Futility Now

So, here are the places we went with friends last night:

Matchbox Lounge,

Pok Pok,

The Pix on Division.

Hazel and I have, in the past, made several concerted efforts to love The Matchbox. It’s fairly close to us, and its cocktails vary from pretty good to quite good. Also, the house drinks are all enormous. The service, however, is pretty shoddy, even by Portland’s rather relaxed standards, and through the filter of forgiveness provided by my many years in service. Also, everything we have gotten to eat there has been pretty unremarkable. It does, however, make a totally suitable place to sit while you wait for a table at Pok Pok.

Pok Pok is hilariously set up. I’m not sure if it’s the result of whimsy or expedient, but by the time you get to your seat in that place you’re expecting to be seated next to a guy with a bull’s head. We were very happy with both the beverages and the snacks there. I guess I had one quibble, which is that I got a negroni that was a bit heavy on the Campari. Campari is a real nuance killer, so you have to ration it rather closely in mixed drinks. Once you’re over the line, no amount of punt e mes is going to bring you back, and the whole thing may as well have been Campari and soda. Which I guess is great for sixty year old Italian ladies, or something. Also, whole fish is almost always awesome (alliteration!)

Pix is, of course, very charming. The one we went to is a bit close, which was exacerbated last night by the fact that approximately 8 MILLION people were in there clamoring for confections of various kinds. I have been made to understand that the proprietor of the Pix empire is trying to unload it. While it definitely seems like a low-margin store, this is probably more of a too-much-work problem more than it is a not-enough-money-problem. I hope that the outcome to this situation is that things stay largely as they are, which is, I suppose, a positive sign in itself.

Spring is not so very promising as it is the thing
that looking back was fire, promising:
ignition, aspiration; it was not under my thumb.  --Rachel Zucker, from "Diary [Surface]"

Spring in Portland is a thing to behold.  Some days the changes in sky come by the minute, certainly too quick to attune one’s mood to (unless your mood is equally changeable, I guess, in which case you should really consider migrating here).  Before everyone had their personal soundtracks white-budding in their ears as they wandered through the city, we had to rely on things like the sky to invest our otherwise mundane moments with scope and gravitas.  That, at least, is what I was mulling over while I sat in The Half and Half, enjoying a piece of pie and coffee with cinnamon & (obviously) half and half.

Spring break started off strongly — Ch., a friend of jmags & co., came for a second visit, this one filled with drizzly walks, roller skating (more, I know), and speed scrabble. Last Sunday, after Ch. — possibly the most accommodating house guest ever — slipped out quietly to head back to NYC, I found myself in the most inexplicably cranky mood.  Although we’d planned to stay in for the day, jmags suggested we go out and about, and it ended up being just the thing.

Well, I should back up.  “Inexplicably” is not quite right — I can pin it down, a little, to a phenomenon I’ve experienced at the beginning of open stretches of time, like the beginning of Summer Break last year: I get so excited by the many possible way I might spend my time that I end up paralyzed and manic.  It’s so dumb.  And, in my defense, after that first day, I have been both productive and fairly relaxed.

But back to last Sunday: books always help, and jmags knows this, so we went to Powell’s.  I selected another Murakami & a replacement copy of Rebecca, one of the first grown-up books I read — I think I was about 9 or 10.  But! I also picked up several books about clay, the best of which you can see taking up precious real estate on the table next to the pie.  (I would also like to take this moment to note that my hands continue to  be my most photogenic part.)  These books have been enchanting and inspiring me all week, both at home and at the studio, where I’ve been working on my throwing skills.  I’ll have photos quite soon.

And that brings us to Polaroids.  Although jmags and I were gifted a cache of the precious film, we’ve been tentative in using it.  But the sometimes-bright skies of spring were an inspiration, and look at the progress we’ve made on the wall:

On Monday I start a yoga class (the first one for me… we’ll see).  I feel like I’m entering a period of productivity, both physical and creative (and, I hope, professional), and the accompanying exhiliration is a nice place to be at the end of this break.  I’ve always felt my time of year was fall, not spring, but evidence suggests otherwise.  Promising.

(disclosure: jmags took the top two photos — that’s why they look so nice)

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