Dropping Facebook

I'm dropping my Facebook presence. I'm not sure if it is going to be permanent. But I've found that Facebook is a time suck and generates more stress and anxiety as of late, with comments and things that would be best left unread. More than once, I've gone to the page to click the "deactivate account" button but have yet to actually take that step. Maybe soon.
It's my goal to divest from the wasted online life. This blog is more creative than any shallow Facebook post I have made. I may post articles but decline to log in and see what people "like" or comment on. Or just forget about it all together.

"life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

Rainy day. Coffee and conversation drift through the air. The clank of saucers stacking. Electronic music. The ceiling fan in my side vision. A yellow & blue Trimet bus on Albina. The man next to me leaves with the newspaper and his backpack. He was writing with his left hand in a large unlined notebook. Oatie sleeping on my lap. 

I'm waiting for my mom and Chuck to arrive this evening. The house is ready. My mind is calming. I look up writing workshops. Request library books. My soy latte nearly empty. Searching for houses again. Not the right one yet but getting closer. The girl at the grocery store told me not to give up- keep going. It's wet- the buyers aren't so hungry. Houses sit sadly on the market, prices drifting down. Less anxiety. More civilized. Less frantic. Less impulsive. Thoughtful. Pensive. Like fall. 

Justin bought a Suburu. He's wanted one forever. It's used but new to him. Less miles than my mini. But one year older. We can sleep in the back. It came with a plug-in cooler. And racks and heated seats. He's a cold weather wimp so they will serve as weather therapy. 

I bought a one-way ticket to Iowa. Overnight through Chicago on October 26th. I plan to take a week and a half off. Go trick or treating with my nieces. Hitch a ride back with Justin and see him through the mountains and the snow. He's still green in both areas, having only lived on the east coast. He wanted me to ride with him. At first I thought, he's a big boy, he can do it himself. Then I thought, you can be nice, you know. So why not. 

After months of working extra days, I can take two off. Besides I like driving the Wyoming to Oregon part. If we could delete Nebraska that would be nice. But not likely. I have a lot of friends from Nebraska who might get upset. So I think that it's perfect. Even though I thought I didn't want to. Drive back that is. We will for the first time, enter Portland together. Enter the west on the ground, a pair, taking a chance on a real life together.

not spotless

i cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.
i did what i was told.
vacuumed all the floors- the bathroom-
under the couch-
dustbunnies
hiding everywhere.
the kitchen, a mess from their dinner
and mine-
wiping and washing and drying.
yesterday, the yard-
mowing and pruning and picking weeds.
three loads of laundry
hung out to dry and folded.
carefully cleaning
the toilet, the bathroom
thinking
none of this matters-
the house all clean
does not make up for the disorder
inside.

REvisiting Seattle

Backpedalling to Seattle. We were up there for Bumbershoot, which is an arts and music festival in the Seattle Center area, near the space needle. It was the third time I've attended (all with Carrie) and it's been sort of dwindling away into an event which I would skip from now on. I think it's become more mainstream and probably oriented to families and people from the suburbs and it's less about art and ideas and installations than it used to be. They totally dropped the "words" area, which is of course, books and writing. In other words, it's just another festival like all the others. Oh well. 

I still like to visit Seattle. But I'm not moving there. It's too big for me. :)

Elliot Bay Bookstore in Capitol Hill area

Next door, a shop where I could not even afford to look!

Bumbershoot--- poster area

Vegan food

Alt-J in the Seattle Center

MGMT

Recycled art. Pretty cool.

Strings being blown onto a ladder.

We had good weather.

Here starts the EMP building obsession. (Experience Music Project Museum)

Ewwww!! Did not try.

Justin Townes Earle. Awesome.

Goodbye and goodnight!

From "The Still Point of the Turning World" by Emily Rapp

I've been thinking about this passage over and over. I attribute a lot of things to luck, off and on, without much thinking about it. But I think I really like the idea life being about life, rather than being about luck, and whether or not I have any. I kind of feel like I should be careful when I use the phrase "luck" - she has a definite point.

Granted, we do not chose where to be born, or who our parents are, or our socioeconomic status. I would have formerly attributed those to luck of the draw, but maybe they are just the way life lays out. It's a strange and interesting ride, that's for sure.


[p. 93, on luck]

"The geneticist told us that if each of us had our DNA analyzed, we’d freak out; we’d be horrified by the many possibilities that may await us next year, in a decade, tomorrow, next week, a moment from now. 

“So, it’s about luck,” I said. 

“No,” he said, "It's about life. Any of us, at any moment, could manifest something we don't expect."

I misunderstood the concept of luck by believing it existed. I didn't need to feel cursed because Ronan had a terminal illness; I was long past caring what people thought about my own disapbility and what may have caused it or why. We talk about luck, I think, because it makes us feel blessed (another troublesome, annoyingly “folksy” word that is spoken by a character, at some point, in every episode of Little House on the Prairie). Saying “I’m so lucky” might feel to some like a priestly incantation, some kind of protective spell that makes people believe they’re standing on solid ground while the unlucky folks within shouting distance squirm around in the quicksand with their cancer and diseases and dying babies, but life – not luck – will find you eventually. To say “I’m lucky,” feels almost mean-spirited. It is mistaken for thankfulness, but it's not; it's smug and congratulatory, as if bad luck were a mischievous old gossipy lady with bad breath and kleptomania who you, super smartypants you, were wise enough to kick out of your house before she slipped the family jewels into her big ugly purse while everyone else was stupid enough to let her in and feed her expensive chocolates."