Fear of Missing Out

Lets talk about FOMO for a moment.  It's a real thing, a thing that happens when there is a party to go to and you are tired, but you go anyway.  My old roommate Kyle Hunter says that FOMO stands for "Fear of Missing Out."  Used in a sentence it would sound like this- "I wanted to read Neil Young's biography and drink hot chocolate with my dog, but I had a wicked case of FOMO so I went out to the bar instead."

We are talking about this fear of missing out because the entire city of Austin has had a wretched case of FOMO for the past ten days, as South by Southwest again arrived, raging and sweeping everything in its path, providing enough magic and despair to last us through till next year.

Let me try to paint a quick picture- the festival is boundless- there are literally people all over the damn place downtown, in the South Congress area of town, and on the Eastside of the city. All bars have loud live music, for days and nights on end.  It is absolutely overwhelming and frenetic.  There are a few hundred pedicab drivers out, my boyfriend included, sweating and working 12 hours days.  The daytime can be fun- traffic is a snarl but if you are on  bike or on foot, you can navigate your way to free shows, a beer or two,  maybe a sausage snack.  At a certain point in the late evening, things take a turn for the worst, and suddenly everyone is DRUNK.  Not just normal drunk, but DRUNK.  This is when the city starts looking like an episode of the Walking Dead, with slack jawed bleary eyed young people lurching down the streets.  It's a little funny and a little more crazy.  There's puke on the buses and puke on the sidewalks and lots of garbage.  And some cops, and the homeless folks, and a couple cowboys on horses.

I worked downtown last year, and to be working  a service industry job that is smack in the middle of the mania is to be sentenced to a certain hell.  It was truly relentless, just the sheer amount of people who walked through the door.  At the end of it, our boss very graciously cooked us a splendid seafood and crawfish dinner, with free beer, and the Shins happened to show up and eat with us.  That was a little magical, but not enough to make up for stocking the cooler until 3 am for several nights that week.  There is no way around it if you work downtown- you just gird your loins and get through it. 

I guess what SXSW exemplifies is the perfect marriage of expectation and disappointment. In such a hip city, there is pressure to feel like you SHOULD have an awesome, out of this world experience during South by Southwest.  You want to be able to be like, "dude, I totally ran into Mila Kunis at a gay bar and took body shots with her," or, "I just ate BBQ with Justin Timberlake," or, "I got into this exclusive party on a boat, and the Flaming Lips were there, and they gave me free cucumber vodka and a free JanSport bacpack!" Apparently Steven did see Shaquille O'Neill get out of a range rover with his girlfriend and bodyguards- he tipped his head at Steven and said, "stay cool."

Indeed.

Anytime you have an instance where expectation is so high, where you know cool shit is happening but not necessarily how to access it, disappointment follows.  It is more common to wait in a long, hot line for a thirty minute show by one of your favorite acts, only to have the sound go out or have it be in a noisy bar.  It was still worth it though, at least you are pretty sure it was.

The longer I live here, I think the easier it will be to navigate this behemoth week and find the spots that play that music that feels like home.  I went to a free show with Texas country bands, and had a Shiner beer and hung around with all the old rock and roll fans, my parents age.  I checked out a bar where two of my favorite singer songwriters played (also, congrats Carry Elkin and Danny Schmidt on getting engaged- my Mom says Mazeltov!) and when I got there it was me, some middle-aged lesbians, and some guys who looked my grandpa.  These are my people.

Last night was the final evening of SXSW- I met my roommate on the Eastside to celebrate her birthday for a quick drink.  It was wild, there were people roaming the streets and crammed into every bar available, and as I walked back to my bike I happened upon a truly excellent bluegrass show.  This was a little magical- I tapped my feet on the sidewalk in my new thrift store skirt, the air still warm late into the night, and I really enjoyed myself.  Then, blessedly, I hopped back on my bike and rode into the darkness, thankful for the quiet roads in my neighborhood.

I was trying to think of an apt metaphor for the festival, and the best I can come up with is that it is like a giant pimple.  You are pretty sure you should leave it alone, but it's intriguing.  You touch it a couple times, and it just gets bigger.  You try to leave it alone, but something compels you to mess with it, until finally it pops. It's Sunday, SXSW is over, and no we can officially start the healing process, and hose down the streets.

I think next year I might offer a class on emotionally coping with SXSW FOMO.  We will probably spend a few days biking around to select events, trying not to get our hopes up too high, and spend at least one night at home with the dog, reading Neil Young's biography and drinking hot chocolate.

"Shifting the Sun"

Reading through "Good Poems," an anthology selected and compiled by Garrison Keillor, I came across this poem a couple years ago.  It is about fathers.  I have several friends whose fathers left this world well before their time, and it always make me think of them.  Of course no father is perfect, but there are those special men who seem to grow into legend due to their warmth, humor, and ability to love. This goes out to Mark Kagi, Bill Robertson, Bill Ford, and Barnett Newman, and to all those fathers whose spirit continues to light the way for their sons and daughters.

Shifting the Sun

by Diana Der-Hovanessian

When your father dies, say the Irish,

you lose your umbrella against bad weather.

May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh,

you sink a foot deeper into the earth.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Canadians,

your run out of excuses. May you inherit

his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the French,

you become your own father.

May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians,

he comes back as the thunder.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,

he takes your childhood with him.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the English,

you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,

you sun shifts forever.

And you walk in his light.

Mapping Out Time

The first time I ever partook of the green grass glory that my illustrious father is so fond of, I ended up asleep on a friends floor, a half eaten cheese sandwich in my hand.  Needless to say, my foray into Cheech and Chong recreation was pretty short lived, since my usual response was pretty similar to the one with the sandwich. Either that, or I'd just get increasingly worried that the car we were parked in would roll down a hill, or some nonsense like that.  Whiskey suits me much better as a drug of choice.  I'd rather have whiskey then weed in my pie, any day.  This is legal for me to write about because I'm from Washington, right?

I was home in Seattle for a week in January, it was predictably rainy and absolutely wonderful to see old friends, drink coffee in my parents kitchen, eat mussels with crusty bread and watch aerial shows at a cozy studio on Phinney Ridge.  I saw a few of the friends who were there for the night of the cheese sandwich, and it struck me just how beautifully and differently we are all growing up.

I was blessed as a teenager to cast a wide net over a tightly knit friend group- we functioned as a big humorous circus of highly capable students and potheads, drama and band nerds, independent kids who went on big camping trips and forays to the Gorge Amphitheater to see our favorite groups play every summer before school started again.

There always seemed to be someone whose parents were gone every weekend, too.  It was never my parents, mind you.  Looking back, the parties we threw were always pretty benign.  There were illicit substances, gravity bongs and some guy trying to learn Led Zepplin for 3 hours at a stretch, and we ALWAYS let the family dog out by accident, but that was pretty much it.

The camping trips were even better. Who can forget the campfires in Leavenworth, or throwing ourselves down sand dunes on the Oregon coast, or the week long trip I took with some guy friends to the East Coast one mid-winter break, in which we wandered around Manhattan and Pennsylvania and finally found ourselves on a snow covered hillside in Woodstock drinking White Russians and laughing.

It was glorious.  And at times it was hard, and now it feels a little bit like Bob Dylan's Dream.  (Great song, look up the lyrics.)

Over the last decade or more, much has changed.  Many of us are lawyers.  Just as many of us are bartenders, and baristas, and beekeepers. All of us are still walking our own path, and I like to think we are all doing well for ourselves, whether we are parents or single or homeowners or renters, struggling to find work we love or struggling to find love that work for us, whether we feel we have arrived or we are still seeking, we are all doing well.  Different combinations of us have stayed in touch- some of us went to the same colleges, some got houses together in San Francisco, and sometimes we get together at a dive bar in Kenmore on Christmas night and find our old common ground.

And sometimes we think back to the cheese sandwich night, to remembering our tall lanky blond friend, high on mushrooms, staring into space with a deep look of furrowed concentration.  When we asked what he was doing, he put up his hand and whispered, "shhhhh! I'm trying to map out time."

Wow. I wonder if he succeeded. I wonder what memories will stay with us so many decades later, like the lines of that one Gary Snyder poem. How will we remember who we used to be? More importantly, how will we honor the people we have become?  I may need to make a plate of cheese sandwiches and think about this for awhile longer.

Glad to be back with you, and I'll write again soon.

yours very truly,
Red

Texas in Late December

"They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love."

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

A few weeks ago, before the fervor of the holidays, I set out on a day trip to Enchanted Rock, in a car with 4 guys and a dog.  They were going rock climbing, and I was armed with 2 sandwiches, an apple, a cookie, trail mix, some raisins, and a book.  We headed out of Austin early in the morning, drinking coffee out of a thermos, listening to the radio as we drove through Bee Caves, towards Llano, down hill country roads until we reached our destination. Enchanted Rock is a Texas State Park, the main feature of which is a granite dome that rises 425 feet into the air.  There is a smaller dome, too, between which are boulders to scramble over, scrub trees, desert cactus and flowers, a creek and lovely green trees.  There is ample rock climbing at the park, a cave to go spelunking in, and trails to stretch your legs on.

  

It is the most beautiful and sacred place in the Hill Country that I have seen.  I first visited in the late summer when the heat was brutal on top of the dome, and we were most concerned with keeping the dog hydrated, while we explored the rock for an afternoon.  This trip was calmer, my dog was at home asleep, our companion dog a veteran rock climber, who patiently waited for the boys to throw sticks in between routes.

It was sunny and warm, there was a breeze, and everything around us whispered in sunlight and dust. In the grocery store I had seen headlines and front page stories detailing other people’s grief, and I did my best to pass them up, trying to keep from sensationalizing their loss.  Being here, on the closest thing to a mountain you can find in Central Texas, was akin to breathing a great sigh of relief.  Once the boys were situated, I scooted back down the trail to an outhouse and reveled in the simple pleasure of evacuating outside. I also found time to take an artsy picture of some toilet paper. Enjoy.

After I dropped anchor I went and found an old oak tree that was creaking in the wind, and wrote in my journal, glad that no one knew where I was for a few minutes.  I walked along the creek, past fields of grass, trained my camera on desert plants bathed in sunlight that filtered through the trees, and climbed back up the trail to the rock, where I promptly fell asleep on my pile of sweatshirts and jackets.  I woke and ate a sandwich, read my book, and just stared out into the landscape. From higher up, we could see the contours of the land, the hills off in the distance, the clouds moving softly through the afternoon. 

I felt the same kind of reverent peace that I have felt before in the mountains, or on a pile of driftwood logs by the ocean, or walking into a clearing in the forest.  There is room for everything- for our grief, our uncertainty, our sweet sadness and our silence. I thought back to other backpacking and day trips I've taken that I still remember- singing songs to darkened hills, boxed wine shared with friends, thunderstorms and card games in a tent, a sky heavy and ripe with stars.  This is the joy of the wilderness.

I missed the mountains of my home, towering Cascades with alpine lakes and fields of wildflowers, shedding their raincoats in late summer for folks to walk through their foothills and up their beautiful ridges.  But also, I loved Texas in that moment.

Inevitably, the sun began to sink, and we trekked back across the boulders, ready to hunt down a dinner of hamburgers and milkshakes when we got back to town.  Some days are laced with magic, other days never make it out of pajamas, and sometimes we get lucky- a sunny day spent on enchanted rocks, Texas in late December. 

            

A History of Stuffed Animals

My first animal was a brown bear with yellow eyes. I think I got him as a baby, and I loved him and hugged him so much that now he is flat. He was the bear I needed when life was rough- if it was a scary night, or a sad night, he was the bear for me.

I once threw up on him inside of my purple Briarcrest book bag, on the bus on the way to school.  The gross part was that I think I must have stashed the bag in a corner of the classroom, barfy bear and all, until my Dad came to pick me up.  It is worth mentioning that the reason I barfed is that I was getting anxious about going to school, and would get myself so worked up I would refuse to ride the bus, or feel sick for the entire ride. My Mom got me stress workbooks to give me ideas for how to breath and relax, and I would sit on the porch holding a waffle in one hand, the book in the other, trying not to freak out.  In truth it was a new school, I did not like that it was different, and I wanted to go back to second grade because that was the best year of my life. (That might still be true.) Eventually we made a deal, that I would ride the hateful bus if my Dad would come get me.

In elementary school our goofy family dog chewed the brown bear's ear off (and ruined a few pairs of my pants and numerous socks.)  Side note: the dog's name was Dusty but Bubby's husband, Ben, would always call him the wrong name. He would sit on the couch and grumble, "Musty, rusty, lusty . . . come here." Then he would scratch the dogs curly red ears and look happy.

I also had a scary baby doll with eyes that rolled around and matted brown hair.  When Shelley was born I got a cabbage patch doll, which I thought was a good trade at the time. (I was 3.)

Whenever we would come home from trips, the FIRST thing I would do would be to rush to my room, line up all my animals (and one big raggedy ann doll) and tell them all about my trip and ask them how they were.  If you question this, there is photo proof.

Other animals I remember: a big green turtle, a monkey puppet with long legs and arms and a rubber mouth, an elephant wearing overalls, a pig, and a long purple caterpillar with lots of little legs, each of which had a colorful sneaker, too.

But my favorites were the bears and the dogs.

There was a white dog that Uncle Bill got me at Tree Top Toys in Edmonds, after we went and ate fish and chips and oysters and played with seaweed on the beach.

There were bears of all sizes, shapes, and colors.  A world of dogs and bears!

The first thing I ever remember buying was a stuffed animal.  It was a Turtle Tot- A little turtle with a soft shell that came on and off. I bought it at Fred Meyer with my allowance, and Mom, you are a saintly mother for sitting with me for the forty five minutes it probably took me to make a decision about what color Turtle Tot I wanted.  But my god, I remember how excited I felt as I carried my soft baby turtle out to the station wagon in my plastic Fred Meyer bag- it was in a pretty box, and it smelled so new, and it was all mine.  Buying things when you are grown up will rarely be as exciting as buying a Turtle Tot when you are seven.

My Dad was the stuffed animal aficionado in the family.  Raised in Brooklyn, his Dad worked in a pharmacy and used to bring him home little collectible bears, which Bubby sadly gave away once he moved out of the apartment to wander the pot glazed streets of San Francisco.

My Dad taught me that picking out stuffed animals takes time, and patience.  In our favorite toy store, Tree Top Toys, we would spend quality time at the wall of stuffed animals, studying the dogs and bears to make sure we found the little guys with the best, happiest faces.

The penultimate stuffed animal was the big panda that I longed for for years.  He was so beautiful, with a big buddha panda belly, wise dark eyes, and a soft leather nose.  His paws were brown, and he was the perfect size for hugging.  I finally got him, circuitously, when I fell off my bike in 6th grade and fractured both my wrists, chipped my front tooth halfway off, and got a big fat lip.  I think Bubby got him for me as a get well present- and when I chose him in the store I must have looked heart-warmingly pathetic- carrying him out to the car with my arms straight out because of the two casts, fat lip and all.

That panda bear came with me to college, and almost burned down our rental house when his ass got pressed up against a heater.  He still has a big brown streak like a shit stain on his panda bottom.

At christmas, my favorite present was always the softest one, and I would wait until the very end to open up the package that hopefully contained my new friend.

I was at Ikea about a month ago, and found myself in a flashback scene, holding up an elephant and a seal and trying to decide which one I liked more.  I think I even put my head on the them both, to test for comfort and pillow potential.

The point of the story is this: yesterday Steven asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and although I should have listed things like snow hats or a bottle of good whiskey, I found myself wanting to say the thing I should have probably grown out of by now.

God bless the bears and dogs, every one.

Also, if you wanted to know, each and every stuffed animal I described still lives at my parents house. (PLEASE don't send them all to Texas, I promise to take them one day when I have a bigger house!)

We all have our favorite things, and this happens to be mine.

Happy Holidays, y'all.

Dumpster Diving Dreams

I've started baking bread.  A sack of flour costs $3 dollars, and it turns out to make rosemary foccacia you just need water and olive oil, a pinch of salt and sugar, one of those little yellow yeast packets, and some rosemary sprigs lifted out of your neighbor's garden.

I made my first foray into the yeasty wilds of bread making last sunday, following the trail of words left by Deborah Madison in her book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  I found that book for $5 at the used bookstore, and it is heavy like a bible.  I decided on rosemary bread because that was my favorite bread to get out of the dumpster in back of Essential Bakery in Wallingford, before they moved their production to South Seattle, thus cutting off much of the city's supply of delicious day old loaves.

On a side note, one of the things I loved about the Essential Bakery dumpster was that it brought people together.  My roommates dumpster dove.  My cousins from Virginia dumpster dove.  So did my neighbors, and my Mom.  Once I went there to stock up and there was a couple who had just cleaned out the Naked Juice dumpster, so we exchanged goods and headed to our respective homes to feast on pecan and raisin loaves and orange juice.

We would keep the loaves in the freezer, and heat them up in the oven whenever we needed some for dinner, sandwiches, or toast in the morning.  It fed so many people, and I frequented the bakery more and bought sandwiches inside to thank them for the sweet bounty they threw out.

Since I don't have a bread dumpster at my disposal here in Austin, I decided it was time to recreate the rosemary bread that I had loved so much.

In addition to bread I've been cooking other things too, dishes like pot roast and potato leek soup, apple cake and pumpkin pies, chocolate chip pumpkin bread and our family recipe for chili.

All of this food is nourishing for me in a soulful kind of way. And something about bread in particular, is so fun to make.  The mixing and the kneading and the magical rising, and the smells that fill house.   And, you can throw so many things in bread- like cheese and nuts and pumpkins! As much as a I love snacks such as carrot sticks, they are no match for a hunk of fresh baked bread with butter.

If you were wondering about the rosemary foccacia, it turned out splendidly.  Next time I may throw in a  handful of olives, or some roasted garlic and gorgonzola.

My friend came over, and we had a big salad for dinner, with thick slices warmed up in the oven, covered with goat cheese and honey.  It was paradise.

On another note- speaking of cheap and easy, yesterday I went to the neighborhood cafe down the street to get a hamburger.  When the girl asked for my name, I said, "Lindsey."

She looked at me and said, "Easy?"

"No," I said, "LINDSEY."

Now, why in the hell would someone's name be "Easy?" I think the appropriate thing to say is "Sorry, didn't catch your name. Could you say that again?"

Alas, I get called "easy" by an east austin hipster wearing coveralls and a bowl cut. So bizarre.

It reminded me though, that some things in life, like making bread, can be just that- easy.  Sometimes we underestimate the creative and nourishing payoff of things like long walks, reading, mending torn clothes, or spending the afternoon making Challah.  And when our pocketbooks are feeling threadbare, things like $3 sacks of flour present a world of possibility.

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Hipsters Use Side Door

My friend from college came to visit.  We lived in an old house in Bellingham when we were 19.  There were five girls, and lots of drama, and 80's dance parties, and lots of stir fry and potlucks where everybody brought chips, and always some random hippie guy sleeping on the couch. The funniest part is that half the time, no one actually knew who the guy on the couch was. He was a friend of a friend on a trail crew, or a traveling bluegrass busker, or some guy a roommate had met at the grocery store on Vashon island. I remember how one of my roommates was vegan at the time, and I use to sneak downstairs at night and eat hot dogs with the other redhead who lived the house.  Red head hot dog.

My friend taught me how to salsa dance, and when she made peanut butter toast there was always, inexplicably, jam on the cabinets.  Once for Halloween she dressed up like a piece of poop, put hershey  chocolate on her lips, and made out with a drunken pirate around a campfire.

Our lives in past nine years have diverged wildly- living in different cities, traveling different countries, and spending many years apart.

Three summers ago she took me and another one of our old college roommates on a fantastic road trip through the mountains of New Mexico, and we drank tequila and met an older Native American couple who sold us a beautiful small pot and gave us pieces of homemade cherry pie, and we ate them in the car and got weepy thinking about our grandmothers.

So, a few weeks ago my friend landed in Austin, here for a break from midwifery school, and after she met Guthrie and gave him lots of treats and pets we sat on the porch and drank whiskey together.  We went to the bar down the road, and ate free popcorn, and marveled at how the time had passed.

We had a fabulous visit, full of adventure.  That first night we hopped on our bikes around midnight in order to catch the last half of a late night Sean Hayes concert in downtown Austin, in the upstairs of a fancy BBQ restaurant. It was perfect.

On the day before she left, we loaded two canoes onto the top of Steven's truck and drove with his twin brother down to San Marcos, where we spent the day paddling 9 miles down the river.  She loved it- we drank beers, though we lost the good IPA when one of the boats flipped.  We saw the turtles, and the pretty trees, and at the end of the day Steven found a t-shirt that said, "If you're gonna smoke, smoke salmon."

We had dinner that night at a BBQ restaurant in Austin called Green Mesquite. The walls were covered in funny posters and quippy bumper stickers.  We had plates loaded with potato salad, brisket, and sausage, and there was pecan pie with blue bell ice cream for desert.  Above the doorway was a old "hippies use side door," sign, but they had replaced the last half of the first word, exchanging "pies" for "sters".  A sign of the times.

When my friend left I felt sad- that little hollow lonely space that rings when you leave the company of a good friend.  The truth is that not all of us ladies who lived together in that old blue house on the hill are still close, but we shared such a particular moment together, and saw one another through so much.

Being in a new city, it was such a blessing to have someone stay with me who knows me in such a tender, funny, increasingly profound way. When my friend met me, my idea of cooking was making pasta and eating it with bread, and the one time I tried to saute garlic I burned the ever loving shit out of it.  Now I can make things like pot roast and apple cake and potato leek soup, and now she is learning to catch babies and I am far away from my childhood home.  This little piece of writing goes out to her- to our old friends, our lasting memories, to those folks in our lives who never will be asked to use the side door.