Things I like that I read today

"He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy." -- John Broder, NYT obituary of Edward Kennedy

"It's expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old. ... The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs seven tons. It's as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around in it, head high, bending only to step through the valves." -- Brian Doyle, Joyas Volardores


"So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end -- not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts are finally bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children." -- Brian Doyle, Joyas Volardores

My stuff: Flannery

Flannery explains:

1. keyboard - I bought it at a garage sale for $5. The middle keys don't work, but I saw the same model in a store for $130. It's the same one They Might Be Giants use. You can really make some cool sounds with it.

2. shirt - This is my best find at Goodwill. It has no sentimental value. It's just really soft. And it's Osh Kosh.

3. banjo jams book - My pen pal made this for me. I write all my songs in it.

4. poster - I've had it for three years. It's hand-screen-printed, so it was limited. It was a good show. Plasmic Stallion was the best band. They were more punk than anyone.

5. THE - My pen pal sent this to me, too, as a housewarming present when I moved out of my parents' house. There was nothing else in the package, but it was heavy as shit.

6. guitar - I got it after years of wanting my own guitar. I had just been using my bandmate's. I didn't want to rush anything, so I waited a long time. But friend offered to sell this one to me, and it took only 15 minutes to decide. It has been the best guitar.

7. bike - This is the same as the guitar; I didn't want to rush. I was close to buying a lot of other bikes, but then I bought this one on Craigslist for $150 in Tacoma, Wash. It's my favorite color, and it fit.

8. box of polaroids - I actually organized these by date once.

9. holga - I've taken a lot of nice photos with it. It's seen a lot of use. I mean, it's really old. I got it from my aunt, who used it in college.

10. stapler - It has no purpose but to look nice. Plus, it matches my bike. It caught my eye at Goodwill, and I thought, 'This is love.'

In which Colin gets real ironic

A rare look

in which Kate Linthicum steals the camera and turns it on your author

3tones

For years, I've kept a record of the mixed CDs I've made on a public Web site. My first entry is 2002. The CD was for the first girl I ever kissed.

The Web site has been having problems lately, so I've been going back, looking at my old mixes just in case this is my last time to savor these time capsules. I've found plenty of funny things -- mixes with Tool and No Doubt and did I really put a Magnetic Fields song on EVERY SINGLE mix? -- but the thing that has warmed my heart the most is this little treasure from 2004:

I had gone fully gay by then, but when a certain boy's best friend told me he wanted to go on a date with me, I was intrigued. He was so cute (dimpled, almost girlishly skinny and in love with Joan Jett and girl rock) that I thought maybe I'd try. But dates with a lesbian don't come easy for boys, so I made him a mixed CD with a map.

That is, at the beginning of the CD I recorded the tones for my phone number. If he could figure out my number based on sound, we could hang out. It took hours, he said, by the audible light of a computer program, but a day or so later, my phone rang. It was him.

We dated for a few months, though kissed sparsely. We made t-shirts from Camp Fire Girl books and ate cheap Chinese food relentlessly. Once, we dressed up in our finest clothes (I wore a wig!), headed to the grocery store and told everyone we were going to the Postman's ball.

We had one very sad break-up and one break-up that wasn't a break-up at all, but rather a slow understanding that what we were, sadly, was very close friends.

He remains in my top favorites of all people.

[on the map the gap's three fingers, but it's more than that]

Home is where (2)

Texas 2009 was epic -- I flew out Sunday morning exhausted, full of love, memory and the inky outline of home.

Landing back in Oregon, though, felt like home, too. Two of my best friends were waiting -- with presents and dinner. Later, I went out for a tea and a walk across the Willamette with a new friend.

Monday started with a bike ride (God, I missed bike riding). Just before the Broadway Bridge, a guy noticed my tattoo. Turns out he was from Jackson AND Savannah, too. We talked the whole way to work. I barely noticed the hills.

Monday's dinner was perfect. We tag-teamed our way through Indian food -- veggie biryani, chickpea and potato curry, chapati, soy chai bubble teas.

This weekend, we're headed to the river again. And Saturday night, I've got plans for biking around town, sitting on the bluffs, drinking, getting to know.

I started pre-work on my summer video this week. Watching hundreds of pictures move by, I felt so happy. Living here is so good.

Family forever

I tried and tried to get a good portrait of all of us (mostly with the camera down so my face would be in it, too), but none turned out well. This was the best. It ain't great, but I want some documentation on here of Texas 2009.

Here's me with the boys I love the most: