Marathon Effort!

On Sunday, I’m either going to run 26.2 miles, or else I’m going to die trying. I could potentially win, if something really awful happened to everyone else. The thing that is so great about running is that it feels so good to stop. Nothing feels as good as stopping running, and I'm looking forward to that as much as anything else. I have been training for this race for 8 months, which is three months longer than I spent preparing to get married.

I discovered today that any interested parties can keep track of my progress on their telephone by signing up for updates on this website: http://www.wigglewireless.com - click on the Portland Marathon link. We can enjoy the day together- you get up, flip through the paper, note that I'm on mile five, have breakfast in bed with your European lover, laughing together about the amount of time it took me to get to mile 12, bathe, get dressed, complete a 500 piece puzzle and watch two movies and note that I have finally finished and know that I am out there somewhere, cursing and wearing a Mylar blanket.

My running bib number is 261, which you'll need if you want to get updates- if it behooves you to drop me an encouraging line or give me advice on what else should be Vaselined, please do, but please don't write me about your friend who started a marathon as a healthy and productive member of society but later fell across the finishline on two bloody stumps.

Crystal Pepsi, The Soft Drink Sasquatch

Everyone has the story about the dowager aunt with the hard candies molded to the shape of the crystal bowl, but I ran into something else altogether when I had dinner at a friend's father's house on the weekend. His oddly specific brand of hospitality involves keeping many different brands of soda on hand so as to be able to quench a myriad of thirsts. I was rooting deep in the Amana CoolMaster and I found this little beaut- off the market for 13 years, but chilled and ready. I was shocked into silence, as if I had found the carbonated Holy Grail, and could only mouth to others present "It's a Crystal Motherfucking Pepsi."

Of course, no-one wanted it, not anymore than anyone wanted it when it hit the market in the first place, in 1992. And thus, it survives. In Lake Oswego.

Laurie Anderson at PICA's TBA

I am hella-looking forward to seeing the Queen of Performance Art and half of the Coolest New York Downtown Couple, Laurie Anderson, performing in Portland tonight as part of the TBA festival.

I have been a fan of hers since before I knew who she was, after I caught the last third of a performance of "Babydoll" on SNL in 1986, and carried the voice around in my head for two years until I was at a friend's house listening to "Sharkey's Day" from "Mister Heartbreak." I met her once in Houston, TX, in 1992 at a pro-Dem art event, where she sat coolly on a picnic blanket in a baseball cap and I gibbered to her like an idiot.

And yet, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about meeting Paris Hilton.

P.S. It was a lovely show! Spouse was surprised that we were on the front row, because evidently did not understand the level of my Laurie worship and ninja ticket-buying skills. She has stripped down from previous shows to storytelling and violin playing, with a minimum of extra clutter. She dressed like a little Buddhist monk and told stories about her stint as N.A.S.A.'s first (and sadly, last) artist in residence, and about the 10 day walks she's taken with her rat terrier, and about space and time and nature and owls and Thomas Pynchon.

O Canada!

I almost don't want to mention my "Labour" day weekend in Canada for fear that others will think I'm all snobby and too good for them. I mentioned to someone in Portland that I was headed to Vancouver, and they said, oh yeah? Five minutes up 1-5? Yeah, I hear they've got a big Wal-Mart there, and I said CANADA, man-child!

I like any kind of international travel I can do in our Volvo.

I was there for the Vancouver International Tap Festival, but I tell cool people that I was there for A Scooter Rally Called George, which was simultaneously occurring.

Tap dancing is fun, and affords one the opportunity to step really hard on one's own foot that rarely comes up in day to day life. Also, you can make a lot of noise with your feet. I enjoyed classes from Jazz-Tap clown prince Josh Hilberman, although he cost me a toenail and caused me to interact with 10 year old tap prodigies, who may be the most annoying persons in the world. If there's anything worse than children, it's really cute and talented children.

Spouse and I attended a gothnight called Blender, where they were blending some $8 drinks (thank goodness that Tylenol with codeine is OTC) with pop and old-school goth music. I met a pair of girls named Sarah and Jessica, and if they shared a boyfriend called Parker, I would remember their names forever.

This is the mad, mad world of downtown parking. You have to be able to count, tell time, and know what day it is while you're parallel parking, which is not as difficult as figuring out how much you're paying for gas in liters and loonies. Eventually, we just left the car with a dozen Loonies stuck in the windshield to ward off parking ticket fairies. I kind of like getting a ticket in Canada, because that means I have something to put my gum in when I'm done chewing it. We were near the "hip" walk-around-shopping-and-looking-at-hookers-area, Gastown, named for the founder Gassy Jack, whom I don't want to know any more about. There is a steam clock there, which is like a steam locomotive, but stationary.

We tried to go out for the evening from our hotel on East Hastings, and we learned that in Vancouver, there's no such thing as a neighborhood bar. We got dressed up like cancer patients going to Prom and traipsed up and down the block, and finally asked the hotel clark about local drinking establishments, and she said, no, this is a residential zone, and all the bars are downtown, and I asked, then why does everyone I interact with seem drunk? She remarked that there was a liquor store down the street, so people frequently enjoy their own portable bars, also known as "jackets".

But I'm the one with the drinking problem.

In The Bowery

Dear Reader;

We have started making plans for Halloween, and I wanted to emotionally prepare you for it. Last year, I made my husband dress as a girl for the Strawberry Switchblade costumes, but this year we are both dressing as the (male) costumer and performance artist Leigh Bowery. Here is my working sketch for our costumes:

Leigh was a larger-than-life Australian who relocated to London in the 80's. His club Taboo was the subject of the Boy George-starring musical that was a big hit in the West End, but tanked in the States and cost Rosie O'Donnell the equivalent of a month of tongue baths from young, attractive coeds putting themselves through beauty college.

Canadians interested in anagrams might call the play Aboot.

Leigh was constantly changing up his "look", and influenced Michael Alig (Party Monster), Damien Hirst, and a young Alexander McQueen- although the last two have not yet killed anyone. Michael most noticeably lifted the Polka-Dot Man look from Leigh. Leigh's cast-aside material has been used to craft entire personas and careers for other people. Leigh's band, Minty, had an extremely dirty song as a hit in the Netherlands , "Useless Man."

The photographer Fergus Greer did a book of portraits of Leigh over six years called Leigh Bowery Looks.

Leigh is also one of Lucien Freud's most best-known portrait sitters.

There's a great film that documents some of his projects and his attempts to elevate life to an art, Legends of Leigh Bowery.

This is a shot from the excellent UK sci-fi comedy show Spaced, in which Little Britain's David Walliams portrays a Leigh Bowery-type character called Vulva. Strangely, when Boy George vacated the West End stage, the other half of Little Britain, Matt Lucas, took over as Leigh.

If anyone in Portland is stuck for a costume and would like to choose a Leigh look and join us for Halloween, let me know! It'll be fun. Probably.

I think this is the linkiest post ever.