Mushy snow

Just in time for the flight home. Awesome!

Hear me now: I will never travel north of California without a warm hat again.

Humble pie duly eaten, Charles.

how to survive the winter in seattle

Legacies revisited

Howdy from the Pac Northwest office of The BCB.

I'm at the Waypost, a downhome café around the corner from where I'm staying with friends who enthusiastically took part in the Great Oakland to Portland Migration of 2006. It's not raining for some reason, and we're all grateful.

Last night, my bro and I helped gather together a table of random friends from different places and stages in our lives, from childhood to six months back. We ate killer sushi and talked about a thousand things, from how to start a magaine to buying land in Nicaragua. And it didn't rain.

My old blog is about to expire from neglect, and that's okay. But there's an entry I'd like to save, and it seems to fit the place and the time of year.

Happy Thanksgiving.

*************************

Thursday, 12 May 2005

Instead of going to the Lyrics Born show tonight, I'm home with a fever. It's been so long I forgot they make me kind of woozy & sentimental. So I'm putting up this tribute I wrote the other night. 'Scuse the footnotes, a feverish haze...

I say “y’all” because of B.
I listen to hip-hop because of M.
I read poetry because of S.
I hit the low notes because of A.
I make curry because of D.
I have friend crushes because of K.
I’m a faithful correspondent because of S.
I practice yoga because of N.
I value white space because of J.
I drink tea because of B.
I kick a soccer ball with my left foot because of D.
I know tupperware¹ makes a great gift because of S.
I call all little kids “munchkin” because of M.
I can flirt in French because of G.
I try to read more slowly because of A.
I write songs because of C.
I sing backup because of J.
I chew gum because of R.
I look everything up because of M.
I sign my name the way I do because of S.
I watch for flying ice walruses because of J.
I know a meal isn’t a meal without cheese because of C.
I revisit the good old boys because of H.
I carry my keys on a carabiner² because of K.
I drink red wine because of A.
I can recite “Jabberwocky” because of S.
I honor ritual and silence because of J&P.
I’m coming to terms³ with the wanderlust/stability paradox because of A.
I have a blog because of B.
I can play whist because of R.
I remember the names of all the former Soviet republics⁴ because of D.
I still love playing dress-up because of C.
I look for shooting stars because of L.
I dance to reggae because of A.
I know how to smoke because of F.
I’m a nonsmoker because of C.
I eat avocadoes because of J.
I’m growing new dendrites because of S.

Each of those initials belongs to a different person. It’s funny how friends and lovers and family stick around, but also comforting somehow. Even when you’d maybe rather some of them exit your psyche stage left.

But the spotless mind is just a fantasy, and not the healthiest one. Our brains don’t discriminate between the accidental and the deliberate. They just keep everything.

Then turn it into a dream or a habit when you least expect it.

¹ When it's full
² Same one for nine years!
³ Slowly
⁴ By singing them to the tune of "Jingle Bells." For real.

Red fuzzies: A damnation in verse

Some egregious yet heartfelt haiku in honor of my new red rug, which flings millions of fuzzy little loose bits far and wide into every single corner of my apartment. Every. Single. Corner.

I can vacuum until my floors shine like the top of the Chrysler building, but there's a parade of red fuzz in the hall an hour later. Good thing the rug is pretty and keeps the floor warm, or it'd be gone in a blazing bonfire by now.

Ahem.

I.
I had such high hopes
You matched everything just right
But you vomit fuzz

II.
I ought to have guessed
That IKEA-born "Ringum"
Had to spell trouble

III.
Round, red, and evil
You invade my very soul
And the bathtub. How?

IV.
Clog up my vacuum
Violate the clean white sheets
Get thee behind me

V.
Damn you, fuzzy foe
As you burn my will away
I'm too clean for this

VI.
You can't fight for long
The Hoover is on my side
Justice shall triumph

VII.
Or maybe physics
But either way, I swear it:
You're going down, red.

Reminder

I wasn't a natural driver. Not even vaguely.

My intrepid father took me out in his old brown Toyota in the rural backroads of Hadley, Mass., and probably had about 200 heart attacks while I mercilessly ground down the gears and went the wrong way around stop signs at three-way intersections. For months and months.

It sucked. I hated every minute of those lessons—which can't have been anything close to fun for him either (thanks for the braces also, Dad!)—and was fully convinced I'd never be able to drive without endangering the locals. Never. Ever. Don't get it, can't do it. Hell no.

But eventually, some kind/foolish soul gave me a license. I went off to college and got a used car from my brother, then sold it back to him and got a used car from my mom, named it after a fictional racehorse, took it across the country, and turned it into a sticker fest with a personality.

Somewhere in there, I learned to drive. Then I started enjoying it. Then I loved it. Now I love it.

No idea when that happened. It wasn't a sudden breakthrough or moment I can pinpoint. I just noticed one day that I didn't have to think about it, that it was completely freeing, and it became a joy and a convenience all wrapped up in one glorious steel package.

The same cycle happens in little ways constantly, and in critical ways every once in a while. This is awful, it'll never end, I can't stand it, it's impossible . . . hey, it's over. And I can take myself anywhere.

Letting time pass is the only panacea I entirely trust.

Les vieux

It's no shocker, I guess, that ramblers seek ramblers. Or it might just be a demographic foible (middle-class, overeducated, with European roots) that most of my friends and family are scattered all over the place.

Even the ones who've chosen to settle permanently or semi-permanently have picked spots far from where they started, including me. We all have a hometown, a home base, wherever we happen to be for now, and a list of 100 ideas for what's next.

Chapel Hill, Philly, Ann Arbor, Baltimore, Nashville, Mt. Vernon, Portland, Seattle, LA, Amherst, Cambridge, DC, San Francisco.

Lisbon, Glasgow, Beijing, Tours, Buenos Aires, London, Paris, Kyoto, Sydney, Dublin, Cape Town.

It's exhilarating and lucky to be this free to roam, but there's bittersweetness in not seeing each other much. Then again . . . we're all used to it, so it's easy to pick up right where we left off during the last stolen visit.

Maybe you were on your way to Italy while I was heading back from Paris, so we had dinner at the Amsterdam airport. Or you were in Jersey and I was in DC, so we met in New York, because everybody checks in there once in a while.

Last week, I had the chance to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in about four years. We've never lived in the same place (California and France for me, Arkansas and China for him), but we've managed to get by well enough on letters, email, the occasional phone call.

You could say it's a phenomenon of our generation that we've figured out how to stay connected with people across the globe, but history illustrates otherwise. The real trick modernites have played is in discovering out how to make distance and time feel like little more than minor inconveniences.

I feel sure that most ramblers I know would agree: When you have a few hours in a shared city, a couple of drinks, a photo booth, and a DSL line, four years are just a hiccup. 21st-century friendship can handle it without thinking twice—while booking the next plane ticket.

New England

Remember when I went back east? Yeah, it was a while ago. Sometimes a roll of film takes its time ending, then throw in daylight savings and a few freelance projects on top of that . . . .

But it feels like the beginning of Western Mass fall here today, overcast and a little humid, with a chill just around the corner. So it's the perfect time for pumpkins:


What's that you say? More pumpkins?


And what's New England without apples? Well, it wouldn't be Iowa. This I know.


All these excellent East Coasty things are courtesy of Atkins Farms, the greatest produce market for 50 counties. (The name wasn't ironic when I was a kid, but it only takes one big ol' doctor and his hifalutin ideas to change that.)


Atkins Farms also makes the yummiest cider doughnuts ever, but there aren't any photos of those, because it took us about three seconds to eat them all up. Yay.

Here are a few of the folks in my gorgeous and brilliant family:


And, of course, we can't forget about the classy dame known as my mom, whose 60th birthday was the whole reason for this trip. The party photos turned out orange and blurry, unfortunately, but I do have this stunner on file from her glam days back in London:


You can't really argue with genes like that. I'll take 'em. Also the sweater with the feathers, if she still has it stashed away somewhere.

Lie down in darkness

The superlative writer William Styron passed away yesterday.

Styron was the author of Sophie's Choice, one of the finest novels I've ever had the pleasure to read . . . and read . . . and read again. If you've never experienced it, you must. My copy is yours to borrow.

My other favorite is Darkness Visible, his memoir of a deeply depressed period in his life. It's brief, stark, wrenching, and eventually uplifting. I read the book in Paris, where it takes place, making his skillful prose all the more moving and evocative.

RIP, Mr. Styron. Tipping my hat and my pen.