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.