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.