things jill likes

Books Are Pretty!: Part I

2012-01-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

You know what's a silly phrase? And by silly I mean annoying? "Don't judge a book by its cover." Not because I don't think it's true. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But we all DO. I think every detail about a thing influences our perceptions of that thing, and to think otherwise is dumb and somewhat condescending. Like, "Tsk, tsk," *shaking head* "Don't judge a book by its cover, little ones! I mean, I would NEVER."

I could argue that a book's cover actually often resonates with or at least is connected to our personal, emotional attachment to a story--otherwise the dreaded Movie Covers wouldn't get me so riled up every time. But I also love admiring the art of the book cover for art's sake. They're fascinating and lovely and beautiful.

At the library-run used-bookstore where I've volunteered for almost five years now, I spend my hours each week in the backroom quickly rifling through stack after stack of YA novels, mainly inspecting for quality and publication date along with a few other things to deem it worthy of putting out on the shelves. This practice has made me incredibly familiar with a few things: copyright pages and back-jacket author bios, really shitty book binding jobs, and the fine art of the cover. I go through hundreds of books each week, so it takes a good cover to make me stop in my tracks and say, "WHOA. THAT'S PRETTY. LET'S LOOK AT THAT FOR ANOTHER SECOND."

The wonderful Jill D. over at Looks & Books has a feature called Coveralls, where she takes a book cover and matches it with corresponding fashionable outfits inspired by the cover art, which is a lovely and neat-o concept. I, however, lack the creativity, energy, and cute fashion sense that Jill D. has, so on this here blog, I've decided to just, like, post book covers that I think are pretty, just cause. I'm titling this series BOOKS ARE PRETTY!

I know! I AM brilliant!

1) Imaginary Girls, Nova Ren Suma (2011)

This book was included on my reading list for the Mock Printz workshop I attended this year. It wasn't necessarily my favorite book of the year--I thought the writing was wonderful, and the story deliciously creepy, but I felt in the end she couldn't quite wrap up the mystery she'd woven for herself. To be honest, I had no idea what was happening half the time--even though the words always sounded so pretty! That said, a 13 year old girl who was in my group at the workshop loved this book so much she was hugging it to herself. So. There you go.

But without a doubt, I love this cover. The piercing blue combined with that red ribbon, so strangely wrapped around the floating girl's wrist, fluttering behind her--it is perfect. It feels as delicate-yet-haunting as the story did.

2) My One Hundred Adventures, Polly Horvath (2008)

I haven't read this one, but every time it's in my stack, I have to stop and look at that house floating away above the puffy clouds above the warm-toned ocean, and I want to read it. I love this cover.

3) Pretty Dead, Francesca Lia Block (2009)

Most of the time, I admit, I like the pretty, dreamy covers, the ones that make me go "Oooooh" and want to cuddle the book in a warm blanket. But I can appreciate sass, too. And the first time I saw this cover and really examined that dripping peppermint on those shiny red lips, I thought, "That is freaking genius." And very Francesca Lia Block. God bless her (and whoever designed this cover).

4) Crow, Barbara Wright (2012)

This is a brand new book and I know nothing about it, but it caught my eye this week when I was at Powell's and I stopped in my tracks to look at it more. The lovely grey & yellow combination, along with a bicycle in the corner? Done and done, my friends.

5) The Stranger, Albert Camus (1946)

Oh, well, this is strange. This is not a YA or a children's book (whaaaaa?!), and it's old, and as certain people (who may be) reading this know too well, not even a book I particularly like. (I'm sorry, truly.) However, this book for a variety of reasons has been resting on the bottom of our coffee table for awhile so I keep staring at it. And I have to say--this cover is perfect. Simple, and perfect. This is, like, kind of maybe my favorite cover ever.

(Does that make it at all better, M? No? Okay, I didn't think so.)

What are your favorite book covers?

"My huckleberry friend."

2012-01-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

Hey, so, I have a question. Is it possible for anyone in the world to listen to Moon River without their heart melting into honey--a sticky, gooey, blubbering mess? Because it is so sweet and lonely and pretty that it makes you just want to die? And if you don't think so too, I, like, don't believe you?

I may or may not have felt the need to say this after watching the Gilmore Girls episode in Season 5 when Richard and Emily renew their wedding vows and all that shits goes down in the end (WHEN LORELAI SAYS "YOU AND ME, WE'RE DONE" TO EMILY AT THE END, OMGGGGGG) and it's awful and I may or may not have cried through most of the episode especially when Richard and Emily dance to that Bill song but Rory and Logan (eh) dance to Moon River and so here I am.

Why do the three words "my huckleberry friend" slay me so much? What does it even mean? How can you be a huckleberry friend? I don't know but IT IS LOVELY, DREAM MAKER. JUST LOVELY. EFF YOU, AND EFF YOU TOO AUDREY HEPBURN, AND ALL YOU LOVELY OLD CLASSY BROADS WHO SING PRETTY SONGS IN MOVIES THAT MAKE ME WANT TO CRY FOREVER. I'M LOOKING AT YOU TOO, JUDY, BUT THAT'S A STORY FOR ANOTHER DAY.

There's such a lot of world to see.

Florence + the Machine, Lungs

2012-01-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

The end of my 2011 was spent being fully enraptured with Florence + the Machine's newest album, Ceremonials. I wrote about my obsession with it here, on a Tumblr called Unbest created by the amazing Rachael Maddux. This Tumblr also happened to be included on the Top 10 Top 10 Lists of 2011 by the NY Times Magazine, for good reason--Unbest is a brilliant idea that includes a lot of honest & moving writing about music. I couldn't recommend it more.

If you are too lazy to click on the above link, I'll tell you the gist of my piece on Ceremonials: OMG I LOVE IT SO MUCH I WANT TO CRY OVER IT LIKE A BIG BABY EVERY DAY OMG FLORENCE WELCH YOU ARE PART OF MY SOULLLLLLLL. Or, similar to that.

But in January so far, I have been backtracking a little & can't stop listening to Florence's first album, Lungs. Ceremonials feels like this overpowering, all-encompassing...thing, an overwhelming force of an album, where every song envelops you entirely in wonderful waves. But Lungs is a little different somehow. I love the songs just as much but they seem closer in a more bare-bones sort of way, in a way that I feel like I can wrap my hands around them and hold them tight, like they are mine mine mine.

A lot of them also make me want to dance a lot more.

Like Ceremonials, there is not one song on Lungs that I do not like. But there are quite a few that I like A WHOLE LOT. And that I've been listening to over and over and over. And singing to. And dancing to, a lot, when I'm alone, hopping around in my car like a fool as I drive or taking breaks while doing the dishes to break it down in the kitchen while my animals stare at me.

MY FAVORITE DANCE SONG(S):

Howl. You guys. This is my jam. My dance moves to this one are SERIOUS BUSINESS. For reals. These dance moves mainly involve me flailing my arms around and bopping my head and moving my hips a lot. So, uh, basically the best dance moves. I get particularly excited when I get to flail around and lip-synch to: "IF YOU COULD ONLY SEE! THE BEAST YOU MADE IN ME!" I could angrily flail and lip-synch this line all day. Now picture me putting these SERIOUS BUSINESS DANCE MOVES to work while in a wedding dress. This is what's going to happen in six months, people. You aren't even ready for it, wedding guests.

Drumming Song. So. My dance moves to this one are less likely to be displayed in public, since they mainly just involve a lot of intense head thrashing and feet stomping. Okay, and some arm flailing too. Mainly I just really, really like singing: "THERE'S A DRUMMING VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD THAT STARTS WHEN YOU'RE AROUND. I SWEAR THAT YOU COULD HEAR IT, IT MAKES SUCH AN ALMIGHTY SOUND." Like, when she says it near the end, with the insistent drum beats. Like. I really like it. (It is the "almighty sound" that does it. What great word choice. Jesus.)

MY FAVORITE !!!! :) :( :) :( !!! SONGS, MEANING SONGS THAT MAKE MY HEART HAPPIEST/ACHE THE MOST/HAPPIEST:

Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up). I feel like a rabbit-hearted girl, a lot. But I try to be a lion-hearted girl, too, sometimes. This song. Right here. *pounds chest*

Cosmic Love. Wrap me in a golden glittery gauzy curtain, play this song on repeat, I will die happy and dreamy. Repeat, repeat, repeat forever and ever, the stars have all been blown out.

My Boy Builds Coffins. I don't know why I like this song so much, to be honest. It's not like the lyrics pierce my insides like most of the other songs listed here. I really can't relate to dating a boy who builds coffins. I don't really like coffins, or thinking about them. (DEAR WORLD: SCATTER MY ASHES UNDER A TREE. NO COFFINS. K THANKS.) But I just LIKE IT. It may actually be my favorite song on Lungs? But I can't explain why? Just the way the music dips and sways throughout the whole thing. It's just lovely.

Also, this is the only video that isn't a boring just-showing-the-cover-art video, the rest of which I included here because I wanted to broadcast the studio versions that I've been singing and dancing to like a madwoman, in order to be most accurate with my mind. But I had to include this one to show HOW CUTE FLORENCE WELCH IS. You must listen to her rambly introduction in this video, if anything just to hear when she talks about "writing songs about air" in her adorable British accent. She is adorable. I want to hug her. :(

(Also, thank you for showing me this video, cousin Annie. Let's go hug her together.)

Maybe there will be a time in the future where listening to Florence + the Machine isn't the #1 thing I want to be doing, at all times. But I can't really picture it, yet.

Reading Recap 2011.

2012-01-11T23:51:00.000-08:00

I am in slight denial that it's already 2012--like full on, two weeks into 2012--when I haven't even finished all of my sentimental end-of-2011 crap I had planned on doing! So I will just pretend it's still December and proceed with my OVER-ANALYZATION OF A YEAR for the rest of the month. Yay! AND if it's still December, that means I get to do that awesome vacation that happened at the end of December AGAIN! YAYYYYY life is wonderful!

Last year I did a reading re-cap for the year, and it was interesting to do it again this year and compare notes from year to year.

Total Books Read: 53

Within those:
Children's or Young Adult Fiction: 44
(GLBT themed literature included in those: 3)
Picture books: 1
"Adult" books: 7
"Classics": 5
Graphic novels: 11
Nonfiction: 4

Some of my favorites:

- The Amulet series graphic novels, Kazu Kibuishi [My students last year LOVED this series; I had a waiting list of kids wanting to borrow my copies. I loved them, too.]

- Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf [I had never read it before--I know, I know. Loved it.] My other favorite "classic" I read was My Antonia, Willa Cather. So basically, a bunch of lesbianic old ladies all up in here. Not shocking.

- Rapunzel's Revenge, Shannon Hale

- The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick

- The Help, Kathryn Stockett [The "it" book of the last two years, but I still loved it & all of its characters, a ton.]

- Almost Perfect, Brian Katcher

- Debbie Harry Sings in French, Meagan Brothers

- Graceling, Kristin Cashore [If you like Katniss, you will like Katsa. And OMG THE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN KATSA AND PO WAS SOME OF THE MOST INTENSE SEXUAL TENSION I HAVE EVER READ IN A YOUNG ADULT FANTASY. I MEAN THEIR FAVORITE THING TO DO WAS TO PRACTICE TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER, VIOLENTLY, EVERY DAY. COME ON NOW.]

- Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey. [Those Aussies know how to do creepy-yet-funny-and-also-sad so well. Also, I've seen a few different versions of the cover online, but this one is obviously the best one. Those roots--it is the perfect lead in to that haunting grove. Who wouldn't want to read a book with this cover?]

- Anya's Ghost, Vera Brosgol

- Okay For Now, Gary D. Schmidt [I LOVE GARY D. SCHMIDT SO MUCH.]

- Flesh & Blood So Cheap, Albert Marrin [I read a few great children's non-fiction this year, but this one was hands-down the best. I was riveted the entire time.]

& even though it was a re-read, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton played a big role in my life for the first half of the year since I spent two months reading it with a bunch of 7th graders and THEY LOVED IT (I mean, who wouldn't love a good rumble) and it was definitely my most rewarding teaching experience. So thank you, Miss Hinton.

Overall, I actually read less books than I did last year, but there was SLIGHTLY more variety--although I know 44 out of 53 books being children's or YA probably doesn't seem like "variety." But come on, five classics, that's not bad!

2012, I have a feeling you are going to be my best reading year yet. You and me, books. Let's snuggle.

2012 Resolutions.

2012-01-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

1) Stop downplaying everything I do eternally. Kathy always comments on how, whenever I make a new dinner, as I give her her plate I say, "I think it's okay, but this soandso didn't seem right." After I invest time in something, even when it's just something like food, whenever I show it to anyone other than myself there always has to be an additional deprecating comment.

I submitted two things I wrote to different places in December. What I said about the first one: "I think it's way too long, sorry." What I said about the second one: "It sounds way dramatic and crazy. Oh, I think it's way too long, sorry." Enough, Jill. Enough now. One of the things I've understood better in 2011 when it comes to writing is that I need to be edited & I actually really welcome that; each editing experience is a good learning experience.

But that doesn't mean I need to be ashamed that I have a lot to say and that I want to say all of it, and that I often have a lot of Feelings about the things I want to say. Own it, woman.

2) It is a fact that I will spend the first seven months of this year positively freaking out about how we're going to pay for our wedding in July. Most people wait until they are responsibly financially stable until planning a big wedding, but, we have never really followed the rules other responsible people follow.

In order to help actually pull this off, I need to do a few things: A) Take more transcribing jobs, and when I work on them, actually work on them. No checking Twitter every five minutes. Or every three minutes. Or, okay, every thirty seconds. B) Take all the extra tutoring shifts I can. Here I come, Portland Public School children. C) Keep the dream of getting paid to write stuff alive. It's possible.

3) More biking. Always more biking.

4) More writing. Write as many blog entries as I want; make them as long as I want. Submit something to somewhere--a website, a literary journal, whatevs--once a month. I just had someone really cool ASK me to submit something to their really cool journal. Don't be an idiot and ignore the universe being awesome, Jill. Even though I'll never actually be good at writing reviews because all of my Personal Feelings get in the way of being objective, write more about books & more about music. Because that's all you want to write about, anyway.

5) More pictures. It's become overly apparent to me in just the last month that I need to think about investing in a new camera by the end of the year. Sorry, old Lumix, I'll always love you. More importantly, don't put off using that darkroom time Kathy got me for Christmas. Holy hell, excitement.

6) Apply to the University of Washington for my Masters of Library Science. It just has to happen. So you're going to be in school forever. It's okay, you're still lovable even with your reckless financial decisions and your lack of having a solid career until you're 40.

7) More books, more variety. The world understands you love children's & young adult literature. But your brain will actually probably enjoy some grown up stuff and some non-fiction, too. Remember that time you got a degree in literature and underlined & bracketed things in your anthologies just because you liked the way the words sounded? You can relate to teens but relate to yourself, too, you know.

8) Less pointless apologies; less guilt. This will probably be the hardest one, but really girl, you do not have to say I'm Sorry twenty times a day for things that are out of your control. You can show your empathy in other ways. So do it.

2012, I am so in love with you already. Let's make out.

Addendum: 1992.

2011-12-27T00:28:00.000-08:00

You may remember that in my Best of the 90s posts, I briefly mentioned writing a tome entitled Richard Troll as a young child. You may not remember this, because let's be honest, these posts are always real long. But at the end of my 1990 post, I said: I think I spent most of my down time collecting trolls, and then writing stories about said trolls. My sister then filled in the important details, as she often does, by reminding me that the stories were about ONE troll, and his name was Richard.

You may also have seen on Facebook or Twitter over the last few days that for Christmas this year, my mom made a book full of photocopies of embarrassing writing from my entire childhood. Some of these gems (embarrassments) are excerpts from Richard Troll. To spread the joy, I decided to share some of my literary genius with you.

Spelling errors included for authenticity. Text in big font because that is how we all wrote in second grade.

(Back story for this first paragraph, which is from a chapter called "Neil's Farm"--Richard Troll went to Neil's Farm and was scared by/attacked by a "big pussy cat." It is slightly unclear what exactly happened with the big pussy cat, but Richard came home and was not happy about it.)

For now on we shal go to the bar. "The children are to young to dringk." said my mother. So I will go myself. For now on I went to that bar every night. Now I was smart. I found my friends thier. They said Hey, want to play some pool and I said Hey, Hey is for horses. Then when I got home I toled my mother what I did. Son, you have grone up. Then can I play my Boys II Men tape Mom. Yes son Yes. I love you mommy. Thank you so much. Your friends should know that hey is for horses.

I went downstairs to tell my mommy that I wanted 11 people at my party and I wanted to go to the bar to play pool. I said I would mak a list of all the people I wanted for my party.

The third person Richard Troll invited to his party.

After the party mom took me to the mall. I bout a new suit. My mommy bout new earings. We each got 1 big pen that looks like a jet. In 14 years I will be 40. I am going to do a lot of stuff because my mommy is nice wen anyone turns 26 and 40. Those are her favorite numbers. The next day I went in a hot air balloon. It was so much fun. I can't wait till I turn 40. I got a day off of work sence it was my birthday. But next week I will go back to the office. My favorite present was 1 bowtie and if you put a badery in it it glows up. I got lots of GI Joes. At the bar we played pool and I won. I love this birthday.

(Chapter 16)

[My dad] is very nice. He has pink hair. Pink hair in this family is crazy, so that means that he is crazy and boy he is. My mother on the other hand has blue hair and is very comb like me and Mickey. She likes to knit and is very nice. My mom is eighty two. My dad is eighty four. My moms first name is Catherin. Her nickname is Bunky. My dad's first name is Ed. His nickname is Mr. Ed. Trolls always have nicknames. My nickname is Rich. And of course the kid's names nicknames are B.B., C+C, and Mick. Troubles nickname is Trouble. Let's get back to my parents. Sorry about that long talk about nicknames, but this was the only time I could tell you.

I will tell you what my parents look like. My father, pink hair, white scarf around neck, purple sunglasses, fat, and very strong. My mom is beautiful but my dad is ugly. All my dad does is roll and drives around in his car. But my mom gets around and has a real job. She makes troll underwear. Hey, don't lagh. You need them.

(Chapter 17: All About the Family)

First, I'll start with Micky. He has blue hair and is like me. He is the smartest one in the family. Micky has been troll napped! If you see a little baby troll with blue hair, report it to Richard and Troubles troll. 5 pounds of hair reward.

This masterpiece brought to you by this girl right here:

You are welcome.

Happy Xmas (War is Over)

2011-12-13T23:00:00.000-08:00

While All I Want for Christmas Is You will always make me the Christmas-happiest (and yes, I am purposely staying entirely ignorant of anything related to this song and Justin Bieber, just because I dislike the audacity of messing with perfection), Happy Xmas (War is Over) makes me the Christmas-my-guts-are-all-tangled-up-in-my-throat-iest. Right from the get go--and let's discuss how much I love how this song just STARTS--as soon as he sings, "And so this is Christmas," I am already fighting off the tears before he even asks what we've done. (I don't know, John.)

This may be blasphemous to say, and maybe it's just the sentimentality of Christmas, but there is something about this song that I find even more moving than John Lennon's biggest contribution to humanity, which we can just say rhymes with Shmishmagine. Don't get me wrong, I am not downplaying Smishmagine, but, I don't know. I can't describe the depths to which this song slays me.

I have a pretty strict No-Christmas-merriment-until-after-Thanksgiving rule, and so when they started playing some Christmas music at work sometime in that weird marketing season between Halloween and Thanksgiving where we all wander around stores scratching our heads, I tried to block most of it out, until I heard this. And all of a sudden all I wanted to do was be wrapped up in an afghan beneath the Christmas tree at my mom's house, and I wanted to run around in circles yelling NO, NO, THE FEELINGS! IT IS TOO EARLY FOR THE FEELINGS!

There are so many good things about this song but my favorite is my favorite part of all Christmas-related things: the feeling it expresses has nothing to do with Jesus whatsoever, but is about the general feeling of, for one moment of the year, a camaraderie of mankind, a general feeling of just wanting to Be Good To Each Other. The rich and the poor ones, the old and the young. It's gratitude and warmth and strength. It is cliche, but it is good.

I mean it's not all red suits and candy canes; John's cynicism is still there throughout the whole thing, but in the end it's all about the chorus of children singing at the end, at least allowing ourselves to pretend that we could stop all the fight, just for a short while. This is why I will never understand people who hate this season and go on about commercialism and yadda yadda yadda. Dude. We are all aware of the commercialism. Nobody thinks that's what it's all about.

& the simplicity of this line: "War is over if you want it." Seriously. This song just makes me lose it.

While I generally view this as a song that shouldn't be covered, people just keep wanting to do it anyway. The only one I find acceptable is Melissa Etheridge's. There is one by Celine Dion that I dislike so much that it makes me inexplicably upset even just thinking about it--SHE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE CHILDREN (OR ANYONE) SINGING THE WAR IS OVER CHANT AT THE END, WHAT IS SHE PLAYING AT? Kathy likes to bring up this Celine Dion version sometimes because she thinks it's funny that I get so mad just thinking about it, but it is NOT FUNNY.

PS. You probably shouldn't watch the John Lennon video; it'll make you want to slit your wrists. Happy Christmas!

Best of the 90s: 1992.

2011-12-07T19:35:00.001-08:00

Guys. Do you know how many amazing songs were popular in 1992? Lots. This is going to be hard. But I will power through. Life is tough, but it's worth it for the 90s, you know?

(Warning: If you listen to all these songs--AND WHY WOULDN'T YOU?--just know that for whatever reason the Dailymotion vids are a lot louder than all the Youtube ones. Just to save your speakers a little.)

Jill's Top 10 Songs of 1992

All I Want, Toad the Wet Sprocket

HOLY LORD I LOVE THE CRAP OUT OF THIS SONG. It is also one of the most perfect 90s songs of all time. I can picture Angela Chase walking down the halls of her high school as I listen to it. Yeah, even though Angela Chase still didn't exist for two years. YOU GET IT. Angela Chase has always existed. Perhaps more appropriately, I can picture this song being played during a montage of Brian talking to and/or gazing at Angela during various points of awkward longing, ending with those few times when she awarded him with a laugh or an adorable crooked smile. Someone on Tumblr or Youtube has probably done it. At least I hope so. Don't let me down, Internet.

I had a cassette of Fear, the album this was on which featured one of the most terrifying album covers of all time, and I listened to a whole lot as a tyke. And let me tell you, it was not exactly an upper of a record. As were most of the records I listened to as a tyke. (Case in point: the cheery I Will Not Take These Things for Granted. Although I guess the lyrics are kinda sorta uplifting. Anyway, whatever.) So basically All I Want is as happy as Toad the Wet Sprocket gets, and it's worth it.

Also talk about a killer first line: Nothing's so loud as hearing when we lie. Boo-yah, KILLED IT. The whole song is chock-full of winning sentimental zingers, such as:

Nothing's so cold as closing the heart when all we need is to free the soul

But we wouldn't be that brave I know

But why am I even telling you this? You know you know all these lines by heart, too. Oh, Toad.

Black or White, Michael Jackson

I know the only Michael Jackson songs which are really cool to like are the badass 80s ones, but I can't deny it: I LOVE HIS CHEESY EARLY 90S HITS WITH ALL OF MY DEAR LITTLE HEART. I must have professed my deep love of Man in the Mirror on here somewhere, I must have. But I love me some Black or White too. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. I mean the number of cultural stereotypes portrayed in the video! Countless! The breakdown in the bridge while the world implodes behind him! Macaulay Culkin rapping on a stoop! Also, lions! And those visual effects at the end that blew all of our early-90s-minds! HE'S NOT GOING TO SPEND HIS LIFE BEING A COLOR.

WORD, MICHAEL. WORD.

My Lovin (Never Gonna Get It), En Vogue

I have to admit that there was an INTENSE EN VOGUE BATTLE IN MY HEAD over whether to choose this song or Free Your Mind for my Top 10, both of which were included in the Top 100 Songs From 1992 list I found, albeit this one was much higher on the list. While I love Free Your Mind in an intense way--PREJUDICE. WANNA TALK ABOUT IT?--Kathy helped me decide on My Lovin (Never Gonna Get It), because a song with parentheses in the title always wins. Am I right, or am I right? Also helpful in this decision were those slinky silvery dresses they're wearing in this video that just barely cover their hoohas. En Vogue has legs forever, gentlemen, but guess what? You're never, never gonna get it.

Also, the breakdown at 3:05--I know it's a breakdown because a gentleman announcer tells me so--is SO. GOOD.

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana

So the problem with making these lists is debating with myself about whether or not to include the REALLY OBVIOUS HITS. And this is the most obvious of them all. But...I can't not include it. Not just because it was so important, because it is so GOOD. It is still so good. It will always be so good. Even if it led to Kurt Cobain's demise, it will always be so good. I am not eloquent enough to write adequate words about Smells Like Teen Spirit, so instead I will tell you this silly story:

Last summer during my last graduate education class ever, my friend Abe walked in and I spent the entire first half of class staring at him and his green striped sweater and wondering what it reminded me of. My brain alerted me to this sweater as soon as I saw him: ALERT, ALERT! YOU RECOGNIZE THIS SWEATER. YOU WILL STARE AT ABE IN THIS SWEATER UNTIL YOU FIGURE IT OUT! < /robotic brain alert voice >

Finally, after at least an hour of not paying attention to the importance of research in education, I got it. When we had a break, I walked over to him and said, "ABE. I HAVE BEEN STARING AT YOUR SWEATER ALL CLASS BECAUSE I KNEW I RECOGNIZED IT FROM SOMEWHERE AND I THINK I'VE FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT."

Abe: Really? What is it?

Me: I THINK IT'S KURT COBAIN'S SWEATER FROM THE VIDEO FOR SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT.

Abe: Really? That is amazing. You should go Google that shit and show me.

Of course he probably didn't say "shit" because he is a really good Christian, but I did go to the computer lab during break and Google it, and print it out, and show him. At which point he maybe seemed a little perturbed that I had actually done all that, but he was pretty excited about it up until then. It wasn't the exact same sweater, but it was close.

And so, in conclusion, Smells Like Teen Spirit never leaves you.

ENTERTAIN US.

Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers

You see what I mean about there being so many songs from this year that almost seem too obvious to mention but I can't help myself because of their epic-ness? Guys, when the high-pitched background singers come in a little past the three-minute mark and Anthony Kiedis runs in slow motion, even though I never have any idea what they're actually singing (and is it actually just Anthony Kiedis singing these parts? Who knows, doesn't matter), I will never NOT get chills. I will love this song forever and ever. I think it is one of the loveliest, loneliest love letters to a city ever concocted, and if there is something I love, it is love letters to a place. If I could hug a lyric, I would hug "Sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in." I would also cuddle with, "Lonely as I am, together we cry." (Although I always heard this lyric as "glide," which I think is better than cry. Regardless.) Be still my wanderlust heart.

Tennessee, Arrested Development

Take it away, socially-conscious, history-examining, intellectual-glasses-wearing hip hop. This is a great song. I actually don't have much else to say about it. It's just good.

What About Your Friends, TLC

1992 was, gloriously, a big TLC year and it was hard to choose which hit to pick, but I feel pretty confident with my decision. I simply cannot get over the fashion in this video. If you click on one video to watch in this long entry, do this one. Do it for the condoms. How many condoms are even hanging off of their various outfits in this video? Lots, that's how many. Do it for the spray-painted all-white-jeans combo. Do it for the clown-esque oversized unbuttoned pants with suspenders. Do it for the poofy hats. These bitches were the dykiest, most bad-ass ladies of the 90s, and I feel like a lot of their dykey bad-ass-ness was lost on me when I was 9. So thank goodness I'm writing this blog entry now and can re-live it. Also, Left-Eye's raps in this one? Forget it.

One, U2

So Bono so often seems like a douche these days--I KNOW YOU'RE SAVING THE WORLD BUT TAKE OFF YOUR GLASSES PLEASE--that it's almost hard for me to include U2, but come on. This song. You know you love it. It's impossible not to love it. It is pure, pretty, definitive gold. We're one, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other. Did I ask too much? More than a lot? You gave me nothing, now it's all I got. We're one, but we're not the same. Well, we hurt each other, and we'll do it again.

And I can't be holding on to what you got when all you got is hurt.

Rhythm is a Dancer, Snap!

Another song that was popular in 1992 that almost made it onto my list was The Cure's Friday, I'm In Love. And so you might be thinking, wait. You're not including The Cure, but you're including Snap? And the answer is, HELLS YEAH I AM. Because let's be honest, I listened to a lot more Snap than I did The Cure in 1992, and you probably did too. Rhythm is a dancer! Yeah, that doesn't even really make sense! You can feel it everywhere, though. Sometimes in the air.

End of the Road, Boyz II Men

This was actually the #1 song of 1992 (according to Billboard), but I almost didn't include it because I already gave Boyz II Men love for Motownphilly in 1991. And then I listened to the song again and realized, WHAT WAS I THINKING? THERE IS NEVER TOO MUCH BOYZ II MEN LOVE. NEVER. Also, this video features matching flannel coats, so there's that. And ugh, the boyz are in SO MUCH PAIN, GUYS. THEY ARE SO VULNERABLE. GIRL, THEY'RE THERE FOR YOU. THEY KNEW ABOUT WHEN YOU RAN OUT WITH THAT OTHER FELLA. THEY DON'T CARE. (Wait. They should care about that, right?) JUST COME BACK TO THEM. THEIR HEART HURTS, THEY FEEL PAIN TOO. PLEASE. IT'S UNNATURAL. And if you don't feel an irresistible urge to sing along to the chorus--ESPECIALLY AT THE END WITH THE HAND CLAPS--and sway along, and perhaps hit your cane on the ground a few times, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW YOU.

1992 was also the year that Wayne's World brought Bohemian Rhapsody back to glory, and that Slash played his guitar outside that church in the desert while Axel Rose got married in the rain and then his wife died or something in November Rain. But what to even say about those?

1992 on film:

A Few Good Men

So if for some sad reason you haven't caught this movie on TV lately during one of the 210912382312312897 times it's been replayed on TV, and you've forgotten how good it is, just watch this trailer. JUST WATCH IT. There are so many reasons this movie is one of the most perfect films ever made that I can't even handle it. (And I actually can't really handle watching this movie too much because thinking too much about Santiago's death makes me squirm.) It is Tom Cruise at his best, and Demi Moore at her best, and Nicholson at his best in terms of bad-ass-ness. What is so good about this movie is that there's no perfect ending, no winning conclusion to the case, no heroes streaming out of the courtroom to reporters and cheering crowds. It is heart-wrenching and complex and the perfect high-drama courtroom film.

A League of Their Own

I have to note that the depths to which Kathy loves and knows this movie are so extreme that it's hard for me to think about it without thinking about her quoting every single line from it, at random points, throughout life. Really, instead of including the trailer, I should have just posted this:

This truly is my life. One day Kathy and Allie are going to write a post about A League of Their Own for Naked by Porpoise, and I will try my best to remember to come back to this post and link it because anything they say will be better than what I say. The only thing I will say is that Marla Hooch is forever my favorite.

The Mighty Ducks

Oh, Disney in the 90s, I heart you so much. I also hardly know what to say about this one, other than this 30 second trailer is perfection and pretty much says it all. Anything that mentions a "hot-shot lawyer" learning that "winning isn't everything"? I am there, Mr. Trailer Narrator. I am there.

Jill in 1992

In 1992, when I wasn't listening to Snap! on my way to girl scouts meetings at the Palmyra Township Building, I finished second grade and started third grade. This I believe was The Year I Was the Biggest Teacher's Pet In the World. I can't even remember my third grade teacher's name (oops, horrible memory), and I swear I didn't even do anything to warrant it, but she LOVED ME. She was also the head of technology in our elementary school or something and had control over the computer labs and would randomly tell me to go play on the computers if I wanted while everyone else in my class did work. This was perhaps a combination of her liking me because I was painfully quiet and shy, and a teacher-sixth-sense of knowing I was going to become a Mega Computer Nerd. It went like this:

Teacher Lady: "Alright everybody, get ready for your spelling test. Oh, Jill, you can go down to the computer lab and play Oregon Trail for an hour if you want."

Jill: "Huh? Okay." *shrugs*

It happened all the time and never made sense. Shockingly, no one ever beat me up.

November Goals: Review.

2011-12-02T11:03:00.001-08:00

At the beginning of November, I wrote a jumble of things that I wanted to do during the month. Here is my corresponding jumble of a review.

I was healthier in November but still not totally healthy. I did not run, because let's be honest, it's cold outside and I do not actually like running that much, I just like to believe I do. I ate fast food relatively less but still didn't eat enough fruits & vegetables. I did, however, start biking more again. I also had my lazy periods of driving, because, like, there's heat and I can sit down and I can listen to Florence (& Christmas music). But whenever I do get the cajones to bundle up and get on my bike, I am always grateful for it. Biking makes me feel like a stronger person, in a variety of ways.

I did not really wake up earlier.

I did write a little more this month, in the sense that I wrote something which may or may not be published somewhere soon, and I wrote a hilarious guest post on Kathy & Matie's new blog, and I babbled here. But I did not write any more TypeTriggers, and I did not submit anything to Gigantic Sequins. So half yay, half boo.

I did not really spend more time with my pictures. I am sad about this. Truth: I will never have enough time to spend with my pictures as I want to, and I will always be sad about it.

Uh, I did NOT finish Coin Laundry, my one accountable goal. Even though I SWEAR I am really loving it so far. Curses!

I did not contact UW about their MLS program but I found out more about it; still contemplating things. I started to freak out about money a little less because I was able to actually pay some bills. And this is an amazing feeling, for serious. If you have never experienced the joy of a quiet phone when credit cards and collectors stop calling you, you have never been as poor as me. But when it comes to thinking about wedding stuff, yes, indeed, still freaking out.

I did not keep the house cleaner. I did not start reading newspapers again.

I did NOT talk to people I love enough; I did not talk to my parents enough. This is actually my biggest regret this month.

I did not write about Florence, but I love that "write about Florence" was one of my GOALS. I am in love with my own melodramatic mind. However, I am actually just about to attempt to do that, for this, and I'm pretty pumped about it.

November was actually a pretty great month. I only had one mini-breakdown, had some really cool career type things happen, am feeling really good about myself at the moment, and am looking ahead to a really awesome 2012. Go me.

Some old graphics and I'm done.

2011-11-16T22:12:00.001-08:00

All Ryan Adams, All the Time

(La Cienega Just Smiled)

Over the past couple weeks, I have been engaging in the sickest forms of nostalgia.

Healthy Forms of Nostalgia:
- Looking at old pictures
- Laughing with friends and family about old times
- Listening to music you used to like.

Sick Forms of Nostalgia:
- Looking at bad poetry you wrote in middle school
- Looking at bad fanfiction you wrote in middle school
- Looking at anything you wrote before last week.

Things That Are Probably Healthier Than the Above:
- Eating five pints of Ben & Jerry's
- Sleeping all day
- Drugs and alcohol.

(Out of the Woods)

Okay, I may exaggerate a bit. A bit of narcissism (okay, self-reflection) is healthy for anyone; but past "a bit," it quickly devolves into an unhealthy spiral.

This trend of mine started for a variety of reasons, and if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been vomiting this nostalgia all over the place because it makes me feel so embarrassed and anxious I have to get it out somewhere and Twitter has been my current venting platform. Sorry, Twitter. In the past, it's been Livejournal, HTML typed into endless Notepad files, all the way back to Angelfire and Geocities. Jill: Vomiting Her Neuroses to the Internet since 1997.

Hella Cute on the Empire State Building; real into Abandoned Pools.

(The Remedy)

I thought sharing some of this stuff would be funny, but I'm increasingly realizing it's not. I don't even feel comfortable sharing most of it with Kathy. Things I usually talked about in all of these forms of writing: Beauty! Passion! Love! Loneliness! Beauty! "My words"! It is like an overdamatic reading of a Chicken Soup for the Lonely Girl in a Small Town Soul, or a neverending Jewel album from 1997.

The only productive end to this sick habit I've immersed myself in is possibly having an empathetic moment for the youth I want to work with and help in my professional life; a potent reminder of how selfish, philosophical, and intense we are when we are young. Mostly selfish.

This isn't a bad thing, and by "selfish" I don't mean uncaring about your fellow human beings--contrary to popular opinion, even when being incredibly cruel, it's my belief that teens are probably more hyper-aware of the humanity around them than anyone else. They have a special ability to see everyone's beauty AND everyone's bullshit, a talent that often fades with age. The selfish part just comes in by being so wrapped up in your own shit that your brain almost doesn't have room for anything else.

Overanalyzing the Definition of Home, Over and Over

(America)

But I'm not 14 anymore--okay, or anywhere between the ages of 14 to 22--so there's no reason to keep dragging myself around in this. Sometimes I thought the things I wrote were hilarious (to me), but mostly they just made me feel weird. While I'll always be the person who wrote those things, I'm also not, anymore. I can grow some balls and put away the floppy disks and not open those weird folders on my ancient computer anymore, at least for now.

The only thing I kind of enjoy looking at are old crappy graphics I used to make; sometimes they were for webpages, sometimes they were just another form of angsty expression. By "graphics," I mean, taking pictures of myself and/or places and putting lyrics on them. Most of these are embarrassing too, but are in general somewhat more socially acceptable.

Prom Dresses in Bingham Park

(Recovering the Satellites)

So anyway, to document these two weird weeks of awful nostalgia, here's some of these gems, accompanied by the related musical inspiration. (Only because it took some serious musical memory tweaking to remember what half of these lyrics were from, and so I have to share my sense of accomplishment. Don't worry, they're all really mopey and sad.) And then I'm done. Hear that, self? For Christ's sake, brain, get over yourself.

The Epitome of My Hanson Fandom

(Hey)

High School.

(Coke)

How I Dressed Pretty Much Everyday / Oh, I Also Talked About Souls a Lot

(All That You Have is Your Soul)

I Actually Made Like 10 Graphics From This Song, Which I Definitely Didn't Know Was About One Night Stands

(Walkaways)

Screencapturing of iTunes For the Win

(Wonderwall)

Yeah, done. Like that dude says to Keira Knightley after he pours out his heart outside her flat in Love Actually (even though he's actually supposed to be in love with the dude): "Enough. Enough now."

Dear former self: It gets better. But do know that I still love you, embarrassing or not, anyway. Love, Me now, and Me always.

Random hits from the playlist at work.

2011-11-15T01:47:00.001-08:00

I am often surprised at how much I want to talk about the music at work. This may be because it's the only thing really worth talking about from my work. Or maybe it's because Starbucks music (sometimes) actually speaks my brain and soul. BUT OMG HOW EMBARRASSING IS ADMITTING THAT?! CORPORATE COFFE MUSIC BRAIN. Blech. Or maybe it's because I often compose blog entries in my head to myself when I'm at work to keep myself entertained and when I hear the same songs ten times in a night they sneak their way in? Anyway.

The most important musical event of my life recently has been Ceremonials, but to talk about that would involve serious and honest emotional thought. But the music that's been playing at work recently literally seems like it was ripped from my Napster and/or my Kazaa from my freshman year of college. And talking about that is just funny, so I'm going to do that.

Seriously. It is like, hit after random hit, someone stole my computer from the 8th floor of the LB. I didn't make many true friends freshman year of college, so to fill my time when it was too cold to wander aimlessly around the city, I downloaded a LOT of songs. Here are some quick examples, playing now at a Starbucks near you.

Greek Song, Rufus Wainwright. I always loved this song just because I really loved singing the line, "When I get back, I will dream in Barnes and Nobles." Geez, writing this has really made aware of my corporate whoredom.

Central Reservation, Beth Orton. I was sitting alone in my dorm room downloading Beth Orton songs, and it would still be like, two years until Kathy made me realize I was a lesbian. Shocking, really. Napster had known for months.

Birds Fly, Icicle Works. Uh, okay, this is just random. But I swear it's playing at work, and I swear it was on my Napster. I just really like this song, okay? It's weird. I think I first heard of it when it was mentioned in a Hanson fanfic, true story. Oh my god, everything in my life is imploding in on itself.

Delicate, Damien Rice. Oh bloody hell, Damien Rice. There are actually a few Damien Rice tunes on the rotation at work, which is fine because I listened to O like it was crack the first two years of college. And by crack, I mean the kind of crack that makes you want to curl into a little ball and never move, just feel sad about everything forever. A few years later, when I somehow felt I was cool enough to talk about music with Keegan, who likes cool music, I downplayed my love of Damien Rice because Keegan thought he was over dramatic. But I'm not cool anymore and I'm not fooling myself; I will always be blindly in love with the over dramatic. So make those strings swell, Damien! WHY'D YOU SING HALLELUJAH IF IT MEANS NOTHING TO YOU?! RIGHT?!?! WHY'D YOU SING WITH ME AT ALL, JERKFACE?! OMG WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN LET'S GO TO IRELAND AND SIT BY THE OCEAN DAMIEN.

Okay, and then there's this collection of tunes that actually weren't on my Napster/Kazaa freshman year in Boston, but are in a distinct category of Female Songstress Emotional Times.

Keep Breathing, Ingrid Michaelson. Oh dear, oh dear, you are a pretty one Ingrid, let me weep as I make pumpkin spice lattes, thanks a lot.

On the Radio, Regina Spektor. So this is a happy sounding song; let's be honest, it's probably one of Regina's most upbeat. But I like it and the lyrics so much that sometimes it makes me teary anyway. What? I don't know. I also have a hard time not singing along to the "on the RAD-EE-OH! (oh oh!)" joyful sounding refrain at the end of the song, so I normally sing it under my breath. "Here's your chai! (OH OH!)" Also, YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS VIDEO BECAUSE IT IS TRULY AWESOME. Oh, creative people on the Internets, after I get over my feelings of inadequacy you first make me feel, you then make me feel so happy about the world!

Breathe Me, Sia. OH REALLY STARBUCKS? REALLY? JUST STOP IT. Remember that time Kathy and I played this as we drove away from Boston on our way to Oregon on the Masspike and we cried and cried as we drove under that weird Shaws that hangs over the highway and thought about all the awesome people and times and memories we were leaving? I do. And maybe you do too because we talk about it a lot. Also, the official video is truly remarkably cool so you should watch it, I just can't embed it.

Also, wait, wait, this horribly punctuated video just made me aware--ARE THE LYRICS ACTUALLY "UNFOLD ME"? I MEAN I GUESS THAT MAKES MORE SENSE WITH THE IMAGERY OF THE SONG AND STUFF. But ever since I heard this song I heard "I'M FOR ME." LIKE THAT GUSTER SONG BUT A LOT MORE DREAMY AND WHIMSICAL AND WITH LESS ACOUSTIC GUITARS AND DUDES. WHAT. DEVASTATED. OKAY WHATEVER, IT WILL ALWAYS BE "I'M FOR ME" FOR ME. And for Claire Fisher. She's for herself, too. Duh.

J & K Do Portland Food Carts: Months 7-10-ish?

2011-11-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

Remember that time I wrote monthly posts about food carts? Right, you might not, since the last time I did it was in July. Oopsies. I just re-read that post and found it to be pretty funny and thought to myself, "Man, I don't know why I'm not the most popular blog on the Internet, after Hyperbole and a Half because I could never be as good as that, even though I never promote myself other than to my family and friends on Facebook?," which is a thought I have sometimes.

Anyway, we have still been going to food carts but in a much more sporadic manner because there were some months we couldn't afford it, and other months where we still couldn't afford it but said, "Oh wells!" and went to carts anyway, but none of it felt organized enough to do blog posts about. And yes, to us, even though street food is supposed to be something poor-ish people do, being able to afford food carts feels like sometimes rich people do. I.e., hipsters who somehow have more money than us, and/or freelance bloggers who know the secrets to getting paid to visit food carts, which are secrets I do not know.

Anyway, here's a quick summary of the random food carts we've visited in the past few months.

#1: Azula Tequila Mexican Taqueria. In our favorite A La Carts pod off of SE 50th and Division, we went here with my dad and Cheryl when they visited way back this summer. I'm pretty sure my dad and Cheryl got tacos, and Kathy and I both got this smothered chorizo enchilada thing. The exact details are hazy. In any case, this was definitely yummy, and there were major pluses to this cart in general: 1) They served you the food in these fancy fiesta-ware-esque plates, which is pretty high-class for a food cart. 2) The workers were super duper nice. 3) They had many plastic bottles of their own house-made salsas, which from what I can tell is basically a necessity for any true taqueria, but still is always exciting to me. 4) The best part of all is that the food was truly cheap. For truly large portions of food, as you can see. While I can't remember exactly, I'm sure this dish was $5 or less. In other words, what I believe true street food prices should be like.

While I really enjoyed this place and would definitely return in a heartbeat, I still feel like I have yet to discover a Mexican/taqueria cart in Portland that really makes my heartstrings explode with love. In other words, I feel like I will be constantly searching in vain for my West Coast Anna's Taqueria. Sigh. It's never going to happen. And now I'm just going to be pining for Anna's all day. Dammit.

Anyway. < /taqueria angst > Next, we went on our first adventure to the new-ish cart pod along Division and 32nd, near the famed Pok Pok (which I obviously have not been to since I feel it's too fancy and I'm often scared of new things), D-Street Noshery.

This was actually a little bit of a disappointing adventure, but this might also have been because we were both in horrible moods when we went. In other words, I think I was being a bit of a bitch. The exact details are hazy. What I learned from this adventure is that, when one is in a slightly bitchy mood, great food can really make you feel better, but mediocre food can just make you even more pissed off. Or, if you don't place as much emotional attachment to food as I apparently do, you'll probably be alright either way.

Kathy's Choice: A special of the day from Herb's Mac and Cheese which featured tomatoes, bacon, garlic, and blue cheese.

Now, these are all things that I LOVE, and so it sounds like it would be amazing. However--even though I only had a few bites of it--I remember being slightly disappointed. I think because 1) While I love both garlic and blue cheese, they are both really intense flavors, and there was a LOT of garlic on top, and I feel like having two such intense flavors at once almost cancel each other out, or allows you to not fully appreciate each one as you should. 2) All the toppings were just plopped on and baked on top. Now, I understand you are fully able to mix it into the mac yourself. I know I'm lazy, but I understand that. But at the same time--I feel like the mac would have a more consistent mixing and blending of the flavors into every morsel of pasta if it all actually marinated and bubbled together, toppings and mac as one.

That said, I feel like mac & cheese places are the New Thing, and since I love mac & cheese so much, I feel I have to be a little critical of them. Because let's be honest--most of the things I eat when I eat out are things I can't make myself at home. Which is why I'm paying a lot of money for it, right? But I can make a damn good mac & cheese at home, as I proved when I made that mac for the Mac & Cheese Off last year. (Note to self: make that again.) So if I'm spending extra money to buy mac & cheese out, it better be damn good and something I know I couldn't perfect myself (like the macs I highlighted in this entry. No way can I make any mac like Montage can).

That said, I'm looking forward to trying more of these new trendy mac places. In particular, for months I've been meaning to visit Baked!, a take-out establishment on Alberta which isn't exactly a cart but doesn't have an actual restaurant/eating area of their own yet which still makes it the kind of supporting-small-business-upstarts type of thing that I like feeling with (most) food carts.

[Little rant: I said (most) because with the popularity of cart culture in Portland, I've seen it happen where already established, popular brick-and-mortar restaurants open up food carts around town. And while it might be kind of neat to have your favorite restaurant suddenly be mobile, I think the true food cart experience should be unique opportunities for poor-to-middle-class folks to really start up something new, something small but rewarding and exciting, on their own, closer to the American dream than most other things. Wait, have I ranted about this before in my food cart posts? Maybe. The exact details are hazy. HOWEVER, the addendum to this rant is that it's also frequently the case that a food cart is so popular that the owners are able to open up their own brick-and-mortar stores (most notable case, Pine State Biscuits--my first EVER entry on this here ol' blog), and to keep their original roots they usually still keep their food carts operating as well. This I deem completely acceptable.]

Anyway, Baked! was started by an Emerson grad, and while I don't think I really know him I will always feel a fondness for and allegiance to Emerson grads. And I'm a fan of theirs on Facebook so I always read posts about their weekly specials and they always make me SO HUNGRY. And then upset I don't live closer to Alberta. And then upset about the fact that even if I lived closer to Alberta I couldn't afford to get the weekly mac specials every week, or eat at any of the numerous eating establishments on Alberta, and it's a whole vicious Facebook-food-money-self-pity cycle. But, still--I'll get there sometime.

Wow, that was a lot of mac talk.

My Choice: I got arepas with chorizo and plantains from Fuego de Lotus, a Venezuelan cart. I decided to get it because I thought it'd be good to branch out and get something new/feel cultural, and I'd never even heard of arepas before. Arepas are basically Venezuelan corn cakes often served with meat, apparently something like a poor man's (wheatless) bread. And hello, I love chorizo, and hello, who doesn't love plantains?! DON'T TELL ME IF YOU DON'T LIKE PLANTAINS BECAUSE I WILL IGNORE YOU.

While this was all yummy food, I have to admit that I wasn't quite sure the best way to eat it. Also, while I understand that chorizo is one of the greasiest things one can put down their gullet, normally I cook it as part of a dish so the grease just kind of all blends in and gives a rich flavor to things. But when you're just eating a big bunch of chorizo in a bowl, the grease all pools in a neon puddle at the bottom and makes one feel kind of gross. So overall, I would definitely try arepas again, but I'd maybe give this a B-.

However, any and all ambivalent feelings went away when we also visited the Pie Spot. Yeah, we really went all out at this pod. First of all, Pie Spot for sure wins for Cutest Food Cart Ever. Like, look at it! I couldn't even get all the cuteness in one picture! And all the adorable and delicious looking pastries are piled on cute plates! Gah!

The main thing Pie Spot serves are uber-mini pies they charmingly call pie holes. We got the chocolate hazlenut one. We shared it because we had already spent too much money on mac and arepas and the pie holes are maybe a little more expensive than I would prefer. However, they are SO GOOD. AND SO WORTH IT. AND IT WAS SO HARD SHARING JUST ONE. I AM ALSO REALLY HUNGRY WHILE I'M WRITING THIS WHOLE THING AND I WANT TO EAT THIS PIE HOLE AGAIN RIGHT NOW AND ALSO ALL THE OTHER FLAVORS OKAY THANK YOU.

This cart pod is also home to Slice, the delicious pizza that was our one real win experience from the food cart festival we went to earlier this year. We didn't get any because we wanted to try new things, but if I went back to the pod, Slice and Pie Spot would be an amazing and beautiful combination.

Since our D-Street Noshery experience, which I've just surprisingly written a book about, we've eaten at a couple other places but I wasn't on top of things enough to get pictures of them. Most recently, we got a couple of subs/hoagies/heros (depending on what you want to call them in your geographical location) from Shut Up and Eat, again in the A La Carts pod on 50th. This cart has some good press and for good reason; it advertises its menu as "Italian comfort food" and there's something about the place, the food, and the workers that has a real genuine vibe to it. I also absolutely love the name. It all just feels real East Coast-y, which always makes me happy. They also list in giant letters on their menuboard what farms all of their meat/ingredients come from, which is pretty Portland typical these days, but is still great.

Kathy got the Broad Street Bomber, which is basically a cheesesteak, and I got a chicken parmesan sub. Which, due to Tom Haverford I literally feel I will no longer be able to call anything other than chicky chicky parm parm. And this chicky chicky parm parm was great. The sandwiches are huge and definitely share-able, or good for two meals, which makes them especially worth the money (they are generally in the $7-$10 price range per sandwich).

This was fun to write even though it made me really hungry/angsty, because anytime I am hungry I am angsty. But still, hopefully this will inspire me to get this monthly blog tradition back into shape. And then maybe someone will pay me to write about them! OK, probably not.

November Goals.

2011-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

Normally throughout the month I find myself noting in my brain ideas for goals I want to do for the following month. However, this month I seemed to lack the mental capacity to do this, or create any kind of neat list as usual. So instead I will give you a jumbled paragraph. Yay!

I want to be healthier. My eating habits were so atrocious this month and I hardly exercised at all, including riding my bike. I feel fat and unhealthy and gross. I want to start running again, I think it will help me with some of my anxiety I've been having. I want to eat more fruits and vegetables. I want to eat fast food less. I want to bike more. I want to get up earlier. I got up way early one morning last week because I was too anxious to sleep and ended up doing more before 8AM than I normally do in a day. I want to do that more. I want to read more. Like, schedule out time in my days to do it. I want to write more. I remembered one night this month that I kind of like TypeTrigger. I want to submit something to Gigantic Sequins. I want to spend more time with my pictures. This might be my only accountable goal, for Kathy and Matie: I want to finish reading Coin Laundry. I want to stop doubting myself. I want to apply for as many library and/or education jobs as I can. I want to actually contact UW's MLS program. I want to transcribe more. I want to not freak out about money so much. I want to keep the house cleaner. I want to start reading newspapers again. I want to talk to people I don't talk to enough that I love. I want to talk to my parents on a more consistent basis. I want to start organizing my life in my planner more. I want to be a better girlfriend. I want to use the car as little as possible. I want to listen to Florence every second of the day, but I already do that. I want to write about Florence. I want to get my shit together and be okay with myself.

Want, want, want! Buddha would be so disappointed.

In reality, I actually think I'm at a really good and important place in life. I'm feeling hopeful about you, November.

October Goals: Review.

2011-11-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

So remember that time I made goals for October, and I ended my list by saying: "This is going to be a good month"? I also said things like "October is the bestest month!"? Well then. Note to self: never jinx myself like that again. October, in fact, ended up being messy and weird. Accordingly, most of my goals were shoved to the very back of my brain. But for tradition's sake, let's see what kind of a shitstorm this goals review will be anyway.

+ Get rid of our Bank of America bank accounts and open local ones, probably at Rivermark. Bye bye, big corporate banks! I may not be able to occupy the streets, but I can take my money away from yo' ass!

Half way. We did both sign up for checking accounts at Rivermark, yay! But I'm still waiting to get my debit card and official account information in the mail, and until I do I can't completely unravel my life from Bank of America. But this whole thing has made me realize how entangled I am in them. Blergh.

+ Pay off my bills. I got behind again this month. :\ Which always just makes them harder to pay off. :\
I did, just barely.

+ Once they're paid off: get my film pictures from our East Coast trip developed.
Not in the budget, but I want to so bad. The next time I have anything extra, this will be first on my list. Film pictures from New York, come to meeeeee.

+ To renew my education spirit, I want to finally subscribe to Rethinking Schools and VOYA.
Again, not in the budget. Looking over this list makes me realize how rah-rah I was feeling at the beginning of the month about education stuff, since I'd just gone to that social justice conference in Seattle. It's a good reminder though, because I go from rah-rah to blah-blah and completely doubting my ability to be a teacher really quickly. So anytime there's that obnoxious rah-rah in me I should take advantage of it. Whenever I do subscribe to these organizations, maybe they will help.

+ Also, so I can make my own opinion once and for all, finally see Waiting for Superman.
Yeah, no.

+ Another hopeful indulgence once bills are paid: get a tune-up for my bike, as well as getting mudflaps installed.
Hahahaha! Apparently I thought I was going to be rich this month somehow! I am hilarious.

+ More nerdy education/library stuff: start reading some books for upcoming winter Mock Newbery and Mock Printz Award workshops! I want to participate in both workshops and actually read all the books for each this year.
OK, yes! One success! I officially signed up for both workshops and read one of the Printz ones (Jasper Jones--it was intense!), started two of the Newbery ones, and put holds on all the other books from the library. Somewhat disturbingly, these holds have been fulfilled really quickly and I now have a huge stack of pretty shiny books, the sight of which makes me want to hyperventilate a bit, and/or want to quit every thing I'm doing so I can sit home and read all of them.

+ Email my advisor about library practicums. Email University of Washington about MLS.
These might have been my most important goals on here, and all they were were sending EMAILS. And I failed. What is wrong with me.

+ Espanol! I'm going to get back on that train, people! Goals: finish current chapter in Harry, finish up to Chapter 30 in workbook.
I did read quite a few pages in Harry, but nothing to brag about.

+ If time allows, go on at least one hike with Kathy.
At first I was going to say no, but then I remembered that we went on a walk at Promised Land (did you know almost everything by my hometown is named after biblical references? Now you do) with my brother and his wife when we were in Pennsylvania. And it was a pretty lengthy walk, so let's call it a hike.

Kathy and Egypt Lake.

+ Also, make the time to go to at least one pumpkin festival. Pumpkin festivals in October = essential.
We also somehow made this happen. Yay! It was somewhat late in the season after all the good pumpkins were already taken and we went on an overcast Wednesday and so there was hardly anyone there, which was kind of nice. We got cider and bought local honey and walked around and it was real nice.

I love you, you weirdly shaped and dirty pumpkins!

+ Be able to put my entire transcription work check this month to a wedding fund.
No. Every cent of it went to bills. I'm actually really upset about this and thinking about how I'm going to pay for our wedding makes me really anxious. But if I talked more about it this would become a "Things That Make Jill Anxious" blog, which is much less fun, so let's not.

+ Start keeping track of all of my expenses on that really boring spreadsheet I used to have, again.
Hells no. I kept all my receipts for everything in hope of doing this, so now I have a bunch of receipts all over my desk and in all my bags. Does this count?

+ Make four new meals.
Four? Really? Wow, I was dreaming big 30 days ago. I somehow made three though, and I felt damn proud of that!

#1. Peanut soba stir fry. This turned out okay--better than the picture probably looks. I tend to like any peanut sauce anything, because it tastes like peanut butter and peanut butter is delicious. And the vegetables I put in were yummy, especially the cauliflower, because cauliflower is delicious. But the soba noodles I got were just so whole-wheat-y, you know? And I can't get down with those really intense cardboard-y good-for-you noodles. I'm all, give me my unhealthy white flour so I can die earlier, bitch! They definitely didn't look like hers, so there must be some other kind of soba noodle I can find.

#2. Spinach artichoke pasta. OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO GOOD. It's basically just like spinach artichoke dip turned into a pasta dish. OH MY GOD IT WAS SO GOOD. I WANT IT IN MY MOUTH AGAIN RIGHT NOW. I think what helped make it so delicious were the marinated artichoke hearts I bought which were delicious unto themselves. I WANT TO MAKE THIS AND THE SKILLET LASAGNA FROM LAST MONTH OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND EAT THEM EVERYDAY. These are also probably two of the unhealthiest dishes I have ever made, so, that's probably why.

#3. Cuban chorizo stew. A lot of the times I've made stew or soup-ish type things in the past they've always tasted a little bland or not as good as I would have hoped, but this stew had a really really good, substantial flavor that I loved. Maybe it was the chorizo, since chorizo makes everything better, although I really only used a small amount in here. Maybe I just really really love black beans. This also made a ton and I was able to have leftovers for many meals without getting tired of it.

So this month wasn't full of all bad things. This might come as a shock, but I can be a little dramatic sometimes. But overall October, I won't miss you. Until next year, because normally you really are the bestest.

Two LGBT short story collections for youth you should probably read.

2011-11-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago, I mentioned in a post here that what I really want to be doing with my life is working with books. You might have missed this since it was nonchalantly squeezed into a longer post, but here I am to repeat it. Since I'm at somewhat of a weird life stage at the moment, figuring out what I want my life to actually mean has been forefront in my brain and I know books need to be a part of it.

Specifically, books for youth/talking about books with youth is what I want to be doing. I've settled on using the term "books for youth" at least on this blog, because while this is actually a huge and varied category, I feel like saying "kids' books" is almost demeaning for the quality of most of these books, and "young adult lit" seems to evoke nothing but poorly written, sexy books about vampires and/or blonde twins at Sweet Valley High. That said, I try to not be snobby about books, because if a teenage girl wants to spend every night reading about sexy vampires, MORE POWER TO HER. She is a girl who loves reading, and no matter what she's reading about, I love her for it.

But I feel the term "youth" evokes more positive feelings of exuberance and strength than the unfortunately negative emotions "children" and "teen" often conjure (immaturity, silly in their abundance of emotions, etc). So I'm going with youth.

I've developed a three-pronged strategy for things I can do right now to help me toward my ultimate goal of being a youth librarian somehow someway (in addition to the things I'm already doing, like still volunteering at and accumulating way too many books from Title Wave):

Start volunteering with Books2U, a really remarkable program started by former educators through the amazing Multnomah County Library that brings high-interest reading materials to low-income schools, mainly in East Portland and beyond. (Relatedly, people in Portland, you should probably read this excellent article about East Portland from the Willamette Weekly from a couple weeks back.) I feel like every single thing about this program is so important and good. I went in to talk with the director of the program the other day and left with two bags FULL OF BOOKS to start reading for future booktalking. It felt like Christmas!
Take part in all three mock youth-award conferences put on by various library associations this winter: the Mock Newbery (for excellence in children's books), the Mock Printz (young adults), and the Mock Caldecott (picture books). I participated in the Mock Printz last year (which I don't think has an official OLA website, and appears to be reserved for people in-the-know, which I am not, but luckily I know one person who actually is in-the-know--thanks, Danielle! It also interestingly seems to be the only one that's free?) but I was a lazy participant and only read like three of the books on the list. This year I am committing myself to reading all of the books on all of the lists! I am already stressed out!
Write more about books on here.

I'm excited about the contrast of #1 and #2 because #1 will get me better acquainted with books that kids actually like and that can be really important for varying reading abilities and interests, whereas #2 will make me aware of the most current high-quality books that, like, youth librarians like. (Speaking of awards and youth lit though, this is some serious shady balls, National Book Award.)

And I want to write more about them because 1) I need practice doing it, and 2) I feel like the world needs to know about how awesome books for youth in fact are right now. And not just because some shady authors think you can make more money doing it (I hated these authors so much after the first three paragraphs that I couldn't read the rest of the interview), and not because of the somewhat confusing upcoming Diablo Cody movie that I keep hearing is about a young adult author but doesn't seem to have anything to do with writing. But, because most of these books are really good.

And in fact, I think a whole lot of the world does know this. But a portion of the rest of the world, a portion that may be the most important--people who work with youth, coupled with people who work with books--still don't really know, and it's too bad.

While I love books for youth as a general whole, I also have a specific interest in books for LGBT youth, as I've mentioned here before. Since I honestly believe they can, you know, save lives, and stuff. So enough with my chit chat, GEEZ. This may honestly be one of my longest always-overly-long intros ever. But here we go. Here are two books of short stories for LGBT youth, one written over 15 years ago, and one that came out in 2009.

Am I Blue? came out in 1995 and was groundbreaking in that it was the first short story anthology for LGBT youth. Like, ever. There had been the rare youth LGBT book published prior to it (Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden, about lesbian teenagers, came out in 1982), but this was the first book that addressed the true breadth of issues that these youth might deal with.

I read a tattered used copy of it years ago, and the story the sticks most in my mind is the title story, by Bruce Coville. It features a fabulous, campy fairy godfather, who is like A REAL FAIRY IF YOU KNOW WHATIMEAN. Having such flamboyant characters in gay books/movies/TV can be a bit of a contentious issue, with some people claiming it solidifies a stereotype. But in my view, if you're a queen, you should be proud that you're a queen, and as a gay person even if you're NOT a queen, you should still feel proud that there ARE queens in your community. Because seriously, they are hella fun people, and everyone else should be jealous. Gay art needs to express all portraits of who we are, from the flamboyant to the straight laced.

So back to the point--there is this FABULOUS godfather, who floats down to Earth to help out a teen who's dealing with his own confusing questioning as well as some good old fashioned gay-bashing. Oh, and that fairy godfather? Died in a gaybashing. So there's something you didn't see in Will & Grace. Now, I love what this fairy godfather does for this boy so much I have to explain it, even if it might be a little spoiler-ish. To comfort the dear young boy, the godfather makes gaydar literal: he allows him to see everyone in the world in their true shades of gayness by coloring everyone blue according to their varying levels of gayness. Some aren't blue at all, sure. Some are (shockingly, to the boy) as bright "as a blueberry," and then others have just a hint of blue, some varying shade in between.

The reason I love this story so much is that it almost perfectly captures what my own view on sexuality is. When I try to articulate my thoughts on things, I'm always just tempted to say, "Well, have you read this short story Am I Blue?"

While I don't remember the rest of the stories in as great detail, what I do remember is the amazing variety of them all: stories about coming out, but also stories about being straight but having gay parents, a gay sibling. Stories about not knowing exactly what you are. Historical stories, science fiction stories. Stories about school, stories about different cultures, stories about disease, happy and sad stories.

Those who are against separating gay fiction as being "gay fiction" instead of just "fiction" would roll their eyes at this. Yeah, of course there's a lot of variety because there's a lot of variety in life. Gays are just people and of course there are a lot of different stories to tell, as there would be in any short story collection. But I think many of these stories are so specifically important for specifically gay circumstances that they ARE important to put into a gay anthology. Are they important to put into just a regular ol' anthology too? Of course. But if there's one or two gay stories inside of a hundred other straight stories, how are kids realistically supposed to find them? We do need our own books, sometimes.

Also, this is going to sound crazy I know, but some people in the media continue to relate homosexuality and queerness with one thing and one thing only: sex. So displaying the breadth and depth of issues around it all, explaining how big and wide this identity can be beyond what happens under the sheets, is in fact important, especially for kids who are trying to figure it all out. So it's an "issue" book. So what.

There have blessedly been many queer short story anthologies for youth since Am I Blue? but this one was one of the most notable in recent years. There are a lot of the same authors that carry over from Am I Blue? to How Beautiful the Ordinary, put together by the really awesome Michael Cart (his introduction is perfect): Francesca Lia Block, Jacqueline Woodson, William Sleator, Gregory Maguire (the Wicked guy). But the places some of these stories go really shows how far we've come in 15 years.

Mainly, I mean the somewhat graphic yet eloquently told story of First Time by Julie Anne Peters. Right, so remember how I just mentioned sex isn't everything? Well, sex is still important, and this story made me go, "Geez, whoa!" and have to fan myself a little. And then I thought, "Well, this'll make the censors march in." And then I thought, "Holy crap, how awesome is it that this lesbian sex scene exists for teens to read about? Like, not just in some bad fan fiction they can find online (not that I'm necessarily knocking that either) but in a well-written, well put-together short story collection?" This shit is important.

There were some stories in this collection I wasn't as head-over-heels for, but there were some real standouts that made me love it: mainly the opening and closing stories. The opening story by David Levithan is in my opinion the best thing he's written yet. In A Word from the Nearly Distant Past, I have to spoil it a little because it is so cool: it is a little confusing figuring out what's happening at first, and then I understood. It's the voices of ghosts of men who died from AIDS in the 80's imploring (from heaven) the gays who are still alive how happy they should be, and how happy they are too as they've watched how things are changing. Like, whoa. I actually don't think I just explained that well at all, but it's powerful.

Gregory Maguire's piece, The Silk Road Runs Through Tupperneck, N.H. is the last in the book and by far the longest story and it drew me in completely. In fact I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a short story more. It deals with Faroukh, an Iranian-American boy who's taking a college credit music course at a small college in New Hampshire, and his fierce infatuation with that Jordan Catalano-esque aloof beautiful boy in class who everyone's infatuated with, Blaise d'Anjou (I know, what a name, right?). There were many things that drew me in about this story: 1) It's such a good and classic summer fling type of story, always full of so much longing and life, 2) It made me feel like I was in college, a feeling I always enjoy, and 3) It made me feel like I was in New England, another feeling I always enjoy. And the electricity between these young men--yowza.

However, the whole time I was inwardly groaning a little, because it's all narrated by an older Faroukh as a flashback type of deal. And it's like, I'm loving this all so much but it's so obviously leading up to it being a "that one summer I was gay, that was so fun before I grew up" cliche nostalgia gay story line. And I didn't want to meet Faroukh or Blaise's wives or know about their straight depressed adult lives or have one of them die or something else. But then--I was so happy. And I was actually surprised. And I won't spoil it completely, but I'll tell you, the ending is good.

One of my other favorite things about story collections these days is that there has to be at least one or two comics/graphic elements included. There are two included in this one, and I absolutely love love loved Ariel Schrag's Dyke March, which pretty much is self-explanatory--it tells the story of one girl's night during the dyke march in San Francisco--because it was just so simply perfect. It was refreshing to see in a collection like this because it was just real, and funny, and good.

Other queer lit books for youth I've talked about before:

Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher [BRIAN KATCHER COMMENTED ON THIS (and I'm pretty sure it was legit) AND IT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY BLOG LIFE]

Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers

The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd

Freak Show by James St. James

People Are Awesome: Part I.

2011-10-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, my aunt passed away this month. We just recently returned from traveling for the funeral, and since then I've been working a lot, Kathy quit her job, oh, and we're constantly trying to figure out how to afford our life. You know, whatever, just STUFF HAS BEEN HAPPENING. However, it occurred to me this weekend that in the midst of everything this month, we have been blessed by some really awesome people being in our lives who are being especially awesome.

While death in general always forces you to appreciate the art of being alive as a whole, one of the best things (if you could say that) about celebrating my aunt's life was fully realizing and appreciating how many lives she touched and made better. And I think just her memory will continue to make lives better.

Sometimes, particularly at times like these, I start thinking about all the people I know and how we are all connected in so many different ways and the breadth and depth of it all is just startling. And a whole bunch of other cheesy stuff I don't know how to say. And while people can really suck, I often feel overwhelmed at how wonderful people can actually be.

I also sometimes feel this way when I am drunk and/or listening to really good music, whatever makes me abnormally honest and perceptive. I think about all the people who will be at our wedding and I feel so overwhelmed I want to cry and cry and cry with gratitude. Being drunk is generally a better time to feel these types of emotions than when dealing with death, but either way, it is important. I feel that I am not articulating any of this right. If I had an editor, he/she would tell me to scrap all of this.

To get to the point, events of this month have suddenly made me want to start a new tradition of pointing out and documenting particular people who are being particularly awesome at a particular moment in time to me. Every list will be an incomplete list, and each list will actually be almost more for me than necessarily for the people I call out, but they deserve to be called out regardless.

1. Kim & Cliff. Let me tell you about Kim & Cliff. Our friends from undergrad in Boston (Kim + Kathy = roomates for life), they also lived in Oregon briefly when we moved here and then moved away for a few years and then just moved back. Wait, was that confusing? Just go with it. Anyway, they actually don't live in Portland but in Eugene, which is an hour and a half/two-ish hours away. However, they came up literally only hours after I talked to them about my aunt, and offered to stay for five days at our house taking care of our animals while we were away. The best part about friends like this is there's not even a moment's hesitation. Like just bam, we are going to help you 'cause that's how we do. Like I said: people are good. And on top of that, they had their amazing dog Rudy (LOOK AT HIMMMM) staying here as well and they helped train our own chronically dog-phobic dog more than anything we have accomplished in three years. What? And then they came up AGAIN just a few days later to go to a party with us. They are pretty much the nicest people in the universe.

2. Various members of my family. In particular, my brother and his wife spent way too many hours in the car to pick us up from and take us to various airports. These treks included driving through various boroughs of New York City, New Jersey, and rush hour in Washington, DC. Bleck. But again, they never complained once about any of it. They also introduced Kathy to her first ever Wegmans experience, so that's pretty special.

And then let's talk about how my mom is pretty much single-handedly remodeling her huge house by herself. As in, oh yeah, I just redid all of the ceiling tiles by myself and am scraping off wallpaper and moving furniture and making blueprints even though I work 40+ hours a week and take like four different dance classes, whatever.

Also, even though my dad never really talks about himself like ever, he has been Doing A Lot of Stuff, and while he talked about my aunt being selfless in his eulogy he is pretty selfless himself and one of the least judgmental people I've ever known, and I wish I could help him more somehow. He always knows the right things to say, and he is just an overall good guy. You know?

And Sara is real happy because she's a-gonna get married, and that makes me happy, and Dave hugs so hard, and they're both just so smart all the time. I'll probably never know as much stuff as they do but I'm okay with that, and I'm glad they do.

And last but not least, my smart and hilarious cousins Jen and Jodi, along with my amazing grandmother, dealt with everything with a special brand of grace, humor, and strength that I would like to achieve some day. They are all so special.

3. Ashley. We had only met Ashley like two or three times in our lives a year or two ago but already felt like she was One of Us from pretty much the first moment, well because she is. It was one of these first few times of hanging out with her at Sarah's house in Oregon City, I think it was, that we were like, "Wait. This is only the third time we've actually hung out? That doesn't make sense, cauuuuuse I think we've been friends for years." Even though she lives in Seattle we've gotten to see her a few times this month and I mainly wanted to include her because I have to explain how this lady greets you the first time she sees you, whether it's from across the room in a restaurant or as soon as she opens her door to meet your tired faces. It sounds like this:

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" This is accompanied by lots of jumping up and down and hugging and continued screaming. Every. Single. Time. It is the best way to be greeted, ever, and it also makes all and any bad feelings go away, immediately, and somehow, magically, everything is fun.

We have a few other friends who were the original friends of Ashley and they scream-greet in the same way (Meredith and Zoe I'm looking at you) and if we are all together the screaming is obnoxiously unstoppable and amazingly glorious. However, Ashley is particularly good at it. I feel bad for people who have not experienced an Ashley greeting in their lives.

4. Matie. So Matie is really more of Kathy's friend than mine, but let's be honest, I wouldn't really have any friends if it weren't for Kathy, so, it's all the same. Or something. Also, I know I just joked about how little we knew Ashley before we were friends4life, but let me tell you a story. We have known Matie for less than a month--or I have anyway--and she is flying out from New York to visit us over New Year's Eve. And okay, maybe she just wants a vacation and maybe she just wants to visit Portland because who wouldn't, it is awesome, but I'm preferring to think that somebody likes us so much after pretty much just meeting us that they are spending lots of money to come see us. Because that is a better story. This is particularly nice because 1) I love visitors with a fiery passion, 2) This will be the first year ever in the history of life that we won't be on the East Coast/with family for Christmas, so it'll be great to have something to still look forward to over the holidays. In fact, I am pretty much ready to go get our Christmas tree and just have it all happen right now! I think the Christmas lights in this picture are influencing this feeling. By the way Matie, I stole this picture from your Facebook, hope that's cool. I didn't know which picture you would prefer so I felt a lot of pressure, but this one shows your hair real good. 3) New friends are awesome, and as I just mentioned, Matie has amazing hair. It is almost as amazing as our friend Grey's hair, but my love for Grey's hair is so strong it may be hard to beat. However, maybe they can meet when Matie visits and then they could have a hair-off. Although I'm not quite sure what this would entail.

I also want to include Florence (+ the Machine) on this list, but she is not actually my friend, although I feel like she is. But she has been a big part of this October. So thanks anyway, Florence!

This is probably the best idea for a blog post I've ever had. I'm already excited about writing Part II and then part III and IV and until I don't know my Roman numerals anymore. I can't tell you who'll be on those lists, but I bet you they'll probably be awesome.

Holidays at Aunt Anita's house.

2011-10-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

The road to Aunt Anita's house.

My Aunt Anita's old house in Greentown, Pennsylvania was a magical place. Not the new house in Greentown in Tanglwood Lakes, with the big ceiling and fun kitchen floor and high backyard deck, although that house feels warm and cozy and wonderful as well in the way that Anita makes things warm and cozy and wonderful.

Andrew & Aunt Anita, Tanglwood Lakes.

But I'm going back to the Greentown house dangerously close to Newfoundland, up Brink Hill. Other than my loyalty to my own house I grew up in, this was the best country house in the world. It was a big white house with a stone porch, a romantically long green lawn stretching down to a small road, the entrance to the driveway meeting a fence and a sturdy line of dark pines. The combination of the big lawn and the line of trees made the place feel open and secluded all at once. I remember everything about the inside of the house feeling dark, but in a warm and comforting way, except for the kitchen, which at the far end of the house was long and narrow and full of windows and light.

There were steps down to a terrifying stone cellar, and an equally dangerous curved staircase upstairs to my cousins' bedrooms, which, when I was in elementary school and they were in high school, felt like a distinctly Cool and Old world I couldn't enter. There was Dusty, the best crotch-sniffing golden retriever there ever was. Or was he a golden lab? Regardless, one of those perfect American dream dogs. There were couches arranged around a fireplace where actual fires were normally burning, at least in my memory, and a small TV that usually had an Eagles game on.

The backyard was also sprawling, and when you walked through some evergreen trees that marked a border of the property, there was a small neighborhood pool. This pool is so hazy in my memory that I almost wonder if I'm making it up. But in my hazy memory, I remember there never being anyone else there except for us and some old wrinkled Italian men retired from New York. I think there was a slide.

Anytime I read a good description of a good country house in a book, a lot of the times I picture it being this house. It was magical.

I may have mentioned before that being the child of divorced parents was especially awesome around holidays because you got to celebrate--and more importantly, eat--twice. Mornings spent with mom, nights spent with dad. Holiday mornings on my mom's side were either celebrated at our own house or at Aunt Barb's, or of course at my grandparents' house when they were still around; holidays nights on my dad's side were always at Aunt Anita's. For me, holidays were always a frenzied swirl of constant family and food. It wasn't until I left for college and started talking to more people and living outside of my own small bubble of existence that I realized not everyone has such a wealth of family at their fingertips, and such a wealth of good family at that, and I started to understand what an amazing deal I was given.

As the years went on, as people got older and busier and we weren't always all together and Aunt Anita graduated to the Tanglwood Lakes house, the Second Meal at her house in the evening became more of a leftovers snackfest. We heated up casseroles, made sandwiches out of leftover turkey and ham, plopped ice cream on leftover pie, and snacked on grandma's fudge or at Christmas, mom's cookies she always sent over with us.

But at the Brink Hill house, way back when, for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, there was always a full meal at the long table in the dining room. Even though my brother, sister and I had just stuffed ourselves silly at another relative's house hours earlier, and we'd already consumed what satisfies most people for an entire day, we settled in and once again passed around rolls, buttery potatoes, corn, some type of meat I usually only picked at unless it was covered in barbecue sauce, and on and on to dessert. Each holiday was a true, ridiculous gastronomic feat.

What I remember best about these meals at Anita's is how long we would stay at the dining room table, even after all the food was done. Anita, grandma, my dad, Jen, Jodi, Jeff, Sara, and me. We would often sit there for hours upon hours as the night got later and later. Once you moved into the living room and sunk down on those couches in front of the fireplace with the TV on, the conversations and stories could of course continue, but the comfort of the room would suddenly make that enormous amount of food you just consumed actually connect with your brain and your synapses and you would increasingly feel the need to sleep--and then not eat, ever again. But at the dining room table, you could talk for hours.

When I thought about writing about these meals I tried to remember what exactly we talked about for so long. I don't think it was always politics, as it so often was in the later Holiday Snacktime Years, although it could have been sometimes. Anita was one of the fiercest liberals I've ever known, in the way one has to be fierce when one lives in a small town full of diehard Republicans. There was probably a good amount of family storytelling, telling stories about the lakeside resort my family used to own, White Beauty, or re-telling stories from past holidays, or telling new stories from the last year. But then, I realized--duh. We did what my family has always done.

We talked about food. We talked about food for HOURS. We talked about food when we were eating food and when we were sick of eating food. We talked a lot about how much we could talk about food. Growing up in my family makes me now automatically judge anyone who isn't that into eating. Do you know there are people out there who quote unquote "forget to eat"? Not having time to eat during a busy day is one thing, but forgetting to eat is pretty much unacceptable. You can't forget to eat when you are constantly thinking and talking about food because food is AWESOME.

While there's not much about me other than my last name that makes me appear authentically Italian, I feel that those hours spent talking about food around the dining room table at Aunt Anita's make me automatically more Italian than most of the cast of Jersey Shore.

Aunt Anita is also one of the world's most remarkably talkative people, and she could make a trip to McDonald's into at least a twenty minute story. In particular, I remember there were a few different times that we brought up the question, If you could bring one food with you to a desert island, what would it be? This question could spark an at-least two hour debate.

I was always the littlest kid at the table, and most of the time, I hardly spoke during these hours of conversation. One, it was hard to get a word in edgewise, most of the time. Two, I did feel like such a little kid that I felt most of the things I had to contribute, if anything, would sound stupid. But it was okay, because I would just laugh, which probably helped burn off some of the five thousand calories I had consumed that day. One of the only things we did better than eat was laugh. Sometimes, when I'm around really funny charismatic people now, I feel the same way I did around my family most of the time back then: they must think I have absolutely no personality, because they're so hilarious and amazing the only thing I can do is laugh, and then pause to catch my breath before laughing again.

When you go through a language arts education graduate program as I just did, you are forced to do a lot of somewhat BS reflection, let me tell you, and a lot of things like "reading autobiographies" where you're forced to come up with a cute and moving story about who helped you learn to love reading. While I've always been blessed to be around voracious readers such as my mother and part of a family full of teachers, my story always came to a snippet of a memory extracted from one of these meals at Aunt Anita's.

I was small, and we had finally faced the hard task of getting our butts out of the chairs and clearing off the table. While people were cleaning things up and retreating to the living room to check on the Eagles game, Anita sat with me in the nook in the kitchen under those big curving windows and read with me. We read Hop on Pop. One of those naturally overly-enthusiastic teachers whose genes I don't actually possess, she was one of my biggest cheerleaders of my nerd-dom from the first book I read and the first terrible Richard Troll story I wrote. I don't know why I remember reading Hop on Pop with her after Thanksgiving dinner so well, other than for the fact that after all that hubbub and laughter and talk at the table that I quietly absorbed, for once, I got to talk, and somebody wanted to listen.

I feel grateful I got to tell her this, about writing about Hop on Pop and her old kitchen in numerous grad school papers, last fall at my brother's wedding. She obviously didn't remember it but was glad I did, and we laughed about it being such a weird little thing for me to remember. And then we talked about some good books we read that year. And then we probably talked about food.

5 Songs I Like--no, LOVE--Right Now.

2011-10-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

So. Life has been full of some tough things, recently. (At the same time that it's been full of joyful things! Oh, Life, you confounding thing!) I don't know if I'm dealing with these tough things that well, but, to help distract me, I thought I'd write about music instead, because that always makes me feel better.

1. Shake It Out, Florence + The Machine

Okay. I know I just recently mentioned my favorite song of all time, and for sticking-with-my-guns sake, I'm sticking with my guns on it. But I have to say. The very first time I heard Shake It Out, it blew my mind so much that I immediately thought, THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. I know all the cool kids on the internet are freaking out over this song so it's almost old news to freak out about it at this point, but OH MY GOD. That first night I listened to it (and credit is due to Shelby for telling me about it) I had to listen to it a hundred times, and then I had to listen to it a hundred times the next day, and the day after that. This four plus minutes of music LITERALLY GIVES ME CHILLS. Let's be honest, this entire entry should just be about this song, because, because. IT IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. I haven't had a single song knock me down like this in, uh, years? The only thing I want to do with my life is listen to this song over and over. It is so magical. I don't even understand how you create something like this. Jesus Christ. Oh my god it is so good. Is this enough about this song? I don't think so. SHAKE IT OUT SHAKE IT OUT!

2. Hair, Lady Gaga

This blog is seriously lacking a full entry about Lady Gaga, because I have so much to say about her. But I'll say her new album and me are finally starting to really get to know each other, and while I know it's almost completely full of songs that are supposed to make you want to dance, my most frequent reaction to them is crying. Is this weird? I think this is weird. Seriously, Born This Way makes me cry almost every time because it is so monumental and amazing and the fact that such a song can exist now and be played on dance floors across America makes me want to bawl my eyes out. That said, I think the best song on the album is undoubtedly this one. It is so strikingly personal and universal at the same time, telling her own story while reaching out to freaks everywhere. It is so crazy empowering and beautiful I can't even handle it. Hence, why I cry almost every time I hear it. Living as free as your hair, Ms. Gaga, is an ideal we should all live up to.

While I really love the studio version (the dramatic drum beat chorus near the end? Shut up, so good), the video is one of her acoustic performances because all of her acoustic performances are always freaking remarkable. And even if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, you should watch until 2:23 or so, when she completely stops the song to put a TURQUOISE WIG ON HER OL' BALD HEAD. What a fucking rock star. Oh, my weird emotional state allows me to curse more, so get ready for it.

I love both of these above songs SO MUCH PEOPLE. SO MUCH. I almost made this entry just about them, but then I realized I really like a bunch of other songs too, and I like the 5 Songs format so much. But. These two. THESE TWO. Okay, moving on.

3. Down in the Valley, the Head and the Heart

WARNING: We are completely switching gears here, people! Completely! If you were tempted to get out your Lady Gaga CDs and dance for awhile, I completely understand, but now you should make yourself a cup of tea and find a warm blanket and a nice porch in the country to sit on and listen to the Head and the Heart. This song hits the most perfect folky lonely pitch, the best folky lonely pitch I have heard in a long, long time. I would have been even MORE all over this shit than I currently am if I was myself in high school or early college. This jam would have been in my Discman over and over again. Like all great songs, this is also a beautiful building song, and my really favorite part, what really makes me love it, is the build up to 2:10, when they start this bridge:

I know there's California

Oklahoma

And all of the places I ain't never been to, but

Down in the valley

With whiskey rivers

These are the places you will find me hiding

These are the places I will always go

These are the places I will always go.

I am on my way

I am on my way back to where I started.

Oh my goodness it is lovely. And let's be honest, any song that mentions "whiskey rivers" is a song I'm going to like. I know the band is from Seattle (which means I should really invest in perhaps seeing them live in their hometown sometime), but this bridge makes me want to move to the South right now and tramp through some real good Eastern forests full of crunchy oak leaves and pine needles.

Although, The Head and the Heart, just to let you know, I have been to California and Oklahoma, and while California is definitely a place you can pine for, you really ain't missing much in Oklahoma.

(OH HEY ANY READERS I HAVE IN OKLAHOMA, [WHICH IS PROBABLY NONE] JUST KIDDING! I LOVE HANSON! YAY TULSA!)

(BUT SERIOUSLY YOUR STATE GAVE ME EXTREME ANXIETY!)

4. Death of Autotune, Jay-Z

OK, Head and the Heart people, put your cozy scarves and mug of tea away now and get ready for Brooklyn, y'all. OH WHAT IS THIS LIST RANDOM ENOUGH FOR YOU YET? I love this whole album (okay, mostly) but this song is a clear stand-out. I'mma gonna say this is simply one of the best rap songs I've ever heard. Although let me also say, I freely admit that I know nothing about rap, so, that statement probably means nothing. But this is my blog so I can say whatever I want.

The guitar riff in it is GENIUS and impossibly catchy and badass, I love the moment of silence, the soaring sax that joins in every now and then is awesome. And it's hard not to love a song with so many winners of lines. Such as,

I know we facing a recession

But the music y'all making gonna make it the Great Depression.

And:

This ain't a number one record

This is practically assault with a deadly weapon

UH. UH. UH. And let's discuss how beautiful the transition on the album is from this right into Run This Town. Bad ass, or baddest ass?

5. Someone Like You, Adele

OK, OK, we're done with Brooklyn now! We're ready to hide under the covers in bed all day and cry, aright! OK, so everyone likes Adele, it's almost boring to mention it, but there it is. Before this song started getting a lot of play on the radio it was on a playlist at work and when I was working by myself at night whenever it came on I had a habit of playing it OVER AND OVER at least a few times, because it just seemed like a really good soundtrack to scrub dried syrup off of countertops to. This habit may or may not have caused every customer in the store to consider slitting their wrists, but OH WELLS.

The thing about this song is just how NICE Adele is in the whole thing at the same time that she's so sad. Most songs about lost loves are angry or regretful or SOMETHING, but this one is like, logical and good-hearted. "I wish nothing but the best for you"?? REALLY, ADELE? This song would be so much less heartbreaking if you weren't such a good fucking person!

Also, Adele is way hot. Right?

On that note, I'm out. Thank you, music, for being awesome. I'm going to go listen to Shake It Out until I pass out!

October Goals.

2011-10-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

Guys! It's been grey and rainy all day! I just took Toby out for a walk and wore inappropriate shoes and my feet got soaked! And I am in love with it! It finally feels like FALL! October is the bestest month!

+ Pay off my bills. I got behind again this month. :\ Which always just makes them harder to pay off. :\

+ Once they're paid off: get my film pictures from our East Coast trip developed.

+ To renew my education spirit, I want to finally subscribe to Rethinking Schools and VOYA.

+ Also, so I can make my own opinion once and for all, finally see Waiting for Superman.

+ Another hopeful indulgence once bills are paid: get a tune-up for my bike, as well as getting mudflaps installed.

+ More nerdy education/library stuff: start reading some books for upcoming winter Mock Newbery and Mock Printz Award workshops! I want to participate in both workshops and actually read all the books for each this year.

+ Email my advisor about library practicums. Email University of Washington about MLS.

+ Espanol! I'm going to get back on that train, people! Goals: finish current chapter in Harry, finish up to Chapter 30 in workbook.

+ If time allows, go on at least one hike with Kathy.

+ Also, make the time to go to at least one pumpkin festival. Pumpkin festivals in October = essential.

+ Be able to put my entire transcription work check this month to a wedding fund.

+ Start keeping track of all of my expenses on that really boring spreadsheet I used to have, again.

+ Make four new meals.

This is going to be a good month.

27.

2011-10-04T00:35:00.000-07:00

I turn 28 today. [Although I'm technically posting this on the 4th, I wrote it on the 3rd.] This is a good thing, since I've been telling people I'm 28 for pretty much the entire time I was 27, so it's good to be able to finally get it right. Let's be honest, ever since I transcended the age of 21, I've had a hard time remembering how old I am. I constantly have to turn to Kathy to confirm what the right number is when somebody asks. This is the conversation that normally happens when meeting new people:

Me: "I'm 28!"
Kathy: "No, you're 27."
Me: "Oh! I am? Okay."

As a side note, yesterday when Kathy and I were in the car we had the bizarre/delightful experience of hearing Blink 182's "What's My Age Again?" on the radio, and I had a frightening moment of clarity when I realized that, at the time that song came out and we both listened to it on the radio every day, the age 23 that Mark Hoppus so angstily sings about seemed pretty old. But now, 23 seems real young! And I thought, WHOA. WE'RE OLD!

OK, I actually don't believe we're that old. Just Mark Hoppus is.

For my birthday I'm allowing myself a lazy morning, to be followed by a long shift at my unimportant job. However, I really can't complain about this truly unexciting day, since the weekend we just had in Seattle was so awesome. But, in order to make it a little more meaningful for myself, I'm enacting a new Blog Tradition, of recalling my favorite things that have happened over the past year since last October 3rd. A best of the best of the year 27. Because truly, there is nothing I like better than some good old fashioned nostalgia.

So here we go, 27!

#1. My brother and Mary's wedding in Virginia. Hard to believe this was only just a little less than a year ago. Yay for familial happiness!

#2. Two musical events at the Schnitz: Sufjan Stevens with Zoe and Ashley, and Lauryn Hill with Kathy. Totally different, but totally awesome. Getting to see Zoe again for the first time in a long time--and making those videos with Andy--was another highlight.

#3. Student teaching at Lane Middle School, Portland Public Schools. Their faces are really crudely blacked out here so I don't get sued, but, man. I only cried a few times. I made a fool out of myself a few other times. But overall, it was great. I miss these kids something fierce.

#4. Actually cooking more, on a more consistent basis. It's surprisingly satisfying (and delicious). Also, starting to do the majority of our shopping at New Seasons.

#5. New friends/Vet Tech stuff. Oh God, don't I have any better way to describe this than "new friends"?! Gross. Anyway. It's also hard to believe that Kathy only started her Vet. Tech. program a little over a year ago. But through that, she/we have met so many wonderful and important people, especially Scott and Kelly, who have become an incredible support system for Kathy, and consequently, me as well. Also, the weird condensing of this picture makes it looks like Kathy is crying in a really scary way, but she in fact is laughing in a really awesome way.

Also, let's remember how everyone Kathy knows now through her program all own REALLY AMAZING DOGS AND I LOVE ALL OF THEM. Also, let's remember that time we got to go to her school and HOLD BABY LAMBS.

#6. Tues-Weds in Seattle with Ashley and Meredith. Wow, well, I haven't been that drunk in awhile. Also, let's discuss how Ashley and Meredith are the best. The best. So really, this list should include anytime we got to see Ashley and Meredith, ever. And considering Meredith technically lived on the other side of the country, we got to see her a lot. But Tues-Weds will live in infamy (in our memories. Like just ours).

#7. Camping at Mt. Hood. I have been dreaming about camping again ever since we got back.

#8. Finishing my masters in education from Portland State. Okay, a lot of it wasn't really that exciting, and I feel like I got kind of angsty and defensive in classes a lot, but, the real highlight was meeting this guy. An endless champion of kids, I want to remember him and all the things he said whenever I have my own classroom or my own library. Seriously. This dude is the man.

#9: Fun visits from fun people, including Reiko, my mom, my dad and Cheryl, and others. Having people visit us means that 1) We get to hang out with fun people, who like us so much they paid money on plane tickets to see us, which is pretty remarkable, and 2) We get to take time off of work to do fun Pacific Northwest-y things, which is pretty much our favorite. Every visit this past year from people was awesome.

#10: Watching UNC basketball with/going on hikes with/making pizza and/or drinking beer with Matt & Ellie. They're in California now. :( Oregon (that means us) misses them a whole bunch already.

#11: Pumpkin patches and holiday dinners with Erin & Grey. Half of this duo is also no longer in Oregon now. We miss her, too. :\

#12: Preggers! On my mom's side of my family, where prior to this year there were no grandbabies for our parents yet, suddenly three people are pregnant. Meaning that by October 3rd next year when I write about my 28th year, there will BABIES. Like, BABIES! Babies that I will actually care about! I still don't quite fully understand this concept but I think it is both scary and awesome!

#13: That ridiculously awesome vacation we just took. Including amazing times in New York, amazing times in Connecticut for my cousin Greg & Andrea's wedding (yeah, another wedding! Get over it!), and amazing times in Boston. I may or may not have already mentioned this awesome vacation a hundred times since we got back. Even though I've only blogged like three times. Somehow I feel this has happened. IT JUST FELT LEGENDARY PEOPLE.

#14: Starting to actually plan our own wedding. Oh, what? Are you tired of me talking about weddings? Too bad! Because guess what? Planning your own wedding is FUN! Who knew!

Of course this can only ever be a partial list; there is simply too much that life packs in for you in 365 days. I mean geez, life. Way to be indescribably full of yourself, every single year.

That means you're up, 28. Let's do this thing.

September Goals: Review.

2011-10-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

+ Not go TOO over-budget on vacation. Get to hang out with everyone we want to see!

Hey, well, I don't know about that budget thing, because I think we forgot that we were visiting some of the most expensive places that exist in the country. BUT, we did get to hang out with so many people! We saw Jill D. and Joe, and Keegan, and Lou, and Stacy, and all of my freaking amazing cousins and siblings and mommy and family, and Allie, and Sam and Steve, and Siobhan, and Kerri, and wowzers, just a lot of people. But even with all that, we missed out on seeing Nick, and Aileen, and Carey, and Manda, and other people I'd like to see next time.

+ Get back on the Spanish train, hardcore.

Right. The Spanish train choo-chooed for about three days, and then came to an abrupt halt. Need to refuel for next month.

+ I feel like I was only a half-assed PDX biker in August, so I want to get more disciplined this month. So: I'm only allowed to drive to work ONCE a week, every other day I should be biking. And each week I go to the library to volunteer, I should either be biking or taking the bus.

Check!

+ Save $1,000 towards the wedding. This is a big goal, and will probably require me to be a transcribing fiend once we get back. Also, do all those wedding things I said I'd do last month: website, save the dates, dress stuff, etc. Also, after visiting Boston--get our ceremony site nailed down.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *slaps table* OMG REMEMBER WHEN I SAID I'D SAVE $1,000? In the same month when we were visiting NEW YORK CITY and BOSTON? WHEN ANY NORMAL MONTH IS A STRUGGLE TO JUST PAY MY BILLS? $1,000? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHA.

I AM HILARIOUS! I AM LAUGHING SO HARD I AM CRYING!

I did, however, finally, finally make a wedding website. And I absolutely love it. If I do say so myself.

+ Stretch more. Once a day.

I've actually been pretty good at this. It's a small thing, but it feels good.

+ Be better with what I shove in my face at work. I can only drink water or unsweetened iced tea during my shifts. No bringing expired pastries home. Bring and eat own snacks on breaks. Keep frappuccino sampling to the bare minimum.

I'm going to give myself a 80% on this. A solid B-. I was good at only drinking water or iced tea while there, although I did indulge in a couple fancier drinks just on my off-work time. No pastries were brought home, and I was better at not drinking 20 frappuccino samples a shift. However, with all the pumpkin goodness coming around (see how it slays me: here and here), it was hard to refuse a whole bunch of bites of pumpkin bread and other good stuff while there.

+ Read three children's/young adult books.

Fail. I read Graceling by Kristin Cashore, which was wonderful, but that's it.

+ Start planning something fun for both my birthday in October and our anniversary in November.

Yes to the first part! We headed up to Seattle this weekend so that I could attend the Northwest Conference on Teaching for Social Justice (I wrote about my experience at it last year here when I was feeling really rah-rah about things, and this one was also just great and rekindled a bunch of my rah-rah emotions). Kathy came along so we could stick around Seattle for the rest of the weekend to get some fun meals and in general just enjoy a mini-Seattle-vacation as a birthday present. And we got to drink beer and eat Mexican food with Ashley, who is the awesomest. It was a great weekend. All around win.

Still haven't made a plan for something fun for November yet, but I really want to. But we have time.

+ Go see the swifts!
Check! And we got to see Grey at the same time! Awesomeness abounds!

Hard to see, but there are thousands of little birds here!

+ Hopefully get to hang out with Kim & Cliff when they move back to Oregon!
OMG they were just here a few nights ago and we ate thai food and drank beer together, and then they headed to Eugene. AND OMG WE GOT TO MEET THEIR DOG. AND OMG EUGENE IS SO CLOSE. OMG I can't believe they're back. It is such a wonderful thing.

+ Make three new meals.
Check, although there's only one I'm truly proud of.

#1: Due to the busy-ness and financial restraints of this month, I tried to get creative with a bag of quinoa we've had for awhile. This was a garlic-lemon thing that I threw some spinach and some fresh cherry tomatoes from our garden on. The cherry tomatoes FROM OUR GARDEN were the most exciting part--we planted one little plant that's seriously produced so many of these things:

Growing something yourself and then eating it is seriously the best thing ever.

I also made another quinoa thing with black beans, corn, and onions that I didn't take a picture of. Both dishes were decent, and hearty and healthy, but overall just tasted kind of eh to me. Basically, I really like quinoa, but I don't think I've figured out the best ways to cook it yet. Any quinoa recipe suggestions?? I would love them.

Man, what a sloppy lookin' picture!

#2: Balsamic bruschetta chicken. This was the one that I was proud of--the only real, satisfying full dinner type of meal I accomplished this month. It was also pretty easy to do, especially since Kathy helped me chop up all the tomatoes (one of the most horrible things to chop, in my opinion). We used some more of the cherry ones from the garden, and also one or two bigger ones, along with a Willamette sweet onion, that I all got super cheap from the farmers market. Let's be honest--I got a couple tomatoes, an onion, and a mini-pumpkin at the farmers market for $2 one day and it was like, the complete highlight of my week.

#3: Baked pumpkin oatmeal. So super simple I don't know if it should count, but yeah, this was real good and a kind of genius solution to what to have for breakfast for at least a week. Also, this is almost shockingly fulling, so when you break some off for yourself to heat up or just eat cold in the morning, you really don't have to take that much. Since I'm a sweet tooth, I think I would actually up the cinnamon and brown sugar a bit next time I make it.

Also, I mentioned last month that I had leftover pizza sauce that I had made for a recipe then. And this month our friends Scott and Kelly just conveniently had a pizza-making party, where Scott made a bunch of pizza dough and we brought toppings. In addition to the sauce, to keep it cheap, we just brought some mozzarella cheese and a few snips of fresh basil from our kind-of-sad-at-the-moment basil plant. And many other peeps were able to partake in our massive amount of leftover sauce. So none of it went to waste, we ate delicious pizza, and didn't have to go through that whole time-consuming project of making our own dough. So win!

The Queens Kickshaw.

2011-09-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Truth: I have been incredibly busy since getting back from vacation earlier this month. At first it was just a really stupid busy where I was working almost every hour of the day until 2/3 AM every night. It's progressed into a busy where I'm actually getting a lot of worthwhile things done that I'm feeling really good about in regards to my professional future and my life in general. That really boring sentence over with, even with all that, I still have yet to recover enough time for myself to do things like blog, and this makes me really emotionally angsty in the most loser-ish of ways. Especially when I have so many things I want to write about! But I don't have enough time to write a really well thought out entry! So I'm going to start where I can--with grilled cheese!

I alluded to this vacation we took being somewhat of a Big Deal in my last entry, and while pretty much all of it was extremely important and wonderful and Big Deal-ish, the portion that in the end has been the most momentous in a way was our time in New York. We did so many amazing things and hung out with so many amazing people in the brief time we were there, but strangely, the overall feeling I had about everything seems wrapped up in a grilled cheese sandwich in Queens.

This grilled cheese is from The Queens Kickshaw, located in Astoria at Broadway and Steinway, off the Broadway stop on the E, M or R. Our friend Stacy had recommended it (since it almost hides on the street, otherwise we never would have found it) and we stopped by after visiting the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image. It was actually a somewhat strange mid-afternoon time and we'd already had lunch, but we really can never say no to the prospect of a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. So we just got one sandwich to share, which was the gouda.

The gouda was what Stacy recommended, and in addition to the gouda, it had black bean hummus, guava jam, and pickled jalapenos. AND IT WAS SO GOOD WE KEPT DREAMING ABOUT IT AND TALKING ABOUT IT FOR DAYS AFTERWARDS. I feel like this is the kind of hyperbolic statement I would make about something I really liked, but this time it's actually true--we literally couldn't stop talking and thinking about it. The bread was perfect and crunchy while still being a little soft but without being too greasy. The too-greasy factor can really ruin a good grilled cheese. I mean, when you're making a nice and greasy grilled cheese for yourself at home to go with some Campbell's tomato soup that's another story, but when you're paying almost ten buckaroos for a grilled cheese, you want that bread to be perfect. And it was. And something about the guava jam that gave it a little punch of sweetness...bam. Beautiful. Looking at their menu, they have a blue cheese one that, just based on the gouda one, makes me almost drool in delicious anticipation of how good THAT would be all up in here in my mouth. So, you know. Obviously, we have to go back.

Oh, and they also have delicious local beer. Which, as you should know by now, is always a draw for Kathy and I. After a few years of living in Oregon, it's basically like the need for delicious local beer runs in your bloodstream, and I was excited to get to try out some good NYC stuff for the first time. The price difference for good beer in Portland and in NYC is still a little painful (meaning, $6 for a glass is "cheap"), but we were grudgingly adjusting to it.

A trip to New York, while exciting, always carries a certain amount of stress, too. Aside from simply being one of the most intense cities in the world to be in, we know so many people living in the city now that we had almost over-packed our schedule with friends we wanted to see and things that we wanted to do. There were confusing subway stations to navigate, time frames to work out, budgets which were quickly being destroyed by those NYC prices I just mentioned, and there were definitely moments of, oh my God, this place is exhausting.

But I loved the vibe of the Queens Kickshaw as soon as we got there, and we both actually just loved the vibe of Queens itself. The girl working the counter was a definite Cool New York Person with a Cool New York Haircut and Cool New York Clothes, but she was also overwhelmingly nice and laughed at my jokes about being poor, and it felt distinctly less annoying and homier than going to a similar place in Williamsburg in Brooklyn (Where the Hipsters Go). As we sat eating our grilled cheese and drinking our beer in a New York neighborhood where we felt Real People actually lived--not just the hipsters, not just the fancy businesspeople of Manhattan, but an authentic cacophony of Real People--for one of the first times since we'd been there, I felt every bone in my body relax and just felt genuinely, truly happy.

So next time, alluring blue cheese sandwich, and/or gouda which I may have to just get again--it's you and me.

That ridiculously awesome vacation we just went on.

2011-09-19T00:19:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, by the time you finish a long vacation, you are sad to see it go but also secretly happy to return to home. Because let's be honest, vacation can be exhausting most of the time. A good kind, but still exhausting, and distance makes your heart grow fond of the little things that make up your boring regular life. There is a little piece inside of you that sighs a happy sigh once you set your suitcase down in your bedroom and you can say, Ah, yes. This is my life. That is my bed. And I am glad.

However, this last vacation to the East Coast Kathy and I just returned from was so awesome that I haven't felt that feeling to the extent that I normally do. I, in fact, literally did not want to leave and felt ambivalent at best about returning to Portland. I am fully aware of my ability to over-sentimentalize things immediately once they're gone, but still, I want to take the time to let things from this vacation really settle in to my head. This vacation was so big that I really want to say big dramatic things about it like, "This trip changed everything." But that would be dramatic!

In any case, I have been dealing with my return to Oregon life in somewhat manic-depressive fits and starts since we've been back. But I think a lot of it follows a pretty normal post-vacation pattern for me. And hence, I thought I would share:

Jill's Guide to Awesome-Vacation-Withdrawal*

* This just means I'm going to tell you about my week.

Day One:

You have been spending so much money while on vacation on eating out that you actually feel excited to make food for yourself at home. You then realize that you have no food. You then realize that you have no money to go to the grocery store because you spent all of it on eating out when you were on vacation. Damnit.
So excited to be with your animals! Although half of them are acting kind of stand-off-ish. Give them time, they'll come around. I mean what did you expect? You left them for nine days, AND you just moved around some furniture and moved their litter box, all at once, you asshole. Also, Toby is an old man and just woke up from what was probably a ten hour nap when you walked in the door, so he's a little confused, okay.
All of the bills you need to pay and pretty much all of the money for everything that you need, which you don't have, which you have been ignoring for nine days, comes crashing down on you. This feels crappy. In fact crappy really doesn't even begin to cover it, let's be honest here.
HOWEVER, in the time away from home, and during all that time you were stuck in that airplane, you have had some serious time to get back to who you are and who you want to be. You have made resolutions in your head of things you want to do with your life and how you're going to be better at certain things and really just BE BETTER. RAH RAH YAY!
The utmost most important thing in life is uploading pictures from your camera onto your computer and then onto Facebook. This is a kind of big task, since you took almost 500 pictures, but going through them is important because it makes you feel like you are still on vacation.
While you feel somewhat discombobulated as you get around your new/old town, the first ten seconds of driving your own car feels AWESOME, and you feel like your car is better than all the other cars. The first ten seconds of riding your bike again also feels as fun as a carnival ride.

Day Two:

You return to work. You feel kind of pumped about stuff for the first few hours, because you have not been there in nine days. After four hours, however, you remember that work in fact just makes you tired. You attempt to tell some excited-about-my-vacation stories to co-workers, before you realize that they don't really care.
After those first four hours, you start having a slight existential crisis about why you're not further professionally in your life when all of the friends and family you just saw on the East Coast all seem to have their shit together more than you do and are all doing cool things and making way more money while they do the cool things. Why are you not more motivated to be a real person? Let's be honest, you know you should be trying harder in the education sphere than you are. Are you just scared? I mean, you are actually pretty content doing what you're doing, but in your heart of hearts you know what you really want to be doing is somehow working with books. Why are you not working with books?
You unpack most of your suitcase but don't have the energy to take all the crap out of the closet to fit it back in there again. Don't worry, it'll sit in your bedroom for at least a week. Feel depressed about all the laundry you suddenly have to do.
Realize that after nine days of being together at all times, you and your girlfriend are back to working opposite schedules and hardly ever seeing each other. Feel that this is really, really stupid.
People comment funny things on your funny Facebook photos! Haha, it's like we're still there.
Girlfriend reads a local newspaper while waiting to get her hair cut and alerts you to an awesome-looking Gay & Lesbian Film Festival coming up soon, among other awesome things that are happening in town, and you start to remember, hey, we do live in a pretty cool place. Start to think about going to Seattle soon. Start moving more towards living in the near future instead of the near past. Slowly, slowly start to feel more Pacific Northwest-y.
And anyway, the beer is cheaper here.

Day Three:

One full day of productivity has suddenly exhausted you. In the morning, before you have to go to work in the afternoon, you have a whole bunch of work to do. (Oh! I should maybe explain that I currently have three or four jobs, whatever.) You have deadlines. But you feel sleepy and weird and out-of-it, and after sitting at the computer for awhile, you simply can't do it. You lay down. You cuddle with your cats. You read a book. You feel better. But only better in the laying-motionless-in-bed kind of way, which is never really the best kind of better. You normally feel better when you actually get up. When you do get up, all you want to do is eat a box of mac & cheese, which you do.
You think about how you wish you had time to blog because there are lots of things you want to blog about. Feel depressed that you will probably only ever blog about a quarter of them.
You then take a shower, which actually does help you feel better.
Work is busy and goes fast. Your existential crisis has subsided a little. Calm down, man: you are doing fine.
All those resolutions you made for yourself on the plane are already starting to fade away, to be replaced by mundane things that are already starting to pile up in your brain like wanting to just clip all those dead roses off your rose bush and finally finish the book you've been reading for two months. RAH RAH--eh.
Also, all of a sudden, it is fall. It is gray and rainy and chilly outside, people are busting out cute sweaters and feeling excited about pumpkin-related stuff. You feel slightly bitter about this because it makes you want to cuddle but you do not have time to cuddle. Okay, so you cuddled with your cats just this morning, but that was actually really irresponsible. Fall is your favorite season but you haven't had time to adjust to it and really feel it yet but everyone else apparently has and you feel kind of pissed off about it.
You feel excited about TV shows coming back even though you don't really have time to watch any of them.

Day Four:

Stop feeling one way or the other about work. It's just like, you're there. Whatever.
However, you work with a co-worker who is rather fun and who knows some stuff about the East Coast and at least appears to want to hear some of your stories. So you tell a whole bunch of them, even though you feel slightly annoying as you always do when you start talking a lot!
You remember how much you like the radio stations here.
You have been staying up late and working pretty much all hours of the day and are feeling really exhausted and pretty awful and sometimes it feels like your brain stops working. But you know you have a few days off coming up and things will be better then.
You feel happy that you still have more pictures to post on Facebook. And did you already mention you get to go to Seattle soon?
Instead of working on a thing that has a deadline of like really soon, you make a weird blog post that was meant to be funny in your head, but instead just came out kind of weird. You blame it on the copious amounts of Adele you listened to at the beginning of writing it.

Better posts about fun things, not written while exhausted and drinking beer, will hopefully be written soon! Love to all the people we got to see on our vacation, and love to the people we didn't. I hope to see ALL of you again, soon.

September Goals.

2011-09-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

By the time we get back from the trip we're taking to the East Coast this week, it'll be halfway through September already. And lord knows I won't be practicing most of these goals while we're hanging out with peeps in New York, Connecticut, and Boston, so most of these goals will just apply from the 15th through the end of the month. So I better be productive once we get back to PDX!

+ Not go TOO over-budget on vacation. Get to hang out with everyone we want to see!

+ Get back on the Spanish train, hardcore. Do something involving Spanish practice EVERY DAY, even if that involves just opening up one of my books and reading a few words in espanol for five seconds.

+ Stretch more. Once a day.

+ Be better with what I shove in my face at work. This will probably be the hardest one of all because my tolerance to say no to things when it comes to food and drink is at a real big low. Working at Starbucks is not necessarily the best thing health wise. This is pretty much what happens on a daily basis: Oh hey, that lemon pound cake looks real good. LET'S BREAK IT AND EAT IT. Oh hey, this frappuccino I just made actually looks really good, let's pour the leftover dregs from the blender pitcher into a sample cup and pour it down my throat (ten times a shift). The Target where my Starbucks is also just went through a remodel where they got a bunch more food stuff, and accordingly they always have a bunch of new food items sampled out for employees in the back room. So anytime I go to the back room, this happens: OH HEY COOKIES! GIMME GIMME GIMME! I also, even though this never happened during the three years I worked for Starbucks in undergrad, think I'm starting to be addicted to coffee. Which is weird, for me. I am really not one for diets or anything, but basically what I'm saying is, Target is going to kill me.

Anyway, long boring story short, here are the actual goals: I can only drink water or unsweetened iced tea during my shifts. No bringing expired pastries home. Bring and eat own snacks on breaks. Keep frappuccino sampling to the bare minimum.

+ Read three children's/young adult books.

+ Start planning something fun for both my birthday in October and our anniversary in November.

+ Go see the swifts! For maybe the last time. :\

+ Hopefully get to hang out with Kim & Cliff when they move back to Oregon!

+ Make three new meals.

August Goals: Review.

2011-09-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

+ Mark a big item off of my bucket list: participate in the Portland Bridge Pedal.
I did, and I even blogged about it! Whoa!

+ Buy new things (jeans, bras, shoes) that I need to replace old things that are all hole-y, falling apart, stinky, and embarrassing. Basically.

Shockingly, yes to the jeans and bras, no to the shoes. In fact, before we went shopping, Kathy and I spent a while trying to figure out our actual bra size. These are the kinds of things you get to do in a lesbian relationship! Don't be jealous. I still desperately need any kind of sneaker, but it just wasn't in the budget this month.

+ To congratulate myself when my final class is done, I plan to..dun dun dun...BUY MYSELF A BOOKSHELF! YAYYYY NERD

Ellie donated her old one to us since she's moving! I am PUMPED! So, sad about Ellie moving, obviously, but pumped about the free bookshelf. I would post a picture but it's not all set up yet, tragically.

+ WEDDING GOALS: This month, I/we will: make a wedding website, send dress ideas to my mom, actually email that wedding planner chick Marriott provides us with, and order Save the Dates.

What a wedding fail! The only thing I did was email the wedding planner. Which took two seconds. What a wedding loser! I want to make our own funky website instead of using one of the boring stock ones everyone uses, but then I set high expectations for myself and then I never actually have time to accomplish them.

+ Take the Toyota to the shop. I have been dreading this, but it has to happen.

Again, not in the budget, at all. And the car's been working fine, it's just still worrisome, and still has to happen at some point this fall.

The Toyota, hanging out in Wyoming.

+ AND THEN, once we know the car is a-okay, take Toby on a yurting trip to the coast! Yayyyyy!

Booooo! Didn't happen, obviously.

We'll take you camping one day, buddy!

+ ALSO: take my bike to a bike shop to fix the shifting gears problem it's been having, so I can stop having to grit my teeth and mutter crazily to myself, "Jesus, even my BIKE doesn't work!"

I took it to the shop and they looked at it quickly without charging me (again, yay free!) and adjusted it ever so slightly and basically said everything looked fine. Kathy also de-greased my chains before the Bridge Pedal for me. And after doing some reading, I think part of the problem probably also has to do with how I shift, so I'm trying to be better with that. Overall, while I think it still shifts kind of funky sometimes, I feel good knowing that any big problem was basically all in my head. Yay for being crazy!

+ Finish The Omnivore's Dilemma. Start Shame of the Nation.

OKAY GOD I AM EMBARRASED OKAY. I feel like I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma for my entire life (if my entire life were a month and a half) and I'm still not done, although I am very close to the end. I've decided to wait on Shame of the Nation for a little while because there are so many fiction books I want to partake in for now.

+ Go berry picking at Sauvie Island.

We didn't go berry picking at Sauvie Island, but we DID go blackberry picking along the Springwater Trail with Scott and Kelly. This was free and gave us an abundant amount of blackberries. And we got to hang out with two of my favorite dogs, ever. So, win!

Taylorrrrr!

+ Call some good peeps I haven't called in way too long. This list of peeps could be potentially long, but I'm narrowing it down just for now to: Allie, Zoe, and Sam.

Feel pretty ashamed to say I failed at this one. I talked to Sam the other day on her birthday, which was technically September, and I left Zoe a voicemail on her birthday; never called Allie. Thank goodness we get to hang out with Allie in person soon!

+ Cut down on beer. :\

I didn't make any specific goals or routines for this one, but in general, I think I did. If anything just because we realized it's not really in our budget to always have a six-pack of microbrews in the fridge. Devastatingly.


Uncle Chip at the beer festival last month. Hard to say no to that face.

+ Get our trip to the great Northeast for Greg and Andrea's wedding in September all purchased and finalized.

Yes! Leaving on Tuesday! Have very little time to get stuff done before then! FREAKING OUT! My internal dialogue for the last week: STRESS STRESS EXCITEMENT STRESS.

+ Hopefully, kick ass at my second interview at Campfire.

I knew making this goal would be embarrassing by the end of the month. I was nervous as hell and think I did okay but not necessarily up to "kick ass" type of level, and I didn't get the position. They did offer me a substitute position with them however, so hopefully I may still be able to see some Lane kids once in a while this upcoming school year. Which would be nice, since as we've plunged into the back-to-school season, I've found myself having some serious and unexpected heart-pangs for them and the classroom. I just want to know how they're doing. :\

+ Make FOUR new meals.
Yeah! This was actually a pretty good cooking month.

#1: Kung pao chicken. This recipe was real good, but the prep work was such a pain in the ass for me. This is especially ridiculous because we live near a pretty big Asian population center of PDX, and are surrounded by little Asian markets, but yet it was an adventure trying to find a bottle of sambal. (Embarrassingly ended up finding it at my Target, of all places.) And then when I thought I was all prepared to finally make it, I confused rice wine (which I didn't have) for rice vinegar (which I do have). So then I had to go out and find rice wine, where I was informed by the kind Asian ladies at the market that there are different kinds of rice wine, for cooking and drinking. Dumb white girl, right here! Anyway, so I now have a big ol' bottle of cooking rice wine in my fridge that I may or may not ever use again. I believe this is what one would term a "first world problem."

#2: Summer vegetable tian. I had never heard of a tian before. This month was full of learning experiences! This was an exceedingly simple but delicious recipe: slice up some vegetables, rest them on top of some chopped onions and garlic, sprinkle with herbs and cheese, bake. The best part was that everything except the cheese in this recipe was essentially healthy good for you stuff, but it still tasted REALLY GOOD. Like, sometimes when I make healthy recipes I pretend that they taste better than they actually do. But this actually tasted great, and filled up both Kathy and I, which I also didn't expect. My vegetables didn't fill a whole pan though, and I also felt somewhat guilty because even though this was supposed to utilize in-season "summer vegetables," squash definitely aren't in season in August, at least in the Northwest. So these squash were from Mexico, I think. (Sorry, sustainable food movement!) But seriously, let's talk about how squash is THE BEST.

#3: Dutch potatoes. Okay, I don't know if this actually counts as a "meal," since it's basically just mashed potatoes with carrots. But it made a good lunch. And I'm pretty much just always proud when I make myself something to eat that isn't mac & cheese. True fact.

#4: Skillet lasagna. So Kathy said this was one of the "best things I've ever made," and I'd have to agree--probably because it's one of those Joy-of-Cooking, comfort-food type of meals where almost everything in it is bad for you. Yay! The only redeeming thing in it was the spinach. But this is basically just all the stuff that's in lasagna, mixed up in the skillet and served sloppy. (And I used egg noodles instead of lasagna noodles as she suggested which worked out great.) Reasons why this is better than lasagne: 1) you don't have to do all the annoying layering and then all the time baking, 2) I hate when you try to cut through lasagne and all the filling farts out. Right? This meal, on the other hand, is all gooey and cheesy and meat-y and delicious. And another big factor to the winning meal was the sausage we got from New Seasons, which was SO GOOD.

I also made a fifth meal, pizzadillas, which I made whilst we watched the VMAs, and somehow in the excitement of all the horrible and painful awkwardness that is the VMAs, I forgot to take any pictures. Curses! But they were also relatively easy, and delicious. And the recipe for the pizza dipping sauce made a TON of sauce, which I froze and will hopefully use on an actual home-made pizza. I've never made a home-made pizza before, but I know it won't be as good as all the pizzas Ellie & Matt have made us throughout the past few years. We'll miss you guys (and your pizzas).