#anyways this is cuz my mom made something with a lot of sesame in it

[bread-of-death]

Why does sesame make me gag??

Like the smell of it & the taste of it

I mean gagging is an overstatement, but it makes me feel sick and I don’t want to breathe near it lol

[boggirlsummer]

LAZY DOG DAYS IN PORTLAND

Zoey and I just spent a week in Portland with her fam before starting the Oregon Coast Trail (my foot is mostly ok!). Her mom drove out from Missouri in her converted van and rented an Airbnb for the month of July + her dad flew out for the week, so it was a party. I slept in the van which was surprisingly cozy and all around a fun experience. One night I peed on a telephone pole like a dog and every morning I emerged from the back of the van feeling like a little gremlin. If this were any other city the neighbors might be disturbed but this is fucking Portland. Thanks for hosting us Kari!!!!!

Highlights from our time in the city of roses:

I rented a bike for the week and it was love at first sight. It was an aluminum PURPLE Trek with flat handlebars and a rear rack and a Prince sticker. My purple prince bike!! After some online research I determined that it was a 1992 model frame in the color “Sour Grape”. Zoey and I rode everywhere all week and this bike made me feel like the city biking girl I always dreamed I would be. Hills and bridges and errands were no match for us!

All of the things that suck about biking were solved with this bike. My #1 annoyance is locking up - it’s a pain in the ass to get a U lock around all the important stuff and I hate digging my key out of my bag when I’m hot and sweaty and juggling a bunch of shit and I look like I’ve never locked up a bike in my life and I feel like everyone is STARING AT ME. I always expect some random man to come up and ask if I need help which gets my cortisol pumping and then I fumble with the lock even more because I ACTUALLY DON’T NEED HELP! It’s like when old guys try to help me parallel park before I’ve even started, like they can smell a woman thinking about parallel parking, like sharks and period blood. Yes, I did fail that part of the driving test but that’s only because there was no such thing as parallel parking where I grew up. My dad had to put a railroad tie down in our yard for me to practice on. But after living in LA for 4+ years I can parallel park with the best of em, as you might know if you’ve ever been my passenger. I can even parallel park a moving van! Without help! So ya, when an old white guy sticks his head in my window while I’m trying to park I just roll that shit up. It makes them mad which makes me laugh. Yes, I actually CAN choose to disengage at any time!! But thank you for the help kind sir!

Anyway, I know it’s really dumb but I’m legitimately trying to buy this bike and have the bike shop ship it to Berkeley for me. I left my contact information for the shop owner and I plan on following up until I get an answer. I need this bike. This bike is my destiny. Phone zap alert!!! Please contact Everybody’s Bike Rentals in Portland and encourage them to sell me this bike (503) 358-0152. Oh also, the solution to the locking up problem is to put your bike key on a stretchy bracelet thing and wear it around your wrist at all times.

My steed

One morning we went on a self-guided donut bike tour and hit Pip’s Original Doughnuts and Chai, Coco Donuts, and Sesame Donuts. We planned to visit NOLA as well but we were too sugared up :/ If we had gone to Sesame first I would have had a drink off their Red Bull menu. Does anybody know what the deal is with Red Bull here?? Every coffee shop in this state sells Red Bull-based concoctions and as a recent RB addict I am HERE for it.

In the middle of our ride we went thrifting and I bought a sweater y’all are about to see a lot of… I call it my purple grape sweater cuz yeah! it’s purple and it says something punny about Oregon wine country, like “Wine of a Time.” I unfortunately don’t remember what it actually says and I had to mail it home but I’ll circle back. It also seriously smells like grapes (ask Zoey!). Can anybody recommend a grape perfume? I read online that Lady Gaga’s perfume is pretty close. I’m on a purple kick right now.

We also went on a sunset and moonrise group ride to a “mystery” destination which was so fun. Why is “secret” stuff so exciting?? Can it be cool without being gate-keepery? Anyway, the moon was ginormous and Cheeto orange and the fact that it rises at a different time every day is still wild to me. One of those things they should teach you in school!

I love biking with a group and doing stuff in cities that’s more like what I would do if I actually lived there. Sightseeing can make me feel like I’m just checking a box or killing time which puts me in this weird headspace/existential spiral where I wonder if travel is meaningless and start freaking out about whether life itself is just killing time. Not exactly a vacation state of mind!!!! My dream city trip = food (regional fast food is thrilling), ~active~ transportation, small music venues, PEOPLE WATCHING, walking around residential areas, reading in the park… How did my country parents raise such a snob??? Somebody slap me.

Keep those eyes rolling cuz Zoey and I bought ~film~ cameras. We went to a used camera store where a very nice man helped me pick out a 35mm cam while Z talked herself into buying a Diana F+ “toy” camera. Ultralight backpacking friendly? No! Extremely fun? Yes!!!

By the way the daddies here are UNMATCHED. We were hiking in Forest Park and a man passed us towing his baby behind his bike. We later saw him picking blackberries along the road with baby on hip and he earnestly asked us if we were also out “foraging.” Not sure that’s my kind of man but…very interesting. Saw sooo many solo guys out walking hand in hand with tiny independent babies and having full blown conversations with them. Baby talk is dead! Treat your baby like an adult. DILFlandia forever.

Of course we went to Powell’s and bought some cool stuff!! I got a book that’s been on my list for a long time: Walden Two by psychologist B.F. Skinner. It’s about a utopian community that weirdly reminds me of Atlas Shrugged (don’t judge me!) and despite being written in the late 1940s still feels hella relevant (sad…). In the intro (updated in 1976) Skinner writes about some of the cultural and economic issues that inspired the book, including overconsumption and environmental degradation, the decline of community life and art/leisure, capitalism and productivity culture, and more personally, Skinner’s observation of his wife and her friends’ boredom/isolation/despair as they transitioned from college girls to young wives and mothers. Many of my favorite topics! Can’t recommend it until I’m done - lots of ways a book written by a 1950s behavioral psychologist could go wrong - but happy to mail it to any interested readers once I’ve finished it.

Listen to men!!!!

Portland has some cool urban planning/community stuff going on that I haven’t noticed in other cities: lots of food pantries on the street (some with fridges and microwaves), real public bathrooms, public transportation is affordable and the fare system just makes sense (after two trips or $5 you’re automatically upgraded to an unlimited day pass). So bikeable! Streets were super clean! There are co-ops everywhere! Also Oregon just passed a law that allows unhoused people to camp on public land? I want to know more.

Designed to make can collection easier? Is this the opposite of hostile architecture?

A week in Portland wasn’t enough! Stay tuned for updates on our next adventure, the Oregon Coast Trail 😎

Please consider donating to my GoFundMe so I can return to Portland and visit this Love Specialist :)