"Interpersonal violence spans a wide range of human behaviors of which murder represents one of the terminal disruptions in the equilibrium of a society. Sexual homicide, a crime of increasing concern in our society, is the killing of a person in the context of power, sexuality, and brutality...
"Apprehension of the sexual murderer is one of law enforcement's most difficult challenges. Because sexual killings often appear motiveless and random, they offer few clues about why the murder occurred or, consequently, about the identity of the murderer. Even the sexual nature of these murders is not always immediately obvious, for conventional evidence of a sexual crime may be absent from a crime scene."
sexual homicide: patterns and motives, ressler, burgess, douglas.
isn't that first sentence delicious? i love it for some reason. but i feel smutty reading this book on the train home in the afternoon.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
whiskey tango foxtrot
world leaders may be discussing global warming in copenhagen today, but i'm interested in a different sort of climate change.
as i write this, the weather channel is reporting that it is 25 degrees in portland, though with the wind chill factor, it feel like 12. all i know is that after coming home from work and then taking the train up to fred meyer, my hands and feet are numb and painful. what are these insane winds from the north that bombard portland? i've never felt colder (which is probably a lie). the wind roared all night long, keeping my little treehouse on n. mississippi frigid.
then i biked to work today. what a terrible idea. my thumbs died. i no longer have thumbs: they froze and fell off. tomorrow, the bus, no matter how early i have to wake to catch it.
and on the yellow/green platform east of pioneer square, everyone looked at least slightly uncomfortable. but some portlanders held their own better than others, braving bearing the cold in their smart winter wools, seeming almost relaxed except for their stony faces, turned rocky by the cold wind. i, however, fell into the other camp: grimacing and intermittently cursing aloud the cold. how dare the winter treat me so. i've never but adored scarves and hats and long sleeves and walks in the cold. i biked all through the last winter (except those two weeks of snow endearingly called by the local news arctic blast '08.)
and now: tea and the indoors. a glass of wine. a hot toddy perhaps later at the liberty class. a cold night in bed and a frigid morning waking early to catch the bus for work. i think i rather the rain than this cold.
have i mentioned it hasn't rained in portland for a week or more? i think this is the problem. these clear skies are unnatural. i could see both mt. hood and mt. st. helens today on my commute home.
as i write this, the weather channel is reporting that it is 25 degrees in portland, though with the wind chill factor, it feel like 12. all i know is that after coming home from work and then taking the train up to fred meyer, my hands and feet are numb and painful. what are these insane winds from the north that bombard portland? i've never felt colder (which is probably a lie). the wind roared all night long, keeping my little treehouse on n. mississippi frigid.
then i biked to work today. what a terrible idea. my thumbs died. i no longer have thumbs: they froze and fell off. tomorrow, the bus, no matter how early i have to wake to catch it.
and on the yellow/green platform east of pioneer square, everyone looked at least slightly uncomfortable. but some portlanders held their own better than others, braving bearing the cold in their smart winter wools, seeming almost relaxed except for their stony faces, turned rocky by the cold wind. i, however, fell into the other camp: grimacing and intermittently cursing aloud the cold. how dare the winter treat me so. i've never but adored scarves and hats and long sleeves and walks in the cold. i biked all through the last winter (except those two weeks of snow endearingly called by the local news arctic blast '08.)
and now: tea and the indoors. a glass of wine. a hot toddy perhaps later at the liberty class. a cold night in bed and a frigid morning waking early to catch the bus for work. i think i rather the rain than this cold.
have i mentioned it hasn't rained in portland for a week or more? i think this is the problem. these clear skies are unnatural. i could see both mt. hood and mt. st. helens today on my commute home.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
sketchbook no. 8
this is the personal essay i read at lewis and clark today on an open radio station art piece by gregory green.
The use of "Ma'am" is disappearing and is little used in the North except by displaced Southerners or servants of the old school. In the South you still hear it and in some areas there is a strong effort to keep the custom of having children and, of course, servants address adult women as "Ma'am." I don't endorse this. I feel that Mrs. of Miss together with the surname is properly respectful for everyone for all parts of the country.
this is christopher bayerle and that was an excerpt from amy vanderbilt's Etiquette: The Guide to Gracious Living.
to the left of the plate, the fork. to the right, the knife (blade in), then a spoon. a constellation of utensils. sometimes there will be two forks, a smaller salad fork to the outside of a larger fork for the entree. on the right, above the knife and spoon, a binary system of water and wine glasses, the water to the left and slightly above the wine glass. around the table an orbit of men and women eating, talking, laughing, drinking, sharing. men wait to be seated until all the women of the table have taken their seats. no one begins eating until everyone has been served.
these are basic laws of the social universe, gravitational pulls that maintain the order and fluid rotation of a dinner table, of a family, of a group of friends.
If just the family is at the table, let us say mother, father, and three children, the serving is usually handled by both mother and father, with father serving the meat and the mother the vegetables. It is pleasant to vary the serving sequence if all three children are of the same sex, with the oldest one not necessarily always being served first, and the baby last. If the children are of mixed sexes, the girls are served before the boys as they will be when they are grown up.
when my family would travel during the summer from alabama to visit relatives in new york, my father would recall with a groan the friendliness of yankees. he would remind us of the waiter in some diner on one of these trips who took our order with barely a word let alone a smile, pouring water into cups in one fluid sweep of her arm across the water, leaving the table puddled with water onto which cups of coffee and plates of food were sloshed.
my mother, a yankee herself, never liked my sister and me to call her ma'am, telling us it made her feel old, but she instructed us that we were to refer to our teachers as such, that women in the south liked to be called ma'am and men were to be addressed as sir. that we would be looked more kindly on if we could remember this.
parents instruct their children to say please and thank you when asking a favor. our parents raise us to cough into our sleeves, to wash our hands, to ask permission before borrowing something, to say "excuse me" when we bump into someone else, to apologize when we hurt another, to not pick our noses.
If you are having people to dinner, mix only one kind of cocktail and offer, in addition, sherry, and scotch or bourbon or rye and soda - with vegetable or fruit juice for possible teetotalers. Old-fashioneds are a nuisance to fix for more than four or five. The safest choice seems to be martinis, which have the virtue of being relatively inexpensive, more or less foolproof as to concoction, and mixable well in advance... You make no mistake when you choose one of the following cocktails to serve before a dinner party - martini, bacardi, or daiquiri (especially in summer), whisky sours (good any time and well-liked by both sexes), manhattans and old-fashioneds (with a minimum of garnish for male tastes).
at a party in atlanta, ga a few years ago, i tried to strike up a conversation with a gentleman at the bar wearing a shirt for an album on which my friend, the dj playing even as i spoke, was featured. i said, "my friend, this dj playing right now is featured on that album" pointing to his shirt; he replied, "oh," turned away from me and walked away into the crowd.
certainly atlanta does retain its southern charm a lot of the time, but this sort of behavior to me exemplifies typical east coast, big city rudeness and uncaring. everyone seems too caught up in their selves, too busy, too uncaring, too oblivious to the details, too untrusting.
perhaps birmingham, alabama, the city where i grew up, is just small enough that it's easy to feel comfortable when interacting with strangers. but birmingham isn't the safest cities. in fact, its one of america's least safest cities. a place in which one can't walk alone or at all at night. a city in which everyone you know has at least one story about being held up for cash or beer or a bike. a city with some neighborhoods you don't even think about driving through.
so why then does it seem like we're so open with others despite all this?
Modern notions of what constitutes proper dinner table conversation are drastically different from those that prevailed in Victorian and even later times. It was once thought that politics, religion, illness, accidents, scandal, were not fit subjects for the dinner table. I concur within reason... Impersonal conversation is, at best dull. A healthy give and take, warm expression of one's feelings and opinions, the accounting of interesting personal experiences, all means lively social intercourse. Even argument may make lively interchange so long as barbed and painful personal remarks are avoided.
when i moved here to portland, friends expounded to me the wonder of how friendly portlanders seemed to be. portlanders are friendly. this city is so laid back and trustful; its citizens having built a great community here. but i've been yelled at by older oregonians on the street several times, been brushed off when introducing myself to strangers at bars or parties, given straight-forward but brusque directions or the time when asked of a stranger on the street.
if a stranger on the street in birmingham had asked me for directions, i wouldn't have looked cross or impatient at all, would have answered warmly, would have paused in case the questioner had any other question, would have told the person to have a great day, expressed hope that the other would find their destination quickly. i would offer a stranger at a bar to sit with me. i would excuse myself even if another person in the street had tripped me.
In greeting people we say, "how do you do?" We do not really expect an answer, but it is all right to reply, "Very well, thank you," even if it is a blue Monday and you feel far from well. No one wants a clinical discussion in response to this purely rhetorical question. In fact, you may answer Socratically with "How do you do?" - expecting, and getting, no answer. In farewell, say simply, "Good-by," or something you really feel, such as "Let's meet soon again" or "It was so nice running into you." Don't some current banality such as "Good-by now." It is obvious it is now you are saying "Good-by" - not an hour previously nor an hour hence. Watch these cliches.
for amy vanderbilt there was a form for everything, a proper way of doing any activity. the complexity of the form or gesture seems gratuitous at times, but there was and can still be a purpose for such rules of etiquette. what these manners provide us is social lubricant. they allow us to interact with others more easily without offending. they alway refer and defer to the other. i hold the door open for YOU. i offer YOU a cup of coffee. i introduce myself to YOU. i say thank YOU.
it's not important to me that one always gets the form correct. i express deficient etiquette often. but looking at amy vanderbilt, i see as important that deference to the other, that consciousness of social interaction. perhaps the south's preference for sugary politeness and the comfort of manners seems false at times, but i miss the warmth and ease of social relations there, the coy politesse, the deference to the other despite one's motives.
The use of "Ma'am" is disappearing and is little used in the North except by displaced Southerners or servants of the old school. In the South you still hear it and in some areas there is a strong effort to keep the custom of having children and, of course, servants address adult women as "Ma'am." I don't endorse this. I feel that Mrs. of Miss together with the surname is properly respectful for everyone for all parts of the country.
this is christopher bayerle and that was an excerpt from amy vanderbilt's Etiquette: The Guide to Gracious Living.
to the left of the plate, the fork. to the right, the knife (blade in), then a spoon. a constellation of utensils. sometimes there will be two forks, a smaller salad fork to the outside of a larger fork for the entree. on the right, above the knife and spoon, a binary system of water and wine glasses, the water to the left and slightly above the wine glass. around the table an orbit of men and women eating, talking, laughing, drinking, sharing. men wait to be seated until all the women of the table have taken their seats. no one begins eating until everyone has been served.
these are basic laws of the social universe, gravitational pulls that maintain the order and fluid rotation of a dinner table, of a family, of a group of friends.
If just the family is at the table, let us say mother, father, and three children, the serving is usually handled by both mother and father, with father serving the meat and the mother the vegetables. It is pleasant to vary the serving sequence if all three children are of the same sex, with the oldest one not necessarily always being served first, and the baby last. If the children are of mixed sexes, the girls are served before the boys as they will be when they are grown up.
when my family would travel during the summer from alabama to visit relatives in new york, my father would recall with a groan the friendliness of yankees. he would remind us of the waiter in some diner on one of these trips who took our order with barely a word let alone a smile, pouring water into cups in one fluid sweep of her arm across the water, leaving the table puddled with water onto which cups of coffee and plates of food were sloshed.
my mother, a yankee herself, never liked my sister and me to call her ma'am, telling us it made her feel old, but she instructed us that we were to refer to our teachers as such, that women in the south liked to be called ma'am and men were to be addressed as sir. that we would be looked more kindly on if we could remember this.
parents instruct their children to say please and thank you when asking a favor. our parents raise us to cough into our sleeves, to wash our hands, to ask permission before borrowing something, to say "excuse me" when we bump into someone else, to apologize when we hurt another, to not pick our noses.
If you are having people to dinner, mix only one kind of cocktail and offer, in addition, sherry, and scotch or bourbon or rye and soda - with vegetable or fruit juice for possible teetotalers. Old-fashioneds are a nuisance to fix for more than four or five. The safest choice seems to be martinis, which have the virtue of being relatively inexpensive, more or less foolproof as to concoction, and mixable well in advance... You make no mistake when you choose one of the following cocktails to serve before a dinner party - martini, bacardi, or daiquiri (especially in summer), whisky sours (good any time and well-liked by both sexes), manhattans and old-fashioneds (with a minimum of garnish for male tastes).
at a party in atlanta, ga a few years ago, i tried to strike up a conversation with a gentleman at the bar wearing a shirt for an album on which my friend, the dj playing even as i spoke, was featured. i said, "my friend, this dj playing right now is featured on that album" pointing to his shirt; he replied, "oh," turned away from me and walked away into the crowd.
certainly atlanta does retain its southern charm a lot of the time, but this sort of behavior to me exemplifies typical east coast, big city rudeness and uncaring. everyone seems too caught up in their selves, too busy, too uncaring, too oblivious to the details, too untrusting.
perhaps birmingham, alabama, the city where i grew up, is just small enough that it's easy to feel comfortable when interacting with strangers. but birmingham isn't the safest cities. in fact, its one of america's least safest cities. a place in which one can't walk alone or at all at night. a city in which everyone you know has at least one story about being held up for cash or beer or a bike. a city with some neighborhoods you don't even think about driving through.
so why then does it seem like we're so open with others despite all this?
Modern notions of what constitutes proper dinner table conversation are drastically different from those that prevailed in Victorian and even later times. It was once thought that politics, religion, illness, accidents, scandal, were not fit subjects for the dinner table. I concur within reason... Impersonal conversation is, at best dull. A healthy give and take, warm expression of one's feelings and opinions, the accounting of interesting personal experiences, all means lively social intercourse. Even argument may make lively interchange so long as barbed and painful personal remarks are avoided.
when i moved here to portland, friends expounded to me the wonder of how friendly portlanders seemed to be. portlanders are friendly. this city is so laid back and trustful; its citizens having built a great community here. but i've been yelled at by older oregonians on the street several times, been brushed off when introducing myself to strangers at bars or parties, given straight-forward but brusque directions or the time when asked of a stranger on the street.
if a stranger on the street in birmingham had asked me for directions, i wouldn't have looked cross or impatient at all, would have answered warmly, would have paused in case the questioner had any other question, would have told the person to have a great day, expressed hope that the other would find their destination quickly. i would offer a stranger at a bar to sit with me. i would excuse myself even if another person in the street had tripped me.
In greeting people we say, "how do you do?" We do not really expect an answer, but it is all right to reply, "Very well, thank you," even if it is a blue Monday and you feel far from well. No one wants a clinical discussion in response to this purely rhetorical question. In fact, you may answer Socratically with "How do you do?" - expecting, and getting, no answer. In farewell, say simply, "Good-by," or something you really feel, such as "Let's meet soon again" or "It was so nice running into you." Don't some current banality such as "Good-by now." It is obvious it is now you are saying "Good-by" - not an hour previously nor an hour hence. Watch these cliches.
for amy vanderbilt there was a form for everything, a proper way of doing any activity. the complexity of the form or gesture seems gratuitous at times, but there was and can still be a purpose for such rules of etiquette. what these manners provide us is social lubricant. they allow us to interact with others more easily without offending. they alway refer and defer to the other. i hold the door open for YOU. i offer YOU a cup of coffee. i introduce myself to YOU. i say thank YOU.
it's not important to me that one always gets the form correct. i express deficient etiquette often. but looking at amy vanderbilt, i see as important that deference to the other, that consciousness of social interaction. perhaps the south's preference for sugary politeness and the comfort of manners seems false at times, but i miss the warmth and ease of social relations there, the coy politesse, the deference to the other despite one's motives.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
first in memoriam
while i was laughing with friends at a bar in portland, or sunday night, my great grandfather, william ward, died in ithaca, ny. he would have been ninety-five in january i was told yesterday. he could barely see or hear, so i was told yesterday. what does one understand at ninety-five and does one's existence feel the same?
since i'm currently not drinking, this glass of water is for you, great-grandpa.
since i'm currently not drinking, this glass of water is for you, great-grandpa.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
bearded coffee loving bicyclists in the roman empire
i am spartacus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all; i shall tell you all.
i do not believe we are doomed to repeat history again and again. similar events may happen repeatedly, but are similar only generally. history is too complex to follow even one trajectory: it is inevitably multiple, heteroglossic. yet it seems that for americans, the histories of rome and our nation spell our the same syllables of hubris and failure. we are the new roman empire.
my new friend rob invited me to watch stanley kubrick's spartacus with him and his friend ean the other night. a very long film, at three and a half hours it wasn't as painful to sit through as i feared it would be. the most striking scene to me had been originally edited out, though restored in the version we viewed. a roman general looks out at the countryside, down at a contingent of the army marching paswt, and proclaims to the slave he's just had bathe him that the scene below is rome herself. when the general turns around, his slave has vanished, having run off with the slave rebellion. the scene depicts roman opulence with homosexual undertones; it features a certain remove from the situation. the general speaks coolly: as ean pointed out, he describes rome animalistically, as if it is a collective, a society or culture, yet always separate from the individual, uncontrollable, with a will of its own.
if america is like rome, then the story of spatacus represents the last throes of nationalism in america during the 20th century. the slaves of the movie, foreigners to rome, rise up in an attempt to escape the empire. not just to be free and claim equal rights; they want to flee the gravity and corrupt hegemony of roman culture and society. yet in the end, the only slave that gains freedom, spatacus's wife, is granted roman citizenship and must assimilate to survive.
america has seen the cruelty of slavery, the hegemony of american culture, the dominance of corporate marketing. control becomes more subtle, more unconcious, and in some ways, perhaps more complete. but there are sites of resistance of course, places and groups of people which deny the dominant culture. in many ways, i thinkthe city of portland is one of these sites. portland has a very particular elan, a particular way of operating, a particular culture not completely separate from and against american society but distinct and divergent. this is apparent in the city's draw to local small business, its dislike of wal-mart, its embrace of cooperatives and trade. its also evidenced by its love of bicycling (6% of the city commutes daily by bike, more than any other city in the united states), its music scene, its love of film, its high regard for food, beer, and wine, as well as its fashion. its that strange mixture of fashion and attitude and interest that only this city can claim. one friend once commented to me that portland lacks any sense of fashion, to which i responded that i though portland just had its own, unique sense of fashion. another friend told me that portland is always two years ahead of san francisco. but really i just want portland to have its own agenda, its own aesthetic.
i want to live in a city unlike any other in the united states. a city that shares my goals and interests. i believe micro-communities become increasingly important at the beginning of the twenty-first century. more that fringe movements, communities that share very particular values and interests will become a structural element in american society. this will be aided by the growth of the middle class and thus greater wealth and spending on an individual level. inherent in this will be a greater amount of free time, allowing for the garnering of specific interests. on top of this, the capability for movement and relocation granted by free time, technology, and wealth. greater, more widespread education will also be a feature of this movement. all these developments were actually witnessed during the late 19th and 20th centuries as a result of mercantilism, manufacturing, and the rise of a bourgeois middle class. these development will continue throughout the 21st, becoming pronounced as technology, education, and wealth/free-time allows for individuals to become involved and interested in various and divergent hobbies, lifestyles, movements, cities, et cetera. i believe slowly, slowly, slowly cities, perhaps neighborhoods in a city, will align more closely with certain cultures or micro-communities. i believe corporate america understands this, and through use of recent technology, now scrambles to tailor marketing and sales at the urban and individual level (read: google).
as with spartacus, the stuggles american society faces are similar to, but as i argue, intrinsically different from those of the roman empire. i want to read more hope into our futures, show that history has changed, that history changes our cultural trajectory, the possibilities for freedom and agency.
i do not believe we are doomed to repeat history again and again. similar events may happen repeatedly, but are similar only generally. history is too complex to follow even one trajectory: it is inevitably multiple, heteroglossic. yet it seems that for americans, the histories of rome and our nation spell our the same syllables of hubris and failure. we are the new roman empire.
my new friend rob invited me to watch stanley kubrick's spartacus with him and his friend ean the other night. a very long film, at three and a half hours it wasn't as painful to sit through as i feared it would be. the most striking scene to me had been originally edited out, though restored in the version we viewed. a roman general looks out at the countryside, down at a contingent of the army marching paswt, and proclaims to the slave he's just had bathe him that the scene below is rome herself. when the general turns around, his slave has vanished, having run off with the slave rebellion. the scene depicts roman opulence with homosexual undertones; it features a certain remove from the situation. the general speaks coolly: as ean pointed out, he describes rome animalistically, as if it is a collective, a society or culture, yet always separate from the individual, uncontrollable, with a will of its own.
if america is like rome, then the story of spatacus represents the last throes of nationalism in america during the 20th century. the slaves of the movie, foreigners to rome, rise up in an attempt to escape the empire. not just to be free and claim equal rights; they want to flee the gravity and corrupt hegemony of roman culture and society. yet in the end, the only slave that gains freedom, spatacus's wife, is granted roman citizenship and must assimilate to survive.
america has seen the cruelty of slavery, the hegemony of american culture, the dominance of corporate marketing. control becomes more subtle, more unconcious, and in some ways, perhaps more complete. but there are sites of resistance of course, places and groups of people which deny the dominant culture. in many ways, i thinkthe city of portland is one of these sites. portland has a very particular elan, a particular way of operating, a particular culture not completely separate from and against american society but distinct and divergent. this is apparent in the city's draw to local small business, its dislike of wal-mart, its embrace of cooperatives and trade. its also evidenced by its love of bicycling (6% of the city commutes daily by bike, more than any other city in the united states), its music scene, its love of film, its high regard for food, beer, and wine, as well as its fashion. its that strange mixture of fashion and attitude and interest that only this city can claim. one friend once commented to me that portland lacks any sense of fashion, to which i responded that i though portland just had its own, unique sense of fashion. another friend told me that portland is always two years ahead of san francisco. but really i just want portland to have its own agenda, its own aesthetic.
i want to live in a city unlike any other in the united states. a city that shares my goals and interests. i believe micro-communities become increasingly important at the beginning of the twenty-first century. more that fringe movements, communities that share very particular values and interests will become a structural element in american society. this will be aided by the growth of the middle class and thus greater wealth and spending on an individual level. inherent in this will be a greater amount of free time, allowing for the garnering of specific interests. on top of this, the capability for movement and relocation granted by free time, technology, and wealth. greater, more widespread education will also be a feature of this movement. all these developments were actually witnessed during the late 19th and 20th centuries as a result of mercantilism, manufacturing, and the rise of a bourgeois middle class. these development will continue throughout the 21st, becoming pronounced as technology, education, and wealth/free-time allows for individuals to become involved and interested in various and divergent hobbies, lifestyles, movements, cities, et cetera. i believe slowly, slowly, slowly cities, perhaps neighborhoods in a city, will align more closely with certain cultures or micro-communities. i believe corporate america understands this, and through use of recent technology, now scrambles to tailor marketing and sales at the urban and individual level (read: google).
as with spartacus, the stuggles american society faces are similar to, but as i argue, intrinsically different from those of the roman empire. i want to read more hope into our futures, show that history has changed, that history changes our cultural trajectory, the possibilities for freedom and agency.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
boise-eliot in the rain
my new roommate amanda says they call chicago "a city of neighborhoods." portland, too, loves it different neighborhoods and proudly preserves their separate names and identities. the apartment i now share with daniel and amanda on michigan avenue stands in a neighborhood in inner north portland formally called boise-eliot and is informally known by its main artery, north mississippi.
i love north mississippi. a little secluded and quiet, but very hip, north mississippi is very busy at least. i walked out this morning despite the rather heavy rain to forage for coffee at our neighborhood coffee house, the fresh pot. the rain poured down the streets and sidewalks, gravity pulling down toward the city center, to the willamette, which would carry it all away and dump our winter water in the pacific. the rain pooled in gutters and in intersections; deep puddles into which i would splash up past my ankles. i love my galoshes.
the fresh pot operates in an old drugstore, the Rx sign still visible in the concrete outside the door. the diffuse light of portland's fall filters through bright yellow awnings and mingles with the 20 watt light of old art nouveau lamps. the woman there kindly hands me a cup and fifty cents in change. i love my coffee. is there a secret god of coffee to whom i should be praying?
i braved the puddle outside fresh pot and cross mississippi to the new vintage clothing boutique that opened today. the shop owner offered me plaid western shirts and 501s. i found a beautiful pendleton plaid shirt (made in portland, oregon) in teal and purple and yellow, sized small, for twenty-two dollars. perfection! i love it. daniel will hate it. perfection!
back out in the street, in the miserable downpour, i passed the record store and thought it beautiful to see a man wearing black with raven hair and thick buddy holly glasses wearing huge earphones and listening to rock and roll on a turntable in the window there. i thought this is portland perfect. this is exactly how i want to remember my youth.
the rain streamed down off my raincoat and soaked the tops of my pants.
amanda and i made pumpkin pancakes, cut up a sample of bartlett, bosch, and d'anjou pears, drank coffee, and i stared out into the rain as we ate, dreaming of pendleton plaid.
i love north mississippi. a little secluded and quiet, but very hip, north mississippi is very busy at least. i walked out this morning despite the rather heavy rain to forage for coffee at our neighborhood coffee house, the fresh pot. the rain poured down the streets and sidewalks, gravity pulling down toward the city center, to the willamette, which would carry it all away and dump our winter water in the pacific. the rain pooled in gutters and in intersections; deep puddles into which i would splash up past my ankles. i love my galoshes.
the fresh pot operates in an old drugstore, the Rx sign still visible in the concrete outside the door. the diffuse light of portland's fall filters through bright yellow awnings and mingles with the 20 watt light of old art nouveau lamps. the woman there kindly hands me a cup and fifty cents in change. i love my coffee. is there a secret god of coffee to whom i should be praying?
i braved the puddle outside fresh pot and cross mississippi to the new vintage clothing boutique that opened today. the shop owner offered me plaid western shirts and 501s. i found a beautiful pendleton plaid shirt (made in portland, oregon) in teal and purple and yellow, sized small, for twenty-two dollars. perfection! i love it. daniel will hate it. perfection!
back out in the street, in the miserable downpour, i passed the record store and thought it beautiful to see a man wearing black with raven hair and thick buddy holly glasses wearing huge earphones and listening to rock and roll on a turntable in the window there. i thought this is portland perfect. this is exactly how i want to remember my youth.
the rain streamed down off my raincoat and soaked the tops of my pants.
amanda and i made pumpkin pancakes, cut up a sample of bartlett, bosch, and d'anjou pears, drank coffee, and i stared out into the rain as we ate, dreaming of pendleton plaid.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
l'autobus
friday, i was leaving trader joe's in the hollywood district, waiting for the 75 to come by and take me back to mary anne's place on belmont. while standing there next to trader joe's, another bus heading the opposite direction pulled up. the driver stopped the bus right in front of me in the middle of the block. he opened his window, and grinning, waved vigorously to me. he had dark hair under a hat and a goatee. he looked slightly older than me, but from a distance he looked not unattractive. he seemed to recognize me, though i had (and still have) no clue as to his identity, though because he seemed to be so happy to see me, whoever he thought i must be, i waved in return and smiled. then he pulled to the end of the block and to the curb to let his passengers out. i stared after the bus trying to figure out who the strange driver could be. before pulling away, he opened his window again, stuck his hand out and waved. when i waved in return, he gave me a thumbs-up and drove away.
today, i didn't have a particularly pleasant experience on the bus. i missed the 35 up from john's landing into downtown so i had to hop on the streetcar at ohsu. then it took forever for the 15 to arrive which i had planned to take up belmont to mary anne's place to collect a few more of my belongings. while on the 15, a woman started crying loudly at the back of the bus. the sobs became screams, blood curdling screams. screams that i haven't heard outside of a slasher film. my fellow riders were petrified with terror. what was happening to this lady? then she cried out to the bus about our fake, smiling faces who didn't love god. this shouting led to more shouting about satan and no one loving satan. at this point the tension on the bus eased slightly as people realized this woman was obviously insane. the man across the aisle from me tried to talk sociably to his companion about their thanksgiving plans, interrupted only by this woman's shrieking about satan.
i like bikes.
today, i didn't have a particularly pleasant experience on the bus. i missed the 35 up from john's landing into downtown so i had to hop on the streetcar at ohsu. then it took forever for the 15 to arrive which i had planned to take up belmont to mary anne's place to collect a few more of my belongings. while on the 15, a woman started crying loudly at the back of the bus. the sobs became screams, blood curdling screams. screams that i haven't heard outside of a slasher film. my fellow riders were petrified with terror. what was happening to this lady? then she cried out to the bus about our fake, smiling faces who didn't love god. this shouting led to more shouting about satan and no one loving satan. at this point the tension on the bus eased slightly as people realized this woman was obviously insane. the man across the aisle from me tried to talk sociably to his companion about their thanksgiving plans, interrupted only by this woman's shrieking about satan.
i like bikes.
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