July 2005 Archives

One of my classes is called "Art, Culture, and Creativity." It is taught by this spacy older Jewish lady with frizzy grey hair. She wears flowered skirts and Birkenstocks with white stockings. She is really into folk art. Have a clear picture?
From time to time she has guest speakers come in to talk to us about integrated lesson plans (i.e. incorporating art into other subjects.) The thing about these guys is that they're usually elementary teachers themselves and don't really know how to teach adults. Some, like the storyteller, are cheesy but cool. Yesterday we had a music teacher who was absolutely fascinating.

He had white hair and a white moustache. He wore white linen pants and a loose "world music" sort of shirt, if you follow me. He kept refering to notes. He seemed very nervous. He opened by telling us a little bit about himself. He had just returned from a month spent with his elderly sightless parents. He was helping them move to Oregon from the East Coast. He said it was hard work. He had to read a lot of files to them, and describe many items. Luckily his 20 year old daughter, who is a student at U of O accompanied him to help. That was how he introduced himself to us. I was amazed. Then he led us in this weird song about a donkey that had many parts. I got to play a xylaphone (how do you spell that?) It was really fun.
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So here is an update on my relationship zone. Moose came to visit, and we had a lot of love (great talks, trips down memory road) but no lovin,' so to speak. I know my dear readers were privy to some sweet flirting a few months back, but by the time Moose arrived we had already decided to just be mellow friends. As for AJ, my incredible levels of school stress and guilt about being a bad girlfriend led us to decide to downshift a little bit. He is no longer my "boyfriend", but we are "dating." This may seem like an arbitrary distinction, but it has made both of us feel so much better. We hung out last night and it was really fun, but I don't have to stress about disappearing into my homework for the next four days and making him sad/insecure. He can go on hot dates with other hot ladies while I slave away at my Teaching Philosophy. That's fair, right? Anyway, even if it is a nominal change I feel great about it, and now whenever I do see him I feel glad rather than guilty.
Ta da!

A list of things I (sincerely) like about my morning commute:

*The graffiti on MLK
*The lady using eye drops at the red light
*The lady in the lane next to me laughing uproariously into her cell phone
*The 3-5 songs that squeeze into my 15-20 minute drive (for the longest time I made sure Quasi's "Happy Prole" was one of them)
*NPR (for the mornings I just can't pick a tape)
*Returning phone calls on the drive home. Unsafe but efficient
*Driving over the Freemont Bridge- it's so dignified
*Since I essentially have a reverse commute I am able to whiz by all the dudes stuck in the Beaverton exit lane. Suckers!
*The cool morning air rushing in my windows and waking me up
*The hot afternoon air drying the sweat on the left side of my body
*The fact that even with cell phone and radio and tapes and bad drivers to distract me, I still manage to have about 40 minutes by myself every day. The rest of my life is so hectic right now, I actually find respite in my drive time.

I've been having an amazing email exchange with David Galli about his apology project. As my regular readers know, I am a Chronic Confessor. In my search for Perfect Heart, for transparency and weightlessness, I feel that I must constantly unburden myself. To an obnoxious, neurotic level. I like David's project because it recognizes that need for release- sort of like PostSecret, only more direct.
Since I have been feeling very murky and heavy lately, I feel that I must make a mass, general apology:

***I am sorry for not being an available/attentive friend, daughter, date, classmate and blogger.***

This round of classes ends on Thursday, and everything will be mellower after that.
Love and love and love to you all!

Despite the fact that my last entry was a mile long, there were some important Shipwreck moments that I left out:
*seeing multiple bald eagles
*also two shooting stars
*and that 11 year old "hot boy" named Tork who dressed better than any adult man I know and hung around the shows intimidating the other kids with phrases like, "I do not care to speak to you again."
*oh, and that other boy, Owen, who basically ran a ferry between the floating dock and the shore at Trafton Lake. He'd get about seven adults piled on his weird homemade raft and cheerfully paddle us around. He'd call out to swimmer, "Hey, you wanna get on?"
*This old lady with an indeterminate accent who approaced Rachael and I and asked if we had "found any treasures?"
*and during Laura Viers show I sat with Flint and had a really nice talk about Anacortes and our mutual devotion to What the Heck.

George, here is a picture of the Grand Rapid dudes (standing in line for donuts):

And here is a shadow shot of Karl Blau:

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Moose is here now. There's a Moooose, on the Loooose, full of Juuuuuice.... (That is part of a camp song. We worked at camp together oh-so-long-ago.) He is an amazing man. He has been on the road for almost a month, visiting friends, camping, going to music festivals, and doing rearch for his PhD. I am in awe of this. I love school, and I'm glad to finally feel settled in Portland, but Man! He seems so content, so present. I know that when I travel I feel that way too. He is able to let go and just let the world wash over him. And visiting so many people! It's like he gets these little two day snapshots into people's lives, but in such an intimate, special way. I am jealous. Moose told me I could ride shotgun the rest of the way, and I am pysically aching to do it. But it's not the right time for me. Once I'm a teacher I'll have my summers off to cruise and explore, and hopefully Moose's invite will still stand.

I am a blogging delinquent. Months of foreshadowing What the Heck Fest (aka Shipwreck Days), plus a week or two of intensive refs, and then the event happens and I don't write about it. I am a cyber-tease. I am a UrHo showgirl. I apologize.

The problem is that spending two and a half days away from my textbooks and laptop nearly sank me. I have been swimming against the current trying to catch up on homework, and sadly my blog (and friendships and relationship and and and) have suffered for it. I should be reading 60 pages on charter schools and voucher programs right now, instead of blogging my heart out, but I ran into Activist Amy a moment ago, and she berated me for being so behind on Perfect Heart, which was flattering and guilt inducing all at once, so here I am.

What the Heck was totally epic. The girls couldn't get off work early on Friday, so we ended up leaving Portland at almost 7pm. I had burritos waiting, and they ate them in the car as we sat through the remnants of weekend rush hour traffic. Once we crossed the bridge into Washington the cars thinned out, and we made great time. The drive was fun. Rebecca and I took turns driving while Rachael, who wasn't feeling very well, dozed in the back seat. Rebecca and I realized we shared a teenage enthusiasm for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, so after four hours of mix tapes we shut off the stereo and sang Rocky songs at top volume, which Rachael may or may not have appreciated. (Okay, she did not.) We were in top spirits when we rolled into Anacortes at half past 11. We drove around until we found the late show in the basement of city hall. My heart was thumping. There were so many people I was anxious to see. We ran into some Portland friends outside the venue, but I high tailed it inside, hoping to catch Calvin, Kyle, or any number of other out-of-towners. I immediately spotted Calvin near the stage. Kimya Dawson was about to perform. I threw my arms around Calvin, who I hadn't seen in months. We peppered each other with questions. Where's Zac? Where's Steve? Where's Kyle? Where's Heather Dunn, Chris Sutton, Michelle from new Jersey, Jake, Jona, the other What the Heck regulars? Both of us got really emo when we realized that the dudes we were expecting to see just didn't show. My eyes welled up when he told my Kyle cancelled his show at the last minute. His band, Little Wings, is basically my favorite. Two years ago his show stole Shipwreck Days all together. This year he didn't even come.

Kimya Dawson began her set, and the emo zone deepened. I've never been a huge Kimya fan, and that night her political ballads about our fucked up world just brought me down. Most of her songs don't really speak to me, by that night one really got me. It's about friends passing away. I jotted down the chorus on a bank reciept:
It's been raining
Such a long time
It's been raining
At least 40 days
I've been crying
Since the first time
Someone I knew passed away

The Microphones (aka Mount Eerie, aka Phil Elvrum) played next, and again I was disappointed. I'm usually in love with Phil's music, but in the last year or so he's sort of lost me. This show found him playing with Adrian Orange and Karl Blau (two awesome dudes). They played all songs from Phil's new album. It sounded preachy and condescending to me. The sense of wonder and quest in his music was absent, replaced with certainty and smugness. I was out.

It was raining. We couldn't figure out where to stay. In past years Calvin has helped me hook up with Brett, the What the Heck founder, to sleep in his backyard. This year Calvin seemed distracted my a new lady friend. The girls and i didn't want to fish around for invites, so we ended up sleeping like sardines in the back of my volvo. We put the seats down and squeezed in. It was sort of fun, sort of emo. We were on the side of some road, on the side of some mountain.

In the morning I woke up before the others and went for a walk. We had pulled over near a trailhead, so I walked up a way. I was depressed. Shipwreck has always meant so much to me. Some of my best, most vivid memories are from the festival. I fell in love with Jake in Anacortes, I sparked friendships with people who later became dear friends. I wrote a 30 page essay about my first year there, and I can easily remember nearly every moment of my second. Last year I was returning from Ireland the weekend of the festival, and it broke my heart to miss it. I had so looked forward to this year, and it seemed like it was going to be a total wash. I called Jake from the trail. He was in LA prepping for his art opening at a weird gallery down there. He was feeling emo too, so we comiserated for a while. Last year he went to heck Fest without me, and felt so shitty about it he left early. We talked about the strangeness of being in that town without each other, when most of our memories of the place included each other. I missed him so much in that conversation.

When we hung up I walked back to the car and woke the girls. We drove into town just as the weather was breaking. We parked near Main Street, and my spirits began to rise as the sun began to warm my shoulders. The flea market was in full swing, and everywhere you looked there was something you wanted to buy. My eyes were immediately drawn to this photograph, which I bought for five dollars:

We spent the day shopping, eating, and making trips back to the car to drop of loads of booty. We ran into random people and had lots of fun hunting for treasures and chatting with dudes. We were getting sunburned and starting to feel really good. Check out Rebecca's awesome banners:

By 4:00 the boothes were closing up and we were ready for a swim. We headed over to my all-time-favorite-lake, Little Cranberry Lake, for a swim. There were lots of hip kids there when we arrived, and Rachael hung out with them on the rocks while Rebecca and I swam across. The knot that had formed in my gut the night before finally unwound itself, and I believed in Shipwreck Days again. The girls and I were really connecting, and everyone that actually showed up seemed real glad to be there.

We ate dinner at Cafe Adrift, this amazing organic restaurant in town. We all had soup and salad. I had wine from the nearby Widbey Island, and Rachael and I had the best homemade mint ice cream of my life. The shows that night lifted me up. Karl Blau was magical as always, and Laura Viers played a set that was surprisingly strong. In between bands the girls and I snuck off to drink 40s near the docks. We wrangled our new friends from Grand Rapids, Michigan into boozing with us, and walking through the deserted streets, 3 girls and 3 boys, not really knowing each other well, felt so awesomely high school. I think the boys thought we were sort of crazy, but they were sweet and good natured, and we adored them. After the show everyone I liked ate donuts together at the only all night joint in Anacortes:

We slept at Brett's that night in this huge tent he'd set up in his yard just for drifters like us. In the morning a rooster's call woke me, and I went out and lay on the grass, happy as can be. Brett and his wife Denise are incredible. Everytime I stay in their yard I wake up feeling peaceful and so safe. They have two sweet daughters, Louisa and Maddy. They live on Brett's family farm, with goats and chickens and a little house that is heartbreakingly beautiful. It fills me up. The 20 or so people who had crashed in their yard ate fresh eggs together, read the New York Times that someone had picked up, and had great conversations. Rachael visited with the goats. After a few hours it was hot again, so we all headed to Trafton Lake for a swim. Trafton wasn't as nice as Cranberry (though I am quite biased), but it was really fun nonetheless. Calvin drove us there, and I finally got some quality time with him:

We stopped at the Worst Subway Ever on our way out of town. Terrible, terrible service. Anacortes does not do fast food well (which is probably to its credit). But we got floats at A&W as well, and root beer makes everything okay. We had great talks on the drive home, and saw this Dairy Queen sign:

"My oh pie
Dream pie
Blizzards"

It has become my mantra.

I can't wait for next year.

Anacortes, Washington.
What the Heck?
Fest.
Shipwreck Days have come again.
Little Cranberry Lake.
Department of Safety.
Croatian Club.
Know Yr Own.
The Business.
Mount Eerie.
Willow.
Rachael.
Rebecca.
In the Volvo.
Sleeping Bags.
Awesome Town. USA.
***************

I hate money. Honestly. My finances are totally wacky now that I am a full time student. I don't want to get into all of the tedious details of my financial life, so I'll just say that I am an inch away from being totally fucked right now in the moolah department. I should bob back up to the surface by next week, but right now I'm in it pretty deep. Ugh. Shouldn't I have a patron by now? Really. I am a very nice person. Why hasn't someone offered me a life of leisure yet? I'm 25 already, for chrissake! Sigh. My life is so hard.

That was a joke. I do not have a hard life.
I hope to see all of you and everyone else I love in Anacortes. Everyone. Piu Piu, Sonny, Lucy, other blog friends, all real life friends, come to Shipwreck Days!! It will be magical.

Here are some (belated) photos from the 4th of July:

Here are some photos from Saturday Night's debaucherous "girls gone wild" esque karaoke night:

Rebecca and Willow Gone Wild

Rachael and Willow Gone Wild

AJ and Willow Gone Wild
(ok, so AJ is not a Girl, but he joined us long after we had started getting Wild (ie DRUNK) so I'm going to count it.)

My heart goes out this week...
...to Sweet Lucy who lost her dad on the Fourth of July.
...to people living their lives in London. People going to work, people going on holidays. I wish I could keep everyone safe.

I used to feel like a very lucky person. Fortune shone upon me. Blessed with good friends, swept up on lovely adventures, family members who share my sense of humor. Even when bad things happened to me they were so weird that I could only attribute it to the fickleness of Lady Luck. For instance, I have experienced many "freak accidents." At camp one year I was blowing out a candle in my teepee, and the angle and power of my blow forced the accumulated wax to fly up into my face and seal my eye shut from the inside. Another time (also at camp) I fell off a ten foot ladder with 40lbs of climbing gear strapped to my harness. Random, right? Even more random (and indicitive of my amazing luck) was the fact that the only injury I sustained was a small scrape on the palm of my hand. I fell FAR, you know?

My amazing good fortune (real or percieved) led me to believe that I existed in a constant orb of safety and light. And not only that, the people I loved were also contained in my orb, because tragedy befalling them would devestate me as well, and so thus they too were protected. I believed I could keep everyone safe, simply by loving them.

Then, in college, a friend died. Sara Vreeland, who was so dear to me, died at 22 while living abroad. A couple years later Meredith Russell, who I grew up with, died in New Zealand. And September 11th happened, and though I didn't know anyone who lost their lives there, everyone I knew was somehow changed by it. Everyone felt scared and sad. And it's not just people dying. Relationships that I believed in (mine and friends of mine) ended in ways that were painful and hard. Friends got robbed, and lost their jobs, and moved places that made them feel lonely. And I couldn't protect them. I couldn't keep them safe. I started to feel like maybe I didn't have a light, after all. I started to feel very ordinary, and vulnerable. And scared.

"Bad things happen, Willow. The only remarkable thing about you is that your naiivity lasted so long." That is what I imagine people saying when I admit this stuff. "You will yourself to ignore what is ugly in this world, and it makes you a weak, dumb person." I have dated boys who have essentially told me this. One college boyfriend was driven crazy by the fact that I wore my heart on my sleeve. He wanted me to toughen up, and fast. He was trying to protect me, in a way I guess. He thought it would be easier for me if I looked at the world squarely, in all it's imperfections, and just accepted it. But god, it feels so much harder.

I have this idea to keep a list of human contact as I go through my day. I mean actual, physical contact. Just for one day, to see how often I really connect to people. You know those stupid studies- humans need 7 hugs a day to be happy or whatever. I feel like people in high school spouted those stats all the time. Anyway. I DO need a lot of contact. I need to touch people all the time just to keep me grounded and in my body, as opposed to dreamy, way out in space. So I am a patter. I pat people on the shoulder when there is a break in conversation. I am an arm-rubber. I am a nuzzler. I am an occasional butt-stroker (with certain friends, after drinking certain cocktails). A lot of teachers hate working with young kids because they don't like to be climbed on and dragged around by the sleeve. I like it. I have a harder time with the older kids who won't just crawl into your lap when they are sad or hurt. Anyway. Both yesterday and today I tried to take note of all of the hand sqeezes and side hugs that I give and recieve in a normal day, but I keep losing track. I'll start the day with kisses and cuddles with AJ, then head to school, bleary-eyed and blinking. Victoria or Megan might rub me on the back as they say good morning, or Kathleen may whack me on the arm when she laughs at my dumb joke. I touch Erin's elbow to get her attention, Shelley gives me a huge hug when she returns from her holiday trip to Cali. At my internship today I taught two lessons (on insects), and lots of kids came up to me to show me their artwork, placing their hands on my arm to get my attention. One little girl, who is sort of clingy, insists on walking down the hall with her head resting on my arm. I love it.

I would hug my friends all day long if I could, like when I was a teenager and everytime we passed each other in the hall at school we wrapped our arms around each other. With Liz and Heather, my closest lady friends, I feel free to squeeze and wrap at will. We watch movies and snuggle, hold hands while we shop. But then we've known each other forever. Part of realizing I'm now an adult has meant keeping my physicality in check. Wanting to respect my friends boundries, not wanting to give dudes the wrong idea,not wanting to be weird, blah blah. I notice that most of my human contact now comes in the hand-on-arm variety, which is cool. And having a steady fella who lives in my town definitely helps satiate my contact thirst.
Sigh.
Growing up is lame.
Hugging is fun.
Where are my ladies at?

It is Monday, July 4th, 2005. The time is 1:36pm. I have spent the last two hours lying in the grass beside my house. Here is a list if the sounds my neighborhood makes on Independence Day:
*R&B music. From every car that drives by. Also wafting across the street from my neighbor's boombox.
*Squirrel's having a blowout battle in the tree alarmingly close to my lawn chair. Chatter and creaking branches.
*Nuts from said tree falling alarmingly close to me and making a great "tap-tap" sound as they hit the fence and sidewalk.
*Occasional "pre-ejac" bottle rockets and snappy-thing firecrackers.
*Parents hollering at kids.
*Kids hollering at each other.
*Train whistles.
*Fighter jets (maybe from a holiday airshow? I hope??)
*Light traffic on MLK.
*"How you doing?" from the people who walk by.
*"Alright. How are you?" from me.
*"I'm alright!"
*Birds.

Eleven hours of studiousness and I am a free woman! I have read, journalled, case-studied, drawn from the outside in, drawn to music, reflectively narrated, read some more, designed my ideal classroom, worked on my cohort blog, read more, journalled more, and finally I am finished! Tonight I will go see Scout Nibblet (Nibbles? Nibbler? I don't know) with a clear conscience, and tomorrow I will host a primo BBQ (UrHo friends welcome, of course! 5pm!)

Remember when I said grad school makes you ugly? I'd also like to add that it makes your eating habits transform into those of an 11 year old. I have been eating Totinos Party Pizzas for dinner, ladies and gentlemen. In front of my computer, plate precariously resting on a pile of books. I have also been eating:
*quesadillas
*bagels with cream cheese
*canned soup

and that's about it. It's like I am so deep in my head that my body is getting no love at all. Careless grooming, careless meals. What am I turning into? Ah well. Tomorrow I will eat many helpings of potato salad and also many Smart Dogs. I will drink many bottles of cold beer. Maybe next week I will eat/look like a grown up lady again.

I have been missing Sonny here in blog land. He's keeping up on his own blog, but because of security or something at his new location in Afghanistan he is unable to read or comment on any of our blogs. Since he doesn't accept comments on his blog (grrr!) I feel very disconnected. Also, Liz has been on vacation in Denver not blogging, so my whole cyber-life is screwed up. I visited Mimi's blog yesterday and discovered that a certain comment-happy friend is up to his old tricks in her zone. Didn't he retire from the Internet?

Shipwreck Days are fast approaching. Suzy will not be able to go this year, and I feel a little lost. I need some nice ladies to camp and swim with! I wish Heather lived here, and Liz. Shipwreck Days are so magical and good, they need to be shared with best friends.

Happy Independence Day!

Many thanks to Mr Curt Merrill who painstakingly moved all of my archives and comments from blogspot to UrHo. What a guy. So now I'm pretty much moved in! I still need a banner and my links didn't make it over yet, but other than that, I'm pretty set. It feels good, you know?

Hey, remember my great plan to get the bulk of my homework done yesterday? Uh huh, it didn't happen. Instead of reading and doing case studies for seven hours yesterday I:
*took myself out to breakfast
*helped Steve get his car sitch sorted out
*worked on my school blog (smt-cohort.blogspot.com)
*met with a classmate to do "homework" but ended up chatting and playing on the Internet
*planned a 4th of July BBQ
*went on a nice, long date with AJ

Huh. The two productive things I accomplished were:
*I read one chapter of my ESL textbook
*I made a great list of what I need to do this weekend

So today is the day. It's 2pm now, I will work nonstop until 7 when I have to pick up Coco for ladies poker night.

AJ and I had one of those inevitable early-on relationship talks last night. You know what I'm talking about- "this is where I'm coming from, this is what I want." It's amazing how low our expectations get after a while. I mean, I am so wooed by the fact that AJ is considerate- of my time, of my feelings, of my history. He offers me pyjamas and makes me tea in the morning. It seems simple, right? But whatever dumb history I have has corroded my instincts about how I should be treated. And AJ is amazed that I am honest, non-manipulative, and confident. Isn't that nuts? You get to a pont where you just expect everyone you meet to be crazy. I mean, we all have issues, and we've all been hurt, and we've all fucked people over, and the outcome is cynicism and low-expectations.

AJ wants me to start using his real name in Perfect Heart. I aked him to think it over some more. He might regret it later.

There are a few things that have happened in the past month or so that I keep meaning to blog about. I feel like I'm in a real school/boys writing rut. Here are a couple of things I passed over in favor of crush-coverage:
1. I got bit by a dog. It was a small dog, I admit, but it bit me fucking HARD! It has been a month and the mark is still on my leg. It bit through my courdoroy pants and still drew blood. I think it was karma, because I was walking up the driveway to the house where Katie was babysitting, and I could hear the dog barking, and I'd just had a bad dog day with the stupid poodle at my job, so as I rang the doorbell I was literally thinking the words, "I hate dogs." Katie opened the door and the fucking dog lunged at me. Now I'm in the embarassing position of being afraid of small, yippy dogs. Ouch.

2. Last week an earthquake woke me up. It was early morning- maybe 5 o'clock. It was very gentle, almost like a big truck was driving down my street, but it lasted longer. I fell back to sleep after a while, and when I woke again I wondered if it had been just a dream. It felt so real! But later AJ mentioned that he had felt it too, and I was relieved. It WAS real!

3. I am going to be a bridesmaid at Liz's wedding. I know this is not new news, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. My dress came in the mail, and it is so nice! I think I am the only bridesmaid in history who actually LOVES her dress. It is black and pretty and I will be able to wear it again. I feel so honored to have this role. I really believe that Liz and J have a strong relationship, and that their vows will be serious and true. Acting as a witness to a love like that is such a blessing. I'm really proud that I will be able to stand up there and say, "I believe in these people. I believe in their bond." Liz is like a sister to me- as an only child she (and Heather) are the closest sibling-esque relationships I have. I just feel really lucky.

I'm starting a four day weekend tomorrow, thank god. I need it so badly. Friday and Saturday will be major study zones, and then I will let myself relax for Sunday and Monday. That is my great plan, anyway. Probably I'll goof off for three days and then have a panicy cram session on Monday night.