travel day thirteen

friday november 28. day thirteen.

FINALLY!!! damn baby. i've been trying to churn out the travel day notes from the last 3 days so i could write about today!

the word today is METH HEAD. whatchu talkin' bout, salem? really? meth? everyone here does meth. EVERY-ONE HERE DOES METH! the high school girls' basketball team at denny's. the baristas who served me hot chocolate. the soccer moms at the toy store. the bus drivers. the hip college kids. i'm not even ready to think about the reasons or consequences of this, i'm still reeling from how prevalent it is here. meth is trashy. below trashy. scratched eyeballs and green teeth gross. and still, somehow, it seems like everyone has access to it. salem, a piece of advice: drop your pipes and quarantine yourselves, you dirty disgusting meth heads.

damn. salem loses more points for making me become anti-drug.

travel day twelve

thursday november 27. day twelve.

overcast. wet. thanksgiving. tofu turkey. cranberry sauce. walking the dog and scraped hand. access to large case of winter ales. check back later if you want. i'll write more.

travel day eleven

wednesday november 26. day eleven.

overcast. drizzling. we went into portland on this day. drove around. checked the scene. stayed out at mary's club until 3am. i had the pounding headache to prove it. i'll post the whole story later. check back.

travel day ten

tuesday november 25. day ten.

overcast. damp. sat at the kitchen island in our jameys and used our puters until 2pm. listened to mos def while m's parents went shopping. played with the kiddos until 4:30pm. watched james bond until 7pm. ate dinner. yawn.

travel day nine

monday november 24. day nine

so blah blah. marc and his parents had a chat in the early morning which kind of made me more furious at marc than i've been lately. i feel like this business is a large part of me being a part of marc's family and being in oregon but it's marc's family's business and i'd be pretty fucking angry if somebody i hardly knew wrote on the WEB about my fam. so that's that. i'll try to work around it as best as i can. and anyway. his parents make us laugh. and i'm a sucker for anyone who makes me laugh.

we took a drive to silver falls where we would park the car and hike around. it was already really late in the day. and for some reason my camera keeps making the sky look bright. it's not. it's consistently gray and black. occasionally i think the sun is shining on my skin but when i look up it's just a slightly thinner patch of clouds. and by "thinner" i mean still dark gray. are suicide rates higher in this area?

why do natural occurrences always drag that inner photo-op tourist out of me? SAY CHEEEEEZ!

we found a little waterfall called FRENCHIE FALLS. it was about 10 drops per minute. more like FRENCHIE LEAK. ba da dum chsssss! or whatever nonesense the high hat makes.

cool. hippies were here. making rock sculpture for us in the future. whoa man.

how do you know somebody didn't piss on that?

we walked under the falls.

so this kind of blew my mind man. we were driving out of the park and i made marc pull over so i could look at the sky. oregon has a BLOOD RED SUNSET! it was crazy. the picture doesn't capture all the right colors so whatever, ignore that. the sky was mostly a piercing cold blue and then a small pool of blood circled the horizon. not a pool of blood, but more like how a carnation looks with many folds and crinkles. but in a dark blood red hue.

travel day eight

sunday november 23. day eight.

pretty fucked up day. i woke up feeling guilty about holding contemptuous feelings against m's parents. and when marc's sis asked me how i was doing i just started crying. standing in the middle of the hallway during breakfast crying. this isn't me! i don't cry! she talked with me back in the room m and i are staying in. who am i? i don't cry! this isn't me! i don't cry about these types of things. she listened to me. she understood. and i thanked her for listening.

what the fuck happened to me? what happened to my california sun thoughts? my reform? my new soul?

this is where i traveled to? this is not me. this place. this cold damp gray weather. i keep holding my tongue. pussy footing topics. i'm losing myself here.

i holed myself up in the guest room until we went over to m's sister's house to play with the kids. we colored and talked about snowball fights while marc and sis went out to get pizza and beer. i was beginning to untighten. i'm not scared of acting like myself here. but marc's acting differently around me. whereas he used to defend me, he's now defending his parents. what happens when i act like myself here? i'll feel more alone.

travel day seven

saturday november 22. day seven.

we started the morning off with cappuccinos. sweetened with syrup. and a dollop of whipped cream who gives a fuck. my pajamas were slightly inappropriate for marc's parents' house but whatever i'm sure they don't know that leggings aren't pants. put on marc's jacket and headed to salem's farmers' market.

picked up some dip mix, bread and marc's mom got emu oil. pretty uneventful. we stopped at a craft fair on the way home. it was four tables set up with various trinkets in a basement room of a no name hotel. kinda sucked but whatever moving on.

we decided to walk mikey. it looks sunny but it's not. it is never sunny here. not like how we understand sunny in albuquerque.

magnificent star shaped leaves.

les street names cracked me up. am i in candy land?

every rock and tree has moss growing on it! exciting!

walked around the mall and commented on the amount of chubbies here. i said there are more here than in new mex. marc disagreed. i was beginning to notice how defensive he got about oregon and all oregon related topics. sheesh.

m's parents took us to a fine italian restaurant where the waiters know a little more than you about cuisine. blah. they also reserved seats for us all at the elsinore theater. chinese acrobats. look, i'm not being an ungrateful brat here bc i thanked them for everything but chinese acrobats?! i feel offended at this somehow. marc told me i was imagining things. chinese acrobats?! i feel like i should be cleaning a gun on my porch rocking chair when i talk bout them 'chinese acrobats'. doesn't it make you think of 'freakshows' and 'oddities' when you say the words 'chinese acrobats'? whatever. i just sat there holding my bladder. AND SAYING THANK YOU!

nice fake flowers. not!

also, the pics are small because they're blurry. not because they're 'chinese acrobats'. hopefully they're clearer in the smaller size.

intermission.

note to self: never use binoculars to look up close at performers' expressions. it depressed the hell out of me to see how bored and sad they looked. also, i had major problems with getting along with m's parents. and out of respect for them i should just leave it at that. we got back to his parents' place and i took the wine bottle out from under the bed. i'd need many. many. many. more bottles this week.