Friends, strangers-

my blog has taken a turn for the emo. What else is there to do, when you’re not riding freight trains or having Annie-Dillard style epiphanies in america’s forgotten stands of trees? It’s become a wee bit Dear Diary around here, and at first it bugged me, and then after a few weeks I got over that. I love reading my friends’ rants about their hard times, I really do. I sort of cherish that sort of writing from my friends. Precious, precious kinship! So it’s a little bit creepy to share it with the whole world. What’s a guy to do?

So thanks for sticking around, in spite of it all. And please don’ t take every single thing I write literally, ok? I’m being dramz, I like ridiculous metaphors, I’ve been doing some soul-searching, it’s a good time, it’s a very appropriate month-after-february sort of adventure. And it’s a blog.

In other news, I got a bit of food poisoning. The sushi train, turned against me! I should’ve known better than to eat that mystery fish, all raw and room-temperature, circling seductively on its flowered plastic plate. But Toby was being brave (“I only eat the raw fish ones!”) and so I thought I would try my hand at it, even though I’ve spent enough time in Alaska to know that anything you might get this time of year is shit, especially if it costs a dollar fifty and rides a conveyor belt. So today I sat at home, sick, and sewed bright red buffalo plaid onto one of my hats, and listened to NPR, from which I learned that plane tickets are currently at their lowest price in ten years, and that you can fly round-trip to Europe for $400. Toby wants to go to Europe, no, scratch that, she wants to move to Europe, in a year. I have never been to Europe but I am sure that’s where she belongs. We all have some place we think we belong, and we talk of it longingly while we eat our two-dollar sushi, and it is all the more perfect for us not being there. Except for those of us who are happy right where we are, of whom I am extremely jealous.

What else? I made meatballs today. I was cooking dinner for a friend, and thought I had stew meat in the freezer, but when I unwrapped it it was meatballs. I’d just bought them three days ago, too. My memory works about as well as a cellphone full of soapy water, sometimes. That seems to be an ailment specific to my generation. It makes me wonder what we’ll all be like when we’re seventy, if any of us will even make it that far.

Gloomy thoughts aside, I chopped some beets (on sale at the co-op! for once!) and carrots and potato and celery and put it in a baking dish with olive oil, parsley, rosemary and chives. And salt. Can’t forget my good friend Salt! I poked the meatballs in there and stuck it in the oven for an hour. I also made some quinoa salad, quinoa rinsed to make it cold with fresh parsley and kale chopped up, olive oil and apple cider vinegar, dash of salt. I didn’t take any pictures. You’ll just have to imagine it. Kristy came over and ate meatballs and we talked about dating. Because it was a Monday! I always talk about dating on Monday. It’s figured into my internal clock, like a sleep schedule.

I’m almost done with the Bandit Queen, but I’m putting off reading the ending, because it’s just so goddam intense. I forget how it builds and builds, and then at the end it sort of breaks you in half, and I mean it’s good, really good, but when all 500 pages are finished it’s a little like your dog died, in no way any other book has ever been. So I’m saving that for a really good day, maybe a sunny day when I can read it outside, under a nice tree, and the tree can comfort me when I start sobbing uncontrollably, like something in me burst.

And speaking of reading things, a question for you, dear reader- do you live in Portland and read my blog? Statcounter tells me that more people in Portland read my blog than any other city, but only three or four of the people in Portland that I know in actual three-dimensional life have mentioned to me that they read it. I know there are some other people who read it that I’ve never met, but I’m curious! So if you actually know me in 3-D, and you read this blog, and you haven’t yet, will you leave a comment, or just tell me in person next time you see me? A survey!