Favorites 11.10.15
The palette of November: The sun's always hiding behind purple-grey clouds and then piercing through all last minute, putting those lit-match orange trees into high relief. We can't pretend it's not pretty.
Old friends from other places moving to town for a month: Worlds collide. Your old friends become your new friends. Instead of flying across the country for a jet-lagged visit, you can walk down the street and visit them for a cup of coffee. A cup of coffee!
Not having hives: In a random turn of events, last year at this time I was in the depths of an illness brought on by lead poisoning. Maybe you didn't know? I was probably trying to be brave or some shit when I saw you. Anyway, after a year and a half, after a crap load of doctors and a crap load stress, I no longer have dark circles under my eyes or full-body hives. I am backing this!
The season's first really dark, damp Sunday doing nothing at all: Last weekend winter became real. The cat laid on the couch all day, while the dog laid on the floor. I stayed home and cared nothing about the cold or the rain. I read and watched movies for hours, I didn't give a shit. It was impossibly cozy. By the end of January, we'll be anciently tired of ourselves—but for now, things are just fine.
Asziz Ansari's show Masters Of None: Me and everyone I know—even, let's be honest, you.
The Desert And Back
What happened was, my mom called a while back and demanded that I drive down to meet them in Southern Utah. The desert in the fall sounded just fine, and past me didn't care that future me would have to drive 15 hours each way to get there.
Having just returned, I'm gonna argue here that all those long hours spent in the car were almost the best part of the trip. I saw so much natural beauty outside that windshield. Fucking scenery! Roving rainstorms off in the distance, hanging their veil over the purple mountains. Oceans of lonesome sage brush. The canyon between Salt Lake and Green River, where steep ravines covered in orange scrub brush turned soft in the lilac twilight. Colors upon colors, the palette changing with every new valley ...
Anyway, we spent a couple days in Moab eating and hiking and staring at the rocks. I love that town. You're surrounded by red canyon walls, right there on the cusp of Arches, Canyonlands, and Monument Valley. Every time you walk outside, you see something worth sending a postcard about. Surreal!
Young, wild, and free on Alvord Salt Flats in Southern Oregon.
Lefty, clearly trespassing in the Ruby Mountains, Nevada. This was also the scene of a picturesque peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Paradise Valley, where we found a clutch gas station just in time to watch the sun dip.
Arches, lagoons, and cliffs carrying the stains of ages.
Nephew Pat was only mildly impressed with the scenery. Tough crowd, 11 year olds.
The motherfuckin Colorado River! Word on the street—it gets its name from its red color.
Me, thinking about geology at Canyonlands.
P.S. I borrowed this picture (and the one at the top!) from Mark, who, bless his heart, drove all the tuff shifts and crawled in the dirt to fix my tire.
On The Way
I watched The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty. I liked it—better than I thought I would. Ben Stiller didn't do his schtick, he played it pretty straight and the movie was less campy, more odd. Cool odd. I clicked in with the undercurrent of digital replacing analog and what that means for things like craft, timelessness, and the essence of moments. Like, is it all just disposable?
Apropos of that, and apropos of #selfies and clogged feeds and the constant scroll scroll scroll, I didn't take any pictures of my epic autumn hike yesterday. Wait, I did. The pic above of the view from the top. Views are views, but all the best stuff about walking in the nature can't be translated by your phone-camera anyway—stuff like the pine-sap scent, stuff like how safe you feel in the sunlit room created by a scrub-oak canopy, stuff like the way tough physical exertion leads to a transformation of the heart.
Positively October
The first week of October, already gone. And I turned 30 something last week. It was the loveliest day, I barely did a thing. Worked a little, skated a little, laid on the deck in the sun with the cat.
As I got to reminiscing on the past year, I realized something: this summer was the very best summer of my life. At least in recent memory. In non little kid memory. It came on hot and fast. We went swimming every weekend. I skated a ton and went out a ton—on warm Saturday nights, always pedaling my bike down Alameda Street, headed toward Alberta, toward friends, toward tacos. Brooding was near non existent, and wasted angst was kept to a minimum. It was great, I did what I wanted ... which is all you could ever really ask for in a summer.
Anyway, it should make all y'all 20 somethings glad to know. Things never dry up. There's always more. Nope, no shortage of bounty as the years go on. Trying to say the good times will be over at such and such an age—hey that's just a myth we keep telling ourselves.
Favorites 9.29.15
Blood Moons: Lucky for me, the moon rises right outside my front door. On Sunday night, it arrived a deep, dusty red. In a time before social media, what we did was simply look at the lunar eclipse—some of us wondering about its dark celestial mysteries. Now, we can take pictures with our iPhones! (P.S. I borrowed this pic from my friend Kurt. I doubt it was taken with an iPhone. And for the record I deem astronomical happenings to be plenty worthy of a tap or two.)
Toasted sage: I didn't know that you could chop and cook sage until it was crisp and then sprinkle it on such things as squash and spaghetti to add fragrance and crunch. I mean, did you?
No roommates: I had roommates all summer and the last of ’em just left. Now the house is super quiet and warm with fall light. I love having the place filled with people, laughter, etc.—but then eventually it's so nice to be totally all by yourself.
Backyards of Portland: Perfect for the kind of fall days when you want skate and be with friends but make very little effort and deal with zero skatepark undesirables.
