If I Had Mad Geek Skills...

Y'know---one of the big Altoid boxes, some rounded corner glass with touchpad sensors, the guts from a newer cell phone or Blackberry---

HEY, MAKEzine---do the math here, and get this in yer mag, I'm a busy woman and can't locate my full-service staff right now, but I'll lob an idea atcha!

(and it would have that fresh minty smell)





photo from the CRAFTzine site, Natalie Zs new iPhone in her sweaty little paw

Farmer's Market Time

Which in Portland, really fires up in earnest about now, almost July. This week's Willamette Week listed some of the most well-known produce and Farmer's Markets, along with hours of operation, type of selection, degree of carnival atmosphere, and how to get there. One that they forgot, is the Asian Produce Farmer's Market out Division and 92nd Ave, a smaller, recent start-up market, with no carnival touches, but vendors happy to talk to you about the vegetables and herbs unfamiliar to you, and what to do with them. Oh Happy Day! Free parking and bring cash. I'm already thinking of the slender eggplants to grill, and the choys---grilled choy is amazing!

The Montavilla Farmer's Market will get underway in a few weeks on westbound Stark just east of Mt Tabor in the gravel lot by the stoplight. Now that the Montavilla blocks are fun to stroll again, I'm hoping for a rejuvenated interest here, with lots of local fruits and herbs as well as the pepper-zucchini-tomato standards. Seeing as cucumbers are going for $1 each at the Fred Meyers around here, please someone deliver us from highway robbery and make their own local fortune selling us local unwaxed cucumbers, please! I know gazpacho has ebbed into passe, but those of us who still make it just wince at prices like that.

One sad note---Uncle Fred's produce market on Hawthorne below the Safeway is closing---what used to be the dependable neighborhood pumpkin into Christmas tree vacant lot and abandoned 1940s gas station, had morphed into the dependable year-round outdoors tarped produce and flower market, featuring local harvest. The market owners' said they had signed a lease knowing full well that the lot owners could shut it down eventually, and the site will become another of the rusted steel, glass and sloped roof condo blocks that are appearing along Hawthorne since 2005.
And screwing up traffic for years at at time, I might add. The one on Hawthorne & SE 33rd took forever to finish, and there are two in various stages of start-up and completion up at 44th & 45th-Hawthorne, another traffic snarl with the big big crane set-up. Damned housing market, because not everyone can pay $450,000 for a 3bdrm bungalow in SE anymore, we need $200K 1 bdrm condos like the Pearl has to make up for it. Belmont maybe next. I may be a renter forever at this rate. We could become like New Yorkers, marrying for real estate location, not love, like getting a residential Green Card. "We've never had sex, don't exchange gifts at holidays, I met her parents once at Passover, but look at our SE44th Ave Dream Bungalow! This is my suite..." "Happy Anniversary...uh, it's Jeff, right?" Air kisses all around.

Speaking of crabby-grass (meaning me), poor Steven's new sod is beginning to do the Summer Thing and browning, so we were kidding with him that it was nice while it lasted, but now we're going to put in the community garden, midnight roto-tilling dirt commandos. He didn't think it was funny too much, so we stopped teasing him, but it boggles my mind to think of the farmer's market we could have here...better stop. I never imagined in all my years in Florida that Portland would have such a Mediterranean climate, zone 7, and even 8 in south facing, protected areas.

My neighbors have 8ft dill plants already, their blossom heads blowsing in the wind like Nile River papyrus plants, and the bronze fennel nearby is going to bolt soon. It hasn't even been hot since the beginning of May, must be ideal conditions for these herbs, but made my early tomato plants kind of stall out and not take off until about 10 days ago. Now they are about 2ft tall and set with lots of blooms and little pea-sized tomatoes. Might have to ditch the short cages and go for the bamboo tri-pods this year...when my inner-Martha takes over full time. I had a lot of hopes for a big basil crop this summer, until I skipped a week of wheatgrass for the cat, and he ate all but two of my basil starts. Lesson to me, that cat knows how to really hurt me.

The latest version of the Market String Bag is now available in grape colored cotton, along with Provencal yellow---so many enterprises, so many digital pics to take. Today I'm putting the photo lighting box together, which I gleaned from the profile photo on a vendor's site on Etsy, so I don't have to wait for a sunny day to take cedar fence shots outside. I should put together a photo pictorial on how to make a photo light box and post that on Craftzine's blog page...instant fame. As the newest shirt in the Groovy Rhubarb line will say---"Where's my staff?" I'm going to make it Tang Orange, and dedicate it to Steven, for enduring my carded button pitch with such grace yesterday after a long drive from Medford. Bless you.

The Booth In the Back, In the Corner, In the Dark

We watched the Flip Wilson Show with almost as much reverence as we watched Johnny Carson...

Anyway, I just returned from restocking at the Groovy Rhubarb booth at House of Vintage, and am pleased with the weekend of moved merchandise. As the owner said, the LPs seem to be the biggest sellers, and also the books. Sold the Ouija board.
"House of Tschochskies", step right up, don't shove, get out yer money, no $100 bills unless you're taking the lot! I was inspired by a website I visited for those of us who love to make bags, and I'm going to whip up some 1960's looking beachy bags and totey bags, simple simple simple, and make'em look like those butt-ugly ones my neighbor ladies always seemed to bring back from Mexico or Florida, and I'll make some cute ones, too. I'm discovering that kids pay money for bags. This---I totally can do.

(what in the world did I do before digital photography?) Here's the new string bag, the heavy duty, go ahead and get the bottles of juice bag, that I whipped up in less than 24 hours from 100% cotton. You could use this on a trebuchet, it's so strong. I'm pleased, and want to whip up a bunch in fun summer colors and punch 'em onto Etsy ASAP, along with the button bracelets and button-encrusted bags in progress. And you thought I wasn't 'working'. There being a slight difference between what is best for Etsy and what is better for the Groovy Booth, I'm floating both series of projects at the same time, because tiny and smaller objects are better for Etsy, and larger, harder to steal things are better for the Booth. Just give me the money and let me get back to the manufacturing.

The Portland 'locally made' movement is thriving this summer, and living in Southeast like I do, I forget that there are even things known as malls. In the neighborhood reclamation movement taking over little communities here, even the blight known as 'strips' are being re-done by locally owned businesses, retro-ed or modernized, and provide us with hand-made, crafted and Pacific Northwest originated products. I so dig this. Last week Linsey and I were discussing how hot Portland is with the New York Times this year, and how instead of Portlanders going East to NYC for inspiration, NYC seems to be testing the waters out here for new concepts and areas to pirate. It makes me feel kinda smug. As long as they leave our real estate situation alone, they can buy and import whatever they want to sell in Manhattan, here's my card.

My Powerball numbers weren't even close this weekend, so I'm going to hit up Craigslist again today, and drop off some clothes I sorted out of the closet this weekend that are not booth material. Jeans that I've given up on. Odd gifts from B. that I will never wear. The thinning of the house inventory is a great feeling, and again shows me how much my tastes have changed in even the past 7 years, since moving to Portland. What I can't sell I'm donating, even books. Yep. There was an episode of "Mission Organization" that was a woman setting up her sewing studio that was an epiphany for me, except for the wall color and $1500 worth of plastic organizer thingeys, on how much inspiration and productivity increases when you have all your materials easily at hand. Grab and make it! So, I'm making progress every day, and hopefully, making money, too. I may not be selling Harry Potter volume 7 this summer, but I'm plowing ahead nonetheless.

Raj is watching these local pigeons in the back yard cherry tree, and he chatters at them as if they will mosey over and say hello.
So he can snap their cherry-eating little heads off. Neek already had a go at them this morning, and is resting in the bedroom, so it's Raj's watch this afternoon. Later, when the squirrels come back for cherries, it will be utter madness. It can't be any better than this.
(well, I could somehow find myself rescuing Bentley the Dobie across the street and be a dog owner, but that's not likely)

Friday Finds Me Still Dreaming

I was all set to go on and on about my Mr Torso sighting today, shaved head and goggles above the water most of the time, until...good god rising up the pool steps and I lose all power of speech and reason...and I finally figured out who he sounds like, Roger Davis of 1960s TV fame (it's a Dark Shadows thing, shut up!). But I've been even more distracted than that.

Early this morning, like 3am probably, I was in the midst of a family drama involving three brothers and their Philly-Italian mom, who had just moved into her very first house of her own, and they were helping her move in, and tussling like brothers in their 20s do, and I was there, one of her gal pals, but I had to get to work at my warehouse, but no one had eaten all day, so she was making all this fuss to get us all to sit down and have some kind of dinner.

Where does this all come from? I do not know, and it has been happening all my life. So all during the day today, I am just a shade away from being fully back into that dream-thing, as if it's running underneath everything else I'm doing, and if I just ease off the attention I'm paying to, let's say, driving, or talking to someone, whatever it is, I am 100% fully back into this dream. Sometimes a dream can hang on for a few days, until it is supplanted by another totally different but just as intense dream, which carries me like a flying carpet for at least 24 hours. Does this happen to everybody?

It doesn't bother me anymore, it's entertaining, unless it's one of those horrific nightmares that hang on way too long and I can't shake it so I'll write it down to try and let it go that way. I write a lot of the dreams down anyway, it's good practice, and they may as well have a purpose. They become drawings, short stories, paintings to do, things to be on the lookout for, tangents to research in the Awake World (ask me about Carthage) and some scarier than any horror film I've ever seen. So I stick to Hammer Film Horror, because I don't need any further help there. The psychics I've spoken to have a pretty consistent theory about this, as do the astrologers, and most of my friends just think it's weird, so what? It feels like an interactive film. Actual movie making is just way too complicated for this stage of my life, but I could shovel pitch concepts like gold coins.

Maybe it's the knitting withdrawal setting in. No, that's not it, but something like old wooden lace bobbins can show up in an entire grimy, smoky HBO Deadwood-type Old West dream, which revisits characters I dreamt about in that same locale 25 years ago. Seeing those bobbins at a thrift store is enough to trigger this entire immersive revisiting of this place and cast of characters that drives the slightly askew plot along a bit more---leaving me floating between these two worlds for a day or two.

We all have this---right? We just quit talking about dreams after a certain point in life, right?

Wonder why?

Ice Blue Veil at 10:30pm

right click and click on view image, then zoom it up to the max---this view lasted for almost 15 minutes last night.

Fighting My (tiresome) Biases

I have them, you have them, let's put them on the table, leave them on the curb, throw them on the fire. But let's talk about them first.

One of my worn-out snobberies is the whole genre fiction thing. I've had to really look at this in the last two weeks because of wanting to dive completely into a writing project that would mean I was writing a (gulp) murder mystery. Oh. My. God. Yes, the end of higher western civilization as I have come to accept it, and I've had to begin moving on in the grief process yet again. (Remember the losing my job one from not long ago?) Researching, sketching out character profiles, plot projections...for one of those books. Still need some time with this one.

Another silly pigeonhole is the craft verses tschocshky polarity. Why do I insist on doing this? The artists who only pick up pure red squirrel hair brushes from the primeval forests of Bohemia and slouch towards another wearisome weekend with other trustafarians in the Hamptons call me a mere craft poser because I use something other than the finest canvas, brushes and oils. Smell the contempt? Then I do the same thing, looking at all these insta-plastic-collage things pretending to be cutesy knock-offs of Nick Bantock or Sabrina Ward Harrison and I wonder why these 50-somethings spending their husbands' money on expensive all plastic materials even bother. It all looks like Tammy Faye in her hey-day to me. I'm so unforgiving. To me, there's no creative spirit here, it's all pre-fabricated materials, it's all plastic, it's all overpriced, and these women are kidding themselves that they're doing anything more than the 21st century version of painting by numbers. They should take up quilting. And I know I'm being horrible, absolutely horrible. The plastic thing really bothers me. My Urban Portland Left Coast Liberal Agenda is showing again, sorry! I guess I should acknowledge I need more time to work on this one, too.

The SUV thing---more of the above Agenda Exposed, I'm afraid, but I've seen Jolie haul around horse barn stuff in hers first hand, it's not a grocery hauling chariot in her driveway.

Here's a good one---my old bias about people not (appearing to be) working hard---I am living first hand. Since I've been laid off, I'm getting some of this from other people, and my reaction to their almost dismissing of my time investment is curiously funny to me. There's an irresistible need to chronologically account for my day or week, which must sound really sad or over-compensatory. "Yes, I'm still important as a person, I am worthy, my time is valuable, too!" I almost didn't go to a party this past weekend because I was getting uncomfortable about responding to people's questions of "What do you do?" or "Are you working yet?" Still making peace with getting the business off the ground and doing the craft-art thing.

So---my own biases are biting my own butt. Terrific. So what is the answer?

Gotta get better at the snappy comeback, and get more comfortable with saying "I'm starting my own business," and not sound pathetic saying it. Me being an art or lit snob is actually keeping me from doing fully what I want to do, because the Acid Voice of Snark stays loud and clear the more I indulge it with other people's creative efforts, and I wind up leveling it on myself, like that's constructive. Some days it is so overpowering, I can't even make myself write or craft anything, and I retreat into the Wonder World of Magazine Potentialities. A cry for help certainly, and time to call my ArtPal, for sure. But I tear out pictures from the mags, and before I know it, I have a small stack of triggers for color or journal work, and...recovery ahead. Time to make coffee and get busy.

Finding an Art Friend

Yesterday I had the chance to talk at length with someone about some of the really "out there" ideas I have of projects I want to do. For well over an hour, she just let me go in a scattershot manner, covering galaxies of genres, narrow the focus for a while, then launch off into another dimension all together. No arched eyebrows, no grimaces of polite uncertainty, no sighs of impending heartbreak---she would hear the excitement in my voice, and ask me another question to give me a chance to hear my own passion when describing it. "Details, give me details," she said, like what can I do tomorrow (today) to get this in motion, who can I call right away, have I added a completion list in the sketch book to go along with all of the lists of potentialities I add there every day? After the first 45 minutes, I had uncovered enough ground to actually reveal what the big goal is for me, the 'not playing it safe' goal, and she just gasped--"Now I have goosebumps, now we're getting somewhere, how long has this been hiding in you?"

I'm jazzed, invigorated, ready to go, en fuego, re-prioritized, break out the art supplies!

The other thing I realized (again) is how essential it is to have a parallel reflection in your world when you are striking out on a new path. Not a yesman, or polite nodding and hand patting, but a source of enthusiasm, someone who understands how important this new venture is to you, and is a safe chat spot in the whirlwind of day to day life. The whole idea of 'coaching' comes to mind, and I did consider that, but sometimes it's even simpler than that, like making a new friend in your new area of exploration, or diving into something together with a friend who is also wanting to shake it up and plant a new flag. The ground rule has to be that staying the same is not the goal or default setting, wanting to be vividly creative is life-enriching and fun!

Okay, 'Art Friend', what does that mean? Does that sound too woo-woo? I'll branch it out---
Writer's Group, Work-out Buddy, Yoga Pal, KnitWits, you get the idea. Someone to speak the jargon with, swap the verbal shorthand, provide the knowing glances, call with breathless messages, open cafe meetings with the best question, "How fabulous are you today?" by getting to the good stuff right away, the new passion? And, I'm sorry, talking about something other than spouses, pets, kids, can we please? So many dimensions, so little time devoted to them.

In my pursuit of all things creative, artistic, exciting, and colorful, and being on a knit-fast, I have been surfing the creative sites for visual snacks and positive reinforcement, inspiration, and pure envy or idea-harvesting. So here are some places to visit that can show us how it looks when the flow is a river and we're doin' it for ourselves (in public) and loving it.

For we who have dreamed of having our own little shop: Reform School Rules

Places where the made by hand of all kinds holds first place: Craftster, whip up, Etsy

Quirky, wonderful, colorful, mad-wild art sites: River Bend, Soule Mama, Junk Market, more to follow...

Gotta go be Groovy Rhubarb, then do some more writing---it's a rainy chilly summer day here in Portland, and I'm actually grateful, no porch time today, no watering, all craft, all artful work all day today.

(serious knitting jonesin' goin' on here, no trips to Yarn Garden, go to Yarn Harlot's site instead)

Love That 'Completion' Thing

Going to ship off tomorrow morning to arrive in time for Betty's birthday next week.
The fastest I have ever completed a knitting project, it fits, I only had to rip out part of one sleeve, and this shot shows the blues and purples the most accurately.

I LOVE NORO YARN!!!

The t-shirt style took 8 and a half skeins of the 10 I got, so there's enough for me to make a little trophy piece of this yarn that I love so much. Maybe short fingerless gloves. With a thin leather palm for driving. Girl Genius works overtime even when unemployed. (Why am I writing in the imperative?)

Beginning week 3 of Groovy Rhubarb at the House of Vintage, and I am the only used LP vendor anywhere near the mid-Hawthorne shopping areas. This week it was all tourists branching out from the Waterfront Village areas (from the rain) and doing the vintage shopping trip, German tourists more than from anywhere else. Anything with a rose motif was hot, and I sold a lovely teapot set, big ticket item, ding ding! Since the urgent gift knitting is done, I am now launching full tilt into the crafting of the merchandise for the Etsy site, scrounging for more items for the booth, and desperately trying to finish organizing my work room. The coolest thing in the whole world was liberating some cardboard shelf trays from the recycling bin of the hippie grocery store on Hawthorne, which I painted a lovely French Blue, and now they all match, look like something from an organizing store, and suit my need for visual consistency in tools for stashing materials. And I truly dig dig dig French Blue, which is white and blue kids' tempera paint mixed together. Really. Basically free. I bought those quart bottles of tempera paint at Jerry's Art-a-Rama in Deerfield Beach at least 10 years ago. (shut up)

Along the lines of the 'Completion Thing', the Rose Festival is over, so I'm going to segue into Mock Oranges for the gallery this week. If possible, it's almost a jasmine-orange blossom blend, and 300% intoxicating. And it's been a cool spring the last few weeks, so everything is still in bloom instead of bolting and withering too fast. With glowing skies until 10pm and later for the next month or so, the perfume settles back onto the porch in the evenings, and it feels like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting. Or so it feels to me.

Congratulations to Linsey for completing her apprenticeship in horse gambling, slapping down and taking names, so she can get on with the tattoo artist apprenticeship. Or was it the Reading to Gifted Toddlers charity summer? Cruise Director for the Naughty Secretaries' Wham-Bam Whirlwind Tour of Patagonian Nite Clubs? Something publishing? Her blog kills! Read her brilliance while she guest blogs about crappy bookstores.

Peg did the gravity tests on the WWOTP IPA #2 and we are clear for take-off. The Summer Slug-a-Chug party is this Saturday, when the suspecting public will be sampling the new batch, lining up for more, and stopping the presses to make our brewery famous. It was suggested that the new finished basement space would make a perfect pub. Not by me, but I do agree. Since it would be down a small flight of concrete stairs, I'm thinking "The Fall On Inn". Or maybe "Den of Iniquity". I'll stop now.

Yes, I watched it

The only time I've ever seen an entire episode of 'The Sopranos' is the final show.

As if I'm not going to see it, and listen to all the press and wish I had?

There were many layers of interpretation, enough that even a novice like me could come up with my own spin on what was going on and how this saga ends. Not having watched it doesn't mean I had no idea what was going on about the show or the depth of the characters. When it came out 8 years ago, I didn't have HBO, and listened to all the hype and fevered talk after each episode at work. I thought, "Wow, way to capitalize on the Robert DeNiro movie 'Analyze This', mob boss seeing a shrink." I didn't really want to get that involved in a television show. While driving to Portland from Florida the summer of 2000, one of my Days Inn rooms had free HBO, and after driving 11 hours, I had taken a hot shower and bedded down with the cat, and watched about 30 minutes of this new mafia show, and thought it was great television. And never watched HBO again until this spring, when I got a digital cable adapter in March and it came with 6 months of free HBO.

I even watched last night's episode twice, because I thought I had only seen the second to last episode by mistake, because how can a series like this one end like this?

So the second time it went black, I thought I knew what most likely happened.

The Members Only dude was definitely a hitman. Heavy foreshadowing there, going to the restroom, like the Godfather hit with Pacino, clear shot to Tony when he comes out. The onion ring eaten the same way by all three; whole, straight into the mouth, like a wafer, like a family sacrament, like a halo. Since Tony directed the hit at the gas station, it makes sense that Tony would get hit in return. Neither his wife or his son are innocents, and may have been hit as well, although I don't think that is as likely as everyone else thinks. Meadow not being there is symbolic of her trying to rise above this mess, and marry the crusading lawyer and break the corruption cycle of her parents and family. Trying hard to park, trying to get it right, finding it hard to get it right. Tony seeing his uncle Junior and tearing up at the end shows him what living too long can be like, all the grief of this family doesn't mean shit at the end. Tony making sure his nephew didn't live is like Uncle Junior shooting him. Even the babies in the SUV at the gas station will grow up knowing they were in the truck when their grandfather was killed, blood upon the innocents. When Tony was raking outside, and he stood for a moment looking into the trees and the setting sun, I think it was like his moment of taking stock of it all, and knowing this was probably it. The end of his life pre-indictment, the end of his search for clarity with his therapist, his mentors and supporters were gone, this whole previous chapter of this life was over. Go talk to his uncle and tell him to give the money to Bobby's kids, then meet for dinner. Meadow escapes, if A.J. lives, he's pretty ineffectual and not a threat, Tony's wife is guilty by association, and if she lives, she's moving to the beach house and leaving the scene anyway. "Remember the good times," A. J. says, and that is why I think he and his mom live after Tony is hit, but they will have blood on them literally and metaphorically.

But I've only seen the one show. I could be wrong.

Fait Accompli !!

Zee Szveaterrrr----she is done!

(pause for Colbert Report-style ovation)

Now we await the reaction from the recipient after she receives it, and I'm just not going to stress about that. Waaaaay too much to do for that.

And the WWOTP IPA---I came downstairs yesterday morning to find a rather large mason jar on the hall table, golden with the hoppy nectar, ready to be savored. Peg worked her alchemical magic and did the bottling mid-week, and another home brewed batch of Wicked Women on the Porch Imperial Pale Ale is about to be consumed. Not quite this early in the morning, I'm only on my first cup of coffee, but definitely towards sundown.

And The Goon Squad was here almost the entire day yesterday, and it smelled like they were priming something, and are almost done with the basement renovation. No ovation for them.

Busy day ahead this morning, so I won't dilly-dally too long here, I have a trip to the House of Vintage right away to restock and re-merchandise. Being a lovely cool morning in the low 50s, it is a sharp contrast to a week ago setting the booth up, when it reached 90 inside the shop by noon, and just went up from there. Rose Festival tourist overflow is winding its way along Hawthorne, and Hawthorne is becoming known for its great hub of thrift shopping, and I have many more treasures to provide those bargain shoppers. And some nice books to sell to Powells. (heh heh heh)

No time to gloat over the bee-utiful Noro sweater---I'm going to take a sunny picture of it later today, and of course, will share it here. Since it's a new yarn from the Japanese Noro company, the nice people at the Yarn Garden said I should bring it by for them to see when I finished the t-shirt style summer weight sweater. Okay, I'll gloat later, too. Gotta go!

Bubble, Bubble, Toil & Trouble

Safely bedded in the dry, dark and friendly basement sits a rather large and active carboy of spirited cloudy mashy brew. Soon to be ale. Yet another batch of Wicked Women on the Porch IPA, with its hoppy, lemony zippiness and satisfying kick in the keester.

And before anyone thinks that home brewed beer is a scary proposition, I had the delight of sampling an Organic IPA at a local area brew-pub last night that bore a suspiciously similar taste to our very own WWOTP IPA. So how did this brew-pub get our secret recipe? This smacks of brew-espionage to me. I see more sampling and batch-tasting in my immediate future, just to determine what goes on here. And the brew-pub had an excellent wheat beer, amber ale, and then I lost track. And quit drinking other people's beer.

How do people suffer through those 24-packs of red-white-blue label cans of factory swill?


Although it appears I was lost in space for three days, I was earnestly working on The Sweater, only one short sleeve to go, taking pics for Etsy, doing some cost analysis of supplies and expenses so far, boxing up more to take to the Groovy Rhubarb space, and writing. Like, as in fiction, sort of like starting a book. A (novel) mystery (maybe?). "I'm scared, Brad, hold me!"
I hate to mention something so early-begun so early, so as to not jinx it, but I am surprised by the concept, and have to drive it a bit to see where it goes for me. And that's all I'm-a gonna say.

Speaking of trouble, Mr. Torso was in the pool with me at the gym yesterday. Sometimes he joins me in the steam room, too, and then we sometimes share the hot tub before he goes and swims hundreds of laps in the fast lane. I know he wears goggles, and wears a close-cropped haircut, but any other description would involve extensive details of his amazing torso, and I would have to admit I have no clue what his face looks like. Am I being too much like a guy here? And is that bad?
So this is where I have to confess to a torso weakness. Not surprisingly, most straight women admit in mixed company to noticing a man's eyes first, but then amongst friends, they talk in lower voices about lower anatomical areas. I notice a guy's eyes first, too, but then...how does he fill out the shirt? That sounds really bad, I know. Even if I'm not wearing glasses or contacts, somehow I have 20-20 vision when it comes to a fabulous torso. How can that be? And, honestly, that's about as far as I notice much. Obviously have not watched enough "Sex in the City" or bad soft-porn. But I did drop an entire large tray of freshly baked bread and other treats upon walking out a busy restaurant door and seeing a spectacular man in front of me stretching with his shirt completely open. As long as I worked there, I could never live that down. And now I share it with you. (I need a moment.......)
So Mr. Torso is a swimmer, and he likes steam and hot tubs, and I can't even tell you a rough estimate of how old he is. Under 35, over 20? And he forgoes that pesky chest waxing ordeal, thank all the greek gods I can think of. So...should I say hi and mention what a great swimmer he is? And not make a Freudian slip with the word lap or stroke or steamy dreamy?

And the whole world knows how I got busted at Fred Meyer's last weekend scoping on this hunky guy in the produce and natural foods department. Dark hair, tied back in a short tail, tan or olive skin, about 6'3", lean, clean but casual, probably between 30 & 35. Meaning, I have no business even looking at this guy. I was going about my usual invisible shopping errands, "Oh, it's just Mrs. Robinson shopping, don't mind me," when--- suddenly---there he appeared, reaching into the cold case right next to me for juice, and my left brain went on break. C-ya!

What the F happens here? I can see it all, my eyes following him as he browses, he looks like a swimmer, or a model, and I'm sure my mouth is hanging open, struck speechless, and I re-position my shopping cart as he circulates around the produce aisles. This sounds so self-deprecating, but pudgy women over 40 really get used to being invisible, or in the way of younger and thinner people needing your space. So I'm sure I was solidly staring at him. Good god. I pretended to look at a shopping list when another woman a tad older than me caught me scoping. She didn't even meet my eye, but she did check him out thoroughly. So, after about 7 or 8 minutes of this, and I know I'm being so silly, he's at the self check-out lane and having trouble with his card but the line to get help is three deep, so he waits, and I move my cart again, and from almost 100 feet away, he turns around and looks directly at me. Remember, no left brain function. I reach for my cell phone, and pretend to answer it. Could I be a bigger dork? (The answer is 'no')
My neighbor Steven giggled at me, and thought it was a good sign that he didn't call security.
It was only a few minutes. I had a ready excuse---"You look just like my son's friend" or, "Sorry, you look just like my sister's baby daddy," or the best--- "Wow, I thought you were the guy I shagged last night at the Bagdad". But, not needed. He was gone. So I put my silent cellphone away and finished my shopping. "No waiting in the 10 DORKS OR LESS line!!"

Always happy to amuse.

Oh good, rain is coming

I say that not because I am a native Pacific Northwesterner, or because I'm tired of the beautiful early summer weather we've been having, but because the garden needs a really good rainwater soak, and I need to stay indoors and really get some work done.

There were these 15' high walls of windows at my middle school, mostly 7th & 8th grade, and they looked out over these rows of big maples, elms, a playground (before the parking lot went in) and rolling spots of sun-dappled grass to sit and have intense conversations with your best friend. It was in those classrooms that I realized what a window-gazer I am, perched two or three stories above the ground and looking out and away into the blue sky and canopy...I'm out of my body and hovering there in mid-air myself.
The rotation of the earth has its way with me and I have to be outside, that's all there is to it.

There's that feeling like I have piles of neglected algebra or geometry homework to do and Mr. Rolf is going to get all tight-lipped and stern with me.

Pa-shaw, it's only some laundry to fold, paperwork to finish, some dishes and vacuuming, the usual suspects. How can you toss your satin black cat off a pile of pink sheets fresh from the dryer when he looks so adorable nested in them? He always picks the pink ones, and all my sheets are cotton, so that's not it. Another photo op.

Update on the Noro Betty sweater: finished the front piece this morning, now just two short sleeves to whip up, then piece it together. My left index knuckles are going wonky with all of this tiny intense knitting, and moving that huge bookcase on Friday with 90lb Edina, the House of Vintage owner, sent my knuckles into walnut-sized. But. Must. Finish. Sweater. Then---I will allow the knitting to go on a summer hiatus, while I work on the button carding, jewelry making, sewing projects, sweater embellishing, and over-all turbo charged production of all things Groovy Rhubarb. and also painting. And writing. And more photography. Which reminds me---

Check out this new 'zine, called LAB. Many of the talent and references are Portland-PNW oriented, is it here in PDX? Not sure, but one of the contributors is an intern at Wieden-Kennedy ad agency, did work for Nike, and some logo work familiar to folks up this way. Doug Fir, for instance. I downloaded both released copies of this new 'zine and spent some time reading, marveling, and seeing into the future of print/web-based art. Guess that makes me a wanna-be, but I'm getting it started, and am certainly in the right town for this kinda thing. If you want to be amused and baffled and inspired, link to LAB. I found a page from Keri Smith's book, The Artist's Survival Guide, that radically cheered me up on a blue day and reminded me why you should never tell anyone what you're doing unless they also tend to bubble over and tell you all sorts of project ideas. Or your tractor will be up to your head gasket in swamp. Surely a metaphor everyone can understand.

Must press on, end in sight, stay strong.

Portland Rose Festival is City-wide

The annual Portland Rose Festival began on Thursday May 31st, and is in sunny, full-swing this weekend on the waterfront. But as we all know who live in these here parts, the true Show is in all the neighborhoods' gardens, and that is where you will enjoy the treasure of this time of year. Not that I have anything against the Tall Ships, cute sailors, international tourists, fire-roasted corn on the cob or street falafel (but don't get me started on funnel cakes or overpriced warm beer), but it always leaves me wondering, "What does all this Waterfront Village hoo-haa have to do with roses?"

I can show ya roses...as well as all the other local color at its peak this weekend.

So pop a reasonably priced cold one, and stroll through these Portland Rose Festival highlights...
(left column, please...)

(fanfare) The Booth is Open!!

Da-ta-ta -dah!!!

Yes, I've become a resale tycoon in the making. It is a modest little booth. Pricing things you remember paying full price for 25 years ago is tough, but some things are actually worth more. Not kidding anyone, just mining this accumulation of riches for some liquid assets is worth it, no matter how much that Japanese Import Roxy Music album was in 1982. Some vinyl junkie could spy that, and get on his cell and tell all his friends to come down.
I did snap a few pics, but first I have to figure out how to get them out of my phone.

Remarkably, it was so easy to just pile LPs into the big canvas book bags and lug them to the car, I thought it would be harder. Friends tried to get me to leave them behind when I left Boca Raton, but no one would have given me a dime for a bunch of 70s & 80s LPs there. And I wasn't emotionally ready to part with them then, still inhabiting my mental 20s on the cusp of 40. Well---I'm truly on the other side of that dilemma now. I also have a great tall book-sized shelf in the booth, so I can start with the book-age as soon as I can start boxing them up.
After years of wanting to surround myself with wonderful and meaningful things, this spring I want to create SPACE. Space for new ideas, new projects, new identity, new work, new pals and friends, new meanings. As my old pal Matthew would say, "There you go, all woo-woo again," and he would be right. He too is proof that there is Life After Borders.

Speaking of...I found a stash of business cards from just a couple of years ago in an old purse, and as I looked through them while tossing them in the paper recycling basket, I realized that none of the Borders business cards I had from colleagues, co-workers, bosses, and muckity-mucks were people who were still with the company. Ah---haaaa. So, The Kids Are Alright after all. Meaningless, really, but reassuring to me anyway. We all tossed our Corp frame of Reference and Priorities for the next thing, whatever that wound up being, and none of that whole "End of the World As We Know It Armageddon" occurred. Those conference calls and phone trees and suits' visits all kept on happening, more new initiatives, more new incentives, more spun bullshit---and it went on without our holding it up anymore!! When I tell people I feel newly divorced, they snort and make some comment that indicates to me that I gave far too much to that company. I don't want to be bitter, or angry, or feel a loss in myself.
But I really like this Merry Divorcee thing...reputation be damned.