Hey Everybuggy. 5 July, 2007 -- Thu

Welcome to the new home of my rarely updated blog.

Since I started this whine-fest, I actually gave up on ever returning to the West. So I stopped whining about it.

I am still, and will continue to be for the rest of my life, a Western girl.

I still hate a good many things about the East.

But I love my new hometown and my tribe of friends, and our house across the street from the best ice cream store in the world next to the creepy Jesus church.

Mountains are great, but they definitely do not make you pulled pork for the Fourth of Jew-Lie, and they most certainly will not come over and help you set up for the most poorly planned yard sale in the history of the world.

So until the boyband kicks the bucket and I get the life insurance, I’m stuck right here eating pulled pork and chocolate cake. Not such a bad thing.

For the moment, my internet wasting time is being spent over here compiling my entire, very large, collection of recipes onto the intermanet. It is amusing and interesting. To me. Those of you who have known me for any space of time know that it is in fact, All About ME.

big kiss little kiss!

Fun with Pictures! 8 May, 2007 -- Tue

I’ve been playing around on Picnik.com tonight instead of crossing items off the First Contact to-do list, the Lo-Mo feature is super cool to a girl who is too damn cheap to buy Photoshop….

Fisherman’s Wharf~Portland

Snake discovers ceiling fan

Snake

The view from my office

Portland

Spring is finally here!

End of tax season for a bookkeeper

Deck building party

Procrastination by Addiction 3 May, 2007 -- Thu

I would like to preface this post with another one that I wrote for a completely different site…..

Notes from the Hermitage.

Is it possible to be OCD and still be a slob?

I am pretty sure it is. I have many many OCD compulsions….one of them just happens to be….throwing candy wrappers on the floor.

Not that I am a complete swine…

my house does not look like this….

or this

or even this….

but I often feel like it does.

And I spend hours and days and weeks in this case planning and plotting how I am going to clean everything up and make it look like this.

Because that looks like a warm and welcoming abode right there doesn’t it? And totally my style. I look at that room and think…OOOOOH…the jesus collection could go on the mantel over the fireplace, and the planet of the apes head can go right there on the coffee table, and we will put all of the boyband’s models over there in that corner, oh and that room would hold the fifteen bookcases I need for all the books I am never going to read again, and then I will put pictures of all my loved ones on top, oh and scatter some random toys and candle holders through all of that, add about ten pounds of cat hair, a bottle of ketchup, a bottle of ibuprofen, a bottle of beam, a stack of books, a paper clip, five remotes, three dirty socks, a dishcloth, a shopping list from last month, a couple of empty water glasses (wait, you can use those more than once???) and rip rip rip toss add my kit kat wrapper and TADA! My minimalist living room.

Why do I try so hard? Am I fighting against exhibits one two and three? Am I actually trying to achieve number four? Why am I scrubbing grout on my hands and knees for two hours? Why did I spend four hours today lugging books upstairs, trundling books downstairs, alphabetizing stacks and stacks of books, non-fiction upstairs, fiction downstairs…jesus fuck I STILL have my freshman geology book and that damn Steadfastness of the Saints book from Sarah Lawrence that has prevented me from having an actual in my hand college degree for seven years…

…is it really so important that I know exactly where my Freud reader is, and I know that all of Ivan Doig’s books are tucked neatly on the third shelf of the A-D bookshelf?

I now know I have 57 books on my shelves I have never read. (Fiction only…the non-fiction is a much higher number I fear) I know I have at least 30 books that I don’t think belong to me. (If I have a book of yours, and you want it back, please send me a message with the title and/or author.) I know for a fact I am missing three copies of the book American Gods, so if you have one, please bring it back. I am also missing my copy of Carter Beats the Devil. Please tell Jome Murphy if you see him I would like it back. I know I have three copies of the Golden Compass. I have two copies of Anywhere But Here and one and a half copies of The Liars Club. I know I am a big fan of Graham Greene, and Wallace Stegner.

Because my books are all so nice and neat, I now have to move onto the next item on the OCD my parents are coming to visit I would like them to think that I am grown up cleaning list.

Perhaps I should add, clean up water glasses, and stop throwing candy wrappers on the floor. (But Snake does love playing with them so.)

————-
My parents are finally coming to visit me.

After almost 15 years of living on the East Coast, a husband, house hunting, the best friends I could ever hope for, and three cats…my mother has realized that I might not be moving to Alexis, Illinois to live next door to them.

My parents have never been to my house. They have never seen me in my adult life in my own setting. It is freaking me out. Do you know how many parentally offensive things you can accumulate in a life where you don’t have to worry about your parents showing up at the door? It is mind-boggling. I have started a list, that I keep on me at all times of all the things that need to go to the attic before they get here.

As a mildly OCD person, I have been obsessing about cleaning and organizing my house. Last weekend involved scrubbing grout on the kitchen and bathroom floor, emptying the cupboards and sorting all the food, dusting fans, cleaning windows, getting out that canned air stuff and cleaning the cracks in the wood floors, shaving cats, and hiding the porn.

Please realize that my parents will not be here until May 23rd … at the earliest. I am actually flying to Illinois and driving them out here in their car, because I am such a mental case the mere thought of my beloved parents driving all that way was enough to send me into a full blown case of insomnia not to mention the nail-biting and hives.

Since I cured myself of that worry by purchasing the plane ticket, I have completely replaced it with the obsession of having a clean, grown up, oh so Beaver Cleaver house for my parents to call home for two weeks.

I created a fifty item list of things that have to be done before they walk through the door, and I believe I have completed two of them.

I got sidetracked.

By Library Thing
(created by someone from Portland, Maine I would like to add.)

holy addicting.

social networking for books.

Since all my books were all nice and neat and organized, I decided that I would add every single one of them. Then, the next time I was standing in the bookstore trying to remember what book it was I said I wanted to read, or if I already had a book, I would be able to pull out my handy dandy cell phone and look at my book list.

I spent a really long time poring over how many of my books are fiction, how many are non-fiction, how many anthropology titles I have, just how many books DO I have written by Ivan Doig?

It is a dream come true for the OCD list-maker in me. I could seriously lose weeks of my life to this.

I made it through most of the non-fiction before my attention deficit kicked in and I decided I should probably make a very large, very messy Mexican dinner in my incredibly spotless kitchen.

Now I have stacks of books all over the house to be “cataloged”, tomato sauce in my grout, and a very large smear on my window where I smashed an incredibly large, never before seen by man bug. (sorry bug.)

Those two items I crossed off? Right back on there. And as soon as I get done with this distraction, I am adding more books. You can’t stop me.

Then I will clean the beans off the ceiling.

Spring in the Northeast 10 April, 2007 -- Tue

My birthday fell on Easter this year, the first time since 1928. Needless to say, I was not around for that one.

We live right next to a Catholic church, and the combination of my all day drinking eating festival and the non-stop stream of churchgoers was an interesting combination. Standing in the driveway sipping a bourbon and coke and mocking Easter bonnets is probably a sure-fire way to earn me the teleporter to hell award.

There was also snow on the ground for my birthday, and it was about 20 degrees with a stiff north-west wind. Not even my brand new fancy firepit warmed us up too much.

I cannot remember a birthday where there was snow on the ground, but I am sure at some point there was, I did grow up in the Northwest. My mother says on the day I came home from the hospital it snowed alot, but again, I don’t remember that.

Whenever I think of childhood birthdays, I think of my eighth birthday. It was warm and sunny, and my father was burning the fields. I had tried to help him, but it was windy and dry, and he was worried that I would get burned, so he had banished me to the deck of the house. I stood there and watched and pouted and felt like a kid. My parents had the audacity to buy me a doll for my birthday, and I was pretty peeved about that. I thanked them and carried it around all day, but I remember being very upset that my parents did not know me well enough to know that I would never want a baby doll.

I can remember exactly what that day looked like.

As a junior pyromaniac burning the fields was always my favorite task. My father was correct in the assumption that it was too windy, and I watched, biting my nails as always as my father ran around the field trying to keep the fire from going towards the trees in our front yard.

The farthest tree from the house was my tree, where I would go and sit and read and hide sticks and rocks in the special hole in it. Of course the fact that most of the tree was hollow meant that it was mostly dead and when the fire jumped the fire line and reached the base it went up like a small twig.

After the fire department left that night, and we had all retired the house, I was absolutely inconsolable. A doll. My tree burned to the ground. I had lost at least six sticks, a pine cone or two, a Sweet Valley High Book, and a small plastic smiley face that was my prized possession at the time. I had also lost the pine needle basket my father made me for Christmas, but that was okay, squirrels had eaten most of it, and at least I wouldn’t get in trouble for ruining my father’s artwork.

That is pretty much the only birthday I remember from my childhood. I know that I had birthday parties and I am sure there was cake and food and all that good stuff, but I have no recollection of them. I only remember small snippets from childhood. Names, not faces. Places, not events. Smells, tastes, impressions, but not the actual happenings. I remember the parts that are recorded in pictures, written in journals, the moments when something traumatic happened.

Is everyone like that?

I have spent most of my writing career focusing on my incredibly interesting childhood, but I often wonder if the stories I tell are invented by the writer in me, or if they actually happened.

(ramble ramble….the end)

Montana vs. Maine 19 March, 2007 -- Mon

Favorite photos from the past three years….mostly from Maine some from Montana Trip Aught Four.

auto show

lake mcdonaldbrooklyn

welcome to missoulameatloaf bakeoff aftermath

seattle

fish~Boston Aquarium

spinning at night

home

nude hampster waterfall

old port

bugportland at dawn 1

portland at dawn 2

portland at dawn 3

portland at dawn 4

big mountain

Detective. 16 March, 2007 -- Fri

I may be suffering from a seasonal bout of homesickness.

Books on my bedside table.

Triggering Town–Richard Hugo
Winter–Rick Bass
The Roadless Yaak–Rick Bass
This House of Sky–Ivan Doig
The Last Best Place–A Montana Anthology.

Last music played on the music machine:

a lot of:
The Violent Femmes
Neil Young
Winger

Last movie in the DVD player:

A River Runs Through It…(or as my husband calls it…A river runs through Brad Pitt’s Ass)

Last thing watched on the TV:

A show about John Deere combines.

Last search on the internet:

plane tickets to Montana.

Post Holiday Letdown 23 February, 2007 -- Fri

The Whores have all gone home.

My house is still in disarray, feathers float across the room every so often, and I sigh wistfully.

I love having people in my house. I love cooking for them, making sure they are comfortable, sitting and talking to people that I haven’t seen in ten years.

Usually after FWS I am left wanting other things. Last year, I wanted to pick up and move back to the west. In years past I have been left missing New York, missing all the people and places that were once an integral part of my life.

Due to the Blizzard and Jet Blue airlines not flying out of Portland for a bajillion days, I ended up driving Glo back to NYC, just in time for the birthday of one of the people who had been staying at my house. Straight from Maine to Brooklyn in five hours and then straight into the Lower East Village for an overpriced, underportioned dinner at one of the new hotspots. An African French restaurant. Don’t even ask. If I hadn’t of been at a table full of people I loved, I would have killed everyone in that tiny, overheated, pretentious place. That was followed by a very long night of NYC barhopping, adult candy, and very very tiny drinks.

And while I enjoyed every minute of it, I could not believe that this used to be the life I lived every day. I used to live here! I used to do these things! Now I am the frumpy girl from Maine, who pulls out her black skirt, her ironic tshirt, and her mascara for one or two nights a year.

Did you catch that?

I am the girl from MAINE.

I am not the girl from Montana.

And that is very hard for me to get used to.

I drove home the next day absolutely exhausted. Four hours of sleep and a big breakfast did not help out any.

But the closer I got to Maine the more awake and comfortable I felt, and I was excited to be back in my town, back in my house, and back to real life.

I might not be in Maine for the rest of my life, but I love this place, this town, this life, and I am glad that I am finally getting to the point where I am able to enjoy the now, instead of spending my whole life missing the then.

Holidays in Maine. 3 February, 2007 -- Sat

Nine years ago, Anna and I accidentally invented a holiday while sitting in the front window at Gritty’s. This was back before Gritty’s was McGritty’s and you had to have a flipped collar or less than 20% of your body covered in clothing.

We were watching people file past the window, all bundled up and freezing and miserable. It was sub-zero outside and warm and cozy by the window, but the window had only a little tiny bit of it that was not fogged and or frozen. It was a miserable day, like most days in February in Maine.

“I can’t wait for French Whore Season”, I said to Anna.

She stared at me for a minute, and tried to decipher what I had said. Anna and I are notorious for mishearing each other.

“French Whore Season?” she said.

“What? TOURIST SEASON! I can’t wait for tourist season!”

So of course a holiday was born. Next Friday will be our ninth year of celebrating French Whore Season. Last year we had about 70 people come, some all the way from Seattle, some from New York, and a whole lot from here in Maine. This year, pretty much everyone we knew in college will be showing up, and Livia, my liver, is already scared.

What started as Anna and I wearing sparkly shirts and maybe some red lipstick has turned into a corset-laden booze fest. Look! We have a poster! All year people have been asking me, “When is French Whore Season????” Rest easy folks. It has arrived. Five more days!

Happy Pap Schmear! 1 January, 2007 -- Mon

How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?

It has already been rung.

In the minutes before New Year’s, I got in a fight with a crippled man. I am sure that he does not want to be called a “crippled man”, but that is what he was. And he was an ass. While I am certain he would never want to be called “crippled”, I am more certain that being crippled does not give you the right to treat poor girls who just want to go home like shit, and it most definitely does not mean you get free parking.

But I did not slash his tires, and I did not let him get towed, both things which are odd for me, so that is something. Of course I waited until he had already wheeled himself out of the parking lot to make both of these decisions….so that is much more like me….phew.

New Year’s was rung in the company of many people I love. Twirling and the best Wagon Wheel sing-a-long ever will be my first memory of this year. And for that, and for all of them, I am incredibly thankful. If there is one thing I have learned over the past year, it is that my friends are incredibly important to me. More important than mountains and western winds.

I hope that you all had just as lovely a New Year’s Eve….cripple fights and all.

This Year in Photos…. 24 December, 2006 -- Sun

This has been a hard year for pretty much every single person I know. Death, divorce, sickness, accidents, and random spurts of really crappy luck. I know I personally am looking forward to the end of this year, even if just to say, “Hey there has too be a clean slate somewhere.”

Below is a link to my top 150 photographic moments of the year. Most are taken by me, a couple are stolen from my Evil Twin.

Here’s to new beginnings, and painless endings.

xo

from file: posted with vodpod