I'm back

It's been over 3 years since I've posted here. Every once in a while, I get an email that someone has commented and I just assume it's spam and insta-delete.

I was feeling nostalgic today and decided to read my old journal posts from purerave. Then one of those posts mentioned this blog, and I surfed on over here too.

I miss writing. It seems like when I was writing, I had a much more interesting/chaotic life. Things have simmered down a bit, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing worth writing about now.

This blog was treated more as a personal journal than anything else. I never invited people who knew me from real life to read it. Mostly because I want to keep my private life public. Plus, I talked about them all the time.

Things have changed. The "hostel" house on 64th is no more. There was a big falling out between me and my friends--most of whom have since moved back home to their respective home states (quitters), but I've made new friends. They're just as weird and trashy as the old ones, but they've gotten older and uglier ;)

Anyway, the point is, I'm back. I look forward to documenting my strange thoughts and conversations with y'all again.

Love, Claire

Blocked Blog

The geniuses at my work block certain websites that are "inappropriate" for work.

This blog is now blocked.

Wordle

go to www.wordle.net for your own:



Conclusion: I say "like" and "really" too much. I sound like a really dumb valley girl.

Shit, there I go again.

READ MY FAX!

Hey you guys, remember in Back to the Future II when future Marty gets fired from that Asian dude and he sends him a fax that says "YOU'RE FIRED!!!"? Too funny. Faxing is obsolete... and it's not even 2015 yet.

What brings you to Portland?

I have yet to tell anyone the truth about why I moved here. I embellished a few of the more minor reasons, but the true MAIN reason I moved here was for a guy I "loved", but love is such a stupid word and infatuation can feel stronger, but isn't love. I used to tell everyone who loved that they were naive and "love" is nothing more than the equivalent of eating mass amounts of chocolate in a single sitting. I believe this to be true. But said individual whom I "loved" didn't live in Portland. He lived in Philadelphia. Plot thickens.

Here's the back story: Chris and I knew each other for a long time in Kansas City. We partied together, but were never more than friends. In fact, the thought of being more than friends had never even crossed my mind. I didn't feel "that way" about him. I thought of him as a friend, and nothing more, but I knew he felt "that way" about me. I always knew.

He went away. He moved back to the east coast and eventually found his way to Philadelphia where he lived for years. We still kept in contact, every one in a while a phone call was made just to catch up on things. I like to keep tabs on my friends after they've gone.

I began having dreams about him. "Distance makes the heart grow fonder"? True. I felt very strongly that I messed something up. I couldn't believe I let him go away.

I called him late one night, after a few too many, and confessed. He told me he felt "the same way" about me. For months, we continued a phone, long-distance "I love you" relationship. Fucked up, huh?

The dilemma: Chris lives in Philly, I live in Kansas City. What to do? Chris and I fantasized about moving to the west coast. He wanted to expand his musical career and I wanted to get away. I was feeling trapped in Kansas City. "I feel 40" I said in a journal entry. I decided to move away--closer to him. In order to do that, I needed to sell my home. So I moved in with my parents in Michigan while the house sat on the market for 167 days. No buyers. I couldn't stand living in Detroit, not finding work, and STILL being away from Chris. This was getting pointless. Didn't I move away to be with him? So why am I stuck here? I cashed out my 401k and ran away--again.

I went, where else? Philly! I wasn't nervous about seeing Chris again for the first time in ages until I finally entered the city. I had a blast there. I loved the oldness and I loved New York. But Chris and I didn't pursue and loving, deep relationship like I thought we would. I mean, how do you do that when you haven't seen the person in years? We sorta "dated" but really never romantically did anything. Ever. I was quite disappointed that I had changed my life so much and for next to nothing. We continued together, as friends, and took all summer finally getting to Portland.

"Love" shouldn't have been the reason. But it was.

I felt betrayed. I felt like he had used me to get here--an elaborate plan to expand his music career. Like I was a wagon or something. "Sure! I'll give you a ride!" We were roommates, until I moved out, and I learned that he was... not the person I thought. What will years of being apart do to a person? Think what it did to him. Think what it did to me.

Chris and I barely talk now.

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In the last few weeks, I've been wondering what I'm still doing here. People ask, "What brings you to Portland?" I can't tell them the truth. It just sounds so pathetic. Wait... it is so pathetic. So I tell people I just needed a change, which was true, and that I couldn't get work in Detroit, which was true, and that I felt trapped in Kansas City, which was true, but all these things were not the main reason for moving and changing my life.

What brings me to Portland? Nothing. I've been here for 6 months already, and I still feel like an outsider. I've been trying to stick it out. Find some cool friends and have a good time. I have found cool people and friends, but it's tough when I think about the hundreds of friends I have/had in KC. Tough to think that I can never go back there, for fear of being perceived as having my tail between my legs. Before I left KC, I had a going-away party and Will said, "You're not moving." I proved him wrong, but for what?

Either way, I'm pathetic. Pathetically sad and still lost. Lost in an ocean of apartments and drowning. When I get close to the surface to break for air, something grabs my leg and drags me back down to the bottom.

I continue to drown.

Hideousness

There's this Avon lady who comes by my work all the time to peddle crappy makeup and hideous accessories. She comes by the front desk (where I work) and gives us 6-7 Avon catalogues and we act like we're really excited to see them. Then as soon as she's gone, we trash them.... except today. Today I'm pretty bored, so I decided to flip through the catalogue a little bit, just to kill time. And that's when I saw the most hideous shoes I'd ever seen in my life:



I mean, platform moccasins?! Is that what they're trying to convince people to buy?! Those are just plain nasty.

But that got me thinking... you know, there are probably more hideous shoes out there. So I google imaged "hideous shoes" and I found them. The most hideous and COMPLICATED shoes on earth:

Tangents and Wikipedia

I often bring up the term “conversational tangents.” Picture this: A friend and I are having a conversation over a spliff or whatever, we’re on the porch, because we’re porch monkeys (I decided this term isn’t racist, we call ourselves porch monkeys because we hang out on the porch a lot). We’ll be on the topic of high school, remembering stories and how much cocaine I sold to people and guaranteed good grades until graduation. Then we’ll start talking about school buses and about the time that my friend Jade threw Stephen Carter’s left shoe out the window on the highway. Then we’ll start talking about the color of the school buses and who decided to make school buses such an unattractive color. Then we’ll start talking about other hideous colors like baby poop green. Then we’ll start talking about the fact that when babies are first born, their poop doesn’t stink until the first week is over and then it smells like the worst smell you’ve ever smelled. And so on and so on. First we were talking about high school and now we’re talking about fowl-smelling baby shit. I call these occurrences “conversational tangents.” That’s all conversations are: a series of tangents.

I get lost in Wikipedia. I simply love it. I’m on a wiki page, and then some of the words are clickable links to their Wikipedia page. It’s fantastic! I’ll be reading about Hawaii, then I click on “highest mountains”, then I click on “Mount Everest”, then I click on “Great Trigonometric Survey”, then I click on “India”, then I discover that the population of India is 1,147,995,904!! And then I learned something. I love surfing Wikipedia. I could do it for hours… and do.

So, in many ways, conversational tangents are a lot like Wikipedia.

End of post.

2008

What. A. Year.

To review:

At the turn of the year, I was living in Kansas City, MO, and really loved it there. I was willing to look beyond having a crazy ex-boyfriend stalker writing letters and hand-delivering them to my home all creepy-like. I had a fantastic job that I really loved, my own office with a door and a window... at 23. I was on top of the world. And then it all came crashing down--I got fired in February. I was devestated. I decided I wanted to move because I needed to get away. So I attempted to sell my home in Kansas City empty and moved in with my parents in Detroit. Couldn't get a job in Detroit. I really tried, too. Couldn't sell my house in KC. Couldn't afford mortgage and insurance. So I leased the house to some crazy IHOP people (that's International House of Prayer, not Pancakes. It's kinda like a cult) with shaved heads and a pink bus (this is all true, btw). I left Detroit and went to the east coast. Met up with an old friend. We drove to Portland and become roommates with some other old friends. Never spent a day in my life here, just heard it was "cool". And it is. Lived in bliss in Portland, got a good job that I love (and still do), until mold was discovered. Didn't pay rent, because I didn't feel it was owed. Got homeless. Couch surfed. Moved into an apartment with my best friend and her daughter, but because of an apocalyptic "arctic blast", we couldn't get our furniture moved. We live on the floor... to this day, still do. We'll have beds and furniture next year, hopefully.

I can't wait for this year to be over. Start anew.

It's funny how a person playing poker, for example, will remember the worst beat he'd ever experienced, lost a small fortune in one pot, but forgets when he wins big. Why does one remember the bad times more than the good?

It hasn't been all bad, though. There were great times. I had a lot of experiences that I will remember for years to come. I saw my cousins that I hadn't seen in years. I made a ton of new friends. I discovered new aspects of myself and realized a lot of things about myself.

But I'll still be glad for this year to be over.

apt lease begins

For all of you worried about my well-being, I got an apartment. I move in tomorrow.

Continued bitching...

Okay, the internet is back up at work (thank god), so I can fully bitch about the weather like I originally wanted. I love my phone, but typing long emails and posts on a touch screen keyboard takes forever.

Here's a lesson for all you non-Portlanders:

Portlanders and Oregonians (yes, they actually call themselves this) are total fucking pussies. Really. We get an eighth of inch of snow... and it's the fucking apocolypse. All the highways have those big signs that say "CARRY CHAINS OR TRACTION TIRES." I'm like, puh-leeeze. This is nothing. Having come here from Detroit, I think people are insane. It really pisses me off. I think people out here just use the "snow" as an excuse to "work from home". Which is total bullshit, in my opinion. Anywhere else in the country would have a eighth of an inch accumulation and say to someone trying to call in, "Get your ass to work." But not here... except for me, of course. The receptionist HAS to stay. In fact, I'm answering all the calls in the reigon except for Honolulu. Not that I have anything to do but aimlessly walk my homeless ass around the the streets of Portland.