immobile

i can hear the click-clack of the sprinkers outside as i type; one of the sounds of summer. it's weird to be home. however i find it much preferable to the 21 hour train ride that i just endured. after living somewhere that rarely went higher than the mid-80's in temperature, and hell, used celsius, i feel like i'm in an oven (or a crematorium, i saw one of those at the mortch. while in use, no less. yikes).

right. so i'm home. i'm brain dead right now, so a more substantive post will follow, detailing the 21 hours of my amtrak experience. with pictures. my own computer will not connect to the wireless here so the technical issues will hopefully be resolved soon. or i will be sitting in another parking lot outside of a cafe. let's hope it doesn't come to that.

getting back on track

8 days ago, i was playing wiffleball in the park and eating ice cream sandwiches with dear friends. 7 days ago, i left vancouver, my home of 3 good good years.



today, i'm sitting in the parking lot at the amtrak station of eugene. i'm tired of spending money so i am leeching the wireless signal from a nearby coffee shop. the train is going to be at least 1 hour late. this is not what i bargained for, but then again, i didn't think i'd end up taking a week to travel from vancouver, bc to berkeley, ca. it has been random and glorious, so the train delay just seems to fit in with the whole tone of this trip. i am pumped for my 15 hour train ride.

it has cooled off here, so instead of floating down the willamette river (which i shall return to do someday) we hiked mount pisgah. sara drank chunky beet juice. she was disgusted with the texture and threw it away.i had a breakfast burrito, but it was not so good either.. really, are breakfast burritos ever a good idea?

eugene reminds me of santa cruz minus the beach and with more white trash. like dudes with def leppard t-shirts and long hair that is shaved on the sides that is tied back into a greasy pony tail, circa 1992. in spite of that description, and the intense heat, i rather liked it here.

this funny trip has me more at ease with the limbo state of my life. like wherever i end up, i'll land on my feet, i think. i will encounter hospitality and good times as i have in the past few days. but i also look forward to my own bed and old stomping grounds.

digression, part II

still in eugene. another night in the mortch (that's slang for mortuary, for those of you not in the know). jumped in the river this afternoon and then had a dairy queen dipped cone. summer perfection. i took 3 showers today, plus the river dip. it's still hot.

i delayed yet again because, it's summer and i have little tying me down right now. and i get to see katie brown (katie likes coffee, her husband derek, and coffee. she doesn't like starbucks, bad knees, and starbucks.) in eugene tomorrow.

i'm going home tomorrow night, i swear. then the nothingness can set in. i kind of need a break anyway.

it's getting hot in here...

i'm in eugene, oregon. in the middle of some kind of insane heat wave. upper 90s. 100 degrees when i arrived. it's almost too hot to live.

i'm also staying in a mortuary this evening. that's right, a mortuary. my friend lives in an apartment above the place for super cheap rent in exchange for minor cleaning chores. now, heat wave and higher elevations don't mix, so her apartment is absolutely suffocating. so we are camping out in a "arrangements" room. in the mortuary. where dead people are. well, not in the same room, but somewhere around here. i'm not looking for them.

it seems a bit fitting. eugene is a funny place, where the teenagers loiter outside the library. the first restaurant we went to for dinner had a chilled raspberry soup for the dinner special (sara suggested that it should be served in a bread bowl, like a kind of terrible jam). we ended up at karaoke night at a local dive. she sang whiskey in a jar by metallica - this song makes no sense at all. i sang here "i go again" by whitesnake. the clientele was awesome. and by awesome i mean, freak show. apparently, she will soon be trained to be a karaoke dj. that fact alone makes me want to move here - when it's not so damn hot. anyway, the beer is cheap, the company great, the temperature nearly unbearable.

tomorrow evening i board the train for an all night extravaganza back to the bay area. i am losing my zeal for amtrak, because i had to ride the bus the whole day because of track repairs and they "lost part of the train." no big deal but if i have to ride the bus tomorrow at all, i will absolutely lose my mind.

that's all for now. tomorrow i will loiter at sara's coffee shop (the allan brothers something or other) and catch up on the rest of my life. peace out.

but i digress...

a few things you should know about me or maybe you already do: i'm a sucker for a free meal.
i enjoy spending time with friends, no matter the activity (most of the time). i used to be a cheerleader. that last one is actually a lie. i know, hard to believe, isn't it?


thus, i found myself hanging about in bellevue for the weekend to help katie and james move into their home in west seattle. i would say it is new, but in actuality, it is only new to them. the place itself is so retro, it's amazing. the kitchen is pink, as you can see here. katie says the kitchen makes her want to make pot roast while wearing pumps and pearls. james is a builder, so he's going to have renovation projects coming out of his ears, and he is quite excited about it. there are enough to keep him occupied for the next several years, but when he's done their house will be so awesome it will be on mtv cribs. anyway, it's fun to work hard and help them settle in and have some laughs and meals together. it eases my transition from place to place.

as we drove back and forth with loads of items, we kept passing this sign on the freeway and it gave my heart a twinge each time i saw it. a homing instinct, perhaps? love to my homies in canada.

derailed

well, the slow journey southward has ground to a halt for a few extra days in seattle.

there's no place like home

It’s the first day of summer and I am heading south. Farmland, livestock and leafy trees are on my left. The sunset and salty cold waves of the Pacific are on my right – this is my scenery for the next few days. I will take pictures of myself, eat bad snacks from the "bistro" car and watch cheesy movies (today's feature was "failure to launch" which wasn't so bad, it's the least sarah jessica parker has annoyed me; but considering buying cheap dvds from target), visit with friends, mourn my departure and prepare myself for what is ahead. leaving my home that is not my home anymore to my old home that is not really my home either.

i look back over my shoulder to the north and miss it already. Seasons come and go. And so, with the beginning of this summer, begins a new season of life. No more classes, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks... Uncertainty, possibility, and opportunity lie ahead of me. I feel like an uprooted plant, albeit one that has grown and thrived in the damp and rich Vancouver soil.

the lyrics, they speak to me

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?

-"Once in a Lifetime", Talking Heads

somewhere over the rainbow

"... it wasn't a dream - it was a real live place.

You were there.

And you were there.

And you were there, too.

I remember that some of it wasn't very nice... but most of it was beautiful." - Dorothy

whiling away the hours

the days in vancouver dwindle down...

i am still holding on to some level of denial, as i have picked my departure date but not purchased the train ticket. that's right, i'm taking the train back to california. it shall be old-fashioned, lovely, and scenic.

anyhow, i've passed much of the time loitering in the atrium at school. with my friends scattered to the winds and to new digs, and me without at phone # to call my own, i depend mainly on the free wireless and chance encounters in the atrium as my main form of connecting with people. plus, i still get free coffee from the well. don't need much else, i suppose.

it is strange how things come full circle. when i first got to vancouver and didn't know anyone, i'd pass entire afternoons in this space visiting with people, and getting to know them, trying to put down roots with people. the following 2 years, i avoided the atrium because i am an introvert at heart. i met my friends elsewhere. and now i am back here at a table, surfing the web for a job, daydreaming about what to do with my life, and wondering what will happen to the roots i have grown here with people.

accentuate the positive

so the silver lining to what feels like a gray cloud moving back to california is that the abundance of good mexican food places. that's what i've got so far.

i know a couple of hobos

huh

i just realized... since i'm moving away very soon, i'll have to change the name of this blog. weird. suggestions? not that i'll listen to you, but it should be entertaining at least.

see this face? this is our over-the-moon face.

watching oprah and pedicures

this is my first blog post by request/demand (going out to jane halton of vancouver, bc. jane enjoys recycling, triathlons and diet coke. she does not enjoy the fifth season of dawsons creek, anything happening after 10:30 pm and meat).

i have pink toenails right now. jane and dan ray and i went to get pedicures last wednesday. now, i suppose this is not a combination of people you would really expect to go out and get pedicures. it was great fun. nice to do something i don't normally do and to be pampered a bit. so we relaxed in some massage chairs, watched oprah, and some women made our feet look G-O-O-D. jane had to run some errands so i got myself an oreo blizzard from dairy queen on the way home. not a bad way to pass a wednesday afternoon.

what to look for in a job

i had a summer internship at a magazine the summer before my senior year in college. i fact-checked and proofread articles, it was pretty innocuous. but allison, the managing editor imparted some lasting advice from her own job experiences.
it went something like this:

"oh yeah, after i graduated from UCSB, i got a job in san francisco (ed. note: i think it was an ad agency). i had to wear panty hose. every morning i'd open my closet and just go, 'ugh.' i drank a lot and gained 50 or 60 pounds. so i quit and became a bike messenger. it was the panty hose that was the worst of it."

any other job requirements i should be thinking about?

adrift

for the first time that i can remember, i am utterly keyless.
no house key. not even a bike lock key.
it is unsettling.

further thoughts on moving

i can't lift my arms.

also, i hate material possessions.