I took the 405.

It is a grey Saturday morning in Portland. I wish the city didn't feel so forced to live up to all her clichés. On the upside, it makes the mood all the more right for coffee and writing and slow, beautifully sad music.

The 405, by the way, runs through the center of Portland, so when he sings, "I took the 405 and drove a stake down into your center...," I feel as though I can somehow relate. But really, between you and me, it's the next line he sings that I think of most; "You keep twisting the truth [that keeps me thrown askew.]" You can't divine punctuation just from listening to the song. Did he mean to put a period after "truth"? If not, was it the "truth" that had been keeping him thrown askew? That seems odd, but then I'm not an artist either. Whatever the case, it seems that "truth", twisted or not, will keep on slipping through these clouds above, and while that may, indeed, keep me thrown askew, or at the very least a bit dizzy, I am happy that it sneaks through at all.

I don't have any new pictures of Portland, though I'm working on it. There are so many things that you need to see here. The view from the roof of the building I work in, spanning the rises and falls of the Portland skyline. The view from the roof of my own temporary dwelling, which on clear days lets you gaze out onto Mt. St. Helen's, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and time immemorial. This place feels so very three-dimensional. In Phoenix, the horizon is so long, the earth so often flat, that sometimes you're apt to forget about its depth (which, of course, it has much). But here you cannot avoid it; the trees cut and slice into the hillsides, up, down, and all around you. The proper sort of setting for a summer adventure, I suppose.

A pair of pictures for you: the other half of the room, and more evidence of the City of Roses.