All in a Matter of Hours

Saturday proved to be a full day that happened all around town. Which I love and haven't had in a while. It began with a trip to the Coffee House, right around the corner, which I hate going to on the weekend cause our weekday people aren't there and the service kind of sucks cause it's super busy but they have two of their least experienced people working. I'll never understand this phenomenon. I mean, obviously in basic principle I understand it, the best people pick the best schedules. I mean I'll never understand how an owner or operator can let this happen time and time again.

Then we landed over at our old apartment complex to move the last of our people outta there. Erik and Sara, the remaining Mr and Mrs Johnston. They moved out of Rivertown and into the loft at the Guet, as they have taken on the house manager positions along with another couple. It's a great space with some really good light, it just needs a few personal touches, which I am positive Sara will perform brilliantly. The amount of people that came out to help is proof already what a great fit they are for the job.

Science played a show at a new venue called "The Treehouse Venue". My favorite highlight from the night was when my husband typed a girl's number into his phone with his left hand in view so she would finally notice his wedding ring and leave him alone, it was so precious when he told me about it.

Then there's the venue. The venue was...interesting. The guy in charge, when asked if there were any rules, replied, "well a church is letting us use the space, so no F bombs"

But here's the funny part-ish, it wasn't just in a church, it was a church. Before the show a few things happened that force me to believe the latter. The guy in charged told the second in command to call more "youth leaders" because he thought the current turnout already warranted them to "need more adults". As far as I could tell, most of the people in the venue at the time were adults, but whatever, call in the Youth Leaders!

Then as Andy headed out from back stage, he accidentally walked in on a prayer circle. If this weren't evidence enough, perhaps the stacks of Relevant magazines or the Truth t-shirts tipped the scale for me. Or maybe it was the feeling I had being in the place. It was a church, a church with big money, as was proof by the decor, 3 flat screens hovering the stage, sound system, and leather couches.

Now don't read into this and think I hate churches (okay, I dislike churches for many of the reasons why this place rubbed me wrong). The thing I had such an issue with was the secrecy of it all. Why did they hide the fact that they were a Christian venue? Friends of ours looked up the venue online and said nothing gave the impression that they were anything other than a new club that was way out of the way. Why not state it to the band before the show when they clearly had been set up with an out? I don't understand the motivation. Or the point of it. It confuses me still.

I didn't stick around for the rest of the show. I knew one of the bands performing was a Christian band and I didn't think I was ready for what possibly could have happened during the performance. read: alter call

So I left and went over to a friends house for a belated dinner and a few choice laughs.

Even still, I'm puzzled.

Oh I almost forgot, at the friend's house a couple of guys were discussing potential band names, so I posted a tweet inquiring on some suggestions. Here's the responses:

The Windy Bloomers, Naked Plow, Audio Salve, Frisk the Spaniard, Radiohair, The Beepos,
chopstick lobotomy, Funk schwei, Helldorado, The Band.

All good for a laugh. Thanks peeps.

It's Friday, right?

It's been a long week, but I feel like I only half accomplished a bunch of things. Plus, I don't have my laptop right now so I'm writing this from my phone. Which is weird.

I guess I just wanted to try it out, and now that I downloaded a trial app and I'm using it, I can't remember what I wanted to post an hour ago.

What are everyones weekend plans?
We are planning a date night tonight, which will include sushi- locals I need suggestions, I don't think we've eaten local sushi that wasn't from PC yet.
Tomorrow we're helping friends move and then Science might have a show (?)
The Sunday I'm excited to go to church for Jac's continuation on Romans, it's getting really good and by good I mean controvercial and even better, it's making me think and evaluate what I think I believe. I can't wait.

A no good, horrible, very bad...

I'm in a bad mood. I can't put my finger exactly on why or what, but needless to say it has nothing to do with my husband, or the state of my life, it's just...something has put me in a....wait, I think I know. It's time.
Time has put me in a bad mood. I feel like it is always scheduled, I am always busy, there just isn't time in the day to get everything done. Not at work, not at home, not in the taking care of myself department. There's never time.

I don't need a problem solved, or really even advice, sometimes it's just nice to admit it so you can move on. I think that's what I'm doing.

I even think I feel a little bit better now, thanks.

She's down, no she's up. No, no, wait, she's down.

If you've been following my twitter you'll know everything that's been going on with me lately and I don't think I'll have to give a play by play of my life. That's the great thing about tweets. It's a short, sweet way of talking about the day to day, without having to get out the laptop, listen to the fan kick on, and type word after word of the story.

What the blog is good for is the awesome details of stories that just have to be told and don't fit into 140 characters. Like this one.

We went on a walk. It was friday and it was gorgeous out and he suggested a walk. What he should have said was a hike. I didn't wear shoes for a hike, Nike running shoes, I wore shoes for a walk, converse. Converse and sweaty feet and hills and me apparently do not go hand in hand. I braved it out, got home a couple of hours later and applied two band aids, one to each little toe.

Flash forward.

It's saturday night. We have checked into our hotel, a lovely Hilton on SW 6th in Ptown, and we're headed out for sushi and sake before the concert. Obviously, I get out the iphone and find the perfect sushi location just 2 blocks from the lobby, then I figure out how to take public transportation from there over to the Roseland theater. I proceed to slip on my black wedges and head out the door.

Then the following events lead to two scraped knees, a concrete burned left forearm and elbow, and a sore ankle and neck.

1. The restaurant was closed. Not closed as in for the evening either, closed until further notice. Apparently the owners were not that happy with the state of the downtown area and the never ending construction and couldn't stay open while the city "figured it out". Sad, mostly cause I'd always meant to go, but hadn't been able to yet.

2. 5 1/2 blocks later we landed at another sushi joint. I was thoroughly happy.

3. Sake...x2 (no I wasn't drunk, I'm just saying it could have been a factor)

4. Four city blocks later we landed at a crosswalk. It was Burnside. (Yes, it happened on Burnside.) When we reached the curb the countdown had already begun, but we had just barley escaped one crazy lady who was kicking at cars and a few others were perched on the corner, eager for us to have to wait for the light, so we bolted.

We bolted across the street, and my wedges mixed with steps 1-4 and a big pothole in the middle of the sidewalk landed me in a very unattractive sudo-somersault in the middle of the street.

I fell-ish and almost recovered like five or six times before I landed. Luckily my dress, jacket, or face weren't cut open and I could walk away from the scene never to see the people that witnessed it ever again...that is except for my husband, my caring, helpful, loving husband who did nothing but pick me up and hold my arm as I limped to the other side of the street.

One last thing, there were no tears. I'm brave like that. Just ask my husband, the first thing I did was check to make sure I didn't ruin anything I was wearing, as long as I wasn't bleeding through, I figured I was good. And no, I will not wear more sensible shoes, it had nothing to do with the shoes I was wearing, and they are adorable.
Plus I couldn't wear running shoes, I just couldn't

The opposite of hard times

We just started our tenth year of marriage. So we haven't been married ten years, we've been married nine and the tenth has just begun. I'm not stating that for your purpose, I'm stating it for mine, to make sure I've got it right, and to help the feeling settle in. By this time next year we'll have been married ten years. I'll have known Andy more than half my life.

We've done a lot together.

grown up
experienced loss
broken up
got married
moved out of state
lived next to our best friends for over 5 years
watched our best friends get divorced
traveled to California every way possible, besides covered wagon
bought a house

So you get it. The list goes on and on. One major thing we haven't done together is raise a child. I don't know if it will happen. I don't know what God has in store for our future. I feel like I've finally become at peace with either/or. I used to almost dread the thought of being pregnant, I didn't think we were ready, I knew I wasn't ready. Then for a season I wanted it more than anything, but the time wasn't right. Then when I thought the time was right, it didn't happen for months and months and I was upset, frustrated, worried.

But I think it's better this way. I'm not afraid, I'm not worried, I'm not obsessed with the idea, or consumed with the thoughts. I'm good. I'm good with us, with where are life is and who we are as a couple. If we become parents I'll be happy, if we don't I'll be happy. I think it's a good place to be. Just be.


On our way to the TV on the Radio show
Honeymoon weekend 2009

Not a confession

I think I follow blogs for two reasons. The first is for a kind of entertainment. I love to read and blogs are an instant way to read something new, I only wish sometimes that they were printed in big books with soft covers so I could sit outside and lay in the lawn and read them by turning the page. The other reason I follow blogs is less for reading and more looking, as in photographs. I am inspired and amazed at the many gifted photographers whose blogs I follow. One thing missing from blogs is the rest of the artists, the painters, the musicians, the craftsman of all sorts. For these I love to pursue etsy, hang out in thrift stores, and second hand shops, but they're always closed on Sundays and that's the only time I have to go to them.

So most of the time I find myself creating something rather than admiring someone else's creation. But I have become lax at showing these things because I have become lax at taking the photographs. This is in no way a confession, or a promise to change my ways. It's just a fact I'm sharing.

I write a blog for many reasons, reasons I haven't tapped into for a while and I think that's alright. Life is less about talking about it and more about doing it, so I guess that's what I've been doing.

Take a moment to peruse the posts from today. I have a feeling I'll be writing a bunch and spreading them out over the week. I feel like I have much to say.

And because all posts are better with pictures, here's one of us from the Tom Waits Tribute night, just before Andy took the stage.

A stolen post and a standing ovation.

I fancy myself a writer, but no one would ever consider giving me a job as one cause my schooling wouldn't allow for it, and my grammer must be atrocious. But I love it. And sometimes when I read something someone else wrote that I love I want to talk about it. Typically it is a book, or sometimes an article, but this time it is a blog. Reading it made me want to gather together my writer friends and publish a compilation of all our stories. Eventually we would publish one every year, and the stories would get better and better and it wouldn't be for fame or money, but to share the talent I am surrounded by.

So today I read a post by a friend and I want to share it. It isn't long. It won't take you forever. It's an amazing display of storytelling and in the end it's for a good cause. You can find the author's blog here.

His story in its entirety:

The People I See Around
I'm an impulse person and an impulse buyer. No, I've begun poorly. I can't start with me; this story is not about me.

Chad greeted me when the doors slid open, but I couldn't understood what he said, so I asked him to repeat himself. Well, what I really said was "Whuh?" The graveyard shift must be an endless mind-melt of half-formed conversations. I know I'd tire of it. I'm sure he already has. It's 12:07 in the morning, do you know where your diction is?

His name was Chad, but I only sidelong-learned it at 12:23 after our conversation at the checkout stand went off-script. Protected both by an ego-barrier of self-satisfaction at a celebratory day and an eagerness to be a clever little "personality," a bright spot in a dull night, I asked him if he judged the people who wouldn't cough up a buck for the Breast Cancer Society. I'd already refused, swiped and punched in my secret code. My vitamins, band-aids and greedily grabbed gum are bagged and waiting.

He replied that he didn't judge, but was disappointed. His mom was re-diagnosed two weeks ago.

Man, I feel like a jerk.

It's a deadly flaw in his family genetics, he tells me, but he doesn't say it like that. The word "pancreatic" was never on any vocabulary list at his school, so he curls his fingers as if around a giant tube of disease and draws in across his abdomen. "She had it here, but now it's up here" and his hand at his chest, over his heart. A false salute to an iffy future.

Man, I feel like a jerk.


The annual Race for the Cure is tomorrow - no, today. I know this because a friend was both earnestly and ironically wearing a pink bandana around all day. So I ask him if he's going, telling him I'll be downtown for it. That's a lie. I had no intention of going before I spoke those words, and probably can't fit it in to my hectic, fantastic "I love what I do" schedule. He, at least, is honest. He'll be sleeping because another all night shift begins at 8.

I should have left already, been out the doors and back home to spend another hour clicking through my Tivo playlist while pretending to write. But I'm in deep now as he pulls back his sleeve, revealing in the florescent overhead light a yellowed bump with a rosacead center. It's big, not enormous, but of a size that you know should have been checked out. A soddened tea bag squeezed of its last herb-juice.

"We all get them," he says. "And around thirty they turn to cancer. But I'd rather not know." If you have tough life, it's gonna show, so I'm struggling to pin down his age. His teeth, his face, the slump in his shoulders all say that he's hit that mark, or will soon. So again-

Man, I feel like a jerk.

I want to feel like a samaritan.

"Chad," I begin. I know his name now and I've committed to eye-contact. "You need to have that looked at. It's always better to have the facts so you can make a decision." Keystroke italicized - always.facts.decision. It's my presentational voice, my jedi-mind-tricks inflection. I don't think it's going to work, and I need it to work. Chad needs it to work. But this isn't a galaxy far, far away, so of course it doesn't, and he's already exited the conversation.

"When they find the cure..." he says, handing me my purchases and back in the proper posturing of employee-to-patron relations. "The cure for cancer, I'll get it checked."

That's a lie. We're both liars and one of us might die from it. And it's 2:33 now and I haven't showered and I didn't go back, dig down and give him the dollar or point him toward a free clinic. I left. I'm home. He's still working. And I'm reduced to melodramatic melancholy.

Tomorrow's another big day in my busy, busy, busy life. I'm doing things I believe are important, but now seem much less urgent than they did at two and a half hours ago.

NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN DELETED. THIS IS INCOMPLETE, BUT TO WRITE MORE SIMPLY FEEDS MY VANITY.

Here's the important part - If you were intrigued or bothered or whatever, click here to donate online to the American Cancer Society in whatever capacity you wish. I gave a few bucks, which I should have done earlier. I hope you can too.