The Sun! It's Out!

I can't tell you how happy I am that the sun is shining every now and again these days. School is absolute shit and I wish they'd just give me my degree already instead of tricking me with the fine print. I've been working on these same three credits for over a year now without success. That's not great for one's self esteem, you know.

Anyway, it's been sunny here and there and I've gotten out to run, hike, and hopefully this week, bike. The trees have leaves on them, finally, and I actually had to open the windows when I came home from the soccer game last night, as it was actually hot and stuffy in the apartment.

I'm waiting for a particular job to open up in the Portland area and while I know they're not going to update their job advertisements on the weekend, I can't help but check the listings every few hours. It's a compulsion at this point. I'd just really, really like to remain in the Portland area. While I love lots of other areas of the country and know that I *could* live in those places, that doesn't mean I necessarily *want* to. In the meantime, I'm living off of credit and trying to distract myself from my financial, job and school woes by working out, going to soccer games and catching up on various TV series that I've missed through the years.

Perhaps in a bit I'll post some photos from the last few weeks.

more work AND more play

It became obvious Thursday night, and certainly Friday morning, that I had a lot of shit to do. But this is me we're talking about, so of course I wouldn't just sit down and get it done, would I? Instead, I made new plans and kept the ones I did have. Even though I'm going to two schools this term doesn't mean I have to continue to be a hermit.

By Monday I have to finish writing a song for my electronic music class, get on the bus from downtown and then get into the computer lab enough time before the class starts in order to play it on the keyboard and record it into the school's computer system. Have I mentioned how terrible I am at the piano? Awful.

Earlier Monday I have an archaeology assignment due, the details of which I don't really understand, other than it involves doing some observing on campus which is inconveniently located in a place other than my living room. I may have to get up really early and skip my morning class in order to get that done.

Sunday (tonight) I have two assignments that I have to email in to the instructor. The class as I registered for it was in the music department, but is also cross-listed in the business and digital media communications departments and none of those had a link to the online class itself. I had to find it by googling and didn't get enrolled until a week and a half into the term. Turns out, it's a law class. What the fuck do I know about law? We have to do case studies! I'm not a goddamn lawyer, nor do I intend to be. Case studies in a 100-level community college class? Hay-zooss, I just wanna get paid.

Despite all this stuff, I kept my promise to hike with a friend after class on Friday and while we didn't tromp out to the middle of nowhere, it ate up a good chunk of the afternoon and after a tiring week that involved a lot of walking up and down hills to bus stops in sudden downpours and riding on the bus for an hour at a time, each way, with seedy co-passengers, it was both a physical challenge and a mental release.

Saturday I reluctantly went to my indoor soccer game. I say reluctantly only because I really was feeling my schoolwork obligations weighing on me, but it sounded like without me my team wouldn't have any female subs and I hate it when I have to play without a sub. And it's a good thing I showed up, too. The team manager, of all people, showed up thirty seconds from the finish, as she'd written down the wrong time in her calendar, so we had to play without subs anyway. Somehow, we managed to not only win, but to do it by five goals. I had an assist, a good pass that led to an assist, and saved a goal with my head. I just had to mention that last one, because I'm really proud of it.

Instead of going home after the game, we all stuck around to watch the Barcelona-Real Madrid match on the tv at the arena. Someone ordered a pitcher and then I ended up ordering another one since it seemed like my turn, and there went my Saturday. While watching the match I invited the girl who missed the match to come hiking with me the next day so she could get a workout in anyway. Why I did that I don't know, but it worked out well. The hike was pretty, though tiring, and we got back just in time to catch the last quarter of the Blazers-Lakers (basketball, for you foreigners) match, have a beer and watch Portland win at the last second, away from home and without their best player.

So, instead of working on all those things on Friday, I didn't start on them until 4:30pm Sunday and I'm tired and sore to boot. Do I regret it? Not a bit. In fact, I think I'll look to make my weekends even busier in the future.

Update

I'm skipping class today and I actually feel rather bad about it, so I'm trying to do some productive things with my time to have made it worth it. So far, I've experimented in a radical concept where I store the clean dishes in the cabinets and dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Whoa! Next perhaps I'll try the equally radical idea where I put my clean clothes in the dresser and dirty ones in the laundry bag. At the moment the clean clothes are in the laundry bag and dirty ones on the floor.

Life out here in the 'burbs is all right, I suppose. It's far enough away from the city that it has a lot of rural characteristics, which isn't really a good thing. Yes, I like birds and the woods and things, but the people in rural areas are just dicks. I lived or walked through some nasty areas of Portland on a regular basis and the amount of times anyone honked at me, hollered at me from their car or revved their engine and swerved at me totaled about four. Here, it happens once a week. There are bike lanes, but drivers don't actually expect bicyclists to be in them and when it happens, the bicyclists are subject to a torrent of horns, shouts and abuse. Anything different must be punished! Another thing people don't understand about rural areas is that they're full of criminals. When we think crime, we think cities, but there are enough other people in cities to dilute their effects. Here, everyone in the back half of the bus I ride in the morning know each other because they served in prison together. Awesome! It's difficult to get an apartment as an ex-con so they're often forced to buy a place and that's difficult without much money, so they end up in the cheap areas, which tend to be rural.

Because of all of that and the distance I live from my friends, I've been keeping to myself mostly. This term I'm enrolled in the community college in my new town doing stuff with music recording and production and I'm finishing up a few classes at PSU. That schedule makes for a lot of commuting and a bit of homework as well, making it easy to not go out too much.

If this stupid weather ever improves I'm going to take my newly fixed up bike out for regular rides, do some fishing on the weekends, and weekly hikes with my Portland friends.

an example of someone who is not lazy

Talk about a motivational story! Or one to make your excuses for not working out seem really trivial. This guy, Charlie Davies, is now jogging. It was only October when the soccer player on the USA national team was a passenger in a horrific crash that severed the car in two and killed the other passenger. Davies broke his leg - both the tibia AND the femur - his elbow, multiple bones in his face and lacerated his bladder. And he's already running and doing agility drills. I ran about a mile on Monday and thought I was going to puke or pass out and spent most of the time since then sitting on my new couch. According to the article, a few weeks ago he could barely get out of his wheelchair. I understand that he's a professional athlete, but it's still pretty incredible that in only four months he's getting back up to speed.

In completely unrelated news, I've got birds! Inspired partly by MC's recent diaries on her amazingly beautiful property and the birds that occupy it, and partly from a discussion with my ex-roommate about her mom's African gray parrot, I decided to get a birdfeeder. It takes awhile for anything to show up in new feeders, so I've tried really hard to not get impatient. Yesterday, I finally got a few birds. Still not entirely sure what they are, but my best answer are bushtits. They're tiny little brown to olive birds that make small tsee tsee noises and flutter around. Hopefully, they'll spread the word around to their avian friends that there are some good eats on the second floor balcony.

Indoor soccer game tomorrow! After that embarrassing attempt at a run on Monday, I'm a bit worried about my first game back in months. It's disheartening how slowly 26 minutes tick off the clock each half when you're struggling for breath. It may be a long game.

Still Moving

I finally found an apartment near my new school and I'm finally moving into it this week. So far I have a random collection of things that I've moved over - a few crates of books; receiver, records, but no record player; plates, but no silverware - and my dad is coming up this weekend to help me move the big things with his pickup. In the meantime, I'm hanging out at my old house in order to sleep on my bed and to use the internet. I don't get a connection at my new place until Tuesday. Poo. You know how difficult it is to do online classes without an internet connection? To make it even more difficult, the classes require Word, which is not compatible with the current programs on my Mac, so I have to buy some expensive system. Double poo.

I'm still deciding what to do about furniture. So far I have a fold out camp chair to sit on and crates with boards stretched across to serve as shelves/desktop.

Sorry about the sporadic posting on here recently. I'll try and do better. Now that I'm living all alone again I'll probably have nothing better to do than blog away the time.

Overheard

Two boys, reading in bed.

9-year-old: Wow, I want to go to Europe. Don't you?

6-year-old: No!

9-year-old: What? Why not!?

6-year-old: Because they have vampires there.

Short Adventure!

I've been poor for the last few months and have done a good job of acting like it. I haven't been out to eat except for cheap happy hour, haven't been out to the bars at all and I've limited my impulse shopping to a pair of jeans (they actually sell straight leg girls jeans now!) and a few t-shirts. So when I found out that the MLS championship would be held in Seattle and that tickets were only $25 I thought maybe I could justify it. Then I watched on TV as the LA Galaxy qualified, meaning David Beckham would be in the final and that sealed the deal. $25 to see Landon Donovan, Beckham, Robbie Findley? To what other championship game can you get a ticket for $25? I only hope there won't be too many douchebag Seattle fans there (fat chance).

My roommate's disgusting, old, smelly dog vanished last week. Perhaps she was sick of being old and smelly and found a crevice to duck under and call it a day. Perhaps someone kidnapped her. More likely, some noseybody took a look at her patchy fur, assumed she was abused and took her away "for her own good". My money is on the Crazy Cat Lady across the street. In any case, the house smells infinitely better, but we were still getting whiffs of Wiley every now and then, so I set about vacuuming today. The adult boys' band had a show tonight, so I used the opportunity to vacuum around where their equipment normally is in the basement. I'm fairly certain that the basement has never actually been vacuumed before. The poor machine nearly exploded! No wonder I have sneezing fits down here so much.

Still looking for a new place to live, but at least my current roommate secured me a couch and a loveseat at his moving/delivery job. I'll have a place to sit! I'm looking at December and Christmas break to get a place and move in. It'll will have been over three years since I've lived alone and even then it was only for nine months. Nine months in 27 years... for a loner that's a pretty surprising stat.