Somnambulist Zine

Photos From Lincoln City

2012-02-03T16:54:00.001-08:00

Seattle and Lincoln City

2012-02-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

We went up to the the Hugo House last week for a reading with Michael Heald, The author of Love is Not Constantly Wondering Whether you're Making the Biggest Mistake of Your life, and Julia Lipscombe.

It was very fun. Everyone at the Hugo House was so nice and the audience, though small, was very supportive and warm.

John and I are now at the coast (Lincoln City) for a couple days. Relaxing!!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous: sunny, in the sixties and blue skies as far as the eye can see. I told John on our walk today that I wasn't used to seeing the ocean so blue. It was weird. As if for your whole life you'd only ever eaten brown bananas and suddenly when you see a yellow banana in real life it's shocking. Oh - that's how that's "supposed" to look.

I am thinking about Stephen Elliott's method for his last (The Adderall Diaries) book-tour: tell people you will read in their home for free, as long as they can guarantee that you will sell twenty books. Of course, Elliott was on his seventh book by that time. Maybe some day that might be a good idea for me. He wrote about it in the NY Times as a mostly positive experience. According to the article his only really bad experience doing this was in the home of some grad students (in what field he didn't say). He wrote that one woman said, "You must be sick of talking about yourself." And then no one bought a book. On his way out the door the same woman urged him to, "keep writing."

When I read that part of the article it made my skin crawl! For one, if someone says "You must be sick of talking about yourself," they really don't get what you're doing as a writer, especially a memoirist. Secondly, I can't tell you how many times people have said, condescendingly, "good luck with that." Yuck!

This is a beautiful broadside that Corrine Manning of the Hugo House made for the reading. What an honor. I will be keeping this forever.

Anyway I'm going down a rabbit trail with this blog entry. It's that kind of day though- lazy and loping. Before we left for the beach, my mother sent me an article about debris from the Japanese tsunami washing up on Oregon's coast. John and I were talking about all the debris today as we walked along the beach. John wondered if it would run into the gyre on its way across the pacific ocean and get stuck. I said maybe it would all start cohering together out there and eventually form into an huge floating island. Topsoil would start to deposit and seeds and grass would start growing. I said I should write some kind of science fiction story about it that takes place thousands of years in the future.

Last night we watched the Descendants at the local movie theatre. I almost yelled when I saw my good friend Taya's necklace on one of the main characters. That's the second piece of their jewelry (Tasi Designs) that has made it onto the big screen. The first was in one of the Twilight movies.

I guess I need to wrap this up somehow. I told John that I would maybe start a new zine called Afatics, an acronym for - As Far As The Eye Can See. He said I could start my own institute that studies Afatics.

Stay tuned for part two of the Beach Chronicles!

Wonderful Review

2012-02-01T14:42:00.000-08:00

I just got this awesome SF Weekly review! There's something very gratifying about getting such a great review in a city besides Portland. I appreciated the reviews in Portland, or course, but this for some reason makes me know that the book is taking wings. Somehow it just makes it more real, to have the book reviewed in the SF weekly. I lived in SF for two years and I remember grabbing the SF weekly all the time as I headed into the Bart. Now I imagine people I've never met grabbing the paper on their way to work or school.

I hope to see familiar and new faces at my reading in SF at the Booksmith, the 22nd of February.

This is another random picture from my hard drive.

Die Antwoord

2012-01-31T10:42:00.000-08:00

This is a video of the song Rich bitch by Die Antwoord, my favorite South African band. They are just so bizarre and likable. The other day I went to the old Portland coffee house on Belmont for an interview. This painting was on the wall.

This is the artist and his info, if anyone should want to buy the portrait of Yolandi.

I've been in a shitty mood all day....

2012-01-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Hopefully things brighten up for me before my reading tomorrow nightin Seattle. Today I watched project runway and drew cartoon versions of skulls. These drawings began last night. As some of you may know, I've done my fair amount of art, but usually it's realistic - in the sense that I'm looking at something and drawing it from real life or a picture. I wanted to try my hand at drawing something more cartoonish. I wanted to figure out how to distill a skull down to its most basic shapes. There's a certain art to that as well. Eventually maybe I'll be able to draw a bunch of different things from memory. I think a bicycle is next.

Australian Zinesters

2012-01-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

I came across this neat video about the Australian Zine-scene on youtube today: Video Here

Podcast and Waypost reading

2012-01-28T13:47:00.000-08:00

Thursday night I was lucky enough to get invited to be on John and Anthony's podcast. It was really fun. Listen to it here: Fried Gold Podcast We talked about lots of stuff including Cushing's disease, Tad's, trailers and growing up in them and gentrification in Portland.

Tonight (1/28/12) I'm going to be reading at the Waypost Cafe as a special guest of A.M. O'Malley-Ford and the ThankYou writers. I hope to see you there!

Radio show, Somnambulist review

2012-01-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

I was on Clarkson University Radio yesterday on John Berbrich's Radio Show! My poem, Trailer Park Love Song, is played about halfway through the show. Right after a heavy metal song about cannibalism. This poem is from my latest zine: Somnambulist 18!!

In other news, Somnambulist 17 was reviewed by Randy Spaghetti here.

I've had three people subscribe or renew their subscriptions to my zine this week!
If you'd like to subscribe send fifteen dollars check or cash to:
Martha Grover
PO Box 14871
Portland OR 97293

Or, if you like doing things the old-fashioned way you can use the paypal button on this blog!

And here is another random picture from my hard drive.

Sick and scattered

2012-01-19T22:24:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a little scattered - even now that I'm not working at New Seasons anymore. I think the reason I feel scattered is because I don't know how to have down time. My mom popped in yesterday and had lunch with John and I. I can't remember how we got on the topic but she said that I am the busiest of all her daughters- that I don't know how to slow down. I guess she's right. On Tuesday night we had a reading at our house: Michael Heald was here, as well as Chloe Caldwell, James Yeary and the author of the book: Love is not Constantly Wondering Whether you are Making the Biggest Mistake of your Life. We had the reading at our house because it was snowing in Seattle and we decided that no one was going to go to our event anyway.

It snowed here too. Here is Felix looking in the window to my office.

Here's my mom talking to someone I didn't know. Everyone who meets my mom loves her.

This is Chloe Caldwell. Her book comes out this spring.

Today it was raining so hard I wondered when everything was going to start melting. I like it that John takes wonderful photos so I don't have to worry about it. I can't seem to take photos and talk to people - it's either one or the other. My friend Halle came. The other night she came over and had me look at a piece of writing she did about her wegner's disease. It made me cry. It was about her wegner's disease and nazis and the holocaust and being jewish. It was good stuff. If she can't get it published somewhere I hope she let's me put it in my zine.

Reading at Tad's Chicken n Dumplings

2012-01-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

For those of you who missed it, here are some photos from my reading at Tad's Chicken n' Dumplings. The reading was a great success and just what I envisioned: a low-key event for eastsiders at one of my favorite places. Anyone who knows me or my family will know that we all (every single last one of the children) have worked at Tad's as a server, manager, hostess, bartender, prep cook, busser and even as a janitor! I personally worked at Tad's for eight years on and off. The owner was gracious enough to let us use this beautiful space for a reading from my book, One More For the People.

I read a piece about Thai Massage, a few Grover family meeting minutes, and a piece about my grandpa.

My mother bought ten more books. God bless her!

This is my favorite picture because I love Erin and also my new shoes!!!

Lovable, furry old Grover

2012-01-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a nice little essay by a harvard professor. It's about Grover. Yes, the Sesame Street character. My mother used to read us this book he writes about. She could do a perfect Grover voice, the only problem was that it made her so hoarse that sometimes she couldn't make it through the whole book. I remember being always very proud of her, the effort and sacrifice to do the "Grover voice" was so palpable, it was a very concrete way she showed her love. I guess doing the dishes and cooking for us was still too abstract for me to grasp.

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

2012-01-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

There's nothing I love more than being a creative person with a lot of time on her hands. Now that I have more time (last day at the cheese job!!) I will be able to concentrate on cool stuff. Some of my ideas/projects:

1. To put my phone line out there as a "Cheese Advice Line." Anyone could call me at any time to ask for free cheese advice. This could possibly be the best idea I've ever had, or the worst.

2. Monthly potlucks built around recitations of poetry (one or two people reciting a poem) and acoustic performances. Is this called a salon? Could the focus be equal parts food and art?

3. Everyone who buys my book off etsy gets a free zine.

4. Collaborations with some kids I went to school with in San Francisco.

Guess who else had a great idea? Stephen Elliott and the other guys over at the Rumpus! check it out here

Last Day at the Cheese Counter

2012-01-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

John and I were watching the louis C.K. special the other night. The comedian said that being divorced at 41 with kids is like "having a whole bunch of money in a country that doesn't exist anymore." Like all that investment, and time, and energy is unredeemable. I feel that way about quitting my job at the grocery store - I'm on to hopefully greener pastures- at the same time that I look forward to not being in almost constant pain anymore, I'm also made nervous by the fact that I really shouldn't go back to strenuous food service jobs ever - even in a pinch. It'll just end like my gig is ending tomorrow- me sick, in pain, feeling guilty that I'm leaving early or calling in sick. Major Bummer. Oh well, I say to myself, there's nothing I can do about it now, except cut my losses and look to the future. Here's to jumping overboard: video!

We'll Never Have Paris Zine

2012-01-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

Andrea in NYC has been putting out this high-quality print zine for a couple years now. My writing was in a couple of issues. She is currently looking for funding for her "best of" collection. check it out here

Northwest Book Lover's spot

2012-01-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah! A couple of days ago I wrote a short piece for the Northwest Book Lovers website. here it is

I hope it will spark some thought/debate within the zine community.

Cheers!

Hope to see you on tuesday at the EASTSIDE RELEASE at Tad's Chicken n' Dumplings!!!!

Book Release, Etsy, My latest zine

2012-01-02T17:26:00.000-08:00

I will be having an eastside book release at Tad's Chicken n' Dumplings: Click here to visit Tad's website

The reading will start around seven or so, and is in the DOWNSTAIRS BAR.

Also, if you check out the etsy plug-in on the left side of my blog page you'll see an image of my book. You can buy it off etsy, you'll still have to pay for postage, but this may be easier for some people.

Also- my latest zine (#18) comes with a cd. Unfortunately I didn't shell out any money for fancy, bubble mailers- so if you subscribe to my zine and your cd is smashed (!) when it arrives, email me at marthagrover@hotmail.com, and I'll send you a free download of the cd.

Okay, I think that's it! Here's a random image from my hard drive:

My Next Zine, Somnambulist 18

2011-12-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

So, when people apologize to me before they read me their story, sing me a new song they wrote, or show me something they made, part of me always thinks: stop being such an asshole and just show me what you've done. If you're so ashamed of your own creation, why show it? I never understood how someone could have such mixed emotions about their own work.

I'm bringing this up because my latest zine involves material that is almost a decade old and I have both pride and shame in this material. None of it has ever seen the light of day.... until now.

Somnambulist eighteen is all about my days as a performance poet. (Yikes!)

But really, I loved doing performance poetry. It was so fun!

Click here to listen to my poem, "Postmodernism"

This zine comes with a CD of five tracks of my spoken word from around 2004. It's five dollars, click on the pay pal button to buy one, or if you'd like to subscribe, subscriptions are still a measly fifteen dollars- that gets you four issues of my zine, sent to your house!

My Father and a Photo Booth

2011-12-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

There is a Grover family tradition of disorganized photo booth pictures. Here's some my dad took at my book release.

We're also doing an East-side book release at Tad's Chicken n' Dumplings in January on the 10th at 7:30. If you haven't been to Tad's Chicken n' Dumplings, you should really check it out. I worked there for eight years on and off and some of my siblings still work there.

Here's their website: tadschicdump.com

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:25:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! We draw names every year in our family and make homemade gifts. This year I got Zoe, and next year I have Bekah. John drew Jamie this year, and for next year he drew Rachael. I'm writing this down here so that both john and I will remember. Thanks internet memory!

Ravioli

2011-12-24T20:57:00.000-08:00

John taught me how to make ravioli the other night. I'm really excited to make fresh pasta more often. It's a lot of work but it's so good.

Inside we used some shitake mushrooms, onions, and garlic.

YUM!

We invited my sister Simone and her boyfriend Will over to share the ravioli with us. Aren't they cute?

In the middle of dinner we heard some footsteps and quiet chatter on the porch. It was a group of neighborhood carolers!

My bookcase

2011-12-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

John made me this awesome bookcase a couple weeks ago. I forgot to post something about it. I think my thinking was that with my new office set up I would do a post about my new organized life, my sense of calm, etc. But then life goes on. My office is currently too messy to take pictures of. Oh well...

Book Release

2011-12-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

The book release at Backspace went really well; we sold quite a few books. My publisher Michael Heald surprised us all with his trumpet-playing abilities.

Here I am signing a book for Nancy.

Thanks to everyone that came out!

Book Release Tonight!

2011-12-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody,

My book, One More For the People, came out last week. Tonight we are celebrating its release down at Backspace. Here is the Perfect Day Publishing press release:

Set the eggnog & ugly sweaters aside, and come celebrate the holidays with Martha Grover, Perfect Day Publishing, and three amazing bands.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

7:30 Fun Yeti
8:15 Martha Grover
8:45 Ross McLeron and the World Radiant
9:30 Martha reads again
10:00 Awkward Energy

FREE. ALL AGES. BACKSPACE.
Pre-order now at the special pre-order price:
http://perfectdaypublishing.com/books/one-more-for-the-people/

About the book:

Eight years in the making, One More for the People is the first collection of Martha Grover’s zine Somnambulist. Playful, wry, and conversational, One More for the Peoplechronicles three generations in the life of the Grover family. As these idiosyncratic characters reluctantly confront adulthood, one Grover is always there to take notes. But after she’s diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal disease (whose 81 symptoms include dramatic changes to her appearance, not to mention the dreaded possibility of having to move back home), One More for the People becomes something unexpected: a survival guide. In the spirit of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Grover transforms her own misfortune into a tale as unsettling as it is entertaining.

About the bands:

Fun Yeti: zinesters, comic book artists, rock ‘n rollers.

Ross McLeron and the World Radiant: former Southern Belle mastermind will be promoting his debut solo album with help from the Rainy States.

Awkward Energy: the Perfect Day house band. Jack Lewis is back from globetrotting.

New Haircut

2011-12-06T14:39:00.001-08:00

Some of you at the book release party may have noticed my new haircut.

A week before the book release I found a dread lock at the crown of my head. I brushed it out, irritated, threw my hair back in a ponytail, and went to work where I slapped on a baseball cap.

The next day, on a whim, I put up this picture of myself on Facebook. It's of me and and my sister Rachael. I think she's twenty and I'm 26 (?) Everyone started commenting on my "new do." I had to admit that the hair is a wig. (A wig I found on the hood of a car one night when I was drunk. But that's another story.) Because I've been sick of my hair for a while, I decided to get my hair cut like the wig. I looked around my office for the wig and couldn't find it anywhere. I guessed it was gone in my two moves this year. (From San Francisco, to my parent's house in Gresham, to John's house in Portland.) I printed out the photo and took it down to Bishop's on Hawthorne.
I like to tell hairdressers that I used to have a disease that made my hair fall out. This seems to make them more understanding, more sympathetic. Instead of looking like a greasy-haired slob, I am transformed into a person who has merely had a string of bad luck. This wasn't the case with this hairdresser on Hawthorne. He wasn't fazed by my story in the slightest. When I told him that the disease also made me grow facial hair he just said, "Okaaay," as if I was crazy, as if I had wanted that result. Ironically he gave me the best haircut I've had in years and I will probably seek him out again.
Later, after showering and running my hands through my newly shorn hair, I realized: I hate brushing my hair. I had been so overjoyed that my hair had been growing back after my adrenalectomy, that I had failed to realize that long hair has never been my style- not since high school anyway.
As I said before, my hair had been falling out for years - even before I was diagnosed with Cushing's. If I'd been a more hair-oriented woman, I might have realized it earlier. I remember all the times I would show up for work and my boss, Stacy, would calmly pick the long, wispy, blonde hairs off my shoulder. Neither of us realized I was going bald. We both figured I was the slob and she was fastidious.
When I started growing facial hair: a fuzzy, blonde mustache and creeping dark hairs under my chin- I was naturally horrified. Women aren't supposed to have facial hair. Even though I didn't think I was that shallow, I found out how shallow I really was. Most people who have chemo or a weird hormonal thing like me, are confronted with this choice: to depilate or not to depilate? That is the question.
In our culture women are supposed to be nearly hairless. The hair on our heads though- that's supposed to be thick enough to make up for the ritual depilation of the rest of our bodies. That's a lot of pressure. I know, I know, this is a pretty mainstream view, but you'd be surprised how many people think women should always be "shaved and well-behaved." And the hair on their heads should be thick, and soft and straight and silky, you know, basically like some white people's hair. (The topic of race where hair is concerned is also another story.) A lot of people think this way, consciously or not. It's not just you're typical frat boy.
I have an anecdotal example to prove my point:
A couple of weeks ago at work I was sitting in the break room enjoying a ten-minute break and I overheard two women coworkers, talking to Robert, a coworker who works in home goods. The two women were saying, "Oh, I hate cologne. It just smells so strong."
I turn around from where I am sitting at the break-room computer. "What are you guys talking about?"
"Oh, when women, or men sometimes, wear a bunch of perfume into the store."
"I can't stand that either," I say. "Sometimes I walk by and I can barely breath, people are wearing so much perfume."
Robert says, "I'd rather smell someone's perfume than their BO!"
"Not me," I say. The other women agree.
"Well, I was at a club the other night and there was this whole group of ladies standing by the door and believe me, they smelled awful! They smelled like MEN!" Robert says, his voice getting louder and louder.
At this point there were two other men in the break room with us: Martin, a twenty year old straight white man, who was listening to the conversation but remaining silent. I had sat down on the break room couch and sitting next to me was Musa, a black muslim man from Gambia. He hadn't said anything yet either.
"What's wrong with smelling like men?" I ask.
"It's not ladylike," says Robert. "It's like when women don't shave their armpits. It's gross! Like whats-her-name, going up to accept her Emmy with hairy armpits! Gross!"
"Well, you must not think I'm very lady-like," I say.
"You don't shave?" Robert looks at me.
"No. I don't shave anything." I say. I could feel my face getting red. Usually I don't volunteer this information to people, but Robert's tone annoys me. I don't like it when men, gay or straight, try to tell women what is lady-like or not.
"Well, I don't like it when women don't shave their legs. It's DISGUSTING!"says Robert as if I hadn't just admitted that I am a hairy, disgusting lady.
"That's sexist," I say.
"You a Hollywood man," mutters Musa.
"What? What did you call me?"asks Robert.
Musa, who's been listening quietly until now, shouts across the break-room in his baritone, "WHY? Why you not like it?"
"It's not lady like! It's disgusting!"
"You a hollywood man! You're brainwashed by Hollywood," says Musa.
Robert ignores Musa and keep repeating how DISGUSTING it is for women to not shave their bodies. Musa looks over at me and says softly, "He's one of those Hollywood guys. They making a lot of money off him."
"Why shouldn't I be able to wear what ever I want?" Robert is saying. "Can I just wear a dress around?"
"Sure," I say. "What's stopping you?"
"It's against the law."
"Well, maybe the store wouldn't like you to wear a dress, but there's nothing wrong with it."I say as I walk out of the room. My ten -minute break is over.
I thought about this interaction all day. There are several things I find fascinating about it; I think it would be easy to pick on Robert in this scenario; after telling several other co-workers about the situation some of them immediately attacked him with statements like, "What does a HE (a gay man) know about what is ladylike or not??"
I don't think this is fair. Is Robert's point of view less important than anyone else's? What I find more interesting is how the two men, Musa and Robert, upset my idea of liberal and conservative. In the US, liberal, more "open-minded" people are supposedly pro-women's lib, pro-hairy women, pro-self expression. While conservatives are usually more interested in maintaing the status quo, or in this case, women who shave their bodies. But in this situation, Robert being gay and Musa being Muslim and from another culture, the tables were turned. I realized that I had some pretty ingrained stereotypes of gay people, muslims, and what it means to support self expression. During this conversation, Robert started to sound like he was from the 1950's with his "lady-like" talk and Musa started sounding like the avant-garde feminist.
I also found it interesting that Musa had the ability to see something that we could not: that Robert's view on women are shaped by Hollywood. Because he is a recent immigrant, I think Musa had the ability to see things that the rest of us take for granted: that our beliefs, our ideas of normality and feminine beauty are formed by the constant onslaught of media - from Hollywood etc.
I think the nugget of truth here, is that despite our life experiences, our awareness of diversity in human experience, our notions of what is beautiful are still heavily shaped by media. I am going to take Musa's description and use it. You a Hollywood man... it sounds kind of catchy.

Here is a link to my friend Sarah's blog: click here
She's African American and has a different, important take on hair.

http://slwrites.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/woman-in-the-mirror-a-reflection-on-hair-length/

Another Book Trailer

2011-11-29T17:34:00.001-08:00

John and I are slowly gathering footage for my book trailer. Here is another example of a humorous "big budget" trailer. Although I don't have celebrity connections - I do have my family as willing participants and that is gold! Solid gold.

Here is the video

This video is not on Youtube and unfortunately I can't figure out how to imbed it on blogger without it being a Youtube video.

Crow Arts Manor Class

2011-11-29T11:17:00.001-08:00

I will be teaching a creative nonfiction workshop this winter at The Crow Arts Manor. The class is capped at six students and meets every wednesday night. Please sign up!

Here is the info from the Crow Arts Manor website:

Wednesdays, January 11^th-February 15^th, 7:30-8:30

Martha Grover: Creative Non-fiction

This class will focus on the short personal essay and the creative nonfiction narrative. As a class we will address problems of form and memory in telling our true-life stories. Students will bring in their own work to be workshopped as well as reading handouts and examples from the instructor. We will create a safe, supportive a community of writers and readers in addition to tackling the tricky task of distilling chaotic real-life into a cohesive narrative.

Martha Grover grew up in Portland and Corbett, Oregon. She has been publishing her zine, Somnambulist, for seven years. Her book, One More For the People, was published in December, 2011.

To sign up, visit the website:click here!

Somnambulist # 18 and Kreayshawn

2011-11-26T09:58:00.001-08:00

With some trepidation I am putting together a poetry zine all about and relating to my years as a poet.

I used to write and perform my own spoken word poetry. I participated in the Eugene slam competition and as a member of the team, went to Chicago to compete in the nationals. The bravado and rhyming style that I displayed on stage did not go unnoticed; people were fascinated, horrified, entranced, and embarrassed when they saw me perform. Everyone seemed to react strongly to what I was doing.

After the experience at the nationals (where our Eugene team placed in the middle of the pack) I decided I was sick of "slam" poetry, and sick of hearing my own rhythms, my voice, and my cadences. These feelings of apathy and exhaustion were very different from how I felt when I had opened for Saul Williams, about a year previous; at that time I was totally excited by my new art form .

Now, almost nine years later, my feelings towards my performance poetry are very mixed. One one hand, I am proud of my bravado. I am in awe of this young skinny chick (my past self) getting up in front of hundreds of people and reciting her poetry. I am still proud of the verbal and creative ability I displayed as well. But on the other hand, I am also embarrassed by the affect, the self - righteousness, and the earnest quality of the work.

In the end, it was the national slam competition that put a bad taste in my mouth - it was also the fact that I was emulating hip-hop, that started to make me uncomfortable ; I wasn't black, and to make matters worse I am white and a "chick."

All of this is to say that I just got turned on to Kreayshawn... (What am I living under a rock?) Yeah, Yeah, I know... Anyway, I look at her, ten years my junior and think- that's me. The barriers that have kept white women out of hip-hop are starting to become irrelevant. Lil Wayne pissed all over her song "Gucci Gucci" on his latest mix tape - but to me that shows he is merely very threatened by her. We all know mainstream rap is misogynistic, but in my opinion that attitude is a relic of the past. Move over Lil Wayne - here comes Kreayshawn.

(PS: I know to some her song may invite ridicule because of it's topic, but I see a young white woman displaying a huge amount of bravado and dare I say it, machismo. I think this is what bothers some. And to them I say- kiss my ass.)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2011-11-23T23:07:00.001-08:00

I'm thankful for so many things, not least of all the fact that I'm home from work sitting next to my honey, laughing at Swedish Chef videos. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Post-it notes from Occupy Oakland

2011-10-31T19:22:00.001-07:00

Over at the Rumpus: Click Here

Books, blogs, and of course, my zine

2011-10-31T18:45:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween night and I'm sitting here by a healthy fire as trick or treaters knock on our door. Now that my book is done and is going to the printer (TOMORROW!!! ), I finally have some down time to reflect about my move to Portland from San Francisco, my life now, and my plans for the future. Part of the plan for the immediate future is putting out another issue of Somnambulist. My idea is to revisit what I used to do before I got into zines: performance poetry. How does that translate to the written word? Well, for the most part not very well. So I am going to, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, offer a cd of my ancient spoken word with each copy of Somnambulist. That means I will be raising the price of this issue to four dollars. BUT, if you are already subscribed you won't be charged extra.

What? You haven't subscribed yet? Act now and get issue seventeen, plus the next issue with the cd when it comes out. Subscriptions to Somnambulist are only fifteen dollars for four issues. Use the pay pal button on this blog, or send fifteen big ones to: Martha Grover,

PO Box 14871, Portland, OR 97293

Cool Link

2011-10-30T16:14:00.001-07:00

Here are some great portraits from 1983:Click here

Library Podcast

2011-10-29T20:57:00.001-07:00

Here is the library event podcast (For the Zinester's Talking event with Nicole Georges) click here

Book Trailer Ideas

2011-10-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

John and I are brainstorming ideas for a book trailer for my book coming out this December. (One More For the People.)

I've been looking at stop motion animation videos on You tube. Be prepared for many more to come!

Kudos

2011-10-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

The reading at the library went well. I was really nervous- I had never read that many of the Grover Family Meeting Minutes back to back. But everyone said they enjoyed it... it's hard to tell sometimes if people are just trying to make you feel better. Anyway- A friend of Nicole Georges' writes about it here:http://blakenelsonteennovelist.blogspot.com/2011/10/got-to-see-my-favorite-graphic.html

I love how he compliments my sisters on their appearance too! They are cute!

Thanks for the Kudos Blake!!

In other news, I am feeling bad today. I had a really bad first meeting with my new doctor which left me in tears. I called my sisters Sarah and Bekah and they helped me feel better- I love them and am so lucky to have them in my life.

More pictures

2011-10-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

Random Stuff

2011-10-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

I'm depressed. I cut my hand yesterday and last night I got no sleep, so I called in sick to work. My hand has been throbbing on and off all day. It's just kind of a bummer. Here are some random things I found on my hard drive today, while I was looking for other things.

Cheese Related Injuries

2011-10-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

I was cutting the rind off a piece of Parmeggiano Reggiano today and cut a big gash in my left thumb. I had to go to the hospital and get six stitches. Besides my chronic back pain, and the one time I tried to cut a rock-hard wheel of five year gouda, this is my first cheese-related injury.

I know, I know

2011-10-11T15:55:00.001-07:00

So- Life has been pretty crazy lately. That's my excuse for not blogging. Anyway. Well, what have I been up to? I'm back doing the cheese thing. Four days a week. Also, I've got me a man. That takes up a lot of my time. Did I also tell you I'm getting a book published and I'm teaching a writing class? And I've got seven siblings? And friends I have to keep up with? Geez, no wonder I haven't been blogging. Now that I have that off my chest, I want to talk a little bit about this documentary I watched today. I went home sick from work with a major migraine. After laying in the dark for a couple hours, I watched "Trouble the Water." It's the story of three New Orleanians who survive Hurricane Katrina, move away from the city and then eventually move back. Half the movie is home video shot by a woman from the ninth ward and it is seriously SCARY!!! Can you imagine the whole street in front of your house filling with water, and then the first floor of your house and then the upstairs? I highly recommend this movie for the home video alone!

In other news I read tonight at the Hollywood Library in Portland at 6:30. It's FREE!!

I read with Nicole Georges of Invincible Summer.

More blog entries to come.....

Good Times can be interesting too!

2011-09-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Most people think that bad things are more interesting... action, explosions, death and disease, these are the things good stories are made of. My blog readership has gone down and down ever since I achieved good health. Life gets better. And it's been pretty good lately. Here are some pictures celebrating some of the good things in my life right now.

The sky behind the rainbow

The rainbow outside of New Seasons in Lake Oswego

The Swifts at Chapman Elementary

Our Picnic

John

Sometimes I think humans are really bower birds

John makes me dinner three times a week

John's new wine, and a bucket o' hops.
I love living here!

I guess I'll just have to work harder to be interesting now.

This! Fest

2011-08-31T20:40:00.000-07:00

Whats next for me is THIS!

A fest, rivaling some other thing that is going on September ninth and tenth, at THE WOODS on Milwaukie.

I go on at 7:30-ish

Pirate Town Remembered

2011-08-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I wrote a series of essays about Hip Hop in Portland, Oregon. I wrote about a b-boy, a graffiti artist, a deejay and an emcee. I'm really proud of this little collection and I went through all the trouble of printing it up in a little booklet and distributing it around town.

Well, I still have a lot of these guys around and I thought I would print up some extra photos of Pirate Town to go with the book.

Pirate Town :click here to read a mercury article, is an old, superfund site which was basically ground zero for graffiti in Portland for years. This place was the subject of my essay about graffiti.

With your purchase of my hip hop book, (eight bucks: buy it on Etsy!) you get six beautiful photos of Pirate Town. The photos fit neatly inside the book and will make great wall art or postcards.

Long Live Pirate Town!!!

Class at IPRC

2011-08-11T09:49:00.001-07:00

This summer has literally flown by. It’s mid-august and I haven’t picked up my memoir more than once to work on it. I know, I know, I should give myself a break right? I have a book coming out this fall, I just started a new job, I moved (twice) and I just spent two years doing nothing BUT writing. But I still can’t shake the feeling that whatever I’m doing at any given moment is not what I should be doing….

In other news, I went to the Portland Zine Symposium last Saturday. It was actually really fun, although very hot and stuffy in the new venue. I taught a workshop and I felt like it went really well. Everyone was so bright-eyed and bushy tailed! This Saturday I am teaching a class at the IPRC. I hope people sign up!

Get more info here: http://www.iprc.org/calendar

Shell

2011-08-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the Shell gas company got its start importing and exporting seashells?

I thought this was an interesting website: Be sure to scroll down to take a look at their logos over the years.

In other news it's my weekend and I'm moving into my boyfriend's house. Yay! I am so excited to share his home and finally feel grounded back in Portland. I hope to be blogging more regularly.

Video Stores Part Two

2011-07-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hollywood Video

I was twenty and my hours had been cut at the restaurant where I was bussing tables, so I got a job at the new Hollywood Video in Gresham. It was better than nothing – but I did have to wear a tuxedo shirt, a bow tie and a cummerbund.

My new boss, a short, slightly tubby man named Nathan, liked to tell me not to lean on the counter – “it looked bad” – and to greet customers as they entered the store. For some reason Nathan trusted me and confided in me about his past as a male dancer. He had this very crisp, perky way of walking. When he would talk about his past as a dancer, he would jut one hip out and his gelled brown hair would imperceptibly nod. The other boys who worked at the Hollywood video would always complain about Nathan hitting on them. I thought they were homophobes.

“You know what I like about you Martha?” Nathan said to me one day as I prepared to mop the entire store at eleven pm.

“What?”

“You don’t complain,” he said and rolled his stomach up to the till and started counting cash.

I pushed the rolling mop bucket out onto the nearly spotless black tile floor. “You don’t complain…” I muttered, and slopped the mop onto the tiles.

As a matter of context I have to add that this period of my life was a period of low body weight, very short hair, no bras for my a-cup breasts and minimal hygiene.

One day Nathan sidled up to me and said, “Just so you know, we all have to wear white undershirts under our tuxedo shirts.”

I nodded, thinking – I always wear undershirts under my tuxedo shirts.

As he turned on his shiny black heels and marched back to the office, he chirped, “No Nipples!!”

Video Stores Part One

2011-07-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

Video Stores -

I was chatting with some friends the other night about video stores.... how they're dying etc. I started thinking about how many of my life-memories are wrapped up with videos. My father is and was a huge movie fan, so are my siblings, I used to work at Hollywood video when I was twenty. And now they are slowly dying out thanks to the internet and Netflix. I thought I would start to write out some of my favorite video memories.

My Father’s Rules for Renting a Video:

Never rent a movie with a drawing on the front
Never rent a new release
Never rent a movie with a picture of old people on the front
Never rent a Chuck Norris film
If you spend more than thirty minutes in the video store it’s better to leave the rental place without anything, rather than pick something just to leave with a video.

Foreign Film

It was summer. Sarah and I were seventeen and fifteen respectively. We went to the Troutdale video rental place on Stark Street, across the parking lot from the Dairy Queen, next to the Safeway and rented what appeared to be a beautiful Indian Romance.

Well, it was beautiful, but the protagonists, an Indian Prince and Princess, spent the first twenty minutes of the movie having sex in all sorts of strange positions, in the woods, under waterfalls and in palaces.

After the third ten-minute sex scene, I turned to Sarah. “This is practically a porno,” I said as we turned the movie off.

“Yeah. Why did they have this on the regular shelves? They should’ve put this back in the pornography section!”

We decided to return it and see if we could get our money back.

The next day we went to return the movie and pick up the next batch : a Jane Austin film, Before Sunset and a French Movie.

The clerk was a young man in his twenties. “Just so you know,” Sarah said. “This movie we rented the other day, Kama Sutra, well, it was ALL sex. Maybe you should put it back in the adult film section.”

The man’s face turned bright red.

“We wouldn’t have rented it if we would have known that it was going to be like that,” I said.

The clerk smiled. “Um, well it is called Kama Sutra.”

Sarah and I looked at each other. “So what?” I said.

“Well, it’s a foreign film,” the clerk said, flustered. It didn’t seem like he was going to refund our three dollars.

Sarah shot one hand up in the air, her blonde curls bouncing. “Believe me, I’ve watched a lot of foreign films, and they are not like this.”

“It was just all sex!” I said again.

The clerk’s face grew even redder and he looked down at the counter. “Um, that’s gonna be nine seventy five,” he said.

As we got into her huge white Malibu, Sarah muttered under her breath. “That was bullshit. Foreign film? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Free T-Shirt

2011-07-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

Subscribe now and receive a "Martha Rocks" (it's a long story) T-shirt!!

a copy of the infamous Hip Hop book I put together a couple years ago.

Zine Review- Somnambulist 17

2011-07-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Check it out here!

If you haven't subscribed already, hit the pay pal button on this page and donate fifteen dollars to marthagrover@hotmail.com

The image below is from issue seventeen :)

My Dad's Video

2011-07-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

My dad ran into this guy singing outside of the Gresham Winco : Watch it here

Aren't you a Writer?

2011-06-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Aren’t You a Writer?

After graduation, after the diploma and the thesis, the gown, the pictures and the requisite saying goodbye to San Francisco, I had to say goodbye to one other thing: the belief that the hard part was over. Unbeknownst to my conscious mind, I’d been living under the assumption that after having worked in food service for fifteen years, after putting out a zine for almost eight years, after struggling through a deadly disease and surviving, and after getting my master’s in creative writing, after all of this…. I thought that I could finally relax. I thought, silly as it may sound, that I could finally stop having to prove myself constantly, that I could quit hustling.

About a week ago this belief bubbled up to the surface and burst in a rain of my own frustrated tears. This breakdown happened after I got the paperwork from the federal government for my student loan repayment. It was a rude awakening. I did the math, and the amount of money I’m making, minus my minimum loan repayment doesn’t leave enough to pay rent, drive a car and feed myself. Ouch. I cried for a while. And then I did what I’ve been doing since I was fifteen: I got back to work.

Some of you may know that I recently got a job back at New Seasons, the same company I worked at for five years before I moved to San Francisco for grad school. When I got the job, at the cheese department in Lake Oswego, I was reminded of a moment nearly three years ago, when I told my coworkers at my old store that I would probably be back in two years after I graduated. Part of that statement expressed cynicism about my job prospects with a creative writing degree, the other part was hopefulness – that I would be lucky to get a job there at all – because of the job climate and because a job at New Seasons is highly coveted.

But when I did get the job two weeks ago, I was feeling down about the fact that I hadn’t been contacted for a teaching job at any of the community colleges where I had applied, that I was back as a new employee at New Seasons, making considerably less than the wage I made when I left two years ago. But then I went to the new employee orientation and I realized that I was lucky to have a job there at all, even if I was making less than before and would have to start all over with benefits, health insurance etc. I started chatting with the other new hires at the orientation that day and almost all of them had been trying to get a job at New Seasons for at least a year. One woman had applied four times. Another man had been unemployed for two years. I realized that I couldn’t take this job for granted, even if it wasn’t what I went to school for. I realized I should count my blessings that I am able to work part time AND get health insurance, that if I use my time wisely I will be able to finish my book this year and have an income at the same time, and that I now have access to all the perks that come from working at New Seasons.

That being said, I did encounter some strange attitudes at my new store; one man, who I used to work with at my old store, now works at the Lake Oswego store. We were catching up over lunch in the break room. I was asking him what he’s been up to since I saw him last. He filled me in, then said abruptly, “Wait, aren’t you a writer?” As if I couldn’t be a writer AND work at New Seasons.

“Yeah, I am.” I said. “I actually have a book coming out this fall.” Normally I don’t like to talk a lot about my accomplishments but I felt oddly compelled to let him know I’m getting published. This interaction got me thinking about my own insecurities and the unfair and unrealistic expectations of others.

A couple days later I worked with the store floater for the first time and discovered that he is in a band. As we continued chatting he revealed that his band is putting together an album, playing all over town and hope to go on tour this winter.

“Yeah,” he said. “Most people just assume that if you’re in a band that you’re just fucking around. But we are taking this really seriously. We want to get our name out there as much as possible.”

This made me think of my previous conversation in the break room. It seems like people you work with, at least those that aren’t also artists, have this misconception that you have to be either a professional – fully supporting yourself as an artist- or you’re just “fucking around.” What they don’t realize, is that the percentage of people that are fully able to support themselves through their art is very small. What they also don’t realize is that in between those two extremes, the professionals and the amateurs, is a huge range of different kinds of artists, intent, skill level etc. Some people are hustling to make ends meet, some people are slowly perfecting their craft, some people are punching the time clock until they get their “big break.”

Personally, if I look deep into my heart, I don’t even know if I ever want to completely support myself with my writing. I think it might negatively affect my sense of security and even the content of my writing. One of the things I love about putting out my zine, is that I get to write about whatever I want, not what I think I can get published. And professionally, even if I were a creative writing teacher, although I’d be using my degree, I still wouldn’t be supporting myself solely by writing.

So after my breakdown, after the harsh reality of post-graduation set in, after I resolved myself to the continuous struggle of writing and supporting myself, (especially with all my health problems) a certain amount of gratefulness set in: I am grateful for my wonderful family, I am grateful for my creative, supportive friends, I am grateful for my boyfriend, I am grateful to live in Portland, and yes, I am even grateful for my job at two dollars less than what I was making before.

But most importantly, I am grateful that I already have a work ethic in place and can depend on the values that have gotten me this far to begin with.

IPRC Class

2011-06-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Hey all you zinesters and writers! I'm teaching a class on August 20th. Check it out here!

Chicken Day

2011-06-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

I came home after a few days away, eager to fold and staple two hundred copies of the latest issue of my zine. My six year-old niece, Adeline, was sitting on the living room floor watching a Strawberry Shortcake movie. My mother had to leave for a real-estate appointment. She asked Adeline if she wanted to stay with me for a couple more hours or go over to my grandma’s house. Adeline decided to stay with me.

I stacked my addressed envelopes next to me, and the photocopies of my zine, my saddle stapler and a huge pile of cheese stickers. As I started folding the zines, making sure the edges were all neatly aligned, Ada looked over at me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m folding my zines.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a little book that I wrote. And now I’m folding it and stapling it and then I’m going to send it to people who gave me money for it.”

“Can I help you?”

I told Ada she could help me fold the zines, but it soon became clear that her hands were too little and she wasn’t quite strong enough to make a nice crease on the spine. So I taught her to use the saddle stapler.

“How many zines are you going to fold?”

“Two hundred.”

“What! Wow!”

As we stapled and folded Ada and I chatted. I told her she was a good worker and I asked her about her chores at home .

“I clean the bathroom... and load the dishwasher. If it’s my chicken day, I feed the chickens.”

“Your chicken day?”

“On the days that we feed the chickens we have to feed them three times and then we get to do things.”

“What do you mean?”

“We get to pick the record we listen to before we go to bed, we get to sit in the front seat of the car, and we get to pick the music on the radio.”

My sister Ana and her husband Chad have recently started raising chickens (15 now, I think) and their kids, Amelia, Ada and Charlie, have always done work around the “farm.” I was fascinated by this idea of organizing the kids’ lives by their "chicken day." It seemed like such a simple, creative solution to not only chores but pesky things that three children would be prone to argue over: shotgun seat and music choice.

Ada suggested a break from stapling so we could play go fish.

Several times.

When we returned to the stapling and folding, Ada looked up. “I know how you could get all these books to the people’ houses…”

“How?”

“Take these to the Post Office!” She looked very proud of herself for thinking of this idea.

Just then my sister Ana called and she wanted to know if I could pick up her other children, Amelia and Charlie, at my grandparents’ house and take them to Corbett.

I agreed and when I drove to up to the house, Amelia, the nine-year old hopped in the front seat and turned on the radio. “It must be your chicken day,” I said.

“How do YOU know about chicken day?” she exclaimed.

“Ada told me,” I smirked.

“You’re the only aunt that knows about chicken day!” (These kids have six aunts.)

“So, what other things to you get to do on your chicken day?”

Amelia flipped her blonde hair and rolled down her window. “We get to pick the record before we go to bed at night, we have to take a bath…”

“You have to take a bath? You don’t GET to take a bath?”

“No. We have to…oh wait is this They Might Be Giants?” Amelia cranked up the radio.

As we pulled in to Ana and Chad’s long gravel driveway, Amelia asked Charlie to hand her the Beach Boy’s CD from the backseat. She immediately popped it into the stereo, and before I could tell her that we were almost home she rolled down her window all the way, took off her seatbelt and sat up on the windowsill. “Driveway Rules!!!” she screamed. And just like she had done this on many past chicken days, Sloop John B, came to its perfect harmonious conclusion right as we were pulling up to the house.

Okay, I might have been driving a little slow.

Weekly Log

2011-06-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

1: Number of Hydrocodone I had to take to make it through my cheese shift yesterday

15: Number of skaters at the Gresham Skate Park

"Welcome Lucy, Lilly and Kendall" : What it said at the daycare on Division

Weekly Log

2011-06-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

2: Number of customers I saw picking their nose in the store last night

0: number of skaters at the skate park in Gresham

"Welcome Henry" : What the sign said at the daycare on Division

Somnambulist #17 - Gettin' er done!

2011-06-04T11:36:00.001-07:00

Zine Review - Somnambulist 16

2011-05-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hey Ya'll, I don't know if I sent a zine out to this podcast or what... but here's a nice one-minute review of my last zine: Radio 4 All One Minute Zine Review

I still have a couple copies of issue 16 left ( a zine about Gresham, Corbett and East County) let me know if you'd like to buy one. They are still THREE dollars :)

Zine Review - Gold

2011-05-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

(So, I am stuck at my parent’s house for the next couple nights and I’m trying to quit smoking, also – I accidentally left my laptop cord over at my boyfriend’s house, so hopefully I will be able to finish this blog entry before the screen goes dark.

My father is sitting next to me watching an inscrutable Indian suspense thriller called “A Wednesday.” I have no idea what is going on.

I tell my father that he has a much higher tolerance for shitty movies than I do. You have a longer attention span, I say.

Your father, yells my mother from the dining room, likes to finish what he starts. That’s why we’re still married.)

Zine Review- Gold

I thought it was fitting that at this point in my life, while searching for a job, I buy and review a zine about getting, having, and losing a shitty job.

Sarah Royal’s charming little zine is definitely worth the three dollars I spent on it at Powell’s Books last week. “Gold” is all about Sarah’s experience buying gold at a mall kiosk for three months. She divides the zines into three sections:

The first section is about her boss, a kind of shady character from New Jersey who doesn’t have the employees fill out W2’s and closes the kiosk without warning – don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler. (Indeed, there isn’t a whole lot of chronological storytelling here, Sarah weaves in and out of time, starting in the present and telling about the job in a long, meandering flashback. A less-skilled writer wouldn’t have been able to pull this off, but Sarah has some serious writing chops.)

The second part is about a nerdy, overweight ice-skater the workers name Mitchell J. Peabody. We never learn his real name, but Sarah does a wonderful job of showing how someone you’ve never even met can become an important part of your every day life. Peabody becomes a kind of emotional barometer as Sarah and her coworkers struggle to deal with the never-ending tedium of their job.

The third part has to do with a strange customer, dubbed “Alaska”, and the eventual closing of the kiosk.

This was a great zine on the always-popular subject of shitty jobs. We’ve all had them, so we can relate, but the subject material is still fascinating because each shitty job is shitty in its own way.

You can reach Sarah at sarah.royal@gmail.com

Back in Portland

2011-05-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

So much has stayed the same here in Portland since I last lived here two years ago. We still have the same lousy weather and lousy customer service. But of course there are new things too. I went to a new-ish bar last night on Alberta, the Alleyway and I just took the Max to Gresham, through Rockwood, and noticed these things. I don't really like them, but I do think that any revitalization of the neighborhood is great. I see a lot of potential in Rockwood to be a great part of the city, almost like San Francisco's Mission district. So it will be interesting to see how this revitalization pans out.

The Grover Family Meeting minutes...no mas

2011-05-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

After meeting with Michael Heald of Perfect Day Publishing I've decided NOT to do any more printings of Somnambulist 15 the Grover Family Meeting Minutes. If you want to buy a copy you can get one here. Sorry folks. When the book comes out in the fall you can also read the family meeting minutes in the book!

New/old Artwork Hike/Dog/sign

2011-05-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

My shoes didn't fit on our forty mile hike. This is my toenail and a drawing I did, then gave to James and Emily. I made her quote Bobby Brown. But this was before I put a dialogue bubble on it.

On John and I's hike this dog tagged along for about four miles. He was so cute!

This is the sign at the Mexican place where we went to eat. The sign was peeling and I realized those little brown lumps weren't part of the painting - they were mushrooms.

This is a drawing of Truman Capote I finished the night Obama was elected. I sold it to James and Emily. They have it hanging in their apartment. When James sold me this new camera- there was this picture on the memory card. Nice. I like seeing it on a wall.

Garage Sale

2011-05-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

The first person to show up at my garage sale arrived at noon on a motorcycle. I was hauling stuff out of the garage onto the sidewalk. He was an old man with a long beard, a belly and cowboy boots. No helmet.

I said hi and he asked me if I had any hardback science fiction for sale.

“No. But I have some great books in that box.” I pointed. “If you want to take a look.”

He ignored my sales pitch. “How about stained glass?”

“No. Sorry.”

“How about sardonyx?”

“What exactly, is that?”

“It looks like this,” he said, pointing at his bolo tie. It had a large polished stone as the slider piece.

I was shaking my head but the man went on to point at his belt buckle, another large sardonyx, layered in reds and oranges.
A young couple walked up and started rifling through my boxes. “That stuff is free over there, but I’m selling this stuff,” I said.

“And this ring,” the man pointed at a silver and sardonyx ring on his pinky finger.

“No, sorry I don’t have any of that.”

He nodded gravely and got back on his motorcycle.

Amelia didn’t show up to help me move my bed down the stairs until about three. I offered her a beer. Most of my stuff was gone by that point and the couple of scattered piles left behind weren’t enough to draw people in from the sidewalk. We sat down on the warm pavement and watched the trash and leaves gyre in my driveway. The motion sensor light attached to the corner of my house ticked on and off as waves of plastic bags and foliage took flight. We both pulled down our shades to protect our eyes from flying debris. A man pulled into the driveway in a convertible mini with a huge dent in the passenger door. He hopped out.

“This stuff for sale?”

“Yeah.” I pointed out what was free and what was for sale.

“Oh this is a nice chair,” he said picking up the yellow folding chair marked for two dollars.

“Yeah,” I said, not feeling much like talking it up.

“And what about artwork?” the man said pacing back and forth.

“I’ve got two boxes of it.” I pointed them out.

“I’m a photographer,” the man said.

“Well, there’s some nice frames,” I said.

He pointed at a box. "Steam Cleaner. What do you do with that?"

"Clean things with steam."

“Oh look at your books!” He pointed at the box full of books. “Oh these look good, for my daughter. She goes to –- high school.” He paused for a reaction. Amelia and I just looked at each other.

“It’s the best performing arts school in San Francisco. We just moved here.”

“Cool.”

Amelia pointed out my duplicate copies of Kiss of the Spiderwoman. I told her one of them was the play.

“Kiss of the Spiderwoman! I love that movie. Raul Julia!” The man exclaimed. “I should get these for my daughter! I keep trying to her to get into that kind of thing.”

I decided not to ask him what he means by that.

San Francisco Streets

2011-05-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

I passed a Corbett Street the other day on the bus, but was too slow on whipping out my camera!

Great Website for making Zines with Kids

2011-04-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

I am looking for ideas/websites for making zines with school-age kids. I really like this one.

May is the Month of Moving, June is for John and Jane

2011-04-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, so that's a really cheesy/confusing header for today's blog entry. I just wanted to say that I am leaving SF in May (sob) and moving back to Portland. Also, June is the month that I turn thirty one! John also turns thirty one this month! (Who is Jane then? I'm Jane. That's my middle name. I wanted to stick with the alliteration.)

Anyway, also happening in June is the publication of my friend Lisa Wells' book!!! It's being published by a new house in Portland, Perfect Day Publishing, on my birthday! So many great things to look forward to.

SF Forage

2011-04-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

So - I was totally wrong about the SF Forage food-fest. I thought it was going to be a street-food fair with "wild food." Well, not exactly.

Cat, Casey and I waited in a line that wrapped around the block. Cat, who is my foodie connection here in SF, informed me that the guy who started it was a "forager" but that it really wasn't a wild foods event, at least, not as I had defined it. She said it has been described as a food "rave."

We got there pretty early, these guys at their dumpling table weren't ready yet. Dang! Inside it was super crowded. One of the reasons I'm happy to be moving back to Portland is the crowds in SF. On a weekend, pretty much anywhere you go is bound to be crowded.

I decided to get a chicken, banana- wrapped tamale. Pretty good!

For dessert, Casey kindly got me a chili chocolate truffle. It was amazing! A little too rich for me, but really good!

On the way out I snapped this photo of the line. It was even longer than when we were waiting. It wrapped all the way around the block!! People were asking on the way out if it was worth it... I let Cat and Casey handle that one... I always have problems with questions like that.

New Routine

2011-04-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

So I was just sitting here on my bed spacing out and I thought: why don't I just post a blog entry every day? I have been slacking a lot lately, and I've found that I keep putting off blogging because I can't think of anything to blog about. I've been busy writing my thesis, having fun with John and saying goodbye to San Francisco and it's not like I have NOTHING to say, it's just that I have been putting it off so much because I'd built it up so much in my mind.

So now, you can look forward to seeing a blog entry every day. Well, almost every day. I'm not going to promise anything. I'm off to the SF Underground Food Market. I am going with Cat and Casey. I was just happy to check it out so I could hang out with them. But I just looked at the website and it's basically like a commercialized version of the wild foods potlucks I used to attend in Portland. I thought that was funny. They actually make you sign a waiver that says they are not responsible if you get sick from the food. Very indicative of the differences between the two cities. I'll be sure to take plenty of photos!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-04-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

Man, I have been slacking lately! It's almost graduation time, and as much as I've been enjoying my last year at CCA, I am really ready to be done with school and be able to focus on creative projects of my own choosing.

I haven't been blogging and I certainly haven't been making any zines. I'm really bummed about this. Hopefully I will get on the ball with Somnambulist as soon as I get settled in Portland. In other news I am someone's favorite zinester. And that makes me happy.

I've also been neglecting my artwork. That makes me sad.

16th and Mission

2011-03-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

I was in total culture shock the first time I emerged from the 16th and Mission street BART station. My sister Rachael was with me; she had traveled down to San Francisco to help me move into my new apartment. We were going on a "dry run" of what would be my daily commute to CCA. It was a sunny August day, and we came up out of the escalator, looking around in amazement, trying to get our bearings.

Although the station is never completely empty, there are, as I've discovered, varying degrees of freneticism. This day would probably rate a 9.5 on scale of ten. In addition to the commuters, weaving their way through the crowd, there were probably twenty-five to thirty people shouting, dealing drugs, smoking, running around, cackling, listening to music and peeing in public. On any given day there are street preachers, punk bands, mariachi bands, vendors and political activists selling their agenda or their stolen dvds and dumpster-dived wares. What alarmed me that first day, now barely registers.

One thing, though, that will never cease to amuse, is the habit, of whom I don't know, of pulling a lazy-boy recliner up near the railing. Street folks in varying degrees of intoxication love to perch here and survey their kingdom. I don't know where these easy chairs come from or where they go.

Potrero Park

2011-03-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

walking down sixteenth street towards CCA, I will miss Potrero Hill's silhouettes, the smells of

sickeningly sweet urine, alcohol, warm skunky pot smoke

and spicy wild fennel

More Photos in SF

2011-02-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

I was leaving the house today and noticed someone put up these mirror-art pieces in the hallway.

Since I'll be leaving San Francisco soon, I've been slowly using up the bart cards I have stacked on my medicine cabinet. The trip from Glen Park to 16th and Mission, where I get off to go to school, costs 1.75. There's something very satisfying about seeing the card disappear into the machine. Voila! Then it's gone. It's one of the few times I get to experience a sense of accomplishment lately. (Sad, but true.)

It seems like the escalators are constantly breaking down in SF. I took the opportunity to take a couple photos. There is such great light in the Glen Park Station. I love it. Strangely this bart station is one of my favorite places in the city.

A couple weeks ago, when John visited, we talked about this silly ad for an Ashton Kutcher movie. I think it's offensive. (I know, I'm getting old.) Anyway, I was amused to see that someone stuck googelly eyes on Ashton sometimes this week. No small feat considering the poster is across the tracks and almost seven feet in the air!

Cab Ride to the Airport

2011-02-16T18:24:00.001-08:00

I've finally changed into my pajamas and am listening to the CD that John made for me. I have some wine beside me on the night table, and I’ve decided to sit down at last and write about the cab ride I made from the Omni Hotel in D.C. to Dulles Airport, about two weeks ago after the AWP writer’s conference:

I wake up at five am in my dark hotel room and stuff the last of my clothes into my duffel bag, grab my purse and my coat and head down to the lobby to wait for my driver to arrive. The sky is still dark, but I have the feeling that like yesterday, the sun will rise on a cold, blue sky by the time we get to the airport.

I lug my duffel bag towards the large glass double doors in the front of the hotel and am pleased to see two steaming carafes of free coffee by the front desk. I pour myself a cup of coffee and a glass of water. I chug the water, toss the plastic glass, and struggle through the front door with my bags and coffee. Two fellow writers from the AWP conference are standing with their luggage behind the front doors and we chat in the waiting area. I get a call on my cell phone and it is my driver. He has been waiting in a black car out front the whole time. I smile and wave at a dark-skinned man in his early forties.

I have already taken my morning medication – two hours early – and I’m feeling chipper and alert. It takes me a total of five minutes to discover that the man is from Tunisia.

“Wow,” I say. “You’re from a part of the world where a lot is going on right now.” I have been checking up on the protests in Egypt for the past two weeks on my laptop in the hotel room.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

“How do you feel about all of it?” I ask.

“I feel wonderful,” the cabbie answers.

“Do you have family in Tunisia?”

The man tells me that all his family is still in Tunisia and that they are doing well and that they are very happy about the revolution. When I ask him what he thinks about the Egyptian protests he says that he hopes that they can get Mubarek out, that the man is a dictator and that the US has been supporting a torturer for decades.

“The U.S. has a horrible foreign policy,” he says as we make our way through the beginnings of morning traffic. “They have known that he tortures his own people forever, and yet they still keep giving money to his regime!”

I think about this for a while, staring out at the sun coming up against rows of colonial houses, brake lights, a few wispy clouds. “Well, look at our own government. Look at Abu Ghraib. They tortured people there. Maybe our government doesn’t care about torture.”

“Abu Ghraib? I saw those pictures,” The cabbie throws his hand up in the air. “That’s not torture! Some dogs and stuff! That’s not really torture. These people, Hosni Mubarak, the police, they will cut off your fingers! They will go, get your wife, and rape her right in front of you! Abu Ghraib was not torture!”

I don’t know what to say to this.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

2011-02-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

Here's where I'll be in a week and a half!

Hazel Lynn Stomps has been convicted

2011-02-16T12:22:00.001-08:00

This is most likely old news for Corbett folks :Newspaper Article

Quote from New Yorker

2011-02-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

"I call it "squinting" - you will have your own term. You've chosen a favorite musician, probably in your teen years, and the relationship grows through awkward phases - nautical dress, orchestral arrangements, dodgy collections of poems. Along the way, you find yourself squinting to keep seeing what made you fall in love; you will need to pretend that the accordian and the Balkan song cycles are something else. (Fans of Bob Dylan have unusually deep creases.) In pop music, which is a worse deal for the aging than painting and fiction are, there can be a fair amount of effort involved." - Gut Check by Sasha Frere-Jones

Rachael's Writing

2011-02-13T00:43:00.000-08:00

This is something my sister Rachael wrote about her time on a small eco-tourism boat:

SOMETHING LIKE A WHALE:

"Hey ya'll! Hey ya'll, all the guests are on shore." Nikki was yelling down the companionway from the fantail. Graceann and I were sitting in the crew lounge, both prepared to leave the ship, already wearing life jackets. At the sound of Nikki's voice we both stood at attention. Nikki, a young woman from Arkansas, was a boat lifer, the kind that has put in enough time to move up but has chosen not to, the kind that talks of quitting after every rotation but can't save up enough money to do anything but come back. This has made her really good at being boatswain but also in a perpetual state of boredom and burnout.

"You girls wanna go ashore or what?"

We said that we did and followed her out to the fantail. Nikki slipped the rope of the zodiac off of the cleat with the wave of her hand. She leaped over the ladder, landed in the boat, and turned the engine on. Graceann followed suit leaping haphazardly into the boat after her. I climbed a couple of steps down the ladder and wearily stepped in.

"Where do you wanna get dropped?" Nikki asked us. We barely had time to sit down on the inflated rubber siding before the engine was dropped in the water. We said we didn't really care, the landing site was fine.

The zodiac sped across the transparent waters of the Sea of Cortez. Nikki stood her slightly upturned face to the ever persistent sun of that part of the world. I couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed, her sunglasses like the brights of headlights.

"You look super tan Nikki." I said.

"Yeah, I guess the upside of this fuckin' job is always havin' summer. It's snowin' like a son of a bitch back home right now. I really shouldn't lay out in the sun so much down here though. Skin cancer runs in my family, but you know," she laughed, "what the fuck ever!"

Nikki drove the zodiac up to the beach until the bow was almost touching the sand. She kept the engine running, the boat trying to go forward but with no water to roam. Graceann and I climbed out, thanking her. Nikki said to "holla" at her when we needed a ride back to the ship.

"Jesus," Graceann said, the water lapping gently at our feet. "The water is freezing."

"Want to go for a walk before we swim?" I asked her.

We took our life jackets off and added them to the pile left by the guests. We trudged along the sand and seashells into the heart of the island. The sand was firmer with every step and the cactuses more frequent. Up above us on the large rocky hills we could see a tiny line of moving figures, the guests on their mapped hike, same as last week. The guests with their fancy cameras and sunblock, same as last week.

When I was nine years old I discovered something that terrified me, and continues to haunt me to this day. One night my little sister Simone and I couldn't sleep, so we decided that we were both on boats.

In our bedroom lit only by the little moonlight that came in the window, Simone shrieked "My boat has a leak!"

I told her to hurry and swim over to my boat. She leaped from her little boat and swam across dirty clothes and toys, her white blonde curls splashing around. I helped her into my bed saying she was safe now.

"I think there is a whale," I whispered to her. We peered over the side of the bed. The shadows of the messy room started to make all sorts of frightening contortions. I saw the whale. It passed below the boat.

"Its going to jump over the boat!" Simone said smiling. We huddled close together and bowed our heads as it passed over us.

"I think it's under the boat again." I said. I started to feel a little panicky. Could a whale tip our boat over? They are so huge, and silent.

We sat not saying anything. I was beginning to play out scene after scene of whales swallowing me whole. The darkness of the floor was the entire Pacific Ocean, deep, dirty and cold. My bed a tiny negligible raft, bobbing in the swells. A giant whale, a Grey Whale, a Sperm, a Humpback, a great Blue, was coming closer and closer, slowly opening its mouth, almost smiling, preparing to immerse me in an even greater darkness.

Simone sat thinking something, something secret and forever mysterious to all, something only a five-year-old gets to know about. We stayed quiet, still holding one another. The whale hadn't jumped over again, but I was sure it was up to something down there.

Finally Simone said, "Want to go get some cereal?"

I said I did.

Simone climbed out of bed, walking through the ocean of our belongings. She turned to me, waiting for me to follow. I couldn't get out of bed. I was too frightened. I was too frightened of the whale.

"But the whale." I said to Simone. She smiled and beckoned me to follow.

I shook my head no. Simone opened the door, the room was flooded with the light of the hallway. I saw the floor for what it was, I swung my feet over the side of the bed, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I can do this.

Graceann and I walked into the hot island's innerds. I kicked a rock burnt black from the sun, "Why does everything seem so shitty today?"

"I don't know," Graceann said. She smiled, squinting her eyes at the sky. "It's funny though, this is probably the first time in my life that I have a real plan for myself. And yet, I feel the same anxiety about moving to Portland that I felt about traveling. Like maybe it's the wrong idea. Like what's the alternative, because I am sure it's better. That whole proverbial grass is greener thing."

"I know. Man. I just want to feel normal and o.k. but it seems that no matter what decision I make, no matter how small I have the whole weight of the world on me. I can't shake the feeling like I am always letting someone down or hurting someone. Myself included."

Graceann stopped to chew on her fingernail and said, "Yeah, right? It's like every path is the wrong path. And shit, not to change the subject but I am so tired of taking orders from Anne Marie. I feel like someone I used to baby sit is now giving me orders in my house."

"Let's not talk about work, huh?" I said. I wiped sweat from my eyebrows, "Want to run as fast as we can into the water?"

Graceann nodded, we both turned and begun to move as quickly as we could in that direction. We ran like dandelion parachutes out the window of a moving car, discarding clothing, sunglasses, our bags and burning cigarettes. We both plunged into the water in the same gesture, and together we came up shouting.

"Why God?" Graceann yelled.

"Fuck you!" I screamed.

"Make things better." Graceann said, "suck a dick!"

We laughed, submerging and reemerging with continued curses at the heavens.

I felt fine, the normal fear that grips me in open natural bodies of water was gone. I turned to Graceann asking to use her goggles. She pointed to the trail of belongings that we had left on the beach.

I ran as fast as I could, found her bag, ripped the goggles from it and donned them. The world came into view slightly foggy, and lit with a childlike optimism. I grinned, I felt like I was nine years old again and free. I ran sandy and wet, back to the bouncing waters of the Sea of Cortez. I dove in. I opened my eyes and I was face to face with something far scarier than my imagination could contrive. Like a whale but not quite. The same opening mouth, the same malicious half grin, the same eyes begging to swallow me whole. It advanced in the water toward me with fluid motions. It was in its element. I was not in mine. I am going to die here, right now. Frantically I swam and ran and climbed on to the shore.

"What?" Graceann asked, her eyebrows touching her hair line. "What the fuck did you see?"

I sulked back to my towels, saying "I think it was just a puffer fish."

What I've been up to

2011-02-07T19:22:00.001-08:00

If you're wondering what I've been up to, check out John's blog: PDX Picnic

The AWP Conference

2011-02-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

I've just returned from the AWP conference (the American Writer's Conference) in DC. Here are some highlights:

Lobbying

Beginning on Saturday morning and reaching its peak by eight pm, the lobby of the Omni hotel filled with African American women in red. All day they ran in red blazers and blouses, crimson skirts and suits, into each other’s arms, saying hello, shaking hands, patting one another on the back. They were part of a sorority and had gathered in D.C. at the hotel, for a sorority-wide conference and an attempt at lobbying in Washington.

Rachel and I learned this on Saturday night, as we sat on the steps outside. A tall woman in her fifties came out and sat down in front of us. “Is this the smoking corner?” she asked.

“We made it the smoking corner,” Rachel replied.

The woman grinned and lit her cigarette. We started chatting and found out about the conference. “What kind of issues are you going to bring up at the capital?” I asked.

The woman’s eyes went wide. “Well first of all, what the fuck is happening to our communities? The gangs and everything. Where I’m from – I run a mortuary – I’m burying babies every day. Why the fuck we giving money to all these countries when this shit is happening here? All this education is getting cut. Why!? Because education, in most states, is the biggest part of the budget. So of course it’s the first to get cut. But why the hell are we running all over the world giving money when we can’t even take care of our own kind?”

Memoirs

It’s the first day at the conference and I’m standing in line to register with Rachel and Rheea. I turn to them. “You know, I’ve recently heard a lot of memoir-haters out there. And I’m just wondering – is it a sexist thing? I mean, most people that read memoirs are women, and it’s started to be a pejorative word. Like, no one calls Fear and Loathing a memoir, and it’s about Hunter S. Thompson’s life.”

The man standing in front of me, spins around. “That’s because it’s not a memoir! That book is about a particular time in his life. Not his whole life. Those non-fiction books are not memoirs. Bush wrote his memoirs! It’s not some conspiracy!” He rolls his eyes.

Although a little taken aback by having to defend myself to a total stranger, I counter, “Yeah, but what about Julie and Julia? That was about a particular time in her life.”

“That was a blog!” He spits the word out like a rotten piece of tofu.

“Yeah, but they made it into a book.”

“And they called it a memoir?” he says skeptically.

Rachel and Rheea nod. The man mumbles something and turns back around. Us women give each other looks.

Welcome to the conference, I think to myself.

Coachella Review

2011-01-15T22:01:00.000-08:00

And here's something I got published in the Coachella Review :check it out

Reggie Watts: F_ck Sh_t Stack

2011-01-15T21:57:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in nearly a month! So here's a fucking video, mothers!

Home - A reading

2010-12-23T23:33:00.000-08:00

I did a reading a couple weeks ago at CCA, hosted by the fabulous Jeff Von Ward. Check out me and a bunch of other talented writers here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CCAWriters#grid/user/9CF4E97FAAF0D9F2

Point Break Video :)

2010-12-16T20:30:00.001-08:00

New Review of Somnambulist 16

2010-12-14T11:36:00.001-08:00

Over the hill and through the woods, John Bobst reviewed my latest zine: here

Blue Jean- A short fiction

2010-12-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

Blue Jeans

I grab a towel from the linen closet and go into the bathroom to take a shower. I can hear my stomach rumbling and wonder if Gloria has started dinner yet.

The digital clock in the shower says it’s almost five pm. At this point, Gloria, my chef, has gone shopping, driven to the store, bought the groceries, carried them up the stairs into my house, taken the perishables out of the bag, the milk, the fresh sardines, the manchego cheese, and placed them in the fridge that she weekly cleans. She has unloaded the canned beans, the bread, the pasta and placed them on the shelves in the kitchen that she has organized. She has hung the re-usable bags on the nail near the garage door. We don’t use paper bags in my house. They’re bad for the environment.

I used to tell her what I wanted for dinner, then I started leaving her notes. I timed the round trip from my office to the kitchen and back. One minute. Now I use the house’s intercom system to communicate, or I call her on my cell phone.

It’s not that I am making money – anymore. I’m retired. So my time being worth more than her time is no longer really the issue. It’s just that now that I have so much money – why do something myself, when I can pay someone else to do it?

I remember when I was a kid, my dad used to pay me to mow the lawn. My father was a lawyer and would often bring his work home with him. I remember mowing the lawn on a Sunday afternoon and looking through the bay windows to see him, just the top of his balding head, his bald spot like some tiny starfish clinging to a rock. He’d be busy filling out legal papers in the breakfast nook. I didn’t know how much my father made an hour, but I did know how much he paid me: ten dollars to mow the lawn.

When I went away to college, my father didn’t start mowing the lawn himself; he just hired a gardener who he probably paid more than he paid me. I realized that it wasn’t personal. The lawn still needed mowing and my father still made what he made.

I bend down and turn on the shower, swiveling the showerhead to the right. Cold water slides down the shower wall and onto my feet. I step back and wait until the water gets hot, steaming up the bathroom. I shut the shower door and adjust the temperature of the water until it is just right. I glance at the small digital clock suctioned to the shower wall. Three minutes have elapsed. I could pay someone to start the water running for me for me, I think. I could ask my housekeeper to do this for me. I think about it for a moment.

After my shower, I towel off as best I can , throw the towel in the hamper and walk into my bedroom. I slide back the closet door. All along the cedar shelving lie pair after pair of 501 blue jeans. Levi’s indigo shrink-to -fit 36 /35’s. Like a trail of blue watercolor paint, the jeans fade from a deep blue in the top left hand corner, down to a watery, sandy faint shell color.

I remove the jeans I am wearing. I always try to do this before they get too cold. But I don’t want to take off the warm wet jeans yet, not really. It’s like being hugged everywhere all at once, to have wet jeans on. It’s a not-unpleasant feeling. They say that cows are like this- they are calmed by pressure – that’s why they’re pack animals, or because they are pack animals. And little children too. I think about those little Indian babies, wrapped so tightly on their mother’s back. Oh well. I sit down on the edge of my bed and pull the jeans down the last couple inches off my knees and calves. My wet leg hair looks like small tendrils of seaweed in a tide pool.

I used to shrink my jeans with ocean water. I went to the beach and walked into the ocean in my jeans. I had been doing research on how to shrink your jeans so that they fit your own body perfectly, and some of the aficionados had recommended walking into the ocean. But I found that it was too cold, and if you want to make sure the jeans really shrink enough, you just had to take a hot shower while you wore them. And then before you wash them again you wore them a couple more times. Of course, I am still trying to perfect the method.

I stand up from the bed and take the dripping jeans and hang them up with my special hanger in the shower, so that they can drip their steady blue drips into the bathtub. My housekeeper cleans this bathtub almost every day, so it’s no damage to the porcelain.

I walk back to the cedar shelf and pick pair two hundred off the shelf. This is the first pair I ever shrunk at home, several years ago, and then washed the next day in the washing machine. They are still quite dark blue. I put them on and look in the mirror. They fit almost perfectly, but still a little off, the legs are a little long.

I sigh, and for a moment I don’t know if it’s a sigh of satisfaction, or of resignation. I shrug. This is a hard job, getting all these pants to fit just right. But you know, if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.

Technology and evolution- Talk by Portlander, Amber Case

2010-12-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

Home Sweet Home

2010-12-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

Not until I blew a huge glob of bloody snot into a kleenex five minutes ago, did I realize I probably have a sinus infection. I’ve spent the last three days in bed, with body aches, a sinus headache and a runny nose. I missed a reading, my friend Rheea’s birthday party, and today I missed class. All my roommates have been gone all weekend and I found myself barely able to get out of bed, out of food, feeling lonely and helpless. Luckily, my awesome neighbor brought me groceries and checked up on me.

All of this got me thinking again about this spring, after I graduate- how I can’t wait to come back to Portland; it isn’t just Portland that I miss, it’s the friends and family I left behind.

A couple weeks ago I watched the grand finale of Project Runaway, (I admit it, I’m a fan,) and it struck me that the designer from Portland, instead of simply thanking her family and friends, she thanked her “support network and community.” I thought this was such a “Portland way” of expressing the same sentiment. Friends and family aren’t merely titles; they are also roles.

I miss my family and friends as individuals, but I also miss the role they play in my life. In Portland, there are about thirty or forty people I could have called to help me get groceries while I was sick. In San Francisco that number was whittled down to a handful.

It got me thinking about what I plan to do when I move back up north, this spring. Besides soaking up love from my community, I plan on reinvesting in Portland, renewing my bonds with the Rose city.

I’m interested in:

The Dill Pickle Club

The IPRC

More art shows

Collaboration with fellow artists

Collaboration with family

I’m also interested in:

buying a digital video camera

getting involved with “zinesters talking” at the Multnomah County Library

artist residencies

Singing with guitarists I know

Getting a job!

More commissions

Art shows in collaboration with the many artists I already know

Odd jobs

And last but not least:

Organizing readings

local travel

investing more in web presence

expanding my subscriber list

working with New Seasons Market in some capacity

Kathleen Hanna talks about zines and blogging

2010-12-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

Zine Review- Les Carnets Rastapopoulos

2010-11-27T17:17:00.001-08:00

Along with several other zines and a couple requests for Somnambulist fifteen (which will have to wait since I need to reprint it) I got this lovely zine from Canada! It's called Les Carnets de Rastapopoulos. This issue is about some out of the way people and places: the awful poet, famed for his awfulness- William Topaz McGonagall, and the tiny nation of the Faroe Islands and their sometimes (very sometimes) victorious soccer team. Also a short history of Pope Alexander VI.

I loved the old-school cut and paste of Les Carnets. Also the writing is snappy, interesting and full of character. My only critique is that the zine wasn't bound with anything, no staples or rubber bands. Nada. But Whatev's - it was a great read.

Write to:

les carnets de rastopopoulos

2-7 larch street

ottawa, ontario

canada

k1r6w4

Zine Review -Blue Okeye! #1

2010-11-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here eating black beans and sweet potatoes, writing zine reviews. Enough stalling - here goes:

There was something so cute and humble about Okeye's letter, that he sent with the zine, that I thought automatically that it was a woman writing. I finally figured it out when I was reading his zine, that in fact he was a "he" and that his tone in the actual zine is anything but humble. It's not boasting or egotistical by any means, yet it has the cynical, hard edged angst of a city-dweller, the hopelessness and run-on sentences of someone who is writing right up to the edge of an idea -- and then backing off, backing up, looping around, filling in the details, the context, the process. I'm having a hard time articulating what about his writing style makes it "male." Maybe because I don't often see women writing like him. Anyway, I enjoyed the zine, but was disappointed in its lack of narrative. I like a good story.

This was his first zine in the series- I hope he keeps writing. This review doesn't do a great job of describing what the zine is actually about - but that's because I had a hard time answering that question for myself. But regardless, I thought there was some good writing in there and it is worth a dollar, as long as we're assigning that kind of worth to objects. Send it to:

Okehi

973 Crescent st. #12

Brooklynn, NY 11208

Fifteen Things I'm not posting on my OKCupid profile

2010-11-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

Fifteen Things I’m not putting on my OK Cupid profile

1. This morning I put my i-pod on shuffle, and strangely, the first two songs I heard were both about murdering women. The first was Tom Jones’ Delilah and the second was Neil Young’s Down by the River. I prefer the Neil Young song.

2. I’m trying to come up with a good evolutionary theory as to why men go bald or women live beyond menopause. Also – why is pleasure so often coupled with pain? So we can remember who we had sex with? My theory is that pain is the only way our brain remembers anything. More pain, more wrinkles on the brain. This makes sense – it’s why we don’t often eat nails. Or at least, enough nails to kill us.

3. When I was eight or nine, I used to sit alone, in my room and gag myself. The reflex was what fascinated me. Just by sticking my index finger far enough down my throat, I could make my body do something it didn’t want to do. It was as if I had taught myself to fly.

4. Parts of me perform irreconcilable actions. I have no control over these different parts. They act independently.

5. A friend lives next door to an annoying, barking dog. I was over at this friend’s house last week and we were drinking wine in his beautiful, plant-filled backyard. As the sun went down, the dog next door began barking.

“You here that?” he asked. “Tomorrow morning, when my neighbors leave, or maybe even tonight, after they go to bed, I’m going to throw this over the bushes into their yard.” He grabbed a paper bag from his feet and opened it up. Inside, was a huge hunk of black forest ham, as big as his head. He explained that the dog would feast on the ham and then “puke and shit all over the inside of their house.”

6. What makes me happy: Elton John. What makes me sad: Elton John singing about his wife.

7. When I am lonely, I think about George. How we hiked to the top of Latourell Falls together and lay down on the late summer sweet-smelling grass, him on one elbow, me on a rolled up flannel and stared out at the Columbia River Gorge. His beard was the color of the golden grass. Little bugs began to land on our heads. I took a piece of plant and bent it over and over in my hands, until it was a lopsided square. I told him how I had hurt many people through my writing. And he asked me if I was sorry, cause I didn’t sound like it. And I said nothing, just smiled at him.

Then he told me how he had kidnapped someone once. How him and his friend drove this guy around the block in their car, how they’d told this guy he better pay their mutual friend the money he owed, or else. George said he’s lucky he’s not in jail. And I thought, looking at him and smiling, how I would rather be silent always, or have conversations like these.

8. I am sad that even the removal of an organ is not enough to scare me into being responsible, nor the threat of poverty, loneliness, disgust, despair, social stigma, none of it is heavy enough, burdensome enough to make me endure unendurable boredom. I don’t know how. I don’t know how to do it.

9. What appeals to me is walking into the sea. I’d rather choose an outfit from my closet, get on the bus, get off the bus, walk to the edge of the ocean, my favorite place, and keep walking. Eventually, against my body’s will, it’s fight to survive, one system will override the other, my mouth will burst open, water will fill my lungs and then that will be it.

10. She said her friend made art and this had something to do with me. And I looked this friend up on the internet. I didn’t really understand the art. But I knew that yes, it did have to do with me, in some indescribable way. I just wasn’t sure how. Her art was just a bunch of stuff falling apart, lying on the floor, in a gallery. Dressers, and lamps, and trash bags, and huge paper-mache asses. And people were taking pictures, people were writing reviews. The artist, she is getting grants. I imagine my own parents drowning in trash.

11. When I was six or seven I secretly took the embroidery supplies upstairs into my room. After I got bored trying to follow the nursery rhyme patterns, I took the needle and punctured the heel of my left hand. The skin was thick and tough. I hardly felt a thing. I pulled the thread through. You could see the orange thread beneath the top layer of my skin, like my skin was lace or tracing paper. After that I poked each of my five fingers and pulled the thread through until my hand looked like it had been visited by a spider, or my hand had decided to throw a party and put up streamers, or it was involved in some torturous version of cat’s cradle.

I didn’t think anything was necessarily wrong with this behavior, but I had the nagging sensation that Mom would be upset if she caught me. Similar to the reaction I received when I was caught sucking on my baby sister Zoe’s earlobes and toes. “ Martha!” She cried, “ You don’t suck on other people’s toes! If you want to suck on a body part, suck on your own body part!”

I was ashamed, but mostly I thought it was unfair. My own toes were dirty and smelled bad, and my mind briefly puzzled over how I might suck on my own earlobe. In defiance, I took to picking my own scabs. Just a little. Just around the edges. Just so that they would bleed a little bit. Sometimes I would get carried away and tear off a big chunk. And then I would bleed a lot. I liked the way the blood was so deeply red and then how it turned brown when it dried. It reminded me of my wet footprints on hot concrete- how satisfying it was to watch them evaporate. As if I were invisible, as if I were disappearing.

Inevitably, mom would find me with blood running down my leg and I would have to admit I had done it myself. But I didn’t mind too much- it meant that mom would sit me up on the counter in the bathroom and swab my scab with hydrogen peroxide. I liked to watch it fizz. I enjoyed the burning sensation. It reminded me of the time I drank some cough syrup, and it burned and warmed my whole body. Mom watched the fizzing too for a while, all spaced out, one hand on my knee, just the two of us together. Then she snapped out of it and told me to stop picking my scabs for God’s sake.

13. I watch that show, “The Dog Whisperer.” Like, a lot. On the show, Cesar Milan, often describes his dog training techniques through the use of analogy. For example, if the client with the misbehaving dog is a plumber, he will use plumbing analogies. If the client is an art collector, he will say something like, “Well, your dog has certainly made his own work of art by peeing on your carpet.” This approach seems to work well; you can see the light bulb go on in people’s faces – they finally “get” what he is talking about. But if you’re not the Dog Whisperer – don’t do this. It’s fucking condescending.

14. A lot of people ask the question: if you could only have one album, forever, on a desert island, what would it be? I’m more interested in what I would be wearing. I think of old military clothes- shirts and jackets and old cargo pants, their skin as soft and velvety as sand. Look, I was a kid once, with a loincloth, a bead necklace and a rattle. I know what it is to be sentimental.

15. I used to date skinny men. I mean, really skinny, so skinny and tall they looked as if they were walking into a strong wind, men that had hip bones like daggers, who had to eat every hour on the hour or they would fall over from exhaustion. And now I see a love handle, bulging over a belt, skimming the surface of a flimsy t-shirt, and it doesn’t make me think, as I used to, that they’ve let themselves go. It’s just, as far as I’m concerned, a way the body tells you that yes, I am here. This is where I’m at, just checking in.

16. Number eleven on this list- the thing about the scabs – I wrote that six years ago, before I got into grad school, and I remember thinking: wow! This is genius! This really says something. This has hit on something deep, something essential in my personality. But reading it now, I realize that it’s not deep. Sometimes a scab is just a scab.

Collage

2010-11-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

what follows is an assignment- for my nonfiction class- where we had to assemble a story/poem/essay from bits and pieces of other works. I chose to make a poem from song lyrics. This kind of describes how I feel right now, how I'm missing portland. The "you" in the poem, is Portland.

City of Sin

Bend down. Isn’t it a pity?

There doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city.

All around- people looking half-dead.

I’ve learned something: I’m doing time.

This is why people OD on pills

and jump from the golden gate bridge:

anything to feel weightless again.

It’s 2:45 in the morning

and I’m putting myself on warning.

Out of college, money spent,

see no future, pay no rent.

All the money’s gone nowhere to go.

(There ain’t no tuition for having no ambition,

and no loan for sitting your ass at home.)

(You gotta do something, your ass is grown.)

I could get a straight job-

I’ve done it before.

I left a good job in the city,

working for the man every night and day.

I never meant to burn any bridges, but I know,

I let a lot of good things go.

Everybody knows-

every town is the same

when you’ve left your heart in the Portland rain.

I know it’s wrong

but the feeling’s getting stronger,

the longer I

stay away.

Everyone wants a box of chocolate and a long stem rose,

everybody knows- that’s how it goes.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk,

these are just a couple of my cravings,

(and then there’s those other things,

which for several reasons we won’t mention,

everything about them is a little bit stranger,

a little bit harder,

a little bit deadly.)

Show me the way to go home.

You’re still in my heart,

after all these years,

separated by time,

now by distance.

On the road again, I just can’t wait

to get back on the road again.

I woke up this morning and I wrote down this song.

I just can’t remember who to send it to.

I wanted to write you one, before I quit.

And this one’s it.

I went to school in Olympia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

I’ll show you all the apartments

where I got my degrees,

where I’d fall like small dreams

where I’d fade like bright leaves.

Portland, Oregon and slow gin fizz.

If that ain’t love then tell me what is.

uh huh

You’re far away, and happy, I know.

It’s a little bit cold, for all those concerned.

But I’d sell my soul, and your soul, for a song.

And I wanted to write you one, before I go.

“I go to some barroom

and drink with my friends,

I dream about the day I ran a mile with your heart in my hand.

I kissed you in the water,

I made your dry lips sing

I saw you look like a Japanese baby

in an instant, I remember everything

And that was called love

for the workers in song.

(That’s all, I don’t think of you that often.

(I do not pace the floor, bowed down and bent but yet,))

You see how it is?

(for the ones like us,

who are oppressed by the figures of beauty? )

They want you or they don’t.

Now the drugs don’t work

they just make you worse –

I’d do anything you want. Look what you’ve done:

I’d be a game that you play, much too easily won.

All romantics meet the same fate someday:

cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café.

So put on your red shoes and dance the blues,

for fear that life is all.

We are stardust, we are golden,

Under the moonlight, the serious moonlight

I know how to take in all kinds of heartless offers

I’ve learned how to hand back a few

I never give you my number

I only give you my situation

Situations get fucked up and turned around

sooner or later.

I know of a city to steal from

I know of a city to cheat on

I know of a city of sin

and that’s the place I want to meet you in

say hello all over again

romance me

take me back to the beginning.”

QUOTING:

lovin’ spoonful

handsome family

elliot smith

beatles

kanye west

gillian welch

creedence clearwater

neil young

Leonard cohen

m. ward

louis Armstrong

rufus wainright

randy neuman

willie nelson

james taylor

Courtney love

dayna Kurtz

Loretta lynn

bob Dylan

Aesop rock

the cure

the verve

joni Mitchell

david bowie

deer tick

More great Simpsons accents

2010-11-06T23:34:00.001-07:00

More accents on the simpsons (mayor quimby)

2010-11-06T23:32:00.001-07:00

You can learn a lot about linguistics from watching the Simpsons

2010-11-06T23:24:00.001-07:00

What Came Out

2010-11-06T11:03:00.001-07:00

How To Do Absolutely Nothing All Day

It’s morning. Your roommate knocks on the door. “Yeah,” you say, suddenly realizing that you’re naked.

She sticks her head in the door of your bedroom. “Um, I wanted to know if the wet clothes in the washer are yours. They smell musty. It’s ten thirty. And I’m trying to do laundry.”

You pull the grey comforter up over your shoulders so that only your greasy head is sticking out. “Yeah, sorry. Just put them on rinse. That’s fine.” The words feel like thick bubbles rising up through honey.

“I’m going to use soap,” she says and shuts the door.

You pull the comforter over your head. Now conscious, you can feel your ankles on top of each other, the second toe of your right foot characteristically tucked over your big toe. Your right knee aches, in short throbs, like it has been for days. The method - you know it well – turning over and over until you fall back asleep - has ceased its utility.

Your cell phone rings. It’s your grandma. You don’t answer.

The children next door are up. The younger of the two, Marcel, screams, a scream so thin and reedy that it often doesn’t register as human. But you don’t really notice it. You also don’t notice the muttering coos of the doves on the skylight next door, the small chirping threats of the hummingbirds as they rocket up into the still-cool morning air, the sirens on Mission street, or the dishwasher starting up in the kitchen.

You flop your legs onto the floor, and remember that yes, you did take your medication at seven thirty this morning but that you had to sip the melted ice out of a three-day-old plastic to-go cup to swallow it because you had slept naked and didn’t want to get dressed just to get a glass of water.

You grab a skirt off the floor and a shirt from the closet and shuffle out to the kitchen and make yourself coffee. Your roommate is in the living room, tidying up. She is expecting a physical therapy client in two minutes. So you disappear into your room again and stumble half alive, with your mug of steaming coffee, onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette.

Your body has not spoken to you, as pain, its only language, in approximately ten minutes. So you sit, sip your coffee, and smoke. You feel your cheeks gravitate out and down, and you know that the two wrinkles on either side of your mouth and the wrinkles around your eyebrows are still deeply creased. They will remain that way for at least another twenty minutes before they disappear, and then one day they will never disappear. You know that too.

The colors of the back yard are now coming at you, meeting your face, meeting your eyes. It is still, lovely and cool, the Morning Glory to which you have been paying close attention is blossoming its electric blue all along one end of the porch. You notice that the pear tree and the apple tree are turning color, spotting yellow, soon to be orange. In the neighbor’s yard, the top branches of a tree are blossoming into bright pink. What kind of tree it is, you don’t know. You still can’t get used to San Francisco weather. It still seems like chaos; as some plants die, others are sprouting.

As you stare at the porch, you notice that sometime between yesterday morning and this moment, a hundred tiny seedlings have sprouted in the cracks between the boards that make up your rickety, peeling porch. You run a tongue over your fuzzy teeth and shove the cigarette butt into the nearly overflowing wine bottle you use as an ashtray. You would like to say that you go into the bathroom and brush your teeth, but that would be a lie. You would like to say that in general, you make an effort to make yourself presentable, but that would also be a lie. You would like to say that the pursuit of the opposite sex is a priority, but that would be a lie. You would like to say that being alone is fine with you - that you have your art and your family and friends, and that is enough. You would like to say that typing this right now sloughs off like a snake sheds its skin, never looking back.

Of course, you, like your parents, had your chance at a young age to marry, to bond irrevocably with someone equally as young and fucked up, abused and neurotic as yourself. But unlike your parents you were handed a free college education, and so you did that instead. You still love this person, in the way that you will always love your family, those people that know something about you, without speaking, that part of you that shows itself when you’re so drunk that you are a collection of unfinished sentences and exaggerated gestures. A man so familiar, it hurts, but that wasn’t in the stars. You thank the stars. You curse the stars. But more than anything, right now, you stay in your room.

You fold your laundry and check your e-mail. In the in-box is a message from your neighbor, mother of Marcel and Leon, also a writer, a student at SF State. And in the e-mail she asks you if you want to go to a reading with her, at a bar downtown. You gladly say yes, because your body needs to get out of the house. This body, your body, soft and ragged, a collection of complaints, tells you to go to the reading later tonight, and then to take the bong out of the living room and get stoned. And so you do. And you do nothing. You do nothing.

You think of some fifty odd fabulous ideas to write about but don’t. And then, and this is the part you want to get to. You want to get to this. You are not stoned anymore. You are at the reading at the bar. Your body is still sore from standing during the reading. But it is over now. Your neighbor is chatting up friends in her program, her teachers. And you are sitting staring at the wall. You have done nothing all day. But now you feel as if something were happening. You sit with your wineglass and stare at the far wall of the bar.

Along this wall are some hundred small pieces of blue glass squares attached to the wall with what looks like pins. It reminds you of something. This is what you’ve been waiting for. You came to this reading because you wanted to get out of the house, but you also came for this. You came to this reading, because you thought perhaps you’d hear something good. Something that was worth your neighbor leaving her sons for, something inspiring, but instead you see this: small, blue-green glass squares pinned to the wall in a mottled, frenzied exactness. This is it though; this is what it boils down to. These squares of glass, like glass washed up on the beach, nailed to the wall. They remind you of an old co-worker of yours: a cynical, black-haired, tattooed woman, four years older than you. She had grown up in Montana, a state without an open container law. But once she moved to Oregon she got several DUI’s. And she had made something like this, like this collection of blue glass. Only it was different. You saw it once. A delicate construction made from wire and the broken pieces of headlights, taillights, brake lights and turn signals she had found along the sidewalk in Portland. Urban driftwood, pieces of some one’s bad day, someone’s mistake, someone’s wrong turn, missed signal. This coworker, you knew her for almost five years and in all that time she was very secretive, although the two of you worked side by side every day. She barely let anything slip. For example, just before you quit that job, this coworker announced suddenly that she was marrying a regular customer, a man much older than herself, a man who came into the store with a wide-brimmed hat, and a sideways smile, that muttered dirty jokes to her over the counter. She’d never mentioned anything before. You didn’t have a clue.

It was only once that you were in her house; it was only once that you saw her headlight wall-hanging. It was late afternoon. The sun was setting and shining through the living room window onto her one wall, and it shone like the sunset itself, covered in small pieces of headlights, wired together, glinting and sparkling, turning ever so slightly like leaves in a breeze.

And here you are, standing next to another piece of artwork, each piece of glass meticulously placed and nailed to the wall, never to be moved, never to be recreated in exactly the same way, and you think, just like your old co-worker, all those days, head down, scouring the sidewalk, stumbling home, drunk, alone. They were all worth it.

More Artwork

2010-11-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Jazz, Frank, Elliot Smith

2010-10-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

Somebody That I Used To Know- Elliot Smith, Jazz and My Grandfather

“I could be another fool, or an exception to the rule- you tell me, the morning after.” – Elliot Smith

I am in a car, in downtown Portland, with my Grandfather. He points out the window. “That used to be a fur shop there. I stole from there.”

We are listening to Ella Fitzgerald; she is scaling imaginary hills and valleys. There seems to be no struggle there. No strain. This is the kind of music my grandfather adores.

“Yeah, I was walking by one day, this was back when I was using drugs. I saw this mannequin in the window, wearing this long fur coat. So I walked around the corner and thought, well, I don’t know what I thought, I just went back, and there was no one, that I saw, anyway, in the shop, so I just walked up, took the coat off the mannequin and walked out with it. I used to do things like that- you know, I almost got a thrill out of it. Seeing how much I could away with.” My grandfather laughs, his high, wheedling, laugh – as if it could turn to sobs at any moment.

My grandfather was at one time a professional thief. He would get up in the morning, drive around in a car stealing things- cases of cigarettes, cameras, televisions, then he would sell them to a fence- he taught me the word- and then take the money to his drug dealer, get high on heroin and do it all again the next day. Just like a job.

He called it “opportunity theft.” No violence, no coercion or elaborate schemes- people were careless and he took advantage. He has taught me to lock doors, keep wallets hidden, to never leave a laptop unwatched on a café table. Sometimes, walking home in the dark, I wonder how far he went, what constituted an “opportunity.” I know he has done many things that he is ashamed of, over the years. Does this shame include violence? I walk fast and hug my purse tight to me.

Now he is interested in classic, time-tested beauty: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and Etta James. He loves the female jazz vocalists, and hardly ever falls for something new. Once he handed me a CD, saying, “Everyone talks about how good she is, but I don’t get it. Do you want this CD?” It was Norah Jones.

And, another time he handed me a CD saying, “I got this because it was playing at Starbucks and someone told me there was a song about rehab on here. But I couldn’t understand anything she was saying.” It was Amy Winehouse.

He has introduced me to Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson, music that entertains. But before I met my grandfather, I met Elliott Smith, a musician worlds apart from the bright phrasing of vocal jazz. It was in Olympia, a year after he played the Oscars. A roommate lent me the album, Either/Or.

Unlike the jazz greats, with their amazing vocal apparatus, Smith adds track after track of his reed thin voice to add texture to his otherwise sparse songs. His recording style is as much a part of his performance as his other musical talents. I was shocked at the time, by his music, weaned as I was, on mainstream radio and its unforgiving, muscular performances. Elliot Smith seemed either a fool or a genius. He seemed both an aesthete and an ascetic. On his albums, his voice is urgent, straining, barely able to form words and spit them out, layered in tedious four-track recordings. Each take as thin and airy as fog, but together, a sprite’s chorus, a ghostly choir.

This album kept me company, through one of the darker periods of my life; I was living in Olympia, Washington, a town somehow even more rainy and dark than Portland, going to the Evergreen State College and deeply depressed. Smith also taught me something of beauty, how quiet it can be, how it can be, without vocal fireworks or musical showmanship, how it can be very close.

I happened to see Elliot Smith perform. It was in Portland in 2000 and there was a big crowd, it being his hometown, and Portland being the independent music hub that it is. I remember being alarmed at the amount of thick-rimmed glasses and ironic t-shirts in the audience. These were different kinds of kids, enthusiastic but inhibited, feeling but barely expressive. He didn’t play many of the songs from Either/Or or his early albums. Mostly, he played from Figure Eight, which had just been released. It was more pop and rock influenced than the albums I was familiar with. I was disappointed in the show. I had expected the intimate, hushed songs with which I’d fallen in love. According to the Internet, Elliot Smith, didn’t become addicted to heroin until the end of the Figure Eight tour. This means I saw him perform before he was addicted. Although, I’m not sure that it matters.

Ironically, now that Elliot Smith is dead, I can say I saw him in concert even though I didn’t really enjoy the show. The cause of death is still unknown, some think it was his girlfriend, but most think it was suicide. Smith was suicidal on and off through much of his life.

After I learned of my grandfather’s addiction, stemming from an enjoyment of cough syrup- he used to drink it until he got sick, and then heroin, his aimless hitch-hiking, his hustling, homelessness, his hopelessness, I wonder if he ever thought of suicide. I wonder now why some people want death, while others, only the avoidance of pain. I wonder how some are blind to some options, suicide being one, and others are seemingly impervious to pleasure.

Three years later, a week after his death, I was at a local open mic my friend ran, in a basement bar next to the river and a tattoo parlor. Under the one stage light, a twenty year-old named Jeff, played “Somebody That I Used to Know”, in tribute to Elliot Smith and I cried into my red wine. But mostly I was angry that Smith had apparently, committed suicide. He was so talented. It was infuriating.

A month later I went on a date with that same twenty year-old and we drank and drank and drank and he told me all about a road trip he’d been on with another, older, greasier, poet I knew. And how they did drugs and how they stole things to keep the road trip going. And then the kid wanted me to spend the night with him and I just couldn’t do it.

Fuck

2010-10-19T22:13:00.001-07:00

Blah Blah Blah

2010-10-19T21:31:00.001-07:00

My New Favorite Shins Song- Covered

2010-10-19T21:21:00.001-07:00

Somnambulist Seventeen: Breakfast

2010-10-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody?

How are you? I am doing pretty good. Slugging through grad school, missing Portland desperately. So desperately.

This issue of Somnambulist is all about Breakfast! Breakfast around the globe, that is. I realized at some point last year that I have friends living all over the globe- Ethiopia, Ireland, Argentina. So I decided to solicit small pieces from each of them describing their morning routine. Why did I choose breakfast? Maybe because it is such an intimate meal, satisfying the most basic of our body’s cravings. And, likewise, it changes depending on one’s location. As global as the world has become it is unlikely that people, even if they can get a Chinese dinner in Turkey, will also seek out something special for breakfast. The first meal of the day is invariably what is easily at hand and easily prepared. It’s hard to front at breakfast, it’s difficult to lie or put on airs.

My friend Kate was kind enough to illustrate this issue: Kate's Blog

I started the day trying to play my guitar- I gave up and started posting these

2010-10-19T17:53:00.001-07:00