things on the internet

"Inshallah," the feature article I wrote about last winter's India voyage, was just posted to the WWW. If you're here then you have time to fucking waste so go there and read. Also, surrendering my fate to the cosmos once again and boarding a plane to Spain in two weeks. I've been reading my Hemingway to get ready. 

Photo: Bergeri

In other news, I cannot tell a lie. I got paid by ESPN to predict the women’s top three finishers for an “X-Games Preview.” Haha. Go here for the full story. Pretty funny how things actually turned out. Hey, I did my best.

My picks were this:

Slopestyle:

1)    Jamie Anderson

2)    Cheryl Maas

3)    MFR

Wildcard: Janna Meyen

Pipe:

1)    Gretchen

2)    Torah

3)    Kelly

Wildcard: Jamie Anderson

The actual results were this:

Slopestyle:

1)    Jenny Jones

2)    Spencer O’Brien

3)    Megan Ginter

4)    Kjersti Oestgaard Buaas

5)    Hana Beaman

6)    Kimmy Fasani

Zero out of zero! In my defense, Janna, MFR, and Cheryl didn’t even show up to the event. Not sure what happened to Jamie.

Pipe:

1)    Torah Bright

2)    Kelly Clark

3)    Hannah Teter

4)    Ellery Hollingsworth:

5)    Kaitlyn Farrington

6)    Gretchen Bleiler

Two out of the top three, not bad I guess. In my defense, Gretchen double scorpioned on her first finals run and didn’t make it back up to wage war on the other two. 

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

hard boiled

'It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.'

January Survival Kit

Did you notice? It’s January. Nobody I know claims January as their favorite month, and I don’t think I even have to get into the reasons why. It doesn’t matter—what matters is that we endure. Below is a brief list of things that help get us (i.e. me) through these dark, dark days.

Happy Hour: It’s cheap, cheerful, and delicious. Besides, when it gets dark at 4:45 there is no reason to abstain from drinking before 5:00 and absolutely no reason to be awake past 10.

Rock Documentaries: Pete Seger: The Power Of Song, Patti Smith: Dream Of Life, Shane McGowan: If I Should Fall From Grace. They entertain, they educate, they inspire, and they remind you that compared to the truly great and talented you will never amount to anything in life.

Coors Light: It’s not because I’m from Colorado—it’s because of the frost-brew liner and the low alcohol content and the fact that it somehow makes most situations better, more festive, more poignant.

New favorite songs delivered from friends via iChat: It's magic how they suddenly appear on your desktop like that. The Arcade Fire doing Talking Heads’ “Naïve Melody.” Galaxie 500, “Strange.” Wire’s “Used To.” The Zombies, “Whenever You’re Ready.” I’m a lucky woman.

Trader Joe’s California Rolls with brown rice: I thought non-sketchy grocery store sushi didn’t exist but I was wrong. Three bux. Comes with ginger and wasabi. Tastes sweet and fresh like the ocean breeze.

Spooning: One of life’s most excellent activities is only enhanced by the frosty January air.  

harrisburg, oregon

When it’s been raining and snowing and freezing raining and snaining and basically failing to get light out at all in the morning, when after doing that for about five weeks straight you wake up one morning and the sun’s out, it’s making a pattern on your wall and your cat’s laying there in a pool of it all squinty eyed, well then you look out the window and get all excited and the world is yours for the taking.

Billy pilots the frontside 5-0, Jamie is the hype-man.

Tony went up and around and down the triangle thingy. Awesome.

And so it was that we all piled in cars the other day with big plans to go down to Harrisburg outside Salem and skate the new Dreamland park there. Little did we know, about twenty minutes south of Portland a massive cloudbank had the land in the grips of freezing dampness. Basically, somewhere past Oregon City, we entered Spooky Hallow.

Out of focus. Head cut off. But still—you can't deny the power of the frontside Smith. Jamie knows.

Billy. Air. Time.

But oh well, we still made it happen despite lack of sunshine and lack of proper attirement like hats and gloves and jackets. Rad stuff still happened and then we ate Mexican food and piled in cars and that is the end of the story.

Everyone is spazzing out in this photo and it is great.

desolation angels

“Way far back in the beginning of the world was the whirlwind warning that we would all be blown away like chips and cry—men with tired eyes realize it now, and wait to deform and decay—maybe they have the power of love yet in their hearts just the same. I just don’t know what that word means anymore.”