What a weird day, piloted on one hour and 30 minutes of sleep (12 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. and then off to Portland then turnaround come back again to be at work in Astoria by 7:30 a.m. The moonset was lovely and the sunrise beautiful). I don't think I'm tired but it's like when they're drilling in your mouth at the dentist's office and though you can't feel the pain, you know it's going on. So. I don't feel tired, but I know I must be. Deep down. Like maybe in my ankles? Kidney? Something. I don't remember being this moody since...well, while we're being honest, I guess it hasn't been that long. Since the bail hearing probably when the victim's autopsy report came out and I felt like throwing up and kicking things.
Here's a teaser of what I wrote for today's paper. This is a test to see if you want to keep on reading... Let me know if you don't. I learn from this. I'm curious.
<><><>
When 10-month-old Kaiya Maclay sees a photo of her mother, her eyes widen, her mouth opens to form a perfect oval. She pushes her tongue out against her gums.
“That’s her excited face,” says grandmother Judy Bleecker.
If it’s a photo Kaiya has seen many times before, she will make that face and dance, waving her arms and kicking her legs.
She’s old enough now to understand that the people in the photographs aren’t alive. She sees her mother’s picture and knows it’s only a picture. The real person is somewhere else.
But if Kaiya is shown a photograph of her mother that she’s never seen before, she’ll look at it intently then take it in her hands and turn it around to peer at the back.
She is looking for Jess Maclay, but she can’t find her.
Maclay, 30, a caseworker with Clatsop Community Action, died in a car accident Sunday morning, Feb. 20.
The car she was driving hit a patch of ice on U.S. Highway 26. She lost control, spun across both lanes and smashed into a fire truck parked on the side of the road.
It was the third car accident to happen at that exact spot that morning.
Emergency responders cut Jess, her husband TJ Maclay and their daughter Kaiya out of the car.
Jess was taken by helicopter to Portland where she was pronounced dead soon after arrival.
Here's the FULL STORY.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
#207 instrument
This is where all my free time and certainly a good stack of my money has gone recently. M. started calling it my boyfriend.
I felt a lot of guilty for casually laying it out on the carpet like this so I could take pictures. Yes, I am in love.... like Disney Cinderella singing "So this is love, mmmhhm mmhmm, so this is what makes life divine." And I do only play it while dressed up in a lot of gauze with a boomerang on my head:
But it's not that it's just pretty (although it is) and fits my arm-to-torso ratio quite nicely and sounds fantastic (it does)... It's that it also looks like this: (Hmmm. Don't know how well you can see. Bad photographer)
This guitar has been played and dinged up and carried around and loved. I like that best.
Yesterday, in a car, we were talking about houses because Marta and Matty were looking at houses to buy last week. The last house they looked at was a dirty little hole on a fantastic tract of land. The minute Marta set foot in the house, she wanted to leave, she said.
"I don't believe in spirits or anything like that, but there was something nasty and bad about this house," she said. By which she meant, Matty clarified, it was a place where someone had been hurt, molested, beaten. It had that feel.
I think about places we have left -- for all time, for a little while -- and how a house smells strange and musty when you come back from camping, how the yard has grown up and the blackberries have started to take over in a hostile way, how one time the faucet let loose a stream of brown water.
I think how hospital rooms will always be hospital rooms: places of blood and medicine, the stinking skins and bodies and wounds mixed with the smell of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol. Death and birth, different sorts of pain.
I think how we know when places and things have been loved and cared for, and conversely, when we are in a place of terrible actions. It must be something we can smell but could never name. Like how I know a crisis is coming between me and another person, but I only realize at the last minute that I know and have known for a long time. We pick up on so much and only a quarter of it we ever realize consciously.
I felt a lot of guilty for casually laying it out on the carpet like this so I could take pictures. Yes, I am in love.... like Disney Cinderella singing "So this is love, mmmhhm mmhmm, so this is what makes life divine." And I do only play it while dressed up in a lot of gauze with a boomerang on my head:
But it's not that it's just pretty (although it is) and fits my arm-to-torso ratio quite nicely and sounds fantastic (it does)... It's that it also looks like this: (Hmmm. Don't know how well you can see. Bad photographer)
This guitar has been played and dinged up and carried around and loved. I like that best.
Yesterday, in a car, we were talking about houses because Marta and Matty were looking at houses to buy last week. The last house they looked at was a dirty little hole on a fantastic tract of land. The minute Marta set foot in the house, she wanted to leave, she said.
"I don't believe in spirits or anything like that, but there was something nasty and bad about this house," she said. By which she meant, Matty clarified, it was a place where someone had been hurt, molested, beaten. It had that feel.
I think about places we have left -- for all time, for a little while -- and how a house smells strange and musty when you come back from camping, how the yard has grown up and the blackberries have started to take over in a hostile way, how one time the faucet let loose a stream of brown water.
I think how hospital rooms will always be hospital rooms: places of blood and medicine, the stinking skins and bodies and wounds mixed with the smell of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol. Death and birth, different sorts of pain.
I think how we know when places and things have been loved and cared for, and conversely, when we are in a place of terrible actions. It must be something we can smell but could never name. Like how I know a crisis is coming between me and another person, but I only realize at the last minute that I know and have known for a long time. We pick up on so much and only a quarter of it we ever realize consciously.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
oh little grasshopper, it's not so bad
My mother used to say to us, "Oh little grasshopper, it's not so bad" and she'd say it in this voice -- think Old World peasant comes to the New World, making fun of a freshly-arrived-off-the-boat neighbor's accent.
Being adult is not what was advertised, but it's not so bad (little grasshopper). Keep calm and carry on.
Miles and I used to tease Hannah and L when they played "teenagers" when we were all around 8 or 10 years old and raggedy like kids used to be back then in the good old days, the golden years, angel.
"What are you going to do when you ARE teenagers?" we'd demand, swinging above them in the front yard tree. "Play 'adult'?"
We were quick and witty then.
We were never going to grow up and we barely knew what death was, not even in theory.
That changed and was in fact always changing even though I didn't know it until later. It comes to us in pieces, an inkling that someone lied to us except probably nobody did. It might have started when my uncle tipped me over the edge of the coffin to look at my lemon-tinted dead great grandfather. Or it might have been earlier, when I saw how a dead spider curls into the shape of a miniature birdcage, all the breath knocked out of it. And there is always sleep.
In an old movie, the villain stands on a wasteland beach, looking out to the sea, and is asked by a hero why he is not sleeping. They will need strength for the days ahead. To which the villain replies, "I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death."
I'm more aware of how food dies now that I'm an adult. But that's a trick. It's already dead. So I guess I'm more aware of rot. How food rots and needs to be dealt with all the time, just like how the body must constantly be cleaned and the carpet vacuumed or else, uncleaned, the body will smell and, unvacuumed, the small corpses of misguided pill bugs will pile up along the molding and under the heater. Pill bugs enter my apartment to die. They trundle across the carpet, appearing out of nowhere, creepy and crustaceanous.
This must be dealt with. Adulthood looks like a series of "dealing with." For example, I must deal with my wisdom teeth, but first I must deal with a tooth improperly filled by a dentist then I can deal with sending x-rays to the surgeon and organizing time to be knocked out on drugs and drooling blood into my pillow. Then I can deal with all the stories I am behind on, but actually I should deal with those first in case I respond badly to the painkillers. Then there are the dishes. I'd hate to die in the night with dirty dishes everywhere. And the empty beer bottles from the night people came over for dinner. I will die in a clean house. Also I should deal with laundry and the clutter in my closet. And I should do something about the mismatched curtains in my bedroom, put up something to block the light out more. And I should look into a five year plan and open a savings account and stop relying on memory for so many things because every day memory pulls a tougher bargain: "I'll let you remember That, but I'm taking all of Monday." Oh memory, you jerk. Then there are other decisions: sign up for the 401 K? Stop eating bread? What is that lump on the back of my head (don't worry, mom)? Sleep now? Sleep later? Eat now? Eat later? Eat what? Call that person? Drop the ball? Keep on juggling. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Laura: Move to Hawaii. Do it.
Being adult is not what was advertised, but it's not so bad (little grasshopper). Keep calm and carry on.
Miles and I used to tease Hannah and L when they played "teenagers" when we were all around 8 or 10 years old and raggedy like kids used to be back then in the good old days, the golden years, angel.
"What are you going to do when you ARE teenagers?" we'd demand, swinging above them in the front yard tree. "Play 'adult'?"
We were quick and witty then.
We were never going to grow up and we barely knew what death was, not even in theory.
That changed and was in fact always changing even though I didn't know it until later. It comes to us in pieces, an inkling that someone lied to us except probably nobody did. It might have started when my uncle tipped me over the edge of the coffin to look at my lemon-tinted dead great grandfather. Or it might have been earlier, when I saw how a dead spider curls into the shape of a miniature birdcage, all the breath knocked out of it. And there is always sleep.
In an old movie, the villain stands on a wasteland beach, looking out to the sea, and is asked by a hero why he is not sleeping. They will need strength for the days ahead. To which the villain replies, "I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death."
I'm more aware of how food dies now that I'm an adult. But that's a trick. It's already dead. So I guess I'm more aware of rot. How food rots and needs to be dealt with all the time, just like how the body must constantly be cleaned and the carpet vacuumed or else, uncleaned, the body will smell and, unvacuumed, the small corpses of misguided pill bugs will pile up along the molding and under the heater. Pill bugs enter my apartment to die. They trundle across the carpet, appearing out of nowhere, creepy and crustaceanous.
This must be dealt with. Adulthood looks like a series of "dealing with." For example, I must deal with my wisdom teeth, but first I must deal with a tooth improperly filled by a dentist then I can deal with sending x-rays to the surgeon and organizing time to be knocked out on drugs and drooling blood into my pillow. Then I can deal with all the stories I am behind on, but actually I should deal with those first in case I respond badly to the painkillers. Then there are the dishes. I'd hate to die in the night with dirty dishes everywhere. And the empty beer bottles from the night people came over for dinner. I will die in a clean house. Also I should deal with laundry and the clutter in my closet. And I should do something about the mismatched curtains in my bedroom, put up something to block the light out more. And I should look into a five year plan and open a savings account and stop relying on memory for so many things because every day memory pulls a tougher bargain: "I'll let you remember That, but I'm taking all of Monday." Oh memory, you jerk. Then there are other decisions: sign up for the 401 K? Stop eating bread? What is that lump on the back of my head (don't worry, mom)? Sleep now? Sleep later? Eat now? Eat later? Eat what? Call that person? Drop the ball? Keep on juggling. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Laura: Move to Hawaii. Do it.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
#204 king of stuff, perhaps limbs
Adventures with Jackie:
Afternoon. Almost evening. A good time (whenever I've written the word "good" this week, I think of Hemingway and how I think "good" was his favorite word: It was a good cafe where I could sit and write all morning and then George would bring a bottle of white wine. She had good strong legs for skiing. It was good beer/wine/whiskey. We went to the races... it was a good day. And so on. Also the word "nice," often applied to legs. Female legs.)
This is a good time for me to
- finish drinking a latte (double-shot) prepared for me by Lovely L. We've got ordering down to completely non-verbal all-action explosion: she raises one hand, thumb out, pointer finger up, forming a cup (not a loser sign...we discussed this), and I raise two fingers (behind the backs of people in line in front of me), signaling a double-shot and we're off sprinting. Result: I have my coffee by the time I make it through the line. It's good to be local... Lovely L and her crew lead very professional service-oriented coffee lives, catering to one and all, but some places in this town, you only get things promptly and with a smile because the bartender, etc knows you. It makes one feel quite smug sometimes.
- give the new Radiohead album a good listen. This is difficult for me. I hate new things because they're uncomfortable (like new jeans, new shoes, new people) and I fear change as if change is something with claws and anger-management issues. Yet I love Radiohead ever so passionately. So I'm just going to let it play on repeat for a couple of days before I start even thinking about how it makes me feel. Gonna let it ooze its way in, became a new normal.
- write a bit. Got some ideas I want to kick around.
- prepare to meet C. at a restaurant in Cannon Beach I've been resisting going to all week. Now I get to go. So excited. And so hungry.
Cleaned the apartment earlier while "It Might Get Loud" played on Netflix in the background. Kind of a rad documentary-type thing and I enjoyed it more than just putting on some music. The Edge, James Page and JACK WHITE would play music and sometimes they would talk and so it wasn't like I was alone in my apartment being...alone... listening to music from the CD player.
Best part: Jack White, being driven to the artsy fartsy abandoned warehouse in a black car, glances out the window and sees a guy walking by talking on a cellphone.
"That looks like an accident between a suit and a cell phone," he says to the camera. "He's probably in the middle of saying the words 'totally organic.'"
Afternoon. Almost evening. A good time (whenever I've written the word "good" this week, I think of Hemingway and how I think "good" was his favorite word: It was a good cafe where I could sit and write all morning and then George would bring a bottle of white wine. She had good strong legs for skiing. It was good beer/wine/whiskey. We went to the races... it was a good day. And so on. Also the word "nice," often applied to legs. Female legs.)
This is a good time for me to
- finish drinking a latte (double-shot) prepared for me by Lovely L. We've got ordering down to completely non-verbal all-action explosion: she raises one hand, thumb out, pointer finger up, forming a cup (not a loser sign...we discussed this), and I raise two fingers (behind the backs of people in line in front of me), signaling a double-shot and we're off sprinting. Result: I have my coffee by the time I make it through the line. It's good to be local... Lovely L and her crew lead very professional service-oriented coffee lives, catering to one and all, but some places in this town, you only get things promptly and with a smile because the bartender, etc knows you. It makes one feel quite smug sometimes.
- give the new Radiohead album a good listen. This is difficult for me. I hate new things because they're uncomfortable (like new jeans, new shoes, new people) and I fear change as if change is something with claws and anger-management issues. Yet I love Radiohead ever so passionately. So I'm just going to let it play on repeat for a couple of days before I start even thinking about how it makes me feel. Gonna let it ooze its way in, became a new normal.
- write a bit. Got some ideas I want to kick around.
- prepare to meet C. at a restaurant in Cannon Beach I've been resisting going to all week. Now I get to go. So excited. And so hungry.
Cleaned the apartment earlier while "It Might Get Loud" played on Netflix in the background. Kind of a rad documentary-type thing and I enjoyed it more than just putting on some music. The Edge, James Page and JACK WHITE would play music and sometimes they would talk and so it wasn't like I was alone in my apartment being...alone... listening to music from the CD player.
Best part: Jack White, being driven to the artsy fartsy abandoned warehouse in a black car, glances out the window and sees a guy walking by talking on a cellphone.
"That looks like an accident between a suit and a cell phone," he says to the camera. "He's probably in the middle of saying the words 'totally organic.'"
Friday, March 18, 2011
#203 is Friday
I wasn't tired this week until midweek when I remembered daylight savings time had kicked in. Then suddenly I was very tired and I've been walking around feeling like I'm always losing an hour.
Reading: "True Grit" by Charles Portis. Just saw the new movie and spent the last 20 minutes curled in an armchair, all alone in the children's section of the second-run theater, sobbing into my paper popcorn container. A beautiful movie and it hit something I had only just started thinking about that same day: telling stories and telling what is real. Not "realism" necessarily. But getting to the bottom and the truth. I love the "True Grit" dialogue, the lack of contractions, the abides and credences, a sort of windiness, like a wide landscape and you have reached the hill with it all laid out below you. I read the book a long time ago. Second time is better.
"In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway. Love/hate him. Read some story about an American woman in a foreign nation state desiring a cat. Husband reading a book. Detail of two pillows. Adjectives shot on sight.
Listening: "Sigh No More" Mumford and Sons. Over and over and over and over. They seem trustworthy.
I wrote a story that took me four days to write and in the end it was only an OK story. It wasn't good. But the day I wrote it, I had this lyric running through my head:
There will come a time you'll see
with no more tears
and love will not break your heart
I don't know if it helped or hindered me or both. Either way, it made me sad to think about love and all the forms it takes and what it does or doesn't do and people are raised by wolves half the time, or eaten by them. Here's the story. They put the wrong photo of her in.
---
On a lighter note: HUMAN FOOT? In a DUMP?! Maybe...
Reading: "True Grit" by Charles Portis. Just saw the new movie and spent the last 20 minutes curled in an armchair, all alone in the children's section of the second-run theater, sobbing into my paper popcorn container. A beautiful movie and it hit something I had only just started thinking about that same day: telling stories and telling what is real. Not "realism" necessarily. But getting to the bottom and the truth. I love the "True Grit" dialogue, the lack of contractions, the abides and credences, a sort of windiness, like a wide landscape and you have reached the hill with it all laid out below you. I read the book a long time ago. Second time is better.
"In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway. Love/hate him. Read some story about an American woman in a foreign nation state desiring a cat. Husband reading a book. Detail of two pillows. Adjectives shot on sight.
Listening: "Sigh No More" Mumford and Sons. Over and over and over and over. They seem trustworthy.
I wrote a story that took me four days to write and in the end it was only an OK story. It wasn't good. But the day I wrote it, I had this lyric running through my head:
There will come a time you'll see
with no more tears
and love will not break your heart
I don't know if it helped or hindered me or both. Either way, it made me sad to think about love and all the forms it takes and what it does or doesn't do and people are raised by wolves half the time, or eaten by them. Here's the story. They put the wrong photo of her in.
---
On a lighter note: HUMAN FOOT? In a DUMP?! Maybe...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
tsunami
"Alright don't worry
even if things end up a bit too heavy,
we'll all float on.
Alright. Already.
We'll all float on"
Modest Mouse is the only way to survive a non-tsunami event in Oregon.
So (IRONY) that's the exact part of the song that was playing when I turned my car on to drive to work after being awoken at dawn by my editor telling me: "I need you to come into work right now. There's a tsunami warning. This isn't a drill."
Given that for the massive waterfront fire in December, he said (after waking me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night), "Hey, hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. I heard there might be a bit of a fire at the pier. Could you just go take a peek?" I figured we were all going to die. This was It. The Tsunami. The one city and county consultants have been telling us dourly for years, "The question is not IF but WHEN."
It sounds silly now, yes, given that NOTHING HAPPENED to Oregon (except in Brookings, my goodness), but for 15 minutes, while pulling on my jeans and hunting for my car keys and driving to the office, I was a little frightened. I realized I had no emergency preparedness. Not no how anywhere. I tried to be rational. I checked the fridge and the cupboards. Nope, no canned goods. I would have to rely on the local raccoon population to sustain me. What to do what to do... I grabbed my checkbook and my social security card and then, on a flash of inspiration, filled every mason jar I own with water.
Then I got to the office and they told me we're only going to get, at most, four foot waves.
Oh good.
---
So nothing happened here in C County, but awful things happened in Japan. I read a story today where the prime minister (Naoto Kan, born in 1946) called it the worst crisis since World War II. They're estimating over 10,000 dead. Can you even wrap your mind around that number? You can't. I just tried. I can't either.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)