Post-nap late night plus beer & good music is making me feel pleasantly high. So much future to look forward to, so many manifestations of self.

The bed broke today, and now it's just a box spring and mattress on the floor. I think it makes a big difference, lowering the overall center of gravity and having better perspective of the space above you. I awoke feeling like I had to run outside, wanting to feel the pavement on the soles of my bare feet.

Now for bed, now to prepare for the week ahead.

Has it really been since November?

Wow. I trail off into melodramatic prose and then you don't hear from me for a half a year. I think Facebook status updates robbed me of my attention span.

So I am actually buying a house right now. Deeply in contract, no contingencies, locked my mortgage rate today (4.95%? Is that good?), freaking out, etc.

Just a tiny house in North Portland situated right between Lombard & Rosa Parks Way, Interstate Ave. & I-5. A little white house with a bit of yard and an archway in the miniature living room, and seven interior doors all with faceted glass knobs. It's pretty great, and I'm totally willing to put myself deeply in debt over it.

We are signed up to inherit chickens from the classroom that my friend teaches in... the little ladies are incubating right now, as-yet unhatched. They are part of a "Rarest of the Rare" heritage chicken assortment, and they will probably look weird (a desired trait). They are going to be ready for adoption somewhere in mid-May, so we'd better stick pretty close to the May 2nd closing date. I leave for Philly on May 14th, so I'm essentially abandoning Mendi at home with three warring cats and 2-3 brand new chickens. Sorry Mendi.

So that's all pretty crazy and exciting, huh? I'm still washed with disbelief that it's all happening. That there might just NOT be another shoe to drop, that I'm buying a house and I can paint the walls turquoise and everything is going to be a-okay.

I Can't Feel My Face!

I feel so body-tired right now. At work, exhausted, mindless. Useless! Shiftless! A bum!

It's a sick, dumb comfort, but it's all I know.

Hoping to death and beyond that anyone cares as much as I do about saying goodbye to the ocean. Wanting to be one of the the tiny sea waves in the harsh wind that is swept from the sand, into the oblivion of the Pacific.

--------------------------------------------------

[AN ASIDE]

I look at your pictures, at your words, every day. I analyze them and search for effigies of myself, hoping still to find remorse in your voice, hoping to find the flint glint of me that I've convinced myself you stole from me. But in the space and time between then and now, some strange mellowing has happened; your words/writing have become familiar to be, non-dangerous, friendly even. I know the rythm of your prose, the patterns of your cover-ups, your trends towards indecipherable garble (in good times), and honest clarity (in bad times). I say this only to the sea foam ether, but I enjoy your work.

--------------------------------------------------

It is a hard truth to admit that I am lonelier as I grow older. In spite of having a loving (if pessimistic) partner, in spite of a thriving life, I feel the beginning of that black-rock loneliness that we have all heard about; I wonder how much further it will go, and how much it will affect everything that I presently have in my life. I am thirty-one years old, and there is still so much craziness that lay ahead.

We watched 'Synechdoche, NY' the other day (when I was home sick for the afternoon), and it fucked me up. I didn't particularly like the movie, but it brought up all the terrifying realities of being a human being who just keeps on going. The things that end up being our constants are never the things we expect; the partner, the house, the school, the job, the parents... they are not, I think, what end up being the threads we produce our life from.

My threads are, so far, frayed phantom limbs, just beginning to unclench.

It's late Thursday night, the M and I are several hours returned from our day-long sojourn to the Oregon Coast. I had the notion that a run around the Three Capes scenic loop would knock me out of my stress-induced Life Stupor.

I am feeling Very Serious these days.

I'm off of Facebook. Going on one week now. If you know, you know. If you've never had a problem with the addictive nature of online social networking and you think I'm weak/weird, then fuck you and stop reading my blog.

It's hard... I see old pictures that I'm in, but now I'm not tagged, my comments are removed; a ghost. A ghost dyke as a central figure in a chaotic portrait of queer PDX life in 2010, and I'm Not Really There. So strange. So needing to get used to it.

What does it feel like to reclaim privacy? What do I give up/sacrifice in the process?

Will I know what to do with myself once I've grown accustomed to a world where I don't worry about what 500 people think of my thrice-hourly status updates? Will I remember how to function in one-on-one social interactions again? Already, everything seems more fascinating and overwhelming to me, just in one week of being 'off it'. Like I'm hearing people talking about how genuinely interesting they are for the first time, not just tuning in for whatever sound bites I can pilfer and post for later. Not storing up quips and social fodder for the sake of accomplishing vague witticisms online... but seeing the people I interact with. Being able to consider my reactions, interactions, and judgments for a moment longer, and in real time. Knowing that I have all the phone numbers and emails I'll ever need, and that I will be fine.

We went to a reading this evening of a book about the Riot Grrrl movement, written as a dissertation by a woman who, admittedly, did much of her interviewing & research through Facebook connections. She stood at the front of the room, her advance already cashed & spent, and told the audience that if people weren't on Facebook, they most likely were not in her book.

That got me excited. Excited to think that, yes, there are feminist hermits out there, people who this twee doctoral researcher was too lazy to get to, who are off the grid doing God-Knows-What and harvesting turnips. And I Love Them, they inspire me, and I quest for that place. Where we can claim our power to say NO. NO, I am not part of this mad world, I will not be caught up in the dissolution of my own creativity, I will go out and hunt for the authentic, the pure, the difficult.

So say I, writer of a blog read by no one!

To someone in particular, but no one special:

All this time, I gave you power.  Because I believed that you had stolen something from me, something deep and pure and true that I would never know again in my life.

As I pass through these veils of aging, I feel that loss like a wound on my internal organs, and I begin to understand that there was a failing dam long before you erupted into my life.  

I am crumpled and haggard and not who I used to be.

It's so simple to blame things on heartache and infidelity and homewreckers (like you).  It's so easy.

I have fought so hard against the idea that you are a permanent part of my life.  You've moved into my house, put your greasy fingers across the photos on my walls, gobbled my precious food with your mawing fat face.  But you are here, holding up my babies and claiming them as yours.

What's done is done.  You challenge me to meet your pig eyes on your level, but...

There is the sound of a clear ringing bell in the air; it is quiet and strange above the cacophony of this bullshit dream-- but it's ringing, telling me to wake up, telling me to grasp on to what is real and possible, and leave the murk behind.  

Crunch

I stubbed my toe hard on Saturday morning. Really put a dent in the day's plans; we were all set to take a beautiful hike up on Mt. Hood. Blast that god-damned chair. We went up anyway, and I did not make it very far into the woods with my pulsating broken foot (it felt broken, at least). It made me really crabby all weekend long and the lady & I got into all sorts of terrible fights.

Many tears. Some yelling. All stupid.

So it's Monday, I'm at work, I'm enormously cranky and unsettled.

I think I need to figure out how not to drink. It exacerbates my depression and makes everything seem so epically dense and tragic. It makes my highs higher, and my lows lower. I need a little seratonin stabilization or I am going to rip this world a new one.

100 deep breaths per day.

*

I really like watching M.M. set stuff up in the apartment.  I'm consistently charmed by how smart and capable she is.

Lesbian homemakers, reluctantly.

Facebook Abuse and Stale Donuts.

Thank God, it's Friday.

M.M. lives with me; we live together, and it's smooth so far.  We had a brief disagreement over the placement of a corner shelf, but after some alone time, we got over it.

Walked to the carts at Greeley and Killingsworth,  had fat korean noodles.  Ate chocolate croissants and said hello to a chub-tailed young black cat.  Bought $6.00 rainbow beer, walked across a freeway, felt sunset, felt Friday, felt change and the holy winds up inside of my heart like a sad weeping song.

I've decided to live with the easel in the living room, after all.  I was going to put it in storage; I haven't used it in months.  But I was having some sort of intense separation anxiety... I'm 30; putting something away now has the significance of "okay.  I'm out of time on that.  I will never do that again."  Really!  You think I jest?  I do not!  I know that I'm just a baby, but I am scared.  I have too much unfinished business on my plate and it feels like some stuff will inevitably have to fade away for me to find focus.  I do not want my painting to be one of things, after all.  

Teeny Tiny

Well, a development has occurred.

M.M. and I are going to move in together; or rather, she is going to move into my one-bedroom apartment in N. Portland.

I love the apartment's location so much, and I feel pretty strongly that I never again want to take on a new landlord. The idea is that my sweetie and I live in this tiny apartment together with three cats and two bikes and lots of art-making equipment until the time comes when I can buy a house. I can save up a little extra change this way.

BUT, it signifies a big shift in my life; a very close/intimate cohabitation with someone by choice instead of necessity. We could have moved somewhere larger and more expensive, easy. No problem. But I love where I live and I want to make this work.

-------

Also, met with Millynn last night. It was a little different than I expected-- she is very bright and knows a lot about houses and all that good stuff, but on a personal level she was a little scattered. She had poked a stick through her eyeball (accidentally) and a friend was just getting out of the psych ward and in the mid-80's a sociopathic girlfriend screwed her out of a real estate deal, etc. But she likes pygmy goats and houses built in the 1920's, and i like both those things too. We'll continue to feel it out.

There's a totally run-down house across the street from Interstate Lanes (the bowling alley kitty-corner from Fat Cobra adult video) that, of course, has captured my imagination and I want Millynn to check on it and tell me all of the things that are wrong with it. And then, if I remain undaunted, I will look at it on Sunday after I complete my Homebuying 101 course.

I need to buy some bookcases.

Biked to St. John's today and napped in the grass at Cathedral Park, under the bridge.  

Attended a totally awkward picnic where I had to make small talk with someone who, gotta tell you, I just totally detest.  Gross!  Ew!  But it was fine and M.M. and I biked away and all was well.

St. John's would be a fine place to buy a home, I suppose.  The commute is a little forever, but it's nice out there... a fine and cliff-dwelling place to set my sights.

Meh to feelings.  My cat watches birds.

Saturday coffee and sounds of lawnmowers.  Or is it a weedwhacker?  

I'm reading a book by the National Association of REALTORS (their capital letters) telling me that I should probably be making $17,000 more per year (gross) before I start looking for a shitty 1-bedroom hovel in Gresham.

But I persist.  Today's plan includes looking for bookshelves on Craigslist and giving space to M.M. so that she can decide if she wants to move herself and her two cats into my 1-bedroom apartment.  It would be tight, but I'd save a bunch of money.  Life is imperfect and I'm kind of tired of searching for places to live.  I'd rather get rid of a bunch of my stuff and make room for someone else.  I love this neighborhood, this proximity to everything.  I want to live it out as much as possible.  

I would not be able to afford an inhabitable house anywhere around here, I don't think.  Far N Portland, like West/North of St. John's, is probably the closest thing I could afford.  This process really is going to force me away from my tendency for jealousy, otherwise I'll be jealous of all 12,000 houses between my current apartment and where I'll eventually live.  Jealousies like "oh you motherfucker, you fucking bought a house with your parent's money that you don't deserve".  I need to shut up with that business, because it does not bring Positive Energy into my life.

Positive Energy.  Drink another cup of coffee.  Meeting M.M. at the Alberta Arts Hop at 2 p.m., near Vita Cafe.  

Maybe I will get a hanging indoor plant or plant the sunflower seeds today. Must borrow shovel.

I'M GOING TO BUY A HOUSE.

I've decided that I really am going to buy a house.

I allow myself the fullest range of waffling on this decision, but hear me, right here right now:  Today is the official day that I officially begin my search.  

I called Millynn James, a local lesbian realtor whose MSRP search engine I've been secretly using for the past two years.  She sounds kinda gruff on the phone, but she laughed at my neurotic jokes, so that's a good sign.  We're going to meet in person on Tuesday, like a blind date that ends with a giant mortgage payment instead of marriage.

So what I'm thinking here is that I'm going to start using/writing this blog again, knowing that most likely no one in the universe is reading it, so that I have a stable place to pour out my day-to-day tragedies of the extensive and harrowing first-time home-buying process.  It's a way to validate and reify the fact that I am, indeed, throwing my "oh I might suddenly move to Germany" despondency to the wind and hunkering down to the possibility of homeownership.

M.M. is, of course, roped into all this.  Her grad school debt is so fucking epic that she would never be able to actually help me buy the place, but she can move in with me and help me pay rent.  And, AND, it should be noted because I am notoriously selfish, I am looking for a place with a nice yard so M.M. can raise chickens.  

Enough room for chickens, and no fucking granite countertops, for under $180,000, within walking distance of non-Starbucks coffee, West of 42nd and North of Alberta.  as long as I buy within the next seven months, I don't think that's too much to ask.

Famous last words.  I'll keep you posted.

Whadda couple of days

Wow, that was a busy weekend.

Working!

Oh man, I am so stoked. I have started painting again, and it is great. I am totally blaming it on turning 30; somehow, something has just 'clicked' with me and the oil paint, and what I'm producing is finally kind of matching up with my visions:I started this one as an exercise in painting 'the light of the eyes', though it has sort of turned into an exercise in 'sharing a tiny apartment with a giant scary doll head'.

All done in a 48-hour period! I am pretty pleased.

New & Improved!

Everything is about to change!*

*Regarding my internet presence. My genius girlfriend is working on an awesome new layout for my portfolio homepage, which will link to this blog... so I will probably be wiping some of the more "blah blah blah emotions emotions" entries in the next couple of days. In other words: Save humiliating pageviews while you still can!**

**Not really. Please don't.

Structure & choas

I've finally created a go-to pricing structure for my portraits. Parts of it feel so technical and arbitrary, but it's a necessary step in the Quest for Officialness.

Want a flower behind your daughter's ear? $25.00. Oh, the background needs to be striped wallpaper? That'll be an extra $70.00. Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted a dog somewhere in this mess? $200.00 extra, non-negotiable.

I will still be doing inebriated pen sketches on cocktail napkins gratis.

Brown.

I spent the first part of my life in this car. I think my sibling's resentment of me was planted when, on the 17-hour journeys to Salt Lake City, UT, they were forced to squeeze in the back seat with the large Igloo cooler while I luxuriated in a custom-made bed in the rear of the station wagon. I can't help it that my parents loved me best.

Oh, therapy.

Therapy is such a "me, me, me, blah blah blah me" deal. I tire of hearing my own voice droning on about the same issues I've had forever. My therapy lady, B., says I'm awesome and doing good work though, so I'll just trust her on that.

Digesting New York

I'm living my pretty normal life, day-to-day, since I got back from my Boston/New York trip. I had feared (feared!) New York City for YEARS, and finally worked up the chutzpah to visit. I spent most of the time navigating the city by myself based on some skeletal instructions extracted from my host each morning, and I did a pretty good job. I managed to find my way to A.) the Museum of Natural History, B.) MoMA, C.) PS1, D.) the Whitney, and E.) Islip, Long Island without getting super-lost or crying too much. By day 4 in NYC, though, I was totally overloaded with no space for contextualization, and I was kind of lonely. So I headed back to Boston to chill the heck out for a day or so.

I'm thinking that trip must have affected me in some deep, rhythm-altering way. Right? To spend years both terrified and obsessed with something, than to finally experience it... that has to epically change a person, right? But in trying to shake out the verbiage of these life lessons I've supposedly learned, I can only conclude:

1. New York is really big.

I need to go back lots more. I need to write about it lots more. I fell in love with so many things, so many artists, so many tiny little weird private things that I might not ever share. I like, but am still trepidatious about, New York at this point. I bought one of those "I heart New York" t-shirts though because, well, where else can you find a shirt for $3.00?

Personals

We all break up. But do we all post online personals? Let's be secretly honest about it.

I do, and I get some hilarious, brutal, and insane responses. It's amazing to cast your net out and see who's out there, lurking in the shadows.

That said, I'm staying in tonight to do laundry!

Oh Yeah!

I'm leaving for Boston and NYC on Friday night!!!

Woo HOO!

Sometimes the Snow Comes Down in March

There is much to be done. I have had my head up my ass for awhile, being generally self-indulgent and narcissistic.

Tonight I'm going to figure out all of my computer/video equipment issues; I'm going to clean the kitchen floor; I'm going to start making papier mache dove heads; I'm going to flesh out my art website; I'm going to settle on 30th birthday plans; I'm going to post another edited video to my Youtube bizness.

So, still narcissistic, but a little more productive.

It is now

This morning, this beautiful sun-filled birdsong morning, I realized that My Spring has arrived. Portland got one last dab of snow last week, and now we have entered the Prime. The magnolia tree in front of my house is beginning to fill its furry little bursting pods with embryonic flowers, and will soon look like this:I want onion rings.

Yes, I can do anything.

On Sunday, I skiied. For the first time. Ever. I ended up like this a lot, but only after I sped very very fast down the mountain with mind-shattering velocity:
There were secret flasks, sheer cliff faces and dense, chairlift-swallowing fog; a panic attack, German beer in a mountain hut, and 26 bushels of PURE KICK-ASS.

I'm pretty much obsessed with the whole experience now, and am making people look at my big purple leg bruise and feel my gigantic muscles: Which may be against the rules of being a Manager, but that's why I'm an anarchist.

GREAT SHOW, AWESOME JOB

Saw an incredible show tonight, compliments of friend tex. Swayed and rocked and giggled and drank black tea to the glorious sounds of Karl Blau and (Olympia band!) LAKE.
Totally smitten with the rythms of the universe right now, AND I want to get my ass in a band. STAT.

Can I just say?

I love my painting class. Our professor, each week without fail, brings us strudel and juice:


That's worth the tuition right there, honey!

And also

I am finding my center again. My center is covered in paint splotches and doesn't give a damn if anyone thinks I'm charming.

Playing catch-up to my own Awesome

Today I'm recovering from a painful fall at Gay Skate last night, adding six bruises to my already-estimable collection.

I've been a busy little honeybee for the last few weeks. My social calendar (in stunning contrast to my life as a bored 12-year-old) has experienced the recent phenomenon of filling up like a bucket under a waterfall, without me batting an eyelash.

Tonight, post-painting class, I help celebrate the final contract signing on good pal KT's Very First Home. We're all going to drink champagne in her furniture-free, mid-century bungalow in east Portland, feeling vaguely jealous of her home buying prowess and well-paying nursing job. I was taking random stabs at being a homeowner last year, going so far as to tour a few decrepit inner-city buildings with concrete yards, but the spirit (and winning lottery ticket) never quite found me. I think I still need to live on a few hippie queer communes before I'm ready to buy a 2-bedroom ranch in the suburbs.

Tomorrow, Rachael has made good on her promise to find something unique and abnormal for us to do on our happy hour friend date: The Oregon Council for the Humanities "Think & Drink" at Rontom's, with featured speaker John Frohnmayer. Frohnmayer was the chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts '89-'92 under Bush Sr., and ran for the US Senate last year as an Independent. I have lots of loud opinions on the N.E.A. and I tend to find that politicians are funnier when I'm drunk on rye whiskey & soda, so it will be an entertaining afternoon.

EDIT: Lovers are playing at some big arty shindig at Holocene, so that will be stop of the evening #2, with fewer old white men.

Friday is the veritable and life-affirming Cabaret with a Q at the Q Center (69 SE Taylor), the very last one to occur at the SE location before they move up to their new digs in the Mississippi neighborhood. G.G. the Delightful is allowing me to sing TWO songs that night, despite my ongoing problem with controlling the VOLUME OF MY VOICE. I scream my way through "Suddenly Seymour" as though popping a blood vessel in my forehead were the point of the entire evening.

Saturday afternoon is a work party for the relocation of the aforementioned Q Center, then upon nightfall R & myself (and maybe DJ Wizbang) are going to see Angela Davis give a lecture at Reed College. I'm anxious to hear her talk about the Prison Industrial Complex and the alternate universe where we're able to eradicate incarceration; it will be an absolutely riveting night (if we're able to nab seats), and I will have to go out dancing afterwards to deal with all the spazz energy that will no doubt ensue.
I love my friends, I love my life, I love you. Over and out for now.

"I just shouted OH MY GOD at my work desk"

Just wanted to make sure everyone knew about the Cakewreck blog, where you can find treasures like this:

Burning all 3 ends of my candle

It's been a hell of a week. I have not been on the best behavior. But I have LIVED. And harrassed strangers at the nickel arcade after single-handedly polishing off a bottle of cheap shiraz. Ha ha... ha? Maybe grandma mel needs to dry out for a little bit. Or not. It is V-Day weekend, after all.

Last night was the best "Hole in my Soul" EVER. Shannon and Casey (a.k.a. Beyonda) are like DJ clockwork. Their sets commingled with eachother perfectly, and an intense energy was vibrating in the air... I have NEVER seen Rotture that packed by 11 p.m. Everybody on the dance floor was clapping very fast all together at one point during one of Shannon's songs, and I just started bawling like a toddler. It was beautiful. I'm super proud and super happy for the woman, and I think it's so exciting that the two of them are working together, finally. It's been a long time coming.

Tonight I get to see Bitch & Lovers at the Mississippi Pizza Pub. I used to live with one of the hotties from Lovers, and can't wait to see them play. It's gonna be wicked fun. I think I even get to have a cocktail beforehand.

Saturn Return Performativity

Well, it's official.


I'll be dusting off the old Jazz Hands and performing a piece with Cattitudes, one of Portland's premiere ironic/non-ironic post-drag troupes.We'll be up in Seattle on April 3rd and 4th, as part of a Prince-themed show led by the Von Foxies (Miss Exotic World Best Troupe 2007!). It will be rad, and I am totally stoked, so you should definitely check that shizz out.

High on Art

Balloon Tank by Hans Hermert

I was joking with someone about how part of My Life at the Party Store involves indulging various artist's conceit that they are the First Person Ever to incorporate balloons into art.

Though I enjoyed the truthful snarkiness of this comment, it's stimulated me to research and compile a list of all the artists I can find who have, in fact, incorporated balloons into their art, and what they have to say about it.

So begins a new project for the day, with results to be posted as a blog edit later on.

Saturday well spent

Today I spent most of the day inside, getting some stuff done.

Then, Nancy's birthday evening. Went to pirate-themed blacklight mini-golf downtown, got bored fast, moved everyone to my favorite locale for Long Island Iced Teas, Republic Cafe in Chinatown. Ordered two. Ran into Ricky Lee a.k.a. Elvis, who is now motorized-scooter-bound, at the bar.

Spun out with the remains of the day. Barely functional. A good, good thing.

Home sweet Homo

This evening I traveled across the Columbia River to my exotic hometown of Vancouver, WA. , on a videographer's mission. My father directed a local production of Noel Coward's Fallen Angels, and asked me to tape it. Done and done!

After spending 45 minutes on I-5, hungry as sin, and the play starting in 45 minutes, I plopped into Little Italy Trattoria (where they have real powdered parmesan cheese to sprinkle on your food) for some pasta and $4 wine. Got crabby about DV tapes, drank a little more, ran through Esther Short Park to the theater. On time and in style!

Now, the Old Slocum House Theater is not just any theater. It's also a house. Built in 1849, it was moved to its current location in 1966 and the old parlor and dining room were converted into an intimate 60-seat theater. With chandeliers and everything. I grew up in this theater, as my dad had started doing shows there shortly before I was born. A typical day as a child was school, babysitter, McDonald's, Slocum House.

The house/theater was originally situated like so: props & sets in the basement; theater, lobby, and kitchen on the main floor; dressing rooms, costume storage, and rehearsal rooms on the second floor. Sometimes, when I was left to my own devices during particularly harrowing rehearsals for Chekhov plays, I would sneak into the third floor, which was an attic space that led to the widow's walk. I would have to carefully sneak across the floor, pull down the attic stairs, climb up soundlessly, and close the stairs behind me. About ten years ago the third floor kind of collapsed into the building, which I'm pretty sure is my fault.

The play was funny and good, everyone did a great job. It's really a crap shoot with the community theater productions. I'm fairly unwilling to seriously consider how many 3-hour chunks of my life I will never get back. But this is one three-hour chunk I'm happy to have spent. Awesome show, great job guys!

Then I came home to try and download all that video, and was faced (metaphorically) with this:


So now I'm going to drink some illegal Codeine cough syrup, pass out, and pretend like none of this ever happened. JUST LIKE A REAL ACTRESS.

Waving Hello Again

It's been so long, and I forgot I even had this blog. Here it is, still loving me after so many months of neglect.

I've flown on two different buying/business trips in the last month (January), and boy are my arms (and legs and feet and brain cells) tired. It will be awhile (at least four more days) until I'm ready to see the inside of an airplane cabin again.

I purchased somewhere around $500,000 in costume & wig-related merchandise for my store, including three (3) models of the Big Gay Tinky-Winky seen to the left. I'm taking a big chance on you, Portland... I'm trusting that you are, in fact, the middle-school-humoured drunks that I've assumed you to be for all these years. I've done all of this for you.

It really was a great couple of shows. It puts me in an alternate universe where rubbing elbows with gold-chained lotharios from New Jersey and accepting free Drambuie on the rocks all makes Good Business Sense. It's magical. So I stay in my fancy hotel room, get some complimentary slippers, meet some Canadian costume store owners, then come back to Portland to live my life. Nothing too traumatic or skeevy, and I've built a shit-ton of character.

The first trip was to Fabulous Las Vegas, NV, which becomes slightly less fabulous when it's your third trip there in twelve months. I sometimes long for the days of late 2007, when I had not yet set foot in Sin City, and it remained a glittering mystery in the Western desert.


No Tom Jones concert at the MGM or 42-oz. daiquiris for me this time around; it was strictly business. With a Star Trek-themed opening banquet. JEALOUS?

I know. The life of the Party Store Manager.


Trip #2 was to Houston, TX. Yep, Houston, TX. I felt like a special princess whose life-long dream was finally coming true. Lucky for me, to add to the already tumbling heap of excitement I had over this trip, a friend was able to hook me up with some valuable Texas "do's" & "dont's". I'm not sure if I listened properly or followed through, but I had a great time. Mostly based on room service with beer, and grind-dancing on the president of one of the Major Costume Companies. To "Single Ladies".

Thank you and Goodnight! I'll be here all week! More to come.

Drunk and happy, wearing boots

Lord, a Friday post-vacation. I have a painting due on deadline, and a lack of desire to eat vegetables. Calling friend Jenny to wish a happy birthday.

Today is the day I finally was able to pick a name for my blog, and subsequently START my blog: Fight or Flight. The biological response of animals to acute stress, boxing vs. birding, My Life.
I don't know exactly what will happen here... usual mix of pictures, writing, ranting, and so on. With the comforting blanket of serene anonymity.

I was inspired to finally do this due to the following immediate factors:

1. Torn about quitting a large project I've been working on
2. Fearing my girlfriend's disappointment in me
3. Many, many capsules of valerian/skullcap/hops washed down with wine/whiskey
4. Browsing fruitlessly for mysterious, hidden beach houses under the Portland Craigslist "Real Estate For Sale" heading

So, addressing #4, I must create my own serene place here on the webs, simultaneously hoping that: (a) someone takes interest and reads it and alerts me to the fact that I'm a genius and (b) that my words can safely dissolve into the ether, and I can rest.

I was going to gesso a large hand-built canvas this evening, but I lost my nerve... and forgot to buy a gesso brush. Important element of the gesso process.... otherwise you get those lines, the hard-edged paintbrush lines. Like painting on outdoor lattice.

Should I blog about George & Glenn's wedding portrait? Yes, probably. I am painting George & Glenn's wedding portrait, due in less than a month. It is going to be beautiful. We are sort of making it "together", as George purchased all materials for and helped build the canvas.

I will take it easy on this one... take time on the underpainting, not get nervous... research the colors, pay attention to over-application on the paint thickness. I will do great. There will be so many translucent, shimmering glazed colors, I will be stunned at my own genius.

And there is entry #1, just as good a first entry as I could have hoped for. Here's to many more.

--M