port ordford cedar

when i got out of a meeting today there was a package waiting for me on my desk. convinced that i had forgotten an online order, i brushed it off and returned to a meeting.

when curiosity got the best of me, i began to peel through the paper to the box. the scent seeped through and i began to detect the humble beginnings of a masterpiece. when i peeled the tape away, curled wood chips exploded from the box and euphoria shot through my nostrils.

i was instantly in nagoya, right after a run from my house to the train station. i was out of breath, hands on my hips and head down, walking it out. mrs. price- my middle school running coach- had always lectured, "breathe through your nose" and for once i was grateful for cross country. i had never seen a saw mill before, much less one inside a big city, much less one that slices planks of wood that smelled aromatic. i come from a place of oak trees and spanish moss, so i welcomed this new scent: a light, beautiful smell that makes you think of blonde children running through fresh meadows with kites. it makes factories with rusting saws and broken trucks seem like sanctuaries.

the box i opened that day was a gift from a guy i met, while sitting on a curb smoking a cigarette. he was an eccentric furniture maker, obsessed with his craft and the integrity of his medium. he told me about the sensation of carving a living thing into functional art, ambled through ranges of the texture and scents of various wood. what he sent me in that box was not just a block of port ordford cedar, but proof in the magical ability of scent to conjure up memory.

UNIQLO

oh the js and their robots! today uniqlo introduced wakamaru, your tiny, happy shopping friend that makes the racks at uniqlo even more apealing. yes, the js have coupled their favorite hobbies: shopping and robots in the most symbiotic relationship of all time. what wakamaru actually does to help you shop, i'm not quite sure. he's said to be able to make eye contact and help you shop using simple phrases, but until he starts holding my shit and saying, "nah, girl. that makes your ass look big," i'm gonna stick with fashion diva, roberto sosa as my guru. sumimasen wakamaru-san! gomenasai.

...

it's so pretty outside
i know i should go for a run and enjoy the ocean
but it's so hard to unfold my legs right now

the end of the world

ko phi phi is legendary for its beauty. the islands surrounding it include maya bay, where leo filmed "the beach," as well as mosquito island, monkey island, and bamboo island. our second morning, allan haggled with a tour guide and rented our own longtail boat for the day. we waded in the surreal green waters of maya bay, amid scores of international tourists. it made me realize why the characters in "the beach" went to such cruel lengths to protect the secret. i went snorkeling by the reef on the south side of the island and went swimming through schools of tiny silver fish off of monkey island, but nothing was quite as beautiful as bamboo island. the sand was lightning white against a soft, cool green ocean. longtail boats bobbed up and down, flaunting their ribbons like young children. we ran onto the sand and walked along the rocks, passing bamboo huts and a giant swing made of rope, until we came to the edge where you could see mosquito island and ko phi phi in the distance. later in the day, jenny and i saw tents and asked some thai guys about staying overnight.

"sure. you want to reserve now?"

we said no, but when we got back, we made arrangements to be dropped off on bamboo island for 2 nights. when we arrived and moved into our tents, it dawned on us that we were the only people staying in tents. looking around, we realized that everyone leaves bamboo island right before dusk, as we had the previous day. soon enough, that moment came and the tourists packed into their boats and headed for their resorts. gunner, allan, jenny and i walked around the island, letting the sun sink behind the trees and allow us to cool off in shade. the sun began to dip lower and lower into the sea, setting part of the sky in a pastel smear and the other in a light grey mist. we gathered on the curve of the sand, like we were facing the end of the earth and watched the sun fade and the stars wake. i never took that moment for granted- not for a second did i doubt how fortunate we four were to have seen such magnificent beauty and to own it, personally recount it without the pollution of crowds.

we walked back to our tents, but heard the rangers talking and laughing. we joined them and played cards, smoked harsh cigarettes rolled in bamboo paper, and exchanged languages. Ekk and Rit taught us Thai, introducing Mon- the cook- who brought us a mammoth papaya as a gift. we drank Mekong whiskey from a bright orange bottle; when the night wore on we went swimming in the ocean and the water glowed with algae. we walked naked on the beach, talked for hours and finally fell asleep in our tents, despondent when we heard the sound of the first longtail boat.

it was gunner's last morning, so we walked around the island- partly to explore and partly to hide from the tourists who were beginning to populate the sand. we walked past our sunset spot and came across a fisherman's camp, where he sat grilling a kuhl stingray over a fire. we examined the ray with its grey body and turquoise spots, and the fisherman climbed into his longtail boat, pulling a basket of crabs from the water. with sticks, we drew pictures in the sand and negotiated the sale of 2 kilos of crabs for a few baht and what time we would return with our money. he ushered us over to his wife, grinding a powder of chile and lime, and shared a taste of his stingray with us. it was good and chewy. we went back, crossing rocks that looked like they had been drizzled with chocolate syrup and caste from marble cake, and saw gunner sail away. watching him load into the boat, i realized that he was going back to "the real world" and my time in this paradise was rapidly ending.


we feasted on crabs and fish with the rangers. they insisted on cooking for us and sharing beer and wine with our group. we laughed a lot that night and sang "the winds of change" and "the gambler," rivaling the roosters for gawking, off key noise. we woke up early and watched the sunrise. the boat back to ko phi phi arrived later that day and i threw my bags into the boat and watched ko mai pai get smaller and smaller in the distance until it disappeared behind the curve of the island, like it never happened.

Marin County

"Do you know where the bus stop is?"
It's a simple enough question, but when I asked Maureen she looked a little befuddled and instead offered me a ride back to San Francisco.
"It's a tight squeeze in the back of the Porsche, but we'll take you if you don't mind the space."
"When would I ever turn down to ride in a Porsche?"
And that settled it. I said goodbye to Alina and her economy rental car and crawled into the back single back seat of Ray and Maureen's white, vintage Porsche. We sped through the hills of Marin County, past the thick smell of evergreen and pine saturating the cool mist that was rolling over the mountains. Watching the sailboats like white flecks of paint on a deep green sea, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. We talked about life and youth, how they met and the hitchhiking adventures they took as kids. Right out of college, Maureen had attempted to hitchhike from Boston to Maine, only her first ride, an old couple from Massachusetts, had been afraid for her to go alone and taken her the whole way. Ray had hitched from San Diego to Vancouver, then from British Columbia to Montana and back to Southern California after he got out of the service. He kept his eyes on the road, lowering the Porsche into another gear while Maureen turned toward me and smiled.
"But you can't do that nowadays. There are too many crazy people out there; I taught my kids better than to do that."
"Yeah, my mom obviously didn't."
They both look back now and laugh at me.
Sometimes you just know people are good and you trust it because it's so much better to hope for the best than to be afraid all the time. Then I realize how often I've been burned and how many times I've promised myself to become more guarded. Yet, here I am again and because I wasn't afraid, I'm gifted with an adventure that makes me continue to love my new city.
They drop me at the 31 bus stop, Eddy and Van Ness, and zoom off to check out designer furniture at Room and Board. A guy I know works there, so I call and tell him I have friends coming into the store.
"How do you know them?" he asks.
"Well, I don't."

layers of alice

alice lowered her head and toward the bowl and began smashing the avocados into a creamy pulp. i put on anthony and the johnsons who sing "fistful of love" and i think of a lover i once had once, of shivering underneath blankets in winter, that cup of coffee when i said goodbye. it had started to rain and the sunlight dissolved into a gray mist that darkened the porch outside. the wind picked up and made the hummingbird chimes clink together in a silvery song. i swirled my wine and inhaled the aroma, trying to detect the slight smells they always tell you about: dates, velvet, oak, hay, whatever it is they say you should be able to smell.

"how did you know i wanted to hear this song?" alice asked, barely turning her cheek toward the table, where i sat holding my wine.

"i didn't know anyone else really liked them"

"i do." she brought the bowl to the table and sat down without touching it. she looked at the contents without accomplishment or joy. it was a task that was finished, nothing more. "i really needed to hear this song tonight."

"yeah, me too." i poured her a glass of cheap pinot noir and had another sip of mine.

"it's strange, you know you never stop loving when it's over. it's like layers, like childhood and growing up."

"i don't understand." i said, looking up at her, but she didn't raise her eyes from the bowl.

"all those things that make up a person- the joy and pain and fears of childhood- are always the same in people; they just learn to cope with it. when i was a kid, i went to new york with my parents and this homeless guy gave me a newspaper. i was shocked that he was so nice to me, said thank you, and walked away from him. he followed my family to the car and told my dad he wanted money for his paper. my dad got mad and started yelling, took the paper from me and threw it at him. my mom told me it wasn't my fault, but i felt so terrible. i played that scene over in my head for weeks and i never really got over it. i felt like i had done something terribly wrong and i still feel a little guilty about it."

i didn't know what to say exactly. i was worried that if i said the wrong thing she would stop talking, but if i said nothing she would feel like i didn't understand. i wanted to watch her open up- to watch her facial expressions as she thought through those moments and compiled them into something manageable.

"i still do things like that on a grownup scale." she looked at me while hanging her head slightly downward, so that one lock of red fell across her cheek and it looked like she was blushing. "those experiences, they are like love because it never stops. love layers like age. it gets old and distant, but it never really stops. it's still there, underneath everything that you do and who you become because you've let that person shape that time in your history."

last week i dreamed that He got married and told me after it was done, like it was a secret i was supposed to keep from others. i woke up sweating and i cried because i was terrified that i would never love like that again. i wonder if alice is thinking the same thing; i wonder who her He is.

"it's raining." she says.

"i know."

un-plugged

as i was about to board the bus yesterday, i realized i had left my phone at home. i felt like a samurai without a sword, waging the pros of hand-to-hand combat versus a battle glittery steel. i had to make immediate choice: risk being late for a job interview or leave my weapon at home. sullen, i boarded the bus and made my way to the back of the bus. how bad can it be to be unplugged?

on the ride downtown, i struck up an interesting conversation with a lady who was also on her way to an interview and my handy-dandy NFT supplied my maps. i had a little wave of panic when i thought the address was wrong and i wouldn't have my internet to troubleshoot the problem, but that proved itself unnecessary and i showed up for my interview ten minutes early and rocked it. so far so good. then i realized that i had about 2 hours to kill before my next interview and i would be so much better off reading and preparing for it, rather than idly wasting that time reading SF weekly. (that being an enormous understatement considering my "deer in the headlights" moment with the firm's partner on the EASIEST question known to man)

later that night, i went to see the new BATMAN movie just to be as consumer america as possible. after getting my midnight dinner of a large cherry coke and popcorn, i noticed the line of kids waiting to get into the imax, seated i might add. oodles of them sprawled out on the floor dressed in all black amidst mounds of smashed popcorn. about half of them were plugged into an iPod, despite their friends being seated right next to them and one cluster actually had their MacBook with them. the phenomenon continued when i turned around at one point in the theater to see that almost everyone had an illuminated screen in front of them (yes, another MacBook) and they were clicking away, playing games or listening to music, despite the fact that they are out to a movie with their friends.

so let me get this straight- we facebook, myspace, twitter, linkin and blog our lives away to stay connected so that when we actually go out with our friends, (to plug into a movie i might add) we ignore them?! seems a disconnected type of connect, and a little more like the people on WallE than i'd care to admit. the irony is that we glean these lessons FROM A MOVIE and that i feel my avenue for venting this frustration is a BLOG!