in the eye of the apple

Unlike absolutely every other place I've lived, returning to Portland is always exciting. As sad as I am to leave behind in New York food uneaten, alleyways untrodden, and creative street art unseen with my eager eyes, I rejoice to feel the reach of trees' beneedled arms welcoming me home.

Still, New York's smoky concrete siren-call remains in faint echoes at the edge of my hearing. There's something about the history and the sheer grandiosity of its parks meant to mimic and better Nature, its time-painted concrete, its contrast at every layer.

By golly, I'm prone to lists.

The story of our recent trip to New York is as follows. Got in to Newark around a quarter to 6am on Saturday morning. Took a cab to my cousin's house in Tribeca. It was foggy, close, and strangely warm out, and we chatted with the Nigerian driver while he swerved with high beams on and a horn substituting for turn signals. We arrived in about twenty minutes, a record I'm sure. And then we sat by the front door, waiting for the hour to turn decent enough to ring the doorbell. When we finally did, we hung out in the kitchen for a while catching up with my cousin and her husband before retiring to the basement guestroom for a nap.

After an hour of repose, Kelley, Hudson, Erik and I joined Jonathan and Zara for lunch at a cute little Italian restaurant. We left the place in a bit of a shambles from Hudson's food-tossing antics, and Erik & I walked up Canal, through Chinatown for a new pair of cheap sunglasses for me and an I NY t-shirt for a coworker, then up Broadway for a shoe-shop detour, and over to the Lower East Side for random shopping and snackery. For me, the highlights were MooShoes (where I bought a pair of green shoes and pet their four cats) and Cake Shop (where we had iced tea and I ate an enormous concoction of puffy chocolate cookies and whipped peanut butter frosting).

We decided to see a movie at our old favorite theater, the Sunshine, and Into the Wild was just about to start, so we went for it. It was long and cold. Afterwards we tried to go to the Kampuchea Noodle Bar, but the wait was too long, so we took a cab to where we thought 'Snice was, near our old West Village apartment. We walked around for a while before calling Julie for the address, and then when we got there it was closed. We ate at Ma Ma Buddha, which we had seen on the long walk, then walked back to Tribeca. We got in around 12:30am.

Sunday we got up late (10 or 10:30am-- still early PST!), ate bagels in the kitchen, and went to the park with the Gazdak family. We headed back to the house around 3pm to get ready for the wedding, stopping by Burritoville for a late lunch. Erik and I showed up at Battery Park Gardens at 5pm, which was actually an hour early, so we stood around trying to be useful and buying sangria from the outdoor bar. It was absolutely beautiful down there, at the very tip of Manhattan.

I don't think I can describe the wedding itself. Christina was radiating classic beauty with her calm demeanor, even having to keep her right hand elevated in a hot pink cast after lacerating two tendons, opening a wedding gift of a kitchen knife a week prior. Of course I chatted up Aton's date, the Natalie Portman look-alike. She said that she had gotten the acceptance email for law school in an internet cafe in Saharan Egypt, typing on a keyboard covered in sand. I also finally worked up the courage to tell Aaron Cometbus that I'm a fan, right when he was about to leave with the centerpiece.

Once the restaurant closed down, we went back to Amy and Miriam's hotel room and hung out til 3:30am. From there it was a beautiful walk back to my cousin's house in the sweet night air. I forgot how warm those humid summer nights remain, although it shouldn't have been quite so summery.

Monday morning was tough. Erik and I took our time getting up, then walked up to 'Snice for lunch. From there we went to NikeTown to check out the new running floor and test-run shoes in Central Park. It was a race after that to get to the airport, but we made it with five minutes to spare, which is just perfect for me.

And that was the trip. Short, sweet, and packed with memories of things I'll never see anywhere else.

bright lights

3:33 am. Back from the wedding. Don't feel drunk necessarily, silly drunk. Walked back from the after party, the hotel room of two bridesmaids. It's the only wedding I've been to that the bride and groom showed up after their expected roles.

I met Aaron Cometbus, which was... fanboyish. More on that tomorrow morning when I can think straight. I met some amazing people-- Sarah, the Natalie Portman look-alike, Sabrina the party-starter, and Amy, whom I knew for many years but didn't rank a chance from til tonight.

New York is amazing, is beautiful, is walking wherever. More on that later, hopefully.

Had my first cigarette in years after lusting for them. We'll see in the morning.

sleepy city

I can't believe how fast that was. We're sitting on the front stoop of my cousin's house, because it's 6:30am and just too early to rouse them. I guess that's my technically-southern polite streak.

The sun is rising through thick fog here in lower Manhattan. With a cut-off view of luxurious rooftop trees and spires of grand old buildings through the slow mist filter, this could be another time and place. It's quite sweet to be here before everything wakes up; yes, even New York City sleeps, especially down here in Tribeca.

a new york weekend

After work on Thursday I drove straight downtown. Anna had arranged a small gathering of running buddies for Sara's birthday (the big three-oh, as they say) at Henry's. Argh, the Brewery Blocks in Portland-- it's the Pearl reaching out to tentatively touch downtown. After walking through the main part of the restaurant and working through the tanned-body business-casual crowd of the bar, I went outside to call everyone I knew who might be there, to tell me where they were sitting. I went in to ask the hosts if they had reservations for Sara or Anna, and ended up accidentally finding the group when I went to try the back entrance to the bar. It was a very pleasant get-together seeing some people I haven't talked to in quite a while.

We broke early, and I still had time to clean, take out trash, plant the last of the seedlings I started in my basement, and water the yard. I did laundry, finally packed, and Julie took us to the airport.

I could give the transcript list of what we did in New York, here, but other people's lists are never as fascinating as one's own. I will say that we landed at JFK at 8:30am and took a cab in to Tribeca. Instead of taking a nap at my cousin Kelley's house after the sleepless flight, we showered and headed right out. We zigzagged everywhere below 34th Street, and didn't return til our dinner appointment.

As with Vancouver BC two weeks ago, we went to walk around. New York is a feeling that you breathe through your skin as you try to visually take in everything around you. Possibility everywhere in the sticky air made thicker with all of those people wearing articles of clothing whose origins you can't fathom, tiny apartments with lacquered-over hardwood details hidden above crumbling storefronts, bricks in tall buildings that may not exist because no one notices them.

Walking around New York is also vastly different depending on whether you're on a street or an avenue. Avenues are what you see in all of the photos and tourist brochures. They're wider than dreams and lined with big stores. They're like miles of red carpet, rolled out to lead to those famous skyscrapers. Streets are New York's secret. They're quiet and residential, charming in their quirky stoops and shop fronts. The air is lived-in. You can feel at home, walking a long crosstown block.

I think it was Saturday night when Erik and I were strolling one such street, maybe walking the dog (Julie's cousin Kim's, Berlin), and the wind picked up the scent of rain just hinting at breaking the edge off the humidity. The back of my mouth had a sudden tang, and I knew that my eyes were about to tear up. It was the breeze of my youth, early summers in Maryland. At that moment, I wanted to move back to New York, and in my desire I believed that I could make it work this time for Erik.

It was a beautiful moment, and then it was gone. We had a great time, too little of it spent with loved ones, and then a consumerism overload panic hit us early Sunday. Mine hit in the subterranean H&M on Broadway-- the low-- and resounded in the multi-story, glittering, white glassy vastness of a brand new Japanese tshirt chain store-- the high. After that we wandered, listless, and waited to leave. Returning to the quiet green backwaters of Portland never sounded so good.

to sleep, perchance to dream

Airport, leaving, the part I hate. I'm disoriented a bit from the wine, and with my glasses I can't see well. I have impressions of people rather than the details of their appearance. Across from me is an older tweaker couple-- she with fried hair out horizontal in a shapeless oversize hot pink top and a new foot tattoo, he balding with huge high hightop sneakers, a fanny pack and a really deep laugh. The sounds of one-sided cellphone conversations, planes moving outside, and luggage crashing through metal detectors all sound sinister. Erik's falling asleep in drifts, listening to music through headphones. The alcohol and time have already made me sleepy, but I know how my mind will resist it. When do I take the Diphendydramine? Should I take this blue pill? Will I be out of it when we arrive in New York?

I am such a worrywart. As Cory says, I'm fretting.

kitchen science

We leave tonight for New York, and as usual we don't have plans. I love that about returning to places I used to call home. You can show up, no list of things to do, stay with friends or family, and visit old haunts. Surely we will end up ambling down St Marks, eating at Red Bamboo and Crif Dog, Kate's Joynt, Zen Palate, the cheap bubble tea place named only in Chinese on Canal St... If all of my favorite places seem food-related, it's because they are.

Food is a huge part of my life, but it wasn't always. Growing up, my mom's cooking was not particularly good, punctuated by instances of true mealtime horror. It was a treat when my dad cooked his microwave gourmet meals-- baked beans with hot dog pieces or turkey and mashed potato sandwiches.

I can't think of a distinct time when food became so important to me, but there were at least three key influences. The first is Nate Cook, a unique, energetic friend in high school who opened my eyes to so many things. He lived just off Sligo Creek Park, he had his own car plastered with bumper stickers, and he played drums. He also introduced me to cilantro, the unmapped and unlighted roads through Rock Creek from Maryland into DC, and the now big-time Spanish tapas restaurant Jaleo.

During a summer of travel in college, I spent a week or two outside of Watsonville, CA, crashing with a group of people picked for a special marine science internship. One of the guys, whose name I can't remember but might be John, was an enthusiastic cook and came up with a plan whereby we'd all pitch in to buy fresh ingredients at the farmers market, and he would cook. The only meal I remember is an asparagus fritata, but something about his zeal for creative dishes really rubbed off on me. I think I may have claimed to the group to also be a good cook, which would have been a total fabrication. After leaving Watsonville for San Francisco, I spent the rest of the summer unable to afford more than one meal a day, eating a lot of French bread and tomatoes from the grocery store.

My final and most evident culinary influence is giving up dairy products. When I returned from that summer of travel and got a job as a short-order cook in a health food cafe, I had money again to eat ice cream every day. My usual was a scoop of rocky road and one of chocolate peanut butter stripe from Baskin Robbins. I was so enamored of ice cream that when my second job-- working the late shift at one of the university dining halls-- started back up for the school year, the student manager bet that I couldn't go without dairy for two weeks. Being a stubborn lover of challenges, I took him up on it. At the same time, I had to come up with daily specials for the cafe, so I read many of the cookbooks that were also sold there.

Now I have my own kitchen, garden, and local farmers market; I don't smoke, so my tastebuds are more awake; and I run so I eat a lot more. Food is a favorite subject, so I could go on and on, but one of my far-off, dreamiest dreams is to have my own cozy tea house with no set menu, a relaxing atmosphere, and customers who don't talk to me very much. I'll be in the kitchen.

van city

We're in Vancouver BC. Drove up to Bellingham last night after work, arriving after midnight to spend the night at Dan's mom's house. This morning we finished the journey up to Vancouver, and after parking at the hotel, Dan, Abby, Aspen, Erik and I took a bus downtown. We walked up Robson to the HK-style eatery Erik and I enjoyed last time: Hun's House of Noodles. Then we walked back up Robson, up to Canada Place along the water to ogle the gargantuan cruise ships, through grody Gastown and cracked-out China town, and all the way down Main Street back to our hotel. That's a looong walk, and I enjoyed it.

Our idea for the evening is to have dinner at the Naam and go to the Asian night market in Richmond, recommended by Erik's coworker Nu.

may day

Spent the weekend at Cape Lookout on the coast with Erik and his parents in their R. Julie's out of the hospital, but has to go daily for plasma exchange. Yesterday she had a "permanent" neck catheter put in. When she originally told me about it, I thought she was being melodramatic. What do you mean by "permanent," I asked. How could a catheter be permanent.? Permanent like a tattoo? I guess I expected the answer to be a month or so. Turns out it could be a few years.

The month of May is insanity. Spring fever, I guess. So many birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, parties. It's only day two and I'm already biting my nails and gritting my teeth. Where is my cave?

I went for a walk with Sri today, around campus. The wind picked up like mad, young birch tree branches leaning over into the path and losing their brand new leaves. Then it hailed, hard, which stung with the force of the wind. Ten minutes later, back at my desk, there was not a cloud in the sky. Hurrah! At least the weather is still Scottish and Aprily.

montezuma´s revenge

¡Hola amigos, yo estoy en Costa Rica!

We´re in Montezuma, on the Nicoya peninsula on the Pacific coast. I´ve been having flashbacks to Thailand, but this town makes it a full on hallucination. It´s a hippy surfer beach town, where Americans and Europeans with dreads sell boring jewelry from tables set up on the town´s main dirt road. Our hotel is rather interesting, with only netting for one whole wall, out onto howler monkey-infested jungle and sandy beach beyond.

The journey here was rather an adventure. I guess Costa Rican roads are notorious for being poor, but the scenery more than distracts my easily-distracted mind. It was the ferry ride over, in still, stifling heat, that just took it out of me.

At any rate, we have a few days here, which we haven´t had in any of the places we´ve been yet—San Jose, Arenal, and Monte Verde. I expect to finally get some sand and sun in some nooks and cranies, so that I can return home happy.

travel lux

I leave tonight for nine days in Costa Rica. It will be a very different trip from my usual style, as we will be travelling with Erik's parents. Although I got to suggest and ultimately choose our three destinations, a travel agent put our itinerary together. I don't think I've ever been on trip planned by a travel agent, and it is rare for me to stay in nice hotels.

One effect of this luxury is that I haven't given the trip much thought. It's been relaxing to not stress about coordination and details, but I miss the excitement of anticipation derived from researching the myriad options of things to do and places to see in a new country.

Because I will not be travelling with my usual pack-everything-in speed, I hope to focus more on reading, writing, drawing, photography, and meditation. I'm also bringing my laptop, and it'll be my first trip (not including a couple of business trips between San Francisco and NYC) with a computer. HDR, here I come-- especially now that Eric has shamed me by purchasing a camera and creating an HDR image during the lag time of me only contemplating the HDR process.

On another hand (no, not "the" other, since the deity of ideas and opportunities certainly has more than a mere two hands) I'm sad to leave Portland for even two weekends. For each day of free time that passes here, I feel doors and windows opening to me. There are always new places to explore just within Portland city limits, new garments or accessories to repurpose or create, new disciplines to explore that blend science and art in wonderful ways.

I wonder if the same blossoming would occur wherever I found myself. But I do not myself contain BEAM robotics, nor primeval forests condensing moisture from the clouds with mossy beards, nor rust and bricks and beetles. So I wonder-- where do I fit in? Where do I stick out? How does a place shape the mind? How does a language shape a place?

Will the colors reflected through my eyes in Costa Rica stay static in my memory?

fear of flying

I'm flying out tonight.

I used to love flying. The destination, the journey, the heavy hand of takeoff when you're finally freed of gravity, the pure freedom of travelling.

I don't know what's changed, but now I dread it. I've worried all week about being on the plane. I think of the crowds, the weight of luggage burdened by holiday gifts. Ice, wind, weather.

Not only that, but the time spent in airports and on planes. Standing in long lines, being submitted to pointless and invasive searches in order to make everyone more docile yet irritable, sitting packed in those tiny seats, and hours and hours of waiting.

I used to like the time-- free, wide open time to read.

Hopefully reading and knitting will get me through, and I won't have any liquids or gels accidently snuck into my carry-on bag. Hopefully they'll let me take the knitting this time. I haven't tried in a while.

Not too long ago, in order to work on my Halloween costume I hid sewing supplies in my carry-on bag in a box of tampons. They didn't bother to look for my needles and scissors. Unfortunately my knitting kit wouldn't all fit in such a box.

costa rica

I haven't been on a vacation in just about a year, and it's time to start planning. Seems like I go every 14 months, so the time of year keeps getting pushed back. February 2007 I will spend a week or two in Costa Rica. Erik and I meant to go last year for our vacation, but by the time we got down to making our plans it was equally expensive to go to Costa Rica, Peru, and New Zealand. We chose New Zealand, since it is farthest away, hence more bang for the buck.

This trip will be with Erik's parents, and we'll be visiting an old family friend who works in Costa Rica as a coffee buyer.

I'm excited about that, with my long love of coffee and its related effects and products. But recently I've severely cut back. I never thought this word would emerge from my lips or typing fingers, but I've been drinking half-caff. One sixteen ounce cup of coffee, from home, made with half caffeinated and half decaffeinated beans. No more caffeine the entire day.

So on the rare occassion now that I do have caffeine, I'm euphoric. Manic. Happy, bouncing, awake. I had completely forgotten that caffeine could have such effects.

It's awesome. So that's what I'm expecting for my entire trip to Costa Rica.

vancouver day one

Erik's coworker Gerry was originally to be our guide, but he bagged out the night before. We never really got out of the lax mindspace to organize anything, so it's no surprise that we started out late: almost 11am.

Traffic wasn't bad until about halfway to Seattle, in the middle of nowhere. Erik phoned around to see if anyone could find out if an accident was causing the slowdown. Just when he got his mom on the phone, traffic loosened up and we took off.

I took the wheel around Olympia. Getting over the border was quick and easy. I actually felt some panic nearing the line, as though it would be a difficult thing to drive over, or I wouldn't understand road signs on the other side, or some untold foreign difficulty would thwart me.

I don't drive much when I travel. Erik has much more experience with winter driving, and gets carsick reading in the car. I, on the other hand, am easily distracted by cool places to stop, not very aggressive, and can navigate the hell out of a map. It's a good partnership.

Anyhow, it's an odd event to drive into another country, for the insular US of A.

I half expected everything to be different on the other side, half expected nothing to be. It was a bit darker. Street and traffic signs were smaller and looked older. Different font, perhaps. Reading metric measurements was a bit odd.

Then we hit insane traffic, still a ways outside Vancouver. Stopped. For an hour. It took 1 1/2 hours to slog through five lanes merging into one through a short tunnel, for no apparent reason. The drive through the city, downtown and our hotel wasn't bad at all.

We parked in a huge garage, called a "parkade" in Canadian, and checked into the Lamplighter. After choosing a room and resting a bit, we decided to trek out to a vegan-friendly pizza place. It was a bit far away, and we had no maps (since Gerry was going to be our guide), so the sweet, fumbley guy at the front desk called Rebellious Tomato Organic Gourmet Pizza for us to get directions. I ended up teaching him how to use Google Maps.

Erik drove, we both ate tasty curry-sauced pizza, then went back to our hotel to hit the hay. But as Erik turned the key to open the door to our room, I realized that the music-- coming from the nightclub attached to the hotel, two floors below-- was actually good. We sat in the room for a moment before deciding to go down to the bar. We had a couple of beers, watched the rest of In Flight Safety's set, and sat through a bit of the next band. The best part was people watching. Such an odd place, in the most mundane details. We went upstairs to bed around 1am, and I slept great on the saggy bed with the ear plugs that came with the room.

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.