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In which blah blah....
August 17, 2007

Written last night on 2.5 post-its (normal-sized, yellow). First 2 sentences written at Slabtown, NW Portland, the rest written on the MAX on the way home. If you read until the end, it's self-explanatory. All [sic], and barely legible.

It's halftime & the score is 1-1. We'd better fucking score in the 2nd.
The MAX is so lively tonight - full of people telling lies - it's almost cute. I'm totally getting a kick out of all the different people who ended up here - Almost a full train, in fact. Black guys from NYC, local girls, transit authorities - on Tues I sat next to a Homeland Security guy on the way downtown. I've never seen on persay, though I'm always on the red train from the airport.
The druggies got off @ Skidmore. I'm enjoying the convo. of the NYC black kids & the local black kids (early 20s). My birthday starts in less than 2 hours. Literally, I was born just after midnight. This is the first time I've celebrated my birthday in the same time zone as the one I was born in - since 1994? Kind of weird thinking about it that way. I played w/ an iPhone @ the Apple Store today. I can't type in there. I'm tired & slightly maybe a tiny bit drunk (?)
White boys trying to sound cool speaking urban & spanish. Sad. Also in Californian. I am guilty of the same, esp tonight. Fuckin Warren G Regulators.
Anyhow, 2-2. Disappointed.

So yay, happy birthday to me, I guess. How depressing.

In which I'm a bit pensive
August 15, 2007

Since I disabled comments on here oh so long ago, I seem to forget every now and then, for good long spurts of time, that this is actually read. By real people, nonetheless. Sometimes by people who I don't actually know. It's not as if I'm living in some kind of dreamland where the wide world tubes are only within my head, but I think I tend to use this more as an actual surface for outpouring - maybe more like a journal than I should. Of course, once I'm reminded of this, I get self-conscious and nervous. Just for a bit, though - it's not enough to make me limit myself on my poorly written musings. Thus, the world goes on...

OfficialToday is my monthaversary of my move to Portland. After living in a place I abhorred for so long, living someplace I adore is quite amiable. And to top that off with the juxtaposition of lack of friends here, and it seems I'm miserable for all the wrong reasons. The misery, however, is slowly waning, and spending time with others is actually becoming fun and rather rewarding. As you can see (left), I'm official.

Here's the latest installment of the "writings from the tiny pieces of paper." I didn't bring any paper with me to the Boiler Room last night, so I borrowed a karaoke strip and wrote only on one side.

I want to remember the trips we took. Looking @ different landscapes & worrying about different things each time.
This could apply to so many facets of my life.

Short and sweet, ne? Also? Note to self: stop staying out so late on a school night. Really.




In other news, my birthday is in 2 days, actually just less than 27 hours from now. I'm not totally sure how I feel about it just yet. It feels important, but I don't know how or why. Updates soon.

In which I exercise possible futility
August 12, 2007

So, I've been taking along slips of paper with me no matter where I go, as I end up going to places by myself more often than not, and since I don't want to look like a complete loser just sitting at a bar pretending to enjoy the NFL game, I write instead. Finding that bar napkins (really napkins of any sort) are no good at taking the exuberance of my spelling, bringing along paper has facilitated an exercise of size. I cannot unfold these papers to make them larger - the best I can do is flip them over and utilize the backside to make the surface complete. Thus, when I was out last night at the Bullpen Tavern, after the Timbers vs. White Caps game, I decided that whatever I should write on said slips of paper shall be blog posts. "What cleverness is this!" said I to myself, when placing the tip of my pen onto the Hello Kitty-printed notepaper, "It's like making sure my thoughts keep to a certain degree of abridgment!" So, here you go: the first of the small-paper tirades - hope you enjoy. (The below was written on the backs and fronts of 3 3"x3" pieces of paper at the Bullpen Tavern in Portland, OR. I had brought 4 pages with me, but the first was dedicated to a personal note.)

I suppose it's totally inappropriate to commandeer an entire table for myself, but the others paired off & I'm again alone. I guess I'm kind of hoping that someone will come and sit here with me, though that's probably not going to happen while I look busy writing.
Maybe I should just sit here looking bored & drink my beer & go. And that might be what ends up happening. I'm not good at approaching groups of strangers, even drunk strangers. And here come the pipers. [ed. At which point, the pipers entered the building and piped their way down to the end of the bar and a pint.]
Lord knows that the crowd here is mostly older folk, & if anyone sits at my table, it'll likely be one of these chummy pairs that have lived so long, nothing is embarrassing.
Everyone has their own friends already, their own comfort zones, & I'm infringing upon their borders with wishful eyes.
The game tonight was shite. Both teams played poorly, & the goal PT scored was taken away to much hissing and booing.
I can feel people eying me, the girl in green striped shirt, writing hungrily on tiny pieces of paper with a 2/3 full beer. I suppose once I run out of paper I'll have to live life again as a normal fan drinking a beer, and someone approachable & nice - sweet & undaunting - cute & not unassuming.
At that point, I may meet a neighbor or a new friend. Or maybe just someone fed up enough to sit down @ a 3/4 empty booth next to a stranger, so good at avoiding the world after being a part of a great community. A part of the Timbers Army. Alone amongst the 100s.

See my usage of ampersands and numbers to save space?! So... this will likely be the most often used method of blogging for me for a while, since I'm trying to just get out of the house on my own.

In which it's epiphany time
August 3, 2007

I realized today that I didn't just want to be out of Idaho. I wanted to be out of my life as well. I've regressed to the point where I'm not comfortable being me any more, and I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do about it. I changed my location and my job. I changed my name, my environment, and the way I eat. But I still have these memories and this history that makes me me. I have the same mistakes I've been making over and over again still poking their little mole heads out at me. I know it's only been 3 weeks and I've just gone through some major upheaval, but I don't think this is going to level out with time. So I have 3 options: either hit my head hard enough to get the most rare type of amnesia, attempt to recreate the person that I am even more so that eventually I'll feel like someone else, or relearn how to be me - something I haven't done in nearly 10 years. The latter is the most likely course of action, and it's (again) something I'm going to have to do on my own. I just hope I don't have to do this every 10 years for the rest of my life, because I'm kind of sick of things being really really hard.