Desperately Seeking Salem

You’d think that the holidays would make me happy — after all, I’ve never seen more people out and about in Salem.

But I’m feeling a regression of sorts, back to the days when I used to write long, scathing letters to corporations such as CVS when their employees wronged me in ways that were beyond the pale.

In the grand scheme of the universe, these may seem like minor infractions, piddly quibbles.  But when you are 9.45 months pregnant, your patience tends to  spread thin like cellophane.

So here’s some stuff to be angry about:

Imports adrift. In January, Tuesday Morning – is moving from the “zoning abortion” of Lancaster Drive, as a wise Willamette Valley winemaker once described it to me, to a space on S. Commercial near Wal-Mart. Chances are good that I’ll never again make the trip down there for a snuggie/imported Belgian chocolate/Limoges dishes/decent rug/cat-shaped lint remover. At least that zoning abortion is closer to home.

Keep Salem Lame. Someone in this town is actually making the argument on my column from November that Salem needs to stay lame. Months ago I thought about starting an ironic “Keep Salem Lame” movement, in which “lame” could be reappropriated to mean awesome — I know, a little too hipster for this town — but, there are actually too many people working actively as part of the real KEEP SALEM LAME movement. It would never work.

Instead, I would hope that someone would actually comment on the other end of the spectrum, since I can’t. Oh, poor, lonely Salem Monthly columnist… so alone in her hopes for cultural impulses…

Bad customer service. I’m into everyday superheroes. I’m into people who take pride in their work, people who fill their work days with actual work, people who understand that there is something noble and dignifed about doing what you do — whatever it is — best. I reward these people by not acting like an asshole in the public sphere and by generally being a dream customer.

So why do I keep running into salespeople who would rather talk to their work colleagues than sell me something? I’m talking about you, Patrick in the IKEA housewares department. When an adorable hippo asks you if you have a fir-scented candle, don’t say you don’t have one so you can keep talking to your fatty friend. I found that candle after waddling around for fifteen minutes. And no, I didn’t buy it.

Things to feel grappy about:

Always angry when a store fails, a little happy when it’s a concept I kind of hate.

Scrapbook Fever, on Hawthorne Ave, near Pietro’s pizza, is closing. My condolences to the owner’s, who I’m sure are kind and forthright people, but I just don’t think you need a bunch of doodads by Leeza Gibbons to make a decent scrapbook. Or to tell your personal story in any meaningful way.

Apparently, the market agrees. I wish them the best in their next venture.

I am writing these lines from inside the library because it’s rather hot at home.

My apologies to Shel Silverstein for messing with his rhymes.

And I would like to offer a similar sentiment to the readers who check in here every day for musings on Salem and have found, over the past week, little more than a promise of something to come.

Well, something did come.

HEAT WAVE!

We returned from Seattle on Monday to a house that was hanging steady at 105 degrees Fahrenheit. While I would like to say that this is one of those scenarios where tough girls like me, who find prestige in things such as not owning a cable hookup and only watching TV on Netflix, rise above their challenges, I fear that the past few days have outed me as what I truly am: a big fat wimp.

Until this week, we have basked in the cred that comes with living a life less complicated. Having no air conditioning wasn’t just a long-wished-for dream we brought back from Europe,  land of no screens and unnecessary AC. The Willamette Valley seemed like the promised land — a land of milk and honey and reasonable, livable temperatures.

Well, I finally broke down last night. At exactly 2:32 a.m., I started sobbing because it was still in the 90s and I had been trying to sleep for three and a half hours. Normally I am a champion sleeper. Last night, I was taunted by a breeze so slight that it merely dragged its pinky aross my arm about once every hour.

I could have broken that pinky.

So what could I do but wake up my husband, who had been slumbering peacefully next to me, and share my concern?

My path back to sleep:

1. Play with cats
2. Sit on front stoop in my underwear and get a little scared by the quiet of Salem in the middle of the night
3. Take a shower
4. Drink some cool water
5. Eat a fruit Popsicle.
6. Eat a Fudgsicle.
7. Wrap a frozen washcloth on my neck
8. Go back and try not to wait for Pinky

I do have one major excuse for acting like such a baby. I am now four and a half months pregnant and have morphed in a 5 foot 4 inch fiery furnace.

But don’t feel bad for me, this torture is all my own. Friends and colleagues have offered to lend me a spot on their blow-up mattresses. And still, every night at about 8 p.m., I am in the same spot, believing once again that I can do this.

Really, I feel like I can do it tonight.

I’ll be thinking about all of you stoop sitters.

This post should actually read Emily: Happy!, but I don’t have a picture for that.

The Social Security Administration announced its list of top baby names this week, marking the first time in my recent life that the release of its annual list has actually made my day.

Emily, you’re going down!

That’s right, Emily is going out of fashion. Well, it’s still third on the list of most popular names, but I can only hope that people will get a little more inventive, and Emily will go the way of Ashley (my sister’s name), and make its way farther down the list.

Now, I’m sure there are a ton of people out there who share their name with people they know, but there’s something special about Emily’s. Emily’s write novels. Emily’s have big red dogs. There is a book out there, The Other Emily, about a girl named Emily who is shocked and forlorn when she discovers that someone else shares her name.  I personally had three best friends named Megan in grade school and I can attest, only an Emily would let the existence of another Emily get her down.

There is even a really wonderful poem by my favorite Irish poet, Medbh McGuckian called “The Most Emily of All,”  which I think best captures the essence of Emily.

My husband once put together a list of songs with Emily in the title, and you are forewarned: Emily’s are schemers! They’ve got agendas, and plans, and they will break your heart (Emily means “industrious”).

I am totally an Emily.

Parents can name their kids anything they want. But I think they should deliberate long and hard about whether or not their precious will actually become an Emily.

At the very least, I would request that new parents look for some new options so I’m not turning my head like a confused golden retriever every time I  walk through the grocery store.

“EMILY ANGRY!!!”

Ok, so I’ve been in Salem for about four months now and I’ve seen all stripes of Willamette.

Willamette Dental, Willamette University, Willamette Noodle Co.,  Willamette Writers, Willamette Week, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Willamette Bank.

Would the real Willamette please stand up? oh wait, you’re a Superfund site meandering through the state and lending your name from everything from noodles to PC Services. Cheeky little river.

I’m no branding expert, but I know a muddled down geographical brand fiasco when I see one.

How can one name be desirable both to some of the country’s most enterprising investigative reporters and a dental chain?

Willamette is a pretty loaded word. Willamette University has a pretty clear claim to the title, it is, after all, practically located on the river and was the first U.S. university in the West.

But it seems to me that all you need to do is add Willamette to your business name and all of a sudden you have steeped it in images of settlers homesteading the Willamette Valley. That’s not an image that lends itself to everything (Willamette Scrapbooking Co.? Willamette Enema Professionals?).

The inherent problem with tacking Willamette on to everything is it starts to mean absolutely nothing. Also, since Willamette has a deep and revered history here as a word, and a place,  it can’t help but seem incongruous with some of the modern applications it’s attached to.

Or perhaps the ubiquity of Willamette is just a none-too-subtle way to keep us newcomers from feeling okay here since we obviously can’t spell it or say it.

And it’s everywhere.

Don’t even get me started on Lancaster Drive.