Unexpectedly, an extra evening to myself and time now for this, which doesn't come easy for the hour.

Doesn't come easy to recount simply that I was away this weekend, to Portland, with Andrew, to visit Tom and Luana and Dakota and to find Andrew's old habits. He'd brought his new camera and shot from the hip all weekend. That funslinger.

We seem not to go anywhere fast for the stopping in between. Olympia, rest stops and -- the best -- the Rib Eye in Centralia, an Interstate-side relic I've passed a million times. Booths had phone jacks and a sign that said phones were available for talking. The bar is called The Holdin' Pen.

Stopped in at Powell's four times. I bought one book for each visit.

I don't want to forget that weird store in Lloyd Center, Beautiful American Dreamer, I think. Filled with white trash decadence and one trophy -- faux trophy kill: a mounted buck's head with bulbs and lampshades coming out the rack. I'm still laughing thinking about it. The people in the store taking all that shit seriously, none more than the old woman in the plaid cotton dress. She'd been around that junk so long she was part of the habitat. Buy a bed there and she comes with it.

Tom et al took us to Ethiopian food that was not as satisfying as promised. A funny thing about the place was a little girl's Etch A Sketch that I saw and thought was there for the shaking, so I promptly erased the tangle on the screen just as she caught me red-handed. Furious, she tried to shoo us away and then started kicking me (out).

To dessert at Rimsky-Korsakoffee House where the table turned with time and made Andrew feel the unwitting agent of crime.

And drink for me, the telling a dream approved.

We left up the coast, nearly the same route I took last October minus going the wrong way at Long Beach, which I didn't tell you about that first time. It's not the northwest coast unless you can't see it and we never saw the ocean for the clouds wringing out. Of course, like last time, we got pulled over by the State Patrol and let off without a ticket. Guess I didn't tell you that either.

Otherwise, working, working, working and I don't know what else, really, only that I want another job. Can't get myself fired from this one and haven't got the time to look for something new. Same story.

And my bike was stolen last Monday. I mean, it was there in the morning and not there that night. Like that. I'd be more upset if I hadn't already decided to buy a new bike this fall.

For now I've got to find alternative ways of getting to work. Lately I've been using fatigue and tight scheduling as an excuse to drive the mile or two to Pioneer Square to park on the street and pay the meter. Every two hours, like a smoker, I get to step outside for a break.

Otherwise I walk.

Or get dropped off.

And take the bus home, like I did tonight. Stopped by the little grocery store on the way, which felt like winter. Then home for cooking and laundry and music and other things all the flavor of excess time.