august pt. 1
august
- work shit
- chores
- himalayan blackberry
- loungers
- plastic blocks, pixel cards
- ‘za
- folklore
- avatar
- fixed stars
- wildness
- mania (bonus track)
1. work shit
It’s not nuclear level. It’s not as bad as it could be. But it still pours into all the corners of the day — I could be wringing out my hair after a shower, or pressing my nose into Miso’s flank, or watching TV. I question myself, feel the weight and lack of air, schedule last-minute therapy.
2. chores
vacuumed, clean the kitchen, washed my car, washed my desk mat, tended to cut flowers, sorted my recyclable plastic films and bags, made brownies from a box, made strawberry popsicles with sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, made blackberry popsicles, ran a bit
3. himalayan blackberry
one day our friend e pointed out that we have himalayan blackberries, which are invasive and thorny but, well, also blackberries. i had noticed them when i was pulling dead, crackly leaves from a fern along our driveway. i didn’t know if it was a weed or a neighbor’s plant, but the arms were thorny and it grew so fast. now we notice them cluster, poke through the roses, the evergreens. a branch stops growing when it fruits. how does it know when?
this weekend, i dragged so many vines to the compost. i de-thorn, pull by the delicate leaves, shear the stalks. they wound so intricately through the rose bush, in a bit of a disguise.
i discovered my new enemy: a woody, brittle, dry weed with wavy, thin arms. it’s approximately the shape of a wool dryer ball, but with long branches as thin and flexible as fishbone. it’s a perfect, awful pair with spiny plumeless thistle, which grows taller and taller through the woody cage, erupting in hypodermic-needle spines.
i tried to search for my enemy online, but there are so many types of weeds, so many different kinds of plants that multiply with every whisk and soft puff.
now i scan the side of the house, the perimeter of our backyard, and scrutinize how many vines persist.
j brings a bowl outside and walks underneath a cluster of vines, to pick blackberries.
4. loungers
lounged outside in the shade on warm days, blissful without the oppressive humidity or the bugs; fuck bugs. filled a dog pool and sat in the cold water.
5. plastic blocks, pixel cards
t brought me a shiba petit block from daiso, like a lego kit, assembling a pixel shiba. it’s satisfying, the clacks and the neat lines. i put down my embroidery and haven’t picked it up since. i’ve assembled a few more dogs, a pastel ice cream cone.
now i spend hours playing slay the spire, much to j’s delight. i can’t believe it, but it’s pulled me away from ACNH (the villagers seem faraway, a small star in a lavender galaxy). it feels like tapping into the live wire of an arcade game, a crescendo of quick slashes if you’re in the mood, or a patient, measured game if you’d rather.
6. ‘za
when quara began, the library immediately shuttered its doors and refused returns. it was sad and stunning, but that meant i got to keep a maangchi cookbook and several local zines for months. the portland libraries, of course, have dedicated sections to zines; it was a happy discovery.
one particular zine is ’za the pizza zine, which holds interviews with pizza makers and pizza stans, and reviews exploring the pizza shops across portland, with notes on the crust, toppings, and sauce, and ratings. i wrote my own notes of the top pizzas they covered in NE and SE and was disappointed to find the top ones either don’t deliver or are closed. i’ve been determined to find an alternative pick to pizza jerk, which is j’s GOAT now, but which ’za rates 4.5/5 (“pricey, but high quality”), and which i find a little too salty, even if the flavor profile is complex and the toppings choices are excellent. we’ve tried several places, most recently the 1905 (4.25/5, ’za): plus for the fresh mozz, coppa, sauce, and chewy, bubbly crust; minus for straight-out-of-a-can pineapple (why not sear or caramelize it, at least?).
after reading, i wanted to buy a copy, but the website hasn’t been updated in a couple years, no copies available. it’s a relic, in a sense.
7. folklore
It wasn’t until 1989 that her music really intertwined into my synapses. I made fun of reputation at first, the whole gothic-letter goth-teen newsprint like an aughts fanpage banner, the Kimye dispute, but I learned to love the pop there too. Lover was a late-summer gift after we moved to Portland, a soundtrack to our heatwave days, our car trips.
I still feel like I could cry during “Lover”; the honeymoon and every day after. A ballad of small moments.
It also reminds me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go; the lovers embracing, despite what comes after.
Can I go
where
you
go?Can we always
be
this
close
forever and ever?
“The Archer” reminds me of all of the selves I saw last year.
It reminds me of being alone, feeling fragile, transparently in grief.
And I cut off
my nose just to spite my face
Then I hate my reflection
for years and years
But there’s also the rising wave of her voice, how she declares she is ready for combat, and “you could stay”; whether it’s her lover, or herself.
So: folklore. It might be my favorite yet. It glitters. It’s organic. It’s soft. It has Bon Iver on it, which was probably a mistake because it’s a Bon Iver song with Taylor Swift lyrics and his voice is a weird blare in contrast, with another slice of weird country-nation-military metaphors, but then there are songs like “mirrorball” (shimmery, golden, pure magic; my beloved), “seven” (a sad fairytale), “august” (a touch of ‘90s Cranberries, Beach House, “salt air” and sand and waves). There’s that famous teenage love triangle, which I’m tempted to make a PowerPoint for, but I’m also certain one exists already. The songs often overlap and touch, to the point where I begin to believe they are all about versions of the same woman, though I know they are not. The infidelities, the “faithless love,” the haunting, the ghost, the mad woman, the ruinous woman, the illicit woman, the girl with a summer love, the girl in a cardigan.