The Emperor's New Clothes

Having had a very public moment of jazz and confidence, I feel the shell coming over me as usual.
It's so damn scary to be so exposed, I don't know how all you extroverts do this every day. The skin is thin, therefore the shell. The Crab sign has some sense to it, as I see it.

My loveliest neighbors invited me to a pot luck bar-be-que last night, and had implied that they were celebrating my new business venture direction with me. I was seized with fear, stage-fright and magnificent doubts. Holy shit! I had to pitch it to the masses. I offered to bring pies. So if the business idea wasn't getting mileage, maybe the pies would.

Needn't have worried. (whew!)

We had brand spankin' new neighbors move in across the street on Thursday & Friday, so they got invited, too, so the spotlight was not on me, much to my relief. Not sure if the pies were received well or not, but I liked them, so that's okay. We had a true Mediterranean al fresco meal; fresh grilled salmon, fresh perfectly steamed asparagus, succulent cheeses, fruit and crispy crackers, red & white wines by the hostess' family vineyard, rice, black beans, a serious dark-eyed infant, a singing naked two year old in the garden, dog, cats, fig trees, wide-reaching conversation, and diverse guests. Alternately, we related the story of arriving in this neighborhood, spirits, thieves, scandals & worse. No one was drinking enough to really get into the good stuff.

As the evening got chilly, we reluctantly began clearing the table and said our goodbyes. I came home and reassured the upstairs ghost that she would remain undisturbed, not to worry, and I found it amusing that anyone should think I needed to "do" anything about her. That the phone chiming at night would be scary. I also remembered a time in the 80s when everyone around me felt obliged to be a "teacher" and let all the "uninitiated" know how to go about things. Being so shy, I would listen and think there's so much to learn, but I'd interrupt when someone assumed I was completely ignorant, and begin relating all my experience with the topic. I don't like the Emperor telling me how it is, and I don't want to be the Emperor, either. So last night, it was comforting to be neither, and watch the thread of conversation weave among everyone, dancing around or leaned into, with the kids keeping it all interrupted and fun. When more of my Plan for World Domination is concrete, it will be easier for me to disclose more of my Evil Genius. But for now, more pie, coffee, ice cream, please!

Absolutely Boggled!

Pulling myself away from the two boxes of BUTTONS that arrived this morning to share with y'all my utter rhapsodic bliss and new flowsy determination to launch the new money-making thing.

My trip to the Thrift Emporium yesterday was very worthwhile, and I browsed there for an hour, to "get a read" on the place and the people there, and the shoppers. I am now on the contact list for the owner/manager to call me, since it is nearing the end of the month, some people decide not to renew at the last minute, and they have sudden openings. The used record store that used to be two doors down closed after Christmas, and I think it is perfect for me to segue on in with all my vinyl and used books, since the place also used to be a used book and mag store. This is very exciting, dare I say.

And as my pal Jolie reminded me, look out yard salers, Laura will be blitzing you and making off with goodies!! Oh what fun!

But the buttons... Within an hour, I had started sorting all the Bakelite ones from the mother of pearl ones, and tossing the bone, wood, rubber, and metal ones in little piles in a flat box.
The mother of pearls began a nice cozy soak in some warm Mrs Meyers' and water, and the bed is layered with beach towels for them all to dry in the spring breeze coming in the south windows. (sounds like a great place to spend an afternoon to me) I've already been dreaming up the way to card some of them up to wholesale to stores and sell on my soon to launch Etsy site. I'm using them for lots of things besides fastening layers of clothes together, as you may imagine. Like beads, some sort of past life thing makes me value buttons like primitive money, trade currency, circulate and value, hoard then sell. I'm a crow, they sparkle, feel good in my hand, look good on a string, and I wanna just pounce and fly away with them.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but this feels like the right thing for me to be doing right now. The ultimate irony of a Worst Case Scenario being realized in January, and the screeching end of a 10+ years commitment like being dumped for a younger woman is, I look around and see only good as a result. I do terribly miss Linsey and some of my peeps, and the day to day intelligent and goofy fun we had, but almost everyone has gone on to greater glory, and that is a delight to me. I had wanted this to be the summer fer shure that I got out of there, but being termed was better, just more of a shock and adjustment period. Re-entry to my real life has taken me most of three months, really. And there was that pay off... (gracias, Spiritu Mejor!)

Almost everyday I sit down here and write something, either blog, essay around, business plan mission statement type of thing, or another list of story ideas. Almost everyday, I go outside and check out the tomato blossoms, pull some weeds, water herbs, smell roses, put in a new plant, check out my neighbors' plantings. Free Wi-Fi has hit my neighborhood, my cellphone is fun, the gym is nearby, I walk to the Daily Grind for some veggies. Late spring, great apartment, fabulous folks nearby, great dogs and friendly cats, grills in the evening, and I am so in gratitude that the push to reach here has actually led me here, where I dreamed and intended to wind up. Is this a mid-life thing? I think so. Two months ago it dawned on me I just didn't care anymore about a title, a corporate identity or status, whether I was promoted or passed over, listened to by muckity-mucks or unheard, valued and retained, or just a number and let go. It doesn't matter to me. It felt so good to let it all go, and be happy where I am, doing what I choose to do from here, loving my Portland Life, feeling more genuine than I have in .... years and years and years.
I've got 15 basil plants going on my back porch to plant in about a week, the tomatoes are staked or caged, the lavender and sage, creeping thyme and echinacea are filling out in the rock garden, and I found a nice Thai basil plant to add to the collection. And now the buttons...
Nothin' but smiles from me.

Hand Cramps & Forearm Seizures

No, not from gardening, but from choosing a freakingly tiny yarn and needle size to fabricate the beautiful short-sleeved sweater for Betty, and having an unrealistic deadline for completing it. It's a combination Mother's Day & Birthday gift, them being within 6 weeks of each other this year, and she's cool with that. But this morning my hands are frozen like claws, and my forearms are twitching and so fatigued I can hardly type. And I'm not even half done. But the back piece is almost done, and the yarn makes a stunning fabric, I'm deliriously happy about that. Pretty sure she'll find it cool enough in its rayon-blend light weight to wear, and that the colors are what she wanted. Her friends will be impressed. It will look great with black and other bright solids she has. I hope I will actually take today off from knitting and let myself recover, maybe immerse myself in some hot dishwater and get dishes done, or better yet, go for a steam and a good pounding in the clinical strength hot tub at the gym. (Can I grip a steering wheel safely?)

Over the weekend, I had an afternoon of insanity, and hung out on eBay bidding on batches of old buttons. To make cool stuff with. To sell. The "Ideas" notebook is filling up, and I saw some amazing button creations that inspired me to make something less cutesy and more funky. It is true, the Etsy bug has bitten me, and I'm in a fever to create, to make, to arts around. There is a new Thrift Emporium on Hawthorne, near the wildly popular Presents of Mind, where a used books & magazine shop used to be. The neighboring Thrift Stall Shop expanded to take over the entire building, and I'm checking it out, rates, percentage of price commission, rent, etc. to see about having a booth to sell things, that I don't have to inhabit while it's open. That is the cool thing about these Emporiums. Your merchandise tags have your vendor code on them, and the customer takes up the stuff they've picked from the various vendors to the central cashier, and you get credit by the code for the merchandise of yours that is purchased. So I could sell online as well as locally and not be tied to a store 7 days a week all hours. And the Emporium would be great to sell the bigger items I have, antiques, books, records, heavy stuff, odds & ends. Stuff that would be challenging to mail if sold online. Re-purpose, re-use, re-sell, re-furbish, re-invent.

Right now, I could really use a hand and arm massage. Signing off for now, maybe more later...

Ramblings of a Hop Head

It had to happen.

Two intelligent women. The perfect porch. Summer returns. Long warm sunny evenings. Beer.

Home Brewed World Domination.

Funny that it took me until this revered vint-age to realize what being "hopped-up" really meant. I always felt it ranked down there with smoking pencil shavings or cornsilk behind the utility shed at the back of the school yard, or apple cider left out a wee too long after Thanksgiving. Ye Olde pre-1960s Country Time Highs.

Brewing is an ancient and revered sacrament going way back. I truly suspect that brewing is in fact the "Oldest Profession". Legend has it that in 16th century England and the Colonies, even the Puritans insisted that "Goodwife Prudence" should be an adept brew mistress before being considered as marriageable. That's a lot for a 14 year old girl to add to her already burdened homemaking resume. Even children drank beer, because the dangerous water micro-organisms had been boiled and fermented out of it. 'Small beer', it was called.

Well, we aren't making kid-stuff here. This is "Knock You On Your Ass & Fall Off the Porch" IPA. Suggested menu items would be slabs of roast beef, trenchers of mashed potatoes with gravy, horseradish sauce and slices of thick brown bread, grilled mushrooms and onions, some great tart chutney, and parsnips or something Pilgrimmy like that. For the more shamanic among us, to trip between the worlds as it were, salad rolls and cold Vietnamese noodle dishes would be nice and light. To speed your journey. To the Sky Realms.

The Egyptians paid their work crews in big jugs of soggy slushy chewy barley beer. Look at their little pointy thingys in the desert. Not so bad. And at higher elevations, with no grain crop, they even ferment yak or mare's milk. I think brewing predates prostitution by a long shot.

Personally, I've known dozens of people who may as well have had "WILL WORK FOR BEER" tattooed on their foreheads, they were so unconcerned about any other reason for collecting a paycheck. And in the busy kitchen, it paid to be real friendly with the back-bartender.

So this afternoon, Peg & I are venturing to a Brewer's Emporium to collect some raw materials and soak in the Brew Wisdom floating in the air. I feel a peculiar awe to be a tiny grain in the Great Mash of Venerable Brew Tradition, that as well as needle arts, growing things, cave painting, storytelling, and animal tending, I can participate in another truly ancient and mystical, alchemical art. Making and getting plowed on hoppy barley beer. Better than that pesky Stone Temple Puta thing.

Great Gifts From Web and Tube!

While the sun is out, and splendid is the breeze, I am to be found outdoors, in the car with the windows rolled down and music turned up, on the porch, in the garden, harassing the neighbors.

Then the icy North Wind crashes my party, and I'm running inside for a sweater, or if the sun disappears, I just stay in. Stuff to do, and all that. There's the writing, dishes, napping, and the usual work-pursuing, web surfing and tube watching. Before I chide myself for all this slacking, I need to just say that you can never predict where your inspiration will come from, or what freebie gifts you may uncover using these tools of the devil. Allow me to elaborate...

There's The Chair from the Requip commercial, restless leg syndrome drug. "The Chair" has thousands of people (like me) very stirred up and looking for a clue on how to get one of these. There are threads and blogs and a torrent of interest for a chair that does not exist. The drug company says the ad agency did a mock-up just for filming the commercial, and since all the interest has been on the chair and not on the drug, "The Chair" is being de-emphasized in the newer runnings of the Requip ads. There are millions of dollars to be made on manufacturing this chair, and so far, the demand in the marketplace is not being met by anyone. All that money not being made. As a former business woman, and whipped horse of the corporate 'delight and surprise' dog & pony show, this unmet market astounds me. Millions, I say. No one is biting.

Another television gem has been the Lexus ad featuring Nina Simone. I remember when she died a few years ago, and we played her CDs at work all the time when I was a music department manager. But the gift of this ad is that the CD this song is taken from has been out of print, a live from Paris album 1968, and now this interest from the commercial (Google it & see) is bringing this amazing artist to the attention of a wide sweep of listeners, young and not so, and I'm sure will resurrect this CD from the archives and make it at least downloadable somewhere. This is beautiful.

Back on the Web, I have been trying to find which roses are growing in our garden here, and the web has great resources to do this. Being in the City of Roses, it is a fun day to go to the Rose Garden, but I kind of get overwhelmed and would just rather enjoy the experience than do research. Our neighborhood yards have some really old rose specimens, and my neighbor thinks that some of the grafted stems have died off and the root stock is reasserting itself after 50-odd years of predictable blooming. If you drive past some yards along a street, there are common trendy types from years past, that makes me think that Fred Meyers had a sale in 1963 on coral lipstick pink teas, or they all shared divided clumps. I love a mystery.

Etsy. I wish I had thought of it. I have big plans now to max my tschochskies there. Sounds sleazy. The marketplace for all things hand made, and the only crocheted toilet top tissue box covers you would find would probably be a reference to what this website is NOT. This is the next threshold for the hipster DIY nouveau-geek or whimsical offbeat crafster. I am so there.

The History Channel had a two hour show Monday night called "Hippies", featuring many interviews, film footage, analysis by contemporaries, Peter Coyote and the Diggers, music, Vietnam, and the Man. Although it had its omissions and gloss-over-lightly areas, it was a great show and I'd recommend people of all ages to see it, younger viewers with their Boomer of choice to fill in some gaps. Fabulous way to spend two chilly evening hours.

While Google-ing some people I used to hang out with in Ann Arbor, I discovered that my old pal Misty Callies is super-famous!! There is a prime level hip restaurant in New York City called 'Prune'. The chef there is named Gabrielle Hamilton, a famous younger woman who has almost single-handedly revolutionized "great little eatery" standards in Manhattan. I'm sure Paris has been thrown out of there at least once. Anyways, Gabrielle wrote an article for Food & Wine magazine that goes on and on how my pal Misty was her mentor in the late 90s in Ann Arbor, working at Misty's restaurant on State Street called Zanzibar. Misty and her brother Todd run it, but Misty is the visionary and driving force (as she always was 20 years ago) and taught the future Prune owner a new, non-NY way of creating a restaurant. I was so thrilled, and the story had a pic of Misty at work, and talked about her gruff communication style but genius of concept and attitude. Misty was my hero for many years back in the early 80s when I worked with her and her brother at various places in Ann Arbor, and it was so gratifying to see Misty getting some national press and praise. And the stories I could tell about parties at Misty's house...and I may some day with the names changed for the usual reasons.

Two more commercials, and I'm done...

The silly Comcast (how I hate thee) one with the tiger striped tattooed guy---"Sorry Roger, you tiger now!" Can't help it, I laugh every time.
The one with the Asian guy all done up in a Riverdance costume and headband, dancing his heart out in the middle of his living room, twirling, leaping, kicking, Irish pipes playing...then his wife and daughter walk through the door carrying shopping bags and just gawk---"Wow, you're home early" he says weakly. I can't remember what the product is, because I just laugh so hard, oh wait, it's a flooring company. Hardwood floors. Must be HGTV. It's tough to write funny ads, it so skews to the target audience, but everyone who sees it should get it.

I'm an amateur sociologist, it's my job.

Caught in the Time Travel Capsule

Whoa, Bill & Ted have nothing on me the last few days...

Everyone posting writing gigs wants content samples, can you imagine? The audacity!

And as everyone knows, who's worked a time & soul demanding job, sometimes you need to dust off the archives and go digging. For actual pieces to use, or portions to lift and update, or even brilliant ideas you had that could benefit from your more mature and present voice. Technology reference updating, pop culture excising, music and world events tweaking, all necessitating re-reading piles and sheafs of stuff. And I got sucked into the spinning time capsule all day yesterday and most of today. And I didn't get to the bottom of the trunk of paper, so the flip side of this is that I need to use the trunk for something else and make this archive labeled and accessible. Then later finish to the bottom. New coffee table trunk, move the archives to the office studio. And print out the discs of stuff from the last 8 years that aren't journals.

For not being a writer, I have amassed a serious amount of writing. It's not all journals. Some of it's even fairly good. Linsey, I need to borrow your labeling p-touch machine.

The weather forecast for this week had been sunny, clear and in the mid 70's, and I was thinking of the laptop on the porch in the afternoon, cold bevs, not much inside time this week. It hasn't happened, it's been in the 50s & 60s, gets sunny and warm for an hour or so late in the afternoon, so I've been able to work inside and also catch porch time late in the day. No need to crack the taskmaster's whip, I get it all done, it's just timing. Because it's been so long since I wrote for hours and hours, I'd forgotten how fast the days go by. I kinda like this. But hours and hours add up to days and days, another week has gone by, and when my neighbor asks me what exotic plans I've had on my sabbatical, I have to shrug and say, "none". It's true. And I'm okay with it, the sense of accomplishment is amazing and very underrated. In retail, you make a list at the beginning of your week, and if you get three things on it done, you feel successful. Needing to start new lists is intoxicating, it just makes me feel ready, for whatever is ahead. All those little gnats of tasks to do instead of your "work" are already done, and you're _______.
(writing, painting, mailing off, selling, producing, making calls, replying, etc.) Living. It's good.

What I did on my Spring Vacation

Because I know everyone wonders what I do all day...

This project has the delirious combination of drinking corked wine, intense focus, immersion in details, more bottle opening, getting contributions from corked wine drinking friends (no stinking boxed winos, please!) and lastly, a comfy floating chair to swill away in and be insulated from static shocks and ever being taken seriously as an artist or sober adult. I found this on the Martha website....ha! No, actually, this comes courtesy of the fiends of fabrication at MAKE magazine via the CRAFT blogsite. Instructions for the wrap-around sectional are sure to follow...

Speaking as a spanking new craigslist entrepreneur, those archival copies of ROCK magazine from the 70's should be flying out the door and netting me in the high two figures...although in Portland, you never know...could go higher. I told my landlady that the heirloom tomatoes should bring in serious bucks, since they sell at Trader Joe's for $4 & $5 dollars a lb. She gave me that blank stare, as in "What the F are you talking about? You're going to sell tomatoes?"
Well, we don't have the acreage for a tea plantation, so zapotec & brandywine heirlooms are it for this summer. Does that really sound strange? Stranger than getting a job? Really?

I just found out my neighbor is opening a yarn store. I'm completely boggled. This is going on right under my nose, and for all the hours I spent knitting in full view of every passersby all last summer in my front yard, no one even mentioned it to me. Last night another knitting neighbor and I were discussing Portland yarn stores, highs and lows, and a third piped up that knitting is really hot in Portland lately.

Right out of a sit-com, we two shot him an eye-roll withering look and tsk-sighed him into a quivering mass.

We both threatened to teach him knitting. It might work. Like a puppy, a guy knitter is a date magnet. And then I could blog about his escapades with sticks & string. Another genre fiction category sparked by my marketing genius mind, metropolysexual knitter hipster vampire centaurs in Stumptown brokering business and marriages, crime solving and tentacle-ripping, time shifting and swatch gauging, hyphen hyperventilating, hard loving baby-making mistresses of sultanic mayhem millionaires, and all centered around the Central Centaur Community in South East. Yep, they're here somewheres. Lest I be considered a snob, Portland is the place where it all can happen and I'm sure it does, so someone needs to write about it. See you on the shelf at B&N.