I am Icarus. And the sun just melted the glue that was holding my shit together.

I've kind of had a day. The kind for which there is no remedy other than just going to bed early and hoping I wake up happier tomorrow. These days used to really freak me out, now I just take them in stride, because life is full of small disappointments and unreasonable off-days. They are few and far between and nothing to get super depressed over.

Today was not a running day. Those days are always euphoric for me. Completing a run is the best drug ever - your body pulses with endorphins and that happy, achey achievement feeling. Yesterday I ran 11 miles with Bekah, so today I'm not running.

Today has been a reflective day. I've been thinking about all the ways I've disappointed myself in the last chunk of my life.

Most recently I am feeling a little inadequate at work. I wanted this job and now that I have it I just feel like I have little direction and little natural inclination toward it. Like maybe I'm a better editor than I am a writer.

And then I reach farther back and think about this time last year, when I talked with Tante Linda on the phone and she got online and looked for plane tickets for me and begged me to come visit. And I had taken that worthless holiday sales position with Williams Sonoma, the one that ate up my weekends and prevented me from traveling home, but netted me only $200 in the end. And I think she was crying on the phone, because Uncle Jeff was sick and I moved here and the family was far flung. And it's always bothered me that people don't visit their friends and family when they're sick. They wait until the person is dead and then attend their funeral. When it makes absolutely no difference to anyone except the ones left behind. But I did that. All my high and holy opinions, all my good intentions, like when I thought I'd fly home for Anika's graduation, which I also didn't do. Uncle Jeff died a few short weeks after that, and I could've gone.

And if I go back a little farther, to the last death that rocked my world, I think about all the things I said to Opa in the hospital the day he died. All the things I promised him I'd do. But it wasn't a conversation, it was a soliloquy, because he was in a coma and didn't hear a word I said. Why didn't I say those things to him five days earlier, when we sat on the couch together and he was well and wanting to talk and pour out the last of his grandfatherly wisdom?

I'm not feeling sorry for myself and I'm not on a compliments fishing expedition. I fully intend on going to bed in a little bit and just starting over tomorrow. I just am recording this to remind myself of what regret can feel like in retrospect, to hopefully prevent myself from feeling like this again in the future.

Also bumming me out right now:

1. my land lady might be selling the house that I live in and love, meaning that any way you look at it I'll have to move, again, and I may, in the meantime, have to deal with all that goes along with having a house on the market. Again.

2. the family that my friends and I are "hosting" Christmas for needs $32K for a kidney transplant that they probably won't be able to get. And they have infant triplets. And three other kids.

3. the Trailblazers suck this year.

4. the song The Sickness Unto Death by Typhoon

5. no matter how much I vacuum, there is still dog hair tumbleweeds rolling around my bedroom floor.

I wrote this after my uncle died. I have to edit this one a bit because I say things that are potentially very hurtful to people that I love, just not as much as I loved my uncle. And also because some parts are very gross. And also because it's pages long and I don't want to type it all out. And also because some grief ought to be kept to ones self. I won't edit out the expletives though, so pardon them.

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

I haven't written. I don't really know what to say. I'm so . . . forlorn? I'm heartbroken, for sure, but in a new way that makes me feel so old. It's hard to explain. Mom and I walked down to the Loyola campus one evening when we were in Roger's Park, we tried to talk about it. I feel like there is a unique sadness people experience when someone they love dies. They feel pain in a way no one else does. Because we all experience the people we love differently. I love Daddy in a totally different way than Victoria does, for instance. I don't love him more or less, but differently, so if he were to die we'd experience it in completely different ways. I was trying to express this to mom and at the same time figure out what my sadness was. And I thought about when Opa died and how angry I became when some priest came in and tried to pray over his dead body. God, I was livid! And heart broken. And Uncle Jeff led me out to the hallway and just held me while I sobbed and slobbered all over his shirt. Ad it was a simple act of solidarity and human compassion and the recognition that people need to be touched when their hearts are falling apart inside them. He didn't ask any questions when I needed him to pull over to let me puke on the side of the road on the way to the hospital that day. He didn't try to force food down my throat in the coming weeks when I lost my appetite. And now . . .

I learned so much about Uncle Jeff while I was at home. I'd had no idea he was so well respected within his profession in Chicago. I only knew him to a very limited extent, apparently. I regret now turning down a ticket to go with him to a Decemberists show. I regret not ever taking him up on his offer to play racquetball with me. I regret not asking him more about his faith and life story and family story.

And now anything I learn about him will have to come from someone else. And I'll never again have the opportunity to go to a Decemberists show with him. But I'm thankful for the times I did say 'yes' to their invitations. All the times we went to Michigan together, all the ballets and symphonies, etc. And I miss him more now than I loved him while he was alive, which should tell me something about regret.

All that said, I think what really, really gets me is what T. Linda is going through. I keep remembering this conversation I had with her and Uncle Jeff when we were on our way somewhere together. Some ladies she works with wanted to get together once a month for various cultural events. Se said she went once and wanted so many times to turn to Jeff and comment on somthing and he wasn't there. She never went out with that group again. She said she would just rather spend her time with Jeff. And he chimed in and said, 'I feel the same way. She's my best friend. Why would I want to spend time with someone else doing the things she and I love?'

Because Alek and Anika will recover. Alek is in (by all accounts) a really happy, healthy relationship and he has Princeton in the fall. Ani has that amazing group of friends. And she's young and she'll be scarred for a while, but she'll fall in love and get distracted with figuring out what she wants in life and I just imagine that when all that happens, when Alek becomes the immense success he's destined to become and Ani grasps what makes her tick and runs with it . . . when that happens I imagine Linda wanting to crawl into bed and never get out again.

We shoveled dirt onto his coffin. Rabbi Bruce said at the grave site, 'This is a mitzvah, probably the hardest mitzvah we're called to do.' And in turns we shoveled dirt onto his coffin after they lowered it into the ground. And then everyone left and we stayed and watched as a dump truck full of dirt backed up to the grave and filled the hole the rest of the way. Then the gravediggers came with these jackhammer looking things that pounded the earth down.

Death is so disgusting. It terrifies me. What the fuck happens to us when we die? Our spirits vanish. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I do believe that our essences leave our bodies when we exhale for the last time. Where do they go? In my mind's drama I make it to Chicago to say goodbye to Uncle Jeff before he dies. I sit next to his hospital bed and whisper in his ear, 'If you go anywhere after this, can you find a way to let me know?' And he nods. I tell him I love him and say good bye.

And coming home from Chicago and the 4th of July weekend, a holiday I often spent with Linda and Jeff when I was a kid, I just feel guilty for every smile and laugh. I feel a strange obligation to be sad forever. And everything I say to T. Linda sounds so stupid! There really are no original words to use. And I'm trying to decide how to refer to it. Did he die? Did he pass? I hate when people refer to other people as 'passing' or having 'passed.' It's a euphemism really. Because they didn't go anywhere. It's not like they're on to the next thing. Call a fucking spade a spade. He's dead. He died.

I have this weird tug of war going on inside me. On the one hand I feel this renewed dedication to carpe-ing my diems, and really just going gang-busters. Living loud. Doing things. Pursuing my various and sundry interests and dedicating my life's efforts to someone who lived an exemplary, albeit abbreviated life. But on the other hand I want to crawl in bed and just sleep. For a very, very long time. Sleep and think this thing into oblivion. Or maybe just ignore it entirely. Erase it. Smoke a lot of pot.

Because god, this was shaping up to be a really great year. Work is good, friendships are solid, I feel on top of my game. Thriving in my youth. I am Icarus and the fucking sun just melted the glue that was holding my shit together.

It's a completely fucked up and horrible thing to say, but why couldn't that have been -? Or -? Fuck - I would trade -, -, -, -, all of them. To one tragic car accident. If I could just have Uncle Jeff back. I imagine lives to be like baseball cards. Some are just worth more than others. And what you want to keep in your collection are the valuable ones. I feel like a really valuable baseball card was just yanked from my collection."

I am putting an end to this depressive rant. I have said my piece. Or is it "said my peace?" Or is it an expression that is meant to have a double meaning? But never written? I don't know. I don't care all that much either.

Things that will improve my life this week:

1. the Blazer's game I'm going to tomorrow night. They're playing the Suns, who are my third favorite team in the NBA, so the outcome will be pleasing any way it happens.

2. everything I'm going to accomplish at work tomorrow. Namely, putting the finishing touches on the three grant drafts I am currently working on.

3. my next run. And the team trainings that start on Saturday morning.

Other random potentials that could improve my week:

1. seeing a really large man with lots of tattoos walking an absurdly small dog. This always makes me smile. If not laugh out loud.



2. scoring tickets to the Portland Cello Project collaboration show happening next weekend. (With Typhoon as guests!)

3. that Salomon cold weather running hoodie going on special at REI.

4. oh, and you donating to my cause. Go here. http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani

So Thankful

I went on a Thanksgiving run yesterday morning before heading over to spend the day cooking and eating with some friends. The roads and sidewalks were pretty sketchy due to some early season cold weather here, so I decided to hit the track at Grover Cleveland High School rather than one of my other go to routes. Turns out, running on a track is almost as boring as running on a treadmill! So to pass the time on my quick 4-miler, I decided to start chronicling my blessings in my mind. I ran around and around that track, changing lanes after each one to keep track of my distance, counting all the things I was thankful for. I enjoyed it so much, this may become a thanksgiving tradition for me. My list:

1. My family. This has been a sad year for us, but we've grown so close as a result of Uncle Jeff's death. I love them beyond description.

2. My Portland "family". Which is growing and becoming that elusive friend group that I've always wished for. They are so great.

3. My Sunny, who loves to sleep on top of my smelly running clothes, with her nose right close to the socks. (snapped this picture yesterday morning)



4. My job! And the general direction my organization is moving in, the positive folks I work with, the beautiful place we're dedicated to.

5. John Muir and what he did for wild places in this country and by extension, the example set by the US of forming national parks, since then adopted by much of the rest of the world in places that would otherwise surely meet their demise.

6. The rain in Portland, that although it becomes depressing come April and May when all I wish for in the world is sunshine, makes this place what it is and what I love, a lush, green paradise full of waterfalls and tall trees.

7. Portland, in general, which is easily the coolest place I've even been. And I get to live here.

8. Music. In particular Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine and, of course, The Punch Brothers.

9. The genius of Mark Twain, who continues to delight readers and afficionados of his work by stipulating in his will that his memoirs not be released until 100 years after his death. 2010 was a great year for bibliophiles like myself.

10. My home and the fact that I refer to it as "home" rather than "house." My wonderful roommates and the peaceful feeling I get when I walk in the door after a day of work or play elsewhere. It's a haven, for sure.

11. My health, which is spotty at best at times, but has overall held strong in the last couple years and allows me to think about things like extended travels and taking on big responsibilities without worrying about dropping out due to major illness.

12. My legs. Weird, I know. But my favorite things in life, walking, hiking and running, are all made possible by these amazing appendages that get me where I want to go with very few complaints.

13. Art and the way it continues to inspire and delight me. My membership to the Portland Art Museum and the opportunities I have to visit and relish in other people's genius.

I could go on, because in the time it took me to run 4 miles at that track I didn't run out of things to add to the list in my mind. I've decided that in general, this is a great way to pass the time while running and I'd like to make it a habit. I bet my longer runs, too, could be filled to the last stride with thankfulness.

Post run, I cleaned up and headed to my friends, Ian & Sasha's, to spend the day cooking, drinking and eating (starting with raw oyster shooters and white wine for breakfast - delicious!). And, have you heard the hype about deep fried turkey? It's every bit and more delicious than you've heard! I was just a little bit hoping to have need of the fire extinguisher we had on the deck next to the huge pot of bubbling peanut oil, but Ian had things under control and the whole day, from the time I arrived at 11 a.m. to the time I left 12 hours later, was packed full of laughter, good conversation, plenty of booze and the tastiest food one could hope for.

So, long post short, I'm feeling so blessed right now. So thrilled to be undertaking this huge endeavor I've talked about for so long, so lucky to have the support of friends along the way, so relieved to have a four day weekend! My Team In Training training officially starts a week from tomorrow and I'll finally meet my teammates and coach. My first batch of holiday cards are in the post and will be making their way into mailboxes all over the country (and world, actually, with several headed to Germany as I type) in the next several days. But should you not be a family member on this list, you can still be involved. My fundraising page can be found here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani Give generously, people, tis the season!

In a nutshell:

Now playing on my iPod: Sufjan's Christmas albums, burned for me by my Uncle Jeff three Christmases ago. He loved those albums despite the fact that he didn't celebrate Christmas.

Reading: Great House by Nicole Krauss.

Looking forward to: December 19th, 9:30 p.m. when I walk out of the airport in St. Louis, MO to be met by my mom and dad and the ensuing chaos that is Christmas with the Oldani family.

WWJMD?

I am happy to report that my shin splints are gone! I rested a whole 8 days (minus a couple hikes) and hit the pavement again on Saturday, making a gigantic loop from OMSI up to the Steel Bridge and across, then down along Tom McCall Park, along the West Bank Esplanade, past OHSU, through Willamette River Front Park, then across the Sellwood Bridge and back to OMSI via the Springwater Corridor Trail.

By my sister's calculations (she has one of those cool watch/foot thingy combos that both track your mileage and speed) this is about 10 miles. Which gave me a lot of time to think. Foremost on my mind on this particular fine Saturday morning was my Opa and how he would be 90 years old tomorrow if he were still alive, buying an old barn and converting it into a house and wood working studio, how Sunny could've come running with me if her hips weren't worthless and every now and then, "Hmmm, does anything hurt?" -full body scan for pain, then- "Nope! I'm good! This is the best I've felt on a run . . . well, ever!"

It took me an hour and forty-five minutes, which is a little disappointing, but I'm hoping my Team In Training coach will be able to work with me on pace. I want to go fast! And I don't want to kill myself doing it!

In other news: I met with my team leader this week for some face to face/fundraising strategizing time. She's great. She gave me all kinds of tips. So prepare yourselves - I am about to blow up your inbox with annoying e-mails begging for money! I might even throw a benefit kegger at some point (I thought for sure LLS would frown on this, but turns out, folks fighting cancer like beer too!). I'm digesting all the suggestions right now, I'm going to see how well my family plea goes over and then I'll assess the need again after the holidays.

In other news yet: I talked with a colleague of mine about running on Friday (Colleague? That makes me sound too important. We'll go with it!) and he has offered to show me the ropes of the Forest Park Trails! This is an area of Portland I've long wanted to explore on foot, but I've always shied away from, thinking that experienced trail runners/bad-asses would scoff at my measly 6 mph on-a-good-day-and-flat-surface pace and blow by me, all the while thinking to themselves, "You don't belong here! Go put on a pink hoodie and run on a treadmill with the rest of the not-made-for-trails wimps!" (Again with the pink - there is a deep rooted issue here!)

But, I recently gave up my gym membership. This seems like an unwise thing to do, considering I'm training for a marathon, but I was having a conversation with a friend that somehow turned to gyms and he was shocked/disappointed that I belonged to one. "Kristina, no! What would John Muir do? He certainly wouldn't run on a treadmill!" And I'll tell you something, I took that to heart. Because John Muir is my dead guy crush and I would never want to disappoint him and also because my Runner's World says that running on a treadmill isn't a close enough simulation to real, on the ground running to be effective for training.

So I'm going to take my colleague up on his offer and hit the trails of Forest Park some fine weekend. I might even throw in some trail runners' lingo if I'm not hoovering wind too badly. "Man, I got some serious chub rub going on!" (Yes, Bekah, there is a word for it!) Or perhaps if I'm feeling sprightly near the finish line, I'll sprint passed and yell, "Dude! You just got chicked!" Which, by the way, didn't go over so well with one female reader, who wrote in a letter to the editor this month, "Including the phrase "getting chicked" as need-to-know vocabulary legitimizes the idea that women are inferior to men that that getting passed by a woman is something to be embarrassed about. [It is] offensive." I thought it was funny. Oops.

So on this beautiful Sunday morning, while lying in bed with the lingering scent of my new golden cypress candle still in the air, I thought to myself, "What would John Muir do?" I didn't come up with anything brilliant, but I did decide to take an amble through the woods. My hike today brought my weekend mileage total to 23. I think John would be proud.


In a Nutshell:

I have sore hip-flexors, but otherwise, I'm good. It's 9:30 now and I'm going to bed! I'm burning that cypress scented candle and with any luck I'll dream about John Muir tonight!

Oh, also, only five days left of pumpkin smoothies at Burgerville. Get them while they're hot (?).

Sidelined

I haven't run since Thursday. I've been sidelined with the shin splints from hell. Friday, while hiking around in the Opal Creek Wilderness, I noticed that my left leg was pretty sore and achy. By yesterday morning it was just plain painful. This is pretty much what my weekend has looked like since:

I picked up a couple bags of frozen peas from the grocery store on my way home from the Portland Art Museum yesterday and have had one or the other strapped to my leg with an ace bandage ever since. On the up side, it's given me a chance to write the Christmas cards - purchased at the art museum and hitting mail boxes next week - that will beg support for my marathon from my family.

While cleaning out some boxes in my closet today, in search of thank you cards to send my supporters, I came across my journal from last year. I remembered distinctly writing about Uncle Jeff's leukemia when it was first diagnosed and was curious to see what I'd said. Here's what I found, unedited, forgive my ignorance:


October 25th, 2009

A while ago I was watching "Brothers and Sisters" and Kitty was diagnosed with cancer and the thought came to me, (and it's horrible and I hope no one ever reads this) "I wish I had cancer. What a great way to get some real perspective. All my ridiculous, petty unhappiness would vanish under the enormity of being faced with my mortality." Yikes. So I've been, in the back of my mind, trying to prioritize my life ever since. What do I waste precious thoughts on? What do I allow myself to become preoccupied with?

December 7th, 2009

On October 25th I admitted to "wishing" for cancer in some inane capacity believing it would render a carpe diem mentality, unshakable, that would catapult me into an entirely new phase in life (but not of course without first having a dramatic brush with death that would garner lots and lots of otherwise unsolicited attention) in which I succeeded in fulfilling all my less practical ambitions, ones that in this reality (the non-cancer one) just seem like pipe dreams.

Well, I sincerely hope that my wish did not in some way affect reality somehow - the Friday before Thanksgiving we got word that Uncle Jeff has leukemia. And I am not okay. Actually, the strange thing is, life is going on. I'm still trying to live by the principles of positive affirmations, both for myself, and now for Uncle Jeff, although I'm not sure how I can finagle things to positively think things into someone else's reality.

He's not well. He's been in the hospital since Thanksgiving, so ill and weak that he can't feed himself. He's on round two of chemo, which will end with tomorrow's treatment, but Aunt Linda told me today they'll be in the hospital for a few weeks more according to the doctors. Linda's taken a leave of absence from work and spends her days in the hospital with him. They've been so close for years, really to the exclusion of other friends, and Linda told Mom that if Jeff dies she'll have no one. And this breaks my heart and makes it soar at the same time. It breaks because while Uncle Jeff is miserable now, I fear Linda, if she ends up alone after having to muster patience and joy while caring for him while he's dying will be utterly broken. It soars because they are proof that what I long for is possible - a relationship so close that you need no one else.

Alek apparently has a better idea than Ani of the severity of the situation. He looks things up and researches and worries and if I know Alek at all, probably feels a huge amount of the most excruciating sympathy that borders on guilt.

Ani is trying to finish her semester and just wants to hear that he's doing okay when she checks in. And I understand that too. Because what will worrying do for her? It will make her perform poorly in her finals, make her not want to complete her last semester beginning in January.

I wish I were still in Chicago so I could clean their apartment and collect their mail and cook for Aunt Linda when she doesn't stay with the Stewarts.

Family is so precious to me and I have such a love for Uncle Jeff, especially after how wonderful he was when Opa died - I'll never forget that. Or how supportive he was when I lived a few blocks from them. Why do people move so far away from their families?

I'm sure everyone has a story like this. Death is a universal experience. Everyone knows someone who has battled with, won or lost, against cancer. And blood cancers are some of the deadliest. So here it comes again - The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society aims to cure blood cancers! That's an ambitious goal and I've really grappled with my own cynicism since signing up for this program. Do I even believe there is a cure for cancer? But there is - I have to just believe that, and I have to believe that my involvement in this small capacity will make a difference.

And did I mention that if you donate to my fundraising efforts you will receive a card, snail-mail delivered in Kristina font, chock-a-block full of effusive thanks, gratitude and unsolicited flattery? I brag about few things, but Kristina font is pretty stellar. Your card might look something like this:


front


inside

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to swap out pea bags and take some ibuprofin and call it a night. Thanks for your support.

You can give online here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani

In a Nutshell:

I am still pumped, despite this set-back

Listening to It'll Happen, also a Punch Brothers song, and a very good one at that - timely, considering my current frustration.


Feeling sore, yet satisfied.

I'm Running A Marathon

First of all, friends, meet my fundraising page :
http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani

And don't laugh - I am already out on the mean streets of Portland several days a week kickin' ass and tearing up the pavement! A full 26.2 miles still seems a long way off, but I'm killing 8, 9, 10 and feeling really good. So with the 6ish months I have left before my May 1st event I think I will be more than ready.

I'm devoting my blog (which frankly was doomed to failure from the get go) to my training and fundraising and ultimately my completion of this event. I will then check back in from Virginia Beach, where I plan to go lie in the warm sand and celebrate Cinco de (Drink-o) Mayo with my sister when it's all over with.

My last blog post was about losing my Uncle Jeff. This past summer was hard - I spent a good deal of it grappling with my own mortality, grieving for my aunt and cousins, grieving for myself and trying to figure out a way to "make it better." I wrote then that I wanted to run this marathon. I put it out there in writing because I was afraid I wouldn't do it if I didn't broadcast it to the world (meaning all 7 of my blog followers). But I never lost interest. And a couple weeks ago I finally, officially, joined the NW Team in Training, slapped my $50 registration fee on the counter, and started tracking my miles.

Oh - and I went on an ill-advised gear binge, but I find buying fancy-pants schwag the best way to stay motivated in athletic endeavors. I am now the proud owner and wearer of a great pair of running tights, several ridiculously expensive pairs of running socks, and a smattering of sweat wicking tops with ranging sleeve lengths. I also have my eye on a really sweet cold weather running hoodie by Salomon. It's $110. And I forfeited Christmas presents in exchange for a plane ticket home. So this will probably round out the aforementioned gear binge.

http://www.rei.com/product/801532

I feel fairly entitled to this spree as the entirety of my training will be in the cold, wet months. Today's run was a particularly wet and cold one - a six mile out and back from my house to NE Fremont and back again.

Oh, and another reason I feel okay about buying that Salomon hoodie - it's white. And I read in all the magazines that one should wear light colored clothing when running outdoors in the dark (which 9 times out of 10 is what I do), but riddle me this all you gear designing geniuses - why is all running gear BLACK!?

Okay - so to sum all of this up, give me money. Also, feel free to buy me stuff that I can run in. And don't try to be cute and buy me hot pink running tights. There is a limit to my desperation and I draw it at all things pink.

In a Nutshell:

I am currently suffering from a really bad stomach ache due to the giant mocha I downed while sitting here in Crema, my coffee shop of choice, writing this post.

Listening to all Punch Brothers, all the time. I pretend to have diverse tastes in music, but I really listen to bluegrass pretty exclusively.

But I don't listen to music when I'm running. I am a bad-ass, through and through.

You might fancy
I sure do.

Heavy Boots

My Uncle Jeff died a month ago today of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The last time I saw him was at Starved Rock in October when I was home visiting for a wedding. We snapped this photo in the lodge. Mom didn’t use the flash, so it’s a little fuzzy. I’m really glad I didn’t delete it, because I thought about it.


I just reread Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Here’s what I came away with this time:

“'So do you have a card for my dad?’

‘Thomas Schell, right!’

‘Right.’

He went to the S drawer and pulled it halfway out. His fingers ran through the cards like the fingers of someone much younger than 103.

‘Sorry, nothing!’

’Could you double check?’

His fingers ran through the cards again. He shook his head, ‘Sorry!’

‘Well, what if a card is filed in the wrong place?’

‘Then we’ve got a problem!’

‘Could it be?’

‘It happens occasionally! Marilyn Monroe was lost in the index for more than a decade! I kept checking under Norma Jean Baker, thinking I was smart, but completely forgetting she was born Norma Jean Mortenson!’

‘Who’s Norma Jean Mortenson?’

‘Marilyn Monroe!’

’Who’s Marilyn Monroe?’

‘Sex!’

‘Do you have a card for Mohammed Atta?’

‘Atta! That one rings a bell! Lemme see!’

He opened the A drawer. I told him, ‘Mohammed is the most common name on earth.’ He pulled out a card and said, ‘Bingo!’

Mohammed Atta: War

I sat down on the floor. He asked what was wrong.

’It’s just that why would you have one for him and not one for my dad?’

‘What do you mean!’

‘It isn’t fair.’

‘What isn’t fair!’

‘My dad was good. Mohammed Atta was evil.’

‘So!’

’So my dad deserves to be in there!’

‘What makes you think it’s good to be in here!’

’Because it means you’re biographically significant.’

‘And why is that good!’

‘I want to be significant.’

‘Nine out of ten significant people have to do with money or war!’

But still, it gave me heavy, heavy boots. Dad wasn’t a Great Man, not like Winston Churchill, whoever he was. Dad was just someone who ran a family jewelry business. Just an ordinary dad. But I wished so much, then, that he had been Great. I wished he’d been famous, famous like a movie star, which is what he deserved. I wished Mr. Black had written about him, and risked his life to tell the world about him, and had reminders of him around his apartment.

I started thinking: if Dad were boiled down to one word, what would it be? Jeweler? Atheist? Is copyeditor one word?”

My friend sent me this link while we were discussing the existential crisis that sprouted from recent events in my family’s and my life:

http://www.teamintraining.org/

I’m putting it here because by doing so, I’ll be obligated to do something to help me make sense of this. It won’t just be a good idea that sits and festers in my head, like most of my good ideas. People will know about it and expect some follow through.

Of interest:

http://blogs.vocalo.org/feder/2010/06/publicity-club-of-chicago-renames-award-for-jeff-bierig/27827

http://legacy.suntimes.com/obituaries/chicagosuntimes/obituary.aspx?n=jeffrey-david-bierig&pid=143756286&fhid=2004

http://haveaheartfarm.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-memory-of-jeffrey-bierig.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/obituaries/ct-met-630-bierig-obit-20100629,0,264439.story

http://www.thethirdcity.org/blog/benny-jay/uncategorized/benny-jay-jeff-bierig/



In short:

I discovered today: I’m really, really homesick. For Michigan, not Illinois.

Current musical obsession: Broken Bells. James Mercer + DJ Danger Mouse = brilliant.

Looking forward to: All family, all August long.

My life, in a nutshell: Disappointing.

On the Brilliance of High Fidelity and Organizational Faux Pas

You may or may not know this about me, but I am obsessed with the ways in which people construct their homes. In particular, what they choose to fill them with. Structures and spaces are all well and good, but speaking as a 20-something non-profit employee and all that implies, I don’t anticipate owning a home, well, ever. So structural niceties are always an added bonus, but I’ve learned to focus on the filling, because the vehicle is liable to change every 12 months.

There’s this wonderful website. Do you know about it? www.apartmenttherapy.com. I believe the original mission of the folks at AT was to provide a forum for renters, whose spaces will never grace the pages of Better Homes & Gardens, to share their decorating triumphs, challenges and queries. I first turned to AT when I lived in Chicago and was not allowed to paint the walls of my otherwise super cool apartments. What does one do to own a space they don’t own? I am now fully addicted to this website. I peruse it daily, paying special attention to the spacious, built-in abundant, hard wood floored, light boxes that are apartments in Chicago, as well as the amazing Danish design that crops up over and over on the house tours.

Keeping in mind that I love seeing what’s going on in the design world, particularly as it pertains to other YFBs (young, fabulous and broke), I’m noticing a few trends that run the gamut of ridiculous to just plain tacky. One that I find particularly egregious.

I’ll introduce this design “don’t” with a quote from High Fidelity (which, by the way, you can watch for free right now on hulu.com if you don’t already own it and watch it on a monthly basis like I do). In this scene Rob is reorganizing his record collection and Dick shows up to invite him to a club:



It is comforting. There’s a logic to Rob and the autobiographical organization of his records. It’s a bit unconventional, but it works.

Which brings me to my point: If I were to walk into your house and you had organized your books autobiographically, I would be impressed. If you had organized them by subject; biographies on one shelf, exhibition catalogs on the next, international classics in one area, American gothic writers in another, travel books, dog-eared and full of sticky notes, next to your bed, text books you can’t bear to part with prominently displayed on an otherwise unused desk and embarrassing books that you love but don’t want to admit loving in a cardboard box tucked safely away in a closet; I would have sincere respect for you and probably suggest we become best friends, because that’s how I organize my books.

But, if I were to stroll into your home to be met by a sight like this:

I would promptly turn on my heels and never speak to you again. Because this means you are stupid and I don’t want to associate with stupid people. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life.

Let’s compare color-coded book organization to Rob’s autobiographical record organization, shall we? Say you have a book on Fleetwood Mac. A biography of the band. To find said book on this shelf, it wouldn’t help you to know it was a biography. Nor would it help you to remember that you purchased this biography in the winter of 1997 after a particularly bad break-up with a fellow band mate. The only thing that could help you locate this book on this shelf is the color of the spine. Doesn’t that seem ludicrous to you!?

I can hear what you’re thinking, “That’s not a very large bookshelf. It wouldn’t take too long to locate anything on a bookshelf that size. Also, rainbows are pretty.” Well, my friend, I would counter like so:

If you like rainbows, get one of these –

Maybe drape it from the top of your bookshelf. Anchor it atop your shelf with a pretentiously large book on dada. You’ll get the same effect.

Or go outside on any given day in Portland at about 7:30 p.m., there’s bound to be a rainbow in the sky.

Because the larger your book collection grows, the harder it would be to find anything. Try finding Fleetwood Mac’s band biography on this bookshelf!

I spent some serious time researching this phenomenon in decorating and was appalled (but not shocked) to learn that decorators have purchased books in bulk, just to fill out a particular color area underrepresented in their clients’ legitimate collections! I can’t make this stuff up! There are seriously flea markets out there that will sell books of a certain color by the pound! And regardless the topic or the condition of the book, people buy them.

It makes me wonder if these same people, who I assume to be of low intelligence, visit Powells and expect the Red Room to have nothing but red books in it, the Green nothing but green, etc. I wonder what they imagine the books in the Pearl Room to look like. I wonder if employees at the information desks are ever asked, “Could you point me in the direction of orange books please?” I wonder if, in the checkout lane, cashiers ever inquire about their customers’ book choices. “I see you have a vegan cookbook and the Grill Master’s Guide to Meat, what gives?” To which the buyer might reply, “They’re both blue.”

I think it’s a good thing I don’t work in a bookstore. I would be fired after refusing service to morons like this. But any self-respecting bibliophile would take offense at such poor design sense.

On a related note, and by way of conclusion: if you like animal prints visit the zoo. Don’t skin a zebra and use it as a rug. Yuck.



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In short:

I discovered today: that I love the music and lyrics to many Decemberists songs, but I can’t help myself. I hate the vocals.

It’s most rainy and cold here today. I believe there is a conspiracy brewing on Mt. Olympus to evacuate Oregon of all mortals and take over what is usually a delightful place to live.

Listening to on repeat:


My life, in a nutshell: meh.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The sun finally came to Portland! And I'm thrilled to announce that the forecast looks promising. I think we're out of the woods.

I was skeptical this morning when I expected to wake up to sun streaming in my window and instead woke up to panicked scratching at my door (Sunny) and an overcast sky. But I refused to succumb to despondency and went to the farmer's market. If you've never been to the PSU farmer's market I'll share a little about the layout. It's located on the park blocks in front of the university downtown. Huge trees shade it almost entirely. So it wasn't until I left that I noticed the clouds had cleared entirely and we had blue skies. And not blue like this:



Which was enough blue to get me excited earlier this week (view from my office window). But true, I saw a mountain on the horizon today for the first time since April, I think summer is actually well underway, that doesn't have even the slightest tint of gray in it, blue. Which makes me turn my attention to another color, green, and the myriad things being cultivated in my backyard at this moment.

We (my roommates and I) built four 4' x 6' boxes in our backyard early in March. We dug, we sifted, we chased out neighborhood cats and we purchased a cubic yard of 4-way (compost, top soil, manure, and something else, I can't remember right now).

We also wore schnazzy bucket hats, mud boots and garden gloves, like so:

Sadly, it was much sunnier and warmer in March than it was in May...









Mother's Day weekend I purchased lettuce, tomatoes, sugar snap peas and basil and after about a month, this is what I've got:





I also made a visit to my absolute favorite shoppe in Portland last weekend: Portland Garden Nursery at SE 50th and Stark. I spent almost $60 (yikes!) on annuals for my flower basket. As per usual I bought about three times as much as I needed and therefore had enough to fill this other pot.

I'm aiming to match my glory days - my flowers on my back porch my first summer in my second apartment in Chicago. I remember sitting on the El on my way home from work and hearing people comment on them. "Did you see that porch!? Those flowers were beautiful! Wouldn't it be lovely if everyone who lived along the red line planted flowers like that! It would make my commute so much more enjoyable." On a number of occasions these comments were directed at me and sometimes I said, "Yeah, that's actually my porch." To which my fellow El riders would congratulate me on my green thumb and tell me how they'd never managed to keep even a basic houseplant alive. I would swagger home, pretty pleased with myself after such encounters.

So I've planted bacopa, two different potato vines, marigolds, portulaca, petunias, cosmos, creeping Jenny, some tall stringy bugger with purple flowers on it (I can't remember its name, maybe salvia though), coleus, geraniums and verbena.

Someday, I would like to have a garden from which I could make bouquets like so:

It's shocking to me that this is only $20! Having worked in a flower shop that sold combinations like this for upwards of $50, this seems like such a deal!

I really love the gardening frenzy that has swept the younger generation here in Portland. I'm hoping that by summer solstice (which I'm hoping to mark with a fabulous garden party) I can make a huge salad with my greens. By the time my family comes in August, I'm hoping for big tomato salads, tomatoes on toast, salsa, etc.

So how am I enjoying today's sunshine, you ask? I'm sitting inside, watching the US v. England game. Somehow now that the forecast is less grim, I'm feeling less of an urgency to spend every dry second out of doors. Weird how that works.

____________________________________

In short:

I discovered yesterday: that when driving to Opal Creek on a cloudy day I like to sing sad Gillian Welch songs on the top of my lungs. When driving home from Opal Creek on a sunny day I like to sing this on the top of my lungs:


Dog hair covers approximately 77% of my life (but it's cleaning day!).

Sauvie Island strawberries are ripe. I will be picking and eating them tomorrow.

Summer is not a time for dramatics. It is a time for gelato and vuvuzelas.

I would very much like a vuvuzela to call my own.

My life in a nutshell: ebullient

The Thing About Acronyms Is

We played this game, an icebreaker I guess, at a week long Jesus indoctrination palooza I attended when I was a kid. We had to take our first initial and come up with an adjective or an object that we could put in front or in back of our name that started with that letter. Alliteration is always appealing to youngsters and the kind of matronly women who run these events. (You can imagine my horror then, when in college I had an art history paper returned to me with "avoid alliteration always" scrawled over an offending line. I thought it was so clever! But I digress.)

My 9 year old self sat Indian style, quite perplexed. Thanks to the unorthodox spelling of my first name, there was a dearth of adjectives I could employ. Someone must have noticed my distress because I felt a tap on my shoulder and in a whisper I was informed that I could use 'C' words that had the same hard sound as 'K'. This posed a bit of a moral dilemma for me though. I could easily think of a dozen 'C' words to tack onto my name: crazy, cool, caring, cosmic, candy, colorful, crayon (it didn't have to make sense, it just had to repeat a sound), careful, cooky . . . the possibilities were seemingly endless. But if I had learned anything in life it was that any job worth doing was worth doing well and somehow substituting a 'C' where a 'K' belonged cheapened the whole challenge.

I finally landed on something brilliant and we began sharing. There was Jacob the Jaguar, Daring David, Smiley Sarah, Steven the Snake, Dandelion Deborah, I squirmed, my name was going to blow them all out of the water. Finally my turn:

"Kristina the karate-kicking kangaroo!" I beamed with pride, imagining my alter ego looking something like this:

Jaunty, swashbuckling, self-assured. All things I aspired to at 9. I don't remember eliciting any particularly satisfying praise for my genius, but I still remember my Jesus camp moniker.

So what does this have to do with acronyms? Glad you asked. In wracking my brain for the perfect name for my blog, I considered using my name as an acronym somehow, and the only thing I could think of was knock-out. It humored me later when I realized that knock-out, to many people, looks like this:



When in all sincerity I had this in mind:

Far be it from me to stop you if you associate me with the former, but scout's honor, I had the good ole 1-2 in mind when I chose this name.

Also, I have no idea what is flying out of this sad bastard's mouth, but my god! What a hit!

Which brings me to the real purpose of this post. Hands down the most exciting thing in my life right now is my recent inclusion in a women's book and adventure club. The idea is that we choose a book that in some way can be adapted into an expedition of some kind. I picture us, a group of savvy Portland women, Tom & Hucking it down the Willamette, each with a copy of the Mark Twain classic tucked in her rucksack. Or perhaps holing up in a cabin somewhere (Opal Creek, perhaps?) reading Walden. Whether or not the reality lives up to my expectations, we have yet to clear the first hurdle, viz, coming up with a name.

Some ideas were tossed out at our first meeting at The Secret Society Club last Wednesday: Women's Adventure Group (WAG), Female Adventure Group (FAG), Women's Adventure and Book Club (WABC), etc. I felt all these names were lacking in gusto and did little to capture the spirit and pure brilliance of the venture. I also was a little perturbed (give me a moment to whip out the soap box) at the realization that the title necessarily contain a gender identifier, because one would likely assume that a group wholly devoted to getting out in nature and being wild was comprised of all or at least mostly males. Just like sports leagues are either understood to be male or specified female (think NBA and WNBA or PGA and LPGA).

So I have since devoted not a little time to coming up with something truly astonishing to call this club. Something I could bring to the group and be just as proud of as I was of "Kristina the Karate Kicking Kangaroo" back in the day. Something that doesn't necessarily identify us based on gender, but rather on our level of bad-assness, which is pretty high. I thought starting with a strong word was key, so when strung together our acronym spelled something snappy. Here are some of my thoughts:

B.A.D. A.S.S. = Book and Daring Acts Social Sect

R.A.R.E. = Reading and Recreational Expeditions

G.O.R.E. = Get Out, Read, Evolve

Frankly, none of the resulting possibilities were all that great. So I abandoned my initial approach in favor of being clever:

Life Mimicking Literature (LML)

The Wanderlust Society (TWS)

Ready? Set . . . Go! (RSG)

Better, maybe, but not outstanding. I then thought about referencing the region in the title:

Willamette Valley Readers and Wanderers (WVRAW)

Cascade Society of Adventure Seekers (CSOAS)

Where the Green Ferns Grow (WTGFG)

Bridge City Ramblers (BCR)

Then I went for pith. One or two word names that don't speak to our purpose, just give us something to call ourselves:

Pizzaz (lame)

Dynamo (phallic and lame)

Snappy Hour (hocked whole sale from my last place of employment)

I am truly at a loss. The thing about acronyms is they need to be catchy. They need to roll of your tongue and stick in your mind. They need to concisely state your purpose. What would you call us?

_________________________________________

In Short:

It's raining. Again.

I recently realized: much to my chagrin, that I talk a lot. A LOT.

Summer starts in 12 days.

Listening to: All Gillian Welch, all the time.

Funniest thing I've heard/read today: Q: What did the snail say when riding on the turtle's back?
A: Weeeeeeeeeee!

My Life in a Nutshell: anticipatory.

With Summer in my Sites

Have you looked at the weather forecast for Portland recently? It looks something like this:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Two weeks from now:

A month from now:

My camping trip:

My birthday:

Next year this time:

The day I die:


And of course, there's an upside, as there is to many a natural tragedy, this one being that the grass is actually greener on my side of the fence for once. That, and I haven't had to water my garden for about a month.

Imagine my delight though when I checked the forecast today and for the first time since April this popped up:


So the sun is partially occluded by a cloud. I'll take what I can get.

Something I've come to appreciate about Portland in the 1 year, 9 months and 12 days I've lived here is the feeling of entitlement that comes with having been here longer than the latest arrival. When a newcomer complains about the rain, I think to myself, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." I never express that though, I just smile and say, "You get used to it. Don't bother with umbrellas, just buy a good rain jacket." I then point them toward REI.

But let me just say, as a person who has grown accustomed to the relentless deluge that characterizes October - March in the Northwest, this month has been tough. So I've inundated myself with youtube videos of various people covering the Beach Boys "God Only Knows" and I've begun cataloguing my plans for when the sun finally graces us with her presence:



With summer in my sites...

______________________________

In Short:

Dog hair covers approximately 62% of my life right now.

Song on repeat: God Only Knows (the original is the best)

Funniest thing I've heard/read today: http://blogderudyfernandez.blogspot.com/2010/05/working-out-knocking-oneself-up_23.html

If I had a week and all the money in the world at my disposal I would: Go somewhere sunny and warm!

My life in a nutshell: soggy