Thought for the day...

... "Total Harmonic Distortion" would be a great band name.

More with the yin-yang.

First, a small tribute to Facebook which I cannot take credit for.

Agreed! I have played Scrabble with my 8th (and also 10th) grade "homecoming" date who lives in middle America with his wife and lovely daughters. I have reconnected to someone in a more significant way because I posted a note about a first concert that he and I shared when I was half my age. I have had lively alcohol-induced conversations about life in general with my first ever real boyfriend, who I haven't seen since 1992. I have been the recipient of a whole hell of a lot of good music and movie recommendations from people I knew anywhere from 3 days ago to 20 years ago. I have been able to share music/movie recommendations with people I haven't verbally spoken to in as many days/years. I have bonded to good friends even more so, by knowing what they are doing/reading/eating/listening to on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. This has all been fun.

On the flip side, I have been stalked by people I do not wish to ever talk to again. I have rejoined the worlds of my elementary school classmates only to comment on their cute kids but "hide" their God-loving or soliloquy stati which I end up reading through RSS anyway. I have been reminded of painful memories I wish to forget. And I've been put in some pretty awkward situations because of who I've chosen to be "friends" with (hint: don't befriend people at work).

Worst of all, I have wasted a hell of a lot of time on this stupid web site. I can't even justify the majority of it to Alzheimers prevention through Sudoku and Scrabble, either. (But playing those repeatedly with a good friend has been a good thing, for sure, for both my sanity and my eventual 67-year old memory. And hers, I suspect!)

So... in the end, I think I just need to unplug and start volunteering again. And writing again. I mean, really writing. Again. And figuring out this whole life plan. Life's too short.

________________
* I can't immediately find a direct reference, and this link does not do my memory of this episode justice, but what I recall of it (other than the usual Jan drama) is that Aunt Jenny brings other cultures and tons of fun to the Brady family, and it turns out that even though she's not particularly attractive, she's been proposed to by kings and she's declined in order to live her own life, and travel, and just BE. That sounds lovely right about now.

On the one hand...

... having someone ask you the exact same set of non-invasive personal questions three times over the past 2-3 months, and having this same thing happen with 2 other people (different questions, same concept), makes one feel somewhat invisible.

 

On the other hand, watching brand-new folks be assigned weekly kitchen clean-up duty within a month of their start date, when one has not had the "privilege" of this assignment even once since starting 14 months ago, makes one feel happy to be invisible.

Not at all Friday five.

Five things I still haven't gotten used to after 16 months in Portland, in no particular order:

• Not pumping my own gas. Whenever I drive to Washington State - which is usually just for hiking - I try to buy gas just so that I can do it myself. I feel like such a girl when they pump my gas for me.
  
• Having to go to a liquor store to buy hard alcohol. I hadn't actually purchased any until Saturday's cocktail party. Liquor stores make me feel like an alcoholic and/or Maryland resident, with their "closed on Sundays" nonsense and brown bags for the bottles.
• The longitude/latitude. It was still light at 9pm last night.
• Cart-topia. This place is food cart heaven, and I've only tried a handful. Must remedy that in the coming months. Starting with this one, followed by this one (which I tried to enjoy a month ago but was foiled by their lack of veggie hot dog delivery that morning).
  
• Driving 15 minutes and being completely immersed in nature. Looking forward to a friend's visit this weekend and some hiking in the Gorge.

And also? Toxic chemicals that actually clean things, unlike those eco/people/pet-friendly substances they pass off as cleaners? Totally underrated. Believe me, I've tried all the eco-friendly cleaners and I've fought tooth and nail both the mold on the bathroom walls and the gross kitchen sink. (I owe part of that to living in a very old apartment, but in the 16 months I've lived here, it's never looked like it did when I moved in.)

In prep for said friend's visit, I finally bought this, and the bathroom and kitchen have never been cleaner. All I had to do was wear gloves and keep the windows open.

So really, I mean, what's all the fuss about?

[Cough, cough. And why does my head burn where I scratched it with the hand I used to spray the sink? Man, I hope I don't get a bald spot there. At least I will be able to see the bald spot in my shiny new clean sink.]

Public service announcement.

A&E on a sick day will make you feel soooooooooooo much better.

Seattle daycation.

I didn't spend much time there. I spent more time in the car than in the city, in fact. My primary goal was the Jim Henson exhibit at the Experience Music Project, and I'm glad I saw it. Lots of old storyboards of Muppets/Sesame Street skits I first saw on TV thirty years ago, and original drawings/origins of some of my favorite characters.

Other than that, I spent enough time to get the obligatory Space Needle shot...


I stopped by the space-themed 826 Seattle where I found the most amazing book about happiness written by middle- and high-school kids. Why is it amazing, you ask? Partly because before each entry is a self-written intro to the artist. Henri, for example, loves to "draw cheese-square-chubb-chubb looking things," and Eliot likes "pie and boom" (as in, things exploding). The restly because those kids know happy.

I was looking for Capitol Hill, got lost and stumbled upon Easy Street Records where I saw that Shins free concert two years ago. After an hour I'd purchased a gajillion used albums including stuff I wanted (Halo Benders, previously unattained Elliot Smith and Rilo Kiley, etc) as well as the soundtrack from season one of Sifl & Olly. (Oh, Chester...)

I had dinner with someone I've been friends with for 20 (!) years and his lovely fiance, and after dinner we stopped at a nice viewpoint in their neighborhood where you can see the funky EMP amidst all the high-rises and the Space Needle...


And then the sun started to set...


And then it was 8:15pm and I had a 3-hour drive ahead of me so I headed out. But I exited I-5 and turned around to get a shot of this:

I had no idea they named themselves after a street. The name is suddenly not interesting anymore... therefore, neither is the band... and that kinda makes me sad. Or a music snob. Or just an idiot.

I'm not sure which.

Friday five.

Five things that did not suck this week, which was a particularly strange week, in no particular order... was there a delayed full moon that someone didn't tell me about?

• A BSG season 4.5 marathon last Sunday. All I have left is the finale, and I'm holding off until Sunday for that. Because Sunday is before Monday and if I ever need a pick-me-up before THAT, it ain't football, it's the BSG finale (even with the "meh" reviews I've heard, "meh" is OK so long as it's) followed by...
  
• America's Best Dance Crew! This is my American Idol, people. I have a stake in Beat Ya Feet Kings, Vogue Evolution and Rhythm City. (And Mario Lopez is my Ryan Seacrest. Erhm... I think I would actually prefer Ryan Seacrest. And when do I ever say that? To be fair, though, he was my favorite part of Knocked Up. And when do I ever say that?)
• Scoring front row center seats to David Cross next month. I can't recall the last time I had front row center anything, so this is pretty exciting. I must remember to turn off my cell phone.
  
• I really am going to Seattle tomorrow for the Jim Henson EMP exhibit and some other Seattle-ish shenanigans. Goal #1 will be crossed off as of Sunday.
  
• The Comedians of Comedy, who are about to take my mind off a crazy, crazy week. I thought it was July that was supposed to never seem so strange, not August. I should have a talk with Colin Meloy about that.
  

Like Seaside, only better.

The first day trip was a hike near the coast (near Seaside, but not quite), followed by Tillamook's 100th Anniversary Cheese Fest, followed by dinner and beach time at Manzanita. So, in that order...

Saddle Mountain was great. A nice, challenging hike up to the highest peak in NW Oregon, with green everywhere:

And lovely views of the Pacific ocean from the top:

I haven't seen fog like that since San Francisco. I was surprised at how happy it made me.

The clouds (and/or my newly cleaned but suspiciously creaky camera) were not cooperating, but we also had views of Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St Helens and a few others off in the distance. I hope to return in early summer - the wildflowers we saw were mostly dead by this point, but the sheer volume of that dearly departed foliage promised some amazing pictures sometime around May of next year.

The next stop was the Tillamook 100th Anniversary party, which appealed to me for two reasons: "free cheese" and "petting zoo." The free cheese was alright, but the little disgruntled calf in the upper right corner of this photo made the entire trip worthwhile:

He's actually FROWNING. Come on. Calves can frown?! Maybe he's upset about the premature white. At any rate, there's an LOLcat caption in there somewhere. Add it to the comments if you wish.

After free cheese, it was decided that fish & chips were a mandatory end to the adventure, seeing as how we were on the coast and not having fresh fish would be a travesty. A tour up and down the 101 near Tillamook wound up in Manzanita, a lovely coastal town with lots of free parking and a ginormous, gorgeous beach...

... and a pub with amazing fish & chips - and if we were interested later, "Karoake from Hell!" (TM).

We were not interested in "Karoake from Hell!" (TM). But we were interested in this poor little jellyfish, all alone in the sand, apparently deceased, and decided to spiff it up a bit:

Unfortunately, with the help of the tide spiffing turned to vampiring, as is usually the case when I tend to be involved with things, for some reason... and the innocent jellyfish ended up being a part of something amazingly awful:

But then the tide washed the entire drawing and the entire jellyfish away, leaving a clean slate for the person wishing to draw some sort of nauseating initials/heart message.

The sunset wasn't much to look at, but the enormous coastal cloud surely was:

... it spanned the length of the coast as far as we could see. And the moon peeking through the pink was not too shabby either:

We've now started what you might call a "petition" to have a satellite office in Manzanita. I don't think it is going over too well with upper management.

This weekend is Seattle. It is, dammit. And then, a check mark.

Not the same as the other post.

Think of 15 movies that will always stick with you... maybe it's the movie, maybe it's the actors or maybe what was going on when you saw it... don't take too long, write the first 15 movies you can think of in 15 minutes... (These are in no particular order.)

Unlike what I posted on FB which would be possibly bad because of #2 and #8, I've included why these will stick with me because I think that's the most interesting part of the story.

1. Hair (makes me cry every time I watch it, which is at least once a year if not more)
2. Fight Club (I am not my $^%& khakis!!! and come on, who didn't love seeing Jordan Catalano being beat to a pulp?)
3. The Muppet Movie (every minute makes me smile)
4. Some Kind of Wonderful (Watts is my hero)
5. Say Anything (Lloyd did set the bar awfully high...)
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street (saw this in the theater, had nightmares for weeks, still get sucked in whenever it's on cable... possibly the best horror flick I've ever seen)
7. Once (lovely, absolutely lovely, all of it)
8. Office Space (I am not even going to go there, but I do have a red Swingline stapler that my BOSS AT THE TIME gave me, so that says a lot right there)
9. Lord of the Rings Trilogy (that counts as one, right? the only films - other than Serenity - that I've seen in the theater where I've literally been on the edge of my seat)
10. Home for the Holidays (I watch this every Thanksgiving and Christmas religiously)
11. The Breakfast Club (no one captured the suburban white teenage experience like Mr. Hughes)
12. The Princess Bride (best characters all around, every single one of them... the book is even better!)
13. American History X (that scene... you know which one... this is about what sticks with you, not what you like)
14. The Lost Boys (I think this was my intro into the downfall of vampire obsession... oh, and Coreys!)
15. Annie Hall (the lobster scene is amazing)

Belated Wednesday three.

Three quotes from John Hughes films that I say ALL THE TIME.

• "It's called a sense of humor - you should get one - they're nice." (Duckie, Pretty In Pink)
• "This is ridiculous, ok I'll go, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go. What - I'LL GO. Shit." (Cameron, Ferris Bueller's Day Off)*
• "So it's sorta social, demented and sad, but social. Right?" (Bender, The Breakfast Club)
  

There are many more that I adopt as needed, such as "I think your [friend/mom/boss/etc] and my [friend/mom/boss/etc] should get together and go bowling" (again, Bender). Or "break [his/her/name's] heart, I break your face" (Watts, Some Kind of Wonderful).

But these three, I repeat word-for-word. RIP, Mr. Hughes, and thank you.

________________
* Usually said when ramping up for mandatory fun at work.

50 questions. (I prefer 20.)

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7am (usually, 6am, but THE HOT)
2. How do you like your steak? vegetarian
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? (500) Days of Summer
4. What is your favorite TV show? The Daily Show
5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? right here, right now... for now
6. What did you have for breakfast? a browning banana
7. What is your favorite cuisine? all of it except #8
8. What foods do you dislike? red meat, white meat
9. Favorite place to eat? home (specifically: couch) (thanks, C)
10. Favorite dressing? Annie's Goddess
11.What kind of vehicle do you drive? used Toyota Corolla
12. What are your favorite clothes? flip flops, t-shirts, boxers
13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? there is always a chance for anything
14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? wait - you got a cup?!
15. Where would you want to retire? a cabin in the woods July-Dec, a house on the PNW coast Jan-Jun
16. Favorite time of day? quitting time
17. Where were you born? in a suburban MD hospital
18. What is your favorite sport to watch? hockey!
19. Who do you think will not tag you back? n/a
20. Person you expect to tag you back first? n/a
21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? n/a
22. Bird watcher? only if they are big or teeny tiny, otherwise I tend not to notice
23. Are you a morning person or a night person? um... mid-afternoon
24. Do you have any pets? not anymore
25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? not yet
26. What did you want to be when you were little? teacher
27. What is your best childhood memory? summers at the community pool
28. Are you a cat or dog person? cat
29. Are you married? (heck) no
30. Always wear your seat belt? ehhh... usually
31. Been in a car accident? no
32. Any pet peeves? OMG where do I even start...
33. Favorite pizza toppings? the Greek ones
34. Favorite flower? anything still in the ground
35. Favorite ice cream? B&J peanut butter cup
36. Favorite fast food restaurant? does Burgerville count?
37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? 0 in MD, 1 in CA, 0 in OR
38. From whom did you get your last email? one of the US
39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? REI or maybe Powell's
40. Do anything spontaneous lately? yep
41. Like your job? nope
42. Broccoli? it's what's for lunch tomorrow... and the next day
43. What was your favorite vacation? all of them
44. Last person you went out to dinner with? myself (unless David Foster Wallace counts?)
45. What are you listening to right now? Jon Stewart in the background
46. What is your favorite color? orange
47. How many tattoos do you have? 2, and another coming at some point
48. How many are you tagging for this quiz? o
49. What time did you finish this quiz? 8:38pm
50. Coffee Drinker? aw yeah

At least I'm not THAT guy.

Yesterday I broke down and did laundry and ironed. You may have heard that it's been HOT in the NW lately and both tasks made me tired and even more HOT just thinking about them.

So, between the HOT and the weekend company, I avoided laundry for three weeks (and ironing for five weeks) through a festive combination of wearing clothes I forgot I had that didn't fit very well, wearing the same pair of jeans/the same jean skirt multiple times over multiple weeks, wearing clothes that caused people to think I had a job interview, and wearing clothes I bought during a trip to Ross/Nordstrom Rack in a fit of HOT despair last week when it was 100+ degrees.

This weekend I could not put it off any longer. I was literally down to overalls, denim shorts and my (actual) interview suit. So on Sunday I did laundry and I ironed and I sweated and I drank lots of cold water. I also finally watched two movies that had been sitting on my TV forever. They were good ironing movies.

Scratch: OK, when they go a little inter-galactic (as in, seriously pondering what kind of music the aliens are making) on the audience, it's a little weird, but overall I enjoyed this documentary. Mix Master Mike is always a fave. DJs Q-Bert, Z-trip and Babu are amazing, and the rest of them are totally inspiring. It's really an art, it's not just noise, and to hear them talk about their craft was really interesting.

DiG!: Anton is a scary stalking freak of a genius songwriter, and I need to buy all the Dandy Warhols' albums immediately. I mean, they're a Portland band for Pete's sake! Where have I been?! (I might need to pirate some Brian Jonestown Massacre too. He's crazy and I have no desire to support that, but he's also brilliant.)

By the way, both DVDs were recommended eons ago by people way cooler than me, and for that I am grateful. But I'm more grateful that the last season of BSG is finally on its way.... followed by the latest season of Dexter, followed by...

I should also re-queue The Graduate.

Due entirely to the blistering sweltering heat, I attempted to see Adventureland last night at the local $3 theater with A/C. Got there about 25 minutes before the show, and it had already sold out. Today I learned my lesson, and at lunch I succumbed to paying full price for a showing of 500 Days of Summer later that evening. (So did about eight million other people in Portland. But all of this is neither here nor there, unless you live in Portland and are considering a movie Thursday night, which I doubt applies to anyone.)

This movie (? film? flick? not sure where it falls on the spectrum), featuring two of my favorite people I don't actually know, really touched a nerve. Because I've been both of them at one point or another, I could relate to both equally, get mad at both of them equally, hope for the best for them equally. So that was kind of fun in a "relive all your past mistakes" kind of way. If you like that sort of thing.

The rest fits into a Wednesday three of sorts:

• The chemistry between them* was pure magic (they worked together on Manic - which I saw a while back, but might need to re-queue) and apparently have been good friends since.
  
• The bouncing back and forth chronologically worked for me, and it was especially fun (to my sick, sadistic mind) to go from Happy Day #54 to Miserable Day #477 back to Happy Day #65 and then on to Miserable Day #478. It really did feel like how one would reflect upon a bad breakup.
  
• I am buying the soundtrack immediately. Overall the songs were stellar, and the expectation/reality sequence was set to the most perfect Regina Spektor song ("Hero" I believe?), and, well, I need it. So there.
  

________________
* I could've said She & Him, but I didn't. You're welcome. They both do sing in the story, though.

Waaaaaaaaaah.

That is all.

Wednesday three.

Three FB stati I won't be posting, in no particular order:

• ... is about to rip that stupid windchime off her neighbor's house... who hangs a noisy windchime right next to an apartment building with no A/C, for Pete's sake?
• ... is going on day three of heat-induced headache. Meh.
• ... 's Thursday is the new Friday.

OK, that last one might actually get posted. Oh, and also, going on week 3 of no camera. A camera-less girl in a fail-heavy town. Sad, really.

Like Monday versus Friday.

The fairly disappointing Death Cab for Cutie show in 800 degree weather Friday night, followed by an attempt at karaoke, followed by funk night at a local dance spot, followed by collapsing into bed around 1am? That was so like a Monday.

The amazing Blind Pilot/Andrew Bird/Decemberists show in 750 degree weather Saturday night, followed by home, cheese and crackers, and settling in to fall asleep to SNL? Yeah, that was definitely like a Friday.

Damn, I'm old.

Because I couldn't decide which to post on Facebook.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST [The Decemberists], cleverly answer these 15 questions.

1. Are you male or female: Sons & Daughters
2. Describe yourself: Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect
3. How do you feel about yourself: I Was Meant for the Stage
4. Describe your ex-boy/girlfriend: The Hazards of Love 1-4
5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: Won't Want for Love
6. Describe your current location: Summersong
7. Describe where you want to be: On the Bus Mall
8. Your best friend is: Billy Liar
9. Your favorite color is: Shiny
10. You know that: My Mother Was A Chinese Trapeze Artist
11. What’s the weather: Isn't It a Lovely Night?
12. If your life was a television show what would it be called: Margaret In Captivity
13. What is life to you: The Perfect Crime
14. What is the best advice you have to give: We Both Go Down Together
15. If you could change your name what would you change it to: Bandit Queen

I do love how both #15s included a "queen" reference, though.

Belated Friday five.

Five mall observations, in no particular order:

• Wet Seal and Pacific Sun really ought to sell bathing suits. Especially Wet Seal.
  
• People older than me should not be taking the "Forever 21" store name so literally.
• Hot Topic is NOT punk rock!*
• No, employees of island merchandise stands, you cannot rub something on my hand, ask me what kind of cellular service I have, and/or otherwise interrupt my shoe mission. (I got downright mean at one point.)
  
• Cinnabon is pure unadulterated evil.

________________
* Another State of Mind, on the other hand, was totally punk rock. I love watching these bands articulate the sad state of worldly affairs and capitalism in completely brilliant and coherent sentences, right before they go onstage and scream unintelligible lyrics into the mic while slamming into each other. Rawk.

"Climbed a mountain and I turned around..."

I really had no intention of summitting Mt. Adams this weekend. At 12,281 feet, it's one of the highest peaks in the Cascade range - higher than Mt. St Helens, higher than Mt. Hood... I mean, look at it:

It's GINORMOUS.

I went along to support a friend. In the weeks leading up to it I got a little anxious... reading all the blogs and looking at all the photos made me pretty nervous, seeing as how my hiking lately involved small day packs on dirt trails with pretty flowers. Not to mention I'd barely been to the gym since blowing my Achilles tendons out hiking in the Bend desert. But I figured no matter how far I made it, a weekend camping on a mountain wouldn't be so bad.

We camped at the trailhead the first night. In the morning we headed up about 2 miles to a nice spot just below Crescent Ridge to camp, acclimate and watch "Mt. Adams TV" - people trekking up the first meaty slope:

I was hurting a little just from that short trek, and was very thankful for the ability to offload most of the weight in my pack and rest up for the big day. Around 4am the next morning we set out armed only with essential layers, gear, food and water on our backs. The air was crisp, the snow crunched under our crampons and the sunrise over Mt. Hood was beautiful:

My first goal was to make it to the top of Crescent Ridge so that no matter how much farther I made it, I could at least try glissading down the mountain. We made it up easily. The next goal was Lunch Counter, which wasn't a terrible hike, but beyond that it was just steep and brutal, and we took it one step at a time. (As one blogger notes, "I don’t think I have ever used as much profanity on a hike as I did on this one" - and I would agree.)

(side view - yes, this is what we were "hiking" up)

At one point about halfway to Piker's Peak, the false summit, I decided I was done. That would've meant that my friend would turn around too and I was there to support her... so I begrudgingly plowed on.

(view of Piker's Peak from below)

Finally we reached Piker's Peak and the real summit loomed ahead. Now? NOW? Now I was DETERMINED. Another thousand feet of moderate, well marked elevation? After 2500 feet of crazy, treacherous, terrifying, unmarked elevation to Piker's Peak? No problem.

And so we made it to the summit, and took the obligatory summit photos and surrounding view photos:

(Mt. St Helens in the distance - it's not erupting, I just need to have my camera cleaned)

Mission accomplished, we donned our waterproof layers and slid down the snow in about a tenth of the time it took us to climb up it. (Glissading, by the way, is my new favorite manner of travel. I'll ride a mule to the top of any mountain if it means I can be a human luge all the way down.)

While I'm proud of my accomplishment, I have to say that I prefer this view of Mt. Adams from now on:


... and it's unlikely that I will ever hike in snow again. Or sand, for that matter.

Early Wednesday three.

Having been pretty successful in my 2Q goals, and still keeping to the 1Q goal of reading more, I am optimistically posting my 3Q goals:

• Take at least two day trips to faraway locales. Day trips are a little stressful - you only get two weekend days, and driving for most of one of them is never that appealing, but I do loves me a road trip, and I think the recent AAA article on Seaside (I mean, really - I've been to the coast ONCE since I moved here over a year ago? Come on!), coupled with the Muppets exhibit at Seattle's EMP, should cover me. But I recently heard about a hike near Bend that offers stellar panoramic views, so I might have to squeeze that in too.
• At least one new restaurant every week. This will likely be a lunch spot because I'm not overly fond of breakfast (and therefore I live in the wrong town) and dinners are more expensive. I'm hoping it won't be dominated by carts during the week because I already have a long list of NE/SE places to try. But the main point of this goal is that I've won two cool things through Yelp! Portland and I really need to increase the volume of reviews to feel justified in winning more free stuff. (I actually think I've won the two contests I've entered because everyone else is too lazy to reply to messages, but... I'll use this as fire instead.)
  
• Five new Portland bands. With the NW Musicfest in September this should be no problem, but I'm really trying to cut back on the bigger "I've seen them 18 times but I can't miss them"* shows and check out the up-and-coming, local, cheaper shows.

And as always, one thing on The List wouldn't be a bad thing, although I've already got 2009 and 2010 covered.

________________
* The only exception to this is The Decemberists. I will kill whoever I need to kill to see them every time they are in town. That's my official police statement, if anyone asks.