like a strange parade

Well another year has rolled around and has brought with it yet another birthday. In less than three weeks I'm going to be 23 years old - the oldest I've ever been in my life. To commemorate this important stage of my life, I've decided to begin the R.Schlickeisen 23rd Birthday Memorial Chair Fund. The RSTTBMCF will be applied to the purchase of a vintage fiberglass Eames chair, the likes of which I've been oogling ever since I got turned on to the Eames' body of work. Contributions to this fund may be made in lieu of the tradtional 23rd birthday gift of lieterhosen and fruitcake. *love, rs.

said the papa tomato

I am penitent. Bless me internet, for I have sinned: It has been like two months since my last update. The summer months often relax my regular efforts and this summer has been no different despite my actual abundance of activities. I'd like to say that its all this making and doing thats kept me from posting but its not so... here is a brief update of my timeline to date:

• While in Portland (while I was lost trying to find the elusive entrance to a former railroad cum hiking trail), Sam called in tears to tell me that our doggy Molly had violently attacked her mother's dog. It was quite the heartbreaking scene as we decided that Molly had to be returned to the animal shelter.
• Upon my return from Portland, Sam and I decided to try to find another dog. After some research, Sam and I went to Smithville to check on a prospective puppy - a bassett hound - named Pancho Sanchez. We were enamored of him and took him home with us. On the car ride back to Austin, it was agreed that he needed a name more fitting with his regal jowels and AKC heritage so we agreed on "The Baron."

the baron

• We threw a party in the baron's honor, a long island iced tea party. There was much drunken amusement and many regrets afterwards.
• A couple weeks after getting the baron, we went to Las Vegas. He would have fit in splendedly there with all of the other smooth talkers and high rollers, but we left him with my parents instead. Sam, myself, my sister, and Todd stayed in Vegas a few days at a sweet casino/hotel on the strip. We played blackjack, took in the ridiculous postmodern sights, and were blistered by the hot desert sirocco. We also went to see Penn & Teller, which was awesome, thanks to my sister & Todd. After we'd had enough of the simulacrum that is Las Vegas and lost enough money, we went back to my Sister's crib in Flagstaff, Arizona. We just sort of hung out there and enjoyed the comfortable climate for a few days before taking the white knuckle flight back to Texas.
• If I represented my finanancial situation with a red-filled thermometer graphic used on telethons, by this time, my fiscal temperature would be somewhere around 150 centigrade. In an attempt to stave off poverty I began seeking out employment. I flitted between trying to find something "in my field" and something within reasonable proximity where I could make some damn money (appearently these are mutually exclusive), applying for everything from publishing jobs to overnight editing jobs to grocery clerk at Central Market.
• Samantha and I had our First Anniversary ever! We celebrated the occaision with a Hanukkah-like week of gifts which preceded dinner at the fabulous South Congress Cafe followed by a night spent at the even more fabulous Hotel San Jose which is my zen minimalist dream home. And thanks to devistating hurricanes in the gulf, the weather was pleasant enough to sit outside in our private patio and enjoy a glass or eight of champagne without soaking our bathrobes through with sweat. The next morning we had breakfast at Magnolia Cafe where Sam & I had our first date...pretty damned romantic, n'est-il pas?
• Per our agreement, I returned to Flagstaff to help Erica and Todd move... to Mississippi. Their contract with the NAU/USGS appearantly disolved, Todd took a teaching position at Ole Miss. I flew up to Flagstaff in the midst of my unsuccessful job hunt only to discover that I was to follow them all the way to Mississipi rather than get dropped off in Texas on their way east as I had believed. As a comprimise, I drove my sister's car back home since they couldn't get a hitch for it and they're picking it up when they come for ACL Fest next month.

So I'm home and applying for more jobs like crazy, hoping to get some income while at the same time trying to focus on my own projects namely my artistic efforts and publishing an art magazine which I hope to have at least one issue off the press to take with me to next summer's zine symposium. So there you have it, some threeish months in nutshell form. More of my adventures in post-graduate land will follow... *love, r.

young man roams the badlands
for some reason I never bothered to post this when I arrived home...

Seattle was dreary but amusing, Portland was fantastic, but it was time to come home. Despite my tendency to procrastinate, I guess I have a pretty low tolerance for absolute leisure. After a point, I genuinely start to feel increasingly empty if I'm not making something, writing something or otherwise scratching through a line item from my ever-lengthening to-do list. Portland was a perfect place for a sabatacle. After my second day there, I'd already realized that as beautiful as the place was, as temperate the climate felt and as friendly the people seemed to be, I was not ready to make this place my home. I quickly gave up the semi-futile occular wanderings across the classifieds for jobs and apartments and set myself to solitary, meditative walks through parks and playgrounds, in forests and fields, and on streets and sidewalks. I hiked along the winding trails of forest park and mauraded through the dirty midnight streets of Old Town. I climbed to the top of Mt. Tabor and considered a tour through the Shanghai Tunnels, the remains of a former incarnation of Portland burried beneath the city, but was thwarted on several occaisions. I sat down in Powell's on the fourth day of my trip and read the entirety of Chuck Palahniuk's Fugitives & Refugees and sat in the corner of the literature section, copying notes with a sharpie onto the stack of free postcards I'd picked up. I could not find the Mannequin Museum. I could not locate the underground swimming pool. The burlesque house was nowhere to be found. And I missed the zoo bomb - wrecklessly coasting down the big hill at Washington Park on childrens' bicycles while drunk and full of pizza. Chuck's Portland turned out to be almost as hard to find as tunnels supposedly underneath it.
I did make some friends though not any actually from Portland. I gave up on trying to go out at night to save money (another cost-saving measure akin to eating nothing but trail mix for two weeks) and instead found myself retiring to the porch of the hostel each evening at dusk to smoke and chat with other wanderers.
Over all, my trip was a refreshing sojourn, a fine sabatacle and little else in terms of any of my relocation plans. That seemed to be the concensus among the quorum of rolling stones I kept council with each night: It's an amazing city, an intense urban wildwood where I certainly wouldn't mind settling, but there are too many obstacles to my doing so right now...