proteanme

I keep forgetting to link to this, the Fantastic Idea Project lives on in myspace. And you can check out 3 newer tracks there.

I’m always pleased to see Rachel, Pat, Clint and Kelly, and even more so to see them in the context of sharing a good meal and talking over the last book we read together. A couple nights ago we shared a really fabulous meal at Wong’s King Chinese Restaurant. If you come to Portland go there and get in line for the best dim sum in town.

Here’s a quick recap of dinner:

• Appetizer recommended by the server: Lightly deep fried, but not greasy, tofu cubes with multiple spices served with a white vinegar dipping sauce. Peppery, crunchy, and silken on the inside. These were sublime.
• Clint picked: Short tip pork ribs in garlic sauce served on a small bed of lettuce, scallion and black bean. Succulent.
• Liz picked: Dry green beans with minced pork. Fresh ingredients and just the right amount of oil raised the bar on this old stand by.
• Author recommended: Cod and tarrot root stir fry with a light sauce that really show cased the vegtables and fish. This was the biggest surprise for me in tasting so good.
• Author recommended: Crispy garlic chicken where I guess they pour deep fried oil over the chicken and then serve it in some kind of sweet and salty dark sauce. I almost never eat chicken when I go out, but this rocked my world.

A teaser for a headline, but I’ve had some whoppers, well little whopper insights lately.  Today’s insight is that being busy with interesting work can, not always, but can help create a little breathing space around heart ache.  I’ll take a little space.

Ever since I bought my new bike, I get so much more play from the bike mechanics. It almost always starts with “how do you like your Surly”, and from there it’s not unusual to be on the listening end of some crazy touring story about riding to California with one pannier or riding from Washington to Canada with a fanny pack.

I do think I’m sliding into some serious bike geekiness, something I think I mentioned earlier, because I’m trying to figure out if I can swing buying a back-up bike, especially after seeing this Raliegh.

Just saw There Will be Blood, and . . . No Country for Old Men is still my favorite movie for 2007. Frankly, I thought Blood needed some editing and it was too narrowly focused on Daniel. I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority here. I even looked at my watch at the 2 hour mark, and found myself a little bored during the last 45 minutes. But, I love that Paul Thomas Anderson makes big, ambitious and imperfect movies.

Here I am Saturday night. No plans. No movie rentals, which for the last year have often taken the place of plans. I’m just trying to accept that things are what they are. And right now they might be not be much. Granted, I’ve been on and off the computer lots today, mostly writing, but I rode my bike, did my volunteer thing, ran some errands. I guess what I’m trying to say is I feel ok and I feel this is real and necessary, this stretch of nothing much.

But what made me want to blog again today is that I laughed out loud when I read this post in W4W casual encounters on CL “Hot Fat Woman in a Hurry to Fuck–Women Only” – it just seemed so amusingly precise.

I was looking in the moleskin I carry around in my back pocket, thinking I’d written something really profound in there that I could ruminate on here in my blog. But instead there’s mostly random notes about freelance projects, sneaker stores I wanted to check out when I was in NYC and SF, a list of graphic novels to check out, the theme of a dinner I’m hosting next week, and a reminder to pay my rent. So here’s an oldie but a goody. I think it’s the first song Matt and I wrote together, lyrics by him and melody by me: sold out teenage screamfest.

I’m feeling done in and undone at the same time and I’m completely uninterested in embracing this process. Sometimes, I just so sick of it all.  I’d like to just put my heart on ice.

From Pema Chodron: We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

Am I a glutten for punishment? I dunno. I don’t think so, but it’s easy for me to let other people construct that story about me. Frankly, it just takes me a while to figure how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking unless I’m really angry or super hurt. Given that – the murkiness of my emotional landscape, if someone else comes along who’s got the volume turned up to 11, it’s easy for me to get lost in their sound. I used to be able to brush this part of me off, but it’s not so easy now. I guess it’s not working any more. Inside I’m in transition I think, which is is awkward. I wish I came with a key or a better compass to navigate my emotional landscape.

The first time I saw Raquel Welch was on a televised USO show in December, 1967. By that point she’d been made a star by Fantastic Voyage, and after some roles in British films, she was a legitimate sex symbol. A soldier was picked out of the crowd and invited up on stage to meet her. From all buzz and cat calls and guys jostling for position, a lone GI emerged and made his up on to the stage, looking a bit sheepish, but still eager cause he was gonna get a kiss from her. Granted, it was only a kiss on the cheek. But it was fucking Raquel Welch.

And I wanted to be him. Badly – with all my 5 year old being I wanted to be him. I sat in the bath that night, closed my eyes, scrunched up my face, and pressed my hands together and wished as hard as I could – let me be that guy for that one second when Raquel Welch leaned in close and put her lips on his skin.