You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The world went a little bit scary a couple of days ago. There was the club thing, there were two nights of dreams in which people were trying to kill me or indeed succeeding, and yesterday while waiting for a MAX train I watched a preppy, nicely-dressed girl stagger out of a wide-open downtown plaza and collapse onto the sidewalk bleeding from the mouth. It's distinctly possible that someone substituted a different, frightening, Portland for the one to which I thought I was moving.
On Saturday night my roommate decided to introduce me to the concept of medicine cards. They're not unlike Tarot in that you pull cards randomly (or not randomly, depending on what you believe) and then delve into a book of explanations to figure out how to interpret them. She had me pull one, which had a picture of a black panther on it. The dark, said the book of interpretations, aloneness, death. Learn to embrace them. Irrational fear, it said, get rid of it. Applicable: I'm a paranoid person with particular fears of a) the dark b) being alone c) death.
Then again, I don't think anything is ever entirely inapplicable as long as it's subject to human interpretation. We have a tendency to try to make sense of new things in reference to things that we already know or believe (even if that reference is "contrary to what I already know or believe..."). So if you pull a card from a deck, read a horoscope, or shake a Magic 8 ball, you'll take whatever result you get and look to it to confirm, deny, or modify what you suspect to be true. You'll also tend to discard and forget those parts of the answer that don't seem to relate. I don't now remember which parts of the black panther card's explanation didn't feel relevant, nor probably will I ever.
With that said: the full moon was last night, the world has had its chance to get the spooky weirds out of its system, and it is high time to be done with this business. It is not presently dark and there are no grues in this part of Oregon. Portents, please go about your business elsewhere.
Posted by dianna at August 29, 2007 01:18 PMJesus, what happened with the collapsing girl? Did you find out?
Posted by: MoltenBoron at August 29, 2007 03:29 PMNo, I didn't. People were already starting to cluster around when my train pulled up, so I chickened out of getting involved and got on it. I'm kicking myself now because I would like to be that one brave decent person who, in a situation like that, is the first to do something other than move away and pretend not to notice. I was not. Perhaps next time.
Posted by: Dianna at August 29, 2007 04:34 PMUnrelated: If you want to have a fantastic night during an upcoming weekend with one of my favorite indie bands, get yourself to Berbati's Pan in beautiful Portland, Oregon on the 8th of September and enjoy the stylings of Okkervil River. Afterward you can tell me how much you love them.
Posted by: Chris at August 29, 2007 07:21 PM3rd and Ankeny at 9 pm, eh? I can do that, as long as I get my damn bike fixed this weekend. As much as I love Portland public transit I am totally over using it to get anyplace for fun.
Okkervil River, you are on. I will tell you how much, if applicable, I love them.
Posted by: Dianna at August 31, 2007 01:55 PMI have nothing remotely interesting to say, but I simply could not let this entry pass me by without saying, "I get the reference!" Or perhaps not technically the reference itself, but the reference to the time the reference was made? And it makes me miss you. Although it does not make me miss the dark and scary walk to your apartment. That is all.
Posted by: lisa at September 4, 2007 06:28 PMJesus, no. That walk was ridiculous. I am not really in a position to know whether it would be alarming to someone who's not a-statistically unnerved by the dark, but I like to believe that it would be.
Also, you get more or less exactly as much of the reference as I do. So that's all right.
Posted by: Dianna at September 4, 2007 07:41 PM