And now's the time when...

...my blog is either going to get extremely boring, depressing, intellectual, or nonexistant. In other words, my summer officially ended this morning at 11:00....

I'm also hopefully going to start training pretty hardcore for the next climbing season or for this competition season. We'll see how that one goes.

I had an amazing summer this year. Really, I had two summers: one here, and one in Guatemala. I'm looking forward to Fall quarter, but I know I need to brace myself for the holiday rush at work. Since Kevin got hurt and Shannon left, all the production is basically in mine and Shu-Ling's hands....That's twenty years of a top-notch reputation to keep up. I just need to not over-think it...that will only stress me out.

I also need to start getting more sleep at night :P
whoo.

Autumn is upon us. It's strange how the change happens in only about a week here. This year's weather has been pretty extreme, too.

Maintenant est hiver,
La ciel est gris,
Le champ est tranquille,
Les fleurs dorment,
Maintenant est hiver.

-Opal

Everything is moving against itself. The bass drum sets its rhythm and life kills and waits to hatch. Opportunity passes, a browning leaf falls. Someone dies. Happiness is defined and redefined and smart people resolve to stop trying to figure it all out. Our heart beats; people are disappointed--they've come to expect too much. Worries jostle around; a thick fog on our cold rocky ledge and we won't sleep well tonight.

Estoy perdiéndome. A veces sé donde estoy y todo lo que quiero hacer con esta vida tan corta, pero me asusta. Todo parece tan importante y significante al momento, pero es mas una cosa del mente. No sé como mi mente ha soportado mis ideas tan grandes y a veces ridiculosos. Quiero un cambio de música.

'tis (almost) the season...

So we got another four-ton shipment of chocolate in yesterday. Basically that makes me want to curl up in a ball and die a little...but it also means the holidays are coming...and also that the entire Chocolate Necessities staff gets a little wacko for the rest of the year. Shannon, our main chocolatier besides Kevin, is leaving; so she gave me a crash course in everything she knows. The rest I'll have to learn on my own and from Kevin.....which sort of means that I'll be learning it on my own anyway.

I'm glad that this chocolate is so good, otherwise I wouldn't be caught dead on the other side of Christmas.

I also found a walker in the store the other day, which I thought was a little bizarre.......
Maybe it's owner just kind of disintegrated into the carpet or something.


The bus tonight was interesting. There was the same woman who rides the #15 every day with her three adorable little daughters...-twitch-

I swear, this little girl has got to be the most annoying little cretin I have ever encountered. She was talking about the moon or something, asking her mother if she could see it tonight.

"Can I? Can I? Can I?...........ETC...." she started demanding in that wrathful voice of one of those Daddy's little princess type voices. I can't even describe it; the girl was like a caricature of herself.


Maybe I should work shorter days...


School starts this Tuesday.

Bumbershoot '07--Monday

Just let me get this out of the way before I explode in anguish: It's Bumbershoot, not Bumpershoot. Enough said

*twitch*

Anyway, Monday was by far the best day of Bumbershoot. The weather was really nice; warm, but overcast with clouds that were trying to look menacing but weren't doing very well. Our day there pretty much lasted from noon until when Wu-tang ended.

First, we saw Adrian Xavier, a reggae artist, at Bumbrella. That was a nice, mellow way to start the day. Ohmega Watts, a hip-hop artist, was up around 2:00. A very nice transition into the high-energy sounds of Kultur Shock, a Balkan rock band with a kickass Slavic vocalist, a Japanese bassist, an American violinist with a wicked beard, another Slav on guitar and an awesome drummer from somewhere. They are even better live than on cd, and they come up to Bellingham a fair amount.

Next up was Lyrics Born, a Japanese-Italian funk/hip hop singer/rapper. His voice is like nothing you've ever heard, and he was accompanied by a very classy looking dame with a voice like a steam engine.

We had just enough time to grab some dinner before going to the Mainstage, so we got some delicious Thai food (of course, we also had our Zone bars...).

Lupe Fiasco was pretty chill; mostly I was just excited for Wu-tang later that night.

The Wu show was great. Fucking beautiful. The energy of the crowd was awesome; so many fans of real hip-hop. I can't even describe Wu-tang, you know, they're gods. After the show, they invited everyone (21+) to the Hotel 1000 for an after party and advised them not to "bring sand to the beach."

R.I.P. ODB

Bumbershoot '07--Sunday

We rolled out of bed around eleven, and it took awhile for me to convince myself not to buy the eight-dollar nachos from Room Service just to order something from room service.....those nachos had better be damn good. We ended up walking over to Dick's burger joint for breakfast before checking out Bumbershoot.

First, we wandered around the booths a bit, Chris rode one of those crazy bicycle contraptions. We checked out the latter half of some wierd Indie flick, and then a very well-done movie from Sweden; both were part of Seattle's independent film festival.

A Cuban-style jazz band was rockin the Esurance stage when we got back, great Salsa music. When their set finished, we headed over to the art exhibits at the San Juan rooms and found a very cool urban art expo with tons of amazing spray work and miscellanea. They were also playing great music, and it was air-conditioned :)

Next, we finally found the auditorium we were looking for, just in time to see Christa Bell (really, her poetry only makes sense if you have a vagina...). She opened for Buddy Wakefield, an amazing poet from the east coast, and then Sage Francis, who was also awesome.

When we got back to Bumbrella, Barrington Levy was playing some sweet classic reggae. After that, we went back to the hotel for awhile before going back that evening. Around 8:30, we went over to the Vau de Vire stage to see some fire dancing and a short guy with a metal cube (way cooler than it sounds, trust me). Zapmamá was on next, with all their crazy Belgian-African-Latin fusion and energy. They got everyone moving and probably moved through about twenty different genres in their hour-long show. It was a good night.

Bumbershoot '07--Saturday

Bumbershoot this year was awesome. Tom, some other Ferndale kids and I headed down Saturday morning. Somehow, we had a room in the Marriott Hotel--there were about four of us on the floor each night.

Every year around Bumbershoot time, the weather people predict rain (personally, I think they just say that when they haven't done their research--they can get away with it in Seattle); and every year it is hot and sunny as hell.

We checked out the Vau de Vire stage on the Fountain Lawn first. There was a man playing this eerie sounding piece on a cello that was spray-painted gold, and a dehydrated-looking woman strutting about on a pair of stilts.

Acid Man was there, too, with his mischievous (perma-fried) grin and patriarchal beard. He's getting noticeably older and slower, but his Huskies-colored [kilt? drum majorette skirt?] totally hides his true age. Lots of X-rolling kids danced around with him or took pictures. Gotta love that guy.

I met up with Alyssum, as we had planned on busking a bit. The only problem was that we had no music to dance to. Emily, always the hero, dug a couple of empty pop bottles out of the recycling bin and started playing a beat that somewhat resembled Beladi, so I joined in on my zils until we both ran out of steam. Seattle people are shy about giving tips, apparently, so we only made about $4 in that half-hour. We had a hell of a time, though, and next year we'll have a doumbek for Emily.

At the Bumbrella stage (which kicked ass this year), we saw an L.A. based ska band which I forget the name of but was amazing--totally high energy. I ran into Eden, who I hadn't seen all summer, and we got some Lebanese food before heading back to Bumbrella to see Common Market, a hip-hop group from Seattle. They pretty much got everyone psyched for Gogol Bordello later that night.

The Gogol Bordello show started around nine, but the lawn was already swarming with punks and potheads by eight. Gogol Bordello is a New York-based gypsy-punk band that blends Balkan beats with Latin, punk and something like polka. The show was crazy; full of sweaty moshers and crowd surfers, myself included. They played two 45 minute sets, and kept the energy up the entire time. I'm still bruised from it.

*twitch* more receipts...

I don't think I've ever voiced how much I hate Oak Harbor. Aside from Nibble's Bakery (what a horrible name for a gourmet European sweetshop), the whole town provokes one word: grey. Although the onion-spired mosque in the distance hints of some(dare I say it) exotic element to the town, it is utterly overshadowed by the polluted-looking mud flats and the apartment-complex sailboats, neatly arranged in the harbor as if by a five-year old girl arranging her army of dollies for tea. teens with underdeveloped street speak are yelling at each other about stealing shoes for cris'sake. I'm glad my transfer here only takes an hour. Now, where to find a bathroom?
I'm writing so as not to plan out what to say to Sierra. That way the butterflies in my stomach won't get the better of me. It's like speaking Spanish--I just go as fast as I can with what I know and hope that the rest comes or that whoever I'm speaking to is too inebriated to pay attention.
I found a bathroom. You have to wonder what crackhead or lesbian designed toilet stalls with walls that are nearly one and a half feet off the ground.
I'm on the ferry now. As I lay out my lunch I feel like I'm laying out my insides. The raw, whole tomato turns to human heart; the Balsamic rice and chicken into liver and various other intestinal organs. Mango flavored yogurt sours on my tongue. Here come the butterflies.
So I got into PT at 2:00. Right away, I went to the Co-op where she worked. The woman at the deli told me that she hadn't seen Sierra in weeks. I walked about three miles to her house, all the while wondering if she'd even be there. I found it, anyway.
There was nothing sentimental about our thirty-minute visit, frankly. I gave her flowers and she told me she hadn't packed a thing and was leaving at 2AM the next morning. I told her about my day, hoping for some emotional exchange. She laughed dryly at the part about my spitting friend, thanked me for coming and mentioned something about Arlo. She liked my skirt and I showed her photos of Antigua with a rehearsed enthusiasm. She gave me a ride to the ferry and I told her to have a great life as she buckled her seatbelt and drove away.

My next big task in life is to become an expert vandal. With witty, subtle yet in-your-face pop-art, I will educate the unheeding masses. You just wait.
[A prime example of the endearingly ridiculous scheming that drives everyone I know crazy]

More receipts...

Bus #2 Island Transit.
It's surprisingly reminiscent of the Guatemalan tourist shuttles, aside from the fact that it doesn't have TURISMO stamped across the front--funny, that didn't attract thieves (unless it did and we just didn't know it...)
Now someone is sitting next to me. He's got sunglasses and distastefully ruddy hair. I'm rehearsing excuses in my head. Tight-lipped, with the slight, natural frownlike expression that I stole from my mother, I will say dismissively, painstakingly: "I'm going to help a friend move."
You wonder how many times a person can lie in a day. I'm afraid I've become a bit of an expert over the past few years, evading my inevitable expulsions of sentiment with a simple, wicked lie to a stranger, a parent, a therapist, a friend....How ironic, the bus just passed over Deception Pass State Park. A beautiful place, if you've never visited.
We also passed a mischievous-looking abandoned drive-in movie theater which had a sign that read "Circus Storage" and the near-unattainable look of a mildly classy trailer park. Perhaps it's just this gorgeous weather. In any case, I resisted the ridiculous urge to ring the bus bell and go try to join the circus, probably for the same reason I decided not to move to San Pedro with Cliffy (raging bipolar 2 case who dresses like Hunter S. Thompson).

Receipt Blogging

Today I rode the bus four hours to Port Townsend and four hours back. I forgot my notebook, but I had been quite a good little consumer and fortunately had a collection of receipts in my wallet.

So I'm sitting on a bench at 9:00 in the morning, waiting for a bus to Mt. Vernon. A canche with braces sits on the ground next to me and starts rolling a cigarette.
"You catchin' the 80X?" he drolls lazily.
"Yeah."
He lights up and starts smoking, drooling all over the place.
"Do you want to sit on the bench?" (what can I say, I'm used to dealing with a snobby clientele)
He doesn't want to. Instead, he asks me when the bus leaves and spits on the ground, after making a throaty dying-hog type utterance. Shameless.
He drags his fingernails through a matted mess of dirty blonde hair and spits again. I keep reading my book.
A few minutes later, I notice a drop of something clear on the book and realize that this man is spitting all over the place--spewing, as it were. Things get curioser as I realize that now he is spitting at me. He's standing up, facing me directly, and spitting at me.
Now that I'm covered in droplets, the man stamps out his cigarette and walks away.

Oh, and I forgot to mention why I'm catching a Skagit bus at 9AM in the first place.
Well, it's all about Sierra. She disappeared about two months ago, just about the time I headed off to Guatemala. Now I come back to find that she scrapped her massage school plans and is leaving her childhood home tomorrow to live in Denver, Colorado. Drama. So I'm going on a manic goose chase to find my months-estranged friend in Port Townsend, a four hour trip via bus and ferry. I will probably end up sleeping in a park tonight.
I feel like a suicide bomber.

Okay, I'll finish typing these up when it's not 1:38AM.

Ah, life's rhythm

I just got back from Guatemala. I'm working, dancing, climbing and teaching myself to beatbox. One might say that my life is full, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with my having just closed the records on nearly three years of psychiatric counseling. I am "diagnosed" as bipolar; as is my father and the majority of his nuclear family. We are all brilliant, and all a little on the edge......all the time.

I've a perfect life right now, one of my highest highs yet. If I were as religious as my father, I would feel guilty for "living for myself".

But I'm not.

Tranquilité

I'm sitting on a bus after a fifteen hour day of doing absolutely everything. I feel wonderful. People in their natural habitats are some fascinating creatures--you wonder what they're up to; riding a city bus at nine-thirty in the evening. Maybe that woman with the rolling suitcase is someone's Russian grandmother, coming back from a stressful day of just being in such a strange place as America. Maybe the woman next to you is worrying about her teenage son who didn't come home for dinner for the last two nights. That man is coming home from work; that one is going to a nighttime class at the community college; she's visiting an estranged lover...

So many thoughts are born on nights like these, when my breath fogs up the glass and I can see the hazy reflection of a tired, tired girl.

Bellingham, my love.

Bellingham is one of my better characteristics. Someone once said that in Bellingham things don't happen. Rather, people happen. Maybe that's why they call it the city of subdued excitement. And maybe I am just partial to my town because it's, well, my town. But I think that most of us 'hamsters would agree that there is something amazing going on in this simple little town.