So, what did you think?

Dear Friend,

The Perks of Being a Wallflower has been my favorite book since I saw an MTV commercial for it in early 1999 and begged my mother for a ride to the book store. Not to invoke a joke about pizza, but I loved it before it was cool. I loved it before the many ONTD readers, some half my age, trashed and decried it as trite or oversaturated. I loved it because in the early years of the book's release, before widespread internet access connected people to like-minded friends they otherwise wouldn't have met, this tiny yellow novel gave me comfort. It gave me hope that somewhere in the world, outside my tiny southern California hometown, there were people just like me. All I had to do was find them and everything would be fine. In the meantime I had its increasingly tattered pages to keep me company. Here's a photo of me reading it at CSSSA in July 2000.

I loaned the book to everyone I met, acting as a literary evangelist bringing disciples to my tiny flock. I left a trail of fans in my wake, and used the book as a beacon to draw good people closer to me. Only two who received it from me ever hated it, and I rightly washed my hands of them. I don't need anyone who can't understand this book. When my original copy became so worn that the cover threatened to fall off, I bought a second one for lending. The first edition stays with me at all times, holding too many memories to risk losing.

Moving into my NYU dorm room in the summer of 2003, I discovered my dear roommate Weatherly and I shared this book as a common favorite. That's the magic of it - this novel brings people together. As you can tell, I was very excited for the movie I never thought would happen. People don't make movies based on books like this, and when they do, it's always a disappointment. With some trepidation, I bought a ticket to the earliest possible screening I could get to on opening day.

I had Bobby and Holly on either side of me, ready to provide support if I hated the film or, worse, if I loved it into an emotional fit. From the moment the credits started, though, I was a lost cause. I don't often cry in movies; I didn't inherit my mother's gene. It's a rare film that elicits such a reaction, particularly in a public theater. I can think of only two previous examples, in fact. One, Toy Story 3, I watched in the privacy of my own home, where nobody could see me. This scene just destroyed me. Devote a plot point to the importance of friendship and I am a serious goner.

The other, Requiem for a Dream, upset me so viscerally that I couldn't drive myself home afterwards. Neither compares to the film adaptation of my favorite book. I sat, wide-eyed and blubbering, wanting to live inside the movie forever. After one viewing it has ended Ghost World's 11-year run as my favorite movie of all time. That is saying something. So, dear blog readers, I implore you to see this film. It's a brilliant adaptation and my nitpicks were minimal. If one fan's opinion isn't enough to sway you, ask New York Magazine and the Portland Mercury. They loved it too. As for this perpetual teenager, I'll probably see it several more times before it even hits the beer theaters.

Dancing Madly Backwards

Summer is drawing rapidly to a close, and I've been trying to pack my days with the things I won't be able to do for months. From lonely waterfront lunches to State Fair carnival rides to familiar places and outdoor music festivals, I've been wandering Portland to soak up that good good Vitamin D before it's gone.

Apologies to those who've seen these, here are some shamefully lo-fi photos from the past few weeks. Life is changing; I promise a more in-depth post soon.


The Zipper at the Oregon State Fair: much scarier now that I'm old enough to notice rust.


Waterfront days


Those Darlins at the Roseland on my first day of MFNW 2012

Balloons at the end of Girl Talk's set, not broken in my hair this time.


First thing this morning.


New kicks for fall.

While we're discussing good things, this movie finally comes out in a matter of days, and the trailer seems particularly appropriate today. Color me excited:

Good decisions

I unearthed this gem while digging around for schmoopy wedding photos to post on my anniversary. It looks like we're being asked if we're sure about this. Yes indeedy.

Thanks to YouTube, I can pinpoint the exact moment I became sure about this. It was six years ago, almost to the day, and Bobby and I were standing in the jam-packed Crystal Ballroom waiting for what was likely Sleater-Kinney's last performance ever. Rumors had swirled as we queued for entry - Eddie Vedder had been spotted. He'd been close to the band members for years, and we aren't far from Seattle, so it was plausible. He and his ukulele turned out to be the opening act.

After playing a song or two, he was joined by Janet Weiss, who loves to cover little-known folk tunes. Somewhere in this crowd, I am fighting tears and clinging to Bobby's hand, watching my favorite band of so many years dissolve.



I'm not much of a believer in anything, but I believe in music and I believe in the occasional push from the universe. This push was an aggressive one, and it told me I was going to marry Bobby. I didn't say anything about it; this was 2006 and we hadn't been dating that long. I just held onto that little idea while the songs of my teenage years swept me away.

Two years after that last Sleater-Kinney show, on a date I chose for no other reason than it was the first Saturday following my championship bout, we crammed family and friends and favorite people onto the sweltering Ron Toms patio and made things official.

Four years in, I still think it was the best decision ever. Plus, I have legal claim to half his waffles and he owns the butt-halves of two cats. We did well.

Seven years in Portland

I have a hard time accessing that place - the place that sent me hundreds of miles north, away from everything familiar. I'm still hit by twinges of it, but thankfully nothing in my Portland life has ever come close to that gut-twisting need to let the road roll out behind me. It was the music that drew me here, but it's everything I've built that keeps me firmly rooted. I sometimes think about people who treat this like any other city, and I can't help furrowing my brow. Where else could I lead three separate lives, get married in a bar, see cellists playing pop songs alongside singers from beloved local bands? Nowhere, that's where. When people ask "why Portland?" my answer is simple: "We have the culture."

From a midnight blog entry posted the day I left Santa Cruz for good:

In less than 12 hours, I leave. In less than 24 hours, I will no longer be a resident of the state of California. I've settled on a song to play as I drive out of Santa Cruz. I picked Landslide, and I'll imagine myself driving through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, wind in my hair, waiting to see the bright lights of the city on the other side. I still have no idea how I'm going to fit all this crap in my car.

Goodbye Santa Cruz, you haven't always been good to me, but you're in my veins forever. I've had some of the best days of my life here, and some of the worst. I've made great friends and horrible enemies. I've fallen in love a hundred times. I've lived in four different dorm rooms and four different houses; lived with six unique people, shared my life with countless others. Moving forward won't erase the last four years of my life. The memories I have are tattooed on me. They've changed me, perfected me, and made me whole. I don't regret leaving, but even more, I could never regret arriving. No matter how much I've been hurt by this town, part of me has to love it. No matter how many memories, good and bad, are tied to each block of Pacific Ave. and beyond, I have to love it. Maybe I'll be back some day, or maybe I'll want to remember it just as it is- noisy, dirty, frustrating, cramped, and impossible. My kind of place.

Of course it was the right decision; any other choice meant certain doom. I belong in Portland - an indisputable fact made clearer every day. As Weatherly so eloquently put it upon visiting for the first time, Portland is my "dreamy, rainy wonderland."

Places I've been sleeping

It's been a rough three weeks of travel, though not unwelcome. Various obligations have dragged me up and down the California coast, as well as eastward in the name of surprise parties. In the last 21 days, I've laid my head in:

My childhood home
A suburban chain hotel room with water-damaged ceilings
A New Jersey daybed
A Brooklyn air mattress
A San Francisco Victorian

The month of July began in Palm Springs, my third visit in six months, at Madeleine and Sandy's request. They plotted a course from the Grand Canyon to Los Angeles and, noting that my hometown was along the way, asked me to join them. This plan was followed by a request from my Dad, who offered to front me some airfare if I agreed to surprise my Aunt Carol in New York for her birthday. Then Bobby asked me to join him in San Francisco following his week-long business trip. Finally home again, with no more plane rides on the near horizon, I present my last three weeks in pictures:

Palm Springs


Palm Springs on a summer morning


Madeleine and Sandy


Sandy and me on a break from swimming


Sandy and Grillmaster B


Water rat in natural habitat


Nightswimming deserves a quiet night


Stripesies at breakfast


From the mouth of a dinosaur

New York


Three-thousand-mile breakfast date


Three-thousand-mile breakfast


Bryant Park at lunchtime


The road to Putnam County


Aunt Florie with iced coffee


Great-Aunt Dorothy with kisses


Family assembled


Cousins on a staircase


Reluctant tourist at the theatre


Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park


Besties on the train, with wine in sippy cups


NJ Penn Station


Brooklyn Subway graffiti


Williamsburg phenomena


Album cover with parents


Jets to the future


Brief return to Portland

San Francisco


Reunited with Bobby and burritos at 11 p.m.


Truth on the sidewalk


Castro Street Parklet


A slice of the Northwest in California


The last good Chinese food for who knows how long


Tortilleria in the Mission


Cactus-flavored tortillas, made by hand


More burritos


Back in Portland to stay

The gloom is getting to me

Summer starts on Thursday, but Portland is still coated in June-uary gloom. Yesterday was jam-packed with various obligations. Disappointing brunch at Delta (after deciding the Father's Day-induced wait at Genie's was absurdly long), marching in the PDX Pride Parade (accompanied by a delightful entourage), a barbecue at Brandon's house (featuring the piecakein - pictured and described below), and covering a show that mercifully ended at 10 p.m. Throngs of teenagers whined that it ended too early. I was excited to go home and go to sleep. I am officially old.

Piecakein, similar in concept to the famous Turducken, was an experiment conducted by a baker friend of Kim's. It's a pie inside of a cake. It's also the most awesomely delicious thing I have ever eaten. Observe:



Pie. Inside of. A cake. Let it be known that I restrained myself from eating the entire confection. I stuck to one piece, and concentrated on playing with Stella the Boston Terrier after that. She makes an excellent distraction.



That's about it for current goings-on. Without much to report, I present a photo of my limited kitchen skills. It's from last weekend's True Blood Season Premiere Party. I poured, I stirred, I wore an apron. I ain't no Betty Crocker by any stretch of the imagination.



Exciting things on the horizon, clouds or no clouds.

On going back and not going back

There's a line in Harriet the Spy when Harriet begs Golly, her former nanny, to come back. Golly wisely replies, "I never go back, only forward." Those are important words to live by.

Last night, Lorien and I went to the Rose City Rollers Season 7 championship bout. I had completely washed my hands of derby since retiring in 2009, and hadn't even thought about attending any derby-related events since my final championship. Recently, some of my newer friends and coworkers had expressed interest in attending a bout with me so I could explain the rules and act as a guide to the sport. The plan was to take them to last night's championship, with not one but two retired roller girls in the row. However, all of those folks backed out and it was down to me, Lorien, Eric, and Xander. The Rose City Rollers now play their big games at the Coliseum, so that was a new experience. Lorien and I deftly avoided anybody we (well, I) didn't want to talk to, and found seats in the largely-empty Icebox. I can't say I miss it, but being on this side of the track was bizarre.



The Heathers were up first, battling the Guns n Rollers for third and fourth place. Back when I played, we were always in the top two, but no matter. I'll admit to having heart pangs once our former team took the floor. This sport was my life for so long. It defined my entire life in Portland for four years, gave me wonderful friends, provided the opportunity to publish my writing in several graphic novels, and even helped me get my previous job. At the same time, it seemed like there was no end to the anguish of being a skater. When I finally had enough and quit, I never looked back. What can I say, I'm a bridge burner.

Still, Lorien and I had a great time watching the bout. We morphed back into Apoc and Rhoda, screaming "TWENTY FEET!" and "HELP YOUR JAMMER! HELP! YOUR! JAMMER!" at the track for hours. Here we are in a brief moment of calm:



As Auntie Apoc, I explained the game to Xander, who kept removing his protective headphones every time they were placed on his head.



That kid was a trooper for being out two hours past his bedtime. He only cried when the Heathers lost. And lose they did. Here's the scoreboard going into halftime. It says GNR 130, Heathers 16.



The Heathers did manage to score 100 points in the second half, but GNR trounced them with 230. That is what we call a blowout.

The High Rollers vs. Betties half was much more interesting. The game was a nailbiter to the very end, with the teams tied going into the final jam. The High Rollers, for whom we were rooting, ended up losing by five, but they put up a very fine fight. There's no way I'd want to return to the league, but in those moments of cheering and screaming last night, I couldn't help remembering how much I loved it from the moment I became Fresh Meat in 2005:



To my first bout in 2006:



To my first time as a jammer:



To my parents being present for my best game:







To my final season:



Sure, I'd never go back, but I'd never take the experience back either.