My mom drove back to Idaho in my car. Yes indeed, I sold my car. I was only driving it every 3-4 weeks and was paying far too much for gas and insurance (which was pitifully low, anyhow). I take TriMet to work and play, mostly, and walk/Max to the store. Ichi has a truck, so we take that for the big shopping trips outside of our neighborhood (Fubonn, 50# bags of rice, etc), and his vehicle does way better going over the west hills to the coast. So really, why need a car? I don't. So I got rid of it.

I almost regretted the decision when I had to take Baby Kitty to the vet yesterday in her wee carrier. Ichi was still at work, and not only did I have to break into my house directly after work (left my keys in the house), but had to hustle the cat into the box and out the door to the bus stop within 20 minutes. Since Baby Kitty understands what's going on when I toss the treats in her carrier and smile brightly, I ended up tucking her legs under and pushing her in. Her first bus rides (had to transfer once to get down to Powell) left her really quite freaked out, which was expected. Thankfully Ichi whisked us away and to the Greek deli where we picked up gyros and beer, and then back home to relative safety (at least for the cat). The whole ordeal really tired me out, but I'm still happy with the choice to rid myself of the gas-powered vehicular ball-and-chain, and just hope that I don't have to take her back to the vet again for a good while.

I've been rather neglectful of sc.net, as I've been writing elsewhere for a bit. Maybe one day I'll post links to the site, but for now I'd like to keep them separate. I have started up The Clever Chef again, so hopefully we'll get some goods going on over there as well. Updates soon...

I think I'm going back to the old story-type info for the blog. I think I once expressed the want to commit memories to some sort of medium that would last beyond my brain - the internet is one of those mediums! Thus...

When I was returning back to the states from Italy a couple of summers ago from an incredibly horribly horrible trip (just thinking about it makes me tense), I was in the Rome airport waiting for the flight to board when the need to pee graced me with its presence. Finding a restroom, I walked into a long empty room lined with identical doors. Walking down the middle, I noticed that most of the toilet seats were up... thinking that (as I had just seen the cleaning crew) the toilets had just been cleaned, I went into a stall and did my business. Stepping out of the stall and walking towards the sinks to wash my hands, I noticed a man standing at the sinks already, washing his hands and eying me suspiciously via the mirror. I gave him a strange glance, but I calmly washed my hands and, seeing another male quit a stall behind me, walked calmly out of the room. Pausing at the entrance to the room, I looked up at the internationally recognized "man" symbol and then over to the door opposite, where the international skirted-man symbol was held. I found my seat again and sat perplexed for the next 20 minutes until the boarding started on the plane. I guess walking into and using a men's restroom really wasn't that big of a deal after what I had dealt with earlier in the trip. Which will, of course, be other stories.

However, since I've become a proper drinking-age adult, all of these offers have stopped. It might be that the local newspeople in Boise didn't get out much to actually entice public opinion matters, or that I've just become more of an either at-home or at-the-bar person in the past 7 years. Either way, I was wary today when I was approached by an excited-looking lady while I was eating lunch out on Pioneer Square, taking in some of the (supposedly rare) sunshine.

"Hi! I'm Katrina!"
"Hi." no, i don't care about the children, and i don't want to sign your petition, and i don't have any cash on me.
"Do you have an opinion on public art? I'm from Channel 10 and we're doing a piece on Oregon art for Art Week in May."
"Oh. Uhm, not really..."oh no! i was just eating rice covered in sesame seeds! i'll totally have seeds in my teeth on teevee!!
"Oh, well would you mind talking to us about it? Even if you don't have an opinion, we'd like to get some feedback!"
"Okay. I guess I do have some opinions on public art. Sure." omg i'm so fat fat fat fat fat fat!11

So, okay, I'm a pushover, but whatever. I watched as they set up and were told the intricacies of filming while on Pioneer Square (hand-held only, waiver forms), and found out that I was the first one they had interviewed. I have to beg ignorance as to where they were from, since we don't watch teevee, the only local news I am familiar with is KOIN, and that's because they have a tower downtown. The interview was short and sweet, and I think I sounded halfway intelligent through most of it. They continued filming once we were done and I sat down to finish my bento, thus exposing the rest of my body to the television. When I got back to my desk at work, I looked up the channel and found that it's the PBS channel, which made me feel better for some reason. It looks like the interview is actually part of a proper show about public art. So, if you're in Oregon on May 22nd (? I think), you can see me on teevee, and so will the rest of the state, which will hopefully not be full of Googlestalkers. The end.

Firstly, I was sick for a full week recently. I'm still having issues with coughing myself awake, which is like the most awesomest thing ever when you wake up and think "fuck this shit, I'm just going to get to work early," but then realize it's only 3.15am and then don't feel like waking the other person in your bed, so attempt to sleep on the couch (which is actually a fold-out, anyhow), but can't get warm, and wow with the lack of sleep. Anyhow, I think it's the longest (not worst) I've been sick in forever. Also note: I suggest not thinking that going to the Horse Brass because you're feeling better and maybe sitting in a smoke-filled room for a few hours and (amazingly!!) feeling horrible horrible the next day. Bad idea, kids.

Other than that, wow has it become spring already. I have nothing to complain about on the lack of winteryness in PDX - I rather like it, really. But I'm not sure if we're just being faked out now or what. Everyone (everyone) is all hrmm-humm about the gray skies here. Supposedly it's gray all year and no one ever sees the sun and it's horrible! I, however, have never ever seen this - in HellBoiseHole, there would be week-long inversions when nothing even moved and it felt all gross and everything smelled bad across the entire valley. Here, it's like rain for 3 days, then a sunshine day! And then back to some more rain, then more sunshine days! Where is all of this dreary drizzly horrible NW weather? Do I just actually like it? Maybe some people are just affected by SADD more than others.

Also, I am bored with writing. More later.

Tax status: Still not paid, on day 14 of a 30 day hiatus, placed by a nice IRS employee so hopefully my paperwork will go through before my tax return this year goes towards Benjamin's debt. Benjamin is meanwhile enjoying Monaco.

Actually, the capital-N, capital-Y New Year just hit me today in some kind of strange lapse of Orthodox Christmassy time. Not that that has much to do with anything. Things have calmed down. Not sure what all is going on in Idaho with much of anyone but my mom, as I can't seem to get ahold of anyone else who is willing on returning phone calls. Maybe the state went boom.

Anyhow, current affairs, which I have previously ignored as much as possible, have now caught up with me, and I'm not liking much of anything these days. I scrutinize every word with coke-bottle glasses and I still find lies slithering around the truth. I'm not only starting to feel like an 80 year old woman (these kids! they are wearing nothing! and they're all so bloody rude! want to smack them all upside their heads!), but a paranoid hippieish new-agey 80 year old woman. My mom was friends with people like this when I was growing up, and I still to this day think the patchouli had saturated a bit too much of their grey matter (the world will end in 2000! crystals will help! save up your canned organic beans!). I found them amusing for a while, in their "building pyramids with copper pipe in which to meditate, man," ways, as really it does very little damage to my life, and most of them were smart enough to send their kids away to communes and boarding schools, so they are likely not the kids I'm slapping in my head to and from work on the train.

Oh no, this is me, being not necessarily paranoid, but thinking that things would just be so much easier if I had 100 acres of land somewhere and just farmed the food I needed and had kids that learned about things without the shout of televisions and media media media and MacDo all around (blame the fast food!). I see the future that most of the parents of these kids didn't see, the future of giving up because everything else around is so intent on working in the exact opposite direction of the knowledge of importance one can pass down to the future of humanity. I am worrying, albeit unnecessarily, already about this and how to have kids who are stable enough and self-realizing enough to mostly ignore the b.s. and just become normal intelligent people who aren't obsessed with everything they're "supposed to be" obsessed with. Gahhhh.

Sadly, the kids I see with most potential are usually those that end up not so much changing the world or even their own communities, but who are content with living their lives out and creating those just like them as replacements. Those kids tend to be the religious ones. Not the crazy zealots, mind you, not so much, but the Mormon kids who were all mostly just... nice kids. I know full well that having a community of religion provides such a wonderful quilted basket of security around the followers, but where the community for those that... aren't? I am, at this point, a profound agnostic, and don't see myself going in any direction other than the one I'm in forever. Is there some kind of community of like-minded individuals who save the religious and political indoctrination for home? Is there anywhere besides ... well... a commune where one might be able to remove onesself enough from society, but not create little unibombers in the process?

Also? The U.S. Government wants everyone to get an ID card that will supposedly stop terrorists because... well, no reason has yet to be given. Anyhow, I don't want one. Fuck that. I just paid $100 for a driver's license that's good until 2015. However, if I don't get one, I get *extraly* searched every time I want to fly? Fine, fuck you, airline industry. I've been looking more into taking the train places anyhow. I'm sick of the 3 hours I spend at an airport doing nothing, then the plane, and then the annoyance, and wow. It's an ordeal, and I'm done. I give it 2 more chances - NYC and MI this year, train or boat everywhere else.

I'm going to buy a house this year. I need some place to tear things apart and put things back together.

Oh, also, supposedly according to Ben, him not paying his taxes and the IRS coming after me for it is karma for me being a horrible person. Funny - I would think it's more likely that his being an asshole about paying his own bills would be directly related to him being irresponsible.

Thank you.

"It's raining!! It's a miracle!!!"

You remember that guy? The one who was my husband? Yeah, him. I divorced him at the beginning of the year for many many reasons, though one of the main reasons was because he was a man who was completely undependable. I wouldn't trust him with my life nor the life of our almost-child. Oh, and he doesn't like to pay his taxes. Now, I knew this a few years into our relationship and before we got married, it was understood that he really needed to take care of the issues with him not paying the government, with much debate from his side on how it's illegal for the gov to ask for citizens' money, etc etc. Well, guess what? Last-last November, I loaned him $1400 to get started on the tax-paying from 2003-2005. In April, we filed a joint return, as Idaho is a community property state, and there was no other way to do it. And since I had figured out that if I had filed separately, I would have actually gotten a tax return for nearly $2,000, and since Benjamin had paid *no* taxes, social security, or anything else that year, it was agreed that he would pay the debt owed to the IRS.

Guess what hasn't happened! That's right, boys and girls! Benjamin has not, in fact, paid off the 2006 taxes. Not even close! By what the IRS tells me, there was a payment back in May, but nothing has been done since. I, of course, continued to get letters asking for money from the IRS, but every time I would ask Benjamin about it, he said that things were "taken care of" and that I shouldn't worry about it. And so I did, being the trusting person I am. Oops! Last Wednesday (1,2,3,4, FIVE days ago) a levy was placed on MY checking account. Why mine? Because my number was the first social security number on the tax form! Becuase I had actually paid my taxes all the years prior! This is what I get for being a good little citizen (note: afaik, no levy was placed on Benjamin's account)! So, of course, I call Ben and, at this point, TELL him to take care of things, since what is in that account is supposed to, you know, pay for my bills and food and things that allow me to LIVE, and I'll bet you can figure this part out, but what has been done? Nothing! Nothing has been done to help me access the money I earned busting my ass 40 hours a week. Not amazingly, Ben has become very suddenly rather impossible to contact, and I am left getting FUCKED OVER. The thing about this is? Fixing the issue is rather easy: Either I can agree to pay off the over $6,000 that is owed to the federal government by Benjamin Wood, or he can call up the IRS and agree to make a payment plan that would cost him a mere $86 a month. Since nothing has been done, and I'm screwed, I've started some paperwork that should help me get out of this in the long run, but that's not going to help me pay my rent this month.

As one may understand, this has left me with a large headache and I'm kind of pissed off for most of the day. The last I heard, after talking to Benjamin on Friday night, he had filled out some form and was going to call the IRS today. I've called him approximately 83 times today so far to no avail. My paycheck that's supposed to be deposited tomorrow will be rejected by my bank, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get it. This has rather affected my life in a bad way.

Anyone looking for information on Benjamin So-and-so*, currently residing in Boise, Idaho, please let me know - you can email me at my gmail address under devlyn. Yes, the Benjamin So-and-so born on his birthday, brother of So-and-so, son of So-and-so and So-and-so. Thanks!

*Names changed to protect the guilty

I suppose the whole "reduce -> reuse -> recycle" thing is just far more in ones' face here, but it makes things easy. And if there's one thing I know about humanity, it's that people don't like to do most anything unless it's easy. Lazy fuckers. Also, kids with petitions? Don't talk to me. I ignore you for a reason, and it's usually because I either don't care, or don't care enough.

So I suppose that comes around full-circle to why I haven't been writing. I feel like I've likely covered this before, or at least I've thought of the blog post for this before. But fuck it. I've been censoring myself because I know that the majority of those who read this are those I know and a number of those people are those with whom I am no longer friendly. Not necessarily enemy-types, but those that are likely to talk about me behind my back no matter what I'm saying here. So, fuck you, you people.

Life, for the most part, is going incredibly well. The temporary situation of the boyfriend living with me has become an un-temporary situation, and I'm actually enjoying having him around a lot. Crossing all the city's bridges in one night is becoming an obsession for me, since I've only been over a couple of them by car, so when the bf and I were heading back home last night from helping out the Bob move some crap, and we went over the Broadway bridge (1st time! Woot!), I was still all giggly and excited about it as I fell asleep an hour later. Going over large bridges has always made me a little high, so living in a city of soaring bridges has had a bit of a strange affect on me. I'm glad I live on the east side and work downtown so I get to see them, my bridges, every morning and afternoon. Bridges left to cross (by foot or motor vehicle): Sellwood, Ross Island (before it falls down!), Fremont.

I apologize for the randomness. I'm rather tired. Hopefully now I'll think of something intelligent and interesting to say for the next time.

A paragraph with fewer run-on sentences:
Apparently, wearing my work badge outside makes me look like a tourist. While heading to the mall-placed ATM with the bf at lunch today, a rather exuberantly friendly Portland helper guide person offered some information I didn't need. She persisted to offer information despite my grateful denials of need, until I told her that I live here. She seemed a bit taken aback for just a moment, then changed face to let me know that the tree is being put up tonight. Yeah, the Christmas tree to be erected in Pioneer Square tonight. I am actually a little excited about it (I have issues with it, too), and told her so. The light changed and we were on our way.

Did you know it's Thanksgiving in like 2 weeks?

Also? I miss soccer season.