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.
Monday, February 28, 2011
hai thar number 200
Guess what X is in the following sentences...
"If it's X that you're hiding from, there's no hiding place."
"X has problems, I know, but they're problems we'll just have to face."
Revelation! X = love in the Temptations' song "Don't Look Back"
Revelation #2: Who knew love was a creepy stalker drug addict with a drinking problem.
That's right. You better keep on a walking, don't look back.
---
This was my weekend. Your weekend. OUR weekend.
---
"Cait! I am a domestic goddess!" <--- the text I sent to my friend Cait about five minutes before I realized that I'd forgotten to do laundry yet again (still not sure what I'm going to be wearing tomorrow) and had run out of toilet paper. Trials indeed. But, you know what, I made soup and it turned out wonderfully (I over salted just a smidge. Whatevs) and my kitchen and fridge are clean.
Also, Smoker Man has vacated the apartment across the street. Maybe I won't end up dead in an air vent after all. Hooray!
"If it's X that you're hiding from, there's no hiding place."
"X has problems, I know, but they're problems we'll just have to face."
Revelation! X = love in the Temptations' song "Don't Look Back"
Revelation #2: Who knew love was a creepy stalker drug addict with a drinking problem.
That's right. You better keep on a walking, don't look back.
---
This was my weekend. Your weekend. OUR weekend.
---
"Cait! I am a domestic goddess!" <--- the text I sent to my friend Cait about five minutes before I realized that I'd forgotten to do laundry yet again (still not sure what I'm going to be wearing tomorrow) and had run out of toilet paper. Trials indeed. But, you know what, I made soup and it turned out wonderfully (I over salted just a smidge. Whatevs) and my kitchen and fridge are clean.
Also, Smoker Man has vacated the apartment across the street. Maybe I won't end up dead in an air vent after all. Hooray!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
the absurd and unfortunate end of a love story
The man with a candle for a face married a woman with a kerosene lamp for a heart. On their ten-year anniversary the woman accused the man of marrying her only for her kerosene lamp heart. The man replied that this was absurd. Obviously, he joked, he had married her for her legs and her brain (which glowed white in the full moon and on certain days of November). It was the end of the marriage. They’d had this fight before, and they'd had others, and all had dropped into a level of pettiness never to be recovered from. So the woman ran crying to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Later, she tip-toed back to crouch at the door for the rest of the night. No footsteps followed her. No hand paused against the doorknob.
The man with a candle for a face had gone to a bar to drink two dollar pints of beer and reflect on the past ten years.
During those ten years he had worked as a janitor and a failed writer. At the time he thought he had been happy. Perhaps not ecstatic, but no one really wants to be ecstatic. Much better to be solidly miserable or decently happy and take from life what you can, he told himself. In the mornings, he made breakfast while his wife made coffee. They read the newspapers together until she left for her secretary job at the law firm. He had suspected for years that she was having an affair with one of the associates, but he had never confronted her. She had, in fact, not been having an affair. She was too insecure.
The man sat in the bar and remembered two years ago when the economy had crashed around them, broken, mangled, and smelling like dead animals. The economy had always seemed like such a stable institution. People had been planning it for years. Millions—billions!—of dollars had been spent on its construction. If the business of the economy was the future, said the politicians, it was going to be a damn good one.
The man and his wife hadn’t felt the effects very much. They started growing potatoes like everyone else and stuck to a tighter budget, but otherwise life went on as it had before. But they had come to depend on it, on the tight belts and the little victories over rising prices. It kept them together in a joint struggle. When the economy improved, ease yawned empty before them.
The man, sitting in the bar, realized his marriage had been over for a long time. He was tempted to cry into his beer, thought better of it and instead killed a beetle that was waltzing at his feet. He hoped the beetle was leaving behind a large and impoverished family. He pulled his coat around him, left a tip for the bartender and walked out the door.
It was late. The man with a candle for a face lit his own way home. The house was dark and quiet. He paused in the doorway, listening for sobs from the bedroom. The only sound he heard was the creaking boards beneath his feet. He hung up his coat and his hat and took of his shoes. He wandered into the kitchen in search of bread. While rummaging through the cupboards, he knocked over a stack of plates. In the ensuing clash of breaking glass, he never heard his wife walk up behind him. He saw, for a second, her eyes red with weeping and the snuffer in her right hand.
But then everything was dark.
Five months later, the woman with a kerosene lamp for a heart married a Jewish man. When Hanukkah rolled around, she used her first husband’s face for the center candle on the menorah.
The man with a candle for a face had gone to a bar to drink two dollar pints of beer and reflect on the past ten years.
During those ten years he had worked as a janitor and a failed writer. At the time he thought he had been happy. Perhaps not ecstatic, but no one really wants to be ecstatic. Much better to be solidly miserable or decently happy and take from life what you can, he told himself. In the mornings, he made breakfast while his wife made coffee. They read the newspapers together until she left for her secretary job at the law firm. He had suspected for years that she was having an affair with one of the associates, but he had never confronted her. She had, in fact, not been having an affair. She was too insecure.
The man sat in the bar and remembered two years ago when the economy had crashed around them, broken, mangled, and smelling like dead animals. The economy had always seemed like such a stable institution. People had been planning it for years. Millions—billions!—of dollars had been spent on its construction. If the business of the economy was the future, said the politicians, it was going to be a damn good one.
The man and his wife hadn’t felt the effects very much. They started growing potatoes like everyone else and stuck to a tighter budget, but otherwise life went on as it had before. But they had come to depend on it, on the tight belts and the little victories over rising prices. It kept them together in a joint struggle. When the economy improved, ease yawned empty before them.
The man, sitting in the bar, realized his marriage had been over for a long time. He was tempted to cry into his beer, thought better of it and instead killed a beetle that was waltzing at his feet. He hoped the beetle was leaving behind a large and impoverished family. He pulled his coat around him, left a tip for the bartender and walked out the door.
It was late. The man with a candle for a face lit his own way home. The house was dark and quiet. He paused in the doorway, listening for sobs from the bedroom. The only sound he heard was the creaking boards beneath his feet. He hung up his coat and his hat and took of his shoes. He wandered into the kitchen in search of bread. While rummaging through the cupboards, he knocked over a stack of plates. In the ensuing clash of breaking glass, he never heard his wife walk up behind him. He saw, for a second, her eyes red with weeping and the snuffer in her right hand.
But then everything was dark.
Five months later, the woman with a kerosene lamp for a heart married a Jewish man. When Hanukkah rolled around, she used her first husband’s face for the center candle on the menorah.
Monday, February 21, 2011
common colds for cures
Sun, fresh air and avoidance of anything newspaper-related didn't work. So here we have come to The Sick Day which, while wise and mature and self-loving in all the best ways, just makes me feel like a pathetic, weak-willed sloven-type person who would get kicked out of the tribe for failing to hold up my end of our survival. I'm laying in bed coughing and reading and drinking coffee with all the shades drawn because it's ugly outside and I don't feel like seeing the Smoking Man out on his porch. If I ever disappear without warning, check the Smoking Man's apartment first. I'll be the body that's shoved up into the air vent.
I suppose I should be drinking something herbal and more like tea but tea makes me think of grass which makes me think of horses. I am not a horse. Coffee, meanwhile, makes me think of edgy intellectuals sitting around being Communists and writing Russian novels and caring about things passionately and with great ignorance a couple years before falling into corrupt bureaucracy and killing everyone they shouldn't and creating rulers out of those they should kill. It also makes me think of "Coffee and Cigarettes" which makes me remember how much I love divey breakfast diners and Jack White.
But man, Jack White. I have written of him previously. How can you not adore/idolize/sinfully erect pagan alters to him? You're welcome:
I suppose I should be drinking something herbal and more like tea but tea makes me think of grass which makes me think of horses. I am not a horse. Coffee, meanwhile, makes me think of edgy intellectuals sitting around being Communists and writing Russian novels and caring about things passionately and with great ignorance a couple years before falling into corrupt bureaucracy and killing everyone they shouldn't and creating rulers out of those they should kill. It also makes me think of "Coffee and Cigarettes" which makes me remember how much I love divey breakfast diners and Jack White.
But man, Jack White. I have written of him previously. How can you not adore/idolize/sinfully erect pagan alters to him? You're welcome:
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