Hello Kids, Mama has a new post over at Poprockcandymountain.com. Yes that’s an order.

Someone gave me a camera when I was 13. It fulfilled every need I ever had at the moment. A young girl who can’t yet decide between breaking free and staying inside. The camera was my buffer between the scary world I inhabited and the world I dreamed of living in.

One day I took my camera with me and my sister out to the refuge where we walked out dogs on a daily basis. I sat her down in the full afternoon sun handed her some flowers and told her to look down. This beautiful image was the product.

After I took the photo I handed my sister the camera and said, “now do me”. Just at that moment my sister held the camera up and my dog Sally ran by after swimming in the pond and chasing ducks. Sally’s wagging tail smacked me right in the face.

Its not just the my anvil shaped hair, or my unfortunate bone structure or my bad skin. Its the fact that unless I’m given plenty of warning this is how my photographs usually turn out.

That photograph of my sister - I stuck with it because of that one print.

Photo by Chantel Williams 2008

In between margaritas and sunbursts I’ve been fondling a new bottle of pills. The doctor says my anxiety is killing me. I say it’s sort of like child-rearing by fear or, a tool for motivation. But its true, I can’t end up driving myself to the ER ever again because I think I’m having a heart attack. If I would not have smoked and drank my way through my young adult-hood I would have nothing to worry about. However, those late night burger runs after a half-case of beer and cheap vodka can really pile up in a girls arteries. Did I say that she recommended a cholesterol check too?

Hello world: I’m 35 and I’m having my first cholesterol test. Why am I more worried about my fat intake than a lump found in my boob a couple years back? OK I take it back, I was terrified. I like my boobs, they are awesome. Lumps might ruin the awesomeness of my boobs. But cholesterol?

I was scanning the list of possible side effects of the medication. We have; nausea, sleeplessness, dizziness, vivid dreams, dry mouth, headaches and, possible weight gain. All of which I though I can take if it helps my anxiety and makes the world a better place to live. I scanned a bit further down list of things that thank god did not include anal excretions yet this caught my eye; “sexual dysfunction”. I Googled “Lexapro side effects” and everyone reported varying degrees of side effects but, practically all of them reported a loss in libido or ability to ummm, “finish”. Funny how this is the reason I will not take this medication.

That doctor of mine is going to have to go back to the drawing board if she thinks I’m giving up orgasms.

Photo by Dr.B - 2008, One Dork, One Kid and a Pink Coat

Last night was the perfect storm of downtown Portland activity. There was the First Thursday art walk in the Swanky Pearl District and the 6th Avenue Street Fair in the reformed Old Town where hipsters a’plenty wandering the street and the annual May Day Protest for Socialists.

The scene can be set like this. On one side of the block we have skaters, punks, drug dealers, radio stations and a make shift skate park with ramps made out of giant timber, book ended on each corner by balloon animals and performance artists. On the other side of the street we have hipsters hanging outside a row of cheap art/living studio spaces clamoring for what might be free Pabst Blue Ribbon and Charles Shaw wine all the while oogling over “art”. Hipsters love art, they just can’t afford it.

Around the block, you have an overdressed, old mom trying to look cool while her daughter laughs in her face and her boyfriend snaps the photos for the soon to be released, “Documentary of an old woman in a pink coat on a spring day.”