Garden Parties, or, my house was built in 1892

 I have to pinch myself at how cute all of these people are, around me, and that they're discussing the history of baking a wheel of bread the size of a stop sign (1 kilo!!). While the art-school budget has finally hit me, and forced me to stop dropping bills on sweet mugs of thick, chocolate-y stout everywhere I go, the food is still good.

Especially now that I live in this big, old house. Mara (gardener/seamstress) and Al (map-maker) are my new housemates, along with this white basket chair placed carefully and oh-so-perfectly on this front porch, where I'm sitting as I write this, watching squirrels and a cross-eyed cat wander by.

Though I don't have a bed yet, I'm starting art school in a little over a week. I went to the coast with my dad, and I'm still reeling from the feeling of being in a VW van again, and I watch them drive by. From where I sit this morning, I can see three. One day soon, a bearded man will pull up and ask me to hop in.

pancakes, two kinds

Welcome to Portland, baby.

After spending four days in the city of roses, I've begun building a kind-of-ugly-but-endearing mountain bicycle/commuting hybrid at the Bike Farm, led on by a kind (and so patient) afro in red vans. What do you do when you live in a new place? I've been so used to rushing around, trying to see everything at once, that I've spent the last few days trying to eat all the good food I can and scoping out every single vintage store in town. 

It's a town full of people who like to do what I do. 

I went up to my new college, Oregon College of Art and Craft, and it hit me for maybe the first time that I'm Going to Art School. Looking back at photos of the last few weeks, from the weaving I finished in Vermont over pancakes, to ice cream sandwich cookies at those damn-cute Vermont farms, to eating another type of greasy pancake with my dearest Ava in Seattle, to Rawr kale salad from the local co-op (hello, hipster!), well, no wonder I'm a little scattered.

I'm staying with the lovely Allie and Andrew. Andrew hosts a Secret Restaurant every month, and submits things to Kinfolk. Allie is knitting with me, and I've become obsessed with looking at knitting patterns again. Mostly I drink a little too much good coffee and read The Snow Leopard on the buses. By the way, it's been So Oppressively Hot, and I can't wait for it to start getting rainy already. I want to wear my sweaters.

Mostly, I'm a little lost, but I have all these ideas and plans. I went to a yoga class at In Other Words yesterday, the famous feminist bookstore from Portlandia, and its actually a beautiful space for a class. Maybe I could teach one there. Maybe I could get chickens, too. And keep bees. 

I live in PORTLAND now! What!?

Hey there, chickens.

I'm writing this from the beautiful (okay, not so honest) Tacoma, where I've found probably the nicest coffee shop in the whole vicinity, and the baristas are even wearing plaid. It's great.

I thought I'd prime myself for a new onslaught of coffee in my life. From this moment on, Robin will be considered a Coffee Snob, and but will also secretly enjoy crappy coffee at diners because that's also great, sometimes, too. Tomorrow I head to Seattle with the lovely Ava and friends, before Sunday I make the Epic Move To Portland to begin the chapter In Which Robin Goes to Real Art School.

I'm missing Vermont already, so I keep looking at photos of that perfect place and daydreaming about the loom in my aunt and uncle's house in Shelburne. Moving between aesthetically-careful architecturally-bomb-diggity to rompous-college-house in which taking out the trash is Not a Priority, I'm a little bamboozled, and perhaps have found haven in this hip and spare Bluebeard's cafe.

I'm looking at Irina Troitskaya's sketchbook today, and considering how I myself need to settle down somewhere and start doing some serious artwork again, after a long hiatus of learning how to do nothing and enjoying reading novels all day as the Main Event. But (and here you may hark at these First World Problems) I'm getting restless after so much vacation, and I'm reading Rudolph Steiner's scary-weird essays about Spirit and Karma and Destiny in order to divine my own, personal DHARMA.

For now, I'm spending all day on Craigslist, scrolling through the hippity-hip Portland ads and coveting certain Antique Bright Green Schwinn Road Bicycles, and wondering what kind of cat I'm going to get, and if my pre-ordained name Small (thanks, Ms. Dillard) will fit him/her perfectly.

That's all for now, my ladies and gents. Enjoy these Vermont yums, I'm off to drink the rest of this americano and decide what I actually think about Gabriel Garcia Marquez.