ghosts are good company

this is kind of a clipboard. i am in portland, resty and wandery mostly. plans for this leg of the trip involve:

finding awesome places to go and going to them, and awesome things nearby:
reading frenzy
fat fancy
tender loving empire

eating delicious food:
food carts, obviously. apparently i am sandwiched between two pods, which is good because sometimes i like sandwiches.
i have been craving an eggplant parmesan sandwich, because the one at le voyeur was not the perfect delicious thing that i wanted.

the last thing i want to do in town is maybe purchase a tarot deck, if i find one i like. in searching for information on where this could happen, i came across the best melding of things i am interested in ever: dino tarot. yes.

that’s all for now: let’s go and have these adventures instead of being on the internet all day, eh? what else is amazing, portland?

i’ll keep this short (since i’m actually working on tidying things up around here):

last year choir sang along with some songs that the bundles were recording, and now you can listen to them through the magic of c.d. or on white vinyl! i haven’t picked a favorite yet, but i’m really into “desert bundles” at the moment. …which you can conveniently listen to here!

photo (of some of us) by berd!

of course now that we’ve got the computers figured out at home and the internet all set up, i’m writing this from the deliciously free wireless at sacramento airport.

which makes sense – i got in early and my flight to san diego is late, so what else should i be doing than catching up on the last two months with you Strangers From The Internets?

since i have that penchant for reverse chronology (and the bad memory, i’m sure that has a lot to do with it), i’ll start with last night’s double-stuf’d amazingness. the evening started with a free choir practice/performance at what i’ve been calling the stretch pants summer jam. it’s always fun to get out of our rut (as we’re doing next week at the shelton library, as well), especially in stretch pants. mine were purple lame and quite glam.

the glam continued with tragic magic at northern, where i promptly fell in love with all of the performers. i had a theater mentor tell me once that he thought i’d make a great performance artist – after seeing these kids, it’s firmly in the compliment column (again).

golly, if there was stuff that happened in the past two months that wasn’t choir and/or awesome queers, i don’t remember it. also it doesn’t seem likely to have been my life.

i have a new job, starting on tuesday – thus the trip to san diego now. i went to san francisco for the national conference on volunteering and service (huge! overwhelming!) over pride weekend and was elated by trans march. while i was there i was able to catch Chagall and the Russian Jewish Theater, which was spectacular. so much of his work was done so quickly, i learned, that it could only be almost a stream-of-consciousness.

the first piece i saw of his, like most people i’m sure, is america’s windows. i actually have a tote bag of it, which was one of my favorite bags to carry around when i was high school. he’s done a lot of work, i’m not sure if that was his only stained glass (research finds that no, there are lots of amazing glass pieces of his around!), but the most stunning part of the russian jewish theater exhibit was a set that he had created for a show… i could have stood there for hours staring at the details, and apparently i should have. one of the museum guards yelled at me for trying to take a picture of my favorite bit, and of course i can’t find it online. i wish my memory was better; i’m tired of things i love being so ephemeral. anyhow, the beauty that i can’t find is part of “chagall’s box,” and you can read more about it here.

tomorrow i’m going to a “first time homebuyers class.” i’m going to bring my padfolio (yes, i just said padfolio) and pretend to be a grown up. i really like this house, but it’d be a super-long commute to oly. still, it’d be amazing tto live on way to tipperary street. who thought that putting the word “way” in a street name was a good idea? i also love this one, but i think it’s a little to old for me to be able to keep it happy, it needs someone a little better at taking care of the puppy once they’ve brought the puppy home.

also tomorrow is nettlefest! where choir is singing. and my friend andrew is moving away, so he’s holding a party for us to kick him and tell him not to move away. at least i’m pretty sure what the party is for.

sunday i might go to look at the way to tipperary house! also it is blintzapalooza, which – oh my goodness exciting.

on monday i have my first burlesque 101 class! i’m excited and petrified. a few weeks ago i did a basic class and tassle twirling, but this six-week course ends with a performance which is… golly. it’s funny, though – at the tassle twirling class i had to ask about a “how to twirl your tassles” article i pulled out of the stranger when i was sixteen, it was illustrated by ellen forney… i knew even back then that i wanted to be a drag queen, and indeed the article was about miss indigo blue’s going-ons. it became suddenly obvious, afterward, that ellen had done the illustration of indigo that’s the academy logo.

……..i tend to get fixated on things. sometimes i check my email in the early morning, when i should be going back to sleep, and one day i got an email from sophie asking if ghosts are good company (the song, also the name of this blog probably maybe obviously also i am the fourth result for that phrase on google) was by bishop allen as it… is… or by the moldy peaches as it is often labeled. and instead of just going “no, it’s really bishop allen” i spent a good hour of my sleeping time on the internet being grumpy. and then listening to the song again and going “well, i can see how it sounds like the moldy peaches to some people, but it’s totally not kimya.” and then thinking about how much i love bishop allen and how much i love the moldy peaches kids and is the latter why i got so into the former? are more of their songs similar-sounding and i just didn’t know it? speaking of which, that comcast ad campaign? grr.

( giant weekend field trip part three – monday )

part three includes going to the remains of never never land with nat’s friend ann.  there are a few pictures here.  it was a sad trip lacking the touchstones of its sweet memories, so it was an appropriate that it was in the middle of the forest that my mother called and learned about my great-grandmother’s passing.

it’s, unsurprisingly, still hard.  i visited her in the hospital a week before she died – she’d had a stroke – and she was looking not-so-awesome, but having trouble breathing.  i felt guilty going on the field trip, rather than staying in town to keep visiting her, but i think it’s best that i had adventures rather than watching her deteriorate – she was always more of the adventure type.  you can see a picture of her from the fifties (when she was 47) here, and her obituary is online here.  it was amazing to have the entire family in town, many folks whom i haven’t seen since her 90th birthday.

butter is currently cleaning his paw while it rests on my wrist.  nat is sleeping. 

i’m hoping to, sometime in the next few weeks, stop by the schilter family farm in order to do some pumpkin-buying and hayriding.  i’ve been wanting to do the like ever since october crisped in, and upon some research decided on schilter – which turns out to be a good choice, as it seems like they were family friends… some of them were at the funeral and, in looking at the history of the farm, they share a swiss and dairy-related heritage.

since the adventures and stresses chronicled above, i’ve mostly been working and sleeping and working and sleeping.  it’s so chilly here!  i’m currently wearing polarfleece socks and still have freezy feet.

(parts one and two.)

the truth is, the purpose of our trip wasn’t so much a happy one.  we were headed to the funeral of a friend of nat’s.  after a few hours on the road we made it to pasco, to a lovely service.  we headed home still sad, and were excited about the opportunity to distract ourselves by visiting the teapot dome.  …but we couldn’t find it.  we did, however, see this.

so, we turned around and headed a few miles back toward granger – yes, granger: where the dinosaurs roam.  nat and i had a great time taking the dinosaur drive, and taking pictures with all of the dinosaurs – you can see the full set here.

oh! i can’t believe it, i almost forgot. after we went to the darigold dairy fair (soooo underwhelming), a few hours down the road we stopped by snoqualmie falls, which was so. so. beautiful.

and we headed home. sunday was lacking in adventures, since i had orientation at work. but info on monday’s adventures is pending.

(part three here!)

last weekend, nat and i had a fairly extensive field trip.  he had worked sixteen days straight, and finally had four days off.  the initial plan was to go to spokane, but we didn’t make it that far.

our first adventure was to the puyallup fair, nat and i went with our friend will.   immediately upon arrival i ate a scone, in order to not be disowned by my family.  we went on the skyride in order to get our bearings, after which we rollercoastered! and then headed to the hobby hall where we saw amazing things including legobama and the vegetable displays. after that we saw the wonder of the steilacoom dance company (led by the silver stars) and headed up to the home goods exhibits, which were fascinating and crazy.  i was most interested in the table settings, i think, because really – what kind of competition is that?

we wandered around and saw the animals and were magnetically drawn (back) to the 4H dog show, after which we saw the jest in time circus which was pretty cute (i don’t usually like clowning, even though i have some clown friends, so “cute” is saying a lot).  i bought a red nose.  after that, nat and will went on the giant slide!!  “welcome to the puyallup giant slide, one of the largest slides ever built.”

then, we all went on the ferris wheel, which was an appropriately long ride for our money.  will took a shmoopy picture of nat and i.  we then abandoned him to wait forever for his fiancee to pick him up and take him home, while we headed to ruth’s chris steakhouse for my grandparents’ overwhelmingly fancy 50th anniversary party.  we brought a change of clothes to the fair, but still felt underdressed.  it was lovely, and so nice that my grands were able to celebrate such an important occasion.

upon leaving dinner in bellevue, we headed over the pass.  i had high hopes of making it to pasco that night, but we made it as far as ellensburg, tired and grumpy.  we ended up staying at the i-90 inn motel (classy, eh?) which i was surprised was pretty darn clean.  we sunk into bed exhausted, and i woke up at some point in the middle of the night to the bed settling, because it had just… broken.  from us rolling over.  awesome.

(part two here!)