Good Hair
Let's all agree that I love Lefty because of his personality. But! I mean his hair, how good is his hair? It's at peak cuteness fresh out of a bath—all clean and glistening in the early morning sun.
"Look, if I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don't love you anymore."—Self Portrait with Cropped Hair, Frida Khalo
Luck Would Have It
Today I'm feeling very lucky about the bright fall weekend I had—all the hours spent outside letting the incandescent autumn light shine on me. The afternoon I read four chapters of a new book with the sun like a heater on my back. The short sleeves I was able to wear while skating with a bunch of friends—and then having to snatch a warm flannel out of the car when shadows crept in. The homemade mac and cheese I ate right out of the oven, "brown and bubbly" just like the recipe detailed. The drive north along the Columbia River through tree-lined fields—Mt. St. Helens shining with snow across the water. The acceptance that longer, darker nights are restorative—that "rest" is allowable, that sitting on the couch under a blanket under a cat is a more-than-fine way to pass an evening, that all the "going" and "doing" you did this summer is somehow JUST NOW catching up with you and maybe that's why you are suddenly so FUCKING EXHAUSTED every night at 6 o'clock ...
Sojourning
In fact, sometimes you gotta get out of town. Even if it's just to the beach for the day—even if it's just to walk all clumsy through the deep sand with ocean-bred ions washing over you and the dog running far in the wildness of joy. The drive's only an hour, it's not like you went to Mexico or anything, but a short trip like this can be just the thing for telling at least one embarrassing story in the car (maybe about your freshman year in high school), and then eating a couple diagonally cut sandwiches in a parking lot near the beach trail—the food tasting resplendent because you're outside in the salty air. It's not like you conceived the fucking meaning of life, but you did get out of town. Do you know what I mean about this?
Also, maybe you'd have enough time to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and watch people in hairnets and safety glasses chop colossal blocks of cheese down into the manageable 12oz hunks we see in the grocery. Frankly, the enormity of those primordial cheese blocks will be forever emblazoned in my memory. So. Much. Cheese. If a girl like myself had to measure my cheese intake for the year, would it amount to one of those?!!! And after seeing said measurement, would I ever eat a bite of extra sharp cheddar again?!!!
Weekend Report
The first weekend of October, gone.
Spent all day skating tiny concrete quarterpipe with pals. Ran over fallen leaves. Got barked at and (once) nipped.
Converted skate gang to bike gang, rode tipsily around town under dark starry skies.
Took slow-moving Sunday walk through Cathedral Park, let dog run wild in peaked shadows of St. John Bridge.
Sat at picnic table along Burnside Street in very good company, drank glass of cold pink wine, felt warm sun on back.
Cooked big soup out of tomatoes and potatoes and sage. Dipped toasty bread in. Thought about all life things that need doing before 2014 comes barreling through.
