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