Get Those Snakes out of Here!

Today is the last day in February which can really only mean one thing. March. Ugh, March. March has always been my least favorite month. People tend to look at me twice when I say that. Really? March? But March means Spring. March means warm. No it doesn't. March is always cold and the grass is still dead and the trees don't bud and flowers don't start to bloom. Nothing happens in March but winter dragging its cold brown drought through the midwest. And right when you are really really ready for it to be Spring. See, that's the tricky thing about March. With February, at least you are ready for winter. You know that it's winter and that it's going to stay winter. But with March we all have this illusion that it will go away. Except it won't. Not until May really.
Luckily, there is St. Patrick's Day.
For this reason, and for this reason alone, I am happy that it is almost March.

The Adventures of Kevin and Mary

Life is full of surprises. It is totally unpredictable. The fact that i once again live in my old high school bedroom at 28 demonstrates this. The fact that last year i went from sharing a life and an apartment in southeast Portland to living alone in a tent behind a bar in Alaska to living in my old high school bedroom at 28, perhaps demontrates this even better. But for some reason, though none of these moves last year was premeditated at all, they really didn't surprise me all that much. Ever since college i have been a wanderer, an adventurer, and i don't care much to see my life as anything less than full of surprises. In fact, when i start being able to predict things, i get sad. I get scared. I feel trapped. This doesn't mean i don't make plans or have goals, it just means i get bored easily. Especially when i think about all that's out there in the world that i'm not seeing, that i'm not experiencing. I'm impulsive. Nothing about that should really surprise anyone who knows me. So i guess the best way to demonstrate the unpredictability of life, the surprises of life is by applying them to my parents. My parents are in their mid-fifties. They have lived in this house for sixteen years. My mom has had her job for as many years, my dad has had his job since the seventies. They went to the same high school my brothers and i went to. My dad comes home from work everynight, cracks open a beer and starts his nightly routine of laundry, dishes and meticulously maintaining the divine order of all the stuff in this house. My mom comes home and feels fat so she walks the treadmill and then feels bad about eating a regular dinner instead of rice cakes. She then keeps up her nightly routine of television programs, which may include taping them if the hawkeyes are on. They have never seen their lives becoming anything more than this. Sometimes my mom will talk dreamily about retiring in Arizona or some such warm place when it is snowing, but we all know they won't because her parents, two brothers and five sisters live in the midwest. I have never seen their lives becoming anything more than this. I figured they would retire someday and spend winters somewhere they can golf, but other than that, i never saw it changing. None of us did. A few nights ago my dad came home from work, from an office meeting of the slowly dwindling staff. They are closing the plant. The same plant he, my dad, has been working since i was a baby. The same place he used to take Tim and i when he had to work on Saturdays. We'd go to the Highland Bakery first and get donuts and decorated cookies and then Tim and I would play with the copy machine while he made his phone calls, did whatever he was doing there on a Saturday. They are closing it down and by the end of the year he will be out of a job. Fifty-five and not ready to retire. So just as my over-anxious mom was starting to relax a little because Mikey finally got a job (which he just quit today so you know), she has now taken back to freaking out and not sleeping due to so much worry. What are they gonna do now? They are fifty. They are too old to start over. My dad will never be able to find a new job for that salary and that vacation time. They are both worried. They are scared. I feel kind of excited for them. Can you imagine what it must be like to be unsure of your future for the first time in forty years? It must be like coming out of a drug coma. This is the time for them to have a life-changing experience. They can retire early and volunteer in some country with weird diseases. They can sell the house, buy an RV and drive from Canada to Mexico. My dad could start his own business, a freelance contractor for people remodeling their homes. He could open a bar in Ireland. They could do anything! But they are both worried. They are scared. And here I am feeling excited for them.

A Moment of Weakness

I really like to think that i have everything figured out. The world, the way it works, the ways it doesn't work. People, the way they react to things, the ways they over-react to things, the reasons they don't react at all. I like to think i have myself pretty figured out too. I like to think that i know what i stand for. I like to think that i have certain philosophies that i stick to. That there are certain kinds of music that i like and certain kinds that i don't. I like to think of myself in categories. As a liberal, an environmentalist, a pacifist, an outdoor enthusiast, a fun-lover, a writer, an art-appreciator. I like to think that i have control over my emotions. When i know something shouldn't bother me, well, then it shouldn't. When i know i should be sad about something, well, then i should be. I like to think that i have things so figured out, in fact, that other people should come to me for advice. And i feel like, when they do, i should have amazing and profound answers for them. The kind you hear in movies where the wisdom of the family butler is so poetic and makes so much sense that it is, in itself, the most unbelievable dialouge. But i feel like i should be like that. I should be in control, brilliant, zen. Like the Buddhist i used to work with at a bakery who never let anything bother her. Even though we, as mere humans who struggle with emotions such as stress, fatigue, hunger and the desire to be told we are doing a good job, longed to see her snap. To freak out just once and heave the mixing bowl through the glass cake case. She never did. And maybe she did at home once or twice, but that didn't matter because none of us knew about it. It was like that tree falling in the forest when no one was there to hear it. I guess if and when i fall, i don't want anyone there to hear it. Because i like to think that i have it all figured out. And if, just if, in some small way i don't have it all figured out, i guess i want everyone else to at least think i do.

The 59th Street Bridge Song

"Not only does that old man have on a really great sweater,
he's about to have a big bag of candy too." -Steve Gray, at Dahl's on 86th.

It is very rare that i wake up in the morning and feel really good. Usually, something is wrong. I slept on my neck wrong. I drank too much the night before and my head hurts a little. My sinuses will be messed up and I'll only be able to breathe out of one nostril. I'll be tired still and not want to wake up. At. All. I'll dread something about the upcoming day. I'll feel bad about something that happened in the previous days. I'll be confused by a dream i was just in. But today my alarm went off (America's Horse With No Name) and i didn't even reach for the snooze, which i usually hit for at least forty-five minutes. I just rolled over, and opened my eyes to the snow scurrying around outside the window. I breathed deep and for the first time yet, really noticed how good it feels to breathe when you don't smoke. I felt perfectly fine. Nothing was wrong. And i actually felt like waking up. I felt like getting out of bed and starting my day. And i haven't even been disappointed. Normally, i use Thursday mornings to write. But all the writing projects that i'm working on right now are kind of sad. I mean they kind of bum me out. I've always said that i write best when i am sober, and a little bit sad. And i just didn't feel like being in that mood today, didn't feel like putting myself in that mood. So instead, I caught up on all my email, which has been lurking around in my inbox like a post-it note reading "You are a bad friend." It has been something i have had on my list of things to do for weeks, but for some reason just couldn't sit down and do. This morning i did it and it was fun and i felt really good afterwards. I ate a good breakfast and work was even kind of fun. Both Steve Gray and Pete Loew came by for lunch and i love visitors at work. I don't know, today is just seeming like a really good day. One of those where nothing can go wrong, nothing can really upset me. And i made a payment to one of my credit cards and for the first time since i graduated from college, the balance on its account dipped under $1,000. What a feeling...

This Day In History

A journal entry from February 15, 2002. Bonny Slope Organic Farm. Portland, Oregon.

"I'm afraid to know.
Was there any good reason that i had to go?
And all i know,
is I can never come back." -Dar Williams

How can I find the simple life so appealing? How can I get that deep gut longing for a remote mountain cabin, just me and my pen and some neighbors down in the town? Or for a small town in Ireland, weaving my sheep into sweaters and having a pint in the local pub every night. the same pub every night forever. How can I long for this kind of life while still aching to live a life of adventure, never sticking around one place long enough to memorize street names? Which is it? Which do I want? Is it possible to have both? Because if it is, I'll take it. A laid back, simple life full of adventure and far away places and familiar pubs and lifelong buddies and intriguing strangers and exciting undiscovered paths right next to the roads as familiar as my own reflection. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Sister Goldenhair: Quilts from Salvaged Fabric

Kevin Hurley, dad's, fifty-fifth birthday. wish him a happy birthday at khurley@namasco.com

Let me take a second to say a word or two about this quilting business i have a small dream of creating. when most people hear the word "business" they think of a shop, a building, employees, a place where people can come in and purchase things. i never really saw my own quilting business like this. i saw it more as a side project. something i would do in my spare time for extra money, and for not very much extra money at that. all i really wanted to do was bring back the true essence of quilting, which is making a use out of those tiny bits of leftover scrap fabric that you will never use for anything else. i wanted to cut down on the waste in this world. so i never thought of fancy quilting patterns or enormous quilting machines on sliders that take up your entire living room. i wanted it to be simple, organic. i imagined myself having a booth at the Portland Saturday Market. i would sell quilts that i had made and contract my service out to others, to a girl who wanted to make her boyfriend's old concert tees into a quilt for an engagement present, stuff like that. i would have a box in the corner of the booth for donated fabric. so far i have made five quilts from salvaged fabric and most of the fabric came to me as a donation from other quilters, the kind who buy fabric new and then cut it into tiny scraps. i would spend my time, a lot of my time, sorting this fabric and putting it together in a quilt face so as to not waste any of it. it's a nice thought. i makes me feel good still, just thinking about it. you know the store Ragstock, that used clothing store chain? they got their name from the original ragstock, which was an organization that would take your old fabric scraps, your old clothes, your old rags, and make them into paper. how genius was that? anyway, i never imagined making very much money with this business. in fact, i always imagined i would have another job, like decorating cakes or waiting tables, until finally the quilting was too much and i stopped doing it. so not only did i really not see myself making any money, i saw myself failing. not a lot of motivation there. i guess i have a hard time picturing it, success. i have never seen myself as someone having money. i mean even comfortable money. i've always figured i would be scraping by, drinking pabst, eating macaroni, driving old beater cars, renting a duplex. like my early twenties were going to be the rest of my life. it's not that i don't think i have talent. in fact i think i am fairly good at a lot of things. i've just never known how to harness it, where to apply it, on what i should focus it. i've always thought it would be nice to have a life manager. or a coach. someone to stand over me and say this is what you are good at. this is what you need to do and this is how you should do it. though eventually i imagine i would grow weary of that and want to make my own decisions. anyway, last night i'm at A.K. O'connors and i mention wanting to have a quilting business to the bartender, still imagining a rainy saturday market booth and my old singer in the living room. he says he has a friend with a quilting business that grosses three million a year. what? what the hell are they doing? they are selling patterns and fabrics and classes. they are renting out their huge living room size quilting machine. they are up with the times. they are quilting modern day. i still don't want to do this. i still like the salvaged fabric idea. but suddenly my thinking about my quilting business expanded. i could have a shop. i could sell patterns that help other people use old fabric scraps. i could have classes. in fact i've always wanted to hold a "quilt in a day" seminar and have a small group of people bring in their old fabric in the morning and walk out with a quilt at the end of the day. you can make a quilt in a day you know. even without fancy machines. something like this would take a lot more start up, a lot more capital, a lot more money than my rainy booth, but it's good to think about. it's good to expand my thinking like this, to dream bigger, to aim higher, to see myself succeeding just a little more while still holding on to my hippie values.

Iowa: It's Really Not That Bad

i just want to thank everyone for all the words of encouragement i've received since my last entry. it's true that i've indeed paid off a pretty large amount of debt, and am over halfway to my goal. speaking of goals, let's talk about goals. why i came to iowa in the first place, what i plan to acheive here, when i plan to leave, what i'm going to do then. i was talking to friend in seattle on the phone the other night and we discussed iowa as "the safe place." it is homebase. it is where you run to in hide and seek when you are discovered crouching behind the bushes. in iowa there is always a warm bed and a full cupboard and free laundry. it is far away from tsunamis and hurricanes and economic downslides. it is as though a bubble has been placed over the state proctecting all who dwell here. it is safe from terror because no one cares about it. it is safe from outsiders because no one cares about it. bottom line is it's safe. and after an emotionally damaging relationship and a carefree summer in alaska where i lived in a tent and spent all my money on long island ice teas, alaskan ambers, and cigarettes, i felt lost. i needed a place to go. somewhere where i could just straighten my shit out. iowa.
after my break-up with dan and before i decided to go to alaska, i sat in our empty old apartment in portland and i tried to come up with a life plan. for someone who is interested in so many things, this is hard to do. did i want to open a bakery? did i want to start a quilting business? did i want to travel to some other country and learn to farm their land? did i want to try to become a freelance writer? did i want to become a writing teacher? they answer is yes. i wanted to do all these things. i still want to do all these things. it's a lot and i will settle, really, for just one of them. but until something comes along and tells me what it is, exactly, i should do, i'm going to basically try to shoot for all these things. so this lead me to steps. what steps did i need to take to do this stuff?

1. pay off credit debt:
do this by moving to iowa, getting two semi-miserable jobs and living rent-free with the parents. check.

2. get my masters in creative writing.
this takes several sub-steps:
a. need three professor recomendations
b. must raise my GPA from 2.9 to at least 3.0
So i will use my Americorps stipend to attend two grad-level writing classes this fall at Portland State. (i have already taken one class there and got an A. check out my paper at www.motionsickmag.com and click on immersion journalism)
c. need financial aid of some type to keep me from going further into debt. ideally a teaching assistantship to gain experience teaching while in school.
So i will try to get an assistanship using my expereince tutoring (check) and volunteering as a writing workshop facilitator for Write Around Portland, which i have done and will do again this fall in ptown.
d. need some really amazing peice of writing to submit to get into a program i like.
So i devote every monday, wednesday and thursday morning between the hours of 8 and 10:30 to writing.

So this is what i'm working on. these goals are what i do with my time. and as you can see, they absolutley require my going back to portland. by the end of april i will be debt free. by june i will have purchased myself a nice old reliable Subaru wagon from the mid 1980s and by june tenth i will be back in the pacific northwest. quilts filling the backseat, brilliant works of writing flowing through my soul, full of ambition and ready. oh so ready. to go camping deep in the layers of the cascade mountains.