The ups and downs of being

So I've officially relocated to Portland, Oregon. Well, I'm technically living in Beaverton, but same difference. Brian and I have been living in southern Oregon (Eagle Point to be exact) and I've been driving up to Portland, every other week for interviews. It just started to seem like a waste to drive all that way (It's about a 600 mile round trip)so this past Tuesday I packed up my car with most of my necessities and moved into my sister spare bedroom.

On the up side, I'm just thrilled to be spending time with my sister and her Bo and I love being in the city, seeing friends I haven't seen in ages. Unfortunately I still don't have a job and we're stuck in our lease in Eagle Point, so my husband has decided to stay in the valley to try and find someone to take over the lease on our apartment. Brian and I have done the apart thing before and I can't say I care for it. I miss him a lot already.

I had no idea finding an admissions job was going to be so difficult. I was just sure, with my experience, that the first place I interviewed with would hire me. I still haven't heard back from Healed College, so for all I know I'm still in the running with them. I got a job offer from this hole in the wall, nursing school that just opened but they only wanted to pay me strait commission. I didn't even know that was legal in the world of admissions. In fact I've been told you can only do that if the school isn't accredited (which I'm pretty sure they said they were). I opted to turn that job down. I just didn't feel right about it and I had a bad feeling I was going to end up doing a whole lot of work and not get paid for it.

Last but not least I interviewed at The Western Culinary Institute on Tuesday. I am the most excited about this school thus far. I love cooking and it's so much more artistic than the other schools. It just feels like such a good fit for me. They we're supposed to have called me yesterday and when I didn't hear anything today I called them and left a voice mail. I wish they'd at least let me know what my status was so I don't keeping sitting around, waiting for them to call.

So now I'm sitting in Portland, still trying to find a job and we're running out of money quick. Truth be told, I don't even know how we're going to pay rent next month. I've never been so broke. It's the worst feeling. Up till now I've really just been looking for Admissions work. I think starting Monday I'm just going to have to take whatever I can get.

Dreams are weird

Last night I had this dream that I went to visit Tia in this crazy hippie commune in the middle of the forest somewhere. We were having a great time hanging out but then she had to run some errands or something so she left me to wander the complex alone.

I ended up running into my X-boyfriend Aaron. For the record Aaron is psycho and, when we dated a good 10 years ago, he was a drunk that liked to slap me around to say the least. In the waking world, had I run into Aaron, I would have quickly turned and walked the other way, but you know how dreams are. We just started talking and laughing and I started thinking he's not such a bad guy. Hell, maybe I even missed him.

Time is also a very strange thing in the world of dreams. Over the course of my dream I spent several weeks at the hippie commune. Aaron ends up asking if we can try to work things out and probably because I was high in my dream I agreed to date him. Of course shortly after agreeing to this, I am reminded of why we broke up in the first place. Aside from him being nuts, Aaron is also incredibly jealous which doesn't work well for me as I am a big flirt.

In this dream I run into an old friend, Jason Cannon. Cannon and I have always flirted and nothing has ever really become of it. We've been talking for a while in my dream and he tells me he's tired and going to head back to his bunk and crash. I jokingly ask if he wouldn't rather come back to my place for a night cap and he says, "don't you have a boyfriend?" and I say, "oh well we're hardly committed." (wink, wink) Of coure no sooner have the words left my mouth than I turn around to see Aaron standing there, turning 6 shades of red. This is the moment where I remember how insanely jealous Aaron is and as luck would have it, is also the moment I remembered that I'm married.

So as Aaron starts to blow up at me about how could I do such a thing to him and whatever I raise a hand to quite him and then go off myself. Although things are fuzzy in my dream, I remember wondering why it was I wasn't with my husband. I told Aaron he was an asshole and I was a married woman anyway so I don't know what I was thinking talking to him in the first place and I stormed out.

When I got outside I started to try and find my way out of the hippie commune but just then an alarm went off. I wasn't sure what was going on at first until I realized there was a tornado coming. The commune was mostly made up of trailers and old railroad cars all welded together in a giant maze. None of this would hold up against a tornado so I starting looking desperately for any sort of real building (you know like with a foundation) that I could hide in.

I kept running into these elderly people who seemed lost and frightened. I started helping as many of them as I could until it was too late for me to find a hiding place of my own. I remember the tornado touched down and immediately people started getting sucked up into it. I layed down on the ground between two trailers and grabbed ahold of a water spout that was sticking out of the ground. The trailer next to me started to lift off the ground and so did I but a moment later it disbursed and we bother dropped to the ground.

I decided I needed to get out of there so I got up to try and find someone that could give me a ride back into town. I stumbled back into Jason Cannon who now had my friend Kate Lewis with him. They were sitting in the grass giggling. Jason informed they had found some E and we're now pleasantly loaded. They tried to get me to take some and join the party. While I was tempted, I was on a mission to get the heck out of there so I said my goodbyes and turned to leave. Just then, a Van full of super heroes showed up.

Ok they weren't really super heroes but the way they pulled up in their brightly painted van and all jumped out and struck a pose. You could see how one might think they were. Turns out, they were video game developers. The creators of well, I wanna say Ninja Gaiden or something like that but I can't remember. All I remember is them jumping out of the car, landing in ninja poses and everyone being very impressed. As everyone stood there in awe I tried to sneak out the back but one of them saw me and caught me by the arm. "Don't you want to try the demo?" He asked me. He looked a lot like Jacob from the twilight movies.

Before I could respond he was leading me away. Suddenly we were in this big room and there were all these multi colored, cirlces of light on the floor. It's hard to explain exactly what the game was. You know how dreams are. But music started playing and I had to jump from circle to circle as they lit up in front of me, in time with the music. It was a lot like DDR if DDR took up an entire gymnasium and you had to do crazy acrobatics to hit all the marks, which I suddenly found myself able to do. It was pretty awesome really.

It gets pretty fuzzy after that. I vaguely remember Tia showing back up with a Kitten and then I woke up...

Work Sucks

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I haven’t blogged in nearly a month. A lot has happened and I’ve sort of just let myself fall of the radar until I felt better prepared to discuss. The 15th of May was my very last day at that shitty ass Job I’ve been complaining about since the day I started there, back in December. They actually fired me on the morning of the 7th of May, allegedly for posting on Face Book from work. I would have understood it better if I was fucking about on social networking sites all day, everyday or even for an hour or so every day, but I only wandered over to such websites on rare occasions when it was particularly slow. Also, a majority of the staff in on facebook/myspace and I had seen them post a thing or two during work hours so I didn’t really think anything of it.
My captors, I mean employers, were particularly upset over a Status update that I had posted. It read something to the effect of, “7 more minutes and I get to go home.” Underneath, one of my coworkers had immediately replied to my post with, “Shouldn’t you be working instead of posting on Facebook?” My boss says to me, “aren’t you embarrassed to have a co-worker call you out on something like this?” and all I can think is, doesn’t he see the irony? My boss is angry with me for posting on facebook but not at my co-worker who, in order to reply to my comment, would also have to be (you guessed it) posting on facebook. Oh they were also very upset that I would say something about wanting to go home from work. They seemed to think that I should never want to go home, that I should always be excited to be there. I could almost see their point if I was a developer or part of the sales team but I answer the phones for fuck's sake. How fucking excited do you want me to be?
So anyway I go on to tell them that a majority of their staff does the same thing on the internet and they start giving me a bunch of excuses about how their other employees work late and come in on the weekends. Well, I’ve worked late before and I would come in on the weekends if anyone ever asked me but as I pretty much just answer the phone, run errands and do a bunch of bullshit busy work, there isn’t a whole lot of reason for me to be there after hours.
So then they tell me that they don’t want the rest of the staff to know I’m fired as my co-workers love me and they know they will all be very upset at my termination. (Aside from my bosses, Everyone I work with is awesome and I adore them) So they tell me I can stay on and keep working until they find my replacement so long as I promise not to tell anyone I’ve been Fired. They said they’d rather have it appear I’d just left on my own. I’m so appalled by this I can’t even begin to tell you but I needed the money so I agree to their terms.
Less than a week later, they changed their minds. They call me into their office and tell me I’ve been such a good girl this past week that they’d like to un-fire me. Again, I fucking hate this job but I need the money so I agree. 2 days later they change their minds again. This time they decide that I must be looking for work elsewhere because I left early on Thursday and they would be looking for work too if they were in my shoes. They then tell me that the reason they’d never “unfired” anyone before was because you just can’t go back once the trust is broken so they felt it was best if we parted ways.

Old Friends

Last week I very nearly lost my job. I have learned better than to speak too much about my work situation in the world of blogs so I’ll leave out the detail but in short, last Thursday I didn’t think I would be an Admin Assistant for much longer. I had been thinking a lot about my friend Tia and how I hadn’t spent much time with her in the past month or so. I decided I should call her up and see if she wanted to get a beer with me while I wallowed in sadness. She agreed and we met up at the Beau Club after work.

Tia has been so great lately. I keep expecting her to drop some bomb on me or get all judgmental and we’ll end up not speaking again, but she’s just been like the old Tia that I’ve always loved, only slightly less bitchy and more grown up. Since our time was fairly limited and I didn’t have any real birthday plans, she and I decided we’d go out on the town Saturday night.

So Saturday night, we met up around 7:30pm and headed down to the Ashland Creek bar and grill. I could hardly believe how easy it was to just sit down and drink beer with Tia and talk about everything. It was Like nothing had changed. I cried about my problems to her and she shared some of her own. We laughed and reminisced about old times. We reveled in the fact that we’re pretty much made of awesome. We were best friends again and I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed her.

We ended up out at the bars until the wee hours of the morning. Then we went back and crashed at her place. Only we stayed up until 4am talking. It really was just like old times. We even got up the next morning and went to oak tree for breakfast. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to spend a Saturday night.

Space Girls are Easy

I went to Portland this past weekend for my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday party. Well, I really I went to see her and help her with the party. I was meeting the boyfriend for the very first time. Brian came with me as far as Dallas. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Dallas is a small town 30 miles east of Salem. One of Brian’s very best friends, Jim Smith, lives there with his family. Brian and I spent the night there Friday and I got up early Saturday morning and headed the rest of the way to Portland to see my sister. Brian stayed in Dallas to play with Jim for the weekend.

When I got to Davina’s, she had just gotten dressed. First thing, we headed to Starbucks for coffee. I sat and chatted with her and Shadoe for about an hour. He’s pretty much great. He’s sweet and funny and D just seems to adore him and likewise.

After coffee, Davina and I pretty much spent the whole afternoon running errands, getting party supplies and then decorating the house and making snacks for the party. Somewhere in the middle of all that I called Zack to see if he still wanted to be my date to D’s party. He agreed but told me he’d have to bus it over as his car was in the shop. I assured him it would be no trouble for me to come get him so I headed over to SE to snatch him up. When I got there Janika answered the door. (Zack’s older sister) I’d forgotten she would probably be there. She looked great. Tall and beautiful as always. I gave her a big hug and then Zack swept me up in one of his world famous hugs (Seriously, they’re the best) and then took me on a tour of the house. He and Janika had purchased it together a year or two ago. It’s totally cute, wood floors and rustic charm. They even have a garden. (I’m so jealous)

So my sister’s party was actually a Scifi theme party and Zack had done his best to find an outfit but had given up and gone with a very vintage looking suit and hat. I actually thought it made him look rather steampunk. He asked me if I thought it would work for the party and I assured him he looked very dashing. So we headed back to my sister’s, stopping at an ever so cute coffee shop in SE for a macchiato. Zack proceeded to tell me all about the third wave coffee movement and the local barista competition. I can’t wait to live in Portland.
When we arrived at my sisters, Zack jumped right into helping with prepping the snacks and hourdurves while I ran off to put on my costume. Nothing too elaborate but just space girl enough to get by. I must say, I was pretty damn cute. My sister's costume was not unlike a futuristic flight attendant and she was adorable. Her Boyfriend, Shadoe had put together this crazy, futuristic bounty hunter outfit. Something about it reminded me of tank Girl meets Mad max. Such a creative pair, those two.

They had a whole kareoke set up and I sang a song or two but mostly I tried to avoid getting too hammered and chatted with either Zack or my sister. Davina had tried her hand at making Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.

* The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster was invented by Zaphod Beeblebrox, a major character in Douglas Adams' novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick. It has also been described in the novel as the alcoholic equivalent to a mugging; expensive and bad for the head.*

My sister version of the drink consisted of two parts Goldschloger, one part citrus vodka, one part Everclear, topped off with a cherry that had been soaking in Everclear for a week. Although not quite the same as getting hit in the head with a brick, it was pretty kick you in the chest awful. I pride myself on being able to take just about any shot without so much as a flinch, but this stuff. Wow.

Despite all the Everclear and other drinks I managed to not get too hammered. It could be the rather large plate of pasta I had at the beginning of the evening or the fairly long intervals in-between drinks. Either way, I didn’t puke and woke up in the morning feeling fairly together. I got up, took a shower and then Davina, Shadoe and I all headed downtown Portland, for breakfast at the Roxy.

I hadn’t been to the Roxy in years. It used to be one of my absolute favorite places to hang out in Portland. It’s a little all night café with all kinds of movie paraphernalia and other interesting tid-bits decorating the walls. I found myself wondering if the new smoking ban was hurting their business. After staring at the menu for a few minutes I settled on some big ass biscuits and gravy and a diet coke. Perfect hang over food.

After breakfast we headed back to the house and looked at the pictures we’d taken from the night before (see my facebook). I then I packed it up, said my farewell’s and headed for Dallas to pick up my cookie (Mr. Johnson) for the ride home.

It only took me about an hour to get to Dallas from my sister’s. I got a little lost and had to call Cookie to direct me the last few blocks. When I arrived I thanked Jim for taking good care of Brian, it seems they too had a blast, and then we were back on the road, headed for home. The drive back sure felt a lot quicker. It helped that it wasn’t pouring rain like it had been on Friday night. I was glad to be home in my comfy bed with my snuggle kitties and my cookie. Don’t worry Portland, I’ll see you again soon!

Migraine Aura

So pretty much my whole life I have suffered from migraines but it wasn't until I was about 22 that they started arriving with Auras. If you've never had one, they're the weirdest damn things. The first time I was working at Blockbuster. I was working the check out and my scanner broke so I was having to type in all the card numbers manually. For some reason the cards kept getting harder and harder to read until I realized part of my vision was missing. As this was the first time anything like this had ever happened to me, I was scared. For a moment I thought maybe I was going blind or was about to have a seizure. I took my lunch break and sat by myself for a while trying to calm down. The missing spot in my vision had turned into a bunch of dark wavy lines while the rest of my vision sort of seemed to sparkle. After a while it all faded away, my vision returned to normal and I got a massive head ache.

Honestly I'm now rather glad for the auras. As soon as they show up I know I'll be in all kinds of pain in about an hour, so it gives me time to escape from wherever I'm at and get home or at least some where dark adn quiet before it's too late.

In Dreams

I’m so tired today. I couldn’t really tell you why. I went to bed at a decent hour and I slept fairly well. But I had to drag myself out of bed and force myself out of the shower and I nearly fell asleep at the wheel on the way to work. The only thing that accounts for my exhaustion was that my night was full of intense dreams. Of course now I can only tell you bits and pieces. I remember chopping down a door with an ax and then proceeding to keep chopping until the whole door was reduced to splinters. I remember something about going back to school and how happy I was about it. I remember something about Alex baking me pies. I remember running from something and I think it had something to do with the door I broke and I remember a very unsightly public toilet I was going to use cause I had to go to the bathroom so bad but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. That’s about the time I woke up.

Often when I have a long night of vivid dreams I feel like I haven’t slept at all. Like all the running around in my dreams had left out any real time for rest. I think I need to start a dream journal again. I know some of you might laugh but I think there are very real messages in dreams if we know how to listen. I’ve had many dreams come true before, at least in part. And my dreams are very often intense and in color and vivid as all hell. I don’t talk to many people that have dreams like I do.