Where is my Mind? Oh, Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Well, it’s finally Tuesday. I know what’s on all of your minds… a new episode of Dance Moms is on tonight! Ok, maybe that’s just what’s on my mind. Does anyone else think Peyton is going to grow up to look exactly like Juliet Landau (AKA Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)?

Courtesy of http://buffylovers99.webs.com/charactersofbuffy.htm 

I tried to get Friend to appreciate the similarity, but she’s apparently not as devoted to/obsessed with Buffy as I am, and the comparison was lost on her. Cue intense desire to re-watch the entire series with Rage. Mostly I watch this horrific show (referring to Dance Moms, not Buffy. Keep up.) because Mackenzie is 7 years-old and absolutely adorable with her missing teeth, pigtails and insightful commentary.

Saturday night Friend and I got super ambitious and decided to make Jello shots. We assumed 66 would probably be about enough.

[Note: Those little cup things come in packs of 33… does that make sense to anybody? That’s such an illogical number to me…]

The flavors of the night were lime, strawberry-banana and what aspired to be chocolate pudding shots. Does anyone know the secret to a successful pudding shot, because I don’t think we do. To be fair, I looked up a recipe and then disregarded everything it told me because I was lacking some supplies (i.e. Bailey’s Irish Cream and cool whip). I deemed these “optionals”. Things probably could have been worse… I mean they definitely could have been better, but all in all I’ma chalk this one off as a win.

Roomie: So do you guys have people coming over to help you with all of those?

Friend: Are you asking if we have friends? Because the answer is no…

While we were waiting for our creations to firm up (guys, do you remember when Jello used to be Alive?) we decided to mosey on over to The Slingshot.

Reasons to love the Slingshot:
            1. Ms. Pac-man, Big Buck Hunter (Safari or original), pinball, photo booth

            2. The bar cat, Whiskey (who blew me off, 100%)

            3. Cheap, delicious food. Seriously, their burgers rival the Mo Burger.

            4. Right now there are cutouts of various animals on the walls. They’re for sale. Although the squid was charming, my personal favorite was the winged grizzly bear.  

Roomie met us for a few rounds of arcade games. Ms. Pac-Man is not at all my forte, but Roomie and Friend were pretty good at it! They made it to the orange round. No photo booth memories this time around, but I’m sure that’s something that will happen someday. Seriously you guys, come around and I will drag you to The Slingshot.

Friend and I braved the hipster terrain of North Bar for trivia last night. We sat at the bar next to self-proclaimed “lone wolf” Dennis, who was so much cooler than us it wasn’t even funny. Seriously, this fella was probably in his mid-fifties, rocked some killer facial hair and appeared to be an avid cyclist (his blue helmet sat at the bar with him). Also he was ridiculously good at the general knowledge and current events stuff. Let the record show that Friend and I absolutely slayed the playground sports round. Did you know Red Rover is sometimes called Forcing the Castle Gates? Or that the National Dodgeball League requires there be 6 regulation-size balls on the court? These are the random facts I had recessively stored in my childbrain. Is recessively punny in this context? Yes, I think so. Onward!

For the picture round we were given a diagram and instructed to correctly label chicken parts. We got two of them right. I disliked this particular picture round because labeling a chicken reminded me that sometimes this:

 Turns into this: 

Courtesy of: http://www.foodvigilante.com 

Needless to say, the odds of us winning were nil. So we're all on the same page, at North Bar the final question is like final Jeopardy and you bet the points you already earned, so theoretically even if you really sucked you could win it all if you get the right final question. We were 90% sure they weren't going to ask anything about dog breeds, Montana history or ginger role models, so we slunk out before the final question. We'll be back next week though! Hell, we might even ask the lone wolf if he wants to join forces! We'll be unstoppable. 

I'ma leave you with a final tidbit of trivia: did you all know that Earl Grey tea is primarily flavored with the oils extracted from the rinds of bergamot oranges? Because me and Friend most definitely didn't before last night...

Angels on your bodies.

-b

Close Your Eyes. The Dark Outside Can't Hurt You.

Everybody, take a minute to appreciate the fact that I’ve only been in Portland for one week. Well… one week and several hours as of now. Weird, right? Doesn’t it feel like a lot longer? I know it does to me. That said, let’s get into this!

On Thursday roomies and I discovered a fantastic karaoke bar. After a brief debate about whether we wanted the well-lit, upstairs restaurant or a sketchy underground Lounge/lair, we picked the latter. This was the best decision we made all night. Seriously, things go downhill from here. The Hutch on Holgate features a lot of wood paneling. I think their bar may have been built with a chainsaw in somebody’s backyard. This is the kind of place that has a construction paper skyline pasted in the windows. Also, their drink special during Happy Hour was a $2 tequila/soda. Obviously I had found my new home.

The actual karaoke singing didn’t start until 9:30, but it was well worth the wait. By “worth the wait” I mean I had consumed several drinks and a platter of homemade tortilla chips by then, so I was ready for anything. The K.J. (which apparently stands for Karaoke Jockey, not Kelley Jo) is absolutely adorable. In my head I called him Glen Coco. Don’t ask me why, I think his name was Rob, but he’ll always be Glen Coco to me. We didn’t do any actual “performing” (because the first round of singers appeared to be contestants from the last season of American Idol), but I did subject my tablemates to my usual vocal display: eyes closed, head thrown back, ambitiously singing along to songs I vaguely remembered hearing that one time on the radio.

Lo says: When you sing I like to watch your eyes. Sometimes when you close them it’s like you’re willing yourself to go somewhere else and you open them to find you’re still here, but you went so far away in that moment.

[Note: Lo says beautiful things. Sometimes she lets me share them with all of you!]

Also we discovered The Hutch has jello shots. Also I accidentally got roomie drunk. Also she had to catch a 6am flight the next day, and may or may not still hate me a little.

“I wanna know what it’s like to be awkward and innocent, not belligerent. I wanna know how it feels to be useful and pertinent, and have common sense…”

Luckily, Friend was there and fresh from work (AKA theoretically sober) and willing to give us a ride home. This is the point in the night that I don every article of clothing I own and smoke a clove alone in the backyard. Let’s take a minute to discuss clove cigarettes, and the many ways they’ve impacted my life. For example, one of the first times I smoked a clove in Seattle:

Montana Friend: Were those gunshots? I think those were gunshots! I wonder what’s going on out there…

Me: Ohmygod. Let’s smoke on the porch and see if we can see anything!
Seattle Friend [AKA Voice of Reason]: You idiots need to stay inside, you’re going to get shot…

Did we listen to her? No. Did we get shot? Definitely not. We didn’t even see any flashing lights. It was thrilling though, because it was novel. It was my first road trip without a parent or a chaperone, the first time I realized I was responsible for myself and my own decisions, for better or for worse.

If cloves had been banned years ago, I’d be deprived of yard couch and Vagina Tree and hours of sitting, smoking, star-gazing. I’d be robbed of the foundations of one of my deepest, most meaningful friendships. They weren’t just cigarettes. They were secrets, tears, hopes, dreams. They were the taste of laughter. They were our first taste of independence. Adulthood. They were poetry. They were music.

“To tell you the truth I prefer the worst in you. Too bad you had to have a better half.”

Sitting alone smoking, I can feel the blood rushing in my ears, and the traffic of a new city rushing in my feet. I can feel the world spinning around me while I’m sitting still, and unless you can stop the world spinning, I’m afraid the war on “gateway cigarettes” will be pointless. I guess I’m just too far gone.

Yesterday Friend introduced me to a food cart called The Potato Champion, which specializes in poutine. For anyone who doesn’t know, poutine consists of French fries, brown gravy (or in this particular case a peanut curry satay) and cheese curds. It’s probably not something you should eat every day, but my god is it wonderful! And it looks like this!

Courtesy of: http://www.potatochampion.com

Me: Will you hold my poutine for a second?

Friend: I bet that line works all the time in Canada…

[Note: I think the poutine in this photograph also has BBQ pulled pork on it, something I am definitely going to have to investigate.]

I think all of my long nights are beginning to catch up with me. You know when you go on vacation and your body decides to completely shut down after about a week? I don’t know if this happens to everybody, but my body literally demands to be taken home, like when kids hold their breath until you buy them a candy bar. I’m not sure how to convince body that this is home. I can’t tell which scares me more: falling asleep or being unable to fall asleep.

 “I’ve been sleeping so strange at night,

side effects they don’t advertise.
I’ve been sleeping so strange.
With a head full of pesticides…”

The other night I dreamt about running sprints in the snow at Dornblaser. As I was coming around a corner Lopez completely blew out on me. I was alone and it was that weird almost-twilight time of day. I started trying to drag myself off of the pitch, but I could feel the cold creeping into my body. I could feel myself dying, alone, in the cold… Some of you know this, some of you don’t, but dying alone definitely makes my Top 3 in the Worst Fears category. Granted, this freezing-to-death brand of dream may have been prompted by the fact that my heater is a little boisterous, so I turn it off at night…

But! One week down. I’m sure some day my ridiculous body will realize we’re staying, and settle into a routine. I’m sure someday soon I’ll be able to fall asleep before 3am (although my productivity with these late nights has actually improved!). Someday soon I’ll wake up and see Portland outside my window and know this is home.  

“And morning will come in all its simple glory
and you will find the light
and I will be there
standing in your shadow
knowing that you once were mine
all mine.
My baby”

Lucy, I found that mystery Bright Eyes song. It’s called Lila.
What if it's the dark inside that we're afraid of?

I Went So City Girl On You...

“At least I’m not as sad as I used to be…”

I woke up this morning and realized I have consumed Percocet and caffeine for breakfast three days in a row. There are a multitude of reasons this might be a bad idea. However, the two most pressing are 1. I am allergic to Percocet and any day now my face may erupt in a hideous rash (making it harder to find gainful employment, because really, who hires somebody with an atrocious face rash?) and 2. I really cannot afford to fix a stomach ulcer in my unemployed, uninsured state. So! Like a responsible adult, I ate toast for breakfast this morning. Was it coupled with several pots of coffee? Yes. Do I really care that this may be comparably detrimental to my overall health? Not one bit. For anyone who is curious, unemployment is an extremely vexing state. To illustrate this, I will demonstrate a day in the life of an unemployed, under-stimulated, freshly minted Portlandian:

1. Wake up at the crack of noon when the curious clicking in your heater system has finally broken through the drug/alcohol induced sleep you have attained. In my case, picture a kitten on your chest waiting for the split second your eyes flutter open to plant a sandpaper-esque kiss on the tip of your nose.

[Note: Murphy has had a cold this whole week, and kitten sneezes might be the cutest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.]

2. Shove kitten aside, because sandpaper kisses hurt. Lie quietly in your newandawesome bed checking facebook/e-mail/autostraddle, hoping against hope that a potential job has e-mailed you back regarding an interview (like the Job Fairy visited you in the night and waking up is what will make everything right again). Check potential-job-e-mail. Register disappointment. Contemplate sleeping until late afternoon, but realize aforementioned kitten will make such ambitious endeavors impossible


3. Consider the activities you could possibly fill your day with, without further damaging your gimp knee (Lopez) which is screaming from the prior day’s pedestrian adventures. Select from a variety of breakup mixes gifted you by your ex via 8tracks. Pretend they don’t make you want to cry by singing them aloud to said kitten. Choose any variety of shirts/pants/sweaters (really, it doesn’t matter because nobody who cares is going to see you). Wait until you don’t hear voices to journey downstairs, because really, who wants to stumble upon their gainfully employed roommates when you are waking up in the middle of the day with no prospect of becoming a real grown-up?

[Note: Sometimes you still run into your roommates and you are obligated to give them a full recap of your unsuccessful job search. Sometimes they listen to your tragically sad playlists for hours on end. They laugh at the things you don’t think are funny. Sometimes they make you realize the things you don’t find funny actually ARE funny (in a tragic-gouge-out-your-own-eardrums sort of way) and then you feel better, albeit hungry]

          **Amended note: I love my new roomies very very much and any sort of social avoidance is purely due to my inherently awkward nature.

4. Determine the only activity you really need to fulfill successfully (to prevent death) is grocery shopping. Debate whether you should drive or walk to the closest Safeway, which is approximately 15 blocks away. Decide to walk because that will make the errand twice as long, and you still have a lot of day to fill with “activity”. Strap on your backpack and bounce out the door like you own this city/slash know what you’re doing.

5. Walk for approximately 20 minutes and start to question the whole “know what you’re doing” part of this idea. You planned ahead enough to wear a jacket, but not a hat. Lopez is starting to give up on you, and right leg is taking a solid beating. If one more hill rears its ugly head you may sit in the middle of the sidewalk and quietly weep. But! On the plus side you’ve passed at least four potential drunk-drive-through Mexican restaurants. Derive comfort from this fact and continue trudging.

6. Finally (FINALLY!) see the Safeway surface in front of you like a mirage in this strange, misty, civilized desert. Impulse buy a million things because the longer you’re shopping the longer you’ll be in the safe embrace of The Familiar. Eventually decide to check out, have the checkout lady call you “honey” when you ask to load everything into your backpack instead of punishing the environment with a plastic bag. Pay $50+ and don’t think twice, because in your head unemployment = disposable income

[Note: On the walk home Lopez will become hyperaware of all the ways you’ve been abusing him, and refuse to function at all. Right leg will pick up the extra workload, but by the time you stumble through your front door you will be sweaty, breathing heavily, and your legs will be buckling from strain. From walking. WALKING. Oh how the mighty have fallen.]

7. Start unpacking your groceries and realize you haven’t actually bought anything worth eating. Drink a PBR tallboy. Reconsider groceries. Still nothing? Shit. Eat a piece of bread and decide next time you shop you’ll make a list (and maybe you’ll follow it!). Realize it’s only 3:30pm and consider crying. Decide to have another beer instead.


The rest of the night really depends on what everyone else in my tiny social circle is doing. Recent activities include drinking myself into a coma (Gays & Growlers style), visiting Montana’s Bar and determining it fit for a weekly social gathering and watching/subsequently grieving over the latest episode of Glee (Seriously Ryan Murphy? Fuck you). As far as I can predict: RIP Quinn. We loved you, from the Cheerios, to the Quinn of Darkness, and back up the food chain to future Yale graduate. April 10^th, I pray to god you’ve got good news for us.


[Note: In order to recover from the trauma of Glee, Friend and I watched several episodes of Dance Mom. Some thoughts on the subject: do parents really subject their children to this sort of torture? What right does an obese woman have to tell anorexic 10-year olds they aren’t pretty? Adult women can un-ironically wear cowboy hats, throw tantrums/shoes and still expect to be taken seriously? Fuck you also, reality t.v.]

Notable amongst my recent adventures are the Waffle Window and Ikea. I will address each of these with the individualized attention they deserve. Let’s start with waffles, because really, who wouldn’t want to start everything with waffles?

The Waffle Window exists in the corner of Portland where unicorns frolic and rainbows sit around sipping green tea on their very brief lunch breaks (their lunch breaks have to be brief because it is always raining here and they always have a place to be. Sucks, I know. Note I haven’t applied to be a rainbow yet). Seriously, you’re cruising down Hawthorne when you see an ominous looking one-way side street. You impulsively turn down said side street and into paradise. The Waffle Window is exactly what it sounds like: a window in the side of a cold brick building which sells waffles. The majority of said waffle delicacies cost $4. My selection was a jalapeno-bacon-cheddar waffle complete with avocado salsa. Friend got something that involved an artful tangerine.

 Needless to say, it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever put in my mouth. And I’ve put a lot of things in my mouth.

Once we were adequately fueled, we decided to brave The Ikea. Friend warned me that The Ikea was similar to being a chinchilla in a hamster wheel, but I refused to believe her. It wasn’t until I was standing in a 3 story maze of kitchen sink faucets, ridiculously cheap warm weather comforters and stylish childrens’ bedroom sets that I believed her. Seriously guys, there are arrows on the floor which me and Friend stalwartly ignored. Because we’re fucking rebels. Also, the arrows were consistently pointing us away from where we wanted to be. Turns out, The Ikea is also “self-serve” which means they tell you where the heavy shit you want to buy is and then expect you to haul it around on your own.

Friend: What the fuck? Self-serve? It’s not like this is a frozen yogurt shop or something.

Ok. Sometimes you drive a very small car named Seabiscuit. And sometimes you have to buy very large furniture. And sometimes Friend has to sit in the backseat all the way home because the very large furniture only fits diagonally in your very small car. Thus is life, I suppose. In the end (AKA four hours later) me and Friend had successfully assembled my Swedish bedframe (despite lack of instruction above and beyond very confusing graphics).

Friend: Assembling furniture? How gay. This is something to add to your lez-ume.

[Note: Get it?! It’s like a resume for gay females… It’s a funny!]

All in all, I think things are going well.

Tonight I smoked one of the many clove cigars I will smoke in my lifetime. There’s currently a single camping chair in my backyard, and when I sit in it I can see the North Star over the shed. The tree in our yard isn’t a vagina tree, she’s a woman standing upright screaming “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” and I’ve got nothing left to lose, because everything I’ve lost feels so far away already.

“Baby, put your name down on a piece of paper.
I don’t want no savior baby
I just wanna get it out.”

               --Fun.

I love you all. Don’t forget me way out here.

-b

The Beginning After the End

‘O brave new world that has such people in it. Let’s start at once.’

I’ve been putting this off for a while now. Part of the reason is because I don’t know what I want to say. Or by saying what needs to be said, I’m admitting there’s something worth saying. Or I want what I say to be genuine and perfect in a heart-breakingly charming fashion. It’s funny how the little things get in the way. I couldn’t write because I had so many things to do, so many people to say goodbye to. I had to pack, or pay bills or watch that one movie with that one person because it might be my last chance ever. Sometimes I have a bad habit of running away from the only thing that can save me, spiraling further into the rabbit hole when what I really need is to see the sun. I don't know what this blog will be for you. For me it is the first deep breath you take after being underwater for an inestimable amount of time.

As some/all of you know, I recently moved approximately 500 miles from home to start my New Life in my New City with my New Self. Let’s start there. Leaving the town I’ve called home for the past 6 years, everything I own strategically crammed into the backseat of Seabiscuit, I found that my predominant emotion was a lack of emotion. Don’t get me wrong. I was sad/scared/elated… but at the same time not. I cried, but for a significantly shorter period of time than I thought I might (because let’s face it, I’m a crier. A fucking Cheerios commercial can move me to tears). I found that my most pressing emotion was an overwhelming desire to reassure the people I was leaving behind. I wanted the perfect, enigmatic statement to let my friends know I love them and always will. I wanted to tell them I’m going to be ok, even if I don’t always believe it myself. I wanted a pre-packaged literary reference, obscure enough that only a few would understand its origin. The funny thing about trying to use someone else’s words to embody your own emotions: they always come out just a little askew.

Nobody else could tell Josephine to rock dem bimoneez, because the beat is going to drop even though I’m gone.

Nobody else could beg Florence to please please please take care of herself, because she deserves the very best this life has to give her. She is beautiful and I adore her.

Nobody could tell Eris she is strong and lovely and going to tear this world apart; to be careful with her words because they hold more power than she understands.

Nobody else’s words can tell Lucy thank you for 458 days of loving me.

So there I was, cruising 80 MPH down the interstate, so distracted by wanting to say the right words that I forgot to feel the right feelings. Then the sun broke out of the clouds and Montana said goodbye to me with a sun-flare in my rearview mirror and it was so much more beautiful than anything I could ever find the words for that I knew everything I needed to say had been said already. You guys, it was fucking poignant. It was poetry and music and art all rolled into one second of light. That instant when you feel all of the beauty the world has to offer rolled into one insignificant moment so heavy you think your sternum might crack from the effort of holding it all in.

2011 was a big year for me, some of the happiest and most devastating days of my life. I’ve never felt so deeply, lost so completely, loved so wholly… it was a year of superlatives. I suppose that’s part of getting older; every year has to scramble around trying to outdo the one before it. It was a year of growing, shrinking, dying, living exhaustively, dreaming, forgetting to dream… And so I’m running again, either away from the past or towards the future. Is there really any difference when you stop to think about it? I am running away from the ache in my chest every time the light is just-so underneath the street lamps when I’m thinking purple. I’m carrying a box full of postcards and an envelope full of mood rings. I’m holding onto my blue heron dreams and looking for my yellow bird. I know that I am capable of loving, and being loved. It’s not much, but goddamnit, right now it’s enough.

My junior year of college I took an introductory poetry workshop, and the teacher introduced me to this poem, which continuously reshapes my life:

 Early Photograph I

 Here’s one of me up on hunger’s
            balcony, my head just emerging

from the golden smog of childhood, my ideas
            still stuck to my back like new wings.

 Oh the trouble they gave me on the way
            down, not because they didn’t open

 but because they did, catching on all
            the invisible, simple machinery of the air,

all I had to trust to when I cast
            myself down into my life, jumped away

from the shadow-parent, the formal exams, the temptation
            to stay suspended in perfect thirst forever.

                                    -Jean Gallagher

So much and so little has happened in the last few days. I promise I will share my adventures with you guys as soon as I’ve had a little time to process them. I hope you know how much I love you.

I’m thinking about you all the time.

[Update: I finally figured out 8tracks! Hooray! Anyone who wants to hear my goodbye playlist oughta check it out here: There's Really No Good Time for Anyone to Leave]

-b