SE 26th Avenue & SE Washington Street Neighborhood: Buckman Website
Lone Fir isn’t run by Portland Parks & Rec, but I’m adding it because it’s one of my favorite places to wander through. The cemetery was officially incorporated in 1866, though people were buried in the area a couple decades before then, including the very first person to be buried in the area, Emmor Stephens, in 1846, back when the area was just farmland.
Emmor Stephens’ gravestone. Look at that left slanting italics!
I’ve walked through this cemetery so many times. When I walked through a couple of days ago, there was a funeral happening, and my first thought was “It’ll be nice to meet them [the dead person] after the funeral is over.” That’s how often I go to this cemetery. (I also noticed that they are doing work on the memorial garden/thing for the Chinese immigrants and asylum patients who were unceremoniously buried in the southwest corner of the cemetery, which is great.)
Beautiful place to stroll through and remind yourself that you’ve only got a set amount of time on this Earth.
Aesthetics: I think it’s beautiful. Cemeteries might not be your cup of tea, but I still think the area in general is lovely. 9/10
Function: It’s a place to put dead people. Let’s be honest, burial doesn’t really make a lot of sense in modern times, so I’m giving this a low score, but then adding some points for walkability. 4/10
Sketchiness: The sketch factor of this cemetery is generally low, but I’ve definitely seen some weirdos wandering around. Nothing like drug deals or criminal activity, but, you know, people who like to hang around in cemeteries. 3/10
S River Dr. and S Montgomery St. Neighborhood: South Portland Website
This is a little park nestled near the river, in what is a kind of rich portion of the city. I hesitate to call it “chic.” I’m not sure what to call this section of Portland, to be honest. Ritzy? It’s like a small residential spot for people who have money, you know what I mean? I think there are condos here for people who have a condo as an extra home away from home. That kind of vibe.
The park itself is fine, though nothing much to look at. It honestly feels like a place rich people would build to take their dogs to pee. That plus older Asian people sitting on the benches are the only things I see when I pass by this park. Women in brilliantly white pants walking tiny dogs, and old Asian men and women sitting on the benches. That’s the vibe of this park.
Aesthetics: Eh. It’s alright. 4/10
Function: Eh. 2/10
Sketchiness: A homeless person daren’t tread these brick pathways, lest a furious Karen call the security guards on them. 1/10
Naito Parkway between SW Harrison Street and NW Glisan Street Neighborhoods: Oldtown-Chinatown, Downtown, South Portland Website
I absolutely chose the worst time of year to visit this park. Obviously, the best time is when the cherry trees blossom. What can you do.
Tom McCall was the governor and Secretary of State of Oregon back in the 60s and 70s. Waterfront Park is a staple to people working in downtown Portland. It is a place where you can escape the rat race and walk for your mental health. It’s a long strip along the Willamette and it’s often used for hosting big events in the spring and summer, much to the chagrin of the grass there. Also, I’m just now noticing how much the Morrison Bridge on and off ramps make it look like a cock and balls.
This park is one of those places that everyone congregates to, including Canada geese. It’s nice, because the lowliest bum and the top paid lawyer both walk this path often. The great leveler, in a way.
Aesthetics: Honestly, it varies. Like I said, the cherry blossoms are lovely and the park looks good when it’s not hosting an event. After events, the ground is muddy and gross. 6/10
Function: This space has been “macro” function. No basketball hoops, but you can host biiiiig events here. The South Waterfront Park hosts a huge jazz festival, for instance, and the Shamrock Run is hosted here as well. 9/10
Sketchiness: Parts of the park, especially in notoriously sketchy Oldtown-Chinatown, are not great to walk through. I’ve never felt completely unsafe at this park but I’ve definitely walked by people having mental health crises to varying degrees, a couple of whom were violent. It’s really more of a “downtown part of a city” than anything else though. Don’t let it stop you from taking a walk here! 5/10
SE Water Avenue and Hawthorne Blvd Neighborhoods: Buckman, Hosford-Abernethy, Kerns Website
Across the river from downtown lies the Eastbank Esplanade, named the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade after the city’s 49th mayor. Vera was mayor for over a decade, from 93 to 05. Not a bad tenure.
The esplanade runs about 1.5 miles from OMSI to the Steel Bridge. It is the epitome of the definition of esplanade: “a long, open, level area, typically beside the sea, along which people may walk for pleasure.” Part of the esplanade is right on the river, which is cool. Plus, you can use it as part of a long loop around to the west side of the river (and the Tom McCall Esplanade, which I will review later). In my above picture is a fence where people put locks because people love symbolism.
Aesthetics: Of the two esplanades, I think the general view from this one is worse. Both are near roads, but the Eastbank is near a freeway, which is loud and obnoxious. Also, there is a ton of graffiti on the walls, which are an eyesore. Looking westward at the city is nice though. 5/10
Function: It is a place to walk, or run, or cycle. Not much else! 5/10
Sketchiness: The Eastbank is up there on the sketch level, mainly from the deluge of tents and RVs that are parked nearby. There used to be a single-room portable shelter thing set up for the homeless, but it was moved somewhere that I guess was out of sight of President Biden or whomever else decided to move them. Certainly isn’t the sketchiest part of town but you can certainly run into some nefarious looking types occasionally. 6/10
Two Dads Coffee Co., Portland, OR Medium Roast, Guatemala Single Origin Notes: Caramel, Roasted Almond Brewing Method: Pour over
I purchased these beans, as I often do, at Market of Choice, a local market in the vein of a Whole Foods or New Seasons. Fancy white people store, in other words. In terms of roasts, I prefer a light roast when available, and I tend to shy away from dark roasts. Mediums I will pick up if there’s nothing lighter within my budget.
Whenever possible, I like to purchase from local roasters, ideally at their place of business, but that doesn’t always work out. Also, this is petty as hell but if I buy beans at a local coffeeshop and they don’t give me a free cup of coffee, I stop buying there. I know! I’ll even buy their beans at a store. Coffeeshops, you gotta give bean buyers a free cup of coffee!
Two Dads is, well, two dads. One from Guatemala, one from the Pacific Northwest. They seem to roast only medium and dark roasts, at least according to their website. I love the bag with all the doodles and I love the story of how these two men started their roasting business. Lovely to read a story of people finding love and passion in their work.
Anyway, I finished off this bag today. They certainly have a roasty flavor typical of darker roasts, which made it difficult for me to figure out a good grounds to water ratio. The bag says 1.5 tbsp (or around 22g) per 5oz (150ml) of water.
I brew a way weaker cup than that–15g to 300ml. At the time, honest to god, I thought I was brewing to their specifications, but again, I am dumb with math. (I even had to remind myself just now, again, that one gram is equal to one milliliter [of water at least].) I don’t have any more beans to redo with the proper ratio, but it’s okay, as I think the cups I brewed were just fine.
The roast of it comes through the most for me. I’ve always been bad at tasting notes, but I can see where one might get a roasted almond flavor. It brewed very much on the line of ashyness, though, something that I was fighting with every morning. It felt like I had to have my pour over game perfect or else it the taste would be a little bitter or ashy. I always drink my coffee black but I think this is the type of coffee you should pair with cream and/or sugar.
Overall, not a bad cup of coffee, but perhaps a bit too dark on the roast for my liking. 7/10
This is an ongoing series of posts within the world of my D&D campaign setting, Avo. Peruse the wiki.
The Divine Wrath, also known as the Wrath, was an multiverse-spanning event which occurred at some point in the distant past, often colloquially described as “1,000 years ago,” though no one knows how many years for certain.This is akin to ancient Jewish tradition of saying “a thousand years ago” to mean “a very very long time ago.” It is called the An-Çevelt’a Sorus Kama, or the Seven Day War of the Gods, by the elvesAn referring to the number seven, connected to cevelt’a, which comes from cevelt, which is “day” as it refers to an amorphous concept of time. (This is opposed to ceve, a common elf word used by mariners and merchants which still means Day but refers to the strict 24 hours encapsulating a day. Thus, cevelt would be used to describe a passage of time in a mythological or abstract sense, whereas ceve would be used to describe how long it would get from Point A to Point B.) The hyphen connecting the first two words means that the number an is quantifying or acting as an adjective to the word cevelt (to not confuse it with being separate from cevelt). The ‘a afterward is an honorific; specifically, it honors the word kama, which means Gods in this case. (Kama refers to a god, singular, in an informal case. Kamao means gods in an informal sense; c.f. Sen kamao! a common elven phrase that means “By the gods!”. Kama, when coupled with an honorific, often means Gods plural.) The honorific is in effect letting the listener know that the next part of the phrase is referring to someone or something very important. Lastly, sorus simply means War, as in a very long or very important war; sorusi means War or Battle of a smaller scale or importance–the -i suffix is used as a diminutive by the elves. though, again, the actual time scale is unknown. The time after the Wrath has been called the Dawn Era, while the time before the Wrath is usually called the Times Before or the Gray Era.
Not much is known about the Wrath other than that it was a war, perhaps seven days long (though that may be a more symbolic reference to time), which pitted the gods of the Outer Planes against the primordials of the Inner Planes. Prior to the Wrath, the primordials were chained or otherwise imprisoned by the gods inside the roiling Elemental Chaos which manifests at the outer edges of the Inner Planes. The titans, created of the primordials and who lived in and were bound to the Material Plane, found a way to escape and, in turn, unchained their progenitors. The war began shortly after, as the primordials ripped through the planar boundaries like they were paper, advancing on the Outer Planes to enact their revenge. The gods retaliated, and the so-called seven day battle ensued across the multiverse.
The Wrath decimated life on Avo and likely on most of the worlds of the Material Plane; an estimated 90% of the population on Avo was killed collaterally by the battles between the celestial and primordial forces, with more perishing in the chaotic Sovereign Wars afterward. In addition, either during or shortly after the war, all historical record of Avo prior to the Wrath was destroyed or erased from existence. A vast majority of scrolls and tomes from the era were found to be blank, and the elder elves of Avo were cursed (and then reverse cursed) with ossification by an unknown force, thus unable to hand down the elven oral tradition.
The Wrath fundamentally altered aspects of Avo, though the extent of these alterations is unknown, aside from obvious ones such as the Ashlands, which is the result of a massive volcanic explosion from the Kalemva Mountains. The multiverse in general, too, was changed in radical ways. It is known that, in times past, the Material Plane was a separate entity from the other planes. However, after the Wrath, somehow the Material Plane commingled with the Astral Sea, or vice versa, and now the Space Between Worlds, once a lifeless vacuum, became filled with the Astral Sea and the strange denizens therein.
Likewise, it is believed that, prior to the Wrath, the echo planes of the Feywild and the Shadowfell were connected somehow, but the Wrath split these planes into two sovereign entities. Also, a divine gate known as the Prism, which once prevented the deities from entering the Inner Planes, was destroyed, and then reconstructed around the Outer Planes, to act as a barrier against the Far Realm.
The world of Avo saw a rise in the levels of the seas, enormous mountain ranges rise and fall, and the land devastated by volcanic explosion and long, deadly storms. In addition, numerous “divine orbs” exist in Avo which are thought to be the remnants of gods who were killed in battle. Much of these tidbits of information are known only by the most dedicated of scholars, who spent their entire lives trying to dig up or insinuate scraps of historical information.
The history of Avo following the Wrath is hazy at best, but it is known that for a period of time (around 100 years or so), the remaining population of the world fought for dominion over the remaining lands. This is known as the Sovereign Wars, which further eradicated the people of Avo before settling down and ultimately ending. The outcome of the Sovereign Wars is not fully understood, though it seems that the wars simply fizzled out due to the sheer lack of populace to engage in them.
The world post-Wrath has changed in significant and insignificant ways. Some of these ways are detailed below.
The Written Record. As stated earlier, the vast majority of written texts and historical records from before to the Wrath were erased or destroyed. It is known that in ancient times, a group of historians called the Storybearers kept extensive records of history; all of these texts have been destroyed or erased, and most Storybearer libraries have been razed to the ground. In addition, around 500-600 years of post-Wrath history is also unknown to modern scholars; dedicated written records were not really seen again until 612 DE, with the Kalemva Accords, which helped established Oneotona as the cultural capital of Avo at the time. The few extant texts from before this time came from scholars who survived the Wrath, hastily writing down what information they could remember. These texts, funnily enough, are called the Hasty Texts. Some of these texts are dated to a point thought to be within the Sovereign Wars, which has led modern scholars to believe that the erasing of historical record was not a result of the Wrath, but of the Sovereign Wars themselves. This cannot be verified with 100% accuracy, however, as most of the Hasty texts are not dated (or are dated, but in a historical context; i.e., referring to the past).
The New Gods. The relationship between theology and the pre-Wrath beings of Avo is incredibly varied. Each land had their own set of gods, and some of those gods were not even considered real. Post-Wrath, the gods delivered unto Avo the pantheon of deities which would look over our world. This was part of a larger concept known as the Grand or Divine Division, in which the gods split themselves from the Divine Essence, becoming individual deities, rather than aspects of the Divine Essence. This was thought to be done to protect the Essence from Entropy by not allowing it to be completely tainted by it; rather, Entropy could (and did) corrupt several independent gods, forcing them to be reliant on worship in order to survive.
The new gods will be described another time.
The Final Curse of the Elves. It is known that elves pre-Wrath were effectively immortal until killed. However, at some point, either during the Wrath or shortly thereafter, all of the elder elves (or those older than 800 years) were turned to bone, in a process called ossification. In west-central Kalemva, the entire ancient elf civilization there was ossified, including the cities and the woods as well. No one, not even the ancient scholars, know why this occurred. What is known is that somehow that curse was lifted and even reversed (likely by the new gods), because elves now, when they reach their 7th or 8th centuries, begin to transform into what we call the estwyr, or “star elves.”Wyr meaning “elf” and est being short for esteri, the elf word for “star.” This process is almost exactly like the transformation of larvae into butterflies or moths; the elf’s skin begins to harden, resembling bone, a process which takes around seven to ten days. The cocoon then remains motionless for around two to three years before it splits open, revealing the amorphous entity known as a star elf.
At this point, star elves are no longer humanoid, but celestial in nature. They shed all previous incarnations of their life, including their name, material goods, and relationships, and most then begin their journey out of the Material Plane to find their final purpose, which is unknown to us, as leaving the plane causes them to dissipate into nothingness (or perhaps shift into some other, unknown plane of existence). Some, however, remain in the world, such as Xevix the Keeper of Starlight. These star elves still dissipate, but at a much slower rate, and many (including Xevix) do not speak or interact with mortal beings.
Why this change occurred is unknown, even to the elves themselves. It is believed that, during the Wrath, the titans, primordialkin, cursed the elves with ossification as revenge for the gods creating elves in their own image. But who, or what, reversed this into the estwyr we know today is a mystery.
The Fear of Magic. One of the curious things about the centuries following the Wrath is that, while historical records perished, communal knowledge and oral tradition tended to remain in tact, though over the centuries, the information passed down became muddled and confused. A worldwide aversion to magic is one of these confusions; most of the people of Avo are afraid of magic, or downright hate it. It is seen as devilry or dangerous arcane greed by the spellcaster. As such, magic fell out of favor early on in the Dawn Era and is rarely seen today.
This is likely a response to the so-called “Magic Age” described in the Hasty texts, in which beings had access to powerful magics which ended up being their downfall. The texts indicate that the Magic Age occurred thousands of years before the Wrath, and that the oral narrative for events pre-Wrath merely compressed the timeline of ancient events. Regardless, many have tried to convince the populace that magic can be used for good, but agrarian revolts continue to bring down even the wisest of wizard. As such, magic study and use has become isolated to particular locations in Avo, such as the Floating Isle of Gharanhall.
The Villainous Adventurers. Another conflation was that of the adventuring lifestyle. The Hasty texts refers to the profession of adventuring, moreover that adventuring was common and that many guilds for adventurers existed all across Avo. A few texts relate stories of adventuring, including delving into dangerous dungeons, fighting dragons, and looting great hoards. It seems that after the Wrath, people began to conflate adventuring with danger, and with adventurers as being those who bring danger, rather than prevent it. “If adventurer ye see, then danger there’ll be,” goes one of the old sayings. Many even believe that adventurers are the reason the Wrath occurred in the first place. Thus, the adventuring lifestyle fell out of favor very quickly post-Wrath, and in modern times, being an adventurer is seen as akin to being a sinner. However, this has not stopped villages and people from hiring adventurers, as dangerous tasks still pop up. But the beings who take on these tasks are not viewed with admiration. Rather, they are seen as necessary tools to defeat evil, even if they are the cause of the evil as well.
These are just a few of the repercussions of the Divine Wrath. The world of Avo changed drastically after the gods and primordials fought, and no matter how hard we try, it is unlikely that we will ever get to truly understand our past.
SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd and Stark Street Neighborhood: Laurelhurst Website
Nestled in arguably one of the most expensive residential areas of Portland, Laurelhurst Park is, to me, the closest thing we have to a Central Park. It’s a diverse park, gorgeous with lots of tree cover and winding pathways, and with a nice lake on the eastern side. An annex to the south has a playground and basketball court, but if you want a park where you can just stroll and enjoy the scenery, Laurelhurst is where it’s at.
You’ll notice on the upper left of the park there’s a big house. That’s a big house. You can read more about it here: The Bitar Mansion. It seems that there’s not much info about it post-2011. I’ve walked by that house many times, and I learned during its renovation that they cut down a bunch of old rhododendron bushes. Some guy told me that while I was walking by one day. He said that the (new?) owner was crazy. I dunno, folks.
Aesthetic: Beautiful park. Even the playground side of it is beautiful. Currently it does have some fencing up because of “fragile plants” (which I think is just a front to keep homeless away), which diminishes the beauty a bit. But in spring and summertime, this place is king. 9/10
Function: It’s more of a stroll/jogging park but the annex has stuff to do if you’re into that, but then you’re closer to busy streets and a gas station across the street. Literally function over form, I guess. 7/10
Sketchiness: I personally don’t think Laurelhurst is that sketchy at all, but I’m sure a lot of the NIMBYs who live in their expensive houses would disagree. Yes, homeless people live around the park, but I’ve found the park itself to be relatively sketch-free. YMMV. 3/10
So, I am attempting to fix and update my 2011 Dell Inspiron laptop, codename FIRGADOR, The Ceaseless Reverberance. It’s a nice little laptop, works alright as-is, but with two glaring issues: 1) the battery does not charge/is dead, and 2) it has an HDD instead of an SSD, so it’s slow as hell. (Also, 3) only 6gb of 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM, which I’d like to upgrade to 8gb 1600 Mhz, but that’s for another time.) This whole debacle started because of my dad. Or, moreover, because he’s sick and I’d like to see him. I have two laptops, this Dell and an Acer Chromebook that is even slower than my Dell laptop and has the ChromeOS thing, which is fine except I want to have a laptop that I can use for work purposes, on the off chance that I have to remain in Idaho for an extended period of time.
I thought briefly about buying a new laptop, but decided I didn’t want to dig further debt into my Best Buy credit card. Thus, this project.
The biggest problem is the charging issue. One day, several years ago, the laptop just stopped charging. For the life of me, I could not figure out why. I think it’s ultimately just a battery issue, due to a recent battery test. That is, I just think the battery stopped holding a charge for some reason. I didn’t think it was this at the time, because the laptop was still new enough that I couldn’t imagine that the battery would die like that. But I have scoured the internet for answers, mostly to discover that many, many other people have had this same problem and nobody has a definitive answer. Bad adapter? Bad battery? Loose AC connection? Central pin broken/bent? Etc etc etc. I’m working with the simplest answer (the battery is broke) is the best.
Eventually the battery drained to 0% and since then it has not charged. In fact, until recently I couldn’t even get the damn thing to power on with AC power, but then, in my attempt to find a laptop for travel, I plugged it in a couple days and it actually started. A good start!
Then came around EIGHT HOURS of installing updates, including a grueling Windows 7-to-Windows 10 upgrade which took almost all night. This is completely the HDD’s fault. It is slow as hell. It was slow as hell ten years ago. My idea was to get it fully updated and then create a system image, which I would transfer over to an SSD I pulled from my home theater PC (which, by the way, I barely use anymore because Big TV does pretty much whatever I need) to boost the computer speed by a significant amount. I knew the process would be slow but I didn’t think it would be eight hours. And that was last night; I’m still installing updates this morning!
The next issue is that while it’s easy to upgrade the RAM on this thing, installing a new hard drive requires me to take the entire thing apart. I can do that! I already did it last night, after watching a YouTube video of someone else doing it (side note: there are tech YouTube videos of EVERYTHING) to check and see if the AC adapter connection was in fact working properly. (I think it is.) It’s a pain in the ass but it’s also, ultimately, just about unscrewing stuff and removing cables. I am about to do this now so I will let you know how it went in the next paragraph.
I did it! I took everything apart and then swapped the SSD in and put it all together and it still works. I am now in the process of reinstalling Windows 10 so I can install my system image because it won’t let me do it from my external hard drive.
UPDATE: I didn’t even have to do that! I didn’t have to do ANY of the updates, I could’ve just installed Windows onto the SSD, because it recognized my laptop and activated my copy anyway because of the internet and stuff. I wasted all these hours! Aaaaaagggghhhhh
Anyway, SSDs are amazing. Completely upgraded the speed on this laptop. It’s certainly not as fast as my desktop PC, but it’s not a sluggish beast either. Windows 10 works fine on it, though Dell does not have any drivers for Windows 10, which has made software upgrades a little weird. I’m pretty sure Windows is doing it all for me, save for a couple of things (like Dell Touchpad, which makes it so I can actually use all the little fiddly gestures and stuff for the touchpad).
I forgot this but the Inspiron back cover can be removed and replaced with a more artsy one, so I’ll add “buy a new cool back cover” to my list of things to do as well.
NE 12th Avenue and Everett Street Neighborhood: Kerns Website
Buckman Field is one of those parks that you’ll miss if you don’t live nearby. For instance: I have walked on NE 12th Ave (the road on the far left of the map) a ridiculous number of times. When I used to work at a medical marijuana clinic, I would have take my check up to the Wells Fargo near Lloyd’s Center. Every time I would pass by two things: the Franz bakery building, which always smelled amazing, and those tennis courts you see in the upper left. I didn’t even realize they were part of a park. (They might not be, either.)
This morning, in searching for parks to walk to, I noticed the track and the soccer fields of Buckman Field and decided to head there. It is what you see: a track, two fields (with the upper one being a soccer and football field), and the upper right part of the field can be a baseball diamond as well. So, it’s far more of an amateur and professional activity park than it is a “take your kids and dog” park. I did see people practicing soccer and there were dogs hanging out on the sidelines though, so who knows.
The lower right section has some playground equipment, though, but it, as you can see, is a small portion. This is also one of those parks that doesn’t have an open entrance; by that I mean, you have to enter through a couple of narrow sidewalks, you can’t just walk straight into the park. Makes it feel more seeecret.
Aesthetic: Not much to look at. It’s fields. 3/10
Function: You can play soccer and then eat donuts at Voodoo! 9/10
Sketchiness: Didn’t seem sketchy at all. The surrounding area is a little sketch, more rundown than illicit activities though. For some reason, Sandy Blvd is just one of those more run down streets overall. 3/10
Santa Claus has his own LANE now? Just what the leftwing media wants.
Good Lord, It’s December Already
Folks. What the hell. Yesterday I woke up and it was April 3rd, and this morning it’s December 1st. To be fair, I was in a coma for six months. That’s on me. But the point still stands: what the hell is happening with time? Because this surely isn’t an aging thing anymore. No, for some reason time is moving faster and faster for everyone. I’m convinced based on my singular anecdotal evidence. I suspect this can only be because the universe itself is speeding up as it inevitably rips itself apart in a matter of a dozen billion years or so. Scientists talk a lot about the Big Crunch or even the Big Freeze, but nobody talks about the Big Rip, except for that story my dad tells about that one Thanksgiving in 1986.
Hey, so some of the things I write in this newsletter come from my website blog! I only pick a couple of them, it’s not like every single one, okay? Also they are updated for this newsletter. (Also, transferring them from WordPress to Substack puts random spaces between words, which is infuriating!) But if you want More Content so you don’t have to think about your own problems, go check out the blog! Bookmark it, like we’re in 1998!
My Fifteen-Year-Old Christmas Album
As is holiday tradition, after Thanksgiving I promote a Christmas album I recorded fifteen years ago. It’s called Get Behind Me, Santa!, which is a play on Get Behind Me Satan, which you might know as a phrase from the Bible, but for me is the name of the White Stripes’ fifth album, released in 2005.
It is free to download and listen to on Bandcamp. It’s silly and heartfelt and a nice little encapsulation of 24-year-old me. Give it a listen, will ya?
Post-Giving of Thanks
My Thanksgiving was nonexistent. My dad is in the hospital back in Boise as of this writing for a gallstone issue which became a slightly more concerning thing involving infection and inflammation. He’s better now but it’s a lot of “two steps forward, one step back” at the moment. That has taken my mind away from most anything else. The guy’s 80 years old, he could have a hangnail and I would request a hospice nurse and a priest. (Dad, if you’re reading this I love you and I’m going to visit as soon as possible!) So, not much happened on my end. I didn’t even eat a pumpkin pie. Holidays be like that, sometimes. I hope your Thanksgiving went well and that you ate twice the recommended daily allowance of calories.
Meditation
I’ve been meditating for awhile now, using Medito’s 30-day challenge. It’s been pretty great. Medito is an amazing and totally free meditation app. It’s run on donations and it’s not trying to sell you anything. Highly recommend it! For me, meditating can be difficult, not because I’m easily distracted (I am, but not when I’m meditating), but because meditating tends to dredge up whatever energy I’m holding onto or trying to push away. So when I’m done I often feel melancholy or sad, which makes me feel like I’ve failed the meditation, which is trying to get me to acknowledge and let go of thoughts and emotions.
But lately I’ve come to realize that this is all part of the plan. Some things are easier to let go of while meditating, while others require some purging, so to speak. And lately I’ve been finding myself both feeling depressed and acknowledging my depression, almost as it from a third person perspective, which feels different than normal. Normally I feel bad about myself when I get depressed; now I am able to compartmentalize it, in a way. Not the right word — I give compassion to myself for how I am feeling.
After I meditate I write a little bit in a journal which is meant just for after meditation. It’s another one of those notebooks I’ve had forever (2016 in this case) but barely write in. Another acknowledgement: I have to stop buying notebooks. But I write how I feel or just whatever thoughts come to me, and then I write down three things that I’m grateful for. That part is the hardest, because for some reason I decided in my head that the three things have to be different each morning. A couple of days ago I realized I was doing that and very kindly told myself that they don’t have to be different things and, in fact, they could all be the same three things if that’s all I could think of. The idea is not to think about it or give that many rules to it; I only picked three things because it seemed more beneficial than one, but writing ten things every day sounded like a chore.
(Since writing this, I have stopped writing the three things, not because it’s difficult, but because I feel like my mind is in a place where I can more organically acknowledge things I’m grateful for throughout the day. I do still recommend writing about things you’re grateful for!)
Anyway, the holidays always tend to make me depressed for reasons that go to the therapist, not to my blog. Suffice it to say, it’s nice to be able to acknowledge that without wallowing in it. I can’t say that every day will be like this, but it’s good to know that they do exist, and that the feeling of them will pass. My higher brain telling my lizard brain that things will be alright. It’s good.
I Ran Another 5k
Introducing, the 2022 Turkey Trot.
‘Twas a foggy November evening at the Portland International Raceway when a gaggle of people gathered together to do a run. I was one of those people! The Turkey Trot is one of the Hood to Coast-affiliated races, and despite being a bit of a pain in the ass to register for, the run itself went swimmingly. I mean, I ran, I didn’t swim, but you know what I mean.
I had signed up for this the same day that I finished the Tar’n’Trail 5k race at Mt. Tabor, which you can read about here. In short: the race kicked my ass because of a variety of reasons, but mainly A) that I was in the middle of my Couch to 5k training program when I ran it, and B) IT WAS VERY MUCH UPHILL. Look at these stairs!
The race vibe itself was awesome though. A smaller group of chill people, an acknowledgment of the Native American land on which we were running before ther ace, and afterwards I got sugar cookies and booze. A++ in that regard.
Following that race, I took a day off, and then the day after, I started Couch to 5k again, right where I had left off. I am determined to finish this Zombies, Run program, even though I honestly don’t think I need to keep doing it. But anyway: running so soon after running a mostly uphill 5k was a bad idea. My feet were seizing up in a weird way—not like my toes were constantly curled, but the opposite, they felt like they were seized upwards? I don’t know how to explain it. But my shins hurt a lot about five minutes into the run and so I had to stop. Thankfully, my shins felt better a few minutes after stopping, which meant that the pain was muscular and not any sort of stress fractures or things that would be More Bad.
So, I took a couple of days off (still walking though) and then tried to run again. Shin splints. I took a few more days off, tried to run: shin splints. At this point, I was a week away from the Turkey Trot, and I thought to myself, “By gum, Josh, you’re going to have to not run for a whole damn week.” So I didn’t, I just walked. Frustrating, but necessary.
Then I had to go get my Turkey Trot bib. This was a pain in the ass. First, the bib was at a running store in Tualatin. For reference:
The southwest section of the Ross Island bridge in Portland is an absolute nightmare to navigate by car. It’s one of those places where sometimes in order to get to where you need to go, you have to merge from a far left lane into a far right lane with about 200ft of space and when three other roads are merging cars into the road as well. Plus one street has two roads right next to each other, heading the same direction, with a stop light at EACH of them which alternate I think for merging into one road. If that sounds confusing: it IS confusing. I ended up taking a wrong turn because I was trapped in my lane and had to double back over the bridge and drive over it again so I could finally get out onto I-5. The I-5 part was fine. THEN, I got to Tualatin and my exit, which was another absolute mess. It’s times like these that I honestly kind of miss Boise roads, because Boise is such a sprawling city that the roads have room to breathe. The Connector is a dream compared to the intricately and confusingly packed roads of Portland.
But, I got there, finally, and entered the building. A woman at the front of the store handed me a coupon for the store, but only for right then. Like, once I leave, the coupon ends.1 I get my bib; no issues there. Go to get my shirt and the guy there looked me up and down and sheepishly said, “Sorry, but the largest men’s size we have now is Medium.” I said, “Maybe I could get two and stitch them together.” He laughed politely and explained that everyone sized up when they got there for some reason. He gave me a Medium sized shirt. Great.
I grabbed a couple of free protein bars (which were as good as protein bars can be) and a free can of Celsius energy drink (which was actually pretty good). A woman next to me was lightly complaining about, I think, the shirt situation. I wasn’t really paying attention because I still get weird remnant covid anxiety in public indoor spaces.
As I left, the woman who gave me the day-of coupon said, “Good luck at the race!” I barely glanced at her and replied, “Thaaaanks” in a way that wasn’t meant to be sarcastic or mean, but feels like it in hindsight. There was a Best Buy in the shopping center area; I genuinely thought to myself, Is there anything I need from Best Buy? The closest one to me at home is in Clackamas, so, you know, it was an honest thought.2
The traffic back to Portland was a mess because it’s always a mess, but more importantly, I left at around 4pm and so it was rush hour time. I ate a protein bar on the drive; maple donut flavored. Not too bad! Protein bars are always, at max, about 80% good. This is just how protein bars work.
The next day, work, work, work, and then after work, I drove to Portland International Raceway up at Historic Vanport for the race. I should mention that while I have GPS on my phone and all that, I don’t enable mobile data, so I oftentimes just have the list of directions from Google Maps, rather than a voice telling me when and where to turn. This, it turns out, is annoying, but whatever. The place was packed with cars trying to get in. Moreover, people were trying to park at the main lot, which was farther away. I, on the other hand, parked at the Delta Park & Ride Trimet stop, which was closer to the venue as far as I could tell. I suspect some people wanted to park farther away because they were WASPy types who were afraid of their car getting broken into by the nefarious hooligans who use public transportation.
Once parked, I chugged my Celsius energy drink, hoping that the 200mg of caffeine within would help my body run while not absolutely destroying my sleep when I got home. (Spoiler: it kind of wrecked my sleep a bit.)
Every time I go to the Christmas lights display out here, it’s foggy, and this year was no different. It truly is lovely, though my camera didn’t do a great job of showcasing this.
The race was a run/walk situation (lots of people with strollers, too), so there were food carts selling things like pizza and beer and stuff that you probably don’t want to eat right before running. There were musicians, which, props to them for playing in the cold. A keyboardist, a drummer, and then after the race I noticed there was a third guy playing drumming on buckets. I don’t know. It felt very much like a “Oh shit we should have musicians for this” type of last minute concept.
Then, I unlocked a serendipitous achievement: the 5k was supposed to start at 6:45pm, but was pushed back to 7pm due to traffic. In that fifteen minute span, my stomach began to rumble, and for the first time ever running a race, I took a shit beforehand. My stomach had been weird all day and I was joking to myself on the way to the race that I was going to get the “turkey trots” at the Turkey Trot. And then I DID. Serendipity! If the race started at 6:45, would I have pooped my joggers on the raceway? In an alternate universe, yes, probably. There is nothing like navigating a porta-potty shit in the cold, damp, foggy evening though, I gotta tell you.
And then, the race! It went well! Most importantly: my shins did not explode. I was shocked. I expected them to give out on me about five minutes into the race, but I guess the adrenaline of a race plus the 200mg of caffeine kicked my body into high gear. The track was a joy to run around (even if it was a bit slick). Lots of festive lights, including the whole gamut of “Twelve Days of Christmas,”3 where each one was a visual display of each verse of the song, except for Ten Lords a-Leaping, which for some reason they had the visual display of a lord leaping and the words “Ten Lords a-Leaping” above it, I guess so that people knew for sure that this display was Ten Lords a-Leaping. There were also some dinosaur lights on display for some reason. (That’s the Keep Portland Weird that I like.) Also, I forgot to get a photo of it but there was a display of a reindeer that looked like A) it had shapely women’s legs and B) it was giving birth. I’ll let you fill that image out in your mind’s eye.
At the start of the race I ran a solid 7 minutes straight, without stopping to walk, which is a big improvement. I also was able to get in several shorter runs in between walking. My end time was 48:56, which is a :48 second improvement from the Tar’n’Trail run. Granted, this run was completely flat and didn’t have a section with a million stairs to climb, but still. Improvement is improvement, and I’m proud of what I accomplished.
After the run I got a medal that looks like a punkin pie!
I then went home and nursed my pinky toe, which quickly grew a big and terrible blister on it.
Lastly, the next day I signed up for yet another 5k. This one’s in February so I have some time. I took a couple days off to rest and recover with some walks, before getting back into the running routine again.
So that’s that. I’m a god damned runner now.
Recommendations
I’ve been watching a ton of James Hoffman videos lately. He’s a coffee nerd—not a snob, mind you, but a guy who loves coffee so much he’s willing to deep fry it. Very interesting breakdown of bean juice and the ways we make it.
There are a lot of DJ videos on YouTube and most of them (suggested to me, at least) are hot women with those digital DJ stations—no records, just two turntable things that act like turntables but instead just manipulate a .flac file or something. It’s all well and good but it doesn’t seem authentic. (And honestly I feel like those women don’t do much besides look hot and the videos are more just for views/money, but that’s another topic for another day.4) My Analog Journal, however, is an excellent YT channel where people are actually playing a curated playlist of songs, on records, from a wide variety of genres. I’ve included the Japanese Funk and Soul video because it’s popular, but there truly are a lot of great setlists on this channel; you will find something you enjoy. It’s one of my favorite things to listen to on a Sunday morning with a cup of coffee.
The End
Sorry these are so long. Even Substack is giving me notifications like, “Wrap it up, buddy.” Hope you have a great December and a good holiday season and I’ll see you in 2023, unless I decide to upload something else before then for whatever reason.
Side note: Firefox wants me to correct Clackamas to “Blackamoors,” which sounds racist and (looks it up) might actually be racist? and (looks it up some more) oh god is definitely, absolutely racist.
Brief tangent: the Genius lyrics page for this song has a representation for each verse. Are these for real? Am I to believe that “Eleven Pipers Piping” refers to the eleven apostles? What do pipers piping have to do with apostles? Why do Christian songs always have this weird-ass symbolism?
Like DeepMe, for example. Beautiful woman, great setlists of house music, but … what exactly is she doing? It doesn’t seem like much. It feels more like she’s adjusting the volume on a playlist while also doing some weird dancing and looking hot. Hey! You go girl.
