The past few months have been wonderfully, deliciously mellow, filled with languid mornings and evenings spent with good friends and conversation. This is in stark contrast to my last three winters which were filled with hard work, exhilaration and terror, sometimes in equal measure.



Spring is coming in fits and starts and half-days. In a week we'll have as many hours of light as of dark, and it only gets brighter. I love spring. Festival season is starting up and long-dormant email lists are burping out the first larval ideas of just how much fun can be fit into one summer. Artists, bohemians and other assorted lunatics are emerging from their homes, blinking in the sunlight and wandering the streets in wedding gowns and shopping carts. Winter still makes itself known when the sun goes away, but its grip is loosening; this city is about to bloom.



In other news, I'm shaking out my flickr account and posting again: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scuppers/



Happy solstice, all. The almanac says every day is three minutes longer than the last. Let's celebrate.

One of the most important lessons I learned on the boats is that the right effort will transform lethargy to energy. The buddhists have a word for it. It's a little bit of positive intention and a lot of doing small things to take care of yourself without wasting a lot of time. It's kind of a pain to make that effort when you're out of practice, but always worth it. On the boats, I worked myself into exhaustion on a daily basis and the decision to coast at the bottom or lift myself up was made regularly. Here on land things are more mellow and it can take a couple weeks of exertion to force the issue.



Which brings me to where I'm at now. Portland Center Stage is staging three plays in six weeks and thanks to Snowpocalypse 2008 the build process is a week behind. It looks like our next weekend will be in February. It will take that special effort to get through this and enjoy myself. I'm grateful now for previous experience.

Portland is suddenly experiencing a once-in-a-generation christmas snowstorm. The whole city is shut down. It's pretty incredible. For once the hysterical news reports were right. We've had something more than a foot of snowfall over the weekend and about eight inches of it is sticking. It takes all of two inches to shut this city down. I am reminded sharply of childhood visits to lake tahoe.

December is a hectic month in the entertainment industry. I've been putting in 40-80 hour weeks between a few different gigs and that leaves time for food and sleep and little else.



(Well there was santacon. I love bringing saturnalia back into christmas.)



Life is good. I don't know how I'll be doing this time next month but I'm doing pretty well right now. I'm saving as much money as I can and keeping an eye out for a stable job. I'm doing new things each day, like building walls of cardboard boxes twenty feet tall and installing snow chains for the first time. For the record, I hate snow chains only a little less than fishtailing.



I've also obtained a copy of How To Cook Everything. It has become my breakfast reading material. I'm cooking something new and interesting every week. I will subject my family to this process on christmas. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it.



Speaking of christmas, we have snow on the ground in Portland and it may stick around until the 25th. This is unusual. Our news outlets have been blaring out ARCTIC BLAST '08 updates for the past week to the amusement of anyone who looks outside and sees a thin layer of melting snow on the road. Still, it would be nice to have a white christmas for once. This being Portland, there's a loose plan to get a whole bunch of people downtown in a giant bay-to-breakers style snow parade/race/party if only we can get a whole four to six inches on the ground. I hope it happens on the rare day I'm not working.



An that brings me to today. I've got the whole day off to relax and clean and prepare for christmas. It's a good month.

I wrote this four nights ago.





"So how was your evening?"



"Well. First I went out to the site where we burned the man. The chain of logic went like this: We've got a large office trailer that's way past its prime and needs getting rid of. So we strip it out, haul it to to man site and fill it with sawdust and gasoline. We've also got a twenty foot cubed wooden truss we're not using anymore, so that goes on top of the trailer. Then we've got a chopped up cadillac that has given us years of service and won't start anymore, so we decide to give it a viking burial by fitting it with gallons of fuel, strapping a voodoo test dummy in the front seat, and hoisting it by a crane one hundred feet above the trailer. A forklift picks up a pallet of burning barrels and places it on top of the trailer. We all stand back and someone pulls the quick release on the cadillac, dropping it straight through the truss, the barrels and into the trailer.

All the fuel goes up in a great FOOOM and the place gets really hot. As we stand around the bonfire, hands shielding our eyebrows from the searing heat, we realize the pyro team left fireworks and propane bottles scattered throughout the trailer; they go off at random intervals. Good times.

Awhile later, when the fire is dying down a bit, someone decides to revitalize it by pointing another broken down cadillac at the flames and stuffing a brick on the pedal. The car coughs and whines as the engine tries valiantly to burn and run at the same time. Cadillacs burn real pretty, but the giant black smoke plume lets us know we're being naughty.

At this point a couple of jackasses decide to throw a couch in. For some reason I decide to stop them, partially because we collectively decided to stop burning couches a few years back and partially because I'm feeling ornery. My crewmates indignantly tear off the cushions and throw those in and a few of us settle in the remains to watch the burn.

After the fire dies down and the dilapidated couch completely buckles on us, we bounce around what's left of the city, looking for another fire and some company. Along the way I discover one of my crewmates is a fellow sailor and chantyman.

We find what we're looking for at the heavy equipment yard and join several crewmates gathered on couches around a burn platform. It's a very chill scene under the cranes and lifts with an accordion band tooling away in the background. Within minutes, we've started a full-on chanty sing that lasts a full hour in spite of only three of us knowing any songs. As we sing the party slowly peters off and we turn in around 1:30am. I walk home full of human warmth and light."



I love this place.