twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?"

Category: Portland, Oregon

  • i’ll never be over it

    Wildwood
    So there I am, wandering down Ianou Nicolai with my brand new copy of Wildwood under my arm, musing about how it's probably the only copy in Romania. I don't even want to start reading it, because, I don't care if it's bad! I'm going to love it! Colin Meloy has more twitter followers than David Cook for god's sake, he's the lead singer of a supposedly indie band, and Carson Ellis illustrated this little series of JA books called, oh, Lemony Snicket. The illustrations in Wildwood are so good they HURT. Mr. Meloy was just on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, so how huge can he get in my world? So, let the book be a piece of non-interest, I'll love it regardless.

    I read the first paragraph. It's GENIUS. Also, it invokes this cozy, in, Portland-ness: knitting and coffee and libraries and cutely dressed babies– all described with a sweet humor, and, yeah, I'm on page two. If I were home, maybe I'd hate it because it's possibly overhyped, but you know, in Bucharest, it's pretty low-key, compared to say, soccer or actually, anything.

    I read the back flap. One paragraph each about the author/illustrators. And I discover that Colin Meloy once wrote a letter to Ray Bradbury and that Carson drew when she was little and They. Are. Married.

    Carson Ellis, the COOLEST illustrator EVER is MARRIED to Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decembrists? How can they not kill each other in I'm-more-current-than-you combat?

    My version of a creative collaboration? I demonstrated worlds colliding with my hands and Stefan did the explosion sound effects. 

  • i’ve gained at least 100 lbs

    Timberland_boots When I wear these with my Levi's, they really help me embrace the northern-California-white-trash aspects of my personality and there is no doubt I really like Lynerd Skynard. They are Timberland for god's sake. What convinced me to buy these was that the sales woman was wearing them, and she wore them all over super-snowy Portland last year and they looked fabulous and they are suade. The more worn out, the better they look. I can't wait until mine all are distressed by the the snow, ice and salt of Moscow. Really resisting buying them in black too.

    BambooSofter than expensive sheets from France, than any 600 thread count thingie I've ever tried or wanted to try. Bamboo jersey sheets from Target. Oh my god. Unnnhhhnnng. For $50. Unbelieveable.

    Wimpy  "Can you please stop reading to me?!" I find myself saying to Stefan. I'm probably the last person to get on this band-wagon, and I don't appreciate the smart alec aspect, but whatever it takes: Stefan is reading fiction non-stop.

    Other things I bought two of: Erath Vinyards Pinot Noir from Oregon. I'm hoping the high-end screw cap makes it home in the luggage without exploding like a corked bottle would. Orbit gum, sweet mint flavor, just mentioning it makes me have to go find some right now, it's addicting.

  • 07-08-09 pdx

    I don't know if gets any better than today.

    Woke up on Reed College Place, in the house we woke up in for four years. You can go home again, but it's really wierd: you won't remember where any of the light switches are.

    Then I watched Stefan roll down the steep driveway on a skateboard, the whole time he wore a ski mask.

    My mom called me and we talked on the phone for an hour, she gushed about David Cook, "He's talking about his dog!" she tells me. He was on the teevee twice today, he should be on tv twice everyday. In fact, he should just take over tv. He so wants to.

    Then Camille, Stefan-still wearing the ski mask–and I hit the best Goodwill in the world, the one on Grand Ave. Stefan was hoping to find Pokemon cards, and indeed, found an entire collection of them. The partial reinforcement schedule dopamine hit he got from that find assures me that he is now a thrift store shopper for LIFE. Goodwill is my happy place, or one of them anyway, and today I was in there poking through the books while talking to Peter-in-Moscow-loopy-with-jet-lag. We discussed his length–of pants! Bought piles of books, cool clothes an old postcard of Crater Lake and Bauer bowl.

    In Oregon cherries are such a bumper crop this year they are literally giving them away; they are glorious.

    Peet's coffee for tea, Imelda's on Hawthorne for new boots. *swoon*

    Then out to dinner with Peter's nephew Peter with his documentary-film-maker sweetheart. So how boring was it to discuss the creative process over pizza and wine? Yeah, right. 

    Now back at 6225 RCP, wandering around the house, drinking wine, eating cherries, listening to crickets, incredible moon outside one of my favorite windows ever, looking for light switches.

    Cast

  • guess where

    Emily of Black Apple (see not a day goes by without, left) moved from Brooklyn to Atlanta a couple of years ago. She just moved again. Guess to where? Portland, Oregon. What a town that is.

  • mr. martin meets art lutherie

    Pdx_d_relax

    Peter went on a guitar scouting mission for me and found a beautiful line of Canadian guitars called Art and Lutherie. I went and played some, they had a great tone, but were kind of expensive and I wanted to shop around. I played some Yamahas, some Ovations, which is what I thought I wanted until I heard the Martin and felt like, why even get a guitar if it's not a Martin? I'll just wait and someday get a Martin. Then we went to a used guitar store, Trade Up Music. I was goofing around on the Epiphones and Ovations there, and Peter found the Martin behind the counter waiting for us.

    Last weekend, Helen brought her dulcimer. Let me tell you, we were killing on 'Shortenin Bread,' we'll save it for the encore when we go on tour. Helen loved my electronic turner–me too, I always thought the hardest part of playing guitar was tuning it, back in the day when I was trying to tune it by ear. We wanted to get her a tuner like mine so we headed to Trade Up Music. We spent an hour in there, Elliott on the banjo, Stefan on the the ukulele, me playing the Epiphone Hummingbird I didn't get and started thinking that maybe I somehow need. Nina was playing away on a used Art and Lutherie. The more we listened to it, the more we loved it, it's high notes sound like chimes.

    So we bought the Art and Lutherie. Peter thinks we need an extra set of strings, but we are afraid to go back to Trade Up Music, we don't need three guitars.

  • pdx report

    Pdx_p_piano
    IMG_0159

    Peter found us the best house on SE Salmon with hydrangeas blooming all around. After spending so much time walking down nearby Hawthorne Street, I really feel like there is something wrong with us because neither of us have a tattoo. I can't get one because I could never decide on an image or where to put it–remember it took me three years to choose a sofa. And when it comes to his own body, Peter is needle-phobic. For the first time we visited the Chinese Garden in Portland. Camille reminded me of her joke about people who get tattoos written in Chinese, how do you know what it really says? "Truth, peace, trust, or 'I let someone write something in a foreign language on my body and it's permanent'?'"

  • am i dreaming?

    It’s like the dream I had one night in Niamey last year: I’m at Peet’s in the Pearl, and I’m wearing my cowboy boots and I’m walking to Powell’s. And then I wake up. 


    But it’s real. After two fabulous weeks with my sister, we came to Portland. Peter stood in line for four hours and bought us new iPhones. I got to hang out with David Cook for half an hour, it was like a party and then I went to the American Idol tour concert twice. I sat between Mom and Peter and David Cook poured a bottle of water on himself and sang; does it get any better than that?

    Today in the Pearl district of Portland, I went from Imelda’s shoes to Rich’s cigar/magazine store, to Anthropoligie (ahhh) where I tried on clothes for six hours and bought the cutest pants in the world, and a vintage-looking apron. God, I love vanity sizing. Then I went to Powell’s looking for my own copy of that perfume book, but they didn’t have it, although they did have at Anthro, and why didn’t I just buy it there? But I did find another fabulous-looking book about some perfumer during the time of Louis XIV and I bought that, “now a major motion picture” it says on the cover. Then I went to Buffalo Exchange and looked at cowboy shirts with abalone shell snaps for Peter.

    The one moment that actually brought tears to my eyes? The soup bar at Whole Foods.
     
    After that, I went to Safeway and bought a bottle of Ravenswood Somoma County old-vine Zinfandel, then drove down 39th to SE Salmon Street, to our litttle blue house with all the windows and the birds chirping.

    And Peter bought me a Martin guitar and then I went to the Woodstock branch library and checked out a song book and I’m learning to play ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and tomorrow Amuk is coming from Seattle and we are walking to Bread and Ink for dinner, and then on Saturday we drive to Mt. Shasta to see Mike and Tanya and Abe and Serge and Mrs. Issakov.

    It’s the best dream ever. I love you, Portland, Oregon.