Sweet Surrender.

My television (the most incredible sort: a framed in fake-wood hand-me-down from my parents from early-early childhood) has started to give up the ghost lately. The good-looking characters on Grey's Anatomy reruns have started to get darker and harder to see. They're melting into Zombie-doctors of late, and their suddenly glinty eyes (to see anything "contrast" has to be fully dialed up) are scary enough to make me keep the lights in the living room on. But I digress.

Without television, I've had to turn my attentions elsewhere. A better person would pick up a book, go for a run, or regularly clean out the cat litter box. While noble, my requirements are less so. After a long day, I need something that can pass the time and use as few braincells as possible (this explains the glass of wine that accompanies my new-found activity, just in case it isn't enough.) And I've found it. And thy name is Doodle Jump.

Doodle Jump is the brain child of some evil genius in Germany (actually, no idea, and does it matter? The dude's getting rich off of this perfect and ridiculous little game. It's the most downloaded iphone game app on, like, the entire planet.) You jump your little Doodle man from platform to platform, waving your iphone to do so. Sometimes he bounces on a spring. Sometimes he's swiftly propelled upward via a magical beanie hat. Seriously.

As someone who's always been loathed to give up control and fling my controls around like I really care with Nintendo games and more recently, Wii, I was alarmed at how quickly and dramatically I gave everything to propelling my little Doodle upward. And, have you ever felt yourself do something totally against everything you thought made you you? Maybe in your case it was knocking off a bank or lying to Grandma Mimi, but for me it was when I cried out the first time my little Doodle missed a platform and whistled toward the ground (luckily, they never show the bloody result). My cry was sincere and generally one reserved for seeing someone kick a puppy with a steel-toed boot. And it chilled me to the bone.

Curious, I played again. And again. And again - all with the same humiliating and overly dramatic result. As soon as the Doodle started his swift decent, I sobbed and cursed my cruel carelessness. And then immediately laughed at my own idiot self (sort of like when I watch Grey's Anatomy reruns, I suppose). I realized Doodle Jump offered exactly what I needed, exactly what my television used to offer: a sense of accomplishment and zero-obligation drama. Oh, and I will never, ever, play Doodle Jump in public.

Just Because.

T.G.I.Fatties.

I'll make a point to be more of a wordie and less of a picture person tomorrow. But for now it's Friday night and after brilliant sushi at Yuki (insert obvious joke here), I'm happy to have nothing planned until brunch tomorrow. In fact, I'm feeling a bit like Bee here.

Unravelling winds down.

...this is a metaphor for who I am now: cracked open after a long winter, fresh air blowing, excited to see what comes next. Thank all of my fellow Unravellers for making this such a lovely experience...

Winter in Portland is notoriously grey and long. It rarely gets unreasonably cold or snows (in fact, I start to get unreasonably jealous upon hearing about a D.C. snowpocolypse, or recalling my scenic snowy college days in rural New England.) It's simply a long, muted wait for spring. So, it's a real gift that the last 8 weeks have been made so much brighter and more interesting by the Unravalling challenge with lovely, inspiring London-based photographer Susannah Conway.

I was a bit skeptical about a global, online class with nearly 200 female participants (and such a touchy-feely premise to boot), but it was completely engaging. As an adult, the chance to feel that you're part of any definite community beyond your family can be tricky, so gatherings like this are special. And I learned to see myself, my writing and my photographs in a new light, and made virtual friends with interesting ladies all over the world. {The next Unravelling begins March 8th, so there's still time to register if you're interested.}

Unravelling - Week Six

It's so lame to say that this assignment is incomplete because I couldn't be bothered to do some good old-fashioned dress ironing, but there it is. My alter-ego is a grown-up who irons, too, I suppose.

Be Still My Heart.

Let’s pretend it’s a work of art / Let’s pretend it’s not my heart

- The Magnetic Fields, “I’m Sorry I Love You”

Oh-so-happy valentine's day, y'all.

Unravelling - Week Five

I actually made a sound of disgust as I read about this week's assignment. I HATE having pictures taken of me and would never take them of myself. So I spent 20 minutes with the photobooth feature on my mac and snapped away to get it over with. My opinion of self-portraits hasn't change, but I do have to say that in the back of my mind my protests were met with the knowledge of LAST week's assignment, when I saw so many photos of myself that I had felt self-conscious about (or outright hated) at the time, but looking at them now, I felt sort of proud of that girl in the photo, and wished she had been confident enough to feel proud of herself. So, there's that that I'll keep in mind as I cringe at these shots.