theology&geometry

Good luck with that.

I remember that peach jogging suit. I was 10 or 11. I was doing the tango with puberty. It was an ugly, lumpy time.

I have been up all night scanning old photos with the new fancy scanner that doesn’t even need me to draw boundaries around photos before saving them. IT JUST KNOWSSS!!! Technology is the best.

A metric crapload of what I uploaded tonight got transfered to Flickr and Facebook; blame the booze and my need to recall and connect elements from my past to my present to reassure me that this crazy life is one long sequence and not just fits and starts. I am having a more-than-quarter-life crisis this week and can be forgiven a giant photodump, ya heard?

I am burned out.

I am sick of working nights and weekends.

I never see my friends. I don’t even think they notice anymore.

I am sick of a job where I just sit on my ass and stare at a computer screen and deliver page proofs to people like some kind of copy boy.

I have grown tired of some people’s refusal to recognize me as having earned the creative freedoms I feel I’ve earned.

I am pissed at myself for deciding that my love of journalism/visual editing should trump my more practical concerns about a sustainable career that wouldn’t be gutted by short-sighted corporate overlords who only care about fattening the bottom line AKA eventually making my job redundant.

I think I am overworked and underpaid.

I figure I don’t do anything about it because I am lucky to just be employed.

I am terrified of making a radical leap but I wonder if it’s the right thing to do, given the prevailing attitudes about people with my job description, and what my corporate overlords have in store for me in the next year or two.

I am being cryptic for obvious and obviously annoying reasons.

I am positive that blogging about these things is a really bad idea but I figure I have nothing to lose.

I want nothing but the best for my employer (and therefore my community) but I feel completely hamstrung by outside forces.

This is a Friday flower in every sense of the word, seeing as it did not exist until today. I honestly didn’t think I was going to get any blooms out of my hummingbird vines this year, so I’m quite smitten with this little guy.

Bonus angle!

I promise there will be less pee-related posts going forward.

I think.

I don’t dabble in black and white photography much. These shots sort of make me want to do more.

Sunday in Oregon started with breakfast at the Sassy Onion in Salem, which served me a fabulous slice of French toast, whose toppings included the hilariously named marionberries. I wish all fruits shared names with disgraced politicians. How could anyone pass up a heaping plate of bacon and fulliloves? Mmmm.

Chock full of carbs, Jason and I dropped Alanna off at the house so she could complete the week’s trivia questions, and we took off toward Portland.

Our first stop was Washington Park, home of the zoo, the rose garden, and the Japanese gardens, among other attractions. We followed the twisty road until we were sure we had gone too far, and then realized that we had arrived at our destination. We hit the Japanese gardens first. It was odd going from bustling park atmosphere with cars and people everywhere to reverent, nearly silent wooded area within mere seconds.

The Japanese gardens, for me, are a study in texture, pattern, and light. I filed away little ideas to take back home for my house and garden. At the top of my list: Those little smooth hand-sized pebbles lining the walkways. Oooh, and moss.

The gardens — and all of the area, I found — were also a study in spiders. Good god almighty, they were everywhere.

I’d be poking my head this way and that, trying to take pictures or get a closer look at something, only to find that three webs populated by three spiders were hanging mere inches from my face. Mercifully these were not evil kamikaze jumping spiders, but small laid-back hippie garden spiders who had no interest in injecting my face with their deadly skin-rotting venom. I suspect their presence was at least partially responsible for the fact that I didn’t get eaten alive by mosquitoes even while in the lush woods. That’s right: Lovely weather, no humidity, and no mosquito bites. Heaven is populated by a bunch of spiders. What a fucking rip.

Jason and I both have fastwalk syndrome when it comes to being inside a place we’ve paid admission to (see also: museums), so we saw all there was to see of the gardens in no time. I suppose you’re meant to walk around and meditate or contemplate or pontificate or whateverate, but I’ve never felt comfortable paying money to have deep thoughts. Except when I went to college. Ba-zing! Wait, that wasn’t even a good zinger.

The Japanese gardens are within walking distance of the rose garden, which is just kind of a ridiculous place because it is just bursting with color as far as you can see. I mean, it seems improbable that so many varieties of roses can be so beautiful at the same time. It’s a bit overwhelming. Jason and I made our way leisurely through the rows, stopping to smell the blooms when we thought about it. That was part of the fun — not every rose smells great and there’s no real way to tell which ones will.

After our sashay through the gardens, we were ready to get out of the sun. So we drove on into the city and made our way to Powell’s, that giant beacon of literary retail fortitude. I thought New York’s Strand was huge. Ye gods. Powell’s is the kind of huge that becomes kind of impossible to contemplate right away. It’s constructed and laid out like a confusing old thrift store, which I kind of loved. I ordered a refreshing tea type drink from the cafe and roamed the aisles, marveling at all the esoteric sub-departments. I did not allow myself to buy any books, although I did get suckered in by the stationery knicknacks on sale. I’m weak.

Once Powell’s was conquered, Jason and I found ourselves in need of a novelty doughnut. We were in luck, because Voodoo Donuts is just a mere sunny-day jaunt from Powell’s.

I suppose I can forgive Voodoo for stealing what could have easily been my personal slogan (hyuk!), because they make an obscenely fine novelty doughnut, for which which we waited out in the sun for MULTIPLE MINUTES, in a line wrapped around the building like iPhone-on-release-day fanboys. Jason found himself unable to resist the pull of the Bacon Maple Bar, while I found myself seduced by the Old Dirty Bastard. Jason was kind enough to let me sample the BMB, and it was unbelievable. Like pancakes on a doughnut. My ODB was ridiculous as well; it’s a glazed doughnut with chocolate icing, crumbled Oreos, and a swizzle of peanut butter. That’s right, America. I hate my arteries. (Full Voodoo menu here; I regret that I did not try a Memphis Mafia.)

Gut bomb successfully dropped, we walked around a bit and decided to rejoin Alana in Keizer so we could have dinner in Salem at McMenamins (Boon’s Treasury). Aside from waiting forfuckingever for drink refills, the dining experience at McMenamins was pleasant, and I enjoyed two glasses of Ruby. I love that the proprietors hunt for interesting old buildings to transform and inhabit.

I should also probably note that while exiting the car to go in to McMenamins, a bird shat on me. Well, actually, near me. On the car as I was getting out. I received some residual splashback. It was my first bird shitting ever. I’m glad it could happen in Oregon, where the bird shit is organic and free-range.

Anyway, my trip was shorter than I would have liked, but it gave me a taste of life in a region that is so vastly different from where I live now. I can’t wait to go back.