Wintering

I'm averse to the word "busy." I also hate the concept. It would be cool if every time I was inclined to say I've been busy, I just said that life was "full." I'll have to remember that. Anyway, abundance has been on my side. Lots of work. Lots of friends. Lots of dog chaos and yardwork and social functions and exercise and driving. As mentioned elsewhere, I have a new full-time job that takes up a fullness of time. And yet I'm light of step. Despite new responsibilities, I can't remember a time when I felt freer. It's good to be moving and feeling right and in an atmosphere of growth.

Aaaaaanyhow, this is all just a longwinded way of saying that I'm a weekend warrior now, and I'm good at it. For instance I catalyzed this Sunday by going up to Mt. Hood and white-walking through the new fallen snow. There was powder dolloped on all the trees and a cold freshness to the world that I almost never encounter anymore. The smell. The smell! It was pure Colorado childhood. My childhood exactly. Walking down the driveway past the frozen pond to the bus stop in the early morning dark as the snow plow did slow circuits up and down the hill, its headlights transformed into strange glowing orbs in the clouding powdersmoke. The smell and the cold and the snow took me straight back there for a moment. And it was nice.

Also: Despite all of the bad things in the news, everyday, relentlessly—there's a lot of good stuff in the ether, too. Have you watched Godless yet? Have you gone soaking in the Kennedy School pool in the rain? Have you read the book Bluets? Have you eaten the chocolate caramel cream cupcake from Back To Eden?

3 Things

Stranger Things, season 2. I know you've heard of it. It deserves to be heard of. It deserves to be watched amidst bitten fingernails and tea spilled on the couch when you jumped at the scary thing that jumped off the screen at you. Those little humans—kids, I think they're called—can really act.

Hot pokers in my back: The unsolved mysteries of a sharp, lingering pain just beneath my left shoulder blade. The last time it bothered me was in the midst of a total life melt down. Engagement, failing. Business, all consuming. Weather, wet and bitter cold. Unsurprisingly, a tarot card reading revealed the source of my back pain to be emotional—the earthly place where I held all my twisting woes. Spoiler alert: I made it through. My life didn't end. My back felt better—so slowly I barely noticed. That was 5 years ago. Though the hot poker is back, the woes are not. I gave up tarot readings and bought a foam roller.

Depth Perception: I didn't not like this new snowboard flic by the Travis Rice machine. I had a good time watching it, mainly for all the pillows and powder riding, and also the skit featuring my favorite little Canadian cabin in the woods. The same cabin where—see below—I spent one peaceful, quiet, ultra-starry night of summer slumber.

New Job, New Life

I got a new job. I get to work with my heroes. I get to drop f bombs in the office space and listen to banjo music or speed metal as my mood dictates. I get to bring my puppy to work. I get to make cool stuff and learn to be smart and follow my coworkers' footsteps into the magical place where good ideas come from.

This week, I started full time as senior copywriter at Nemo Design. I've worked from Nemo for like 12 years. Trevor and Jeff were nice to me. Like a little lost orphan, I put my desk in a corner here and fed off their fun and creativity to do my own work for other companies in other places. Now I'm here, and I'm working here. It's exciting.

I remember reading a passage in Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids—it was about how at some point in her life, she just gave up the idea of working for someone else and entered the artist's life, where she'd always make her own way and be her own boss. As a perma-freelancer, I related. I thought that would be me, a lone-wolf mercenary riding a MacBook Pro off into the sunset. That was me—but now it isn't. I'm on a team, and it feels totally right.

Homesteading, October Edition

It was hard to find time amidst the juggling and scrolling to drive out to Three Rivers and winterize our trailer. And yet we did—out of fear. Remember last winter when we all got snowed in in Portland for 2 months?

The trip was last minute, a little panicked, but the drive was so beautiful we forgot all about that. The colors as we passed over the volcano—crimson scrub oak between the dark, mysterious pines, and when descended onto the plains everything got softer, warmer. Pale gold-spun grass, burnt orange brush, gauzy evening light. When the day fell, we were warm in the trailer. The puppy slept literally on top of me. Cramped quarters are the coziest (and happiest). And getting punched in the face with a paw first thing in the morning is one of the rare joys of being a dog owner.

So, we applied to have water routed to the property, and we built a small roof to keep the snowdrifts at bay. That is all. Just these small things are what we can do right now. Though I love the little trailer, I'm still haunted by dreams of a wildly cozy A-frame. I hope my cabin aspirations will birth reality in the coming years, the kind of reality that involves a couple dirt movers and a concrete truck to pour a foundation.

Favorites 10.9.17

Black hits. When I bought my house 11 years ago, the trim was painted a festive teal. I hired Neil Dacosta and his lass Sara Phillips to paint over it with an understated white—and do classics accents of deep red. Recently, I realized I could—nay, must do something different. And so I went to Home Depot and bought a pint of black to refresh the accents. What I like is the way black isn't even a color. It doesn't add anything to the mix—it just emphasizes things, like putting eyeliner on all your windows. Here they are!

Old Country mornings. Townes. Emmy Lou. They are very recommended for breakfast listening on cool-to-cold mornings with fall light coming through the windows (when the NPR membership drive and other horrors of the world have taken the op for soothing news radio off the table).

Harvest moons. Not the Neil Young album of the same name. The real thing—our planet's satellite. I can never really get over the moon. It's strange light and mysterious vibrations. What pulls the ocean, pulls us in seen and unseen ways. Or at least that's what the folk revivalists tell us. Regardless, you can't not gasp at that big ol' pumpkin-sized moon hanging over the horizon.

Dove Vivi. Under the influence of cornmeal crust pizza and a glass of red, on maybe the last truly warm night of the year, you can discuss anything. Friends. Work. Blatant gossip. Philosophy. Rock and roll. Television. Death. Birthdays. Future plans and regrets. Etc. At the end, when there are 2 pieces left but 4 people around the table, you cut each piece in half, so that everyone takes home a morsel of the sacred evening.