For some unknown reason, the mother and the idiot choose to visit Alcatraz on their final day in San Francisco (nay, America) while the father and I stay behind in disapproval. They say they shall return in time for lunch. And when they don't return in time for lunch, we are not entirely sure what to do with ourselves. We have a beer, three oreos and half a banana each. I fantasise that the idiot has got lost in the prison and that I will have to swim across the bay to rescue her - consistent with the attention-seeking logic of love. They do come back of course, by way of apology bearing a single chocolate cupcake in a pink box. I inform the idiot that I will not be catching the plane back to England with her. The imaginary boyfriend is waiting for me in Los Angeles; I tell her that I will keep on writing the blog from there.
The next morning at the airport she pretends to be all frosty with me, remembering, she says, my bad behaviour of the last few months. I say I will see her in September or something. But she knows, and I know, that I will not be going back to England. I have dutifully completed the blog, and will not be writing any more in the future. It is time to drop this ego trip and drop the idiot. I now dedicate my days to the Los Angeles sunshine.
Thanks to my paucity of readers, thanks to the grandmother for bringing me down a peg or two, and thank you idiot for going to America and having a ball,
Consette x
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Friday, 22 July 2011
Yosemite
The drive from Monterey to Yosemite takes about 5 hours, oscillating in and out of pockets of heat. Sometimes the skies are San Francisco grey, and at others you can get burnt just brushing the bonnet of a car. Neil Young, 'Heart of Gold', comes on the radio, and suddenly we are in a film - neverending roads through cornfields, a dervish of dust like a mini tornado, tumbleweed, and, nearing the end of the journey, a transformation into lush green countryside, reminiscent, would you believe it, of English parkland (except bigger and with more rodeos). The mother and the father have a minor altercation concerning the safest route into the area, but the father triumphs in the end with the navigational support of Gloria the GPS. Our lodge sits on the outskirts of Yosemite with a balcony view of the foothills. On arrival we encounter an Australian perched behind a camera and tripod in anticipation of some evening hummingbirds. Just as in Carmel the evening before, the parental unit could have done without supper if it wasn't for a certain degree of dissent from the idiotic corner. We eat at a local restaurant/sports bar called the 'Hitchin Post', dipping a toe ever so tentatively into hicksville. The idiot's chef salad is the size of a weekly shop. The waitress examines the father in a concerned sort of way when he gives up on half his burger and chips. The first stage of the NBA final is on the widescreen TV above our heads (Miami Heat v. Dallas Mavericks). The idiot feigns excitement, claiming to have 'got into' basketball over the course of the year.
The next morning, after a solid breakfast at the lodge, we leave for Yosemite at 9am. The owners of the lodge ensure there is a vat of coffee on the kitchen table from 6am onwards; our get-up-and-go is humbled at the thought of those earlybirds. Although judging by the number of guests who also take a 'late' breakfast at the same time as us, I think the clouds may have discouraged even the enthusiasts. Yup, we only have one day in Yosemite, and it chooses to be cloudy.
Having paid our entry fee and entered the park we drive straight to Glacier Point, just in case the weather worsens over the course of the day. The father says that some landscapes are pleasing to the eye because they remind us, via some magical atavism, of the world experienced by our early-age relatives. Yosemite is y'know kinda like that. In a similar way to the idiot, I tend to adopt this silly idiom of slang when I see something beautiful and want to talk about it. One day we might grow out of this and learn to be proud of sincerity. But, for now, this is how I am going to describe the view from Glacier Point: god. damn. sexy.
Never before have I been so conscious of the impulse to contain memory; people look at Yosemite Falls through the screen of a digital camera more frequently than they look at Yosemite Falls. I'm not preaching, just sayin. I spend most of my time on Glacier Point thinking about how I am going to write about it later and what words I can use in what order, and how they might justify their existence.
After the 'tunnel view' and a few other stop offs we pause for a brief lunch in the village, during which time the rain starts. The bottom of Yosemite Falls nearly makes the mother burst into tears. We take more pictures of the family in front of the falls, pulling faces because there's nothing worth saying anymore. For some reason the idiot has come to love shitty weather (a circumstantial love after a year in Portland?) and Yosemite in the rain, to her, is the best thing in the world.
We listen to Elvis Radio, live from Graceland, on the hour-long drive out of the park. We drink red wine from Sonoma when we get back to the Lodge. Sandra Bullock romcom on the telly. Blah blah blah, I think I'm going to bugger off now and abandon this sloppy post.
Consette x
The next morning, after a solid breakfast at the lodge, we leave for Yosemite at 9am. The owners of the lodge ensure there is a vat of coffee on the kitchen table from 6am onwards; our get-up-and-go is humbled at the thought of those earlybirds. Although judging by the number of guests who also take a 'late' breakfast at the same time as us, I think the clouds may have discouraged even the enthusiasts. Yup, we only have one day in Yosemite, and it chooses to be cloudy.
Having paid our entry fee and entered the park we drive straight to Glacier Point, just in case the weather worsens over the course of the day. The father says that some landscapes are pleasing to the eye because they remind us, via some magical atavism, of the world experienced by our early-age relatives. Yosemite is y'know kinda like that. In a similar way to the idiot, I tend to adopt this silly idiom of slang when I see something beautiful and want to talk about it. One day we might grow out of this and learn to be proud of sincerity. But, for now, this is how I am going to describe the view from Glacier Point: god. damn. sexy.
Never before have I been so conscious of the impulse to contain memory; people look at Yosemite Falls through the screen of a digital camera more frequently than they look at Yosemite Falls. I'm not preaching, just sayin. I spend most of my time on Glacier Point thinking about how I am going to write about it later and what words I can use in what order, and how they might justify their existence.
After the 'tunnel view' and a few other stop offs we pause for a brief lunch in the village, during which time the rain starts. The bottom of Yosemite Falls nearly makes the mother burst into tears. We take more pictures of the family in front of the falls, pulling faces because there's nothing worth saying anymore. For some reason the idiot has come to love shitty weather (a circumstantial love after a year in Portland?) and Yosemite in the rain, to her, is the best thing in the world.
We listen to Elvis Radio, live from Graceland, on the hour-long drive out of the park. We drink red wine from Sonoma when we get back to the Lodge. Sandra Bullock romcom on the telly. Blah blah blah, I think I'm going to bugger off now and abandon this sloppy post.
Consette x
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Steinbeck
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Isabel who was told by her English teacher to read a book called The Pearl. Then she read Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, The Pastures of Heaven, Cannery Row, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley etc. Eventually, at the age of 17, she read a book called East of Eden. At 19 she chose to study American Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, favouring this degree over its English Lit counterpart on account of the compulsory year abroad in America. At the age of 21 she was allocated Reed College in the Pacific NW as her exchange school. Before leaving, she told her scholarship donor that reading The Pearl all those years ago was the butterfly wing which has since determined the trajectory of her life to date. With respect to this, she also told him that the only place in America she must and shall visit was to be Steinbeck's Salinas Valley, located approximately 100 miles south of San Francisco.
The parental unit, always keen to satisfy the idiot's various whims, therefore arrange an extravagant diversion to Salinas, Carmel and Monterey on their way to Yosemite. We start off in Salinas, which is something of a ghost town. Maybe it's the fault of Memorial Day. Salinas seems more functional than touristy, and indeed The Steinbeck Center in the square is pretty much the main event, an incongruity next to a multiplex cinema and a parade of pseudo-Mexican restaurants. The idiot attends to every exhibit with fevered concentration; the museum is arranged according to novel, as opposed to theme or chronology, and includes as much detailed information about the film adaptations as it does the writing. James Dean, John Malkovich, Gary Sinise - one can't complain. She spends near to three hours in there, emerging at last looking post-coital and flushed. From the museum we drive to the graveyard so the idiot can pay her respects. She sits firmly on the memorial stone and grins with thumbs up.
We are booked to stay in a motel-type inn affair in Carmel Valley. We pass the Corral de Tierra on the left side of the car, and, ignoring the road and the smell of petrol, she convinces herself that she is astride a horse in the opening chapter to The Pastures of Heaven, bearing down on sun slants and farmland and dust.
This is her poetic gaff, not mine.
The father a
nd the mother could quite happily miss out on a meal in the evening, but the idiot and I are having none of it. We end up in the best bar in the world, two minutes up the hill from our inn. It is quite literally the most American thing I have ever seen: actual men in checked shirts and braces sitting drinking (I hope) whiskey, a head shot of John Wayne on the wall, and spurred boots hanging from the ceiling. The idiot is in raptures. We order southern salads of black beans, sweetcorn, guacamole and chilli. The mother raises a sceptical eyebrow at her huevos rancheros.
On Day 2 of our road trip we spend the morning getting lost along the '17 mile drive' past Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove - a Bermuda Triangle of golf courses and vulgar real estate. Well, on one side anyway. I concede that the other side, the coastal side, is rather picturesque. My only complaint is that there are too many birds, meaning that the mother stops the car every few seconds and rushes outside with her binoculars around her neck, shouting "Peter! Peter! Oh you must see this." We complete our Steinbeck tour with a visit to Monterey, for tourist pics beneath Cannery Row. Monterey Bay Aquarium costs near-to $30 per person, but, while we mull it over, an amazing lady bumbles up to us proffering free entry for another party of 3 (completing her voucher for 6). We are inside within a matter of seconds, and the lady bumbles off again into the seahorse section and out of sight, the fairy godmother of overpriced aquarium access. "Yes, idiot, you shall go see the fishies."
Consette x
The parental unit, always keen to satisfy the idiot's various whims, therefore arrange an extravagant diversion to Salinas, Carmel and Monterey on their way to Yosemite. We start off in Salinas, which is something of a ghost town. Maybe it's the fault of Memorial Day. Salinas seems more functional than touristy, and indeed The Steinbeck Center in the square is pretty much the main event, an incongruity next to a multiplex cinema and a parade of pseudo-Mexican restaurants. The idiot attends to every exhibit with fevered concentration; the museum is arranged according to novel, as opposed to theme or chronology, and includes as much detailed information about the film adaptations as it does the writing. James Dean, John Malkovich, Gary Sinise - one can't complain. She spends near to three hours in there, emerging at last looking post-coital and flushed. From the museum we drive to the graveyard so the idiot can pay her respects. She sits firmly on the memorial stone and grins with thumbs up.
We are booked to stay in a motel-type inn affair in Carmel Valley. We pass the Corral de Tierra on the left side of the car, and, ignoring the road and the smell of petrol, she convinces herself that she is astride a horse in the opening chapter to The Pastures of Heaven, bearing down on sun slants and farmland and dust.
This is her poetic gaff, not mine.
The father a
nd the mother could quite happily miss out on a meal in the evening, but the idiot and I are having none of it. We end up in the best bar in the world, two minutes up the hill from our inn. It is quite literally the most American thing I have ever seen: actual men in checked shirts and braces sitting drinking (I hope) whiskey, a head shot of John Wayne on the wall, and spurred boots hanging from the ceiling. The idiot is in raptures. We order southern salads of black beans, sweetcorn, guacamole and chilli. The mother raises a sceptical eyebrow at her huevos rancheros.On Day 2 of our road trip we spend the morning getting lost along the '17 mile drive' past Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove - a Bermuda Triangle of golf courses and vulgar real estate. Well, on one side anyway. I concede that the other side, the coastal side, is rather picturesque. My only complaint is that there are too many birds, meaning that the mother stops the car every few seconds and rushes outside with her binoculars around her neck, shouting "Peter! Peter! Oh you must see this." We complete our Steinbeck tour with a visit to Monterey, for tourist pics beneath Cannery Row. Monterey Bay Aquarium costs near-to $30 per person, but, while we mull it over, an amazing lady bumbles up to us proffering free entry for another party of 3 (completing her voucher for 6). We are inside within a matter of seconds, and the lady bumbles off again into the seahorse section and out of sight, the fairy godmother of overpriced aquarium access. "Yes, idiot, you shall go see the fishies."
Consette x
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
SF
These final postings on the blog shall comprise a sort of epilogue, and, I apologise in advance, will be even more perfunctory than my most throwaway efforts to date. Consette is tired. Granted, my bad back has been less bad the last few days, but still, I am tired. Beyond this, though, it is weird to write about any other city than Portland. Part of me doesn't want to do it; I feel like I am committing a betrayal. Like Travels With Charley, this blog has ended before its ending. Here I offer you the lolloping death throes of my life's work, and maybe something to do with San Francisco along the way.
SIDEWALKS: The most noticeable difference between SF and PDX is the sidewalk breadth, respectively narrow/smelly vs. wide/clean/largely deserted.
PRIDE: We're here too early to witness the parade, but the rainbow flags adorn the edge of Market St in glorious anticipation. We spend our first afternoon wandering up and down Market - half asleep from the overnight train, but waking up as the mist burns away.
CITY LIGHTS: After a year of living in this country and pretending to know about it, the idiot decides that she has earned the right to be a tourist. City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Ave provides the first opportunity. She takes pictures from every angle, buys a HOWL cap and the slimmest Derrida she can find to honour the occasion. She is wary of buying anything more substantial in deference to the weight limitations on the plane home. As it is, a mere 100 pages of Positions has proven too taxing, and, a month or so later, she is yet to get beyond the first paragraph. After the bookstore we have a super strong coffee in Caffe Trieste just around the corner, served by some of the most truculent baristas we have ever encountered, no doubt pissed off that their neighbourhood secret was included in the 2008 Lonely Planet and has, ever since, suffered an infiltration of idiotic tourists. Too. Much. Business. SIGH.
COIT: Nice view innit.
THE SAN FRANCISCO WALK: Descending the hills from Coit Tower, the father splays his feet like a duck and waddles his way to level ground. The only way to do it without falling tit over arse.
CHINATOWN: Being an all-knowing Consette, I suggest a hidden little treasure off the beaten track where you can get the best dim sum in the city. But, being the idiotic LS contingent, they fall for the inevitable tourist trap. We are ushered off the street into an airy upstairs restaurant, where family after family of European visitors suck on soggy pot stickers and ask for bread to sop up the grease.
NOISE: This city is so noisy, and I bloody love it. Our hotel room is open to the noise of the thoroughfare. The fire engines announce their arrival with a banshee wail in the middle of the night, and all I want to do is base jump from the twenty-first floor and accost a fireman.
CABLE CARS: $5, but worth it.
MRS DOUBTFIRE: Can't stop hearing her voice.
SFMOMA: We p
ass a solid three hours in one exhibition alone. The Steins Collect not only boasts a clever title - is it a verb, a possessive, or an abbreviation of 'collective' (?) - but also the most comprehensive display of modern art that the idiot has ever seen. Gertrude is bit of a hero, but in terms of art dealings her brothers were just as impressive. Elsewhere in the museum, the idiot has an over-excited hernia when she spots Duchamp's toilet bowl. She is no gauge for quality, however, as the Mondrian cake in the cafe provokes just as much hysteria.
FISHERMAN'S WHARF: Delicious tack.
SEA LIONS ON PIER 39: We think at once of this poem by William Carlos Williams. Blouaugh indeed. All piled on top of each other like that, I'd imagine there's quite a lot of accidental rape. This would explain the exponential population growth. They smell of every dead fish in the sea and urine and general shit. The mother is fascinated by them, but the father, the idiot and I keep well back.
LITTLE ITALY: Not wanting to make the same mistake as the aforementioned Chinatown restaurant, we put some effort into finding a decent Italian restaurant along Columbus Ave. We settle on a thing the size of a shoebox, but the red wine at least gets the smack of approval from the father and the prawns earn a grin from the idiot.
HAIGHT AND CASTRO: The idiot makes the excursion all by herself, and returns with pictures of her feet next to the sidewalk name engravings. Haight for hippies, Castro for queers, she's really broadening her horizons at 9am in the morning.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM: We meet Reed friend Kerstin at The Cartoon Art Museum on Mission. It is great to see Reed people outside of Reed; meeting Kerstin proves that such crazy conjectures can become reality with a bit of effort.
LUNCH AT HOUSE OF NANKING: An excellent Chinese restaurant on the lip of Chinatown. In fact, not Chinatown at all, but on the dusty end of Kearny. The father turns a sceptical, hygienic eye to the kitchens, but the food which emerges is delicious. I eat the best chow mein of my life, which provides ample compensation for the Chinese fail of a few days before.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: At heinous expense we spend the final two hours of the day in the California Academy of Sciences, but could quite happily have set up camp in the swamp and whittled away an entire weekend there.
DINER MILKSHAKES: The idiot insists that the parental unit benefit from the diner experience before leaving the States. The father orders a banana milkshake so gargantuan that it requires two glasses. This does nothing to undo preconceptions about American eating habits.
BERKELEY: The idiot and I take a day trip to the Berkeley campus. Before leaving for her year abroad the idiot had promised her Berkeley friends (Olivia and Katie) that she would be visiting SF every other weekend. Of course she didn't visit once, and now feels it would only be right to take a look around in spite of their absence. Or indeed the absence of all students, it being the holidays. Berkeley is very different to Reed, which seems ever so small by comparison. The campus looks like the downsized model of an Italian city, and even has its own campanile; the carillon is played three times a day, and we are fortunate enough to be at the top of the tower for the midday performance.
CAMERA OBSCURA: A creepy little chamber below Cliff House where you can watch the waves in rotating upside-down black and white. There are holograms of faces and body parts all along the walls.
MUIR WOODS AND SONOMA WINE TASTING: Having abandoned pretensions of authenticity a long time ago, we take a tour bus to see the redwoods at Muir. Cue too many photographs of our cricked necks looking far up into the dappled canopy above. This is followed by three visits to pretty Sonoma wineries. Definitely woozy by the end of the day. We drive back over the Golden Gate bridge while the idiot ticks things off her life experience TO DO list. There are certain benefits to group tourism: one of the men has a Godfather Brooklyn accent so delectable I want to wrap it in a bow and take it back to England as a souvenir.
Consette x
SIDEWALKS: The most noticeable difference between SF and PDX is the sidewalk breadth, respectively narrow/smelly vs. wide/clean/largely deserted.
PRIDE: We're here too early to witness the parade, but the rainbow flags adorn the edge of Market St in glorious anticipation. We spend our first afternoon wandering up and down Market - half asleep from the overnight train, but waking up as the mist burns away.
CITY LIGHTS: After a year of living in this country and pretending to know about it, the idiot decides that she has earned the right to be a tourist. City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Ave provides the first opportunity. She takes pictures from every angle, buys a HOWL cap and the slimmest Derrida she can find to honour the occasion. She is wary of buying anything more substantial in deference to the weight limitations on the plane home. As it is, a mere 100 pages of Positions has proven too taxing, and, a month or so later, she is yet to get beyond the first paragraph. After the bookstore we have a super strong coffee in Caffe Trieste just around the corner, served by some of the most truculent baristas we have ever encountered, no doubt pissed off that their neighbourhood secret was included in the 2008 Lonely Planet and has, ever since, suffered an infiltration of idiotic tourists. Too. Much. Business. SIGH.
COIT: Nice view innit.
THE SAN FRANCISCO WALK: Descending the hills from Coit Tower, the father splays his feet like a duck and waddles his way to level ground. The only way to do it without falling tit over arse.
CHINATOWN: Being an all-knowing Consette, I suggest a hidden little treasure off the beaten track where you can get the best dim sum in the city. But, being the idiotic LS contingent, they fall for the inevitable tourist trap. We are ushered off the street into an airy upstairs restaurant, where family after family of European visitors suck on soggy pot stickers and ask for bread to sop up the grease.
NOISE: This city is so noisy, and I bloody love it. Our hotel room is open to the noise of the thoroughfare. The fire engines announce their arrival with a banshee wail in the middle of the night, and all I want to do is base jump from the twenty-first floor and accost a fireman.
CABLE CARS: $5, but worth it.
MRS DOUBTFIRE: Can't stop hearing her voice.
SFMOMA: We p
ass a solid three hours in one exhibition alone. The Steins Collect not only boasts a clever title - is it a verb, a possessive, or an abbreviation of 'collective' (?) - but also the most comprehensive display of modern art that the idiot has ever seen. Gertrude is bit of a hero, but in terms of art dealings her brothers were just as impressive. Elsewhere in the museum, the idiot has an over-excited hernia when she spots Duchamp's toilet bowl. She is no gauge for quality, however, as the Mondrian cake in the cafe provokes just as much hysteria.FISHERMAN'S WHARF: Delicious tack.
SEA LIONS ON PIER 39: We think at once of this poem by William Carlos Williams. Blouaugh indeed. All piled on top of each other like that, I'd imagine there's quite a lot of accidental rape. This would explain the exponential population growth. They smell of every dead fish in the sea and urine and general shit. The mother is fascinated by them, but the father, the idiot and I keep well back.
LITTLE ITALY: Not wanting to make the same mistake as the aforementioned Chinatown restaurant, we put some effort into finding a decent Italian restaurant along Columbus Ave. We settle on a thing the size of a shoebox, but the red wine at least gets the smack of approval from the father and the prawns earn a grin from the idiot.
HAIGHT AND CASTRO: The idiot makes the excursion all by herself, and returns with pictures of her feet next to the sidewalk name engravings. Haight for hippies, Castro for queers, she's really broadening her horizons at 9am in the morning.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM: We meet Reed friend Kerstin at The Cartoon Art Museum on Mission. It is great to see Reed people outside of Reed; meeting Kerstin proves that such crazy conjectures can become reality with a bit of effort.
LUNCH AT HOUSE OF NANKING: An excellent Chinese restaurant on the lip of Chinatown. In fact, not Chinatown at all, but on the dusty end of Kearny. The father turns a sceptical, hygienic eye to the kitchens, but the food which emerges is delicious. I eat the best chow mein of my life, which provides ample compensation for the Chinese fail of a few days before.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: At heinous expense we spend the final two hours of the day in the California Academy of Sciences, but could quite happily have set up camp in the swamp and whittled away an entire weekend there.
DINER MILKSHAKES: The idiot insists that the parental unit benefit from the diner experience before leaving the States. The father orders a banana milkshake so gargantuan that it requires two glasses. This does nothing to undo preconceptions about American eating habits.
BERKELEY: The idiot and I take a day trip to the Berkeley campus. Before leaving for her year abroad the idiot had promised her Berkeley friends (Olivia and Katie) that she would be visiting SF every other weekend. Of course she didn't visit once, and now feels it would only be right to take a look around in spite of their absence. Or indeed the absence of all students, it being the holidays. Berkeley is very different to Reed, which seems ever so small by comparison. The campus looks like the downsized model of an Italian city, and even has its own campanile; the carillon is played three times a day, and we are fortunate enough to be at the top of the tower for the midday performance.
CAMERA OBSCURA: A creepy little chamber below Cliff House where you can watch the waves in rotating upside-down black and white. There are holograms of faces and body parts all along the walls.
MUIR WOODS AND SONOMA WINE TASTING: Having abandoned pretensions of authenticity a long time ago, we take a tour bus to see the redwoods at Muir. Cue too many photographs of our cricked necks looking far up into the dappled canopy above. This is followed by three visits to pretty Sonoma wineries. Definitely woozy by the end of the day. We drive back over the Golden Gate bridge while the idiot ticks things off her life experience TO DO list. There are certain benefits to group tourism: one of the men has a Godfather Brooklyn accent so delectable I want to wrap it in a bow and take it back to England as a souvenir.
Consette x
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Starlight
Leaving Reed on the Tuesday happens far too soon and all at once: wake up, complete the pack, bid farewell to room, return key, stagger to bus stop with luggage, and, for the first time ever, watch a bus arrive at the exact time it said it would arrive. As with most things, the event itself (of departure) is mundane. No tears or nothing, just a quick glance back at Eliot Hall as the bus moves off. The idiot sets a determined jaw. Onwards.
We meet the parental unit at the hotel and taxi multiple suitcases to the Amtrak station, where a 'red cap' porter who looks like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine helps the idiot redistribute the weight in her luggage so that all items measure less than 50 pounds. Unlike me, she has never learnt to travel light. How many times in this blog have I started a sentence with the words, "Being imaginary, I can ...", followed by the various liberties open to a person of imaginary status? Well, whatever, here's another. Being imaginary, I can travel with the proverbial kitchen sink on my back, and no one gives a monkeys.
Our train is scheduled for 14.30, so we leave our luggage in the sleeper car lounge and catch another taxi to the West Hills where the Dubays have invited us for lunch. It is rather luxurious spending time with the parental unit when taxis are the standard means of transportation. The idiot grumbles at them for failing at frugality, but at the same time is thankful for not having to rely on the Portland bus (dis)service. I have mentioned the Dubays a few times in this blog, but now must reiterate the extent of their generosity and kindness towards the idiot. Some friends of the parental unit in Somerset handed out the Dubays' address before she left for Portland last August. Since their first dinner invitation in October, they have been nothing but exceptional. This final Tuesday morning is the only available time the parental unit and the Dubays can meet, and in the end it serves as quite a nice segue into the slow return home. And by 'home', I mean England home. The Dubays comprise at least one pre-existing link between Portland, OR, and Somerset, UK - a link to which the idiot can now contribute. Inga also has a strong connection with Reed, as she was a pupil and colleague of the famous calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds (cf. Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford). Joe was a math(s) Professor at Harvard. Taking us on a tour of their house, Inga points out Joe's Phi Beta Kappa certificate displayed on the wall. A fearsomely impressive couple. After lunch they drive us to the station and give the idiot the squeeziest goodbye hug in the world.
I face forwards on the Coast Starlight, in the direction of California, while the idiot faces back to catch every last glimpse of Portland. About an hour or so into the journey she requests a symbolic swap, and I take her seat and she takes mine. We listen to Morricone on the ipod with one earphone each. Neither of us have ever experienced a sleeper train before; the retractable bunk bed instigates a small round of applause. In addition to the sleeper car, the train has an arcade car, a cinema car, and a viewing car (floor length windows to watch Oregon turn into California). We spot Crater Lake from a distance. At 4pm there is cheese and wine tasting in the lounge car, hosted by conductor Gary, and the mother, the idiot and I attend with gusto. Then we have steak and red wine for dinner in the restaurant car. Then we sleep off some of that end-of-semester exhaustion as the train rocks across the border. Then we wake up firmly in CA and eat a 6am breakfast before arrival. Then we lose the faculty to form sentences more than a few words long and begin everything with 'then'.
Although we have not travelled to San Francisco by foot, the 13 hour train journey is somehow more faithful to the space/time continuum than a 2 hour whizz on the plane. I am for the first time compelled to say, "shittinghell, this country is BIG."
Consette x
We meet the parental unit at the hotel and taxi multiple suitcases to the Amtrak station, where a 'red cap' porter who looks like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine helps the idiot redistribute the weight in her luggage so that all items measure less than 50 pounds. Unlike me, she has never learnt to travel light. How many times in this blog have I started a sentence with the words, "Being imaginary, I can ...", followed by the various liberties open to a person of imaginary status? Well, whatever, here's another. Being imaginary, I can travel with the proverbial kitchen sink on my back, and no one gives a monkeys.
Our train is scheduled for 14.30, so we leave our luggage in the sleeper car lounge and catch another taxi to the West Hills where the Dubays have invited us for lunch. It is rather luxurious spending time with the parental unit when taxis are the standard means of transportation. The idiot grumbles at them for failing at frugality, but at the same time is thankful for not having to rely on the Portland bus (dis)service. I have mentioned the Dubays a few times in this blog, but now must reiterate the extent of their generosity and kindness towards the idiot. Some friends of the parental unit in Somerset handed out the Dubays' address before she left for Portland last August. Since their first dinner invitation in October, they have been nothing but exceptional. This final Tuesday morning is the only available time the parental unit and the Dubays can meet, and in the end it serves as quite a nice segue into the slow return home. And by 'home', I mean England home. The Dubays comprise at least one pre-existing link between Portland, OR, and Somerset, UK - a link to which the idiot can now contribute. Inga also has a strong connection with Reed, as she was a pupil and colleague of the famous calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds (cf. Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford). Joe was a math(s) Professor at Harvard. Taking us on a tour of their house, Inga points out Joe's Phi Beta Kappa certificate displayed on the wall. A fearsomely impressive couple. After lunch they drive us to the station and give the idiot the squeeziest goodbye hug in the world.
I face forwards on the Coast Starlight, in the direction of California, while the idiot faces back to catch every last glimpse of Portland. About an hour or so into the journey she requests a symbolic swap, and I take her seat and she takes mine. We listen to Morricone on the ipod with one earphone each. Neither of us have ever experienced a sleeper train before; the retractable bunk bed instigates a small round of applause. In addition to the sleeper car, the train has an arcade car, a cinema car, and a viewing car (floor length windows to watch Oregon turn into California). We spot Crater Lake from a distance. At 4pm there is cheese and wine tasting in the lounge car, hosted by conductor Gary, and the mother, the idiot and I attend with gusto. Then we have steak and red wine for dinner in the restaurant car. Then we sleep off some of that end-of-semester exhaustion as the train rocks across the border. Then we wake up firmly in CA and eat a 6am breakfast before arrival. Then we lose the faculty to form sentences more than a few words long and begin everything with 'then'.
Although we have not travelled to San Francisco by foot, the 13 hour train journey is somehow more faithful to the space/time continuum than a 2 hour whizz on the plane. I am for the first time compelled to say, "shittinghell, this country is BIG."
Consette x
Monday, 18 July 2011
Commencement
Consette has an inappropriate and wholly consuming crush on President Colin. If any further evidence were needed to justify this, his introductory 'woohhooooo!' at the Reed Commencement Ceremony is nothing short of the sexiest thing ever. He follows the 'woohhooooo!' with an extended analogy between himself and the Queen of England, both of them, indeed, at the head of a large unruly family who attract a lot of attention from the press. The official commencement address from a Reed alumna seems rather anodyne and over-earnest by comparison.
The idiot et al decide at the last minute to tart it up for Commencement. I am always immaculately turned out, but seeing the idiot in a dress is a little unnerving. When she was 11 her elder brother so delicately informed her that she had "legs like tree trunks". Oh well, they need an airing sometime. Although you can wear whatever you so desire at Reed events, and although President Colin sets the tone of informal celebration with his opening 'remark', Commencement still projects a certain sense of gravitas. Bagpipes accompany the procession, for goodness sake. The programme alone, containing every single thesis title for every single 2010-11 senior, attests to the formidable body of work these guys have to complete before graduating. For some this is the most important Reed ritual they will take part in, or at least a close second after the bonfire at Thesis Parade. So yeah, put on a dress you goddam slacker exchange student, and show your respect.
The graduating class, on the other hand, conceal a whole load of garish undergarments beneath those robes. One bloke flashes a pair of stars and stripes skin-tight briefs when he receives his diploma. The applause is raucous, and the audience yells and whoops at the seniors as they shake Colin's hand. Some get cheers so loud that you have to feel sorry for the person behind them. It is customary to give the President a gift as he gives you your diploma: there are many feather boas, and one girl boasts a moose head bust.
The champagne reception is held in the Quad. The day is grey and drizzly, but thank goodness there's a marquee. The food on offer is basically just the biggest cheese plate you ever saw. I eat four slices of Brie Pie, and hail the completely astounding human being who thought of spreading jam over cheese and wrapping it in pastry. Once stuffed, we make our excuses and return to the dorm to complete our packing. The room must be left immaculate, otherwise the powers that be knock dollars quite arbitrarily off your deposit. The idiot delegates tasks, and I spend 2 hours trying to remove a pasting of dried ginger ale and glitter from the floor - nostalgic residue from Renn Fayre. Later we meet up with some of the others in the French House and, after much deliberation, decide what to do on the final evening. We want to go the best restaurant and have the best memories and drink at the best bar etc etc, to guarantee the greatest and saddest night possible. But in the end the pressure to have fun is too stressful. We choose at random a very pleasant restaurant called The Grain and Gristle in Northeast Portland, for muffalettas and cider. A muffaletta is a New Orleans sandwich of focaccia, olives, pickled veg, ham, cured meats, and emmental. From there we go to the Doug Fir for the graduation party, and the idiot bids farewell to a series of formative friendships, some of which might have turned into something good with more time to prove. By prove, I mean prove like bread dough - double in size. She drunkenly invites everyone to England to stay in her AmericanEnglish Commune (ie. the house of the parental unit).
The after party at the Spanish House is subdued. Justine brings out tubs of Ben & Jerry's and we eat in almost-silence. On saying goodbye to them all - Aurore, Febee, Justine, Aaron and Lucia - the idiot apologies for not being able to cry in front of people. Walking home, though, I am embarrassed by her sobs and am forced to avert my eyes.
Consette x
The idiot et al decide at the last minute to tart it up for Commencement. I am always immaculately turned out, but seeing the idiot in a dress is a little unnerving. When she was 11 her elder brother so delicately informed her that she had "legs like tree trunks". Oh well, they need an airing sometime. Although you can wear whatever you so desire at Reed events, and although President Colin sets the tone of informal celebration with his opening 'remark', Commencement still projects a certain sense of gravitas. Bagpipes accompany the procession, for goodness sake. The programme alone, containing every single thesis title for every single 2010-11 senior, attests to the formidable body of work these guys have to complete before graduating. For some this is the most important Reed ritual they will take part in, or at least a close second after the bonfire at Thesis Parade. So yeah, put on a dress you goddam slacker exchange student, and show your respect.
The graduating class, on the other hand, conceal a whole load of garish undergarments beneath those robes. One bloke flashes a pair of stars and stripes skin-tight briefs when he receives his diploma. The applause is raucous, and the audience yells and whoops at the seniors as they shake Colin's hand. Some get cheers so loud that you have to feel sorry for the person behind them. It is customary to give the President a gift as he gives you your diploma: there are many feather boas, and one girl boasts a moose head bust.
The champagne reception is held in the Quad. The day is grey and drizzly, but thank goodness there's a marquee. The food on offer is basically just the biggest cheese plate you ever saw. I eat four slices of Brie Pie, and hail the completely astounding human being who thought of spreading jam over cheese and wrapping it in pastry. Once stuffed, we make our excuses and return to the dorm to complete our packing. The room must be left immaculate, otherwise the powers that be knock dollars quite arbitrarily off your deposit. The idiot delegates tasks, and I spend 2 hours trying to remove a pasting of dried ginger ale and glitter from the floor - nostalgic residue from Renn Fayre. Later we meet up with some of the others in the French House and, after much deliberation, decide what to do on the final evening. We want to go the best restaurant and have the best memories and drink at the best bar etc etc, to guarantee the greatest and saddest night possible. But in the end the pressure to have fun is too stressful. We choose at random a very pleasant restaurant called The Grain and Gristle in Northeast Portland, for muffalettas and cider. A muffaletta is a New Orleans sandwich of focaccia, olives, pickled veg, ham, cured meats, and emmental. From there we go to the Doug Fir for the graduation party, and the idiot bids farewell to a series of formative friendships, some of which might have turned into something good with more time to prove. By prove, I mean prove like bread dough - double in size. She drunkenly invites everyone to England to stay in her AmericanEnglish Commune (ie. the house of the parental unit).
The after party at the Spanish House is subdued. Justine brings out tubs of Ben & Jerry's and we eat in almost-silence. On saying goodbye to them all - Aurore, Febee, Justine, Aaron and Lucia - the idiot apologies for not being able to cry in front of people. Walking home, though, I am embarrassed by her sobs and am forced to avert my eyes.
Consette x
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Finals
As you can gather from the previous post, 'Finals' week at Reed was largely spent entertaining the parental unit, but, in her few spare hours - at night and early morn - the idiot put everything into seeing her friends. I say 'Finals' in inverted commas because the idiot had, in fact, handed in her final paper on the Monday, therefore leaving an entire week of freedom to say goodbye.
GIANMARCO: The first friend she made all they way back in August Orientations, and, in concordance with this, also the first to leave. They promise they will see each other again - but England being where it is, and Venezuela being where it is, this is all merely chat and hope.
THE 'JUST REALLY TIRED PARTY': After the parents' first day of sightseeing, an informal party is held in the Spanish House to bid farewell to Liana. The idiot ends up falling asleep in her chair, practically dribbling, with a glass precariously balanced on her knee. Falls victim to Aurore's camera of doom.
FRENCH HOUSE PARTY: Advertised as a second mini Renn Fayre, complete with a set of Stop Making Sense in the basement at 2am. We come across some old UEA students who had done the 06/07 Reed exchange. This is weird for the idiot: one of them now lives in Portland, and the other is marrying a girl he met whilst at Reed. I notice the idiot looking all thoughtful - a dangerous 70% of her desperately wants to stay in America. I remain at the party well into the early hours, but the idiot peels off early too sad and tearful to talk to anyone anymore.
MORELAND-SELLWOOD RUN: The gym has arsey opening hours during Finals Week, so we (yes - WE - Consette inclusive) take to running a roundabout route to 17th Avenue and back, opening up views of the city blocks in sunlight we had not seen before. 7 in the morning is a concept that should be explored with more regularity.
TRULY REVOLTING FRED MEYER DINNER: The parental unit seem to be shocked at the amount of meals the idiot can eat in a day (TWO), of course blaming America for this supposed change in stomach capacity. They frequently opt to miss out on supper while the idiot and I are left to fend for ourselves, thus prompting a peruse through the buffet salad bar at Fred Meyer on a Sunday night. The olives taste of metal, but even FM gives me reason to feel sad. So many memories.
KERSTIN'S BIO NOTES: In freshman year, Kerstin Espinosa Rosero took the most beautiful notes for biology class, which, four years later, she accidentally brings into Film Theory. The idiot sees them and falls in love: intricate diagrams of photosynthesis and zygotes and what-have-you. Kerstin, being the fabulous human being that she is, offers us these notes as a leaving present.
RIBS: Amazing freshman Lizzie makes ribs in the Sequoia kitchen on our penultimate evening. Kansas City Sauce. Mess. Goodbyes to the dorm, a lovely lot.
PACKING: All Sunday night. I refuse to help her on account of the backache. In the end the room looks so incredibly depressing we cannot stand to sleep in it.
Consette x
GIANMARCO: The first friend she made all they way back in August Orientations, and, in concordance with this, also the first to leave. They promise they will see each other again - but England being where it is, and Venezuela being where it is, this is all merely chat and hope.
THE 'JUST REALLY TIRED PARTY': After the parents' first day of sightseeing, an informal party is held in the Spanish House to bid farewell to Liana. The idiot ends up falling asleep in her chair, practically dribbling, with a glass precariously balanced on her knee. Falls victim to Aurore's camera of doom.
FRENCH HOUSE PARTY: Advertised as a second mini Renn Fayre, complete with a set of Stop Making Sense in the basement at 2am. We come across some old UEA students who had done the 06/07 Reed exchange. This is weird for the idiot: one of them now lives in Portland, and the other is marrying a girl he met whilst at Reed. I notice the idiot looking all thoughtful - a dangerous 70% of her desperately wants to stay in America. I remain at the party well into the early hours, but the idiot peels off early too sad and tearful to talk to anyone anymore.
MORELAND-SELLWOOD RUN: The gym has arsey opening hours during Finals Week, so we (yes - WE - Consette inclusive) take to running a roundabout route to 17th Avenue and back, opening up views of the city blocks in sunlight we had not seen before. 7 in the morning is a concept that should be explored with more regularity.
TRULY REVOLTING FRED MEYER DINNER: The parental unit seem to be shocked at the amount of meals the idiot can eat in a day (TWO), of course blaming America for this supposed change in stomach capacity. They frequently opt to miss out on supper while the idiot and I are left to fend for ourselves, thus prompting a peruse through the buffet salad bar at Fred Meyer on a Sunday night. The olives taste of metal, but even FM gives me reason to feel sad. So many memories.
KERSTIN'S BIO NOTES: In freshman year, Kerstin Espinosa Rosero took the most beautiful notes for biology class, which, four years later, she accidentally brings into Film Theory. The idiot sees them and falls in love: intricate diagrams of photosynthesis and zygotes and what-have-you. Kerstin, being the fabulous human being that she is, offers us these notes as a leaving present.
RIBS: Amazing freshman Lizzie makes ribs in the Sequoia kitchen on our penultimate evening. Kansas City Sauce. Mess. Goodbyes to the dorm, a lovely lot.
PACKING: All Sunday night. I refuse to help her on account of the backache. In the end the room looks so incredibly depressing we cannot stand to sleep in it.
Consette x
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