Yesterday we took the bus to Pete's house and my car started! It's a white 1979 Volvo station wagon. We went there the first day I was here and it wouldn't start, so we brought Donna's roommate's device that's like an automatic jumpstart without needing another car. And it worked! We felt so cool, two chicks working on a car. I had to adjust the idle because it sounded weird but it's running great.

The list of things that don't work has expanded: the power steering (belt snapped a long time ago), the gas gauge, some of the dash lights, the heat, the left rear door, the right front window, the trunk (doesn't open), the left front turn signal, the odometer (hasn't worked since I bought it. It's stuck on 119,000 miles and that's *before* I drove to Ohio and back, and California and back several times). But the car has never broken down and the engine and transmission are PERFECT. Plus it has a distinctive smell and all the branches and twigs and flowers on the dashboard have become rather moldy, and the roof leaks, and there are feathers hanging from the mirror.

We drove to Junior's, our old favorite breakfast place on 12th, and our waiter looked like he should be in a band with Will Oldham... We drank a lot of coffee and talked about whether we believe in psychology. Then we went to Powell's and hung out in the metaphysics section, mostly making fun of cheesy new age books, and then sat and read in the coffee room for a long time.

Then we met Donna's friend Jared and he took us to a little hole in the wall Italian place by the PGE Park MAX stop, where the walls were covered in pictures of Frank Sinatra and the food was amazing... Jared is hilarious. He has a watch collection at his house, old watches he bought at Goodwill over the years, and he made me a custom watch out of a band and a face from two different watches, and showed us funny movies.

We went on a late night (3 am) shopping trip to the Rose City Safeway on Sandy Blvd, where the entire staff, and all the customers, and the security guy, were ALL on a large amount of meth. Seriously, you should have seen the jaw clenching and rapid fire dialogue going on in there. It was a little scary.

Donna was excited because I have a car now so she could buy heavy stuff like huge bags of catfood, and not have to carry it on the bus.