Cheap Thrills: Local Addition Edition

Okay, so when I started this whole Cheap Thrills bit, the goal was to keep things very non-Portland specific to allow for equal opportunity participation. However, tonight I'm making an exception to the rule for the purpose of plugging one perfectly perfect new Portland haunt.

People, you must go visit my favorite new spot, Palace of Industry. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine that Anthropologie suddenly became less corporate and spendy and is now all genuinely second-hand or handmade, and then imagine that they started selling delicious food and obtained a liquor license and became somehow just, well, cooler, and there -hold that thought! You have behind your eyelids the fantasticness that is Palace of Industry.

I keep hearing that the stretch of N Killingsworth near our house is going to be reborn, revitalized, and turn into one of the hip little Portland neighborhoods it looks up to and admires. Palace of Industry makes me believe. And with The Naked Sheep, a fairly decent yarn store, mere feet away from the door, it's entirely possible that I might start spending ridiculous amounts of time there.

Palace of Industry wins the cheap thrill award today because I bought a very cute dress there for $5. They have a ton of super well-edited, spot on vintage clothes, and if you have a sewing machine, you can score something with a split seam or tiny hole for next to nothing and fix it up. I had my new dress in wearable shape within 10 minutes of bringing it in the house. There were plenty of $5 or less (fewer? The money thing always gets me...) items left on the shelves, so get to it already.

Palace's FB page is here. If you want to just take my advice and go there, set your GPS to 5426 N Gay Ave. Portland, OR 97217.

love.

In Other Words

Today's In Other Words is brought to you by Billy Collins and my favorite three-year-old of the week. I highly recommend experiencing the following poem by going here and watching it recited by this super cool kid who will probably have a hard time getting a date in high school and marry a supermodel shortly thereafter.

Seriously, click here.

Or you can be all traditional and just read it. It goes like this:

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.


However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.


It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.


And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.


It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.


I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.


I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.


By the way, it's cloudy and a little chilly and delightfully fall-like outside. I'm wishing you somebody wonderful to cozy up with. ;)

love.

Last Thursday

8/26/10

tonight we will stand in the presence of wonder
swirled tightly into a sea of the masked and the painted
they will carve roads around us
brush us with their feathers
singe us with the tips of fire soaked swords

tonight strangers will dance with the ghosts of old friends
and the corners will smell of sweat and lost causes
dogs will lie down on the sidewalks
truths will be learned
lies will be carried

tonight we will bear witness to a thousand magical onces
we will feel the heat of the many and watch as they twirl
you and i will wander past fallen kings
and emerging artists
someone's first kiss, someone's child
the poet and his guitar
a drunk and a lover
the vain and the bleeding
the last and the first


the miracle being only
that among them
i will hold your hand

love.

Portlandiversary.

Dear Portland-

I know you are only a city. I know that you are only the sum of the living, breathing bodies that inhabit you - the things they build, the places they live, the doings they do. I know that, though we often speak of you as though you are one of us, you have no real pulse, no heartbeat, no soul, no energy of your own. I know you don't really have a "heart." But you have mine.

My dear friend Annie and I were talking yesterday about how today is her 5 year anniversary with you, which started me thinking that it's also our 2 year celebration, you and me. I remember how vast you seemed when I first met you, how I stubbornly tried to learn a city built on a grid in tiny rings of concentric circles, how you patiently let me get lost and found a thousand times, how your people smiled me right on through. I noticed today, driving familiar streets, that you have become a collection of small places for me - a memory in every neighborhood, an adventure in every restaurant, an echo on every corner. You have both shrunken and grown, lovely city, and I am poised and ready to continue to explore you and the hundreds of other somewheres hiding within your walls and under your trees that I will slowly, methodically, patiently claim as my own.

Dear Portland, thank you for becoming home to me. Thank you for letting me be myself, for wrapping me up, for taking me in. Happy Anni(Annie!)versary.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Felt It Up

Today's Cheap Thrill is a craft project! Hooray!

I love felt. I love felt because it's cheap and fairly sturdy and doesn't unravel when you cut it. My beautiful friend Katherine got married a while back, and we used felt for all kinds of projects, not the least of which was this pretty little flower in her hair:

Here are your steps:

1. Admire how cute groom Chris looks over Kat's right shoulder all smiley in the photo above. Happiness is adorable.

2. Go to the store and get some felt (should be about 30 cents a sheet... go buck wild!) in the colors you prefer, and some cheap buttons (or raid your button stash if you have that sort of thing, or use one of those spare buttons that came with a coat or something).

3. Go to this sweet little blog and acquire the template: Click Here!

4. Cut out your petals, stitch or glue them together, stick the whole shebang on a spare bobby pin, and tada! You are now a craft genius. Martha is shaking in her intimidatingly well chosen and sensible shoes. Of course, she's making a five course dinner from scratch while she's shaking, but whatever. Screw her.

5. Wear. Feel proud. Glow a little. Make more (cause felt is cheap!) and give them away.

love.

In other words...

If you haven't read Hyperbole and a Half, you may not actually be aware of how hard you can laugh. If you'd like to find out, I strongly encourage you to start with this recent post that may well be a contender for my new favorite. But they're all good. Seriously. All of them.

Go here and read this!!!

love.

Cartoon Friday

My sister sent me this sweet little video -





love.

Ah, yes, poetic Thursday

where your tears have fallen
there are riverbeds
etched winding into the previously unmarred
landscape of my forehead
visible to me only
i can see them like a fingerprint
on the topography of my reflection
feel them like a memory
on the map of my soul
i carry them like a whisper
like a melody
like time
and smile secretly over the many small ways
you have already begun to change me

so altered, i am only yours

love.

Love Letter

I turned 28 on Sunday.

28 is a lot of things: one of the precious few ages I'll ever be that end in my favorite number, a mere two years hopskipjump from a new decade, and, most significantly, the age my mother was when she gave birth to me. As of Sunday, August 15th, I've known my parents for exactly half of their lives. Which is, well, interesting. I don't really know what I feel about that.

But I do know how I felt on Sunday: loved. I am blessed and surrounded by amazing people who went above and beyond to make my day a special one. Favorite showed up at the crack of dawn to wake me and make a breakfast of all my favorite things. He came with beautiful flowers and seemingly bottomless pockets full of cards from just about everyone I know. My birthday team assembled and transcribed messages from all of my nearest and dearest and armed Favorite with them to deliver to me nearly every fifteen minutes throughout the day. 41 cards in all. Wow.

Here's what I love about God - He's the master of completing the cycle. There I was, birthday joy incarnate, reading hundreds of thoughtful, flattering, beautiful words from people I love and admire, walking completely unarmed into an Imago service that ended in an elder's public confession of an affair. One brave, well-loved, and surrounded man stood trembling before our congregation and whispered the story of his failure. And I wept, and fought to keep myself in my seat. Because I have stood in rooms of people who suddenly saw me as a different person than they had only moments before. Because I know what it feels like to fail hugely, publicly, painfully, and irrevocably. And because I know that God sees him with exactly the same eyes, the same love, with which He still sees me - the same love that has been mine to bask in from the moment of my birth and will remain mine, will remain his, through a thousand other failures and let downs and public humiliations.

I hold these 41 cards in my hands with their beautiful words and I love them, I cherish them, I count them treasure, but I know the traits attributed to me on them aren't really mine. I am all things destructive, I am stubborn and prideful, and I could never account on my own for the hurt that I've caused. These things you see in me, friends whom I love, they are only the product of the grace I've been afforded. They are redemption. They are not mine to claim, but I'm grateful any time I can be a vessel for them. I am none of these words on my own, and all of them through Christ who lives in me. What a privilege to have them laid out before me, to be able to read forgiveness on a notecard, to remember that but for the grace of God go I, to remember that in all things He wants to bless me and use me.

My amazing Portland family, you gathered at Favorite's in the afternoon and jumped out and yelled surprise, despite my best efforts to melt you. You had a beautiful cake and beautiful faces and I'm not sure I've ever been grateful for or in love with any time in my life more than this one, so obviously surrounded by love. The already amazing family I was blessed with has grown to include all of you, and I'm so very glad. You are my evidence of God's ability and desire to rebuild. Yours are the words He uses to love me. You are my very best birthday present.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see.

love.

Cheap Thrills: Operation Beautiful

Today's Cheap Thrill is a real do-gooder, and it's brought to you by one beautiful girl named Caitlin who saw fit to start a bit of a body image revolution that I can't help but get behind.

Most of you who follow this blog know that I deal with women and their body image issues at work every day. I witness first hand the absurd tendency that we all have to zoom in on the worst parts of ourselves the moment we step in front of a mirror, and the venomous way we turn that critical gaze onto each other. It's tragic really - so many beautiful pieces of intentional creation being torn into unrecognizable ugliness, verbally berated, and scornfully poked and pinched. How very wasteful and how very sad.

Operation Beautiful is a rockstar of an idea - effective, unexpected, and cheap and easy to participate in. Here's how you roll:

1) Buy some PostIt notes. Standard PostIts can run you anywhere from $1.99 up, depending on how many you want and how fancy you want to go. Or take some off your desk at home. Or ask your boss if you can have a pack for a good cause. Take note that this blog does not advocate stealing PostIts from work. But I'm not really watching you, either. Get some sticky notes.

2) Onto said sticky notes, write encouraging phrases, like: "You are beautiful EXACTLY as you are" or "Hey hottie, you look GOOD!" or "You are worth so much more than just your reflection. Beauty starts inside of you. And girl, you've got it going on." or whatever you would like someone to say to you while you're bikini shopping.

3) Take your PostIt army and deploy it onto mirrors in public places where women, or men, might see a PostIt in an insecure moment: dressing rooms, school bathrooms, other bathrooms, department stores, etc.

4) If you want to, take a picture and send it to Caitlin at www.operationbeautiful.com. She'll write back to you, even, which is neat. Definitely visit the site for inspiration.

5) Remember that the words you've written to encourage others also apply to you. Remember that you were created to be who you are, not who you could be airbrushed into. Remember that you are a work of art. Wear yourself proudly. Go forth and be beautiful.

love.

In Other Words...

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for my silence for the last several days. Turns out I took a week off of blogging for my birthday. Not really on purpose. Sorry. Moving on...

For today's other words, I'd like to direct you to a blog belonging to my friend Joy. Joy spends her days researching the relationships of those in the 18-35 age bracket and, as a result, she has some very interesting and entertaining wisdom to offer. I love this girl's spirit. Go check her out.

Joy's Fabulous Blog

love.

In other words...

Our pastor shared this poem with us a while back. I think it's beautiful, so I'm sharing it with you.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

love.

True Story.

I want to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was very stubborn girl. This girl spent a lot of time being sure of things: sure that she knew what was best for her life, sure that she knew how to get it, sure of her decisions, and sure of herself. She walked in the right directions, she made good choices, she gave sound advice. Things went pretty well for this stubborn little girl for the longest of long times.

But the problem with being sure is confidence alone won't keep you from failure. After awhile, the girl found that the choices she had made weren't as sound as she thought. She realized the foundation she'd built for herself was full of holes, far from level, and sinking fast. And like most any stubborn and prideful child stuck on sinking ground, she did the only thing she could think of to do: she panicked. She tantrummed. She fled.

There is another important piece to this story. This girl, this stubborn, prideful girl, she was loved. She was fiercely, wildly, permanently loved. And when she finished panicking and tantrumming and opened her eyes to find herself miles and miles from everything she had been and everything she knew, that love swooped down and picked her up like a paperdoll and surrounded her like a cocoon and rewrote her story.

It's a revolutionary experience, being rewritten by love. Suddenly, the things the girl had taken for granted or believed were rightfully hers became treasures, became gifts, became physical shards of a powerful grace. The stubborn grip that she'd kept on her plans and her ideas loosened, then slipped, then released altogether, and she was still loved. She learned to close her eyes and walk blindly, to run barefoot in the sand, to trust in promises and learn to laugh at her restless little heart, and was still loved. She traced the outlines of all her weaknesses onto cardboard and carried them like a banner through the streets of all her relationships and was still loved. She lost her cool and yelled like an idiot and got mad and got even and got hurt and failed hugely and was still loved.

She learns every day. She is sometimes disappointed, sometimes overjoyed, always blessed, and always, always, always loved. And that love, the love that bore her, that saved her, that keeps her and makes her, is the only thing of which she is sure. Which is how she prefers things, nowadays. :)

God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.

Cheap Thrills: Textapalooza

Okay, today's cheap thrill is actually free if you have unlimited text messaging, and if you don't, a lot of plans will allow you to upgrade to unlimited text messaging for (say it with me) five dollars! Hooray!

Here's how to use your powers of text messaging to annoy/encourage your friends and laugh hard and feel great about life.

Annoy

This gag requires you to be in the presence of at least one other person. Annie and I are masters of this little game. You can be a master too, with a little practice. For the purposes of this blog, I'll use Annie and I as the two involved in the prank. Shocker. Kyle will be our target. Typical. Here's what you do.

1. Choose a target (why do so many of my blogs involve choosing a target?). Someone you know well enough to know that they won't hate your guts for messing with them. We choose Kyle.

2. I (you) send a text to Kyle (target) that says something like "Hey Annie, are we still on for coffee tomorrow?" Kyle now thinks I've sent the text to the wrong person. Which is not too far fetched, really.

3. Let the fun begin. Annie sends a text to Kyle that says something like "Yep. Coffee with Karyn is my favorite. What time?" Now Kyle is confused... and you, if you're like me, are collapsing into fits of giggles.

4. Choose your own adventure. Have an entire conversation, play dumb when Kyle texts you back asking what is going on, accuse him of eavesdropping, try to convince him you can conference-text, whatev. This is an expecially fun game to play if you're waiting in line for something or waiting for a show to start. For bonus points, involve a third or (gasp!) fourth person in the madness. Oh hilarity! Oh silly silliness!

Encourage

Now that your friends are good and annoyed with you, it's time to remind them that you love them again. Time for text bombing! This works especially well for job interviews, big tests, bad days, or emergency situations. The process is very simple:

1. Text everyone in your phone that knows your target and ask them to send an encouraging text to your target at 12:15 (you can choose anytime you want). Send your own text at the designated time.

2. Sit back and enjoy the knowing that your friend has just received 20 something texts of encouragement simultaneously. Cheap, easy, day-making fun. Gotta love it.

Take back text messaging from the teens, friends! Use it for good!

love.

In other words...

My friend Rachelle and I were talking about my height today and how she hadn't really noticed I was exceptionally tall until about three months ago. Not the first time I've had one person feel like I'm shorter than I am while random strangers continue to stop me on the street to ask if I play basketball. I suppose this height thing is all about perspective.

Speaking of perspective, I love Arianne Cohen's on the subject. At 6'3", she has a good solid three+ inches on me, but I relate to a lot of what she has to say, and her story is an interesting one... all about being a giraffe and a human exclamation point.

You may read it here.

love.