blue is the new orange

Interior design has always been one of the handful of career options that I considered when I was younger. However, English appealed to me more and I thought that everyone would naturally chose interior design if they could because it seems so damn fun so I went a different route. Still, I have always thought that I would do a helluva job decorating my space when I had the freedom to do what I wanted. Years ago, I would have painted my bedroom either an amber orange or an olive green.  However, now I think I'm feeling more blue.

The room that I've moving into at Sophia's house was painted orange. It wasn't amber but more of an electric orange peel.  It kind of made me anxious when I was in the room so I decided to go with the opposite and do a nice cool color. Caribbean blue is a little lighter than I thought it would be but I'm pretty sure that I'll be happy with it. I headed to the house after work today to paint it. I'm so excited about getting it on the wall and, once I started, I couldn't stop smiling because I was so damn happy with the color. Color makes up the negative space and now I kind of forced to decorate around the color. Still, that will give me focus and put a little more thought and design into my decor.

choose your own adventure 101

Spring quarter started today. I got my paper back from last quarter that I didn't think I did that well on and it turns out I underestimated myself again. The teacher said that I have real talent. It's so nice to get positive reinforcement.

On the other hand, I feel that I've done well enough with this class over the past two quarters that I now have it in the bag. It doesn't help that the teacher has also given us free reign to choose our own assignments this quarter. She had an outline done for two assignments but one of the assignments is the exact same thing that I did last year.  Also, she came into class skeptical about the other assignment so she just told us to email her suggestions.  Really, I could probably just do the assignments as assigned but I'll have to give it some thought.

What else?
In class, we had to analyze a relationship (romantic partner, friend, co-worker, family, etc) that ended well. It made me realize that I don't do goodbyes well. It was a new process for me. I also got to look at a relationship that ended not so well. Both were with guys named Bryan. Neither were romantic. I think the problem is that I just don't end relationships unless they end up bad. Otherwise, I still consider the relationships active.

my man cave

I really hate the term "Man Cave" to describe a den.  I hate gendered terms anyway but Man Cave seems so yuck.  I found it funny that Home Depot yesterday had a selection of colors for Man Caves.  However the selection was only 10 colors deep.  You can't give a straight man a choice between mahogany or sinopia.

The man cave paint selection inspired Sophia to begin calling my future office my man cave.  To me, that still sounds like a gay bar so I guess I can roll with it in that context, as long as I get to put up hot pink curtains.  Plus it's better than calling it the 'weird room' which is what she used to call it.

We painted the cave today.  It looks so good with paint on the walls.  White is such a forgettable color that even a light shade of brown can make a room seem so much more palatable.  I'm so excited to decorate it!

What else?
I'm also excited to just be in the hood.  I went to Red Square for the first time today for coffee.  It's a delightful little shop that I'm glad within walking distance.  I also headed over to Namu, a korean bbq food cart only a few blocks away from the house for a vegan bowl.  I was delighted that I could just walk up, grab a bowl and walk it back to the house for lunch!

the color process

I have trouble deciding what colors to wear each and every day so it makes sense that picking out what colors to paint the walls in the house today was an exhausting process for me.

Sophia and I headed to Home Depot to pick out five room colors and the color for the trim.  We even had a general idea, light green for the living room, yellow for the kitchen and bathroom, etc.  However, there are a whole lot of shades of yellow.  And then there's also different brands of paint (each of which have different yellow shades).  But there's also levels of glossiness to choose as well.  Oi.  It was fun but kind of tiring.  Thank goddess we had a very helpful clerk who wasn't above telling us how to get around the return policy should we change our minds.  We got it done though.  It was such an extensive project that I'm really glad we decided to do it the day before we painted because I am wiped out!

What else?
In the process of picking up painting paraphernalia, we popped over to Jennifers and then Ya Hala since we were in the neighborhood and Ya Hala always sounds good.  Ya Hala's also the place where I fondly remember eating with Michael B and Jemma when I was helping them fix up their new house.  Since then, I've associated it strongly with home repair.  Also, while we were waiting for our table, we visited the International Market.  I was hoping to see more food I remembered from Europe (Tartak) but ended up only finding a chocolate/marizipan bar that we ate constantly because it's vegan.  The candy bar is probably available all over town but it's special to me that I bought it at the International Market.

"break"

When we go on breaks from school, people talk about the vacations they're going to have or the trips they're going on.  Me, I just get to work more.  However, the flipside of that is I won't have loans when I get done with grad school.

This has been the first solid work week I have had in a long time.  I had winter break but between all of the holiday shenanigans, I didn't work a full week.  My desk is more clean now than it has been for a long long time but it wasn't an easy week (see yesterday's post) so Ashes and two other co-workers and I hit the Green Dragon for a celebration drink today.  I had a new stout there and I got to have a fun, great conversation not about work stuff with two people I almost never see out of work.  I hope to do this more often after I finish this internship.  10 more weeks to go...

What else?
I biked to work in 11 minutes today.  It's a record!  Since Sunday was the 1st day of spring, I've made a spring resolution to bike everyday! 

being a people person

I often talk about how easy my job is.  Today will not be one of those days.  While it wasn't easy, I do think I made it look that way.

I had two separate clients have two unrelated melt-downs today. I've dealt with the male client today with this same issue. His current staff members haven't experienced it before. Basically, he's developing behavior problems and we don't know where his outbursts are coming from. He's cited dreams, family, stress, work and various other issues being responsible for him just freaking out during the day and screaming. It breaks my heart but it doesn't surprise me anymore. I was able to approach him calmly and directly and at least get him to a manageable state.

The other client who had a hard day today was devastated because her "boyfriend" (a former supervisor that she has a crush on) hasn't been in to the store and she's convinced that some other staff member has his phone number.  I had to have a frank talk with her to let her know that, no, we don't have the number and really, he was just a friend, not her boyfriend.  It took a long time but it seemed to finally become a truth for her.  Then I had to deal with the fact that she felt worthless because she didn't have a boyfriend.  Here's where I took a page from the book of Sophia and told her that she can be a strong independent woman and she doesn't need a boyfriend to give her life meaning.  I stressed the other relationships (primarily friendships) in her life and told her that they were significant and meant that she was loved.  I also simplified things and said, "I don't have a girlfriend and I'm happy."  I think it worked because she began smiling afterwards and was able to go back to work.

I got a lot of kudos for the work I did today and it felt like it was especially important work.  I get so caught up in just going through the motions of my job and shuffling paperwork around that I rarely get the opportunity to have meaningful interactions with my clients.

What else?
Sophia and I checked out Circa 33 today (pictured above).  It was awesome.  It used to be half It's a Beautiful Pizza.  The other half is taken up by Hall of Records.   They fixed the acoustics problem that IBP had and I believe they also lowered their price, making it downright affordable.  I had two Yorkshire Toddy's which were made with Earl Grey Tea and maple syrup instead of honey.  I also had one of the most fabulous veggie "burgers" in Portland, the lentil and mushroom burger.  I will most definitely be going back, especially since it will be in my new hood!

let them eat tiramisu

Things are looking different these days.  I'm going to be moving to Muffin HQ, my housemates are looking for a new house and Victory got a regular job.  The significance of these changes is substantial enough to renew my faith in new beginnings.  I'm excited for all of these potential changes on the horizon.  My new thing today consists of eating tiramisu.  It was absolutely outstanding but it pales in comparison to the pending new things.  I do highly recommend it though (it was from Portobello and today was my second visit there).

house hunt

Today I headed out with Ashes and Victory to look at a house.  Since it's spring break, my new things have become harder to come by.  This was my grasping at straws.  They have looked at many houses by now but they all seem to be out there a ways near Montevilla.  Still, that will seem less far away when I've living off Belmont with Sophia.

our trials as muffins

Knowing that I can turn into a pissy pumpkin when the clock strikes late at any given party, I arranged to sleep elsewhere last night so I could escape our house party.  A while ago, I told Tim, Sophia's former roommate, that I would purchase his bed which was pretty new.  Since the bed was already in place and Dean was staying at Sophia's, I headed there when I finished my DJ set.  This morning was my first morning waking up at her house, which is also referred to as Muffin HQ.

It's a different setting.  I can't say that it's better than my room right now but I can't say that it's worse either.  It's just different.  Dean liked the bed better because he could crawl into this one (and occupy over half of it).  I didn't have many of my belongings here last night either so I had to improvise to get to sleep.  I usually sleep with a fan on just for the white noise.  Since I didn't have my fan, I downloaded a white noise application which had a fan noise option and that worked just fine.  I may just use that from now on but I'm not sure of the radioactive aspects of leaving a phone so close to me while I sleep.

The neighborhood was quiet and Dean and I had a nice walk in the morning.  I could see this being comfortable, especially when I get more stuff into the place.  Space will be an issue so I think I will have to get rid of a lot of things.  That will be an adjustment for me but it will be a positive one.  I'm not a pack rat so this will be delightfully cleansing.  I don't know how or why I've accumulated so much crap.

Before we move in though, we will be painting.  I don't think I can hang with walls that orange.

j256: the great depression

The J party is an annual event that can exceed epic proportions.  I haven't always had a great time at the J parties but I always look forward to them.  Some of them have been absolute joy and others have been less so.  Still, all of them have been memorable.  This year's party was scaled down quite a bit due to budgetary constraints.  People is broke!

We called it the great depression (or recession) party.  We still had the hot tubs and the dinner but the party took place at my house instead of a larger venue.  Therefore, a lot less people were invited and even less people showed up.  As a general rule, our house parties have about the same attendance.  Still, smaller is not lesser and I was grateful to see all of the people that showed up.

Joe Ball, the other J party DJ, couldn't make it this year because the party was on a Saturday for the first year instead of a Friday.  That meant the heft of the DJ'ing fell onto my shoulders.  It was a four hour and thirty minute set.  I have enough tunes to make it through that but, man, who would have thought pushing buttons on a computer could be so exhausting.  Afterwards, I was a bit frazzled and just needed to leave.  Fortunately, I had made other sleeping arrangements so I could leave the party in good spirits instead of being forced to listen to the party from my room until 6am which has made many other parties leave a bad taste in my memory.  However, for me, this party will be remembered for it's unconventional J party nature but not really in a negative way.

What else?
I had to take a cab back with some friends from the hot tubs due to seating constraints and not so great planning.  I haven't been in a cab for about eight years and that was just when a friend's friend's date was paying for it.  M2 had this awesome cab application, Taxi Magic, for his phone which not only allowed him to "call" a cab but also to pay for the fare without any necessary human interaction.  Crazy.

my 70 year old baby

Dean turned 10 years old today, making him 70 in dog years.  Wow, that's hard to conceptualize.  He's wise as an old dog but still plays like a puppy.  We went to the park today to celebrate and met a lot of new dogs and Dean air-humped every last one of them.  That's my boy...

hot dog therapy

A few months ago, I thought I needed therapy.  Actually, I've thought I needed it for a while.  Today, I got it for the price of two veggie dogs and a mimosa.  It was a pretty good deal.  Sophia provided me some good counseling today over my first new york dog.  I appreciated but envied her insight.  I think she's in the wrong profession.

pow fest

The person on the right in the picture above is my third degree to Kevin Bacon.  She's the sister of my housemate and an actress/director (who's been in movie with Kevin Bacon, shortening my degrees of separation from him significantly).  Tonight, she made her Portland directorial debut as Portland Oregon Women's film fest hosted some film shorts made by women from Portland.  Bonnie's piece was called Sissy and was one of the most intense pieces of the evening.  I also loved Trolls, an adorable little piece about two kids trying to figure out what sex is.

I hate art school film showings but this was professional work and was a pleasure to watch.  There was only one piece that left me looking at my watch and I can't even recall it right now because the others were so good.  I think I may make it a point to check out more professional film shorts.

holy homework batman

The end of this quarter kind of snuck up on me.  I was glad to see it go but I had to send it off with a paper that I had procrastinated around so today was all about the studying...and comics.

Guapo Comics and Coffee is a nice coffee shop on Foster just south of Holgate.  I've driven by it many times but never stopped in so I decided it would be where I settled in for the day to hash out my paper.  It was nice atmosphere and the employees seemed really nice.  I ordered breakfast and lunch there since I was there so long.  For lunch, I had their Pita Pizza.  The employee asked me what I wanted on it and offered to surprise me.  I told her she could surprise me as long as she didn't put meat on it.  She seemed stoked to have the creative outlet there and I'm sure I got a better lunch for it.

I was less pleased with my paper than with the place but I truly hate theory.  I chose to write on a theory that's more of a practice and less of a theory so I know my teacher will have problems with it.  However, I provided a proper critique of it but demonstrated how it could be applicable.  I don't know.  It's done and I'm on spring break!  Woo-hoo!

vegan pizza month

This whole immersion plan thing that Sophia and I came up with is taking it's toll on me. Salad was a nice change but, while I love Reubens, I ate a lot of them and I can feel the toll it has had on my body.  Fortunately, I like pizza and usually prefer vegan pizza so this month is working for my appetite if not my body.

On Monday, I hit pizza for lunch and dinner.  Hot Lips for lunch was the better than Rudy's for dinner.  Today, I hit Give Pizza a Chance for lunch and Sizzle Pie for dinner.  This is my 2nd time at Give Pizza a Chance and the first time I've eaten there.  Their deep dish Garden Vegan was amazing.  It was also an added bonus that Sophia just happened to be going there at the same time so we got to do lunch together.  Sizzle Pie had a lot of options but they were all mediocre.  One nice thing about the place was the server just dropped off an extra two slices at our table with my two ordered slices. One had meat on it but the other was vegetarian.  I put the meat slice at the counter by the window.  Later on, I saw a couple sit there and hand the meat slice back to the waiter.  The waiter then took it and offered it to someone at the end of the counter who was stoked to get it.

I'll probably try Sizzle Pie again because I need to get their signature fried egg on a pizza slice still. They also have a vegan breakfast slice called Drugs Benedict.  Oof, I'm full just thinking about it.

What else?
I met an awesome new on-call staff member today at my internship.  Actually, I was working with two relatively new on-call staff members in the afternoon and it dawned on me that I was the person with the most clout and seniority there at the moment.  That's an odd position for an intern to be in.

We also watched the Tsunami footage from Japan today at my internship.  I can't imagine what that would be like.  In the footage, they showed houses on fire caught up in the flow, moving along the countryside.  Shit, many people there survived the earthquake just to face a tsunami, flooding, fires and a potential nuclear crisis.  Ashes made a good point tonight though.  An 8.9 earthquake is damn powerful and it hit a heavily populated area.  Yet, the death toll was minimal which is due to their earthquake-sound structures.  Thank goodness for good engineers.

celebrating youth

Iain (or Mr Whiskers) celebrated his first birthday. I haven't seen the lil guy yet and I hadn't seen Josie since her baby shower so we took a quick day trip up to Seattle today.  Also, I took the trip because I was starting to feel old yesterday and I wanted to do something more free.

Yesterday, my younger brother Eric turned 30.  Two days before that, my friend Dominic turned 40.  Next month, my mom will be 60.  Sorry to broadcast everyone's age but, damn, where has the time gone?  I remember when my uncle Randy (my dad's youngest brother) turned 30.  It seems like a while ago but it's something I can easily recall.  I remember when my parents and all of their friends turned 40.  Once a year, we would all (four families of friends including the kids) would all meet in a hotel in Grand Island because it was half-way between Hartington, NE (where they all lived) and Wallace, NE where we lived.  Each year for a good string of years, I remembered them breaking out the "Over the Hill" decor and blowing up the black balloons.

Maybe I'm just too immature for my age or maybe it's because most of my close friends (with the exception of Ashes, Victory, Dominic and now Josie) do not have kids but I just don't think of us as being at the "Over the Hill" age or even close to it.  However, I might in five years.  I don't know.  Even though I don't feel like we should all be around that age, it's undeniably true.  That brings me down but just for a moment.  Age is just a number and not a dictation which says you now have to act a certain way.  The whole 'you're only as old as you feel' line is a bit overused but it's apt in this case.  I don't feel old so I refuse to act that way.

Seattle was fun.  We didn't do any sight-seeing and only hit one stop besides the party.  It was fabulous seeing Josie again.  I swear that I am going to make it up there this year for a walking tour of Seattle.  My housemates actually went up to Seattle last weekend and both came back sick as hell.  Raven wasn't sick and he didn't hold the baby so the assumption was that the baby was the messenger of ill tidings.  Therefore, I was a little nervous picking him up but I gave in shortly after he woke up.  His little baby friend Collin was also adorable.  He was in the 'I-can-only-scoot-backwards' stage and loved all of Josie's cats so I got to enjoy watching him hustle in reverse to try to snag himself a kitty.

Surprisingly, watching a one year old celebrate his birthday did in fact make me feel less old.  Maybe it's because some of my friends have babies and none of them have teenagers yet or maybe it's because I think that having a kid of my own would age me considerably.  Whatever the reason, I'm going to celebrate my youth because I have a long way to go.

What else?
Sophia and I have decided to do vegan pizza this month.  However, since we did go to Wayward Cafe today in Seattle, I had the vegan Reuben.  I'm not sure where it sits exactly in the scoring but it's in the top four even though it doesn't really count because it's not a Portland item.

I also told Raven about me moving out.  He seemed to take it well but I am anticipating that was just his initial reaction.  Still, I promised him that he can crash on my couch when he goes through his sixteen-year-old rebellion.

jolly good fun

Ah, I'm alive again.  I love a good group ride, especially one that's costumed (and costumed well at that!).  Today was the first tweed ride of the year.  Yes, there is another.  This was the Virtuous Ride.  I think what made it Virtuous is the fact that it stopped at a tea shoppe.  Next month is the Vice Ride which will probably end up at a pub.

Martin, Tim and I continued the tradition of brunching at Bijou Cafe before the ride.  Unfortunately, Sophia couldn't join us until later due to morning commitments.  I'm going to be glad for the vice ride just because it doesn't meet up until 4pm.  I did enjoy this ride though.  My favorite things were of course the costumes but also the cart pictured above with the dog in it.  She was such a patient dog.  I wish Dean could ride like that.  Maybe one day...  Also, there were a lot more kids this year which was cool to see.  Also, the pictures!  Martin got a great pic of us which you can see here.

I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't stick with the ride longer but the problem with a lot of these mass rides is that they end up parking for way too long of a wait and I wanna ride dammit.  :)  We bailed after the first stop.  Hopefully the Vice ride will be smoother running (or maybe we'll get tipsy and won't mind hanging out.)

What else?
I volunteered for a wine auction for my internship.  I just really wanted a new thing and, if I had realized it was on the same day as my tweed ride when I signed up months ago, I would have thought better of it.  It was okay but the idea of a wine auction carries a lot more prestige than my actual experience did.  I didn't feel up to wearing a tux so I volunteered to do cleanup.  That meant that I worked with two other people who were around my age and 12 or so high school kids.  These aren't kids from the program either.  They're younger and don't really have a lot invested in pitching in.  I kind of felt like I was babysitting.  I'm not sure that I'll do it again next year, even if I did get some free wine glasses this year.

a new people day

I'm typically a shy guy so I'm always impressed when I meet new people and it's not through work or other friends.  Tonight, I met two guys, one who identified as a bear (the gay kind, not the animal but I needed a photo illustration so that's how I ended up with the above pic) and the other was a random stranger with a gas can.  It was an interesting night.

Dan the bear seems like a nice guy and I might contact him again.  We met at a club.  Outside the club, I was in my car, ready to go when a older guy walked up with his gas can and asked me for a lift to the gas station.  Alarms go off when I am approached by a stranger in the parking lot of a gay club.  That's where I would expect to get bashed.  Initially, I started to tell him know but he looked so beat down that I let the good samaritan in me take over and gave him a ride.  In hindsight, it sounds crazy.  He got in my car with a gas can and directed me to the nearest gas station since I'm not familiar with gas stations in that area.  I did hesitate when he told me to turn down a dark residential road.  His assurance of, "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you," really didn't put my mind at ease.  After we came to the gas station, he found out they wouldn't take his debit card so I drove him to the grocery store across the street so he could get cash, drove him back to the gas station and then to his car.  I feel good for doing so, especially since I didn't get mugged/attacked/dead.  I would consider myself to normally err on the side of caution but I went with my gut instinct and also with the assumption that I could kick this guy's ass if I needed to.

So, go me.  I met two people; one of whom I am potentially interested in seeing again and another of whom I believe I really helped out.