In Which I Wander in Darkness, and Don't Get Ice Cream.

Last night I went to a nearby Fred Meyer, which has been under major reconstruction for a few weeks now. Large segments of the store are walled off with sheets of plywood, other walls have been knocked out, floor tiles are torn up all over the place, aisles keep moving around. It's a little confusing, but not really a big deal.

This time, though, things were different. I mean, really different. Walking in, I got such a strong sense of the surreal that I had to do a mental check to make sure I was really awake.

A blown transformer down the block was the culprit: the store was running on generator power, which meant no climate control, no music, minimal lighting. Registers were up, but the freezer aisle was cordoned off. The store was dim and quiet, despite the many customers wandering around. Someone had replaced my mass-produced shopping experience with Plato's cave while I wasn't looking. The place even smelled different, faintly musty in an out-of-doors way, reminiscent of rain meeting dirt.

"Grocery shopping has never seemed so post-apocalyptic," I told the cashier. He laughed, then said, "It's a nice change of pace; makes you realize how much we rely on electricity.... The really fun part will be when the generator runs out in a couple of hours." I asked what would happen then, but he had to admit he didn't know.

I'm actually kind of sad that it won't be that way next time I visit.

In Which I Consult the Oracle.

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but my roommate and I had an appointment with a safe in Minnesota, and what with the cops and the angry villagers and the zombie smilodon, the whole thing just took a little more time than we'd planned for. Anyway, don't worry about that, everything's fine now.

The following Q&A isn't new, but it looked like fun, and it was. I found it here (no, I don't know her, but I feel like I should).

The game is iPodomancy, and the way it is played is thusly:
1. Put your MP3 player on shuffle.
[I don't actually own one, but iTunes or other audio software will suffice.]
2. Press forward for each question.
[Or just listen to the track and ponder its significance while multitasking in other windows.]
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

I've included some of the best tracks for your listening pleasure.

How am I feeling today?
"If I Could Split" - Kite Flying Society
Okay, that's definitely how I was feeling at work today.

Will I get far in life?
"Call Me What You Like" - Puffy AmiYumi
Huh. I'm thinking this is the equivalent to the Magic 8-Ball's "Reply hazy, try again."

How do my friends see me?
"No Wow" - The Kills
Tough crowd, you guys.

When will I get married?
"Your Light is Spent" - Final Fantasy
I don't know what that means, but I'll hold off on picking the dress.

What is my best friend's theme song?
"Sunset" - The Appleseed Cast
I have multiple best friends, so I guess they can fight over this one. It's instrumental, laid-back, feel-good music that sounds more like a random cut from a soundtrack than a theme song, but all my best friends are pretty weird, so whatever.

What is the story of my life?
"Fantasia for Clarinet" - Modern Quartet vs Kocani Orkestar
That's... really abstract, man.

What was high school like?
"A100" - Billy Corgan
Why yes, my high school GPA was indeed over 4.0. And your assumptions (based on this information) about my social life at that time are likely to be accurate.

How am I going to get ahead in life?
"Blessing in Disguise" - Tom Vek
Oh. Whew. That's a relief.

What is the best thing about me?
"Lie Still, Little Bottle" - They Might Be Giants
So which is it, iTunes? My tendency to inertia or my (lack of) chemical dependency?

How is today going to be?
"Wish Me Luck" - Ofra Haza
I can't really argue with that.

What is in store for this weekend?
"Gene Clark" - Heroes and Villains
Who is Gene Clark? Maybe I should do some research.

What song describes my parents?
"Disappear" - My Brightest Diamond
I'm having trouble thinking of a context in which this answer would be accurate... except for a really terrible pun context: Dis a pair.

What song describes your grandparents?
"Eugene at Caroline's" - Eugene Mirman
Wait, this is not a song track. I'm not counting it.
"So Begins Our Alabee" - Of Montreal
Alabee is the infant daughter of the guy who wrote the song (I looked it up). I guess this is appropriate insofar as my grandparents all had children... though none of them were named Alabee.

How is my life going?
"Kaddish" - Ofra Haza
According to Wikipedia, Kaddish is (or comes from the) Aramaic for "holy." It refers to a central blessing of the Jewish prayer service in which God's name is glorified, but also to rituals of mourning. So... yeah, pretty much.

What song will they play at my funeral?
"So Passes Away the Glory of the World" - Typhoon
Oh definitely. The only lyrics to this overblown, unremittingly somber dirge are "Sic transit gloria mundi." Of course, you'd better follow it up with some outrageously cheery non sequitur, like "The Swimming Song" by Loudon Wainwright III.

How does the world see me?
"Onions" - Heartless Bastards
Um... same to you. You heartless bastards.

Will I have a happy life?
"The Cry of Man" - Mary Margaret O'Hara
That doesn't sound promising, does it?

What do my friends really think of me?
"Kaefusafi" - Stafrænn Hákon
Hey! Are you guys secretly Icelandic?

Do people secretly lust after me?
"Remedy" - The Black Crowes
I'll take that as an affirmative.

How can I make myself happy?
"Jaan Pehechaan Ho" - Mohammed Rafi
Listen to more Bollywood soundtracks. Ah. Good advice, iTunes Oracle.

What should I do with my life?
"Greenland Whale Fisheries" - Van Dyke Parks
You don't say! Stay tuned for the whale poaching revival of '09, kids.

Will I ever have children?
"Your Eyes Have It" - Bullette
Possibly maybe. Got it.

What is some good advice for me?
"Moonlighter Prizefighter" - Yellow Jacket Avenger
Yeah, I'll... have to think about that. Thanks.

What is my signature dancing song?
"Into Tomorrow" - The Waxwings
I can do slow waltzes, but signature? Come on, iTunes. Give me some credit here.

What do I think my current theme song is?
"Tango Till They're Sore" - Tom Waits
Yeah, why not? "Send me off to bed forevermore." As long as I get a new theme song tomorrow, because by "forevermore" I really mean "a good eight hours."

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
"Já Sei Namorar" - Tribalistas
Man, you win, everyone else. That song rocks. I don't speak Portuguese, but according to Google Translate, the title means "Already I know to namorar." So true. So true.

What type of men/women do you like?
"Graffiti" - Maximo Park
Men with Scottish accents, obviously.

What kind of kisser are you?
"Samson" - Regina Spektor
Mighty good.

What's your style?
"A Parade" - Kuryakin
Oh iTunes, you enigmatic tease, you.

What kind of lover are you?
"Use It" - The New Pornographers
Not that kind.

What would be playing on a first date?
"Today" - Jennifer O'Connor
"Today I stop guessing and give you my heart..." Whew, that'd have to be one good first date.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
"Middle of Nowhere" - Hot Hot Heat
Now we're talking, iTunes. But with that many questions, you're bound to get some right. I deem your prognostications unsatisfactory overall, and your position as soothsayer is hereby REVOKED.

In Which Answers Only Lead to More Questions.

And voila! In a bold stroke of genius, Mr. Whybark (yes, the very same Whybark mentioned in the previous post) enters the words "Minnesota hanging doll" into Google, and gets a) my blog, and b) some answers (in that order, oddly enough).

(I know, duh, but this actually hadn't occurred to me. Apparently I was more interested in wondering about the doll's origins than actually finding them out?)

Turns out the doll is not actually hanging. It's just sitting in the window, as you can see in this photo (shamelessly yoinked from the KAAL TV website):


He looks a little bored, if you ask me.

So there's an old doll sitting in the window of an old farmhouse in the dinky town of Janesville, MN. Big deal, right? But the plot thickens up a bit when you realize that Ward Wendt, the guy who first put the doll in the window in 1976, is not only keeping mum about his reasons, but he has written them down in a letter which he then placed in a time capsule and buried in the park across the street. The capsule is not to be opened until 2176.

Like anybody will even care then. That house will be long gone by 2076. It's like a dare!

Anybody up for a roadtrip to Minnesota? Bring shovels and headlamps.

* * *

While writing this, I was listening to They Might Be Giants' Flood, a work of deranged genius that exceeds even Ward Wendt's, and I began wondering just what that bluebird nightlight looked like. (If you know the album, you know the one.) Well... I think I found it.

In Which Writers Are Speakers.

Multiple thanks to Mike Whybark, whose blog directed me to Journalista just in time to discover that one of my favorite comic artists was coming to town this week. Gabrielle Bell has no real website that I can unearth, but her journal comics are among my favorite of the genre. I love her sense of humor and the understated way she draws.

The other night at Reading Frenzy, she used an ancient slide projector to show/tell us an unpublished story, "My Affliction." It was a meandering narrative "based on actual events" that involved giants, levitation, foul-mouthed magpies, a houseboat with a crow's nest and waterslide, and miraculous acne cures. She did different voices for the different characters, and barked and squawked for the dog and bird. It was extremely entertaining. Then she signed my copy of Lucky and made a little sketch in it (of me!), and I went home so very happy.

* * *

Earlier that day, I got to hear a published novelist speak to some college students about writing and stories. It was... eh... it was okay. The most interesting part of the lecture, for me, was the two stories of the Hanging Doll.

Apparently, in some small town in Minnesota, there is a big white farmhouse right next to the main road, and all the cars slow down when they drive past it. They slow down because, in the attic window of this farmhouse, you can see a battered antique doll strung up by its neck. When this writer guy was in college, his friends took him by the house and told him this story about it:

A long time ago, there was this girl who lived in that house, and she was what people politely refer to as "special." She had this doll she always carried with her everywhere she went, and she never spoke a word. Everyone treated her like a freak; kids laughed at her and adults whispered about her. One day, when she was maybe 16 or so, her mother couldn't find her... she looked for her upstairs, she looked for her downstairs, and finally she found her in the attic. The poor girl had hanged herself, and the doll that was her only friend lay beneath her feet. Well, after the funeral, her heartbroken parents used the very same rope she had hanged herself with to string up her beloved doll in front of the window, so that the town would always remember what their cruelty had done to a poor innocent girl.

That story got around; a lot of people in the area accepted it as truth. But years later, the guy went back to research the story, and he found out this instead:

Once the owner of the house was reading an article in National Geographic, and it had a picture of some house in Mississippi where there was a doll hanging in the window. And he said, "You know what? It would sure be cool if I hung a doll in the window of my house." And so... he did.

Then the speaker asked for a show of hands: how many of you found the first story more compelling? And most of the audience raised their hands. But I didn't. And while he went on to make some points about humanity's need for story and yadda yadda, I spent the next several minutes thinking about why.

The first version was a standard-issue ghost story. It was too pat,* too heartstring-yanking to be believable. It left no loose ends; it was in itself a resolution, a closed compartment.

The second version was an open door, a crossroads. It left a hundred questions unanswered: Why did the doll-hanger think it was cool? What kind of guy does this sort of thing? What was it about hanging a doll that appealed to him? What did he think would happen as a result? Did he know about the urban rural legend, and if so, did it make him laugh? Did he start the legend himself? Were his motivations really as simple as they seemed?

And why was there a doll hanging in a window in Mississippi? Do they tell stories there about a girl who hanged herself? Are there other dolls hanging in other windows elsewhere? Could this catch on, start a Hanging Doll movement? Is there already a Hanging Doll movement, of which we urban dwellers are blissfully ignorant? What does that say about our culture? What does it all mean??

Now that's what I call compelling.

*No offense to Pat, who is entirely credible.

In Which They All Lived Lamely Ever After.

Yesterday was a landmark of sorts, the conclusion of what has become an annual tradition. Yesterday I finally finished that first interminable novel of the year.

Here is what happens: While making travel plans for the holidays, I pick a nice thick novel I've been looking forward to reading. I read some of it on the plane, and maybe some while I'm wherever I've traveled to. But not much. Then I come home and I've got a ton of pages left on it, and I nibble away at it before I go to sleep at night, and it lasts for weeks and weeks.

I have got to stop doing this. It's no way to read a novel.

But I was looking at old reading lists, and I discovered I've been doing it since 2004. Whether or not it's a good book, once I get well into January, I just bog down.

So I'm blogging to remind myself of this New Year's resolution -- not for the present new year, but for all future New Years' seasons: I will only begin short novels. Fat books are fine for other times of year, but not for January.

The book I just finished is Little, Big by John Crowley, and I cannot under any circumstances recommend it (though if LibraryThing reviews are any indication, it has quite a following). It's the story of an American family that lives on the borders of Fairyland -- a concept which surely has a lot of potential. But the narrative never really engages with either reality or fantasy, only wanders around in a sort of haze between (though I don't think there should really be a haze between, but bright-dark perilous wonder). And the characters spend pretty much all their time just being passively confused; no one confronts, no one demands, no one can ever say what they're thinking but just pussyfoots around it, hoping that their listener will hear the words they're not saying. And, because the fairies are always looking out for their pet family, everything happens for them exactly as it was predestined to do from the very beginning, without any real effort on the part of the humans. This is not only boring, but runs counter to rule #1 of fairy tales, which is that things can go terribly wrong. You can wander off the path in the woods and get lost forever; you can snub an animal or deny an old woman's request and get your quest cursed to failure. Here, nobody could step wrong even if they tried (though some of them did try, in a halfhearted fashion): fairy tale bumper bowling.

Anyway, it feels good to have finished it. (Don't ask why I can't just put a novel down when I'm not enjoying it; I haven't figured that one out yet.) Now I am reading about what sailors used to eat, and a friend's draft novel.

In Which Blogger Vexes Me, and the Secret Project is Revealed.

Thanks for the comments on New vs. Old Blogger. It's apparent from your feedback that the new version, though officially out of beta, is still more buggy than I'm comfortable with.

It really only came up because of the aforementioned top-secret internet project, which is a group blog, which I'll tell you more about in a second. See, Blogger's group blogs can be either Old Blogger or New Blogger, but not both; if you happen to be using one then you can't participate in the other and vice versa. Also, you can't have an Old Blogger blog and a New Blogger blog at the same time.

While this wouldn't bother most people, it's disastrous if you're trying to start a collaborative blog. Either only Old Blogger users can contribute, and nobody new to Blogger can join (because new users are automatically funneled into New Blogger) -- or only New Blogger users can play, and anyone who wants to join has to upgrade. Because of the number of core contributors who are still happily using Old Blogger, the blog's editor decided to stick with the former option for the time being (a choice I obviously support).

I've been a devoted Blogger fan for six years now, but the way they're handling this whole transition is lame, especially in that some people are already being forced to make the switch. I understand that it's necessary to move everyone over to the new model at some point, but can we at least make sure it all works first?

Anyway, now that I've got my grousing out of the way: The Suggestions is the collaborative blog in question. It was inspired by shopping blogs, but aspires to be something more. Exactly what that something is remains to be seen as it takes shape over time. It's still a little wide-eyed and stumbly; I'm not even sure the RSS feed works properly yet. But you can have a look, if you like.

(My original plan was to include an invitation to potential contributors in this announcement, but that's sort of moot now... unless you're an Old Skool Blogger user. In that case, if this looks like something you'd like to be part of, drop me a line.)

Which is a Question for Blogger Users.

I'm interested in hearing from those of you who have made the switch from Old Blogger to New Blogger, particularly if you wrote a significant number of posts in Old Blogger. Any problems with the switch, or complaints in re: the new setup? Please let me know via comments or e-mail.

I'm also curious about how many of my readers are still using Old Blogger, and whether you have reasons for doing so other than inertia.

In other news, my friends are all having babies.

Which Is, Honestly, Kind of a Cop-Out.

I'm posting, not because I have anything in particular to say, but because I'm tired of the last post being the last post. If you know what I mean (I think ya do, mon).

I really don't have a lot to report. The roommate and I have both elected to spend this Friday evening in the living room with laptops, rather than partake in whatever activities Portland may have to offer. She's letting me wear the DJ hat, and I'm reacquainting myself with my long-neglected iTunes library. So that's fun.

Hm... let's see, what else? I've been working on a top-secret internet project with... some other people. But that's all I can tell you for now. Isn't that intriguing? ...and annoying? Anyway, I think you will like it. Eventually.

Here is a roughly accurate summary of my life these days:
Springfactory - Get Out of Bed

But this (thanks to mixmaster alissa) is the song I can't get out of my head:
Mew - The Zookeeper's Boy

In Which Cat Exits Bag.

The word is out. Official announcements have been made, and so I can finally say it here: I'm quitting my job.

This has been a long time coming, so it's a relief to have it out in the open. In keeping with my policy of not blogging about work, I won't go into my reasons for departure here. However, they are good reasons, which I will gladly share with anyone who inquires, and which can be summed up as follows: It's time to move on. My employer has been good to me, and in some ways it will be hard to leave, but I've been ready for the change for quite a while.

So now what?

I've decided to put my library career on hold for a bit. I'm currently applying for a paid contract on... wait for it... a sailing vessel. My short-term plan is to spend several months next summer/fall as purser (bookkeeper) on either the Lady Washington or Hawaiian Chieftain. (I know, you never would have guessed, huh?)

After that? Who knows. Maybe more sailing, if I'm not totally sick of it by then. Maybe another library job. Maybe something unforeseen will come up and I'll go in another direction entirely.

So anyway, yeah, you read that right. I'm quitting my job as a librarian to become a sailor. You might say I'm having my mid-life crisis a few years early.

And I am. So. Excited.

In Which I Explain My Aversion to Gratuitous Arr-ing.

It's not that I don't think pirates are cool. I do, and have, for a good sixteen years now. (Ninjas may beat pirates in a fight, but pirates throw better parties.)

It just wears on you, after a while. You're out hosing down the deck and somebody yells "Arrr!" at you from shore. You're motoring into the harbor and a guy in a fishing boat hollers, "Arr, matey!" You're aloft furling at the end of a long day, and you hear an "Arrr" from the dock, and you don't even look, you just roll your eyes. You can't yell back; that would be unprofessional, and besides, what would you say?
a) "You okay over there?"
b) "So's yer ma!"
c) "Heard that one. Got any others?"
d) "S! T! U! V!"
No. There is nothing.

There was a passenger on one of our battle sails last week who had a seriously cool pirate costume, topped off with a big curly mustache. All this was fairly impressive until he started bellowing at the passengers on the other boats, calling them "bloomin' cockaroaches" and "foc's'le scum". The worst part was that he pronounced foc's'le in such a way that it sounded like he was swearing at them. I was embarrassed for him.

I guess what it comes down to is that there's a big difference between playing at being a pirate and working at being a tall ship sailor, and when you're involved in the latter you run into an awful lot of the former. And it gets old fairly quickly.

Don't get me wrong. I really don't mind if you, my friends, feel the urge to say "Arr" to me, and I'm certainly not offended if you talk like a pirate in my general vicinity. Heck, I think it's kind of cute. Just be aware that if you ever happen to visit a sailing ship, no one who works there will think it's cool. They hear it all the time.

In Which My Hands Get Callused Again.

I'm home after a two-week stint of sailing in the LA area. Same boat as I was on this summer (the Hawaiian Chieftain), some of the same crew, some different. This time I talked Meep into coming along so that she could have the whole volunteer training experience, and so we could continue our tradition of spending New Year's together in interesting places. We had really nice weather, and terrific three-way battle sails with the Lady Washington and the Privateer Lynx. When we weren't sailing, there was more than enough painting, refinishing, sail mending and other much-needed maintenance to keep us all busy, which I also enjoyed. I think Meep would admit to having a pretty great time as well. At the very least, we must have stocked up several years' worth of inside jokes.

As has happened before, I resolved to journal my sailing adventures, but at the end of the day there was just too much to write down with what little energy I had left. However, I did manage to take a few notes, which I will now replicate and annotate here for your reading pleasure.

12/22/06
I dreamed I had forgotten to pack my boots, and woke to find myself wearing them, lying on a row of seats at the airport. The man beside me had a sketchbook & pen in hand -- I couldn't quite bring myself to ask if he had drawn me.

Airport naps: inevitable after staying up too late packing. Meep and her sister picked me up at LAX, and the sister drove us out to San Pedro. I greeted old crewmates while Meep's sister changed her baby's diaper on -- get this -- the poop deck. I know, huh?

12/23/06
Stumbled up on deck to discover we were already underway, motoring out to pump out [the black water tank], blue sea and sky and wind -- magnificent.
Later, was seasick.

I'd never been seasick before, though I'm generally a little iffy my first day out on the water. I would have been fine up on deck, but I was trying to do my morning chores, which that day involved cleaning the heads. So, below decks, bending over, in water with a bit of a chop to it... yeah. It wasn't as horrible as I imagined it would be, though, and I really did feel much better afterward.

12/24/06
Today I did something I never thought I'd do: I stood on top of the yard.

I really thought this was a big double-no. Turns out that when you're sanding down and refinishing the yards (the horizontal things the sails hang on), all bets are off. On the Chieftain, the upper and lower yards can be close enough together that you can stand on the lower and lean on the upper. If you're harnessed in, it's really pretty secure (Mom), especially if the boat isn't going anywhere. Later on I discovered the secret to not being freaked out when you're climbing around in precarious places: a seat harness. I don't know why they even have those crappy chest harnesses on the boat. I am getting myself a seat harness ASAP.

12/25/06
12 hours @ Disneyland is about as exhausting as any day I've spent on a boat.

Seriously. And two or three days later, half of us came down with colds. We had a pretty great time, though. I was 3 years old last time I went, so it was... different. I found it all a little creepy, to be honest, but that's another blog post. I think my favorite part was the fireworks display -- not because I watched it, but because everyone else did, and so we ran around to as many rides as we could because the lines were gone.

...12/29/06
May have been the best day of my life so far. Fueling/pumpout/transit/battle sail w/Lady & Lynx. Huge sailing buzz, got all choked up. Later, crashed youth ministry convention w/2 drunk sailors.

The sentence with a lot of slashes sums up an adrenaline-fueled sequence wherein we had to get from San Pedro to Long Beach in time to participate in a scheduled "grand arrival" battle sail, but were delayed by repairs and by the need to refuel. We were bending on (reattaching) the sails while underway, and touching up paint at the fuel dock. Good thing we weren't scheduled to take any passengers. I was busy with lines when I realized the gunner was loading the cannons, and then I looked up and saw the Lady and the Lynx and just about dropped my eyeballs, I was so in awe. How to describe that rush, I don't even know. I kept saying to myself: I am so lucky to have lived this day.

(The convention, now, that was surreal. I will have to cover that another time. I wasn't serious about blogging about the creepiness of Disneyland, but I will definitely blog about the convention.)

...12/31/06
Sailed Lynx. Wow.

Sailing on the Lynx was my first schooner experience, and it was fascinating. The current captain of the Chieftain has captained all three of the vessels I've mentioned, and he compared them as follows: "The Lady is like Grandpa's truck. The Chieftain is a Jeep, and the Lynx is a Corvette." It was the cleanest, prettiest boat I've ever seen -- you could entertain royalty in that swanky hold -- and it was fast. Sailed circles around the Chieftain, literally. Setting and furling the sails was a lot more labor-intensive, but the results were well worth the effort.

The other two visiting Chieftain crew members and I discussed how "our" boat looked from the deck of another. The Lady is a pretty classy-looking vessel, and the Lynx is downright sexy. But the Chieftain, we agreed, has a disreputable air to it, like a gypsy caravan or an old VW bus with Grateful Dead stickers in the windows. Sketchy. You can't tell from the photos I linked to above, but the sails are all faded and stained, with patches upon patches. As much as we hate it when people shout "Arrrr!" at us, a pirate flag really wouldn't look out of place atop that mast.

1/1/07
Lunch w/Aunt ___. Dinner w/[old friends]. Good to get away.

We had the day off. Some of the crew hung out watching movies and nursing hangovers, and some wandered off to various points of interest around town. Meep and I met up with a few people I knew in the area, who fed and hugged and made much of us. I was really tired and had trouble maintaining my end of a conversation for any length of time, so I was glad to have Meep along to give intelligent responses on my behalf. (She wisely went to bed before the shanty-singing began on New Year's Eve. I was not so wise.)

1/2/07
Ed sail. Taco Nite & DDR.

An "ed sail" is when you take a boatload of schoolchildren out and give them little mini-lessons on Life in the Age of Sail. They do a bit of line-handling, hear about the life of an officer and of a common sailor, and learn a little about the triangular merchant trade, iron tools for sea otter pelts for silks and tea. I like ed sails, though not everybody does. They're a big part of what the Lady and Chieftain do year-round, but I didn't get to see any last summer because school was out. After the sail we all went to a local Mexican restaurant for $1 taco night. While we were waiting for a table for 14, several of us went to the arcade next door and played Dance Dance Revolution. I'm so bad at that game, but I love it so much.

1/3/07
Blackwater explosion! Boat cleaning day.

We had a full morning of maintenance planned, and then disaster struck. The blackwater tank (into which the toilets empty) had filled up during the night. There are two ways to (legally) empty your blackwater tank: into a pumpout dock, and a certain number of miles offshore. We were actually right next to a pumpout dock, so the engineer and captain attempted to empty the tanks. But there was some sort of incompatibility with the hoses, and blackwater ended up spraying both of them and gushing out into the main hold, where most of the crew sleeps. So instead, while they showered, the rest of us turned to bleaching the main hold from top to bottom. After that we cleaned the smog off the railings and wiped out all the nooks and crannies on the deck. And then we went sailing.

1/4/07
Painted bowsprit a beautiful shade of blue.

Probably about a dozen interesting things happened on this day, but this is the one that got written down. It really is pretty, though. The bowsprit was white before, but it was hard to keep that looking nice. Plus, the blue actually matches the rest of the boat. Earlier, I got to strip paint off the bowsprit as well. It was fun to hang off the front of the boat in my borrowed seat harness. When we took the paint off we found something written on the bowsprit to the effect of Lahaina Welding w/c Kahului. I forget the exact wording, but I took a photo of it before it got painted over.

1/5/07
Sailed on the Lady Washington.

Not my first time sailing on the Lady, but my first time to sail as crew. And I got to go aloft to cast gaskets (unfurl the sail), which was extra neat. It's such a cool boat. I like the way it sort of wallows through the water. I don't like the lines, which look like rope but feel like synthetic twine. They were paid for by Disney so they would all look uniform for the movie. And they do look sharp, but they're nasty to handle.

1/6/07
Meep and I had flights around 7 pm, but didn't want to miss the 2-5 sail. At the captain's suggestion we did not wait for the Chieftain to dock, but rode in on Pele the small boat with [the coxswain, or master of the small boat] and [the crew member with a car], luggage piled high in the bow. Big boat to small boat to car to plane, and so home again.

The small boat is small, I mean like a good-sized bathtub, and notoriously leaky, and has been known to flip. So I was a little nervous as I climbed down the Jacob's ladder and settled into the little inflatable vessel with three other women and several heavy bags. But Pele was kind to us, and our lifejackets never touched the water. We skidded across the surface of the harbor, crewmates waving to us from the deck of the rapidly shrinking Chieftain, and Meep said, "Well, that was a pretty neat exit. I mean, you can't really top this, can you?"

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