this seems relevant

...somehow:

It may sound like I’ve got some sort of formula by which I write. Hell, no! You’re out there completely on your own—all you’ve got to do is write. OK, it’s nine in the morning. All I’ve got to do is write. But I go hours before I’m able to write a word. I make tea. I mean, I used to make tea all day long. And exercise, I do that every other day. I sharpened pencils in the old days when pencils were sharpened. I just ran pencils down. Ten, eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four—this is every day. This is damn near every day. It’s four-thirty and I’m beginning to panic. It’s like a coiling spring. I’m really unhappy. I mean, you’re going to lose the day if you keep this up long enough. Five: I start to write. Seven: I go home. That happens over and over and over again. So why don’t I work at a bank and then come in at five and start writing? Because I need those seven hours of gonging around. I’m just not that disciplined. I don’t write in the morning—I just try to write.

--John McPhee

the best

I hate it when people say "blah blah blah is the best thing EVER! on EARTH! EVER!" etc but this might actually be the best thing:



(I found it because of the great Ed Park, whom you should all also be internet-stalking, if you're not already.)

business casual

Apologies, glob fans: I've been off securing employment. Successfully! No doubt through some sort of clerical error I've been hired at a supersecret location to sit and read encoded documents all day long. My office is very high above the street and has a view of the tram, and the tram as we know is almost my favorite thing about Portland. There is also free coffee. But I'm expected to dress like an adult, which takes a lot of time, so - less blogging, at least during this initial adjustment period. Back soon. Probably tomorrow.

xo

Excellent news!

"... there are already Avian Flu strains in existence that are just three mutations away from human-to-human infection."

no reason

http://silodrome.com/francoise-hardy-motorcycle/

TL;WKW

Looks Safe

I keep forgetting to post this -- courtesy of Mr Mike Russell:

why i ride

Things that never crossed my mind while I was riding my bike on the SFRC Season Opener this weekend:

* work of any kind
* acute need to mow the lawn
* money, chronic lack of
* boyfriend, chronic lack of
* pointlessness of reviewing movies in the internet era
* that I have no wearable clothes for hot weather
* haircut? or no? yes?

Let me tell you, it was nice. Of course, motorcycles have many other excellent qualities beyond their total absorption of the rider's attention. For instance, when they gather in large groups, they tend to attract a certain level of mischief. Also beer. This certainly proved to be the case at the after-party, which occurred in a fenced-off compound surrounding a long, rusted-out dock and boat-launch ramp underneath the St Johns Bridge. A guy we know has leased the property so he can park his tugboat there and live on it, but the tugboat isn't there yet. Plenty of firewood washes up from the river onto the concrete boat ramp, so we built a bonfire at the end of the ramp and started in on the beer and sausages. Guess how long it took before someone rode a motorcycle down the pier? Not very long.



That was the night of the Supermoon, so just to be on the safe side I started text-messaging a play-by-play to my friend Mike. In case things turn weird it's good to have an off-site perspective on where it all went wrong. Turned out the adventure remained small-scale and well contained. But it's not every day you get to ride in the Cylon Commander Seat of a semi-truck dodging obstacles in a vacant lot. Partial transcript:

MR: Hope the Cinco de Mayo ride ruled!

Me: Still ruling! Partying under the st johns bridge.  

Me: We're riding motorcycles off a pier by accident, whee!

MR: I hope you are riding away from many explosions 

Me: And not looking back 

MR: Why bother you know what you hath wrought

Me: Now they're trying to drive an old semi truck. What could go wrong?

MR: "What could go wrong?" might be a pretty good Sang-Froid club motto if they're still looking for one

MR: In Latin: "Quod Posset Ire Iniuriam"

Me: Now they're maybe using a stumptown van to jump the semi.

MR: Why do I fear this text thread is about to become evidentiary.

Me: They got it running! I pulled the horn. Lifelong dream realized!

MR: Okay, that's pretty goddamn sweet. Somewhere a schoolbus full of kids is delighted you did that.

Me: The semi just almost ran over the bonfire and into the river. 

MR: If this is another set of those "They're playing The Cure at the Hawthorne Strip"-style texts, I will be sorely disappointed [this is fair, I've been known to exaggerate and even just make stuff up in text messages]

Me: I have video

MR: I hope you get yourself filmed pulling the semi horn as a fire roars behind you

Me: I am now in the truck

Me: Cops are here yeay!

MR: Now it's a party

Me: They retreated in disgust

MR: Let me know when someone plays The Smiths "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" [he's clearly not buying any of this]

MR: You're in jail now aren't you

I was later reminded that when the cops rolled by, we decided to "act cool" and "seem normal" by turning up the miniature boombox extra loud and dancing. Because what could be more innocent.


There really is video but I have yet to figure out how to get it off my fancyphone and edit out the embarrassing giggly parts. Meanwhile here is the truck:

Now back to that list....

Oh, GREAT

I probably already have it.

Tom Hardy update

OK fine, so my Tom Hardy date movie (This Means War) was terrible. In interviews Hardy has called it "a very light entertainment," which is both an under- and an overstatement. I laughed exactly one time (because of something Chelsea Handler said) and was instantly mortified. It's the kind of movie in which the opening scene has a suitcase full of money spilling open on top of a skyscraper, hundred-dollar bills disappearing in the helicopter wind, and nobody even notices.

That could be because everyone in this movie has plenty of money, including federal agencies (parallel universe?), and the characters only show up to work because their offices are so attractive. Plot summary: two CIA guys, Chris Pine (who wears Savile Row suits) and my boyfriend, Tom Hardy (who is less fancy but whose shirts are still pretty tight for government work), fall for the same woman (Reese Witherspoon). Tom Hardy loves Reese because he reeeeeally wants a family but has been dismissed by the mother of his kid, apparently because she thinks he's a travel agent, and travel agents are obviously ridiculous and undateable. (Watch for the magical transformation when she finds out that's not really what he does for a living!)

Chris Pine loves Reese because she's so smart.

(We can tell she's smart because she knows the titles of multiple Hitchcock films and has her very own opinions about them. Also because she can remember information she learned on her product-testing job even whole days later, when it's useful in emergencies.)

There's also some kind of a sub-story about an evil German on a vengeance kick -- he's after Chris and Tom not because of all that money they spilled earlier but because they killed his brother during the skyscraper fight -- but the movie doesn't care about that and neither do we. At first, Chris and Tom pretend they're spying on Reese because of the evil German situation, but after about five minutes they drop this facade and it's an open contest to see who gets in her pants first. The villain is reduced to the role of prop, which bums him out so much that he drives off the edge of an unfinished highway in despair. (Spoiler!)

On the plus side, the director ("McG" [??? whatever], who directed Terminator Salvation, and Charlie's Angels) seems also to be in love with Tom Hardy, so there are lots of scenes in which the camera lingers fondly on his radiance, and his shirts come unbuttoned often. Which I felt was a commendable directorial choice, under the circumstances.

Short version: just go watch Bronson again. Seriously.

V-Day

Greetings, glob fans. Seems I've got a lot of catching up to do. Meanwhile, though...I'm very much looking forward to my Valentine's Day date with Tom Hardy:

(Apparently there's some other chick in this movie, but....whatever. I've watched the trailer a whole bunch of times, and all I see is Tom.)