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A quick rundown of our first day in Portland (since even though it’s 10:30pm here, 1:30am at home, and I am pretty tired):

It was a really clear and beautiful day today and as we descended into Portland, we had a great (spectacular, even) view of Mt. Hood.

Mt. Hood

Once we were on the ground, Dan and I picked up our rental car at the airport, then picked up Beth from her nanny gig and drove over to Voodoo Doughnuts.  It’s been on some show on the Food Network before and Dan was all about it.  I mean, I wasn’t complaining or anything.  They have all sorts of crazy doughnuts (as you can see).  Dan got a maple bar with bacon on it and their signature doughnut is shaped like a little person and when you bite it, raspberry jelly oozes out.  You can also get married there (they had it on the menu), but I think I’ll just take a doughnut.

Voodoo!

Then, we went back to Beth’s house for a bit.  She just moved to a new place and they have chickens and geese!  Check it out.  I was obviously mesmerized (and also a little worried about the white one, who I hear is mean).

Chickens!

Then, we went to an early dinner with Beth and her guy, Pawl.  Our waiter was funny.

Pawl and Beth

Then, we went to a movie (Micmacs) at one of those cute little theaters where you can eat a meal in the theater (sorta).  We all liked the movie.  Who doesn’t love crazy French films?  Now, bed.  Tomorrow, Eugene!

Just a quick post before everyone gets here for dinner.  Last night, Knead was delicious!  They have a vegan sloppy joe and the “joe” was all tasty and tomato-y and the bread was a toasted rosemary focaccia and it blew my mind.  I will be back!

Slop V Joe

Oh, and they use local ingredients as much as possible, so they have this cool map showing all of that jazz.

Aw, Ohio.

And then Dan and I both really enjoyed Get Low.  Bill Murray is always great, even though his humor seemed a little out of place in the 1930s (the time period of the movie).  I live in 2010, so it was all good for me.  My pal, Tracey (who knows a thing or two thousand about movies), said it might be a little slow, but I think it helped that I didn’t know anything about the movie and so the whole thing was a surprise to me.  A nice surprise.  The main character is a gem and, it’s about a funeral party.  Yes, you heard that right.  Two thumbs up from Dan and I!

The past two days have been kinda full.  Yesterday I was stuck at home because Dan was in Cincinnati again working on joysticks.  I worked on revising my exams and getting them in a final draft before getting to the work of figuring out how much it was going to cost to print those suckers.  After much too much work in that department, it turns out that our print shop on campus, Uniprint, had the best deal.  $75 for five copies of bound 124-page booklets.  I’m okay with that.

Today, I got up a little late, bought my ticket to Denver for the AESA conference (so excited about that) and got ready to run some errands.  First, I went to drop of and get a few books from the library.  Then, I stopped by campus to drop of my “Notice of Candidacy Examination” form.  That made me feel nervous even though I’m still waiting until October to defend.  It’s just… very official, you know?  After that, I attended my first service at a mosque as part of my “challenge” this week.  I am dying to write about it, but I am going to wait until Sunday when I get to go to an interfaith dinner and evening prayers (I’ll write one long post about the whole experience, which I should say so far has been very nice!).  After the service, I had to get some groceries because Ben, Rachael and Megan are coming over for some dinner tomorrow before we all go to the Clippers game (that’s the minor league team here in Columbus, and they just built a new stadium downtown).

Tonight, Dan and I are headed to Knead (a new restaurant in the Short North) and a movie (not sure what yet, but we’re thinking Get Low, the new flick with Bill Murray)!  Looking forward to it!

I’ve never felt as lazy as I did today.  I had to drag myself out of bed (which took about an hour), convince myself to go running, force myself to start revising (only to fall asleep again) and then tear myself away from stupid judge shows to get back to revising.  I have no idea why I was so unmotivated.  It was no good.  I did eventually get through both exams as planned, though I still want to go back over one one more time.  I fear I will never feel finished, but I need to take these things to kinkos (although I’ve been thinking about lulu) next week for sure.  I also picked up my and Dan’s race packet for the Crew 5k this Saturday (Dan is running with me!) and registered for Bergamo (There’s a poststructural feminist pre-conference workshop.  Woot!).  So, I should feel at least somewhat accomplished on this laziest of days.

In the evening, just before I picked up Dan at the airport (yay!), I found the movie Examined Life on Netflix on demand and was intrigued.  It is a really cool documentary that gives ten minutes to eight different philosophers to talk about the examined life.  I had read three, so it was kind of neat to see them move and talk (imagine!), rather than just read their words.  Cornel West is hilarious.  Judith Butler looks a lot different than I pictured her in my head and Slavoj Zizek is manic to say the least.  And, I liked them all, though not all of them share my budding philosophy.  Peter Singer, who I had never heard of, was also an interesting guy and gave me something to think about.  He gave this scenario where you see a child about to drown in a river and you look around for their parents and no one is there to help except you, but you have nice, expensive shoes on, so if you do save the child, you will ruin your shoes.  When given this scenario, Singer explains that everyone says that, of course, they would save the child and ruin their shoes.  But, he then points out that we often buy expensive shoes when that money could help save a child’s life in a developing country.  He thinks that we should think about the river scenario as we decide how to spend our money, but more importantly, how we choose not to spend our money.  This made me think that I should start donating to a good cause rather than buying so many clothes (not that I’m really a clothes horse or anything, but I have way more than I need), but this gets tricky because if I started to save more money, I’d probably want to put it into savings for our house fund or for our future security.  I would probably do that before I donated to an organization regularly.  It’s selfish, but I really think that’s what I would choose.  It makes it seem uglier when I have to compare clothes/savings/security with a life.  Hmm.

Good flick.  Now rent it! 

Marcy got into town this afternoon and we shopped, ate Mexican food and went to see the movie Eat, Pray, Love.  It was a perfectly girly evening.  The movie made me feel lovely and want to travel, which was nice, but I kept getting distracted by the inconsistencies between the book and the movie and how I liked the characters in my head better than on the screen.  I think I shouldn’t have reread the book right before the movie.  Ah, well.  Julia Roberts was charming as usual.

Watching the movie right after reading the book reminded me of Walter Benjamin’s argument in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. At one point, he claims that photographs and video as media are subject to misuse more than other media because they appear so much more real than, say, a painting.  Because they look so real, they make a more convincing (though not more true) argument and so can be used for things like propaganda.  This “problem” is made worse by the ease of reproduction in modern times, which means that these convincing images are more likely to seen and further propagated.  So, as I watched the movie, and wished for the characters that I had invented in my head or the scenes as I had imagined it, I thought of Walter Benjamin.  The movie is a rather convincing representation of the book, even though much of it was very different from the book.  I wondered how many people had not read the book and were even more convinced and I thought about how this movie was playing all over the country at this moment, reproduced every hour for the next few months.  Not that this movie is propaganda per se, but the making of a movie from a book argues for a certain version of the book (one with a much happier ending), often watered down, oversimplified, and spread easily to the masses.  Reading a book, like reading a painting, allows more room for interpretation, imagination and play, than looking at a photograph or watching a movie.  The photograph or movie, Benjamin would warn, is more dangerous than the more nebulous, less “real” painting or book because it is much easier to be convinced that what looks real is the real thing, when in fact meaning is always much more illusory.

I guess I don’t have a real point to make, I just had Benjamin stuck in my skull and had to try to get him out.  That’s my life now.

I worked like a maniac today on my exams today.  I wrote until I thought I might die (15 pages!), but I had something to look forward to, which was nice.  Dan found out about another free screening for a movie.  This one was The Kids Are All Right and it was really good, well acted and even made me cry at the end (which rarely happens).  In addition to all that, it had the added benefit of making me want to own a house again, buy a beat up old truck, and write a screenplay.  But, that will have to wait.  What made me cry at the end was when the family drops their daughter off at college and says goodbye.  I remember that…

Beth and I had been looking at colleges since we were at least 15.  We searched college catalogs as a hobby.  We trashed Canton every chance we got.  We couldn’t wait to leave, to go somewhere great, to start our own lives.  Where would it be?  California, Washington, DC, New York?  We had so much fun imagining how our lives would change, living in an amazing place and starting college where we would make new friends and major in something fantastic.  We were ready.  We were more ready than any two girls could be.  Beth decided first on American University in Washington and I made up my mind a little later.  It was so great to dream all summer and then finally pack up our rooms and load up the cars together to head to our new lives… a 6 hour drive, my dad and me in his purple lumina and Beth with her parents in my Aunt Mary’s borrowed van.  We arrived, we walked around, we unloaded, and then we went to the quad to say goodbye.  There we were hugging our parents one more time before they headed back home without us, but it wasn’t until they got in those empty cars and pulled away that we looked at each other with tears in our eyes.  This was it.  The moment when we got our freedom, but also the moment I realized that I didn’t live with my family anymore and that I would be sleeping in a new and unfamiliar place that night. I didn’t expect to feel that feeling.

The tears didn’t last too long though and before we knew it, we were getting around like pros and loving the life of a college student.  But there are lots of times that I still long for life just before that moment.  I think we all do.  When we had only minor responsibilities, when we were taken care of, where we were allowed to be kids and where we just fit.  You really don’t know what you’ve got till its gone.

Dan and I watched two cartoon movies in the past two days.  I feel like I’ve been watching a lot of movie lately.  I think it’s an avoidance strategy.

The first movie was called Ponyo and is a Japanese Disney movie, but it was dubbed in English by famous Western actors like Matt Damon, Liam Neeson and Cate Blanchett.  It held our attention, but it got VERY weird.  I mean, it’s weird enough in Japanese movies that kids are respectful to teachers and the elderly are respected (what?!), but this went waaaay beyond Japanese niceties.  We’re talking about the moon coming too close to the earth, a fish turning into a girl with chicken leg hands and legs (yes, both) and then into a real girl and then back, a man that looks like a woman who lives in the sea and is married to the goddess of the sea (who is also about 50 times the size of her womanish husband), and a mom who drove like a Nascar driver with her kid in the car.  It was just craziness.  Imaginative, corny (in places), and very bizarre.  I like it, but I was also sort of scared of it.

Today, we saw Toy Story 3.  It was really good and I definitely was not confused by any fish/chicken/little girls.  I almost cried at the end and I think “they” left it wide open for a Toy Story 4, if they want to go there and I kind of hope they do.

Tomorrow is the beginning of my last official week of exams (not counting some extra revising that will be going on in a few weeks).  I’m worried about not feeling finished so instead I’m going to think about Harry Potter 7 opening in November.  Can’t November be tomorrow?

So begins week 3 of the exam process.  I had a really productive day today (I thank the rain).  I finished 10.5 pages, but it really took it out of me and I am exhausted.  I guess it didn’t help that Dan got some last minute tickets to a free screening of Inception, but we couldn’t pass it up!  It was a good flick!  Night!

This afternoon, Dan and I took the bus downtown to a farmer’s market that they have in a little alley near the statehouse every Tuesday and Friday around lunch time.  There were all sorts of crafts, desserts and actual farmers selling produce.  It’s a cute little market.  We ended up with tomatoes, green beans, basil, onions, corn (which we ate tonight… it was awesome), cucumber, lettuce, cabbage, and I think that’s it.  While we were there, I took Dan to the Venezuelan place that my coworkers and I went to on Monday.

This afternoon, I laid out in the sun for a bit and did some work for my professor.  Then, Dan and I watched a few more episodes of Lost.  I’m sort of starting to get ticked at the story lines and I think I might need to take a break.  It’s getting out of control.  We ate our farmer’s market dinner and then took a walk to get Jeni’s.  Comfest is this weekend, so High Street was absolutely packed.  When we got home, we watched the movie Funny People.  It was good!  Now, I’m tired.  Night!

This week’s challenge was to plan a date with myself.  And plan I did.  Dan was getting home from Arizona tonight, so I figured this would be the best day.

Before I started my solo date, though, I met Ben for lunch for my birthday.  He took me to Northstar in Clintonville near his work.  I have to admit that it felt funny letting him pay for me.  It must be kind of what parents feel when at some point their kids, that they took care of for so long, are able to take them out for a meal.  I’m so proud of Ben.  He works hard and he’s doing so well for himself.  We both ordered Northstar burgers (duh) and had a really nice chat.  I love my little bro.  He also wrote a really nice note in my birthday card and made me cry a little.

Then my real date began.  I decided to visit the Book Loft in German Village.  I’ve been wanting to go there for a long time, but haven’t made the time.  This place totally exceeded my expectations.  First, in case you don’t know German Village, it’s a quaint neighborhood just south of downtown with lots of tiny little brick roads, one way streets and huddled brick houses smushed together in the most adorable way.  People take care of their homes and it’s actually a pretty exclusive place to live.  The Book Loft is on the main drag adjacent to two coffee shops and an adorable church that looks like it belongs in Boston.

The Book Loft

You enter through a gate with a German flag hanging nearby and walk through a flower-filled courtyard toward tables of books that are on sale and benches with people browsing Paula Dean cookbooks and no name romance novels.  Then, you enter the store and are drawn up a short set of stairs to another level where you have to wind through skinny hallways and tiny rooms full of books.  Each are has different music playing and racks of bookmarks and cards mingle among the thousands of books.  Eventually you wind back down and are directed to the other half of the store, 32 rooms in total.

Skinny hallway

The place is heaven, a whimsical, crowded, book-filled heaven.  I ended up with a book for myself and a couple of gifts for people.  Since parking is notoriously terrible in German Village, I was on a two hour time limit and I pushed it right to that limit.  As I headed to the cashier, one last item caught my eye.  A bookmark with Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  It doesn’t sound like a big deal, unless you know that the Wizard of Oz was sort of “my movie” as a kid.  I watched it too many times to count and I loved Dorothy.  There’s a quote from the movie on the bookmark:

If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it.

Hmm.  My next stop was to Bexley, where I planned to go to a movie at the super cute Drexel Theater.

It's so cute, you could puke, right?

Bexley’s another nice neighborhood, like German Village, but ritzier.  It’s where the governor’s mansion and the president of OSU’s house is and it has an adorable downtown right next to Capital University, a small liberal arts college. It turned out that the movie started later than my iPhone app told me, so I had some time to kill.  I found a coffee shop just down the street to read my new book and kill some time.  They had an outdoor patio that was shaded and looked out onto Main Street.

Coffee shop view

It was just as I was sitting down to my coffee that I noticed that I had received an email from my 8th grade teacher (I wrote to her as part of another challenge).  It was a really nice email, and again, I cried a little.  I then spent an hour or so reading my new book by Rick Steves, Travel as a Political Act.  It’s fascinating.  It sort of reminds me of my challenges.  He looks at travel as a way to get out of yourself, to connect with the world, to realize that the way we do things isn’t the way to do things, just a way to do things, and of course, he sees this as having a positive political impact.  It also really got me craving a good “exotic” vacation (where are we going for our 30th, Beth?!?).  About 20 minutes before the movie started, I decided to putter around the neighborhood just behind Main Street.  It’s like a dream.  Old beautiful houses dripping with character.  I spotted three for sale and started plotting.  But, I made it to the movie without acquiring a mortgage.  The movie was called City Island and it’s about a guy from the Bronx that is secretly taking acting classes behind his wife’s back and she thinks he’s having an affair and hilarity ensues.  I really liked it.  When I got to the theater, though, I was the first person there.  I sat poking at my iPhone when an elderly couple walked it (this always happens to Dan and I, we end up at movies with old people, go figure).  The first thing out of the woman’s mouth when she sees me sitting all alone in the theater is, “Like a lone cow in the field.”  I looked back and laughed.  Aside from the fact that I was the cow, I thought it was a pretty accurate description of my day.

When the movie was over, I headed to my third date destination, Whole Foods in Upper Arlington, another cute, fancy area.  There’s nothing I like more than puttering around Whole Foods, looking carefully at their vegetarian options, examining the bulk beans and grains, and gazing at the cases of prepared foods.  I could walk around there for hours, but Dan gets over that real quick.  So, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to eat some delicious pre-made food and browse to my heart’s content.  First, I went to the prepared foods area and got the green plate special for dinner.  It’s a special where you pay for the entree by weight and then you get two sides for two dollars.  It’s a pretty good deal.  Here’s what my “green plate” looked like:

Green plate special

It’s a black bean and rice burger with mashed peas and mint on top, grilled asparagus, and beet slaw.  Beautiful, no?  It’s like food art.  And it was perty tasty too.  The one bite of mint I had took me right back to my Grandpa’s garden and his little patch of mint that Beth and I used to tear up for “real” mint tea.  I read a bit more of my new book as I ate and then commenced Operation Putz.  I ended up with some tempeh, coconut yogurt, red and green lentils, and dates (Dan thinks that was very appropriate).  I also rounded up the ingredients to try a vegan version of Cincinnati chili!  It was a successful putz.  I putzed right up until they had to announce that the store was closing.  Why must it end?  Why?

So, that was my date.  It was great.  I spent time in three different places in Columbus that I have really come to love.  Columbus is growing on me in a big way and I have to remind myself to look around and enjoy how great my life is here, right now.  It was also nice to ask myself what I wanted to do and to let myself do it at my own pace.  I read in a book recently that we should treat ourselves like we would treat someone else.  Essentially, we should be kinder to ourselves.  I was thinking about that last night, if I treated myself more kindly, and I thought of this in a motherly way, so if I was my own mother, what would I encourage myself to eat for a snack?  What would I encourage myself to do to relax?  When would I encourage myself to go to bed?  And on and on.  I tried to do that during my date.  “Go ahead, Laurie, roll your windows down and enjoy the summer air.  Get a meal that nourishes your body.  Have a bit of ice cream, just don’t overdo it, you’ll feel sick later.  Make sure you get enough rest and stop stressing out about your exams.  You’ll do great.”  When I started thinking this way, it started to make me feel peaceful and happy.  I feel like I usually sort of yell at myself, push myself too hard, and overwork myself.  What if I were my own mother?  How would I take care of myself?  I need to start doing that.

So on my way home from my date, I stopped and got that bit of ice cream.  And, just as I was finishing up, Dan called, ready to be picked up from the airport.  And now my day is complete.  It was a good one.