In Which Squirrels Don't Help Any.

My grandmother has been working on compiling her memoirs for a while now. Yesterday she told me that she has so many vivid childhood memories, she doesn't think she'll be able to get around to writing beyond the third grade. Her mind is still keen, but those memories are the most vivid for her. I remember my grandpa could tell me about all the cars his parents had owned, but it seems like more of his yarns took place in adulthood. It makes me wonder, if I am lucky enough to see my ninth decade, which parts of my life will be the most vivid in my memory.

Grandma said that when she was 2 and some months old, she was whisked away to a neighbor's house and told that when she went home the next day, she would have a new baby brother or sister. When she came back, her mother was lying in bed nursing the newborn. My grandma began screaming, "The baby's eating Mama! The baby's eating Mama!" and had to be carried from the room shrieking and kicking. She said she remembered someone trying (unsuccessfully, obviously) to distract her by pointing out a squirrel in the yard.

I guess that would pretty much scar you for life, wouldn't it?

I started C fortnight out right with a visit to colorfulveggies. Her sister was visiting too, and I went shopping with both of them. I don't get to see them together often, so watching their personalities play off each other's was intriguing, especially when they disagreed. Now I know what happens when the Irresistible Force meets the Immovable Object.

Today I went to the CD store and got myself some Concretes and Calexico. I had a coupon that expires tomorrow, so I used it to get discounts on used CDs. Man. I sure do love a Deal.

The Concretes - Miss You

In Which I Live the Dream.

At the Bins, a.k.a. the Goodwill Outlet, Bee and I sift through the detritus of civilization. We are not like archaeologists, who listen carefully to every found object to hear the history it has to tell. There are many tales here, enough to drive you mad if you stop to listen. No, we are hasty, opinionated, and ruthless; it is the Way of the Bins.

The First Rule of the Bins is: Look before you grab. Some things are sharp -- broken glass edges the dish bins -- and some things are sticky, we don't want to know with what -- and some things are decaying, like that blanket with the synthetic fill. Oh, and avoid the underwear at all costs. Don't stare too long at the yellow sheen on that collar. Try really, really hard to keep from touching your face. Your nose doesn't itch; you're just imagining it.

The bins of household items may have had some semblance of order when they were wheeled out, but now they are a crazy stew of castoffs: dishes, belts, computer monitors, parts of toys, luggage and bric-a-brac. I bump a stuffed chipmunk from its prone position; it turns up a face that is a chewed, featureless mass, the stuff of nightmares. I shudder, then pick it up to scare Bee with. There's a lovely cast-iron skillet, but it's too heavy for my skinny wrist. I find a book on raising hedgehogs that I carry around for a while before coming to my senses: in the unlikely event that I find myself caring for a young hedgehog, the internet will be more than happy to help.

The household items are like a freak show, a bizarre museum of the things people pay for. I would like to believe that each of these things has been loved in its day, that each one had significance to some human at some point. But that seems hopelessly idealistic, even to me. No, this is the overflow of a consumer culture gone berserk, rolled off the assembly lines of less prosperous nations, each in the company of thousands of identical twins. Many of these items were purchased by people who didn't need them, and owned by people who didn't love them, simply because the American dream means Having Stuff, lots and lots of it, and being able to buy it whenever you feel like it.

Don't get me wrong. Bee and I are Americans, and we are here because we like Stuff too. We are both bargain-hunters, and share an unspoken understanding that there is a kind of virtue in getting cool stuff for cheap. Most of the cool stuff, we know, can be found in the clothing bins. But the work is harder here; the clothes are piled high today, and it's hard to do a thorough survey. I abandon my philosophizing and dedicate the full force of my brain to processing the bewildering morass of clothing in front of me. We get about halfway through before we give up, feet weary, backs complaining. Bee's prize find is a baby-sized green sweater, hand-knit; mine, a corduroy skirt that will easily find a good home even if it doesn't fit me. The trying-on will, of course, take place after everything has had a good washing. We pay for our gleanings by the pound and go in search of food.

* * *

Today's the last of fourteen B days. I have climbed Powell Butte, eaten blueberry breakfast bars, and watched The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (To whomever it was that told me I would really enjoy that movie: Alas, you were terribly mistaken). I am still reading Blue Highways, and though I'm enjoying it quite a bit, at this rate I'll be reading it for many, many weeks to come. But the B I've been working on the most lately, the one that has really interfered with the blogging, is Bedtime.

For the past several days, I've been setting my alarm for bedtime instead of for getting-up-time. It's a strange experiment, and I am lucky to have the flexibility in my work hours necessary to conduct it. My primary goal is to establish a consistent sleep schedule for the first time since I entered college, if not before. I'm also interested in finding out how many hours of sleep my body really wants per night. The thing is, I fall asleep pretty quickly once I'm in bed; my problem lies in convincing myself to get there. So the alarm clock signals it's time to get ready for sleep, and on a weeknight, I am not allowed to argue with it. Yes, the snooze alarm is fair game, but I can only run upstairs to hit it so many times. Apparently my sense of the absurd is more acute at 10 p.m. than at 7 a.m.

(And for those of you who protest that the post time doesn't agree with the above statements: Come on, it's the weekend!)

One B song for you: strange, but nice.
Back in Judy's Shack - Burning Cold

In Which I Rearrange the Alphabet, Sort Of.

I've been doing pretty well on B foods: bread (in the form of sandwiches, or toasted with butter), turkey burgers, bananas and root beer. Not so well on the B activities. Of the two movies I saw this week, at least I can say that one, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, starred Albert Brooks. I went to see it because I had a free preview pass, and because I was under the impression that it was a documentary. The concept could have been a really great documentary, but as a comedy it was mediocre at best. Then there was Capote, which was a worthwhile film, though not a very fun one. Still, I probably chuckled more at Philip Seymour Hoffman than was entirely appropriate, and almost laughed out loud when the guy in front of me started snoring.

Friday night Evan lured me out with the promise of board games with friends, but then we all ended up playing a card-based variation of Cranium instead. (Bait-and-switch starts with B!) I considered walking out then and there, but you know, they had brownies.... For me, one of the highlights of the game was when I attempted to draw a rave, Pictionary-style. I mean, how exactly do you depict that? How do you draw a dark room, strobes, glowsticks? Particularly if you've never actually been to a rave, and are fairly confident that no one in your audience has either? Obviously, I didn't have much success, but it was fun to hear the guesses: "Disco?" "Rock concert!" "Prom?" "Woodstock!" All I could do was giggle and draw more stick figures: holding hands, lying on the floor with X-eyes.

So what with Comedy, Capote and Cranium, it looks I'm kinda jumping ahead a week or two. And I think what this means is that I'll have to fit some Bs into the time allocated for C. Which should work out pretty well, considering my plans for the immediate future.

In other news, the lovely and talented Ah has contributed a t-shirt design to Threadless, a site that accepts submissions of wearable art, then makes and sells those rated highest by site visitors. Click the detail to see the shirt:

If you like the design and want to help her out, you can sign up and rate the shirt anytime in the next 4 days. However, if you then proceed to rate other shirt designs in the running, you may find it to be strangely addictive (and therefore also alarmingly time-consuming, given the number of submissions on any given weekday). You've been warned.

In Which I Am Distracted by Socks.

Last night I was all set to tell you about my evening with my brother and his girlfriend and her friend from work, and how we watched Fun with Dick and Jane and laughed pretty much the whole time, and then went to Applebee's for happy-hour-priced supper, and how the boneless buffalo wings were actually a little too spicy for my internal comfort. I was going to tell you how we kept on laughing even though the movie was over, and how they all played with their cell phone cameras while we waited for our food, and how my brother's girlfriend was trying to figure out a way to steal this huge Madonna poster (not really, Mom, she was joking), and how her work buddy convinced me that the Hollywood/television stereotype of the gay guy friend actually has a basis in reality.

I was going to tell you all this when I got home, even though it was late, because B is for blogging. But I ended up looking at socks instead.

Today was less eventful. Except for the part where I locked my house key into the house when I left for work (not any other keys, just my house key), and then had to play phone tag with several different friends to get back in again. Oh yeah, and I'm getting a head start on something related to the next letter of the alphabet, but you have to wait a couple weeks to hear about that. It's too early to have much to report about it anyway.

So really, I'm only posting to tell you that I don't have anything to tell you.

In Which B is Begun.

I know MLK Day is nearly over, but I did want to share this amazing essay about what it's like to be a fan of fantasy/sci-fi who doesn't have pale skin. Anway, glimpsing the world through someone else's eyes is always topical, innit?

Auspicious was the word for A, for beginning a new year like a snowy field, still un-footprinted, slightly blinding with its possibilities. I'm not sure yet, but it looks like the word for B may be Busy. B is for budget. B is for baking, bathroom (as in 'cleaning the'), and, yes, blogging. B is also for brother, and board games, and bookstore. And a number of other things have crept into my schedule, things that are important despite not beginning with B, such that it looks as though this may be my only quiet evening at home until the weekend. Which is good. I think. I generally really enjoy being busy, until sometimes, quite suddenly, I don't anymore. I hope that doesn't happen this week.

I mentioned I was excited about various authors who begin with B, but I hadn't actually decided on one yet. So when I found a grubby copy of Blue Highways today, left in a place I'd be sure to spot it, I knew just who'd put it there (an as-yet-un-aliased writer friend) and why (he's been telling me to read it for a year now) and what to do with it (duh). At over 400 pages, it will probably take me well into C territory, but that's okay. I wasn't going to get a book read every 2 weeks anyway.

Only the second day of B, and I have already eaten baby corn (stir-fry) with beef at a Thai restaurant. I've ingested a piece of butterscotch candy and a couple of black bean burritos and an apple (Braeburn), and listened through several hours' worth of B musicians in iTunes (Beck! and more Beck! and some Bloc Party). Also, mustn't forget bathing and brushing teeth. Which might be a good idea right now, come to think of it.

In Which I Wish I Worked in a Post Office in Ghana.

Archery: check.
I am so out of shape, it's not even funny. Except that it is, actually, pretty funny, to be wiped out after an hour of stretching a few arm/shoulder muscles and strolling back and forth to fetch arrows. Funny enough that I held out for about an hour and a half.

Fletcher wasn't shooting his best either, and toward the end of the session he started talking to himself. He said, "Okay, this is for the big one! The world championship. The other guy missed, so all you have to do is hit the yellow...." There was a lengthy pause as he sighted and aimed juuust right, frowning with concentration, then released the arrow. It hit squarely in the X ring.

"And the crowd goes wild!" I said, throwing my arms into the air.

"The crowd goes wild," he echoed, and grinned.

I should probably mention that Fletcher is actually a world archery champion.

Apples, apricots: check.
Also: Altoids, Ak-mak and Advil!

African music: check.
I listened to Oliver Mtukudzi while washing the dishes. He's from Zimbabwe, so I'll definitely be listening to him next Christmas, when it will be time for Z-themed music. And probably quite a bit between now and then, too. He has a very sweet voice, and his music is very warm and peaceful and joyous -- a good antidote counterpoint to the raucous shake-yer-can street rhythms of Konono No. 1 (which is probably the African band getting the most attention from America at the moment).

If you are ever looking for some good African music (U is for Uganda, Z is for Zaire...), you really can't go wrong with Benn loxo du taccu, an MP3 blog that offers several fresh tunes out of Africa every week (with podcasts, for those who are into that sort of thing). The writing is informative and to the point, and the songs are diverse and unfailingly interesting. It's a different kind of music-making than I'm used to -- longer songs, more repetition -- but it's that very difference that makes it educational.

I didn't get this track there, but it's one of my most interesting MP3 finds in quite a while:

The University of Ghana Post Office - Canceling Stamps

In Which I Dream About Sleeping.

I want you to know that I actually pressed the button to post last night's entry with my left elbow.

I've been really drowsy most of today, after trying to recover from my nocturnal vacation habits all at once. This morning, after hitting the snooze alarm once or twice or maybe five times or something, I dreamed I was knocking at a neighbor's door. As she came to answer it, I struggled to keep my eyes open to greet her, because how awkward would it be to answer your door and find a sleeping person outside of it? But I couldn't. It was kind of embarrassing.

When I finally woke up enough to look at the clock, I was embarrassed all over again.

I have another A song to share today, and for once it's not a yousendit link:

The Owls - Air

In Which I Approach the Alphabetical Annum.

I saw "Kong" today. It seemed like a very, very long movie. And it was. I was pretty tired of it after about the first hour and a half. I didn't realize how bored I could get with flawlessly animated monster battles. I guess I really like the guys in monster suits better. (Come to think of it, I preferred puppet-Yoda, too.)

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, if you were wondering about that. But I recently found out that some friends of mine are living the alphabet in 2006, two weeks for each letter. This means they are planning their entire lifestyle (food, recreation, chores, learning, etc.) around the letter of the, uh, fortnight. I think that's a pretty cool idea, cool enough for me to take a flying leap onto the bandwagon already in motion. It's a good thing that I spent the first few days of the year hanging out with Meep, whose real name starts with an A, and with my sisters and my nephew, who also have A names. I think we may even have played Apples to Apples. Last week I watched "Annie Hall," and today I had dinner at Acapulco. I've been listening to Andrew Bird in my car, and today I told iTunes to play all the songs by artists who begin with A (why do I have so many tracks by Animal Collective and The Arcade Fire?).

Later this week I will listen to some African music, maybe while eating apples or dried apricots. I'll do a little archery and maybe some crunches to work out my abs, or amble around the neighborhood if the rain ever lets up. I might rent "American Splendor" and there's a good chance I'll read the book of Acts. It's a little late to start anything longer, as I don't want to be caught midway through a book on the 15th. So many intriguing authors start with B (Peter Beagle! Nicholson Baker! Jorge Luis Borges!).

With that in mind, the following track has been brought to you by the letter A and... um... my left elbow?

Ananda Shankar & State of Bengal - Pluck

[Edit: corrected minor HTML goof that confused Bloglines.]

In Which I Did/Didn't Start the Fire.

I have this problem where if I neglect some area of writing for a time (correspondence with a particular individual, say, or journalling, or maybe blogging is a good example?), then I feel like when I return to it, I need to write something really spectacular to make up for all the writing I didn't do. It doesn't really make any sense; it's self-defeating, because the mental challenge of trying to come up with something really spectacular just makes it that much harder to return to whatever I was neglecting. But there it is, this weird idea I've always had. Right there. I am putting it on the lawn, see, and I am punting it into the street. This will not be a really spectacular blog post.

Last night I went to the Doug Fir Lounge with Bee and Spider (and their parents, who are visiting from out of town). We saw Sounds Like Fun, Norfolk & Western, and Heroes and Villains. (I wanted to link to the bands, but I couldn't find any pages that didn't automatically start playing music when you load them. Don't they know everybody hates that? You can see photos of the first two bands, and click through to their pages, on the Doug Fir calendar page.)

Sounds Like Fun was three loud guys. They played loudly and sang loudly, and they smiled loudly, showing many, many teeth. I liked them a lot, not only because they made good music, but because they also seemed to be laughing at themselves and us as they played. Like it was the best joke ever that they were up there playing music for a bunch of people.

Norfolk & Western was a bigger band, with a more polished sound that reminded me a lot of the Decemberists. Later I found out that the drummer/singer used to play for the Decemberists. I liked them about as much as I like the Decemberists, which is pretty well, but they weren't as much fun to listen to as the first band. The drummer was awesome, though. And a girl. An awesome girl drummer. Awesome!

By the time Heroes and Villains took the stage, I was too tired to really get much out of their set -- ironic, since they were the reason I was there. But they were of course very good. You have to be wide awake to fully appreciate the complexity of their music, with its frequent shifts in rhythm and key, but even sleepy people can enjoy watching such a strange cast of characters as they are. One of them looks like she was invented by Bryan Lee O'Malley. In fact, I even checked just now to see if he had a sketch that looks uncannily like her, but this was as close as I could get. No, not the snoozing girl at the top; scroll down to the girl screaming on the table. That's pretty close. Her hair is pink, and her little crooked mouth gets all huge when she sings.

I spent some time at the show trying to picture the rest of Heroes and Villains as drawn by indie comic artists. The other girl reminded me of how Gabrielle Bell draws herself. The guys were harder, especially the drummer, because the pink-haired girl was blocking my view of him. (He actually looks sorta like Bee's boyfriend, if you happen to know who that is.) And the other two guys had dark bristly beards. I haven't seen a lot of beards in comics lately, so I kind of got stuck at that point.

The Doug Fir Lounge is a really, really nice venue. I was impressed. The building is new, but the decor is retro-rustic, like it was designed in the '60s with a log cabin theme, and the lighting and layout are comfortable yet hip. There is some seating along the sides, but I stood throughout the show, on a raised area of the floor between a pillar and a railing. I had a great view of the stage the entire time, and if you know how tall I am, you can guess how rare that is. Also, the show was only $6. If you live in Portland, enjoy indie rock, and haven't yet been to the DFL, let me encourage you to remedy that as soon as possible.

* * *

I have lit a fire in my fireplace, and am sitting here by it with a blanket over my lap. It's very cozy. "But wait!" you are saying, if you've ever been inside my house. "Your fireplace is not connected to a chimney! It's Strictly Decorative! This sounds very dangerous!" To which I answer: actually, I have lit several very small wax-based fires in glass jars, or as I like to call them, "candles." They are in my new fireplace candelabra that my mom and dad gave me for Christmas. The flickery flames glint off the tile of my pretend fireplace, and they give off just enough heat to warm your hands by, so the effect is ideal for a rainy winter evening like this one. And arrayed across the mantel is my Christmas present from the Ranums. It's bee-yewtiful. And FEROCIOUS.

In Which I Draw the Line.

Dear Internet,

I confess I've missed our time together. When I was entertaining guests, when I was visiting family, I felt bad about giving you my full attention for any significant length of time. But all along you were busy storing up things you wanted to tell me about. My RSS feed was bursting at the seams when I opened it last night, and my e-mail inbox is littered with unanswered messages. I spent a lot of time today sorting through the treasures you saved to show me. They were wonderful, so wonderful that I've already forgotten what most of them were.

Let's see. You told me what my friends and other interesting people had been up to, their holiday highlights and their resolutions. That was nice to hear about. Then you brought me up to date on the weather and upcoming local events and some things you thought I might want to spend money on. Then you had some games for me to try out and some music for me to listen to, and I liked those things too.

But you are kind of a showoff, Internet, kind of an attention hog. I had plans to get a lot of paper-related chores done today, and I didn't get very far with most of them, because you had so much to say. I suspect you are kind of emotionally needy, Internet, because you will stop at nothing to hold my attention. I'm not saying you're boring, mind you, just that sometimes you need to let people have some space. I am going to go finish the laundry now, so you can just read yourself a story and tuck yourself in for the night, because we are not staying up talking until 2 a.m. Not tonight.

Compulsively yours,
Lindsey