i don't recall any episodes of mr rogers neighborhood that taught me how to deal with this

ugh im sitting here apprehensively awaiting the house meeting in which four of us basically gang up on our roommate patrick and kick him out of the house. i feel kind of bad because even though he's hella awkward, i've never had any personal issues with him. but evidently he's been at the heart of some pretty extreme ROOMMATE DRAMZ!!
here's the history: he moved here from virginia a few months ago and is one of those scrawny obnoxious indie music kids who works at a record store and spends his whole life trying to one-up all the other obnoxious indie music kids that he hangs out with. this in itself doesn't affect me in any way whatsoever, but unfortuanely our other roommate justin is an indie music kid too, so over the past few months tensions have gradually escalated to the point where they are on the brink of an ALL OUT SCRAWNY OBNOXIOUS INDIE MUSIC KID WAR!!!! this sounds like it would be like one of those turf wars in west side story where they snap their fingers and dance-fight, but these two guys have actually gotten in a couple of physical altercations, so it is getting really tense and awkward.
anyway, despite all this i feel like a total douchebag because i've been really nice to patrick and have actually defended his weirdness a couple of times, and now i'm going to have to sit down in this group and blindside him with news that he's getting booted out. not only that, but after you "kick out" a person from your house, its not like they just gather all their shit and walk out the door twenty minutes later. its gonna take like a month. its literally going to be a month of running into him in the kitchen or living room, and being like "oh hey patrick, how was your day? i'm going to talk to you like we're not in a really awkward, vaguely hostile situation right now and pretend that i dont know that you think i'm a backstabbing asshole."

I haven't listened to Jump like I used to in a long time and I really miss it, so I spent like the whole day looking up some of their old songs and listening to my CDs. I forgot how this song takes my breath away.

pictures from today

I started knitting yesterday, and I wish I could take a picture of the muffler that I made for my roommates cat and put it with these. But I'll just let you picture it. It's purple.

bucket list

How do you tell people "I'm just not making new friends right now" without sounding like an antisocial weirdo? I've been feeling really pressured to hang out with people at work, but really really don't want to, even though everyone is really nice and everything. I feel like some kind of weird hermit-in-training, but I really am at a place in life where I am feeling 0 percent social--I could literally wander around by myself every single day for the foreseeable future and be really happy about it.

So I'm working on crossing off a major item from my bucket list. When I was a lot younger, I think probably 5th or 6th grade, we learned about Crater Lake in Science or Social Studies or one those classes--it's a lake formed from the collapsed caldera of an extinct volcano and is supposed to be one of the most pure water sources on earth (not to mention the most beautiful). It was one of those things that sort of stuck with me as the years passed, but strangely I never remembered where it was or bothered to look it up.

When I was in late middle school my family went on a vacation and my Dad informed me that we would be camping at Crater Lake, which I was so psyched about. Unfortunately it turned out that I had mis-heard him, and we actually were bound to Claytor Lake, which is actually a reservoir in Virginia and not the same thing at all. This did turn out to be a very cool trip though. My dad had remembered that some of our relatives used to own and live in the house on the lake that now serves as the visitor center (aka the historic Howe House, see left). He visited pretty frequently as a kid, and when we got to that house he took all of the tour guides and rangers out back and showed them a spot near the back of the house where his cousin (one of the original owners) had carved his name in the bricks. None of them had seen the carving before that moment, so from a small historical standpoint it was an exciting moment, and I felt very weirdly proud right then.

But I digress. When I arrived in Oregon my sister and I were camping in the Columbia River Gorge, and in the site next to us was a car with a license plate that read "Oregon, home of the famous Crater Lake."

HOLY SHIT.

So I'm planning a camping trip to Crater Lake State Park, either solo or with a friend, if I meet someone that I want to spend that much time with between now and whenever I go. So yeah, probably solo. I am so jazzed.

Editor's Note: I just read on Wikipedia that Crater Lake is on the Oregon quarter. It also has this, which is the kind of dorky shit that I absolutely live for.

forgive my candor and pessimism, but i have to get this off my chest. a recent discovery (not involving me personally, but close enough) has rocked me to the core about men. and for now, the only conclusion i can draw is this: men are goddamn worthless. im not saying this in any type of feminist rant or giving a list a glib reasons why. it's not something i want to discuss at all--im actually upset that i have been forced believe it so fervently. before it was always "men suck because my feelings are hurt!", but wasn't really a serious thing--i was open to giving them chances. but its different now. sorry for the drama and vagueness, but its a very sad and alien feeling.




p.s. not you Mike Jones, you are awesome.

well well that entire day was certainly unexpected

I was off today and had nothing else to do so agreed to go with a few friends to a beach out on Sauvie Island, a sort of peninsula 15 or so miles outside of Portland. First off, the weather was heavenly--85 degrees, like zero percent humidity, not windy, absolutely perfect beach weather. So I'm already psyched, Gaga is on the radio which has me even more psyched, and as we round the corner I notice a snowcapped mountain off in the distance. I ask Anna "is that Mt Hood, I haven't seen it yet!" and she replies "no, that's Mt. St Helens. Hood is over there." If you don't understand why I freaked out about this it will be hard to explain, but I freaked out. I mean, seeing Mt St Helens was kind of like seeing a famous, dangerous criminal to me. You know, you hear about them your whole life, and all of the horrific stories about what happened after the explosion etc etc--and then suddenly its just THERE. And its all pretty and snowy and calm looking...SO cool.

Anyway, then we get to the beach, spread our shit out and crack open some beers. And I'm looking around, and suddenly notice that everyone on this beach with us is hot. I mean everyone. All of the guys are like 6'2" and tan and ripped and wearing these hilarious speedo-type bathing suits that only hot guys can really wear without looking creepy, and all of the girls are lean and beautiful with long flowing hair. Just when i started to feel really insecure and get creeped out, my friend Ellen adds as an afterthought, "Oh yeah, by the way, the guys that own this beach are friends of mine, and they are four brothers and all of them are Ford models and all of their friends are models and actors and they live half the year in LA working for Gus van Sant." What. The. Fuck. Are fucking kidding me. So I spent the next 30 minutes on my towel trying to look thin and glamorous, and then the remaining 5 hours not really giving a damn because honestly, who was I fooling, and swimming and getting a tan and staring at all of the beautiful people around me.

Did I mention I could see Mt. St Helens from my towel. Because I could. It was awesome.