I can’t think of anything to write today. So instead I give you a picture of Extremo the Clown driving around the streets of Portland in his bizarrely modified van.
Let’s hope I come up with something to write tomorrow so we don’t have to do this again.
If not for a few days spent on the east coast in May this last weekend I would have set some sort of personal record for miles traveled and bloggers visited. It all started out in Seattle with Daveattle (appropriately enough).
I knew Dave and Dustin, obviously, and Sizzle was a fellow TequilaCon alum, but everyone else was new to me and so I got a chance to meet Matt and Scott and Nicole and Patty and Tracy and Chris, and The Fella and Bryan who were great fun even if I can’t link to them. Kristin arrived and brought glittery tattoos, and we all set about looking for clean, dry hairless patches of skin and documenting the process with dozens of photos. Hilarity ensued.
The next day found me back on the road, having recognized that state in myself where I’m close to going mad if I don’t get to breathe in great big lungfulls of sea air, and so I wound up in Cannon Beach where I finally got a chance to see Mad William‘s gallery. We had a few beers and some oysters at the local tavern, and spent some time chatting about Oregon coastal life and San Diego and art and of course favorite blog reads, and all the people we were lucky to know through blogging. Oh, and I brought my new charges along with me, and they were remarkably well behaved, not quacking once during our lunch.
It was a fantastic weekend all around. And I slept like a baby that night and am only just now updating my blog, which is why you’re getting a weekend update on a Tuesday morning.
I saw this around town the other week on a pizza restaurant. Was this a concern? Is this some sort of viral marketing campaign I don’t know about? Does anyone know what the story is?
I was sitting around the house last night drinking my roommate’s beer when I suddenly had the epiphany that we only have one life to live, and only a finite amount of time upon this earth, and a vanishingly small window of opportunity to ride around naked on our bicycles with literally hundreds of other scantily-clad and like-minded individuals. I also realized that I could put off doing laundry for another day if I went to a clothing optional event.
I don’t know if there’s a World Naked Bike Ride event coming to your part of the world anytime soon, but here in Stumptown it’s Pedalpalooza time and we had ours last night. At around 10 o’clock I left my house and pedaled across town to the dance party at the starting line. I walked around for a while trying to find a few friends who I had heard were going to show up, wondering if I would even recognize any of them naked, and still debating whether or not I was actually going to go through with this. There is strength in numbers though, and something about being around other people going au naturel that gives you the courage to go ahead and disrobe and so, after sending several ridiculous twits, I started taking off my clothes until I was wearing little more than my bike shoes. Oh, and my helmet, because, you know. Safety.
Right before midnight hundreds of cyclists assembled, shivering somewhat but grinning more than anything else, and after hooting and cheering and chanting someone apparently gave the signal because all those naked bodies started moving, and we were off!
Some highlights and observations:
No, I didn’t take any pictures, but given the number of camera flashes and people standing along the route with cameras in hand that I saw I’m sure some will show up. Please don’t look too hard for these. I imagine BikePortland.org will have some sort of update on the event at some point, and I’m sure there will be something on YouTube too. Someone blew past me in one of those Dutch cargo bikes with a friend in the front holding a video camera over the side, and I can only imagine how awesome that video is going to be.
Riding around wearing close to nothing with other cyclists is rather liberating, so much so that I think I will spend all of today naked, as well. This may prove troublesome later since I need to go to the grocery store at some point. Whatever.
Early this week Jennie! did a meme and tagged everybody at the end, and then Kat! picked it up, and I guess I am too largely because I haven’t been able to think of anything else to write about. I’m almost sure I did it wrong, though, because I don’t do memes very often and also I can barely read or write.
One:
I sat as still as I could in what little shade was offered next to my car there in the parking lot, a lifetime of instinct telling me that all I needed to beat the oven-like heat of midsummer was to be still and wait for the breeze from the sea to wash over me. It didn’t work, of course, not here in this tiny Oregon town so far from the ocean and everyone and everything that I’d grown up with. What did you expect? I thought, never one to refrain from kicking myself when I was down. You went through quite a bit of effort to fuck up your own life. Is it any wonder you’re here, working this lousy job, living with these backwards, small-minded people?
I’d come here fleeing the mess I’d gotten myself into in California, banking on spending no more than six months living with my family to get back on my feet before moving back home, or maybe somewhere in the Bay Area or even Palm Springs. I’d had offers from friends to live in either place. Yet nearly a year later here I was, still piecing together my next move, and selling groceries to the residents of a farming town that didn’t know quite what to make of me. Between my dark eyes and brown skin and a name apparently so foreign most couldn’t bring themselves to attempt it and, paradoxically, the ability to speak perfect English, no one here seemed to know what to make of me. I wish I were joking about that last one: on several occasions I was treated to the open-mouthed astonishment of someone who had slowly and carefully asked me a question only to have me interrupt with a well-formed sentence in reply. “My God!” they’d exclaim, “where did you learn to speak our language so well?”
“Well, I think the public school I attended in San Diego was probably better than the one you have here.”
“How did you wind up there?”
“It’s where I was born. And raised. Your turn.”
“Are your parents from America?”
“My mom was born about six blocks from here in Silverton Hospital. My dad is from Mexico City. Hey, maybe we can talk about your family now!”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised. Here’s your receipt! Have a great day!”
I grudgingly stood up and began walking back towards the store, my break over. On the way back in I walked around a truck that had just pulled up; the mud-splattered doors opened to reveal the mud-splattered occupants. Maybe they were staring at me; maybe they weren’t. I decided I didn’t care anymore. In ten years these people will still be here, burning their trash piles and throwing beer cans in the river. I will have moved on, and my time spent here will be no more than a footnote in the story of my life.
Two:
Seeing my distant expression, she asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“My to-do list,” I said, still staring at the horizon. “Not counting work, I had five things I came up with to do today.”
“And what are those?”
“Well. Cut out of work early. Hop on my bike. Eat ice cream with a pretty girl in a sun dress. Watch the sun set over the city.”
She took another lick of her ice cream before saying, “That’s only four.”
“I know,” I said, grinning. “The day’s not over yet!” I stood up and turned back towards the bench, holding my hand out. “There is one more thing. Come on.”
She took my hand and let me pull her to her feet. “What are we doing now?”
“You’ll see.”
Three:
“There is,” I began, and then thought better of speaking with my mouth full of chicken. After chewing and swallowing I started again: “There is nothing better than an all-you-can-eat buffet after spending the whole day in the ocean.”
Niels grunted his agreement while he finished devouring a slice of pizza. “Except for maybe that drive-through barbecue restaurant in Seaside.”
“Oh man, I forgot about that place. If we go surfing next weekend let’s hit Arcadia Beach so we can swing by there afterwards.”
“Sweet,” he said. We stacked our empty plates at the edge of the table before standing up. “Round two!”
Four:
I shooed away my pet kangaroo and picked up another handful of grapes before using the intercom to ring the commander for a status report. On one of the monitors I watched him tense up and sigh before delivering his line: “The shield generators are almost in range, my lord. You’ll be able to begin landing your troops soon.”
I reflected that he was probably getting a little tired of me asking him this question. This was the third time I’d ordered a reenactment of the Battle for Hoth this week, and no doubt he was wishing I would move on to some other form of entertainment soon. Tough, I thought. I didn’t sink millions of dollars of my vast fortune into building full sized working AT-ATs to just have them sit around and NOT blow the bejeezus out of the countryside.
Maybe, I thought, stroking the thin John Waters-esque mustache I’d adopted recently, if the Godzilla and King Kong robots I set my engineers to creating are delivered on schedule, I can march my AT-ATs into New York City for a giant sized Battle Royale. Now THAT would entertaining.
At this moment my manservant entered to refresh the tobacco in my gold-plated hookah. “Standish,” I said, addressing him, “do you know what the only bad part is about being a billionaire?”
He tensed up and sighed before asking, “What is that, sir?”
“Nothing! HA HA HA HA HA!”
Come to think of it, he was probably getting tired of me asking him that question, too.
Five:
As the jet pulled up and away from SFO, I pressed my face against the window, watching not just the ground recede but also watching all the places I’d lived in the last few months receding in my mind’s eye, fluttering away in the wind and falling behind me as we accelerated. I saw houses in San Diego and Palm Springs and San Mateo slipping away into the past. I saw the beach and the local pier as I had seen on so many summer days after school; I saw it at night, when I’d gone there to stand with my bare feet in the sand two days before I left. Staring out at the breakers, I realized that wasn’t reflected moonlight I was seeing: as each wave rose up, luminescent plankton would light up all along its length, each crest glowing blue for a second before the wave broke. It was the first time I had ever seen such a thing.
The plane banked, pointing its nose north towards Oregon, where I’d no doubt add a few more houses to the list of places I had lived. I finally pulled my eyes away from the cities racing away and, settling back in my seat, looked forward. I’d avoided doing so for far too long already.
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