OR/NY differences

I've lived in Portland for over 1 year, and in Oregon for more than 4. How crazy is that to think about?? The questions I get asked the most are "why did you move here from NEW YORK?!?!" "what do you miss?" and "what are the big differences between Oregon and New York?" Here, I'd like to address some of the big differences between Oregon and UPSTATE New York!

One thing I think is genius is how Oregon deals with their highways. In NY, all the highway exits are in completely numerical order. No matter how far apart the exits are, exit 15 will always be followed by exit 16, 17, 18, etc. In Oregon, the exits are marked by miles. Exit 15 will be at mile 15 of that highway, and if the next exit is 5 miles away, it will be exit 20 NOT exit 16. I like it because you know how far you are away from where you need to be. I know I have 5 miles to go between exits 15 and 20, I don't have to wonder "Ok so Exit 15... I wonder how far til exit 16..." like I do on the Thruway in New York, and you don't have to worry about thinking "Oh man did I miss it?!' cuz you can just look at the mile markers and see what mile you're at. Another thing I really like is light-staggered merging lanes. This kind of freaked me out at first, but now I love it. Basically, the really busy entrances to highways are 2 lanes, with a red/green light above each lane. Each lane gets 1 car to go per green light in their lane, and it switches back and forth between lanes with a brief pause in between, so you don't have 2 lanes trying to randomly merge while getting on the highway, and then that whole mess trying to merge INTO the highway. Traffic still sucks, but it just seems organized so much better than the massive free for all that it is sometimes on 481 or 81 or anywhere else I've gotten stuck in crappy traffic in New York.

When I first moved here, I listened hard to try and see if I could hear an accent from Oregonians. When I was in Roseburg, I definitely could hear some southern twang from people who lived way out in the woods, but for the most part nobody seemed to have much of an accent. However, there are some different word people use instead of ones I'm used to. Instead of asking if you want a bag for your purchase, people often ask if you want a "sack." There was a huge "are you saying PEN or PIN?!" debacle with a co-worker once, which I think is a problem I've had with a few people here. And it took me MONTHS to realize that this weird word "awnry" that everybody was saying was actually ORNERY. What the heck?! How is it possible everybody thinks that word is pronounced that ridiculously? I DID have a few people approach me and ask if I was from somewhere else, which I found weird because I feel like I couldn't hear an accent from people, so they'd shouldn't be able to hear an accent on me, right? Wrong. A lot of people asked if I was from Minnesota, but the vast majority of people said I sounded like I was from Wisconsin or Chicago. Chicago, really!? I asked what it was about me that sounded weird, and a lot of people said "Something about your A's. You didn't sound like you had an accent until you said the actual word 'accent' and the A is just weird sounding. Definitely Wisconsin." Since when were Oregonians experts on Wisconsin accents, anyway?! I say no, I'm from New York and nobody believes me. I say "No, no, upstate New York" and they still don't believe me. I usually have to get to the "I'm closer to Canada than NYC, dangit!" stage before they understand.

Another huge difference is the WEATHER!!! Summers get up to the same temperatures as they do back home, but they are so dry compared to the gross humid summers we get in upstate! I've had a few people from places like Utah comment that it is so muggy here, and I always laugh at them and said uh no, this is the driest heat I've ever experienced, please visit Syracuse in August and get back to me. But they're from the desert so I guess I can understand. I think because of this change, my allergies have been completely different than they used to be. Back home, I'd have a few completely miserable weeks of allergies that consisted of sneezing constantly, runny/stuffy nose, and itchy/watery eyes. Here, I get just insane sinus headaches. I don't sneeze much, my eyes don't bug me, it's just crazy pressure in my sinuses. And of course, Sudafed is prescription only here (there's another big difference!). I think it has to do with me not being used to the dry heat and probably just a different set of allergens. Also, I remember so many summers where the high was, say, 85, and the low during the night was, say, 79. It just never cooled off (remember, this is also like, 90% humidity so it's just GROSS) at night. You couldn't open windows, go for a walk, enjoy a cool night on the porch. It cools off significantly just about every night here. You can always have the windows open at night and enjoy a nice breeze or cool air. Winters are long and rainy, but I am completely OK with that. I feel like we get rain like NY gets snow, and you don't have to shovel rain so I feel like we come out ahead. It's dark and dreary but I do not mind at all. You're still able to go out and enjoy the outdoors and not need to defrost your car every morning. However when we DO get snow, everything shuts down, which is kinda nice...

Speaking of cars... I don't really enjoy this difference because it makes me feel like New Jersey and that just makes me feel gross, but we can't pump our own gas. There are signs telling you it's illegal, too. A highlight of every road trip to California or Washington, or trip home, is pumping my own gas! Especially in Washington: I enjoy getting looks from people at gas stations because of my license plate. I feel like I've caught them watching me, wondering if an Oregonian is going to be able to figure out this strange and foreign contraption. I wanna be like "New York born and raised, I GOT THIS!"

Dunkin Donuts does NOT exist out here, which my family has gotten used to because sometimes I make multiple trips a day there when I go back east. There really are Starbucks everywhere, but another thing there is a ton of are drive through coffee places. Like it's just a tiny building that is ONLY drive-through, usually on both sides, that have coffee and sometimes smoothies and tea and stuff. And they all try to have catchier names than the rest. I feel like Dutch Brothers is the original though and there are very die-hard Dutch Bros fans here.

Do you feel like these differences are weird? What would you like to know about living in Oregon or New York?

Why have friends when you can have best friends?!

If you know me, I've probably asked you to be my best friend. I mean, why have friends when you can have BEST friends? Rule 2! And if I haven't, I apologize, however - I DO consider you my best friend! I like to make fun music playlists sometimes, and a few years ago I had a friend who wasn't doing so well so I sent him a care package and included a "BFF Mix" for him to listen to. It's gone though minimal changes over the years, but I thought it'd be cool to share it and explain it a little bit. I listen to it when I'm down sometimes and remember all the really awesome people I have in my life. Here goes!

Track Listing
of Montreal - She's my Best Friend. This one's pretty obvious. It's SUCH an amazing VU cover though. "She's my best friend, certainly not the average girl. She's my best friend, understands me when I'm falling down."

The Muppet Movie - Life's A Happy Song. Super adorable. Life's a happy song when there's someone by your side to sing along! Talks about what it's like to have a best friend walking though life with you. Someone to explore with and make things with and be there for you.

Belle & Sebastion - I'm A Cuckoo. "I'm glad to see you, I had a funny dream and you were wearing funny shoes." This song I feel like is about reminiscing with a friend you haven't seen in awhile about fun times together.

Kishi Bashi photo cred ME!

Ingrid Michaelson - You And I. Ok sure so this is more of a love-love song. But I feel like it's saying that even if you don't have two nickels to rub together, you still have each other no matter what, and that's the most important. "I will help you read those books if you will soothe my worried looks and we will put the lonesome on the shelf."

Kishi Bashi - Q&A. This song is SO simple sweet! "You are the answer to my question, you are my accomplice in a crime, you are my wing woman and did I mention we were together in another life?" Just what a best friend is, sung sweetly with a beautiful violin accompaniment. It also kind of makes me sad because so many of my friends are so far away, and I imagine them being here and being my accomplices and wing women :)


Weezer - My Best Friend. I could literally quote this whole song. Pretty on point description of a best friend.

Ben Kweller - Mean to Me. I feel like I hear a lot of people say someone/thing "doesn't know what they/it mean to me." Well then TELL THEM! There's been a lot of shitty stuff going on in the world lately, and I've been trying to make sure people know what they mean to me because, sadly, you never know when you can't anymore. Unfortunately, throughout my life I've not been all that great at doing that, and I'm still not a "comfortable with talking about my feelings" person. I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't know what they mean to me, but I really have some of the best friends around.

Flight of the Conchords - Friends. First off, if you haven't watched Flight of the Conchords, do it. There's one particularly funny episode that is centered around the idea of friends. "If you cross the road and a truck struck you I'll scrape you up and reconstruct you." That's a friend right there.

Queen - Friends will be Friends. Queen was the first band I ever really discovered and got into on my own, so they will always have a special place in my heart, and this song helps. "When you're through with life and all hope is lost, hold out your hands, cuz friends will be friends right til the end." Thankful I have a pretty endless amount of people who fall into that category.

The Beach Boys - Friends. Another oldie, but pretty great. About memories and helping each other out, even with simple things.

The Avett Brothers - The Perfect Spare. "I want to have friends that I can trust. That love me for the man I've become not the man that I was. And I want to have friends that'll let me be all alone when being alone is all that I need." I had something written for this, but I think this quote is just perfect.

Ben Folds Five - Alice Childress. "I think about my friends. Sometimes I wish they lived out here. But they wouldn't dig this town.""Try not to think about it." It sucks so many BFFs are so far away but, to be honest, I feel like a lot of them wouldn't necessarily love living here. Portland is a WEIRD place with strange weather. It's hard thinking about everyone who isn't here and all the fun we could have if they were.

Weezer - All My Friends Are Insects. Dude, your BFFs don't always have to be people!

Hospitality - Friends of Friends. "Cuz you've got friends who are new friends. And friends who are old friends. And friends lookin' out." I have friends I've had for 24 years, and friends I've had for 2 months. It's so nice that by adding new friends, you aren't taking anything away from old friends. It's awesome to have friends who know everything about you, but then friends too who you are brand new to and they just learn about the you that you are now.

OK Go

Japandroids - Younger Us. This song reminds me of college in a big way. I feel like this is about a friend who understands the crazy spontaneous you, and is by your side doing silly things, and you have the same ideas about what crazy silly things are fun. "Gimme that night you were already in bed and said fuck it and got up to drink with me instead."

OK Go - I Won't Let You Down. "Maybe all you need is someone to trust. I won't let you down." Fun dancey song with a good message.

Dance Hall Crashers - Cricket. I first heard this song because Ashleigh, a BFF from high school, made me some awesome mix cds. It's another song that's kinda more love-love, but it's sweet and still BFFy and fun to sing along to. "I will always hold your hand, I'll never let you fall."

Dana Buoy - Call to Be. "All our life, this is just a call to be true to you."

She & Him - If You Can't Sleep. Zooey has such an adorable voice. Sweet lullaby.

The Beatles - With A Little Help From my Friends. Duh.

Grateful, pt 3

I've been giving this topic a lot of thought since starting this. I've also come up with some things I'm very ungrateful for, and will probably eventually do a companion piece about that. But onto gratefulness!

Cruglethor. I never came up with a better name for my car. I tried out "Carpe" but it seemed too cheesy. I always name vehicles with the same starting letter as their model, so I currently have Cruglethor the Civic. I bought her right after graduating college. Originally I had completely sold myself on getting an Accord and thought Civics were so ugly. Mostly the crazy slant of their front windshield. However, I found a beautiful 2009 with 7k miles on it. We've been through so much together and I am SO grateful I picked her out 4 years ago! She's been so reliable and just great, and I know I've put her through a lot. Right after getting her I drove down to DC with tons of stops to/from. Then, a couple weeks later, I packed her up and drove her across the country with my brother (please please please read about our adventures here, written by Kevin/Tug/my brother). She's taken me on countless Seattle and coast trips, a handful of California trips, and everywhere in between. And saved me from a few deer and kept on running. Cruglethor has made so many adventures possible and I feel like I need to come up with some exciting way of commemorating her 100k (which should happen by the end of year, we're at 94k already in just over 4 years)(I drive a lot, hence my gratefulness for her).

Ugh snow. Beautiful Cruglethor though!

Books. This kind of goes along with the gratefulness for music. I read a lot in spurts, but my bookshelves are bursting at the seems with exciting choices. It's so hard to live this close to Powell's and not be constantly buying things. Reading is so great. It can take you to a completely surreal place, describe things you could never imagine on your own, and be able to make you feel things that can be so outside your realm or describe something you're going through perfectly. I remember being in high school and doing book reports - senior year you had to do 3, but could be pretty much any book you wanted. The thing that sticks out to me is realizing that I OWN this book. I can write in it, I can highlight it, I can leave my own notes in it. This may not seem like some huge revelation to some of you, but it was to me, and still kind of is. I underline passages that are meaningful to me, I write page numbers in the back, and I scrawl notes in the margins. There are some specific books I go back to at certain times and know there passages or notes I want to re-read that may currently be helpful to me. There are some books that are super meaningful to me that I've written all over and I'd never let somebody borrow because of the same reason I don't share some music - too personal, too private. I'm grateful books can do that for me. On a larger scale, I'm grateful I have the ability to read and enjoy books, and thankful I had parents who encouraged me to enjoy reading.

24 Hour Stores. Or stores open late or on holidays. My pharmacy only closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas, which sucks, but I am SO grateful for those people who work holidays. I do NOT think that people should work on major holidays like that, and I make it a very specific point to not go shopping on holidays. However, there have been times where I needed to go buy something on a holiday. My clearest memory is this past Christmas when my smoke detector battery started beeping incessantly at me. I went to a 24-hour store to buy a battery and made it a point to thank every person I saw working. When I can, I try to volunteer for holidays so that others with family in the area they want to spend time with are able to do that. Also, sometimes I get out of work late or far away, and appreciate going to a store that's open when I get home.

Games. Board games and Holy Board made up the vast majority of my summers for a few years. I feel like while my friends were out getting drunk and doing stupid stuff in Albany, I came home, worked, and hung out with my brothers and hometown friends. At least once a week we would have people over and play Holy Board (a game with washers our Uncle introduced to us) and various board games - our favorites being Apples to Apples and Balderdash. Sometimes Cranium. And Price Chopper! And often get IGA chicken wing pizza (BEST STUFF EVER). Holy Board Summer League was so epic! We had our own teams, tournaments, and theme nights, and it was so fun getting everybody together once a week. We even had t-shirts and keychains made and had a pretty eventful Holy-Boardapalooza.

Kevin displaying our shirts. And his mustache for our Holy Board calendar.

I'm grateful for the memories of those summers (and winter gatherings we had), being able to spend time with my brothers and friends, and some of those nights were the hardest I've ever laughed! I still have my mini-washer keychain on my keys, even if the paint has completely faded! I also remember one time Andy and I took our Holy Boards and played all around the Hobart campus before Kevin became a student there. Just lugging those bad boys around from open field to open field! They were always a hit at graduation parties, too. Such awesome memories!

That's it for today. My next one might get a bit sappy... fair warning.

Gratefulness 2

All right. Day 2. Let's do this thing.

Facebook. It almost physically pains me to say I'm very grateful for Facebook, considering how many times I've thought about deleting it for various reasons. Facebook is frustrating, time wasting, annoying, and jealousy-inducing. However, I am so grateful for it. Without it, honestly I'm not sure I would have had the guts to move across the country. I would have been so sad to leave everybody I've ever known and basically just drop out of their lives. It's let me keep in touch with friends from high school, college, HOBY, etc. without being in the same state, or even same country. I've been able to stay in their lives and keep them in mine. I've been able to share my adventures, crowd source questions/opinions, get recommendations, keep up with friends, and basically let people know I'm still alive! Not to mention staying in contact with HOBY groups. I can't begin to count the amount of laughs I've gotten from our various groups (Matteson Family Summit, The Business, Morning Motion Club, plus a ridiculous amount of others). Also, seeing HOBY alumni thrive and do amazing things is so worth keeping my Facebook. It would suck to not know about Morgan's Girl Up and all the incredible things she's doing with that, all of our South Canadians and their Hospice swim, or to miss all the inspiration in our Motivators group. They make me laugh, they inspire me, and I'm grateful social media is around at least so we can stay in touch.

Can't imagine not being able to keep up with these fools (and all the other HOBsters)! Photo courtesy of Heather :)

Kindness. I have kind people all around me, and I try to be kind to others. From holding the door for someone to letting someone at the grocery store with only a few items go ahead of me to paying for the person behind me in a drive-thru. A lot of kindness has been shown to me throughout my life and I try to pay it back when I can. Picking up a piece of litter on the sidewalk. Leaving a few quarters behind at the car wash. Tipping 100% on a small bill. It makes me feel good, even if I never see the person benefitting from my kindness. I'd like to say it's selfless, but it puts a smile on my face, too, so unfortunately I don't think it's completely selfless. I hope it brightens their day, especially if somebody isn't having the best time. I've been there, where I've been down and out and just something small has completely lifted my spirits and reminded me of all the good things in the world. A lollipop moment relative, if you will. I've been offered help from strangers, received surprise postcards/birthday presents/art/etc, had friends show up at the airport with signs and gifts, and had friends/family donate to causes that I believe in to support me (sometimes without ever telling me), among SO many other examples. I've definitely received my fair share of unsolicited help and kindness, and I like to keep that in mind and try to give back a little bit of the kindness that's been shown to me throughout my life. I'm grateful for kindness I've been shown, and the ability to show kindness to friends and strangers.

Surprise postcard!

Mail. I think it started in college, where I made up the saying "Mail - the 3rd best letter you can get in college." And now that my mail is mostly made up of catalogs and advertisements, I am super grateful for any mail from actual people I get. I love the random postcards I get from friends that I don't expect. The unexpected paintings. The Something Store surprises. I try to return the favors and send out random postcards/art/friendship bracelets/Something Store stuff as well, and it's always fun to hear somebody be excited and surprised about receiving it unexpectedly. But if you just think about it - how cool is the mail? I just drop something in a mailbox and it gets shipped across the country (or lost I guess... womp womp) and shows up at my friend's doorstep a few days later. Thank you to everybody who's sent me surprised mail, and to everybody else - I accept surprise mail!!!

Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully I can come up with some more exciting stuff for tomorrow :)

Gratefulness

I've seen the "gratefulness challenge" floating around Facebook a little bit, and when I saw Sarah B post it, I KNEW it was about to blow up with the HOBY NYCentral group. It's so Randrew! (I feel like that should be an official slogan or something). I lot of people have posted about the stuff that immediately came to my head - friends, family, health, access to clean water/housing/etc. I am super grateful for all of those (and touched on a lot of them in my Thankfulness post), but I wanted to try to come up with non-typical things and explain them a bit deeper, so I decided to make a few blog posts about it. Here are a few things I'm grateful for!

Music. Whether it's making music or listening to it, music has always been a huge part of my life. In elementary and high school, I was involved in pretty much every band we had. It was such an amazing experience, and I met such great people through it. I can't even explain what an awesome feeling it was to be with a big group of people, playing their own parts completely separate from mine but working together towards making something beautiful. I still listen to some songs we did in HS and can remember my parts, and remember playing them, and remember what parts I loved listening to and how my part intertwined with others. I get goosebumps sometime, especially listening to "October." The technically difficult songs, the songs that really made you be patient and pay attention to the feeling of the piece. It taught me a lot about hard work and perseverance, and how much that can pay off. It taught me to find a way of learning and practicing something that worked for me, which was kind of difficult. It taught me I didn't have to be the star, and how much teamwork and being the part of a larger whole is important and how good that can feel when you come together to accomplish something. It taught me to support my "teammates," too.

Now, even though I'm not in band anymore, and I can't remember the last time I opened my saxophone case, music still plays a huge role in my life. I love listening to music and going to see live music. I can't even fathom the number of shows I've been to since college. For me, I connect to a lot of music through the lyrics, and I think that's a huge reason I love of Montreal so much. His lyrics sometimes are so crazy and out there, but there's SO much that I can listen to and think, "yeah, that's EXACTLY how I feel." Sometimes, when you feel like no one understands you, music can just make sense of what you're going through. You know other people have those feelings and you can relate to that. Songs can get so personal that sometimes I don't want to share my favorite songs because I feel like that person will somehow know too much about me and what that song means to me. Then, there's also the nonsense fun music that just makes you smile and bop your head (of Montreal makes plenty of that, too, and often their emotional songs and their fun dancey songs are the same).

Man Man at MFNW

Then there are concerts! Concerts are SO FUN! You're in a room full of other people who love the same band and their music. You get to actually see these people that you've been singing along with for months, and sing and dance along with them in person. The energy of live shows is pretty amazing, and a lot of the bands I like a lot just have great live acts (confetti, stuffed animals, pig costumes, masks, band members crowd surfing, beach balls, confessions, etc etc). I try to get there early and be up front if I really like the band, and have been sung to and headbutted and handed setlists by lead singers and it's such a high. You basically forget everything else going on in the world and your life and just let go and enjoy the moments you have with these people who have made your life better and who you feel a real connection to through their music.

Art. Honestly, this one shocks me. If you could tell 7th grade me that I'd actually ENJOY art some day, I would have laughed so hard. I think I illegally got out of a year of junior high art because I hated it so much. It made no sense to me, I saw no purpose for it, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I'd look at "famous expensive art" and think "what the heck are you serious someone gets PAID to paint a canvas red?!" Now, I still don't understand a lot of art, but I appreciate having it in my life. I think I already told the story about how I got into arting (yeah I love that made up word so what), so I won't rehash it all here. Basically my brothers and I decided that we could make art as good as some of this famous stuff, and we didn't want to spend money on that decorating our walls when we could make it ourselves. So we did. I never thought I could enjoy creating art, and I was convinced I was just no good at it. I think that's the biggest hurdle I, and most people introduced to the Oswego County Art Collective, have to get over. I always tell myself - the worst that happens, I throw the painting away. Big deal. And I feel like that's a really good life lesson about trying things you're not sure you're gonna be great at. But now I love it and have been painting for a few years, and am so grateful I have found this kind of creative outlet.

A lot of the paintings I do are quotes or lyrics that mean something special to me from a band I really like. For me it's kind of been a way to tangibly have music that means a lot to me. The above painting is one I did of an of Montreal quote. (I showed it to Kevin Barnes, and he was like "Whoa, cool, really going back for that one huh?"Another reason music and live shows ROCK) I've tried the abstract "paint whatever" that Andy has mastered, and I've never felt all that good at it. I'd look at Andy's paintings and be like "I love that. I want to paint that." I wanted to do something of Montreal related, so I took a pile of their quotes and painted them on a canvas in different fonts. It came out great, and I really really enjoyed doing it. So I did it again. I enjoyed the planned creativeness of it moreso than the spontaneous creativeness. I could mull it over and come up with a cool design and quote and font, and make it come to life just how I pictured it. There's a lot of fine detail work, and I find that when I do that, my mind blocks everything else out except for what I'm painting and it's so refreshing. I am completely focused on the task at hand and can totally shut out the person who yelled at me for no reason at work earlier, or that I'm a little bit homesick, or that I have to deal with a broken window. It's a great stress reliever and allows me to try new things creatively. I think I was missing that for a lot of my life (one of my professors in college told me to stop being so creative once actually which kind of blows my mind because I'm not a naturally creative person - or at least I never thought I was!) and it's allowed me to think in different ways, really step out of my comfort zone, and explore something I never thought I'd want to explore. It's become something I really enjoy and look forward to, and I'm grateful I have that in my life now.

I know the list was supposed to be 3 things every day for 5 days. I feel like this got pretty long winded, and I have to be back at work in 8 hours, so I'll pause here and add a few more things throughout the next week or so!

What Am I Drinking Out Of? (2)

Here's a sticker I just put on pretty recently. Didn't think I had room for it. But I managed.

Joyful Noise is a recording company that does awesome stuff. What I've mostly done through them is get special of Montreal and Kishi Bashi releases - oM's tape box set, Kishi Bashi's Christmas flexi and some cool colored/packaged vinyl. They do pretty neat, original stuff. Like releasing all oM LPs on colored tapes in a wooden box. They have unique things a lot and I like to check them out sometimes for limited edition swag. And they seem to do a lot of stuff in conjunction with Polyvinyl which is sweet. 

Cassette tape box set

Who knew? Volcanoes!

So there's this band I love. Let me tell you about them.

Islands.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to give them a chance. My brother had given me some of their CDs, plus The Unicorns, but I kind of shoved them away for awhile. I do this stupid thing sometimes where I really resist taking recommendations from people, even if I respect their opinions and taste. I don't know if it's a subconscious ego thing or what, but I totally do it. At least I admit it.

Old house

My last year of pharmacy school was basically a whole year of internships, aka paying school tuition and working for free. I wanted to adventure and explore as much as possible, and one of my internships was in Augusta, Maine. I had just started reading House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski before I left for Maine, and I decided to bring it with me. I was staying at a house with some other interns that was kind of old and eerie, not to mention it was November/December in Maine (cold and dark), and HoL is a super creepy and kind of terrifying book. The house creaked and made weird noises, so when I was by myself I liked to have music or the tv on. Especially if I was reading HoL. I loaded my iPod with new (to me) music before I left, and I decided to try out Islands and put on Return to the Sea on repeat. One thing that happens with this book is just a ridiculous amount of "weird coincidences." For example, there was a big part about ghosts in the book, and I took a can of Pepsi out of the fridge and it said "GHOST" on it. I have a stack of German phrases I need to stash somewhere, so I open the book to shove them in it and I glance at the page and the only word I make out on it before closing the book is "German." Creepy stuff. And just like, LOTS of it. I had Return to the Sea on in the background while I was reading for weeks. Every once in awhile I'd stop and listen and pick out a phrase or two in Return to the Sea that just seemed to fit so well with the story and the weird stuff going on (especially Humans - "what did we find? an underground design!" but there are so many more), and the album just seemed to FIT the book so well and kind of set the creepiness and uncomfortableness of the novel a bit over the edge. The album has a kind of... suspensefulness and eeriness of its own. There were a few times I just had to stop reading and turn the music off and turn on all the lights on in the house. I think everyone starts keeping a book of notes while they read HoL, and I jotted down a bunch of Islands quotes in mine that were kind of freakily spot on for the book. Apart from those connections, the album was really good, though kind of serious and a bit scary. I still think of Maine/HoL when I listen to it.

View from my hostel doorway

A few months later, I headed to Alaska for another internship. After flying from NYC to Seattle, and still another crazy long flight to Anchorage, I needed to find something to listen to. I had exhausted all my usual suspects and I am horrible at plane sleeping, so I had 3 more hours to kill. I put on Vapours and I swear I listened to On Foreigner about 15 times in a row on that flight. I was really excited to find good music to listen to, but I also thought this could actually be a band I could really get into. I didn't know anything about them really, but I thought they were still together and at that point most of the bands I liked weren't around anymore. I feel like Vapous is a bit less serious and more fun happy dance party than Return to the Sea. Again, I strongly correlate that album with my trip to Alaska and my internship up there. A bunch of the songs just immediately remind me of that plane trip and of time spent in Alaska. Anchorage was an amazing experience, but that's for another time. I went to a park down the road quite a bit while I was there, and kind of traded off reading Hemingway and listening to Islands while I stared off at the amazing landscape, and felt grateful for upstate NY winters that prepared me for that Alaskan "spring" full of snow and freezing temperatures.


At some point over the next few years I listened to the only other album they had out, Arm's Way, which I got kind of obsessed with for awhile. The lyrics were a bit... intense? Colorful? Graphic? Also again, a bit eerie. But it was still fun and I like singing about abominable snowmen while I'm driving down the highway. A Sleep & A Forgetting came out on Valentine's Day one year, and if you pre-ordered the album you got a Valentine from their lead singer (Nick) and yeah you better believe that immediately got put on my fridge. I was able to see them at Mississippi Studios in Portland minutes (literally) after getting off a plane from Utah. It was a really great show but it was SO WEIRD because everybody had chairs to sit in and it was an awkward distance from the stage so if you stood up it was weird and just... I dunno I didn't like the set up at all for their kind of show. They sounded great through and were really fun.

Music is subjective to taste, but one thing is a fact - Nick Thorburn is really great at Twitter (@Nickfromislands - finally verified. Congrats man). He had a pretty epic "hair club for men" infomercial twitter breakdown I woke up to one morning (you have great hair, nothing to worry about) right after I started following him. The most epic Nickfromislands twitter escapade, though, was Bendex Corp. Not sure why this got to be so hilarious, maybe because he was so serious about it and about it being legit. People made hilarious replies to ridiculous things Bendex was posting, Bendex posted videos of fake awards it got and testimonials to try and prove it was real, and I'm sad it's gone. The premise was it's a company that was going "live" on twitter on a certain date, but it was posting a ton already (mostly about how they were preparing for their twitter feed to go live, updating servers, and all the data and technical engineering stuff going into, yes, a twitter account), and then on that date it disappeared forever.

Some friends and I interacted with Bendex a bit, mostly asking for jobs and tweeting our concerns for Deb, and I still like to RT it once in awhile. Also, once he pretended he joined fun., and I just remember a list of perks you get when you join fun. that he posted, and one was free Netflix. That was hilarious to me for some reason. I found out they were putting out a new album this fall and of course was really excited for their tour. I was hoping Amee could come with me and we could get decked out in Bendex swag, but turned out she was on some family vacation something or other crap and couldn't come with me. So I was like that sucks but whatever I'm gonna do this anyway. So I made this tshirt:

8-15 is the date their twitter was supposed to go live, but disappeared forever. Anyway I wore the shirt to the show, and got some laughs out of Nick which really was the point. They did an amazing show, Nick yelled at a guy for talking (which was awesome), he sang to me, and everybody danced a lot. OH and I made them friendship bracelets the color of Ski Mask (their new cd)(why I don't really know I was bored and it was fun) and just kinda threw them on Nick's pedal board after the show, and he tweeted me they got them which is pretty awesome! They probably immediately threw them out but still that's pretty cool. Ski Mask is really good, and I can't say enough how awesome that show was, especially after the other one I went to where you couldn't dance and sing and interact like at Doug Fir. They played all of my favorite songs and sounded SO good (I think I'm finally really in love with Doug Fir) and Evan and Geordie were super cute, too.

Islands at Doug Fir
(probably one of the coolest/best concert
pictures I've taken)

They're doing a handful of shows in January, but they're almost all in California. Just come one state up, guys, c'mon! I considered going but even San Francisco is so far away now.

All of their albums have sounded pretty different, but every single song you can tell it's them. They have a certain sound to them even though their albums are all so unique, and ugh Nick's voice is pretty recognizable and amazing. I think the only voice I like better is Kevin Barnes honestly. Also, I remember watching HIMYM and hearing an Islands song on it and freaking out to everybody. And of course The Unicorns reference. HIMYM producers like use some good music, for real.

So there's my personal Islands history. It's nice to kind of get some of this down and remember "Oh yeah, I found out House of Leaves and Return to the Sea are soul mates!" so when I read it again, I'll be sure to go on an Islands kick, too. Here's one of my favorite songs of theirs (I love the old timey feel it has), and a really great video they did - Hallways (which ALSO really has tons of HoL connections in it I feel, I mean just the name of it alone...)