:: Just One Terror: Zavi ::

:: Saturday, September 15, 2001 ::

9:35pm-I'm sitting on the bus. I've been lugging my laptop around all day, for no reason purpose. We're on our way home now, so I decided to do my blogger entry.

First we went to Concordia, and missed the rehearsal thingy. We got a tour of the theatre, very very cool. I said, "It smells so good.", in the costume room, and everyone laughed at me, cos they said it smelled musty. I was told the spiral staircase up to the booth was a $500 kit, so that rocks.

From there, we went to Hawthorne. We ate at an Indian place, called the India Oven, I think. The woman who kept refilling our water glasses also kept frowning at us, and the other people who were eating there. I had a very yummy lemon drink, nimbu paani, which I must find a recipe for. And Jann had something that was mango flavoured, heheh.

Theeeeeen:
I got my left ear pierced; it hurt. Robbie, or perhaps Robbey, the piercer guy, was very cool, and nice. The needle, in his words, "got hung up on the scar tissue", because he pierced it in the same place as my old piercing was. Owie. It looks really cool, though, with a 14g captive ball ring.

The piercing place was called Metro Body Piercing. We bought some funny patches there, too, name patches from mechanics' shirts or something; I bought "Tim" and "Del", and another sort of patch that says "pre-cure process".

Then to A Shot in the Dark, for icecream. The woman there, frowned, too, so maybe I'm imagining frowning people. They had a book called Timmy The Timid Turtle, and it reminded me lots of Bayliss-from-Homicide. I need a copy of that book.

On the way to Concordia, I hung my arm out the window and gave the peace/V-for-Victory sign. One guy shouted, "Peace out!", another just kinda jerked his head at me, and a woman smiled and returned the sign.

So now we're on the 32 to Oregon City. But first we were on the 75 to Milwaukie, which is where the crazy lady was.

Yes, the crazy lady.

We saw her first the day of the attacks, and she was wearing the same thing and carrying the same things. I'd asked her if what she was wearing was crochet or knit, because I thought it was crochet but things are so much more often knit. She said it was crochet, and she'd done it herself. I think I kinda cheered. After a while, we realized she was talking to herself, animatedly. We couldn't pick out anything she said, though.

So tonight, when we noticed she was there again, I went and sat next to her, taking Jann's tape recorder. She ignored me for a moment, talking quietly toward the floor. Then she looked over my left shoulder and started talking about cigarettes. She used to smoke four packs a day, when she was married to her husband, and she was happy. Now she's quit. But she's been smoking some. And at $4.50 a pack, she should just borrow cigarettes from people. And she's worried that the WTC attacks were her fault, because her cigarettes are Camels and manufactured in the mid-east, if they'd been Marlboros or even Winston, she wouldn't be so worried. She used to not smoke, she used to live on rice and something I can't remember, when she did a lot of camping, and she was writing her book. I asked her what kind of book, she said science fiction. I asked what it's about, she said life on planet Earth and human nature. It took her four years to write it. It's done now, it's not published, she doesn't know whether to make it into a movie or a cartoon. I say I'd like to read it, she says she'll let me read it when it's all typed up. I ask if she knows who Valerie Solanis was, she says the name's familiar. I explain, in all seriousness, ready to pretend to be a SCUM supporter, that she shot Andy Warhol and she wrote the SCUM manifesto, which says that men are inferior to women, biologically inferior. She says, "She shot Andy Warhol?" I say yes, she says she's glad to know it was someone else, because she'd always been afraid that she'd killed Andy Warhol.

[from here, written at home]

She talked about Warhol for a while, saying she liked him, and she was him for a while, and she was afraid that sometime when she was depressed, she'd killed him. I explained that he didn't die in '68 when Solanis shot him, he died in the eighties. And I think she got worried again. She said she'd done a show in Andy's honour, she gave everyone in the front rows flashlights with strobe things, and it was like something Andy'd do, "So it was boring." I asked her if she knew who Oscar Wilde was, and she said, "Oh, yes, he's someone you could really get depressed with, too." I said yes, he depresses me daily. She said he was cute, but self-centered. I agreed, sort of.

I can't really remember anything after that. We talked more, and she finally got off the bus. I stumbled back to sit with Jann, and laughed for a while, then told her about it all.

Now we're home, watching bits of Dr. Strangelove again. My ear's sore, meh. It looks cool, though.
10:33pm

:: Coco Lennon 2:05 AM [+] ::
...

We didn't do anything today, cos Jann's sickish:( ::huggles Jann::

We watched Kansas City, and ate things, and I found out I can buy rabbit pasta online. Jann watched Miss Congeniality, and I kinda paid attention to it.

I talked to my mom for a long while, and ordered things from Amazon. Yay.

I found a yummy-sounding pizza place in Chicago, thanks to these guys.

I need to learn about football, by December.
:: Coco Lennon 2:37 AM [+] ::
...

I just remembered; I had a dream lastnight that I was in some house, with some other people, and our-friend-who-we-call-Cedric showed up, and my mom and someone else hid him in a room. They were going to dye his hair blue, but I wasn't supposed to know that. They had blueing and several other odd things, and I wasn't allowed to get to them so I could say, "Don't use any of that weird stuff, I've got blue dye!" It was odd.
:: Coco Lennon 6:01 AM [+] ::
...

Cooool, I go to blogger.com at 1:20am and find that Neil Gaiman's Journal is on the just-updated list.

I think "I picked up lots of fallen sunflowers and propped them against the side of the house for no real reason other than they looked nice like that." is very profound.

I'm glad I blogged earlier, cos, like Jann, I don't really remember today, either. Unlike Jann, I don't have the excuse of having slept through some of it.

Wait, yes I do, sort of. I slept through most of Dr. Strangelove.

We went to McMinamen's, and they said we could only stay till 10pm, cos of liquor laws. So we only had appetizers there, we had dinner and dessert at Shari's. Thinking about it, though, we probably could have just said yes, we're 21. He took our word for it that we're 18...

Amtrak doesn't allow pets, but they allow service animals. I wonder if I could bluff my way into Lucy being a service cat. Sigh. I wonder if my friend-in-KY will still be getting Gillian for me.

I, um. Didn't call Rob Boggs. Arg.
:: Coco Lennon 4:38 AM [+] ::
...

Plans:

I leave Portland by train (Amtrak), Tuesday.

I arrive in Chicago on Thursday, and sadly don't get to stay long enough to go to a Springer taping. My uncle picks me up, and we go to his and my aunt's house for the night, in northern Indiana, then he drives me home to Kentucky. It's very, very sweet of him and I thank him muchly.

I have to go buy another duffle bag, so I can consolidate my luggage into three bags. I came here with four, but the train only allows three. Eck.

And my ear still isn't pierced, but I hope I can get that done quickly. In Hawthorne, I think. Stupidly ignoring everyone's reccomendation to go to Black Hole...

Powell's is mean for not having a cheap paperback copy of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.

Neil Gaiman has friends in NYC. I hope they're all okay.

This blog is amazing.
:: Coco Lennon 11:30 PM [+] ::
...

I... I really don't know what to say.

I'm not leaving yet.

It's so weird.

I've said "It's so WEIRD!" ten million times today.

I was lying in bed, trying to commit my dream of a gay funeral with a nicely placed combined gay pride/American flag and a bad man, to memory, and the door opened. I half-opened my eyes and saw Jann's mom. She said something to the effect of, "Ashley, there's been a terrible tragedy. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center..." I sat up, I'm sure I looked surprised. She continued, saying that all flights had been canceled, and she'd talked to my mom, and I should get up and call her. I did, and it took all day to get to in proper contact so we could discuss my options... which are bus and train. Bus lines aren't running in the Northeast... the train from here to KY stops in Chicago, which would be cool.

Jann and I went to Hawthorne to talk to people. We asked them this set of questions:

[quote]

1. Are you from Portland?

2. Do you know anybody in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington, DC?

3. Where were you and what were you doing when you found out?

4. What was your first reaction?

5. Who do you think did it and what was their motivation?

6. Will they attack the West? If so, what will they hit?

7. Which news station do you turn to?

8. What should the United States do, retaliation and security-wise?

9. Do you think President Bush is doing what he should be doing?

10. What can we do as individuals?

11. How does this effect your life directly?

[endquote]

We interviewed Sky, who just rocks.

I looked into a piercing place and asked about prices; I think they said $20.

I feel pretty blank. I need should answer our questions, as I haven't done that yet. I need to sleep, so I can call Rob Boggs and go to the travel agency.

I found a cat I need. I named her Lucy.

I must remember to type up some of the interviews, tomorrow...
:: Coco Lennon 4:21 AM [+] ::
...

My ear. It's still not pierced.

Perhaps that can be remedied tomorrow.

I can't believe I'm leaving so soon... Wednesday.

Oh! 9/11! Perfect!!

We did nothing... sat around, Jann studied katakana, I reviewed a bit of Esperanto that I already know, then we watched Princess Caraboo and Drop Dead Gorgeous, which shocked me by having Mo Gaffney. Then a couple episodes of LEXX. ::bounce:: I love LEXX.

While I really love it here, I think I'll be gladdish to be able to watch Homicide, the X-Files, and LEXX again...

Sleep...
:: Coco Lennon 4:44 AM [+] ::
...

I... I am so completely blank...

We had much fun at the Faire yesterday; I think I won't say more about it, except that one of the other knights complained that the Black Knight (Patrick) was drinking, and someone shouted, "Of course he's drinking--he's French!" And the mystery man yelled at the Black Knight, "Is your armour Givenchy or Chanel?" And I bought a blue bottle of cream soda, which I called "blood of some kind" because when Jann was drinkign Dragon's Breath, "cream soda" sounded pretty... boring.

And my nose is sunburned.

And today, picked Jann's friend Kanako up, then went to Burnside. We went to the Church of Elvis, and got accused of being Scientologists and Canadians. Then we went to the Saturday Market, where I bought amazing honey and asked several different potters if they know of Bybee Pottery in Kentucky. Only one of them had heard of it. Then on to a little shop that had several old Japanese toys and a few He-Man toys. Then we split up, Kanako and Jann going to Powell's and Jann's mother Sonja and myself walking all around looking for Rainbows. I finally asked some people who were sitting on the sidewalk under a walk/don'twalk sign, and one of them directed us right to it. Yayay. I bought a rainbow bracelet with "Cancer" on it. Then we walked back to Powells, and met in the Japanese section. Kanako found a very cool how-to-write-katakana book for kids, for Jann, and I found a novel written in Esperanto ("Koko krias jam!" by Ferenc Szilagyi), and an Esperanto dictionary. Kanako gave Jann a lesson while Sonja and I went to take photos of the Armory. Then back to Powells, then to McMenamins for food, where they were playing Bowie song after Bowie song, which rocked. I questioned the wossit, the server guy, about it. Jann quotes that conversation. We ate cheesecake weirdly, did Jann and I. That was hilarious and fun. Then we came home, and finished watching Masters of the Universe, and now we should be watching X-Men, but I'm being very slow about this entry... which is now done...
:: Coco Lennon 5:05 AM [+] ::
...

Got up at 7am. Have photographic proof.

Went to a renfaire, was Delirium, gave a big pink magic ballalloon to a bard, bought a beautiful bag from the bag lady who is usually at the Saturday Market.

Am exhausted. Must remember to talk about the mystery man, and will describe his clothing now lest I later forget: ash-gray/blue dress jacket, white dress shirt, thin black 50's tie (the kind detective Munch wears), a jewelled red cat collar around his left elbow, jeans with five inch cuffs, hiking boots, mirrored sunglasses, earrings (more than one in each ear), a gold watch, and he was carrying a slim attache case. Like... secret service for aliens, or something. Was great.

Very sleepy. Must transfer day's pics from camera to computer and empty bags and such... ehhhh...
:: Coco Lennon 1:21 AM [+] ::
...