"HOW TO BE HAPPY"

the ten-day forecast is for rain, and only the completely witless among us here in portland could honestly expect for that to change before july if at all, but that doesn't stop any one of us from manifesting our witless hopes for an early and consistent summer by preparing our swimsuit bodies. so there wasn't to be any drinking until the party on friday, and only then because it would be ungracious as a co-host to abstain completely, but then not again until at least another week later. we're considering throwing an underwear party for the beginning of june just to steel our resolve. nothing to drink and extra miles in the mornings.

i realized that my plans must have been for another night when i arrived at the whiskey soda lounge, but having planned to be in southeast i took the opportunity to ride up the back side of mount tabor before heading to 32nd and division. extra miles. and uphill. plus, the whiskey soda lounge serves tasty and refreshing drinking vinegars, so i could consider the possible difficulty of teetotaling at the center of a party avoided. but then there was no party, and it seemed silly to spend on drinking vinegars, sitting alone at the lounge, if i still had time to make it home, to the laundromat and to get some underwear cleaned before the laundromat closed. i could hang them dry myself.

i took anonymous celebrity by ignácio de loyola brandão with me for the wash cycle. "i now read books and have stopped drinking. i have become boring, but i feel good -- even though i'm philosophically against not drinking." thanks lars von trier. i don't suspect you've ever cared much about your swimsuit body, but damn if that press conference on "melancholia" at cannes doesn't keep on giving. i'm of a similar philosophy.

brandão was in on my delinquency as well. anonymous celebrity is, a novel, yes, but it's also a guidebook of sorts, intended to help the faceless masses rescue ourselves from the death sentence of our obscurity. and damned if i didn't come to the section entitled "how to be happy" while my underwear were spinning.

"people live with a constant fear of transgression...what frauds. there's only one way to be happy: to lose it...to push everything around you into anarchy...

pleasure."

i got off on the serendipity. the serendipity and the easy inspiration. and the validation of my efforts to keep pushing everything around me into anarchy for the sake of the how-to autobiography. maybe that was enough. you won't know. anyway, extra miles in the morning. forecast: cloudy.