east west

Nineveh

2010-11-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

the white curtain hangs partially open. i see him outside, shoveling the year's compost into the blueberry bed. the little one is in his room, pulling books out of his bookshelf, giggling all the while. i'm listening to gus black, the leaves are falling, have fallen. spiritual components rain down, i want to shove them aside in the name of wounded pride.

highway 97

2010-10-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

The little one and I are driving through the high desert. Why is the moon so big and then so small? Why are the aspen yellow? Why is that coyote asleep? Why did that ridge run into the water? What do those elk smell like? Why did that star fall down? Where did the river start? All of these questions, I answer for him while he sleeps, puckers his lips, baby sounds. In a few weeks, he will make one-year-old sounds.

The tamarack make me uneasy; they shouldn't change with the seasons the way they do. Those naked hills make me uneasy; I avert my eyes to give them their privacy. The wind farms make me uneasy; something so big should not be so silent. I'm ultimately not suited for these open spaces. I need something to hide under, a tree to climb, a fence to ignore. I need a place where I can wait out the storm.

He stirs. I realize that- above teaching him how this land gives and takes without our permission, how it teaches us about something mightier, how it provides warmth, food, comfort, and life - above all of this, I am his place to wait out the storm.

and Grace will lead me home.

2010-08-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

sunday morning, gloomy for this time of year. the little one is crying, making a small scene, so we go outside to an emerging part of town. once they all wake up, the streets will turn hip as they ride their fixies to who-knows-where. but for now, a desolate poster child: train tracks, graffiti-tagged warehouses, litter.

inside, she's singing, an alto with a guitar on her lap. i sway with the little one, humming amazing grace along with her. my lips close to his head, please know this, you'll always be forgiven. let the vibrations echo, let them somehow become familiar. so that, say thirty years from now, you may hear that cadence while far from home and be surprised at the peace it brings.

sleep with angels, darling.

2010-05-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

hey there little love, come with me. we'll go outside and learn what anticipation looks like. we'll watch those heavy-laden clouds tumble over the west hills. look around - the leaves are still, quiet, preparing. the robins are singing like mad, getting the word out, find cover find cover it's almost too late find cover. we'll feel this storm come in from the pacific, wonder where it has travelled and what stories it's already laid down. breathe in, little love, do you feel that? tangible, sticky, your mother is emotionally bound to this kind of humidity - a bind which you'll never understand if we stay put too much longer. you need to feel this, you need to know this, you need to close your eyes and sense the storm coming, glory in it, revel in it, wait for it.

we come inside, an indicator that your mother is concerned what the neighbors will think if they see a diapered child outside during a thunderstorm. practicality has trumped romance. but we've got these 85 year old lead-glass windows, and they do shake with the wind, don't they?

the movement that i crave

2010-02-17T21:03:00.001-08:00

and i'm thankful for seasons, in that they remind me that i'm ungrateful. i eagerly anticipate autumn - and then winter starts to blow in, i'm impatient for autumn to leave and woolen sweaters and evenings in front of the fire to become commonplace. and now the daffodils are so very much on the cusp of opening, and i curse the northern wind and the snow-covered mountains that seem bent on destruction. this will happen in june as i will summer to come more quickly than it likes to in the northwest, and then the cycle will be completed in september. seasons are much like the blue ridge mountains - underappreciated, completely used and abused.

i rise early now, early with the little one.

the western sky is dark right now - slate gray. the eastern sun is making its way over our roof to highlight the big-leaf maple in the front yard. it's covered with moss - utterly and totally covered - and it's beautiful. we tried to "grow" moss on our rocks this winter....i don't know what we were thinking, messing with functions of light and darkness like that.

very seriously contemplating a major change. funny how things we desire have a way of making their way to us, even when we don't make their way straight. i've made so many decisions based upon practicality rather than wide-eyed wonder. each time, i'd apologize to my sense of romance, but point to the checkbook or the mortgage as a rationale for my choice. but somehow, wonder really did win in the end. and though the idealistic part of me hoped this to be true, i still can't quite believe it.

something i'll hold to: mid-december, 5:30pm, it's dark. portland has recently received two inches of snow. the christmas tree is lit and the little one is fussy. i have him in the baby carrier, and we're waltzing around the house while listening to Over the Rhine. i hum to him, we're both calmed by Karin's voice. we sway in front of the living room windows and catch a glimpse of Peter outside, laughing, teaching the three neighbor kids how to build a snow fort. there's a fire in the fireplace and hot chocolate on the stove. and my cup overfloweth.

back in that saddle

2010-01-31T20:09:00.001-08:00

The tulips are pushing their way through our mended soil at the base of the big-leaf maple. We're on the cusp, the edge of spring, our daffodils are earnestly racing to be the first to flower. And they'll win; they always do.

introductions

2009-12-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

The rhododendron have bundled up their leaves, self-protective. Weather has come down from the north, and I try to bundle up this child as we take a walk. It's cold; feels like it must be in the teens. I put layers upon layers of clothing on him - the sun is out, we must go outside, we will simply dress accordingly. As we make our way up Fremont, I feel the judgmental stares of old ladies, "Why is that child out of doors in weather like this?".

I, apparently, can do no right. I don't swaddle correctly; it's been too long since he's last eaten; why haven't you given him a bath this week; he must be crying because of that cup of coffee you drank this morning; you don't fit into your jeans yet; why on earth are you taking him outside? In the midst of this great hormone let-down, I try to bundle up my emotions, and protect my instinct from well-intended advice. Sometimes it works. Other times, I find myself awake at 3am, compiling a list of mean things people have said. Putting together a pithy, mental version of Operating Instructions.

Regardless, I bundle up my little boy, add a sweater, some woolen mittens, the striped hat Katie knit for him. We're going outside because of the appearance of the sun. I obviously know very little about being a mother, but I do know that my son needs to feel the sun on his face and watch the birds skitter away from the mountain ash as I shut the door. He needs to know what wind sounds like so it doesn't frighten him when it rattles our 85 year-old lead-glass windows at night. Above all, I need to be able to say, "See that, Aiden? That is called a mountain."

i guess there's an end in sight after all

2009-11-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

tomorrow. 7am.
nervous. excited. apprehensive. quiet. pensive. contemplative.
staring at the ceiling. staring at the floor. staring at the crib.
happy.
nervous again.
quiet.
still quiet.
but i am happy.

creating a new playlist

2009-10-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

Sat on the porch this afternoon to watch the leaves fall. The sky was dark grey over the coast range, as expected, with the sun somehow making its way out to highlight our big leaf maple. A squirrel came by and sat on one of the limbs. We looked at each other for a while, and then he went on gathering whatever seeds and nuts he could find to prepare for the winter.

It felt like late in the cross-country season - when you're at a meet somewhere in the Alleghenies. Maybe it's raining, the generally brilliant poplars are sodden and brown, and you've walked the course and and have seen how it's covered in mud. You know you'll soon need to take the warm up suit off and strip down to those ridiculously small shorts and tank top. And though you're dreading the cold, there's enough anticipation in the air to make you excited to run the course. To have dried mud on your calves, soaking wet hair, and burst capillaries - evidence that you can handle whatever comes your way. You can handle it.

bigger fish to fry

2009-09-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

I can look back on this gardening year without shame. The tomatoes went crazy, as indeterminate growers are apt to do, and we hurriedly made jars of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, 17 pints of salsa, and 5 quarts of tomato soup. We'll make tomato sauce soon and at that point, we will have exhausted our repertoire of tomato-based products. We'll get a little late season arugula in October and a grand finale of evergreen huckleberries in November - and by that time, the garden will have run its full course.

I can't help but notice how the life of our garden perfectly corresponds with this life inside of me. Fully preparing the soil, building up the compost - all of that started late last winter. It's a full nine month period of nurturing the plants, sacrificing various offshoots, and watering during the dry summer months. At this time of year, you start to feel the internal anxiety that comes around the equinox - just go on and change already….the clouds want to, the trees want to, the soil is tired and desperately wants to - it's almost palpable. Someone recently referred to New Hampshire as an expectant mother during the month of September - and I couldn't have described it any better. There's an ever present, and growing reminder that this child also wants to move on to something different. I've been marking this whole journey by the leaves, and have a hard time believing that they're done growing, they've had their drunken summer, they're ready to leave their limbs.

To an extent, this autumnal change is exciting. But most of it scares me to the core. At this point, I'm in complete control of our unborn child's logistical life. He goes where I go. He eats what I eat. Maybe he feels my internal awkwardness when placed in a less-than ideal social situation. Maybe he's also uncomfortable when we're camping in the Southern Cascades at 8-1/2 months pregnant and can't seem to find a position suitable for sleeping. Maybe he was exhilarated by taking a bath in the 45-degree Rogue River, some kind of baptism courtesy of Mount Mazama's snowmelt. Maybe he felt as peaceful as I did when seeing Crater Lake for the first time. But we're nearing the end of our shared experience, and there's an anticipatory sense of mourning there.

I promise this won't turn into a baby blog, and there will never be a mention of anyone "going pee pee in the big boy potty" or the like. However, I feel that I wouldn't be being honest with myself if I didn't acknowledge how much the pending birth of this little boy is affecting my life. It is, and I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified.

cucumpkins

2009-08-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

So we planted cucumbers this year. Pickling cucumbers, small little manageable things, ready to lead us into the unknown world of fermentation. We planted them a little too early, perhaps, but placed them appropriately deep into our composted soil, and waited for growth. The first few sprouts looked alarmingly like the remnants of last year's zucchini (known for its tenacity), so Peter spent an afternoon pulling out about 150 "zucchini" starts. Then a few weeks later, the zucchini sprouts came back, so we pulled the starts once more and replanted with newly purchased pickling cucumber seeds. I watered the garden diligently, and everything seemed to be in order this time around. We went on vacation for a week, and when we came back, roughly 25% of the backyard had become this massive squash-like sea of leaves, male/female flowers, and bees a-pollinating like crazy. We had beaten the zucchini, there was no way we weren't getting cucumbers this time around, considering that they were taking over our garden as if it were nothing more than Belgium or some other insignificantly flat/historically overtaken country.

A few weeks later, our neighbors came by, and brought us gifts of spaghetti squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I dumbly stared at them, surprised that they had cucumbers so early, as ours weren't yet producing, despite their sovereign-nation-like size. I dragged said neighbors to the backyard to see if there was anything we were doing wrong, but they assured me that they looked like any old squash; we were sure to have cucumbers soon.

Then, about a week and a half ago, I went outside the water the garden and bent down to inspect the cucumbers. I jumped back - there certainly was something down there, but if it was a cucumber, it had a tumor. A HUGE tumor, a tumor that made me feel itchy, like I needed to disinfect even the soil it lay on. In an ominous sign that I will be a terrible mother, I decided to ignore the garden for the rest of the week, thinking that maybe the tumor would go away. Peter came home from one of his wilderness trips soon thereafter. As is his custom, he immediately went to the backyard to inspect the garden. I trudged back there to join him, ready to feign ignorance and shame at not caring for my cancerous squash. But he was laughing: "Jess, they're pumpkins! We have pumpkins!"

I'm so absolutely excited about this, purely for the aesthetic reason of putting them on the front porch come October. I guess the pumpkin seeds must have found their way into our compost after last year's pumpkin party….and then they were placed into our garden along with the rest of the compost, and - here's the thing - NO MATTER WHAT WE DID, they were going to grow. We planted new seeds over them twice, and they grew. We likewise ripped out their first sprouts two times, and still they grew. We're reaping the consequences of last year's actions. We wanted tiny pickling cucumbers. But we will receive 20-pound pumpkins. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

if the apocalypse comes, there will be beans.

2009-08-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

28 pints, to be exact.
from our garden, nonetheless.
I'm not ashamed to say it: I'm damn proud of myself.

and there's nothing you can do about it

2009-07-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been thinking about the following things, which are not at all related:

- Several years ago, I was a camp counselor. I was with a bunch of campers one night and overheard them talking about bathrooms. The prettiest girl in the group said, "I've never pooped. Well, maybe only...like twice or something." I'm not sure why I love that story so much, but it's awesome.

- We picked berries yesterday: 18 pounds of strawberries, 15 pounds of raspberries, and 8 pounds of blueberries. Should be enough to get us through the year. While we were in the fields, a thunderstorm came through. It was exhilarating....like we needed to hurry up and get the harvest done before the rains came. I'm currently eating a big bowl of raspberries and blueberries in milk - just like how grandma taught us.

- Went to tutor my Iraqi family. No one answered the door, so I peeked in their front window. There had been a fire in the kitchen; the stove was gone, the wall was torn out, and the ceiling was just barely hanging on.... I've texted them, called them, sent them messages on facebook - and have no idea where they are. It always ends like this. When I tutored the Somali family, they just disappeared one day. When Dad went to tutor his Cuban student, he found that he had just up and moved to Richmond. I was kind of prepared to show up one day and find them gone - but it doesn't make it any less unsettling.

- We just got back from Colorado. The Rocky Mountain sun is like the arrogant older brother to the Northwest's watery, milquetoast of a sun. I kind of felt like I didn't know what to do with it, how to relate to it. In fact, most of Colorado made me feel that way, in terms of the land. There are so many mountains, so many ranges; it's intimidating, at best. How can I possibly get to know such a place, with so many elevation changes, with tundra and desert and technical climbing and dry wild flowers? I can't imagine that there's room in my mind to even be able to claim another place as my own.

But when I think about it, I was intimidated by the deepest gorges, widest rivers, and greenest greens when I moved to Oregon. Everything was a superlative, and it took me years to come to terms with that. I still don't feel like I have a right to Oregon; it's not mine to adulterize or manipulate. However, I wonder if my little boy will feel the same way about Douglas Firs as I do about Tulip Poplars? He'll easily tell the difference in ferns, like I can tell the difference in southern accents. If we live in Oregon, this is all part of what he'll be given, along with our rhododendron, our berry season, and our harshly divided topography. My lot was cast at birth, and I was given the Appalachians. Others are given the Great Lakes, farms on the plains, the Adirondacks, or the Atlantic shore. I'd assume we all feel that no one else can understand the connection that we have to our given place, location, land. Maybe even when I take my little boy to Virginia and he comes running up from the pond with frogs in his pockets and knees stained red from the clay - even then, he won't understand that land the way that I do. But he'll know Oregon (or Colorado or Montana or wherever we end up) in such an intimate manner that he may have a hard time explaining it to me. And I'll understand that he just can't find the right words. Because here's this dead horse which I've been beating for paragraphs and letters and years, and still am no closer to actually saying what it is that I want to say.

On cleaning out the closet...

2009-06-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

Have been toying with the idea of getting rid of this thing, and may get around to doing it sooner or later. The only thing holding me back is the fact that it's been around since 2004. Once something has existed for a while, I have a hard time disposing of it because of the sheer fact that it's old.

Like the other day, I came across a website that I had created as a 15-year-old. It's full of cutesy misspelled letters, is entitled Jessica's House O' Patootles, and has a dizzying use of capitalization throughout. The main content focuses on cows, corn, and punk/ska. In short, it's just awful. Before getting too embarrassed, I read through the website guestbook, and found equally stupid messages from people whom I currently consider to be successful and interesting. I guess even the most hip among us were 15 years old and typed words like "KewL" at some point in our lives. All of this is to say - I can't delete this old webpage because it's been around forever. But then, that isn't because I haven't tried - apparently I'm no longer considered the website administrator, so this puppy is going to collect internet dust until who knows when.

Along these lines, when I was young, someone gave me a Jesus action figure as a present. Always the type A personality, I was organizing my closet for fun at some point in elementary school and came across said action figure, which I never played with anymore. But what could I do with it? I didn't know much about faith, but did know that it was probably a sin to throw Jesus in the trashcan. So it sat in my closet for several more years. Then it was time to pack up and move to college. Action Figure Jesus is still in the back of the closet. And I can't get rid of this thing, because it's STILL Jesus, so in the closet he stayed. A few more years and I've finished college and am getting ready to move all of my belongings to Oregon - and I again found Action Figure Jesus hiding in the closet. Developing that sinking since of obligation, I placed him in a dresser drawer, and he (He?) came with us to Oregon and has sat in our damp basement for upwards of five years. And the thing is - HE'S STILL in that dresser drawer. It's like this terrible curse, because you can never throw Jesus-themed anything away without feeling like an awful person. If you want to make someone feel obligated for life, just give them a Jesus-themed teapot and watch them suffer.

It's easier, that's why

2009-05-08T14:38:00.001-07:00

So I have this photograph saved on my work computer. I probably pull it up at least once a day, because it seems to be important. It makes me want to move somewhere and do something much better with my life. I don't know why I feel that being a better person can only come with moving. Isn't that always the easiest thing to do? If things need to change for better or worse, let's just fill out a change-of-address form and call it good.

I'm getting happier about it.

2009-04-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

The trees grew tired of stretching their limbs, endlessly holding up that sodden grey blanket of a sky - I think they had just had it, and finally put their feet down. No more. Now that the trees have won and the clouds have lost, the result has been a string of 80-degree afternoons plus a ten-day forecast that doesn't even mention rain.

I'm taking note of the leaves with something approaching obsession - they're all so tentative and hesitant right now, but they're leaves nonetheless. This is my new way to tell time - once they've grown into drunken chlorophyllic adulthood, once they've shaded our front yard through the worst of the summer heat, once they've decided to turn amber or golden, once they've begun that descent back to the ground where they'll decompose and ultimately nourish our soil - at that point, things will be much different. I'd rather note the passage of time by the trees than by weeks on a calendar anyway.

Other things about April: Katie & Keith have a new puppy and he fell asleep in Peter's hat on Friday night. There's a bunch of daffodils on the butcher-block table. I'm thinking about learning Latin. We sleep with our windows open. Worked that backyard soil and prepared it for beans, peas, tomatoes, spinach, arugula, basil, carrots, cucumbers, and onions. Read a book about India. Dug my chacos out from the back of the closet. Bought popsicles. Took a vacation day and wandered with my dog over the mountain, searching for a trail that wasn't snowed in.

Peter, Andrew, and Keith are selling bicycles again, so I never know who's going to be in the kitchen when I come home. It's getting to the point where I can predict which customers are going to buy and which are not. The dad with his blonde haired daughter? Nope - he wants something newer (read: safer). The two girls with over-sized striped shirts and heavily layered haircuts? Absolutely - these bikes are who they want to be. The a-little-too-eager couple from the suburbs? No - they need something with a little more cushion in the seat. The bald guy in hipster jeans and dark-framed glasses? Definitely - a skinny bike for a skinny boy. It's a case in image/persona profiling, but I think I'm getting pretty good at it from my kitchen-window vantage point.

it came back positive.

2009-03-29T16:38:00.001-07:00

i guess the land has done what she could to usher me into this new phase gently. these vernal rains are much different than their autumnal cousins: it's almost as if they're falling out of habit rather than out of any sort of pent-up desire. it's sporadic: here's some rain, now a little sleet, you know what -let's forget all that and bring out the sun, oh never mind - it's not time yet, we need to return back to the rain. the ground is soft, tentative, forgiving. the daffodils and cherry blossoms are on my side this time around.

though it feels like such a cliche (as much of this unfortunately does), i was that girl walking through the park in the late afternoon, pulling every branch to nose level, closing her eyes, trying to come to terms with an unplanned definition of reality.

Forever Massari!

2009-03-06T12:34:00.000-08:00

My Iraqis absolutely love this singer from Lebanon named Massari….he's kind of an R&B/hip hop guy, and last night they had me watch his music videos for two hours straight. It's not that he has so much music - it's just that there are so many different videos for the same song - this time he's at a glitzy pool party, the next time he's with a girl in some chic apartment, maybe another time he's driving motorcycle down some Lebanese highway.

Massari sings most of his songs in English, so after every sentence, they'd stop the video and ask me what he said. Some of it was kitschy and trite: "Girl, I can't live this way forever", or "You don't know anything about love", both of which were easy enough to relate. My students were hanging on every word, memorizing them so they could sing along with his songs later; maybe they would impress their friends back in Iraq because they know what the words really mean. The whole feeling in the room was so serious, as if I was describing in detail how the world will end. But nothing in my teaching experience thus far has equipped me to adequately describe, "Shake it baby girl, I like the way you work that body" to a roomful of solemn Iraqis as they nod their heads and try to understand.

i thought you had forgotten...

2009-02-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

this time around, i was waiting for it. anticipating it. expecting it.

each year, this little flower persistently pushes through our soil to be the first indicator that winter is moving elsewhere. we're rounding a corner in our solar revolution, headed a more familiar direction. this route is one that finds me less apprehensive; this is a path i don't dread. we're always scraping through the winter, thankful to emerge after having done our dutiful best to romanticize it.

but the coming season is different. the sun starts to make an afternoon appearance here and there. a yellow flower stops us in our tracks, undoing the heaviness of the day. spring fleshes out the stories of winter so that they all start to make sense.

and still you talk soft

2009-01-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

"Uncle Burley said hills always looked blue when you were far away from them. That was a pretty color for hills; the little houses and barns and fields looked so neat and quiet tucked against them. It made you want to be close to them. But he said that when you got close, they were like the hills you'd left, and when you looked back, your own hills were blue and you wanted to go back again. He said he reckoned a man could wear himself out going back and forth."

Nathan Coulter, Wendell Berry

For the long run...

2009-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

Last night, my the mother of my Iraqi family told me that she loves me like she loves her own daughter.

Damien Jurado has a disproportionate influence in my life anyway.

2008-12-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid that I sometimes ascribe too much worth to music. In recent days, I have found myself feeling that music was the only thing that could have resulted in a change. Maybe if I'd sent him a compilation CD rather than an itunes gift card for Christmas, it would have been different. Maybe he would have listened to the music and remembered that we came from the same red clay, knew the same irrational fear of dogs, and sat on the same rigid church pews. Maybe I would have made him the CD that trumps all others, a CD that would have made it turn out the way that the framed photograph in the hallway suggests. A CD that would have driven it home - both literally and figuratively.

Instead, I picked up a gift card at Safeway during a few frenzied moments over my lunch break one day. My music, his music, what does it matter? Now I'm left wondering…you know, maybe it would have made a difference.

On this interminable afternoon during what is well known as the slowest work week of the year, in my borrowed sweater and well-worn blue jeans, all I desperately want is for 2008 to be over. These songs weren't necessarily written or even discovered in 2008 - but they certainly were vital to it. So, I'll put together the music that has helped me process the year, thank the songs for their presence, and move on.

- gillian welch: annabelle
- great lake swimmers: your rocky spine
- damien jurado: gillian was a horse
- damien jurado: sheets
- damien jurado: go first
- fleet foxes: mykonos
- james yorkston: i awoke
- bon iver: flume
- horsefeathers: heathen's kiss
- beirut: mount wroclai

2009. It will be better, I know it. Even if our days will be written by text message rather than by hand, even if the big story of the year breaks via facebook rather than through a midnight phone call, I know that it will be a better year.

the darkest day of the year

2008-12-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

Fittingly, it's been snowing with a vengeance around here, and Portland is down for the count.

Who needs TV when you have meteorology?

2008-12-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

They're predicting cold weather for the weekend - a force down from the arctic that has no use for sweaters, scarves, or anything else of the sort. Hardened winds that have little mercy and no need for daylight.

Our northwest climate is so predictable, so commonplace - I miss the sense of adrenaline that comes from living in an area with distinct seasons. I miss the run on grocery stores that would inevitably occur each autumn in Virginia, a result of some hurricane slated to make landfall that evening. I miss having to pull off the side of a nowhere road in Ohio, due to the rain that looks like stars as it collides with the windshield, as if we're driving through a galaxy. I miss waking up to a Nebraska morning, the thermometer at negative two degrees and falling.

All of these things, I miss. And I know I'm constantly invoking my Iraqi family, but they're the most non-predictable (read: interesting) part of my life right now. We no longer sit awkwardly at the kitchen table and try to work through verb tenses. Instead, we go straight to the living room to talk. We will learn what we learn - but it will be through conversation rather than through xeroxed copies of archived worksheets. Last night, we were talking, and someone got all excited about something and got on YouTube to show me Hussam al Rassam (the famous singer, of course) giving a concert in Detroit. Then someone else took over and showed me a video of an Iraqi pop star, living her glamorous life in Baghdad, pre-2003. This evolved to compilations put together of famous Iraqi landmarks, set to traditional music. The mood in the living room sobered as we watched another video after video. They're proud of their city. They speak of it with ellipses, each time telling me, "This is the famous University of Baghdad…but…before…. Oh, and this is the City Center….before….".

The last time we hung out with our friends, we also jumped on YouTube, each of us having something to share: Have you seen the PowerThirst video, what about the one with OK Go, you need to see the excited pug, check out SonSeed, etc. Our video searches are geared towards our amusement rather than the fulfillment of a nostalgic need. We get on there to laugh and make fun of ourselves. The Iraqis get on there to be a part of a familiar community and to see land that they will never see again.

No matter how much I miss the meteorological patterns of the Southeast Atlantic, I could go there and experience it any time I wanted. But my Iraqi family absolutely, under no circumstances, can go back to the Baghdad they left behind. The Baghdad they knew before…you know…before all of that happened….

grammatically incorrect

2008-12-05T14:27:00.000-08:00

Had my Russian exam the other day. As I'm only in Russian 101 (the first of who knows how many more to come), the final was simply a conversation with my professor where I answered very basic questions about my family. What their names are, where they live, how old they are, what their professions are, etc. When the inquiries moved past my parents and siblings, they inevitably went to questions about my grandparents. And it was a little more difficult there, as I didn't know how to use the past tense. So, I started in: My grandfather's name is Jim and my grandmother's name is Irene. He is 87 and she is 90 and they live in Virginia. He is a minister and she is a homemaker. They are very nice and kind. The professor smiled and congratulated me on a job well done. I hadn't spoken of my grandmother in the present tense for two months; even in another language, it felt strange.

Apparently, the ESL class is covering the same material. I sat down with one of my Iraqi students last night, and tried to nail down the answers for her upcoming exam. She told me about her parents, and then transitioned to her siblings: My brother's name is Ahmed. He is 35 and lives in Baghdad. He is an engineer. He is very intelligent and handsome. But I know that he's the reason her mother has worn all black for the past two years. I know his story, and I know why his picture is prominently displayed on the mantel. I wonder if speaking of him in the present tense felt unusual to her as well…

But that's something you don't ask. Obviously. It's a kind of gift, to be able to speak of someone as if they were still alive. She's still being nice and kind in Virginia. He's still being intelligent and handsome in Baghdad.

please, let's try again

2008-11-29T17:44:00.001-08:00

And I was thankful for these friends that drink our mulled wine and help tend the fire so it lasts through the evening. Thankful that Over the Rhine is playing on Monday. Thankful that the Trans-Siberian Railway exists (so I can dream), thankful for this loping brown dog with mournful eyes, thankful for land that provides (the end of November brings evergreen huckleberries and round two of the arugula), thankful for music that reminds me of a place I never even knew.

The shorter days mean that we're well into the reading season. Periodically, the books that I'm reading will collide in one giant ideological explosion (this last happened in 2003 with my simultaneous reading of Blue Like Jazz, A New Kind of Christian, and Ishmael - the result of which was me storming away from the kitchen table one evening in a soapbox-induced huff, leaving my parents baffled as to what they had ever done wrong). This time around, it's still spiritual - but with a heavy dose of agriculture thrown in for good measure (The Art of the Commonplace, Pagan Christianity, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). I don't know that I've reached a resolution yet - and resolutions are never fun because they require an amendment of attitude. Whatever it is, it's been a long time coming.

you are the reason for all of this

2008-11-16T18:58:00.000-08:00

Were it not for surprise sunshine, I don't know that I'd make it through the winter unscathed. If there was any doubt about it before, we're now making tentative plans to move towards Montana or Colorado in the next two years. Weather shouldn't be a source of anxiety, and I'm simply becoming ridiculous about it. I'm also idealizing everything about life in the Bitterroots, but all of that is to say- this weekend's sunlight was much needed.

Yesterday, Katie and I took Montana on a hike near Mount Hood....very few people were out on the trail, and we were rewarded with a 360-degree view of Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, Adams, and Jefferson once we reached the top. Sometimes I forget the mountains exist - they're the reason for all of this rain, but they're so damn beautiful that you can't fault them for it.

We went hunting for chanterelles up by Larch Mountain again this morning....There's something that you gain from breathing in that earthy smell, being a part of the abnormal silence that comes from being surrounded by old coniferous trees, and getting your hands dirty while gathering your own food.

Spent the late afternoon on a walk alone through Rose City Park, accompanied by scattered thoughts....thinking about listening to Waterdeep more often, working to figure out what church actually means, considering talking to God more frequently, realizing that I have muddled the difference between tradition and religion, and trying to discern where healthy narcissism ends and selfishness begins. And now I'm here. With Neil Halstead and a cup of hot tea - but very few answers.

after the curtain

2008-11-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

I never know what's waiting for me when I tutor my Iraqi family. Recently, it seems as if I've been teaching any of the random dozen-or-so people flowing in and out of the tiny apartment. It's constantly a party in there: the tea never stops flowing, and as the night progresses, the conversations get louder and louder to the point that I forget that I'm anywhere close to America.

Sometimes I teach the sixty year old mother, dressed in black from head to toe. Another week, it will be the pop-culture-obsessed eighteen year old daughter. Once it was a ten year old boy with a cowlick and toothy grin. Maybe it will be the 33 year old son, who knows very little English, yet he aspires to get his MBA (And then - he tells me - he'll get a job in Saudi Arabia. He'll hire me, and we'll both makes lots and lots of oil money. I'll like Saudi Arabia, he says. The hijab isn't that bad.) I stopped developing lesson plans months ago.

Last night I was asked to help a young girl I'd seen around before - she was always very quiet, and would slip in and out of the apartment largely unnoticed. I sat down with her at the kitchen table and tried to get a gauge on her language. Due to her shyness - I incorrectly gathered that her knowledge was fairly minimal. We were working through prepositions ("The book is on the table. The book is under the table. The book is above the table.") when she stopped me and said, quite perfectly: "I want to ask you a question: Are you married?"

"Yes, I am," I answered, taken aback.

"Do you love him?"

"Yes, I love him - he's my husband!"

She was quiet. I asked her if she had a boyfriend - and she looked at me and whispered, "I'm married. I have a husband. He is in Iraq, and my mother does not like him and does not know that we are married. I cannot even say his name in my house. He is moving here in one month. So my question is: How do I leave my family and live with him?"

Geez. I thought I was just going to be talking about the present simple tense tonight, not advising on cultural matters about which I know absolutely nothing. To act incorrectly on this could get me into a lot of trouble with the whole little community they've so carefully created.

I looked her in the eyes and tried to say, "If you live with him, you may lose all of these people in the room - it would just be you and him. You may be lonely. You are already in a difficult situation, in that you live in a new country where you barely grasp the language and don't know the culture. You don't have a job, you don't have your own apartment, your husband doesn't know the language, and what if he's not the person you remember him to be? Your family has already lost so much - do they need to lose you now as well?" Except it came out as, "I don't know".

Her mother then walked into the apartment, and the girl quieted me with her eyes. The conversation was over.

didn’t mean to come back so soon

2008-10-23T16:42:00.001-07:00

Got that call I knew was going to arrive sooner or later. Have been dreading it for some time now, but at 9:51 on Thursday morning, it came. As my plane descended with the night into the Roanoke Valley, I tried to figure out what to say at her funeral. What to say during the day that would - unequivocally - be the most heartbreaking one thus far.

Would I talk about how she was born on Mt. Pleasant Road, raised her children on Mt. Pleasant Road, and ultimately passed away on Mt. Pleasant Road? She lived her whole life on that patch of land and knew it more intimately than I could hope to know any such place.

Would I talk about how she would make that long walk back to her home in the hollow - sometimes tracked by mountain lions, sometimes encountering a stray black bear? How she really did have peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall - which they'd drive over the mountain into Roanoke on Saturdays to sell?

And then - what would I say to Grandpa? How would I respond when - midsentence - he chokes up and lays his head on my shoulder, silent, while I run my fingers through what's left of his hair? When he finds a new picture of her, taken at the family reunion last month, and decides to keep it in his shirt pocket? Brings it out to stare, puts it back. Brings it out again, stares again, puts it back again. Like he's on that boat headed towards Japan, a blue-eyed girl waiting back home for him.

I walked the property line that day. The sky was an undeniable blue, scattered with the particular brand of altocumulus that only seem to exist during this season. Ended up by the creek bed, against my better judgment. I'm certain I've been reading too much David James Duncan (and certainly not enough Wendell Berry), but it stopped me short to see the creek stained that telltale orange. What water remained looked lifeless; you'd never believe we used to have sunfish, bluegill, bass, and more catfish than you knew what to do with. You'd never know Grandpa caught a 20 pounder in there - he named it Big Sam, and it was one of the best Thanksgivings ever. A few autumns ago, our yellow dog went down to that same creek bed -and that was where they found him a week later, due to the buzzards circling overhead.

I was looking at my lost creek, standing beside the grave of my lost dog, thinking about my lost grandmother. I guess they formed some sort of trinity, sealing off the day.

boy, she could talk you up a blue streak about carolina

2008-10-06T21:41:00.001-07:00

I started taking Russian classes at the community college a few weeks ago. It's good for all of the reasons you might imagine - diversity, heightened sense of community, tax dollars going to good use, being back in a classroom setting, etc. Using a different part of my brain, wearing a sweatshirt, slouching in the back row while taking notes.

So - tonight. We were learning about questions and answers, and our format for doing so utilized the US map. I was in a group with two other students, both in their early twenties. Both (I assume) high school graduates. I asked them, "Where is Michigan?". It, apparently, is next to Louisiana. As our time progressed, I learned that Utah and Ohio are one and the same. Don't even bother trying to find Iowa. I have this tendency to be a Geo-Nazi, and have a feeling that tonight was no different. How do you tell someone, "Yeah, so New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Delaware? They're actually states. Not cities." and not feel somewhat snug in your own knowledge of the world, simplistic as it may be?

But then. Oh, but then. The next exercise had to do with identifying animals. Most of the Russian terms were cognates, so it was pretty easy to match the word with the image. Fresh off of my geographical victory (which had clearly established that I was the smart one in the group), I was matching up "pahnda" with a panda, "sheempahnzee" with a chimp, etc. But then I got to the word "antelope".

"Wait….I don't see an antelope on here".

My partner pointed to um, this thing that looked like a gazelle, sort of.

"No, that's not an antelope. An antelope eats ants. And it's otherwise known as an aardvark and is native to Sub-Saharan Africa and is primarily nocturnal. It has a long nose and resembles a pig".

My partner just looked at me while I, unfortunately, continued ranting. Again, I'm the smart one here, I've got a license to rant for as long as I darn well please. Finally, he broke in -
"Are you SERIOUS?"

Silence. Realization. Oh crap.

"Um….wait, you're right…uh….sorry about that."

I deserved it.

we dream an ocean in ohio

2008-10-05T17:58:00.001-07:00

I knew it would take more than a sentence to finish up this summer. Montana and I took a hike in the gorge the other day...we sat at the summit for what seemed like hours, letting the sun do its thing, one last time. I'd brought along the ipod (not without guilt - should digitized music even have a place outdoors? I have internal battles over this, and never know the correct approach. When I think about the piece that David James Duncan wrote entitled My One Conversation with Collin Walcott, however, there's no doubt about it), so I ran through this summer's soundtrack - and effectively allowed music to close out the season.

There we have it. Summer is over. I got caught in a rainstorm yesterday, while walking home from the library. An involuntary immersion that forced me to convert. I've been baptized into the winter, and have no choice but to move on.

Katie called one day, from a train station in North Dakota (a man and his granddaughter were playing music in the background) and asked me what I was looking forward to. Good question. I generally make others idealize their surroundings and situations, so perhaps it's time that I do the same. Therefore, I'm looking forward to all the live music that Portland sets forth during the winter. To stormy evenings under the Morrison Street bridge, firewood in the basement, Thanksgiving at our house, sweaters, and hikes in the rain.

Oh - and that economy thing. It crashed the other day. I wandered by my boss's office, to find him with his door closed, tie loosened, head in his hands. (Something to note: percentage wise, Monday's fall doesn't even make the top ten drops in history.) Here's to still being employed tomorrow. Maybe America should get it together and stop spending money it doesn't have.

a beard and guitar can do a lot of damage.

2008-09-19T12:10:00.001-07:00

I get a little frantic each time September rolls around. Despite the knowledge that a Pacific Northwest summer extends from July to September rather than the old eastern reliable period of June through August, I can't help but feel a little guilty when given a sunny September. I grasp at it, demand that it extend the vigor of July, and basically end up treating the end of the season quite rudely. Unashamedly, I use and abuse Septembers.

By September, I've all but forgotten the responsibility that colder weather brings. My chaco tan is set in stone, I've got peach cobbler down to a science, and there's a permanent spot on the front porch for me. The mail piles up, phone calls go unreturned, and my conversational input lags. Someone's gotta be your mason jar of backyard flowers. It's the end of the summer. I'm going outside. We'll talk when the rains come.

well, there is something to say.

2008-09-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

if we moved to the country...

2008-08-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

If we moved to the country, I'd utilize those tomatoes rather than letting them go to waste in our 10' x 10' garden. I would learn how to can, and would somehow develop a taste for tomato juice.

If we moved to the country, spider webs wouldn't bother me. I would let the spiders out conscientiously, and wouldn't even wash my hands afterward.

If we moved to the country, I'd be happy with my own mug of coffee in the kitchen and wouldn't feel a pressing need to consume it in a place filled with mid-century modern furniture.

If we moved to the country, I'd let the dog run wild. He'd catch rabbits and would lay them by the front door for us, grinning proudly.

If we moved to the country, I'd take my walks along a road lined with a barbed-wire fence. The dust would kick up, and my ankles would be stained the color of the land.

If we moved to the country, I'd read more often and would become content with my music collection. I like to think that I wouldn't need broadband access, but am 100% certain that would not be the case.

If we moved to the country, I’m afraid I'd still be me. I would drive 30 miles out of town for a decent cup of coffee and would lock my doors against the night and tell my children there's a mountain lion in the woods so they'd decide to build their forts in the living room from now on, and they will grow up and immediately move to a suburb so they can have the experience of having neighbors. But they won't really know how to have neighbors and will end up interacting with them quite awkwardly and then - maybe around their mid to late twenties - they'll develop an over-romanticized desire to move to the country, and the cycle will start over again.

i love my roommates.

2008-08-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

layovers. too much pulled pork bbq and coleslaw. caught myself saying "you might could check with grandma about that". stuck in some nebulous time zone between eastern and pacific. arrive back to portland around eleven pm. have to go to work at eight in the morning. splitting migraine that just won't go away. am happy to be home. open my closet door to find this:

I don't think the phrase "eco-ninja" is quite appropriate.

2008-08-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

I've been missing deciduous forest recently, and couldn't seem to get the Appalachians out of my mind. Allowing myself to act on an impulse, I bought a ticket east, and will leave in less than 48 hours. I haven't experienced summer in Southwest Virginia since 2003, so seeing a lightning bug is long overdue. Plus, my perfectly southern grandma, who makes a damn good ham biscuit, is turning ninety and is having her first ever birthday party. Actually, I feel guilty for putting "grandma" and "damn" in the same sentence. But she doesn't have a computer, let alone Internet access, so I think we'll be fine.

The past few weeks have been spent avoiding the myriad hipsters in our driveway (see article: Do You Have Hipsters? )Stumptown Bikes, apparently, has been born.

In a few weeks, we'll take this brown dog and head to Montana for who knows how long.

On a different note, TQ left this morning. She took I-5 south towards Los Angeles. Headed to California, she is. I sat in her old upstairs bedroom for quite a while this afternoon. For once, I didn't listen to any music. Just sat there.

it's just so circuitous

2008-07-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

A few disturbing things have come this way recently.

One: A moving skyscraper in Dubai. I cannot get it out of my mind, but it seems to me that if this is Mr. Italian Architect's first attempt at a skyscraper, perhaps he should try to cut his teeth on something a little less animate? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7472722.stm

Two: Sometimes...the Appalachians seem so out of touch.

Three: The sole reason that one of my Iraqi students is in America is that our hospitals are advanced enough to handle what we indirectly did to him a year ago. And - now that he's here, he has to register with selective service. For what? Oh yes, to go back to Iraq, in a much different capacity than he left. We broke you, we fixed you, now you will fight for us.

Four: Dave Eggers' "There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself". Five blank pages does not constitute art.

I could be nothing without you

2008-06-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

So this time around, Mt. St. Helens decided to wear the lenticular cloud. I desperately wanted it to look like she too was wearing a hat - but it just looked like some kind of lopsided horizontal explosion. Which actually is more fitting for this week.

My Iraqi family is becoming more beautiful. Every time, I find out a little more about them - and have yet to leave an English session without crying. Last night...they told me how they made their decision to leave Iraq and come to America. Not that they had much say in the matter after....what they went through. Due to their privacy, this probably isn't the best venue to discuss their experiences. But by the end of the conversation, I was left undoubtedly believing in a God with a plan and a God who protects. And the thing is - they're the ones who credited their lives to Him. I think back through my recent conversations with friends, and I cannot think of one single instance where God came up. But with this family, it was almost immediate. Being with them is cathartic - and I'm rapidly losing sympathy for the client who didn't receive her $5,000 leather lounge chair in time for her open house.

Perhaps that stayed with me through the day and on towards tonight. Through upstairs conversations that stem from such different viewpoints that we simply cannot agree on even one statement without somehow insulting the other. What one sees as strength, the other sees as weakness. Quite an entry right back into the world of apologetics, which I must have left somewhere around eight years ago. Not that I necessarily intended to return to it quite the way that I did (that old Southern Baptist guilt permeates everything I touch).

Discovered new music that is simultaneously providing the soundtrack for all of this. For undoubtedly believing in God's protection in allowing my Iraqi students to live and for trying to figure out how to show a post-doctoral candidate that faith in God does not equal fragility.

live fire

2008-06-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

This happens each year. The days become longer and we lose track of time and end up going to bed way too late, and therefore miss the alarm in the morning and start the day in a frantic rush to get to work on time. But somehow - the sunshine makes it all okay. It makes me remember that there's more to life than work (which ebbs and flows in its threat to take over all of my spare time. Likewise does my commitment to work/life balance). But I'm seeing that I need to make an effort to be sure that my employment does not define me. Therefore....

We went camping last weekend - to a secret area high up on the Washougal River in Southwest Washington. We found this place several years ago after Peter bribed a few Americorps volunteers with bags of free produce. The Northwest never disappoints, and it always has a fair share of adventures to throw our way. After a peaceful night, when we'd slowly woken up and just started in on breakfast - when the sun was starting to break through and we thought we were completely secluded - gunfire started to ring out. Figuring it was just a few guys out for a good time and some target practice, we ignored it....but after a while, the shots came closer to our camp and started hitting the trees around us. We started to yell - and at one point, had to dive behind a log before they stopped shooting. That's really the end of the story - the shooting stopped, and we all made it back to Portland in one piece. It wasn't all that dramatic, to be honest - but we did jump behind a log to avoid being shot.

Related to this, I've started to teach English again. Drove out to Gresham on Wednesday, expecting to be teaching a gentle 60-year old Iraqi woman. Instead, I was received by two 30-year old Iraqi men and an absolutely charming ten year old boy. They were so eager to learn, and wanted to know when they would be fluent....it's such a responsibility to feel that I have to provide them with the information they need in order to function here in Portland. And I wonder - why did they choose to come here, of all places? To the very country that forced them to leave Baghdad? Beyond the language portion, I also feel this obligation to apologize for everything that America has done to them - and to their home. To compensate for what my country has destroyed, I feel like I need to give them the best shot at life here as possible. I don't feel like this is necessarily bad - but it's a hell of a responsibility to give oneself.

I remember this one day very specifically - it was in mid-March of 2003, and Bush was making one of his initial speeches on the shock and awe portion of the Iraq invasion. Because this was a fairly important speech, there were several students in the lower level of the student center at my college gathered around the television. After Bush finished stating that Hussein had 48 hours to give himself up or America would begin the bombing campaign (which incidentally would occur on my 22nd birthday), the entire area erupted into cheers. Yes. What was this? Why were they cheering the destruction of a city, a country? And these were Christian college students, nonetheless. I don't understand the connection between conservatism and war.

I knew what I was signing up for ...

2008-06-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

it's...let's see, JUNE 7TH, and we have a fire in the fireplace. yes, for ambiance - but also because we need it. because it's cold outside and the sky is a monochramatic grey. because i'm still wearing sweaters and show no signs of stopping anytime soon. because there's an extra blanket on the bed. because we live in breathtakingly beautiful oregon, but oh do we pay for it. and the thing is - last summer took away any trust we had in reliable northwest summers. remember that august when the thermostat bearly made it over 65 and the sun never came around? yeah. peter just told me that we have had exactly ten clear days during all of 2008. we're into the second half of the year, and only 5.3% of our days have been without clouds.

mojave3

2008-05-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

So we went to the desert. Dad, Peter, & myself. Now, several weeks later, I still find myself at a loss as to how to explain the trip. So...here are the photographs. The Salton Sea, Salvation Mountain, Slab City, Zzyzx, and the Desert Megaphone. I can't capture the smell of thousands of rotting tilapia, the general sense of brokenness and hesitation, and how each corner we turned was - somehow - more strange than the one we just left behind.

Las Pasturas del Cielo

2008-04-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

and we vacillate between wanting things to be simpler, and feeling like we deserve much better. the entitlement - i don't know where it comes from. maybe from being around others that somehow enhance our comparative lack? like that john steinbeck story - where the student didn't realize he was poor until someone gave him clothes. it would have been better had the well-intended individual not given him clothing, because the gift simply highlighted his poverty. understandably, that's not always the case. in most circumstances, the only real reason poverty exists is because we've allowed it.

moving on.....

russian is progressing quite well. for two hours a week, i am the student in jeans and a sweatshirt sitting cross-legged on the couch, learning a different way of communicating, learning the stereotypes of vladivostok vs. st. petersburg, learning about the grammatical wars over the correct preposition to use when referring to ukraine.

happy to have tea in the afternoon, happy to ride my bike to the library, and happy to have a fire on the driveway while the stars are out on a saturday. if it comes down to it, we'll camp in the city.

you're the only thing left that makes any sense

2008-04-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

so maybe it's time to dust this thing off, and get back to writing a little bit here and there. proportionally divide it between the weather (never fails to excite - and i know that it's considered small talk, but i simply can't get enough of meteorological events no matter how lame they may appear. like the odd batch of cumulus over the Willamette, the way the sun blazes bright while hailstones rain down on our garden, or how the nimbostratus struggle to make it over the west hills), music (back to teaching myself, and am searching for a piano teacher. the standards are strict: he needs to have white hair and a beard and preferably be from Finland or some other Baltic state. and i'd like it if he had chickens outside his house.), books (so little time), and outside (the arrow leaf balsam root will start to bloom in a few weeks, the days are longer, and the gorge begs to be explored. again. and again).

peter's in school again. my husband will be a biologist in three years. how cool is that.

because it will soon be five years since I finished college, that means that the little yellow postcard I filled out at graduation will be making its way to my mailbox soon. the one where i wrote out what...or rather, whom....i hoped I'd be in 2008. I can't remember a lot of it....but the only thing that sticks in my memory is that I said I would be fluent in Russian. Which evidently hasn't happened yet, so I called a guy from St. Petersburg and we're meeting on Thursday to give this thing a try. my fingers are crossed.

various yellows

2008-02-22T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is my fourth February in Portland, and it still knocks me off balance when the flowers start to bloom. I feel like they're sneaking out, against their better judgment....mom and dad will find out and they'll be sentenced to their rooms for life. But somehow....they don't get caught, and manage to turn yellow, white, and purple in their bravery....

When asked quite seriously if I'm ready to move across those mountains to Bend, my honest answer is an emphatic no. Even though I spout discontentment with the meteorological patterns we've got here, I don't know if I'm ready to trade it all in for four distinct seasons. Not yet. It's not time.

Things are good.....very good, actually.

We're planning a trip with Dad to camp across the Mojave this May....We'll visit places he once camped out at in the early 70's, sleep under the stars, and visit the curiously named Zzyzx. He's going to bring out his high school banjo, and maybe I'll fulfill one perpetual new year's resolution and learn to play that thing.

Lunar eclipse on Wednesday night....driving home, we passed crowds of people (and dogs) on the sidewalks, all facing east. It felt like something from a movie - where the public is transfixed at the sight of a huge Godzilla destroying New York City and they can do nothing but stare in horror, feet rooted to the ground in fear. A little boy on Broadway called out from the roof a parking garage, "Eclipse, Eclipse, look at the Eclipse!" We watched it for a while with him and his parents, and then asked what he thought would happen when the moon was fully eclipsed. He looked at us somewhat excitedly and said, "Total Destruction".

funny how far the sunshine goes

2008-01-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

so...with work (and/or lack thereof) on all of our minds, i started to think about the different jobs i've had over the years, and realized that in each one, there is a high point and a low point. and remembering most of them make me fairly content and thankful with my present occupation. here goes:

person who worked with her dad at baratta & associates. I guess I was the associate.
High Point: Dad bought lunch each day.
Low Point: There really wasn't a low point.

person who worked in the dishpit in the college cafeteria:
High Point: One day we sort of had a food fight, and threw sodden cookies against the plaster walls and watched them splatter.
Low Point: I was taking an exam after my daily hour working in the dishpit, and was surprised to find a yellow smear on my test paper. I lifted up my left arm to discover a quite substantial amount of mustard and ham chunks on my forearm.

person who called potential students for my college:
High Point: I got to call a student who lived in Papua New Guinea. I was terribly awkward on the phone because - really - who expects a call to Papua New Guinea to actually go through?
Low Point: So....apparently you're not supposed to make calls outside of the US, let alone to Papua New Guinea. I got in a bit of trouble.

person who worked for a mortgage company in virginia:
High Point: The office was right next to the Appalachian Trail.
Low Point: I once lost a check for $60,000.

person who worked for a credit union:
High Point: Cool coworkers
Low Point: Slightly-out-of-sorts people who would make their hands look like a gun and mime shooting you when you told them that unfortunately their account was negative. ha. yeah I get it, right, that's funny.

person who worked for a mortgage company in oregon:
High Point: Once they brought in lunch for us, and I had a fairly decent caesar salad.
Low Point: Absolutely everything else except for that one salad.

person who works for a commercial furnishings company:
High Point: I got to go on an oil tanker and have a meeting in the captain's quarters. They gave me a free pair of steel-toed boots.
Low Point: I sometimes read brochures entitled "Don't Hate Me Because I'm A Cubicle", and receive corporate Christmas cards stating "Wishing You Holiday Chair".

crozet

2008-01-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

a grey friday. cold front coming in from the arctic this weekend, and i'm excited to see what the north has to show us. we're headed up to the mountain (cross country skis on hand) and hopefully we'll see trillium in a different light.

third conference call of the day

2008-01-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

You just have to sound like you know what you're talking about.

faded for the winter

2008-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

So 2007 was supposed to be a year when I tried to be settled - settled with relationships, locale, employment, etc. But, looking back, I think I was wanting to be "settled" due to the high levels of anxiety I felt throughout the beginning part of the year. And maybe what I really needed, long-term, was to shoot for contentment. Not wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else, anything else. But is that even possible? If there ever was a place for stability, Portland would be the place for it. Volatile Town.

When I left Virginia, I took one last drive and told the Blue Ridge that though I sometimes hated them in their mediocrity, I knew - knew - I would end up on the West Coast, missing them terribly. And I hoped they would forgive me.

Not really the best way to enter 2008. But, here goes: Try, try, try to be content. And - above all else - learn to pray again. Post-midnight conversations remind me how far I've come. Or rather - gone.

The thing is….2007 was a good year. An exceptionally good year. Things are coming together, friendships are solid, good things are on the horizon. So why the unrest? You tell me.

secret of the easy yoke

2007-12-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

Not to jump on the "this movie changed my life" bandwagon - but really - you need to see Once.

It's been a while since I've seen a film that made me want to be a better person. Maybe it was just the combination of our perpetual rain, the propensity to wear grey pea coats with heavily wrapped scarves, the Mendelssohn piece, and the way the story touched on something heretofore unexplainable (perhaps with good reason).

just you watch

2007-12-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

The cooler weather does this - makes us think about running off to north africa.

is bluegrass the new post punk?

2007-11-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

so the nights are longer, the rain beats on the windows ceaselessly, and holiday promotions found their way to the forefront before november even showed her face. we take our hikes in the mist now, meander along the railroad tracks (ears to the rail, no trains headed our way anytime soon), cut our way down to the columbia and a beach of whitewashed timber. nothing to speak of except for pointing out the interesting stones, look at this whorl in the bark, was that once a chinook? the leaves have turned to that brown sludge (the northwest's equivalent of ice), and i've requested rubber boots for christmas.

we're headed to virginia on a wednesday night red-eye. as always, i have high hopes for the blue ridge - this time around, they are as follows: shoot skeet over the hollow with my husband (effectively proving to him that i am, in fact, a good shot), and learn how to play the banjo. katie thinks these are worthy goals.

winter brings the beginning of the reading period. I've spent a lot of time with geographically specific pieces, and realize how important they are to me. When you write, when you sing, when you create - there must be some sense of that culture found inside. What was it like to grow up in Holt, Colorado? How would that make you different from someone raised in Brooklyn, someone raised in Tallahassee, someone born in Iowa City? i'm convinced that it matters.

the world needs more canada

2007-10-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

British Columbia touches Alaska. It touches the Yukon. It borders on all that is far away to me. Katie and I spent most of our time huddled under whatever wool articles we'd thought to bring along with us, reaching a point where we just surrendered to the rain. Here we are, go on, take us, wash us into the English Bay, see if we care.

We spent an evening in Seattle, in a bar under Pike's Place, telling stories with Katie's uncle and the other characters he collects. Made it through the Canadian border in ten seconds flat the next morning, wandered through the southeastern suburbs with very British sounding names: Surrey, New Westminster, Burnaby. Crested a hill in a residential district and there Vancouver was. Endless skyscrapers, like a waterlogged Minneapolis.

Found our hostel, and rode a ferry across Burrard Inlet to Granville Island. The rain started then, and decided it was here to stay. We took a quick tour of the artisans and seafood markets and coffee coffee coffee on the island, and then happily boarded another ferry to take us back downtown. At some point, we encountered a Welsh girl in our hostel who seemed elated that we were tired. "Oh, you're going to take a nap? That is so EXCELLENT!"

We went to see Harry Potter, and found ourselves on the third floor of a HUGE theater (I cannot over emphasize the bigness of this theater. It was just super super super BIG. Really really BIG.) absolutely alone. We sat in the middle of the theater, and then got slightly scared and moved to a back corner. If Voldemort decided to come take our muggle lives away from us, at least we'd stand a chance of survival by blending into the shadows. By the time the movie ended, we bolted down three flights of stairs onto the street, no turning back.

The next morning we made our way to Chinatown through the downpour. Katie pointed out a restaurant hidden in an alley, and we were happy to be the only North Americans in the place for breakfast. We turned down the turtle and duck tongue, opting for some sesame laden thing that looked palatable. We walked through Gas Town, and were excited to see the Hotel Europa (a precursor to New York's Flat Iron Building - I've got such a thing for triangular shaped buildings). I took out my camera to take a photograph and fell down HARD on the brick streets. The type of fall where everything goes black and you feel hot and the people in the café behind you point concernedly (though it must be noted that they did nothing to help). So much for geometrically inspired architecture.

We walked along the harbor in search of seaplanes and cruise ships bound for Alaska. I do not ever want to board a cruise ship. Anything that large must be up to no good. The sun broke through for about 2 minutes, so we optimistically rented bicycles to ride around Stanley Park. About five minutes into our ride, the sun very quickly ran away, dark clouds in hot pursuit. And it rained. A relentless Southwest Ohio brand of rain. We're on the far end of the island, riding tentatively around one of the sea walls, the sky is ominous, there's a yellow sulfur plant on the other side of the bay, it smells like hell, waves crash against the wall threatening to take us back with them, my jeans are stuck to my legs and show no signs of letting go, the temperature must be 32.1 degrees because damn it's cold. We return the bicycles and head for an unfortunate café to dry off. We stay there, unmoving, for about four hours. Our clothes refuse to dry, we're getting nasty looks from the proprietors; their upholstered sofas will never be the same again.

We drove the Sea to Sky Highway to Squamish. This drive must be beautiful when the sun is out, but it's quite a different thing when you're balancing cement trucks tearing by on your right, sheer drop offs to the ocean on your left, and construction construction construction because the Olympics are coming in 2010 and everything must look absolutely perfect. Much like the way mom would make us clean the house before company came over for dinner, so is British Columbia cleaning its room before the world comes over.

We took a hike along an estuary off the Howe Sound, convincing ourselves that every fresh track in the mud was from a bear. Drove to Whistler simply to say we were there - the ski lifts looked sad and useless, surrounded by muddy decidedly non-snow covered slopes. It's such a planned town, like a mountain version of the Pearl District.

Headed south yesterday. Got lost in Vancouver, but somehow made it to the border. We handed the customs agent our passports, and he replied in a deep and epic voice, "Welcome home, Ladies". I blinked - Wow, yeah, Thank you! America had been anxiously awaiting our return! Who knew? Patriotism, John Steinbeck, Fried Chicken, A Weakening Dollar, George Washington, Yeah!

I looked at a Canadian Geography book while I was there. They too, have an Appalachian region; It starts just north of Maine.

september

2007-10-01T12:59:00.001-07:00

The Man With The Box On The Bus During Rush Hour yelled at me. Got ready to paint the house and it rained. Parents came to visit. Shying away from potential responsibility (we know that familiar route). October equals British Columbia. Walked Powell Boulevard until late, despite all odds. Come watch birds turn into a cyclone at sundown. Went crabbing in the bay, ate on the shore of the Nehalem, and felt that hunter/gatherer mentality. Over the Rhine at Doug Fir on a Saturday. Diner waitress slaps down the fries and Katie's eyes are laughing. Found a place nearby that sells Stumptown. Sent some music to Italy via bicycle. Ira Glass/This American Life marathon on its way. Remembered 1985's banjo version of Wildwood Flower. His eyes are so blue.

compilations, for better or worse

2007-08-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

i have no qualms about blaming this on the house. the peeling paint and the ever present clouds can duke it out. either way, they leave a petulant girl down for the count. i close my eyes and see worn out oak, taste the grit of paint in my mouth (no doubt lead-based), and my ears ring from constant use of bright orange power tools. we were not made for this.

Curse of the baptist-raised first born: Ye shall feel obligated without ceasing.

2007-08-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Dad called from outside a catholic funeral home on a drizzly Brooklyn intersection. That was what he called to tell me - where he was standing and how appropriate it seemed. More and more, I recognize that I am my father's daughter.

The clouds are really doing a number on us this year. 300 Days of Sunshine in the Rockies is sounding better and better. Just as the amount of hits on the "How to Move to Canada" page doubled the day after Election Day in 2004, so will the number of inquiries on the "So You're Moving to Colorado" page after this summer has run its northwestern course.

A friend from college called yesterday. We lead completely different lives now than we did when we were eighteen and were primarily concerned with tattoos and going to shows. Talking to familiar voices about unfamiliar experiences.

must be something in the air

2007-07-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Last week will stand out on its own.

It rained all week long, the mercury barely making it up to 70 degrees. Sighing, I put on my sweater (which is begging to be put in the back of the closet, but has not yet made it there) in mid-July. We had one excruciating week of summer, and now this?

Harry Potter came out.

Our four newly-planted aspen trees died.

Numerous large bugs made their way into our house. In particular, a silverfish. And a spider spinning an impressive 36" web in my living room.

Laura had a baby boy. Elijah Jackson. He has curly hair, which is fitting.

A series of heavy phone calls from Virginia. You always hear stories about extended family - to the point that you can't even believe the individuals are from the same bloodline as you. But then - when it shifts and decides to hit your own generation…..and could just as easily have been you….I don't know. It's sobering.

Discovered a lot of new music.

A case of mistaken identity on 66th & Fremont left me shaken and paranoid. Note to Self: do not approach strange cars when you're exhausted and alone.

My alcoholic neighbor (whom I have only seen once in the two years that we've lived in our home) yelled at me from inside her kitchen window. Having really been through it that day, I lashed right back at her, the crazy girl on the street apparently yelling at no one. I stormed inside, stood in front of my own kitchen window and stared daggers at her house. Battle Of The Housewives, each of us gripping our respective porcelain sinks. Eventually I had to come to my senses, suck it up, and go across the street to both introduce myself and apologize. She did not accept this graciously.

Maybe this week will be better?

All in a day's work

2007-07-18T16:17:00.001-07:00

I was somewhat entrepreneurial in elementary school. Almost embarrassingly so - sort of like those small children you periodically see around who somehow look like adults - and you look away from them, whispering to the nearest bystander, "Doesn't that baby have an old face?"

In third grade, I started The Fun Club with my best friend Joe, his sister Mary, and our friend Joshua. The purpose of The Fun Club was to have fun on the thirty minute bus ride home from school, and to collect dues because that's what clubs do. We even had business cards: Jessica Baratta - Fun Club President. To us, "fun" seemed to mean counting the number of people that would wave to us on the school bus. We would indicate every wave on a notebook organized by day, week, and month. This also entailed us waving consistently for thirty minutes, and after a point we decided that we simply could not physically do this anymore. I borrowed my mom's metronome, and Mary came up with a plastic hand on a keychain. We bored a whole in the base of the hand, and set it on the metronome - highly intending it to then be a mechanical waving hand, thus saving us the bother of waving ourselves. It didn't work - the weight distribution was uneven. As the president, I was also in charge of keeping the dues. At last count in 1989, we had $14.10. But I somehow lost it, and feel very guilty about that to this day.

In fourth grade, I went to the Red Cross Summer Babysitting program, and earned my official certificate that read: "Jessica Baratta Has Been Officially Trained as a Red Cross Certified Babysitter". I kept this in my desk drawer, so proud of it. I made up business cards (again) on stock paper, and slipped them in my rural neighbors' mailboxes with high hopes of starting my own version of The Babysitter's Club. A few weeks later, I had a friend named Jennifer over for the afternoon. We got into an argument of some sort, and she locked herself in my bedroom for two hours. I was running around the house, trying to figure out if I could somehow break into my own room from the outside, and through the window - I saw her scavenging around my desk drawer. When her mother finally came to pick her up (and thus end our friendship), I found that she had taken my Official Babysitter certificate, scratched out "Red Cross Certified Babysitter", and instead had written "Big Nerd". I hated her for this. In fact, I still do - except I hear that she's now a missionary in Guam. And you're not really allowed to hate a missionary.

In fifth grade, I started a newspaper for our class: "Sportz 'n Stuff". I hate the title so much, even now. The cutesy 'z' in place of an 's'. The casually abbreviated 'n'. The subtle hint of alliteration. "Sportz 'n Stuff" covered the 1992 Olympics, the Mazda Miata, and Michael Jordan. Because we went to a Christian school, I also had something called a "Crypto-verse" in along with the crossword puzzle and word scramble. This "Crypto-verse" was based on something I used to do with dad: the letters are scrambled up, and each letter is "assigned" a different letter. However, there is no pattern to this. Just because "A" relates to the letter "S", that does not mean that "B" will be "T". No. You have to figure it out by using the most common letters used in the English Language (A,S,I,N,T,O,E,R), and then utilize context clues. This was way too much for 11 year olds to tackle. But what's odd to me now, is the verses that I would select to use. There was nothing in there about the Lilies of the Field, or the Sparrows being fed. None of this lambs will sleep with lions, Noah built an ark stuff. Heck no. The first verse I used was "Weeping may last for the evening, but joy comes in the morning". The second verse I used was "The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit." These aren't as terrible as others that I could have chosen - but geez. I want to tell that little girl to lighten up.

have mercy

2007-07-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome back home. The whole summer lay before us, heat waves distorting our intentions of camping, hiking, rafting, and exploring. We see a house that needs to be repainted (for the second summer in a row. Note: don't buy paint from Sherwin Williams), a lawn that needs to be replaced, and withering ferns that need relief.

It's been over a hundred degrees here the past few days. Wimpy Portlanders can't handle that kinda heat. Montana has decided to only stay in the basement, where it's cool. He sprawls out on the concrete floor and looks at us accusingly, as if we've had something to do with making the house hotter than hades. The thermostat in the living room says 88 degrees.

Wearily,
Jessica

hither and yon

2007-07-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

it's been a month full of travelling. 30,000 feet - i don't know if i'm as scared of you as i used to be. take that.

too much to write, so we'll go with my favorite literary device: sentence fragments.

hawaii: swam with sea turtles. saw flowing red lava on a distant hillside. slept on a volcano and woke up to earthquakes. black sand beaches. greying coral reefs paying the price of tourism. hiked over lava fields only to retreat in a thunder storm both idyllic and sinister.

it's hard to see, but that little bit of red is the current lava flow.

michigan: midwestern. familiar stores once forgotten. farm roads every mile on the east west grid. reminded me of ohio - which brings its own brand of melancholy.

washington: five hours through high desert roads (deserted post-midnight) towards wenatchee - where life is based upon the cherry harvest, blm land is open to roam, and the full moon highlights the canyons.

colorado: at present. weathered rocks. startled by a black bear outside my window on sunday evening. the altitude seems to be taking its toll (or at least, i'm conveniently blaming my lack of energy on that). subalpine creekfed lakes so full of trout i almost caught one with my hands. fell asleep in the sparse grass beside fern lake and dreamt in a mediocre manner - woke up to the red-winged blackbird, surprised to find myself surrounded with the stony rock faces of the front range. tomorrow brings rafting on the poudre and we're counting on doing thunder lake on thursday.

dog mountain photographs

2007-06-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

a little lower than the angels

2007-06-01T11:26:00.001-07:00

- And you wonder why you misplaced this music a year ago, only to discover it in a dusty drawer this morning, apparently saved for the day you forgot your ipod. The weather is the same, bicycling into the city, that film of summer beginning to coat everything - along with memories, for better or worse. Yet, you continue to listen.

- These small phrases that have made their way into your sub-consciousness and I want to say that no matter what you declare, you cannot be rid of them. You'll wonder where that spontaneous poetry came from and I think we all could tell you, though you wouldn't want to know.

- While you're gone, I'll keep the herbs growing. I'll do what I can to nurse our asparagus back to health again, I'll marvel at the artichokes, I'll applaud the thyme for a job well done, and maybe take another step towards becoming a gardener.

- Peter & I hiked Dog Mountain last Monday. Three-thousand foot elevation change in three miles, but well worth it. You emerge from the trees on the summit trail to these endless sub-alpine meadows of arrow-leafed balsam root (we brought our field guide along); yellows and purples intermixed to the point of dizziness. We could look down on the airplanes flying through the gorge, headed for the east coast. Mount St. Helens and Mt. Hood are still proudly white and standing tall - looks like they made it through the winter unscathed as well.

- The recent weather reminds us why we live in Portland. Despite earlier entries mourning our lack of sunshine - it is fully and completely worth it. We're bound for the Metolius headwaters this weekend - we'll see her burst out of Black Butte, a fully formed river at birth.

street spirit (fade out)

2007-05-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to a fourteen-year-old radiohead album that takes me back to the mid-nineties and I feel the same way I did then (oh the angst) while I develop a spreadsheet with definitions of office furniture terminology for future employees. What is this juxtaposition.

Every Morning You Greet Me

2007-05-17T16:22:00.001-07:00

Arrived home from work last night - exhausted from the day, dreading the evening's to do list: Wash Montana, Clean the Basement, Mow the Lawn, Unpack from My Trip to Virginia, Find the Thing That Has Died and is now Decomposing in Some Far-Reaching Corner Behind the Cabinets in the Kitchen. Threw my satchel and the mail on the living room coffee table, and then went to the bedroom to change clothes before attempting to give Montana a bath. I looked outside our window into the backyard - no Montana. I know I left him there this morning….didn't I? The fence was still latched, his water dish still full, no freshly dug holes - almost as if he was never there in the first place. But he certainly wasn't in the house. I checked the neighbor's yard - no Montana. Ran down to the park - lots of pugs and yellow labradors - but no chocolate labrador. Ran to our several other neighbor's houses, growing more frantic at each visit. Have you seen Montana? Peter was out of town - it was completely my responsibility to find him. Where do you even begin. Our neighbor Eric and his two year old boy, Kaj-Riis, came to help - we split up the neighborhood and went from there. Bicycles, an empty blue leash, calling his name ad nauseum. Came home defeated, sat on the curb, and cried. Peter called from Florida, frantic: "have you called the animal shelter, have you checked the park, did he get under the kayak, is he behind the wood pile"….while he was talking I heard a familiar whine. Turned around and saw his brown nose nudging its way through the neighbor's fence (the same yard I had checked two times previously). I don't know how he got there, and it doesn't matter. We went inside, and I swore never again to inwardly curse the fact that he makes the house such a wreck and sheds all over the floor and generally smells like dirt.

I turned on the cd player and listened to Laura's cd that she made for her baby boy, due in July. Listened to Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer sing Edelweiss - now maybe because I was emotional after the evening I'd had, but the song left me mourning my homeland of Austria (I'm not Austrian?), feeling the lack of leaving a place that is so much a part of you that you simply cannot separate yourself from it. And this was odd, because just that morning I went to the bakery and heard Smetana's "Ma Vlast" (My Fatherland) playing - it was written for the old Czech Republic. I heard it in my Music Literature class, and came home raving about it - Dad then told me that my grandmother had always loved that song, even though we don’t have an ounce of Czech blood in us. I hadn't heard this song for about five years, but hearing it yesterday morning just brought all this emotion out - and I was left leaning against the window sill, yearning for late 1800's Czech Republic, for the flow of the Vltava River. This doesn't make any sense.

But then again, maybe it does. I spent the weekend in Virginia - my homeland, I guess. The poplar trees were a full leafy green, crickets were out in full force, and the frogs by the pond have started this season's nightsong. Within two hours after my flight landed, Dad and I found ourselves on a back country road in Floyd County - making our way up Bent Mountain, and then meandering towards Poor Mountain. Using the roads no one takes, the hairpin curves so steep you think you'll never make it up alive….we made it to the top of Poor Mountain and spring hadn't yet hit up there - the rhododendron didn't have their buds, the trees had the tentative green sprouts of late winter. You never really get to see any evidence of altitude in the southern appalachians - there's no alpine line to account for, no snow covered rock face to admire.

I spent my time wandering the property (avoiding the spider webs, I came upon a stranger in the woods - and in the way of the region, we didn't talk to each other but I left frightened and wondering why he was on our land), exploring an increasingly-shuttered downtown with a friend from high school post-midnight, driving I-81 north to meet Laura for dinner. I drove with those long haulers out of the Tennessee Bible Belt ("Jesus is our driving force") - maybe we were all listening to Johnny Cash - and thought about how different Oregon is than that place which I've always known.

parentheses

2007-05-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

So on Wednesday, the predictable Oregon sky finally let loose (I guess she'd been holding it in for quite a while). We had hail (covered the ground, left holes our hosta, knocked all the rhododendron flowers to the ground), rain (blinding: southern Ohio-style), lightning (our count was at four seconds - less than a mile away), and thunder (all of my coworkers clapped when we heard it - this made me appreciate them very much).

2007-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

A Minute-by-Minute Glance at Tuesday, April 24.

11:58 AM - Eat another stale tortilla chip. By my count, they're at least four weeks old.

11:59 AM - Think a lot about the word "buttress". This is actually a work-related thought.

1:33 PM - Despite a lunch of free pizza and crossword puzzles and a brief foray into Powell's, I'm still thinking about buttresses.

2:29 PM - Finish reading an article about "Bucolic Blacksburg, Virginia". Realized that I'm trying to forge some sort of connection to that university town, even though I didn't go to school there. Didn’t even consider it. My memories there mainly consist of regional cross country invitationals, late high-school shows in decrepit second floor apartments, a place to stop and get gas before continuing on over the New River to West Virginia and beyond - toward my own school in Ohio. I identify this need to hold on to something tightly, even if the only thing real connection I have with the situation is that I lived on the same wrinkle on the map as Virginia Tech.

2:55 PM - Talk to Peter. He's in Miami Beach where it's a sunny 80 degrees, whereas it's a rainy 55 here.

3:20 PM - My coworker is saying "Ja" on the phone rather than "Yes". This is driving me nuts.

3:59 PM - Think about how dogs apparently wag their tails to the right when they're pleased, and to the left when they're displeased (or so says the Oregonian). But this is confusing to me, because I didn't think dogs wagged their tails when they weren't happy? Please advise.

Wanderlust Strikes Again

2007-04-17T15:30:00.001-07:00

Baia Mare. Budapest. Prague. St. Petersburg. Brasov. Krakow. Moscow. Ljubljana. Sarajevo. Reykjavik. Dubrovnik. Istanbul. Warsaw. Tallinn. Zagreb. Bratislava. Minsk. Odessa. Kiev.

I don’t know if we'll be able to take this one stateside.

the mississippi voyager

2007-04-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to figure out how to write about this without sounding overly juvenile, but have been unable to do so.

On Monday, I picked up a phone call at work - it was an OIL TANKER that needed new chairs. And could I please come see them immediately? We (I went with my coworker Sarah) were given instructions to go to Swan Island, check in at the gate, receive our ID badges, and then go to Berth 313 (!) and wait for a Lieutenant (!) to come prepare us for boarding (!). Said lieutenant arrived and fitted us with hardhats, safety glasses, and steel-toed boots. Not that we were really dressed for steel-toed boots, but we made our way towards The Mississippi Voyager nonetheless, bare feet rubbing against the sides of aforementioned boots. It was so definitively a boat, in every sense - huge black hull, broad painted red band above with large white capital letters reading MISSISSIPPI VOYAGER. Even the name was characteristically nautical.
The lieutenant ended up taking us to the captain's quarters. YES!!! Sarah and I could barely contain our enthusiasm, and were out of breath while shaking his hand. He had sparkly blue eyes with unruly grey hair - exactly the way a captain should look.

I called dad that night to tell him about it, and basically spoke in caps lock the whole time: "DAD I WAS IN A BOAT!!! A BIG BOAT, A REALLY REALLY BIG BOAT!!! AND I GOT TO MEET THE CAPTAIN!!! AND HE GAVE ME A HAT!!!"

Aye Aye.

hop on the bus, gus

2007-03-23T14:12:00.001-07:00

I have been wondering why I've been feeling so badly. Recently I've been hungry, full, thirsty, and nauseous all at the same time. And this morning, I realized that it's because out of three of the last four days, I've had ice cream cake for dinner. Ice cream cake and eggs.

The mother of one of my co-workers just won 182 million dollars. Therefore, my co-worker is resigning at the age of twenty three and will never have to work again. I am not really sure what to think about this.

trailblazers vs. wizards

2007-03-21T11:13:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to a Portland Trailblazers game with Peter. Despite playing for the JV team in middle school, I have very little interest in our pro basketball team. But I went because: 1) I am a Portlander and it seems like something that I should do. A guilt complex, if you will. 2) Peter is very into the Trailblazers right now, and - as a good wife - I should go and try to experience this with him.

This is not to say that I had the best attitude throughout. I was feeling sick (which may have been due to the fact that I had ice cream cake for dinner) and was, in short, a grumpus. But I ended up sitting next to an elderly man from Greece who was there with his son-in-law, who seemed to prefer telling me about his various family members rather than watching the game. He also went into a long spiel about linguistics ("astronaut" comes from the words astral (star) and nautilus (of the sea) - combine them and you get astronaut: Sailor of the Stars) before we looked up and realized it was the end of the fourth quarter. The Blazers were down, 99-98, with one minute left. More at stake than us losing the game was the fact that if the Blazers score 100 points in a game, then everyone in the arena gets a free chalupa from Taco Bell. Now I was interested, because it looked like free food may be in the cards. Sure enough, we scored - which not only put us ahead, but guaranteed a free chalupa to all the spectators. At the risk of being cliché, but the crowd went wild, yelling "FREE CHALUPAS!!! CHALUPA!!! CHALUPA!!!" in a way that only Americans can. The son-in-law of my gentle Greek man grabbed him by both shoulders and screamed into his face "CHALUPA!!!!! CHALUPAAAAA!!!". The old man gave him a startled look that was somehow excited but confused and a little frightened all at the same time.

And then it was over and we didn't even get to say goodbye.

We're saving the chalupas for when a rainy day meets a transfat mood.

Let's hear it for breaking up with Seattle

2007-03-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Bullet Points:

- This was the first actual good week that I've had in....I don't know how long. Thank you Lord. Didn't think we could take much more....

- Thursday night, I asked Peter what he would think about living in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It's a miniature Portland, with never-ending fields easily accessible. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But maybe I'm not really missing the fields that go on forever, but more the stage of life I was in when surrounded by those corn fields. Somehow, they were romantic.

- Peter got me the Rosetta Stone Russian software for my birthday. Now I have absolutely no excuse. You (all three of you) must hold me accountable.

- Spring decided to come out for my birthday - the cherry blossoms are a welcome present. Warmth can't come soon enough.

- Just finished My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. It took about 174 pages to get into it, but it was worth it. It takes place in 16th century Istanbul, focusing on the miniaturists that would illustrate books for the sultan. The main conflict is what influence illustrating in the 'Frankish' style (3-D paintings, as we typically know them) has versus continuing to illustrate in the typical Arabic style taken from the old schools in Herat and Tabriz.

- On the other hand, I also just finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. All the hubbub is validated - I'm afraid that - at least for a period - I'm going to be one of those people who try to somehow incorporate Harry Potter into every conversation.

- I'm at Jim & Patty's, and am getting ready to go explore Cathedral Park with my 35mm. We've been apart too long.

revolutionary

2007-03-14T14:26:00.001-07:00

I turn twenty-six on Monday. The only thing momentous about being twenty-six is that it means you're no longer twenty five. With the passing of twenty-five comes the following:
1) Apparently (according to Peter - who is qualified to say this because he has taken a lot of psychology classes) your personality continues to develop until age twenty-five. But then, around that time - you are pretty much ingrained in who you are, and the likelihood of any sort of personality shift is rather rare.
2) When I was nine, I asked my dad how old we would be in heaven. He said we would be twenty-five. When asked why, he answered, "Because when you're twenty-five, you're at your peak of beauty and physical strength. "
These thoughts coincided with a late night phone call I received from Laura a few weeks ago. With barely a greeting, she asked "Do you ever feel that you reached the pinnacle of your creativity at some point in the past?"
None of these things are all that edifying to think about. This is as good as it gets, I guess - it's all downhill from here. Obviously, I know this doesn't have to be the case. Plenty of people (such as um….Jesus, for one) really came about in their thirties. Or forties. But I feel like the odds are now working against me rather than with me.
On my twenty-sixth birthday, I'll eat sushi from a conveyor belt with good friends. Surely that must count for something?

hallelujah

2007-03-05T16:44:00.001-08:00

the sun is out.

approaching five

2007-02-19T16:22:00.001-08:00

Post-meeting: my legs are shaking, my jaw is clenched, and I have the most poignant headache. The stress has been removed and I….need to remember how to relax - I've been absorbing more than I ever thought possible. My jaw won't move from its locked habit; I desperately need to see a winter-wheat-green field - preferably somewhere in the delta region: show me waving grain, show me delicate plants beside bare feet, show me the wind through your hair in the back of a pickup, show me a worn walnut table in an old school on route nowhere in western Mississippi.

this is what you get....

2007-02-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

Headed home on the Broadway bridge yesterday, "Karma Police" came on the radio. I've heard this song hundreds of times, but for some reason, it reminded me of a certain event yesterday.

When we were sixteen, emily o'brien and myself would make videos under the guise of "wicker deer productions". One episode, in particular, involved my parents' old washing machine. We named it after our friend david and painted other high schoolish slogans on it (e.g. " '99 rocks" etc.). Dad helped us load it on to the back of his pickup truck, and we got ready to roll. Emily filmed, my brother hid in the woods, and I put on a vietnamese straw hat (?). Our driveway was such that it was flat for about 1/8 of a mile, and then it turned into a slight incline. Dad drove slowly on the flat portion, but then hit the gas at the incline - which resulted in the washing machine falling off the back of the pickup. All hell broke loose - emily screamed, my brother emerged from the woods with a sickle, I ran towards the broken washing machine and lost my hat. My brother started to beat the washing machine with the sickle (where he obtained said sickle, I don't know), and I kicked it and threw miscellaneous pieces around. My brother (who was eleven) commanded the washing machine: "WHY DON'T YOU GET UP AND DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIFE, YOU ENGLISH PATIENT!". Then (in the final edited version), "Karma Police" fades in as dad drives away with the remnants of the white maytag: "…this is what you get when you mess with us….".

sunday

2007-02-04T16:14:00.000-08:00

number one: the first flower of the season has bloomed. it is small yellow and perfect - and it is in my front yard. i was so pleased to see it i took a photograph of it.

number two: it's roughly sixty degrees outside and i couldn't be happier about it. took the long route to the library this afternoon and thought about the soundtrack that each country provides. jewish waltzes quite literally played outside my jerusalem hotel room, ecuadorian dance music came through my in-law's windows in quito, eastern techno somehow found its way into romanian late night walks. i'm imagining ruthie and katie are surrounded by some sort of tango-jive in argentina. what music accompanies people who visit america? very rarely does outside music come through our windows in northeast portland - and if it does, it's some sort of version of the clash or guns n' roses from my eighteen year old neighbor next door. hardly romantic.

clear latin soap shoes

2007-02-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

clarity: on friday afternoon, i was color coding installation drawings and put my ipod on shuffle. 12.23.95 from jimmy eat world's "clarity" came busting through to 2007, and it reminded me of how different I am now from who I was that autumn of 1998. that was nine years ago....a drive back from charlottesville over afton mountain on a sunday....we eagerly awaited the next release, (how could anything top clarity?)....then come 2001 and they came out with "bleed american" and i was sorely disappointed. "too overproduced", we said. whatever that meant. but it was the end of jimmy eat world, i was now relagated to that snobbish group that says, "oh yeah i like them - only their old stuff - like the records from 1996". as if i ever even owned a turn table. what drama.

argentina: i've been listening to my playlist entitled "so i hear she likes to travel" recently. however, this is probably just a kneejerk response to the fact that: trishawna is in milan. ruthie is in buenos aires. katie is in buenos aires. kimberly is in budapest. but....we've all had our time, and it's a matter of trying to see your current residence through exotic eyes. so i rode the train to goose hollow to meet nicole this morning - tried to conjure up the romance of traveling by rail through drizzly air. we talked of unfamiliar questions in an unfamiliar cafe - the window behind her faced an old stucco wall and i could have been in northern ireland. and so i chose to believe that.

rubber boots: peter & i spent the day at the coast with montana. i can never get over how you have no indication that the ocean is just behind that rise there ahead of you. as a child, we would be four hours away from north carolina's outer banks, and you could see evidence of the ocean approaching. sandy shoulders, stubby trees, sparse grass.... we arrived and it stopped raining and i watched peter and montana enjoy the sheer expanse of sand and water meets atmosphere. so much energy, run until we fall down in that salty water and it fills our boots and our skin is wrinkled so to prove that we were really there.

soapbox: apparently the npr news quiz "wait wait don't tell me" is coming to portland, and they're charging $200 a ticket. JUST WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? I pulled out my political soapbox and went off to an i'm-unfortunately-captive-in-the-car-with-this-woman peter for no less than half an hour today.

2007-01-28T12:50:00.000-08:00

i swear, if one more person says i look like an equestrian today....

i think i chose the wrong playlist

2007-01-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

apparently we (or at least, i) forgot how difficult the winters here can be - despite the surprise two-inches of snow we woke up to on tuesday morning,subsequently shutting the city down for two days and counting.

there are times when you just need an adrenaline rush to keep you going. (i guess that's what skiing's for, eh?) or something forthcoming. or something curious yet still familiar.

i miss our roommates tonight.
i miss trishawna tonight.
i miss laura tonight.
i miss old versions of friends tonight.
i miss long drives on straight roads tonight.
i miss college tonight.

please don't tell me i'm the only one.

go there

2007-01-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

all things soviet + public transportation = perfection

http://www.polarinertia.com/jan07/bus01.htm

collapse the light into earth

2007-01-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

At least there are blue skies. Yesterday I went outside and just stood on the front porch, eyes closed, trying to absorb it - let's quite literally save it for a rainy day. The mountains are overwhelming in their whiteness, especially when they come out of hiding. take-your-breath-away-huge.

A comet was here this weekend. I forgot to see it. That I FORGOT to see a comet is something unfortunatelycharacteristic of me now, which would not have happened five years ago. I remember specifically driving south on route 72, headed towards cornfields and cornfields only, simply to glance a better view of the sunrise before my 8AM. And now I find that I have my head down while we cross the willamette in the morning and the sun breaks through to outline the sky in gold.

I'm reading a book called Prague, by Arthur Phillips. It's actually about Budapest, but that aside - there is a character in the book that I am simply amazed exists. My words won't do it justice, but he focuses on qualifying nostalgia. Putting it to words, tracing the patterns, figuring out the "why?". If we tend towards emulating the 1950's right now, what did actual twentysomethings in the 1950's emulate? The 1920'? And what did actual twentysomethings in the 1920's emulate? How far back does this go, this leapfrogging and longing for a time and place that we weren't even a part of? Do we take it all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, to Charlemagne, to the era of the Caesars?

(Tangent #1: Sometimes, while listening to Simon & Garfunkel especially, I will have this memory: I'm on the BQE, pulling in closer to the city - the Manhattan skyline breaks through, and I feel like I am finally home. The thing is - this is my father's memory - when he back home to Queens after Vietnam in the 1970's.)

(Tangent #2: The final week of my advanced english class in romania, I gave my students this assignment: They were to simply respond to C.S. Lewis' quote "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Now that I look back on that, what a difficult assignment, to try to flesh out a response to something so intangible in an equally intangible language.)

(Tangent #3: While home for Christmas, we were driving north up I-81, headed towards a lunch in Harrisonurg with David & Laura. I couldn't stop looking out the window - see the contours of the mountains, they look like velvet, why do they undulate like that, why is that barn there, see how the undergrowth parts to show the red clay, the oaks are so delicate, there are my beloved locust trees, I wish we could hear the cicada - and we passed a sign that said "VIRGINIA HORSE CENTER - EXIT 288". I can barely explain this, but felt such intense emotion in seeing this sign - what a wholesome land.)

a running tally

2007-01-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

settled. that's what we're striving for. let's knock off all the other new year's hype filled resolutions (except for sushi on a conveyor belt) and let's shoot for simply being settled this year. settled with our jobs (no matter how stress-inducing), settled with our friends (or lack thereof), settled with our hearts (don't worry how how long it may have been gone). happy with who we are, knowing God made us and was PLEASED when He was done.

we were anticipating snow this weekend. come sunday evening and the air is still and the temperature approaches 45 or something comparable (no overcoat necessary for a walk to the store). no snow for the willamette valley. peter and i were talking about that magical feeling when you're lying in bed and mom comes in and says "jessica - no school today - it snowed last night". and you wake up, bare feet planted on the mattress, and peer through the window. each time, it does something inside - to see your world transformed in white. covering all the blemishes and impurities. if we were to raise any children in portland, i doubt they would ever know the wonder that. chalk another point up for moving east of those cascades.

by and by they come

2006-12-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

item #1: and we're back in business. virginia was overwhelmingly the same as it has always been. almost as if i can go there and relive any experience of the past twenty five years. the air was just as sweet, the dialect was the way i remembered, the general attitude was startling....

item #2: so saddam hussein was executed. this is just very strange - he's been such a basic part of our existence since 1992 - almost as odd as pluto not being considered a planet anymore. it happened so quickly, considering. before things were even over, if they ever will be.

item #2a: when i was in hungary, i spoke with a north american woman that said she was continually surprised to find that she was living behind the iron curtain. her entire youth and early adulthood had been spent with eastern european countries being forbidden during the cold war, and then - twenty years later - there she is, making a living in one of those closed countries. i wonder if it'll be that way with iraq.

item #3: the sun is out today + it's a three day weekend + i'm going to see pink martini with macy tonight = good.

item #4: i miss the swing in front of our house. we'd sit and sit and sit in that thing, to the point of making ourselves sick from dizziness and conversation. a few weeks ago, there was an intense wind storm, and a large branch from the tree came loose and fell vertically - landed right in the spot where we'd swing. almost as if God took a 12-foot long wooden dagger and threw it on down - close call....

item #5: i don't really know what to say about 2006. in general, it was a hard year - thank goodness we emerged from it whole and complete. i think we're on the upswing, and have been for a while now. it was a long time coming. thank you thank you thank you for promises fulfilled.

item #6: in 2007 i'd like to start russian classes again, go to italy/slovenia, quit caffeine, be less high-strung, finish anna karenina (that's 5 years in the making), not be as envious, listen more, write more letters, give more presents, pray more often, take more photographs, be more patient, eat sushi off of a conveyor belt, see crater lake, ride a train, learn how to identify clouds better, spend more time with Peter, write more often, and wear a hat with confidence.

and here we go

2006-12-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

it's been too long - i don't even know what to say about that, except i unfortunately haven't been in a correct blogging state the past month and a half. not sure what to attribute this to - maybe the ever increasing anxiety i feel inside (no more caffeine for me), maybe because we have windows from the 1920's in our office which makes it too cold to type, maybe because i haven't allowed myself to see things through that baratta perspective (like the pigeons that took off over burnside yesterday in a way that could only be described as oriental - all of them were black save for one that was white - and that was all it took to set me off. i felt sorry for the white one because it wasn't the same. but i also felt proud of the white one because maybe it didn't care that it wasn't the same).
even now, i feel like i'm just writing for the sake of writing - so i don't feel guilty that the last entry was on november third.
we leave for virginia in an hour and a half. i have a daydream of putting on my best dress and throwing myself into the red clay so i would be stained forever. maybe i already am.
peter & i have been tearing up I-5 between portland & seattle recently. i was headed back from tacoma today and radiohead was on and i passed that statue garden thing (truckers know what i'm talking about) near winlock. it was raining and felt like a scene from a 90's angst film.

no surprises

2006-11-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

wednesday afternoon, around 3:45, the rains arrived. and i think they've brought their bags with them and are planning to stay a while. though i outwardly complain about this, i'm eager for the excuse to stay inside and write, to develop that coffee habit, to utilize the fireplace as it was meant to be.

ruthie & katie are moving out this weekend - making their own place in irvington. tonight, ruthie was in the living room, and i was going through our myriad towels, trying to sort them out - and i found this old dented can of beets. it just seemed fitting, because before we even really knew ruthie, we hid this same can of beets in her room. and so on and so forth it went, for the next year and a half. sometimes the beets would sit in their hiding place for months at a time, waiting to be found. in a knitting bag, in a backpack, in a satchel, in a pillow case, in the shower, next to the toothpaste, in a sleeping bag, under a bed, in a bookcase.

i don't really know what else to say about this; for some reason that damn can of beets is the only thing i can think of to describe the way i'm feeling right now.

red clay halo

2006-10-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Surprise visit to the east coast this weekend. The leaves were flamboyantly doing their thing, gathering up against our shins while we walked through 19th century neighborhoods, as red as red could be. Everything seemed so wholesome and unpretentious. No contrived standards of coolness to maintain. Genuine people with drawn-out speech, patriotic to a T, support our troops, latte what?

The flight from Baltimore to Houston passed directly over Roanoke. It's cruel, to see familiar ridgelines and reservoirs from 32,000 feet. The predictable blue of the mountains, a Virginia sunset freebie. Here I am, but you absolutely can't touch me. Maybe it was the one time I thought that an emergency landing or plummeting to the ground wouldn't be such a bad thing. At least it would be on that red clay.

I talked to both Laura and Peter about this. Laura likened a desire for old land to the ease of old friendships - there's something more emotionally rooted there that isn't present in newer friendships, no matter how good they are. And though Oregon may be aesthetically amazing in every geographical way, that emotional attachment doesn't run as deep. Peter said that I was a seed borne out of red clay, and nothing changes that, no matter how long you're gone. He said he would have felt the same way if a plane took him directly over the Nebraska farm that eventually shaped the course of his life.

I saw those mountains. I actually saw them yesterday. But didn't breathe that air, didn't lay on that grass, didn't stain my hands with that soil.

where you from girl?

2006-10-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

i am the very embodiment of our techy generation, laptop on hand for whatever wireless networks appear, ipod trustily doing its overzealous thing, cell phone set to vibrate (please, no interruptions).

ended up in the travel cafe on broadway - according to the note on the wall, today's tour is set for Paris, Glacier National Park, Lucerne, and Budapest. Oh Budapest, why did it have to be Budapest. He's stealing every image that I've dreamed of and wasn't creative enough to capture. Come on dear, let's go - on a whim, a weekend fling. For no reason but to be on that impossibly long escalator, headed to the bowels of a divided city - see if we make it out unchanged. We'll move past the women with thick ankles stuffed into sturdy shoes. Heads towards the ground (the melancholy magyars)- is that me i see getting on the metro (how many home videos are we unknowlingly in)? Nondescript communist-era buildings - like every other one around. Unique in their sameness, straight lines, and calculated balconies (this is what i predict for the booming pearl district - just give it 25 years). the plaza outside of deli palyudvar, where a man committed suicide just minutes before i arrived one tuesday afternoon. the promenade where the lightposts pretend to be trees - i laid on those benches and read le miserables until my eyes clouded with tears and i became another huddled mess that passersby nervously looked away from. the plaza where i pretended to not understand english and used only hand gestures and some weird mix of german and hungarian and nonsense - oh please let me pass for eastern european this time around.

And how many times have I done that? Our senior year of high school, Emily & I took a roadtrip to Charleston, West Virginia for spring break (no sarcasm please - you take what you get, right?). On our way up I-77, north out of Wytheville, we stopped for lunch in a town by the name of Bland, Virginia. We ate at a local diner - the other patrons being 4 overall wearing men - third generation coalminers. In our quest to be exotic, she spoke to me in spanish, and I would answer in german (unfortunately, we weren't in the same language programs) - figured these mountain people don't know no better. When approached by the waitress, we acted confused and relied on each other for translation help. Using overtly bad grammar, we asked for biscuits & gravy and I spent the rest of the meal repeating germanic variations of "who's shirt is that? i like shirts. your shirt is red. my shirt is blue." and so on and so forth. i can only assume Emily's spanish consisted of the same sort of thing. The conversation between the four men had grown quiet by the time we made our way to the cashier. All eyes on us, the foreigners.

"So....where ya'll from?"
"- ahhh excuse me sorry?"
"i said, where ya'll from?"
"-ahhh...Alberta".

Whatever that meant. Alberta. I don't even need to begin listing all of the ways that our thoughts of reasoning were flawed. But we were exotic - that's all that mattered.

After this lunch, we went to Bland High School with Amanda Walton's video camera (this was in the heyday of Wicker Deer Productions, our "indie film company") and walked through the hallways videotaping everything we saw as if there was something worth seeing again (i was always one obsessed with high school buildings). The lunchbell rang and we were in luck, now making an impression on aforementioned coalminers' children. A few suspicious looks by teachers later, we hurried out and went to the antique store next door, using our stock pseudo-language. By the time it was all over, we figured we would have the whole town of Bland talking about the strangers who didn't speak no American.

hesitant to name what we're becoming

2006-09-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

we woke up early to a bright saturday morning that felt very autumnal. went to jim & patty's for coffee (someone stole my latte) and then dropped old clothes off at goodwill - no point offering them to friends, they're beyond the point of desire and style. montana is in the kitchen, looking at me with "why don't you love me" eyes. peter is outside, working on the house. matt & macy are coming over for halibut tonight. ruthie's mix is playing on her laptop. i don't know how else to explain this, and even reading this, i can't understand why, but things seem perfect right now.

under that weather

2006-09-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

two things regarding being under the weather:

1) our neighbor is a meteorologist. and though i know this and am certain that there is much more to his personality than his profession, i draw a frantic blank whenever we try to talk. absolutely all i can think about is clouds and rain and sun and such. thus, that's all i talk about. i'm sure he absolutely hates being greeted by "so, how's the weather lookin'?" and he has to absorb it with a hesitant laugh. and i'm only adding to this.

2) i'm feeling sick. and am sitting here on the computer surrounded by approximately half a dozen used tissues. someone tell my sinuses to be more sustainable, would you?

water certainly does the job

2006-09-24T21:42:00.000-07:00

katie and i found ourselves at the driftwood room tonight. it's the bar in keith's hotel - the hotel deluxe (much too hip for me, i only feel comfortable there because keith greets us at the door. if only i had stayed with that independent film gig from high school, i may actually appreciate how each floor is designed after a specific director). if the doug fir lounge decided to get dressed up for a night on the town, it would be the driftwood room. katie and i made ourselves at home in our long sleeved t-shirts amongst portland's up and coming and had a conversation so honest that we found ourselves drinking our water as if it were whiskey. it certainly would do the job right, wouldn't it?

the week waits for us. Lord, let us be more patient this time around, teach us to trust. sunday nights have notoriously been difficult for this reason.

my grandfather died twenty-two years ago today. my mom was giving me a bath when we got the phone call. she left me in the lukewarm water and i stared at the closed bathroom door, waiting for her to come back. we had a full length mirror on the back of the door, and i can still remember staring at myself, waiting for the door to open, for mom to come back. i had no idea that in that moment, the baratta heritage was shifting one generation. pop pop is gone.

the newly acquired ipod brings a whole new dimension to life. i recently downloaded a song from ruthie's collection - it's from motorcycle diaries. listening to it reminds me of guevara's compassion for the people of northern south america. and this brings to light my own startling lack of compassion. i feel like i actually cared for people in college. but now, it's all about me: my life, my job, my husband, my house, my dog, my friends. God, give me compassion for others, not looking through them, but seeing them truly.

the proverbial ticket home

2006-09-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

the other day i thought about the church i grew up in. any of my authentic appalachian memories stem from there. the men stand around quietly with their hands in the pockets of polyester pants pulled up too high. they'd shake hands with the pastor and in so doing, would slip him a $10 bill. they'd yell at the kids to get out of the cow pasture, pull out their pastel suits for easter sunday, call each other "brother", and stand stoically during the invitation. they said my dad was a yankee. after living there for twenty-five years, still a yank. sometimes i wonder about this. did he ever miss the bristling hubbub of new york city, certain songs bringing him back, longing to ride the subway to wherever it would take him on a sunday afternoon? or did he find the southwest virginians entertaining: those who had been to new york city once ("I guess i was right plum there in the middle 'cause they was a sign sayin' uptown and another says downtown"), those who saw no need to leave the county, those who had gone to Roanoke for their honeymoon? did he see it as a cultural immersion: saying "y'all" to fit in, answering "roanoke" when asked where he was from ("Oh naw, you ain't from roanoke - you from somewhere up north, i know that"), pulling out his banjo and violin-turned-fiddle when appropriate? did he find it amusing when his four-year old daughter came home from preschool saying, "what in tarnation?".
we just bought our tickets home for christmas. five days in virginia with the sweet grass that will no doubt be brown, the dogwoods flowers gone, the poplar tree bare. winter, always winter.

2006-09-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

how indicative is this. i sit down to write and have nothing to say. i feel sort of like i've been gone and am now back in the midst of society and I'm trying to piece my way through. and i guess that's it.

2006-08-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

work has been all consuming. and i was such a big proponent of work/life balance. physician, heal thyself.....

i really thought i could take him

2006-08-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

dear laura,

so this morning i was walking to work from the bus around 7:15. i was pretty tired, sort of groggy, a little out of it, wished i was at home in bed. i stood at the intersection of burnside and broadway (major thoroughfares) and waited until i had the green light to cross the street. while waiting, a semi-crazy (i wish i could think of a more politically correct word for it, but i can't right now) woman approached me and said:
-i like your shoes.
-thank you.
-ohhhh but i REALLY like comfortable shoes. i REALLY like them you know what i mean?
-yup, i know.

then the light changed to green, so i took a step into the street. she yelled again:

-i REALLY like your shoes!
i turned around and told her thank you again. all of which took about one second. when i turned back around to continue crossing the street, there was this very normal looking man in jeans and a button down shirt right there. i almost ran into him so i backed off and said "excuse me."
-YEAH WHY DON'T YOU WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOIN' LADY.
-what?
-I SAID WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOIN. YOU'RE GONNA GETCHERSELF HIT BY A CAR IF YOU KEEP NOT PAYIN ATTENTION LIKE THAT.
-but the light was green.
-WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOIN!

for some reason, this really ticked me off. i was standing there in the street, pretty much in the largest intersection downtown, staring at this guy with my mouth open and hands in the air. could he seriously be that mean? what on earth is his problem? i crossed the street, almost muttering obscenities....turned around, and he was flailing his own fist in the air yelling something of his own.

yeah, great way to start the day.

much love,
jessi

wagon wheel

2006-08-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

given the choice to download any song i desire, i'm surprised at what genre i gravitate to. guess our roots go much deeper than we imagine they do. as a result, i can't get dogwood flowers or the cumberland gap out of my head tonight. not sure what exactly i'm mourning or romanticizing, but i'm feeling it nonetheless.
go on now....

heat

2006-07-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

Lord have mercy.

healthy narcissism

2006-07-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

avoiding the semi-weekly poker game, kimberly & i found ourselves at palio last night. the girl is an angel. she talked about natural talents and possibilities and opportunities and story as narrative - the way she spoke about the future made it seem so open. dog and house and husband and age don't need to hold me back. what do i feel that i'm good at, that i would pursue no matter what? what keeps me back? i'm a little hesitant to actually name natural talents and abilities - as if acknowledging them is a form of pride. and pursuing them would also be prideful and selfish. we're back to this healthy narcissism thing again.

the day i forgot

2006-07-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

this is a difficult time in age - sometimes i want to be more mature and talk about wine and interest rates. other times i just want to throw rolls of toilet paper at my friends and show people the food in my mouth while i'm chewing. sigh.

peter called from seattle this morning and left a message: he is on the top deck of a ferry, heading across the puget sound - the seattle skyline is behind him, and mt. rainier behind that. ahead of him lay the olympic peninsula and the olympic range, highlighted by the morning sun. i, on the other hand, am in front of my computer, staring at a brick wall on the 2nd story of an old warehouse, listening to a diesel truck make its way down burnside.

the new appalachia

2006-07-16T19:16:00.000-07:00

lulled to that almost sleep by mr. johnny cash, I found myself following the new river north, along that crooked line upon which roads were never meant to be built. remembering the fledgling neo-appalachian groups, putting the Pal in Appalachia. Holding onto the unassuming land, a one McAfee's Knob holds no one destination, nothing alarming, volatile, and snow-capped to demand your attention. Blue mountains, nothing else. Missing the honeysuckle, mimosa, cicada, lightning bugs that make the ridge explode post-midnight....and i think that's as far as I can allow myself to go tonight.

particulars

2006-07-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

two interesting statistics that i've heard recently:

- a kit-kat bar is consumed every 47 seconds in the UK.

- starbucks is on track to have 10,000 stores in the US by the year 2010. If they meet this goal, then one in five workers in america will be employed by starbucks. (mathematically, i can't get this one to work out, but i'm going to choose to believe it because it's just that scary.)

one interesting story that i can't get out of my head, and i know i'm going to use it in various conversations from here on out:

my friends jodie & adam live in southeast, and somehow got hooked up with this couple visiting from Cedarville, Ohio. they were recently married, still in school - and they had heard about portland from their online science fiction community and wanted to check it out, so they stayed with jodie & adam. um, apparently this girl from cedarville eats only five things. i'm not saying she ate five things while she was here, nor is she on some kind of five basic food group diet. all of her twenty-some years, she has only eaten the following:

1) beans from a can
2) corn from a can
3) french fries
4) ravioli
5) i don't remember what the fifth one was - so i'm going to pretend that it is meat from a can.

apparently her parents didn't force her to eat things that she didn't want to eat as a child - and now this is all that she eats. is that even possible? does anything happen to your body, biologically, if you only eat certain foods? if peter suddenly declared that he only ate food that was the color yellow or some such thing, i wonder how that would affect our relationship....

today, we will be suburban

2006-07-07T06:52:00.000-07:00