On a Clear Night

Last night was definitely clear (except for those couple beers I had first thing). Mom, Alison, Don, and I went to see Missy Higgins in concert at the Aladdin Theatre, with a stop for a yummy dinner beforehand at The Lamp, which is attached to the venue. The whole evening was such a delight: the company, the very cool atmosphere, the enthusiastic crowd, and of course the lovely Ms. Higgins, who blew us all away with her voice, sparkling personality, and vibrant view on life. Seriously. Everything was perfect! We walked out into the crisp, fresh air feeling invigorated.

It's been a week of weird and wonderful dreams, tiny God moments, spring in the air, time with loved ones at VOA, and crackly little Universe-Web experiences.

p.s. HAPPY LEAP YEAR!

"hey nathan....it's me, jake. wanna go out sometime?"

Undine

Dove Onslaught

An interesting (and accurate) feminist perspective on the media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

A Fine Frenzy's "Almost Lover" -- another song that makes me think about B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeS-yorGtc

lunar eclipse

Last night was a lunar eclipse -- the sun in line with the moon, its shadow covering the moon and casting it in a sexy reddish cloak -- and it's the last one until December 21st, 2010. Mom and I bopped across the street and joined our neighbors on their front porch to witness the eclipse. Everything looked crisp, beautiful.

quote of the day

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

--Anais Nin

how i feel today

quote....and my thoughts

"People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."
- Charles Fort

This quote couldn't have come into my life at a more perfect time. Two things happened yesterday, one after the other, that -- like so many marvels -- can only be unraveled by the individual experiencing them. Alison and I were walking to meet Don for lunch; the day was crisp and blue and beautiful; we passed a group of young children holding hands and dancing in circles and singing Ring-Around-the-Rosie. They reached the "...Ashes, ashes, we all fall down" part -- and they plopped to the ground -- at the exact moment we passed them. Besides the Rising Phoenix imagery this captures (also appropriate for this time in my life), this struck me because yesterday morning I'd just finished a draft of a story I'd been working on for a long time. There is a very similar Ring-Around-the-Rosie part in it, and how fitting that the morning I take that breath of relief and hit print and get a copy ready for T to read is the first time in YEARS (like, 20) that I've actually heard children sing that song. The second event occurred while Don and Alison were still in Laughing Planet ordering their food and I waited for them outside at one of the tables, soaking up the sun and the delicious breeze. I was just sitting there, pondering how a certain phase had ended with B picking up the last of his things and returning the last of mine, and all of a sudden this little red paper heart blew up right next to my foot. It was cute and perfectly shaped and strung on a frizzy string, like it was part of a kindergartener's present to his mom. I picked it up and tucked it in my backpack, gently....Then, at home, when I opened the bag of my things, I just knew somehow that B had tucked something in the Six Feet Under DVD boxset. I opened it, and there was a postcard inside of a veined, sad woman whose physical heart pumped in her transparent chest while she held in her hand -- yes -- a cracked-in-half heart dangling on a string. At first I was struck in awe by the events of the day, and then -- even more miraculously -- I noted that the postcard heart was broken while my little kindergartener's heart was whole, healed, pure, alive.

Sacha Sacket

Sacha's an artist I really like (it was the Advocate or Out that referred to him lovingly as the "gay male Tori Amos".) He'll be here on March 13th in Portland at the Red Room -- I'm hoping to be able to make it!

simple together

Here is the link to a live performance by Alanis of "Simple Together":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIaAYrGc_Ik

*This song makes me think about B a lot.

Happy Valentine's Day

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps . . . [I] hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond . . . I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes. And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, like a puma in the barrens . . . ."

--From Pablo Neruda's book 100 Love Sonnets (translated by Stephen Tapscott), starting with "Love Sonnet XI"

Picture Day

No, it's not the dreaded annual Picture Day at your local elementary or high school, but just lil' ol' Nathan sticking some random pictures on his blog....

Here's Jared Padalecki. I have a huge celebrity crush on him.



Here's a foreign poster for the film Phantasm II, my favorite in the franchise. Imagine: killer silver balls that fly through the air and bury themselves into people's heads, scary graveyard-y men who trap your soul, dwarf slaves with burning red eyes dressed in red cloaks, and lots of bloody inter-dimensional adventure.



Here's the poster/cover art for Weirdsville, a film starring Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman (two more Nathan Buck celebrity crushes). The tone of this artwork -- and the name too -- capture some of the dark and wacky crevices of my psyche.

that unicorn shit

Some of you aren't surprised (but still are pleasantly informed) that Tori Amos and Francesca Lia Block know each other. Francesca even wrote an article about Tori for the magazine Spin in 1996. Here's the link to the article. (Those who read the article will now understand the above reference to unicorn feces.)

http://everythingtori.com/go/galleries/view/393/1/392/press

Ben Lee & Char Mar

Check out Charlotte Martin (albeit super-briefly) in this quite entertaining video for one of Ben Lee's new songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5FqQKQOPys

Cheesy Nachos

Mom and I went to a sneak preview of Charlie Bartlett last night at Lloyd Cinemas. Is it just me, or shouldn't people be just as respectful at sneak previews as they are at "regular" viewings of films? Here's a sampler for the crowd we watched the film with: the girl next to Mom -- probably in her mid-teens -- kept laughing SO hard that she would laugh over scenes so no one could hear the future dialogue; a couple teens behind us decided to start having a full-volume conversation without regard to anyone else in the theatre; and -- here's the real winner -- there was a drunken man in front of us who (against my will) provided plenty of entertainment. He kept shouting things up at the movie -- "Thatta boy! Get the girl!" -- and he stretched his arms around the women on both sides of him (I'm still hoping they'd actually attended the screening with him and weren't strangers) and at one pointed shouted out his self-appointed "name" like he'd replaced Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves: "I am Michael of Two Women!" (Keep in mind that he slurred all those words.) The highlight? He got up no less than three times to go get nachos & cheese, stumbling across the crowd the whole time, and the first time he came back he even forgot where he was sitting -- an usher had to use a flashlight to help him locate his "Two Women."

Mom and I rolled out eyes A LOT (and got some chuckles too).

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of change and bustle and activity: I put in my notice at VOA and have received lots of love, support, and teary eyes from my coworkers, participants, and volunteers; I've been working with Our House of Portland to figure everything out for my start date in March; I had last week off, and I got to spend a couple days with the fabulous Tara Beckham in Newport, lots of time writing, lots of time being worshipped during my full body massage and acupuncture sessions, and I made sure to give Ollie and Luna lots of attention. Those two pups are a riot! I also had a special evening with Marianna catching up; sent off my care package to Callie (winner of my monthly name drawing for my Twelve Months of Christmas contest); and sent packages to Aaron and Jordan, too. Speaking of J, he just got a new dog from the shelter named -- yep -- Brooklyn.

Tara gave me Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and I've been devouring it (ha, ha) like a rabid fiend. It's exactly what I need to be reading right now in the midst of a breakup, a new career opp., shaving my head, loving my new tattoo, and figuring out this whole What the Heck Is Life All About thing.

My writing is coming along well (the muse and I rocked out to some great '80s music this A.M., and Heart's "Alone" stands out as a Nathan Song of the Moment). I even dressed Cassandra, my mannequin-muse extraordinaire, in my old Lemont band jacket from 5th grade (it's red and silky and has "Nathan" written on the left breast). Yes, I'm a weirdo. But you knew that.

Okay. I'm off. But I must same I'm excited to see Jennifer in The Vagina Monologues tomorrow, and this weekend will be filled with more bustle -- Tara and Brad visiting, volunteering at OHOP's fundraising auction -- so I'm sure I'll have plenty to report.

Oh, and if any of you are wondering, "What did Nathan post this picture of Audrey and Cooper today?", my answer is: Just Cuz.

We Disappear

Here's a trailer that author Scott Heim created for his new novel, We Disappear, which comes out this month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Xl3TKx7mw