KJPcreations

I am totally and officially he-rah in Portland. I made the required Oregon DMV visit earlier this week and have the new plates and the awkwardly-poised license picture to prove it. 

The time is now to shamelessly sport an Adidas vest and strut the not-so-very- mean-city-streets in vintage boots and call it high fashion. The City of Roses is ruggedly retro and artfully disheveled. I own expensive hoodies and handmade jewelry; I buy organic flax seed and rock the canvas grocery bags. I invest in locally grown and jog for fun; I made the mistake of ordering a, “Grande soy latte,” only once in a non-Starbucks establishment. Only once. I have a friend who rolls with a scooter crew or posse or gaggle; maybe they prefer gang since it sounds tougher? Don’t think I don’t swerve the knitting needles because I do! I have a bag of yarn just waiting to be transformed and the wisdom to know the difference. I have vinyl, I drink tea, I think indie, I am me.  If you say, “Apple,” I say, “Sauce.” Apple-Sauce. Apple-Sauce.

I actually don’t make apple sauce. Rather, I should be making the apply yum-yum-sauce or maybe I should be perfecting a chutney recipe. I should be composting and talking about spring frost affecting my garden or how my boyfriend, the mandolin player, is investing in a portable yurt company called, “I’ll Skin You Alive,” only his company is not using real animal skins but some bio-diesel-sustainable material that if the time should arrive when you are desperately hungry and stuck in some woodland enclave you can soak pieces of the yurt in water and it turns into a delicious miso soup. Mmmm, yurt-tastic!

I might open up an organic cotton candy shop and call it, “Puff Puff Pass,” or I might create my own line of frozen citrus treats, hand pressed in shapes of lips called, “Pucker Up.” I might break-up with my fictitious boyfriend, Lenny (you know the one, the mandolin player) and join a cult of women who have ceased to wax and we would call ourselves, “Betties that Bush.” I might start a country band called, “Natural Detergent,” and we’d sing about how the earth hurts and yearns to be clean.  I might do many things.

For now, I must take leave and ready myself for a weekend in Los Angeles whereby I will enjoy another kind of compost pile all together.

I’m having a Sleeping Nude sort of week or month or maybe even a year. By Sleeping Nude I mean exhibiting unusual proportions. It’s not like I am holding an abnormally large breast whilst fast asleep on some shambles of a sofa; it’s more like I feel blurry, a squishy sort of person with flabby beginnings and droopy endings. No offense to the artist, Lucian Freud, whose model is fascinating. It’s just that my mood is unattractively exposed.

An attempt to add up the good with the bad:

There’s the job. There’s that. And there’s the writing. There’s that. Also, there’s the running. There’s…that. Family time is golden time. There is a groovy apartment (when it’s not a complete mess.) Oh, and there’s, wait — there’s the blacklisted from Craigslist personal ads. Yeah, there’s that. Some how or some why or some way, I can no longer troll for bottom feeders on any given night of the week which is to say my personal ads get flagged within hours of posting. What the (F.) You know your life is on the right path when that happens. There’s that. No more losers to squelch the lonely. Yay! Oh, but the lonely makes me think crazy thoughts like I am exhibiting unusual proportions.

My Pops says, “It’s good to have people around to call you on your B.S.” Um, I would if I could! Friends? Not so many living here in Portland. There’s that. We’ve established my get-a-date methods are no longer working. There’s that. But there is my family time. They would surely hold my saggy breasts for me if I were unable to do so in repose on a less than gorgeous settee. There’s that. There’s fine wine to drink and Devotchka & My Morning Jackets albums to snuggle up with; there’s uncooked culinary delights to invent; there’s running trails to traverse and shoes to muddy; there’s tears to shed and laughter to follow; there’s self-deprecation and making a fool of oneself (not necessarily in that order); there’s that thing we can always count on, a thing called change. There’s all of that, unattractively exposed.

ME: Hi, Self.

SELF: Hello you. It’s been awhile.

ME: It sure has. The last blog entry we did was back in February 2008, of all things. We’ve spoken since but our last on-the-record blog was before the whole world changed.

SELF: Oh, goodness. That was ages ago. Well, I hope I’ve got something interesting to share then. [laughs]

ME: Me too. [laughs] But seriously, thank you so much for surfacing. I know you’re in the middle of several projects.

[The two of them chat for awhile]

SELF: Seriously, I’ve been in the thick of it all with the redesign of my blog, settling into a new life here in Portland, exchanging raggedy ol’ habits for shiny new and improved ones, training for a marathon blah blah blah….We’re all a constant work in progress.

ME: Word to your mutha, sistah. [high-fives the air]

SELF: [giggles] That’s totally giggly. But yeah, I’m totally finding my way back after what feels like a crazy journey. I’m not exactly sure where “back” is since it’s kind of impossibility but being in Portland, touching all the things that I call roots, has been healing.

ME: Well you look fabulous. And this new blog looks fabulous. Congrats.

SELF: Why thank you. I’ve been tinkering with several templates for what feels like years but I finally found one that I’m happy with and I can customize the bejeezes out of it so I am super pleased. There’s still a video blog component that I want to add and I need to import pics from the previous blog but I’m up and strumming. [plays air guitar] I’m looking forward to the flowering of this virtual environment.

ME: To the future. [lifts a champagne flute to toast]

SELF: [lifts glass in-kind] To the future; let’s get it on!!!

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