ahh, portland

how do i love thee? let me count the ways:
























"no dog shit"



























the "keep out" barrel






















"we don't tow - we toss cars over the side!!"



























the bait shack

be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyent

every single time i walk past this bench, i think of this.

miyake vs green elephant

we had a bit of a devastating experience at miyake last night, where boo, m, enoch and i went with the intention of celebrating boo's birthday. it's been months since we've eaten out, and boo had been savoring the thought of spicy crunchy inari sushi for quite some time. however, when we sat down and started perusing the menu, we quickly realized that not only was there no spicy crunchy inari to be seen, there was not one single vegetarian item. everything involved either fish or pig innards, seriously. i thought all four of us were going to burst into tears. m asked the chef about the menu change; he shrugged and said, basically, yes it changed, and no, there's nothing vegetarian. i know, i know - it's a sushi place, and sushi basically means raw fish. but i've never been to a japanese restaurant in my life that didn't have inari, veggie, or shiitake rolls or maki, or at least noodles with vegetables and tofu.

luckily, we thought of green elephant, which just happens to be totally vegetarian (mostly vegan, in fact), and also just happens to serve absolutely delicious asian food in a lovely space with great service. also, most importantly, boo loves it there. it was a birthday miracle.



















boo got his favorite, the vegan "far east duck." there's enoch with his chinese broccoli and crispy soy fillet. m had a yellow curry dish, and i had spinach noodles with vegetables in shiitake-ginger sauce. everything tasted great.



















i don't think boo minded a bit when the whole restaurant sang happy birthday to him as his dessert arrived, either.

happy birthday, boo!

just look at this little peanut.
























he's thirteen today, somehow!
























i don't know how that happens - one day your baby's wearing angel wings every single day at preschool...
























and the next, he's a teenager. here he is, below, leaping from nebraska into missouri over m, whose head is resting just about on lawrence, kansas.

dreamy

okay, if you can't stand it when people relate their dreams to you, now would be a good time to avert your eyes.

i woke up multiple times last night in the midst of variations on this dream: i had this friend who was apparently a giant rabbit (kind of like a totoro figure). in one of the mini-dreams, i was wheeling my rabbit friend into a hospital in a wheelchair. he had broken his ankle. in another, we went to see a movie (earth, in fact, which is kind of a propos, since it's all about adorable animals). we saw it at the nick, and afterward i ran upstairs to the restroom, and when i returned, my friend was gone. another time the rabbit leaned in close and whispered to me, "you're pretty." yet another scenario involved the two of us volunteering at a preschool, where we were helping little kids sew these incredibly complicated quilts. one small child started sobbing, because his quilt design was based on some terrifying holocaust-inspired story.

i'm kind of exhausted today after a night of adventures with my new imaginary friend.

tower of song

boo and i got to hang out with the cool kids inside the tower of song this afternoon. we heard the amazing sontiago (left) and dilly dilly (right), up close and personal. then we went back down to earth and listened to lady lamb the beekeeper, also wonderful. the tower of song has joined my shifting mental list of "top ten things i adore about portland."

happy happy day!

happy TENTH birthday, robot boy!

a haiku about velvet goldmine

velvet goldmine


the glam rock era:
glittery eye shadow and
bowie-esque singers.*





*plus full-frontal nudity on the part of ewan mcgregor

89 degrees

it felt good to sweat. i played hooky yesterday, walked all over portland, drank two iced coffees and hung out with this strong man and his three penguin friends:
























to make up for yesterday's slackery, i am going to be incredibly productive today.

up up down down

"Up Up Down Down" trailer from Allen Baldwin on Vimeo.

watch for a (younger, longer-haired) boo in this movie trailer! the film comes out this fall!

cupcakes make me happy

just baking them, i mean. eating them is great and all, but making them is sublime.

so, true story: i was basically forbidden to bake cupcakes, cake, or baked goods of any sort for enoch yesterday, despite the fact that it was his birthday (okay, it was nothing against me and my baking skillz, but had entirely to do with enoch's desire to be healthy and eat well, i admit). luckily, i was permitted to bring some over to jason's house last night. i made the chocolate mint cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world:
























yum. they were almost as good as the homemade pizza that proceeded them.

davy's heart is an idiot

this movie is going to be the AWESOMEST. and yes, it will be finished really soon!

musing

just a kind of thoughtful day. here are three of my thoughts:

1. "a new lease on life." what? my crazy brain keeps making this ="a lease on a new car." like, you only have it for two years or whatever, and you can't drive it too much and you're supposed to keep it pretty clean. and you pay $399 a month.

2. what is it, exactly, that people in portland, maine have against tourists? i really don't understand this. even if you disregard the money that tourists bring into the economy of a town like mine, what is it that's so distasteful about people who are lucky enough to be on vacation, and who have chosen - from myriad possibilities - your town?*

3. i felt kind of bad, but then i baked some cupcakes. and now i feel better. and i haven't even eaten any of them (yet)!




*this actually kind of upsets me - i imagine these happy tourists walking around admiring portland, completely unaware that all around them are natives narrowing their eyes, thinking, "pah! tourists!"

happy birthday, enoch!

from the whole family.

another reason i love my dog

reason number five bazillion and two, perhaps? i love when he rests his chin on me, like so.

imaginary

we kidnapped artemis today: she cooked food at our house after driving boo and me to hannaford to procure ingredients. later, we bought her a chai at arabica and then we took a trip to her imaginary lighthouse (actually this one). it was a lovely way to spend a foggy sunday.

hair

below is a hairdo i like to call "too broke to get a haircut."
























see this long, long, stringy brown ponytail? i am contemplating just snipping it off myself - and have in fact been advised by a few to do so (including my mom). it's either that or get m to do it for me. stay tuned for more exciting adventures of my hair!

who's infinite now, huh?

i did it - i finished infinite jest! i don't know if you can see it in the above picture (a certain visiting dog contemplated having a little chew on it - every once in a while she likes to gnaw on well-seasoned books). minnow looks worried, because he knew how close to the end i was at this point, and how dutifully i flipped back to the endnotes again and again and again, maintaining a careful two-bookmark system. this is pretty much where this book was read in its entirety: my bed. although i did defy logic and read it in the bathtub a couple of times, it rarely if ever made it downstairs, and never out of the house. i am still digesting the actual story, so i don't have much in the way of a book review. i was left feeling like too many loose ends were floating around at the end, wondering what happened to just about every character. i know more about tennis culture than i ever cared to, and almost that much about intra-venous and other types of drug abuse. here is my favorite line from the whole book:

"the door's got a big poster of r. limbaugh on it, from before the assassination." page 929.

not allowed to be spoken

i love this list from they might be giants of annoying popular catchphrases that are not permitted to be spoken within the band. some of my favorites (i.e. least favorites):


don’t go there

it’s all good

it is what it is

no worries


i'd add to this "my bad." i'm sure there are more, just can't think of them at the moment.

what i'm s'posed to be doing right now

sewing,
























sewing,
























sewing,
























labels in little fishy/lobster onesies headed to whole foods portland and bliss. i'm just pausing for, like, five minutes to write this blog post. honest.

my day

involved beautiful flowers, a nice smelly candle, bath salts, baked goods, a little rain...
























and an evening spent with our friends from found magazine.

mr t says

treat your mother right.

happy mama's day!

happy day to all of my favorite moms, especially mine. in honor of this day, here are some respectful yo mama jokes from mcsweeney's.

"Yo mama is so good at cooking she should open her own restaurant. I'd be the first customer."

my new project

is called those glasses have become a PHENOMENON. so far, it consists of me taking pictures of myself and some dogs i know wearing these famous blue aviator glasses (which have been banned in at least one portland public school). the next time you see me, odds are i will beg you to let me take your photo while wearing them (you wearing them, that is, not me). unless they fall into the wrong hands again...

googling the day away

i wanted to share some of the searches that brought people to my blog this month:

"david meiklejohn birthday" (answer to this query = may 20th, by the way, anonymous birthday elf)

"topless hair cut in north carolina"

"what to wear at a david sedaris reading"

"topless mamas" (never gonna happen, leastwise not on this blog, fella)

then there are many, many people interested in the russian commuter dogs, milo in maine shirts, various movies i've mentioned here, and the cutest little girl in france. apparently, daniel pepice has stopped googling himself/being stalked, is the big news! or has he?

daniel pepice
daniel pepice
daniel pepice

thinking about my girl

as it gets closer to the month of june, which is when i have (for some arbitrary reason) decided i will allow myself to start counting the days until bean comes home, i find myself thinking about her constantly. i am so excited to hear her stories, see her german school supplies and her new haircut, hug her and hug her, and force her to speak lengthy sentences auf deutsch just for my entertainment. last night she was very much on my mind, since we went to the words & images 2009 release party at one longfellow square to hear enoch read most of bean's essay, which is featured in the latest issue.



















(photo borrowed from/copyright michael milinski)


as you can see, he videotaped himself reading, so that bean can experience the event for herself and hear the audience's laughter and wild applause in reaction to her wonderful story. it was a fun night, with the extra special unexpected bonus of getting to meet one of my "imaginary" friends in real life! i was shy, because although she likes me in the world of the internets (i thought to myself), what if she doesn't like me in the real world, face to face? what if i don't like her? how awkward! i shouldn't have worried; i think she liked me. and when she read her *poems, i had to restrain myself from whispering loudly to m, "I LOVE HER!" instead, i said very quietly, "she's awesome."


*i am impatient with poetry. i have to focus really really hard to keep my mind from skittering around the words, looking for a story or a plot or something. mtv generation? anyway, i loved melissa's poetry, and i would make a point to go hear her read just about anything, anywhere, anytime.

two movies that made me cry this week

chop shop, ramin bahrani's second film:
























the kid at the center of this film is not a professional actor, and i was kind of prepared for that to be glaringly obvious. but he was amazing - a real kid, in a situation that was heartbreaking and authentic.
























and wendy and lucy:

























this movie filled me with anxiety, as it primarily involved car trouble, poverty, and a lost dog. michelle williams was perfect in it, understated and lost and ageless in an odd way (she could've been 17 or 30). and the poignancy of wendy's love for her dog lucy, the only creature in the world who needs her, made me weep. the tragic love of a good dog is among the most moving of all relationships (and considering the short lifespan of a dog, it's always tragic). this movie was somehow bleak but not without the tiniest glimmer of hope - kind of perfect for the times we live in right now.
























i love this quote from the new york times, explaining the film's R rating:

The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard.

1938/1976

here i go again, stealing content from my librarian brother.the following film pretty much stars him as the adorable, happy toddler, with cameos by me and my other bruddie (i'm the one with braids):



i love this one, because except for adam's plaid pants and my mom's groovy outfit, this almost looks like it could be titled "my depression-era childhood." well, there's also the 1970 volvo to give it away (the same car, by the way, that i started learning to drive with about seven years later). i also love it because i have such incredibly vivid memories of this brief period of my life: we rented that house in olathe, kansas, around the time i was in second grade. the backyard was like an entire world - the dome climber, tire swing, barn, porch, huge vegetable garden - i can close my eyes and see it all exactly the way it appears in this movie (only bigger, of course). it's funny, i can't remember the inside of the house at all, really. and here's a detail that makes it seem even more like it took place in 1938: our next door neighbor (beyond the barn) was also our milkman. and his son was my second grade teacher. and his wife always had exotic, antique candy (like ribbon candy) in her house which she was very generous with. i could go on and on.

my first dog

my bruddie continues his family archive project, transferring old home movies to digital. this one is a surprise, because i thought we'd lost all of the film that actually featured my siblings or me. this is me as a baby, circa 1968, and it's worth watching to the end because

1. you'll see that i was then, as i continue to be, a "good eater."
2. i am the cuter baby of the two; i believe the guy on the floor was my first friend.
3. look at my red tights!
4. look at my adorable parents - and at the fancy "baby's eye view" of my mom (and her cool shoes).
5. there's a glimpse of a VW bus and my baby-faced aunt sooze and uncle david.

but most of all,

6. my first dog, bartholomew, frolicking in front of *924 mississippi street, lawrence, kansas, birthplace of me. family legend has it that i first learned to stand by pulling myself up while clutching the fur of this sweet dog.


*historical notes on this house include the fact that approximately 20 years later i lived two doors down, when i transferred to ku as a junior; also, this house was razed at some point (before i moved back to lawrence) to build a duds n' suds laundromat. correct me if i'm wrong on any of this, family historians!

doilies. doilies. doilies.

have you even seen anything better than these reusable cake doilies? and don't you love the word "doilies"? these are new at ikea, and in my price range, too (i.e. less than two dollars):

half full

yet another really, really good reason to be broke: you can catch swine flu from touching money.

scrabbling

enoch and chad came over last night for spicy tofu, too many cookies, and scrabble. we couldn't get enoch to put this book down:
























that would be the scrabble official word list. which does not include this word:



















as per my lady blogger code of ethics, i can't tell you who won the first game, but i can tell you that chad won the second game.

may artwalk

i walked the art last night with the dancer lady. it felt like a great evening to be alive in portland, maine. we saw people dressed up in bizarre costumes, beautiful photographs and paintings and giant wood block prints, high school kids swordfighting and selling vegan cupcakes, fire jugglers juggling fire with deliberately bored expressions on their faces, and heard music floating down from the heavens.

the dancer had an epiphany about the zine she is working on when she saw these "mt. rushmore" paintings. here she is, reflected in teddy roosevelt:
























i told her this guy in the ruffly pink panties was going to eat an actual lightbulb, but did she believe me?
























see what i'm saying? as i told her, we were lucky he didn't next demonstrate his ability to hammer nails into his nose.
























not only that, but walking up and down congress street was almost like one of those dreams that feature a cast of everyone you've ever known. if i had run into someone i knew from high school, i would've suspected i was dreaming for sure.

kurt & courtney

first of all, my haiku about kurt & courtney:

kurt cobain, shot dead:
crazies say courtney did it.
but probably not.

additionally, this was a sleazy, sleazy movie, and it sleaziness couldn't be disguised by the british accent of its narrator/director, or the fact that he kept mentioning the letters "bbc."

pourquoi suis-je si joyeux?

i LOVE gene kelly, and i love him even more now that i've seen him tap dancing on roller skates (which he starts doing around 2:00). this clip is from it's always fair weather, and i found it on kottke.org.

rabbit rabbit!

happy may day to you from my busy little rabbit.