Bestest Pre-Birthday Birthday Weekend EVER!

I like: Shopping, sunshine, being the center of attention, mimosa, my friends, fried chicken and waffle, copulating, going on trips, laughing, soaking, gossiping, drinking, exploring, and mexican food. And my weekend contained all of this.

Oh, yes, that hat? It says birthday princess. Hells yeah.

Had my birthday brunch at Meriwether's on Saturday with all of my favorite friends (less a few who couldn't make it) and had a really awesome time. I blew out my birthday candle with my laughter, so that's always a good sign...

Sunday I went with Mr & Mrs Pencil over to Bend to see David Sedaris give a reading. Which was hysterically funny. All I can say is, I now have th burning desire to learn more about Nicaragua.

Turkish soaking pool and a free show came next. I had no idea McMenamins offered a "Humping Hideaway" in the corner of the pool, but apparently the couple that was in there when we arrived got some sort of memo we missed. Plus, after they got done dry (?) humping in the corner, they changed right there in front of us. I was not expecting to see wet naked ass that night, always a pleasant surpise!

The weather was amazingly beautiful right up until we were headed back to Portland, but anytime it's 65 in late October, I am for it. Took the McKenzie Pass back across the divide, and though a remarkably twisty route and thus not the most time-efficient, incredibly scenic and interesting.

Still have the actual day to look forward to on Wednesday, not to mention starting the new job tomorrow. My thirties are already extra-bonus awesome!

True 'dat

How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality.
- Norman Douglas

The Halloween Hoodlum or The Purloined Pumpkin

Ahh family fun!

We went out to the haunted fantasy trail last night. We were treated to dry weather of moderate temperature and a waxing moon to set the spooky-ness at full blast. We got out to Wenzel Farm after dark and the whole place was lit up. Aria has expressed some trepidation about going after dark, thinking it would be too scary to take, but we all agreed it was much more fun at night.

We did the haunted castle, wandered back through the woods, and ran the pirate ship labyrinth all as usual. Managed to jump out and holler at key moments for the rewarding shrieks of my child. Good times.

Technically, this place isn't a pumpkin patch. They bring in pumpkins and scatter them around the trail, and if you want one, you can pay $4 to take one home. Considering I'd only be paying .19 cents a pound down at WinCo, I was not having any of it. Aria already had a pumpkin patch pumpkin, plus I had one left over from the pumpkin carving party I attended over the weekend. I felt like we were well stocked.

As we were winding up our visit Aria began looking around at the various pumpkin options available. We climbed the final hill up to the parking lot and I told her again I had no intention of paying $4 for a pumpkin when I already had one in the car. So my sister and I walk over to the car and get in, talking about the pictures we had taken and whether they'd turn out. I start the car and hear the pounding of little feet running toward the car. I turn around to see Aria sprinting up to the back door arms full of a gigantic pumpkin. She opened the door dumped the pumpkin in the backseat, climbed in over it and said:
"Come on let's go!" To which I replied.
"Where'd you get that pumpkin?"
"Well, you said you didn't want to pay for one."

Now, I realize that the responsible and parental thing to do would have been to lecture her sternly, make her return the pumpkin, and apologize. So, what I did instead was laugh my ass off and let her keep the spoils of her illicit pumpkin-snatching exploits.

I have a faulty moral compass.

The Songs in Sleep

So, occasionally I will have this weird, but basically cool thing happen: I will fall asleep, sometimes dream, though not always, and wake up with a song-fully formed-written in my head. I have learned to keep paper and writing utensils handy so as to make record of these sleep-songs, because if I just go back to sleep thinking I'll remember them in the morning, I wont.

These songs are always at least as good as what I can write when I am fully awake and engaged in the songwriting process in earnest. Sometimes better. It happened to me all the time when I was a child, but I didn't have the presence of mind or musical language to translate these songs into anything permanent. Sometimes I would wake up crying at how lovely and necessarily transitory they were. Now I have the means to capture them and I'm struck by something else: they're always happy, too.

Anyone who's listened to my body of work knows that this is, in itself, unusual. My frame of mind, intellectual and emotional propensities, and singing voice all lend themselves more naturally to down-tempo minor key songs about... well... that one guy. Even Aria pointed this out to me the other day as I was writing a song. Her grandmother asked what it was about and Aria said
"Probably the same thing ALL her songs are about." to which I replied,
"Oh, yeah? What are all my songs about?" she rolled her eyes
"_____"
Oh. Right. Him. Although, as it turned out, I managed to make that one about a flood instead. Uplifting stuff!!

But last night, in the cradle of slumber, after having some WHACKED OUT dreams, I woke up with the first verse of a song, sweet and cheerful, twirling in my head. So I wrote it down. And I like it already. It makes me happy to sing it. So, I guess I do care if I sleep. There is some good it can do. And I have the Red Paper Flowers to prove it....

America: FUCK YEAH!

Call Me Sabella

You Are A Vampire

You have a real thirst for bliss, and you consider yourself a true hedonist. And you're not afraid to walk alone in life, if it means getting what you truly crave. You truly enjoy entrancing people. Not to mention the ensuing pleasures of the flesh. Your tastes have been called decadent and bizarre. You usually give in to your temptations, no matter how primal Your greatest power: Your flawless ability to seduce and charm Your greatest weakness: Human flesh You play well with: Werewolves

What Kind of Monster Are You?

All we can do is keep breathing...

Which is supposed to help, but sometimes doesn't. No amount of breathing is going to change the fact that things are scary and sad. It might change the intensity of the scary or sad feelings, but they don't go away.

If only, like Hansel and Gretel in reverse, I could follow my own breath forward to unlose myself. I suppose that is what's happening, if only in slow motion. Progress so incremental and elusive to observation as to be mythical.

And the temptation is powerful and recurring to keep my breath inside, to trail after it back into myself and hide there away from the light of the truth that hurts me so much that it steals the very breath I mean to pursue.


But instead, mostly, I chase after it out. Though it carries with it noises and meanings that would otherwise stay within, and I'm unsure they should have got out at all.

I wonder what I take in, and what goes away from me further, with each successive breath.

Nostalgic Goopery

I am a sentimental sap. I cry at movies, and t.v. and songs about Michigan. I don't know why, but it has always been so. I become unaccountably attached to inanimate objects, like my 1980 Datsun 510 Station Wagon which I WEPT over having towed away many many months after its practical purpose as a mode of transportation was completely over. I'm not a pack rat, but I do care about holding on to a handful of things that have special resonance for me. And this is more true for books than anything else.

When I was born in 1977 my grandparents gave me (via my parents) a beautiful book of fairy tales as a gift. The stories are dusky without being dark or scary, the illustrations are phenomenally beautiful and intricate, and this book has been the measure against which all things fairy have been compared ever after.

As one might expect, this book, being as old as I am, has seen better days. The cover has come completely off, pages have been missing from Thumbellina since I was tiny, and small rotten offspring belonging to my sister have drawn in it. So, I have been on the lookout for a copy in better condition for quite some time. Being out of print, British in origin, and 30 years old has not made tracking one down an easy task.

Then suddenly this morning, I looked on Amazon and a little tiny bookseller in Grants Pass has one in good condition for an utterly reasonable price. I was nearly beside myself with joy. So.

I'm making a pilgrimage to southern Oregon to fetch it. I loved the last trip I made down south more than I would have predicted, so I'm very much looking forward to making my way down there again. And I like the absurdity of driving all the way to Grants Pass to get a book I already have just for the sake of immersing myself in the past.

This is what internal conflict looks like:

At least according to google image search. Or maybe an upsetting gastro-intestinal event.


But I cant tell because there is no mirror in front of me at the moment to reflect it since it is what I am experiencing at this very moment. The conflict I mean.

Oh my curvy pillow, why hast thou betrayed me?

I bought you particularly to avoid what I am feeling right at this very moment. The pain. All weekend I toted you around, even whilst I slept at a funny angle in my car you remained true and valiant. Why in my own bed on a random Tuesday night, do you fail?

Cause, now... well... owie.

Would you if you could?

With the quiet returned to you, you are no more inclined to try. Whatever recompense once served, doesn't any longer. Once you might have, but now you have come to see the wisdom of this way and it comforts you. No more longing. Lucky you.

p.s. you are the one riding the robot.

Sometimes, fun = ouch.

Ah, the weekend. A time for fun and relaxation, and drinking, and pain.

I decided this weekend was going to be JAM PACKED with fun, so I filled it up to the very brim with activities which included:

~Party in Lyle with campfire, cider, much revelry.
~Trip to Seattle for visiting cousin & general troublemaking.
~Possible trip to hot springs (failed).
~Sleeping in my car.

Apart from my realization that getting to the Olympic Hot Springs from Seattle is like a 3 hour endeavor, rather than the hour and a half I expected, all of these activities turned out to be quite fun. And diverting.

While in Seattle I was treated to a scooter ride. Which was awesome. I love motorcycles, but this was my first time on a Vespa. It was a quality experience. Went out to Discovery Park right around sunset. Drove through Magnolia, which was just stunningly beautiful, and walked out to the lighthouse. The weather was perfect, the sunset golden and pink.

Nighttime called for city-going: a gay bar complete with vintage prison porn circa 1964, naughtiness in a photo booth, street food, the most amazing wallpaper I have ever seen, and the cha cha lounge, the awesomeness of which I can only describe thusly: Underground, festooned with crap on every available surface, lit entirely with red bulbs. Sweet.

And all of this was grand. Plus I got to meet cousin's new beau who is so cute I just wanted to squish his head. Seriously. Grilled cheese for breakky. Tasty.

And then, came the consequence for all this fun. I began to notice my inner thighs and sacrum were emitting a crescendo of protest as the day went on. True, I'd been pressed into the metal frame on the back of the scooter for a while, but it hadn't hurt at all at the time, and even though I had to spread my knees enough to straddle the driver I didn't feel at all strained on the ride.

Well. Now. Apparently, I'm not as flexy and bendy as I like to think. Who the hell would have thought I needed to stretch before getting on a scooter for chrissakes? I suppose I'll know better next time...

I am a fucking cream puff!

Everybody knows I like to pretend to be all tough and cool, but that I am all goopy and smooshy in the middle.

And someone called me caustic today. They meant it as a compliment, but still. I'm not caustic. I mean, I'm not going to take your skin off or anything.

Am I caustic? Seriously?

This scares me

But in the best possible and most interesting way.

Word to Emma on this one



http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/162

The Best Game Idea EVER!

The only thing I know about this is its name: Super Monkey Poop Fight. Yet I stand by my claim with no more than that to go on.

Boo Scary Boo

Aria went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. She selected what has to have been the smallest gourd to be found on Sauvie Island. What's more, she doesn't want a bigger pumpkin. She likes them compact and tidy. Perfectly round and symmetrical. And, she doesn't like to carve them. Instead she drew two faces on either side of the pumpkin. Comedy and Tragedy meet Halloween.

But we are not yet done pumpkin patching. Oh, no. We will go out again next week to enjoy one of our few consistent holiday traditions of any kind: The Haunted Trail at Wenzel Farms. Though there is a somewhat less-than-stellar pumpkin patch at the end of said trail, we've discovered that's not really the point.

A few pumpkins are scattered on the ground (which I am willing to bet are imported for the purpose) and you're free to help yourself if you want to carry one back past screaming animatronics and through the pirate ship labyrinth. Instead the fun comes from tromping through the woods past an array of little stone buildings draped in cobwebs and lights, through narrow child sized tunnels dark and close, accompanied by Edgar Allen Poe being blasted over the speakers cunningly disguised behind faces carved into the tree trunks.

One chooses to overlook the fact that this same trail is clearly used at Christmas as well, and sometimes the efforts to disguise the friendly Yule elf-folk as menacing Halloween goblins is not as complete as one might hope, and that the haunted castle which greets you upon arrival is much more impressive on the outside, since once you get in, it basically amounts to a wide 360 degree spin to look at glow-in-the-dark masks attached to the walls.

We overlook this because it's fun to. It's nice to have a tradition, it's enjoyable to wander through this cutesy-quaint little slice of scariness. And even if Bambi doesn't make a convincing zombie deer, I find it hilarious that the attempt has been made.

Plus, at the end, you get candy.

This weekend

I'm going to the forest. I'm soaking in the hot springs.
There is nothing you can do to stop me.
So there.

I love being the boss of me.

I am obsessed with Todd

I feel I must explain. I have an extremely boring job. I have calculated the time necessary to complete all the tasks assigned me as somewhere around 2 1/2 hours. Per week. I have to be here to answer the phone, and that is my primary function overall, but other than that, my time is almost maddeningly my own. I have internet access to a certain extent (no myspace or youtube) and have tried to devise various methods of edutaining myself all damn day.

I discovered that the internet filter that thwarts certain online activities seems happily to allow pretty much every google module I try to access. Hence, this blog and my new favorite web plaything: iGoogle.

I have my favorite blogs up there (word to Lyza and LOLSecretz), my news from the BBC, Wiki, weather, a game of hangman, a sticky note to myself which tells me to breathe and smile, my calendar, and various other time killers all arranged into a pleasingly readable format. And I have applied a theme to all of this goodness.

And that's where Todd comes in. You see, my theme is the Teahouse. It depicts the activities of a little Japanese fox during the course of his day, which is timed to coincide with Pacific Standard. So each morning, Todd sits out on the dock and does his fishing for the day, then at about 9am he rows his little boat across the pond and climbs the ladder to pick some oranges. By 11 he's settled down to eat his charming little lunch, and in the afternoon, he's doing the wash.

He's such a productive and well-ordered little fellow, I am slightly jealous of his industry. Not to mention the 2 hours he seems to have for lunch. I follow his progress back and forth across the pond and wonder what he does at night, since I have to go home, and don't have the internet there... I like to think the teahouse lights up with soft illumination at about 8pm and maybe Todd sits out on the porch stargazing until at 10 or so he snuggles up on his futon and drifts into sweet foxy slumber.

I heart Ira

There is a near-constant competition going for the spot of my imaginary boyfriend.

It's not just that I'm fickle (although I can be) but also that whenever I am confronted with sensitivity and intelligence, and, well, hotness all in one package, I find it hard to resist.

Of course, this combination is exceedingly difficult to find in any readily available men, so I resort to having many moments of profound devotion to people I will never meet or interact with in any significant way. I like this idea. They stay just as I imagine them and provide me with fodder for my daydreams about intellectual conversations and political debates and artistic collaborations. Heady stuff.

My original I.B. was Zach Braff. He's been displaced for a while now, but most recently, I've been thinking Damian Lewis from "Life" on NBC was a good candidate. He's so damaged. It's hot.

His character is clever and resourceful but also displays a vulnerability I find pretty fucking compelling. I really like the show, and figured if I got in early, I could claim to have been in love with him well before the legions who will no doubt flock to adore him could start clamoring.





But then I went last night with some friends to a Q & A sponsored by OPB to promote the new book: The New Kings of Non-Fiction. Which is an anthology of stories from several well-regarded non-fiction writers, edited and compiled by Ira Glass.

Ira was submitting to a round of what must be fairly typical questions about how he makes stories, and decisions about stories, and how this new project on Showtime is different than being on the radio, and he offered intelligent, insightful, funny, and meaningful answers to all of these questions. I suppose being an interviewer must make it a bit easier to be the subject of questioning: you know what plays well.

But after a fair amount of this went on he decided to turn the tables on April Baer, the local newscaster assigned to conduct the Q&A (self-identified as one of the starry-eyed communications-major types who love him). Ira asked her if she was the one who did the local commentary which accompanied Morning Edition, and if that included traffic. April admitted that, indeed, that was her. Ira then pointed out that doing the traffic in Portland presented a particularly existential perspective on life...

"I mean, when you say 'It's stop and go from the tunnel to the cemetery,' doesn't that really say something more about life? It sort of sums it all up right there. And then sometimes, you mention something about some curves? I mean, it seems like that pretty much says it all..."

Game, set, match. Ira wins.

Unbelievable Deliciousness

Ok.

We all know I love bacon. And we all know I love waffles. What's more, we know that I love bacon waffles and proselytize on their behalf as frequently as may be.

But today, everything changed.

Meriweathers, NW Portland, Bruncheon. Mimosa: excellent. Menu, perusing with mild interest. I already ate this morning, but we're celebrating, so I'll consider having more than my drinky.

And then my eyes fall upon the most compelling combination of foodstuffs I have seen suggested in many a long year: Fried Chicken and Waffle.





When the plate arrives it is drizzled with syrup, a substantial leg of chicken is perched atop two slices of bacon which are, in turn, nestled on a crisp and fluffy waffle. Hells yeah.

To describe its savor, its sweetness, would be to cheapen its sacred impact on my flavor receptors. Oh mama. It was arguably the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth.

Hot Diggity.

Rightness, as opposed to wrongness...

BWAHAHAHAHA

Ahem

The Lessons sunk in skin

Owl medicine is about vigilance, seeing through the darkness, and shedding that which is no longer required. So, then.

I'll carve it on my spine and hope to remember what I needed to gain from this and discard that which hinders me.

And it is as close to a name etched in my flesh as is likely to ever be...

My daughter the Diplomat

I think it is a safe thing to suggest that we as humans are well served to consider the impact of our communications carefully. Sometimes in our haste to secure a particular outcome, we fail to consider the possible ramifications of our words. I know this happens to me constantly and it is a lifelong lesson for most people.

Apparently not for my eight-year-old.

Because she, she is canny in the extreme. She knows, for example, a staggering variety of curses and epithets, yet you will almost never hear one slip. She pretends to be oblivious to their existence, let alone willing to sink to their use. I know she knows them because I curse like a sailor. Just ask her, she'll tell you. And though she is ready to turn state's evidence on her loving mother in a heartbeat when it comes to the use of profanity, she continues to use the language of the sweet little child I want her to be. She does this because I will bust her ASS if she does not.

But this morning, I was treated to an entirely new level of tactical planning on the part of my child. It is one thing to operate under the halo of obedience, but this, this transcended mere self-preservation and displayed something more.

You see, she is too old to believe in the cultural mythologies I have gone to such pains to instill in her wee little head. My own mother, a powerfully crusty cynic of the most virulent stripe, was adamant in her unwillingness to entertain such notions as Santa, the Easter Bunny, or most pertinently in this case, the tooth fairy. Of course, she does believe in SASQUATCH, but that is neither here nor there.

When I became an adult and had a child of my own, I decided that the whole idea of a pantheon of benign gift-givers was a relatively desirable thing to have in your life as a little person. I knew that my own inexperience with this arena might have made me more eager to participate, but what are children for if not to compensate for one's own misspent childhood?

So I set about assuring her about Santa et al. and all was going well. The first rumblings of confusion on her part came when she was about 3 and she asked rather pointedly, why the tooth fairy wanted all these old used teeth, and why did she get different amounts of money from the tooth fairy when she was at home vs. at her father's house. I quickly explained to her that the tooth fairy was using the teeth to make crafts. And that market forces determined the value of the teeth at any given time as supply and demand were bound to fluctuate, so you could never tell just how much the tooth would be worth to the fairy on a given occasion. Way to use a childhood mythos to slip in an economics lecture.

She seemed to accept this explanation readily (which might also have been the result of the following internal dialogue: I have no idea what this crazy person is babbling about... ohh candy!)

At any rate, we haven't had any further conversations about the role or motivation of the pantheon in a while, apart from the "Sarah says Santa isnt real" to which I reply; "Sarah doesn't know everything."

Fast forward to present day. I know she knows these people do not exist. I think she KNOWS I know she knows. But we play along together because we both get something out of it: in my case it is a minor bolstering to the ever-more-quickly fading belief that my child is still innocent and fully able to enter into an alternate reality without question as to its validity aka- belief in magic. For her, well, she gets stuff. So.

So she lost a tooth last week. Wednesday to be precise. I wasn't home when this happened, and her Grandmother (the other non-crusty one) failed to mention it to me so I could act accordingly. When Aria woke up in the morning she mentioned to me that A) She had lost the tooth and B) Demand for crafts must be waaaay up so as to keep the tooth fairy from making to our house to collect her tooth.

Ahem.

So I assured her the tooth fairy would surely be around soon to get her tooth. We put the tooth in an envelope and I tried to make a mental note to take care of it that night. And then, she left for her dad's and I completely forgot.

And then this morning I rose to find this note sitting on my vanity:








BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Because you see, she realized that someone needed to be reminded that the tooth was languishing under her pillow, yet she also knew that she couldn't come out and say "Mom, hurry the hell up." or in any way imply that she KNOWS there is no tooth fairy, because she realizes if she does that, the end of the tooth fairy payments will have arrived. She instead opted for her only viable course of action which was to prod me to remind the tooth fairy about her wayward tooth. And it worked. I slipped into her room and slid the envelope from its place beneath her sleeping head and left 4 shiny quarters in its place.

Communication, so subtly crafted. That's my girl.