pt.1 (also, the only part): oregon!

CA to OR:
teeter says that i'm a little too into my warrior woman phase lately, what, with my gun and boots and army jacket, but let me just say this; a, it's a rifle, the boots are white fryes, and the jacket is essentially j crew, and b, i drove 15 fucking hours in one day from los angeles to oregon.

i spent much of the day before cleaning up my house and packing-- tossing perishables, hiding valuables, gathering my extra car key from paisley's swank digs in los feliz-- then woke up at 6:30 the next morning to pack the fuck out of my car. we're talking air mattress, sheets, cooler, garments, croche project, toiletry suitcase, small black dog, all of it arranged just so at dawn after many flights up and down the 34 stairs to my apartment.

so when i set out at 7:45 for the top of the country after toiling in silence for the previous 12 hours to prepare for my journey, i admit, i did feel like i had some insight into daryl hannah's character in clan of the cave bear (which, incidentally, is not a movie any child should see, so thanks, dad, for not processing that a movie with a "doggy" "style" rape scene might not be suitable for your kids, even if the rapist and rapee are fictional cave people as well as casual cave acquaintances, and even if there was nothing better at the videoshedd video store that particular saturday night).

aside from that movie's rapey part, i remember that daryl and her blonde dreadlocks were cast out of the clan when she got knocked up with her rape baby, found shelter in another bearless cave, and spent her time in solitude becoming a total hardass to the point where she had no problem serving as her own obgyn for her rape baby's birth. so while i would not like to give birth unassisted (or get pregnant, period, but that's also something you also can't do unassisted, ahem), i would like to shoot some shit with my 22 when i get to nh in a few weeks. i am also thinking of dying my hair.

[photo: you know things will have gone too far when my skin and hair start to match my aforementioned boots.]

anyway, i left la early on saturday, and while i thought i'd be ready to crash by the time i reached redding, i so wasn't, and decided to just push through to the end, arriving in portland at 10:30. teet was still working, so i went to pick up dinner at a restaurant she recommended called montage, where the kitchen staff delights in yelling random shit and most of the men on the waitstaff looked like the awesome dungeon master with the crustache on freaks and geeks. except they weren't awesome, and they really shouldn't have taken so long to help me place a take-out order for chicken jumbalaya. in addition, their toilet was a crime scene.

and let me say that during my 15 hours driving north, i visited many restrooms, most of which were in gas stations, all of which in better shape than the one at that bullshit hipster cajun restaurant with the screaming kitchen staff and the weak cornbread (you heard me-- enguarde, cornbread!). i used to pride myself on having a bladder of steel, claiming i had the special ability to store urine in my right thigh (and let me tell you, it's an ample thigh), but, like the country songs say about beer, you don't buy diet coke, you rent it, and i literally went from gas station to gas station buying 20 ozs at the counter and depositing 20 ozs in the not-so-gross, unheated bathroom located on the station's side.

and it's kinda fucked, because the west coast is really beautiful, especially (or maybe only) the further north you get-- mountains, trees, everything with the name shasta attached to it (fun car game-- everytime you pass a shasta sign, eg, lake shasta, shasta regional forest, etc-- chant shasta in the manner of metallica's master of puppets. shastuh! shastuh! never gets old and really keeps up the morale).

but i've seen all that shit before this trip, and not only that, i saw all that shit on this trip for several hours at a time, so i am now officially so hardened that this country's natural beauty is totally lost on me and instead of seeing the forest for the trees, i see it for all the hidden meth labs.

oh! and while i'm in a shit mood and just being complainy (and about to possibly be repetitive, i'm not sure), let me also add that i-5 is home to some of the worst smells i have ever smelled, worse than gary, indiana, worse than the linden cogen plant that you pass en route to the ikea in elizabeth, nj, worse than (but similar to) to contents of the thermos of orange juice i buried in my sandbox during the summer when i was 5 that nearly made me puke when i dug the thermos up and smelled said contents many days later. i-5 is not only host to several roadside cattle ranches, but at least one sewage treatment megalith (can't merely be a plant) and, from the smell of it, a dead body or two. smells so bad you can't help but laugh as you wretch.

but through all this, i made it to portland. and i will write more tomorrow as i am currently as tired right now as i was after those 15 hours in the car, even tho i haven't even been awake that long today. but i did watch "don't tell mom the babysitter's dead" on cable, and that can really take it out of you. oh, josh charles. so good looking, you've got two first names. AND MY HEART.

PORTLAND:
i've covered portland before, but let it be known that this time i didn't stay with simon but at the jupiter motel, which is essentially the urban inn-fitter and a shonda on our generation (if you don't know, shonda = yiddish for "shame," just doing my part to spread the language of my people and take the christ out of christmas).

[photo: i tried.]

there's a rock club there, a tattoo shoppe, a sex toyerie, and our hotel room came with ear plugs, a condom, and two furry green turds on each bed (see photo). seriously, like snuffalupagus took a dump for the turndown instead of mints.

[photo: i succeeded! tell me that doesn't look like a giant muppet shit/ween!

i also had to sneak buzz around because, ironically, shitty motels often hate pets while the four seasons or whatever will offer dog walking services and have an in-house groomer and put greenies in your minibar. but he was a trooper, and we (=me+buzz+teet) stuck around portland just long enough for me to see not only simon, but diana, who's on tour promoting her super rad/educational book, "s.e.w: sew everything workshop" (makes an excellent stocking stuffer!).

i tried to go to her demonstration at a fabric store, but said store was lodged between 3 freeways with no obvious entrance from any of them, like something out of that book by jg ballard where people end up in a lost-style scenario except its a traffic island instead of a tropical testing site with polar bears (isn't that it? i don't watch that show. i won't look at matthew fox until he shaves).

by the time i finally discovered the secret, myst-style entry-way, she was packing up her sewing machine and giving away the last of the hot cider. but we did get to meet up with simon and his friend for dinner, and simon's doing good and his friend was funny, and simon being simon, he knew the cook at the place and just asked for whatever was delicious. so i ate til i got sick, and then got a voodoo donut on the way back to the hotel, and by a donut i mean 9 donuts of which i ate 5 over the next 12 hours. clearly, it was time to enter hipster detox and head off to teet's house on the coast.

CANNON BEACH:
cannon beach facts--
1. it's on the coast of oregon, and is the home of haystack rock [photo!], made famous in the motion picture goonies, in which it is used as a landmark that must be lined up on an amulet in a search for mysterious treasure.
2. it's one of the several towns recently hit by a huge coastal storm, and while neighboring vernonia was essentially wiped out under 12 feet of water, cannon beach got off with a bunch of downed trees, 5 days without power, and no more free internet for me or teeter.
3. it's home to a (in no way accredited) bible college and is basically owned and operated by members of the god squad.
4. being a member of the god squad does not mean you can't run a mini meth lab under your kitchen sink or father children out of wed lock.
5. small towns are gossipy.
6. it is also where the scenes of bram being chased of the road by troy were filmed.
7. i fucking love goonies.
8. i'm not so keen on JC, but hey, he did keep the town from being flooded, so jesus saves...some of the places where goonies was filmed.
9. i went running every day past haystack rock, which was awe inspiring on two levels-- 1, i felt so close to the rich stuff! and 2, i was running without being chased.
10. they have 2 kite shops. maybe not worth saving for last, but essentially, cannon beach is like stars hallow if taylor always got his way. also, pre-trip, i IM'd teet the following: "the other day i was watching gg and luke came on screen and i swear to god i imagined what it would be like to snug a giant mandude in a flannel shirt who smells like old spice and irish spring who loves his propane grill and nearly fainted sayin."

anyway, my time in cb was pretty mellow. we drove to seaside, which is like dartmouth, mass, in that it's the armpit of the coast, where we got groceries, internet, and the willies. we ate burritos in manzanita, and completed the goonies tour in astoria with a photo sesh outside of mikey's house, the jail, and the museum where mikey's dad works. oh look, photos!

[photo: i woulda posed for this but i didn't want people to get confused and think we'd somehow exhumed anne ramsey for the shot.]

[photo: i am allowing this photo of myself with mikey's house because a, i am tiny in it, and b, i am about to do the truffle shuffle.]


and we had lunch at the columbian cafe, which is kind of like the shopins of the west, except their menu isn't just 220 different variations of shitty sandwich but actually quite delicious and the rockabilly waiter was adorable despite being rockabilly, which is like saying the feces were delectable despite being human waste. and i know that's harsh but all this time in LA has really made me rockaracist, because it's basically like living your life on call to be an extra in grease, except the music isn't as fun and all the girls do rollerderby.

otherwise we cooked, or i cooked, or teet did 2 months worth of laundry while i ran (on purpose, who am i?), or i croch'ed while trying to get teet to stay awake and watch season 1 of friday night lights, and btw, i haven't lost hope for season 2, but jesus fucking christ, what is that show about anymore? i don't even like football, but where the fuck is the football, ie, the thing the characters once lived and died by? it's like the entire town is made up of tween girls, and sure, zac effron/football was super important last year, but that was a year ago, and now we're really into shia lebeouf/murdering people or doing older brown ladies or (full circle!) discovering meth labs.

or if there is a friday night game on the show, it will inevitably be some rudy-like last minute win at the hands of the team's underdog. and can anyone tell me when/why landry just up and quit the team after being their savior? was it because tyra was a bitch to him? but then why were they buds, like, 2 weeks later? hey, why not cut out this bullshit and put in some stupid football? it's so crazy it just might work!

[photo: they just look surly cuz they're defensive about how unlikable their characters have become. et tu, landry?]

in oregon news, however, i woke up friday at the crack of dawn and went back to LA again. but this time it took 16 hours and included a stop at sonic drive-in (if their diet dr pepper float is the work of jesus, then consider me saved) and much time dedicated to hearing the comedy of patton oswalt (i know, i didn't want to like him either, but his bit about kfc big bowls will DESTROy you) and the audio book of jarhead, which just ties back to teet's theory about my rambo-ing out, but whatever.

that was my trip to oregon, and if it seems rushed, it is, because after spending saturday and sunday in LA, checking in with friends (all 2 of them) and enjoying my last faux-pork bbq sandwich of 2007 from pure luck, i woke up at the crack of dawn this morning (actually, more like pre-crack, like, upper back patch of hair of dawn, assuming dawn's more of a don) and flew to boston, which is where i'll be until tuesday morning, when i get up at the mid-vertebrae of dawn/don to fly to london, where i'll be visiting family and friends (well, one friend, emma, but her family makes plural).

so i'm giving the mini report of this trip so i can spend all day tomorrow finishing up late-channukah presents (back to dechristing christmas again) before i'm back to pulling heavy bags around and putting myself through travel hell...when i finally get to nh, i'm going to end up buying a motorcycle. or maybe just start cut out the middleman and start bathing with irish spring and old spice.