Ouch

Last Sunday, I ran 6.6 miles for a total of 27.7 miles that week.

I was feeling great, and went out for a bike ride.

On the way home, a dog appeared out of nowhere. Riding a bike with only footbreaks, I hit the breaks hard, and crashed into a tree to avoid hitting the dog.

It's been a difficult week. I have a black eye, scabbed shoulder and no skin on the knuckles of my left hand. Going to work has been tricky, and "I hit a tree" seems like a cover up for bad thing that didn't happen.

Humbling

Yesterday J. and I made a pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch. I appreciated his willingness to go out of town to get one, if Sauvie Island counts as that, because I know he thinks the pumpkins you can get at Safeway are pretty much the same. I think the ones we chose were far superior to the homogeneous grocery store variety pumpkins.




It was such a nice day I wanted to drive around the island. I discovered that despite the pastoral benefits of living out there, I really prefer our house. The houses on the island are boxy little affairs with perfect lawns and I felt strongly they were inhabited by republicans.

The house boats along the river were much cooler. The idea of being able to move a house is appealing to me. If you didn't like your neighbors or just wanted a change of scene, you could just have your house pulled somewhere else.

I like the idea of living on the water and had a fantasy of buying an old shabby chic tugboat. I imagined we could paint it a nice bright color, have lots of pots of geraniums and mums, and a rickety table with a checked table cloth on it. I imagined cooking rustic Italian food, drinking wine and looking up at the stars.

J. thought we could take our tugboat to Seattle for weekends and I asked him if it was possible, because somehow between basic 5th grade geography and now, I had forgotten that rivers led to the ocean, and it happened on the same month that I finally realized why Apple calls their computers MacIntoshes.

I am glad J. remembers these things, and if he can navigate our imaginary tugboat to Seattle, I will go. To be honest, though, my fantasy of a boat had nothing to do with a destination. I just wanted to be out on a river enjoying the moment.

Inside The Lighthouse

Out Of It

I am not an organized person but I am punctual. I have a built clock that doesn’t allow me to be late even if I try, no matter how scattered I am or late I have been up.

The clock on my stove is the only one set in my house. I’ve been using my cell phone as my alarm clock ever since I moved to Portland. Sometimes when the phone starts beeping in the middle of the night to tell me it needs recharged and I’m not thinking clearly enough to just plug it in, I will get up and set the timer on my stove.

I accidentally left my cell phone in my coworker’s car the other night. I decided to take advantage of the fact I couldn’t get in touch with anyone, and to have a nice night by myself. I made some really good pasta, read a book in its entirety, took a bath, and went to bed before ten. I found one of my crappy spare alarm clocks, and set it really early, so that I could get up and go running before work. I felt a little proud of myself for not just taking the easy the easy route, and using the timer on the stove.

I woke up the next morning before my alarm went off. I had a couple cups of coffee and went for a great run. As I was running, I noticed a couple of garage sales. I was amazed by how early people were setting up. As soon as I got back home and took a shower, I went out to check out the sales. I was delighted to find a puppet theater and dinosaur, pig, koala bear, rabbit, and turtle puppets for under ten dollars. I planned to take them into work and set up the theater on the round table of the children’s section in the library. On my way home from the sale, I ran into the guy who is working on K. and M.’s house while they are in France this summer. I asked if I could come in and see what he’d done so far, and we had kind of a nice visit.

I was really pleased with my morning, and told myself I should start every day with enough time to have little adventures before work. I went out to wait on my front steps for my coworker to pick me up. She’s normally as punctual as me, so I was surprised when she didn’t show up. I figured she must be sick and wasn’t able to get a hold of me because I didn’t have my phone. I decided to just take the MAX in. I stopped to get a cup of coffee and noticed that it was a full hour later than I thought it was.

I was shocked, decided to forgo the coffee and went running to the MAX stop. I borrowed a stranger’s cell phone to call my library. The staff was in a panic, but I didn’t get the full story until I arrived at work. Apparently my coworker who was going to pick me up came by while I was out one of my early morning excursions. The front door to my building was open, so she went into the building and banged on my door for a long time. When she got to work, she told my coworkers what had happened. They started to panic, thinking I’d been abducted. One of them had my cell phone, and began contacting people that they thought might know my whereabouts. They asked one of them to go over to my apartment and look for me. They were on the verge of calling the police and my supervisor by the time they received my call from the borrowed cell phone.

I felt really embarrassed, and just off all day. It’s not like me to loose track of time. I wonder what is happening to me.

Invisibility Cloaks

I had a really unsettling series of experiences during my last week in Seattle. My eyes had been bothering me all summer and I decided to give them a vacation from my contacts. This is always a disorienting experience for me because I don't see as well wearing glasses. They throw off my already iffy depth perception and it usually takes me at least four days to adjust to the different way of seeing.

I noticed as soon as I made the switch to glasses that people didn't look at me as often, and they definitely smiled at me less. I also attributed the crappy service I got in restaurants and bars to my glasses. I wondered if I would have had a different experience if I'd had a cuter pair of glasses. I'd still like to get some, but the experience rattled me enough to cut my eyes' vacation short. I switched back over to my contacts after only three days.

I shared this experience with M. the other night, and she'd had something similar happen. She was dating a guy who lived in another state. She'd just started a new job and they were being stingy about giving her days off. She really wanted to see her boyfriend and had already bought a plane ticket. She decided she would go visit him despite not being able to get the day off, and just call in sick to work.

Luckily for M., the day before her trip, she found out some of her coworkers would be on the same flight. She decided to disguise herself, reasoning that they didn't know her very well and probably wouldn't recognize a disguised version of her.

She chose a mom-in-tennis-shoes look, wore a wig, enormous sunglasses, and stuffed her clothes so that she looked twenty pounds heavier. She got on the plane, walked right past her coworkers without a hitch, found her seat, and reached up to put her bag in the storage compartment. As she did so, she accidentally bumped into a man in aisle, who visibly recoiled from her. She was angry and thought to herself, fuck you asshole, I'm actually really cute.

Two Tales Of A City

I am relieved to report that my homesickness was only a 24 hour bug. I have been too busy since then to do much reflecting, and I am behind in reporting my continuing adventures in Portland.

In an effort to correct this, I'll share two stories tonight.

Out Of The Dust

When I first looked at my apartment, I noticed a troubling smell. It was apparent that one of the previous tenants of my apartment had been a cat who had fallen out of the habit of using his litter box. I mentioned this concern to the owner of the building, and she told me she thought the smell was coming from the rug in the bedroom. She told me she would replace it, and even asked me what kind of rug I wanted in its place. I really like the new rug in the bedroom, but it didn't correct the odor, which was clearly coming from the wood floors in the rest of the apartment. I was a little devastated, because I was otherwise in love my apartment. It seemed like a cruel joke to have a beautiful apartment that smelled so toxic it made my eyes water.

I shared my concern with the owner of my building, and she hired an older southern couple from Olympia to perform a natural deodorizing ritual on my apartment. They started by spraying some kind of magic potion on the floors that bubbled to indicate areas of concentrated bacteria. They then sprinkled deodorizing crystals all over my entire apartment, including my own furniture and rugs. The only piece of furniture they left untouched was my bed. The final step was to fog my apartment. I was told to leave my apartment during this process. When I returned, all the windows were open and both of my fans blasting. I was instructed to leave the windows open and fans going, and keep the deodorizing crystals on the floor and furniture for five days.

I knew right away this would be a problem. Walking around barefoot hurt. The only place to relax was on my bed. By the second day, I decided it was time to clean up. I used the vacuum cleaner that belongs to my building. I guess the bag was pretty full...the stuff just wasn't vacuuming well. I had to go over and over the same areas, and I still wasn't making the kind of progress that I'd hoped. All of a sudden, the vacuum bag exploded. Since the fans were on, the contents of the vacuum distributed themselves over ever inch of my living and dining rooms, turning my apartment into my own personal dust bowl.Further inspection of the vacuum revealed not only had the bag exploded, but the force of it had broken the vacuum.

My apartment felt toxic. I decided to turn of my fans and go have a beer while I waited for the dust to settle. I went down the street, had a beer, and read for a while. I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I returned, there was a note on my table that said I love you. This piqued my curiosity, and I asked the couple sitting at a nearby table if that had seen anyone at my table. The told me a young woman with a long blonde ponytail sat down at the table briefly, then jumped up and left.

Of course the couple wanted to know why I wanted this information. I showed them the note, and we all decided to have another beer. It didn't take long before we realized we had moved to Portland the same week. M. and K. are most recently from Cannes. It turns out they're my neighbors, and now they are friends.

The Call Heard Round The World
I had a rushed morning the other week. I got up a little early, and this may have been the problem. I always run late when I do this. I made the mistake of trying to bring to much stuff with me to work on a rainy day. While I was struggling to juggle multiple bags and an umbrella, somehow my cell phone fell out of my pocket, and I didn't even notice until an hour or so later. Since I don't have a landline, this is a crisis situation for me.

I called my cell phone provider and found out someone had made outgoing calls using my phone. I suspended the line, ordered a new phone, and sent frantic emails to my friends requesting their numbers.

At about 11 that night, I received an email from my father, informing me someone had found my phone and called the number labeled mom and dad. Since my parents are currently living in Cambodia, the woman staying in their house spoke with the guy who found the phone, emailed the information to my parents, and they forwarded it to me. I gave the guy a call the next day and found out he lives three houses down the street from me. I stopped by that evening to pick up my phone and meet him and his dog.

What are you doing to me, Portland? I may turn into an optimist.

Size Matters

Sorry gentlemen. This entry is about bras. But just in case you’re wondering, the answer is yes. In my mind, the question “does size matter?” falls into the “do I look fat?” category of questions. If you have to ask, you’ve already incriminated yourself, and if you’re asking a friend or a lover, they can be honest and hurt your feelings, or lie and appease you.When men have asked me if size matters, I have always told them the truth...if you are an asshole and on the small side, it's realistic to expect that information has been shared.

But back to bras. A. , her daughter S. and I were out shopping the other day. A. needed a new bra, and I decided to take advantage of our visit to the Nordstrom’s lingerie department and get measured. Someone told me a while ago that Oprah had a whole show devoted to “bra interventions”. She claimed 85% of women were wearing the wrong bra size.

I found a nice woman to measure me. She can help me get dressed any day. It felt really luxurious to have someone put bras on for me. She was very thorough, and had me bend over to make sure they fit properly. Sure enough, she said I was wearing the wrong bra size, and pronounced me a 32 DDD instead of a 34 D. I was stunned. I didn’t like the way it sounded. It’s a really hard size to find, and the bras aren’t any fun. They’re full coverage, no nonsense affairs. I found a pink bra slightly better than the offensive mom bras she brought in, and despite everything, I really liked the way it felt.

A. decided to get measured as well and found herself a 32 D instead of a 34 B. She was similarly shocked, but really liked the bra our measurer found her. We bought our bras and moved onto Macy's. A. had to buy a wedding present for her father in law. We decided that while she shopped, I should go get measured, just to see if another bra expert shared the opinion of the first one. We love comparisons, and used to administer the Pepsi Challenge at parties when we were kids.

The Macy’s lingerie department is much larger than Nordstrom’s. They have a wider selection of bras, and everyone knows about their “Buy One, Get One Free” bi-annual bra sales. Despite this, the department was a ghost town, and not just in terms of customers. It took me awhile to locate a sales person, and she looked really inconvenienced when I asked her to measure me. We went into a dressing room, and I started to take of my shirt. She stopped me and told me they didn’t do it like that there. I felt embarrassed, as if I’d done something really inappropriate.

She measured me, taking all of 20 seconds to do so, and told me I was a 36 C. I raced off to find A. and share this inconsistency. I found myself pleased the sales person had done such a half assed job, and seemed to have a fear of breasts. It made a better story.


Adventures_

In the Estrogen Sauna

I went to Goodwill’s 22nd annual Glitter Sale last Saturday. Sparkly clothes and holiday attire are saved all year for this event and there are bargains to be found. I have a friend who got a Vera Wang wedding dress at the sale for $10 a few years ago. She turned around and sold it for $200. I’ve acquired an absurd amount of dresses there and once I bought a fur coat made out of a pony.

I had high hopes for this year, since these days, shopping makes me happier than pretty much anything else in my life. I am pleased to report that this year’s sale was a success for me. I walked away with four vintage cocktail dresses, a couple of shirts, and two pairs of shoes.

This is remarkable when you consider the odds I was up against. First, it’s important to get there right when the doors open. This meant getting up really early on a Saturday after going to be bed really late the night before. Since it was both freezing and raining, I bundled up, which later turned out to be a mistake. Busses were against me; the one I needed only ran on weekdays, and I ended up having to take a bus part way and run the remaining distance. I was twenty minutes late.

The place was already so packed it was difficult to walk. Hundreds of women of all ages and sizes were aggressively shopping as fast as they could, grabbing anything of possible interest. It’s important to grab quickly, and to keep up with the pace of other shoppers. One strategy some shoppers employ is to follow the person who grabs the item they want until they put it down. I met a woman who scored a black velvet coat with a rabbit fur hood. She had followed the woman who found it first for over an hour before she decided she didn’t want it.

I quickly swung into a fast paced survivor-shopping mode, and within five minutes spotted the trophy of my purchases, a black beaded Audrey Hepburn style cocktail dress. Shortly afterwards I ran into A., and I was glad to see her not only because I’d been worried we wouldn’t find each other in the crowd, but also because she’s a better shopper than me. It’s really important to have a partner to shop with when you are surrounded by so much glitter and thousands of bridesmaid dresses. It's disorienting and can alter your perspective. It can become difficult to gage what is tacky and what isn’t, or more importantly, what’s tacky but really cool anyway. A. was hoping to find a strapless dress for me and kept passing potential dresses my way.

I had forgotten to bring a shopping bag, so I began to pile the dresses over one arm. I was already so hot from speed shopping and too many people in one room, I had to take off my coat and carry it in addition to all the dresses I was holding.

It was at about this time the heat, speed and intensity of the sale really began to effect people. I rounded a corner, and was pushed by a woman, who told me to get off her clothes. I looked down and realized the clothes she was speaking of were on the floor, in the middle of a crowded aisle. Not stepping on them would have been impossible. A. and I said passive aggressive things about her in really loud voices when we were a safe distance away from her.

By this point, I was starting to slow down. My arms hurt from carrying too many dresses and a heavy coat. It was time to make some decisions about what to keep and what to discard. We looked for a good place to try on our finds. Part of the charm of the Glitter Sale is the total lack of dressing rooms. People try on clothes wherever they can find the room.

I am of the opinion that this is the reason heterosexual men go to the sale. They may go in the guise of helping their wives and partners shop, but the real reason is to watch women try on sexy dresses. I have a friend who told on a guy doing this a few years ago, and he got kicked out.

Sure enough, a gentleman managed to plant himself in front of us while we tried on maybe 20 dresses between the two of us. We chose to ignore him. Since we couldn’t find a mirror, we had to trust each other to be honest about what looked good and make our purchasing decisions accordingly. Sadly, the strapless dresses didn’t fit, but everything else did, and A. looked spectacular in several long swanky backless dresses. She also bought a tutu and some formal wear for her four year old daughter. It's never too early to develop a love of clothes.

We went back to my place for a champagne brunch and played dress up, which we've been doing for the past twenty eight years. We felt really pleased with ourselves. I hope that this year, we find an occasion to wear at least one of the dresses we bought.


Adventures_

I Giveth and I Taketh Away

In order to make room for my beautiful new rocking chair, I had to get rid of my old one. I was afraid to put it back behind my building because of the sign about a thousand dollar fine for leaving furniture.

I came up with a plan. I was going out that night with A., and I figured by the time we got back from dinner, it would be dark and we would have had enough wine where it wouldn’t seem like a big deal to carry a large rocking chair a block away and leave it on the sidewalk. We brought the chair down around 10, and I felt really generous, like I was giving a special treat to the first person who saw and wanted the chair.

When I went out for coffee on Saturday morning, I noticed the chair was gone. Later that day, I had a shopping date with B. I showed her the new chair, and told her about dropping the old one off down the block. She looked disappointed, and I realized I should have asked people if they wanted a rocking chair before offering it up to strangers. As we left our building and headed out towards her car, B. spotted the chair. Someone had brought it into their front yard and seemed to be using it as porch furniture.

I told B. I had no problem stealing the chair back. I imagined we would wear tight black thief outfits and ski masks and run around to the theme of “Mission Impossible”. I knew this would require a fair amount of drinking. It would have been a smart thing to eat dinner, but I didn’t feel like it.


We started our evening out with cheap beer, switched to red wine, and ended with microbrews. I was deeply regretting the lack of food in my stomach and took off earlier than B. and her husband. I decided to steal back the chair by myself, and to have it waiting for them by the back door of our building by the time they stumbled home.

I woke up today with a huge hangover, and haven’t checked yet to see if B. took the rocking chair back up to her place. I hope so. And I hope the person who had the chair for only a day enjoyed his or her short time with it. I’m sorry I stole it, but I felt like it was mine to take.
Adventures_