Captivated piggy banks

Bristol

A deliciously dramatic sky...

Nashville

After San Francisco, I headed to my friend Joanna’s house in Virginia… but I stayed a night in Nashville at the Music City Hostel after flying in that evening.  They had a piano!!  Penny worked and lived at the hostel, and Mattia was a jolly Italian fellow on his way, incidentally, to California.  We had a wonderful time!

Autumn and the West

Joe of San Francisco

The Epic Joe, pictured above, was our tour guide through San Francisco.  It was my first time, and I had a delightful day in the city.  We all - that is, Rachel, Caitlin, Joe, Jon, and I - dressed “like British people” and talked in British accents all day.  ’Twas fantastique!  

A Tip off the Natalie Goldberg Iceberg

It was a most tragic thing that I should second guess my life's purpose the day before I left.  I therefore left behind the physical manifestations of my actual life's purpose and took with me some other things that I sort of like, but aren't ever worth taking when traveling around one's country.

The day before yesterday I shipped those things back home; but I figured it was pointless to ask my family to ship to me, c/o my good friend Rachel, my books which I was originally going to take with me: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and most importantly, Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg.

These books were  meant to inspire my fiction and freewriting which I was planning on accomplishing during the month of November, 20 days of which I will be spending in the land known as "not in the comforts of my home where all of my writing resources always are no matter what."  But, in case you missed the part where I thought for a bit that I would do something a little less pleasant but a little more useful than NaNoWriMo... I don't have them with me, because it seemed silly.

And we all know the saddest part is that I am actually traveling with absolutely NO Natalie Goldberg along to inspire me.  I have to live off of my own whims.  I don't even know how I've made it this far, or how I have 8,884 words in my NaNoWriMo novel right now.  There must be some miracle at work here.  And I can't even find anything of hers online.  She needs a blog.  Just for me, a desperate woman stranded with nothing but a laptop and her own notebook full of mediocre writings.

For those of you who don't know, Natalie Goldberg is basically the coolest person alive.  She writes, and then she writes about writing.  She's a Zen Buddhist whose main focus is freewriting.  Freewriting, which Google Chrome says is not a real word, is when you just start writing and you write about whatever comes out.  Some friends thank me for slightly more illustratively renaming this process "word vomit."  I should probably patent that term, but since I am poor, I'll just hope that some kind people give me credit if they use the term themselves, and I'll leave everyone to go about their normal lives and not worry about me showing up at their back screen doors with a pick axe and a rather resentful looking snarl across my lips, distant eyes spelling out an urge to mutilate anyone who has ever done me wrong.  Don't worry.  Those same friends who praise my "word vomit" creation?  Yeah, those friends.  They will also inform you that I am much too nice to do anything even remotely close to even looking menacing and murderous.  So forget about it.... sigh...

In my desperation, I was able to find some of her quotes online... one of which just put me to shame: “Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.”  Okay, fine, Natalie Goldberg.  I get it.  Life can't be perfect and I should keep writing anyway, whether you are here to help me or not!

But NOW I am all inspired by all these Natalie Goldberg quotes about writing.

“When you are present, the world is truly alive.”

“Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.”

“Talk when you talk, walk when you walk, and die when you die.”

“First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.”

“There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before.”

Quite so, Natalie Goldberg... quite so.  Please, keep being amazing - and I hope to meet you one day very soon!

My Favorite Place in the World

Today, I discovered another floor in Powell's books.

I didn't know it was there.

It was.

I was floored.

GET IT???  I seriously didn't even mean to make that pun.  My cleverness lies solely in my unconscious.

Powell's doesn't lie - it is a "city of books" quite literally.  Right now I am sitting in the café, thinking about how I should just start my book already, and wondering if that is allowed, and feeling inspired, having a strange urge to play Settlers of Catan, and wanting to drink coffee even though I know I've already had a couple of cups today and I probably should............... just wait till I finish my Green Machine drink before moving on.  Of course.

I already spent money here, too, on books that I probably won't be able to fit into my backpack.  But then I can just mail them to myself at home, I suppose.  I bought The Bone Man's Daughter by Ted Dekker, since I am guaranteed not to be bored while reading anything by him; a planner called "The 2011 Calendar of Bunny Suicides" (I think of myself as an animal lover... and I am, I swear!!  I just have a morbid sense of humor); and, for the sake of book research since I have officially decided to do InFoWriMo (WHATEVER), Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin, and 300 Best Jobs Without a Four-Year Degree.  No guarantees how helpful either of those will be, but I think they will at least provide some authoritative quotes for my book.

I was just thinking about my title I chose for this entry.  The thing is, that is NOT exactly true; I have a lot of places that I really like in this world.  BUT Powell's, and Portland in general, are one of them.  Especially in the fall.  Everything is so deliciously gloomy here I am simply overcome with delight.  And a great want of coffee.

The great thing about this place is.... well, most everything.  But mostly it just makes me want to write and read, and those are very important thing.  And it revitalizes me in general.  There is just something about being revitalized that I find absolutely wonderful.

Every time I come here I think of taking a picture of the inside so the folks back home or just anybody who hasn't ever been here can understand my infatuation with this store.  But facts are, it is just so big that no one photograph can adequately capture its vastness.  And if I took a picture of every Vantage Point of Hugeness, then everyone would look at them in sequence and think "well, that makes it look like a normal bookstore."

BUT IT'S NOT I SWEAR.

So, I have simply concluded that the only option is to shamelessly promote it without hope for reward - because it will be a reward in itself when one day someone comes up to me and says, "You know that store in Portland, Powell's?  Well, I finally went there per your seven hundred recommendations, and you are right - it is AMAZING and I want to LIVE THERE."

You're welcome.