To catch up on it all, I tried to journal what wound up being an open letter to Laura and Dave about the process of their wedding, and how much it meant to me, and how beautiful it was to witness, but I was brought to full-on tears in the coffeeshop this past Sunday morning. I did manage a few verses, and now all of the Feelings are blurred together with the past two nights spent at the Moore for Jeff Mangum's sets, Sunday's family dinner, and a host of other moments that have gotten under my skin of late. I'm full to the brim, to the point of tipping over, and as a result I'm having a hard time figuring out how to begin to let it all out, lest I spill and make a mess of everything.

{From Herkimer, 4/15/12}

Dear Sweet Buddies,

I'm sitting at Herkimer, almost one in the afternoon on the day after your wedding. It's Sunday and I can't stop Feeling all the Things. I'm torn between the hilarity of the photo of Troy and Cody that made its way onto my lock screen and nursing the sweet love hangover that I'm feeling for you both. <3

I've never been involved in a wedding the way that I was in yours, not even for my sister -- where I was not only lending a hand with the planning and logistics, but also taking part first-hand in the experience of people I care about very, very deeply taking a step into the next phase of their lives together. I really feel like we were all bearing literal witness to your unconditional love last night, for each other and your families and the community that surrounds you, kind of like a love-steroid version of Laura's photo opening back in the fall of '09, where we were all separated by one common denominator that was also the thing that bound us together (which was you, buddy) -- and now it's the same, only bigger, and it's both of you.

Playing a part in both the culmination and formal, public expression of all of this isn't even something I can properly assign words to, as I sit here overwhelmed, struck by pangs of emotion, flashing back to the ceremony proper and moments surrounding: the strains of the songs, the first sharp inhalations and how hardly one of us could fight back the tears. It was your day, of course -- but I can't help feeling like we all took those vows together last night, and those vows feel like a part of me now, something that will live on in me forever, in the same (albeit fractional) way that it will live on forever in the two of you. I hope I can hold on to this for a long, long time: how it feels to be blinking back tears of joy amidst the buzz of coffee grinders and strains of the Velvet Underground, and the way this greyday sunlight of a (mostly) bright Seattle day is streaming in the windows and washing across these pages.

I love you both, so much. And I can honestly say, without hyperbole, that I've never been more believing in the love two people can have for each other. Truly. Being at the point in my dating history these last few years where I've loved, lost, struggled, and become (almost) convinced that true love may not actually exist, I find myself full to the brim of the words and vows that you exchanged last night, all parsed through with what an important part of my chosen family that you are -- and I'm struck by the love and support and hope that exists in all the sides of that new structure. I can finally see a glimmer of hope and light instead of a thought-train bearing down with a screech in a dark tunnel. It's the moment of silence after that train is past, the soft, filtering notes that there's room for now, to remind me that true love really will find me in the end, the very same way that it's found to two of you.

I'm afraid to take off the necklace I wore during the ceremony, strange as that seems. It's encapsulated something I can't quite explain and don't want to risk breaking. All I know is that something in me is forever changed since yesterday, that the stack of Polaroids in my mind that means "love" looks different, bigger; and the things I thought I knew are rearranged and smaller, and I owe every ounce of it to what exists between the two of you and how you let me share in something so monumentous and true.

I can't thank you enough for letting me into your lives the way you have.

I'd keep writing about it all, but I can't see the screen through the tears. I managed a few photos of the afternoon and night, and I Can. Not. Wait. to see Kip's photos and what the dude got from the photobooth -- equal parts hilarity, love, drunkness, nudity, face-licking, and all-out bliss.

{The Institution of Jeff Mangum}

Still reeling from that -- unable to get through more than a few sentences with friends and coworkers over the last few days without tears welling up at the beauty of it all, mind you -- the lot of us (us = pretty much everyone I know in Seattle, plus Stephanie) hightailed it to the Moore for Jeff Mangum on Monday night.

It seems like most people I talked to had the same set of expectations pre-set: on a scale of one to demanding magnificence, we were low / barely registering, thrilled but not wanting to make too much of it, prepared for a freak-out, a no-show, or whatever the hell else can happen from someone as heavy duty as Jeff. So, expecting next to nothing, happy to just be in the same few hundred feet -- what the room full of people got during that first night was a powerful, undeniable, almost indescribably great performance. Without hyperbole, it was easily a show to go down in the top ten shows in the history of ever, as Jeff is just as much of an all-out force as he ever was, reproducing the sounds of all those tracks that got into the spaces between our very bones oh-so-many years ago.

To bear witness to a set like that, things you thought you'd never see, a veritable baseline that so many... things and ideas in our collective musical histories and consciousnesses have branched off from -- it was blown-away-ness was coupled with a sense of gratitude and to a slight degree, reverence. In the exact sixty minutes that Jeff had the stage on Monday, we all took that trip together. And pulling up to the house later, Lori and I found ourselves tripping over our own feet to get to our computers to buy what were some of the last single seats on the floor, winding up front row of the pit for Tuesday's show.

I'm sure for people that only saw Tuesday that the show was just as good, but Monday was the magical, incredible night for me -- and Tuesday was the holy fuck, I can't miss a chance at reliving even a little bit of that up close kind of thing. And to top it all off, I managed to record this on my iPhone on Monday night. Sweet Jesus, I can still feel every minute of it, every time I listen.

{Here we go, Sundays}

I had a friend back east who used to call Sundays "Suicide Sundays," because that's how they went down for her. It wasn't for lack of sun or community, she had a nice apartment downtown that I always coveted, clean clothes and a good head on her shoulders. She just would shift into this gear that nothing seemed to be able to pull her out of.

The whole winter here is rough, easier as each one passes, of course, and while Sundays aren't shaped like that for me the way they used to be for that friend, it's safe to say that we do our fair amount of hibernating here in the off-months. Sleep a little more, venture out a little less, and eventually -- for me, at least -- come to almost forget that going out and pushing past the lonely doors that hold us back actually feels better than staying home and tending to the aloneness. I managed to thwart a lot of that this past season by moving into a house with a few other folks, where at the very worst, we're all alone together, and at the very best, we have a mini-community that shifts and holds each other up through the bumpy patches. And to take it up a notch, in the midst of ever-improving winters in Seattle, our friends Rick and Amber decided to start having Family Dinner on Sunday nights at their house. Open door, pile of pasta, food-memory generation for their kids, and some kind of evolved grown-up buddy-time that vaguely mirrors the Sundays of families past, without the cigarettes and the scotch and the card games. And if we're going to call a spade a spade, I don't even like kids. But I love these dinners, and I love these people, and I adore these kids.

I went from arranging my world to be able to stay in to moving things around so that I'd be ready to venture out. And now, I almost can't wait for Sunday afternoons to roll around. Between this, my regular Monday gig, and volunteering at Gay City each Thursday -- coupled with the preexisting bliss of the community of friends and chosen family I find myself in practically every day of the week -- I can honestly say I've never had it so good. Grey days and Sundays included. Grey days and Sundays especially.

Of course, between all of these moments, there have been shows -- on top of the double-whammy Jeff Mangum CutCon 2012 Spectacular, Mike Doughty came through town and stopped at the Triple Door for a show / book reading and Damien Jurado, Jonathan Russell, and a few friends played at Round #83 at the Fremont Abbey. Imaginary postings {words & photos} here and here, flickr sets here and here, and some audio from the Abbey show here.

It seems like an anticlimactic wrap-up, but I think that's all the news that's fit to print at the moment. Happy spring, everybody. Careful out there in that (sometimes) sun. XO

All of my photos will now be this big. Because I said so.

Non word-salad shortcut: photo sets parts one and two are here and here.

{on heading home}

White-guy take-over-the-world ranting aside, I have had experiences here of a tremendous sort. I've seen major sites of ruins and stood where literal history has taken place, touched the Coliseum and the columns of the Pantheon, and ate a picnic in the two thousand-year-old remnants of an ancient city. I've photographed massive, hand-built structures both in the light of day and glowing gigantic in the night, seen statues so big that I can barely compare them to anything, and stood in gorgeous piazzas wondering how the hell I was supposed to go back to Seattle and take pictures of bands after all this bliss. There were letters unearthed from the Vatican for the first time in several hundred years, pressed under glass: from Gallileo, Marie Antionette, Abraham Lincoln; decrees for the burning of Brutus, pleas to Christopher Columbus to spread the white-guy propaganda to the “new world” he'd just “discovered” -- all inches away from my nose.

I've stood underneath the center of the Sistine Chapel, learned about countless artists and the (some mythological) stories behind the meanings of the basic words of language as we now know it and the magic behind the seasons, making up in small part for all of the days in high school when I was wasted, absent, or otherwise just checked out of my life. I've eaten food like I've never seen before, lived hyper-locally, cooked big bountiful dinners in an apartment kitchen in Monte Verdi, picked up bits of the language, and ordered gelato from a shop so authentic that no one spoke a word of English, forcing me to fumble through my childlike language set like a pocketful of same-sized coins. The cat sanctuary, the remnants of Mussolini, the aggressive men, the beautiful women. With Haley's help, I even learned how to navigate the transit system, a feat of seemingly olympic proportions before I'd arrived in town.

The cobbled streets of Trastevere, the buildings that fill in during imaginings among the ruins of the Roman forum, the shopping, the cultural shift, some of the very underpinnings of art as we know it, the architecture that was light-years beyond it's own time, the open-air markets, the yelling, the love, the sound of church bells and mopeds and packs of children playing and couples quarreling. The rooftops I've waited years to see. And between all the tours and the museums and the shops and the wanderings and the just-the-right-light hitting the perfect spot photographs, there was food. Croissants like nothing I've ever had before, macchiato at the bar, pizza like it's meant to be, panini and bruschetta and prosciutto and fruit. I had gelato almost every day, un cannolo just once (but the best one that ever was), pesto, antipasti, artichoke lasagna, carbonara, zucchini flowers, and macchiato after macchiato after macchiato. The .99E chocolate bar in the grocery store was better than most of the “gourmet” chocolate at home, and not just because I willed it to be. The last night, I ate until I thought I would burst, and then ate some more. And then some.

It was surprising to see the city as it really was and not as an over-romanticized version of itself, with trash and graffiti more often than not, litter and dogshit and pickpockets and leering men. But it was all pushed aside by the beauty, by daily modern life among the ruins of history, by the very breath of the culture, by the thing that happens there that makes your heart sing. It was almost like when I was in New York for more than a day or two for the first time, doing what I loved as I volunteered for KEXP in real-time for the first time, at the Museum of Television and Radio all those years ago... and after I acclimated to the world around me the city very much started to charm my pants off. It didn't matter that there were rats in the subway and homeless people pissing in alleyways. There was an electricity to it, a fire, a something-unexplainable that seems to only exist in these epicenters, and that can't be replicated no matter how hard the try is. I asked Haley if there was a phrase for that undercurrent I was feeling, espresso on tiny tables on those antique streets, heart full of sun and eyes full of the staggering majesty of the buildings around me. “There is,” she said. “That's what they call 'la dolce vita'.” Probably something I should incorporate into a tattoo at some point.

There has been so much, from the mundane to the other-worldly, from how to order coffee to the reality that there's an entire separate lifetime going on, as many as there are other countries and cultures, everywhere in the world. It sounds simple and trite, but it's not anything I could fully comprehend without being fully immersed in it. These are worlds that get painted in books and movies that you have to touch, see, feel, and breathe to truly understand -- had I taken the trip as a course of romance, I can't even imagine how it all would have struck me. Tenfold at least, I presume, and what's struck me even one-fold has been enough to bowl me over for a long, long time.

As I sit staring out the well-worn window of the airport at the plane that will house me for the next ten hours or so, backwards in time to reach New York around 3p (today) EST, I'm trying to embrace my trip and the timing and even the transatlanticism that's about to take place. I tried not to lament the leaving but to be grateful for the hours and days spent, and I'm trying not to lament the arriving but instead finding gratitude for heading home to Seattle. The reality is that there are sad sides to Italy as well, most notably that the country is in a state of financial distress, that these ruins we flock to see and touch and those sidewalks we yearn to caffeinate on are poorly maintained, and that the bulk of archeological work, excavation, and discovery that goes on (at least in Rome specifically) is mostly the result of funded grants and teams coming in from other countries and various universities. They've taken out the current prime minister and “installed” a new person for the remainder of the term, whose sole purpose is to fix the current economic state. With Haley being in international studies and all, a whole big bright element opened up there as well, and her very ways made me want to continue my education in ways I never had before. Perhaps I should start with community college and reading the newspaper every now and again.

***

Home now, having no belief in jet lag until I passed out at 8:40 last night and found myself wide awake at 3:30a this morning, I'm trying to take it easy and not panic at how behind it all feels -- I'm suddenly back to lists and work projects and combing venue calendars and fitting everything I humanly can on my schedule. When people ask me how the trip was, I find myself saying that I feel like I've had my "first time" now, and how unprepared I was for the majesty of it all... and there's little else I can do besides point to the pictures and explain how they have to go and how I can't wait to get back.

There were only a few photos from the last update til now that didn't get posted, so, here's the last one I took before heading home for the night to pack.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, with fresh eyes and a bit more courage -- I can't wait to see what comes on next.

Really, I don't know how people ever leave this place. I've still got the weekend ahead of me before my day of flying starts at 10a local time Monday, and I'm already plotting how to get back, how much it would cost and how long I could realistically stay for.

Yep. It's that good. Good in ways I can't explain. Good in a sense that it's a whole other lifetime here, good in the way that I won't know how to answer people when they ask me how Rome was. Life-altering-ly good. Incredibly, indescribably good. Tattoo-worthy good. And before we go any further, shortcut to photos part one is here, part two here. Moving on:

The last few days feel all blurred together now that I'm trying to purposefully write them out, but each one in and of itself was independent of the others, a series of mental Polaroids... Monday (day four of the trip) started off with a three-plus hour tour of the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's basilica, both of which were breathtaking in stature and content. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that I'm just looking at the relics and results of these massive white-guy hostile takeovers: country is functioning, (normal) Christianity is on the down-low, Paganism / pantheism abounds -- and then, boom! Group of white guys decide that they know the one true religious way, and that said one way is the best way, and that it's going to be their way or the highway -- and suddenly people in opposition to this are getting burned alive in public, the great artists of the day are commissioned to paint the scenes of this "one way" of religious "truth" everywhere they can reach, the temples and basilicas and statues built in honor of all other ways are destroyed. The more places here I visit, the more I learn; and the more I hear the conversations from actual current-day Italians regarding the seeming insanity of it all. Now, the Catholics have their little city, the relics and results bring tourists and help the economy, and everyone manages to get along. But it doesn't make it any less insane-seeming, fundamentally.

Now, all of that said, I'd be lying if I told you that getting to see those structures wasn't completely cool, and that the scale and the age alone are, as I said in the last post, positively staggering, and that stepping in the spaces and breathing in the air at the very footsteps where major historical events took place has not been one of the greatest experiences of my life -- because it was, they are, and it has been. These elements, fused with the absolute departure from daily American life and culture as I know it, spending hours at modern cafes built atop centuries-old cobblestone, taking in the light and the fashion and the secondhand smoke and the something-I-can't-quite-describe-ness about it all, make me yearn to come back before I've even begun to start leaving. As crazy as these contradictions are, I'm already trying to figure out how to return. It's another magnet, just like Seattle. And when the pull is this strong, I have to pay attention.

But, I digress -- back to the tours and the fourth day: the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's, the statues, the ceilings, the scale. It was almost too much to take in, like how good museums fill you up and the sponge suddenly can't hold another drop. The fact that they pillaged the pagan temples for content to build them aside, both structures are pretty fucking impressive. The ceiling of the Hall of Maps alone in the Vatican was almost too much to bear, the Raphael rooms painted life in light in ways no one had ever seen before, literally from floor to ceiling; the Sistine Chapel (no photos allowed, unfortunately) and it's majesty and the stories of how Michelangelo had a humped back and a disorder of eyesight for years and years following the completion, and the last statue that he ever signed (because, as he stated, he'd be "so famous he wouldn't have to sign his name ever again") that's now behind bulletproof glass because some activist attacked it with a hammer back in the seventies; the forty-story tall dome section of Saint Peter's, and how Bellini made the visual element of the basilica from the ground inside it as such so that people wouldn't be terrified to enter, because of the sheer scope and scale of the place -- using tricks of the eye and scaling statues so that it looked much more manageable than it really was.

If there's one recommendation I can make for anyone traveling to Rome, it's to take the guided tours as much as you can for the major list items on your sightseeing agenda -- I hooked up with a place called Dark Rome tours through my friend Haley, and they were absolutely three for three. I would have still been able to witness some of these fundamental beginnings of art and architechture, of course, and still been struck by it all -- but having attentive, educated guides to lead the way really made all the difference.

View of St. Peter's as intended, from the Vatican Museum

Hall of Maps

Inside the Vatican Museum

The last piece Michelangelo ever signed

Inside St. Peter's -- forty stories up, just from the base of the dome!

Walk from the Museum / St. Peter's back to the tramDay five, Tuesday, started off running late for (and then immersing in) trips through the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Again, we have a functioning empire and pantheistic worship among the people of Rome trotting along just fine, and then you turn around one day and both the Coliseum itself and all of the forum / surrounding areas are a veritable quarry for the churches being erected. Thankfully, I think it was... in the 1800s?, one of the popes finally got his shit together and realized that, regardless of who believed what and which gods were worshipped where, all of these structures were part of history and thereby to be honored by all Romans, and an immediate "cease fire" was put to the pillaging of these gorgeous buildings -- which is what explains all the half-demolished structures that are shored up by more modern brick edges and concrete walls. A period of preservation and restoration begain, and with the exception of Mussolini being a complete douche and literally making his own holy road right down the middle of the forum (which destroyed countless buildings and put the Coliseum front-and-center for an immeasurable amount of damage from the sheer pollution from the roadway alone), the effort to take great care of what's left and preservable of Rome's precious history is a working part of Italian life today.

In the Coliseum itself, we learned the different seating levels for classes of citizens, how animals would be brought from other countries and starved so as to provide a good "show" when they fought each other, how public executions took place in the morning, the slave labor it took to run all the underpinnings of the "stage" area, and how the whole shebang was a way of the emperor at the communicating laws, power, and a sense of majesty to the people of Rome. The forum was more remnants and corners left of the main area where Romans would congregate and hold their gatherings and markets, all the main buildings, the original location of the eternal flame and where the vestal virgins stood to tend it, a pagan basilica that was pretty much the footprint for the construction of St. Peter's, and on and on.

The tour also included a trip to Palatine Hill, a massive spot where a castle once lived that was bigger than anything I can even begin to explain, and the hill itself also supposedly marks the birthplace of Romulus and Remus, the founding moment of Rome -- legend has it that one of the vestal virgins birthed these twins that she had to give up in the midst of scandal, and that they were then raised by a she-wolf, which homage to is seen all over the city. However, the term for "she-wolf" and "prostitute" (in either Italian or Latin, I don't remember which) is one and the same -- so, the tour guide left it up to us as to which way we wanted to interpret the meanings of the beginning of the city as we currently know it.

View from the Coliseum

Original location of the eternal flame

Palatine Hill

Wednesday (Haley's first day off of class / the land of perpetually writing papers) and Thursday were filled with churches, ruins, views, shops, coffee, gelato, conversation, and just getting to see the real eat-sleep-breathe kind of Rome, with a lot of it spent away from the tourists. After a late night Tuesday we started Wednesday at the cafe across the street with espresso and pastries, Thursday started at Haley's favorite spot for Nutella-filled croissants out by the cat sanctuary; Wednesday found us at the mouth of truth, wandering through the ruins of the Jewish ghetto, standing at the very spot where chariot races once took place at Circus Maximus, past endless boutiques, at the foot of the Spanish Steps, and inside the (more foreboding / less artistically profound than St. Peter's) walls of the masive San Giovanni; Thursday at Campo de' Fiori, a free trip to the Capitoline Museum for International Women's Day, and then out for errands and more coffee. We closed out Wednesday with apertivo (a deal where you buy a drink at a restaurant and they put out a buffet of totally good, all-you-can-eat food) topped off with the best tiramisu in Rome at a place called Pompi, and Thursday we had a multi-course two-hour dinner at a gorgeous little spot in Trastevere, Cantina Paradiso -- where we ate, talked for hours, and patched some pieces of life together, all to the tune of a few back-to-back REM albums.

Church at the Mouth of TruthCircus MaximusPope store (seriously)

Spanish StepsSan Giovanni

Bialettis forever!

Capitoline MuseumThe sun is setting here on my time, literally and figuratively -- it's both nearing the end of the day now and I've only got a little time left in the city itself. We've still got a trip to Ostia Antica on the docket, along with one last jaunt around Trastevere, one last pizza, and one last gelato at the place where I've learned to order without speaking English; and then a full-to-the-brim Sunday: coffee, an open-air fleamarket, one last hello and goodbye to the cats at the sanctuary, packing, dinner, three coins into the Trevi, and another gelato out by the Vatican so I can see it all lit up at night.

Hopefully I can post on the plane so everything is up-to-date by the time I land, but if not, I'll have the rest up sometime next week when I've caught up on running and sleep and detoxed from all the carbs. Sweet Roma, I miss you already. <3

Ciao ciao,
V.

Fountain by Bellini in Piazza Navona

I can barely wrap my brain around the fact that I'm something crazy -- what, six thousand miles? -- away from home, in a land where English is not the primary language, and that there's buildings here that are older than I can even begin to understand, and that I got here in the first place. Truly.

If you want to skip all the word salad and just see the sights, no offense taken. Just pop on over to flickr for part one of the photospread here.

{leaving and arriving}

The trip over was a whirlwind. Like I mentioned in the last post, I'd cleared off about a week and a half before the trip thinking... I don't know what. Thinking that I had to Do Things and that I would Need More Time, but the reality of it all is that I did a ton of laundry the weekend before the trip, took a half-day before I left, ran a bunch of errands and did more laundry until about 10p, took a power nap, and then shoved everything into a giant backpack at 3:30a (that I had to sit on to close) and left for the airport. Half of the things I had in my queue to do before leaving didn't happen, and the rest of the time I kept worrying that I was forgetting something, somehow. Even with four lists that had all been checked at least twice. Again, like I mentioned -- it was my first time. Hopefully I'll get better at it, maybe even as good at it as I am taking stateside trips someday.

So, rush-rush-rush, a bag on my back that feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, security clearance, no time for (decent) coffee, four-plus hour plane ride, layover, delay, nine hour plane ride. During said layover I noticed that our flight seemed to be partially filled by a giant international study-ish field trip full of kids who had a handful of chaperones, one of whom was their drama teacher. She would wind up Not Shutting Up for the duration of the flight. Not once. She was loud and touched with crazy, "hollering at" her kids, trying desperately to fuse pop culture into her speakings with them, and just generally making a complete ass out of herself. Honestly, I thought she was the cheerleading coach until I learned otherwise.

We finally took off around 6p Atlanta-time, and by 9p most of the plane was fed and Dramamined and tipsy / dozing off. Except for Drama Lady. She flip-flopped between talking at an incredibly loud volume, stating that she was deaf in one ear (thus explaining her loudness, because she couldn't hear herself I guess?), and hearing people whispering about her ten rows away and yelling -- from her seat -- for them to shut up because she could hear them. She also managed to do lovely things like yell out strings of words in faux-talian ("Lasagna! Parmesean! Am I right, kids?"), confront the flight attendants and other people on the plane who were shushing her, and generally embarrass America as a nation by her all-around overbearingness. She also kept stating that she shouldn't have to be quiet because it was only 9:30p or whenever it was at any given moment, not thinking about people like me who had been up since 3a Seattle-time, or the woman next to me who was coming from Ecuador or someplace and had been up for almost thirty-five hours. They finally told her that she'd get arrested in Rome for the airplane equivalent of breach of peace if she didn't knock it off, and she finally shut the fuck up.

When daylight started blasting through the cabin and the food carts (frozen bananas and unidentifiable breakfast pocket things) began to roll around, Drama Lady woke up and was quiet as a mouse, which led a few of us to think she might have been a bit tipsy the night prior. Waking, eating, trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy with bedhead and unshoweredness and unbrushed teeth, and suddenly we were off the plane and walking through the airport. Upside to the whole thing? Drama Lady aside, the flight was long, but not nearly as bad as I'd prepared for.

So, the airport. I'm not even going to try and lie here, it was moderately scary to be alone someplace where no one is speaking English and only some of the signs have English translations, coupled with that travel-brain element -- I love the part of waking it up and going new places and seeing new things and having to think in new pathways and all, but not being in my routines does take a bit of adjusting to. And I get it, of course it's only an airport, I'm not being dropped off in a jungle in some third world country or anything -- but the whole place is hot, I'm alone, I'm not quite sure where to go, I have what feels like a hundred pounds of shit on my back and I can't quite differentiate between the buses and the trains, and then I found the trains but which trains, and then I got on a train but am I on the right one, and so on. Honestly, having Haley pretty much direct the process and give me the outline of where to go and where to stop and where she'd meet me and how to get my train ticket validated -- she basically saved my ass. I'm sure if I was traveling on my own that I'd have gotten by and all, and stayed in a hostel and made some friends or what have you... but being here with a fully immersed, fluent local that can rough out the process for me has been infinitely helpful. It's kind of like how I learned today at the Borghese, about how the sculptors went through their processes from drawings to mock-ups and finally to selecting and beginning the carving process of the marble: having a seasoned person there with me to help with my vision, to direct those first crucial cuts that will make or break what I will ultimately turn into my expression of what's taking place -- it's been pretty priceless.

{being here, so far}

On the advice of many, I did not sleep on arrival day, and instead managed to pull Haley away from her schoolwork to run the streets with me for a bit. First things first: learning how to flush the toilet, how the shower has a window but no curtain, how the windows in Haley's room are burst-open-able like a scene out of a fucking movie, how there's washers but no dryers and the laundry hangs outside. We stopped at the local coffee bar where I learned how to order espresso (pay first, receipt to counter, then order at the bar) and took a trip to the market: five days worth of healthy breakfasty things, a ton of fresh produce for dinner fixings, apples, and even a bar of really great chocolate, all for just over 15 euros. After Haley hammered away at more of her paper we ventured out for the night, where she blew my mind with a trip to Trastevere for pizza. If you've never been, Trastevere is what Italy looks like in the movies, with winding cobblestone streets and outdoor restaurants and shops and such. Then, we stopped at the cat sanctuary, which a large outdoor area of ruins where Julius Caesar was said to have been assassinated, and is now home to about 150 homeless cats. (!!!) Then it was off to Piazza Navona, a fountain by Bellini (incredible), gelato (holy shit), and another short walk that rounded the corner to the Pantheon.

Haley's apartment and bedroom viewCat sanctuary (nighttime)Church en route to Piazza Navona

Bellini (above) and secondary fountain at Piazza NavonaNow, Piazza Navona is impressive -- the scale of the fountain and the buildings alone are mind-boggling, simply because they're so insanely huge and (mostly) so incomprehendibly old -- but walking up to the Pantheon was absolutely other-worldly. I knew the historical drive-by, which Haley recounted a bit: giant temple of worship built to pay homage to the gods, monotheism takes over, statues destroyed and replaced with images of saints for "traditional" worship. We all know the story. But really, walking up to the thing -- I mean, the door alone felt like the biggest I'd ever seen. The columns stretched up higher than a man-made structure could ever stretch in my mind, and knowing that you were walking through an area that had been walked through for almost two thousand years (it was originally commissioned to be built in 126 AD) just brought this... shiver. And I say this as one of those "personally spiritual but by no means religious" types, of course. It was absolutely staggering, simply from a historical perspective. That was the first point where I touched one of the columns, looked at Haley, and said, "How the hell am I supposed to go back home and take pictures of bands?" Everything suddenly seemed minute by comparison.

Pantheon (nighttime)A bit of sleep and then day two found me back out adventuring on the tram to see the cats in the daylight, along with trips on my own for daytime shots of Piazza Navona and a stop inside the Pantheon. Again, because there is no other word: staggering. Just the age of it all and the history of the place filled up so many pages in my mind that I almost had to sit down to take it all in. After absorbing all that, I spent mid-day meandering about in Trastevere shooting, retired back to the apartment for a nap after I learned that most restaurants worth their salt are not open from about 1-4p, made dinner for (still studying) Haley and then took a trip out for gelato with her and for more sights.

The day ended with night views of a massive building that was commissioned to honor one of the kings in the 1800s that most Italians hate because it's "too new" and which they refer to as "the typewriter", some of the forum ruins, the Coliseum (which you can just walk up to and like, touch), and the Trevi Fountain. The evening was a bit marred by some creepy foreign guys following us for what felt like miles, saying the rudest things (the gents are prone to being a bit persistent here, but these two were uncomfortably persistent with a side of sketchy), but we finally ditched them toward the end of the sightseeing. By now, not even here for forty-eight hours, I know the basic layout of the neighborhoods, am able to roughly discern what's in which direction, and am more immersed / less fearful. It's also incredibly helpful that I know a handful of Italian phrases and that 92% of the people I've interacted with were able to speak English.

Cat sanctuary

Piazza Navona in the daylight

En route to Pantheon and Pantheon exterior

  Pantheon interior and post-Pantheon gelato view

    Trastevere

Coliseum (nighttime)

"Typewriter" monument (above), Trevi FountainToday I was up work-early to go from Haley's to the tram to the bus to the Borghese Gallery, a tiny museum on a huge stretch of property that holds a few hundred incredible pieces. I learned that one of the Borgheses was the nephew of one of the popes, and used his connection quite unceremoniously to gather a collection of art that he wanted, by name-dropping and by force (such that if you refused his "offer" to buy your art, you might find yourself in jail the next day reconsidering your answer) and with a seemingly unending stream of money. There were Bellinis and four or five other artists with incredible stories that I can't quite recall the names of, the one who painted his face into a portrait of David and Goliath as a plea to re-enter Rome, one of the original 'Madonna with Child' images, pre-impressionism, a Ruben, and stories that made up for all those years when I was stoned and out of touch with my history classes in school: Bellini's sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, when he was shot with Cupid's arrow to love her just as she was shot with the arrow to hate him, and the exact moment at which she turned into a tree (and how Apollo declared the tree sacred, and why Romans would wear crowns of laurel leaves as a result, and the tracings of the phrase "baccalaureate"); how the original hermaphrodites were traced back to the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, and the story of how he was met upon in a garden by a woman he rejected, who then begged for them never to be parted, and how the gods complied; how Hades and his pursuit of Persephone explains the seasons, how faux-finishes came to be as an expression of not a lack of riches but to show off how good the artists in residence were capable of being, how the Borgheses wanted so badly to be considered original Romans that the property was littered with fake ruins -- it just went on and on.

Borghese groundsThree hours later, I walked from the Twin Churches back through into the Pantheon area and managed to find little shortcuts back to the tram, and went back through Trastevere hoping the incredible pizza place wasn't shut for lunch -- by the time I got there I'd been on my feet for close to five hours and was absolutely famished. I sat for the best pizza of my life for the second time in three days, and I came back to the apartment where my intended engagement in the regional tradition of a daily "nap" wound up stealing the afternoon. I dreamed of a fake party-wedding (it made sense in the dream) where we all got dressed up and I was betrothed to John Vanderslice in some big, dark, incredible restaurant with tons of friends.

Walking back from the Borghese to the tram{what I've learned}

Well, a few things, specifically on the travel-technicality front:

One, it would have been monumentally easier to take up Verizon on their offer to send me a loaner BlackBerry for the trip, instead of not buying a SIM when I landed (for the phone I forgot to charge) and then going, "fuck it, I'm just going to use my iPhone" and then not having any service, so I couldn't call even if I wanted to at ten dollars a minute or whatever the hell it costs.

Two, I was right to pack in Seattle layers, at least during this time of the year -- it's chilly in the mornings but gets absolutely delightful when the sun comes out. Three, you can absolutely get by on 20 euros a day: I came here with about 50 euros in discretionary funds and a 200 euro / ten day budget, and with a trip to the grocery store on day one, I've absolutely been able to get around, have gelato whenever I want (it's usually only 2 or 3 euros), and not be stressed about funds.

Four, buy a tram pass but don't validate it unless you see a ticket-checker coming. Five, I could have kept living "normal life" up until a few days before I left, there was no need to block off so much time. And last-but-not-least-ly: pack a lunch / snacks if you're going to stay out in the afternoon, and if not, take full advantage of the city-wide nap window! I have to keep remembering that on top of wanting to see everything I can possibly see that it is a vacation too, after all.

I've learned loads more on top of that in the emo / headspace / metaphorical sense, of course, but that's enough words for now. There's trams to catch and more gelato to chase down and pictures waiting to be taken.

<3
V.

Here's what's gone by this month thus far / since the last post:

Holy shit, Nada Surf. From the imaginary post:

"The working subtitle for this photoessay was almost Fuck Everything Else, Indie Rock Wins Forever. Because there's no other way to say it: Nada Surf puts on one hell of a pulsing, swoonworthy, face-shredding rock show. And not just any kind of rock, mind you -- this is fully legit indie rock, a term that gets tossed around way too loosely these days. You just have to know it when you see it: in this case, Nada Surf delivers their particular take, with the kind of big-guitar storytelling madness that keeps the crowd moving for the duration of the set, while blowing out eardrums in the most beautiful of ways. Without hesitation, I'll even go so far as to say that Nada Surf comes damn close to giving bands like the Wrens a run for their money -- and those of you who know my personal dedication to all things Wrens know the {musical} gravity with which I speak when I make that kind of a statement."

I've literally been waiting for the Neptune show since the moment the Tractor set stopped buzzing in my ears. More shots in the flickrs here.

Holy shit, pancake breakfast. Simultaneously the best and worst breakfast in recent memory. Best because of the band and the buddies. Worst because most of it tasted like a pile of sugar-covered rubber. But I'd go back again in a heartbeat.

Holy shit, expired disposable camera from Goodwill. Lesson learned? Don't not flash, no matter how bright it is out or how good you think the shot will look. Also, don't pay more than a dollar or two for these at the thrift store.

Holy shit, Dancing on the Valentine. Nine zillion bands, almost eight thousand dollars in funds raised, and some of the best Duran Duran songs that I didn't even know I loved as much as I did. While John Roderick's mini-set was pretty killer, the show-stealer of the night definitely goes to Hotels and NighTraiN covering "Come Undone" {in addition to the inimitable Jenny George herself, of course}. Imaginary postings here, shots in the photobooth by Ben Haley here.

Holy shit, Kim and Kelly!

I'm so, so thrilled that I got to take some happy-couple photos for Kim (one of my dayjob besties), who got engaged to her girlfriend Kelly just after the new year. These are two of my favorites, but take a peep at the link above for the full set on flickr.

Holy shit, Marqopa. Seriously.

Damien Jurado {and friends} managed to sell out the Neptune last Friday for the release of Maraqopa, his latest studio effort with Richard Swift. Paling in comparison only to Saint Bartlett, this is yet another journey into the depths of Damien's ever-evolving gift. A bit on "Nothing is the News" here, showposting here, and flickr set here.

Holy shit, Brad / holy shit, Anna's house.

From my tumblings:

"I had these pictures in my head since the first visit to my friend Anna’s house. Primarily the shot in the bathroom, and then when it was sorted out that Brad would be the one coming with me, the black-and-white shot appeared too.

I suppose that's all the news that's fit to update at the moment. We're barely two months into the year and it seems as though there's more going on than I realize, as I look over the volume of stuff I'm getting done regularly -- mostly because I'm saying yes to things about fifteen percent more of the time than I think I ought to, with glorious result. I've found myself pushing past the boundaries of what's comfortable, and squeezing every ounce out of the boost that comes from mainlining vitamin D to combat the inevitable greys, and there's also the 'body in motion tends to stay in motion' logic that's proving itself quite true. I'm not sure which part relates to kale or vitamin cocktails or running or journaling or the lack of ladydrama in my life right now, but I'll take it.

This past week, I've eased on the brakes and left myself a little room in the schedule for pre-Italy doings. I've gone from full-to-the-brim calendar to suddenly having so many strange errands -- exchanging money, learning a language, studying maps, making daytrip plans, putting seemingly necessary liquids into tiny plastic containers -- and I've felt like I can't take on any social commitments for fear of running out of time, which is bizarre now that I'm looking at it all typed out. But the reality is simply that I just need to do a little extra laundry and fit ten days of my life into a giant backpack a day or so before I leave. There's almost an internal exhaustion that has come from it, part nervous and part thrilled and part scared and part getting shit done at the dayjob and the lovejob and on and on and on. I envy people who can just live normally until a day before a giant trip like this, and then launder, pack and leave, without needing a giant buffer beforehand. I've gotten really good at it for stateside trips. Maybe someday I'll get better at it internationally, too.

Bon courage, you guys. Rome beckons. More to follow in a few weeks.

I live in a bubble. A bubble surrounded by mountains, postcard scenery. Separated from the rest of the free world, I spend most of my waking hours in a community of like-minded folk: artists of varying mediums, friends, family of my choosing. We are careful about the meat we purchase. We watch endless documentaries. Our haircolors change with the seasons, our decisions are often politically responsible, we take action for the greater good, we take care of each other. We have work-life balance. We blanch kale and are never without an array of reusable grocery bags. And the shows. My god, the shows.

But it's heavy today. I'm sitting here in silence, freshly under the weight of realizations. I thought today about the validation people must get from their parents when they accomplish things. How, as you get older, if you have a healthy dynamic with your mother and father that they love, encourage, and appreciate you as you continue to walk into adulthood -- always your parents, but now a fellow set of adults, elder as they may be. How I've done so much and changed so much that it would be amazing to have them see this, to fly to Seattle, to stay in the home I've built with friends, to get a glimpse of my life.

Comforted now by the click of the keyboard typewriter on the laptop, I come here to this blinking blank screen (when I'm not buried in my paper notebook, ink-stained hands) for cleansing, for solace, for the attempt to untangle the knots or to relieve the weight or to try and figure out how to rearrange everything so I can carry it while it's mine to bear. Click-clack, click-clack. And in this particular series of moments: these knots, this weight, cursor blinks -- I don't quite know where to put everything. Any of it. The night will go on, I will go to the store and bake cookies for the potluck tomorrow and I'll edit photos and rearrage those two songs on the mix I just made, because I've been listening to it in the car this week and really think the Rentals should come after Weezer, not before. But I'm still struck dumb by the realization that this week, my mom has been dead for five years, which means this Christmas my dad will have been dead for ten, and how earlier today I wished that they could come and visit and see my life after having not thought particularly much about either of them recently.

I'm good at putting things away. Getting it all in order. Organizing. But there's no math for this, no floor to clean, no actions to take. I almost feel like I just look down and saw blood on my shirt and can't quite discern where it came from, even though I know everything I've done and seen today, and can account for all the places I've been. The melancholy I'm struck with just walking down the street is tangible.

These are the grey days.

These didn't go live until 2012, even though technically I did the shoot in December. This is the back room at Local 360, where they've got a whole expanded private dining area in the back of the restaurant now for standard receptions or a huge community-table style dining experience (or however you want to slice it). I've literally never seen so much locally sourced stuff on a menu (all the way down to the booze!) in my life -- Local 360 is the kind of place that makes me proud to be a resident of Seattle. There's one shot up on their site so far, best-ofs are up on flickr here.

There's been a good amount of miscellany this month, between procuring Jeff Mangum tickets and getting through the snow-haze -- Laura's been full steam ahead with the wedding planning, we took a quick jaunt to Portland to catch Pickwick at the Doug Fir and had the best breakfast in the history of breakfasts at Broder, and I caught a peek of the newly-redone Gainsbourg on a happy hour date with Ma'Chell. Odds and ends (still trickling in) here, a few shots from Gainsbourg here.

Zoe Muth stopped by the Roadhouse to do some new songs in advance of a few shows around town -- and seriously, I was converted to full-frontal fan by the time she wrapped up soundcheck. Some days I want to wrap up in a Zoe Muth / Star Anna mixtape blanket, as they both continue to put out incredibly compelling new pieces of work. Shots here, nerd-out-ery about Star Anna here.

It's with a bit of a sad pang that I realize Loryn's departure to Colorado is looming -- she'll be taking off the day after I land back from my trip to Italy. She procured my services with the promises of brunch and sightseeing this past weekend, and we took a trek around practically every neighborhood in Seattle (well, the good ones, anyway) to put together a photo history of all the places she's lived and worked. Full set of shots here.

And, last but not least, a portrait session with Alicia. Wherein I learned that (a) I have a lot to learn about taking formal portraits for people and (b) that I'm not as bad at it as I think I am. It was also a good reinforcement that there are few things more satisfying than having a photo in your head of how you'd like to shoot someone, and then having it come to life -- the couch photo above is what I saw in my head the day she asked me to shoot her. A handful of best-ofs posted here.

That's all the news that's fit to print at the moment. On the horizon: David Bazan at Gainsbourg, Nada Surf at the Tractor, and more grey skies. It might be hibernation season around here, but it's nothing a little vitamin D won't fix. Right?

Stay warm, everybody. xo

I started off the New Year with a lot of looking ahead, sorting out the now, and fittingly enough, glancing back at the past -- "the past" being a plastic shoebox of best-of photos that I've been carrying around since my move cross-country about three and a half years ago.

Three day weekend + roommate with scanner = boom. And, a few Fuji and Land Camera nuggets from the holiday New Year's Eve too, plus some shots from my dad's AE-1 Program earlier last year.

Here's to the roots. They're always a perfect plact to start from.

Some argue that the state must deny a marriage license based on religious beliefs. With a marriage license, couples marry in civil or religious ceremonies. In issuing the license, the state should not involve itself in an applicant’s religion. The responsibility of the state is to license only. The right of a church is to decide whom to marry, and the state will honor the religious freedom of all faiths.

The arguments used today to discriminate based on sexual orientation should remind all of us of the arguments used to discriminate in the past, and specifically the laws banning interracial marriage. It wasn’t until 1948 that the California Supreme Court became the first in the nation to declare such a law unconstitutional. And the United States Supreme Court didn’t declare anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional until 1967!

While we have worked hard to confront racial discrimination in our state, we have been on a journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Until 2006, Washington lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens were denied basic protections from discrimination. It was that year that I signed a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and other areas. A year later, I signed a law creating domestic partnerships for same-sex couples, along with a number of rights enjoyed by married couples. And the year after that, I signed a law expanding those rights even more. Then in 2009, voters approved Referendum 71, which expanded the domestic partnership rights of same-sex couples.

It was a notable achievement in our long journey, but it still left same-sex couples with a different status. Some say domestic partnerships are the same as marriage. That’s a version of the discriminatory separate but equal argument of the past.

For decades, that argument was used to keep African-Americans separate at schools, apartments, and drinking fountains. After all, the argument went, those separate places were just as good. But we all knew separate is not equal and finally the law caught up. While I understand the experiences of racial minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are not identical, laws that keep some Americans in a separate status are inherently unjust. It is now time for equality of our gay and lesbian citizens, and that means marriage.

When someone asks me what marriage means, I don’t think about the legal protections of a marriage license. I think about love, commitment, responsibility, and partnership. Same-sex couples should not be denied the meaning of marriage. They have a right to be equal!

Throughout our journey, an ever-growing number of Washingtonians have come to understand that equal rights for same-sex couples is not only a good thing, but the right thing to do! It’s time to give our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends, and the couple down the street the right to marry in our state. Now it’s time for all of us to stand up for equality in Washington. We have our champions like Sen. Ed Murray and Representative Jamie Pedersen. I stand with them.

I also stand with our younger Washingtonians Is there a generation gap here? Is it time to listen to our young people? Poll after poll show that young Americans – by substantial margins – support same-sex marriage even as their parents or grandparents struggle with it. Why? Can it be that our children knew some kids on the playground who had two moms instead of a single mom, or two dads instead of a mom and dad? Can it be because they befriended children of same-sex families – friendships that endure today? Can it be that today’s young Americans see sexual orientation discrimination as just as unacceptable as my generation saw racial discrimination? We must tell these children and their families that they are every bit as equal and important as all the other families in our state.

Finally, I stand in the memory of Cal Anderson – the late state senator who so humbly and courageously fought for civil rights in decades past. Passage of the law would make Washington the seventh state in nearly as many years to grant same-sex couples the right to marry. The first state was Massachusetts, followed by Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. And by the way, same-sex marriage is legal in Washington, DC, throughout Canada, and here in Washington by the Suquamish Tribe!

For many people, I know this is a very sensitive issue. I understand that. To those who fear it, I ask them to consider the fact that Massachusetts has permitted same-sex marriage since 2004 without the doomsayers’ predictions. In fact, the people of that state are raising their children, coping in this economy, and working to make a better world, just like Washingtonians. A special commission created by the state of New Jersey recently did a study about the potential impacts of same-sex marriage. It found that the economy of Massachusetts’ truly benefitted, and continues to benefit from the change in the law.

Among other findings, the study found that professional same-sex couples continue to move to Massachusetts, bringing their credentials, their children, and even extended families with them. Same-sex couples have strong families, and have been raising happy, healthy children for years – right alongside other couples and single parents. Our gay and lesbian families face the same hurdles as heterosexual families – making ends meet, finding time for career and family, raising their children and saving for college. And we are better for it! They and their kids join us in our churches, our schools, and supermarkets. And we are better for it!

We need to ask ourselves, how would it feel to be a child of a gay couple? How can we tell these children that their parents’ love is seen as unequal under the law, that their families are different. We must tell these children and their families that they are every bit as equal and important as all the other families in our state.

As Washingtonians and Americans, we have serious problems to address – a far-off war, the Great Recession, more than 13 million people looking for work, worldwide economic competition. Loving, committed married couples of any sexual orientation can only help us. They can help us defend our Democracy, help our neighbors, and build strong communities. And they will.

Fellow Washingtonians: Throughout our history, we have fought discrimination. We have joined together to recognize equality for racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, religious sects. Please answer the call to support equality again in our great state. It is the right thing to do and it is time.

Thank you.