Portland Don’t Need No Stinking Groundhog
This is February, right? According to my computicator (computer calculator, for those of you who don’t speak Dork) February 26th is a mere few days from the mathematical middle of winter . . . and yet Portland, weird already in its own right (a blogger’s paradise in that respect), could care less: I’m walking around NW Portland, minding my own business, and all of the trees around me are literally exploding with blooms and flowers and buds and other non-wintery tree-like emoticons! It’s hard not to cry out “Woo-hooo!” in the common tree dialect and dance a little Springity jig!
Okay . . . I’m getting those wary looks from my fellow pedestrians . . . again. I don’t want to talk about it.
Is the flora here really that happy? Or is it all the pot smoke in the parks getting sucked up by the . . . oh, there are no leaves yet, are there? I’ll call my scientist–they’re like lawyers . . . everyone should have a scientist on retainer–to study secondhand pot smoke in dogs, peeing happy juice on unwary trees.This discovery could have global significance, right?!
Hold on, I need to go clear a spot on my mantle for my Nobel prize! I mean, there has to be some scientific basis for the oddness in this town. I’d hate to think I’m the only sane one here.
I wouldn’t put it past Portlandians to run off to Pennsylvania, hijack Punxsutawney Phil and set him up in a hippy communal flat, complete with Barcalounger and full-spectrum lights, to ward off his Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s not like we get many fear-worthy shadows here, with our cloudy winters. We’re practical that way. Or was it just weird. Oh, right . . . just weird.
Meanwhile, poor Winter is getting shooed out of Portland with nary a “better luck next year.” Or perhaps it got discouraged and wandered off on it’s own, hitchhiking its way to Montana where it can get some respect. “Come back when you can give us some snow!” cries Portland at its back, cackling insanely.
I might have imagined the cackling.
I just heard from my scientist, who seems bent on ruining my chances at a Nobel prize: she keeps asking me what I’m on and to stop pestering her until I give her some. It’s hard to get good help these days. =P
Blogging to the Cloud
I was dying to mention my new blog to my awesome writing class today, but . . .
It was as if they could read my mind!!
Yikes . . . I wish I’d done some cleaning in there first . . .
Feline Probiscoid Poetry
Because there really isn’t enough poetry about snot–especially cute kitten snot. You’re welcome.
This is from a poetry class exercise about rhythm. So where this piece lacks subtlety and complestication (you know, complexity and sophistication, right? Try to keep up), which you’ve come to expect from me already, it totally makes up for it with its hip swinging, bass thumping, nose running beat! I’m just warning you so you don’t break out in dance in a public place and embarrass yourself. Like I do. More often than I care to admit. I don’t want to talk about it.
If only I could play the bass, turned up to 11, jamming on a stage with a hundred sniffling kittens dancing at my feet, all going “da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum-dum … da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum-dum, … “. I really do need to call my agent and go on the road with this. It’s amazing I’m not disgustingly rich yet, right??
Anyway, the lyrics poem goes something like this . . .
Teddy’s Nose
My kitty thinks he’s a bloodhound.
His snuffling search for an answer
to questions no one can fathom.Dysfunction? Yes, I am certain!
If searching brings him some wisdom,
I’ll notice that in a second.His tiny nose not designed for
the dusty task undertaken,
he suffers bad from congestion.Who suffers more though I’m asking?
He’s clever where he expels it,
A target never too distant.Nothing is safe from his sneezes.
Could it be premeditation?
Happenstance can’t be the reason.An ankle, a hand;
computer or phone;
my homework or book.There isn’t a thing
that’s safe from the goo
that spews from that nose!An artist working his canvas
evolving patterns of snot-blobs
that dry upon my computer.Why does he do this?
Is it just sharing?
Love can be gross I assure you.I’m not so crazy to think it—
alone I’m not, for his sister
will often stare at him puzzled.
Apparently my agent had too many margaritas for lunch, because she totally didn’t get the sheer awesomeness of the kitten rock concert idea. She also told me to stop calling her with dumb ideas and assuming I have an agent just because I can call one. I’m thinking my lawyer has been calling around and playing a joke on me, because I called him a brontosaurus’s adenoid last night.
I meant it in a good way.
Incarcerated for a book review?
I read this really awesome book with a mouse on the cover. I mean it wasn’t a real mouse sitting on the cover, because then I would have run away instead. Anyway, I read the thing (the book, not the mouse) and kinda fell for the author; so I Googled and found her here on WordPress and I thought I’d follow her, which now kinda makes it sound like I’m flirting with some kind of restraining order or something, which is making me nervous, when all I really did was leave this comment on her book–because the mouse really did an awesome job–and I’m not really sure now why she’d want to get a restraining order . . . but, uhm, you can read the comment while I go get in touch with my lawyer just in case . . .
Your comment is awaiting moderation. (Is this where they stall to call the cops? I’m not sure . . .)
I was just forced to read this book in a college writing class. My advice to you? Think twice before buying this book. Really. Unless you’re totally okay with completely embarrassing yourself laughing until you cry in public. Yes, I did this and it was not pretty. Don’t do it. Also, it’s dangerous: especially if you happen to be eating while you’re reading it … you’d be surprised by the sheer bulk of things you can shoot out of your nose while reading this book: milk, spaghetti, cough drops (yes, plural), small animals you didn’t know you were eating, … really, it’s too risky. Just don’t. One time I was caught laughing, like the I-can’t-stop-laughing type of laughing, in a lobby area I wasn’t supposed to be in anyway, when the security people arrived to investigate. They radioed for a straightjacket with a mere mention of a five-foot metal chicken. My escape was vicariously nothing like what you see in the movies. I don’t want to talk about it. All because of this book. You have been warned. I mean, it’s a chicken named Beyonce … there has to be something illegal here. I’m just saying.
So my lawyer says I really need to stop calling him because in fact I don’t really have a lawyer, and to stop watching movies where everyone has lawyers they can call and why am I all worried about this anyway. He did suggest I talk to a psychiatrist, but I don’t really have faith in ESP when it comes to legal matters, so I kind of ignored that part. I’ll call him again later when he’s in a better mood.
Beginnings . . .
As a beginning–or rebeginning (yes, I’m allowed to make up words, tyvm)–of my hapless blog addiction, I thought I’d share an apropos piece from my Women, Writing & Memoir class. It goes something like this . . .
Why are beginnings so hard?
Middles, that comfy popcorn-spilling-as-we-ignore-yet-another-movie-entwined-on-the-couch, seem so simple and inevitable. That so-perfect-we-can-just-let-it-happen practice at foreverness. Why don’t they give up on beginnings and just start relationships in the middle? I’m really good at middles, if I can only get past the beginnings.
Usually Zen and relaxed in the presence of other women, all it takes is an unexpected smile or a mysterious look from the right eyes and suddenly I find myself walking into the last interview of my dream job missing a shoe.
In the moments that follow, something goes clank under the hood: my speech centers misfire and stall, or wind up to a fever pitch with no direction to go. My eyes, once trusted to navigate the depths of a friend’s angst-ridden soul and plot a course to comfort, now seem out-of-balance gyros verging on gimbal-lock. And although I can’t see it from where I’m standing, I sense my body language has switched to an ancient form of semaphore, signaling to this lovely woman:
“The runway is open. The tower is aflame! Make your takeoff roll now!!”
Soon her enchanting smile dims to uncertainty, conversation veers from the fast lane to the pedestrian crosswalk, and then so does she. If only she could have seen who I really was.
If only we carried resumes, crisp off-white pages confirming the years of romantic service and exemplary skills in the face of love, detailed accounts of rendered kisses, massaged shoulders and feet, seemingly endless cuddles, misplaced Saturday mornings, laundry and dishes and meals joyfully created, giggling to tears and overlooked mistakes, races to say I’m sorry first, sunset walks holding hands, high fidelity and low maintenance and promises kept regardless, tallies of unexpected embraces, and turning to listen when she talks.
My resume is missing. Once more I’m ON …and no words can say what I’m wanting to say that won’t sound cheesy or crude, or perhaps even creepy. The First Impression monster has crept in, already checking off the destruction on a clipboard, shaking its head over the lost opportunity, another moment of life left unlived. Crime scene tape is unfurled as two souls part, wondering why life had no rewind button.
It’s not always this way. Strangers traipse into my life every day. But when the chemistry is missing my shyness lays sleeping, relaxed that nothing of importance is happening here. My true self wanders out and says hello, smiling and chatty and happy for the connection. The First Impression monster is observed daydreaming over coffee.
If ever I do see Love again, I’m sure it will have to sneak up on me, like in the movies, in the guise of someone so totally wrong for me that Shyness and First Impression run off to the beach together for the duration, giggling as they splash in the waves. And in moments of disinterested mundanity we let slip random anecdotes from our romantic resumes …
And it dawns on us: We can truly see each other—and the view is amazing!
Is it any wonder I’m majoring in making movies? I’m the perfectly hopeless protagonist of my own romantic comedy of errors. Or perhaps I’m just the pratfalling comedy sidekick.
