Yesterday in the Oregonian there was this etiquette and entertaining type article -- well I think the point had to do with why the knife is placed where it is in a table setting and I didn't pay attention to that part as much seeing as how I don't think inconsistent utensil placement signals the end of western civilization -- but the part of the article that made me stop was when she was talking about how when people are using a knife to cut something on their plate, they use their right hand then put the knife down and pick up their fork to eat the food with their right hand -- so they have to do this crossing back and forth thing. I never paid a lot of attention so now I'm taking an informal poll -- is this how you eat your steak (or tofu, depending on your preference)? I'm a lefty and I keep the fork in my left hand and use my right hand to cut. This method is so much more efficient and logical.

Last week I read an interview in Bust Magazine -- it was Pamela des Barres (has there ever been a boring person named Pamela?) interviewing Beck (very cool website). They're talking about the music business right now and Beck says, "It's like there are so many good records, you don't need to make one." And PdB says, "Oh, don't say that! Tell me, what have you listened to more than five times that's come out inthe last couple years?" and Beck says, "Hmmmm. Five times? Well, you got me there."

So my reaction to this is: what a concept. Why would you even buy something if you weren't going to listen to it at least five times? Or in my case: at least a hundred and five times? This is a major realization -- that people, like say my husband with his bazillion cds downstairs, wouldn't mind having music in their house that they would listen to less than five times. Really, my whole world view changed in an instant thanks to Beck.

Today's rant: Bath and Body Works gargantuan franchise that sells gallons of products to make you smell beautiful. I don't know why I even go in there but today is the last time. First of all, they are super aggressive ride-your-ass hard sell -- *on bath products.* I mean, come on. I remember the first time I went to one it was in Santa Barbara and the gal comes over and shoves a basket in my hands -- like I'm going to buy a basket-load of bath products. I put it down on the display.

All I want is some bath gel that makes me smell good all day. Last time I bought my bath stuff at one those kiosks at the mall in Vancouver where they were trying to sell me some contraption that would make my nails magically pretty. I garden, cook, wash dishes, type -- these are working hands, not pretty hands. Anyway, the bath gel was supposed to be peach smell and it was nothing smell. It was $14 worth of pink stuff that lathered.

So today I'm browsing the shelves, trying to find something that sounds good. And the gals are offering to help me about every 30 seconds, because apparently it takes a lot of assistance to find a smell that you like. They have all these goofy specials like: buy a gallon jug of oregano banana spice bath gel and you can get a free anise papaya mist hand creme or cardamom cucumber breeze body spray. And all the stuff smells like jello.

I found a lavender palmfrond bath thing that I liked and when I paid the surly teenager asked for my phone number. "What do you need my phone number for?" "So we can send you coupons and things." "With my phone number?" "They look you up on the Internet." As if.

Where do food cravings come from? Some seem logical -- like when you've been eating pizza and drinking beer in Las Vegas all weekend and you get home and all you want is some salad and fruit. But other random foods have been floating into my head this week -- like memory cravings.

Foods craved this week:
French Fries (had some on Thursday at Pilsner Room, thanks wkb)
Bisquick Coffee Cake (made some today and ate 1 big piece and 1 little piece)
Red Licorice -- not Red Vines which are my favorite but the very skinny kind like spaghetti (did not have yet).

This morning when we went on our walk it was still dark. When we were heading down the hill by the park we saw a big flash of blue-white light down over the hill -- we think by the train tracks. Then there was a kind-of fire-cracker sound and then another flash of light. We have no idea what it was. It gave me the heebiejeebies and I kept hearing things rustling in the bushes for the rest of the walk.

AIMLESS BUMMER

We saw Lynda Barry at Powell's Books on Thursday night. She is so completely amazing. The new book is called One Hundred Demons and she tells great stories but she also wants to inspire you to paint your own demons.

I actually took notes because she was saying so many things I didn't want to forget. I think I'm going to transcribe my notes for you:

She talked about writing the story of your life and mentioned this friend she had who was all excited when he found his old high school journals so he could read these long forgotten details. He was all depressed to find out that all he wrote about were feelings. He said it was like finding a movie of the Battle of Waterloo but the movie had been made by monkeys and all you got were pictures of bananas and none of Napoleon. So her suggestion for a writing exercise is to take an object e.g. cars. As soon as you hear "cars" you immediately form a memory in your head of car from your past. Time of day? Colors? Are you inside or out? What's going on? Here you're bringing it into the concrete. She said she has a stack of words on cards and she picks one and starts writing.

She talked about dreams and said when we're dreaming we're aware of our dreamself but our dreamself is not aware of us. It doesn't say, "I had the weirdest reality the other night."

She said she used to sing this song "Groovin" and there's a line in there that goes "life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie." It wasn't until much later that she realized that the song was actually "you and me endlessly." But she thinks that the "and Leslie" version sounds more interesting so when you're writing, be sure to bring in Leslie.

She also talked about being on the dance floor getting into the groove and then losing the rhythm so just moving around, trying to look like she knew what she was doing until she found the rhythm again. She said she never knew this happened to everyone. She suggests that writing is like that and to not worry about losing the rhythm, just stick with it until you find it again. Everybody is faking it. She said the creative process for adults is like playing is for kids. When you see a kid playing with a truck you think "kid playing with truck." But to the kid, the truck is playing with him or her. So when you're writing/painting or whatever creative thing you're doing -- you should let it play you.

Final quote and I hope I get this right -- she said she was talking to her husband about something she was working on and wondering if she was doing it right. And he said: as well you should because fascism is what doing it right is all about.

I made another apple pie last night and once again I had a mega-crust disaster. This has been an ongoing problem for the last two summers and I've been trying all these different tricks including three different brands of flour and I chill my water and chill the shortening and a bunch of slight variations on how I do it and every time is worse than the time before. Last night for the top crust I was -- purely by force of will -- patting together blobs of "dough" and dropping them onto the apples in the form of a top crust -- but it was a mess. It tasted fine so it's not a big deal but it finally occured to me that maybe I should try a different recipe. Maybe the old Betty Crocker standby was not meant for me.

Last night we saw Nickelcreek and this was one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. Keep in mind that I am, at best, a lukewarm Nickelcreek fan and when I heard their 2nd cd for the first time, about halfway through, I told Bob that if there was a song about a unicorn I was throwing the thing out the window. But last night's show was spectacular. They played for three hours. They played two encores and then for the last two songs they played completely unplugged. They invited the remaining audience to scooch up towards the front and the audience was very quiet and they played two songs (sorry I never know the names of songs) -- I thought I was going to cry. Completely amazing.

I thought I was going to Tacoma today to work on stuff for RTG but Phil said he doesn't need me today so I'm going to continue to work on this stuff from home. But meanwhile, I now have all day to work on my various projects. So what do I find myself doing but completely wasting my time sitting here catching up on WWW reading.

You can read the short name analysis for Pamela which is scarily right on. I should read some other names of people I know well and see if they match. You can look up your own name here: http://www.kabalarians.com/gkh/your.htm.

Robert sent me this story: Urban Death Match by a bike messenger -- stressed me out just reading it.

At some point during my blogging travels, I found Davezilla and bookmarked it and this morning I actually spent a very short time there and managed to dig up some very entertaining URLs.

Check out the Chronicles of George who was "the worst helpdesk technician ever." And for the all time waste of time, and I sat here laughing for quite some time check out these flash movies -- I recommend pepper v. banana. And I checked out this guy's main page and he's my birthday twin -- except born the year I graduated from high school.

Tonight we went to a lecture at PSU called The Shamans of Prehistory: New Perspectives on World Rock Art. This was my idea because I have this fascination with petroglyphs. I did not expect this to be a popular event so you can imagine my surprise when we arrived and the ballroom was packed to the gills mainly with retired age couples in L.L. Bean-wear who were very passionate about the subject matter. The lights were on in back when they started the slide presentation and I thought we were going to have a riot. The ballroom was completely full so we ended up in the adjacent room -- the equivalent of the nosebleed seats, except no elevation. Jean Clottes, from France and David Whitley from the US. They talked about rock art at sites in France, South Africa and California and in particular about the role of the shaman in creating some of this art. It was a lot more interesting than I'm making it sound.

I took another look. The actual plant of eggplants is very pretty -- I would grow them again. I found a small eggplant the size of a ping pong ball and something had pulled it off and gnawed on it. We must have some hungry critters back there because everything gets nibbled on and I found an apple in the front yard with teeth marks in it. I think I'm going to go ahead and pull up most of the garden.

I'm thinking about putting the garden to bed this weekend. This is about 4 weeks earlier than usual and I think a couple of years ago I didn't do it until November. But it's been such a big disappointment this year and it's not doing much. If I took care of it now it would be one less thing to deal with out in the yard. I'll have to go out there and take another look. Maybe I'll pull up everything except the two biggest tomatoes.

A brand new 76 station opened on the corner of 39th and Main St, right across from this gigantic Arco station. I detest that Arco station. I don't understand how Arco can sell its gas so much cheaper than everyone else. But the station is virtually ALWAYS super crowded and it's a huge corner so there are always people zipping around at 180 mph to get the most recently vacated pump or to zip into the convenience market for a beef stick or 82 oz. pop. Also when I used to go there and I'd go inside to pay the people that worked there could never be bothered to look up or make eye contact or return my "Good Morning." I'm sure working at a gas station isn't the dream job of most people but you can make your little corner of misery a wee bit brighter by enjoying friendly people. So I switched to the Chevron station on Mill Plain which was more expensive but less crowded and the people who work there much nicer.

Now there's this new 76 station. When they opened their regular gas was $1.29 to Arco's $1.24. I noticed Arco would still be packed while there was no one at 76 and I couldn't believe that people would want to wait in line to save .05 cents on gas. Let's say your tank needs 20 gallons. You mean saving some time and aggravation isn't worth a buck? I have noticed more people at the new station in the last week or so. Yesterday I saw that Arco had dropped down to $1.21 and can't help but wonder if this is a reaction to the new station.

Last night I had this really depressing dream. It was like I was an old woman and I was in an assisted living place. I think this comes from watching the The Sopranos and Tony's whole thing with his mom. The woman who assists me keeps telling me what I'm doing. I'm standing there and she says, "You just got home. Would you like to go to bed?" And I say yeah. I get in bed and it has this depressing worn pink quilt on it and as I'm getting in bed I'm thinking that I don't feel so old. I get up again and I'm standing there and the woman says, "You just got up," and it annoys me because I'm not daft. I don't need her to tell me what I'm doing.

I've finally been cleaning up some stuff on pamrentz.com. I deleted the old stuff and updated a bunch of files so the directories are semi-normal. I think it's pretty much up to speed right now.

Today has been hideously lazy. We woke up at 5:30am (not on purpose) and got up and went through a whole waking up routine and then ended up going back to bed. I did a little work in the yard and have enjoyed a few refreshing adult beverages. Now I'm going to watch those last two episodes of The Sopranos (1st season).