Don't Change A Thing...For Me

We're going to Seattle tomorrow to check out and possibly buy furniture at IKEA. In trying to figure out the best way to get up there and have room in whatever vehicle we take to bring stuff back, Matt found out that one can rent cars from dealerships. He's been wanting a Toyota Matrix and thought it would be fun to drive one to Seattle. So he looked online and found out that the Toyota dealer in Beaverton does in fact rent them and it wouldn't be that expensive. I'd never heard of dealerships renting vehicles so I was curious about how it worked and asked Matt for the details. He said me asking him how it worked made him feel like I thought he was an idiot and didn't know what he was talking about. I don't get it...Am I missing something? Asking questions has always in my mind been indicative of not knowing what was going on and wanting to be educated...so why would I ask an idiot? It boggles my mind the things that come out of that guy's mouth sometimes.

Later, at the grocery store, we got into it about the jam I chose and how much high fructose corn syrup it has in it and why I should get a different jam. He actually said that I might as well take up smoking as it was about as bad for me as the corn syrup in my jam. Oh. My. God. I'd be happy to give up some of the junk I eat but we were talking about jam. JAM! I checked my e-mail today and found he'd sent me links to 4 different webpages with information about how bad high fructose corn syrup is and a note about how he has a hard time staying away from sweets and has diabetes in his family so he wants to avoid them as much as possible and how much easier it would be for him if I was doing the same thing. I can see that but, since I'm always the one who wants salad and fruit and veggies and drinks a ton of water, I feel like I'm already behaving myself for the most part. Considering my previous eating habits and how much weight I lost by changing how I eat a few years ago, I actually think I'm doing pretty good if I only indulge in jam or have a soda with my lunch once a week or whatever.

I'm not the sort of girl who smiles and says "Yes, dear." to everything so I asked him last night to let this one go...he'd mentioned awhile back something about picking your battles and I wholeheartedly agree. I don't have the energy to argue about this one.

We're Shackin' Up.

The deposit has been paid and the date has been set. Beware the Ides of March, yo. We move into our new place on NW 23rd and Everett March 15th. Got to clean out and sell off or trash a bunch of crap before then. The trip idea has been postponed until further notice but I still have my birthday celebrating and new apartment decorating to look forward to in the coming months. Can't wait to get things moved and settled...

Pook, Pook, Pook.

Fun weekend... stayed home Friday night, made dinner and watched tv. Went shopping with my boy Saturday and then met up w/ T & D for dinner at Navarro and pool and singing at the bar after. Yesterday I woke up to the smell of french toast and bacon - M had gone to the store and gotten movies, bought me a vanilla latte (my favorite) and pepper bacon, come home to cook and served breakfast in bed! Happy Valentine's Day to me! We went shopping again after the movies, grabbed dinner while we were out, then came back to drink raspberry champagne and watch Bitter Moon (weird movie). I loved the whole weekend.

Today, we went to look at an apartment during my lunch break. Super cool place over in NW w/ hardwood floors and lots of light. We took an application so now we have to figure out how to make this work in the next few weeks. How exciting!

Feels Like A Made-For-TV Movie...

Ok, check it:

1.) M got his unemployment (finally!) and has been treating me to everything for the last four days. So sweet!

2.) I may or may not have a job here at some point in the next 4-6 months because the company has put the property on the market. They'll give me a staying bonus and severance package if I stay until it sells and they can't place me elsewhere within the company and the buyer doesn't offer me a job. I'm interested to see how this all pans out.

3.) M is seriously looking into the Army as a career option. Life as we know it would end if he signs up. I am not thrilled.

4.) We're still staying at Hotel Jensen and it's really nice. There's been talk of moving in together and more, but I can't take it too seriously because of all the Army talk. I don't know if I'm ready for all of this.

5.) I'll be at the bar tomorrow night and since I haven't seen some of you in awhile, I'd love it if you came out.

6.) My birthday is just a few weeks away and I'm hoping to take a little 3-4 day trip somewhere fun next month. Vegas or Disneyland are possibilities...still trying to work out the timing, how much I can afford, etc.

7.) My brain is going a mile a minute and it's freaking me out.

You Know What's Good?

~Trader Joe's Strawberry Smoothies.

~Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo.

~Free doughnuts.

~Hearing someone say they're falling in love with you.

~6pm on Fridays.

~The Killers.

~Oriental flavor ramen noodles.

~Knowing that no matter how little money you have right now, there's more coming soon.

~Tax refunds.

~Pretending you're on vacation at a hotel when you stay with your boyfriend at his parent's house while they're out of town.

me, yo. 

Sicky McSickerson Here...

The sore throat, the lingering headache, the all over achy feeling... guh. I said I was willing to brave potentially getting sick to be with my ailing boy and now I have the yuck too. Did that stop me from going to work? Nope. Will it stop me from going to T's birthday party tomorrow night? Nope. Will I feel like a hottie in the dress I'm gonna wear? Nope. D'oh.

Where's The Magic Money Tree When You Need It?

I wonder if sending out a mass e-mail, like one of those "forward this on to all of your friends" type of dealie, requesting that anyone who feels so inclined should donate their loose change to me via my Pay Pal account would actually work... that would be sweet if it did.

Spent a big chunk of Sunday cleaning: scrubbed out the microwave, did all the dishes and put them away, vacuumed the living room, kitchen and bathroom rugs and couches, did a bunch of laundry and made my bed. I was jacked up on caffeine and it took my mind off of being broke. If only I got an allowance for doing my chores like in the old days, I'd be rich right now.

Went to the BR on Saturday night and took a bunch of pictures of people giving me the finger. Even got one of T flipping me the double bird and she never does that. When you scroll through them on the camera's viewer, it's pretty funny.

New Photos

new camera, new pics.

I Must Have Been A Saint In A Past Life.

After spending Friday night straight through to Monday night with my boyfriend, I feel so incredibly lucky to have him.

Three Days

Three days of no plans. Three days of whatever I want. Three days of no alarm clock. Three days of peanut butter and honey sandwiches and Lucky Charms and colby jack cheese and bottles of wine. Three days of nothing and everything. The clock can't strike 6pm soon enough.

The Two Year Curse

This week is poking along slowly... can't figure out if it's just me being eager for a three day weekend (took Monday off for the hell of it) or what but it's starting to get to me. Could just be the two year curse: looking back at all the different jobs I've had since college, I noticed that I haven't stayed at a job longer than about two years before either moving on to a different position or moving to a different city or something. I temped for three years after trying the nanny thing many moons ago and after that I landed a job at a hospital in the medical records department where I spent a little over a year. I was asked to work on a special project for the patient financial services department, which lasted about a year and when the project ended, so did my employment at the hospital. A little over a week later, I started a job at a private practice neurosurgery office and about a year later, I was fired w/o cause (later it was determined by a judge that it was for "personal differences" between myself and the practice administrator and not for anything I did wrong, therefore I was still eligible for unemployment). Within two weeks of that fun incident, I was packed up and on my way here to Portland where I spent from Sept. 11, 2002 to Feb. 25, 2003 temping again. I've now been at my current job, which was a temp-to-hire position, for almost two years.

I remember my mom having several different jobs throughout my childhood and all the moves we made for my dad's job with the U.S. Marshal service over the years and it struck me that maybe I'm destined for the same fate: doing random jobs here and there just to get a paycheck. That doesn't really bother me, actually. Work is work. I'm not going to be passionate about or expect 24/7 fun doing something called work. If it was fun all the time, it'd be called fun. "Honey, I'm off to have fun now. See you tonight for dinner." Doesn't really sound right. And really, I can't complain too much because all of my jobs have been tolerable. I realized that none of the actual work I've had to do has been any real source of stress. Boring, sometimes, but not really stressful. On the other hand, some of the people I've worked with or had to deal with as customers have been a serious pain in my ass and made me wish I was anywhere other than at work.

The point of all this is that I'm feeling a little stagnant. I thought moving around and travelling so much as a kid made me get antsy after living in Eugene for too long but now I'm thinking it was more that I didn't feel at home there anymore and needed to find MY place. So far, Portland has definitely been that. Maybe I've jumped from job to job because I haven't felt like any of them were what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. Is this job IT for me? Doubtful. Is Portland my permanent home? Who knows. All that I do know is I'm itching for an adventure and I need to figure out how to make that happen.

Shocking. Not.

You scored as Geek. Geek 56% Drama nerd 50% Punk/Rebel 31% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 25% Goth 19% Loner 19% Stoner 13% Ghetto gangsta 0% What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com

I Believe In A Thing Called Love...

(For the protection of our readers, this post has been removed due to overwhelmingly squishy content.)

There Are Worse Things Than Being Temporarily Broke If You Have Company.

Under normal cash flow circumstances, I get out a few times a week either to restaurants, the bar, the movies or some other form of entertainment that eats away at the money in my pocket like pirhannas to a cow. Currently, I'm broke. In fact, I'm broker than broke: I actually owe myself money when I get paid next Wednesday. Oi. All that really means is that I have to find ways to entertain myself that don't cost anything. Like Yahtzee. I loves me some Yahtzee. And I'll be watching movies I've already seen a bazillion times. I'm sure there are games to be made out of quoting these films. Oh, and everyone knows the cheapest food on the planet is ramen, so it's soup and noodles for me for the next week. My boy is broke for awhile too, so at least I won't be alone in my quest for free entertainment. Now that the holidays are over, I think it'll be nice to stay in for a little awhile and relax anyway. This no money thing could turn out to be a blessing in disguise...

Ready To Go home And Cry.

I feel like crap. I'm hyper-emotional, crampy, headachy and mentally exhausted. I want to go home, put on pajamas, make some soup and crawl into bed. Guh.

A Year Of Firsts And It's Only The 4th.

The weekend was great: Thursday night, I went over to M's after work with Chinese food in tow, after which we headed down to the bar to sing for awhile and hang out with T. New Year's Eve day we watched Amelie (which I hadn't seen and loved), then headed out to spend the evening at T & D's drinking champagne, eating pizza and other random junk food, playing video games and Yahtzee and then watching the ball drop on tv. We all got up to make a tasty breakfast on the 1st, then M & I just sorta lazed around and played more video games and Yahtzee once we got back into town. Sunday we decided on a whim to go down to Eugene and spend the night at my parents' place. Burrito Boy was on the agenda for dinner and after seeing Kinsey at the Bijou, we went over to the Downtown Lounge and played pool for a bit before the kung fu karaoke started. After my mom made dutch babies and bacon for breakfast yesterday, we wanted to wander around the UO campus (we're both graduates) and go say hi to M's old boss. He introduced me as his girlfriend for the first time...so cute! On the way home, we stopped at the outlets in Woodburn and then he surprised me by taking me to see Garden State (which I'd been whining about wanting to see for weeks) at the Kennedy School. We were back to my place by 10ish and I slept like a baby. Amazing.

I wish I were independently wealthy so I could do stuff like that all the time. As it stands, I'm grounded until next Wednesday. Guh.

My Dreams Are Fucked.

Woke up half teary-eyed in the middle of the night after dreaming that a table of five people, only one of whom I know and would rather not mention, spent their time picking on me and laughing at me and doing their damnedest to make me feel bad for no reason. The one person I do know came over to my table and said he knew I was having a bad time and didn't mean to hurt my feelings but then proceeded to rejoin his table and laugh at me until I was crying. The whole thing felt pretty real and when I woke up, I felt all disoriented for a minute until M asked if I was ok. Guh. Stupid dreams.

A Break From The Squishiness.

M dropped me off at home around 10ish last night after taking me to dinner and a movie. I got up to my front door, put the key in the lock, turned it and started crying. Just like that...for no reason. He'd been asking me if I was ok and what was wrong all night, telling me I looked sad and that he didn't like it when I looked like that, but I didn't have anything to say because nothing was exactly wrong. I have very little to complain about, except the ongoing issue of never having enough money, and I'm happier now than I've been in I don't even know how long. Obviously, there's something eating at me and it has yet to surface. I haven't remembered my dreams lately and there's usually some clarity in the ones I do remember, so I must be holding something back from my conscious mind. I'm so wrapped up in feeling loved and wonderful that I'm blocking out reality maybe...who knows. The crying freaked me out a bit, though. I don't like losing control of my emotions and I definitely don't like thinking there must be something wrong with me that I can't put my finger on. I spent a good half hour questioning everything good in my life last night and that's just not right.

Stuff And Things And Stuff

Christmas was nice with the fam in Eugene and with friends that evening when I got back to Portland. Sunday, after sleeping in until the last possible second, I went with M to his parents' house for brunch with his dad's side of the family. This meant meeting about 20 of his relatives and a white elephant gift exchange. Everyone was welcoming and chatty so, after the first few minutes of anxiety, I felt right at home. The rest of the day was spent napping and stuff and whatever and we eventually got up and headed down the street to meet T & D for dinner at Noodlin' and dessert at Coldstone. I went to bed early and slept like dead. Couldn't have asked for a better holiday weekend.