Sun-day mor-ning

Last night and today were great! A dinner party that I originally thought was just going to be five people, but somewhere-somehow along the way it morphed into twelve. Cara had a friend visiting from L.A., and Laura's cousin was visiting from Montana, and then Cara's freshman year roommate showed up with two other Reed alumni, and then Savannah (another spring-fall senior) appeared with her man, and and and... well, the more the merrier! Matt was cooking that night and fortunately he made porcini-sausage-potato soup (an enormous pot of it still sits in our fridge and I've had two bowls today and counting), sauteed tuna steaks and cod rolled in hazelnut crumbs. Mmmmdelicious. I like this traditional saturday night dinner congregation we have going on. We've had people over for dinner every Saturday ever since we got back from Ecuador (almost two months now--where does the time go? I mean, I know it FLIES, but where does it GO?). I like it. I like the feelings of New Orleans-ish hospitality.

Everyone ended up sleeping on our floor. I guess I'm an early riser because I was up for ages before everyone else came downstairs. Corey made johnnycakes (pancakes with cornmuffin mix) and we made ghetto coffee, which involves a paper towel, tupperware and the microwave set on High. I got to talk to Corey's grandfather for a brief bit on the phone this morning. He has a sweet Cajun accent. He talked about how when he was sixteen he had eighteen girlfriends, or maybe how when he was eighteen he had sixteen gilfriends, and asked when I was going to come visit. Soon, hopefully?

We'd originally planned on going to the Bybee Hot Springs, but we got off to too late of a start, so instead we ended up going to Multnomah Falls, which is just as nice.

Not many mushrooms around, surprisingly, despite how wet and misty it was.

Some sad things have happened to some people who are close to me in the past two weeks. As I said to Cara, "It's just one thing after another, isn't it?" Another phrase I've become very fond of repeating is "Que drama." As well as a Colombian saying, "Que lio," which I'm not sure how to translate.

My mother and younger brother get here tomorrow. I have Monday and Tuesday off of work because of Veteran's day (Monday is a planning/meeting day for the teachers, or a puente as we called them in Colombia. It's kind of nice, I guess, though it basically means I won't be making money.

I've read "Persepolis" and "Watchmen" in Powell's the past week. "Watchmen" was great. "Persepolis" didn't grab me as much as I expected it to... maybe just because I've heard a lot of great things about it. Maybe if I go downtown tomorrow I'll continue the comic-books-on-days-off trend and read "Preacher"? Graphic novels are good books to read when I have a limited reading session because I tend to go through them very quickly ("Watchmen" took two sessions, "Persepolis" one).

I also read "The Dogs of Babel," a very engaging read written by a Wesleyan alumn(na? ni? whatevs, grammar police). It was just one of those books that you look forward to reading because it's easy to slip into the narrator's voice, so you make the extra effort to remember to put the book in your pack each morning so you can read it on the bus. I need to go to the central library to pick up the books I have on hold for me there (Orwell's "Burmese Days" and another one... can't remember what).

I'm supposedly reading "Ulysses" right now... but that's definitely a book that you just don't carry around to casually dip into from time to time. "Ulysses" expects dates, appointments. Your full mental attention. I've liked the first chapter so far, with all those ocean and water references. It makes me feel all smart and schtuff, like "oh yeah, I get the parallels with 'The Odyssey' here! Wine-dark sea and all that y'know, bitcheeeez." I love books where characters from other novels reappear (HI STEVEN!!). I love the whole small self-contained literary universe (YEAH SANTA MARÍA THEEZIZ REPREZENT). In that vein, the next book I definitely want to read is Bolano's latest opus. At least, it's his latest considering that it's his last. 'Cause he's dead. And stuff. I also need to track down the list of books I made in Ecuador to read that people recommended to me. Like Phillip K. Dick. I need to start making things-to-read lists again so that I'll have it clear in my mind what to get when I go to the library!

Today Cara told me that my ex-boyfriend asks about me every time he sees her. BOY THAT MADE ME FEEL WEIRD. When we got home from the falls I watched "Fargo" on youtube with my headphones while Corey played some online poker and listened to country music on pandora (my new favorite song is officially "Red Dirt Road"). Maybe these two things ("Fargo" and Caras comment) explain my somewhat ambivalent emotions towards the human race in general right now. Or maybe I'm just cross because I want to floss my teeth.

I wanted to write a post about how creepy/mildly fascinating it is to have such privileged, behind-the-scenes access to Obama's family (especially his daughters), but maybe instead of just writing a whole post about it, I'll just say that it's creepy. And yet mildly fascinating.