Monthly Archives: September 2010

I have opted to celebrate being born this time.

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I am going to be 25 in a week. I am a little freaked out by this reality, if only because it means that when I fill out paperwork, it means that I have to check a different box. I’ve been so comfortable in my 18-24 box. Now I’m moving up to 25-29, or, in some awful cases, 25-34. I’m not sure I’m ready for this step.

Last year, I chose not to celebrate my birthday. I was 23. I had just been accused of stealing from Macy’s, where I had worked for nine months, loathing myself for it every second. I had a college degree that I wasn’t using. I was in a sort of -not really-incredibly ambiguous relationship with a boy who I knew wasn’t right for me, but I was afraid to move on. I was still living with my parents. In a word, I was pretty depressed. I felt like I hadn’t grown even one inch between 23 and 24.

Now, though, I’d venture to say that I closed the gap. I moved out of my parent’s house. I’ve turned that unhealthy relationship into a healthy acquaintance-ship. I’m in a new, healthy relationship. I have a grown up job that I kick ass at. I’ve made plans to move away to Chile for a year. In short, it’s been rough, but I’ve made my life into something I enjoy living.

My mantra used to be “Be someone worth being.” I think I’ve finally made it there. If nothing else, I’ve certainly made strides in that direction.

So yes. I’m celebrating my birthday this year. Many times over, it would appear.

The Jeremy is coming up Wednesday to help me move into my new place, a little house right by the Capitol. I’ll be sharing with a lobbyist and his dog. That weekend, we’ll drive down to Vancouver to drop some of my things off, and hang out with my cousin that Saturday.

Then Monday, my actual birthday, I’ll work. Because we don’t have any actual plans.

Tuesday, lovely Tuesday. I get off work early, lovely Mackenzie drives down to Olympia, and we all head south. Enchiladas with my family, drinks with my wonderful Portland friends (with whom I was successfully reunited this past weekend), THE BLACK KEYS (!!!!), and general Portland awesomeness.

The next weekend, I will celebrate my birthday alongside Jeremy’s brother’s girlfriend, since our days of birth are only three days apart.

This is a lot of celebration. I suppose I’m making up for last year’s void.

Anyway. Here are some pictures. Not all, because I am lazy. Just some choice ones from the past two weeks or so.

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Good times at the Central. Jeremy, Karl, and I met up with Mackenzie and Tyler at the Tap House for happy hour. We eventually moved here. None of us particularly remember getting home. Excellent evening.

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I got to go up to Kenmore and watch some of our candidates shoot their commercials. Super cool!

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Coming back the next day took 4 hours and 40 minutes. This is usually a 90 minute drive. A stupid tanker truck rolled over the night before, shutting down I-5 completely. I was very happy to be “home.”

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Urban Fondue with Mel, Brad, Whitney, and Danen. This is a mere ten minutes or so after they brought everything out.

I love cheese. Especially melted cheese. And bread. Also, it was a beautiful night, so we sat outside. Don’t think I’ll be doing that for awhile. Welcome, fall.

And I’ve written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones.

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This song just keeps beating me over the head when I’m awake, haunting me in my sleep. It’s an ancient favorite, from an album long forgotten, and it never meant much to me even when I did listen to it constantly. Picaresque was one of my Pullman staples…one I listened to really loudly in an effort to keep me awake when I drove through the barren landscape of Eastern Washington.

But that’s the good thing about “shuffle,” I guess.

I am a writer, a writer of fictions.
I am the heart that you call home.
And I’ve written pages among pages
trying to rid you from my bones.

Maybe it’s striking a nerve now because I’ve only recently come to really think of myself as a “writer.” I’ve picked it up more and more this year, in part because I had so many changes in the boy front. I went from just dabbling in this blog, updating it every few months, to maintaining it fairly regularly, writing better posts, and, on top of that, maintaining two other blogs.

(A fiction blog, a collaboration between myself and some other fantastic writers, which can be found here, and a super secret blog that almost no one is allowed to read.)

And it’s good. It’s really, really good to write, to think about writing on a daily basis, to turn words and ideas over and over in my head.

It’s becoming a near obsession. I’ve gone back to read over the last part of my last fiction post at least five or six times. Why? Because the dialog bothers me. Dialog has always bothered me. It never feels natural. It always feel contrived. And this particular dialog is haunting me along with this song. I can’t seem to shake it, nor can I figure out how to fix it.

Then there’s the other torture out there. The other day, my googletalk therapist messaged me and said:

“i was reading your “real” blog. and I am consistently amazed by your writing in that one.
it’s really head and shoulders above your other blogs, which are good in themselves.”

This. Is. Fucking. Torture. Because I know that it’s true. This third blog is really private. Because I tell stories. About people I know and for some reason, telling stories about the people I know makes the words come easier. Prettier. Just fucking better.

I’ve been racking my brain (with these stupid lyrics following me, of course), trying to figure out how to transfer that style into my fiction or even my blogging. Because pretty words are pointless locked up like that.

And then there’s the worry. This influx of writing was spurred when I was unhappy and lonely and hurting. Remembering. And the pages and pages I wrote really were cathartic, they really did rid him from my bones.

So now that he’s gone, what do I write about? It’s been a chore to bring myself back to the blinking cursor, opting instead for drinks with friends, late night movies, and conversations late into the night. What exactly is there to write about if I’m content?

It’s harder to write well, to do any kind of art well, without pain. Pain is inevitable, yes, and it’s the best fucking muse for creativity. My ex, actually, when we went through those good stages, would complain that he wasn’t writing music. Happiness, fulfillment, just didn’t allow for it.

This is a ridiculous post. See, I just wish that I could share something of substance.

Summer’s over. Party’s over. Get over it.

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Well, you know it’s been too long between posts when WordPress logs me out. Sorry. There are plenty of half-hearted excuses if you really want to hear them.

Anyway. There’s no arguing that summer’s over, not when my photo for the day looks like this:

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So now that my internet is back up, and I’ve had a chance to sit around and wonder why it is that I feel completely unmotivated to do anything, I realize it’s because I’m staring out the window, wishing it was still summer.

Summers aren’t the same as when we were in school. It’s boundaries aren’t so clearly defined as “when school ends” and “when school starts.” So, typically anything including good friends, good beers, and good times under a blazing sun tends to fall in my summer category.

Things just seem better when the sun is out. Eventually, of course, I get used to the rain, and it sometimes adds to the awesome times, messing up our hair and making us collapse into giggles as and silliness as we walk through the untimely rain in the dark. There’s a really awesome beauty to that whole picture, and I’m looking forward to it.

But in the meantime, goodbye summer. And here are the top five things about this past summer.

Five. Zombies.

New to me. I felt stupid. But I did it anyway. Mackenzie and I dressed up for High’s video release party, and it so happened to fall a week before the Red, White, and Dead zombie walk in Fremont. We found ourselves as part of a world record. I was a part of the world’s largest gathering of zombies.

Kind of super awesome. And I stole these pictures from Mackenzie.

Four. Hanging in Portland with some Seattle kids.

Mackenzie, me, and Voodoo Donuts

Jeremy and me at the Shanghai.

I hadn’t gone out in Portland since like…before May or April. I missed it. I love it. And, my Seattle friends also love Portland. So hey, let’s go!

Yamhill Pub, Shanghai Tunnel, Voodoo Donuts, and Pita Pit, followed by a day of hookie and Point Defiance Park in Tacoma the next day. Much awesomeness.

Three. San Francisco to visit my awesome friend, Schuyler.

I rarely get a chance to follow through on the whole “HEY I SHOULD COME VISIT YOU!” thing. But, as it turned out, visiting Schuyler came at a really opportune time, and it was a super cathartic, really fun time. Sure, my feet still bear some scars from the many miles running in bad shoes behind Schuyler’s freakishly long legs, but it was worth it. Especially to hang out with Schuyler again, because he’s awesome.

He’s now living in Norway, and plans to visit me in Chile. And (I don’t know how I haven’t mentioned this) he’s blogging! You should check it out, because if there’s only one thing I get to say about Schuyler, it’s that he’s an awesome writer. Check out his blog, The No Regrets List.

Two. Camping in Winthrop.

Lake Diablo on the way to the campsite.

Welcome to the Winthrop river bar. Karl, Mackenzie, Jeremy, and me.

Giving Mackenzie a birthday piggy back ride. Obviously.

I don’t even remember the last time I went camping before this trip. It even started out awesome, trying to figure out how to fit five people’s camping gear, three cases of beer, and four people into Mackenzie’s Saturn. Close quarters, a long drive, and plenty of commentary set the scene for an awesome weekend.

We went through three cases of beer and two fifths of liquor between the five of us (Karl showed up solo on his bike later on), and collectively suffered through some of summer’s hottest days and swarming mosquitoes.

And apparently, it was notable because nothing bad happened. Typically, in this group of friends that I infiltrated, something always goes wrong on trips like this. But nothing did. It was all positive awesomeness.

Oh, and I got to hang out with my college friend Nick again. Not much has changed.

One. People. It always comes back to the people.

It just always comes back to the people. I love people. I didn’t get a chance to spend time with a lot of Portland/Vancouver friends, but meeting new people was what I needed to get to where I am now. I’m looking forward to having the time to see those people again (my bestie from high school is having a baby any day now!), but it’s a great thing, to have more friends where I need them.

So there you go. There were plenty of other good times, but these stick out.

And there, I did it! I can still blog! More pictures to come.

And by the way, I stole every single picture except for the ones from San Francisco from Mackenzie. Because she’s awesome like that.

Pardon me while I petrify a bit.

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I’m glad it took TeachingChile a week to send me the follow-up e-mail. The one that provides information regarding logistics.

If you will recall for me, many moons ago, when I deliberated over this, spelling out my fears and roadblocks in the way of the idea, logistics came up at number two. I’m not good with these little things, in part because these little things make everything real.

This e-mail was exceptionally long. It detailed everything, from when I should plan to arrive to what kind of voltage Santiago has. What to do about cell phones and whether or not I should bring my laptop. How to apply for a visa and what to do with my salary.

Shit, man. I’m glad it took them a week, because it gave me time to be excited, to dream about what it’ll be like, to see myself there. It gave me the time to do that before sending me into panic mode.

In all the thinking I did, the applying, the writing, the logisticizing, I never factored fear into the equation.

But I’ve never lived more than six hours away from my hometown, and it easily turned to just five with the way I drive. Now, I’m planning a move of 6,444 miles.

“scary isn’t bad.” That’s what my GoogleTalk therapist told me. Then he pointed out how things have changed since I made this decision.

It’d be contrary to my nature if I weren’t scared, if I weren’t terrified to leave the people I love, this place I absolutely love. I’ll be leaving while things are good, which isn’t what I expected. I had expected that things would only get worse between now and then.

Really, the logistics don’t scare me as much as I claim. It’s the idea, the whole damn thing. It’s petrifying.

But, scary isn’t bad. It’s just natural. And it’s real. Oh, this is so real.

But hey, while I’m here, here are some pictures.

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My favorite part of late summer. And perhaps the year, because there’s nothing better than blackberries off the vine. Seriously.

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Grabbing a beer with the Jeremy in celebration of my Chilean job, yo. <3 Mac and Jacks, although this one was a little too warm, and it had too much head. But minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.

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I introduced the boy to Powell’s, which I’ve missed dearly since my move. It was my first return visit. And it was awesome. And by the way, no. That man is not Jeremy.

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Little Miss Audrey! Behind her is my Great Grandma – who’s 93. Five generations!

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Grabbing a coffee from Mackenzie’s work in Bothell. I really was all over the freaking place last weekend. Oly to Seattle, to Oly, to Portland, to Oly, to Bothell, and back to Oly.