Heading back tomorrow

Hats

These fine ladies became the subject today. We saw them at the Cheesecake Factory in the Washington Square mall just outside of Beaverton. [Funny, I didn't think til now how odd it is to have a mall called Washington Square when it's located in Oregon.] Anyway, I tried a few shots from our table, but was unsuccessful, thus, I pulled the bold move. I got up and went over to them and asked for a picture. They were, as you see, all to happy to do so. I said, "Excuse me, I just love your hats, may I have a picture?"

The lady at the far left had been standing, and the other three beckoned her to sit with them; she hurried over and plopped down. She posed, then said, "Wait... my glasses." She removed her stylish black rimmed glasses, indicating her readiness, and snap... I had my winning shot.

Aren't they awesome?! I've heard of these types of get togethers; women meeting once a month or so, with their crazy hats, for lunch or whatever, but hadn't seen it til now. I love it.

Makes me smile because it reminds me of where I want to be when I'm older. It's the same way I feel when I go to CostPlus and look at all the crazy jewelry, colorful bags and scarfs, and etc. It's the type of crazy and fantastic professor poet I'd love to be, wearing whatever the hell I want because I love it and don't care what anyone says or thinks about it.

So, yey for crazy hats, and yey for fantastic old ladies who remind me of who I want to be and how I want to live.

;-)

Family doodle

I wanted to share with you how funny my family is. This drawing above was done by my mom and brother before I went over to their room to play Apples to Apples.

Again, we're a bit competitive (creative and funny), and this might be a good illustration. Hopefully, I'll get the order and story close.

So the drawing started with a few squares in the upper left, which soon after turned into a house. This was my mom's doodle. In response, my brother drew a cannon complete with lite fuse to blow up the house.

My mom, in response, drew clouds and a rain storm, which would damp the fuse and stop the cannon from firing. My brother then drew lightning, which destroyed the house. (Notice the flames he also drew around the house.)

After rebuilding the house and determining the cannon was still a threat, my mom drew a gun to shoot the cannon with. So, my brother drew a tree falling, an axe, and the words Timber to indicate his counter-move.

My mom rebuilds the house again. My brother shoots the cannon again. So in response my mom draws a bomb (complete with ticking) to blow up the cannon once and for all.

Thus, my brother draws a bomb squad truck. And finally, my mom draws a gas can to burn the bomb unit truck, thus hindering the bomb squad's effectiveness, hereby saving the house from destruction.

Fin. [The order might have been slightly different; but, here you have said illustration.]

After Garden: Pittock Mansion

The last two pictures are my "entry" for these particular subjects. My family is really competitive, so when the first of these last two happened, it became an event of interest. This fine couple walked into my picture, but what was most interesting is how perfectly they belonged there. They became the subject of the picture. They were the picture.

Recognizing this, my mom and I then focused our attention on them as our subject matter. Her's wins, hands down. She caught the two walking to this particular window above, arms around each other, under the umbrella. Looks like some picture of a handsome couple walking in Paris.

The last one above is one of my favorite from the ones I took. I think it's hilarious, as I happened to capture the two peeking into the mansion. (Many of us had arrived minutes late, missing admission to this tourist attaction: Pittock Mansion.)

This couple rules. It'd be awesome if Tony and I someday were like them.

After lunch: Japanese Garden

Lunch: Best Irish Pub Ever!!

Today: Downtown Portland

Wineries & Snow & Rain

In Beaverton (outside Portland)

I'm sick of late nights. I'm not sure why each paper has to be a book or thesis or dissertation.

Anywho, we start the wine touring tomorrow morning. I think for tonight I might just try to go to bed now and wake up early to write a bit before our exploring. I don't think that'll happen, but we'll see.

Hope to add some pictures tomorrow of the snow we saw coming up here. There was a ton. Starting from Boise all the way over to the other side of Cabbage Hill. Lots of snow, but the roads stayed fairly stable.

Still reading Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy; I'm on the final story: "Locked Room." This book is pretty amazing. So, of course, what do I think to myself, "Wow, I really need to write about this author and his work." Ah, it's a curse. Alas, the plague of writers, never having written enough.

Better than writer's block though. :-o

Merry Day after Christmas; hope ya all got what you wanted and had an amazing day of happiness.

Christmas Day!!!

Merry Christmas, Ya All!!!

We're heading out of town tomorrow, going to Portland for the annual family vacation. Looks like I'll be bringing my dear friend Yeats with me. Awe Yeats, it'd be nice if you'd at least pick up the ticket for a meal or two. Maybe a tank of gas... something, anything...

I got a sweet camera for Christmas. I plan on exercising it much during the trip; and, since I have to take my computer on the trip (thanks again, Yeats), depending on whether I can find Internet service, I might share some of the trip here. [Yeah, lucky you.]

These pictures were two of the six practice pictures. There's Ms. Dog, Sydney, sporting her Christmas bandana; and, there's "Singing Pizza Elmo."

For those of you that don't know, my dad gets me an Elmo every year for either my birthday or Christmas. This year, it's "Singing Pizza Elmo." It's fricken hilarious. The pizza actually sings along with Elmo in a fine operatic tenor.

I'm not sure how the Elmo tradition started. I think it started with a pocket watch I once got for Christmas with Elmo on it, then I got the Elmo slippers, and TickleMe Elmo (which is a story unto itself), etc, etc.

Anywho, Merry Christmas!

Yeats, Yeats, Yeats

Working on Yeats paper.

New Official Business!!!

Received in the mail here at home today, I'm officially on the Creative Writing facultly (as an adjunct) at Boise State for the next year!!!

Woohoo!

New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

I'm reading Paul Auster's, The New York Trilogy, and I'm enjoying it a bit too much I think. Big surprise, as with most things I read lately, I think it'd be a sweet book to write about. There's several parallels in Auster's style, at least within these three stories, to some of Beckett's work and some of the ideas I'm writing about with regard to Beckett.

Anyway, here, I thought it might be interesting to include some of the lines/sentences/paragraphs I found of interest so far.

From the story, "City of Glass":

"New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well. Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the steets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escapee the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within. The world outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long. Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body. By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he had no intention of ever leaving it again" (4).

Also from "City of Glass":

"What he liked about these books was their sense of plentitude and economy. In a good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so--which amounts to the same thing. The world of books comes to life, seething with possibilities, with secrets and contradictions. Since everything seen or said, even the slightest, most trivial thing, can bear a connection to the outcome of the story, nothing must be overlooked. Everything becomes essence; the center of the book shifts with each event that propels it forward. The center, then, is everywhere, and no circumference can be drawn until the book comes to its end.

"The detective is the one who looks, who listens, who moves through the morass of objects and events in search of the thought, the idea that will pull all these things together and make sense of them. In effect, the writer and the detective are interchangeable. The reader sees the world through the detective's eyes, experiencing the proliferation of its details as if for the first time. He has become awake to things around him, as if they might speak to him, as if, because of the attentiveness he now brings to them, they might begin to carry a meaning other than the simple fact of their existence. Private eye. The term held a triple meaning for Quinn. Not only was it the letter 'i,' standing for 'investigator,' it was 'I' in the upper case, the tiny life-bud buried in the body of the breathing self. At the same time, it was also the physical eye of the writer, the eye of the man who looks out of himself into the world and demands the world reveal itself to him. For five years now, Quinn had been living in the grip of this pun" (8).

Hmm.

So, reading and commenting on a

particular group site (referenced abstractly on left), I remembered something that happened awhile back of note. I was at the Flicks with two friends, when I mentioned something about church that morning. One of them commented, "It's so cute you still go to church."

I paused as I do now. How does one respond? I was puzzled and gave a sideways expression like my dog is fond of doing when something I'm doing interests her.

Again, I think my head works too much like a chess board, processing the moves of my opponent, and the moves I might make and what both of those things might mean towards the end result. In this instance, she hadn't been around much for a few years. Many things had happened and she was trying to reconnect to me and my other friend. [Our relationship had nothing to do with church, but for some reason I feel it necessary to to point this out; church isn't what I'm talking about in this example. What pulls my attention is the use of "cute" and "still", and all that is assumed/felt/understood by the speaker in the use of these particular modifiers.]

I hate even mentioning the word "church" in here; I don't talk about much of what I 'believe' in any shape or form with anyone, students and friends alike. With students it's simple; I don't believe my position of power, as that of professor to student, should be used in this way. So I'm always careful about what I say and what I do. This goes for everything, including some of my criticisms of particular works of literature. To a large extent, I think it important for people to think through what they believe and think about a particular text; thus, when a discussion ensues, it's as equals: a balanced exchange of ideas.

But when belief comes up, for some reason, a balanced exchange is nearly impossible. [And here I'm speaking of outside the classroom (ie, not with students).]

This is the same with politics. This might be especially true of politics.

Yeah for Sake!

Yey for Sake, and Yey for Sake sets!

This evening (by which I mean this early morning) I'll be enjoying my new sake set, and a delicious cup o' rice noodles. Yum Yum.

Just wanted to share. ;-)

cheers...

Currently on desktop (at work)

Officially on Graduate Faculty!!!

I've been officially appointed to the Graduate Faculty; I am a graduate faculty adjunct. I got the letter in my school mailbox last night.

This means, I can sit on Graduate Thesis Committees, and I can teach Graduate courses.

:-)

long time

It's been a long time since the last post. I was reminded of this last weekend (thanks, C). So, I'll begin again with a quick snipet.

So, Tony and I learned last weekend that an exploding hot water pipe in your crawl space sounds quite a bit like a muffled gunshot. We heard this soon after the Packer's game on Sunday, and Tony went to investigate whether the 3rd bay of our garage was still intact. When M & E left after the game, they knocked on our door again to inform us that the noise must have come from next door. Our next door neighbor has both an inflatable snowman and a santa, and both were flattened long and sad on their lawn; so we thought the explosion might have come from them.

But no, alas, I went up to read/take a nap, and when I came back downstairs about an hour and a half (or two hours) later, Tony looked at me surprised and asked if I had taken a shower and left the water running. I hadn't, but then took more notice of the running water sound we both heard.

What's funny is I had noticed, when we got back from church, that morning that the pantry closet smelled weirdly of hot, wet wood; but it was only later (after the explosion and after hearing the water run) that we thought what might actually be happening.

We scampered to the garage and searched for flashlights, which was its own ordeal. You know how it goes: whenever you need a flashlight, you either can't find them or all the ones you can find don't work. I looked into the crawlspace and saw no water, but when Tony stood in the crawlspace a tributary of water informed us of our problem.

We called the plumber to turn the water off, which was its bit of plot twist. Everything functions like fiction. When we got the house, the inspector told us, "Well, your turn water off valve is in a really weird spot; it's right below your pantry closet, but not accessible except through the crawlspace. But that shouldn't matter; you'll probably never need to use it." Duh, duh, dah, right...see what I mean. Foreshadowing.

Anywho...plumber turned off the water but told us he couldn't/wouldn't fix the pipe until the water was cleaned out of the crawlspace.

Initial quotes from the disaster cleanup where pretty amazing: 3600-6000, and that was just to get the water out. Luckily, when the disaster cleanup dudes went down there the water was gone; it'd already soaked into the ground. The plumbers who came out fixed the pipe in less than half an hour. Get this, the install had been faulty; that's why it was so easy to fix...they just did what the initial builder (had he been doing his job) had to do but didn't. Lame.

So it's sweet we don't have to fork out thousands of dollars and get a ding on our insurance, but it's lame it happened at all. Sweet it's all fixed though. Lame we've had something "major" come up after only living in this new house for less than four months. Oh well...I still love my house.

;-)