Don't call it Or-e-gone
Hello from Oregonnnnn! Lovely Oregonnnnnnn! It has been a good few years since I've spent any time in Oregon--having spent four years crossing from one of its border states to the other, I feel like I have some claim here, plus a couple of friends--and I somehow forgot how beautiful it is. It's like the picture from some organic food label: golden fields and green-black fir trees and tangles of blackberry bushes everywhere, with the misty mountains in the background. I think that, should I ever come here permanently, I would have to become an all-natural, cruelty-free honey farmer, or cheesemonger, or angora goatherd/yarnmaker, just to match the landscape. Also: how did I forget Portland? Once I am finished being agricultural, I would love to go hang out in that city of brick and microbrewed beer and funky haircuts. I spent yesterday afternoon cavorting there with a college friend, and I'm just saying. I could do Portland.
So, I know you hear a lot from me about the culture shock of moving east, but it turns out, now that I'm here, that I seem to be assimilating with DC. I had stopped noticing the east as much, even thinking the problem was with me, that it couldn't be that different back there, that my own pop anthropology was maybe just an excuse for mocking people who are different from myself (mostly the seersucker-suit guys, but also girls in Georgetown). But yesterday, getting off the plane in Long Beach and then in Portland, my immediate, unshakeable thought was: I HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER PLANET. Meaning: It really is that different. I'm not crazy, at least not in that way. The whole thought cycle was oddly comforting, and then I called my mother to laugh about it and get her welcome back to what is apparently my mother ship.
(Incidentally, Long Beach and the entire southern LA basin are really a thing unto themselves--not a place I would choose to live--but let me tell you that we did the stairs-onto-the-tarmac thing, and the marine layer [coastal fog, to you non-Californians] was just breaking up, so that the air was cool and the sun was coming out and the palm trees were silhouetted against the totally appalling smog. Never in my life have I been so happy to see--no, like literally see--the air. GLORIOUS.]
In any case, I am not sure how I or anybody else will be able to back to a regular office job after all of this traveling. To wit, today's official schedule: Class from 9-11. Two-hour lunch break. Class from 1-3. Four-hour break. Optional evening drop-by thing at local public library. Hike back to hotel. Knit. Watch Bones. Fall asleep in king-sized adjustable-texture bed. Repeat. My life is hard.
In other news, I got word today that 451 Press, the company that owns Cinema Hype, has gone under, effective immediately--I get my final, sad paycheck, and the CH era is done. In the words of my favorite forensic anthropologist, I don't know what that means: do I strike out on my own in an attempt to stay on the DC press list, or do I call it a good run, resign myself to paying for movies again, and devote my writing time to the other, more viable projects I have cooking? First step, I think, is to have a chat with the publicity firm that runs my press screenings--if they're willing to keep me on the list when I'm not bankrolled by anybody bigger, I may start my own pop culture blog. If not, well, that's one load off my shoulders.
And now, I really need--NEED--to find some Tillamook ice cream. COME TO ME, BROWN COW.
So, I know you hear a lot from me about the culture shock of moving east, but it turns out, now that I'm here, that I seem to be assimilating with DC. I had stopped noticing the east as much, even thinking the problem was with me, that it couldn't be that different back there, that my own pop anthropology was maybe just an excuse for mocking people who are different from myself (mostly the seersucker-suit guys, but also girls in Georgetown). But yesterday, getting off the plane in Long Beach and then in Portland, my immediate, unshakeable thought was: I HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER PLANET. Meaning: It really is that different. I'm not crazy, at least not in that way. The whole thought cycle was oddly comforting, and then I called my mother to laugh about it and get her welcome back to what is apparently my mother ship.
(Incidentally, Long Beach and the entire southern LA basin are really a thing unto themselves--not a place I would choose to live--but let me tell you that we did the stairs-onto-the-tarmac thing, and the marine layer [coastal fog, to you non-Californians] was just breaking up, so that the air was cool and the sun was coming out and the palm trees were silhouetted against the totally appalling smog. Never in my life have I been so happy to see--no, like literally see--the air. GLORIOUS.]
In any case, I am not sure how I or anybody else will be able to back to a regular office job after all of this traveling. To wit, today's official schedule: Class from 9-11. Two-hour lunch break. Class from 1-3. Four-hour break. Optional evening drop-by thing at local public library. Hike back to hotel. Knit. Watch Bones. Fall asleep in king-sized adjustable-texture bed. Repeat. My life is hard.
In other news, I got word today that 451 Press, the company that owns Cinema Hype, has gone under, effective immediately--I get my final, sad paycheck, and the CH era is done. In the words of my favorite forensic anthropologist, I don't know what that means: do I strike out on my own in an attempt to stay on the DC press list, or do I call it a good run, resign myself to paying for movies again, and devote my writing time to the other, more viable projects I have cooking? First step, I think, is to have a chat with the publicity firm that runs my press screenings--if they're willing to keep me on the list when I'm not bankrolled by anybody bigger, I may start my own pop culture blog. If not, well, that's one load off my shoulders.
And now, I really need--NEED--to find some Tillamook ice cream. COME TO ME, BROWN COW.