bittersweet

I'm in Portland again to hang out and catch up with some friends.  On the train ride down my throat started vaguely hurting and now here I am on a weekend trip, pretty damn sick.  I had had visions of strolling around town windowshopping and sipping cocktails nonstop, but now here I am, back before last call, already in yoga pants and a borrowed sweatshirt, sneezing and coughing away.  Boo.  Well, at least the weather is lame, also, here.  Rained buckets this afternoon.

And apparently lovely in Seattle.  Ha.

i got a 95

Green is very hip these days (compared to previous days). Interesting how it's taking on, with regard to marketing, there are some novel approaches out there, and even the "greenwashing" of products or concepts that aren't much more sustainable than their traditional counterparts. But if there's one thing that cannot be debated, it's walking more and driving less. Better for our wide American bottoms, and the embarrassing score we get RE: energy consumption.

There's a cool calculator, Walkscore, which will score your home's walkability within its neighborhood:

http://walkscore.com/

It indexes all of the amenities, down to a hundredth of a mile in distance, to your home, and gives you a score. You can link it to real estate websites when selling a property. Pretty cool, says the Landscape Architect / Urban Designer nerd that I am.

Of course there are always flaws in an automated system, I noticed some of the amenities listed as closest weren't really the closest, but it's still a good tool for evaluating a location quickly.

On a broader scale, there's the concept of One Planet Living, which is a nice lens for both personal and global impact. The concept behind it is that given the way that many of us live, there are not enough resources to go around if we were all to live that way. If everyone on Earth were to live like the average European it would take three worlds, and five if we all lived like the average American. Test your ecological footprint on the WWFs website and they'll compare your impact to the average American, European, and African individual's. It will then also give suggestions of easy and high-impact changes you can make given your lifestyle to reduce your footprint. I have a pretty small footprint compared to even the average European, given my lifestyle, but there is always a way to improve...

Here's to a future.

music is my hot hot sex

aka "tunes that rock my world"

I just bought MGMT's "Oracular Spectacular" and I can't get enough...it inspired me to think about all the good music I've been blessed with recently. in the past few months I've acquired a good deal of good new albums (also been to some good shows, woo hoo)- I'm going to inventory my faves. (note: I'll be adding to this with time, it's too late to finish in entirety tonight.)

MGMT-
Brooklyn group, relatively new on the scene. They've been described as Indie Rock/Electronica by some, and self-described (gee, toungue-in-cheek?) "Surf/Jungle/Country" on MySpace; their catchy, synth-y, electro-pop makes me want to jump up from my cubicle/bathtub/couch and shimmy around like a young thing (am I a young thing? I don't know what the cutoff is.). The tracks that are more '70's psychodelic-rock-esque are not to be forgotten, either.

LCD Soundsystem-
Been enjoying their also-incredibly-danceable electro-ey stuff for a while now. Also an NYC group, they can also be described as Electro-Indie-Rock but are self-described as Punk/Funk/Disco House on MySpace. Their recent album, Sound of Silver, has a couple tracks that are sure to be recognized from television commercials, or other mainstream stuff, if I could recall. It's really an epic album, catchy and able to be broadly appreciated, but deep and varied at the same time. It's something to rally to...I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.

Liam Finn-
I unfortunately missed his in-store at Easy Street, but really love his debut album, "I'll Be Lightening". Maybe a little bit like Elliott Smith, but a little peppier, or dreamier, perhaps. Definitely dreamy, although also rockin'.

Nada Surf-
J'adore Nada Surf, and not just because they have a small repertoire of French songs. Brooklyn again, these guys have a dreamy, contemplative quality to their music that gets me. Lucky, their new album, may be more melancholy than their previous two, but there's a youthfulness that defines their sound, maybe partially in the beats and guitar, maybe partially in Matthew's voice, that persists. Definitely looking forward to the show at the Showbox at the end of the month.

Vampire Weekend-
Another new NY band (I see a pattern, is it telling me something?), they are being hyped a lot right now. Their melodic, sound is kind of World-y, the Easy Street review said something about "Afro-beats." It actually makes me think a lot of Paul Simon, in quality of voice and world-music beats. Indie Paul Simon with organ and southern-hemisphere musicians, in a musical... and it's awesome!

Spoon-
Best thing ever to come out of Texas. Okay, have never been close to Texas, but you know what I'm saying. Their recent album, Ga Ga Ga, is another great one in a legacy of good, solid rock, stretching back pretty far. Wish I'd paid attention sooner. From what I hear, maybe I should try out this Austin place.

Flight of the Conchords-
More than a band, A comedic sensation currently monopolized by HBO. Two NZ comedic musicians trying to make it in NYC. If you don't get cable, like me, you can catch their album in stores, Netflix the first season, and/or see their clips on YouTube.

Ingrid Michaelson-
Brooklyn sing-songy indie chanteuse is getting pretty well publicized, down to her Old Navy ad. Her voice has a nice, buttery quality that I like, and it integrates well into the overall sound. The songs in Girls and Boys make nice stories.

Daft Punk-
Good, old-fashioned Electro-Dance. The mother of all of them...French.

Juno Soundtrack-
Wonderful movie, great soundtrack. Kimya Dawson, Moldy Peaches, Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, Cat Power, Also made me remember how much I like...

Belle and Sebastian-
Beautifully sung duets, they are the king and queen of pure folksy lyric indie wonderfulness. They've put out quite a few albums. I've been enjoying Dear Catastrophe Waitress a lot lately, though If You're Feeling Sinister and Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like a Peasant are excellent as well.

Feist-
You may know her from the iPod commercial...

New Pornographers-
They've been around quite a while, but they're new to me, thanks to a good friend's good suggestion. BC, so yay, locals. They'll be at Sasquatch this year.

CSS (Cansei De Ser Sexy)
Also recognizeable from (newer) iPod commercial ("music is my boyfriend"), this female-led Brazilian group is a rebellious, sexy blend of altern0-electro-punk. Edgy, discordant at times, while being catchy and danceable at the same time. Reminds me, at times, of Cibo Matto in the arcade sounds and lead vocals.

hmm, Cibo Matto... it's been too long.

harvey danger

My friend and coworker Laurie, femme extrordinaire, in addition to her dayjob, is an art gallery/show curator (sorry for any title butchering, I'm doing my best from my sad memory) and musician, and snuck us backstage to see their band, Nebraska Alaska, open for the Harvey Danger Tenth Anniversary show Friday. Sadly, there was a mixup on the time and we got there just as N/A was ending their set (we'll catch you guys again soon, hopefully). However, the Harvey Danger crew pulled off a great show and I was honored to get to be up in the box for the second night of their anniversary show, which was conceived as a run of every song off their albums, plus b-sides, beginning to end, in two nights. 'Twas lovely, right down to the carnation in Sean Nelson's lapel.

Sean, I hope you never read this, but if you do, I'd like to apologize. I spoke with you a whole ten minutes at Moe during the Super Fat Tuesday event, and I may have come across as someone just shooting the shit and wasting your time. So I didn't bug you Friday when we crossed paths a few times in the green room, or whatever that little glass box overlooking the stage is called, but you kind of looked at us, maybe wondering why the hell we were in the box, and I regret not interrupting my friends to tell you it was a good performance. Cheers.

photos- ace hotel

a few interior photos (here) of my room in PDX at the design-ey Ace Hotel, as promised in an earlier, rambling blog entry.

design competition / PDX

Last fall our office collaborated in a design competition for Portland (Oregon) Metro that asked students and professionals to envision how the urban environment might develop over time to allow increased human density and increased habitat. My office participated in it, and the process was both cool and difficult. I contributed mainly in the environmental education piece and graphic production but also in the conceptualization and brainstorming in the beginning. Our entry focused on not only the sustainable design of the site, a residential block, through ecological and community-making best practices, would transform the place, but how crucial policy and education would be in instigating and embracing systematic change that nurtured environmental sensitivity within a densifying urban fabric.

The contest was the brainchild of our design director, and the legwork and coordination of another coworker of mine, but when it came down to it, neither of them could make it to the award announcements and ceremony in Portland last week, so they sent me (we had a 24-person team and they sent me, haha).

And we won two significant awards, holy crap. Out of 108 entries in the whole show, we won second in our category by the jurors and best at the event as voted by the attendees- which also meant that we were the only entrants to receive more than one award. It was all very overwhelming, as the train got me down there late, and I entered the art museum to the proceedings already begun and had to nose through the crowd and orient myself as to what was going on. However, it was good I was there to represent our team, in light of the winning. I actually got to meet Susan Szenasy, the editor of the very-cool New York-based Metropolis magazine and juror of the contest. She was very kind, and pretty down-to-earth-seeming, which I found especially interesting given her intellectual/savvy/shrewd image and reputation. I wouldn't mind being her successor in the effort toward functional and beautiful sustainable design through intellectual critique by an opinionated woman. ;)

Annnyway, our little office has Portland Metro calling about our approach to our design, and The Oregonian interviewed us immediately on Friday. Pretty crazy. Here's the entry: http://www.integratinghabitats.org/photos/max/PE3001.jpg
and the competition premise and context:
http://www.metro-region.org/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=21627

And I absolutely must swoon and thank Laurie in our office for hooking me up with a sweet hotel last minute. I must post photos of its kickass design to Flickr soon, but it's too late right this minute, and a link to the Ace hotel will have to suffice for now. There's an Ace in Seattle (the original one) and one in PDX, and the design is so incredibly indie and ReadyMade (a magazine which is provided, along with Spin and The Believer and graphic quarterlies, in the hotel's library loft and your room's bedside table).... From the mod/reused/ironic/carefully-thought-through design elements which are pretty minimalist while being designed in detail and accented with meaning; to the made-in-oregon and organic everything; to its careful but unique and mod conversion of the historic brick building a half-block away from Powell's, Portland's legendary bookstore; the place is so cool.

So very cool. So very, very cool. Almost too cool, with its retiring, polite-enough-but-unimpressed staff, poem stenciled on the wall, and abundance of grey. I love grey, and I really like this hotel, and the fun little elements about it. But, and I'm not sure if it's Portland's in-ness that is making me predisposed to wanting to buck the trend, but the place seems like it's trying too hard.

Like the city itself, the Ace seems as though it's so thoughtfully contrived, to be cool and smart like everything is in that area, that it has turned into this homogenized, over-the-top cool. As though Portland is so lovely, to me, that there isn't enough contrast, it's kind of vanilla. So many lovely little things here and there, as in the park blocks, and in the new cool spots in the Pearl, that you don't have the contrast of the weird or edgy, like I'm used to in Seattle. So yeah, Portland is doing a lot of things better, I hear it all the time and I'll acknowledge, has it's sh!t together more than Seattle (I will give you the way better planning and transportation setups, and dreamy walkability), but there's something I'm used to about Seattle's organic funk and creativity, that kind of crazy mishmash I like...and plus, the Emerald City is way prettier.

But really, Portland and Seattle are siblings that could stand to stop being compared to each other...they really are different beasts. Seattle is the first child, the one that was an unplanned early pregnancy and was a result of passion, and not planning, and whose Alaska Yukon Gold Rush gestational period was the equivalent of a teen mother on coke. With the lovely good looks going for it, Seattle had to learn on its own as it grew, and was sent through the wringer along the way, a result of its bickering, dysfunctional parents. Portland came along later, to founding fathers who knew how they wanted to raise a polite, genteel, livable city. Sure it wasn't as stunningly good-looking, but that would be compensated for in proper thought and planning. Seattle became the temperamental, dysfunctional, chain-smoking starlet with potential but no organization or focus to pull anything off, and Portland the cute, friendly, A-Type little sibling that tried harder. These are children, I think, who could stand to stop being compared to each other ...don't ask about Tacoma, though, it's the unfortunate stepchild, not nearly as cute or smart, had to go into the military to get much a of a future, and is always overlooked.

To conclude, it was a good trip. Nice train ride down, nice stay in a nice place for a very nice reason, albeit too short, and a nice train ride back. I hope, next time, however, to have more time to enjoy my fair-trade Stumptown espresso beverage alongside my complimentary Macbook while scanning for hipsters over my equally-hip periodical literature in the loft.

optimism aneurysm

I think most people who know me would say I have a generally sunny personality. Sure, I can be a bit sarcastic sometimes when the moment calls for it, but in general, I'm an optimist. Historically. I think maybe I should have bit my tongue the past few years when I said how lucky I felt that I had a good life, and people in my life had been so good to me. Did I some how cosmically bring a shift of luck, a dark cloud over my life? I don't know.

In the past year I've been faced with some really hard situations, and have been going through a lot of transition. I've lost quite a few things I valued, from friends and relationships, to family and home. It was more than I thought I could deal with at times. The only thing, ironically, that seemed to remain constant was my job, which I love to groan about. There were days, many of them, where I just wanted to stop existing for a while, stay in bed and disappear, not have to feel anything, or deal with anything anymore. But of course I had to go to work, even if I couldn't work well, and just stared out the window at the cars passing on the viaduct in front of the bay. It kept me with something to get up for every day. My coworkers were there for me, and I will be forever grateful for them.

Through all of this I realized that one of the things that made much of what I was dealing with so hard is that I value kindness and consideration so much, I am so sensitive and thoughtful to a fault (it sounds self-congratulatory, but it's really an exhausting way to live), that I let the crappy way I was treated break me. I spent a ridiculous amount of energy explaining things away, wanting to believe that everyone has the best of intentions and maybe sometimes the way people behave is my fault, a result of my actions, until it hurt so bad, there was no way around the fact that I was receiving a giant, painful, slap in the face. I have spent too much time in my life saying that people "mean well" to try and explain painful things away.

There are too many selfish assholes in our society. I want to believe people are good and kind and well-intentioned, but I'm not sure if I can apply it as a rule as I always have. There are too many self-centered, immature people who will coo at you, tell you how wonderful and important you are, how proud they are of you, how you are the center of their world when it is easy for them, hugging and crying with you one day and then treat you as if you were just another one of the people they pass on the street later when your interests have diverged. Because I am an extremely deliberate and sensitive person, I am constantly aware of what I say, being wary of misleading people into assumption, commitment, or eventual disappointment. I want people to be happy, I am afraid of risking disappointing people for fear I will lose them, says my therapist. So in this way I set myself up, I guess. I have always aspired to honesty and openness, and it may again sound like a holier-than-thou attitude, but even though oftentimes it can be hard to be upfront and honest, I cannot come to terms with the dishonesty and overt lack of consideration that I've seen recently.

I love this quote by Woody Allen in Manhattan when Diane Keaton is calling off their fling and tells him she finds it disturbing that he won't express any feelings about the situation: I don't get angry, okay? I mean, I have a tendency to internalize. I can't express anger. That's one of the problems I have. I, I grow a tumor instead. I'm a lot like that, but I'd like to work on it. I'd like to tell people when I'm pissed off, and not run home to be alone to stress out about how it might have been different if I'd have handled it better.

You fucking ass, how could you? Someday I'll say that to someone, it will blow them out of the water. And I won't laugh, or smile, after, the way I always do to make things blow over. I'll let it be on their shoulders.

Some of it is likely a societal thing. I think too many people in my generation have been coddled by their parents, given too much and placed their own comfort and desires above all in their comfortable, middle-class american sphere. But it's not just young people who are a little slow to act as mature as their college degrees try to make them look. I'm beginning to think some of it is nature to many people. I want to believe people are better, but I'm beginning to doubt, and it hurts. How does someone profess undying affection for someone at one point, claim they know that they are the only person who could ever fit them, and then turn their back when that same person cries for support a few months later and it's not convenient for them? How could someone hold something in trust that they know is very important to their own family, but sell it to the quickest bidder nonetheless? And do it over and over? How can one lover leave another to clean up every last bit of a dying life together, and refuse to help when asked? How can adults act like this? It's embarrassing to someone who always aspired to the idealistic notion that people "mean well."

The soundtrack to my life has changed recently. I kind of want my Amelie back; I don't think it's ever been Radiohead before.

politics are sexy

....but some of us already thought so, right? right now for the seemingly first time in popular culture it's actually hip to be (or at least sound) politically aware, and when it comes down to it, it is all about popularity.... Here's to consciousness, for what it's worth, as long as the trend lasts...

grey on grey on grey

I noted to a friend today that while I was at work today, instead of drafting construction documents, I was staring out the window at at grey gull sitting on a grey lamp post on a grey viaduct in front of a grey sky. Also happened to be next to a grey building.

Day after I wrote my last post we got our Seattle weather back. Coincendence...?

Today as I stood at streetcorners, waiting for pedestrian lights to change, the drizzle felt like baptism.

and how about that weather

Seattlites like to joke about our seasons- 9 or 10 months of rain during the fall-winter-spring, and one fantastic summer, comfortably warm and dry, which begins July fifth. Some like to joke that people who end up moving here invariably come during one of our two dry months and are consequently unprepared for what they've gotten into. Enter Global Warming. We had a weird summer, a shy and temperamental one, this past year, and now we get a real winter. Snow here and there the past couple months, and plenty of freezing temperatures and cold wind. And on top of that, not as strong a presence as we're used to of precipitation. We had multiple consecutive-day streaks of cold, sunny weather, where the direct sunlight was gleaming off the Cascades and Olympics over the water. It was stunning, and looking out from my desk over Elliot Bay (through that beautiful structure we call The Alaskan Way Viaduct) in my usual distracted state, I thought, where are we? With the overnight snows unexpected by the weather forecasters, and the clear presence of sunlight, it just feels eerily unlike Seattle. I'm used to grey blankets of drizzly clouds draped over the city for weeks; the mountains, opposite shores, and sometimes even nearby neighborhoods obscured from view by their ubiquitous murk. Don't get me wrong, we've still got that lovely oh-it's-nice-to-get-out-of-that-and-come-in-by-the-fire mentality, with the cool temperatures, that inspires the clasic coffee, microbrew, and edgy-music-scene culture. However we're maybe feeling less waterlogged and more exposed and wind-parched, coming out on our lunch breaks like disbelieving mole people, adjusting our computer-weary, beady winter eyes to the unusual weather.

It snowed a week or so ago unexpectedly in the early morning hours, and for some reason I couldn't sleep and was pleasantly surprised to see it falling outside my bedroom picture window. When it was clear that I wasn't going back to sleep after my uncharacteristic 4:30 awakening, I got up and walked to the top of the hill to enjoy the quietude of the snow falling over a dark, still-sleeping town.

link to flickr set

I traipsed around my neighborhood and enjoyed the peacefulness of the city from her most stunning overlook, Kerry Park. Still catches my breath every time, no matter what the weather. And even though I missed the last on-schedule bus by a block and had to walk halfway to work, I still got into the office two hours before I usually do (which regularly means nine twenty-five, and late, groggy, and a bit of a deaf-mute), impressing the typical early birds.