New Jerseys
As you may know, I used to travel all the time. Europe, B.C., Vermont, India—every week, somewhere new. That's not me anymore—different job/different life. But! I love when people travel to me.
This past week, some guys from New Jersey came through town, and I let them stay in my basement. I'd never met these people—friends of friends, you see, but they pulled up in a killer old Buick and we were all immediately buds.
Like any consummate host, I showed ’em all the spots. We skated, hiked, wandered. We ate. We drank. We made a backyard fire. They did all the dishes and gave Lefty more attention than he's ever known. They also, while I was at work on 4//20, made this funny little feature film on location in my yard.
As a rule, I love East Coasters. Salt of the earth, funny, hard boiled. I also love the rite of the traveler—how you can meet new people and feel like you already know them, bond over a couple days or a car ride, be instantly old friends. If you've never left your town or your life, if you've never stayed on someone's couch or let them stay on yours, well then that's one of the best things you're missing.
Lefty's new squad. Thick as thieves.
Showed ’em some Oregon magic.
Hung around the fire pit while a sliver of the moon hung in the Western sky.
They really know their way to a girl's heart.
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Three Things
New car: I did not "bargain hard." I'm civilized, I just paid what they asked. It's possible that I got hosed. Actually, I'm feeling pretty broke now—but Lefty's happy and anything for the kid, ya know?
Front stoops: I wish I had a front porch. What is it about them? They're better than back porches. There's a potentiality there—hanging on the stoop, you could see someone you know and yell hey and they might come over and tell you about a show or a party going on later, maybe, or you could see a cute dog walking by and go out to force cuddle it, et cetera. The other night, we sat on Colleen's front porch, under white twinkly lights, safe from the spring rain, and everyone felt really happy and comfortable to be among friends and to not be stuck inside.
The Drop: A hard-boiled Brooklyn crime movie with a crazy little twist at the end. Y'all know how I feel about Tom Hardy (he's my guy), but James Gandolfini (RIP) and Noomi Rapace (the chick from the Swedish Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies) are so, so great, too.
New Beginnings
Check it out. Everyone just thinks of mini ramps as things to screw around on—jungle gyms for adults or something. But what a mini ramp really is, or can be anyway, is a community.
I got my ass handed to me a couple years ago by circumstance. I was engaged, did y'all know that? And I owned a business together with my man. Both things went away, right around the same time. Reality bent, disorientation unfolded ... but the show must go on.
Circumstantially, I started skating this one backyard mini ramp a lot. Here, slowly, I collected all of these shining people who are now my shining family. To all who wander or are lost, see, there's always a new somewhere to turn.
This is all just a long-winded way of telling you that that ramp's gone now. Wet Northwest winters had done a number on its bones. We tore the thing out and took the last wood to the dump yesterday. Sure, it was a little sad. Like with an old, sick dog, though, we knew it was time to put it down.
But! A new ramp's coming! Different dimensions, fresh strong wood all smelling of sap. Maybe see ya there this spring?
Me, back then. Fun = good for mind and body.
Benjamin H. Graham in that nice afternoon light.
Unscrewing. The opposite of getting screwed.
Bye bye, baby.
A cozy Sunday at the dump with my bests.
February-ness
I'm almost 100% positive that nothing good ever happened in February. The days are generally bleak and the ground smells rotten. You're all stir crazy—ready for something new but you don't know what. Fuck, I mean February—what's this month even FOR??!!
I guess it's a month for planning, and for planting seeds. Figurative seeds—but literal ones, too. Which is what I did a bit of this weekend. The planning and planting of the following: lettuce (spring mix), herbs (cilantro, dill, basil, arugula), kale, tomatoes (yellow pear, red cherry, red beefsteak heirloom), pattypan yellow squash, sugar snap peas, and cucumbers.
As I've said elsewhere, I’m interested in getting to the beginning of things. How much closer to the beginning of food (which is the stuff of life, yes?) can you get than this?
2014: A Year In Pictures
Life! The days are short, but when you go to count 'em up, you find that entire years have amassed.
January: Indoor concrete. The spark of a brand-new year. Cold nights, the moon frozen in the western sky.
February: Heart-shaped cookies. Sunny days and then days of blizzard. Ducking inside to drink tequila and then walking home through a snow globe.
March: A bouquet of waterfalls. The pine-laced air of central Oregon. Rain, sun, and how all the cherry blossoms pop over night.
April: Long walks 'neath the flowered drooping trees. The institution of backyard mini ramping. Lefty in the morning light.
May: Golden-hour grinds. Campfire nachos and sleeping under the stars. That sweet, pine-sap smell that tells of an Oregon summer.
June: Falling down a kind of rabbit hole of summer.
July: Zoo-bombing on warm nights. Skate camp. And that night we took the rainfly off our tent and peered straight up into the dome of stars.
August: Heat. Haze. Big roving rain clouds. Summer ends softly like a feather floating to the ground.
September: One last river day. Trish and Cairo, tying the knot. And all of my buds in my backyard for my birthday.
October: Warm fall nights, soaring down empty streets with the leaves flying away. Halloween hijinks that are done by 10 p.m.
November: When your life turns on a dime.
December: Backyard skate secrets. Forgetting things that need forgetting. Copious celebrations and an apocalyptic wind storm.