August 2007 Archives

So here's a little 60-second review of my week, which was half-great and half really bad. Or nominally bad. The f*d up part is I was in my first bike accident ever Wednesday night. Biking along the dark Springwater Corridor around 10PM, full of dollar sushi and enjoying my first whirl in a week or so, breathing in the imminent autumn winds, the breezing bridges, helmeted and happy. Then another biker, a much bigger, taller male biker, who was riding without lights and in the wrong bike lane, ran into me head-on, knocking me onto the grassy knoll beneath, where I writhed and wriggled, trying to utter "asshole." What's really weird is, my left contact fell out upon impact, so I thought my eyeball had fallen out, or was seriously damaged. I made Greg (who was riding alongside me, thankfully) take his bike light and look into my eyes to make sure everything was still properly socketed. He said I let out this intense animal shriek, the most primal squawk he's ever heard, when the guy plowed into me.

Anyway, I'm OK. Just whiplashed, bruised, scraped, a little crumpled, but I didn't break any bones, and if I had a concussion, I don't remember. So that's that. Boom.

Really good things about the week (which, from my tally, seems to be an impressive week of firsts):

*The first installation of the Portland Preservation Society and Occasional Culture Club, which, for the sake of convenience, I wedded with James' screening of Inland Empire (my second incomplete viewing within the span of a week), which involved many French presses of Stumptown coffee, two cherry pies, and several Mason jars full of home-made kim chee, sent off to disparate homes to achieve maximum stinkability. I tried mine yesterday, and the brine made it a bit too salty for my taste. Orland agreed. I'm going to the Asian market soon and will buy real Korean red pepper, since I used the kind of crushed red pepper that you sprinkle on pizza, and it wasn't the same. Next on the roster: quality time with the kombucha mother!

*Made French onion soup from scratch for the first time. Topped it with thick slices of whole wheat baguette (thus breaking my ongoing, half-assed gluten-free "diet") and good Swiss Gruyere, broiled and bubbly. It was amazing. Onions are magical after you cook them for an hour, when they tangle together to create a beautiful brown caramelized mass.

*Experienced Ikea. Managed to spend under $100 and walked out with a sexy "pure wool" (I think that means it was plucked (sheared?) from a real sheep) shag rug, a mohair throw blanket for ultimate coze, two small stone mortars, four small spice jars, four medium spice jars, two big glass jars for storing bulk items, three lovely ceramic vases for stolen flowers, 100 tea-lights, a colander, and a wood shelf for my kitchen. And a massive re-usable Ikea bag that could double as a parachute. Excited about all the storables. Something about seeing all of my food in beautiful glass containers instead of plastic or aluminum or cardboard packaging calms me.

*Learned a lot about designer toilets, sinks, stoves, tiles, woods, floors, lights, shelves, wood stoves, cabinets, and other home fixtures from Mr. G. Loren Hennes. This rare fellow has immaculate taste and knows what he likes. There are amazing toilets out there that cost $2,500+, and they don't even look like toilets!

*Worked with photographer Anthony Georgis on a shoot for his portfolio. Mostly shots of me eating a red apple for a key Lolita vibe.

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Other-nests. Lunar eclipse tonight. Council Crest, 1:30AM. Going to try to shake myself awake for it.

Helping my friend Nick Jaina with the cover art/text for his new album. Preliminary ideas include designing it to look like a tattered old diary. Point of contention: whether to write on college-ruled or blank paper?

Other blue-prints underway. I will keep you abreast.

Lv,
~Ashley

I woke up this morning and spoke with the crow, who handed me a thousand gasps. A windowed sincerity. Genevieve and I wondered if some birds tire of the lack of variation. Or, perhaps their shifts are too small and vibrational for us to know.

We tentatively decided that, for Halloween, her boyfriend Khris will dress up as Robert Palmer and we will bring a harem of 10 - 12 women in black mini-dresses and blood-red lipstick, showing some serious leg, a la "Didn't Mean to Turn You On". Fish nets. Guitar hips. Slick-backs. It's gonna be amazing.

There is blankness, and multiplicity, and I fall somewhere in between like the plink of a feather. The plinks of thousands of feathers falling dizzily. Instead of struggling to align myself with one aura or another, I am concentrating on filling and feeling this middle space. Within the gestalt overall. My fascination with the orb, the pod, the cocoon, any bobble or earthen shelter, I know it is only leading me to the inside, to what makes the rattle.

I want snow. Summer evenings spent listening to music made during foreign winter frosts, amorphous sluice gates of voices. Letter water.

Lately following the spirit. It spruces from the steam of late afternoon bath water, candles burgeoning, everything busting. A combustion of the fertile. Flooding the air with burning rose oil. The spirit of late summertime brings me to mania and absolution, and then plummets me into lulls of severe irregularity and unknowing. The Cloud of Unknowing is my latest toilet read. I've been revolving more and more intensely as each day passes, but the manic is what drives me, brings me forth, makes life wild, therefore it is almost my vice.

I can bike up hills without ever getting tired, clean the house like a meth addict, spin around in circles like a 4-year-old, wake up at 6AM for morning hikes in ancient landscapes (sometimes). It ruins my appetite. It makes me lose feeling in my hands and feet sometimes, I often feel like I am floatational. It makes it difficult for me to sit still. I could probably bash my head against a wall and not feel it. The closest thing I can compare it to is possession, like being cupped by a claw.

I woke up the other morning, and as I was riding my bike to work, I felt a religious ecstasy. Every building, slab of painted cement, washed-out color, and industrial smell was enlightening and momentous. Sculptural. I could taste the purity of water. Even writing this now, each letter is meticulously rolling itself out and onto, I can feel its shape somewhere. It is a true, visceral phenomenological experience of creation, as if type were clay.

Making this return to the nestling middle all the more necessary...I am ready for harvest.