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Friday, December 11th, 2009
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5:00 pm
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1) I GOT A NEW JOB! I work at the Columbia River Land Trust as their community outreach specialist. This is the dopest of Americorps jobs, as far as I can tell, because I just get to talk to people about why the environment is bomb and then also sometimes I get to go camping in remote locations throughout Oregon and Washington with my three fellow Americorps members and help them with restoration projects or trail mapping and then I get to make GIS maps. Also I am required to get Wilderness First Responder training which I am stoked about. Basically, in the fantasy world of my imagination, after the end of my Americorps year, I am going to be buff and tough and hella rugged and best friends with my Americorps team and even able to fix broken legs and build snow caves to survive in. For some reason, none of this imaginary life involves me having to wear Chaco sandals and North Face fleece vests. A girl can dream.
2) I have the flu, I think. I bought Nyquil and Dayquil yesterday and in order to save some $$$, I bought the store brand Nyquil which turned out to be black licorice flavored, EWWWWWW. My bedside table is covered in tissues and medicine and I feel like a sad old person.
3) My newly acquired car is broken beyond repair and so for the past week or so I have been trying to sell it to German parts warehouses and sketchy people on Craigslist. My best potential buyer was a fellow named Conrad Yunker (umlaut over the u) who addressed me as "sir" in his emails. Either way, I am in the market for a new used car that I am capable of buying with the money I get from selling my car for scrap parts. Also I need aforementioned new used car in time to drive to San Diego in ten days. This is all reasonable, right?
4) I finished reading 2666 and it was AMAZING and now I am reading The Baron in the Trees which should be a considerably quicker read since it isn't 900 pages long. Also, I have once again gotten myself into a pickle where I owe the Multnomah County Library like ten million dollars, oops.
5) Somehow I keep hosting fondue parties--at the last one Grant and Simon came over because Marina told them she was setting Max up on a blind date and they wanted to be present for all of the theoretical hilarity that would have ensued had the date actually showed up.
6) Other things too, probably.
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| Monday, November 30th, 2009
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2:37 pm
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Dear Internet,
Winter is quickly approaching and I think I am getting cabin fever from staying inside so often. It's been nice spending more time cooking and reading but I think I have also been spending too much time sleeping and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I feel like the days have been flying by but it's hard for me to think back and remember what I've actually been doing with them; I'll try, though.
At some point I went to San Diego to pick up my sister's old car and drive it back to Portland. I found an insanely cheap flight, but the only catch was that I had to fly out of Seattle at 5 in the morning. I intended to take the bus to Seattle really early in the day and meet up with Juliana but I didn't end up getting in until 9 PM the night before my flight. Juliana's house was really out of the way from where I was and the airport, so we met up on Capitol Hill and drank a lot of wine until like 2 in the morning. It was nice to have someone to keep me company until the last bus to the airport, but in her attempts to make sure I wasn't alone in downtown Seattle in the middle of the night, Juliana missed the last bus to her own house and had to call her roommate to get her. Transportation issues aside, I had a lot of fun, and sleeping in the airport wasn't the worst thing ever.
My few days back in San Diego were really emotional, my family has been having a hard time and my mom is as stubborn and abusive as ever. Despite all of this, I spent a lot of time with my dad, which is something we never really do. One night we got Raul's burritos and slurpees and ate them at the beach, aw Dad! I also spent every day with my Grandma, which was interesting and enlightening--she really is so great. Speaking of great, I also got to spend a ton of time with Carly Toyer and her family eating Mexican food and drinking martinis and watching primetime TV at the Toyer house. Also, Carly made me a bomb mix tape that I have been listening to non-stop in my car ever since.
My drive back, which I thought was going to be this long solo soul-searching venture just turned into a killer road trip. I stopped in LA to hang out with Trevor for a few hours but ended up convincing him to drive north with me. We stopped at Stanford and spent the night with Charlie, Nicole, and Charlie's new GF Lisa(!!) We went to a lot of funny parties, at one of which a bunch of bros had a pumpkin tossing contest, and at another one, we met a British exchange student named Lockey who looked like Ian Curtis and was really into Ketamine. The next morning, Trevor and I convinced Charlie to come to Berkeley with us, and set out to find Andy. The Bay Bridge was closed, though, so we ended up going to San Fransicso and having lunch with Colby before Trevor and I decided we were going to drive around the bay to get to Andy and went to Marin. Halloween in Berkeley was pretty goofy, I dressed up as "that girl who always wears her pajamas to class" and Andy, Trevor, Cuyler, and I went to a gay bar where Norm was working. The night wound down pretty early and so we watched zombie movies and ate snacks at Andy's.
Andy's and my return to Portland was pretty excellent and awful simultaneously. At some point in the drive we got really hungry and I decided that we would find a casino, take the free money they gave us for being first time visitors, gamble it, and make enough to pay for huge buffet dinner. Strangely, for the first time ever one of my bonkers plans actually worked out, except Andy and I ate so much bad casino food that we were on the verge of vomiting for the entire rest of the drive. We also kept falling asleep at the wheel, uh oh.
Other things have been going on, too. We got two new chickens from Carlie Armstrong, a little funny bantam named Olivia and a big rainbow chicken named Dreamweaver. Max got a new dog named Yoko, and she is hella cute, if not a little mopey. It's like I live in a zoo now. Alex turned 21 and ten of us went to Eastburn for the all-you-can-drink hour, during which Alex threw up all over the indoor/outdoor patio--pobrecito! Also for his birthday I agreed to make anything he wanted for dinner and he requested the most over-the-top menu imaginable, complete with a pie that was just an Oreo cookie crust filled with chocolate ganache. Thanksgiving happened and it was a nice intimate affair at Catan House with Carly, Natalie, Alex, Marina, and I. Carly decorated the table really beautifully and we all ate until we were about to explode and then watched 40 Days and 40 Nights, the Josh Hartnett movie about abstinence. I had two more interviews last week and another one tomorrow. Every time I haven't gotten a job I am always told that I was the second choice and I am trying to not let my perpetual runner-up status drive me insane. Tomorrow WILL work out, it's settled.
Also, I've been reading, as usual. I tore through an awesome cultural studies reader edited by Simon During, Derrida's Specters of Marx, Lefebvre's Critique of Everyday Life, and right now I'm working my way through Bolano's 2666. Also, I read a few plays, The Goat Or Who is Silvia and A Delicate Balance (Albee) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Duck Variations (Mamet).
Maybe I'll start using my livejournal more regularly again? It sounds nice. Also, remember the Herman Dune song "Suburbs with You"? Still good.
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| Monday, October 19th, 2009
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4:11 pm
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Lately (by category):
Cooking - squash and fontina galette, oatmeal raisin cookies, perogies + artichokes, sunday afternoon ice cream sundaes, tortilla soup.
Reading - Black Swan Green (Mitchell), The Savage Detectives (Bolano), The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe), Falling Man (Delillo), Labyrinths (Borges).
At home - Pocket and Killer disappeared on the night before my birthday party, so recently Carly, Crossett, and I drove to Oregon City to purchase two new and adorable laying hens named April and Luna. Trying to not find Scott the new roommate unbearable (most recent reason to hate him is that I learned that he loves Ayn Rand). Drinking too much blackcurrent tea and wearing pajamas too frequently. Also, I have been incapable of leaving my bed due to my electric blanket.
Hangin' - Went to a Sweet Masterpiece party at Forrest's house where coworker Robert and I tried to take the MAX in the middle of the night, he left his backpack in Chinatown, we got seperated, my phone died, and somehow I still wound up making it at like two in the morning and hung out until real late. Alex went to a Neuroscience conference in Chicago so beforehand we put a lot of time into eating sushi and staying in bed. Carly, Crossett, Andrew Levine, and I spent a nice afternoon at the hot springs and it was SO WARM and filled with Russians. Went to a party at Dylan's new house where he lives with an adorable small dog that is also named Dylan. Drove a very drunk Carly, Crossett, Andrew, and myself to ARARAT, the all-night Armenian dance club/bakery in the middle of the Russian neighborhood on 92nd. While the whole thing was kind of a joke, we all ended up having like, the best time ever, and danced until 3 in the morning. Who knew? Yesterday Marina and I spent the day together on the search for some new shoes, went to SCRAP, and watched Chinatown and had ice cream sundaes with Carly/Crossett/Andrew.
Other(?) - It is officially fall and all the trees look so beautiful outside! My after-school physics class, which consists of seven students, two of whom are named Zion, is pretty good; last week we learned about sound waves by playing with slinkies and putting tuning forks into cups of water. I think I got a new job but I don't want to jump to conclusions, even though I'm pretty sure they basically told me it's mine (more details in the near future). Also, I am feeling pretty good about things, which is a welcomed change! Growing up is hard!!
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| Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
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11:19 am
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On the upswing. The big twenty-one is happening this friday--I am having a small dinner party with a big tall chocolate cake. Last weekend I went to Nightmare Plaza's housewarming party at which Tyler and I made some dope chow and I had a nice talk with Alex the Dog and my self-esteem shot through the roof. Sam Downs told me that the ever-frightening Prof. Bob Goldman told her and her classmates that I wrote one of the best senior theses he's ever read (!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even know why he he read it, but damn, big time flattery).
Last weekend I went to Wherecamp, a GIS conference for people who aren't boring and made lots of friends because I was with Max and everyone wanted him to help them with web developing. I also had training for teaching physics, which I start today and am pretty excited about. Also, I have a job interview for a job that sounds significantly more important than my last one! New job birthday present?!
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| Friday, September 25th, 2009
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9:37 am
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I moved to Northeast (with Carly and Max)! I finished summer school and got my diploma! I went to Japan for ten days! The chickens got big! Alex and I are celebrating our two year anniversary this weekend with a trip to Silver Falls!
Natalie and I have started hanging out a lot which feels nice, I'm glad I moved out of the Main House because she seems really happy and I'm happy that we are getting along again finally. I went to a really dope dinner party at the New Main House the other night and it was full of friends and delicious pasta and staying up all night chainsmoking and playing darts.
I lost my job and have been doing a lot of funny work while I look for a new one: Sweet Masterpiece and teaching physics to fourth and fifth graders in North Portland. I've also been doing hella reading, I've finally gotten the time to actually read Capital and I've been devouring lots of fiction and non-fiction too. Also, I joined a group of lady geographers called Women in GIS and I started going to geography classes at PCC for fun and basically I am doing everything I can to get stoked and ready for grad school.
I'm not even really sure how to sum up all the time that has passed, but I'm not sure that it really matters. It was lots of summer--hanging out super late outdoors, talking, cooking, eating delicious meals, sleeping in late. We had a lot of visitors, Andy and his new boyfriend Cuyler came to stay for a few days and we had a wonderful time together. Jacob and Kevin came up for awhile too, but it was a bit poorly timed and everyone was pretty busy and impatient. Taylor D and Juliana were here for Taylor and Carly's birthday, which was a fun night despite the fact that Carly missed her own party. Alex's friends Evan and Carl came from Louisville to visit and we went to the Farmers' Market and Elk Rock Island and to a crazy house show after which we got chased by a man carrying a dead possum. Izaak, Allison, Gerrardo, and Luis were just here from Santa Cruz and they played a show in the basement of our new house. The party they played at was supposed to be a BBQ but it was pouring rain so instead we just had an indoors party/house show with lots of day old Voodoo donuts and salsa and basically nothing else to eat.
Most recently, I have been trying to learn how to live my life at bare bones--I am not busy, I do not have a job to make me feel like I'm being productive, and everyone is at work or at school for most of their days. I realized I basically haven't stopped moving in years and this change, tough as it's been, has been refreshing. I think I just need to keep reading and biking and learning but mostly need to stop taking everything so seriously. It's one thing to hold yourself to high standards, but it's entirely another thing to feel like a failure at age 20. From this moment on, I am putting the breaks on any pseudo midlife crisis that has been brewing in all of my newfound free time.
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| Friday, June 26th, 2009
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6:28 pm
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Dear Livejournal,
Here are some things that have happened since we last talked:
1) Carly and I got so rad and we adopted three beautiful chicks and expanded on the small, but killer, Main House Garden. We have broccoli, cilantro, brussel sprouts, strawberries, and tomatoes plus Natalie's indoor herb garden and beans. The chicks are SO CUTE but are almost pullets now and are named Pocket, Lady, and Killa Cam (after popular rap artist Cam'ron).
2) I went on vacation!! Bree Kay graduated from high school so I flew home to San Diego for five like, really really, good days. I ate at a lot of gross places with my family (BBQ, Red Robin, Pat and Oscars) and also ate a lot of not gross burritos from Raul's the rest of the time. I also went swimming in the ocean, where I met a girl named Sophie who went to high school in Encinitas and lives two blocks away from me in Portland (CREEPY!), I drank some beerz at the beach at night with Trev, Taylor, Mitch, and Stephen Rodrigues. I played a lot of Settlers of Catan, spent a lot of time with Shivaun and at Jacob's house, totally re-fell in love with all of my friends, and went to Cim Kraemer's art show in West Hollywood. Shivaun, Charlie, and I drove up to LA for the show and I got way too drunk off free wine and Trevor and I danced to no music in the middle of the floor while old rich ladies laughed at us, then we all stayed the night at Trevor and Taylor's which was just down the street. I caught up with Gianna and we went to an awkward but charming Che show, featuring Marc and George. I never thought I'd have such a good time in SD!
3) I came back from vacation and began my life as a nine to fiver. I've been working so much since I got back! Also, I started summer school and I have been FREAKING OUT because I am also STILL SICK. I think I might have pnumonia! Also, Jono is still sick, meaning both of us have had something really, really nasty for almost two months. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!
4) Last weekend I went to the art museum and saw the MC Escher show, convinced Alex and Carly that going to Souplantation was a good idea (it wasn't), and made a late night trip to the hot springs with Marina, Carly, Alex, and Dylan. The hot springs are so warm, somehow I'd never been to them but all I want to do now is go back!
5) Chris Hunt has been visiting us for like, a month, and it's been pretty good. At first I felt really weird seeing him because I thought he didn't want to talk to me but it turns out I was wrong and hanging out with Chris is pretty good.
6) My bike has been broken since I got back from San Diego which SUCKS! I took it in today to get a broken spoke fixed and buy a new tire and hopefully things will be up and running again tomorrow. Not having my bike has been kind of frustrating, but also kind of nice. I've started walking everywhere and Portland's such a nice place to walk in the summertime.
7) Oh, also, today I was walking and I found an injured butterfly that was flying into a busy street and I put my hand down and it flew on it and then I carried it across all the busy roads to a nice patch of flowers, IT WAS SO COOL!
8) RIP Michael Jackson!!!
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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8:01 pm
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Today when I came home from work there was a replacement computer charger waiting for me! I expected myself to indulge in my newly usable computer by like, watching Hulu, but instead I've just spent the entire evening applying to grad school. I guess I miss school even more than I realized.
Current future plan: Get a Masters degree in Human Geography at the University of Manchester, learn a lot about political ecology and radical political economy from Noel Castree(!) and work at Antipode (the journal of radical geography) or intern at Verso Publishing. I REALLY like Spaces of Nature module that Manchester has: http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/courses/modules/module.html?code=GE60022.
I am really into recording all of my potential plans over the next couple months to see where they end up leading me. University of Manchester is sort of amendment to my last plan, which was to study social and political theory at the University of Sussex (also in England), which was an amendment to my plan to study labor economics/political economy at the New School in New York.
It's like a fun game!
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5:55 pm
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This memorial weekend was all B's: bikes, beers, BBQs, bean salad, burritos, burning in the sun, (plan) B, bikinis, boys of the neighborhood, bathing in the sun, break-ups, begging for forgiveness, and Bernard Shaw.
As for tonight, more B's: Black (Dice and White Rainbow and Wolf Eyes tonight at) Backspace!
Maybe it hasn't been that simple, but somehow, the "B" summary manages to capture everything well enough? I guess there was also some cuddling with the neighbors to This American Life, a date to Indian food and Adventureland, and a long walk down N. Mississippi to the best places (Gravy for breakfast, the fancy salt store, the rebuilding center, the garden store that sells baby chicks, and the anarchist bookstore that's ALWAYS closed). There was a trip to the PSU farmer's market, a picnic shortly after, and trying really hard to sneak into the carnival downtown. There was some foursquare that I bailed out on to eat veg chicken nuggets and tater tots with Marina. There was a lot of fro-yo with Natalie and a lot of hanging out with Max too. As alluded to, there were some bad moments too, and I'm hoping they're mostly behind me.
I've got some good projects in the works. I am going to go to Tryon Creek sometime this week and gather some sword fern fiddleheads for this epic gnocchi recipe from Vegan Yum Yum (http://veganyumyum.com/2009/04/pan-fried-gnocchi-with-morels-and-fiddleheads/) and get some stuff for making terrariums. I am hoping to get lots of moss and lichens and maybe some chunks of wood that likely have mushroom spores in them for building my tiny ecosystems. If anyone wants to create a tiny world of their own, we should team up. Equally nature-y, I think the Main House/Harrison House are going in on some baby chicks together, so I will probably go pick those little guys up sometime this week. Also on the gettin' things done front, I've been reading this big anthology of George Bernard Shaw plays and I'm really enjoying it. I am big into Caeser and Cleopatra in particular, it is really witty and good and also really cute. I think I'm going to read a couple of his novels this summer.
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| Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
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12:21 pm
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As usual, this is a last ditch attempt to try and remember what I've been doing. Below is an half done entry I found from April 28th:
"I think I have swine flu, I feel awful and I am losing my voice! Also, a few weeks ago I jokingly agreed to host a rager for the environmental studies department at my house and now it's tuesday and the party is thursday and I feel like I have to prove that I am a top-notch entertainer and also should take advantage of the fact that I can spend $100 of the department money on ingredients for making delicious snacks and buying non-alcoholic beverages to like, make punchbowls full of jungle juice.
Unsure what jungle juice actually consists of, I checked on wikipedia and now I know this fact: "Another common recipe for large batches mixes Everclear and frozen juice concentrate in a large container, such as a garbage can, diluted with a hose to the desired strength." HOLY SHIT.
Oh yeah speaking of jungle juice, I have been so horribly irresponsible lately. On thursday night I attended Alex the Dude's birthday party at school at which I consumed two cans of Joose, decided I had to get written up before I graduated college, ran into several RAs who I knew and who didn't write me up (dumb!), danced with Kristine, yelled out to an entire party that I was planning on hosting an even bigger party at my house the next night, gave Alex so many hickies that he looked like he got mauled by a bear (so gross!), and woke up on campus with the worst headache of the universe and a lost sweater. I AM SO CLASSY, fuck. The next morning I ran into Jono and we had both had absurdly long and bad nights and slept on campus so we left school together and got Thai food at one of the carts and had lunch in the grass on the waterfront. We rode home and then spent the afternoon intentionally not thinking about school and then thought it would be funny to smoke the hookah that Tui left here. Tui left on tour with the Thermals for the next month, so I guess this means we have a ridiculous hookah for awhile? I made an absurd new computer desktop background that was "CLOWNT" themed and J, Carly, and I took a really long nap. When we woke up, we realized that the party I had summoned was actually going to happen and cleaned the house.
Feeling like nobody was actually going to show up, Natalie, Tyler, and I went to Stumptown for some coffees and on a nice walk through the neighborhood. Upon returning, a HUGE RAGER erupted in our house. I spent most of the night sitting on the porch talking to Sophomore Ben. The sophomores are about to be our neighbors so we had a slumber party to commemerate our new neighbrohood"
Other than all the partying mentioned above, I have been doing other things too:
1) I got an A- on my thesis, walked away from my last semester with excellent grades, and I graduated from college!!
Graduation weekend was really funny/awful because I was so sick the entire time but had seven family members in town. Bree Kay tried to stay at my house but just caused lots of problems and got so wasted (see: my facebook wall for video proof). Showing my South Carolinean family around Portland was hilarious, my Uncle told me that it reminded him of being in the 1970s permanently and my grandparents were just really confused by all the young people, bikes, and tattoos. I tried taking everyone to the Rose Gardens but there were no roses so we went to the Japanese gardens instead. One night I volunteered to have everybody over for dinner and Alex and I made lasagna. This was an okay idea except that Alex's dad was in town too and making dinner made us two hours late for meeting him at a Portland Beaver's game (NOT LEGIT!!). Post-graduation/mother's day and on the verge of killing my entire family, we went out for dinner at the Screen Door and it was delicious and marked the first time that nobody complained about what we were doing the entire time my family was in town.
2) The neighborhood grew huge! We have new neighbor friends on 26th and Salmon (Ben, Mac, Owen, Alex) and on 39th and Harrison (Alex, Alex, Alex, Wyatt, and Dylan). All our new neighbors are named Alex and it's really, really confusing. Also we have a new friend named Max who lives nearby and has the biggest beard I've ever seen. Having lots of friends is kind of awesome, though. The other night we played huge games of Sardines, Kick the Can, and Freeze Tag at the park. Afterward, everyone came back to our house, we rolled a Morton's List quest to find dates, each picked up a gatorade, and crashed a party that only had five guests. The host was totally down, turned out to be Chandler's ex-roomie, and invited us to eat as much sushi and cake and drink as much liquor as we wanted. We stayed at the party 'til 4:30 in the morning, nobody found dates, and I lost at the epic scrabble game we played with the actual party attendees.
3) Barbeques! After Jono's and my family's left town, they also left so much food behind. Alex and company had a barbeque which marked the perfect excuse to clean out the fridge gnarly and make tons of food. Also, I carved a watermelon into a decorate basket and filled it with balled melon and other fruits, it looked so cool! Divison also had a barbeque/art show/house show awhile ago where I had a hot dog covered in macaroni. I spent the party napping, left before things got raging to go out with Alex and his dad to 50plates, and missed the show (everybody who was there was literally completely covered in bruises; Jono still has one that takes up his entire calf).
4) Bikes! Yesterday Natalie and I made sandwiches and read in the lawn, then Dylan and Alex the Dude came over and we rode bikes together the St. Johns! It was an epic 30 mile round-trip journey and we went to a sweet park and an authentic fifties diner with a free jukebox. Upon returning home, we met up with the huge crew of neighborhood boys and cooked a big dinner at the Harrison house. Another day, Alex and I went on a bike ride/photo taking expedition where we met Natalie and Max at Laurelhurst for a delicious picnic.
5) It has been so sunny out and we have been outside non-stop. Over the weekend, Alex, Natalie, Dylan, Jono, and I went to Sauvie Island. It was so pretty and we spent the whole day at the beach picnicing and pretending we were going to go swimming in the freezing water. Dylan took Alex and I on an epic walk down the beach to see this abandoned submarine in the forst behind the nude beach--inside we found some stoner bros smoking weed and a really awkward girl in a corset and a cross necklace freebasing heroin out of a Mountain Dew can (AGH!). I have been getting so sunburned constantly, but the sun has been great for the mini garden Carly and I have constructed in our yard and our broccoli plants have grown so huge!
6) We have taken up gardening and it's been pretty good. Carly and I made some planters in the front and Natalie has a really epic herb garden going in the mudroom. We are thinking of doing something on the roof and The Artist told us that he is going to plant some grass in the backyard so we can start hanging out there! Summer '09 is so green!
7) I've been trying to read while not in school and I think I've been doing an alright job. I've tackled Rhinoceros, A Lover's Discourse by Roland Barthes, Equus by Peter Shafer, and am in the middle of a much needed reread of Gravity's Rainbow. I have to go to summer school to make up some credits and I am starting that at PSU in June. I am taking an Environmental Italian Literature class, critical theory of cinema, and a sociology class called US society. SICK!
8) There have been some sick shows happening! A few weeks ago we went to see Abe Vigoda at a house show in Northeast (I spent most of this show driving around with Sam looking for Wyatt), and as soon as Abe Vigoda had started, the police came and broke it up. This weekend I went to see No Age at Workspace and the show got crashed by White Rainbow and Rob Walmart in the Marriage Records party van, this mobile DJ set-up that drives around blasting music. No Age were so sweet, I kept getting pushed up against a wall though and I wore jelly shoes to the show and everyone jumped on my feet. After the show everyone (excluding me, I was so tired!) went to Potato Champion and Natalie and Max wound up on the No Age blog (with a caption about vegan bike punk utopia): http://noagela.blogspot.com/2009/05/p-d-x-and-groadies-rj-smith-trvs.html.
9) Speaking of great Portland media coverage, there was this awesome NYT article about my fine city recently, check it out: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/travel/10Portland.html?scp=1&sq=portland&st=cse
10) I am totally a working woman. My job is about to get all full-time on me, but in the meantime, I am enjoying short workdays and long fun days. My boss Freda is really sweet and is never around and she's told me to just be self-directed so it's all up to me, which feels nice. I'm not sure that working for the city is REALLY the job for me, but I'm totally grateful to be employed right out of college and to be doing environmental work, even if kindergarteners and recycling are not exactly my field of specialty. Right now I'm at working updating my livejournal and making a giant earthworm anatomy poster, it's legit.
11) For the first time in a long time, I am happy and excited about the next few months and it feels so good!!!!
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| Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
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9:28 pm
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This morning I went to the Irvington Community School to give a presentation about ecological footprints to a combo third/fourth/fifth grade class for special needs kids with behavioral problems. This was totally ridiculous, the classroom was full of really angry kids who kept getting out of their desks to kick each other and didn't know how to read. It all turned out alright though for two reasons:
1) All the kids in the class were overwhelmingly interested in the Trailblazers and essentially nothing else. All the art in the classroom was Blazers-themed and all questions revolved around basketball or the Blazers ("is the Rose Garden made of wood?", "what are basketballs made of?")
2) Carol, my coworker with a scene mullet, put up an overhead illustrating all the factors that go into our eco-footprints. One of the sections was "food and fiber" and was illustrated by all these little doodled green plants. Immediately after putting up the overhead, a third grader starts repeatedly yelling out "WHY IS THE FOOTPRINT MADE OF WEED!? IT'S WEED!"
Tonight Carly and I shared a chimichanga at La Sirenita, it made my stomach feel weird. I am finally finishing my thesis TONIGHT and am going to feel so good when it's done!
Also, I know nobody reads livejournal anymore or comments or whatever but I could really use a book recommendation. Now that my thesis is done, I have no excuse for only reading dense theory all the time. Plus, I need to learn how to relate to people again!!
I might read Ionesco's Rhinoceros but that's short and then I don't know. I would like to read something that is like, a combination of David Foster Wallace (RIP buddy!!) and Italo Calvino. Maybe some more Borges? Help?
Where is Kevin when I need him?
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| Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
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11:41 pm
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Current likes: Historical Geographical Materialism, Nietzsche's "Untimely Meditations" on history, blueberry cornmeal muffins, getting sunburned, bands from the Elephant Six Collective that I was really into in high school.
Current dislikes: fourteen hour school days, being incapable of not being awkward, $20 in fines at the Multnomah County Library.
This weekend I am going on a camping field trip with my Environmental Problems class and I hope it's as funny as the last ENVS department field trip, at which everybody drank too much Sparks and admitted hilarious and deeply personal things to each other (and probably felt pretty weird about it the next day).
Tonight Sam jokingly asked me what I'm going to do when my life does not require me being totally frantic 24 hours a day and I responded "I will have to find something new to consume my entire life". This seems like a bad sign? Carly suggested that maybe I could use the free time to work on a stand-up comedy routine.
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| Monday, April 20th, 2009
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11:43 pm
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Today was so warm! Also school today was hilarious and filled with kids who take 4/20 WAY too seriously. I shirked my work this afternoon to go on a long, convoluted, adventure that ended in greasy lunch and hanging at the park with Marina and Caroline. Tonight the whole Main House was laying on the lawn with pillows watching it get dark and eating cereal together and it was pretty cute. Carly and I have caught the bug and we cannot stop watching Gossip Girl so we did some viewing this evening.
All the warm weather and fun alternatives to work have been awful for me; I have definitely come down with serious senioritis in the past week or so and probably need to snap out of it so I can finish this semester! Still, I cannot stop daydreaming about summer and grad school! I want to go here and move to Brighton and live at the beach and study Marxist thought 24/sev: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/publications/pgrad2009/areasofstudy/Social%20and%20political%20thought.
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| Friday, April 17th, 2009
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6:26 am
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I am still awake (duh), and I remembered how strange tonight was. I came home from thesis class (which JP secretly brought champagne to) and Nat, Carly, Dylan, and Tui were drinking Tecate on the porch with our new neighbor, a Spanish-speaking botanist named Dan. Dan was wearing a sweatsuit and seemed kind of stoned, he tried to flirt with me in Spanish after I said I didn't want to speak Spanish and his grammar was totally jacked. Clownt!
More importantly, immediately after, The Beezy With the Prius who lives next door decided to drunkenly come over and meet us. We have lived next door to each other for two years, but normally she only ever talks to me for three reasons:
1) To complain that I have been shooting off fireworks next to her Prius
2) To complain that our trashcans are blocking the driveway and she can't get her Prius in
3) To complain that we are noisy
Also she also has this husband with a funny sideswept haircut who always wears blu-blockers and a jean jacket; we usually just call him The Guy With The Hair. Tonight The Beezy came over to converse with us and within minutes we learned the bizarre fact that her husband is always gone on tour because he is THE BASSIST OF THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE!?
Somehow we have lived next to him for two years and had no idea. One time I asked him to take me boating and he told me he only takes his boat out in winter to go ice fishing! CELEB SIGHTING EV'RY DAY.
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2:11 am
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Kelly Kay circa tenth grade wanted to be an existentialist so bad. Little did she know, eventually she would get so busy that she would have no choice but to live in the moment; there is no alternative! This has had strange consequences, as I can't really remember what I've been doing, even on a daily basis. YIKES!
I can say, with at least some certainty, that I think April has been alright for me so far. I compiled, edited, and published Living Mosaic (the journal of environmental studies!). I gave a speech yesterday at the teacher of the year ceremony introducing Jim Proctor. I got a hilarious government job working at the city's sustainability center as an environmental educator (kindergarteners throughout Portland are bound to love my lessons about commodity chains and resource extraction!). I am almost finished with my thesis and it has gotten so pretentious and convoluted I don't even know what to do anymore (citations include: Foucault, Adorno, Heidegger, Derrida, half the writers for the Monthly Review, a whole camp of post-modern geographers, another camp of weird post-materialist environmentalists, utopians, and fucking Zygmunt Bauman). I am beginning to think my recent insanity is entirely derived from the readings listed above. Thoughts?
I also got really into baking in the middle of the night, which usually resulted in weird inedible cream puffs and really mushy cookies. Last weekend we had a birthday party for Tui, at which I got really trashed, grabbed Carly/Alex/our new friend Dylan from Tennessee, rode my bike to Reed in record time despite the fact that at some point my chain fell off, climbed in a window just in time to see Wavves play, danced like a crazy person, ran into Lana and Erik (not awful, though, Erik did not mention anything about his band, Marriage Records, or his video being on Pitchfork, CHA-CHING!). Also I got into a ridiculous argument about alternative energy with a shitty ex-Men's Wearhouse salesman turned state government employee. Who shows up to a party in Portland in a fucking suit?! Anyway, when we got back from the show it was reeeeeeally late and so some boys and I made french fries/vegan poutine to fill our bellies. The next morning we all woke up and Tyler and I made biscuits and gravy and grits for everyone and we had lots of strong coffee and vaguely contemplated cleaning the house, but didn't. That day after breakfast was sort of indescribably weird and mostly involved nobody getting out of my bed for the entire day. Also at some point we went to the only movie playing at the $2 theatre, which was a star-studded (AWFUL) romantic comedy called "He's Just Not That Into You". Afterward, Alex, Natalie, and I got Chinese food at the ever-sketchy Belmont Pearl (home of a menu item called vegetarian chicken ham). We were there until way after they closed and Alex spilled an entire glass of water on me and Natalie and then we left. Also it was Easter, I guess.
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| Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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10:13 pm
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| Friday, March 6th, 2009
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1:19 am
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Apparently I will be rubbing elbows with more minor academic celebrities, I just got an email from my political science professor (still crushin' <3) saying that he is giving me a free ticket to see Fareed Zakaria speak on Monday. This is funny, at least to me, because he is speaking at the big concert hall downtown and yesterday Jono and I rode bikes by there and saw a man scalping Kathy Griffith tickets outside. Who buys scalped Kathy Griffith tickets?
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12:05 am
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Today seemed to drag on forever but it got so weird by the end. After staying up all night playing Taboo, Alex and I woke up way late and I ditched class so we could go to the waffle window. Once I got to school the whole day dragged on for SO LONG. Even though I felt so tired and crazy, after thesis class Angela, Evan, and I went downtown to see Michael Shellenberger speak. There were lots of snacks and elderly people with boring environmental agendas but the speech was pretty excellent. Afterward, we saw that Jim Proctor was there and he and Shellenberger are bros so somehow me and my environmental studies chums went out to a bar with Jim and Shellenberger and I had to lie to get in and just drank a lot of coffee instead of beer. We drove Shellenberger back and he started talking about how he is learning to play Neutral Milk Hotel on guitar and then he started singing "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" really loud. The whole thing was weird because Jim and Shellenberger seemingly know everybody and Shellenberger kept talking about things like having to do favors for Michael Pollan. I have completely lost all the schmoozing skills that I learned working at Luna Nueva but I hope I made a good enough impression to improve my chances of working at the Breakthrough Institute this summer.
Things continue to be pretty good, though. Last weekend I went to an art opening at Disjecta to meet up with Juliana (!!) but we only saw each other for like five seconds, attended the Divas and Hustlers dance at school which was pretty awkward (most of the attendees were international students that were all grinding with each other), went to the Portland Art Museum and snuck into the exclusive Rococo art exhibit which was shitty but was sick to see for free, saw Gomorrah and it was kind of lame, also Julia/Dani/Nicole were in town visiting Carly and it was really nice to see them and hang out.
Most importantly, though! Carly and I went to the mall at some point during the week and I used my Macy's gift card from Christmas and bought a mandoline (the slicing tool, not the instrument). We have been making so many differently sliced types of potatoes ever since! Also, I cleaned, organized, and decorated my whole room which has been an awesome and refreshing change from being a disgusting slob.
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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11:28 pm
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Lately I have had this paralyzing fear that no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to accomplish all of my goals. I am sure this is normal, but for somebody who always has her head in the clouds, it is pretty fucking scary.
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| Friday, February 27th, 2009
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12:01 pm
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I really want to see this movie! How did they even convince all these people to be in it?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zwmum5_ofU
Other than that, the rundown:
Last weekend I went to a Karl Blau and LAKE show, attended a poker night and a screening of Ten Things I Hate About You at Divison house, then the next morning I woke up and Carly convinced me that we should take a day trip to the coast. Sam, Grant, Alex, Carly, and I picked up tons of snacks and hit the road for the beach! We went tidepool exploring and climbed on lots of rocks and saw lots of creatures (I picked up a starfish from a tidepool, which was clearly not a very ecologically sound decision, but it was SO COOL to hold in my hands). We also went on a great hike through the forest and when we got back, we pulled the picnic table out of Carly's CRV and had a picnic lunch in the rain. After that we went to Cannon Beach for some taffy and ice cream and went to the arcade.
This week has been lots of family dinnering: Natalie made chili one night and I made risotto another one. WE HAVE SO MANY LEFTOVERS!! Also, I played hooky on Wednesday and Carly and I rode our bikes downtown, went to Backspace and played some Settlers of Catan, got sushi for lunch, and then went and did work in the PSU library for a few hours. Yesterday night we tried to go play more Settlers but Backspace was having a show so we somehow wound up at the ever bizarre Fireside Lounge (a 24 hour ski-lodge themed coffee shop stereotypically frequented by exclusively meth addicts). We played Wp-Words and got a bowl of caramel corn with our drinks--it was pretty funny.
Now it's the weekend and I am getting so stoked for the Divas and Hustlers dance on campus this saturday! The local hip-hop radio station is DJ-ing and there is a cash prize for the best dressed attendee (presumably, future me).
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| Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
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6:15 pm
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So, my debit card has been lost for a month and a half and I kept trying to order new ones but they never came so I went to the bank and as I was finally about to get a new card rush delivered to my house, this man came up and threatened to shoot my bank teller. This was, apparently, a really big deal because the guy had serious beef with the bank and had been in six times that day getting progressively more aggressive and violent-sounding and apparently the threat was legitimate so my bank teller hid in his cubicle and called the police and planned to have them sneak up on the the guy and I was just sitting there sort of dumbfounded until I was escorted out of the bank (at which moment I heard a very loud crash, presumably, the police tackling dudebro).
Shocked at these going-ons, I decided to console myself with a falafel sandwich. I went to the Bon Apetit and this really meek looking Mexican woman took my order but seemed really swamped. Then these two Middle Eastern men walk up to the counter and then out of nowhere start arguing in Arabic and then take out their wallets and all these credit cards fly everywhere and then they start WRESTLING RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RESTAURANT. After all of this, they calmly sat down together and ate dinner. WEIRD.
Once I get home I talked to Shivaun on the phone for a long time and then got a text message from Ben (of airplane friendship/Camille ex-boyfriend/neighbor fame) asking if I wanted to hang out. He came over but Carly and I were just hanging out making a cake and it was kind of awkward. The cake was good though. Why is everything so crazy and awkward all the time? Whatev.
Today was nice, though. It was really warm out and I sat on the steps in the courtyard at school and read all afternoon and at some point these two boys came up and sat down next to me and started playing this really nice flamenco guitar together. Also today we learned aqua aerobics in deep water running class and this girl in my class brought a Reggaeton playlist in for us to listen to during class. It was really fun and afterward Marina and I got Indian food from the carts and went to Laurelhurst Park to eat it. We had this really strange exchange with this man who was pretending to read the whole time, so we posted this missed connection for him earlier, it's the worst haiku: http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/mis/1040644087.html.
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