3.21.99

    I fixed that Kennedy School link from the last entry. It seems that the idiots doing their website put up some funky redirect which you'll see if you click on the link. So, even my bookmark of their page wouldn't come up. That's smart, boys, really smart. Some people just shouldn't design web pages.

    And, speaking of stupid web designers, I'm really taken with the way Linda over at stranger.than.fiction does her links. It minimizes all that underlining and looks a little different. Her writing is extremely good although her subject matter can be a bit hit or miss with me. She's been writing a little bit off and on about the death of her husband two years ago. It's extremely heart-breaking stuff but she conveys her feelings and emotions so well that I can't help but read on. She's got a good-looking design as well.

    A few people have written me with ideas for my new journal title. Here are a few:

• an oregon odyssey
• portland prattle
• an intimate account of north-western microbreweries

• portland stories
• portland postcards
• ports of call

• Sean Penn Goes to Crazy-Town

    Yesterday, T. and I went to the L.A. County Museum of Art. T. was supposed to go golfing but it was pouring in the morning and the guys decided to nix it. Too bad as the day turned out to be gorgeous. One of the things I've been wanting to do is get to that museum and have a look around. We saw some installations and some pop-art and some Hockney and some Japanese art and wandered around the impressive grounds but, frankly, it wasn't worth the money. It seemed like there wasn't a lot of art and there were a lot of people and admission was $7 a pop. There was a Van Gogh exhibit but you had to buy separate tickets and there was a huge line.

    Did I mention it was a beautiful day? It's amazing what a little rain will do for a dirty town like L.A. When it's sunny and blue skies and you can actually see the mountains (really just large hills) surrounding L.A. it's no surprise why people moved here. Unfortunately, too many people moved here and the horizon typically looks brown and obscures the distant hills. Portland will surely be the same in five or ten years.

    This winter, Portland and Seattle got record amounts of rain, something like 58 days straight of rain. I know that it will be depressing in the winter, it always is. But the summers make up for it in ways I just cannot fully explain. So much of the Pacific Northwest is just breathtakingly beautiful. People that love So-Cal say that they love the beach and the sunshine and the fact that they are so close to so many different climates: mountain, desert, ocean. The beaches seem to me to be overcrowded and stinky, the desert is just a flat, dry sandy place and the mountains are too distant to be a comfort. It's hard to get out of L.A. Even the few times we've gone hiking we have never been alone. I'd be too afraid to camp anywhere around here without a gun.

    L.A. is all about a lifestyle and it's just not mine.

    Today is supposed to be about laundry, sorting through some neglected closets and writing Thank You cards from the wedding. Last night we managed to pick photos for our wedding album which was a chore but is finally done. Now, it's 11 a.m. and T. and I are being co-dependant and staying in our pajamas, silently rationalizing why I'm at my computer and he's watching basketball.

    Forward harch!