while still knowing that Saul Williams was walking around our aisles. 

   There was an older guy who came in to sell some books, and he knew our manager from way back, 35 years back, and so he made the rounds of the store and talked to a few people.  Seemed nice, had a few interesting and rare books of note, including a $600 oversize tibetan tome of art instruction. He called a lot of the women darling, and walked down to the grocery store with one of our buyers, the two of them discussing hemp milk as they walked out the door. "Will it get you bombed?" he was asking. I google his name and find a bookseller somewhere selling a $2000 copy of a William Burroughs book, notable for rarity and for being inscribed to the same nice man who just asked if I would check his bag behind the counter.

     A little later, he comes back and wants to know about one of the books in the locked case in literature, a signed Ken Kesey title.

          "This is the only one of his books that I'm a character in", he says, "It holds a special meaning to me." I set that aside as well, and he thanks me again and calls me dear and leaves, promising to bring back more books to sell tomorrow.  The other buyer leans against the counter and tells me about our visitor, one of the original Merry Pranksters.

 I only wish the two paths had overlapped, because I'm sure they would have gotten along swimmingly.

Tags: books, famous people, music
what i hear: sound waves where I will

Maybe you don't know about Grandaddy's song Miner At The Dial-A-View, but it's a really good song.
There's some harmonies and some deet-deeeztsing electronica influences, but it's not an electronica song at all.
It's more like a Ray Bradbury story brought to modern song form. And it's beautiful and poignant and is fully eligible for inclusion on the Best Songs Ever list.

Tags: grandaddy, music, songs
Current Location: somewhere so far away

It is a base thing to miss a person's words and to be pretty sure it is your own damn fault, that one can not just let strings trail off and yet still get to pick up personal sentences composed so well. So that when you stumble across the words again and miss them strongly, you still know that they were made in some other room that you were not in, and that although you walked in inadvertently, you probably won't be staying.  And there is an angry jealousy bred from that.

(But everything else is good.)

Tags: thoughts
Current Location: off to dana point
what i hear: mt. goats-cobscook bay

Once upon a time, something female inside of me twitched and sprouted when I lapsed into love for Ani and Tori Amos.

Something in me matured and coalesced when I could finally appreciate the New Yorker, and it probably metastized when I started to really appreciate segments other than the short fiction. 

I don't know which new filament has strung itself together in my auditory processing system, but over the course of little under an hour, I went from a continued annoyance at Mark Kozalek's voice into a deep appreciation for the Red House Painters.

Tags: bands, growing old, music appreciation, old ramon
what i hear: red house painters-michigan