Portland, will you marry me?

Northwest adventure completed.

In four days, we crammed 30 hours of driving under our belt, 1 of which found me behind the wheel. Tennessee handled the other 29. I always pair myself with people who can't handle being passengers. Luckily, I'm a very good passenger. Here is where my sluggish metabolism and distinctly absent desire to accomplish things in life really get a chance to shine as my best qualities. I can sit for hours and hours without moving and not go insane.

Low motivation to achieve aside, let me confirm the idea that, first of all, Northern California is beautiful. Driving through the mountains was stunning and great. The air! So fresh and so clean. Ain't nobody dope as the mountains. Oregon and Washington were pretty too. I am a northern lady, for sure. Fir trees and moss and mist are all up in my alley. I was sort of hoping to see a waterfall in slow motion while a logging truck glided past a la Twin Peaks, in fact, it was so close to how that show looked I really figured I'd see the one-armed man or the log lady walking by at any moment. That whole state seems to be quirky. I really do understand why Lynch films all take place there.

Second of all, Portland is a way cool place. Everyone there is nuts. Everything is weird, but in the best way. Some cities, you can tell people are trying to hard to be "cool"; The eccentricity is contrived or forced. This city just seems to genuinely be filled with happily bizzare people who don't give a crap. The super weirdos just sort of blend in with everyone else. Even the preppy go-getter types still have at least one piece of clothing from the Goodwill on. And vegetarian restaurants? Hell yes! Everywhere! It's the most bike friendly and vegetarian friendly city in the USA. Here's the good part though, it's not hippies. It's just really progressive, liberal people.

The amount of vintage shops is astounding also. We went to one that was so big I got lost in the middle and didn't know how to get out. The beauty of the place was that it was real vintage junk, not fake and not overpriced. They also had the courtesy to lay out the place in the most haphazard and nonsensical way, so that you really felt like you were hunting through the estate of some insane old lady that collected crazy things her whole life. I could have lived in there for days. And cheap!!! Cheap and no tax.

The book stores are the same; everything ever in print, no matter how small and independent and cheap and no tax. We were sad to have to leave it behind after only a day.

The day before, we spent in Olympia, WA. Another super cute and quirky little place. A little too heavy on the hippie side though. Again, plenty of the vintage shops and veggie-friendly food and good record stores and all that, but it's small enough that the youngsters sort of have their heads up their asses a little. You know, how people can think they've reached their pinnacle when they have no challenges? Kinda like that. Olympia has a good start to being a cool place, they maybe are just a little too self-satisfied to keep up the good work though. It seems to be a place on the decline. I really like it there anyway. It's a port town and sweet and cute with just the right amount of seasoned kookiness to balance it out. I bought a great pair of orange sherbet coloured pants from the 70s for 8 bucks and had a good salmon burger, served by a guy that looked like what Michael Stipe would have turned out to be, had he never joined a band and became a small town waiter instead. Points to the man for serving the entire place with a bandaged up left hand.

We didn't have much of a master plan for Olympia, hoping instead to just find something to do. We saw a flyer on a record store window for a cafe that was having a cabaret night including clogging, a puppet show and fake beat poetry. Obviously, that was meant for us to go see. After narrowly avoiding staying in the worst hostel ever, we went to the address of the cafe, which turned out to be a couple's house. Once a month, they fill their living room with tables and chairs and candles and make a few dishes to serve and have friends perform in a little lit up corner of the living room. They were young kids who were the sort of hippyish people I mentioned above but it was a really cool concept and pretty neat of them to go through with. We had a good vegan meal, daiquiris and watched an orange-haired girl play her own songs on her ukulele, singing about good sandwiches and polyamorous love.

Did I mention that I had a full-on, hacking, coughing, nose-blowing, lozenge sucking, head-cold for the entire trip, starting the night before leaving? Well I did. It sort of sucked, but I managed to have a good time in spite of it. It could have been worse. We didn't stay out as late as we might have or troop around town as much as we normally would have, but we both feel we had a full and tasty passage through the northwest. I declare it a fine place to go. Fine indeed.

Please go here to see the photo evidence of our adventure.

Drawings to resume promptly.

Voodoo doughnuts and David Lynch territory.

Well well, look who's blogging. I have been busy doing nothing. Not true. I've been planning a northwestern adventure. 24 hours of driving in 4 days, 3 states, can't complain about that. We're going to Portland, Oregon and Olympia, Washington. From what I've seen on the internetland, these are 2 very cool places. It's like, starting from Eugene WA up till Seattle, all women wear vintage dresses and black rimmed catseye glasses and knit skull, tea cosies and the guys all have toques and three musketeer moustaches and are vegan chefs. That kind of place. There's even a big craft fair at a log cabin style bar. It's gonna be so Twin Peaks! People will be talking backwards and mimes will replace traffic lights at every intersection and there will be donuts in the shape of voodoo dolls. Well, only that last bit is true. There's a place called Voodoo doughnuts, open 24 hours a day, where they perform marriages, give Swahili lessons and produce some seriously left leaning pastry. Now I know why David Lynch makes all his movies in the northwest. In fact, almost as a cosmic primer for the trip, one of the movie channels has been showing his films all week. I'm pretty excited.

Drawings. Drawings, frawings, brawings. I have been doing them, but they are in a serial form and not ready for release and taking up my time but I realized today that a gal can still post some quickly done, stupid drawings too right? So after the trip, I will try to get back on track with a drawing a day. In the meantime, here's a cryptic view of those comics I mentioned.

Now I must go create a valentine's day masterpiece which will not be posted due to obscenity laws. Just kidding but some things are private, gosh!

The Lick Observatory

This place is fantastic. Taking an hour of unending twists and turns up a mountain to get there, the pay off is the incredible view and fantastic atmosphere of this place. It's old school. Built in the late 1800's, it seems it was once a little village. Now, it's an observatory with 2 telescopes, a dormitory for the employees, and a handfull of decrepit abandoned little buildings on the tippy top of a mountain overlooking the south bay area. The buildings of the observatory are old school too, like if you're in a convent or church basement or old boarding school. It has that wicked, 1920's instinstitutional feel that I love. Old wood and ancient bathrooms with little blue tiles and narrow stairways....Did I mention the fantastic view? I want to live somewhere like this, high up in a mountain in an abandonned convent or observatory.

Dubious motto.

I went to a hockey game last night. Yes I did. I liked it. So there.

Today, I tried out the pool. I was alone for most of the time. It was only 14 degrees outside but the pool is heated. So there.

No really, it was...something. Fun? Yes...but also a bit, um, I don't know, Mallrats is on and I can't concentrate.

Big empty pool, big sky, plane doing circles high up. That sort of thing.

Eventually someone else came along who seemed to be annoyed I was there. I think she's used to having the place to herself. I understand but at the same time I don't give a crap. Sometimes I get sick of empathy.

Later, I went for a bit of a walk around. Just a leisure walk. I've been trying to exercise my huge ass off so most of the activity I do is geared toward that end(no pun intended), however sometimes a gal just wants to take a leisurely stroll and eat a bloody chocolate bar in her jogging pants. So there. The weather was so right on. I'm sorry to people dealing with snow, but it was so lovely. Fresh, clean spring air and gentle sun. A hawk floating on currents, flower buds about to blossom...

I've been working on some panel comics. Many people will be pissed at me should they ever see the light of day.

Hard-earned endorphins.

I have cards to make, and I can't post them until the people get them so...maybe less drawings for a couple of days? EXCUSES!! You yell. Sort of.

Brushing that aside, I have discovered running endorphins. Running in the weakest sense of the word. Jogging really. Jogging in spurts and then walking. It's called a 1-5 split people!! No really, it's groovy. Instead of launching into running a marathon, you start of jogging for a minute or until you reach your limit and then walk till you recover and then do it again and repeat etc...Who knew? I didn't. I thought you just had to be a freak to be able to run or jog.

There is a path specifically for this sort of thing round these here parts. It's elevated so you can see above all the IT buildings to the mountains on one side and there's a ravine on the other. I saw 3 eagles, a bunny and heard bullfrogs today. And it's a big loop that you can't shortcut so you are forced to do a proper distance. I've actually been getting better and looking forward to it. Thank you brain for releasing nice chemicals as a reward.

Yipee for me right? Could I be more boring? "Yes you could and you have been so quite yapping and draw something". Pfft. What does drawing do for me? Does it make my clothes fit better? Does it trick my brain into thinking it's happy? No and NO!

I'll do it anyway.

It's me, it's you, it's everyone.

"Hustle!"

I've been edited.

There is an outage on this site in 8 minutes. Must type fast. Couldn't possibly wait to do it a bit later even though I've been putting it off for days. No blog, no drawings-sue me.

I'm PMSing and I just don't care!! I was even glad to have the maids come today. It freaked me out 2 weeks ago and made me feel guilty but today I feel like: Glad I'm not doing it. Fuck vacuuming.

So today is sunny and I went downtown and there was very little there other than bars. Lotta bars. And homeless people. Still was sort of amusing anyway. Briefly.

More importantly, someone let me borrow their Mac Powerbook. What a nice, nice person. I am happy.

T was trying to convince me to get a laptop a while back, but every time I looked at one in my price range, it was a stinky PC and I just couldn't put down the money for it when I knew what I wanted was a MAC. I dreamed that somehow I'd be able to magically get one. Tadaa!! Even if only temporarily.

A Clabber girl's got skillz.

I woke up last night, in the middle of a dream, choking. I even made the international sign for choking, grabbing at my neck with both hands. I was dreaming that I was trying to cross the street and suddenly, a disaster occured in the metro which caused some kind of unknown crud to go flying through the air. It was just as if I was standing in front of a 20 foot lawnmower breathing in all the grass that it expelled. There was no air, only this orange grass stuff jetting everywhere. I couldn't breathe at all and I woke gasping for at least 10 seconds before I could get a breath in. Then I coughed crud for 15 minutes without rest. I felt like someone beat the shit out me afterward. T slept through the whole thing. Ha. What good is making the international sign for choking if no one is watching you do it??

Is there an international sign for "OH my god, that is a friggin awesome spicy tuna roll!"? San Jose has a Japantown, we discovered yesterday. I thought this city was a lost cause, but at least it's got that. Japantown is a small, calm, low building, wide-street, part of town, with a bunch of restaurants and a great Japanese market containing many mysterious items. Some less so. I am enjoying my not at all mysterious miso and seaweed in this great soup I am consuming as we speak.(T's alarm bells will be going off as he pictures miso soup frying his laptop. Don't worry, I am using sheer will to keep from spilling soup on your computer T. It hasn't stopped me from spilling it on myself but....)

Saturday we went to the Aquarium in Monterey, as you've probably seen. That place also kicked bum. I hell of dug that place. Why can't I breathe under water????? Looks sooo relaxing. Unless you are being stung by jellyfish or stingrays or chomped by sharks etc...apart from that though...It was stinky good-like my soup. If there is ever some kind of global catastrophe and we all go mental, my insanity will manifest as me pretending I am an ocean dweller. I will head to the nearest coast and hang out on the shore with flippers on, eating seaweed and burying myself in rocks to keep warm at night. I have it all planned out.


I so should have bought this gum.


Damn fine meal.


I'm trying to decide what qualities a Clabber Girl has.


Deliciously packaged, frozen mysteries.

I call this: The unwanted noogie.

Yes, that is beet juice.

Time has come to paint with beets.

She did show up. I shared the snacks after all. It was okay. Another scientist! Back in Montreal, 3 out of the 6 of us are scientists. Science and knitting. Who knew it was such a firm partnership? Did you know? DID YOU??

It wasn't as fun as my Montreal group. I miss youse gals, sniff, sniff.

It raineth and raineth. I am in the cavern of our apartment, waiting for the henna to redden my hair (and probably ears, forehead and neck as well), wondering what I can paint with beet juice and what I can cook with beets...just now as I was about to type a sentence, my hand spasmed and I typed out "BS" in capital letters. Is my hand trying to tell me something? Is it?? "Ya.I'm your hand and I am trying to tell you something. BS is what I'm trying to tell you. Not clear enough?? BS. You are full of it."

Thanks alot hand. That same hand hauled out and punched the headboard last night while I was trying to pull the sheet in place. Wasn't that the premise of a Michael Caine Movie? His hand thought he was full of shit and kept trying to punch things?

I'm asking you many questions, reader. For you are wise. Wise beyond your ears.

Just checked it out and yes indeed it was a movie, appropriately entitled The Hand. Directed by Oliver Stone- weird. I guess it goes to show that even the giants of art can start off by sucking. Actually, the only reason I knew this was a film was thanks to SCTV. They did a parody called: My Bloody Hand and Dave Thomas played Michael Caine. I often think of the SCTV version of celebrities before the celebrities themselves: Eugene Levy as Ernest Borgnine. Rick Moranis as Michael McDonald, Catherine O'Hara as Katherine Hepburn and so on...

Speaking of Dave Thomas, something got me thinking about all those great AM radio songs I listened to as a kid, sometimes taping off the radio, from the mono speaker of my cube alarm clock, into my white tape recorder. I thought of Dave's brother Ian Thomas. I know he had a few great hits, but I couldn't for the life of me remember any. I walked around all day going mental. Then, hours later, while fluffing a pillow, it came to me: Rudolph Valentino, put up in my limousine, oh won't you come in outta the rain.....Yes! It's been in my head ever since. Still can't think of the others though. Little help??

Alright, time to paint with beets.

More snacks for me.

It's cold. Cold and rainy. So there. I don't mind really. It's springy and fresh. It was spritzing this morning, like a mist of seltzer. The clouds looked like cream cheese on bagels. Seltzer, bagels, they sort of go together don't they?

Someone is meant to come over and knit with me today. I put an ad on Craigslist. I have this feeling she won't show up. It would seem that people in Silicon Valley are less than lackluster about the idea of crafts. No time for knitting when you've got hubcaps to shine and programs to program and Mexicans to order around. There, I said it. Gawd it's like somehow Mexican people are considered to be some sort of worker bee breed. Got something cruddy to do? Hire a Mexican. It's creepy and warped. I really don't see that in Canada. A race of people for menial jobs. No one seems to even question it. I don't get it.

Anyway, if she doesn't show up I don't mind. I'm happy to have the snacks I laid out all to myself. I'm starting to get the hang of it here. I know where the mailbox is, I've stopped getting hives everytime I see a pen and paper, I figured out how to sleep better on the big wierd bed we have and I've started looking forward to going to the gym everyday. Yay for me right? Don't picture knives going into my head. Simple things are difficult when I get my hands on them.

I think I'm allergic to California.

Er, if something new happens other than me blowing my nose 4000 times a day or getting lost for the 5 millionth time while trying to get the mail, I'll let you know!

I'm way better looking in ink.

Humour me

So it's my personal challenge to post a drawing a day no matter how crappy and maybe they will get better. I'm taking weekends off. Somehow I figure it will hold me accoutable to do it this way... I'm in kindergarten again, starting all over. Swallowing pride, I begin at the begin...ning. Sigh.

Swans and Frogs

Finally I felt well enough to haul me arse out of doors today. There's a cool breeze but the sun feels like someone hugging you in a towel that just came out of the dryer. Lovely weather, I think is the way to say it. I walked aimlessly since I can't really walk any other way, due to my piss poor sense of direction. It does all sort of look the same around here though. Trees, and big shiny buildings and silver luxury cars.

I saw what I beleive to be a swan in the field in front of the orange orchard beside our complex. It looked as aimless and confused as I did. Hope it figures out where it's going.

Also, I found my favourite spot to sit inside the complex. A big blue pond with frogs spitting water. Why not? I wonder if each little part of this place has it's own "thing", like a frog fountain in one spot or marble turkeys in another. Really, I could spend a few days just walking around all the different complexes in this cluster and seeing what they've all got in their corridors and courtyards.

I was highly tempted by the pool until closer inspection. The water was warm and inviting feeling but the bottom looked dirty. Pooh.

I was thinking maybe I should stick one drawing per day up on this here blog, just for the hell of it. I figure if I at least start there....well it's a start, there.
Since I have no scanner I'll have to take pictures of them. Humour me.

Toodles, noodles.

Creepy and rad.

I had the bizarre experience of people coming in and cleaning my home while I sat on my ass and did nothing. I was too sick to leave and let them do it in peace. Holy crack was that ever not cool feeling. They did my dishes! I didn't know they had to do my dishes. I figured they'd just dust a bit, vacuum and clean the bathroom but they did my dishes and rearranged everything on the bathroom counter top and I just sat there watching a Chinese movie. I thought it would be nice to have someone clean up for me but it's creepy.

I see a bit of sun out there. It looks windy. I am huddled under a blanket nursing my sore head. Today's big adventure will be having a very hot bath and making some biscuits. Live vicariously through me! The excitement is endless!!

"So what'd you do out there in Cali?"
"Had some baths, made some biscuits, slayed mythical creatures and invented a time machine powered on yarn and static electricity!!"
"Rad."

Bleeeurgh

I'm sick. Nothing I say or write today makes any sense. Can stuffed sinuses make you insane? What can I tell you anyway??? I'm jobless in California! I like the dishwasher okay??? I like it. SUVs are everywhere and capitalism is killing me softly with his song and inequality of the classes and so on....

Truly, I feel like it must be annoying to hear about the whole thing anyway. "Ooh, look at me, I am either a jerk for being here and having a good time when I didn't do a damn thing to deserve it, or I am a jerk for being here and wrecking a great opportunity to have a few months of fun by being too guilty and neurotic to let it happen."

How about this option Monsterteeth? Why don't you chill the fuck out and be a normal human for a couple of months and not overthink every damn thing and just eat some vegetarian burritos and buy some shoes and take some pictures of the Golden Gate bridge ya FREAK!

Point taken, maybe I will try that out, after my sinuses stop trying to leap out of my skull. Meantime, I will continue using the dishwasher and giving myself pep talks to counter balance the catholic and/or germanic guilt. Sound like a plan?? Ohh yeaahhh!