a sort of lean to the left.

In what has been a somewhat ridiculous few weeks I have started pushing myself down a path towards getting more involved with this city. I mucked through google for a while, tracking down some old links to potentially old open mic scenes, and over the next few weeks I suppose I will start weeding out what still exists and what doesn't. It is not so much my hope to start becoming fiercely involved with poetry again, so much as it is simply to make a few friends and see where that leads me. Right now I find myself blaming everything I do on how cold it is. Too cold to go outside, too cold to stay inside and do anything but sleep. In Arizona it was the heat, and now that I've had the reverse I guess I realize more that either I cannot deal with weather in any capacity, or I am fond of making up excuses. It is a sad understanding that it is more likely the latter.

Since I have arrived in Portland I've read a few books.

Adverbs. I was interested and then not interested and then interested and ultimately finished but was not satisfied. I hope his Lemony Snicket series fares better.

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. I didn't even finish this. It has been a long time since I have been unable to finish a book. It will be a longer time before I go back to Eco.

The Mouse & His Child. Really, what is there to say about this? A film I loved as a child, I love even more as a book as an adult.

Gob's Grief. A strange debut, feeding possibly into his sophomore work. A worthwhile endeavor. I enjoyed the hell out of this but it suffers from not ending soon enough.

Light in August. I guess I feel as if I tried too hard with this book. As if between every space of each letter I searched for some meaning that was already right in front of me. This book was beautiful and sad and dark and funny and violent and all of it.

Frankenstein. Having never truly seen the old film, and dealing with only the collective knowledge of what Frankenstein is, I was pleasantly surprised that this novel destroys that image altogether.

Today after putting down Frankenstein, I picked up The People of Paper again. I feel as if this will become a once a year read for me. I am in love with the descriptions and characters. The mood and ability to be playful and serious all at once. After this I will move on to the new translation of Beowulf. Maybe pick up the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, or those Grimm Brothers.

Lately I've had a series of thoughts rumbling into my brain again, things I have been unfamiliar with for some time. It has always been just wake.move.work.eat.sleep routinely and I, if not exactly having been okay with this state, have at any rate accepted my losses and continued on with it.

I need to start carrying a notebook around with me again. A pen and stray thoughts and equip myself with some ability to build a collection of thoughts to start writing with again. Right now you come into my head but just as quickly you flee and leave me distracted by the green light of the traffic sign, only to recall hours later that there was something perhaps near brilliance that was just right there only what could it be. I can never recreate the situations in which you usher yourself into this corridor of electrical jams and crashes.

This never will really have on concurrent thought will it?