In Which I Obviously Don't Have Time for Complete Sentences.

Preparing for holiday trip. Sailing. Disneyland. Meep. Good times. Now: packing. Making lists. Finding things stashed in hidden places. Sunglasses under pile of scarves. Travel sized bottles in box of travel sized things... or not. Darn. Noting things that must be remembered. Keep itinerary handy. Don't smash that corner of backpack. Triaging. Departure preparations always far more elaborate than expected. Something has to go. Laundering sleeping bag. Will smell funky in two days anyway. 8 hours of sleep. Yeah right. Bad idea to make sleep a low priority. Always happens though. Blogging. No time left to blog. Didn't want previous post to be last post of year. Wanted to write great post about travel plans, family, etc. Witty comments. Links to weird stuff. Too bad. Offline for next two weeks. Goodbye, internet. See you next year.

Which Involves a Mystery of Sorts.

My blog seems to have disappeared.

I'm hoping this post will make it come back.

If it does, I expect LiveJournal will regurgitate a chunk of my posts for no apparent reason, as it is wont to do.

If it doesn't, I'll have to resort to more strenuous measures.

(I haven't exactly figured out what those are yet.)

In Which I Smell Like Victory.

Crossing the finish line is a lot more fun when you can hear your friends cheering for you. Thank you all very much for your support and encouragement!

Which is a 25K Celebration.

This is a celebratory blog post. I'm celebrating reaching the halfway mark in my novel wordcount. Does it faze me that I still have 25,000 words to go and only 10 days to write them in? Heck no! ...Well, okay, maybe. Kinda. Yeah. But I can do it, with the help of my secret weapon Thanksgiving Break.

I know the little counter over on the left is kinda confusing. I think the full length of the stripes with red, and the gray parts of the gray/green stripes, represent the number of words I need to write per day to reach 50K by the end of the month. They keep getting longer because I keep on not reaching that number. It looks like there are several days where I didn't write anything, but that's misleading; I just didn't update my wordcount until after midnight. And that really long gray/green stripe actually includes a lot of words from the previous day, so it's not as impressive as it looks. But the gist of the chart is accurate: I started out reeeaaal slow, and now I have to write like a maniac to catch up.

Part of the reason I got off to such a slow start was that my roommate was moving out. Yes, she has hopped the proverbial fence and moved on to the proverbial greener pastures. I have a new roommate lined up to move in next month. Her blog is broken, or I would link to it. (We'll have to work on that.) In the meantime, I can be as much of a slob as I like. Rest assured I am taking full advantage of this opportunity.

Before I get back to writing this cheesy faux-symbolic dream scene, here is a comic I just read that made me laugh pretty hard. I'm posting a link to it, but it's only for my single friends! Married friends, do not click here.

In Which Another Novel is Begun.

This year's noveling feels very different from previous years'. For one thing, I'm getting off to a slow start, yet not feeling particularly uneasy about it, given that I'll have a lot more unoccupied time later in the month. I used to be such a stickler for the 1667 words per day (2000 if possible!), especially the first week or so. Now, at the end of Day 3, I have less than 3000 words. Ah, well, I'll catch up soon.

For another, I feel fairly relaxed about the story. Everything about it was designed to be easy for me to write, and so far it really has been, aside from a couple sticky "I don't know what happens next" moments. Of course, there will be plenty more of those....

Finally, if I've learned anything from the previous two years of noveling, it's this: specificity is where it's at. Vague, tentative writing is painful to write and painful to read. I now know to commit myself to as many particularities of plot and characterization as I can come up with, as early as possible in the narrative. I spent way too long worrying about writing myself into a corner before learning that it's the corners that give you something to write about. Specificity brings momentum, which brings enthusiasm, which just makes everything a whole lot better.

And now: sleep.

Which Was Posted a Day Late, Due to Technical Difficulties.

Today [Saturday] I went to the increasingly awesome Stumptown Comics Fest. It's increasing in size as well as in awesome, so I found that the hour and a half I'd allotted for the event was barely enough after all. Stumptown is not your standard Marvel/DC convention, but an artist-oriented show that highlights a lot of new, unique, and self-published work. So the spandex and mutant boobs were vastly outnumbered by the journal comics, the social satire comics, the comics-spoofing comics, the cute-yet-disturbing comics, and a lot of stuff that's just plain unclassifiable. I got to chat with a lot of amazing artists, some of whom I've never heard,* and some whose work I've admired for a while (Amy Kim Ganter! Bill Mudron! Dylan Meconis!). And I brought home a bag full of postcards and business cards and small, inexpensive books to peruse at leisure.

*My two favorite discoveries were Aron Nels Steinke, a Portlander who just started drawing comics this year and already has a Xeric grant, and Hilary Florido, whose scribbled-at-work journal comic made me wish for a do-over on those tedious receptionist temp gigs. I can't wait to see what these talented people come up with next. (Suggestion: real web pages?)

Another wonderful discovery: this sign.

You get such a range of personalities at these things. I noticed I was really just way more interested in the work of artists who were friendly and eager to talk about their work. I think what it boils down to is that I prefer interacting with people who make me feel comfortable -- not something I'm proud of, but something I share with the majority of humanity. Sorry, shy cartoonists! That glazed "you're not going to buy anything, I can tell" look, or just awkward silence as I look over the art, generally sends me shuffling away embarrassed. On the other hand, I bought several cheaper things that weren't all that appealing to me, simply because the artist was so enthusiastic about it.

(Speaking of enthusiastic, friendly and eager to talk about their work, I'm proud to say there was one artist there who knew my name. Evan Nichols didn't have a booth this year, but he was doing the rounds, promoting his comic and making friends right and left.)

I had the chance to apply the above lesson in salesmanship to my subsequent shift at a booth of baked goods, used baby clothes, and holiday sundries at a fundraising fair (Holiday Fair, for those who are familiar with it). This was good fun too, primarily because I got to see a number of people I know but don't cross paths with often. Notable among these were the still-feisty-though-great-with-child Gina and her husband, who kept me greatly amused for at least an hour.

And then I met up with another old and rarely-seen friend, Athelstan, for coffee, rambling conversation, and a stroll in the fragile autumn sunshine. Yes, that's three unconnected blogging friends in one day! Hat trick!

In Which I'm Still Looking for the UN-STOP Button.

After a long drive out to North Plains and back, and a ridiculous delay involving a plug with the wrong number of prongs, we finally have a working stove again.

It's very high-tech, with a panel of buttons and lights and a digital clock. And powerful. I've never owned a stove that was so incredibly powerful. You think I'm exaggerating? One of the buttons is labeled STOP TIME.

I'd better download the manual for this thing.

In Which My Blog is a Year and Two Days Old.

I couldn't tell you exactly why I haven't been blogging lately. I can't blame it all on LibraryThing, though it has occupied many happy hours (and I still have plenty of books left to add). Distractions and diversions abound....

The roommate and I went in together on Season Two of The Office. This is an embarrassing thing for me to admit publicly: that I am hooked on a TV show, an American TV show that is not Mystery Science Theater. But it's true. (I still only watch it on DVD though -- must hang on to some semblance of pride.)

My kitchen range has always been a little iffy, but it recently became dramatically apparent that it was no longer safe to use. I've been scouring craigslist and making calls, but it has taken a while to find just the right replacement. In the meantime, my roommate moved a large upholstered chair into the space vacated by the stove. It is now officially The Best Seat in the House.

I finally got to hear my cousin play with her band. They were good and loud, dark and dancey, despite the limitations of the venue's sound system. She's a brilliant violinist, and it was good to see her in her element: poised on the stage, reeling out vast swaths of fevered sound, so passionate and so controlled.

It's almost NaNoWriMo time again! Yikes... and hooray! Chris Baty, the founder of this astonishingly successful event, came back to Powell's to get everyone all hyped up for November. He's not a very polished speaker, but he always seems to have the audience in the palm of his hand by the time he's finished with them. I bought his book this year; I figured I owe him that much at least. After all, if it weren't for him, I'd still just be intending to write a novel, instead of preparing to begin my third.

I had a four-day weekend earlier this month, which coincided nicely with the 20th anniversary celebration of Grey's Harbor Historical Seaport and the last four days its two ships were in Washington before heading south for the winter. Is there a better way to celebrate Columbus Day than by sailing? Maybe by paying a visit to the Queen of Spain, or embarking on a series of unsuccessful commercial ventures? Well, anyway, sailing it was. It was very wonderful and very strange to be back on the Chieftain again. Some childish part of me had believed, no matter what I told it, that returning to my ship would mean returning to the way things were this summer, and that part of me was sorely disappointed. But there were plenty of new and different things and people to delight me. And there were things I had forgotten about to be discovered anew: like the way the wideness of the sea and sky can iron out rumpled spirits, and shrink you down to your proper size in the order of things.

I'll bet you can guess what my next novel is about.

In Which at Least I Have a Scapegoat.

I was going to get a lot of things done while my roommate was out of town for a week, but I didn't.

I blame LibraryThing.

In Which I Am It.

Tagged by Ike:

A book that changed my life (besides the Bible):
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller was definitely the right book at the right time for me. Though I can't credit it alone for the change, it prepared me for an episode of major transition in my life -- the kind of transition that starts inside and works its way outward.

A book I’ve read more than once:
Oh, there are so many. Some books are just that good, others have more to offer as you grow, and then there are the ones I revisit because they're sitting on my shelf and I can't remember what they were about. (In recent years, these last are generally being considered for discarding.)

I think the only book I've read twice in a row may be Moominsummer Madness, by Tove Jansson. I don't know how old I was, but I wasn't ten yet. I remember finishing it in the dentist's waiting room, regarding it with a happy sigh, and then opening right back up to the first page to start over again. Jansson's sweet, quirky Scandinavian fantasies were, to my young mind, the very height of imaginative revelry, and her characters became my best friends.

A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island:
A blank, unlined Moleskine.

A book that made me laugh:
I remember chuckling quite a bit this summer over To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis.

A book that made me cry: [I've re-inserted this category, which was mysteriously missing from Ike's list]
Here's a secret about me: all it takes is the right cue, and any story can have me in tears. It doesn't have to be well-done; it doesn't have to be worthy of the emotion; all it has to do is evoke the right sentiment, or play the right chords on the soundtrack, and voila! I'm all sniffly.

With that said, the last book that I felt earned my tears, rather than just pushing my buttons, was The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. Man, that book got sad.

A book that I wish had been written:
I was going to say that I wish Peter Beagle would write a novel in which the quality of the story matched the quality of the prose and the characters, because he's one of my favorite authors, but somehow he hasn't written one of my favorite novels. But then I remembered that I haven't read all of his books yet. Besides, his road trip memoir, I See By My Outfit, is one of my favorite books, and may very well be largely fiction for all I know.

A book that I wish had never been written:
There are so many books without which the world would be none the poorer (trust me, I know these things) that to wish any one of them out of existence would be like wishing a single leaf off your lawn in autumn.

A book I’ve been meaning to read:
My "To Read" list currently includes 94 titles -- not to mention all the books on my shelves I haven't read yet but aren't on that list. Here's one that's in both locations: The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain, by Alice Weaver Flaherty.

I’m currently reading:
Icelander, by Dustin Long (fiction)
Getting Things Done by David Allen (nonfiction, I fervently hope)

Consider yourself tagged if your name starts with:
you'd enjoy answering questions like these, and haven't done it yet.

Olly-olly-oxen-free!

Which Concerns a Number of Small Things.

I've been using a generic-brand detangler that comes in a plain white bottle, decorated solely with black text. After many showers, the bottle has begun to lose its letters. An R will go sliding gracefully down its curved side, or I'll find an E plastered across my thumbnail. It's so surreal, and I can't even figure out exactly why. Is it that I'm watching two-dimensional animation on a three-dimensional surface? Or is it that I'm interacting with the text in a way that none of my English courses ever even suggested?

* * *

Have I fallen off the ABC-2006 bandwagon? No! Well, maybe. What letter is it again?

* * *

LJ friends, I'm sorry that LiveJournal and Blogger can't seem to play nice together. I would fix it if I knew how.

* * *

Here is a song I recorded at Piri's house on Labor Day. It is a smallish MP3 file, featuring a toy melodica with rather reluctant reeds.

Arrowwood - Trees with Sweaters

* * *

On the drive home from Bumbershoot (incidentally, anything by Yonder Mountain String Band is an ideal soundtrack for road trips through western Washington), I passed one of those annoying video signboards. You know the kind I mean. This one appeared to be advertising a nearby casino. As I passed, the phrase $10,000 CRAPS! was flashing over and over.

I'll let you write your own punchline.

In Which I Get All Arted Up.

I think this is my ninth year of Bumbershoot. I'm pretty sure it is. That's hard for me to believe, because the entirety of my Bumbershoot experience just kind of blurs together into one continuous colorful panorama.

Not to say that it hasn't changed over the years. It has become less weird and more corporate, less relaxed and more regulated. Gone are the relentless background rhythm of the drum circle and the impromptu hippie dance party by the International Fountain. Now they search your pack for contraband (like water bottles!) when you enter the mainstage area, and the only entity allowed to sell CDs on the premises is the ever-overpriced Tower Records (sorry, buskers, you lose). Every year The Man clutches it a little tighter, and every year I like it a little less. But there remains so much to like that I'm still a long way from not liking it.

One thing that was new for me this year was making the pilgrimage alone. I stayed at Piri's, and she joined me at the 'Shoot on Sunday, but Saturday I had all to myself. It was different, not having anyone else's input to plan the day around. It had its advantages (easier for one small person to weasel her way to the front of an audience) and disadvantages (no one to distract me from the fact that I felt kind of lousy, physically speaking).

Laura Veirs was definitely the highlight of Saturday. She's fun to watch on stage; she so obviously loves what she's doing, and intermittently acknowledges the audience with a gentle, slightly self-conscious smile. I remember thinking that if grrlpup were an alt-folk star, her stage presence would be similar. The Rogue Wave show was nice, and that's really all I have to say about them: they're a nice band. A little bland, but easy on the ears. Under the heading of not-so-bland, both The Epoxies and Deerhoof opened their acts with the songs I posted last week! That made me absurdly happy, like I'd just won a prize or something. The Epoxies were really loud and frenetic and '80s-weird, convulsing and leaping all over the stage. Deerhoof was the most musically diverse band I heard all weekend, with as much diversity as possible packed into every single song. Their act eventually devolved into the kind of experimental music that leaves you wondering whether it's the music or the audience that's being experimented upon. (I admit it, Bomyguava: I didn't even try to see Of Montreal. Or Kanye West, for that matter.) Cloud Cult had, not one, but two painters creating art on stage during their show. I only managed to catch Lady Sovereign's last song of the evening, but I mean, come on, that's about how much consecutive Lady Sovereign I could have stood anyway. It was great to hear her holler "Thank you, Seattle!" in her adorable cockney accent, though. (If you're having trouble imagining it, replace the 'tt' with a glottal stop and you'll get the idea.) Two bands I ended up watching that weren't on my schedule: P:ano (pretty soft sleepy music with, yes, a piano) and The Can't See (fairly boring, actually).

Sunday was less about getting to the next show and more about just hanging out and enjoying time with Piri. After the intense crowd-immersion and dance fever of the New Pornographers and Spoon, we wandered around browsing booths and art exhibits until Vashti Bunyan played. She was well worth seeing, even though her fragile voice and warm, hushed music would have been better suited to a more secluded venue than an outdoor stage in the Seattle Center. We left after Vashti, skipping Mates of State because the day seemed complete without them (and I've seen them before anyway).

As for the art, there was the mesmerizing Fire-Pod, which was "played" by a keyboard in choreography with canned industrial music. Even more startling, however, was a fine arts exhibit called Softly Threatening: Artwork of the Modern Domestic. Okay: imagine walking into a velvet-draped room in which is crouched a pure white stag, his side gashed redly open, and blood and entrails spilled everywhere. I mean, more guts than could possibly fit inside one deer, and they're spread out and draped all over the floor, and even cover an entire chandelier. Now blink a few times, and realize that every piece is meticulously crocheted, knitted, stuffed, embroidered and beaded, from the stag's pearl-covered antlers to the beaded velvet liver at your feet. Is it beautiful? or gross? Or both?

The other highlight of the exhibit for me was a row of jars of homemade candies, each designed to communicate the personality of a specific member of the artist's family. The flavors were surprisingly eloquent, even without the brief descriptions that completed the portraits. Synesthesia never tasted so good. Oh, and then there was Knitta....

Of course, half the fun of Bumbershoot is the people-watching, which could be a substantial post all by itself. I know I'm not going to get around to writing that, so instead I'll just leave you with the best t-shirt slogan of the weekend: I put the sexy in dyslexia!

In Which It's Bumber Time Again!

I had a really great idea. I was going to blog Bumbershoot, with sample MP3s by the musicians I heard.

Then I thought about how the internet connection I'll have access to is really not all that speedy, and how maybe it's rude to stay at a friend's house and then hog their computer for ages every night while uploading music files, and so I revised my idea.

See, I already told my friend Mitch, who can't make it to the 'Shoot this year, that I'd send her a CD of musicians who are performing (or at least the ones I had MP3s for). And it's relatively quick and easy for me to just post those tracks here as well. So here you go. If you were going to hang out with me at Bumbershoot 2006, this is what you'd most likely hear:

SATURDAY
The Epoxies - Need More Time
Laura Veirs - Magnetized
Laura Veirs - Fire Snakes
Rogue Wave - Publish My Love
Deerhoof - Twin Killers
Deerhoof - Wrong Time Capsule
Of Montreal - More Noir Blues and Tinnitus
Cloud Cult - Living on the Outside of Your Skin
Cloud Cult - Breakfast with My Shadow
Lady Sovereign - Random

SUNDAY
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
The New Pornographers - All for Swinging You Around
Spoon - They Never Got You
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day
Mates of State - Goods

MONDAY
(I won't actually be there Monday, but these are the shows I'd see.)
Rocky Votolato - White Daisy Passing
Bettye LaVette - Just Say So
Feist - Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)
Metric - Hardwire

Note: Although The New Pornographers are quite wholesome, the Lady Sovereign track contains expletives and drug references. All tracks available for one week. Songs posted for promotional purposes only. All of everybody's rights remain reserved by everybody.

In Which We're All Powerless.

The power was out when I got home this evening. I wasn't really surprised, because a section of my street was blocked off by police cars, and all the traffic lights between there and home were out. But it was still weird. I couldn't get on the internet, couldn't have a hot dinner, couldn't hear the phone ring (never mind, it's too complicated to explain here), couldn't watch the rest of the Creature Comforts DVD that's already overdue, couldn't put music on the stereo. I read for a while, dozed a little, and was startled by a distant screeech -- thud.

I put my shoes back on and went out to investigate. A car had hit a telephone pole at the far end of the block; the driver was standing nearby, shoulders slumped, talking on a cel phone. Blocks beyond, traffic veered around blinking blue and red lights. I couldn't see what was going on, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. How many things can go wrong in my neighborhood in one night?

It was getting darker inside, and out of boredom and curiosity I set out on foot to investigate. The traffic accident(s) and line repairmen were in different directions, so I chose the latter, knowing that the only way to find out why the power was out was to just walk down and see for myself. (News publications, online or in print, never seem to cover important things like this.)

The blocked-off section of street contained several darkened apartment complexes, and clusters of residents stood around, watching the men in the cherry picker do mysterious things to the power line. The atmosphere was light-hearted; neighbors swapped info, cracked jokes. "Well, I wasn't here, but apparently something wore out and gave way, and a line fell," a tall blonde woman told me, tugging at her dog's leash. "I heard it happened about 3 or 4:00 this afternoon. The line was sparking, and it caught the grass on fire right over there." The dog growled at a line repairman who tried to join the conversation. A Schipperke: what it lacked in size, it made up for in venom. "No lights indoors, no TV, no internet -- what are you gonna do but stand out here and watch?" the woman said. "I bet the power will be back on just in time for bed."

The fading light brought people outside all down the street. As I walked home, I saw couples sitting in their front yards chatting, parents out toting kiddies in various carriers and strollers, way more people than usual hanging out at the park. A male vocal quartet stood in front of one house, harmonizing with sheet music in hand: Too late, my brother; too late, but never mind.... One of them glanced at me self-consciously; I grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

I am way too tired and cranky to draw philosophical conclusions about the effects of technology, or the lack thereof, on community in urban neighborhoods. I would prefer not to extrapolate predictions, optimistic or otherwise, about life after peak oil. All I know is that this evening, for the first time in a long (long) time, I felt like blogging again.

And also, on the way home, I had this song in my head:
The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

In Which My Sleeping Bag Gets Clean.

My roof is done. It's very pretty. Also, I have a new nephew! Awesome.


I'm at the laundromat. I'm watching my sleeping bag spin around in the sudsy water, getting all the musty boat-smell out of it, so I can sleep in it for another two weeks at Wisconsin Christian Youth Camp. I'll be teaching crafts and leading discussions and making sure teenaged girls stay in their beds at night, and having a lot more fun than adults are generally allowed to have.

I'm also trying to decide what else to tell you about my sailing adventures before I go. I can't fit it all into this blog post, not with the amount of time I have left. But I can get a good chunk down, and take notes for when I get back. Sailing stories and camp stories! I'll have enough material to last me until October.

So, back to the boat:

My first hour aboard the Chieftain was pure bliss. I was enthusiastically greeted by a number of charming sailors, who seemed to be mostly male and mostly significantly younger than I am. I was assigned a bunk (or "rack") and then fed a fantastic dinner, enlivened by the conversation of my adorable new shipmates. "Do you always eat this well?" I asked them, and they answered, "Oh yes. Our cook went to culinary school."

If this were a Shakespeare play, that would be the bit where I turn to the audience and ask aside: "Have I died and gone to Heaven?" Only I guess I would ask in iambic pentameter, wouldn't I? "Am I deceased, and now in Heaven dine / With jovial sailors, doused in tar of pine?"

This dinner was also my first experience with muster, a twice-daily all-crew meeting. When the ship is in port for the night, evening muster takes place after the last sail of the day, once all sails have been furled and the deck set to rights. It is usually accompanied by dinner or a late snack, and on the Chieftain, it begins like this:

CAPTAIN: So!
CREW: So!
CAPTAIN: We went sailing today.
CREW: [various affirmative noises]
CAPTAIN: How did we do?

And then everyone reviews what happened that day, what went well and what could have gone better. It's a great way to end the day, whether that day was good or terrible. That first night, I had no idea what they were talking about, so I spent the time trying to get everyone's name, identity, and position fixed in my head. Some of this was futile, as there was to be a major crew changeover in the next couple of days.

In fact, as it turned out, this was the captain's last night. In honor of his departure, there was a huge party, involving the crews of both the Chieftain and the Lady Washington, an endless round of colorful songs, and a whole lot of booze. As I'm not much of a drinker, I can say it was a memorable introduction to life aboard ship. A number of my crewmates, on the other hand, couldn't remember much at all the next day.

The following several days were fairly rough for me, compared to the rest of my time aboard. The initial learning curve was brain-fillingly steep. Everything on a boat seemed to have a different name than its land counterpart, and then there were a whole lot of things I'd never encountered before, so that even forming coherent sentences about my surroundings was a challenge. Suddenly Vizzini's orders to "Pull... the thing! And... that other thing!" didn't seem so ridiculous anymore. It was painful to want so badly to be useful, and yet to be still trying to interpret an order while others were already accomplishing it. I remember reading a quote somewhere (probably Melville, possibly O'Brian) to the effect that there is no sorrier sight than a new sailor, because he will constantly be getting in the way, and all his efforts will be ineffective, ill-timed, and ridiculous. Fortunately, everyone else on the ship knows what that feels like.

In the defense of all beginning sailors, it's the contrast that makes us look bad. A good sailor in his/her element is a magnificent creature, moving with power, grace, efficiency and confidence through a complex and challenging environment. Sailing demands both your muscles and your brain, most of your senses, and all of your attention, and even at the end of my fourth week I was still only just beginning to get a handle on it. But the times I allowed myself to stop worrying about getting it right, to step back and really take in what was going on around me -- the complex interaction of natural forces and mechanisms that moved us through the space between water and sky -- those were moments of sheer awe and delight.

Once the officers had settled into their new positions, volunteer training became a little more methodical, and I began to gain confidence in the knowledge and abilities I was acquiring. The day's routine became familiar: mornings doing chores, maintenance, and dockside tours; daily afternoon sails, 2-5; and sometimes, especially on weekends, evening sails from 6-9. The latter made for long days and dreamless nights. For my first couple of weeks, the Lady Washington was in Westport as well, and most of our expeditions were "Battle Sails", where we executed combat maneuvers and fired cannons against one another. (Here's a nice shot of the Chieftain during one of those sails, before my arrival.) After the Lady left, we took passengers on "Adventure Sails," which weren't nearly as exciting, but which allowed more opportunity for teaching both passengers and volunteers.

It was at the end of the first week that I realized, There's just too much to learn here; I'm not going to know nearly enough by the end of two weeks. And also, I can't bear to be at the halfway mark already! That was when I asked to stay a third week. At the end of the second week, I drove back to Portland for a day to take care of some business, and at that time I cleared my calendar for a fourth week. Even during that fourth week, as exhausted as I was, every time I remembered the rapidly dwindling number of days I had left, a little voice in my head screamed "Nooooo!"

I could write more, but I'm not at the laundromat anymore, and now I'm just procrastinating on the packing. So I'll see you in two weeks.

In Which There May Be Elephants On My Roof.

Yes, you have to use word verification to comment now. I'm sorry about that. The comment spambots finally found me, and this is the least invasive way to keep them at bay.

I began this post sort of early in the morning, not because I have to work, nor because I went to bed at any kind of decent hour last night, but because the Roof Men are here. After several delays, they are here and they are rumbling, clomping, and thudding around my roof. I'm glad they're here. But all the racket sort of eliminates the option of going back to sleep.

The Roof Men speak Spanish quickly and English slowly. They are very polite, a little shy even. I'm glad for their sake that the weather is cooler today. They are only doing half of my roof, but it still might take them more than a day because my roof has four layers to be removed: three of shingle, and one of wood shakes underneath all the rest. (Yeah, that's totally illegal. I don't know how it even happened in the first place.)

So since I am awake, and yet not really very awake, it seems like a good time to tell you a little more about how I ended up aboard the Hawaiian Chieftain. I have talked about it a lot, but written very little as yet. But the talking helps me sort out how to write it, because the questions people ask show me what parts most need telling. So here is the beginning of the story.

I first heard about sailing tall ships when I was in high school, I think. There was an article in the Eugene Register-Guard which interviewed some gal who volunteered on the Lady Washington, and I cut it out and saved it, as much for the pictures as anything else. At the time I was reading a lot of high seas adventures, Treasure Island and The Dark Frigate and the like, and I spent a lot of time with my piratey Legos and computer games. So of course I thought, "That's really cool. I'd like to try that someday."

I eventually threw away the article in an overly thorough file-weeding session, but not before noting "Sail in an old-fashioned vessel" on a list of Things I Want To Do Someday in my diary. And a couple years ago, upon certain realizations regarding my own mortality, I sought out that list to see what still needed checking off. Some things no longer seemed so important -- I no longer want a pet iguana, for example -- but others struck me as being A Very Good Idea. So I took up archery, and assembled a harp, and wondered idly about the whole tall ship thing.

Then there was this movie that came out a couple years ago that had some pirates and ships in it and stuff. Maybe you heard of it. After watching it, I decided it was really time to search the internet for that ship I'd read about all those years ago, and see if she was still taking volunteer crew.

Google landed me at ladywashington.org, where I discovered much to my astonishment that one of the ships I'd just been watching on the big screen, the Interceptor, was in fact "played" by the Lady Washington herself. So then of course I had to watch the movie all over again so I could pay more attention to the ship instead of to Certain Actors. After all, the world is full of beautiful men, but a ship as gorgeous as the Lady is a rare and wondrous thing.

I applied to crew the following summer, but the volunteer coordinator ended up in the hospital for a couple months, and in the meantime my application got lost. So I applied again the next summer, but not until too late. Then I applied a third time, well in advance ("...and it burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp."), and finally I was accepted -- to crew for the Hawaiian Chieftain, a new acquisition for the organization that owns the Lady Washington. (I admit I was a little disappointed by this at first, but I figured there were probably reasons to be glad I was on the Chieftain instead, and sure enough, there were.)

So all of this hope and fear and expectation and dread was just boiling in me as I tried to stroll nonchalantly down the dock toward the Hawaiian Chieftain for the first time. I actually had to stop walking for a second, stilled by a wave of emotion at the thing I was about to embark upon. And I took a deep breath, and noted: This is what it feels like when a dream comes true.

In Which It's Too Hot To Hoot.

It's so hot. Seriously. Hot hot hot.

Yesterday a Target employee told me that they're sold out of air conditioners throughout all of Oregon and Washington. Today someone told me that transformers are melting down in some areas because everyone's using their air conditioners. I had mine on all day yesterday, and invited friends over to share the cool. It's ancient, inefficient, and an eyesore, this big ol' box built right into my living room wall, but I sure was glad I had it.

Today I've mostly been at work, which is in some areas (like my office) even hotter than my house, so I haven't turned on the AC here. It seems kind of wasteful to run it just for myself, just for a couple hours, since I am leaving pretty soon here anyway.

I think I would have been better prepared for this heat wave if I hadn't spent the last four weeks in Westport on a boat. I know this because I went to see Gjallarhorn at the Aladdin last week. The Aladdin is a wonderful venue, really, but their air conditioner is always on waaay too high. (I once spoke to a manager there about this, and he explained that it's so old that it doesn't have any settings other than Very Cold and Off. And once you turn it Off, it doesn't readily turn back on.) So I always take a jacket to the Aladdin. But Spider did not take a jacket to the Aladdin, and was complaining of the cold within the first five minutes. So I let him wear my jacket, because I wasn't actually all that cold. See, the Aladdin's air conditioning was merely a balmy breeze compared to the wind in Gray's Harbor.

It was cool there; the temp rarely got as high as 70 on land, and it was much colder on the water. I didn't really like it. I wore long underwear almost every day. But apparently I got used to it after four weeks.

And now I'm too hot.

In Which Home is the Sailor.

The last time I posted, I was at the eve of a two-week stint as volunteer crew aboard the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain, in Gray's Harbor, Washington. Somewhere in there, two weeks turned into four, and when I cast off mooring lines last Saturday afternoon and watched my ship sail away without me, I knew that even four weeks was really not enough.

I've been dreading the writing of this blog post, because I feel both the urgent need and the utter inability to explain how and why this sailing thing has captured my heart. I want to record every moment, bright and dark, before it slips away. But how can I describe the deluge of new information, the tide of challenges, the all-consuming submersion into this new life, how it battered and buoyed me? How can I explain how much it changed everything, how much it changed me?

There's so much. Sail stories will be leaking out of me for the rest of my life, but today I don't even know where to begin. So I'll just tell you this:

You know how sometimes your subconscious plays this trick on you where you hear someone's voice so clearly that it wakes you out of sleep, even though no one is there? This happens to me a lot. Yesterday I took a nap after lunch (oh naps, how I missed you!). I was awakened by the voice of my captain, calling out the command to cast off mooring lines: "Take one! Take two!" and, fainter, the subsequent cry: "Haul away one! Haul away two!"

I rubbed my eyes: I was home, in my own bed, very far away from the Chieftain. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 2 p.m -- the exact time the Chieftain leaves the dock daily for her afternoon sail, the exact time those commands were being given in Westport's harbor, and exactly 24 hours from when I heard them last.

* * *

At least I have pictures to make up for my lack of words. Here are some great photos taken by my crewmate Ian's dad, and captioned by Ian himself. His feelings at parting with the Chieftain were markedly similar to my own. And here are some crappy pictures taken by a radio station that chartered the ship for a movie-related contest. Definitely not as highly recommended, but they do show me at the helm, as well as some off-kilter shots of the drawbridge I got to pilot us through in Aberdeen.

In Which I'm Finally Done Packing.

Just a few things before I go:

a) Gina wants you to know about an opportunity to help hurricane-devastated libraries that is quite possibly more legit than the one I mentioned earlier.

b) Check out the amazing stop-motion skillz that ah used to turn my ordinary refrigerator into a MAGIC refrigerator! Better with sound.

c) My brother now has a blog, because he's cool like that. You should go look at it, and maybe comment some too.

d) I just completed my contribution to the twice-annual CD Mix Exchange, which is wrapping up at the end of this month. (Wanna join the next one? Leave contact info in comments on this blog before the end of June.) I was thinking of all the other people I wanted to give a copy to (i.e. you), and the list just got way out of hand, so I came up with an alternate solution: electronic distribution!

Files will be available for one week; let me know if you miss out and want some. All tracks are distributed in the spirit of promotion. I would recommend monetary investment in any of these bands that you find enjoyable (except maybe the Besties, who really suck. But in a cute way).

It's Maritime!
1. Múm - Hú Hviss, A Ship
2. The Arcade Fire - I'm Sleeping in a Submarine
3. Tennis - Here Comes the Coastguard
4. Minotaur Shock - Vigo Bay
5. Loudon Wainwright III - The Swimming Song
6. Danielson - Cast It At The Setting Sail
7. The Besties - Pirate Song
8. Sinn Fenn - Balladen om Sven och hans ångestfyllda julimorgon
9. Maximo Park - The Coast Is Always Changing
10. Kodo - Bird Island
11. Shearwater - Red Sea, Black Sea
12. Apples in Stereo - Submarine Dream
13. Hot Hot Heat - Island Of The Honest Man
14. Gary Jules - Boat Song
15. Swåp - Seagull
16. Sun Kil Moon - Ocean Breathes Salty
17. Bishop Allen - The Monitor
18. Kate Rusby - Bold Riley
19. North Atlantic Explorers - When My Ship Comes In
20. Akron/Family - I'll Be On The Water
21. Lena Willemark & Ale Möller - Trilo

And! You can even download the Maritime Mix case insert with tracklist: maritime.doc (photo by yoannletroll). This file was designed to be printed in color on both sides of a single sheet of cardstock, but, you know, whatever works for you.

e) I think I've totally got M weeks covered here.

In Which I Wish Everyone a Happy Jroon.

I know, I know. It's been Jroon for quite a while now. But when it began, I was in Florida. I was at a conference. I was assured that I would be able to connect my laptop to the internet from my room. I was unable to do so. I was sorely vexed.

Florida was nice, though. I was in the Tampa area, at Florida College, which has a wildlife-friendly campus intersected by a river. I didn't see any alligators, but I saw a whole bunch of birds, including a fancy-lookin' woodpecker and a nest of yeeping osprey. I saw a snake and a turtle in the river one evening, and another evening, a fox that skipped along the path ahead of me, stopping every few seconds to stare. There were a lot of bugs, but not as many or as huge as I was expecting, and none of them bit me. The weather was warm and humid but not unpleasant, and we got just one good thunderstorm, which livened up a meeting that was running a tad long.

Now I'm having a (relatively) quiet weekend at home. I sent my roommate off on a road trip, and I am trying to catch up around here. I feel like things have been piling up on me lately. Today a church in my neighborhood hosted a trash collection day, where you can dump any trash you've got piled up around the house for free. Truck (who conveniently showed up with a van at just the right moment) helped me haul off an old satellite dish and TV antenna, a couple of rotting windowboxes, a grungy area rug and a broken papasan chair. I sure do like getting rid of stuff.

I sure do.

Being at home is pretty great, I admit. I like it a lot. But sometimes, you just have to run away. And I don't mean to a conference (come on!). I mean, sometimes you've got to pack a few things into a red-and-white kerchief and tie it to the end of a stick. Sometimes you've just gotta join the circus, or the raggle-taggle gypsies, or wander off into the deep dark woods alone, you know? If you understand what I'm talking about, then you know why, next week, I'm running off to be a sailor.

Don't worry. I'll probably come back.

The Battlefield Band - Heave Ya Ho

In Which Wishes May or May Not be Granted.

I've been working on the previous Sunday Scribblings prompt off and on since last weekend, and finally finished. This story is a little more ambitious than the other stuff I've posted, as well as longer, and a bit darker. So it took me more time to finish, and it gets a page of its own. You can read it here if you wanna: Three Wishes.

(Just for the record, if I had three wishes: flight, time travel, and invisibility.)

In Which I Say Some Stuff About Stuff.

It's almost the end of J weeks, isn't it? Hm. Hmmm. Well, I saw an old J friend today. And... um... yeah, that's about all I have to report. Wouldn't you think J would be an easy letter? I did. But then I didn't eat any jam or Jell-O, watch any films by Jim Jarmusch, or learn to juggle. Oh well. Maybe I'll do better with K.

Stuff I've been up to lately:

I bought some stuff from a virtual yard sale, which is worth checking out if you live in the Portland area. Dan and Annika are leaving their apartment to live in a biodiesel bus while they share their neo-medieval music with the rest of North America. So they're selling most of their possessions. Note also that they're really nice people, and that this is a fun and efficient way to decide whether you want someone else's possessions before actually driving to their house.

I've signed up for a month of Bikram yoga, which is essentially yoga performed with great intensity in a sauna-like environment. I've only been to three sessions so far, and they say it starts getting much less torturous after that. I sure hope so. I know I'm a wimp, but I hate being reminded of it so vividly. The carrot on the end of this stick, of course, is that at some point I will become somewhat less wimpy. In the meantime, it's kind of throwing everything else off. I'm really, really tired right now, which is why I'm home blogging instead of at Bee and Spider's cookout with ah.

Speaking of the latter, I have a new roommate, and she has just painted her bedroom orange. Excellent.

And guess what else? I've been doing some creative writing lately! And posting it here! On my blog!!

What's that? You already knew?

Oh. Okay.

(Thanks for all your positive feedback. I'm overwhelmed and honored.)

The Decemberists - July, July!

The Books I Would Write...

Complete this sentence: "The books I would write..."
Notice it isn't "the books I WILL write." That would be too much pressure. No, this is a daydreaming exercise, pure and simple: Ask yourself, if you were to write books, what kind of books would they be?

The books I would write would require call numbers that haven't been invented yet.

The books I would write would float like balloons on a string.

The books I would write would reach into your skull and turn your brain around backward, so that you would speak in esrever and wear your shoes on the wrong feet.

The books I would write would make clocks obsolete.

The books I would write would scream when they were burned.

The books I would write would make you dream in color.

The books I would write could be chopped up and planted like potatoes, to grow a fine crop of new books.

The books I would write would ambush you in a dark alleyway and demand all your pocket lint.

The books I would write would be printed on seaweed, in luminous ink.

The books I would write would read you.

My Shoes

Of course I would rather have picked out my own outfit. But she did very well, considering. Not this year's fashion, I suspect, but certainly presentable enough. Who knew she had such good taste? You certainly wouldn't guess it to look at her. Not that I can boast much of a wardrobe myself, but I imagine she has more... resources.

I ran in to the house for a glimpse in the old mirror before I left, so I know that the corset slims my figure down unbelievably, that the neckline plays a flirtatious game with my bosom, and that I don't look like me at all anymore, or not like I'm accustomed to looking -- rather, like someone who has stumbled out of a storybook. She did something outrageously intricate with my hair, involving a lot of pearls and ribbons, that I'm not sure is possible by natural means, and there seems to be a bit of extra color around my eyes and lips. As I said, the effect is not like me at all... and is all the more pleasing for that.

So here I sit in this coach that isn't a coach, bumped and jostled about by the heavily rutted road into the city, trying not to bite my very round, very smooth fingernails. I can't recall the last time I saw them so clean. If only she could have smoothed over my nerves as well. She did a fine job with the clothing, I admit, but I can't help but feel that all of this is a terribly bad idea: dressing up an uncouth country girl like a fine lady and sending her off to crash the biggest party of the decade. What could possibly go wrong? Everything.

I think I can fake the dancing, at least. I don't know the dances of rich folk, but I'm a quick learner and light on my feet, as nimble with a jig or a reel as any farmer's daughter. I expect the banter will be more of a challenge. I'm afraid all the time I spend with swineherds and milkmaids will show in my manner of speech and choice of idiom, just as all the time I spend with books makes it obvious that I'm not really one of those people, either. But I have an alias ready, and I know enough to smile and keep my mouth shut whenever possible. Most people are more than happy to provide the talking part of a conversation, so long as you appear to be doing the listening part.

I think she had it in her head that tonight would be some sort of husband-finding mission, which I found incredibly funny. The party is a matchmaking soiree for the Crown Prince, I gather, and certainly my stepsisters were all in a tizzy imagining that he'd fall head-over-heels for one of them (and in a jealous rage at the thought that he might fall for the other of them). There will be far too many hopeful young ladies there tonight for him to give more than a word to each, and I can't imagine what I would say back to him even if he could spare one for me. Oh, there might well be some eligible noblemen hoping to pick up the crumbs that fall from the royal table, so to speak. There are possibilities there, I admit, but the possibility of... unpleasantness seems far greater. I must keep in mind that a fine lady doesn't reward a frisky-handed gentleman with a hard right to the jaw.

The dress definitely helps my courage, though. I rearrange its generous, shimmering skirts over my legs and, in doing so, catch another glimpse of my shoes. Oh dear. My shoes. What was she thinking? She seemed so very proud of them. I've never seen anything like them before; I can't decide if they will be the envy or the scorn of every woman there. They look like they're made of brook ice, swirled and bubbled, but you can see my feet right through them. It's a strange effect. There are my toes, lined up in a neat diagonal row, already getting a little clammy under the smooth, cool surface. The shoes look like they could crack as easily as ice, too, and I wonder how practical they really are for dancing. It's a good thing I won't be doing any running this evening.

In Which I Explain the Previous Post, and Some Future Ones.

I've been doing this thing for a couple of months now called Illustration Friday. It's a website that introduces a new theme (like "robot" or "feet" or "under the sea") every Friday, and people create visual art based on the week's theme and post it in their blogs, and then put a link to their site on the IF page so everybody else can see. I love the idea of it, but I'm not much of a visual artist (and I hate messing with scanners), so I just doodle something into a notebook and then feel slightly more creative for the rest of the day.

Illustration Friday always made me wish there were some sort of writing equivalent... and now there is! Sunday Scribblings offers a prompt every Saturday, so you can post some writing and then send your link to the site to be read. (I think the idea is that you'll have it ready by Sunday, but I doubt mine will be done by then, most weeks. I just did last Friday's illustration today, too.) This kind of low-key weekly writing challenge appeals to me quite a bit, even though (or perhaps because) as I look at the other submissions for this week's prompt, I notice mine doesn't quite fit in with the rest.

Note: If you're concerned about getting my fiction confused with my reality, Sunday Scribblings posts will not begin with "In Which".

Why I Live Where I Live

Write the story of why you moved to the place where you currently live.

I moved here after my parents divorced. That was two years ago. My mom said she was tired of taking care of me, and now it was Dad's turn to be a parent. I wasn't supposed to hear her say that, but I did.

I didn't know what to think about moving here. I used to live in Chicago, in an apartment on the fourth floor with Mom, and with Dad when he was around. At night I fell asleep to the sound of traffic. In the daytime it was always easy to find other kids to hang out with. I liked it pretty well, I guess. I didn't know anything else to compare it to, so I couldn't imagine whether living somewhere else would be better or worse. I wasn't all that excited about moving. Some of the other kids said they were jealous, but I didn’t believe they really meant it. Chi-town was my town -- we used to say that to each other, all proud, like we lived there by our own choice or something. When kids said that, they said it like they meant it.

We could have gone to live with Dad a long time ago, but Mom didn't want to leave. I guess Chi-town was her town too. I used to wish my dad was a lawyer or a policeman or a trash collector, so he could be around all the time like other dads; but now that I know him better, I can't imagine him ever being anything but what he is. Mom used to say he is a man with a one-track mind, and then she would shake her head like she does when she doesn't want to talk about something anymore. Now I can kind of see what she meant. When I see them together now, I can't figure out why they ever got together in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if the distance wasn't the only thing about their marriage that worked.

One of the first things I remember, when I was a little kid, is my dad taking me outside at night and pointing out the constellations. "That's where I work," he said. "Up there." Back then I thought maybe he was responsible for taking care of the stars, like keeping them in the right order and working properly, maybe like some sort of electrician for the night sky. I was just little; I didn't know any better. But now I do, of course.

Now I eat dinner with Dad every night that he doesn't work late, and sometimes he helps me out with homework, and sometimes we play chess or racquetball or watch a movie. He is a pretty good guy, my dad, but he gets distracted a lot, like he's working out problems in his head even when he's off work for the day. He really loves his work a lot. Sometimes when he explains it to me I think I can almost understand what he's talking about, but mostly what I understand is that it makes him really happy. Our apartment is a lot smaller than the one in Chicago, but it's still pretty nice. And I have a rabbit now. I could never have pets before, because my mom's allergic.

Instead of a whole neighborhood of kids, there are only eight of us here -- ten if you count Rosa, who is three, and Gaurav, but we never see him. So when you get in fights it kind of messes everything up, because you can't just go find some other kids to play with. And some of the other kids hold grudges for a long time, especially the girls. Especially Monique. At night -- well, we call it night, but we're really on East Coast time, no matter if we can see the sun or not -- at night it's very quiet in our apartment, so quiet that I have to play music to fall asleep. When I first got here I had trouble sleeping, even with music. I had dreams about falling through space with nothing to hold on to. So I would get up and push back the window screen and look out at the earth, and try to imagine houses and cars and playgrounds and grocery stores in that big blue smear. I couldn't really do it, but after standing there a while staring into the blue haze, remembering what it was like to live there, I could usually go back to sleep again.

We went back last Christmas to visit Mom. It was weird to be back on Earth again, and to know that I was walking around on the big blue thing I used to watch out my window. Mom lives in a different neighborhood now, in the suburbs with her boyfriend, so it didn't really even feel like going home at all. Nothing looked quite like I remembered it, not even my old street in the city. And I got this weird feeling when I looked up at the sky at night. It's hard to explain.

I'm from that place, but I don’t have a place there anymore. But the weirdest thing is, my home now isn't really a place either. It's basically a big box that floats in circles around the planet. It's all right, living here. I like the pool and the gardens and the zero-g room, and even Monique when she's not mad at me. But it doesn't feel like a real place to live in, a place I that can tell people is my place. I don't think this is a real story either, so I guess I've pretty much flunked this assignment. Sorry Ms. Baranski.

In Which It Came to Pass...

You people were right about that Irish book. Cahill makes history very readable. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but I'd much rather read this sort of colorful, opinionated account than some dry factual record. I've had several ideas for other I books (not to be confused with iBooks), but the latest one to catch my attention is Indecision. The author is doing a reading at Powell's tomorrow night, which sounds to me like a fairly entertaining way to spend a Monday evening.

It's been quite a weekend. (Shoutout to my contra homies: tomorrow's forecast, 100% chance of ibuprofen.) I guess the most remarkable thing to happen was that my church had its final service today. I've been going there for about eight years, sometimes (I readily admit) more enthusiastically than others, and for me, the strongest emotion accompanying this closure was relief. Central had become a mere shadow of the church I joined in '98. I felt like we had all sat vigil by its hospital bed for ages, praying for some sort of miraculous revival, owing it too much to want to let it go. Now, at last, the plug has been pulled. There is great loss to be dealt with, and grieving to be done; but also, we can finally stop hanging out at the hospital and get on with our lives.

For others, though, the loss was more devastating. There were a lot of tears shed this morning, a lot of voices breaking with sobs. It was hard to see these people I love in so much pain. But to watch them offering praise to God out of the midst of their grief was one of the most beautiful things I've witnessed in a long time.

Indigo Girls - Reunion

In Which I Post About H Before It's Too Late.

The three books I've been reading over the past couple weeks are all historical in nature. The one I'm reading now is How the Irish Saved Civilization, and the one I started out with was The Hyphenated Family. The latter was written by Hermann Hagedorn. How's that for H cred, huh?

Hagedorn's book was a memoir, both of his family and of his own life as the son of German immigrants, in the period leading up to WWI. It's long out of print, and so obscure that I believe I am the first person to ever blog about it. I must have picked it up way back when it was discarded by my high school library. The immigrant experience is one of the few areas of U.S. history that I find truly compelling; all my immigrant ancestors died before I was born, and I often wonder what America meant to them, how they reconciled the old life with the new. In this book, the Hagedorn family never really severs their ties to the homeland, and is wealthy enough to visit frequently. It made quite a contrast with the other story about immigrants I read a while back. The title and author escape me, but it was about a poor Scottish family. The adults were so happy to have reached the land of promise that they taught their American-born children very little about their roots, speaking of Scotland only occasionally, in such tones as one would speak of an old love who broke your heart and whom you never quite got over.

The book in the middle was historical fiction: Catherine, Called Birdy. It was what they call "young adult fiction" these days, about the daughter of a minor noble in the middle ages who is quite unhappy about her father's efforts to marry her off. I would describe it as good fiction but poor history; though the author had clearly done quite a bit of research, collecting authentic factual tidbits about medieval medicine, cuisine, and hygiene, she never seemed to have a handle on the medieval worldview. Birdy was a lively and interesting character, but she seemed far more like a twenty-first century American teenager than a product of the Dark Ages.

So that leaves Cahill's book about the Irish, which I've only really just started now, at the end of H fortnight. But fear not: the letter I comes right after the letter H. No beats will be missed.

Hamburgers? Herbal tea? Hugs? Hospitality? Yes. Health? Sometimes. Homestar Runner? Absolutely.

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

In Which My House Smells Much Better, Thanks For Asking.

I may have fallen off the blogwagon for a while there, but at least I remained firmly aboard the ABC-wagon. Maybe it was just too hard to stay on two wagons at the same time. Or maybe I'm fishing for excuses. Be that as it may, F had its share of fun and frustration, family, friends, finishing projects, and fondue.

And G is for game, right? So I finally dipped my toe into the world of MMORPGs, which proved, as I suspected, to be a quicksand of the most vicious sort. Sucked me right down, it did. But when you combine pirate-themed adventure with game art reminiscent of my childhood toys... well, let's just say they've got my number.

But G is also for groups, so I tried a writer's group last week. It turned out to be one of those deals where people share things they've written and critique each other's work. I'd never been to a group like that before, and really didn't know what to expect, so I didn't bring anything to share. It was a diverse bunch, with poets and essayists and one other fiction writer, and several of them read things of varying genre and quality, and then everyone talked about what they thought worked and/or didn't. And I sat there thinking, oh duh, I forgot this is what real writers do and still somehow being terribly surprised and even a little put off by the whole thing. Nearly all my writing thus far has been for specific people, professors or gaming buddies or e-mail recipients, and my measure of success has been how well those particular people liked it. But airing my work before a bunch of people whom I don't really know... man. That's serious.

As strange and uncomfortable as that experience was, it would be good for me to have an incentive to write (or dig out and polish) something worth sharing on a regular basis. So I'll go back. But there's another kind of writing group I like better, the kind where you get together with other writers and drink hot things while writing in silence, and then you all take a break and talk about writing, and sometimes you end up talking about other things besides writing, and sometimes you end up doing more talking than writing. All of which is less counterproductive than it sounds. And all of which I did this afternoon.

* * *

One G tune before I go. You have to be careful with this one, because it will stick in your head and you'll find yourself wanting to yowl out the chorus at the most inopportune times.

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

Which Concerns Dead Things, and Is Not for the Squeamish.

Generally, when I am going to visit my parents, who live a couple hours' drive away, I underestimate the amount of time it will take to get ready to leave my house. There is always at least one thing I have to do before I leave that takes longer than expected, so when I say "I'll be there about 3" it usually means I'll be there about 4:30. Give or take, you know, an hour.

But this time, I was determined, would be the exception. It was the time I had said I would leave the house, and I was going to leave the house right then, by golly. Only the dishes weren't washed, and I hate to leave dirty dishes when I go on a trip. But see, I knew that if I washed them, I would somehow lose another hour.

So I left the dishes. And when I got back, a few days later, the house smelled terrible. Well, you see, I told myself, that's what happens. Now you know. And I was so tired that I walked right past the kitchen sink and went to bed, and as I fell asleep, I thought, man, this house reeks.

Of course, the next day I washed the dishes, and they were definitely icky. But the day was nice enough to open some doors and windows, so I aired out the house, which made everything much better.

But the next day, when I got home, there was still that smell. And it had evolved into something I actually recognized: it smelled like dead things. Also, it was now discernably coming up from the basement.

I don't have a real basement. I have a crawlspace under about 2/3 of my house, and the other 1/3 is a sort of cellar, with a hot water heater and furnace in it. It's not exactly a place you'd want to hang out in. Many guests, when I point it out to them, refuse to even enter. I think it's cool, in a creepy way, but I still don't go down there unless I have to.

But now I had to. I had to go under the house and find out what was rotting down there. I hoped it was just a mouse, but a rat would be okay. Squirrel, I could handle. What I really didn't want it to be was a cat or a possum or even a raccoon. And I didn't want it to be way back in the crawlspace, because even though it has "crawl" in the name, I am not convinced it is a good place for crawling. At all.

I had time to think about all this as I gathered rubber gloves and plastic bags, put on my boots and grabbed a flashlight. I lifted the hatch in the back porch, edged down the ladder, swung open the basement door slowly... and grimaced.

There were five mice on the floor, sprawled in full view, as though passed out after a particularly wild mouse party.

Five! Why so many? What were they all doing there? None showed signs of injury, and I've never put out poison bait. A further search of the basement revealed another one higher up, at the edge of the crawlspace near the furnace. Six dead mice. I bagged them, counting them off aloud as I did so: "That's three, and three left to go. Only two left..." trying to distract myself from noticing what they felt like in my gloved and plastic-bag-covered hand.

I still don't know what killed them. I suppose it must have been poison. Maybe the neighbors put some out; I don't know. I'm just hoping this takes care of most of the odor. I'm pretty sure I didn't get them all; the last couple days when I got home from work, my house smelled like someone had been cooking meat. This probably means that there is one on (or in) a heating duct somewhere, slowly turning to mouse jerky.

But I don't intend to go hunting for it.

* * *

My cousin has an art show here in Portland this Thursday that you should know about. The show features three artists, and "will include encaustic paintings of abstract landscapes, and mandalas, sensual photographic works, botanically inspired, functional steel sculptures, art books that unfold like flowers, glass jewelry, wearable textile designs, and much more." I know she's responsible for at least the encaustic paintings, mandalas, and flower-like books, and that they are wondrous and well worth seeing, but the rest of it sounds pretty interesting too. The show is from 5-9pm at Rust, 1600 NE Alberta St.

I think my cousin may also be playing the violin at this show, as it is supposed to involve "flamenco guitar and gypsy violin." So here is some gypsy violin she recorded with a band she plays with:

Ginggang - Mercury Vapors
Ginggang - The Numbers
Ginggang - Zodiac City

Which Has an Awful Lot of F Words.

F, man. F is a really great letter. Fact and fiction, formulas and freestyle, feebleness and fortitude, flying and falling: F has them all covered.

I've decided that the two weeks of F are a time for finishing things, which is something I'm generally not very good at. I get a charge out of starting a new endeavor, but if it outlasts that inital momentum, I all too often abandon it. That means there are plenty of finishable things to choose from! Other F adventures include...

Fatigue: Most nights this past week I came home feeling like my brain had turned to stone, and it was all my neck could do to keep my skull up. For this I blame the (unblogged) events of the previous week. Frequently when I get this drained, I keep pushing myself and get sick. But not this time. I totally vegged out! Take that, germs!

Fruit: ORGANIC BANANAS. I've had some good bananas in my day, fat little apple bananas freshly cut from a sun-drenched, mosquito-ridden patch on Maui. Nothing else is that good. But these are close -- way closer than I thought a store-bought banana in this part of the world could get. Why didn't anybody tell me? I will never purchase those chalky, flavorless Dole things again.

Flash games: In Flow, you control a simple aquatic organism. You get to swim around and eat stuff, and avoid predators. And as you grow and mutate, you can hunt down and devour those same predators. Mesmerizing, and very pretty. Check it out.

Feist: is playing at the Wonder Ballroom on March 31st. The 31st is actually well into G territory, but that doesn't mean I can't fork over my fourteen dollars (post-service charge) for a ticket this week. Drop me a line if you want to join the fun.

Feist - Inside & Out

In Which Even E Must End.

I really wanted to do right by the letter E. But it's a tricky letter; you can't just accidentally do a bunch of E things, like you can with B or C. You have to put some effort into it. So most of the past two weeks has not been particularly E-ful.

I think I made up for it last night, though. I was trying to fit as many Es into one evening as I could, so I invited Evannichols and, um, Sanguiniteee over to watch an Eddie Izzard video. And then I thought there should be some kind of snacky food involved, so I found a recipe involving eggplant and eggs, and pretty much didn't follow the directions at all, and to my surprise it still came out more or less edible. The whole evening was extremely entertaining. Eddie is hilarious, that's a given; but the interaction between Evan and Sanguinity was a whole different kind of live comedy. They are both funny people, but when you put them in the same room, you get funny squared.

I already said some things about Eddie Izzard a while back, so instead, I will post some audio files from another pretty funny guy who also cusses sometimes:

Eugene Mirman - Being Jewish, Poetry, the Sci-Fi Channel
Eugene Mirman - Russia, the Atari, Obey Your Mom

If you like it, you can get more clips and video and stuff from his website. I can't vouch for all of it, but this one in particular makes me cry.

In Which The World Loses One of Its Oddest Inhabitants.

Dear blog, I am neglecting you this week, as my attention has been taken up with matters unbloggable. But at this moment I want to pour one out for my homie Ivor Cutler.

Two spoken:
Five or Seven
Picking Your Nose

And two sung:
Get Away from the Wall
Little Black Buzzer

(All of these tracks came from here.)

In Which My Neighbor Deserves A Batch of Cookies, At Least.

I've been reading this blog called And They Will Know Us By Our T-Shirts for a while now. Some guy in the midwest began it with the intent of recording the ironies and absurdities of working in a Christian bookstore. I appreciate his wit and writing ability, but I appreciate even more the tension he expresses between his commitment to the Christian faith, and his exasperation with the stupidity and ugliness involved in the culture that has grown on Christianity like barnacles on a boat's hull. I share that tension, and I know we're not alone, but it's not something I hear acknowledged by others very often. His posts have ranged from the deliciously sarcastic to the insightful to the moving. And then came the other kind of moving: his wife got a job in Portland, and almost two weeks ago the two of them packed up and came out here, starting a new blog to record their adventures.

So this afternoon, that t-shirt blogger and his wife, Ben and Nikki, stepped out of the internet and into my 3-D real-time world. We went to Stumptown for beverages and conversation, and strolled the more densely interesting part of Hawthorne, and cruised Mt. Tabor, and I got to tell them about my favorite places and how they have just moved to the coolest city in the world. I have to admit, though, it is even cooler now that they live here.

I like to show people a good time when they come to visit, but I saved the best for last. After all that sightseeing, we went back to my house to hang out for the half-hour or so until Nikki and Ben went to meet someone for dinner. But there we were stymied, because I discovered I had locked myself out when I left the house. Now when I've been locked out in the past, I have generally just gone to get the spare key from friends who live about 10 blocks away. So that's what I did, with Ben and Nikki in tow. (At least I wasn't locked out of my car, too.) Only when we got back to my house did I fully comprehend that I had locked myself out in an especially complicated way, by turning a bolt that I don't usually turn and don't carry a key for. So I had gone to get a copy of a key I already had in hand, and was still just as locked out as I was before.

Ben and Nikki took all this with good humor, yet somehow managed to refrain from laughing at me. I'm telling you, these are good people. Also good people: my next door neighbor, who, when I asked to use his phone to call a locksmith, offered to use his ladder to get in through an open upstairs window. Miraculously, he was able to remove the screen without damaging it, and then replaced it when he was done.

Of course, that about ate up my last half hour with Nikki and Ben. But it also pretty much guaranteed that they won't forget the day they met me. For the record, I would like to assure them and anyone else reading this that I'm not usually so airheaded. Just on special occasions.

In Which A Car Is Grit.

The New Orleans Public Library wants any books you can spare. New ones, they can put on their shelves; used ones can be sold or given to families without any. Ship them library rate (cheaper than media rate!) to:

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112

Because this information wasn't given up front on the NOPL website, but came from another source entirely, I wondered if it could possibly be a scam of some sort. I mean, what kind of name is Rica A. Trigs, anyway? But I googled her (him?), and turns out it really is legit. Which made me feel kind of mean for figuring out that the name is also an anagram of "tragic airs."

* * *

Last October I wrote here about recording some sounds with Piri and her "Arrowwood" project. Piri is now completing the album, assisted by several people with actual recording experience, and it's being produced by Pythagumus Toadstool and indie label Circumstantial. She has a myspace site up with some song samples. (Yes, they start playing automatically.) I'm not on those tracks, but I am credited as a "contributing member," which is pretty cool, considering my total contribution to the effort took less than two hours. Piri has also joined another band called Leoðsong Guild (another myspace link) which is going to perform live starting in a month or two. I can't tell you how to pronounce that, but I can tell you that I'm a little jealous and a lot in awe of all this.

* * *

Two movies that start with E: The Emperor and the Assassin was a two-and-a-half hour Chinese epic, the kind with lots of bloodshed, beautifully composed shots, and a tragic ending. I really like this sort of thing. China does epics a lot better than America does. My one complaint: too much emperor, not enough assassin.

Egg was a strange little Dutch film, less than an hour long. It was about an illiterate baker, a tad on the slow-witted side, who strikes up a correspondence (via his friends) with a woman from a personal ad. He is a simple man, and she is not; when she finally meets him, she looks for romantic cues, and he doesn't have any to give her. Just a wide, innocent smile -- which makes her acutely uncomfortable.

* * *

Your E track for the day:
Bishop Allen - Eve of Destruction

In Which Reggae May Be Found.

I finally finished Blue Highways. I have to quit reading big books at the beginning of the year, because I bog down easily in the winter months. Last year I started Dorothy Dunnett's Game of Kings early on, and I ended up reading it twice in a row because there was so much I didn't understand the first time through, and that took ages. I keep a yearly list of all the books I've read, and so far 2006's list is embarrassingly short. Meanwhile, I noted with some chagrin that pagefever had read 18 books by the end of January. She must take public transportation, I reassured myself, and then, less charitably, Maybe they were really short books!

But back to Blue Highways. The author, William Least Heat Moon (no relation), went on a road trip in the early '80s that roughly followed the perimeter of the continental U.S. He took notes and photos, and thought about everything a lot, and then went home and kneaded it all into a book. It's a nice snapshot of America, focusing on small towns, backroads, and people who've lived long enough to have more than a few stories to tell. Heat Moon is an insightful narrator, but I inevitably found my attention wandering after a chapter or two (and the chapters were generally 1-6 pages). I think this may have been because, when I am in the passenger's seat of a car, even when I resolve to pay attention to where we're going, my mind inevitably wanders and I stop seeing what's rolling past the window. You definitely get that feeling from this book, that you are sitting in the passenger's seat of Heat Moon's van (which he named Ghost Dancing), seeing America with him.

I told Truck this, last night, and he wholeheartedly agreed with that last comment. Truck is the fellow who loaned me the book. He is a connoisseur of the American Road Trip narrative, and this one is his favorite. I think his first book published will also be a Road Trip story. I think it will be a good one. I'll let you know when he does a reading at Powell's. Truck and I went to see a documentary (you knew there would be D's in here somewhere, didn't you?) called The Real Dirt on Farmer John. I really enjoyed it. I wanted less biography and more about the organic farm, but still: it was a worthwhile and entertaining film.

I haven't done an awful lot of D things this week. I haven't done an awful lot of anything this week, to be honest. I did get the roof patched, and I did do my taxes, in the hope of acquiring funding for more comprehensive repairs. On Monday I had dinner with Aaron, who has been my friend since before I knew that "friend" meant something other than "giant stuffed camel." (No, Aaron doesn't get an alias; he has an eponymous domain.) We reminisced about 1980, when St. Helens blew and we played "Jaws" with an end table standing in for the shark and a bunk bed for the boat. He was on his way to Mississippi, and after some months there, will be heading to Afghanistan for a year. I am happy to say that he fully intends to blog this Excellent Adventure.

So today I'm trying to fit in a few last-minute D activities. I went to the Daily Grind and bought some dates and dried figs, and to Movie Madness, where I rented Dear Frankie. And later in the evening, I will dust off my cardboard harp and play some songs in the key of D dorian.

This song is not in the key of D dorian:
Desmond Dekker - Israelites