Dear everyone,

Happy Halloween! I was cleverly disguised today as a girl who had a meeting. TMS called to let me know that his costume was "a jaded single guy in his late twenties"--I told him to make sure his tshirt was slightly wrinkled and showing off his tattoo. I hope that at least one of you dressed as a bouquet of roses or a cup of hot chocolate or a happy monster. For me.

Seattle at this time of year is just perfect, with all of the fallen leaves and the rain. Life is recently a little bit busy, and I know that I always say that, but I always mean it. I've spent enough time at the cafe down the street that not only does my barista know my drink, but now they'll also let us finish up my French lesson while they're closing. Do you know how much I love this town? Because I'll tell you if given the slightest chance.

I'm not sure where October went, but from what I can recall it was relatively uneventful. I honestly have to read my own archive to make sure that I'm not missing anything, which is just sort of how things go around here. And well...ok, so Andre Breton said, "Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known." I have a point, although I can't seem to get to it, and that point lies somewhere in the fact that what I do here is try and figure out the nooks and crannies that I can't quiet get my fingers into. So don't worry about me.

Or, you know, something.

November doesn't look to be any less eventful, what with all of the happy hours and the shows and Thanksgiving. I'll be cooking for Thanksgiving again this year, in case you'll be in town. I'm already making new year's resolutions for next year, and today I started my second mitten. I'm chugging along. And I (heart) you--promise.

Love,
me

When I was a little girl, the orange groves started disappearing. They were leveled to make way for condos and strip malls, but we didn't really mind because we had orange trees in our yard--and we had Orange Blossom Groves.

A regular part of my routine-with-grandma was a stop by the Orange Blossom Groves for fresh-squeezed orange juice, a peek at the conveyor belt, and orange ice cream made from real fruit. All the way up through high school I'd stop there for ice cream.

RIP, Orange Blossom Groves. Now kids in Pinellas County will get to grow up with California oranges, get to taste fruit that is bred for longevity, for length of preservation, and not for sweetness. No more fresh orange ice cream for them.

While I recover from last night's party, you look at pictures of it, and we'll meet back here later.

If you were me, you would:

Prefer red velvet cake over all others.

Have very sore ankles today from dancing all night in your Converse rather than your usual heels.

Be cooking a casserole.

Want to write a play called "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Waiting for Godot," in which Vladimir and Estragon would meet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a Sharks vs. Jets-type dance-off.

Never accept the fact that no one else finds that as amusing as you do.

Have retrieved your strainer with a chair and a spatula.

Have finished knitting your first mitten last night.

In other news, my old buddy/former roommate Jesse the magician has lost what seems to be an entire child's worth of weight (as well as a whole small animal's worth of hair) since I saw him last year at his wedding. If it weren't for that birthmark on his nose I'd have thought that was another fellow entirely.
I'm glad he's looking so healthy now, and I'm so proud of him for all the work that it must have been. Hooray for Jesse!

Do you know that all of my roads look like car commercials, and that there are piles and piles of leaves that I can't just walk through for all the kicking and capering that needs to be done? And that I want to take those leaves and make them into big fluffy origami bunnies and give them to you because I like you so much?

Every time I've been out for the last few weeks I've stayed out hours later than I had intended, occasionally until the closing of restaurants and bars, because the people I know are so funny and smart and amazing. I want to learn how to make cheese danishes and give them to you, because cookies just don't feel like enough.

In the middle of the Math and Physics Club song, "You're So Good to Me" he pauses and sighs a little, as though he simply can't believe just how good she is to him. I love that, and I play it over and over and wave at complete strangers.

I still haven't gotten my strainer down. Maybe I should stand on the counter.

Tomorrow will be dancing at Neighbors for what may be the last time before Cat goes to Kenya, and everyone in town should be there, and yes, Adam, I'm looking right at you. In the meantime, I will be doing cartwheels or making zucchini bread or knitting mittens. Just in case you were wondering.

I just got home from work and man, does it smell like pumpkin in here.

So it turns out that if you combine about twenty people and pumpkin carving in one small one-bedroom apartment, what you get is lunacy. Total pumpkin-y chaos. And, you know, awesomeness. (Final attendee list is: Jean and Michael, Steph and Ryan, Phil, Jeff, Julie, Natasha, Cat, Manuel, Rod, Clare, Fester, Adam, John, Caroline and Chris, Dylan, Tara and Ryan and Gracie the supercute happy puppy. Holy geez, did I forget anyone? Stace, you were missed.)

Whoever put my strainer on top of the cabinets is so fired. Anyone tall that would like to come and fetch it is welcome, because even standing in a chair I can't reach.

I'm either going to have to move to a bigger apartment for next year or y'all are going to have to become really good friends so that you can sit on each other's laps.

I've carved pumpkins every year for as long as I can remember, and this year was the most fun so far. Thanks, guys!

Pictures via Manuel, Dylan, and me.

In other brief housekeeping, the trailer for the movie that Pete is currently embarrassed to be working on is here. Says Pete, "It has puppies!"
Well, I guess you don't hang out with samantha for five years without knowing that puppies are all I need out of life.

On a back road in Midwestern Florida I drove past a doorstep adorned by a small crying girl. I was far enough out of the city that the house sat on about an acre of land; one side of the yard held two doghouses and the opposite end boasted a chicken coop and what looked like a rabbit hutch. From all the toys in the yard I could tell that the house must have contained a whole mess of kids, but for the moment the only living creature in sight was the weeping little girl with twin braids on either side of her head.

As we've already established, I can't ignore crying children, and so I pulled over and went to check on things. I asked if she was ok and she said yes, but her voice was thinly held together and her hands trembled. A dog trotted around the corner and shoved its head against her nose, and she hugged it to her and sniffed. With each hand full of dog fur she mumbled, her voice muffled by a canine ear, "It doesn't matter, anyway." "I don't know, it must matter a little bit if it's made you this upset."

Her brother, she told me, had that afternoon thrown an egg from her chicken at her and it had broken on the grass. A few weeks before, her mother had given birth to a baby that was stillborn, and her mother hadn't been out of bed since. (That was why she was there alone--her family had gone to visit grandma, and she was left to watch over her mom.) She was worried that her pet would be like her mother, that it would never leave its nest again because her brother had killed its baby.

Her breath hitched here, and before she could blame herself for either incident I hugged her while her dog looked up at us with human eyes. It knew what was going on. I had nothing else to give her--my car contained a blanket, a pair of sandals, and a copy of Neruda--but in the end a hug is the world's best healer. I smoothed her hair and told her that they both would be fine, and she sniffed one more time and nodded, patting the dog on the head. She took me over to meet her chicken and then I got back in my car and went on my way. When I got to Tampa and told the boys what had happened, they wondered why no one had taught her not to talk to strangers.

Dostoevsky demands to know which is better, "cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?" But I think that what really matters is the space in between, the steps between the hackneyed and the sublime. I think that it's only in the ordinary every day that we get the chance to be supremely human, to be real, and to be compassionate.

Yesterday: A new baby and a new puppy, and bar hopping with the ladies. We found ourselves at the Green Room just before the Turbonegro show let out, and were treated to exactly the sort of show you'd expect from the Scandinavian punk crowd--drunken pseudo-rumble between a girl and a bouncer included.

On the phone with my mother:

"Samantha, why are you coughing?"

"I think I'm coming down with another case of bronchitis."

"Have you got kennel cough again? Ha ha, samantha has kennel cough!"

"Um, mother? I'm not a dog."

"Oh yeah. Right."

I love all of you who want to be kissing booths for Halloween. Two thumbs up.

Last night I was kidnapped by my coworkers for the seventh week in a row. This time, we found ourselves doing trivia at the Liquid Lounge. We managed alright, all things considered.

Of all the many fabulous people I've met and amazing emails I've gotten from the nearly-two-years of this website, nothing has astonished me more than the recent interest in my love life. There have lately been more emails that I would have believed about it, and I am honestly just floored by the idea that a whole bunch of folks are concerned about any such thing. The volume has been enough that I decided it needed adressing.

The first kind of email tends to be from people who are concerned that my recent melancholy is male-related, and to that I say not to worry. I am a much sadder girl here than I am anywhere else, and honestly I just haven't had a whole lot of free time lately to be sad about the boys. Really. Besides, 2005 has provided me with more than my fair share of attention. I'm doing fine, aside from the fact that my head may soon become too large to fit through most doors.

The second kind comes from people who are upset that I don't share more about that particular aspect of my life. To which I say several things. First of all, believe it or not, there are some things that I choose not to share with the internet. Yeah, I find it hard to believe too. Secondly, I am not dategirl. While my dating experiences are varied and entertaining, they're not really interesting. And although being interesting is certainly never a standard that I have held this website to, in this case, that's what I'm going for.
But honestly, it's all patently untrue. I do so tell you about my love life. I told you about how things went sour with the dancer, how the drummer showed up at 2 am after I hadn't seen him for months. I've told you about reconnecting with my high school crush, and how I'm sometimes still reeling over the boy with the crooked smile. I tell you when my dates fall through. I even tell you when I'm embarassing myself in front of someone cute (albeit sometimes late). It's all there if you speak the language.

Trust me, when I meet someone who sends me poloroids from Mars, I'll let you know. In the meantime, everything is generally just fine.

Now is the part where I admit to all of you that I finally saw my first episode of "The Daily Show" at our hotel in Leavenworth last night. What? I mean it when I say I'm not a tv watching sort of girl.

Leavenworth was not my office, which was pretty much the point of going. Oh sure, it was pretty and kitschy and odd, but also it was Out of Town, which is where I wanted to be. The man at the hotel said that there would be salmon, and they would be almost as big as me, but there were no salmon. Except that's a lie, because there were salmon, they just weren't as big as me and were also mostly dead.
But man, those trees. Trees and trees and trees.

I also mean it when I say that all I need is air in the spare. I have always been a fan of road-based adventures. I can't resist them.

I am now in possession of a six-string guitar with five strings. It was sitting near the recycling when Cat dropped me off last night. Aside from the missing string, it seems to be in perfectly good condition. This is obviously the universe's way of telling me that I really ought to be in a band. Not that I plan on learning how to play it.

Man, this weekend. Friday night Cat and I decided on the spur of the moment to head downtown to see the new Cameron Crowe movie. It was so cute, and we all know how much I like so cute. Afterwards we headed to Dragonfish for the late happy hour to deconstruct Cat's move to Kenya.

Yesterday was girl's day. I met Cat and Caroline for chai. We made a trip to Frye's to look for solar powered thingies and then over to the Traveler's Lounge for diner food. Back at Cat's furniture-free apartment we drank girly pink martinis, watched Sex in the City, and played with pretty miss Erin's boyfriend's new kitty.
Then I came home and found the guitar.
At which point (this is exhausting), I went downtown alone to The Stranger Genius Awards to see Voyager One and the Helio Sequence, as well as take in the super fun crowd that filled the place up. I came across Josh and Peter there, and we milled about, occasionally pointing at, say, a man in a full-length raccoon coat.
I want to run away to the south of France with the drummer from Helio Sequence. He's the most entertaining drummer ever. Him and that lovely pear tart from Thursday night. And a tambourine.

Today was a trip to Fremont with Caroline to see "Frozen" at the Empty Space, which you should all run to see, rather than walking. It's astonishing theatre like that that makes me keep going to see plays.

Tomorrow I'm off to Leavenworth, and in a week it will be time for extreme pumpkin carving. I'm so excited. Last year's special carving guest was Jacob, who I would soon develop a great big crush on, but who that night came over, carved a pumpkin, and left...and all we knew about him was that he had a hot tub. This year's party is sure to be equally full of celebrities.

The first time I crossed the Mississippi was in the afternoon of our third day on the road. Andrea and I had reached our stride, reveling in being young and in a car with the windows down in the middle of nowhere--elbows out the window, wearing tank tops we'd picked up at a store somewhere in Kentucky, bras tucked into our duffel bags. The cd player had broken in Nashville and so we were stuck with local stations or, when those faded out, whatever words we could make up to the noises inside the car. We were having an adventure.

And so we made it to Mark Twain's river and realized just as it came into view just what it was. I looked at Andrea, who was driving. "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
She nodded and answered, "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
(This is the code recently graduated English majors talk in.)

There were fields on either side of the bridge that crossed the river, and in one of them was a farmer on a large farm tool--a tractor, or a plow, or something. He nodded to us and tipped his hat, and as we reached the bridge we waved back and he tipped his hat one more time. And then we were on the other side and we knew in the way that you know when you grow up in the South that the Mississippi is the line that divides what you know from everything else. It was the point in our adventure that we knew we were driving off into what happens next.

It felt good, so we turned around and did it again.

Last night's Killers show confirmed that I am not two more types of girl--the arena show type of girl and the all ages show type of girl. It's always just as nice to find out what I'm not, like Noam Chomsky or Papa Smurf.

British Sea Power, the openers, were the most entertaining band I've seen in a while. A guy from the band dressed kind of like Mushmouth wandered out into the audience and down the stairs right next to me. The bass player broke a string and discarded his instrument, finishing the set by walking around and harassing his band mates. I've never seen a band have so much fun.

The Killers, obviously, need a tambourine player. (Jean's husband might recruit me as the tambourine player in his band. Then I would be the happiest girl alive.) They really pretty much rocked, although they took this weird intermission 3/4 of the way in to set up extra keyboards.
Evidently, all the cool kids are covering Bowie these days.

Pumpkin carving. My house. The 24th. I'm no longer taking no as an answer to anything.

You know what smells really good? The yummy cauliflower-potato-tomato-mushroom cheesy casserole I just made. Yum.

I am still conflicted about all of the shows happening Saturday. Do I go to Bird Show? Harvey Danger/The Lashes/The Saturday Knights? The Genius Awards, where Helio Sequence is playing? The Hold Steady/The Constantines? Too many shows. Any ideas? Anyone wanna join me?

I am still without plans for tomorrow night. Maybe a movie?

I fell asleep last night reading Henry and June, and when the light finally forced me back awake I found myself on the other side of the bed, cheek creased from laying on top of Anansi Boys. I never venture over to the other side of the bed; these days, it is used solely for the storage of books. And yet there I was, and I am firmly convinced that the cause for this somnambulant jaunt lies at the feet of Anais Nin.

I have always loved Anais Nin, loved how she regularly set her world on fire just to see how it would change the landscape. But at the same time I'll never forget the disappointment I felt the day I learned that the copy of her journals I was reading was heavily edited, and that in fact she had been married the entire time she was exploring other people. It was the first time that I realized that my idols could be, and in fact often were, fallible human beings.

It only took a minute to realize that the women sitting behind me were planning a wedding. They were each bent so far over the table that their heads nearly touched in the middle, and swatches of pink were strewn all over the space between them. The conversation was familiar: formal vs. casual, traditional vs. nontraditional, full bar vs. sober mother-in-law. I don't currently know anyone that's getting married--the rush has died down now--and I sort of miss the details. It eventually dawned on me that one of the women, the one with all the answers, was a wedding planner.
There was no husband in sight.


I would like to wring out the last few weeks, which have been rife with disappointments, and head to the ocean. Just me and a coastline. But I know that it's much better in my head.

My French teacher's baby, Eva, was fussy all evening. This is because Eva thinks I'm great, and because babies can smell a sucker from a mile away. She knows that if she makes noise I'll pay attention to her. If you've been playing along on the home version you'll know that I love babies and small furry animals, particularly, at this point in my life, when they belong to someone else. Tonight's lesson was excruciating, because I have been working at translating from English into French and it's a lot more difficult than the other way around. I need to focus and study more, because I have so much more shit to get together if I'm going to make it in France in the spring. What I need is someone who is fluent to hang out with (and if that someone was tall, skinny, and tattooed, well...that would be a bonus).
So today I have been completely defeated by a children's book, and that's a new and different kind of humbling.

On the phone with my stepmother:

"I'm taking an EMT class for work, and last week I had to do an excercise where I pretended that five people in my life were someone we were responding to, and I had to ask them questions about what their problem was. The first one I asked was your brother, and I told him to just make something up. You know what his problem was?"

"Hair in his eyes?"

"No. Spontaneous human combustion. He said it had happened to him four or five times in the last week."

"You're going to blame this one on me too, aren't you."

Somehow, last night went from Rod's birthday party at the Elysian to running into Drew and his friend on our way to get frites, to getting and consuming delicious frites, to heading to West Seattle for Will's birthday party and finally ending up watching both "Old school" and "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" on Will's comfy couch. That last one has Bill Maher in it, and more skimpy costumes than you can shake a stick at.
I (heart) Seattle.

Anyway, you guys, I need Halloween costume ideas. One of the Halloween parties this year is an 80's party and my hair isn't long enough for Punky Brewster. I'm seriously debating stealing the idea for Haley's Comet from last year, but I'll bet you could come up with something much better.

I had just walked out of my office and was deciding what song to start the walk home with when a large German shepherd ran up, checked out my bright green shoes, and looked up at me like we had plans and it was sorry it was late. I looked down and asked it, "What do you think would be good today? 'Down Like Disco?' Do you like the new Dandy album?" It sat down, so I nodded and selected the song.
She was very well cared for, very pretty and well-fed, but she had no collar on. I reached down to pet her while I scanned the vicinity for potential owners, and was rewarded with a little lick on the hand. I couldn't see anyone, so I looked down into her serious brown eyes and asked where she'd come from; she responded by putting her paw on my knee and her nose against mine.
We were obviously best friends.
Just then I heard running, and looked up to see a little girl and a very red-faced man in a suit coming around the corner. The girl held a leash with a collar attached to it in her hand. He apologized, explained that the dog had run out of the car when he opened the door, that the collar had apparently not been closed right. At the sight of them the dog had jumped up and wagged her tail three or four times. It appeared that they knew each other, so I gave her a pat on the head and asked the little girl what the dog's name was. She answered, "Graciemonkey," and the dog trotted over to her. I nodded, said, "Nice to meet you, Graciemonkey," and the dad thanked me while I put my headphones in and started home.

I don't even need to tell Florida stories anymore to prove that the place exists in an alternate universe. It's doing all the work itself, what with exploding snakes and the new plan to turn the state into one big bar fight.

My home state is obviously going to be the site of the upcoming apocalypse. Just in case you were wondering.

She wanted to tell me a secret.

The top of her little brown head barely reached over my table, and I bumped my jaw as I bent down obediently to answer her command, a brief "Secret!" accompanied by the stamp of a pink shod foot.
I wasn't sure what role I was playing in her movie, but as I looked up you and I traded glances, destroying the game we had played all evening. I had studied your chin while you looked at my cheekbones, and not once did our eyes touch the same space. The half-smile looked like a road I've already been down once this year, reminded me that the doors at the end of that road only led to a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni and not to the vacation in Maui.
Her secret had no words, just a hurried "Psssh pssss psssh" noise. Satisfied, she turned to go. Her barrette caught the lights and twinkled at me while she raised her fist to eat the last of the cookie she'd been clutching. I smiled at her mother, who looked up just then and noticed that her little girl was no longer at her side, to let her know that the child was doing no harm. I watched as she bent down, picked up a leaf on the floor, and pressed it to her nose. Her little finger held it there while she followed the lines on the floor tiles back to the square between her parents.

As is the usual way of Seattle, I headed to the Mike Doughty show alone last night and ran into people that I knew. Those people were Holli and Casey, who I ran into at the last Mike Doughty show at Neumos, and who are together now and cuter than a whole mess of buttons. We then came across two more of their friends, and at Holli's behest squished all five of us into the photo booth at the Showbox.


Dear Mike Doughty,

Thanks for coming to visit us again. How come you weren't wearing your hat?

I have to ask you not to play the Showbox again. It's too big for Small Rock. Small Rock just kind of disappears in ceilings as high as those. Also, we were pretty spoiled here in Seattle by the Bumbershoot performance of "Hungry Like the Wolf". Please play "The Gambler" forever.

But seriously, the Firetruck/It's Raining Men remix was just freaking amazing. You could tell who in the room had listened to "Smofe and Smang" because the people who hadn't were just plain confused. If you ever find yourself in need of a tambourine player, you know who to call.

love,

me

I have been a total slug today, and so instead of doing all of the things I'd planned to do, like go buy milk to make soup, I'm going to stay home and eat pizza. I'm actually a little fuzzed about going out right now because I'm still a little tweaked about the crazy late night doorbell ringing incident--even though I know who it was and that he's harmless, and I wouldn't have answered the door anyway, well...in the end I'm still a single girl who lives alone and it would be a couple of days before people noticed I was missing. And that's not something particularly fabulous to be reminded of. So if you need me I'll be at home, willfully not cleaning my apartment or cooking.

(Also, you should know that Cat and I are famous. And that even cool people appear in public with major fashion don'ts sometimes.)

A note to all boys:

Please don't come ring my doorbell at 2 am on a Tuesday morning if you haven't called first. Especially do not do this if I haven't seen or heard from you in a month. I will think you've done gone crazy, and I will so not be answering the door. Further, I'll really be pretty annoyed, because I have to work in the morning.

Thanks,

me.

I've got a bunch of little lumps on my head from yesterday's hailstorm. I ran back inside, but evidently not quickly enough.
Honestly. A hailstorm in October?

When I first met Paul, coming up on a million years ago, he was really just moments from bursting out of the closet like a little kid playing hide-and-seek that just can't wait any more to be found. His mom wasn't a fan at first, and so Alex and I took turns hosting Paul at nights. When it was my turn, I'd sneak him through my window after I went to bed, and we'd huddle under the covers and giggle for hours--it was a month long slumber party. Eventually his mother came around and started trying to set up blind dates with her friends' sons rather than their daughters, but the giggling like eight year olds has held.
He called this afternoon to let me know that he's moving to Maine. He can't take Florida anymore, and I can't blame him. The place is a sink, and since Mark has been dead for years and his mother passed the spring before last, there's nothing for him there. We talk in song lyrics, which is a game that has always been great fun because we don't listen to the same bands so it's like speaking in two different codes.
He stops me with an audible sigh when I get to, "She got a call requesting that she use her words accordingly, but she'll never stand a chance with the one who moves her." I can hear him shaking his head, but all he says is a disappointed, "Mouse."
A million years of friendship lets you know just which buttons to push.

I once dated a man with deliberately rockabilly hair. I didn't hear a thing he said for weeks because I was so distracted by that bouffant.

I'm pretty sure that my headache has reached a point where it's producing BTU's. Ow.

Dear everyone,

In just a couple of days, it will have been a year since I started my job. And I still love what I do, regardless of the days that are long and frustrating and full of ornery folks. I'm lucky to have fallen into the place.
But man, the things that have changed in the last year.
I got home late last night, after another marathon happy hour with my coworkers, and I wanted to call you and tell that I understood. I even wrote myself a note and left it here on my desk--it says, "Phone call: you understand!" But now in the daylight I don't remember who or what or how or when. I guess it doesn't really matter, because I still do get it. And if I don't, just let me know.
In case you haven't heard, my dear friend Cat will be moving to Kenya in a couple of months. This is going to be such an adventure for her, and she will be able to do good things for so many people. Doing good things for people is what she does best, after all. But we will miss her. I'll have to find myself a new local single girl friend, someone I can talk about dates and nondates and the general every day workings of being a single girl with. And with any luck I will make it to Africa next year for a visit.
I am sitting at my desk with my feet on the baseboard heater, and my soles are starting to tingle a little because the heat has turned itself on. When I woke up this morning, my cheeks were cold to the touch. Fall is here, and all of the streets look like car commercials. I'll make my second batch of potato-leek soup this season tomorrow, and on the way to and from the store there will be puddles that I'll consider jumping in. It is time to put away my spring-and-summer research paper about e e cummings and the rhetoric of textual impressionism and pick up something for fall-and-winter. (I'm leaning toward something about sentence structure in Tolstoy, but I need to make sure my translations are good.) Only spring is better than fall.
October is a busy month, with shows and shows and shows. Tonight I'll be seeing Math and Physics Club again with some other folks, and Monday is Mike Doughty. (Anyone else going to that?) There will be Moroccan food and readings and my third annual pumpkin carving. And boy do I have plans for the next year.
You've all been great friends while I've been loaded up with mean reds, with doubt and with dislike and with occasional outright loathing. I am trying to do better.

love,
me