Not the First Nice Day I've Spent in Bed

It's not quite seven a.m. and i've already been up for a couple hours. Had a bad day yesterday. Drank too much the night before and spent all day with a hangover. Pretty much just slept and watched movies. I sort of knew that night that i was going to have a hangover. I knew before i even left the house. I knew because i was going out with Michelle, who is my Very Bad Influence Friend. I know Michelle from Alaska and we drink together. I mean we drink together. One of her favorite stories of going out with me was the night we drank about ten jack and cokes at Chopsticks in Portland and sang karoake songs all night. When they finally kicked us out because we kept entering songs under fake names so we could sing more, we tried to both ride my bike home, which resulted in a lot of laughing and falling over. Anyway, we decided to go out Wednesday night and as i sat out on the stoop, waiting for her to pick me up, I knew i was going to be hungover the next day. Instead of thinking, I know they way we get together, I need to be good and not take any shots, I just succumbed to the realization that we were going to get wasted and, after three Duck Farts, end up slamming PBRs in the dugout of a Little League field at three a.m. This is the kind of attitude that I need to give up. I need to tell myself that, no I can't handle shots. I can't party like a rock star. And i need to tell myself that I can go out and party without taking shots and still have fun. I need to stop succumbing to my hangovers and stop drinking in the fashion that gives me them. It's time to get in shape! Start reading again! Mark my words, I have taken my last shot. I have had my last debilitating hangover. Never again. I am grown up. I am responsible. I like my health. I like my happiness and I do not need to take shots to have fun.

My Cows

Tonight i sat out in the yard in my campchair, sewing National Park patches on the arms, an idea i picked up from my friend Kate. I saw her camp chair several weeks ago, at the Big Wu Family Reunion, a festival i may have outgrown, and it was covered with patches. I have always loved patches, especially those souvenier kind of patches that you pick up at truck stops and gift stores, but i've never really known what to sew them onto. So on our two week road trip, i did my best to pick up a patch at every stop. My first was the Badlands, where we camped in tall prarie grass and woke to a buffalo asleep not twenty feet from our tent door. We tiptoed in the other direction, to use the bathroom. The next night, i was unable to find a Black Hills patch. Unless i wanted one of Mt. Rushmore, which i didn't. I didn't even really want to take a picture of it. I just wanted to see it, from the car, and say "ahh, there it is." You have to pay to park near it, which is dumb. That night we camped on top of a hill at Deerfield Lake and a midnight thunderstorm had us down in the car in mintues, watching Anchorman on a small portable DVD player while the lightning rolled down the other slope, away from our tent. From there we endured the long drive to Yellowstone, where i got my favorite patch at the gift shop by Old Faithful. I like the patch the best, mostly because it was a gift from Steve, but also because it has buffalo and grizzly bears on it. It is my favorite patch, but it was not my favorite place. The geyers and bubble pools were cool, and an amazing sight indeed. But it was tourism hell, full of white haired ladies, needing to rest after walking fifty feet from the bus. No offense to them. I just preferred Teton National Park, Yellowstone's shy and gorgeous neighbor to the south. I got a patch there that looks like a ranger badge and i sat sewing it on my camp chair, on the banks of Pilgrim Creek while Steve fished for trout, the rushing current up to his armpits as he tried to cross the banks. The mountains there were jagged and snow streaked and reminded me so much of the Chugach Mountains, that sometimes it was hard to believe that i wasn't in Alaska. Especially the way the mountains reflected in Jenny Lake and the highway curled around it like the Turnagain Arm. We slept softly at a rustic campground and I felt surprised that it got dark at all, like we should be up above the arctic, where the sun circles the night sky. After four nights of camping and not showering, we decided to skip the long trip up to the Bitteroot Mountains, and got a hotel in Boise, where for some reason they didn't have patches. Believe me, if they had souvenier patches for the Best Western in Boise, i would so have one on the left arm of my camp chair right now. Because never before did a hotel feel so great. Well, maybe the time that Patrick and Michelle and i drove the Alcan down through the Yukon Territory and slept for four nights squished in the bed of his truck with three bikes and a full summer of fishing gear, until finally Michelle insisted we get a room in British Columbia. We showered up and went to a bar, and i began to feel sad because it was almost over. Though we still had a wedding in Victoria, a couple of ferry rides, another thousand miles and a week of playing in Oregon, it felt almost over. After that i didn't buy any more patches. I took fewer pictures. The hardest part about road trips, about vacation, is realizing that, amongst all this good time, it will someday be over. Someday it's all gonna be over.

Achy

Well, I did it. I made it back to Portland, after a very enjoyable two week road trip with Steve, who left Friday on a train back to Iowa. A train that he is still on today, Sunday. He doesn't have a cell phone so I haven't been able to talk to him in a few days and after spending every second together for twelve days, it's really weird and two days of not talking to him feels like eternity. He always hints that he wants me to talk about him on my blog. To talk about how much fun we have together, how smitten I am. I've always been a little hesitant to do it. Not because I don't love him. Not because I don't want anyone to know that I love him. But because it seems a little diary-ish. But I do love him, and I miss him. I want him to move out here. To be with me all the time. So while i do my huge job hunt, I keep him in the back of my mind and I circle all the jobs that he should apply to in a different color pen. I have felt a little unsettled since he left. Stressing out a little too much about finding a job and a place to live. Both of these pursuits are done in vain on the weekends. Especailly on Sunday. But i did find a kick-ass studio apartment near my favorite neighborhood. It is reasonably priced and has a balcony. I love it so i filled out an app, but i'm not so sure they like the idea that i'm currently unemployed. I've applied for several jobs too, mostly in the baking/restaraunt biz, which i sort of vowed not to go into. But it's the easiest way to get a job fast. I can always quit it if i ever do find a job that doesn't require weekends. I don't usually like to stress out about anything, i just have a lot on my plate i guess and steve not being here makes everything a little bit harder. Long distance relationships are rough. But it's nice to be back in Porltand. The weather is amazing. Cool, sunny and breezy. Of course, while Steve was here it was all rain and fog, but summer is coming. I've been having a little trouble sleeping and wish i would have saved up some of those Sunday naps so I could take one now. Another day, when i'm feeling more wistful, i'll write about the road trip. For now, just checking in. Just telling Steve that i love him, i miss him and i can hear his train whistle from here...

When Life Looks Like Easy Street, There is Danger at your Door

Last week, at about this time, i was feeling good. Amazingly good. Like i just realized i had the power to feel happy all the time and just then discovered how. I wasn't worried about money. I wasn't annoyed with work. And i could have been, i just decided not to be. I was on the brink of a road trip, of an exciting life change. My debt was paid off, i had a good car, a plan. And for some reason, my happiness felt independent of these things. I felt as though i could still be thousands of dollars in debt and car-less and bound in iowa and i would still be happy. This happiness was all manifested in the new life philosophy i took on which i can't describe any better than the "everything is going to be all right" philosophy. And it worked. I mean i really felt good. Yet still, i couldn't shake this feeling that something bad was going to happen. I tried to shake the feeling, telling myself it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy and that if i worry that something bad is going to happen, not only will it, but i will spend all that time leading up to the doom worrying about it, wondering what it is going to be. So i let it go, telling myself, again and again that everything is going to be all right. And even if it's not going to be all right, it's alright now, so stop worrying about problems that don't even exist.
Then they started to exist. My car was having a slight problem with its get up and go. Something i didn't think twice about, but that my dad convinced me to have looked at before i get on the road and break down in the middle of South Dakota. So i do, figuring it just needs like a transmission flush or something. But it's a problem, a big one. An expensive one. The kind where my mechanic looked at me with sympathy when he told me then stood there with a frown as if he wanted to give me a hug, do something to make it all better. This isn't a big deal, right? It's just a car. Everything is going to be fine. But they couldn't even fix it. I had to take it to a dealer, something about the All Wheel Drive. Something that is going to take days. Parts need to be ordered. It'll cost over a grand. It'll be over half the amount of money i have saved for the trip and it will take days out of the trip. Maybe one, maybe four. So we have to cut out some of the national parks i wanted to camp in along the way so we can be in BC by the wedding. The Grand Tetons, the Bitteroot Mountains maybe, I've never been to either one. And as for the money it'll cost. I just don't have it. I mean i have it, but not to spare, not if i expect to really move across the country within the week. So that means i have to put it on a credit card. You know, the one i just spent the last nine months paying off? Yeah, that one.
So i'm back in credit debt and i'm unemployed as of today. I'm bummed about the days I'll be sitting here waiting when i could be out in the forests of the mountain west. Whereas last week i felt on top of things. More on top of my financial situation than i ever have before, like to the point where i thought maybe i could really stop worrying about money. Now i just remember what it felt like to be constantly poor. The not sleeping because i'm up thinking about money, about debt, about a future continuously in poverty. And i try to get the other feeling back. The happy feeling i had last week. The one that i thought was entirely wihin myself and not at all tied to the situations around me. And i can't get it. I can't find it. I think to myself, Damn, i can't get the breaks. I'm just not one of those lucky people.