A Christmas Story

Merry Christmas from pretty Portland!

I didn't take this photo (the giveaway should be that it's actually in focus). Interestingly enough, I walked across this bridge a few days ago, after Ben and I were going back downtown after seeing Superbad (which was stupid! Sorry, America) and there was no "Merry Christmas" sign to be seen. There was, however, a deserted construction site, which I guess didn't make the cut for this particular photo.

Christmas actually started for me on Friday morning, when I saw my #1 Portland enemy (a high school kid who likes to yell obscenities in a Cartman voice on the 7:25 am bus) run face first into a telephone pole and knock himself out. Ho ho ho! I also saw a construction worker give cookies to a homeless man, which is probably a more acceptable thing to be excited about. At work we had our bagel brunch, which was fun, and then Ben flew in at about midnight. We've just been slothing around, cooking some food, and walking about. Yesterday Ben made a rosemary pork roast, which went so excellently with the rosemary cheese that Geoff and Jill sent (if you send a box of cheese, you too can be mentioned by name in this blog!). We then spent awhile watching "Yule Log 2002" on Oregon Public Broadcasting, which is a 3-hour shot of a fireplace. Every so often, a hand would come in to poke at the fire with a stick, or throw another log on, which was very exciting for us.

Fire: now in HD!

This morning, we got up, made some coffee, and watched FOUR judge shows in a row (Judge David, People's Court, Judge Mathis, and Judge Hatchette). Luckily, during Judge Hatchette it started to snow, so we had an excuse to leave the house and go for a walk.

Ben was excited.

The view from my balcony

A pile of old Coke bottles we saw

An alley near my house

Man, we turned off the judge shows for this?


Brr.

Portland's hottest ride

This is probably my favorite present of the year -- a "Tabby" pocket puzzle that Ben found at his parents' house. It's like when you spend $100 on an Erector set for your kid, and then he takes the box and plays with it all afternoon instead.

And finally, this is what happens when you try to take a self-portrait above a steaming pot. It's probably for the best that you can't really see our faces.

Good Grief

Today I worked on German books for a long, long, long time. Normally, I like this, but unfortunately today's batch consisted mainly of professional law books, which... well, let's just say that for some reason we didn't cover international water-use law vocabulary in any of my German classes, so by the end of the day I felt like my head was imploding in on itself. My only coherent thought as I left the building was "Gwarrgh, pizza! Me want!" (you'll be happy to know that my wish was later fulfilled). I then managed to miss the bus TWICE downtown; after the first miss, I walked down the street to get more transit tickets, then hurried back to see it pulling away without me again. Both times I ran down the street yelling something like, "NoooooOOOOooo HEYYYY!!!!!" and flailing my arms. Since I do this roughly three or four times a week, I probably no longer have any chance of impressing any of the really unattractive people that habitually ride my bus, which is too bad. I'm not sure why I keep running after the bus, since it's never once stopped for me, but this never seems to occur to me at the time. It's sort of like Charlie Brown and the football, I guess.

More Breaking News: Birthday Edition

Today's my mom's birthday! I hear it's cold and snowy back in Illinois, so send good thoughts of sun and happiness! Meanwhile, I'm in Portland, eating cake and thinking about her:

Happy Birthday, Mommy! I love you.

Today I unearthed a pile of old mix cd's, including one that Anna made me right before I left. Somehow she managed to segue from a Decemberists song directly into that Canned Heat song that used to be on a Pepsi commercial. Brilliant! My friends are better than everybody else's friends.

Last night I went to a nickel arcade with my pal Walt. I'm not sure if it was quite as good as Skateland (no skate-up concession stand, for one) but there WERE skeeball machines and a Star Trek: Voyager shooting game that I failed miserably at. We ended up winning a pile of tickets, so I got a skull keychain (complete with faux-jewel eyes, just like real skulls!) and he got some plastic army men. Also, my arm is nearly dead today because I injured it playing air hockey. How pathetic am I? (Answer: infinity.)

This week promises to be exciting. We've been getting treat boxes from publishers every day recently, so all I do at work is wander over to the table and claw through all the piles of candy. On Friday we have our department holiday party, which is some sort of "bagel brunch." Apparently I've been fully assimilated into office culture, because I'm actually really excited about this. FREE BAGELS!! THIS IS GREAT. And then Ben on Friday night! Aaheeeeha! I went Christmas shopping on Mississippi the other day, where all the stores were so festive and happy that it made the task a treat instead of a burden. One shop was giving out free champagne, another had hot cider, and a third had some pet zebra finches that were chirping happily over by a rack of dresses. Downtown is all lit up, and I love walking through it every evening on my way home. And then New Year's Eve!!! Sorry, I appear to be really excited about everything ever lately. Next up: Why I Love Circles, and The Story of How I Ate a Really Good Orange.

Night Janitor at HarperCollins

On my commute home today, a woman walked by me to get off the bus, and a fortune from a fortune cookie fell out of her purse and landed on the seat next to me. (I know. But really, this actually did happen.) It said, "You have an ambitious nature and will make a name for yourself." This was at the very second that I was listening to a song called "Publisher" by Blonde Redhead. Who knew a cosmic symbol would come to me on public transit? Also, my lucky numbers were 4 and 7 (4 + 7 = December 11th!! Or December 47th?) and 23, which is the name of the album I was listening to. That, and 14, 35, and 48, which I'm ignoring since they don't fit neatly into the story. Although, I was 14 once... NO MERE COINCIDENCE.

Ben visits in 10 days, Anna gets here in a month, Shadie comes in 6 or 8 weeks, Geoff visits in February, and Alex maybe comes sometime after that. My thoughts basically consist of a never-ending slideshow of these five faces, maybe with an Abba song playing in the background. Those 5 faces, and one of those cartoon meat drumsticks. Yes, that's about all there is to me.

More breaking news

Aiiiieeeaaahh, I just killed a giant spider that was hanging out in the corner of my room. Why, spider, why? Why right before bed? Luckily I managed to grab a shoe that I don't really like, since I'll probably leave it there (covering the mangled corpse) until I move out. It's December, isn't everything on earth supposed to be dead by now? Next time I'll use Paul's shoe.

In a further quest to make sure every second of my life is documented on the internet, you can now track what I listen to on my ipod every day here. Hey, how'd that Ginuwine track get on there? Clearly there must be some mistake.

Here is how I would rate every tea in the Stash Herbal Tea Sampler:

Apple Cinnamon: B
Blueberry: F
Chamomile: D-
Lemon Ginger: B+
Licorice Spice: F-
Mango Passionfruit: C
Orange Starfruit: C
Peppermint: A+
Wild Raspberry: F

Poking at things with sticks

Tonight I was reflecting back on the week and thinking about how great it had been, when it occurred to me that I couldn't actually explain, in normal terms, why it'd been so great. I have nothing to report. I've lived the same day 5 days in a row. But how to explain? After seeing basically every person I love in the world during Thanksgiving, coming back to Oregon was sort of like staring at a blank sheet of paper. Yet, I wasn't, and am not, unhappy. What I find impossible to include in this blog are the small things that take up most of my time and give me most of my happiness. I love waking up and drinking coffee out of my Edward Gorey mug so much that I start to get excited about it every night before I go to bed. This morning, Ben patiently listened to me drone on about how I got a credit card with a picture of an eagle on it, and how I thought I lost my keys the other day (they were in my back pocket the whole time). The other day I came close to telling you about how I almost fell down on the bus, until I realized that that was all there was to the story. But, I don't know, it was so funny at the time!

And on that note, today was wonderful. It was sunny and cold and I walked around my neighborhood for hours, listening to music. I drank coffee out of my mug. I learned that Will Oldham took the cover photo for Slint's "Spiderland" album, which, I know, I know, I know nobody cares about, but I had to tell you because it gave me such a thrill. I missed seeing Bill Moyers on OPB, but it's okay because he'll be on again tomorrow! After 20 minutes of staring at my bookshelf, I've decided that I'll start reading Kundera's "Immortality" again soon. There's a lot to look forward to, including writing my initials on the bus window and seeing if I can guess the exact minute that I clock in at work.

I also bought some soap that smells really good!

What I meant to say was that things are going pretty well.