grammatronics

2007-09-16T16:02:00.000-05:00

Hello! We, after days of going up & down & up & down & down & then up & up & up, are now in San Francisco being well-treated by my uncle Greg & fam. Some pickies, old/new:
big face, small face

windy face

beer place!

seals! (who eat salmon)

alien baby

rocks in the mist

i conquered the big tree

She Who Rides With Dairy Cows

rocks with handy storage spaces

just your standard early settler Russian Orthodox church

Our Hero

2007-08-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the lovely Oregon coast! Its been all mists in the pines, waves crashing onto rocks, windswept beaches, etc, etc. You know. We hadn't been doing too bad for scenic so far, but this has been amazing. We crossed into Astoria on a 4+ mile, very nerve-wracking bridge a few days ago, and found the smoked salmon of my dreams, Josephson's. I plan to patronize this business for all further presents, birthday, x-mas, and so on, so now's a good time to start being very nice to me. We also stopped at the Tillamook cheese and ice cream factory for copious quantities of both. Along with my camp cobbler of roadside blackberries, its been good eatin' and good seein'. Though very climby. We've been taking it easy, as we do best.
scenic vista

Garibaldi(sock monkey, lower left) in Garibaldi

behind sideways Colin is the rock from the Goonies, sideways

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2007-08-16T23:20:00.001-05:00

I've heard from some parties that this blog needs to get its ass in gear. Perhaps, I say to them. And then I say, are you riding your bike 7 hours a day? Are you comfortably settling into a minimal-computer time lifestyle, smartasses? Hmph. Well, here are some pics. DC was great, though I am a little visited-out. Being in people's homes made me eager to nest, but I soon tempered that with remembering that settling somewhere means working. Goodbye to Seattle for now, but we like it an awful lot.
Godly campsite.

tiny horsies

thank goodness Colin takes so many pictures of himself, or there might not be any record of him on this trip

2007-07-27T11:50:00.000-05:00

So, Colin & I have managed to self-propel to Portland. Each day, we started off somewhere, and ended up somewhere else! Still pretty amazing to me. Portland is pretty great, as are our hosts Clare & Joel & baby Ella, who are putting us up despite moving to Chicago tommorrow. I saw this guy, an etsy fave of mine, last night during some kind of arty deal: Perfect children. I am also pleased to report that we are back to green, and moss, and related plant life. That whole arid desert thing was beginning to wear on me. The Columbia River Gorge was rather scenically beautiful, and rather windy.
Here, I am going so fast that my wheel has almost vaporized.

goddamn desert.

2007-07-16T14:54:00.000-05:00

my award-winning rendering of the Tetons. Grand, they are.

kid falling off sheep at 4th of July rodeo. The best.

dashing, no?

skunks are way cute. They have their drawbacks, yes, but there's a lot going for them too: little fuzzy snout, soft lustrous fur, bushy tail, a waddle-shuffle. That whole spraying thing makes a lot of scents(haha!) if you only think about the last couple thousand years of coevolution with humans. If they weren't so smelly, I'd have a skunk fur blanket for sure, and I'd dust my house with a tail, PETA be damned. We had some curious stinky friends at a campsite a few days ago, and it was hard for me not to squeal when they scampered over to check out our little scene of habitation. No incidents, but we're pretty sure they sprayed the youth group. Haha, good skunks.

2007-07-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

The strangest part of this trip thus far has not been biking up mountains, being unemployed, inability to check email 15 times a day, social circle consisting of 60-year olds, buying flourescent yellow biking gear I swore I'd never get, or having no income while spending money like a faucet. It has been being outside, almost always, save for searching frantically for things in the van (actually about 20% of my time), restaurants and the occasional motel. Just always out in the air, sun & shade. It hasn't been this way since childhood summers, and oh my does it require liters of sunblock.

2007-06-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

Firstly: pictures!
After this post, they will be acessible will the other links. Thank you for your patience.
Secondly, there are 7 pairs of very well-developed calves on this trip, and mine are not among them. I'm thinking about tracing them at intervals as they get pogressively more muscely & awesome, like pregnant ladies do with their bellies. Due to calves & overall fitness level, the geriatrics continue to shame me but at least I'm getting in some pretty good distance. Not over the mountain pass however. Let's go over some highlights, shall we?

Frida frolics, Ana sleeps. Bloomington

Milwaukee, dramatic

wallpaper, ghost town. Bannack, MT

Proof that we are, indeed, biking

sleepy bison, Yellowstone

2007-06-14T15:34:00.000-05:00

well, some things happened. I packed, moved out, moved in briefly, packed bikes n' stuff into a van & left, and as of this morning am in Missoula, MT. The big ol sniper van made it, and how. There sure are some mountains around here, snow-capped, cattle-filled, sacred, and otherwise. Also very glossy hourses that trot through meadows with their tails in the wind. It feels like I can be spotted for an easterner a mile away. We had our first night of camping last night, in the Gallatin National Forest, which was very beautiful. I think its safe to say it was the best-smelling campsite I've ever been to, due to odurous pine trees, so extremely straight & uniform-looking. Right by a roaring mountain stream, but not roaring enough to be sleep-preventing. A wee bit cold though. We passed through many lovely states. Ohio, however, was not lovely. We stayed the first night in Bloomington, Ind. with Colin's friend Justin and were treated to a lovely house, buffalo tempe, stringy greens, dusty Midwestern hipsters, an amazing show by Justin's boyfriend Derrick, aka First Person Shooter( he is so poised for internet stardom of some kind), freakish wonderful cat, & small-town gay bar. Small-town gay bars need the Christopher guest treatment. Next day, I bullied Colin into liking Wisconsin, and then Milwaukee worked its charms. (apologies to Lindsay.) Most importantly, we had frozen custard, at Kopp's, no less. South Dakota: impressive weather, Laura Ingalls Wilder home, badlands. I'm running out of steam here. Wyoming: mostly sleep through it. Montana: here now, mountains, fluffy pancakes. we bike tomorrow! pics soon, but mostly of cats & a wild bunny.

2007-05-11T15:55:00.000-05:00

I'm addled; Spring has induced fits of girliness. Got the cuddle-wuddle floo.
twee spree of whee!:
Snoozer: the fuss & two weeks notice
Pony Up: the truth about cats & dogs (is that they die)
Camera Obscura: tears for affairs

2007-05-09T16:18:00.000-05:00

so this is pretty much how the craft show went

2007-04-27T18:13:00.000-05:00

It occured to me that since I'm talking about settlers & have an Oregon Trail graphic as my profile picture, I might as well have a picture of me in a bonnet. That I made.

And now it occurs to me that if I'm talking bonnets I made, I should bring up craft shows in the near future, such as next Saturday, May 5th. Conveniently located near the Clarendon Metro at the Lyon Park Community Center, and conveniently timed from 10-5, I'll be there in all my glory, if not bonnet.
Here's a map

2007-04-26T19:03:00.000-05:00

Book Report

I believe you all were promised, when Colin introduced his tour de force (see Mr Hippity Hop, somewhere to the right), "dueling perspectives," was it? Better make it dueling ukuleles, actually. But this is quite true, in a scrappy His n' Hers kinda way. Some dueling (I'm switching to "differing" from now on; sounds less violent & hokey) perspectives come from how I'm lazy vs. he's slightly less lazy, i.e. actually exercises occasionally. I used to be at least vaguely athletic, back in my hulking crew days. Colin has a highly technical vocabulary, regularly saying such things as "techwik", "nipple wrench" & "thinsulate" I, however, talk like a sensible person. Colin also has some sacred books listed over at the Hippity. Here they are, for your ease:
Roughin' It - Mark Twain
Travels with Charlie - John Steinbeck
Desert Solitaire - Ed Abbey
Into the Wild - John Krakauer
A Walk In The Woods - Bill Bryson
The Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain
Life On The Mississippi - Mark Twain
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Now I love all these books- with a special nod to Travels With Charlie because it has a poodle. I mean, can you not without hating America? But they're all a little...dude-y? Like the lyrics to any given Modest Mouse song. So the lady books, where they at- not necessarily travel, but expeditionary? The best I could come up with is Annie Dillard's "The Living", which actually is maybe the most androgynous book I've ever read. It's amazing, and partly for the incidental deaths its filled with- poison gases, log fume collapses, fires, brain fevers. And faux coffee made from burnt crumbs, ughh, worse than death. But it's why I want to visit the San Juan islands off Washington coast. It was the story of settlers, trying to farm around the stumps of redwoods that they had cut down, and eating a lot of dried salmon. Pretty much a team effort.

2007-04-18T16:06:00.000-05:00

Lobster Fest

...is actually just a small part of the larger Spending Fest. Take a look at these gloves I just bought:

Too bad they don't come in red

2007-04-12T17:17:00.000-05:00

Being young & relatively poor like me means that big purchases, things researched, thought out, tested, saved for, are very big deals. Nicer, Bigger, Shinier-- not mine-ier though. My new bike is a 2007 Bianchi Volpe (Italian for ‘fox’, by the way) I had been fixed in this decision for many months now, but (attracting much scrutiny) I waited until April, or, 2 months before the start of our trip. Its pretty hard for me to part with $3, a thing ingrained from the Jeanne McIntyre School of Frugality (sorry ma) Parting with $1000 yesterday, though, was no big thing. I’ve had the sum fixed in my mind for so long now, that it is not my money, my earnings anymore, just an accounting difference, sifting around a few digits. I can’t really process that I’ve bought this steely thing, which so soon will be the focus of my life.

I gained ownership over my current bike, Anne-Marie, a Peugot UO-8, by tearing her down and building her back up again, all army-like. I scrubbed her with a toothbrush & built her wheels, and now there’s this clean, fresh-faced newcomer with shiny seductive parts, all ready to go. All it took was handing over my debit card. I kind of resent this bike for being able to coast. Its just so easy. Except for the gears, which I have no idea what to do with. They have a little window though with an orange bar though (only new feature of the 2007 model.) A little window into its new, polished soul.
The buying experience was less than enchanting, due to bored/sullen/condescending bike store employee syndrome, but that topic will be addressed in viscious detail later, I'm sure.

2007-04-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Lets give this another shot

this dealie is to more or less chronicle my great bicycle adventure of 2007. Said trip begins mid-June, but talking, panicing, anticipating, planning, training (well no, actually), buying etc. starts so much earlier, If you want actual substantive detail, you'll have to refer to my esteemed colleague, Colin M. (who, although he's started an substantive, detailed journal of his own, wussily hasn't published it yet.) I just do the cooking & the sewing around here. true story.