I got some text messages from Ben late last night:
I know that it's great there but there's something about bare oak branches when you look to the heavens that makes it hauntingly awesome.
Nothing quite like it.
Listen to a lonesome fiddle and look for skeletal hardwoods... you're here.
It's so nice when you look past the people.
It really caught me off-guard. I always kind of felt like I'd have my masculinity questioned if I ever said anything like that to him. I hope he doesn't mind my posting these.
I told him that while I already miss all that shale and oak, wet clay and madrona are really nice substitutes.
I realized last night that he's almost 30. Oh, man.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas
It didn't feel much like Christmas, of course. No blood relatives, no structure, very little ritual. But the best parts of the tradition were still there, and it was a whole heck of a lot of fun. Yes, indeed.
I hadn't expected everyone up here, especially not the old friends, to take the holiday so seriously. I got presents from people I've only known for a week or two. Lots of goofy toys, some good books, fancy bottles. Mitchel showed up with a Playstation 3 and about $300 worth of games for the house. That was something. Most of the friends who couldn't get home came over and we cooked up a big pot of chowder with local razor clams that some friend dug up a few days ago. A friend who spent some time in New Orleans made jambalaya. Muffins, mulled cider, hot toddies, slow-cooked wibs. This is pretty boring to write about, actually.
But the wibs! Lots and lots of wibs - three racks worth. One of my gifts was a formal induction into Wib Club, but I'm not allowed to talk about that. That's the first wule of Wib Club.
Anyway, the night led us to a small bar downtown where we saw a hardcore (as in the musical genre) band that's pretty famous locally. They're called Fitz of Depression, and that's about all I know about them. It's not the kind of music that I normally listen to willingly, and I'd never seen such a band live. It turned out to be a lot of fun - two hours of jumping, yelling, shoving strangers, getting shoved, and knowing along with everyone else that it was Christmas, and we were very drunk and very far away from our families. No resentment or anything like that, but rather something like resurrection, I guess. For me, anyway. I won't forget it.
After the show, we walked down the road (through the snow, which had only just begun to melt) to the only other open bar in town, where we found another friend singing Prince karaoke to an empty room. What happened the rest of the night is hard to describe. I'll just call it "dancing," and leave it at that.
On the subject of Christmas: this article is pretty funny.
I am still continually surprised by how friendly the people I've met are. A good example happened about a week ago, when the snow was still about a foot high and to the point that car traffic was almost nonexistent. I was still getting around by foot, but spending a lot of time inside because of the steepness of the street leading down to our house. For some reason, a friend who lives across town (one of the few who could drive) decided to bring me some food. She parked at the top of the long, steep, and icy road leading to our house and walked down to deliver a pizza, two big cups of minestrone, and a bottle of wine. She then immediately walked back up the hill and left in her car. I still can't get over that.
FUN FACT: She goes by her middle name, Bailey (my dog's name), and grew up with a dog named Baker (my middle name). I guess this isn't really worth writing about.
Looks like the room I was looking at isn't going to work out. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and I'd love to live around a dog again, but he wants $450 for rent and about $150 for utilities. Can't do that without at least a prospect of a job, so it looks like I'll be in Little Arkansas for a while still. It's working out fine so far, but I'd really like to have my own room. Oh well. Job first.
Anyway, pictures:
Our tree. If you look closely, you can see Babies sleeping in it.
Homemade marionberry-peach - easily the best pie I've ever had.
Yep. We have fun.
Here's a conversation that happened:
OLD MAN: We've got a problem!
NICK: What's wrong?
OLD MAN: Raccoons! They're all over the place and they knock over all the garbage cans!
NICK: Oh. Really?
OLD MAN: And they're mean!
I hadn't expected everyone up here, especially not the old friends, to take the holiday so seriously. I got presents from people I've only known for a week or two. Lots of goofy toys, some good books, fancy bottles. Mitchel showed up with a Playstation 3 and about $300 worth of games for the house. That was something. Most of the friends who couldn't get home came over and we cooked up a big pot of chowder with local razor clams that some friend dug up a few days ago. A friend who spent some time in New Orleans made jambalaya. Muffins, mulled cider, hot toddies, slow-cooked wibs. This is pretty boring to write about, actually.
But the wibs! Lots and lots of wibs - three racks worth. One of my gifts was a formal induction into Wib Club, but I'm not allowed to talk about that. That's the first wule of Wib Club.
Anyway, the night led us to a small bar downtown where we saw a hardcore (as in the musical genre) band that's pretty famous locally. They're called Fitz of Depression, and that's about all I know about them. It's not the kind of music that I normally listen to willingly, and I'd never seen such a band live. It turned out to be a lot of fun - two hours of jumping, yelling, shoving strangers, getting shoved, and knowing along with everyone else that it was Christmas, and we were very drunk and very far away from our families. No resentment or anything like that, but rather something like resurrection, I guess. For me, anyway. I won't forget it.
After the show, we walked down the road (through the snow, which had only just begun to melt) to the only other open bar in town, where we found another friend singing Prince karaoke to an empty room. What happened the rest of the night is hard to describe. I'll just call it "dancing," and leave it at that.
On the subject of Christmas: this article is pretty funny.
I am still continually surprised by how friendly the people I've met are. A good example happened about a week ago, when the snow was still about a foot high and to the point that car traffic was almost nonexistent. I was still getting around by foot, but spending a lot of time inside because of the steepness of the street leading down to our house. For some reason, a friend who lives across town (one of the few who could drive) decided to bring me some food. She parked at the top of the long, steep, and icy road leading to our house and walked down to deliver a pizza, two big cups of minestrone, and a bottle of wine. She then immediately walked back up the hill and left in her car. I still can't get over that.
FUN FACT: She goes by her middle name, Bailey (my dog's name), and grew up with a dog named Baker (my middle name). I guess this isn't really worth writing about.
Looks like the room I was looking at isn't going to work out. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and I'd love to live around a dog again, but he wants $450 for rent and about $150 for utilities. Can't do that without at least a prospect of a job, so it looks like I'll be in Little Arkansas for a while still. It's working out fine so far, but I'd really like to have my own room. Oh well. Job first.
Anyway, pictures:
Our tree. If you look closely, you can see Babies sleeping in it.
Homemade marionberry-peach - easily the best pie I've ever had.
Yep. We have fun.
Here's a conversation that happened:
OLD MAN: We've got a problem!
NICK: What's wrong?
OLD MAN: Raccoons! They're all over the place and they knock over all the garbage cans!
NICK: Oh. Really?
OLD MAN: And they're mean!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Six more inches
It's been snowing a lot, even for Olympia. Some pictures (click on each to expand):
Here I'm in some woods near our house.
This is our house, and what I woke up to this morning:
Part of my backyard as seen from the back door. It's usually much more green. Blackberries grow here in the summer.
Our nearest neighbors up the hill:
Made some blueberry pancakes with my new dinosaur cookie cutters. Nick ate them without much fuss.
Went outside, found a tire, built a ramp.
I'd attempted this a few times over the years in Arkansas, but there was never enough snow to finish more than about a two-foot wall, and it wasn't packable enough to make a dependable roof. The snow today was like styrofoam, and several inches deep, so this one is solid. Inside we could fit three people standing, two sitting.
I hope they find me before I have to start eating the cats.
Here I'm in some woods near our house.
This is our house, and what I woke up to this morning:
Part of my backyard as seen from the back door. It's usually much more green. Blackberries grow here in the summer.
Our nearest neighbors up the hill:
Made some blueberry pancakes with my new dinosaur cookie cutters. Nick ate them without much fuss.
Went outside, found a tire, built a ramp.
I'd attempted this a few times over the years in Arkansas, but there was never enough snow to finish more than about a two-foot wall, and it wasn't packable enough to make a dependable roof. The snow today was like styrofoam, and several inches deep, so this one is solid. Inside we could fit three people standing, two sitting.
I hope they find me before I have to start eating the cats.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Portland
Man oh man, what fun. Jeez Louise. Man.
Just barely escaped the ice pellets and the snow yesterday and somehow ended up in a very fancy hotel in downtown Portland for about $30. We visited two of Mitchel's friends whom I met the last few times I was here, Donny and Matana. Matana is Thai, probably less than five feet tall, and recently pregnant. She invited me to Thailand again, this time for a few weeks in April, after she has her kid. The plane ticket will be about $900, she says. I don't know, but wouldn't that be something.
Matana. What a cool name.
Later in the night, we crashed some kind of country club and had fancy drinks and cigars among old people. It wasn't really as thrilling or daring as it probably sounds. I still don't really understand what happened or where we were, but we had ourselves a time.
From there we went back downtown to our hotel and wandered around the city. Not much was open by that time except some gentlemen's clubs and taco trucks, so we ended up at one of the former. At some point I realized that it was probably the same club where Emma, the friend by whom I became interested in Portland when I was 16, danced years ago.
See how classy I am? I called it a "gentlemen's club."
Everyone else went to bed around three, so I wandered alone until about six with a vague feeling of safety, excitement, and connection in a mysteriously empty downtown. Not much happened, but it was nice. A bundled fellow with an old man's gait was intensely and outwardly angry at me for a minute or two. "Why am I getting screamed at?" I thought, but made a point not to appear shaken. He was not visibly affected by my brave display, so I walked away, and somehow that was that.
The next morning we checked out and had Belgian waffles at a Swedish restaurant. A Swedish restaurant! I'd planned a joke about belchin' waffles, but just when the perfect moment came, my voice was drowned out by some uncomfortably forward words from a man in a Santa Claus outfit. I've got to learn to be louder if I'm gonna make it in the big city.
Everything else is going well. I bought a nice "extra-firm" pillow, and since have felt proud of my responsible choice to deny the ones stuffed with down. I also have some new bedsheets with cowboys and horses and sheriff badges and such. Also, I live with a friend whose parents named him "Sheriff."
Surprisingly, I haven't been lonely. There are more new friends than I can keep up with coming and going from the house all the time, and no one seems to have a problem with walking right on in and just having a swell time with or without the official housemates. My neighbors up the hill are pretty, petite young ladies with fancy haircuts that hug without much reservation or warning. "You're amazing!" one of them said to me right after such a hug the other night. I told her she hadn't earned that hug. I hardly even knew her, I said. You can't just take my hugs.
What else? I walk to the grocery store. The buses come about every 20 minutes. I'm still waiting on my phone - it should be here sometime next week, I guess. I finally saw the sun for a minute or so this afternoon. I was surprised to realize that I don't really need personal transportation, but I'm considering taking motorcycle classes anyway. I've got some feelers out for jobs. Still able to read a lot, still drinking tea in the morning at leisure, still finding myself able to laugh at my roommate's jokes. The first week has gone well.
In general, I'm uncharacteristically optimistic.
Just barely escaped the ice pellets and the snow yesterday and somehow ended up in a very fancy hotel in downtown Portland for about $30. We visited two of Mitchel's friends whom I met the last few times I was here, Donny and Matana. Matana is Thai, probably less than five feet tall, and recently pregnant. She invited me to Thailand again, this time for a few weeks in April, after she has her kid. The plane ticket will be about $900, she says. I don't know, but wouldn't that be something.
Matana. What a cool name.
Later in the night, we crashed some kind of country club and had fancy drinks and cigars among old people. It wasn't really as thrilling or daring as it probably sounds. I still don't really understand what happened or where we were, but we had ourselves a time.
From there we went back downtown to our hotel and wandered around the city. Not much was open by that time except some gentlemen's clubs and taco trucks, so we ended up at one of the former. At some point I realized that it was probably the same club where Emma, the friend by whom I became interested in Portland when I was 16, danced years ago.
See how classy I am? I called it a "gentlemen's club."
Everyone else went to bed around three, so I wandered alone until about six with a vague feeling of safety, excitement, and connection in a mysteriously empty downtown. Not much happened, but it was nice. A bundled fellow with an old man's gait was intensely and outwardly angry at me for a minute or two. "Why am I getting screamed at?" I thought, but made a point not to appear shaken. He was not visibly affected by my brave display, so I walked away, and somehow that was that.
The next morning we checked out and had Belgian waffles at a Swedish restaurant. A Swedish restaurant! I'd planned a joke about belchin' waffles, but just when the perfect moment came, my voice was drowned out by some uncomfortably forward words from a man in a Santa Claus outfit. I've got to learn to be louder if I'm gonna make it in the big city.
Everything else is going well. I bought a nice "extra-firm" pillow, and since have felt proud of my responsible choice to deny the ones stuffed with down. I also have some new bedsheets with cowboys and horses and sheriff badges and such. Also, I live with a friend whose parents named him "Sheriff."
Surprisingly, I haven't been lonely. There are more new friends than I can keep up with coming and going from the house all the time, and no one seems to have a problem with walking right on in and just having a swell time with or without the official housemates. My neighbors up the hill are pretty, petite young ladies with fancy haircuts that hug without much reservation or warning. "You're amazing!" one of them said to me right after such a hug the other night. I told her she hadn't earned that hug. I hardly even knew her, I said. You can't just take my hugs.
What else? I walk to the grocery store. The buses come about every 20 minutes. I'm still waiting on my phone - it should be here sometime next week, I guess. I finally saw the sun for a minute or so this afternoon. I was surprised to realize that I don't really need personal transportation, but I'm considering taking motorcycle classes anyway. I've got some feelers out for jobs. Still able to read a lot, still drinking tea in the morning at leisure, still finding myself able to laugh at my roommate's jokes. The first week has gone well.
In general, I'm uncharacteristically optimistic.
Friday, December 12, 2008
SNOW
There is a 100% chance of snow tomorrow, with a chance of ice pellets, and winds from 20-30 mph. What are ice pellets? I am not good with weather. I hope my boots get here in time.
"god DAMMIT what is barry going to do about his PROBLEMS"
-Brian Conrad
Things that are different here:
- It rains a lot, but pretty lightly and no one seems to mind or let it restrict their plans. Also, it makes a nice sound on the skylight when I wake up. The sun hasn't been around since I got here, and probably won't be back until Spring, they say.
- It is very hard to spend less than $10 at a restaurant of any quality. I eat a lot of Frito pies lately.
- There is a 10-foot diameter trampoline in the living room. This gets more annoying than I anticipated.
- There are lots of beers I've never heard of, but I don't have money to try them all so I usually just give up altogether.
- CASHEWS on PIZZA?!?
- Canadians walk among us, undetected. I even sorta made friends with one on accident.
- Groceries are noticeably more expensive, but not outrageously so. There is no grocery tax, and some other rules on taxes I don't yet understand.
- Deer let you touch them, but they don't seem to enjoy it very much.
- Cheap Japanese food is EVERYWHERE. Thai is common too, but never cheap.
- The only fat people I've seen appear to be over 40 years old. Black people don't seem to exist here in any form.
I have lots of pictures, but not much to say. I think that might change once I get more settled and have more time to myself.
"god DAMMIT what is barry going to do about his PROBLEMS"
-Brian Conrad
Things that are different here:
- It rains a lot, but pretty lightly and no one seems to mind or let it restrict their plans. Also, it makes a nice sound on the skylight when I wake up. The sun hasn't been around since I got here, and probably won't be back until Spring, they say.
- It is very hard to spend less than $10 at a restaurant of any quality. I eat a lot of Frito pies lately.
- There is a 10-foot diameter trampoline in the living room. This gets more annoying than I anticipated.
- There are lots of beers I've never heard of, but I don't have money to try them all so I usually just give up altogether.
- CASHEWS on PIZZA?!?
- Canadians walk among us, undetected. I even sorta made friends with one on accident.
- Groceries are noticeably more expensive, but not outrageously so. There is no grocery tax, and some other rules on taxes I don't yet understand.
- Deer let you touch them, but they don't seem to enjoy it very much.
- Cheap Japanese food is EVERYWHERE. Thai is common too, but never cheap.
- The only fat people I've seen appear to be over 40 years old. Black people don't seem to exist here in any form.
I have lots of pictures, but not much to say. I think that might change once I get more settled and have more time to myself.
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