The Everywhereist

I know it’s not *technically* Wednesday, but yesterday was Leap Day, so that threw me off schedule. Plus, Davy Jones died, so I spent most of the afternoon listening to “Daydream Believer” and feeling heartbroken. So instead, I bring you WTF Wednesday … on Thursday. 

My friend Mike’s birthday was this week, and Rand and I were wandering around Seattle with a few of the revelers, including the birthday boy himself.

Earlier in the evening, I had been chatting with a fellow party-goer, and told her that I often saw her walking around our neighborhood, but I had neglected to wave. We’ve only hung out a once before, and I figured she wouldn’t recognize me and would just think I was raving lunatic.

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The clock ticked, and for once, we were able to ignore it.

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“There is never enough time,” Rand is fond of telling me, and I nod in agreement. It might as well be our mantra.

I didn’t always feel this way. When I met my husband I was bored and lonely and every day seemed to stretch on forever. It was excruciating. And then he arrived and time began to zip by, and life suddenly seemed far too short.

(Today might be Leap Day – the 29th of February – but that doesn’t mean we get an extra twenty-four hours. It just means that we’ve renamed March 1st. Time breaks every tackle attempt we’ve made, and continues to march on.)

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I used to think that my father’s pug was clinically insane. Then I decided that I was being culturally insensitive.

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The gateway to temptation.

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I am occasionally faced with a temptation that I, fortunately, have yet to act upon. My husband delicately describes it as “socially unfeasible.” I simply think it’s madness. Delicious, delicious madness.

The temptation is this: I want to eat food that doesn’t belong to me.

Now, before you start telling me that everyone feels this way, let me make myself clear. I don’t mean picking off the plate of some dear friend who is having lunch with me. Not at all. That’s completely fair game, and if we ever go out for a meal, you should expect that this will probably happen, and that your entree is mine for the taking (and vice versa … unless we’re talking about dessert, at which point you might lose a finger. Consider yourself warned).

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Follow the nose ... it always knows.

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People are constantly marveling at my sense of sense of smell, which I find rather amusing.

I tap my large and glorious nose, smile, and say, “What, you think this thing is just for show?”

And while my memory is fading a bit on precisely how we ended up at Bubo, a high end dessert shop in Barcelona, I would like to think it was my nose that led us there.

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Rand and I are heading to Portland soon. We haven’t been there since the end of last summer, when we stopped for a night on our way down to Ashland.

I’m thrilled to be going back. I love Portland. It’s this wonderful combination of beauty and grit, of art and industry. And perhaps nothing captures that better than the signs and marquis that dot the city. They’re everywhere: some spray painted, some neon. They denote all manner of businesses, from book stores to strip clubs, upscale restaurants to homeless shelters.

The last time that I was in Portland, between the light of a late summer sun and the magic of neon gas, the city positively glowed. Here are a dozen photos from that afternoon, when I roamed the city with my beloved, and marveled at its dingy loveliness.

1. The Golden Dragon Exotic Club. From what I’ve heard, you shouldn’t bother going in. And for the love of Pete, don’t eat there.
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2.  Keep Portland Weird sign, 3rd Street between Burnside and Ankeny.
   

   Unofficial city motto.

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Cram some plutonium into your flux capacitators, kids, because today’s WTF Wednesday is going to require some serious time travel.

(But please, don’t steal said plutonium and get yourself shot in the process, leaving your youthful friend Marty to hop into your time machine, consequently causing a whole bunch mischief that leads him to make out with his mom. Also, can we take a moment to discuss how offensive the characterization of the Libyans who shot Doc was? I realize I’m speaking from a 2012 perspective here, but the 80′s weren’t that long ago. How the heck did stuff like that fly? Can someone please tell me? Anyone? Bueller? Sorry. There I go mixing up my references. ANYWAY …)

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I like to describe my brother as a triple threat: he’s an actor. And an asshole. And he’s my brother.

That counts as three things, right?

Oh, and occasionally he takes photos of things. Which you’d think would make him a quadruple threat. But really, most of his pictures just reinforce the fact that he’s kind of an asshole.

And with that preamble, I give you this week’s Tuesday Reverie:

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Yes, he took the above picture. Yes, I was annoyed. And yes, I may have laughed a little, too.

See? Triple threat.