In March I was back in Bath – just shy of 10 years after my first visit. We (my mother, her best friend, and her best friend’s sister) visited the Jane Austen Centre, the famed Roman Baths, enjoyed afternoon tea in the pump room, and popped our heads into the surrounding gift shops. The tea, the cakes, the rain, the sun, the architecture, more rain, more sun. It was a pretty (typical) day in England. After hitting up several of the more common tourist spots, we found ourselve

Outside of the context, it’s odd for me to say I was hunting for rats. It was 2012 and I was traveling solo in Berlin but had befriended a lovely Kiwi girl. We had decided to go on the “Alternative Walking Tour” offered by our hostel. Our guide was an enthusiastic ex-pat from Maine, and his normal tour quickly turned into a treasure hunt of street art. The most famous artist on display was Banksy – one of his signature designs is a rat. I found myself drawn to the idea of thi

This past year, I found myself at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston for the first time. I was there with my boyfriend (who lives there) and my father (who, like me, was also in town). The ICA building, nestled pristinely along the harbor among new high-rises and old warehouses, is full of eclectic and modern art. I remember there was a striking piece of delicately strung burnt charcoal remains, like a reconstructed and still destroyed tree-chandelier. Elsewhere, a

About a year ago, amid the Tumblr minefield, I came across a blog called Medieval People of Color. Rather than use my (albeit limited) platform today to highlight the (good) work of another museum—while often worthy and fair game—I choose instead to share this incredible resource. Yes, I’m not a person of color; and please consider me liable, as always, for whatever words I say. Medieval People of Color exists to provide counter-argument to the popular sentiment, grown up fro

I’m not going to write about the “orange thing with tiny hands” that I know people in my camp are writing about, talking about, avoiding, bemoaning, resisting, marching, crying, and/or self-medicating over. I won’t mention how “orange face w. tiny hands” on his first day in office overhauled the White House website so that it’s now very clearly missing pages for climate change, civil rights, disabilities, gay rights, and health care. Other news sites have parroted “OFTH’s” th

Suspension. Stop-motion. Start. A slowing. Everything liminal, until it thaws. That’s how we were led into Arcane Collective’s “ebb” at Bodyvox. Opening night was suppose to be on Thursday, until the snow started in Portland and everyone retreated slowly and safely back home. Closures around the city were announced one after the other, and freezing rain confirmed everyone’s reaction, confining us all indoors, encased in ice. So instead, Phillip and I attended the show on Satu

In a strange yet somehow-exactly-anticipated respect, Jenny’s blog piece last Wednesday—her “Prolonged Performances of Grief,” the fiercely humbling tribute she wrote on losing me to Los Angeles—has made (the thought of, the act of) moving easier. She’s done the grieving, honestly, openly, already. Her gift—not in the least because it went on for pages, and whoever ever has pages devoted to themselves and their (apparent) virtues—had me in tears, getting up from my spindly co

On the way to the Oregon coast for Labor Day, my partner used Waze a community-based traffic navigation app. Turn by turn directions and traffic alerts piped through the speakers. I am already familiar with Google Maps and GPS – short for global positioning system, which I had to look up because I’ve only ever used GPS to talk about GPS – but I was surprised, delighted, and even unnerved by the future-telling powers that Waze seemed to have: “hazard reported ahead,” “traffic

The first time I saw the gallery, it wasn’t named the High & Low, or the Hi Lo, or the Hi Low, or even the Hi & Lo. It was something else: a punk-black exterior, with large windows and blood-red walls inside. Biking by from my apartment off of 34th and SE Belmont, my third apartment in six months, my gaze was drawn like a moth to the large canvasses of graffiti hanging inside. This period of my life was colored by post break-up malaise. Time’s linearity disappeared. I was obl

Two years ago, my boyfriend-at-the-time was visiting from Australia, and we took a wide looping road trip to National Parks in the West. Yosemite National Park was the third stop on our itinerary. I had been there once already, but in the winter and only for a short hike in the snow before continuing back to Portland. I was excited to really get to see the park and explore. There have always been two things that represent Yosemite in my mind: the first being naturalist, John