moving in

Here we go, moving into my new apartment! Yeah, I don't have any furniture yet, so I put my clothes on hangers... stood back and thought: "ta da!". While I was on my way to the place (from... buying hangers) I was out for the exotic and rare Portland thunderstorm. Walking around Hawthorne, it was impossible not to note just how many small businesses were closed due to the heat. People in the neighborhoods I walked through were out on porches, watching the skies and/ or having BBQs. I hope by this time next year I'm settled enough for a BBQ!

I may not have furniture, but I've already accumulated a small stack of reading material. Titles I'm working on (from the bottom up):
1. Refresh, Refresh (short stories) by Benjamin Percy
2. Growing Up Ethnic in America (short stories) edited by Maria Gillan
3. Revenge of the Lawn (novel) by Richard Brautigan
4. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle ("A Year of Food Life") by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Awake at Work (Buddhist practices in the workplace) by Michael Carroll

And, I know it is already in so many blogs but I just wanted to give a nod over to SMALL magazine. Working with so many artists and designers I really love, I'm glad (other than some clothes) the sketchbook is unpacked. Now I just need to find my light box. Anyway, they've put together a really beautiful, inspiring edition for summertime.
Cool stuff.
Subscribe, y'all.

come together

Hello June, month of plans coming together~

I'm relieved and happy to announce I accepted a job today. (lets out 10 month long held breath)
I'll give you a hint from one of my favorite blogs also, weirdly, posted today.
...ooo eee ooo :) ...

I'll be moving into my new place this weekend, and hopefully getting some furniture for my room at the same time. Ah, so much excitement going on in my pattering heart! Also, I just had a latte. Maybe I'll go run around the block in celebration.

anchor

Last week Celeste and I went to Cannon Beach for an afternoon to meet the Pacific ocean. The first half of the day there were fog and clouds, with a fine slanty rain coming down intermittently. Don't get me wrong: it would have been beautiful to me no matter what the weather.


We grew up on the peninsula Cape Cod in Massachusetts, surrounded by the Atlantic. Not that we had a house by the ocean, or that our parents had a boat, or any of those other stereotypical things people consider when you say "I grew up on the Cape" (no, I've never been to the Kennedy compound. Thornton Burgess was more our speed). Myself, I didn't really leave the Cape much until going to college in Boston, so was cradled in that land of cottages, buoys, ice cream, summer people and beach glass for quite a while. I remember being really surprised by the city even though Boston felt familiar as the backyard, and those feelings of wonder discovering the non-Cape Cod world are still strong 12 years later. At the best of times, at least.

So, it just was a matter of course that my sister and I would head to the coast. I think the rolling waves, breathing in the salty air, surrounded by small stunted trees and small boxy beach houses, these things are how we measure our experience of awe and appreciation of the world. Maybe it isn't even an experience I can qualify like that, exactly, but the point when I put my feet down here, restlessness rested. For an afternoon, just to fill my senses with this basic language of home, with introductions to the remarkable west coast differences, this was simple, as simple as satisfying.


(Celeste and I enjoy the inevitable ice cream cup and sundae, respectively. It's hard to smile right with your mouth full of chocolate fudge, but here is a good effort!)

More

Okay, goofing around online this morning and I can't help but post a few more pictures from last week.