cuz movin forward's makin me look back

things i'm gonna miss about paducah, kentucky

1. $8 bbq rib dinners with $2.75 half pitchers of miller high life at the kountry kastle
2. the ladies at the handbag counter at dillards
3. mississippi mud pie dessert pizza from pizza inn
4. the totally unorganized three story antique store down town with its shelves of glassware, unopened vintage avon cosmetics, and hundreds of issues of old magazines

above: polka dot pumpkin cupcakes for jj's birthday


things i miss about portland, oregon

1. haircuts from galen at burnside proper
2. city liquidators, i could spend hours combing every floor of both stores
3. buttered popcorn topped with spiked nutritional yeast at cinema 21
4. seeing a movie by myself with a beer at the laurelhurst. especially seeing "a very long engagement" twice and "the life aquatic" three times
5. breakfast at colleen's
6. stumptown coffee, most definitely the best coffee in the world, order a pound off their website when you feel like spoiling yourself
7. magpie, a clothing store that carries both vintage and indie designers. more than anything i find this store to be very very inspiring. i have found some really beautiful things here.
8. flight 64 press! this is the printmaking co-op i was a founding member of. they always rock alberta street's last thursday and they always rock a killer yearly benefit party. definitely a good spot to pick up some pieces for your growing art collection. and see the innards of a working printmaking studio while you're at it.
9. chile rellenos burrito from olé olé on e. burnside
10. huber's. i just plain love hubers. it's very portland. it's not at all twenty-something. it's a different portland, but luckily a portland that involves setting cocktails on fire.

things i miss about new orleans, lousiana

1. angeli on decatur. i don't think i'm very good at waiting tables, but i loved it here. i met some of the coolest people i've ever met in my life.
2. the happy talk band. when i worked at angeli, luke was the bartender. luke's song writing just completely blows me away and plows me over each time i listen. if i had to characterize his music i'd say hilarious, heartbroken, sarcastic, nihilistic sorta alt-country. but definitively new orleans more than anything else.
3. the bingo! show. this is the other extreme of definitively new orleans. flamboyant, celebratory, bizarre, inspired, interactive and over the top. seeing bingo (was it weekly or monthly?) at fiorella's was an absolute ritual. and it almost always involved fried pickles.
4. howlpop. i don't know if howlpop still has a store but when i lived there it was a really great boutique in the marigny ran by a woman named mo. she deconstructed thrifted clothes and added her own screen prints and just made incredibly unique things. she was only open fridays and saturdays and i would go every friday to see what was new. she's also on etsy!
5. taking the ferry to the west bank for bloody mary's. whenever i needed a break from the quarter or from the wildness of my life in new orleans, i'd take the ferry to the west bank and walk to the first bar i saw. i can't remember the name of it, but it almost felt like an english pub. it definitely felt like a different place all together.
6. 25¢ oyster shots at café lafitte in exile's (gay bar on bourbon st) friday afternoon happy hour with dimitri
7. riding my bike to feel the breeze