Year: 2007

Last night I innocently went out to a cancer benefit karaoke thing because some of my friends were there. In a very cool coincidence, Laura (Crescent dj you might recall from previous adventures) was sitting with the Himsa crew. She had just met them – how amazing!

Though as the evening progressed the twists grew more and more strange, as everyone Byron has ever dated appeared – as if by magic. They all seemed sort of fretful about the situation, though I found it highly amusing.

When I realized that half the people I was sitting near were born and raised in the same odd place I was reared, the situation became pure genius.

I mostly talked to a writer/musician fellow I’ve never met though he is friends with Jeffrey – and the night was such an oddity I anted up the whole Disneyland with Junkie Auntie story. Haven’t told that one in awhile!

When karaoke finished Laura and Jody were the last standing of the group and we hopped in a cab to hit the hill. I was next to a freshly tattooed arm and thus became the recipient of the chant Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!

I don’t think a boy has ever said that to me before!

Predictably, instead of a new club or decadent party, we ended up at the Bus Stop. I can’t help it! Michele is super sweet! Skye almost accidentally elbowed me in the throat, but my ninja skills still work when I’m drinking, thank goodness.

Somewhere in the haze of this boisterous trip we were walking through Belltown and J9 stopped the whole group to admire Sasha’s shoes.

Byron said Look, Bee, that is ladychat!

I furrowed my brow and commenced to examine the reasoning and goals behind the need to compliment sartorial choices.

The actual ladies (that would include the two females plus Byron) tried to interpret and explain but got exactly nowhere. I remain baffled.

They shook their heads and told me it is better that I just refrain from learning this lesson, as fake ladychat is worse than being a dude.

This makes perfect sense to me, though I think that my skills in the area could be, well, polished.

Though I am now almost capable of receiving compliments! One example: at the end of karaoke on Sunday Ade made the whole bar yell I love you Bee!

And I didn’t even twitch.

We were in Belltown to attend a metaphysical carnival featuring a magician, death metal bellydancing troupe, and heavily tattooed psychic. Byron was sufficiently freaked out he traded seats to avoid an unwanted reading – though he was of course a target anyway.

The psychic stopped in front of Byron and said I like you. I know they dragged you here by the dick, but at least you showed up. I really like you!

Last night someone offered me drugs for the second time in my entire life.

I was so thrilled I squealed and threw my hands all over the place, much to the confusion of the individual trying to get me high. Then I texted a bunch of friends to inform them of this historic moment.

The consensus (even from the sober ones, tsk) was that I should take up the offer.

Yeah, right! As I pointed out, I’ve never smoked anything, at all, ever – why learn to inhale now?

If it is Tuesday I am officially “working.” So far that means sitting around in coffee shops languorously reading River Pigs and Cayuses: Oral Histories from the Pacific Northwest and checking my email. Shh, don’t tell my agent!

Monday started at Le Pichet with Maria Canada – definitely a fortuitous way to embark on a day that included extensive ladychat (poorly executed – but at least I tried!) and watching someone spend several hundred dollars on shirts.

How alarming. Even at my most decadent I cannot conceive of such actions – let alone patronizing a store where the clerks are too snotty to actually wait on anyone. Though it was great fun to observe the antics of the bourgeoisie!

Later I wandered over to Smith to say hello to Mark Mitchell and accidentally crashed his dinner date. During the course of a highly entertaining conversation that also included Kurt aka DJ El Toro and Byron one of us said something to the effect that I do not flirt and Mark shot back She flirts with everyone!

Byron and I both went into jaw-dropping, swivel-head, caricatured shock. I challenged the statement and Mark reeled off a list of things I do that supposedly fit the description of flirting. While it is true that I giggle and twirl my hair, as a general rule I would never act like that around anyone who might hit on me. I’m not stupid, after all!

If a stranger ever approached (and they don’t – I swear) the individual would get the arms crossed, brow furrowed, nonverbal why the fuck are you talking to me?signal.

Mark continued his analysis by pointing at what he refers to as my Legendary Milky White Bosom (LMWB).

Kurt sensibly observed that I can’t exactly help the fact that I have certain physical attributes and I nodded fervently and pulled out my notebook. Mark said She thinks she can tame it by writing it down!

Too true.

An extremely murky series of events eventually found me sitting with Jeffrey in a U District bar crowded with loud obnoxious youngsters. I indignantly opened the conversation with Mark says I flirt!

Jeff sighed and said I’ve been telling you that for two years.

I pointed at Byron. He flirts, not me!!

Jeff replied You have different affectations but you both do it all the time!

I continued to object and pulled out my notebook. Jeff laughed and said That’s the trouble with you Capricorns. You’re clueless but organized and always think “I’m sure I would have written it down if I’d done it…. let me check my notes….”

Just then Byron picked up a song from a passing car and started to sing You Don’t Bring Me Flowers and this reminded me of another research project.

I turned to Jeff and said Nobody ever brings me flowers or sings me loves songs, and nobody ever has!

He frowned and said I give flowers to all of my friends! Haven’t I given you any?

No, like I said, nobody has ever given me flowers! Nobody has ever written a song for me! Nobody has ever written poetry for me! I would have gone on but remembered that the last statement was not accurate and clapped my hand over my mouth.

Byron started laughing and said Tell him who wrote you poems!

I wagged my finger at him and warned Stop or you are in Big Trouble!

Jeff looked confused and said But you don’t even like poetry!

Quick thinker that I am definitely not, I attempted to distract him from a story I didn’t want to tell by saying You’ve dedicated songs to me!

He replied Yeah, lots of times…

Luckily Sophie showed up and talk turned to half-assed guesses about what hankies in back pockets signals in the subculture that subscribes to such things. The best guess was from Jeff, who wagered a certain color must indicate That you’ve read Lord of the Flies cover to cover!

Recently I signed up for a social networking thing but was in a rush and checked the box that allowed the site to trawl my email and add contacts automatically. If I thought about it at all, I was dimly pleased that I wouldn’t have to laboriously go through and find all of my friends.

A week or so later I received a message that read in part: I know you because you are a famous writer. How do you know me? Because you’ve sent me several rejection letters!

Yikes! We’ll set aside the putative issue of fame (yeah, right – I’m recognized in grocery stores around the world- whatever) for the moment and focus on the utter stupidity of giving a social networking site permission to snoop through my email.

What delights might the bot have found? Hundreds, possibly thousands, of email addresses of real-life friends, ex friends, abandoned acquaintances, ex-husbands and their assorted ex-wives and onward through the range of ex-in-laws, all of the cousins who are literate enough to have email, countless peripheral professional contacts, legions of magazine fans and subscribers and contributors, and every single person who has ever sent hate mail or a death threat. 

Now remember – this internet thing has been my day job for over a decade. I’m painfully aware of the security risks of community organizing on the web. I’ve even been served with FBI subpoenas for server records, for goodness sake!

I really, honestly, truly knew better than to check that permission box.

I lead a very public life, but it isn’t necessary to do the internet equivalent of walking into a hometown bar and shouting Hey! Anyone heard from my stalker lately? I’d love to get back in touch!

In fact, I’m much more likely to do that (high school reunion, anyone? I can’t wait) than allow myself to be virtually connected with certain people from my past. I suppose I’m allowed to make stupid careless mistakes sometimes, though this might be edging over the quota for the year – and it is still only July.

My daughter is a rampaging genius, an artist, a raconteur, a sweet and sincere sister. She is one of the funniest and most dangerous people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, and that would be true even if we did not share DNA.

The girl was born fist first and facing the wrong direction, and her life thus far has fully warranted the symbolism of those moments.

It has been an unbelievable number of years since I held that little scrap of a baby in my arms, surprised to find us both alive and setting off on such a grand adventure.

It is never easy to grow up and my kid has endured many challenges – and arrived on the other side still laughing.

Born in poverty, dragged hither and yon by the peregrinations of parental careers, leaving behind friends and loved ones, making new friends just to have it all happen again, illness and the absurd annoyances of adolescence: through it all this girl remains charming, swift, her own dear self, the same person she was the day she was born, while also a new and amazing person every single day I know her.

Right now she is loose somewhere in the city with her friends – a grown-up, a sweetheart, a truly fascinating young woman. I am honored to be her occasional companion as she wanders the world, and I fervently wish her the best on this day and all the rest. Happy birthday, kid! Thank you for being my friend.

Walking toward Bauhaus I heard someone say I swear I’m not stalking you and turned to see Scott – oh, glorious coincidence! Though given that we all spend an inordinate amount of time at Bauhaus, hardly surprising. We stood around in the rain talking and laughing and then he departed and I spent most of the rest of the day with Mark:

Just before I left Cambridge I ran into David at the grocery store and we traded tales of woe – he has legitimate and pressing work issues, and his wife and daughter are moving to the states a few months before he can join them.

What do I have to worry about? My summer travel plans. And, as I pointed out brightly, Nobody has any sympathy for my problems! 

Nor should they. I never complain about much of anything because, comparatively speaking, I have no legitimate problems whatsoever.

Yeah, there is the whole life-threatening chronic illness thing, but I don’t care about that.

My biological family is crazy, but that doesn’t worry me.

I live far away from most of the people I love, but again, while a source of pain, that is a choice that I am happy to live with right now.

This does not mean I am completely tranquil. I have as many problems as I’ve ever had – in fact, if such things could be measured objectively, I probably have more than at any point in the past. In my experience problems tend to scale the same way money does; whenever I have extra cash, I always have an extra crisis that takes exactly the same amount as the reserve.

For as long as I can remember my problems were always about basic survival. Lately that has changed; I have every material resource I need to accomplish what I like. But that means I have to choose between different opportunities, an experience that feels the same as any other problem I’ve ever had.

Last night I skipped from a party to dinner to the clubs, racing from one friend to the next, missing calls and connections, meeting new people and raising my eyebrows over old gossip.

I laughed so hard I lost my voice, fell in love with the city all over again, wondered why I ever left. Then I was offered yet another SF apartment for the duration of the summer. Whatever should I do with myself? How to choose? Why the heck does this seem like such a conundrum?

As Mark Mitchell sensibly pointed out when he called to wake me up this morning (he was lonely), my life is outrageously amazing. Though he also says that we’re both just carnies at heart, which is fundamentally true.

Of course, I’ll make the responsible and sensible choice. I always do, even if it looks like something else from a distance. I even recognize that this particular situation is faintly ridiculous – I’m confused because I have to choose between competing and delightful scenarios. 

This isn’t life and death, it isn’t even particularly interesting; just another bougie moment in the neverending drama of my expat existence.

Despite the fact that both of my children are obsessed with the books, I have never allowed them to participate in the madness of the midnight release parties for Harry Potter novels. My daughter may have broken ranks since she is an adult and staying elsewhere in the city (with friends? Grandparents? I have no clue – though she did text yesterday to tell me that the PDX train station restroom is so rad and by the way I really need you to top up my phone).

Last night was no different – the younger was tucked in bed listening to one of his beloved P. G. Wodehouse books on tape and I was watching Pete on television. Yeah, that is exactly what Pete is like in person – and it is true, he really does have a thing for washing dishes. He practically sterilizes my kitchen when he visits!

I suppose we’ll meander over to U Village and pick up a copy of the tome at some point this morning, but then again I may put it off and let him do that with grandparents when he sets off on one of his adventures.

Will my offspring remember this as a tragedy of their childhood? Oh, probably. It’ll rank right up there with My mother made me go to the south of France when I wanted to stay home and read manga! and similar epic complaints.

We missed the premiere of the most recent movie due to a conflict with a Church of England primary school production of Joseph and his Amazing Whatsit and then the flurry of packing to leave for the summer but finally trekked along to see it once we arrived in Portland.

The children wore school uniforms, including ties matching their favorite house, and my son sported a Prefect badge. What did they think of the film? They liked it, though we’re in agreement that the Cuaron is the only one in the series that was actually good.

What did I think? That the HP books are glorified film scripts to begin with and attempting to condense epic plot points into a 2.5 hour format is just plain silly. Other than that I have no opinion.

Though I was deeply shocked by a preview for a film of The Dark is Rising. Why, oh why must all the best kids books be slaughtered by cinematic adaptation?

Casting Lovejoy aka Swearengen as Merriman does not redeem the project.

Don’t forget, Dishwasher Pete is on Letterman tonight…. his email about the encounter (including green room adventures) was quite hilarious, so I’m sure the show will be super fun!

Mysteriously, I am currently living in an apartment with cable, so I guess I might even see the show. Though the odds that I’ll get dragged out on an adventure later is rather high.