This just in: geeks are better lovers, as are office workers and the unemployed. But don’t take my word for it, read for yourself. Being an unemployed geek and former office worker myself, the results of the survey practically listed me by name.
Get in line, ladies, the secret’s no secret anymore.
Went for a hike today with my friend LJ, who suggested Silver Falls State Park, which is the largest state park in Oregon. I’d never been there before, and she hadn’t been there in like ten years, so it was the perfect way to spend a sunny day. The park is full of waterfalls, some of which you can even walk behind, which I have to say is one of the coolest things ever.
Don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.
This next one was our second favorite. From above, you don’t even know what’s about to hit you.
Vertigo much? The protective poles had been removed from this particular overlook, so I walked as close to the edge as I dared and stuck my arm over the edge to take a picture looking straight down over a hundred feet. Like I said, though, we had no idea what we were in for. The trail goes clear down behind the falls, which, if you haven’t experienced before, is absolutely amazing. More to come on that later.
Continuing on. . .
The next one was our favorite. Talk about not knowing what to expect. . .the trail went around behind this one too, and we were also able to get a ton of great pictures from behind the falls.
The power of the water, and the wind that the falls created, was staggering to behold. From there, the trail wound around to the opposite side of the falls, and we happened to be there at the perfect time of day, so we were able to see rainbows in the mist from the falls. It was incredible enough that I shot a wee little video. I’ve tried for like half an hour to get it to view inside this entry, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why it’s not working, but it ain’t happening, so just click on the link if you want to watch it. It’s really beautiful, I promise.
After another mile, we crossed a little bridge and finished the loop back to where we started, except on the other side of the ravine.
Such a beautiful place, and we only had time to do half of the loop. The thing to do would be to bring a caravan of friends in multiple cars, and then you’d be able to park one car at one end of the trail and a second car at the other end. This would ensure that you wouldn’t have to backtrack, and that you could walk the entire network of trails, which could easily turn into an all-day journey. Also, you should eat breakfast before you start out. We were starving by the time we got back to the state capital of Salem, where we split a chicken sandwich, a delicious chipotle salad, and french fries. Oh, and tator tots, which are McMenamins’ specialty as far as I’m concerned.
Definitely a place to go back to multiple times, and if it’s the hottest part of the summer, I recommend bringing (or wearing) a swimsuit so that you can swim in the warm, shallow rivers.
Random day trips = awesome. This one = SUPER AWESOME.
I had a fairly stupid dream this morning, which I wouldn’t normally recount here, but for some reason I want to this time. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy reading about peoples’ dreams, this is one of the ones you’re not going to enjoy. Even if you are the kind of person who enjoys reading about them, you may not enjoy this one, but I should mention that I do have quite a hefty backlog of dreams here on the blog that make for very entertaining reading. Okay, that’s enough preamble and disclaimer.
* * * * *
I’m sitting in a bean bag chair on the floor of a large chain grocery store in my hometown, just between the foyer and the row of checkout counters. There are five other people sitting there in beanbags as well, two young guys and two young women on my left, and a young woman on my right. Despite being in the middle of them, I’m not participating in their conversation. I’m not even looking in their direction, for the most part, except occasionally the young woman to my right. I’m naked from the waist down, so I’m trying not to attract anyone’s attention to me. I have a crumpled hand towel over my lap, but I don’t want to stand up because it wouldn’t provide enough coverage.
So I’m sitting there and listening to the others talk, and I finally decide that I’m not fooling anybody by pretending to be removed from the group and not looking at them, and that I should at least attempt to participate. The woman on my right and one of the guys are dominating the conversation, so I turn my head back and forth between the two of them, but still I say nothing. The woman gets a call on her cell phone, and everyone stands up to leave, including me. By this time, I suddenly have pants on. I’m the first to walk out the door, and the woman is about three feet behind me, so I can clearly hear her side of the telephone conversation. We walk to the parking lot, and I look back at her a couple of times, because we’re heading in the same direction. I look for my little red car and don’t see it anywhere, even though I remember where I’d parked it.
The dream’s location changes, and I’m at my childhood home. I walk into the kitchen to get a glass of milk. The well-stocked fridge is in the middle of the room, and there are two milk containers; a nearly empty half gallon carton and a two-thirds full gallon jug with funny little phrases like ‘do not touch this milk’, ‘this means you’, ‘back off’ and ’seriously. . .stand down’ scrawled all over it in black marker. I finish off the half gallon by pouring it into a short glass, and then I walk over next to the small rolling cabinet to pet the black-and-white cat that is sitting on the floor. I pet her head for a second and then stand up to look at something on top of the cabinet, but the cat wants more attention, so she stands on her hind legs and stretches herself up to the edge of the cabinet, which is around three feet high. I laugh, pet her head and say, “Yes, ma’am. . .guess you weren’t finished yet.” I pick her up and walk into the living room, where my mom and a couple other people are watching TV.
“You’ll never guess how tall she is,” I say to everyone. “Over three feet. Isn’t that amazing?” I scratch the cat under her chin. “Yes it IS,” I continue, looking down at her little face. I notice that my friend LJ is curled up in a blanket on the floor next to the sofa, and I can barely see her face peeking out of it. I start to say something to my mom, but that’s when I wake up.
* * * * *
See what I mean? What a waste of good sleep time. I’d much rather dream about Christine again, and I’m sure you’d like that too.
So. Yeah. The trip to Port Townsend. Finally. Sorry it took a while to get around to this. PT trips always end up being big stories.
Good times, as per usual. Our IrishBand show was on Friday night, and we spent the entire rest of the weekend partying, and eating, and walking, and talking. PT is small enough (and pretty enough) that you can just walk everywhere in the downtown area. Singer and I arrived in town first, and we walked from place to place, and I had my camera ready for a few of them.
it seemed that everywhere we went we met someone Singer knew, who was brimming over with interesting stories. We met his first grade teacher, and a couple of other friends, and his uncle (Ex-step-uncle? Not biological, anyway. . .isn’t this interesting?), who wore an ascot and drunkenly talked our ears off in a comic way. He was quite the character.
We met up with some of our friends from Portland (who also moved from PT), walked downtown to buy a huge bottle of beer each, and then walked to the pier to sit and relax for a while. The sitting and relaxing (and, of course, the picture-taking) was already in progress, when an unhappy-looking guy walked up, took his shirt off, and stood at the end of the pier, staring down into the water. We called out to him, “You okay, dude?”
He didn’t look at us, but instead hopped over the rail and dove into Puget Sound. We called to him a few more times, and told him there was a ladder on the other side of the pier, but he didn’t respond to us in any way. It was pretty freaky. He sat there treading water for a long time. . .
. . .and then swam back over to the dock and climbed out, walked clear around where we were sitting, and never once acknowledged our presence. Luckily everything turned out to be okay, but I think we were all fearing the worst, or at least preparing ourselves to dive in after him. Situation averted, we finished our beers and walked back up to get food. Before long, it was time for IrishBand to play our show, which was pretty awesome, and the venue was packed with people. Finally rolled into Violinist’s parents’ house at around three in the morning.
The next morning Violinist’s parents fixed us a glorious breakfast of the heartiest French toast you can imagine, with a delicious array of toppings (I chose the homemade berry sauce) and veggie sausage on the side. Suddenly it was time for the Rhody Festival parade, so we drove into town in time for that. I had my camera, but all parades look the same, so I didn’t feel the need to capture this one for posterity. It was fun, though, and we met up with another of Singer’s friends (a former recording studio owner, which was interesting), and went to lunch with him after the parade was over.
Y’know what? I’m gonna change the plan for this entry, because really, the whole rest of Saturday was spent eating and drinking. Singer had to go to his ten-year high school reunion, so Drummer and I got dropped off at a party with some people we barely knew. One of them was very drunk already (this was around 3:00 in the afternoon), and he wanted to watch the soccer game. He stood in front of the TV, yelling horrible things like, “I knew you were gonna miss that, you f**king queer!” and “Jewbag! What the f**k was that?!“ A couple of people tried to stop the flow of insults, but you can’t reason with people who are that drunk and belligerent, so I decided that I needed to make myself scarce for a while. I walked out of the house and down the hill (I could still hear the strings of obscenities from three long blocks away) into town and over to the beach, where I sat quietly on the rocks for a long while, before walking the length of the beach to a small rocky point to collect some mussel and oyster shells, which were everywhere. I must have been gone for about an hour or so, when I got a phone call from Violinist saying, “Hey, noticed you weren’t around. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just needed to be away from the verbal abuse. I also wanted some quiet anyway. I’m down on the beach.”
“Really? You walked clear over there? By the fort?”
“No, the marina. I’m sitting on a log as we speak. I’ll be back before too long, but I’m kind of enjoying being here by myself for a while.”
“Oh, really? Cause we were gonna walk down there after the game is over.”
So I walked around on the beach for another half hour or so, then headed back, clear around the marina and the condos, and then up the hill to the party house. The soccer game was just about over, so we all started looking for the next distraction. It came in the form of a cooler that someone had ingeniously attached wheels, handlebars, and an electric motor to (you’d have to see it to believe it) to create a miniature electric scooter, so we each took a couple of turns riding it around the block. My pictures didn’t come out, but I think Violinist may have some. It was pretty dang funny. When the batteries started to lose their charge, we put the scooter away to charge it up again, and then all walked down to the park near the beach. ObnoxiousDrunk was up to his usual antics, so the rest of us were pretty much trying to keep as much distance between him and ourselves as we could.
Drummer and I walked down to the beach for a little while, and I told him about the multitude of shells that were down there, so he wanted to grab a few for his lady friend, and also get a temporary reprieve from ObnoxiousDrunk. This post is getting long, so I’ll just say that there was Thai food involved, and more walking, and lots more drinking, and then around midnight we walked back down the hill to see a punk band (who will remain nameless) play.
They were pretty good (unlike my pictures from the show!), but the general concensus was that eight or ten years ago, everybody thought that they were the coolest band anywhere. These days, however, their lifestyle of excess is starting to take its toll on the band members, and apparently it’s really starting to show. Luckily, we had snuck into the show for free, by way of a side door near the bar in the front of the buildng. Don’t tell the band.
Did I mention that after the show, it was around one-thirty in the morning? Naturally, that meant we had to go back to the party house to continue the festivities before heading back to Violinist’s house at around three. Apparently our car got egged on the way back, but I don’t even remember it, quite honestly, because my body was already beginning to shut itself down. We got to Violinist’s house and I just kinda collapsed on my bed. I started to check my text messages and voice mails, but I ended up falling asleep right away and snoring really loudly. So loudly, in fact, that Singer walked by the room I was in and poked his head in the door to check on me. He laughed and ran downstairs, telling the other guys, “C’mere, you have to see this!”
This was all unknown to me, obviously, until the next morning when I woke up to find that I had some messages saying things like, “Ha ha” and “We’re watching you!” Apparently I’d fallen asleep with my glasses on, and they’d fallen halfway off my face, and my phone was sitting on my chest. Hilarious. No pictures of that, thank gawd. It was as if my body was determined to stop me from doing absolutely any other movement that day. And no wonder, too; it was a crazy day.
In the morning we woke up to another amazing breakfast and conversation with Violinist’s parents, then after a few hours said our goodbyes and headed to a friend’s house, where there was yet another barbecue and party happening. We were all still stuffed from our enormous breakfast, so we gave the food a miss, but a couple of the guys did have a drink. I gorged myself on cup after cup of water, which my poor little body was so thirsty for. We hung out there for an hour or two, and then slowly made our way out of town. Drummer was really impatient to get back home, and sat fuming silently in Violinist’s car while the rest of us ran a few more errands. Manager needed to buy some parts for his motorcycle, and then had to make a few small repairs on it. Then we needed to stop for gas, and made another stop at a hardware store. Drummer practically had steam coming out of his ears by the time we left Port Townsend, and Singer and I (in Singer’s car) could only imagine how frustrated Violinist must have been with him on the four-hour drive back to Portland.
So there you go; another crazy trip to PT under our metaphorical belts.
The rest of this week has been a blur of activity as well, which is why it took me so long to write this entry in the first place.
I came across this recently and was completely blown away by its beauty and simplicity. Had to share it.
Be mindful of your thoughts; they become your words.
Be mindful of your words; they become your actions.
Be mindful of your actions; they become your habits.
Be mindful of your habits; they define your character.
Be mindful of your character; it defines your world.
Spent the day doing laundry and packing for another trip with IrishBand to the beautiful seaport town of Port Townsend, Washington. I’ll be there all weekend, and The Plan is to come back with a bunch of stories and pictures. Here are some links to the entries from our previous trips:
IrishBand Goes to Port Townsend
Those should tie you over until I get back and have time to share the New Adventures of IrishBand.
In other news, we had a fun and slightly drunken gig tonight, and then I came home and had a nice long phone conversation with BoringFish. Afterwards, I gave myself a haircut; my first time ever doing that. And now, it’s almost 3:00 a.m., and time to go to bed. Singer is picking me up at 9:30, which is the earliest I’ve had to get up in the last two months. Yikes! Wish me luck.
Off to sleep (perchance to dream) and then bright and early to PT. See you when I get back!
I saw the new Star Trek movie the other day, and totally loved it. It had a story line that could clearly stand on its own, but still featured enough geek-out material and historical information for old-school (or just plain old!) fans of the original series.
I found myself thinking a couple of things during the movie, though. They aren’t story spoilers at all, but if you haven’t seen it yet, and you absolutely don’t want to know anything about the movie before you do, then you may want to just skip ahead a couple of paragraphs. Now then. I thought that the orange creature from the ice planet didn’t look like it was the kind of creature that would survive in an environment like that. No fur, no feet even, just spindly little insect legs and a safety-orange body (absolutely zero camouflage in white and gray surroundings) which was seemingly held together by anger alone. Please.
Also (and this is not Star Trek’s fault, per se, I’ve noticed it in about a billion other movies), I’m tired of the cliché that good guys live and work in bright, pristinely clean buildings and spaceships, and bad guys ooze through space in ramshackle ships that resemble floating sewers on the inside, with steam and water seeping everywhere, and half-destroyed (or half-built, depending on your view of life) landings and walkways that constantly teeter the pedestrians along the edge of bottomless abysses, without so much as a handrail between them and certain death. WTF? Just once I would love to see a bad guy who didn’t instantly LOOK like the bad guy, and who didn’t live in a sewer with countless elevated walkways. Please? Thank you.
All that being said, the movie was really awesome, and you should totally go see it. I may see it again once it makes its way into the second-run theaters.
Oh yeah. . .just for the record, the actress who plays Uhura is smokin’ hot. I’m just saying.
I’ve had the same person in five different dreams now. I haven’t posted any of them here because they’re not interesting as far as dream narratives go (especially my dream narratives. . .she’s up against stiff competition!), except for the fact that she’s been in all of them. The first three were in February and March (I checked in my e-mail and Twitter), and the most recent one was a couple of days ago.
She’s not anyone I know from real life, and she’s not anyone famous either. She’s pretty in an understated way, fairly petite, with straight, shoulder-length blond hair (not normally my preference, but I’ve certainly made exceptions!) and she has a brown-and-white tabby cat who has also appeared in three of the dreams. The dreams are romantic, but have never been sexual. They always feel like they’re more about the connection that exists between us. In one of them, we were sitting next to the window in her house, quietly talking and enjoying the sunshine, with the cat draped across both of our laps, purring. In the most recent one, we were walking in a grassy lot outside of town, near some sort of cluster of buildings, and trying to figure out how to get back to the highway where my car was parked, so that we could get back. Suddenly she stopped walking and turned to look at me. “I think I’m in love with you,” she said. I was pleasantly surprised by this news, and I hugged her and told her I loved her too. “And I’ve always known it.” I love the random, awkwardly worded things that come flying out of my mouth in dreams. For the record, my all-time favorite dream quote is “Gah! What’d you do that for, you penis hole?!“ but there are plenty of other classics. Almost every single one of my dreams involves weird dialogue of some sort.
So. Moving on.
One dream involving The Girl was an extremely short one in which she appeared just long enough to say, “My name’s Christine, by the way.” That was it; the entire dream. A friend told me the other day that what her name means (“follower of Christ”) is much more important than her physical characteristics. I told a different friend about that, and her response was [I'm condensing a few of her responses into one, actually], “I sure hope there is some meaning behind her name beyond that. If not, what a disappointment. Maybe you passed her on the street one day. Just because you don’t recognize her doesn’t mean you’ve never seen her. . .just a thought. Her face could just be ‘filler’. It seems she made a point to tell you her name.”
Very interesting. RockShowGirl is convinced that this person is my ideal partner. I don’t know that such a thing really exists, but it is a really nice thought. I do know that the way to meet an ‘ideal partner’ is to always be the best and most honest version of myself that I can be, and that will attract the kind of people – either romantic, platonic, musical, or anything – that I want to spend time with.
Le Sigh.
Every night I look forward to dreaming, and I even find myself wanting to sleep much more than usual in order to see what happens next in our saga, but I’m guessing that sleeping twenty hours a day may not be the most conducive way of finding and kindling a relationship. Just a hunch.
