Dog days

I know writing is a practice and not just like, a feeling you have. But I do have that feeling a lot more than I write. I’m still writing for work and that feels fine, but not like writing. I suspect that most writers feel like some writing counts as writing and other writing does not count as writing but I don’t know why we feel like this. At the end of the day I’d like to do more different kinds of writing, not just news writing or journalism or writing lists of the kinds of writing I will do when I stop worrying about writing enough to do it. Am I writing right now? Is the writing in the room with us?

My life is objectively a pretty chill time these days, but the weight of [gesticulates wildly] everything does feel heavy lately. I’ve had a hard time maintaining a creative practice of any kind this year and have mostly focused on building small sustainable habits and putting those in motion. For whatever reason, this gives me the mental image of when people dump a ton of rubber ducks into a river and they bob along, flip upside down, etc. Why do people put those ducks in the river? Are we still doing that, with the ducks?

So far this year my ducks entail establishing some freelance work and making a gym routine, which is not really my thing but I am vast, containing multitudes. Hot gym tip for 2025: If you’d like to sever your thinking brain from your bodily vessel for an hour at a time while drinking from a firehose of adrenaline, consider trying Brazilian jiu jitsu. Find you a gym light on thick-necked nightmare men with bad politics. Marvel at how difficult it is to contemplate the fall of empire while being recreationally attacked by total strangers and friendly acquaintances. I started going to a jiu jitsu gym locally in January and feel grateful to have that habit (duck?) in place, though recent minor injuries have had me off the mats some. I’m still terrible but trying to embrace the beginner’s mind of it all while setting out on a yearslong journey of mindfulness and fighting to the death, which for me personally is a perfect combination. It’s intense and endlessly complex — like chess, but with strangling.

Got that summertime, summertime sword of Damocles

Most people in Portland deal with seasonal affective disorder in the winter, but the summer makes me kind of stressed out and I’m ready to admit that. The weather becomes pretty much perfect here for a long stretch (though it’s trending hotter) and you’re suddenly acutely aware of how many days you have to do everything you’ve ever wanted to do before the rain returns.

Because that’s impossible, you will inevitably fall short of swimming in every river or going on every adventure and feel like you could have spent each daylight hour better — and there is a lot of daylight. This sense of impending doom/FOMO looms larger now with wildlife season choking out the sunny days on the tail end and it’s generally just a lot of pressure. And as our historically mild summers get hotter, the endless sun feels more like a portent and less like an open bar, where nonstop summer fun is available until we get cut off.

I haven’t had a ton of extra energy lately for outdoor adventures and impromptu road trips this year, but I blame living in fascism, which is honestly a huge bummer. Also maybe my IUD for being pesky and messing with or not adequately messing with my hormones. I’ve sort of rejected the mania of it all by not making a ton of plans, but of course now I wish I’d mustered the energy for more backpacking trips, car camping nights and photography projects. It’s not too late for an impromptu late season trip to Glacier National Park or Banff or something, so that could still happen.

Honestly I think now that we snowboard pretty much weekly in winter I have a really different relationship with Portland summer and feel sad when winter ends, which is probably good because summer is a fun time but she stresses me out!! I’m just out here seeking balance in all things, is that so much to ask?

Snack Attack: Family Mart “Afternoon Tea” Frappe

I’m not in Japan any more (regrettably) but lucky for me I do have a near infinite backlog of delicious things I have eaten to contemplate. In the future maybe I’ll start writing about food in town more since Portland is no Tokyo sadly but it is an incredible food city full of delicious things. In other news, Evie wants to go back to Japan this winter, by which time I will definitely have a writing habit and not a habit of worrying about having a writing habit.

In the spirit of this newsletter originally being about snacks from Japan’s convenience stores (known as “konbini” or コンビニ), we will now discuss one of my most missed treats, one truly worth booking an impulse visit for: Family Mart’s royal milk tea frappe.

I discovered this top tier treat toward the middle of my time in Tokyo last year on a day I decided to walk from Nakano through Koenji and some other neighborhoods I hadn’t seen, back to Setagaya where I stayed for a month. It was a long walk and an unseasonably hot fall so I popped into a Family Mart, a 7-Eleven rival konbini with some superior options, to cool off. In the freezer with the normal smoothie selection I noticed this, the royal milk tea frappe. Unfortunately, it would be at least another week before I realized drinking the konbini kale smoothies was essential to traveling in Japan, where I ate about 5% of the vegetables I’d normally eat at home.

You pick one of these frappes from the freezer, peel off the plastic seal and pop it into the same machine that dispensed unto me an iced latte pretty much every morning for six weeks. The machine shoots out some milk and hot water to get things mixing together, you stir it with the straw and voilà, a perfect frozen-ish milk tea every time. If you love a strong royal tea flavor and enjoy an excuse to eat ice cream by other names, these things are so good. 10/10 an afternoon tea for the ages.

🥛