This week I found out that the food cart pod near my office is being dismantled at the end of the summer to make way for a condo development. This is happening to several cart pods throughout the city. I know it's kind of petty to be saddened by the loss of these empty lots... Continue Reading →
week thirty-one: the new inside the old and the old disappeared
Sometimes the new thing is barely visible inside the old thing. It wasn't new that I got a massage this week, but it was an Ashiatsu massage, a technique I'd never tried before. In this form, the therapist uses their bare feet instead of their hands to release tight muscles. I don't think I've ever... Continue Reading →
week seventeen: history lessons
I've lived in Portland for over twenty years and feel deeply rooted here. My sense of history about this place, however, is also only twenty years old and looks mostly like a brief series of before and after photos. Before: the struggling art galleries, auto repair shops and empty fields west of Old Town, scented... Continue Reading →
week fifteen: the extremely mild, vaguely new adventures of 2014
For a vast majority of the last 20 years I've spent New Year's eve watching my partner play music with one band or another in one bar or another with one set of drunks or another. This year I skipped out and went to Seattle for something different. My friend's living room has a perfect... Continue Reading →
week six: 3-minutes to nowhere
From where I live, I see Oregon Health Sciences University rising high in the west hills like a second downtown. To get to Pill Hill you have to wind your way up through a stand of lush green trees, as if you're heading out for a hike in the woods. But instead, at the top,... Continue Reading →
Tracy Burkholder 