258/365

book stores I have loved, in no particular order:

cloud & leaf (manzanita, oregon)
faulkner house (new orleans, louisiana)
strand bookstore (new york, new york)
the book lady (savannah, georgia)
shakespeare & company (paris, france)
ohio book store (cincinnati, ohio)
a capella (atlanta, georgia)
librairie bookshop (new orleans, louisiana)
beckham's bookshop (new orleans, louisiana)
e.shaver bookseller  (savannah, georgia)
city of lights (san francisco, california)
avid bookshop (athens, georgia)
and, the mother of all book stores, powell's city of books (portland, oregon)

189/365

excuses I have made (and will probably continue to make) to eat donuts:

it's the first day of school
it's the last day of school
it's my birthday
it's your birthday
it's been a hard day
it's been a good day
it's monday
it's tuesday
it's wednesday
it's thursday
it's friday
it's saturday
it's sunday
it's national donut day

(happy national donut day, lovers)

134/365

record stores I have loved:

criminal records (atlanta)
wax-n-facts (atlanta)
mississippi records (portland)
jackpot (portland)
everybody's records (cincinnati)
peaches records (new orleans)
wuxtry (athens)
wuxtry (atlanta)

(spent some time at wuxtry today)
(happy record store day, y'all)

mood

it's true

all I really want to do is read books and ride bikes and listen to records so I am basically just my fourth grade self, all over again.

hello, nablopomo

the hardest part is the starting. the saying you're going to write something every day. the putting it out there, even though you're not sure people even read anymore. once you get past that part, it's gravy. 

well, gravy those first five or six days and then holy crap you're in it and you said you'd show up here every day, whaaaaat. every day. you know for a fact you are not a show up every day girl, you are more ebb than flow, you are squarely, solidly an ebb girl with just a little bit of flow. 

also, no one reads blogs anymore. or so they tell me.

but with november comes many things: banana bread. new tights. the wearing of the boots, the mourning of the loss of light. increased amounts of soup. changing leaves. and, nablopomo.

unbelievably, this is my twelfth year. 

so, here we go. 

reprise

new york, may 2016. I keep coming back to this one. never really noticed those little birds before. or the way that man's hands are so precisely folded. or all those shapes. how am I just now noticing these things? how?

the truth is we manage hundreds of photographs now, at any given moment. we deal in volume. which means sometimes details get lost, sometimes entire photographs go missing. I don't know what the answer to this is. we are all already so overwhelmed with everything.

you know what? perfectly fine with pretending certain photographs stay hidden until they are ready to be revealed. totally okay with this. maybe you are too.

to climb inside

here are a couple of photographs I'd like to climb inside and live for a little while. just for a little while.

new york on film

every time, I think I'll come back with nothing. but every time, she proves me wrong. I'm talking about the camera, not new york. I'm talking about the beautiful tank that is the canon FTb, an old film camera I lucked onto at the thrifts several years ago. every time, I think I'll get nothing. that maybe I'll read the light meter wrong, set the camera wrong, load the film wrong. make no mistake, I have done every single one of these things, several times over. but every time (I mean it, every time), I'm thrilled with what I manage to come away with. an embarrassment of 35mm film riches.

on the other hand, there are no questions with new york.  she is remarkably thankfully beautifully predictably unpredictable, somehow akin to the insides of a game show cash machine, the clear plastic ones with all the cash flying around inside. sixty seconds to grab as many of the dollar bills as you can, go! take what you can, while you can, be happy with it, walk away. that's what new york is like. an over-before-you-know-it, extraordinary whirlwind of riches.

portland on film, part one

portland on film, part one, starring all my old favorites. powell's books and annie's donuts and cargo and bollywood theatre and a few old friends and a few old downtown buildings plus the lobby at the ace and my old hood and pretty much every bike in the city. which (and this goes without saying) I have missed, more than I could ever, ever adequately put into words. I mean, I knew I would miss portland when we moved, I just didn't know how much, I had no earthly idea how much. not until the moment I scraped together a few fairly valid excuses to return, found a bargain basement airfare and then was so giddy about it, I could not, would not let myself even think about it. I would not permit myself even a sliver of a daydream about it until the actual day I boarded the plane and flew out there.

and then, as if I'd never even left, there I was-- walking the streets of our old hood, past our beautiful old house, along the ridge with the view of mount hood, past the kids' sweet old elementary and middle school, past my favorite turquoise house, down the stretch of sidewalk with all the dahlias, past our beloved annie's. and then, downtown-- down all my favorite old streets, past all my favorite old buildings, in and out of all of my favorite spots. and powell's, up and down the aisles of powell's, holy crap, powell's. where my reaction was as emotionally visceral as the one I had when I stood in front of our old house. powell's, where the scent of old books and burnt coffee nearly brought me to my knees.

the way I feel about this city, the missing of it, the mourning of the loss of it-- is complicated. riddled with contradiction, teeming with sharp and soft, sweet and sour, a thread I'm careful not to pull at for fear of the swiftest unraveling. four weeks ago, I found myself staring down the barrel of it and the minute I stepped off the plane, I gave in. I let the city unravel me. I let myself fall back into it, into the deep grief of the thing. I savored every painful, joyful minute of it, held onto it as long as I possibly could, til I couldn't any longer, til the view of my former city grew smaller and smaller through the tiny oval airplane window, til I was forced to put myself back together, piece by piece, to loosen my grip and let go.