Wrock On

I had my first Harry and the Potters experience on Sunday night.

It may, or may not, have been spectacular.

General picture: My TD was all like come-to-Portland-with-me-and-my-visiting-internet-friends-we're-gonna-see-wizard-stuff-also-Hank-Green.

...You had me at "internet friends."

But yeah. They picked me up from work (update on that front: it is the best damn job in the world), intros were made, and the road was hit.

Now, it is probably time to mention that my love of Harry Potter is about on par with my love of tortilla chips. Pretty casual. Yes, maybe I've worked at wizard camp, but the series wasn't exactly a game changer for me. And it had definitely never occurred to me to seek out Potter-themed music. (I was pretty much just in it for my second favorite Green brother and the why-not factor of the situation.)

Long story short: As I stood in the sea of nerdalicious enthusiasm and varying degrees of wizard attire, listening to happy tunes and gloriously literal lyrics, I remembered that music can just be so much...silly fun. And sometimes, it's just nice to be excited about something because it exists and that fact alone is ridiculous and great. Sometimes, you just gotta groove about Hagrid.

Hours on the road: 9

Hours in Portland: 3 1/2?

Dark Lords defeated with the power of love and the magic of rock and roll: 1

Wizard rock, thou hast wooed me.

BATMAN.

See it.

Just...

Please.

We Found Carmen Sandiego!

She was in the trees.

Oh, Fair.

This year was a pretty good one. Hectic one. I miss it already.

Jumble:

-There were a lot of glowsticks, and circus people, and naked people, and funny smells.

-Stumbled across a delightful band called Wide Mouthed Masons. They have a cello.

-Stumbled across a delightful juggling trio called Jugglypuff. (Dat name.)

-Such good food. There was french toast and fruit salad and cheesecake and chicken wraps and beignets and noodles and chocolate dipped ice cream sandwiches and artichokes and lemonades of every shade. It was fucking magical.

-YOU KNOW WHAT WASN'T AS GOOD? All the motherfucking glitter.

Anyway.


There was a little too much physical contact from people I did not want to physically contact, but hey, it comes with the territory. And I'm thoroughly pleased there were no fiascos this year (like the Unintentional Shroom Ingestion of 2010).

Oh! Oh! Also, I met Chris Funk. It happened. Right outside the salad booth. I SHOOK HANDS WITH ONE OF THE DECEMBERISTS. WE CHATTED. Highlightofmylife.

And I got punched in the boob.

Fair rocks.


(Wow, this is a sloppy post.)

The point? So not ready to be back in the real world...

(You know. The one where I hang out at a theatre and bake cupcakes all day... It's a hard-knock life, yo.)

For Fair

It's that time of year again.

Fair time!

For those of you unfamiliar: http://www.oregoncountryfair.org/

It's...I guess it's like a poor man's Burning Man? Basically, it's a week of hippie, artsy-fartsy fun in the woods. There are a lot of tall puppets.

Gettin' ready for the bus to Eugene, and then off to sell Pad Thai, see people, and get dusty! Or muddy. And muddy? Whatever.

Fairwell, personal hygiene. Hello, OCF 2012!

A Story

I'm not sure where it came from, but here's a little story:


Once, there was a little house

(Well...a shack)

By the ocean.

In it,

Lived a very old man

And a fairly young goldfish.

They were basically friends.

The walls had once

Been brightly striped:

Thick blue, thin white.

Now,

It was barely two shades

Of gray.

Not that either of them minded, really.

The old man hadn't cared about

Such things in years

And the fish was colorblind.

Every morning, the old man

Made coffee and Pop-Tarts 

And almost went for a walk.

The fish noticed the days he actually stepped outside.

The rest of his day belonged

To the newspapers that

Were stacked about the house.

They were from decades ago.

Years and towns he thought he remembered

Covered every surface.

They smelled old.

The fish liked to watched his

Frantic movements

As he read, and cut, and scribbled.

He'd show the fish when he thought he'd found something big,

A clue, a connection.

Waving the page, he'd grin and ask what it thought.

The fish seldom had an opinion, but liked feeling involved.

The old man would pin important clippings to the

Wall, and mark the connections with

Yarn.

When he needed to sleep, he'd turn out

The lamp and slump over where he sat,

Because his bed was full of newspaper.

Sometimes, he forgot to feed the fish.

Next to the fish bowl

The old man had spread out

Some crossword puzzles.

They were mostly empty

Except for a few

Wrong answers.

The fish wished it knew how to use a pen.

Crayon Therapy

Scribblin' like nobody's business.