The Day the Earth Stood Still

This morning started out like any other Friday, careening bleary-eyed through the predawn morning. I settled in for another long day of daydreaming about sandwiches and discovering drunk selfies some friends left on my unattended cell phone.

And then through some fortuitous series of events I discovered that this is a real animal that exists on the planet earth:

Ohmygod you guys, please take a moment to admire this bird. Seriously, look at it. Are you kidding me? It’s fucking majestic.

Cassowaries are shy denizens of the rainforest, and also seriously badass. These things can run 30 MPH, jump almost 5 feet vertically, and they’re fantastic swimmers. Please take a moment to imagine this bird swimming. You can watch one almost swim in this video.

Fact: I’m approximately the size of an adult cassowary.

Also, that awesome headdress situation they have going on? It’s called a casque. Cassowaries developed those to protect their brains “when they are running full tilt… and occasionally careening into small trees.” Seriously, cassowary? Instead of just slowing the fuck down you’re going to evolve a battering ram to more effectively mow your way through the rainforest? Fair enough.

Casques might also have practical purposes, like improving acoustic reception and keeping them cool, but those are boring and nobody cares.

They’ve been voted the world’s “Most Dangerous Bird”, and I actually discovered them through this Wikipedia page. Also this: 

“Phillip McClean, 16, from Queensland, Australia, became the only person documented to have been killed by a cassowary. After encountering the bird on their family property near Mossman in April, McClean and his brother decided to kill it with clubs. When McClean struck the bird it knocked him down, then kicked him in the neck, opening a long cut in his carotid artery. He collapsed a short while later and died from the hemorrhage.

Moral of the story, don’t attempt to bludgeon a cassowary with a blunt object. Unless that blunt object is a moving vehicle. From what I’ve gathered, these little fellas have real issues with roadways. 

I would like to see Chuck Norris punch a cassowary in the face. 

Do you remember Ferngully? There was definitely a cassowary in Ferngully. Multiple cassowaries? All my life I just assumed they were a figment of some animation artist’s acid dream. I have the distinct impression they were strange and terrifying. Now that I know they exist, there’s no going back. For Christmas I would like someone to gift me a very small cassowary. I would keep it in my pocket and feed it gummy bears.

Anyways. I’m glad I got that off my chest. I love you, creeps. Don’t forget: if cassowaries can exist, you too can probably stumble across the embodiment of your strangest, most secret dreams somewhere on the internet.

Xoxo

-b

There's a Party on the Rooftop, Top of the World.

Last night after my fifteen minutes of fame and three glasses of chardonnay I crawled into bed with every intention of reading a few chapters of this amazing book. Then promptly fell asleep. Usually this wouldn’t be surprising. I’ve been a solid sleeper from the get-go. In fact my tendencies border on narcolepsy. I’ve slept in cafes, coffee houses, libraries, movie theaters, churches, classrooms, and while utilizing every mode of transportation under the sun. Including a bicycle.  But lately my sleeping habits haven’t been stellar.

Instead of drifting into sweet oblivion, I close my eyes and wonder if the angle of my face pressed against the pillow will accelerate my aging process. Those crows’ feet are starting to seem worrisome. Should I lie on my back? Invest in a Vitamin E supplement? Is that tinge in my back right molar a cavity? Maybe I should get up and brush my teeth again. Floss more thoroughly. Did I set my alarm? For 7am not 7pm? Is 6 minutes enough time to walk to the bus stop? What if there’s a typhoon? Or an earthquake? Do buses continue to run during natural disasters? Would I even have anywhere to go? My mind eventually runs circles around itself until exhaustion takes over and I sleep.  

But last night “fell asleep” could be synonymous with “slipped into a coma”, or “became unconscious after being walloped over the head by a grizzly bear”. So I was horribly disappointed to surface from this blissfully catatonic state around 1am. Upon waking I immediately became aware of two things:

               1) My bedroom window was wide open.

               2) Something was flailing about/potentially dying on the roof.

Since I’d let That Cat outside a few hours earlier, my first coherent thought was “a rabid raccoon is dragging her lifeless body up the roof’s steep incline to deposit it on my pillow because raccoons are sadistic fucks.” I’d like to believe this gut reaction evidences my impeccable mothering skills. Also a fundamental distrust of raccoons.

As I sat up, That Cat bee-lined out of the closet to wail anxiously in my face. Clearly not dead. Probs I should have been concerned about her concern, but mostly I felt disoriented and slow. Meanwhile, troubling scrabble/flop/grating sounds continued on the roof.

Having ruled out the psychopathic raccoon scenario, I quickly calculated the likelihood of the following: A) the Sharknado finally hit and a very small hammerhead was suffocating on my roof B) an airplane had desperately discarded the head and torso of zombie Patient Zero and the apocalypse was finally upon us or C) the construction workers from last summer were trying to break in, intent on pillaging and raping us. That last one is actually the most realistic, and caused me a pang of regret re: not arming myself per ULOL’s urging.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not biased against construction professionals in general. Even when the second-story installation they’re working on inhibits my morning topless time. Even when they talk so loud I feel like they’re standing in my bedroom. Hell, I even put up with Mariah Carey at 5am on a Saturday morning.

But Kevin, the neighbor’s contractor, was seriously creepy. Pulling up to the house after work one night he beckoned me over for a chat. He masked his disturbingly precise knowledge of my housemate’s work schedules, vehicles, and hair colors with presumably professional questions about our house. Did we own or rent? Who did our maintenance? Had we considered repainting? Then the curveball, “So how many men live with you?”

Instead of confirming that we all had gigantic Marine boyfriends/brothers/fathers that regularly checked on our well-being, I laughed nervously and replied “No men! Just three very large dogs.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say when he immediately turned to his pal with a “D’ya hear that? Just three girls live in that big ol’ house.” Fuck.

Later that week I sheepishly filled ULOL and Friend in on the conversation, and we dedicated ourselves to heightened attentiveness. Locking windows and doors, keeping a weapon within reach of our beds, etc. ULOL even asked the self-proclaimed neighborhood vigilante two houses down to keep watch. But that was months ago, and as of last night I was still woefully unarmed. At 1am, with my bedroom window wide open, and something tap-dancing gracelessly on the roof? This seemed problematic.

While many animals rely on fight or flight impulses to keep them alive during dire situations, I’m more of a “freeze” type creature. A little bit like these fainting goats. Some might argue this is actually the opposite of a survival instinct. Some people are right. I will likely die in a situation that requires springing into activity (e.g. a meteor, the zombie apocalypse, an avalanche). I had the fortitude to relatch the window, and burrowed back into the comically large collection of comically small comforters I keep on my bed. Is ignorance really bliss? Hell no. I spent most of the night pondering my imminent doom. But! I’m still here this morning.

Also turtles spent approximately 220 million years developing a similar defense mechanism, and they seem to be doing just fine.

All my love, creeps.

-b

I fell out of my stream of self-consciousness.

And I've got welts on my mind to signify all my accomplishments.

Hello kittens. While reading old posts for Throwback Thursday, I was confronted with an uncomfortable truth. I’ve survived this breakdown before. The last month or so I’ve been grappling with a disconnected déjà vu sensation. Or if not exactly déjà vu something in the vein of predestination; a predilection towards self-destruction. Two years ago, smoking on my porch she said I hate when you destroy yourself like this. Last year on my roof bumping elbows with the moon after a few too many nightmares. Two nights ago walking home after a poetry show. I cried because I was cold, and alone, and alive. I cried because I could.

I’ve survived this breakdown before, but never quite like this. They say You are more than the sum of your failures and Imagine yourself as limitless and so you will be or Shit has surely gone down, but said shit need not define you or your days and I love them for that and so much more.

Two nights ago stumbling through a car crash with the flashing lights and large men in heavy jackets bearing badges. A woman weeping on the corner and stars looking like the idea of stars. Like caricatures of themselves. I wanted to slip a piece of shattered windshield into my pocket. I’m adept at carrying wreckage. Instead I kept walking, and maybe I’m still walking, and maybe I always will be.

Now it’s Thursday and instead of throwing back I’m looking forward, because I’ve survived this before and I know there’s an end. I wrote this poem almost a year ago. I’ve read it seven times on three different stages; embedded it in my memory as a reminder that the only constant is inconsistency. The fever breaks. My hands become my hands again. I add another ring to the scar tissue of my memory. 

Anatomy of a Breakdown

Tuesday

The fault lines of your mother’s breakdown begin to

echo through your hollow bones,

your blood aches heavy with heredity

and slivers of purples.

Your hands will tremble for a hundred

years or more.

Wednesday

When the infection begins to spread, don’t panic.

Amputate and cauterize

before the gangrene enters your bloodstream.

Your heart will look

smaller than you expected,

laid out like a dead kitten

on the exam table.

Disregard the girl

lodged in the left ventricle.

Thursday

Time becomes mutable.

You might be cork floating,

a pulpy clot in the

cheap red liquid, you replace

your blood with gasoline

and search for a match.

You drink your dinner

and dream of feasts.

Friday

Pack memories into heavy

bodybags. Carry them beneath your eyes.

Remember laying your body

across the linoleum,

how she chewed the brittle crust

from the salted rim of your hipbone,

lapped tequila from the basin of your navel.

As the alcohol slid down your naked sides

you thought about open heart surgery,

wondered about the cavity

inside your chest.

Saturday

You want to ask the girl at the bar

if she found the poems

you tucked behind her teeth.

Her stranger’s hands rattle over

each knot of your spine,

you could be the ladder she climbs

into ecstasy. Your whiskeyheavy breaths

are prayers of deliverance.

In the morning

her naked back will be a foreign country

you explore with eyes/hands/mouth.

Sunday

Trace origami lines into your

arms and thighs so you never again forget

where to fold.

The moon surges tidal waves through your frame,

lodges shipwrecks (heavy with artifacts)

in the cove of your throat. There:

5 mood rings spitting purple,

a blue heron wing, the

scarlet cleft of a fish’s slit belly.

The moon asks you to be full with her.

Swilling down seawater, you

are left gasping.

Monday

You know the purple orange glow

of the night sky is just city light

refracted off the low-slung clouds

but in that instant it could be god.

Your mouth aches for butterscotch

but only tastes smoke and lighter fluid,

your lungs are low-slung clouds,

heavy with god and apocalypse.

Tuesday

self-inflicted wounds begin

to peel and flake.

Lodge the memory

beneath your nail beds.

You are growing a new skin,

days woven into spiderweb scar tissue.

Under the shower head, your sorrow

leaves you cleansed.

Grind saltwater exfoliant into

both cheeks

wake fresh-faced in the morning.

Wednesday

Splay your puzzle piece body

across purple sheets and

dare a stranger to cobble you

in her bloodstream.

Press your tongue against her scars

and wonder what she burned for,

press your stories into her palms

like offerings. Like prayers.

You tell her you’re a narcissist.

You tell her you’ve almost died twice.

You tell her, and tell her and tell and tell and…

I love you all so much more than you know. Thank you for staying here with me.

-b

What it means to say Missoula, Montana.

Hello weirdos! After a five day vacation, I’ve safely returned to the city of rain and high-velocity winds. Portland. Please get your shit together because this is terrible commuting weather. I’m currently lying in my bed trying to decompress and organize an entire week in my headspace, so bear with me.

Last Sunday night, lying next to Allison and mentally preparing for our departure, I succumbed to a terrible and confusing sadness. I was bombarded by the realization that in less than a week I would be saying goodbye to everybody I love back home. That premonition worried its way into my bloodstream and kept me awake most of that night. 

Pre-whiskey dance celebration

We still managed to leave town relatively on schedule. Equipped with 24 ounces of coffee, a Kit Kat I was goaded into buying for the low price of $.30, and one Little Debbie Nutty Bar, we were ready to tackle the open road. You guys, there’s really not much to say about driving for eight and a half hours. We ate Quizno’s sandwiches, listened to This American Life, and upheld the tradition of taking a shot at the 50,000 Silver Dollar. Because alcohol aids in navigating dark and potentially icy mountain passes.  

Me: I usually do something fruity. Lemon drops? Washington red apples?

A: Let’s have whiskey.

We made it to Missoula with only two notable episodes of white-knuckle driving.

Upon arrival it became apparent that I have no internal navigation system. My natural sense of direction has always been shoddy at best, and my brain seems capable of storing only one cityscape at a time. We had decided to spend the first night with my friends Julia and Morgan. I lived in Ju’s northside apartment for three weeks the winter I was homeless. During that time I watched a lot of movies, drank a lot of whiskey, and read the Hunger Games trilogy. That apartment took on surreal dimensions in my mind, elevated as an idealistic sanctuary. But pulling up to that building everything seemed foreign and daunting.

Why must I grow up to be Rosie O'Donnell?

Everything shifted back into place when we walked through that door. Ju and Morg greeted us with hugs, PBR, and heaping bowls of homemade beef stew. The next several hours were a slow unfurling; sinking back into an old place as a new human. We ate, and drank, and watched Now & Then, remembering how we all wanted to be beautiful and fucked up like Roberta. Except Morg.

Me: What did you do without a t.v. to babysit you?

Mo: We used to stand outside and watch for cars, and when they got close we’d yell “WIBS!” and drop to the ground until they passed.

Me: Oh. Of course.

Two movies, several drinks, and one half-hearted game of Uno later Mo and Ju wrestled out an air mattress and tucked us in for the night. Since they were leaving the next day to spend the holiday with family, Ju let us borrow her apartment for the duration of the trip.

Ju is a lovely and hospitable human being.

We woke slowly Tuesday morning, well after our friends snuck off to work. After ample lolling and showers, we decided breakfast would be a good place to start. [Confession: my itinerary for our trip focused pretty exclusively on eating. Once a fat kid, always a fat kid.]

Over coffee and chilequiles, we caught up with Lo and plotted the next several days. Activities included seeing friends, seeing family, and seeing Catching Fire again because Jennifer Lawrence. There’s more, of course. There’s always more. Cursive handwriting lessons, red wine and nachos, the Turkey Trot. But the majority of our trip felt like an extended dream sequence wherein your spirit guide utilizes the word “fuck” with gusto, and insists on eating an inordinate amount of Mexican food. Hint: I was the spirit guide.

It’s jarring to see your hometown through somebody else’s eyes and realize how many ghosts there are; a whole town heavy with yesterdays. Driving through Missoula I handed Allison stories like Polaroid photographs to prove I was there. To explain why it mattered. The basement apartment. The church. The pitch. That bar. The sunspot where I muddled through crosswords and early spring. The river trail we ran Sunday mornings. Everything in retrospect embodies a tender nostalgia, like a shoebox full of old love notes.

But there’s more honesty in the stories we hold back. The bookstore full of stolen kisses and palm-reading. The street corner. The bar alley. The coffee shop laden with parallel universes. I don’t know how to talk about these things without sacrificing their integrity. Maybe someday, but not yet. Thank you for being patient with my silences.

Now it’s Sunday, one week after the heaviness settled. I said my goodbyes. This morning over coffee with a friend, I sunk back into some state of normalcy and hoped she wouldn’t notice my loose edges. I couldn’t tell her about my grandpa’s stroke last year, or how his hands shook when he poured my second mug of coffee yesterday morning. So we discussed road conditions, Thanksgiving feasts, how children have a tendency to become real human beings. I don’t know where to go from here except back to Real Life.

To my friends and family in Missoula: I miss you all so much more than you know.

To my friends in Portland: thank you for becoming my new home. 

To the random creeper who found this blog post via Google: Sorry I’m not sorry. I lied about the puppy pictures.

Many miles of love.

-b

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables...

Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day
I would be grounded, 
rooted.

Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness is.

So I know I said, like two weeks ago, that this is not a cooking blog… But it is a detailed and frequently self-deprecating account of my triumphs and failures. So! Today we’re going to talk about parsnips. First, let me explain some basic principles I hold to be true in my heart.

1. Vegetables are associated with Adulthood.

I probably gleaned this little nugget from the media. Please don’t ask which media, because I’ll tell you it was Dance Moms. According to Lifetime, adult women survive on a steady diet of salads, cosmos, and malicious gossip. Granted, women who permanently cripple their daughters’ sense of self-worth for three seasons of television fame probably aren’t exemplary adults. But media!

Is butter a carb?

Realistically, the connection between adulthood and vegetable consumption remains as perplexing as other parallels I’ve drawn. For example, the ‘pinnacle of wealth’ means ‘owning a Mazda Miata’ and ‘Kelly Clarkson’ equals ‘succubus from hell’.

2. Adult is intrinsically connected to Successful.

In four days I will be 25 years old. I don’t have a car. I spent last year selling plasma to pay my student loans. I spend 8 hours a day being paid to answer phones and scroll through pictures of pug puppies. Last week a friend had to define the terms ‘socialized healthcare’ and ‘subsidies’ over coffee, because my brain has a firm handle on movie quotes and Spice Girls lyrics, but everything else baffles me.  Nothing about my current lifestyle reads ‘successful human being’. Sure, I could get a more challenging job. Buy a new car. Study the intricacies of the healthcare system. Learn to quote philosophers instead of Chris Farley.

Hey Richard! Fat guy in a little coat...

Or! I can eat vegetables, and feel like a mo’fucking adult (see Point 1 above).

Synopsis: vegetables are adult, adult is success, eat vegetables, achieve success. I know there are reasons above and beyond this flawed logic for eating vegetables. Health benefits, sustainability issues, so on, so forth. But really I eat vegetables to feel morally superior to myself. That makes sense in someone's world. 

Since I want to feel successful with minimal effort, I recently signed up for a program called Organics to You, which delivers local, organic produce right to my front stoop. Unfortunately for me, “local and organic” also means seasonal. Enter the confusing landscape of autumnal vegetables. I’ve managed to wrap my limited cooking skills around potatoes, carrots, beets, and several varieties of squash. But I was accruing a pretty vast collection of parsnips and celery root (AKA Davey Jones’ hearts).

My research indicates celery root needs to be washed/peeled/cooked /pureed and that is just too many steps to consume something so ugly. So I’ve been sneaking my celery root into A’s fridge hoping her chef roommate will put them to good use. That left me with parsnips. If I had the motivation to draw you a Venn diagram right now, parsnips would be the overlap between carrots, potatoes, and radishes. [Note: don’t eat them raw. You’ll be tempted, because they look like weird albino carrots, but just don’t. Too much starch, too much spice, too much dirt. Just too much. It’s not fun, don’t do it.] After three weeks of accumulating parsnips I knew something had to be done.

Similar to celery root, most of the recipes I found said “puree the shit out of these, because they’re a strange and confusing thing”. But you guys, I really hate pureeing. 1) Because you have to wash your food processor and 2) because chewing is a big deal to me. Disregarding the peel/puree portion of every recipe left me with smother in oil/roast until they no longer resemble vegetables.

This is how you food?

[Note: This is the part where I would like to pat myself on the back for achieving basic human tasks. But I’m sitting at the bar next to a woman named Critter, and suddenly I am bored talking about parsnips. Let’s skip the self-congratulations. Maybe the end will be more interesting. Also, this is what I ended up with.]

I don’t really know where I was going with all of this. But I guess what you can take away is my false and overblown sense of success following moderate accomplishments. We are all just the human being story we’re telling ourselves, and mine currently involves a Master Chef narrative thread. No big deal. I hope you are all managing to successfully feed yourselves this holiday season! Sidenote: if you want the recipe for these roasted parsnips, they actually turned out pretty fucking delicious. Get at me, homies. 

All of my love.

-b

This is a pen. A what? A pen. A what? A pen. Oh, a cup!

[Note: this was supposed to be finished yesterday, but then too much life happened. Therefore, this is the post where everything goes to shit. Bear with me.]

Hello kittens. I am currently sitting at work with approximately 24 oz. of free-for-me caffeine pounding through my veins. I’m considering the pros and cons of an intravenous caffeine drip. Between girlfriend’s half-asleep existential interrogation, That Cat’s hell-raising, and roomie’s night terrors I slept approximately zero last night. I feel like a giant squid punched me in both eye sockets. Fortunately, I start Thanksgiving vacation in less than 10 work hours. Unfortunately, the perfect equation for debilitating distractedness = sleep deprivation + workitis [n. sudden illness, disability, or even death brought on by participation in unrewarding work activities. Severity of symptoms is dependent on proximity to vacation time or leave of absence].

Case in point: the hour I spent looking in this dark corner of the internet. Or this one.

Will I reward my body’s survival skills by eating a nutritious dinner and getting to sleep early? Come on, you guys know me better than that. Obviously I’ll get together with friends, drink too much red wine, and potentially tattoo a unicorn onto my forehead. [Note: no unicorn on my forehead, but I did receive a prison-style tattoo. I also ended up with a Christmas mural drawn on my back, and a yogic French bulldog on my forearm. Don’t worry mom, neither of those are permanent. But the semicolon on my ankle definitely is.]

 This week I’ve oscillated between soul-deadening apathy and apocalyptic anxiety. The resultant middle ground seems to be an unshakeable and very sarcastic grumpiness. For example. Because 1) girlfriend has no concept of “mountain pass”, and 2) I have the tact of a grizzly bear the following exchange occurred last night:

A: Are you anxious about the trip to Montana?
Me: Probably, yeah. The drive stresses me out.

A: Well what’s the worst that could happen?
Me: We die. Can we sleep now?

To top things off, I decided to stop indulging in my nightly clove. Partially because it was slowly evolving into a nightly-plus-anytime-I’m-stressed-or-bored clove. But mostly so I could run the Turkey Trot and not look like a fool in front of my mom. It’s not the first time I’ve gone 24 hours without inhaling nicotine and fiberglass, but knowing I won’t have my usual wind down smoke session makes me anxious. Because, creature of habit.

You guys, Thanksgiving happens so soon! I’m sure this surprises nobody, but Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. As far as I can tell it’s a holiday of all pros and no cons.

[Note: yesterday this is where I wanted to list the pros (friends, family, socially acceptable overindulgence, etc.) and the cons (none) but my brain is mushy today. Some nights you might drink a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, invent and subsequently lose a game called ‘Ass Wars’, and have to be escorted out of a stranger’s house when you accidentally walk into their living room. I mean, theoretically those are things that could happen to a human, causing them to lose focus.]

“I want to have a message at the end, because I’ll always want that. If you have a dream, you should have it in your heart...face.” --Hannah Hart

Moral of the story: drinks and ink are a dangerous combination. Keep it real, weirdos.

-b

So far I have this -Me

Happy Thursday and welcome to my brain, a strange and confusing place. Like a vegan strip club or kitten daycare. My primary objective this week has been combating the seasonal heavies infiltrating my every waking moment. As such, I’ve self-medicated with this picture of a yam that arrived in my produce box Tuesday, and generating an obscene amount of What Would I Say statuses.

I’m sure some of you have noticed a recent influx of these “statuses”. That’s because it’s the best game in the entire world. Essentially the site yanks your past Facebook history (statuses, links, posts, comments), plugs everything into a mystical and/or mathematical generator, and spits out something that could have come from your mouth. This past 24 hours I’ve generated approximately 267 statuses.

Because the statuses are 1) hilarious and 2) surprisingly insightful, I’ve compiled my favorites into a self-interview. You are welcome to pretend said interview took place in a dimly-lit room with tasteful art on maroon walls and a rich mahogany floor. Or just imagine me pantsless in bed talking to my laptop. That’s more accurate.

Q: What is b Honest all about?

A: My blog post is Words, words, feelings, words.

Q: But you’ve been semi-regularly updating this blog for almost two years now. It must be more than just words. What does b Honest mean to you on a personal level?

A: My blog feels like ‘I love that you’. We are all the memories; I'll be a breeze.

Q: How would you characterize your writing style?

A: I seem to be fast-paced exciting. Read on, sunrise!

Q: Where do you draw the inspiration for your writing?

A: I watch this, and GPS directs me. Also my cat…

Q: Do you feel your writing targets a particular demographic?

A: Anyone who wants to shotgun a thing that will just be essence of catnip + taxes.

Q: The majority of your work seeks to create an accurate reflection of Reality, something you’ve always had trouble with. What is the most difficult aspect of balancing your work’s integrity and other humans’ feelings/anonymity?

A: Slowly coming clean means a dead cat chased a squirrel-chasing jerk.

Q: I’m not sure I understand what that means.

A: Just another stunning example of cheesy fiesta potatoes mean-mugging me.

Q: Do you have a piece of work which you are inordinately proud of/promote the shit out of?

A: This is still, hands down, my favorite so far. Right.

Q: Do you have any upcoming projects or collaborations?

A: For whatever reason I'm talking to Earth for so graciously hosting us. Not bad for publication.

Q: In addition to reflecting your perspective on Reality, your writing seems to be a cathartic act. You frequently voice hopes, fears, and regrets. Do you have any confessions you’ve been too ashamed to share?

A: Eating two gallons of chicken teriyaki too vigorously.

Q: So you’ve been in Portland nearly two years now. What’s your typical weekend look like?

A: Eating eggs and french toast courtesy of Sweet Hereafter, for anybody interested in owning my words. Or 10am and probably one-eyeing it to discover you?

Q: What’s one piece of advice you would give brand new Portland transplants?

A: Brunch dates are safe and sound!

Q: Wait… wasn’t your most recent post an angst-ridden reflection on the embarrassment and internalized shame associated with day-drinking yourself into oblivion via cheap champagne?

A: Irony, I despise you…

Q: Moving on. Could you describe your life before leaving Anywhere, Montana?

A: I probably could, but I'm gonna start with Holes because Louis Stevens.

Q: How about since living in Portland? How do you view yourself now?

A: Sleepy baby and a little closer to being a Real.

Q: Please summarize your philosophical outlook.

A: A possibly mentally handicapped dog is nothing left to the Open.

Q: Deep.

A: Silly, emotional rugger.

Q: What does that even mean?

A: I also write poetry.

Q: Do you know how you want to end this?

A: Is anybody headed to the end of the ending…? I seem to recall the purple dress never made it.

Q: Famous last words?

A: Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Q: I love you.

A: We all fall down.

Xoxo, you strange creatures.

 -b and the BrendaBot

You're cold, or maybe you just miss the sun.

You fall feeling like it's just begun/So far keeping it together's been enough.

This morning I listened to the rain like I could drown beneath your skylight. The autumnal season always feels stretched and taut, like everything is moving too fast or not at all. I feel like an act of recoil, all elbows and displaced energy. A rubber band the instant after the break, before the snapback is complete. I’m carrying tension like air pockets in pottery: harmless until application of heat and pressure. 

I am experiencing (check all that apply): 

     Ennui.

     My mid-20s.

     Existential crisis. 

     Overwhelming boredom.

     The annual onset of heaviness.

     Accelerated passage of time.

     Angst and restlessness. 

It takes so little to unbecome, sitting in a room where you don’t exist. Ghosts don’t know how to make small talk. You can’t form words with no concept of voice box. It wasn’t so much that you were crying, just kind of quietly leaking... Swallow your own tongue. Wash it down with whiskey and candied ginger. 

I feel (check all that apply):

     Happy and in love. 

     Strange and anxious.

     Nostalgic for something I haven’t lost.

     Like my cells want to throw up.

     Like my hands don’t belong to me.

     Loose around the edges.

     Like I can’t explain. 

     Like a limit.

How do people do this and stay people? Every day waking up before the sun, arriving home after dark. My cells coil into themselves as if constriction will do anything other than emphasize the heartbeat. Cheap champagne unravels these veins so quickly. A splash of orange juice for color! I am the best sort of confessional—I can drink story after story and still take nothing from you. Maybe I’m the wishing well that lets you keep your pennies.  Or maybe I’m nothing like that at all, I don’t know.

I want to (check all that apply):

     Take a deep breath.

     Sleep until summer.

     Kiss you in the springtime.

     Trap the sun under my tongue. 

     Eat popsicles with reckless abandon.

     Stand somewhere high and yell loudly.

     Know weightlessness.  

     Hide in your bed. Potentially forever.

What I’m trying to express is I'm sorry for 1) spilling that wine and 2) man-handling that chicken. This is a trite and hyperbolic way of saying my life feels strange when I drink too much. I dream about oil spills, bare feet, and snowy highways. 

I need to (check all that apply):

     Drink water.

     See the sun.

     Get more sleep.

     Get out of my head. 

     Stop eating nachos in bed. 

     Not watch zombie movies after 8pm.

     Do some fucking laundry. 

Look up/the rain is falling/Looks like love.

-b

Rule #1: Cardio

Hello dearest hooligans. We are officially post-Halloween. I hope the majority of you are either entering or recovering from a candy coma. Did you borrow a child to trick or treat with for the night? I spotted one very small giraffe that I could have stolen (in the fashion of the Goblin King), but she had a whole cadre of Padawan bodyguards.

But really. Give me the Butterfinger or I will cut you.

I hope you didn’t have to catch a bus at 5:30 this morning, because that would be pretty terrible. Not that I’m speaking from personal experience.

As Allison helpfully pointed out, today is my seventh day functioning on very little sleep. She made this observation from the bed (which she didn’t have to leave) while I staggered around gathering enough clothing to survive the morning commute. You know who wakes up alert and ready to face the day before the sun? People who can go back to sleep. And the elderly, but that’s only one of their many inexplicable behaviors (see also: poached eggs, Fox News, removing dentures in public).    

Let me elaborate. Last week my darling Lo graced the city of Portland with her presence. Since it had been at least a full week since my last staycation, I requested time off to play tour guide.

Lo’s itinerary for her four day stay:

1)      Drink a ruby beer

2)      Run a 5k

Unfortunately, my debilitating indecision and her yogic contentedness are a poor match on the “activities” front. Nobody knows what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. But when two immovable objects meet, the resultant five hours spent ogling pug pictures surprises nobody. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

Lacking guidance, I appropriated Lo’s vacation as my own, using it as an excuse to fulfill every food fantasy. Note: I have a lot of food fantasies. Sometimes food is fuel, and sometimes it is fondue. Being on vacation justifies every extravagance! Including but not limited to conveyor belt sushi, microbrews for breakfast, and multiple plates of nachos at the Space Room.

Don’t worry, our itinerary also included exercise. Approximately three months ago Lo put me in charge of signing us up for the Color Vibe Run, because online forms are her kryptonite. And procrastinating is mine. Moral of the story: you can’t always register for events 24 hours before events/ some things in life require foresight and planning/so on/so forth. But! Sometimes my poor planning proves fortuitous. After five minutes of frantic google searching, I found another event:

The Dawn of the Dead Dash declared itself “an exciting ‘life-changing’ adventure run through the streets of the city”. I signed us up, breezing through the fine print. Turns out “adventure run” is code for “citywide game of zombie tag”. The undead hordes started gathering at sunset on Saturday. Based on my observations newlyweds, prom queens, and medical industry workers will comprise the majority of the zombie population when the apocalypse finally hits. There may also be a unicorn and several Pokemon. You never know. They pacified us with free beer, slapped glow collars on to represent our humanity, and released us into the night. 

Don't Be A Hero.

Things to keep in mind:

1)      The run wasn’t on a closed course, there were three checkpoints we had to reach sequentially within an allotted period of time.

2)      Because the run wasn’t on a closed course, the organization didn’t have to notify the city.

3)      Because the run was in a residential area, residents raised reasonable concerns about the number of screaming people being chased through the dark streets.

4)      Cops were called. Chaos ensued.

Surviving a zombie apocalypse reveals a lot about a human being. We stayed alive by circumventing the “main course” and running an extra 2 miles because we’re elite like that. We also determined I’m either ‘very excitable’ or ‘more cautious than most’, depending on how you interpret my reticent feelings toward dark alleys. And porches. And trees. And parked cars.

But obviously it’s taken a lot more than one nighttime run to really know Lo. Since moving to Portland she’s been my confidante; a judgment free zone. Because sometimes I have to buy hot wings on the way home from work to cope with a stressful day. And you know what? That’s ok. There are probably better things and there are probably worse things. In the end you embrace what gets you from one day to the next relatively unscathed.

In conclusion (because I always want there to be a conclusion): to really know and be known by another human being is simultaneously comforting and terrifying. Because what do you say when there’s nothing left to say? You eat your extravagance, run your race, drink your silences, and just exist. Oh, and you watch strippers perform incredible feats of athleticism to the tune of terrible karaoke classics (ex. Monster Mash).

Lo, thank you for existing with me.

All my love to the rest of you creeps!

-b

Here is a drawing of a stapler:

I have tried for three days to write this blog post.

Here are the things I ‘ve wanted to write about: cooking with Allison, Lion King sleepover, waffles, miniature ponies, loganberry wine, aggressively loving strangers’ puppies, the decaying pumpkin patch, Mo’s front porch, and the times everything feels easy like childhood only effortless. But every time I sit down to examine these thoughts it’s like my zoom function is broken.

Sometimes I’m too far away, struggling to describe an Overwhelming Hugeness. Everything feels looming and vaguely out of focus. I just want to describe these events that have occurred in my adult life. I want to describe them concisely, humorously, and a bit poignantly. Seriously, like one pinch of poignance to lend the whole human experience a sense of depth. But those starts and stops read like a Dane Cook stand up routine, which is to say nonsensically with a lot of implied yelling.

Or I’m delving too deep into each minute detail. There’s no big picture or overarching theme. Just a menagerie of images parading together in paragraph form. For example, this morning’s attempt:

“Late afternoon pours through the skylight, puddles on the wood floors. It sticks to my feet in stringy swathes of gold. Allison juliennes vegetables, hacking matchsticks from the whole. Carrot, pepper, cucumber. She presses fat bulbs of garlic into the mixing bowl because my hands get so sticky wrenching the cloves from their papery binding. I hate when my hands are sticky. But at the stovetop I could be a machine or maybe a god. I could grow extra arms; I have no limits. I am creating a feast, prepared with precision and impeccable skill: crisped Andouille sausage rounds, Monterey jack hewn into soft, white cubes. Translucent skeins of sticky rice noodles. Tangerines’ overripe pulp tears away from the fragrant rinds. Citrus smell stains our fingertips…”

And so on, and so forth. Though I do spend plenty of my waking moments thinking about food, I don’t find food writing particularly compelling. You guys, this is not a food blog.

Which warrants the question: what the hell is it then? I consulted the Oracle, who told me two things.

• "Is kitten a thing you say now?  Is kitten a thing all Portlandians call each other?  Like you guys are all a bunch of baby cats, romping around in a make-shift play pen in the living room of America?  Strike that.  Portland is more like America's garage.  Get it? Cuz grunge and also grey.  I know Nirvana/grunge is a Seattle thing, but Portland took Seattle's dirty angst and made it dirtier and angstier so the metaphor holds.”(Note: ‘kitten’ is a term of endearment used by ULOL… I merely appropriated it.

And also:

• “I say write something different.  It won't be shitty because people will be able to read it and it will provoke thought.  It is also likely to be grammatically correct.  I feel like a thing missing from your blog is a thing you care a lot about.  Or really hate.  What matters to you? ...you started writing because YOU wanted to be a writer.”

So I write. I write to process the world around me; to explain my thoughts/feelings/etc, to myself as much as the people outside of me. What I write might be 80% autobiography, 10% journal entry, 8% grocery list, and 2% gratuitous pug pictures…  But it’s always as honest as I know how to be.

And honestly, I have tried for three days to write this post. I wanted to write about re-lived childhood experiences and the ways we expand into adulthood. The harder I pushed that concept, the harder it became to view those experiences clearly; to frame them coherently. In some respects, writer’s block acts like insomnia. The fear of being unable to write hinders my ability to write, which makes me more fearful about writing. The whole negative impact cycle builds on itself to become this crippling self-doubt monstrosity. This is my effort to break that cycle.

Today all I can write about is not writing.

All my love, you dirtiest/angstiest kittens.

-b

Tips for house sitting like a boss.

·         Feeding yourself while house sitting may prove a harrowing endeavor. Especially when your delivery options are bad Thai or bad Chinese. Rise above these obstacles by walking 0.3 miles to the nearest grocery store. Purchase an entire rotisserie chicken and a 6-pack of beer for dinner. Eat the chicken with your bare hands. Nobody will judge you. Nobody.

·         Charm the neighbors by dramatically lip-syncing 80s rock ballads every time you leave the house. Your performance will be most theatrical at dusk, when you can accidentally trigger their motion-sensitive porch lights. Complete your performance with fist pumps, high kicks, and drum solos. Preferred playlist:

Total Eclipse of the Heart	- Bonnie Tyler
Love is a Battlefield	- Pat Benatar
Bohemian Rhapsody	- Queen
Faithfully	- Journey
Desperado	- The Eagles

·         Your friends may start to worry when they haven’t seen you at several group outings. To assuage their fears, take an inordinate amount of pictures. Forward these unsolicited photos as proof of your physical and mental well-being.

·         Maintain a sense of normalcy for the animals in your care by singing exuberantly in the shower. Sing so loudly the dogs feel obliged to chime in. This noise making session reinforces pack solidarity, and definitely won’t alarm the cat.

[Sidenote: I opted to sing Blackstreet’s “No Diggity”, though I only know the lyrics from the riff-off scene in Pitch Perfect.]

·         Should you become lonely while house sitting, shamelessly interact with the movies you watch. By “movies” I mean The Goonies.

Listen. When fictional characters make really terrible life choices they deserve to be berated. That’s just a fact, Mikey. Don’t try to argue with me. I know, I know. “Goonies never say die”, but next time you plan a plunge into a subterranean cavern searching for pirate gold, at least bring a damn flashlight.

·         Sometimes when you let the dogs out at 7am on a Sunday morning, children will see your tits. Embrace this as a valuable learning opportunity. You didn’t scar them for life; you educated them on the importance of sleeping in on the weekend.

·         Never turn your back on the Chihuahua that lives across the street.

·         Personal space ceases to exist after 3am. Don’t panic if you wake up with 100+ pounds of animal on your body. Passive aggressive affection is how pets say "I love you".         

I hope you weirdos had a fantastic and restful weekend.

All my love. 

-b