Given my passion for the economic turmoil, it’d seem this blog is one of punditry… Sometimes, this is true. But it’s heart is solidly in the natural world, in wildernesses, and organic systems. (See web design.) There’re beauty and deeply instructive truth all around us, even in the things we create, if we have the courage to see them for what they are and not for what we think they are or want them to be or think we want them to be. We have to remember to listen—to more in this world than ourselves, or other people.

~

Forest Park, Portland, Oregon:

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

From Forest Park Snapshots

What jackshit crazy law of physics is it that dictates, “Under no circumsances should any graphic design change to a weblog, regardless of its simplicity, shall take less than an afternoon to complete.” Seriously. All I did was change the background photo and the text box background color… and now my Sunday afternoon is gone.

I don’t blame CSS, here; I blame PhotoshopCE. This trend of dumbing down software to make it “easier to use” is the very definition of jackassery…

I’ll be old enough to make a bid for the presidency in 2012. I’m considering running on a populist platform that’ll improve healthcare availability and affordability, reduce governmental piddling on “moral matters” and refocus it on ethical matters, greening America by way of its farms and food production, legalizing marijuana and making locally grown weed abundant and affordable, and putting a hot-tub in the home of every man, woman, and child in America. Do I stand a chance?

Probably a lot more of a chance than this guy…

Michael Marsh for Oregon State Treasurer

I do love that we live in a democracy where anyone and everyone can get themselves on a ballot – even the jackshit crazy.

My apologies for having been so long in posting. A lot has happened for JHW and me personally in the last few weeks, for me professionally, etc., and I’ve needed a break from critiquing the madness of our culture and its economy. Hell, I’ve needed a break from thinking about it all. My approach to my daily diet of blogs and podcasts (particularly NPR’s PlanetMoney) has not been unlike that of a couch potato football superfan – thrilling to the near-good news, outraged and even shouting obscenities at disappointing fumbles… Frightening my office mates.

It has also been suggested that my essays are too long for interweb digestion… A fair criticism, admittedly; however, some ideas do require more consideration, and I think we as a culture have done ourselves a great disservice by indulging our impatience to the point that public discourse has been reduced to exchanges of PowerPoint slide shows and mindlessly espoused talking points. I think there’s extraordinary virtue in persuasive essay writing and reading as a means of understanding, advancing and critiquing social issues. I won’t be giving up my adherence to that form anytime soon, though I will try to find ways to move the crux of my arguments up to the front of my essays so that you can decide whether or not you want to read them.

~

Autumn in Portland, as it turns out, is utterly spectacular. The weather is astoundingly clear and bright, the air is perfectly dry and crisp (save for foggy mornings), and the foliage is in a slow, deliberate progression of cascading color. Riding our bikes around the city has been a pleasure that is both serene and thrilling. If I’d had our camera when we were out biking this weekend, I’d be posting some pretty awesome photos of trees – particularly of some maples where the sun hammers yellows and oranges into their western sides and tops while their eastern and under-sides valiantly try to hold onto their green…

JHW asserts that this blog needs fewer rants and more incisive critism and philosophy, and I agree; however, this weekend cannot go without comment. I mean, Jesus Fucking Christ, we caught a hooker finishing up with a wheelchair-bound client on the sidewalk less than a block from our house Thursday night. And then John watched in horror from our living room window as she proceeded to douche herself in the bushes lining our parking lot.

We met some friends of friends for dinner Thursday night – prior to the incident – and they also live in St. John’s – the good part. When we told them where we lived, they replied, “Oh, you’re in the thick of it!” That’s putting it… mildly.

This weekend proceeded maddeningly as sweltering temps Friday and Saturday made our stuffy, unairconditioned apartment stuffier and muggier, and as the neighborhood – we assume fanned-on by the raging full moon above us – erupted into screaming matches, crashing noises, and mightily revved racing engines. By the time I managed to fall asleep, it was almost 4am Saturday, and by 530am our next door neighbors began washing vomit – from the party they had the night before – off their trashcans with a pressure hose – right outside our bedroom window. Saturday proceeded less as a story of lunar jackassery and more of as a comedy of errors as we tried to escape the 105F heat in Portland for the milder temps along the ocean – which turned out to be fogged solidy and chillily over for the day. No matter: A nap and several hours of reading listening to the crashing waves in the fog were really quite nicely spent, and the drive home as pretty great.

Of course, there was the eighteen-wheeler that nearly drove up onto the sidewalk where our open air table was positioned while we were dining Saturday night – at least the driver had the good sense to stop and jam the intersection with his rig – rather than run us over.

~

The semi incident was the last of the madness, and Sunday gave us hope – largely because we made an effort to really enjoy life in the Mississippi – currently our top choice for a new home when our lease is up in March. Dinner with a fabulous couple and their son Sunday night further confirmed that greater Portland is, indeed, quite sane and friendly – we’ve just landed in its batshit-crazy red-necked theme park. JHW described it as, “a haven for hookers, heroin addicts, harridans, harpies and homeless teens.” Indeed.

That said, as JHW and I reflected in our time in some of Chicago’s rougher neighborhoods (I lived in Roger’s Park for a while, JHW in Hyde Park), we agreed that the bravado and posturing of these neighborhood’s locales, while intimidating, was never so troubling to us that we felt unsafe – it was just bravado, afterall. But a neighborhood peopled by folks trying to out-crazy one another? There’s a scenario for uncertainty – we agreed that we’d be wise to fear it more than we do, but the insanity has reached a point where we just have to laugh at it to stay sane.