Munjoy Hill Cocoon

I know I don't talk about school very often, but the Spring semester is VERY close to being over, I have one final left. Then hopefully, I'll be done the following Spring. 


In my Writing the Feature Story class, we all participated in a peer-review workshop. One of my older classmates often has a theme with his stories, "Kids today" (shakes finger.) His paper was about how audience fragmentation and the consumer dictating the market in the music industry has led to Top 40 music being total shit. We talked a lot about it, and he actually ended quoting me in the piece- once about my love for Gaga and Katy Perry, and once about the safety of using cell phones as a defense mechanism. Just shows how many interviews he actually conducted... But anyway, there was a passage about how iPods and smart phones have enabled people in society to cocoon themselves, giving us a lack of social interaction and sense of community. Again, I disagreed, saying that I rely on my cocoon to get me through the Greater Portland Metro Bus ride every day. Citing again that one time I wasn't wearing my headphones and this guy ended up showing me his colostomy bag from his last trip to the ER because he was stabbed in the abdomen. 


Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to remember that when you're in public and you're wearing headphones, you aren't really invisible, although you feel invisible. 


I had just set out for a mini-East End shopping excursion- mangoes at Rosemont, seltzer at Colucci's, and Epsom salt for ahem, a medical issue I'd been having.  There was a man standing outside of an apartment building which notoriously has all kinds of trash and shit on the sidewalk all summer. He was probably about 6'1", black oversize hoodie, baseball cap. Maybe a facial piercing or cubic zirconia studded earrings. He was probably somewhere between 18-22, I don't know, I'm a terrible judge of age. I crossed the street towards him and his friends while another woman, middle-aged, middle class, was also approaching them from the other direction. She was walking some sort of hound dog. 


The man started asking her if she used to live near Washington Square, because he used to live near Washington Square. He must've recognized her dog. I was listening for some clues about where the hell Washington Square is, and then I noticed that the guy's face was covered in a bright red rash. But I kept walking and didn't really think anything of it, except that I was going to have to ask Rebecca when I got home where Washington Square was...


I was almost at the bottom of the hill when this guy and his girlfriend (or, the woman he happened to be holding hands with) and yelled in my face: "DID YOU GET A GOOD FUCKING LOOK AT MY FACE NOW?" He was obviously really angry, and I was annoyed because I happened to be texting Cleveland- walking and texting is hard enough as it is. But then I realized that to him, it must've looked like he was some sort of medical oddity or something.  Honestly between my bad vision and my curiosity about Washington Square, I barely noticed it was something other than acne. Nothing on Web MD seemed to look the same as what this guy had, btw.


But I'm even sympathetic to people staring at you because of weird face things- after that car accident, I had to wear an eye patch or sunglasses to work at a coffee shop. I get it. He continued angrily yelling things at me, and I continued to pretend like I didn't hear him, thank to my iPhone. Then I heard him yell something like, "AND I'LL FUCK UP YOUR BOYFRIEND, TOO!" from further down the road. Which was weird because how the was he supposed to know that I'm in a relationship? Did he Facebook me? Good thing I have ol' Cleve, because if some random stranger told me they were going to beat up my boyfriend and my boyfriend was non-existent, I would've been really sad. 


Anyway, the icing on the cake was that then they walked into Rite Aid, which is where I was going. Instead of following them in and risk getting stabbed, I walked around the block a few times to ensure my safety. Hours before, Cleveland updated his FB status with "It is a wonder how we ever avoided eye contact before the age of the iphone." 


It's also ironic that a man who bartends at Forest Gardens, a dive bar near campus that I hang out at sometimes, lives on the hill and says one of the great things about Munjoy Hill is that people actually look you in the eye. 


What a weird day. 

Best Brunch and Where to Find It

I had to be out of my Gilman Street apartment by noon on the first of July. It took me right up until 11:59 to throw the last box down the stairs, sweep and find a piece of paper to leave a note with my new address. The first of July was a Thursday, and we had advertised a huge 4th of July cookout for that Sunday. This gave us exactly two days to unpack, organize, clean, hang pictures, etc. One of those days being Angela's birthday, and all of us working in some capacity on one or both of those days. There wasn't very much time, and honestly, I kind of freaked out.

The biggest job, by far, was the kitchen. I started Saturday morning, and balls to the wall, unpacked everything. Much to my discouragement, this is approximately what I found: five coffeemakers (four percelators and a press,) two blenders, two food processors, two mortar and pestles,  two dish racks, at least two, sometimes three containers of every spice imaginable, seven wooden spoons of various shapes and sizes, eighteen pint glasses, twenty mugs, five whisks AND  an old school crank mixer AND a Kitchen Aid mixer, two full sets of china, a partridge and a fucking pear tree. I was feeling stressed, and opening another box and finding another double or triple was making it worse. Especially because hardly any of this stuff belonged to me, and how was I going to decide whose things were kept and what went into storage? But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking to myself, "Amanda. It's going to be alright. They are going to use these magic kitchen devices to feed you incredible meals and you're going to be happy."

I was right. This morning Rebecca had some friends over for a brunch/bluegrass jam session (yes, that's what they call these things.) I was treated to the following: crepes with either homemade pesto cream cheese or a strawberry rhubarb sauce (strawberries from Rebecca's garden, rhubarb from the farm,) sliced mango and peach, homemade pain au lait bread, (baked by one of Rebecca's friends the day before, kind of tasted like pound cake,) a crab/avocado/cream sauce of some sort over a poached egg ON the fresh baked bread, coffee, bellinis, and sun-dried tomatoes. But I don't even know where the sun-dried tomatoes were supposed to go. And we ate on the porch. It was amazing, and I didn't do a goddamn thing. I'm seriously going to have to do some hardcore cleaning, grocery shopping and sweet talking to be able to hold up my end of the roommate bargain. Anyone on a quest for the best brunch spot in town, look no further. My house!

Oh, and to top the whole thing off, I'm sitting in my living room, checking my email. Rebecca is bustling in the kitchen, preparing for her guests to arrive. I hear a motorcycle pull up, and I run to the window. I decided way back in our days of frequenting Bentley's that one of my summer goals is to get on the back of one of those things, along with skinny dipping and Moose River and Great Falls Balloon Fest. I've had a few leads, but it'd be awesome if he ended up being my neighbor. Then I realize, the guy that gets off the bike, no jacket, no helmet, is kind of hot. He stands there for a second looking at his phone, and I run to the kitchen to get Rebecca. "REBECCA, get over here." (The sixteen year old in me lives on.) She's like oh, I know that guy. He's here for bluegrass. "Hey! C'mon in!" He walks in, I shake his hand, and realize that he looks like this guy, only younger:

The Infamous Bobby Lipps

If you live on the Hill, you know Bobby Lipps. You might not have ever spoken to him, but he's lengen... wait for it... dary. I had a blowout fight with an ex boyfriend once about Bobby's paintings. He said he liked the paintings, and since my ego was slightly bruised from him judging my taste in art earlier that day, I shot back, "You only like it because it's outsider art and he has no idea what the fuck he's doing!" Yes, in the heat of the moment, I can be a raging bitch. Anyway, we made up, and for the next gift-giving occasion that came along, I got him a Bobby Lipps original.

I found this documentary about him on the St. Lawrence website. It's 20 minutes, but it was worth posting.


bobby lipps from lcm=liquidcreativemedia on Vimeo.

It's Better on Top

Today started terrible. This morning, I spilled ten ounces of my sixteen ounce iced coffee- in my bike bag. This most likely happened because my boyfriend and I can never seem to leave the apartment in an efficent manner. We'll leave late, and take our bicycles down the hill, but then we'll stop for coffee and have to walk our bicycles. My bus leaves at exactly 8:00 a.m., and I have to be on it. For the rest of the day, I could smell the coffee getting more and more rancid while I tried to get my work done.


But then my day got much better, especially when I bought this for a dollar:



Which will hopefully help my coffee-spilling issues.

The best thing that's happened today, however, also had to do with the hill. I rode all the way up it! For someone who sits on her bum all day, eats a lot of junk food, and can't run from here to there without getting winded. I was actually just searching for a picture to illustrate how steep and impossibly daunting it is, and I found this, in addition to two really great websites.

The first is this painter Elizabeth, who lives here in Portland. Her paintings aren't really my style, and maybe I like them because I've personally been to most of the places depicted. She has a pretty great sense of color, but I wish she'd vary her brush strokes and brush sizes a little bit.

The other is a bunch of pictures of my lovely city, which you can see here.