(Un)Official Summer

Summer is no luxury. It's just the way things are, for a certain number of days per year. Still, it's full of a lot of things that I like very much. Like, in zero particular order, these real-life happenings from my holiday weekend:

"Swimming" being a legitimate possibility on the day's agenda.

Hard physical labor in the heat, followed by a super-cold milk shake.

BBQs with mini ramps. All the friends hanging out, all night, every night.

Something new blooming in the garden every day.

Wildfire smoke setting the evening skies ablaze.

A cool shower right before bed.

Backyard campfires, followed the smell of woodsmoke on your hoodie for days.

48 Hours In New York

I started this weekend by getting on an early flight to JFK. By noon (3 p.m. local time) I was riding through the hot city, all sticky like a glazed donut, on an A train express to the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn—where Matt and Mimi of Cape Cod wedding fame now live with their two dogs who both closely resemble stuffed baby seals.

We were back East for just over 48 hours. A quick trip to Get Out Of Town and help Matt celebrate his birthday. The goal was not tourism, but simply real life. As such, I did not see the Empire State Building or the Statue Of Liberty, just wandered around Brooklyn eating and drinking and skateboarding and soaking in all the general lawlessness and spontaneous joy of that great, old city on a summer weekend.

Vegetable-arian food. From ramen to cornmeal french toast, I ate a lot of incendiary food while I was there. My favorite, I think, was the oyster mushroom banh mi from Toad Style. I'm always trying to eat those spicy, saucy sandwiches, but I've only ever seen them made with tofu, and I don't really care about tofu—don't hate it and don't love it, but generally find it hard to digest. In other words, tofu doesn't close the deal for me. Mushrooms though!

A shot and a beer. Nowhere else on the planet do I find myself ordering a shot and a beer when I walk into a bar. But in New York, that's how they do it. Not only is it the cheapest way to consume alcohol in an expensive city, it's a super easy way to get on a vacation tilt-awhirl. Weeeeeee!

Skatepark tourism. We did a wee skatepark tour through Brooklyn. There's loads of new ones. I had fun at each one—if not skating, then people watching. From scene to style, New York is super different from Portland, almost the opposite, you could say. I dig watching and observing that stuff, from a sociological standpoint. Also, I dig fun. Coincidentally, that's what skateboarding is.

Dispatch From Camp

The last time I spent the night outside, it was high on a mountain during a freak snowstorm. Mentally, I'm still recovering. So it felt good to pack up the ole backpack again the other day with all the windows open, the sun streaming in, the screen door screening the bugs of May, the birds birding around, the buds, budding. Everything's just easier in the summer, isn't it? Throw a few things on your back, walk down a trail until you come to a river. Spend the night there, relaxed.

By the way, did y'all notice the trend in canned wine, recently? How fortuitous for me, an appreciator of the grape and its juices, fermented or otherwise. Mostly fermented. Bottles, as you know, are heavy, unwieldy. You can fit them in your backpack, and I have, many times, but only at the expense of looking a little ridiculous. Those canned wines, though, they stash perfectly in a pocket meant for camp-stove fuel or some such. What did we ever, ever do without canned wine? Whiskey, I guess.

I'm related to the best dadgam gift givers. Every time I swing through my parent's house on holiday, I come away with a new fancy thing for being outdoors and adventuresome. The Big Agnes air mattress my dad gave me is one such item. It weighs next to nothing and takes around two wheezy minutes to inflate. Then all you have to do is throw it in your tent and have a lovely, comfortable night. I'm one of those featherweight sleepers. Typically, a night of camping would mean mostly lying there awake. With this mattress, you can get all cocooned up in the fetal position on your side and sleep like a lil baby, though. Sure, I still wake up sometimes, but only now and then. The other night I woke up because—I swear—the river had gotten incredibly loud. Do you think that happens, around 3 in the morning? Witching hour? The air thins out and the river rages? Maybe preambling a wild battle of the spirit world? I wouldn't know. I never did leave the tent—just cozied back in, willed my brain into submission, and drifted off again until the sun woke up the birds and then they woke up me.

P.S. Thanks to Dorian for the lovely pic above of me and Lunden wrangling the dogs.

Spring Precipice

Guys, I'm always and forever in search of experiences with fun and meaning. Lately, they've been hard to find, though.

Where is all that joy we used to know?

For me, it both is and isn't the weather. It's the weather and the other stuff, like death, and like almost dying, and like being stuck in town—both literally (with snow and mudslides closing the passes) and figuratively (with a new puppy we must care-take instead of hopping a plane to Hawaii)—that have made this winter a winter to hibernate.

However, in a rare act of magnanimity this weekend, the sky got sunny over Beaverton skatepark on a Saturday who's forecast had preambled rain showers, allowing me to do what I like, which is skateboarding, outside, in the sun, with friends. No small miracle.

Then, on Sunday, we got up early and drove into the Gorge to skate more and climb a mountain, where we walked through glowy green fields, sun dappled, flower dappled, with silver river waters off in the distance.

It wasn't the nicest weekend, as weekends go. But it was nicer than any in recent memory, juicing with enough of that second-tier happiness I needed to pull me back from the precipice—out there where I was teetering, close to becoming so grumpy, I'd be forever lost to the lands of Curmudgeon.

Forest Escapism

Hello to you. Here's a picture of me, standing in the woods—but not just any woods, my woods! As mentioned elsewhere, I bought some land in Central Oregon. This was like, four or five snowstorms ago. Due to weather (and due to life), this weekend was my first opportunity to walk ’neath the grand Ponderosas as their bonafide owner. To have your own forest. How cool.

The plan was to build a cabin of dreams on this lot ... and maybe I still will. But as it often does, reality has set in. Permits cost money. Septic systems cost money. Materials cost money. Your hopes and dreams—they cost fucking money!

No matter. I've settled on a different plan. A for-now plan, involving the purchase of a decently cute camper trailer to park amidst the greenery (anyone know anyone who's selling one?!). This, along with a fire pit and a fence, are all that are standing in the way of me and an epic summer of escapism.