Snarky Fern

Old friends, older skin

2011-06-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

I think I was 19, maybe 20 when facebook appeared in the college sphere, so I've moved, changed jobs, schools, friend circles many times since those early days of the fb. So, like many people my age, I have fb friends I don't recognize when I see their pictures. I'm not one of those fb purgers who periodically surges with mad power and evicts 'friends' from my facebook,* so I have a lot of these unrecognizables.

BUT: I can't help but wonder, am I unique in the amount of old friends-turned-female body builders I've accumulated and forgotten over the evolution of facebook? It's not that I don't remember these people. I do. I know we lived in the same building, or took a class together**, or something. But when I see their pictures, they are so tanned and chiseled that I have NO IDEA who they are. I see their name and think, "how odd to have a picture of a black woman as your profile pic. I don't think I understand the ironic joke going on here....oh wait." .

Oh wait. That is you who I used to know. You are obviously not an fb purger either. Our commonalities may end there. Do you still know people like me? Do they mock you? They must if they are like me. How do you get along with them? Do I still know people like you? Do they secretly hate me? Do I mind?

I think I'm excited for you.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am.

Not enough to fb you though. I'll just write about you behind your back. Friends I have now who are closeted body builders...hmm. Deal?

*or Face Page, as my mom calls it

**PE, I think, which strikes me as especially...something.

The very real importance of fiction

2011-03-23T19:50:00.000-07:00

After reading all of the published fiction of David James Duncan, I moved onto his nonfiction. And I was surprised to discover I hated him a little when I read he struggled between his desire to create fiction and the more immediate drive to write nonfiction. Duncan's nonfiction is often in response to a pressing environmental crisis threatening rivers in the northwest. What a dick, right? But I did resent the implication that fiction is less important or impacting than nonfiction. I wanted to shake this celebrated writer, thump him upside the head and tell him the only thing nonfiction has (in his case) on fiction is that it's faster. And (in his case) it shows.

So! Imagine my horror when I read Duncan's latest piece of nonfiction, The Heart of the Monster, about ExxonMobil megaloads trucking through the northwest to the Alberta Tar Sands. Of course, the writing is solid, but who cares. Talentless hacks can pen moving pieces when they're about the impending and tragic end of the world as we know it. I completely fell apart. I put off fiction pieces I was supposed to be writing to email my senators, representative, governor, and even a senator in my home state. I missed deadlines to beg everyone I knew to go protest the megaloads with me. Hardly anyone showed up.

I ride my bike everywhere always and only wear used clothes and only buy food from my region and it has very very very little effect on the world. Next the Senate voted to cut a ton of Planned Parenthood's federal funding. I wrote to my government people again. Then NPR. I wrote again. I had this horrible feeling I'd never had before and I couldn't figure out what it was. It took me about a week before I realized it was depression. Don't tell my bipolar mother who has hoped my entire life I would feel this way, but that's exactly what it was. I called my dad.

At first I thought I was calling him because I wanted him to write government people about the megaloads. I tried, shrilly, to explain how big they are (seven times the legal limit previously allowed on the road!) He told me to stop reading the newspaper. I tried to convince him to subscribe to the paperless version of the paper. He said the world has looked like it was going to end forever. I told him this time it really was. All the fish and bees are going to die and we will be fucked. Tragedy is easier to see in the short term, he told me. When he was young he was refused service because he had long hair (much shorter than his hair now) and looked like a Native American. He regularly saw signs in businesses reading: "No Mexicans, No niggers, No dogs." This is in Idaho. There are dogs, but they can't read.

So I guess he had a point. I cried and he told me stop checking the the news for a couple days and to do something decadent. I decided to bake cookies and moodily thought about how when the world is going down all around me, I could at least probably bake some cookies because there's no way we're going to lose power. That's right, I said it. Cormac McCarthy, The Road doesn't work for me because we would all die of dehydration LONG before we'd stop getting digital TV and Facebook to every corner of the world.

Baking cookies reminded me of the line from Stranger Than Fiction when Maggie Gyllenhaal's character says if she's going to make the world a better place, she'll do it with cookies. So I embraced my decadence and watched it. I deleted all the form email responses I'd received from my government people and did something that would not make the world a better place.

And, have you seen that movie? It's lovely. It's clever and funny and sweet and sad. And it's about the importance of a good story. Oh, I cried. I love movies. And novels. I love crying at movies and novels. I've read almost all of David James Duncan's nonfiction, but I get them all confused. I can't tell you the titles of his essays or which companies or rivers each was about. But his fiction I remember in so many different ways. Quotes from the stories pop into my head at random times. I draw on them when dealing with difficult situations--all of the brothers from Brothers K and Gus from The River Why, for example all struggle with interacting with society to make change and holing up and staying to themselves. I feel things for rivers and nature in my gut that I can intellectualize, not through Duncan's essays, but through his fiction. I got depressed when I got entangled in the nonfiction. And what I think usually keeps me out of depression is very large helpings of fiction. I feel just as deeply and am probably more productive when I have fiction in my life. I still hope everyone reads The Heart of the Monster because I think it's important. But as much as I fear for rivers, I get very afraid when people shove aside fiction for more immediate things.

I'll be ok. O.K. Okay.

2010-07-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

While writing to my best and telling her I was excruciatingly heartbroken, my sobs suddenly paused for me to figure out the spelling of "excruciatingly."

Sleeping Around

2010-05-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

The first sleep over I can remember was at my friend Ashley's house. I loved her house because they had a small trampoline* and instead of putting toys away in their rooms they could just leave them on the stairs. We were friends for many reasons I'm sure, but most notably because we had good taste: she had a My Little Pony (TM) sleeping bag and I, Pound Puppies (TM).

When I was in late elementary or middle school, I got a black sleeping bag with plaid flannel lining. Very practical. Through high school and college I would get away with borrowing sleeping bags--usually black or blue slumber jack (TM) little numbers for trips and camping, but that requires so much planning. I want to go camping at a moment's notice!

So, at age 25, I've invested in my own, grown up sleeping bag for camping and sleep overs. I looked at all the specifics before making my choice. It's designed for a small woman, is temperature rated to 15 degrees and weighs practically nothing for hiking in and out with. And, most importantly, while sleeping bags for grown ups don't come in the Pound Puppy (TM) variety, they do come in pink. Hot pink.

*like one you use in aerobics class

News I get today

2010-04-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

My favorite ex is riding a motorcycle around India and being paid to write about and photograph his favorite thing in the world--Polo.

My older sister's best friend, my fake sister who coaches me through heartbreak since my sister has never experienced it, is getting married to an amazing guy who understands her.

Sigh. What am I doing?

It's good to have friends doing amazing things when you're down because you can remember times when they were down and now look at them.

It can make you feel like a fuck-up too.

Embarrassment Deserves Company

2010-04-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most thoughtful and classy people I know recently got drunk and embarrassed herself at a bar. The next day she shamefully explained to me how she got kicked out for purposely messing with the speakers for the show that night. She didn't even know why she'd done it. Someone else told her, "You don't even want to know what else you did last night."

But I do! I think these stories need to be shared. Who the hell knows why we do these things, but when* we do it sure is comforting to hear about other people doing similarly stupid things. I told my friend about another friend of mine who puked on herself while sitting at the bar while home for the holidays. Oh bring me some figgy puking?

And how I recently got kicked out of a bar for bringing my own beer. What am I? An alcoholic Great Depression survivor?

I felt a little guilty about telling the puking story. Was it mine to tell? I admitted to my friend I'd shared her story, but then just told her my other friend's story. What is wrong with me?!

I talked to my Christmas puker friend just today and she reported another good friend of ours had gotten drunk at a wedding recently and was feeling embarrassed about it. She said she told her my friend's story about getting kicked out for commandeering the sound control. Maybe neither of these stories were mine to tell, and maybe it's wrong to perpetuate embarrassing stories. But each time these stories got told, they made someone feel better for making a fool of themselves. So maybe we didn't humiliate ourselves in vain. Or at least, we're in respectable company. When my yuletide yaker** friend told my wasted wedding friend about my sloshed show-stopping friend, the wedding-goer insisted that another story of another friend get passed back through the line. This friend got so drunk and impatient that she slipped behind the bar and pretended to be a bartender there. She probably could have done a good job too, but was busted when she stole a swig of some unsuspecting patron's beer. The guy was apparently pissed*** and made a scene. But who hasn't, at one time or another, made a scene in a bar? What goes around, comes around. And I think that's comforting to know.

*WHEN, not if

**Forgive me! Forgive me you all!

***And not just British 'pissed'

2010-04-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

From http://annagraythings.blogspot.com/

This is a poster from my favorite artist duo. I think it sums up my life quite nicely right now.

Finally! Free drinks!

2010-04-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

Finally, a stranger sent over a drink for me in a bar! Just like in the movies! (1) I mean I've had possible roofy-peddling men buy me drinks in a bar before, but I didn't actually drink them. (2) But THIS TIME, the suave stranger sent it over via the waitress (ie roofy free). One for me...and one for my date. Also this suave stranger was a woman in her mid 50s. Jealous?

Some people say that everyone should work in the service industry at some point in their lives. The theory is that this will keep people from being bitches when they go out to eat. But, a more positive way to look at it is: Free Drinks!

When we got to the restaurant it was super crowded and we slipped into a big table as soon as it was clear. A couple minutes later a group of 50-somethings came in and had to awkwardly stand around. My former hostess brain kicked in and I found a small table my friend and I could scoot into and gave the bigger table to the bigger group. It seemed like simple mathematics to us, but the group was so appreciative that they bought us a round of drinks.

Win-win-win!

(1) Sort of.

(2) Paranoid? Eh, I don't always hang out at the classiest places. Plus, these men usually order gross, slutty drinks so they're pretty easy to turn down.

I believe in girl scouts

2010-03-12T10:42:00.000-08:00

I did something sort of horrible today. After buying a box of girl scout cookies (1), I checked their change counting in my head, and, worse yet, for a moment doubted the freckly scouts gave me the correct change.

I spent most of my morning at work chatting online with my best friend who is across the country. Normally, even though my job is painfully boring, I wouldn't do this. But last night my boyfriend broke up with me. Or so I thought. Or at the very least, I assumed that he had forced me into the position of breaking up with him today. (The day is still young.) I logged on to ask my best friend if I was going to end up going to a sperm bank and raising a baby on my own. (2)

This is the sort of thing that happens when you're a highly stressed out immature artist type dating the immature critical mind type who is suffering from (reveling in?) ennui.

At this point my boss (who also must think our work is boring) puppetted up from behind a cubicle half-wall to inform me there were girl scouts about peddling cookies. Oh no. Depression food. And I have cash. I'm heartbroken and hurt, but I do not want to stoop to depressed. I stealthily typed this to my best friend.

But she has a different opinion on girl scout cookies. Her great aunt helped to found the Girl Scouts and she tells me I should support a good cause. (3) I decide to agree with her and on my way to the official break up, I buy a box.

Safely out of the eyes of my pending ex, I stow the cookies in my bag for after and ride my bike towards his house. I think for a moment about how the girls counted my change back. The red head counted it to the one who looked like a 9-year-old version of my sister who counted it back to me. There is always such an awkward element to this yearly exchange with girl scouts. You never pay attention to the money because you're just smiling at them trying to calm their nerves as they focus on counting and being polite.

And in that brief moment where I recounted in my head, I remembered my friend Gwen from high school yearbook. She was a foreign exchange student and I was her editor. The rest of my staff had long ago forgotten how to diagram English sentences, but Gwen! Gwen was the perfect proofreader. If she didn't understand the sentence, it was not a sentence. And (4) if a girl scout can't count change, NO ONE can count change. Such concentration, such care paid to detail! Nope, a girl scout would never screw someone over. ESPECIALLY not a fellow girl on her way to be screwed over by a guy. Some dumb boy! Some cootie-carrying asshole. (5)

So I took my cookies home after the breakup (6) and found my neighbors trying to push a car that was parking them in. They were pissed and hot and sweaty. Cue cookies! We leaned against the cumbersome, unaffected bastard of a car and ate our cookies. It's hard to bitch with cookies in your mouth. So we didn't. Those clever girls.

(1) Samoas, of course.

(2) When we're in high school we're terrified we'll get pregnant, then later we're terrified we'll be one of "those women" who raise a family on their own. It's unfair and I respect women who do it. And while I may be being dramatic, I do sort of assume I will be one of these women.

(3) According to the website of Troop 1440 of Wakefield, Massachusetts, Girl Scouts most likely sold cookies since 1912, the year of their founding, but the first commercially-baked cookies were sold in Philadelphia in 1936.

(4) Gwen would not approve of this sentence beginning with a conjunction, but I'm a native grammar breaker.

(5) Too far?

(6) You yadda yadda yaddad over the best part. I mentioned the cookies.

Look out 2010!

2010-01-22T13:42:00.000-08:00

22 days into the new year, I got a new planner. Is there anything more promising and exciting than a new planner? I was thinking I would make one, but then I realized I wouldn't have a planner until April. Already I am more responsible!

It's adorable though, that Moleskine thinks that my day doesn't start until 8AM and I don't have to work on Sunday. Thanks Moleskine, for thinking I'm a healthy, rested person who plans.

My New Lover's Ex

2010-01-14T15:46:00.001-08:00

My new boyfriend's ex-girlfriend has work published in McSweeney's Quarterly, Tin House, Atlantic Monthly, and forthcoming in Zyzzyva. She lives on the beach and sports an amazing haircut. Look for her new book, out this fall.

Good First Impressions: More Failings in Growing Up

2009-06-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

"Monday, interview 11 AM." I wrote it on my calendar. I picked 11 AM because I wanted to have time to shower and calm myself before the phone rang to begin my 11 AM phone interview. It was a phone interview because the job is in Montana and I am in Portland, Oregon. "Montana" is some Latin form of the word "mountain," as in Mountain Time, one hour later than Pacific Time, which is where Portland is. Needless to say, I was not calm and collected for my 11 AM interview because it was at 10 AM Pacific Time. Duh.

I was, however, clean for my phone interview. I showered for a phone interview because I wanted to feel professional. But, it's very hard to feel professional and on top of your game, when you are, yes, clean, but also completely and totally naked.

Italians are poor, but they're happy.

2009-06-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

I ride my bike down a big hill to get home at night. The speed limit for cars is 40 mph, so I put my bike in my highest (yes, highest, right? hardest?) gear and pedal as quickly as possible to keep out of people's way, and because it's more fun to go fast. I try to check behind me and if there is a car on my ass, I'll pull over and let them by. Most of the time I am very good about this. And this particular time, I was, this moving van was not on my ass, but I got way over out of his way at the bottom of the hill and he flipped me off! He didn't even look at me, I didn't slow him down (I know because I passed him again!) but he just didn't like me because I was on a bike and wanted to flip me off. I was so pissed and tired from work that I started crying. Crying on a bike at night, super safe.

BUT TODAY it was windy and there were more people on the road, so I didn't go quite as fast as I usually do. There was a truck a little closer behind me than the bird-flipping moving van, but I didn't pull over because there was too much traffic. At the bottom of the hill in the exact same spot I got flipped off, the truck pulled up next to me and rolled down his window. I could hear him yelling at me and didn't want to look, but I did. I was ready to flip him the bird right back, but (thank god) I stopped and he yelled "You were nearly doing 40!" I laughed and waved at him and said thanks. And then I laughed and laughed the rest of the way home. 40! I was going the speed limit when the moving van flipped me off. PLUS I felt like Dave in Breaking Away I wanted to sing in Italian and wave at neighbors. Instead I just smiled really big at everyone I passed.

Dear Former Future Boyfriend:

2009-03-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

A second KAYAK. Not a 60th of a minute to talk. I don't want to talk, I want to 'yak. Oooh, too lame? Yeah. Too lame. It was beautiful while it lasted, though wasn't it? It's not you. It was the dream of you(r kayak).

Adios.

I saw you: On the river

2009-03-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Future Boyfriend,

Nice kayak.

Let me know when you get a second.

'Til then~

Staying Awake

2009-02-07T21:43:00.001-08:00

I love this essay by Ursula Le Guin from Harper's.

Wake up and read it.

poem to follow

2009-01-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

This evening I had a poem in my head as I walked home looking at the stars, a rare glimpse of my past life out of Portland. I don't remember my legs moving but I remember feeling my breath slip cold in and out of my lips. And it's strange to feel a color, but you know what it means when I say I could feel the pink of my cheeks? With the ingredients of cereal slung over my shoulder, my excuse for being outside, I walked and thought my life isn't so bad. I decided that someday I will have a million stars and the blackest sky in my front yard. I will stand outside and look up at them past the point of tranquil giddy dizziness when I get home late. My family will be asleep inside and I will breathe in how lucky I am. Crisp happiness will slide over my lips and fall slowly down my throat. And when I have had my swallow full of what I've been through to get here I will grab the door with a tingly bare hand and go inside, to where the subject of my poem is waiting for me.

But for now, over the crashing and bumping of my roommates in the city, I can't remember how the poem went.

Oh 2009...

2009-01-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

Ten days into my new year (remember, mine started January 4th) and a lot has happened. I'm moving. I kissed the cute boy. I registered for the GRE. It's too cold for a skirt but I wore red heels for no reason. I quit the writing group I joined. I haven't been standing up very straight, but I am at this very moment. Whoo. I'm such a hard worker.

Big things, fun and scary new things to dot in old patterns of always things, but the best things are two of my favorite people who send me news and poems from across the country and across the Atlantic.

My 20-year-running best friend sends out craigslist missed connections ads to the world to tell people she likes their scarves, the way they wear their hair, just that she saw them picking up litter and appreciated it. "Finally, a way to express my love for total strangers!" She exclaimed to me when she discovered this publicly recognized alternative to hugging random passersby. So finally! How better to start the year, than to see someone so loving get a little back. Her cool scarf-wearing, craigslist-complimenting doppleganger posted about her pretty hair and adorable smile in the missed connections. A match made in cyberheaven? I'm just saying, only inviting people to your wedding through craigslist could be kind of fun(/terrifying!) .

Another wonderful friend whom I don't get to see often lately has also contributed more than he knows to my new year. When I told my friend abroad I quit writing group because it was too regimented and too uncreative he suggested we send each other work on every day in the month with a 3 in it. It's sporadically and crazily regimented, which I love. I clean and pay bills and stop drinking caffeine in bipolar spurts of gusto which I forget later, only to revamp when I'm struck by fear or boredom or...anything really. I need more discipline in my writing, but I don't want to stifle it with too much discipline. This way I get needed kicks in the ass, but I'm not completely tied to these and only these deadlines. It's the same reason I love people who measure times in 'ish.' These people get things done, but they're not insane about it. Plus, I get poems in my inbox at least three times a month. Very few things are better than that.

Let's hope I keep this all up.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-04T18:32:00.001-08:00

I love new year's resolutions. I'm not religious at all and I love Lent too. I have very little discipline in my life, so I appreciate it where I can get it. There is just something so wonderfully cathartic about compartmentalizing all my slouching, gluttonous TV watching, slutty trysts and general failure to grow up to "2008."

**Sigh.**

All that said, I am making my list of new year's resolutions today, January 4th. Classy.

Get the Hell Out of Portland (in the mean time greatly improve my Ptown situation)

This was a pre-xmas determination and actually makes a lot of sense mostly because Portland is expensive and I'm applying to grad school out of state. I hate my current living situation because my roommates are a fiery artistic couple who forget I live here and might need a place to cook, or shower, or sit, or do my laundry, or walk, and thus leave their shit everywhere or re-caulk the shower three times in one week or don't mind that we have mice and ants because they drop food all over the place. Um, anyway. This is already partially fulfilled! I'm moving out February 1st! Now how to tell them....

This resolution also includes applying for better jobs here and elsewhere.

Become Less Awkward

This one I actually made at about 1:00 or 2:00 AM on January 1st whilst still celebrating the new year at a friend's party. After dancing much with my favorite member of the party's main band, said cutest member slapped me five while we passed between rooms. I kept walking while he interlocked our fingers--an attempt to get me to stop and talk and flirt with him? Probably! But I'll never know since I pulled away and kept walking.

WRITE WRITE WRITE

So...I want to be a writer, but alas with the discipline! I need to set up a strict schedule and keep to it. I joined a writing group, but they seem a little weird...supposedly beggars can't be choosers, but I think I'm giving up that mentality for 2009 as well.

Wear Skirts/Dresses More

I stole this one from a friend because it's just fun. All too often I chose functionality over what I really want to wear and that's dumb. Days are better when you have a little swoosh in your step.

Stand Up Straight

I'm a sloucher and this one is ALWAYS on my list. I don't consider myself very vain, but I don't want to have a hump when I'm old.

Cook!

Again, functionality over fun. I eat to stay alive, but I should learn to make something delicious besides sandwiches. Probably.

Hmm, I wrote less and less as the list went on. Resolutions are fun, but tiring.

We'll see!

My New Favorite Blog!

2009-01-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Book By Its Cover is an awesome collection of small press and self-published books. Each is unique and usually oddly beautiful. It's like going to my favorite little zine shop, Reading Frenzy, only it's at home and in my underoos!

Thank you Racism!

2008-12-31T13:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just really appreciate a good dose of racism. I get tired of having to be so nice all the time--especially to boring people. I make eye contact and I smile because I'm being nice, NOT because I want to hear, drunk guy, about every party you ever went to in your high school days because you are dating the sister of a guy I used to be friends with or see, old man, pictures of your seven (seven!) great grandchildren in Denver, Boise, Coeur d' Alene, and Portland while we sit in an airport. I just want to read my trashy magazine.

But how do you gracefully bow out of an annoying conversation? You can't. However! All gracelessness is forgiven if the person you're talking to seems like a racist. The only people you don't have to feel bad about hating are racists. It's pot-kettle-black logic, but it's true, you know it is. And it's rescued me twice in the last week.

The first time, my escape route from a conversation was blocked by three large guys, drinking and talking about memories. Things I had no interest in, but I would have had to practically crawl over them to join a different conversation. But *Aaaahhh* that's when the conversation gods opened up the marlboro smoke clouds and the conversation turned to a ten-years-past Aryan Nation party. For those sweet naive coastal state dwellers who don't know what an Aryan Nation is, I'll tell you. The Aryan Nations are a white supremacist group that had a large following in the inland northwest in the 90s. TRUMP! He went to a white supremacist kegger?? Even if it was a drunken mistake, I don't want to talk about it and I am out of this conversation. Do I come off as a snob as I hop the coffee table leaving a trail of spilled beer in my wake? Hell, yes. But a snob is nothing compared to an Aryan Nationalist and any rudeness on my part is excused by anyone with half a brain around. And if I'm not forgiven by the Aryan sympathizer, does it really matter? Not to me!

The second time someone else's racism saved me from mere annoyance was at the airport when a proud grandpa had moved on from showing pictures to showing the medical cards he has explaining that he has two metal knees. Airport security, much to this man's chagrin, doesn't care that he has these official cheap-looking paper cards and always pats him down anyway. And the last time this happened, he tells me, a--insert derogatory phrase for someone of Arab descent here--went through the metal detectors without a hitch and they let him right on through. Not that he's prejudiced, he said, but that really made him mad. Cha-ching! Previously I had been trying to read snippets of an article on Kate and Leo's silver screen reunion between viewings of photos of little Lucy and her cousins. Crossing my legs away from him, not elaborating when asked a question, the usually tricks to imply: "Hey! I've been up since 4 in the morning to catch this flight and it is now six hours late! I'm tired and I don't want to talk!" So now! With the Arab bashing that wasn't cool in September 2001 and definitely is inappropriate SEVEN YEARS later (one year from every great grandchild!), I am off the hook. I say, "Well. Hmm." and I look down at my article and don't look up. I'm flabbergasted and don't know how to talk to this man I already didn't know how to talk to, so now I have an out. I act awkward and he realizes it and gets up to check the screen for an incoming flight. Phew.

To their credit, I think both of these men were relatively harmless, but neither had ever really left the inland northwest, physically or intellectually, and just didn't realize how ignorant they sounded. So yes, racism is horrible; it breaks down relations between cultures and individuals and that's why I can appreciate it in minor situations when that is exactly what I need. Break down relations between me and Mr. Boring-Slightly-Racist-Chatterbox!

A Question to the Universe

2008-12-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

After six months of living in one place, I finally got my bedroom clean. I have a bad habit of piling mail and other papers I don't know what to do with on the floor next to my bed. I'm trying really hard to break this and so, Universe, my question is this: Can you cause cosmic hell for recycling a family's Christmas card? Keyword: **recycling** Those fat little cherub faces will be made into toilet or newspaper. Who doesn't like to be considered useful?

2008-12-04T00:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Boy Who Blasts OPB In Your Car On Third Ave.,

You're darling.

Sincerely,

Girl Who Is Too Scared To Wear Head Phones On Bike

Coffeehouse Northwest Kids: KUDOS!!

2008-11-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

Coffeehouse Northwest (1) is located on the north side of W. Burnside near PGE Park. Right across from a Starbucks, actually. Classy, Starbucks, classy. But anyway. C-Ho NW is famous around Portland (and I think maybe the US) for it's $4 Mexican hot chocolate (2). It's thick, delicious drinking chocolate. They're also frequently written about for their beautiful and amazingly tasty coffee. They are not, however, mentioned for their baristas. And that's dumb. Today is Thanksgiving and every single one of the (currently) all male barista team was there this morning and so happy about it. Every year on Thanksgiving, Coffeehouse Northwest is open all morning and everything (EVERYTHING: coffee, tea, danishes, everything!) is free. They have a big glass jar for people to throw cash in which all goes to charity and all the employees work for free that day.

In true all-boy style, I received a mass text last night informing me about this great event. When I got there, every seat was taken by hipsters, businessmen, coffee nerds and reg. joes just in need of something hot to drink on a really cold Portland day. Basically, all the people who didn't have to cook this morning. And who can blame them? I'll hang out in a cafe for charity any day.

I had four dollars in my wallet so I threw it into the vat of cash and ordered a small latte. "For here?" the barista asked me like he was inviting me to dinner. I had to go home and make pie, but I was suddenly sad about it. These guys probably aren't great cooks or homeowners, but damn, they make good coffee and this was the Thanksgiving feast they were preparing for anyone who wanted to share it with them.

I asked my friend who'd texted me how it was going so far. It's always pretty busy, but it was especially packed today. He told me it was great, that who doesn't like spending Thanksgiving with people you like? Then he chatted with me about sweet potato chips for a while even though there was a ton of work to be done around him. It was just like when my stepmom hosts holidays and makes everyone feel welcome even though she's working her ass off.

They made my latte for me super fast and even though they weren't getting tipped, or even paid, it had a perfect tulip milk design in the foam. I was feeling sort of homesick for my family on my way to the coffee house, but when I left it was like leaving a friend's house. A friend's house with free caffein! So, C-Ho kids, just in case no one's told you: you are fabulous with great hearts and mad delicious skills. THANKS!

1. The C-Ho or CoHo, as it is often lovingly referred to.

2. Yep, a ho-cho from the CoHo! They don't really think this hilarious joke is funny though, just to warn you.

interesting post-election thoughts

2008-11-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

This American Moment

Failings in Growing Up

2008-10-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

I was recently presented with a thorough and true lose-lose situation. And after assessing all my horrible options, I found a third, more cowardly option than the original two loses.

The house I share with three roommates, the first house-house, not apartment, I've lived in since the house I grew up in, has mouse problems. Mice problems. After mouse motels and haunta virus hotels, we've graduated up to the quick and dirty; the traps in Tom and Jerry cartoons that only cat paws ever get caught in. And for a while, I was the only one who would set them off with my pink slippered feet.

But my roommates have stalked the mice and have placed them more strategically. And the mice have gotten bolder. And these traps are dirty, but they are not quick. Not as quick as the mice. So the mice don't die, they only get stuck. And then they struggle and sweat to get free until I come along to find them. At least this one. The poor little one I found the other morning.

When I was 10ish and my sister was 14ish I remember her coming home from a hard day at the restaurant where she worked. Someone had caught and killed a mouse--a mother mouse. So my sister and the other bussers and prep cooks had to kill the naked blind babies screaming for their mother. They did the right thing. They where all somber and upset about it, but they found a board, laid it over the baby mice, and one of the stronger (emotionally) bussers stomped down on it.

When I was four my family went to Disneyland and I hardly remember any part of it. No rides, no lines, not even Mickey. But I do remember Cinderella. I remember she shook my hand and I was in heaven. Cinderella who befriended birds and dogs and horses and mice, the kindest soul in all of Walt Disney's imaginings, shook my hand.

As I snuck around the mouse's back I didn't believe he'd been caught. It looked like he was inspecting the trap. But he would have had to hear me yell at him, "What the hell are you doing here?" and he hadn't flitted away all quick and light like I know an unstuck mouse can. Keeping my distance, I tip-toed around him. Seeing the trap had snapped, but still confused about how it killed him I leaned in closer. That's when I saw the sweaty fur on the back of his neck. Slowly and tragically, his little head pivoted toward me and his blind little eyes looked right into mine. Fuck! Why are vermin so heartbreakingly adorable??

I apologized profusely to him as I jumped back and started sweating myself. I simultaneously remembered my sister's work story from 13 years ago and Cinderella from nearly 20 years ago. The adult I want to be should have put the struggling creature out of its agony. The adult I wanted to be as a little girl should have set the mouse free and made it a little outfit and given it any chance I could.

I had boards a few steps away. But I couldn't bring myself to lay the board on top of him. I know I am guilty of personifying pets and wild animals, but I swear his eyes asked me to help him, even if that meant kill him. Next to the boards was a small terra cotta pot. I grabbed it and turned it upside down over top of him. And left. I went to a friend's house and told her how I'd failed my adult self and my little girl self. We talked about ants and other house pests like housewives talking about laundry techniques, not like grown up little girls with existential meltdowns. Then we ate dinner and I pretended to forget about it.

The next morning, using a shovel and a hoe like impossibly large chopsticks, I again stammered "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry, little guy" as I lay him to rest in the trash can and ran back inside to wash my hands like the disease-fearing adult I've become and cry like the pathetic little girl I still am.

New Hampshire

2008-08-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

The capital of New Hampshire is Concord. It is the only state which has neither a sales nor an income tax. I'm not sure how they pay for things. Perhaps I will learn that in a grocery store line soon.

New Hampshire surprisingly also seems to be the most bad ass state. Its license plates read: "Live Free or Die." A far cry from my home state's: "Famous Potatoes."

News from afar

2008-08-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Like a stranded motorist thrilled with an oasis of toxic waste, I siphon up stories of my hometown like delicious, delicious gasoline. My ex is married. My other ex is married? Gabe from 8th grade got arrested?! And four months later acquitted? Oh, no, I just found out four months later. A week later, got it.

If it wasn't for this meaty, yet wispy tidbit, I would have probably completely forgotten about Gabe from 8th grade. Or, if I still lived at home, I would also know every detail of the arrest and the acquittal, who he is dating, if he bought a new shirt, and I would hate it. I really don't care that Gabe got arrested (and acquitted). I don't feel bad for him or glad. If I were home and forced to hear the stories of Gabe, I would be just as pissed off as when the grocery store lines force me to know Brangelina is pregnant and Rachel Ray is having man trouble. I DON'T CARE! I don't want my mind to know these things. I don't even know the capital of New Hampshire, I should learn that while I wait to buy my groceries.

But because I don't live at home and I miss my family and the place, I crave the pathetic gossip that ties the town together. I ask for it from anyone I can get it. If I never hear if Gabe rejects the drug dealing lifestyle that got him arrested, no biggie. Someone else I used to know will make police blotter status or have a kid or an affair and I will cling to that factoid instead. I miss my hometown and the people I love who are still living in it, but I secretly love how late the daily drama reaches me. It somehow makes me feel more in control of it. I know about Gabe's inland northwest arrest because my People.com-reading friend from DC heard and then bounced in back to me in Portland. I asked for good gossip and it was delivered--it wasn't forced upon me like it is a part of my life. I am fabulously separate, but still intrigued because I sort of know Gabe and his family...and most of the people he sold to. Oh the glory of a small town.

All I have to do to be successful is not be the juiciest story traded from mouth to ears to more eager ears. And to really dream big all I need is to be that hushed story people jealously roll their eyes at. Ah sweet success.

Apology for my Absence

2008-08-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

Ironic that this long coming post follows my lament that Andrew Sean Greer stood me up. But I should apologize for my absence, dear blog. I have, in fact, been cheating on you and laptop with an older woman. I've had for some time now a beautiful and heavy paperweight. With the help of my G.W. stimulus check, it has recently been transformed into its original form of a typewriter. To continue my low-tech run, I also plan to buy a bicycle. I have stimulated the economy with things that will not continue to stimulate the economy--"Neuter babies," I think they're called in Juno.

However, I cannot tote my typewriter to a coffee shop (I wish I wrote at tikki bars for better alliteration) or rip CDs into it or type after my roommates go to bed or look up nutria on wikipedia! Dear laptop, I love you. And I'm sorry I've been* bad. Please forgive me. But the typewriter smells like oily metal and I love her too. I think we can all be happy together.

*insert: and will continue to be

Dear Andrew Sean Greer

2008-06-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Andrew Sean Greer,

You broke my heart. Ever since I got my most recent bookstore gig, I've fantasized that you would someday come in. And I would recognize your delicate features and adorable strawberry hair. You'd be dressed like a professor, all corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches. You'd be so shy and timid wanting to sign your own books. And I would shriek and run to you, tell you how much I love Max Tivoli, how I saw you read when all those old ladies got pissed it wasn't a nonfiction book about a boy aging backwards. I would be miraculously wearing my cute green dress with pockets and not my unflattering bookstore sweatshirt I wear every other day. And even though you might be gay and/or married in real life, in fantasy life you would ask me to show you around Portland and you would fall in love with me and try to woo me, but I would already be in love with you.

Now, dear Andrew, I usually pride myself on being so far from psychic that I can plan on it. It's a great comfort when I'm worried about someone being late--because honestly what are they odds they're in a ditch somewhere and I'm thinking that as it happens! Not likely. But in fantasy life, my lack of psychic abilities is a little sad. So, oh! What a tease you are! You and your mean agent! On a Tuesday, a few weeks back, when I was dressed in my unflattering sweatshirt, she called the bookstore to ask if we had your books. My dear, but crush-ignorant co-worker told her how many we had and hung up. In the name of professional communication, he nonchalantly told me your agent might bring you by to sign books.

"Andrew Sean Greer?!" I squealed.

"You're a fan, I take it?" he asked in such an unexcited way. Fan??

"I have a crush on him!" I blurted out to him and all my teasing customers. "I've even imagined him coming to the store! I can't believe it!"

You, Andrew, are the only author besides Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida I've dreamt of coming into the store. And I've met a lot of authors. And Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida are a couple, so it doesn't count the same way.

We spent every spare moment for the rest of the day online trying to figure out if you were gay or married. I made plans to run home at my break to get your books: The Confessions of Max Tivoli, How It Was for Me, The Path of Minor Planets, The Story of a Marriage, I have them all! I practiced saying "Tivoli." TIvoli. TivOli. TivolI.

My shift ended at 6:00.

You hadn't come.

You were reading at Powell's at 7:30 and I had to meet with potential roommates at 8:00. I went to my meeting. They were nice. I guess. But at 9:00 I booked it to Powell's. I'm not proud of it. I knew I'd missed you, but I had to check. Maybe you were browsing the blue room.... Your books were already in the autographed section. I struggled to keep my head from falling like Charlie Brown, and went home.

So I guess I really am not psychic. I should have planned on that.

Now I hope you never knew it was a possibility to come to my bookstore. I hope it was just your agent leading me on, and not you, dear Andrew.

And I still hope you're not gay.

-Your adoring fan

The polite thing to do would be to censor myself, but polite to whom?

2008-06-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

The thin string connecting the scattered dots that are these blog posts is that they are all vaguely connected to what I've been reading. At first, this was by accident, then I decided to go with it. I worried this would be hard to keep up, but it's really almost too easy. Once we know how to read, we can't not read.

In The Stuff of Thought, Stephen Pinker gives this example:

Out loud, say what color this word is: red.

Eh? Eh? Did you say red or blue?

My favorite real life example of this phenomenon happened to me when I was finally getting comfortable navigating between homeless people in downtown Portland. Comfortable, actually, is the wrong word, but without such a large mass of knotted guilt in my stomach that accompanies my small town habit of making eye-contact with everyone I walk past.(1) Like a stealth Frogger player I'd made my way through many maneuvering people when I read I cardboard sign that said, "Bet you $1 you read this." I was impressed. I almost giggled at how clever the sign was. I looked up at blonde girl avoiding my eye contact. Eventually, since I had come to a sudden stop right in front of her and was fishing through my pockets, she met my eyes. I shrugged and said, "I read it," then handed her the dollar I'd lied about not having earlier.

Not only do we read without meaning to, we seek out more to read all the time. On social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, that's all we're doing is reading. And the links from one page to another invite us to be sucked into more reading, like a good book. I've recently realized that more people read this blog than my sister and best friend, possibly from the link on my Facebook or from just scroll-strolling through different blogs. To you who read this blog, read this: THANK YOU! There are so many things to read just by accident, and that you take the time to read this with some degree of purpose is an honor.

That being said, I once read a bumper sticker that simple read: "Sorry." Brilliant! I thought. Whenever I inadvertently cut someone off I always wish I had something like this. It's better than a student driver banner, because it's not making excuses, it's just apologizing. Not only that, but it's a blanket apology planning ahead for all future blunders. That driver knows she isn't perfect, but a least has a sense of humor about it. So along with the thank you, I should lay out a blanket SORRY! Especially to people like Roommate's Boyfriend who may someday read this. And just because I'm too nice of a person(2) to mock his muppet voice and terrible conversation skills to his face(3), I am obviously not too nice to vent about it behind his back. Perhaps the actual nice thing to do would be to delete that post. I can't stop myself from reading something or take something back once I've said it out loud, but I could stop him from reading it. This really should be a more difficult moral dilemma for me, but it's just not. Portland has hardened me a little in that I don't give to every homeless person I meet(4), but it's hardened me a lot by introducing me to so many people I just can't respect, as hard as I try. This is probably just indicative of any postgrad working in customer service in a city just a little too big for her. And if I were still living in a small town, I still wouldn't respect RB, but I would be pretending to. Balancing on that thin line between self-respect and just being mean is a difficult trick. I can't tell RB to shut up and get out when I wake up in the morning and he's alone, eating my bagels. But I can keep some self-respect and sanity by telling Roommate not to feed RB my food, and by bitching about him online.

So, THANK YOU for being my sounding board, dear reader. And SORRY if you started reading this, and now regret being sucked in. It's bound to happen again...

(1) Homeless people in a city the size of my homestate are usually the only people who reciprocate my search for friendly faces.

(2) Nice person, also known as coward.

(3) Watch for further posts about grocery lists he just needs to share with me.

(4) Really only because I can't afford it now that I live in Portland.

Dear Dear Namibia & Roommate's Boyfriend

2008-05-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

My best friend introduced me to a blog called Dear Namibia on which one of her friends writes little snippits of her life in the Peace Corps in Namibia in quick letter form. Needless to say, I totally have a blog crush on her and now I, only once in a while, want to do the same thing. However, I think I'm meaner than her, but here goes:

Dear Roommate's Boyfriend,

Please understand. When I say, "it's not that I don't like you, I just don't want to go play tennis with you and roommate in the heat with only two rackets," it really is not that I dislike you(1), but it is 100 degrees outside(2) and I want to drink a beer(3) and relax(4).

Sincerely(5),

Your girlfriend's roommate(6)

(1) I do dislike you, but this is immaterial.

(2) and you're an idiot for wanting to play tennis in your slip on Dr. Martin's.

(3) you drive me to drink.

(4) and I can't do that when I can hear you speak in your muppet voice, seriously, what the hell is wrong with your voice?

(5) see footnotes.

(6) for now.

Amendment to Jack Kerouac

2008-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

I've been asked by my best friend to correct my last post, and since she holds such a distinguished title in my life as well as being half my readership, I must acquiesce.

While our conversations have grown to include birth control and the pros and cons of HPV vaccinations, these are not strictly from obgyn visits. While I take two buses across town to the Planned Parenthood for my annual check ups, my dear best takes a plane across the country to visit the same doctor she's had all her 22 years, yes, her pediatrician.

It's endearingly odd, but in the narrative of our lives, it is just a reflective side story reiterating the role she plays in mine. I think I'm changing and aging, but I'm never not who I was when I was little. Even as we both are moving into completely different realms of the professional and geographical world, we are each still a constant in the other's life. Like a trait. She is my best friend like my hair is curly. It's just part of who I am.

Heros get remembered, but legends...

2008-04-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Liberal arts has the same philosophy as a mom or a daycare employee who insists a child at least taste every food on her plate before deciding it is disgusting. Sometimes this method is successful and one discovers entire subjects or foods to love; things they otherwise would have painstakingly avoided.
Many avid readers or Fight Club-obsessed teenage boys will go see an author they like when he or she comes to town, but how many people go to readings they are not interested in? Perhaps it is the combination of being an alumna of both daycare and liberal arts that makes my job as an author host a nice fit. Recently Rob Neyer of ESPN.com blogger fame read from his latest book Big Book of Baseball Legends. That’s not actually true. He read the first line of the preface* and then shot the shit with two dozen** baseball fans for an hour and half.***
I don’t really care about sports. Sure, I pretended to like football in high school because there was nothing else to do, but really I liked being with my friends and concession stand hot dogs. But Neyer led a genuinely impressive chat. The general trivia didn’t mean anything to me, nor the legends themselves, but I was able to sift through to find the real heart of the conversation which is part of what fascinates these baseballers. Ultimately, while Neyer is testing the truth of baseball legends, it really doesn’t matter if they are true or not. Whether Babe Ruth called his shot or it was just a freakishly lucky gesture at some rude opposing fans, the legend of him calling his shot is still a part of baseball history. Even if it isn’t fact, it is still something that must be addressed in a book such as Neyer’s or can be referenced as common knowledge in movies like The Sandlot.
And baseball seems to have more legends than other sports because it has its own sort of oral tradition. Not many people saw what happened in baseball games in the 1920s, 30s, 40s. It’s easier to elaborate when you don’t have the nightly news to contradict you. Now we have instant replay and YouTube and Tivo and we don’t tell elaborate lies to entertain ourselves. I don't think I will ever have the inkling to watch baseball on TV, but it does make me nostalgic for a time I was never a part of. What's left of an oral tradition in the day-to-day lives of people now? I hate to think it's gossip. Even the baseballers could only think of legends from decades ago. Nothing from last week's game. Nothing that could go down in history besides indisputable stats. And, honestly, what's the fun in truth if it can't be embellished?

By-gone sports stories made heros out of men. Today's embroidered stories make beautiful celebrities into trashy parents and drugged-out sluts. Will my granddaughter ever be sad she wasn't a part of such a time? I remember dressing like Lou Gehrig for a report I did in third grade. Who will my hypothetical daughter dress like for her third grade project? Brittany Spears?

Sure, Neyer's talk didn't turn me into a die-hard baseball fan. I mean, really I just turned the whole subject into something I was interested in: story telling. But now I see baseball and even tabloids in a whole new light. Just like daycare taught me to like peas in tatter-tot casserole and my liberal arts education taught me how to dissect articles on global warming like a Bronte novel, looking at a sport through the highlights that are probably not true, still makes it real, just beautiful too.

* “This book is not for everyone.” I kid you not.
**Including two women, one of which I swore was his grandma.
***Not altogether surprising since he broke the record for online chatting about baseball last Monday: 12 hours, 1 minute. Again, no kidding.

That's Literary celebrity to you

2008-04-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Kim Stafford. I mentioned this name recently to two co-workers and I received one knowing nod and one confused shrug. I tried to explain to her who Kim Stafford is by keywords, like: William Stafford, the poet? Lewis & Clark College? But the nodder interjected for me and simply told the shrugger, "Portland literary celebrity." And then, she too nodded. Apparently, subject over.

Or at least paused. Because here it is, much later, and I am still thinking about it. My two well-read co-workers moved on to other topics, but I was caught hanging in a spiderweb of literary envy. Kim Stafford is a celebrity. To me and my bookstore cohorts. I was given his book, The Muses Among Us by the nodder like it was a coveted comic book or baseball card. I saw Kim Stafford in the grocery store, he said hello to me, and I reported this to my friends with glee. I wrote about it in a blog for Christ's sake!

But those of literary fame are a unique strain of celebrity. Different from actors, musicians, even painters, hell, newscasters! These sorts of celebrities are famous because they are highly visual and well-known. When I was a bartender I once waited on Viggo Mortenson. This is story-worthy because people know who he is. I'm not particularly crazy about him, but if the most popular boy in your high school asked you to the prom, it'd be a big deal. Even if he was an asshole.(1) But talking to Kim Stafford in the grocery store is like the boy you actually have a crush on asking you to prom. Seeing Kim Stafford in public is story-worthy because I want to BE him.

Viggo Mortenson hoped(2) I would not recognize him, so I obliged and pretended not to know him. But Kim Stafford said hello to me because we'd met before. He's a normal person, which makes him all the more god-like. I'd just finished reading The Muses Among Us so I told him I bought a tiny journal to carry around with me because of him. He excitedly reached down his sweater vest and pulled out his little journal. It was decorated exactly like he described in his book--with a 1-cent stamp. He opened it up and read a quote he transcribed from a sign he'd seen at the hardware store. "Your wife called. She said buy anything you want." He said. And we giggled together.

I happen to remember what kind of wine Viggo Mortenson likes, Coppola Cab (3), because he happens to be famous. But I've had conversations with Kim Stafford and I still idol-worship him. And I bet Viggo Mortenson does too. I've waiting on both men, one at a bar, and one at a bookstore. Men in bars usually try to act like big shots--until a movie star enters. Then they all, movie star included, try to act low-key, casual, comfortable, cheap imitations of Kim Staffords, men who are actually casual and comfortable. Viggo Mortenson pretended to not be famous when I served him his wine. The first time I met Kim Stafford I asked him for his autograph and he asked me for my life story. Then, like the teacher and father he is, he gave me advice.

Literary celebrities are famous to some extent, but they have no idea. Or maybe they are just as excited about their 'fans' as we are about them. I haven't really seen many of Viggo Mortenson's movies, but I know his face and his name. But I've read Kim Stafford books and essays and I know his art. The things he cares about, I am moved by. That I know who he is and want him to sign my book proves that we share a love of writing, not just that I've seen Lord of the Rings.

(1) For the record, Viggo Mortenson was not an asshole. He was an exceptional tipper.

(2) I think.

(3) I remember because, oh how original for an actor to choose wine made by a director.

Jack Kerouac and Puberty, the sequel

2008-03-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

I want to say I don't pretend to be a mature adult, but that's all I do is pretend. My friend Rosie always orders margaritas 'on the rocks' so when the ice melts she can have what she calls, "second drink." When she says "second drink" it is in a sweet sing-song child's voice even though she is nearly 27. It is this voice I hear when I think about the current stage of my life: Second Puberty.

Some people call it a quarter-life crisis, but it's not that dark and far more awkward. Really, it's the same emotional and bodily self-esteem issues as the first round of puberty, only now the possibility that it is not 'just a phase' is terrifyingly realistic. For instance, I am certain that the same synapses of self-pity and regret fired today as did when I was 12 years old. This time it was on the bus when a girl (woman?) my age gave me her card when we talked about writing and McSweeney's Quarterly and I stupidly had nothing of my own to trade. I was disgusted with myself just as when in seventh grade I was acutely aware of how much better my life would've been if I'd only bought Silver jeans instead of l.e.i. cords when I was school shopping with my mom. It's so easy and so painful to spot people who shouldn't really have their shit together any more than I do, but absolutely do.

I am also certain that I recently had the exact same conversation with my best friend about boys (men?) that we had when we were 14. The only difference being that we are now slightly (slightly) more experienced and thus what we have to share has grown to include obgyn stories. But don't think that just because our sex lives now encompass the clinical that we don't share what we hear at the doctor's office with the same fervor and vulgarity as when we would talk about what we learned from Haley in Homeroom--the only girl with a subscription to Cosmo.

One good thing that has come from my current hopefully-just-a-phase stage is my new appreciation for On the Road, which has become my new, slightly more hip, Cosmo. I've tried to read Kerouac and authors like him in the past to no avail. I knew about them to hold intelligent enough conversations and to know that I both envied and feared that sort of Kerouacian (that's right, Kerouacian) lifestyle, but I could just never get sucked into his quick gloss over, no action writing. But now! Now I am actually living in that window of Second Puberty that Sal (the Jack character, for those of you like previous-me who have not read it) was wandering through. Without school or a viable career plan, I am the least tied down I have ever been but am evenly torn between establishing myself as a responsible adult and taking advantage of this time in my life and fleeting around the country. I'm stuck somewhere between the card-carrying woman on the bus and a kid who went to my high school, Ben Olson, who wrote basically an On the Road rip-off called Wonderlost about traveling around the country via train.

Ben is a few years older than I am, so when I tried to read his novel ('novel' being a loose term) when it first came out in 2006, I had the same trouble I once had with Kerouac. And while I searched for thinly-disguised references to the people I knew with the same excitement I scanned the newspaper police blotter for familiar names, I couldn't help but fault Ben for being completely unoriginal. But now that I am the age Ben and Jack were when they collected the experiences for their books, I see that neither one was original. And that's not a fault. There's a reason it's almost cliche to go backpacking around Europe after college. It's a developmental step, almost as much as periods and surprise erections. I can't speak for Business majors or young brides who seem to navigate life by large landmarks, but the rest of us do get, as Ben aptly calls it, wonderlost. Whether it's the Alps, the small towns of North America, or an array of random short-lived jobs, we explore. And while this second pubescent stage is not an original one to write about, it's nature is individual to each of us who lives it. Maybe this is why Jack Kerouac and Ben Olson don't show action, but just quickly tell us what happened on their trips. They're not creating a new story for us to read, but merely recording their simultaneous stagnation and growth like a young girl with a diary, or a young woman with a blog. They both have more to experience than there is time to write about it and no reader who can appreciate them needs the gritty details of their journeys. The reason I can appreciate them both now is that I know where they're coming from and have my own life to draw from to fill in the details. On the Road and Wonderlost are not novels to get sucked into and distract from life, because for a period of time, they are life.

Let's Swap: My college degree, your loaded .45

2008-03-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

This little Fern may be an Oregon transplant, but I've caught on to most things. I opt for a hood over an umbrella, I recycle like I breathe, I even had a sex dream about Obama: check, check, and check. But, I've realized that Oregon's and my priorities are not the kindred spirits I originally thought. I don't want to say I was naive in my first impressions of Oregon, but my student loans were still in the grace period.

Recently the Willamette Week ran a story on jobs and prisoners. Specifically, skilled jobs and felons who committed violent crimes. For the first five paragraphs of the article, I was there (so there!) with the plight of the writer. Prisoners do need to acquire skills to use upon their release; we don't want to send them right back to crime. I've seen The Shawshank Redemption; I know what happens when former inmates (outmates?) are not prepared for the 'real' world.

Paragraph six, though...Oh paragraph six is a quote from a Portland NPO member for the aid of ex-felons. The woman said:

"Inmates who get out of prison without job skills are much harder to find jobs for. They'll probably end up with a $9-an-hour job. Unless inmates get more education and training, whatever other help they get is just a Band-Aid."

Nine bucks per hour? Those poor dears--Wait! Nine?? That's what I make! How many years was I in college? How many minutes does it take to hold up a convenience store? Where did I go wrong...

Oh Willamette Week, who the hell do you think reads you? Your cover story was about a man who dresses up like a superhero and hands out sodas to people under the Burnside bridge. As disturbingly endearing as Zetaman may be, he does not grab the attention of the respectable citizens of Portland who might be of help to unskilled outmates. I was reading the Willamette Week that day because I scraped my quarters together for bus fare and therefore couldn't afford the Oregonian. I am not in a place to sympathize with those convicted of armed robbery. Unless, possibly, they were just trying to make a payment to Citibank.

What I really want to know is this: how much does this WW writer make? He ended the article by putting forth what I'm sure he imagined to be a powerful command: Oregon must decide what kind of future it wants for its prisoners. Wow, WW writer, wow. I'm sure you always imagined that you'd be writing for the Times or even the Oregonian by now, but you're not. Maybe one day you'll make more than a recently-released prisoner, but for now, maybe step back and see the forest from the nit-picking trees. People need better jobs and better paying jobs. You're not going to change that by coddling prisoners and demeaning your readers.