Better than fruit salad

THURSDAY, MAY 29

Yesterday I was in the bathtub when Anthony called. The bathtub is a great deep number that comes up to about my shoulders when I sit up, and has a wrap around shower curtain rod, which at the time did not have a curtain on it. So bath it was. I’d moved the phone over because I didn’t want to miss a text actually, but he called and I thought, why not? He was drunk, celebrating his birthday, and was at his most blissed-out drunk. Lots of repeating, lots of hums and little songs, lots of excitement for me which is showing a lot more class than I might have. What a guy. At one point after I was dried off and dressed they were about to do some sort of vodka shot for his birthday and it occurred to me that for some reason I did move with a bottle of vodka. So, I joined them in a cross-country shot, which was not only the first bit of Portland alcohol, it was also the first shot I had ever done. Good to do a first shot with someone you dig, even if it has to be far away.

A kind of lame day for me — lots of driving around sections of the city I will never actually go. Mom was comforted to see all the chain stores, but I was kind of sullen about it. I did not drive for three days to the independent business capital of the northwest to shop corporate. But of course I said no such thing, I will have plenty of time to explore the real Portland, and I will not have plenty of time to walk around Target with my Mom, who says things like “is there anything you need?”

FRIDAY, MAY 30

Today Mom went to a walking tour of downtown while I sat at home and unpacked. It was great — I got to kind of take it easy and assess what food I had left, and Mom got to be a tourist and learn about some of the quirkiness. Later I drove down to meet her, and we walked up and down the river front while she relayed some of what she had learned.

Another tiring day, but we milked it for all it was worth, since they left this morning at about 6am. I’m kind of glad to be on my own now, in a new city, so I can really start to settle in and explore to see what there is to see.

Here is a baby squirrel taking a nap on the tree outside.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28

We started off in Boise, Idaho. As we neared the state line, suddenly my excitement began to peak for the first time in several days.

The state line is shared by a rest stop “welcome center,” which had two signs I heartily enjoyed: 1.) Wireless internet, and, 2.) free coffee at the Welcome Center.

Oh my God, I thought. I am home.

The next two hours were intense.

I was back to the urgent, buzzing happiness. I wanted to roar like a lion, and then I wanted to howl like a wolf. Nothing was loud enough to express what I felt. Oregon was pumping its energy into my veins and I was flying, not driving. I am meant for this.

Despite all my Mom’s premonitions everything from the Uhaul and both cars fit easily inside the apartment, no storage unit necessary, which makes me both relieved and smug. The building is 100 years old and was built for the Queen of Romania, and it has a lot of the original features — glass doorknobs, the old icebox is still here, and so forth. I have a big tree right next to my window, which is evidently a squirrel playground, according to my own-site manager guy. And speaking of: what an awesome. He is a 72 year old Jewish homosexual with fabulous horn-rimmed round bifocals and the greatest sense of humor ever. He was waiting outside for me because the main guy, had stuff to do. He brought me in and started showing me the place long before Mom came with the checkbook. There’s a “free stuff” table in the laundry room, next to the bike racks. Good vibes here, yes.

Brandon came over at like 7 and all that was left was the couch which he and I did. Then walked to a pizza joint just down the street which was tasty, they make their own soda apparently. I had apple and Brandon had blackberry, and Mom and Cameron, being unadventurous, had fountain drinks.

Oh my God. I live in the very same neighborhood Anthony and I were walking around and gawking at back in December. Those amazing houses and plants are just outside my door. It is raining behind me and the droplets are hitting the leaves of this tree and sounding like heaven. Yes. Yes. Yes.

TUESDAY, MAY 27

Today was a big day.

There are more pictures on flickr — lots of scenery, some in the order I saw it, which is kind of insane. Lots of change in rock. I narrowed it down to 23 to upload there. Yikes. A lot. But mostly because I went through so much landscape today. I’d sort of forgotten that the last two times we went through WY (there and back) it was a whitewash snow festival, and so I don’t know that I’d ever seen what some of that stuff looked like.

It was a kind of long and pensive day for me. It wasn’t bad pensive — yesterday was a little rough for me, rougher than I wanted it to be. I don’t really know why, it was a fracture of the logic bone. Or something. All the trouble sleeping and the suckiness of the moving boxes itself and being cold and wet just didn’t really sit well, on top of it all. Today was much better in that department. Back in the zone, got ahold of myself, etc etc. Still not quite excited so much as bemused and kind of comfortably enjoying myself. I think the excitement will start to kick in tomorrow, when we actually get there. WY, Utah and Idaho are pretty, but nothing sets this apart from any other vacation type thing yet.

…EXCEPT that I’m solo in my car, and that I’ve been doing most of my stopping at rest stops. This is kind of a new thing for me, since up until this point I’ve always had a car that needs to stop as often as I do. Now I have a car that gets ~40 miles to the gallon and my stops to stretch and get a snack out of the cooler are totally independent of gas stations, which is so amazing. Wyoming had nothing to offer, but ever since then there have been these wonderful little buildings with clean bathrooms, with little landscaping and paths winding all around picnic tables and trashcans. Sometimes there are trees, and the last one I stopped at (mostly to let Mom and Cam catch up) had a great rainy smell to it. I walked up and down the little path twice just to kind of get some blood going. Fantastic. We do that from now on.

OTHER STUFF I SAW

1. Three cows nuzzling a milker machine, with a sign on it that said 4 SALE

2. A really strange bumper sticker on a truck :

Don’t follow me I’m lost. Because I am also an American, and we are all lost. Except I think the two must be unrelated, seen as it was deep in red state country. Right? Help!

3. A sign for an exit for ‘Point of Rocks’. I read it thinking, if you need to be told the point of rocks, than I think, well, you’ve missed the point of rocks. As it were.

4. Apparently I have an “icy road conditions” alert on my mini. It is somewhat accurate too, since this morning got a little fruity before the sun came out all the way on the highway. It wasn’t quite ice yet, but it was very possibly slick, so it was a cool thing to be alerted too — it happened almost at the same time that I wondered if the roads might be getting bad in my head. Yet another amazingly cool thing it does.

5. The continental divide splits in a circle somewhere in WY. Not into a fork, but a circle. Oddly enough, while we were in the middle of the circle we passed mile marker 198 and 197, which were only about 20 feet apart. Also, mile marker 197 happened twice.

Six more hours until Portland. I have no idea what order this will go in — apartment first? or storage unit? I know there will be a lot of back and forth, and I know that mom would really like to get rid of the UHAUL tomorrow. I might be sleeping in my bed in the new place tomorrow, surrounded by boxes. Holy cow.

One quick caveat before I forget: I was listening to albums I don’t normally listen to today, because I had the time to do so. As I did this, I found a few songs that I knew Anthony would enjoy. And we have almost identical ipods! So twice I eeled him to say, “[artist] > [album name] > [track]” and had a cross-country music listening session.

I’ve been emailing these updates to people, so I will post these here now for my own references mostly.

MONDAY, MAY 26

I just changed my address online, so I officially live in Portland now.

The confirmation email has a bunch of links there to change your address with the IRS, the Bank and so forth, since the simple USPS change doesn’t hit all of them automatically unfortunately. Everyone has their own record. Just think of everywhere you’ve ever had to punch in your address, and that’s where you have to do it manually.

One step at a time. And only just barely in time — I had to do this online because I literally ran out of time for the post office, since it closed on Saturday early because of today’s holiday. Then Dani did my Comcast for me, because she’s a saint. When Nicole was over she vacuumed all of upstairs for us which was amazing. That’s all she did was vacuum a carpet with a pad she’s allergic to. She is my hero. And then you redid all the packing. I have a feeling that means my storage unit will have to be much bigger than anticipated, but really that’s more my bad for not purging more beforehand. I feel so guilty about all the CRAP I still have. And I had to say goodbye to so much of it that wasn’t expected, which was hard enough without all the other weird feelings swimming around. It’s not the stuff I regret, it’s the having it and having to throw it all away so last minute in the first place.

The view from the cockpit, just after filling up. Time to leave.

Here’s that Greeley-in-the-rearview picture. Not a great one because of a.) the girth of my camera and b.) the need to kind of keep it together. Further down the road I was fine, but between the being shaken up anyway and then the wallet scare I was a bit distracted.

I saw a cowboy on a horse in the middle of a field in Northern Colorado, following his border collie between two groups of cows. He was in this great mist — all wet browns and yellows — and it was very cinematic and cool-looking.

It was very much like this landscape, which we drove by later in Wyoming:

Cameron came to the rescue with a much better shot:

I was feeling pretty good after Cheyenne. Gorgeous weather for me (not so much for those in the Uhaul, but you know. Builds character?) I switched to an audiobook and kind of got in the zone for a while. I probably could have gone for another three hours but Mom wanted to throw in the towel and not a bad idea. It does feel nice to sit here and just kind of veg for a moment. I will sleep heavily tonight I think. Right in the middle of this huge bed.