#124: wastelands

Little more than nothing done this week. What does that mean? It means that for the last five days I've not done anything beyond work, watch "The Wire," think about life while watching "The Wire" and think about "The Wire" while I watch life, and work. Also, I've been eating ramen which means my sleep has been weird because I'm not getting nourishment and I've been exhausted during the day, but that could also be because I've been watching "The Wire." I'm currently fighting an impulse to get the second season tonight. No, Wilson. Retreat, retreat. Run from the devil. Although, if "The Wire" is the devil, he's a fine-looking evil man.

I realize my existence is in wasteland mode--although "Under Pressure" is playing right now so how bad is it all really? Not too such. I wake up a mere 15 or 20 minutes before I have to leave for work. I eat randomly throughout the day...if at all. I've stopped eating breakfast, arguably my favorite time of any day also favorite meal. The apartment wavers between tidy and disaster. I don't even speak with the kitchen anymore. When it can be civil, I'll be civil. Laundry is likewise always in flux and I since I'm throwing clothes on hastily in an effort to be out the door on time, fashion is almost non-existent not that I've ever been especially fashionable, but at least I've put some degree of thought into my appearance before.

As long as I avoid any bit of personal contact with myself, life goes quite smoothly. But then I slow down enough to realize I'm not accomplishing anything, personal growth-wise. Some of this is because I haven't had a day off in a while. We go into survival. I wish I were fine-tuned-machine enough though to have a plan to deal with this and still be human in the midst. Surely it can't be so hard.

I think one key is to get out of my creature of habit ways. Shake things up. Instead of dreading dishes all evening and guilt tripping myself into seriously considering, but ultimately not washing them...I will...find...um...a different approach.

---

While I figure that out, here's what went in today's paper:

1. This is my contribution, results of yesterday's courts: guy who's avoided justice finally gets some. You can never hide from the Batman. Right?

2. Colleague, writing on Haiti. Read it. It's good. Because, though we often forget, life goes on even after the media has stopped going all bunny-happy on a disaster event. The New York Times has had some really strong follow-up stories too.

---

Portland this weekend. I'm excited. It'll be pretty busy what with a bridal shower and meeting up with Liz for ironing out some wedding stuff and, of course, watching "SpongeBob" with the male siblings. Saturday will be my first day off in a while so I'm going to soak it all up until it comes out my eyeballs. And then I'm going to figure out a way to fit my bike into my car.

---

Proof that God exists and loves us:

1. Coffee with half+half
2. David Bowie
3. Breakfast foods
4. "The Wire" -- God loves drug dealers too. Truly. No one's perfect and technically we're not dead until we're dead.
5. Star Wars novels
6. The invention of the shower
7. Our legs are constructed so that we can sit cross-legged

I'll crush you like worm

"FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

(that's how the photographer suggested I begin the story...either that or put "e" on the ende of every worde which sounded great at firste and then, upon reflection, a kniffe to the eye would be more pleasante)

JOUSTING! Tall manly men! So exciting, the audience will stop and cheer--So delighting, it will run for fiiiiiiiiiiifttyyyyy yeeeeaaars!!!!!

And, yes, a slideshow.

Check it out. My crowning achievement...never thought I'd top the elk poop coverage. Boy, was I wrong.

---

Today was fun. And by fun I mean, I sat in municipal court for an hour and a half with the lights flicking on and off every few minutes while police officers scurried around with tables trying to position the judge somewhere where the light from the hall windows could illuminate the docket properly. Meanwhile, traffic offenders sat in the dark plotting Lord knows what.

Power was out here and there across the entire north coast all morning. I got ready for work in the dark. You can tell.

Also there was the windstorm and the rainstorm and the hailstorm and now there's sun.

Said Sandra, at her desk, lowering her head into her arms after the news meeting, "Oh why do we have to live here?!"

#122: never never gonna hear the ring of school bells

Am I? Yes. Yes I am. Looking at schools, yes. Wait...school? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I hate school. But here I am: one tab open at GRADUATE programs at U of O (Literary non-fiction, communication and society) and another at (of all things) Environmental Law and Criminal Law at Lewis and Clark. Law school?! The horror. I'm not nearly clever enough. While we're on the subject, just school in general was never my strong point. Yes, I got good grades. Mostly. We'll ignore the time I failed "info gathering" or that one D in Music Theory. My argument: both those classes were in winter term.

Which brings up another subject about how this winter is the best one I've ever had. Nobody died, was on the brink of dying, or had a huge, disastrous, suicide-inducing personal crisis (that I know of). Do I want to bring that all back by going to school? Current theory is that winter term school=the end of joy and fruitful existence.

But...professors...graduate school. HOLY COW! I have a bachelor's degree...such things are no longer beyond me (if we pretend money is not an issue for a minute).

Hastily I add: this means nothing. NOTHING. All and absolutely nothing.

Just some thought I had.

I am where I am for the conceivable future (barring complete economic collapse or being fired). School might be in my five year or ten year plan. But it also, as easily, might not be. It's an interesting daydream. And that, of course, is the problem. All daydreams are doable and all daydreams are nice. Do not be fooled, do not allow the beguiling, weaving, the lure of a plan drive you to something mad unless the madness is desirable above all other gods and good to make one wise. And even then, stay back a bit before jumping any cliffs.

It is nice, though, to taste that bachelor's for the first time since I got it.

My nature is a planning nature and I haven't been making any plans recently. This needs to stop and plans must be made even if they never happen. With a plan, I embark on some course and I stop wallowing and I sleep better at night because I have something to think about. Having a big plan gives me chart by which I can make smaller plans because those big plans take a lot of preparation and have their own prerequisites.

So it is time to:

- break out the books about power and government again ("Models of Democracy" anyone? I'm nerdier about this book than anything else I know). It's been awhile since I've read them and I've missed those violent Appalachian coal miners and Augusto Boal and theories of direct democracy.

- write a few essays/lit.non.fic. pieces...maybe try for outside publication??? scary thought

- actually finish that story cycle I've outlined and re-outlined for the last two years

- write those news/feature stories that would be good for the paper and that I actually want to write

- $avings plan

But first. And foremost. I must brush my teeth before I leave for today's assignment: Medieval jousting tourney at the fairgrounds. No, I don't know anything about it either.

#121: tribes

I miss my clansmen.

This one:



And this one:



And this one:



And this one:



And this one:



---

In recent news:

- A jail study to end all other jail studies!!!!!!...or so I'm told.

- What's an ROV? Click on: "Clatsop Community College gears up for ROV competition"

- Sometimes this is what I do first thing in the morning. Click on "Logs tumble off truck..."

###

1. Last night, before "Amelie" and after tea, I wrote a song and after I wrote the song I wrote the lyrics which ended up being about men (landlords, the devil, other people) who are looking for things (runaways, rent, wives, and gardens) and the singer has apparently hidden all of these things in the backyard. So don't let him in, the singer says. It's some sad commentary on my lapses into kleptomania I think.

2. Cover story today: the wonderful, wild, westerly, wanton?, woe-begone, wavering world of weaving.

3. Heidi and Josiah are coming up tomorrow. My heart she fills with joy and also I should clean the kitchen.

#119: they were born to go

assignment: vertical orientation, single focus



"let it go -- the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise--let it go it
was sworn to
go




"let them go -- the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers -- you must let them go they
were born
to go



"let all go -- the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear
so comes love"

#79, e.e.cummings



---

Cover 3/3: How many minutes of watching footage of 800-ft boats crossing and tossing the bar does it take before you get seasick? Answer: roughly 5.

---

You never know how past stories will come back to you. I was proofing the Exchange this morning and saw this letter. It is related to this story ("Brothers get 20 months for random beating" 2/8/10). You will see, at the bottom, a comment from their mother. There was also a letter from his sister. They were hard to read. And when I did read them I wanted to defend myself, explain about court and how I'm quoting what is the official record. None of these sentences are my own in that their facts did not originate with me. But I can't defend myself and what would be the point anyway? To tell them I'm basically some kid who spent over an hour phrasing and rephrasing the story to try to make it as anonymous and dry-fact as possible?

It's one of the stories I really didn't want to write because this is how you'd write it: you go to the court, get a rundown from an official, maybe a look at a report and then you sit through the proceedings and hear people with titles retell the story and you write it down because what's said in court is the official record and sometimes you dig and sometimes you don't. It is possible, in this listening process, to think of it in terms of "official." I have to tell myself not to over-think, to ride on the "official," because otherwise I would be paralyzed, neck down, and not able to write anything and the writing is the job, the being there is the job, the human drama is also the job and sometimes the human pain, along with the human stupidity, cruelness, dirt, and heavy hands.

As a reporter, I have discovered, unless you are on trial for libel or scandal or whatever else you can rack up by reporting, no one except your co-workers (sometimes) and your friends (sometimes) hear the full story. Everyone else gets this cold piece of 500 words, 400 words, bald news copy that can't include everything and is trusting people told the truth--or, at least, their real opinion, marked and labeled.

Reporters are not gods, endowed with an innate knowledge of What's Really Going On. We're ditch diggers. We don't always know what it is we're digging up, but we pat it into pottery as best we can and try to be fair, faithful and available at the other end of the office telephone.

---

It's funny. Often the first thing I am blamed for in angry emails is that I wrote horrible things about people I don't know. And here there are the letter writers, to whom I cannot respond, calling me, a stranger, all sorts of things. Primarily: liar, hack, worthless, shameful.

---

In a case like the one way up above, there is no way I can know or tell what really happened, as the letter writers ask me to understand their Real. There are so many versions and there are the men's own statements in court that they did not know the man they beat up. The base remains the same: something criminal happened. Pain is unquantifiable and human beings inscrutable and families are full of grief. How far back should we go now? I could write for years and still not understand it. I could live forever and miss everything while casting nets.

I hate that.

The letter today though made me happy and I hope with all my heart that it's sincere.

#118: Fess Parker is dead

EVERYONE

DAVY CROCKETT

IS DEAD

...there is no more light in the world.



Davy Crockett was my hero. Second only to Batman, though, at certain points in my life, Davy Crockett probably came first.

I loved him: how he could track through the woods as good, if not sometimes better, than the natives; show up all the tight-pants army kids; shoot a gun like Robin Hood could shoot a bow; wear that manky raccoon hat in such an enviable, dashing way; run Mike Fink out of the water; raise Cain* without whiskey; and, in general, be awesome.

* "raising Cain" is right at the top of my list of favorite archaic expressions we probably inherited from Georgia

#117: the water is wide

The two half-drunk Irish boys were playing their violins and stomping in the snow and ice in a circle measured by light from a hotel lobby and a border guard of people tight around them. The words stumbled steam-heavy, breathed into the cold. It was somewhere below zero and we were all in New York City the night before St. Patrick's Day. This was after Sam and I had lost our way five times on the Subway, but before the bagpipe band marched into the hotel lobby at 10 a.m. to warm up for the parade, setting the walls shaking with that specific Irish fervor that sounds remarkably like a cat getting wrung through a loom sideways while being devoured by fire ants.

But, right now, we were outside and in the snow and the ice and a few days before it had been 70 degrees Fahrenheit and a man wearing only a towel had brushed by me in the street. But this day before St.Patrick's Day it was cold and night was even colder. All of us strangers leaving a bit of room for the singers, pressed close together and blew into our hands.

I don't even remember what they sang. Traditional Irish songs usually go along the same lines every time though: "Lord I was a drunk 'un that night so long ago in the spring, when o'er the hill a trippin' away, I spied a fair colleen. But afore I could ask if she wanted to dance the great war bells were ringin' and I must go to die for the land while my only love stands singin'." And then everyone dies in a fit of glory, whiskey, love and general down-trodden-ness.

There was a feeling of togetherness and community in what's a slick modern world where everyone walks double triple-time down the sidewalks, not even noticing the man who's slowly freezing to death nearby or the woman suddenly hurled in front blazing taxis or the raping, mugging, child-abusing, life-destroying going on next door underneath the laundry and behind each quiet window.

It's my favorite memory of New York. One of the only times that trip I didn't feel like someone I couldn't see was patiently screaming into my ear.

---

Oh St.Patrick's Day. The day when everyone who isn't Irish pretends they are and everyone who's 1/4 of a teaspoon Irish is obnoxious as all damnation, flitting about saying absurd bro-ish things about Ireland, but mostly about "The Boondock Saints." (I suppose they're being honest in a way...how much of St.Patrick's Day is actually about Ireland anymore? Now that we have this global economy/global culture stuff floating around like wind shaking the barley.) Meanwhile, all the true Irish get uproariously drunk and speak in tongues...although this depends on where you live. In New York, I discovered, St.P's is a Big Deal. In Astoria, not so much. They're too Scandinavian here.

---

I am not Irish nor will I ever be.

Beer is for everyone, as are potatoes. I will consume both in absolute Polish/American mutt peace. And there will be no forthright wearing o' the green, no matter what Napper Tandy says regarding Ireland's state in the grand scheme of things.

Now.

Follow this link. John Wayne movies! In Ireland! With Maureen O'Hara! Watch it!

#116

I've been listening to this song non-stop. Took a gander and a glance at their other stuff. Mehhhhh. But this song. Oh this song.

---

Here is Monday morning, in miniature and minus all the times I wanted to stab myself in the eye with the corner of my stenographer's notebook:

1. Don't you just want to take them home to meet your mother AND your father? Click on the first link: "Two arrested on drug charges"

2. It's a cover blitz! Somehow I was assigned to do three cover stories in a row. This is the first one.

Then, around 10 a.m., I went off to the municipal court, guy didn't show up, so I left to make it back in time for the newsroom. Not 10 minutes after the meeting ends, phone call from muni court. Guy showed up ridiculously late and they clapped him in irons and took him away in the paddy wagon, boyo. So I call around the court, getting details and then call down to the jail to confirm.

"Oh yeah, yep, he's here," says the deputy, "oh wait...there he goes."

He'd posted his required 10% of bail.

Which brings us to this morning:

1. Gonzales. This brief is mine, but the full story is Deeda's. It's a harrowing little tale. READ IT. There are two news stories: "The tale spreads through four Oregon counties" and "Meet a DUII poster boy"

2. Cover 2 of 3. Up with women!

(which makes me think of...umm...this is a total sidetrack...which makes me think of:



Well that was fun.

I had another story today too, but I don't remember what it was. I'll take a wild stab and say county elections.

---

My current feelings: ill-ish (not actually sick just low), sleep-deprived, overwhelmed.

I dashed off my last cover for this week about an hour ago. Now I have to scramble another one together for Monday and figure out how behind I am on everything else. Not too bad, I think, but one can never be sure.

#115: photo essay interlude

It's amazing what you can get for $1.

Clearly I had too much free time this afternoon.

---

Chapter 1: Matilda was not prepared for Esme's death, nor Molly's sudden reappearance. The others remained indifferent.



Chapter 2: Molly, finding herself in a hostile world, menaced the scout.



Chapter 3: Alas. Molly soon became the least of the troops' concerns.



Chapter 4: Sergeant Matthews considered himself a battle-hardened warrior, but the sight of Connley's futile struggles sickened him to the core.



Chapter 5: Matthews took stock of the situation. He could see only ten survivors.



Chapter 6: They ventured out onto the lake. The boy they called 'Possum was the first to break through a thin spot. They never saw him again.



Chapter 7: It was at this critical moment that they encountered the Goat.



Chapter 8: Matthews wondered if he'd ever see the sweet shores of Virginia again.

music prep

This is akin to folding a towel long-wise across the window sill, turning on the heat, closing the kitchen door and finding my slippers: preparation for getting warm. This is a music prep.

A friend asked me, an embarrassingly long time ago, to write an album review. I said OF COURSE. And then I didn't. As follows habit, I have some lovely excuses. They are as black-eyed and house-fire burned as the saddest skinned-alive orphans you've ever seen, but they remain excuses.

I did write a rough draft. It lies buried where all rough drafts should rot. So my self-assignment this weekend is to write the album review and post it here. But tonight is reserved for the music of my youth to prep me for such a task.

1. "Waiting Room" - Fugazi



I found Fugazi through the Public Library and not, importantly, through the CD collection at the Public Library, but between a copy of Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" and some book about Bob Dylan. I don't remember what this book-containing-Fugazi was called. Something full of riot and noise and the present day rebellion, by which we mean the late 80s early 90s in the dark beast belly of underground punk. This book was full of interviews and essays in true punk form: short paragraphs and damnations.

And that was a beginning.

The only Fugazi CD the entire library system had available was The Argument and I borrowed it about a million times each year for two years until I finally bought my own copy. I worked my way through their other albums. A friend gave me a burned copy of Repeater when I was 16. But The Argument will always be special while "Waiting Room" (from 13 Songs) will always be my favorite song.

I kind of love that they yell at their fans to stop moshing and that Ian MacKaye looks like some generic sloucher who wears his t-shirts until they turn into ropes and is probably a truly annoying individual to have a private conversation with. Music purists, you know.

2. "Lake of Fire" - Nirvana

"by Nirvana": only partially true. The song is by the Meat Puppets, but I think Ben and CJ are the only people who care. I say, Nirvana can, and should, have it. Like how Hendrix can have "All Along the Watchtower." Even Bob Dylan said so.



In a dream, Kurt Cobain and I took care of a kitten. We named it...I forget what we named it. This was a long time ago and I'm already getting the feeling that I made it all up to impress someone. I was heartbroken when I found out Kurt Cobain was dead and had been long before I even knew he existed.

Nirvana was the reason I killed my wrist, picking out power chords with newly-nimble fingers on the acoustic guitar my dad once bought at a pawn shop for $20. I listened to the whole of In Utero first, fell upon Nevermind next and discovered Bleach while sitting at the back of my parents' 18 passenger van on a long ride home from somewhere up the highway.

3. "Small Crime" Damien Rice

Damien Rice is an Irish jerk. He uses people like Egyptians used slaves: glue for the pyramids. I don't like Damien Rice. I go so far as to say I hate Damien Rice and I hope a wandering cat strangles him. But this song stopped me dead in my Damien Rice-hating tracks one morning. I was driving home from Oregon City. It was night. I had my mom's car and 9 Crimes was the only CD in sight. So I put it in thinking that at least the loathing would keep me awake. I love this song and I don't care who knows it. Anyway, Lisa Hannigan + pianos make the song what it is.

Note before we begin: Listen to the song first. DON'T WATCH THE VIDEO UNTIL AFTER YOU'VE ALREADY LISTENED TO THE SONG. You will never be able to take anything seriously ever again if you do this out of sequence.



Oh Damien Rice music video, could you get any more slow motion and absurd? Floating balloon severed singing head?!?!

"Doooo dee doooo, hmmm. Trash. Nope. Nothing. Again. Sigh."

From the gutter: "smallll criiiiimmmme"

"La! A severed head! My ex-lover's severed head. Did I cheat on her? Wait. Did she cheat on me? Wait. A BALLOON?"

Severed head ex lover singing balloon face drifts musically and soulfully down a sort of ghetto alley. Ghetto alleys + music videos = magic realism straight from the guts of the human experience. Ghetto alleys are a signal: This music can now speak to us. Apparently.

"Wait...come back!!!! Oh, poop. The balloon doesn't want me. I guess I'll go dejectedly kick around trash in slow motion."

But what's this? The severed balloon head is FOLLOWING him.

Now they can be adorable hipsters together forever! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee.

Oh no! Nasty Irish Catholic school children with sling shots (who has sling shots anymore?)

Cut to slow motion Damien Rice blue-eyed despair (eyes widen slightly)

POP!!!!!!!!!

Mournful down-looking. Balloon head has turned into pottery and lies in broken ceramic disarray.

Damien Rice angry face (eyes widen slightly)(downcast)(mouth.can.not.close)

From the gutter: "smaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll criiiiimmmmmme"

The end.

People need to stop ripping off "The Red Balloon" which is awesome and adorable. Stop it right now, everyone. It only works when you're a darling French schoolboy wearing what appear to be regulation sweatpants and you lead a sad, lonely life and try to keep your red balloon from dating other balloons because the red balloon is all you have.

4. "Lucky" - Radiohead

OK Computer kept me from disaster. Between the ages of 14 (when I bought the album on a whim, knowing absolutely nothing about Radiohead, not even "Creep") and 17, I had only to put this in the CD player and hear the opening chords of "Airbag" to calm down from whatever angsty teenage rage I'd worked myself up to.



There are many associations to go along with "Lucky". The strongest one recently is Tiffany.

I literally cannot speak in the mornings, nor do I want to. I like my mornings quiet and gradual and early. Tiffany woke up (at least when I lived with her for two years) to music. Sometimes she even woke up talking. This was the song she'd use to rouse me from my sacred morning muteness and "Lucky" was also her anthem for a term. Not a day could pass, but I would hear it blasting through the bedroom door or drifting through the floorboards to the living room. We played "Lucky" and that Age of Aquarius song over and over and over and over and over and over.

---

I could go on, but that's enough for tonight.

#113

I'm in Portland.

Sometimes I do these things that seem like a good idea on and off for hours and then I have to wake up the next morning and be busy and all I feel is a question: Why did I do that?

So when my alarm goes off at 4 am tomorrow and I have to head back to Astoria to go to work, I will probably wonder.

I DID IT FOR YOU, LIZ. Just for you. I HAVE NO REGRETS.

#112

I had a dream last night that my hair was long again. Like this



only longer.

Ummm. I am on the right.

---

Story today: election season. Headline is: "Debra Birkby files for county commission"

---

Tired. Perhaps I have narcolepsy? Hmmmm.

---

Night meeting + story. Here I go.

#111

Sometimes I say the stupid things I think
I mean I--
Sometimes think the stupidest things

This song speaks to me. I'm not going to explore this further.

Please play it while you read the rest of the blog to provide a pleasing background hum.

---

IMPORTANT: If I have neglected to respond to your phone calls, Facebook comments or messages, carrier pigeons, death notices, letters, or anything else, LET ME KNOW. I discovered this evening that I really, truly do not remember a whole lot of the last two weeks. I mean, I remember work and stuff, but if I didn't call you or write you back right away, it probably flew from my brain fast as those wing-ed dove things that, you know, wing and ed away.

---




(J Trim-Trim, knitting. This is photo #2 of a personal photo project I'm working on. A "PPP" if you will. Get it? Personal Photo Project...yes?)

I went to Eugene this weekend, whirled my way through all the people I miss with all my heart (in surprising ways...I didn't realize I'd missed anyone, but of course I did and I'd just been suppressing the truth in unrighteousness).

How are there all these amazing people in one place? I say the same thing about the Portland area. How does that happen? Do I need to drop my cynical ways and begin to believe that wonderful people abound, perish the thought, everywhere? So it would seem.

The Eugene folk are a special tribe, though, dear to my heart. Watch me tear up a bit.

(Oh, I'm sorry...has the song ended yet? Here's another:)



But we're wandering into diary territory, so let's not go there. Suffice: I returned encouraged and with new energy to continue doing what I'm doing now, do it better, and have other projects on the side. More art, more writing, more conscious living and thinking and definitely more God and more geetar playing and less sitting around like a sad puppy. Not that much of sitting sad puppydom happens. I just wasn't sure how to wrap up the sentence.

---

Some housecleaning:

1. THE ELK POOP STORY. I know you've been on the edge for this one. You don't have to lie. We all have a bit of dirty child in us getting the giggles, running in circles screaming "Heeeeeeeeeee! Poop poop poop pooooooooooooooop!"

2. Today's story: Everyday People feature. Slang: EDP. Now you can be gangsta like the rest of us Daily A-ers.

---

Blerrrrrrrg. So I just woke up and I have that sick feeling in my stomach and that taste in my throat telling me I should never sleep soundly from 3 pm until 7 pm. No one sleeps during those hours, not even vampires. I suspect I am sleep-deprived...like how I was cool toy-deprived as a child and played with wooden tinker toys and paper dolls instead. I did have a good dinosaur collection and marbles. MAN! marbles.

I loved my childhood.

I took home all my journals this weekend. They'd been hiding on a closet shelf at my parents' house. Now they're in a huge stack on my floor and some dark night I'm going to sit down and read them all and cry copious amounts of tears.

(Is this the height of vanity? I kind of think of past iterations of myself as not myself in any way and I read my old journals thinking, "You poor, weird kiddo. And why didn't you ever brush your hair?" Which is a moot point, since I don't ever brush it now either)

My favorite entry so far is from 8 year-old me: "Dear Diary, I feel many emotions toward my sister. Today is annoience. It was sunny. I climbed a tree."

(Sorry, Laura. I really really love you. I was EIGHT!)

---

On that note.

Night.

elk poop day

This was found on the photographer's desk. I took a picture. Emergency water! Water for your emergencies. It's like the juice packs of childhood camping trips field trips zoo trips and other lunches.

We've arrived at "Dollars & Cents" (Radiohead, "Amnesiac") when the last time I was conscious we were still on "We're All Mad Here" (Tom Waits, "Alice"), 13 tracks ago. I balance the lap top on my lap and stretch onto my back. Its always nice to feel your organs and spine realign after two hours of writing.

Oh the many days I've spent in low-lit rooms, just the computer, me and iTunes, battling away at sentences after a long day of being sure I could never get to this point of being done with whatever it was I had to write: paper, article, info hell extravaganza. But here I am again and wherever I begin, two hours later I'm always at a different point, something is either past or beginning. That's what I like about time.

Di told me that when she first came to the US, she would tell herself, "In two months it will be different" and she'd count down the days. Not in hopes of when she'd leave, but in hopes of the day when we all wake up and realize we are comfortable with where we have arrived.

---

"Hunting Bears" is my favorite track.

---

The elk poop story is done. I'm letting it air out for a bit then I'll edit it ruthlessly and travel to the newsroom and turn it in. I feel peaceful about it as of 8:29 p.m. Peaceful is good. It was a fun story to report and it turned out to be fun to write, which is rarely the case for me. I get so worried and I'm a perfectionist. I don't want to write a bad piece and then, crippled by my fear, I do. So I've mostly given up on good-writing. I'll settle for this peaceful feeling instead, some inward goon approves of what I've done.

---

If you're not reading The New Yorker, you really should. Such interesting pieces and such good writing. We were talking about it in the break room this afternoon in a rare all-reporter break room rendezvous--always unplanned, always wonderful.

I recommend the Clint Eastwood article and the Paul Krugman one too.

day in photography

Today was spent out in the wilderness, hunting for elk pellets. Poop! And there was mud and it was gorgeous outside. Life does not become better.

Here are some photos from today. Story comes Friday.



This cheerful, contented looking person works at Lewis&ClarkNat'lPark. She is holding an elk pellet and crumbling it in her fingers to determine how fresh it is. She gives it a level 2: slightly minty.



POO!!!!!



The muddy path of the might beast. Elk trax. Shortly afterward, all was mud but not as bad as in the past, I was told.



"They are all............per......fect....." (dies)

("The Last Samurai" was a dumb movie, but how could anyone ever hate Ken Watanabe especially when he's a samurai -- all poetical, just, brutal and dangerous, the last tragic warrior of a dying age?)

Basically: cherry blossomings. The smell, I don't even know what it reminds me of. Childhood and spring in Portland and Aloha and with those associations come more. Things indescribable because they are a weird blend of memory, senses and emotions all warped and wrapped together.



Storm ravages alas.

---

So there you go. My day.

information is a useful tool

...but this is not useful information:



(This is how I currently feel about my hair, in case you were wondering. MOOSE! Side question: why do our [women's] moods so much depend on what our hair and skin is doing? Why doesn't it depend on...I don't know...our fingernails or our elbows?)

a. I think my right tear duct is confused and I want to blame the onions I chopped up last night. My eye has been watering all day. I look like despair, but as a Janus mask--so while one half of my face cries the other is mocking its pain, left eye bright and dry.

b. It's been almost impossible to wake up in the mornings--post printing press installation fatigue? Mono? Am I dying? I will get to the bottom of this, and hopefully long before I develop a serious coffee-dependency. The positive side of this is that I've been sleeping all through the night again which hasn't happened for a while.

The negative side of this is that the reason I'm sleeping so deeply is because I took one of the mattresses off my bed when Sara came over (this was the whole purpose of having two mattresses: house guests would have a place to sleep, seeing as I don't have a couch. However, it made my bed so tall and weird and wobbly and my blankets tended to slide off in the middle of the night and I woke up at all hours).

So, yes, I took off one of the mattresses and it's now leaning against my other-room wall. I come home and wonder if I'm expecting armed gunmen. You know, Godfather. But I don't want to put it back because then I won't sleep well. There's nowhere else to store it though except on the bed. Curses.

c. Questions about the purpose of our existence continue to bother me.


(As you can see, my life is very tragic right now.)

d. I've been playing this song on my guitar a lot:



e. I went for a walk this evening and scared the glory out of at least three teenage couples whose vapid giggling made me want to never ever have teenagers. Instead I just denied them cigarettes when they asked if I had any. That made me feel good. See if there's ever a "White female furnshing cigarettes to juveniles. Officer advised this is illegal activity" written up about me.

fishing poemstry

This whole event actually began with a man on a balcony, shooting off a Roman Candle at an unholy morning hour. But that's just how it was for me.

WHAT I DID THIS WEEKEND

I'm not sure how or what to feel about this piece. Pile onto the usual self-loathing that follows almost any article I write an increased degree of tiredness and the weird homesickness that smote suddenly upon me Saturday night around, I'd say, 7 pm. I haven't shaken it yet although a long and unexpected phone talk tonight with Di was nice. We talked about death, loss, cancer, and cooking. Among other things. This is fairly typical.

---

Domesticity update: I made soup. But I think I'm extra sensitive to onions. After chopping up two of them I became as to a fountain overflowing. I looked like someone on the worst day of their life...like Mel Gibson in "Braveheart" when the British kill everything and everyone he loves and he gets all hair-draggly and snotty and sad.

---

To combat everything that is making me unhappy, I'm watching "Hot Fuzz" and sipping the white wine Sara left in the fridge.

In ten minutes, hopefully the soup will be done simmering.

Then off to bed to dream of small town murders.