Zero to Sixty: Yes

Is He An Evil Wizard, Too?

2009-08-18T21:32:05Z

        We went to the movies last night, for real.


     We go to the movies frequently, but very rarely to the Regal Cinemas, because we are running out of arms and legs.
However, we have friends with prohibitive schedules, and therefore we found ourselves coughing and hacking up ten dollars and fifty cents entry fee. And for Miyazaki's sake, we ponied up for Ponyo.

      I think I adored Ponyo, and I think it might have been....wait for it...his best film yet. Maybe I'll watch Totoro again with a critical eye, and perhaps I'll finally get to Kiki's Delivery Service, but it just seemed that Ponyo is exactly the sort of movie I'd want my young children to watch.

        There are shimmery spells and watery beasts, great goddess types and respected elders, but I was almost most pleased by the responsible young protagonist. Imagine, if you will, a child who does not whine. He cries, yes, and he breaks some rules that children should probably not be breaking (please don't go down to the oceanside alone when no one knows you're there), but he's a good kid who feels that taking responsibility is something that should be done. He's also surprisingly capable for his five years and has quite a bit more self-possession than, say, 8-year-old Russell from Up. I thought Up was terrific, of course I did. But I get this pedantic twinge that makes me wish we had more characters like Sosuke in our children's media.

    Ponyo herself was also a refreshing splash of a girl character, and I appreciated an NPR article that mentioned her as a sort of model for some younger kids on the autistic spectrum.

It just seemed like every depiction of everyday life rang truer in Ponyo. The lights went out and the characters proceeded to follow realistic procedures, grabbing different kinds of flash lights (not just your standard cartoon torch), and then firing up the terrifically detailed generator. When the generator didn't work, everyone discussed the hows and whys of the problem, and solved it, albeit magically.

Apparently, there's a way to raise children that treats them as if they have a brain, and then proceeds to educate them in basic skills like caring for others and the proper use of matches. I guess I feel as if Ponyo is a movie of magic and Montessori, then.

On Cleaning And Being Just

2009-03-16T07:12:34Z

     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.

There Should Be More

2009-02-04T19:29:39Z

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.

They Are Drinking in The Aisles, Again

2009-01-21T02:28:09Z

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.

Wha-? Oh-Nine, You Say?

2009-01-03T02:47:21Z

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.

Bookstore Procedural Manual, Section 11.3.8

2008-11-04T02:46:11Z

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.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2008-10-19T04:35:17Z

      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.

The actor's daughter was barely a blip on the scale of the day.

2008-10-06T04:43:22Z

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.

For Your Information

2008-09-09T05:54:45Z

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.

A Note To Not Take Note Of.

2008-08-10T07:38:07Z

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.)

Growth

2008-07-19T07:15:59Z

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.

Notes On Sugary Stuff

2008-06-23T06:05:20Z

Yesterday I ate a balanced diet, if the scale of food justice was smack dab in Candyland and if the peppermint government-approved food pyramid had a base of cupcakes, a middle of ice cream, and a pointy top shot glass of whiskey.

When I realized such sweet facts this morning, I was already at work and lagging bad, so I skipped out for a few minutes to rescue my poor metabolism with some pizza.

Either/Or

2008-06-19T10:13:17Z

Beautiful or weird, beautiful or weird, beautiful or weird. Three of the clock in o' morning and I am staring at the silky golden literal lion's mane of a coif on this model, and I am up too late, because it seems like several furry pounds of awesome on one's head.

May Cause Memory Loss, But What Sort Of Loss Is That, Really?

2008-05-06T02:35:23Z

    There is a lot of color on our street. Anecdotal color, that is.

    There are street vendors, musicians, bums and spangers. Dogs and youths and crazy people and clipboard-grasping eager flunkies who want to know if you've got only a minute to help save the polar bears.

    The sun has just come out again, out of nowhere, really, all warmth and summery love and apologies to all us citizens who finally truly had given up hope. Just like our little windowsilled seeds have sprouted green after days of watering, the city sidewalks are sprouting their more colorful denizens. I was walking to the bank, and there is a small cluster of people near a sign that is hand lettered to say "don't forget mother's day". I crane my neck as I pass by, and there's a pile of a pamphlet named "a few of our favorite things" or something, but the cluster of people is around an open briefcase on the ground right next to it, and as I catch a glimpse I am not all that surprised to see a wide variety of handblown pipes with rainbow patterns worming through their dusky glass.

    Ah, if only, you know? Of all the people I know, I count my mom as the solitary soul for whom I think marijuana may well be the answer. I don't see a lot of peers who have a chronic illness causing them pain, and take a heavy cocktail of drugs every day to keep it in some sort of liveable check. She'll never try it, of course. Because all the drug awareness that's gone on, all the bad press, all the stereotypes (true and untrue), mean that my law abiding mother wouldn't dream of ingesting a plant that could help her. They're making it in tinctures, now, though, so I have a sort of hope, but it's gone stagnant, lately.

Pretty Well Laid Plans

2008-04-29T02:26:07Z

There is a stage, and you will know it when you see it. Actually, you will know it when you get that phone call at work, a phone call you have seen other people get.
"Did you have any ideas for dinner?"
    "I was thinking burritos. Does that sound good? We haven't had burritos for a while."
   "Do we have tortillas?"
    "I think so. I'm pretty sure I got some the other night, at the Safeway."
    "Are you sure? Is there anything else I can pick up on the way home?"
    "Yeah, I thought we'd make burritos the other night, so I got some then. Maybe get some salsa for yourself, if you want it. We've got cheese, though."
     "I made rice for lunch, we can use that. Beans? Do we have beans?"
The conversation soon deteriorates into a naming-off of any burrito related items in the fridge and/or pantry, and when all is determined to be satisifactory to both parties, times are set, grocery store sales are strategized, and the phone call is ended.*

This stage can take the e-mail route as well, with recipes forwarded and schemed, incredients substituted or dropped, and dual copies printed out for either side.

*We were, in fact, out of tortillas.

Over The Weekend

2008-02-06T19:45:10Z

    We had a whole series of plans that fell through, mostly due to the snow that didn't even get that serious down here but rendered the mountain passes unpassable. We rescheduled, and thought up new plans, closer plans, plans that involved hot springs and places Will Oldham has been naked in, only to have the snow thwart those, too.
        So we messaged back and forth for the entire morning and wound up at the mausoleum, which isn't the same as Sun River, and isn't the same as the hot springs, but it was something, all right. I had read about it and seen recommendations of it and driven by but somehow never pursued it enough to understand the scope of the place. When they say eight stories, they really do mean eight stories, and there are walls of names running back and forth on every level until it stretches into literal miles of memorium. The dead are somewhere behind the marble fronts, preserved, but the furniture is preserved under open air, dark wicker-backed chairs with mustardy velvets setting on autumn striped carpets, and sofas (that but for the grace of God would be garage sale fodder by now) remaining clean and tight in the tall quiet halls.     Small metallic symbols dot in between first and last names-crucifixes, masonic square and compasses, scimitared Shriner emblems, and clovers for the Irish. There are lots of empty vases, but fake and real flowers are interspersed. The signs posted warn against mixing fake and real in the vases, and irises are not allowed due to color staining issues. Blue crepe paper is also not allowed.
    The Portland Memorial Mausoleum is a textbook example of faded glory, even if you don't include the human need for memorial as part of all that. There are white classic statues and dignified fountains, and the trimmings in the halls are a near rainbow of marbles. Some of the larger crypts have swinging gates to block or allow access, and busts are perched on ledges here and there. But the window sills have gone ajar and loosened, and you can find letters missing here and there, confusing names or ones just about to come off. Some smaller rooms on the below ground levels have streakily worn carpet, and odd smells drift in and out in patches.
     There's some Schnitzers interred, one of the family names from Portland that's pretty recognizable, but even though they overlook the swampy beauty of Oaks Bottom from their window spot, the outside walls of the mausoleum are also visible, perpetually darkstained and with odd rows of nails lining where it looks like a part of the building was once torn down. It does seem odd to see Oaks Park's ferris wheel across the marsh, too, but the birds and rushes seem fitting and serene. Most of the birds, at least. There's a teeming duck pond beside one set of outside gates, and after we get too cold from wandering the mausoleum for hours and decide to leave for happy hour, there's a dirty white goose a few feet away that's hissing harshly when we walk by. I consider that maybe they have a small problem with demonic possession among their waterfowl.

threw_a_spark @ 2008-01-19T01:54:00

2008-01-19T10:13:29Z

DEAR SIRS AND MADAMS AM STILL IN LOVE WITH THE MOUNTAIN GOATS STOP THOUGHT MAYBE
IT HAD DIED BUT IT WAS MERE HIBERNATION THUS HAS RISEN FROM IT'S CAVE WITH THE APPEARANCE
OF THE VIDEO = AESOP ROCK AND JOHN DARNIELLE THE SONG IS CALLED COFFEE STOP
MY REGARDS LOVINGLY YOURS

In The Wee Wee Hours (Which are Quite Different From the Wee-wee hours.)

2008-01-19T09:49:52Z

I am warm, it is one:thirty in the morning, and there is a new sheet made from beech trees that is soft like silk but not slippery, like a classy sort of flannel or jersey. To put myself to sleep, sometimes, I think about things and plan about them, and I am happy when I think about most things, but as happy as I am I am still awake tonight. Tonight I have restless arms and wrists that can't be happy any which way under or over a pillow, and I think I should probably blame that on the donut. Or the jelly and the cream cheese. Or the cola. I try to lay in bed and reminisce about the early morning waking dreams I've had, where my perception of objects is altered, and I wind up sleepy and awake and convinced that I am the cityscape of Chicago, or that I am recent Robert f. Siebert Award winner Peter Sis' publisher, or that I am part of a Gocco machine. Pulling these dreams out and flattening them under my thoughts does nothing, still, to put me to sleep, so here I am, up and making tea that bills itself as calming. We will see.

Wie Treu Sind Deine Blätter.

2007-12-27T02:06:40Z

Oh Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by threw_a_spark

     ( I am sitting at the bar of choice. I haven't been able to write from home, lately. Unless scheduled into my day, writing is a thing that has to come out of a silence, not quite a boredom. Once the puddle is still, the words become visible. I never like laptops enough to get one of my own, so when I want to escape somewhere and write, I have to borrow, which means that even if I walk into a bar and order confidently, and even if the waitress nods and smiles and refuses to even look at my driver's license, I still display a few seconds of rank amaturity when I claw futilely at the wrong side of the Macbook trying to open it.)

                  So how have you been?

    It takes a few minutes of conversation for me to remember to ask that question. But it doesn't mean I don't want to know the answer. It feels like I am just too filled up with my own things, and so whenever someone else starts the conversation, asking how I am, there's so much to say that I kind of forget, for a while.

    What is there? There is all of it. The writing program, the book store, the live in lover. Sweet goodness, I could write books about our meals, at the least. Like a textbook example, two poster children for gratification. Lamb, pork, salmon. All of the above. No salads.

    We didn't leave the house on Christmas except for the brief excursions when the snow started, big cotton flakes coming down on our red sweaters. There are two people living upstairs, a couple who just moved here in the fall, and the influx of newly minted Portlanders (3 out of 4 ain't bad) ensured that the tree had a veritable city of presents rising up around it, tissue and ribbon high rises with stamps from all sorts of states.

    We didn't even all get up until around eleven, and then there's the fuss of breakfast and cider, so the civic deconstruction of Giftville lasted into the late afternoon. There were men's gifts: vintage shaving mirrors, leather wallets, ties and tieclips, gloves and hats. There were gifts for the ladies: pearl hair pins, sweaters, lip glosses, and an elaborately carved chocolate jewelry box that, when opened, is filled with other dainty pieces of chocolate. Mothers were called, friends were written to, new clothing was immediately tried on and then worn, and pictures were taken. The early evening was a checklist of everything Christmas and proper. Boardgames, a holiday ham, Bing Crosby, and mince pie. Everything smelled good, tasted good, & played nice until an overwhelming amount of properties and hotels were owned by one particular player, but we overcame even that injustice.

    (For Christmas Eve we went to midnight Mass, in the classic husband and wife midcentury middle class style. Best Sunday dress, suit & tie, missing keys, arriving late but lo, a Christmas miracle, a parking spot, and so we filtered quietly in through the huge french gothic doors and ducked our heads all the way up to the choir loft. But half a song after we had secured a spot next to a Sudanese family, there's a wave and a flash of red from the floor, so we reassembled ourselves to shuffle sideways through the welldressed pews to our friends who were so very good as to save us a spot at St.Andrews on Christmas Eve, and from there, under banners that trailed through the incensed air of the church, we took in all of the singing, dancing, rejoicing, and prayers. )

How A Day Swings Immediately Into Greatness, Sitars and Sam Beam & All.

2007-09-26T23:55:05Z

Bones and dogs and wolves and smoky skin and seasons pretty much only points to one thing: There's a new Iron & Wine album out, and I like to think I felt it in my marrow as it was being shipped to the record shops, or maybe it was just the changing leaves that had made me break out my old discs and listen through them, and start to think that maybe he was having something new sometime soon. Lo and behold, yesterday I am loitering at the front desk and a song from Creek Drank the Cradle came on, and I say to my fellow worker that really, shouldn't he have something new out by now, and she says that oh, he does have something coming out, and so I turn to the Google and ask, and sure enough, that very day, it came out. Shepherds Dog.

I still don't have all those pictures from all my travels catalogued. It's almost criminal, but not quite yet. If I am happy and occupied, is it too much to ask that I linger on getting those put together? I don't think so, when all the cracks inbetween my moments of free time are filled with birthday parties and rollerskating and books, and camping, and art in an exponentially greater quantity. It's thus forgiveable.

Double For Nothing (On Late Nights And Mysterious Flavors)

2007-09-10T09:07:55Z

     We are so sensitive, all of us.

    There are the days, sure, hitting the road and swinging by to the 7-11, where you can polish off a polish dog with great relish, and you slather it with chili and their fake-ass cheese, and it hits the bottom of the stomach like a non-kosher boulder. Those days, the world is our oyster, or at least our oyster shooter.

    But I know two guys who work in a coffee shop and can't drink the stuff, anymore, and then I know one who's still steaming fully ahead on his multiple mate' and espresso shots, drinking at least enough to cover the other two guys' missing rations. I have a roommate who had terrible terrible migraines until she stopped eating just about everything except raw vegetables, and then I think they came back when she brought grains and gluten back into the picture. A lady I talked to today said that she read that figs could set you off. Raisins, too. That's why she was buying the book. To learn the secret trigger foods.

     Me? It's 4:30 in the morning and I woke up and my arms couldn't lay still, no matter how I draped or twined them, they buzzed quietly over the sheets and skin until I untangled myself reluctantly and apologetically from the bed, and then I sulked downstairs and finished off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the newest new Sherman Alexie book, and I let my eyes well up a little because that's how Mr. Alexie has always hit me since I started driving through Indian reservations on road trips. Still shifty after that, although still wanting to fall back into bed, I went and took a shower that was specially formulated to be hot enough so that the water was sharp enough on my skin as to drown out my arms. Then I drank some water, sorta counterbalancing that. And whenever I have nights like this, lucky for me not that often, if I do my private self-investigating it becomes real clear that the reason is because I introduced or re-introduced something into my diet in an incorrect manner. I ingested it too late, or after such a period of time that the previously calculated affects no longer apply. So sensitive.

    But I still pick up the gutbombs from the 7-11, some days. If I feel like it.

As If Bolted From the Blue

2007-09-10T09:03:45Z

So I bet you're all wondering where I've been. Did I finally crash into that classic wall where internet based journals make feeble promises about keeping up, and then taper out altogether? Did you think you had suddenly been put on an extreme filter, because my life had become so overnightly juicy that I could only share the secrets with an elaborately chosen few?

Eh.

I think it'd be more easily summed up to say that I've been travelling. And sick, a little. And preoccupied, in the spaces during and between those times. Life has started shifting into a new mode, and it is fascinating and constantly to be explored, and my spare time...that is... the time all on my lonesome in which I usually accomplish the mundanities of existance, well, that has dwindled to only wee hours and oddly placed snippets. Which, actually, is the consequence of the things that mean that I am recently so happy as to be ridiculous. Which is good for me and my health and my psyche, and for my travellings, and for my days and nights, but has a tendency to heap neglect upon the dear reader. That's you.

Soon In June Stuff

2007-06-13T19:18:19Z

In one week, exactly, I will be leaving for the first stint of the GREAT AMERICAN SOUTHWEST ROAD TOUR 2007.

Suffice it to say, my luggage is already draped with clothing to bring, there are maps and lists peppering house surfaces, and I spend a bit more time loitering around the travel section at work.

The crux of the matter is, though, that I want to send you a postcard.
Yes, you, in particular. And don't you want to receive one, too?

But how'll I ever get that to you sans your address?

Right, that's the ticket! Leave an address in the (screened) comments, and you can go ahead and place that wager with your mother's gambleholic sister Bippy that sure enough, your mailbox will get at least a little action over the next month.

Further update and expounding to follow.

agwine to win

2007-05-31T07:00:15Z

    I am doing the same thing I always do, and I don't exactly mind it, but it's funny, the way I can choose to spend my time sorting through old things, doing a lottle of that old contrastan-compare, holding pieces up to each other, and holding them up to me, and then replacing them in my head, on that shelf that gets all musty only for the reason that I have way way too many shelves, and not enough hours in the day to sort them all. Fun-nee Stuff, I will tell you that.

But then there is that segue, where I shift into current gear, and go about getting new things in order, and sending those off. I mean, don't go around telling people I didn't get a thing done today, and just sat around scrabbling through old words. No, no.

      There was that foray into dress dying, and then, then, there was real live floor scrubbing, with that rascally linoleum print that never cleans right, always keeps fading as a pattern in and out of beiges so the only way to be sure that things are scrubbed is to get real close. So the next time they say I've never done an honest lick of work in my life, I will be able to tell them otherwise. Brought out the bleach, hands and knees and a variety of scrubbing things. Cleaned the windowframes, too. Good honest elbow greasings are when I start to remember how I'd rather chill at home detail-orienting on summer days instead of enacting my own personal portion of the rearranged nine-to-five. I hung up a corkboard in the basement, which might seem near to pointless, but in reality, it is one of the first steps in the burgeoning Basement Beautification Act of Summer '07. And I did dishes. And made good toast, with salty goat cheese and a tofu spread, and cucumber cut up, of course.

   I hung the dress on the line after one more attempt at tea dying it a bit more dingy, but that didn't take, so when it got breezed dry and I tried it on for size again, turns out it's still kind of fresh. Nice, though. So I showered and threw on that newly greenish frock, then I kicked into full-on stylish puttering mode, which is really one of my favorites, as far as modes go. Some light potting of that broccoli plant I acquired the other week, a bit of watering.

   Later, even, I got to walk that line between artistry and mild alcoholism. The roommates and I were letting the sun set while we were on the front porch, and we were woefully out of juices, but all I kind of wanted, the whole afternoon (besides tile floors), was a pleasant ice-clinking glass with something fruity. So I came up with the brilliant idea to make juice. But we lacked oranges. So I brutalized the poor peaches to a pulp, and since I couldn't come up with our real juicer, I strained it all through a tea sieve. Geez, but it was nice, to sit out there and have cheese and crackers and pleasant drinks and mild conversation.

Geez, I'm sorry. I'm getting all tanskinned romantic about the weather again, despite the facts of that nasty global warming overview.

(my girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit.)

2007-05-20T16:12:40Z

    I have been enjoying a particularly rousing bout of beating myself up over not writing, lately.

    Which is more than stuff. It is also nonsense, because, for sure, I have not been constructing words lately, but that is largely due to the overwhelming amount of tangible visual art I've been putting together. Also, as a contributing factor, I've been catching up on correspondence. And some light cleaning. And buying clothing. And spending days with old friends.
     You know what the problem is? The problem is that I keep on forgetting to let myself not be machine-made, factory processed. I still hold on to the idea that I need to be actively engaged in every aspect of my life at all points in time. And that's not legit. It's not how anything natural lives. To every season, turn, turn, and all that jazz.
    As long as I remain conscious of my goals as a writerly type (whatever those goals may be, which is a different discussion, and one I don't plan on having for a bit), I think it is okay to let them hibernate with my scarves for a portion of time. Or at least chill with my cardigans. I probably won't wear a scarf until fall, but the cardigans are still making appearances on slightly grayer days. And that's how the large-scale writing is unraveling, currently. Here and there, in between the gusts of sun and the painting and the home ec projects.