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April 25, 2006

I'm packing up. Tonight and tomorrow I'll be working in Redmond, Washington, networking and learning at a statewide high tech conference. Then north to visit my friend Ross in Vancouver, B.C. That's Canada, yo.

This leaves Ben with two cats, a lot of stale bread and no car. I hope he can manage.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2006

Seasons

It's been damp and rainy in Portland for months. I think I've gotten used to the Northwest weather. Sometimes the rain can be annoying, but I love the purples, blues and grays of the city sky. I love the shiny, slick black streets at night, the colored lights relecting off the road in the dark.

Today, though, it was sunny. The sky was clear, and I could see Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens. The sun was bright. I had to wear sunglasses. It was warm, and I was briefly overdressed. I put on a dress and got to feel the sun on my skin. There was still light in the sky after 8 p.m. It shocked me. I had forgotten about summer. It's coming.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2006

yawn

Oh my gosh, what a day!

After my first Wordstock session listening to Ed Hirsch, I saw Dave Eggers in the afternoon. The reading was packed -- more than 500 people squeezed into and flowing out of a standing-room-only space, including two folks I used to work with at The Daily News. Eggers read from a forthcoming fictionalized biography he's writing with one of the lost boys of Sudan, a refugee from that country's civil war and genocide.

When asked about his favorite writers, he named Saul Bellow right off the bat, and said "Herzog" and "Henderson the Rain King" are his two favorite Bellow books, so now I feel doubly motivated to read "Herzog."

This evening, Ben and I went downtown for a night of music anchored by Pride of Portland, a 125-woman harmonic chorus, to which Ben's mom belongs. The show was really something. In addition to performances by the chorus, a couple of female barbershop quartets played, a high school student hoping to embark on a music career sang an aria, and Aaron Meyer -- who performed original music for a public radio documentary I listened to -- played his violin.

We've only just gotten home, and I'm exhausted.

Tomorrow, I'm going back to Wordstock. Then I may drive out to Longview to visit with another friend from The Daily News. I'm not sure how I'll manage to make time for my long-overdue laundry.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

Contemplations on literature

I've started reading "Portnoy's Complaint." I've been meaning to read Philip Roth for a while, 'cause he's such a lauded 20th century author. Not knowing anything about the book when I picked it up, I was quite surprised to discover that it's a first-person account of a brilliant young Jewish man's sexual disfunction in New Jersey and New York of the post-World War II era. It's a satire, and pretty funny, though it's weird and shocking enough that I'm not laughing at all of the jokes. I like it better than the other shockingly sexual supposedly-great 20th century book I've read, Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," which I actually found kind of dull.

The amazon.com review of the book says that "Along with Saul Bellow's 'Herzog,' Philip Roth's 'Portnoy's Complaint' defined Jewish American literature in the 1960s." Roth's depiction of a supposedly quintissential Jewish experience doesn't seem to bear all that much resemblance to the Jewish experiences of people I've known -- though they might disagree. I think it's a book very fixed in a generational moment that has passed. Much of the so-called "Jewish experience" also seems as though it would translate to the experiences of other Americans raised in outsider cultures, perhaps as minorities or as children of immigrants.

Today I went to Wordstock, Portland's annual festival of books and literature, where I heard Ed Hirsch read some poems inspired by his Jewish childhood in Chicago. In many ways, Hirsch's poems seemed to be an answer to the defeatism of Portnoy in Roth's book. But I haven't finished the book yet. It's possible that Roth wrote it as a send-up and answer to the defeatism he himself is depicting.

In any case, it's very interesting stuff.

Now I want to read "Herzog." The only Saul Bellow book I've read is "Henderson the Rain King," and that one really blew me away. I keep thinking about it, months after I put it down.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

Who wants a postcard?

I recently bought an awesome book of postcards. If you'd like me to send one your way, comment below or shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address. (E-mails to my first initial, last name (no punctuation between the two) @gmail.com)

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 07:18 PM | Comments (4)

April 15, 2006

My lumps

One night more than five years ago I was driving back from covering a late meeting, and I squeezed my upper arm. There was a lump.

"That lump didn't used to be there," I thought. "What causes lumps? Cancer! Do I have arm cancer!?"

I'd never even heard of arm cancer, but I was frightened. Then I squeezed my other upper arm. There was a lump there too.

"Symmetrical arm cancers?"

That seemed pretty unlikely.

Then it hit me. I had developed muscles!

That was the first time in my life I had been making a concerted effort to work out on a regular basis. It was a few months after college. I was living with my parents, taking aerobics, and lifting these itty bitty three-pound weights at night.

Eventually my exercise habits lapsed, and the lumpy little arm muscles faded away.

Today I noticed that I'm developing a new set of muscles -- in my calves. I found them in my legs when I was trying to figure out why I was so sore. I've been doing all kind of cardiovascular exercise five days a week after work, and going for long walks on the weekends. So now I have a new set of random non-cancerous lumps in my body.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2006

Life, right now

I am exercising every day after work. I read a lot of newspapers, online and in real life. I work. I think. I surf the web. Ben and I play computer games together. We watch TV shows together. We eat together.

We live in a very old, big house that has been converted into three distinct apartments. We live on the big first floor and there are two smaller apartments above us: a single guy and a couple, all in their 20s or early 30s.

One of our neighbors is a really friendly guy who just moved here from Colorado. He's already been to the Sasquatch Music Festival, which I hope to attend this year.

The couple in the other upstairs apartment is kind of stand-offish. I've seen him and her sometimes, but they don't make eye contact and they don't seem interested in talking.

So it goes.

The cats are very silly.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2006

To celebrate Ben's birthday

First, we went for a short walk.

Then, for two and a half hours we ate course after delicious course and drank wine after wine, coffee after coffee at Genoa.

Then we went for a longer walk.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:59 PM | Comments (1)

April 07, 2006

Change of pace

I have gotten tired of reading, after being unable to finish "Getting Things Done," and I am now spending lots of time doing sudoku puzzles.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 07:25 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2006

Another book down

I just finished "Pattern Recognition," by William Gibson.

Gibson, author of "Neuromancer," is the guy who invented the word cyberspace. He invented the genre that spawned "The Matrix."

"Pattern Recognition" is set in modern times, however, and is not a genre novel. It's about post 9-11 life in front of the computer and in the world, with a dash of conspiracy thrown in and some cultural commentary about consumerism. I recommend it.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

April 02, 2006

Out on the town

Went to a lesbian bar last night. Haven't been surrounded by so many lesbians in years. Most of the women there were butch or boyish. A few were laid back no-makeup granola types. The only feminine women were pierced, died, primped and done up goth-style with lots of white faces, black clothes and blood red lips. And then there was me in my girly green skirt and wispy English-major hair, brown eye shadow and plum-colored lipstick. Nobody tried to flirt with me, which was fine.

I volunteered to be the designated driver, since we were out late enough that too much booze would have put me to sleep. I really enjoyed being sober, driving us around, taking in the world with a clear head and having coherent conversations. Also, the coffee and diet coke were free, which was nice.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2006

You may have heard that Samuel Jackson is starring in "Snakes on a Plane," a movie due out this summer. It is so ridiculous that the movie has already developed a cult following a full six months before its release.

The person behind Snakes on a Blog decided to solicist movie posters for other possible productions that would follow the "Snakes on a Plane" formula.

I e-mailed Ferret on a Lawnmower to my brother Austin, because he has ferrets.

I have a few other favorites, including Wooly Mammoth on a White Water Raft, Walrus on a Conveyor Belt (the world was not ready!), and this one.

Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)