comedy of errors

The subject describes last night, the big "going out for my birthday." I've told the story two or three times and it didn't go over well. Basically I tried to do stuff and was thwarted a few times over, each time.

And so it goes. Perhaps this is why I laugh so much. Or, as the one astute observation an old boss made of me, I laugh when I'm nervous or unsure, to defuse tension.

At any rate, I laugh alot, although that's not what I intended to write about.

today

It's my birthday. This year it feels like the year I turned 19. I climbed out of my roommate Mollie's window and drank wine from the bottle on the roof of our rented rundown colonial. It felt like the day was marked by being the opposite of an important day. It was the turning away of importance.

I loved being 18, on the cusp of some thing giant, alive, electric. Being 19 was away from all of that. When I was 18 I traveled across the country on a newspaper ad whim, and returned alone on the Greyhound bus. Everyone exclaimed "18! Just 18!" or "18! So precocious!" Suddenly I was not a one of those things.

Last night I couldn't get to sleep. I read. I pet the cats. I saw the clock shine 12:05. My birthday.

I didn't want to do anything today-- not vehemently nothing, just that nothing sounded good, nothing sparked me. I don't want to leave the house, or make a production. But Erik inspired me, and we're going to the new crepe place. And just as things often work out in the end, most people can't make it, and it will be low key and casual.

On a side note, I love the shortened nicknames for "casual" and "usual." But how do you write out "cas" and "us" in the best way to be understood? "Casz?" "Ush?" Ugh.

flurries

The big thing around here has been snow. Most cities and populated areas in the Pacific Northwest are at low elevation and very temperate from the moderating effect of the ocean, so we rarely get snow. Up in the mountains and at higher elevations, there's plenty, so you can see it if you want.

It was very cold yesterday, with the high temperature barely above freezing. Today is about the same. Normally we only get a handful of hard frosts here in Portland, but it rains most days in the winter.

I still don't quite feel like writing about my Vancouver trip, but that story also involves snow, and more of it than this little bit:

I saw a shining white sliver of outside through our living room curtains, and my whole body flooded with the excitement of waking up to check for a school snow day. There was no snow, though. Only sun reflecting off shiny wet ground, possibly ice.

On the way to work I drive through a tunnel and then up and over the west hills. Often it's like a portal to another land, because the weather will be completely different on top of the hill or on the other side. Today snow crept up the hillside, crouched on top.

The parking lot at work had a dusting of snow, but not a smooth blanket. More like confetti, little round balls of snow sprinkled evenly. Walking to my building, flurries fell in odd pieces, some big, some small, some meandering slowly and taking their time like feathers floating, some headed straight down on a mission to emulate rain. It was enchanting, a shame to duck inside.

foreignsgiving

Left the country for the long Thanksgiving weekend. I have to say, it's my preferred method for dealing with holidays.

It's a bit of a farce, though. Erik and I drove up to Vancouver BC. We've got my car, all of our electronic devices, and we can still use our cell phones. At the same time, Canada is definitely not the 52nd state (Puerto Rico is 51 to my mind) we joke about. More on the differences and our adventures later.

tofurkery

People are invariably surprised by this, but I love Thanksgiving. A holiday based on cooking and eating? The only thing that could make it better would be costumes.

This year Erik and I are driving up to Vancouver BC during the long holiday weekend, so we'll miss all the feasts. That's why I was very excited when John invited us over last night for a pre-Thanksgiving tofurkey feast. I guess that should be Tofurkey(tm).

Besides tofurkey, there was gravy, fresh veggie salad, quinoa and tempeh salad, a risotto corn dish, a rice dish with accompanying collard greens, and I brought mashed potatoes. Yum! They also had glogg, which was incredibly tasty, like warm, spiced cherry wine. Love those Swedes.

This, however, is not where our Thanksgiving ends. I'm picking up my own Tofurkey and dinner rolls from our favorite bread bakery tonight after work. We'll probably devour it next weekend.

I'm pretty excited about Vancouver. Erik's coworker who has spent time there and was supposed to go with us bailed, so now the trip has got a more adventurous feel. And I printed out a list of 101 vegetarian restaurants, cos now I know I can drag Erik around to them. My main hope is to walk around alot and see neighborhoods. Hopefully Vancouver is nearly as wonderful and quirky as sweet Portland.

witching vest hour

Erik drove up to Seattle straight from work, so the house is cold and quiet. I'm alone at home in the witching hour, and the possibilities are palpable since tomorrow is the one day of the week I don't have to wake up early. I've already gone for a few walks in the dark. The fog is seeping in under the streetlights and it's cold and dense enough that you can feel it thicken the air, in your lungs. It looks like the seaside, a tidal mist.

I'm listening to music and working on the Overengineered Bag.

Wednesday night it was raining needles sideways, but I went for a (shortened) run right after work, around campus. I was already soaked through when a car splashed a vertical wave all the way from the part in my hair to the bottom of my socks. Couldn't have picked a better time or situation to get splashed by a car, but sadly no one got to see the hilarity. I had been running in the bike lane (no sidewalk), but I had a blinking light on my back. I think water got in my mouth, because my memory of it is tinged with the feeling of getting pulled under by a wave at the beach when you're little.

Afterwards, even at the later time, traffic home was bad. Erik had gone to a happy hour with his brother, and then on to game night at a friend's house. He didn't come home til 10pm, when he picked me up for the Hot Chip show at Doug Fir.

It was a pretty good show, with great people watching. I saw two sweater dresses-- one "vintage" from the 80s in cobalt blue with black tiger stripes, and one contemporary in a chunky brown luxury fiber. I also saw some vests, both sweater and suit. Vests are going to be hip this winter. I guess we should all try to embrace that and be excited for the quirky possibilities, rather than fretting about how stupid and unattractive (most) vests are.

I don't have to qualify that last statement, but... extremities get cold first, so why add extra layers to your core? Mmhmm.

On Reading

I used to do this on my "log," the online diary I kept for a few years starting in 2000, before the term "blog" was used. I always meant to write a little app to better organize and store the data. Anyhow, I just can't bother. So here's my new reading blog to keep track of what I'm currently reading, what I've read, what I want to read, where I got it, and what I think of it.

http://bookr.blogspot.com/

bag drama photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susank/sets/72157594378277133/

bag drama

I left work 15 minutes early yesterday to get to the surplus store before it closed at 6pm. All I needed was two triangle-shaped rings to sew onto the main body of my new bag, so that the snap hooks on the strap could attach and not slip around-- as they would with tri-glides, square ring loops, or D rings.

Traffic was really moving, even in the rain, so I got there with time to spare. Unfortunately, they had no triangle rings. They had thick, heavy, shiny chrome D rings in the right size for my nylon webbing. They had two thin, lighter, black metal D rings in a size too small. I bought both. I'd decide what to do once I had the bag in front of me.

Driving home I realized that I still had half an hour til the fabric store (probably) closed. It's a bit far, but driving right past my house, I went for it. I got there in time (they had even extended their hours) but of course they didn't have the triangle rings. Instead I got some shallow (ie, more slip-y for the snap hook) black plastic D rings in the right size. At least they'd match in material to the snap hooks and other bag hardware. I also got a pair of side release buckles, which would work if nothing else. They accomplish the same goal but are just bulkier than I wanted for a velvet-and-floral bag.

Yes, I am making a bag with blue velvet exterior and a floral interior. It even has pink. And lace. Don't worry, it's all reclaimed fabric, zippers, elastic, and laces from a skirt, pants, underwear, and some yard sale finds.

Anyhow, the main body of the bag is finished to a usable state, so I'm using it today. There are so many pockets and features that it took me several tries to configure all my stuff in it. I may have slightly over-thought this one (it took nearly a year from first idea til now). But it's so convertible and modular!

three poems about love

three poems about love

Come To Me by Bjork, from Debut

come to me
i'll take care of you
protect you
calm, calm down
you're exhausted
come lay down
you don't have to explain : i understand

you know : that i adore you
you know : that i love you
so don't make me say it
it would burst the bubble
break the charm

jump off
your building is on fire
i'll catch you : i'll catch you
destroy all that is keeping you down
and then i'll nurse you : i'll nurse you

you know : that i adore you
you know : that i love you
so don't make me say it
it would burst the bubble
break the charm


Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

night out

In an attempt to revive the weekly Bar Night that acquainted Ted, Erik and I with more of Portland when Ted first moved here, I sent an email to Julie and Erik.

Last night Erik had a going-away thing for a coworker, but Julie and I went to Oaks Bottom Public House, in Sellwood. I showed up first, didn't like the small, packed, in-the-know density of the place, and waited outside. When Julie arrived we waited patiently at the miniscule bar for a drink, while glaring at the woman sitting alone in a booth, playing sudoku with a full glass of wine, a burger and tatertots, and a full plate of extra tatertots. We finally got a seat and ordered our own tatertots, and the evening got markedly better.

I wanted to check out Oaks Bottom Pub for its local liquor-- Indio flavored vodkas in particular. I tried the lime-lemongrass, and New Deal's Hot Monkey. I didn't like either. The tatertots were good, but the pub was not a bar and not really a restaurant, so I'll probably not go back.