Annie Finally Meets Powell’s

Basically ever since Annie and I became friends I have wanted her to come to Portland really, really bad. We just love so many of the same things, and I love Portland so ridiculously much that I wanted to share it with her too!

And the place I wanted to share with her most of all?? Powell’s of course! I mean, it’s a whole city block of books, and we both have a major book obsession. Plus, it’s just magic. By definition. When she was here we finally got to go together, and we spent literally the entire day in there. We arrived first thing in the morning, went home after dark, and only left in the middle for a food cart lunch and a little wandering.

Here’s what it looked like:

We went through every single book in the children’s section, because we basically are still kids...

And found some real gems!

We visited adulty places too, but I won’t promise our tastes became much more mature.

Portland food carts guarantee happiness. (Also note children’s book in bag)

We brought the deliciousness to Pioneer Square, where I also scouted the distance to Sapporo… Have I mentioned recently that I’m stoked to go there?

And Annie finally got to make friends with the Umbrella Man!

We immersed ourselves the city.

And of course I had to take her to my favorite pizza joint, Old Town Pizza (it’s haunted, that’s why the pictures are dark)…

and Voodoo Donuts. (I guess we kind of had a spooky but delicious food theme?)

Then she left me, which wasn’t cool. It’s not like she needed to go back to work at a cool magazine or anything.

FYI, Annie’s account of this is way better than mine, so you should totally check it out! Go ahead, just click right here.

*song = Annie Waits by Ben Folds.

Some Book Lovin’

After being home for almost two weeks, I finally started unpacking today. I put on some records, and actually had a great time sorting my books!

First I found them all scattered about in the attic and other miscellaneous boxes from millions of moves.

Then I sorted them into nice piles.

And put them on my shelf! I sorted them into fiction and non-fiction, and then alphabetized them.(You can tell I’m a nerd by how excited I am about this)

Since I’ve been kind of obsessed with books my entire life, here are some unsolicited readings tips. I have the reading tastes of a 12-year-old, but it’s way more fun that way!

Absolute Favorite Authors: Rick Riordan & Ally Carter. Read any of their books, and I guarantee you will have a marvelous experience. Start with Heist Society and The Lightning Thief.

Newest Favorite Book: I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President by Josh Lieb (one of the writers of The Daily Show). It’s just brilliantly hilarious. Read it now. I picked it up at random and it was one of the best things to happen to me all summer.

honorable mention: I also just read Dust City by Robert Paul Weston, and it was a really cool, gritty, action, futuristic Grimm’s fairy tale mystery detective procedural. Totally worth checking out. Bonus? A pretty cover design.

What I’m currently reading: Wildwood by Colin Meloy (fun fact: he’s the lead singer in The Decemberists), and illustrated by Carson Ellis. So far it’s like The Chronicles of Narnia, but set in Portland. Very happy.

I would so love to work in a book store.

*song = I’m Reading a Book by Julian Smith. It’s so awesome, and I want you to watch it so much, that I’m going to embed it in this post.

Memorial Day, Annie and I

Three day weekends are the best.  Especially when one of your very best friends is only a few hours drive away at a rad internship at Highlights magazine in Pennsylvania and decides to drive down in their new car named Jacques to visit you.  Just sayin’.

Since you probably already gathered that this is in fact exactly what happened to me this past Memorial Weekend, I shall provide you with some pictoral entertainment of our adventures.

Disclaimer:  It was super hot and humid when we took all of these pictures.  So, ya.

First stop after the requisite sleeping in on Saturday was the ever wonderful Eastern Market.

With the heat, lemonade became a necessity.  Water is just not as good.  And by good, I mean deliciously happy.

Annie channeled the mystery section at Capitol Books.

We then wandered past pretty, historical buildings.  I may work in the most awesome one.

Mid-Post Review: This person is Annie.  She is really cool.

We visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  Not just because it had air conditioning and water fountains, but because we’re cultured people who developed a love art in London together.  The second picture illustrates me wishing someone would teach us how to teleport.

Since that didn’t work , we went to Nando’s and just pretended like we were back in England.  It was cheaper than a plane ticket.

One thing you should know about this city – it’s obsessed with cupcakes. They even have trucks that drive around selling cupcakes ice-cream truck style. But the absolute best place for cupcakes in the district is Baked & Wired.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because they are just lying.

If you told me that you didn’t want this, I would not believe you.  I mean, look at it.

Because cupcakes are so popular here, we may have had to visit another shop too, though.  The second time we went to the new Sprinkles because the owner is on a show Annie watched.  Personally, Baked & Wired will always win for me, but Sprinkles was super cute too!

Fin.

A Magical Palace of Books

"Who says the traditional bookshop is dead? In this age of chain superstores and online selling, it often seems that the days of the old-style independent dealer are numbered. But one American bookseller, at least, refuses to believe that." The Independent (London)

I discovered it when I was in 8th grade – a bookstore so large you need a map to navigate it.

Powell’s Books, an independent bookstore that fills a whole city block with over a million books, is one of my absolute favorite Portland fixtures. It’s something I did not fully take advantage of while I lived here, either. I had been to the suburban branch across from Washington Square mall before, sure, but it didn’t give the whole vision of its grander flagship location.

The first time I entered Powell’s downtown was actually while I was on an eighth grade field trip. It was Valentines Day 2003, and our teachers had decided to treat us to possibly the best field trip of all time – an all-day scavenger hunt downtown. We were split up into small groups and given the freedom to go wherever we wanted in the city in a quest to find the answers to a list of questions scattered throughout the city. Some groups decided to just go shopping instead, but my group was dedicated to the challenge, largely because of the promise of a small cash prize (I really have no idea how a public school pulled this whole thing off). I don’t remember what the question was that led us to Powell’s, and our stop there was brief, but I as soon as we walked in I knew it was love. I knew I could search the stacks there forever and be perfectly content, that there were thousands of treasures just waiting to be discovered.

Seriously, you need to go to this place before you die. Preferably several million times.

Snippet of the map as a preview of what you will enjoy when you go:

And, as a bonus, a picture from my eighth grade field trip! Kathleen is even holding the Powell’s map.

If you can’t get to Portland right now… you can always buy beautiful books online! Support the magic.

"The point is Powell's probably is the world's greatest bookstore. It is a place of staggering ambition, hidden in the very humble wrapper of a worn-out warehouse. Any library we seek tax money to build ought to measure up to Powell's or it isn't worth it." The Seattle Times

(Ok, I’m done now)

9:25 p.m.

Third location, third floor of Barnes and Noble in the philosophy/religion stacks where there is an outlet for my loyal computer. Somehow out of the gazillions of books in this place I ended up with “The Joseph Smith Papers” and “Mormon America” sitting directly in front of me.

596 words down, 2,000 more to go. But at least now there is some actual substance in my paper. B&N has been good to me.

7:58 p.m.

I’ve relocated and it’s much better. I’m on the second floor of the Georgetown Barnes and Noble next to a giant window where I can see lots o’ people shopping and there is free wi-fi. I also picked up a lemon-raspberry cupcake from Baked and Wired on the way. Just thought you’d want to know about this exciting development. I haven’t, however, got much more done on my paper. Maybe it would help if I stopped blogging…

The Library Card to Trump All Others

I happen to be someone who loves being surrounded by books. There’s just something wonderful about the way it feels.

So, yesterday was a beautiful one for me when I received the greatest greatest library card ever – the library of congress reader’s card. It even has my picture on it. As one of the other girls in my program said, it’s got to be universally accepted, right?

That also puts the number of library cards I possess up to 4 for all the places I’ve lived. Home in Oregon, Provo, London, and now the Library of Congress. And they all still work. Bwahaha. I’m hopefully going to get a normal DC library card too, because we all know I can’t make it through the summer without my teen fiction.

The weather outside was even glorious to celebrate the occasion. Although my feet were killing me because I definitely trekked across the city in my HEELS (I walked to work in them, worked in them for 8 hours, went to the art gallery in them, and then walked to the library of congress all the way down the mall and over a few blocks).

But it was ok because my walk looked like this:

(These are with my phone again, because even though I had my camera with me for some reason it didn’t occur to me to use it)

It was the perfect temperature, with the perfect sun.

To give you an idea of what it’s like here, since the magazine I work at is a block away from the White House this is where I ate lunch today:

Of course lunch is naturally way more exciting when there are snipers involved.

More adventures tomorrow with our first day of Friday class guest lecture things.

Converse and Children's Literature

I am writing this blog post purely to express my undying love for converse. I looked down at my feet today and just felt inspired. This love actually began long, long ago when I read the girl reporter series by Linda Ellerbee when I was in like second or third grade. The main character is a girl reporter (who would have guessed?) who went around stirring things up with her stories while wearing high top converse. I think that this also might be where my desire to be a reporter was cultivated. She was just that cool.

I bought my first pair of converse (red ones) my sophomore year of high school. I'm actually wearing them right now. That's the glorious thing about these converse, they're indestructible. I bought my second pair my junior year (navy blue), and I actually brought them with me to London last fall and quite literally wore them every day. There were actually a ton of people who wore converse around in London. I was surprised, but I guess they just have good taste. I bought my newest pair this summer at Ross (rose), and I still aspire to own every color in the rainbow. I think it would be awesome to open up my closet and have it just filled with converse.

So, the moral of the story is that if you want a sure way to be happy, you should just go out and buy a pair of converse. May I recommend orange? Also, children's literature can be pretty powerful stuff. We should get Linda Ellerbee to come be a guest lecturer for SPJ (she is, after all, a journalist herself). It would only cost us about 25 years of fundraising. Maybe she would make an exception?

Reading one of the girl reporter books with my dog. This has always been one of my all-time favorite pictures of me. Is it bad to peak at age eight?