The Bits I Miss

Since I've been in Boulder I haven't really missed Portland that much. I miss my friends, and a few places, some restaurants and whatnot, but I not the city so much. But last night I had this very vivid dream: 

I was driving to Portland. I didn't have very much time, I was on my way somewhere. I hadn't made contact with anyone, no one knew I was in town and I didn't have time to see anyone. As I drove through town I got a surge of excitement. I was back in Portland! It was beautiful, the sun was shining, the buildings were huge (I was downtown), and I was driving to my beloved Powell's. I got to drive by it, but then the dream changed and got weird the way dreams do. I never made it inside, and the dream ended not long afterwards. But the feeling of excitement of being back in Portland has stuck with me, and now I miss it. 

I knew the feeling would catch up with me eventually. If I had been paying attention I would have seen the signs. Just last week I was bemoaning the lack of good restaurants in Boulder, and thinking about all the amazing places Portland has. I've been craving Podnah's Pit for a solid month now. And I miss McMenamins theaters. And the Horse Brass Pub. And Crema Coffee Shop. And Saint Cupcake (I dream about their red velvet with cream cheese frosting).


Of course moving is never easy, and I don't regret my decision. I'm just having a bout of homesickness. 

So in memory, here are some photos of my favorite things: 

Drinking a beer in the Pearl on a clear, sunny day.                       

The Hawthorne bridge.                                           

Free drinks and friends (courtesy of Wweek)      

Willamette Week (tho I don't miss working on Sunday)

 MusifestNW (this was The National in Pioneer Square, amazing show)

A very different winter, where things got greener as the months wore on.

Sunday softball. I didn't play, but I drank beer and cheered, which was just as good.

Best of Portland, where I got way too drunk off of free drinks with my coworkers. (I did the sign, too)

Liz! (and Saint Cupcakes)

So anyways. I had some good times in Portland. But I'm sure I'll have good times here, too. Now it's just a matter of making those memories. 

Reawaken Our Freedom to Change

I know we're all inundated with politics right now, so I apologize for adding to it, but it just must be discussed. 

So. Many things about the way politics are set up have not been working for awhile now. I'll start with the most surface-level problem: the completely crap choices we have. 

So I voted for Obama the first time, and I believed in him 100%. And I voted for Obama again this year, but my reasons were skewed. I voted for him because the idea of a brainwashed, wealthy, white man running my country is too terrifying to face. What happened to actually having options? I don't want a president that is just better than the other guy. I want to be able actually weigh my options, regardless of Democrat or Republican. Bringing someone like Mitt Romney into the ring skews the entire structure of democracy. Mitt is a fringe candidate. His views are radical. He does not reflect a large section of the population's interests. He reflects a small, fanatical group. And he should not be running for president. 

Now. In light of this, I was considering the problem. The problem, as I see it, is that our democratic structure, all the way to the foundation, is decaying. It is no longer working. It hasn't been for years. Bush took office and won twice, with serious concerns about how he won. THAT should have been our wake-up call. I don't care if you vote democrat or republican, you should care that the process is flawed. That these elections are NOT WORKING. 

We need a restructuring of the political process, we need to re-evaluate how we run our country, we need to separate church and state, and more importantly we need to separate corporate spending and politics. These are not fanatic, fringe ideas (I have a fair amount of those as well) these are just the basics of running a clean, fair country. 

I don't have the answers, I don't know how to rebuild, but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it needs to be done. We need to restructure our country. We need to get back to basics and put our citizens first. These are not wants, they are needs. We can't keep fighting to keep basic structures in place (who threatens to cut funding for disaster relief?!) we can't keep fighting to keep the freedom to choose what to do with our bodies (land of the free besides reproductive rights) we can't keep battling corporations and insurance companies (how can one person take on a multi-million dollar corporation and hope to win?). So we need a change. And it needs to be bigger than one president, because one man cannot fight an entire governmental structure. That is OUR job. 

Fashion Bug

I adore fashion, but as with all things in my life, I'm very particular. Mainstream fashion has never really done it for me; most things that go down the catwalk turn me off. I don't even really get into the indie fashion scene. So when I find a fashionista I like I get pretty excited. 

My latest clothing crush is WearingItOnMySleeves. I found it through Pinterest, and was pretty deeply engrossed before I made the discovery that the blogger, Sarah, is Mormon. Now I've always been a bit wary of very religious people, but this discovery peaked my interest. I started noticing that her style is very modest –never a lot of skin showing– and I realized that was something that I really liked about her outfits. This was a surprising discovery for me, since I've never thought of myself as modest or old fashioned in any way, but when I thought about it I realized that I really am quite modest when it comes to showing skin. I get uncomfortable when girls wear low-riding pants and tank tops, or when guys strip off their shirts in the summer. When my sister used to run around in her underwear I always had to fight the urge to turn into an old lady and tell her to put some clothes on. 

With this new discovery I've started to question other areas of my life. Where else am I modest where I thought I was so modern? What other latent, conservative emotions have I been suppressing? So far nothing else have surfaced, but I now know to keep an eye out for them. And it's always good to re-evaluate ourselves now and again. 

I know I will never agree with her ideologies, but to find someone who so artfully puts together outfits that I absolutely adore had been very satisfying. And illuminating.

"Are You Living Your Dream?"

I just saw a photo of this tagged on a wall with a tired-looking older man walking in front of it with sloped shoulders. Instead of feeling bad for him, I suddenly thought: who the f*@k are you to judge a persons life from one snapshot of a downtrodden pose? It angered me. What a presumption! To assume that someone is pathetic because they're old and tired is such an egotistical thing to do.

This, of course, was my reaction and my own assumptions and all of that. But still, it's a trend seen often among art and film. So it got me thinking about my dreams and ideals.

I realize that as a young(ish) American, I have an ideal of My Dream. It's not exactly The American Dream, but it's in the same ballpark. Now as I look closer at this Dream, I realize something odd. It's not just that I want and yearn for it, although I do most of the time, but I also feel responsible for wanting it. I feel like a failure for not having it, but worse than that I feel almost blasphemous when I consider whether or not it's something I even care about. In the right light this lovely Dream of mine starts to look like a standard that I've set for myself. A bar that if I fall short of, I consider failure.

Now, I feel I should backtrack a bit here, because last I posted I was feeling like I had lost that dreaming part of myself and was mourning that loss. Well, I found it. With the help of a good friend, and for a few days it was lovely! Pure bliss as I constructed dream houses in my head and googled business plans and real estate. But now I'm questioning those dreams. Where is the true desire coming form? To prove myself to the world? To myself? How do I know that is really what I want to do? How do I know if any of my dreams are really what I want?

And why do we look at someone's life and judge it based on whether or not they've fulfilled their dreams? What a terrible burden to put on someone: Fulfill Your Dreams.

Now this is not to say that I'm against dreams now. I love dreams, I think they're wonderful. And I think it's possible to fulfill your dreams. I just want to lose this feeling that I have to fulfill my dreams. That I have to make something of myself, show the world what I'm capable of. What's wrong with just living a quiet, comfortable life? No fanfare. No spotlight. No giant accomplishments.

So this is my next quest: I want to find the heart of my dreams. What I really want in life, not for the admiration of others or what I feel compelled to do, but what I want to do. Really. What I want to experience, see, accomplish. It will take a balance of my right and left brain, which will be interesting for me. I usually give over completely to one or the other, but now I must use both to construct my new dreams.

So wish me luck! I have no idea where to start.

I guess this is growing up...

I just watched "With Honors" (Brendan Fraser, I had a huge crush on him back in the day). It's about college students and a house where they all live. Lots of other things, but that's what struck me. Their age, the way they act and interact at that time. 

It was something that I first watched when I was about 15. I really liked it, and watched it quite a few times. I remember it being something that I looked forward to, before my life began, before things really started. They were so cool. And grownup. I was in awe of their world, their life. 

Watching it now has been emotional. I'm now past those times. It's this strange mix of remembering how it felt at 15 looking forward to my life, and remembering my twenties. I had big houses that I stayed in, roommates and friends. We'd run around, goofy and unsure. I had so much fun, and when viewed in snippets, it would make quite the movie.  

But I never dreamed of life in my thirties. Never got that far, past the wild college years. And now that I am  I guess I'm feeling strange. My exciting years have past, and I don't really know what to do with myself. I have goals: I want to get healthy, lose weight, make money. But they're not the same as dreams. I had dreams growing up. So many, so fun. Now I don't know. I'm not sure if I want kids. I may want a house, but where? I do want a husband, but later, I guess. 

It's like, I've gotten here. I've grown up. And what now? It's not the end, but it's not the beginning, either. It's not that I'm unhappy with my life. I have stresses and very unpleasant things that keep me awake at night, but it's more than that. I don't dream, I don't have crushes, I don't imagine how amazing my life could get. And I know that's normal and that's what happens when you grow up, but I feel like I'm mourning my wide-eyed, daydreaming self.