End of the trail

I've arrived in Portland, land of Lewis and Clark, bicycles, rain, beer and doughnuts. Yesterday I did the big drive from San Francisco with three craigslist passengers named Brock, Bochay and Marta. It was a great trip, but began with a fair amount of tragedy. I picked up two of the people at the corner of 16th and Mission and while we were reorganizing the trunk I put a rolled up drawing on the top of the car. We finished packing and got into the car and drove away. It wasn't until the tires hit Oakland that I realized that the drawing was no longer in the car. I was horrified and called every person I knew that could have been within 20 blocks of that corner-- but really, it could have fallen off anywhere. My friend Georgia biked there three hours later, and Anna texted me and said she took a walk down the street too. No drawing. I told Marta, Brock and Bochay that we needed to just not talk about it for awhile. Three songs into the car ride and, surprisingly, I was over it. I guess I figure that everyone suffers losses so much more serious than this one. It was a drawing that I had spent a lot of time on, but it was also just a drawing. I can make another one, and maybe I can do it better. I'm attached to the objects that I make, but I'm also in school right now-- the whole point of school is the making of things. The things aren't so important until later. I'm pretty sad about it, but at least it will be a good story. Maybe I can do a drawing of what I imagine happened to the drawing.

I'm in Portland now and finding it hard to find computers to write on this blog, but am busy-ing around with quick friend visits. It was misting this morning, a typical Portland morning. I woke up, picked up Kerst and we returned cans and bottles at Fred Meyer. We made 5 bucks and then went to get some lunch with our steep earnings on Hawthorne. Randi and I met up and went to the bins, where I got a lot of really great small plastic animals including a small army of anteaters and aardvarks. I went over to Maggies house and had tea and gossiped for awhile. Sally and Heather came over, we cooked a delicious cornmeal-crust pizza and took a walk to get some icecream for sundaes. I went to Kerst and Lydias house where we gossiped more and relayed updates. I'm at Emmets house now, where a feverish game of Taboo is being played. I'm exhausted and made a pathetic attempt at playing-- on my turn I only made one point (I got stuck on the word "wind-chill"). It's time to lay my head down.