megolomaniac

I’ve always liked hummingbirds. At one point I thought if I ever got a tattoo, it would be of a hummingbird (although I soon realized that it would probably look like it was pointing at something… and depending on where you got the tattoo, that could be awkward).

Anyway, a friend gave me a card from the company Papyrus not too long ago, whose symbol is a hummingbird. I really liked the explanation on the back of the card, and I was reminded today when I saw it on my fridge how happy it makes me.

“Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. Hummingbirds open our eyes to the wonder of the world and inspire us to open our hearts to loved ones and friends. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and to savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.”

Happy Friday, everyone!

I don’t even know what else to say…

Once upon a time, there was a tall girl with curls who worked downtown. She went to lunch with a coworker-friend to their favorite place and got a burger, sweet potato fries and a milkshake to go. As they were walking back to the office, a man with a microphone stopped the tall girl with curls and her coworker-friend and asked them if they wanted to be on TV. The coworker-friend, being slightly older and much wiser, immediately said no thanks and started walking away, drinking her milkshake. The tall girl with curls, being a not-so-secret fan of attention, looked at the man with the microphone and asked “For what?” The coworker-friend hesitated, then stopped to listen.

“Do you know who LeGarrette Blount is?” the man with the microphone said, as a woman with a video camera on her shoulder appeared behind him.

The tall girl with curls, knowing full well who Mr. Blount was, pretended to punch the man with the microphone.

“Yes!” the man with the microphone said as his face lit up. “We need a woman’s opinion on him. What are your thoughts?”

The tall girl with curls was confused. Her thoughts? He was old news. Those were her thoughts.

The man with the microphone recognized her confusion and said, “It was just announced an hour ago that he will be playing for Oregon this weekend. Originally he was suspended for the full year, but they changed their mind and have reinstated him.” Then the woman with the video camera put her eye behind the viewfinder and pointed the lens at the tall girl with curls.

It was at that minute that the tall girl with curls put her finger horizontally in between her lips and moved it up and down repeatedly for a few minutes, making a funny noise.

After the tall girl with curls and the coworker-friend had talked to the man with the microphone for a few minutes, they turned and started back for their office. On the way back, they discussed LeGarrette Blount in detail. They both had fairly strong opinions, mostly agreeing with each other. The tall girl with curls said that her problem wasn’t with the suspension or the length of it, but the fact that the University of Oregon changed their mind. It wasn’t fair, she said, to give him a harsh penalty when everyone’s emotions were high and the public was calling for punishment… and then reduce it when everyone had forgotten about the incident and moved on with their football-watching lives. The tall girl with curls believed that if the penalty warranted was two months’ suspension, then that’s what should have been imposed from the beginning. If you ground your kid for a week and then let them go out the next day, she said, all they (and their little brothers and sisters) learn is that whatever you say is not necessarily for sure.

The coworker-friend agreed. She was also pretty sure the University of Oregon probably had a change of heart after they lost to Stanford last weekend. Also, everyone seemed to think that if Blount was suspended for his entire senior season, that would be the end of his career. The coworker-friend, however, thought that lots of NFL teams wouldn’t have any qualms about drafting him, regardless of the punch heard ’round the world.

Then the tall girl with the curls and her coworker-friend looked at each other and said, “Why couldn’t the man with the microphone and the woman with the video camera have followed us and filmed THAT intelligent conversation?!?!”

The Tall Girl with the Curls and the Coworker-Friend Express Their Opinions

Once, when I was applying for a job in college, the team of people interviewing me asked what my organizational style was. At the time, I didn’t realize they were looking for a general overview and not a detailed description of my obsession with lists and my excel spreadsheet nerdery. Needless to say, I got the job, but was labeled “the color-coding girl” before I even started.

My current job, which I just officially started 3 weeks ago, is the first one I’ve ever had where I couldn’t really make effective lists and spreadsheets to get things done. In all my past jobs, if my boss gave me a project, it might have been something like “Build a House.” Then I could make lists of all the different steps that went into building a house:

• Lay foundation
• Build First Floor
• Build Second Floor
• Wire for electricity
• Check that plumbing works
• Double-check that plumbing works
• Paint interior
• Tile bathrooms
• Tile kitchens
• Lay hardwood flooring
• Install doors and fixtures
• Triple-check that plumbing works

And voila!  I’m ready to start moving down the list, checking things off as I complete them, and then reporting back to the boss with the final product.*

At my new job, it’s more like the boss says, “Move your stuff into the new house.”

I could theoretically make a list…

• Pack stuff up
• Move stuff into truck
• Move stuff out of truck
• Unpack stuff in new house

But that’s about it… I could break it down into rooms… But that wouldn’t actually help me at all, because you pretty much think of all your stuff as a whole instead of breaking it up by rooms.  And the worst part is that I might only get to check one thing off each day… if I check any off at all.  Some days I might not even complete one whole task.  Which is pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of the purpose of lists.  (In fact, sometimes when I make lists of things I need to do on a Sunday, I’ll put “wake up,” “eat breakfast,” and sometimes even “shower” on the list, just so I can cross them off.  Not because I’ll forget, but so I’ll feel like I accomplished something, even if that’ s as far as I get before collapsing on the couch and watching 30 Rock on DV-R all day.)

So here I am, with four things on my to-do list, with an end date of, say, November 30.  But how do I pace myself without milestones and deadlines along the way?  Because I’m pretty sure I know how this is going to end… It’s the same reason I knew I could never write a thesis.  I would end up the day before the thing was due, with next to nothing done (and a whole lot of wasted enthusiasm), realizing I spent WAY too much time over the past few weeks reading Dooce or looking at other people’s wedding photos on Facebook.

Has anyone else ever encountered this problem?  If so, how do you stay organized and on-task?  Are there any special office supplies or color-coding systems involved?  Have you ever used my blog to procrastinate?  (If so, I’m flattered.)

*Please note: I have no idea how to build a house.  I’m assuming this was apparent, but I thought I should call it out anyway so I didn’t get comments immediately yelling at me because I did things in the wrong order.  This house wouldn’t have even made the cut for the stupid youngest brother of the Three Little Pigs.

Six months ago today, Galen and I went on our first date. As I mentioned previously, I realize the fact that we have been together 6 months may not sound like anything big to you, but it is to me. And you choose to read my blog. So hmphf.

The Top Five Things I Admire About Galen:

1. His patience. For those of you who aren’t aware, I am the slowest person alive. I can’t leave the house in under ten minutes, even if the clock starts when I’ve already got my shoes and jacket on, with keys, cell phone, and purse in hand. What takes me so long is anyone’s guess. Probably the same thing that makes it hard for me to get out of the car after it’s parked, or makes me late for absolutely everything. I just can’t seem to move any faster. And sometimes, even after all that dawdling, I still manage to do something stupid like leave my straightener on or lock myself out of my apartment. And you know what? He never complains. He just silently walks right to the kitchen window he knows is unlocked and gives me a lift so I can crawl through it to get in.
2. He thinks before he speaks. I joked one time that no matter what you ask him, Galen always hesitates and answers as if he’d never really thought about it before that exact moment. You could say, “Your last name isn’t Jones, is it?” and he would pause, pause, pause, and then say “I don’t think so…” Like he had to make sure. One time I asked him if he wanted to have kids when he grows up (FYI, it was a totally normal thing to ask in the conversation and was NOT attached to ANY strings… NOR was I involved in any sort of entrapment scheme…), and he paused, paused, paused, before saying “Yeah, I think so.” Then our conversation continued and upon further discussion it became apparent that he HAD thought so, perhaps even MULTIPLE TIMES before that moment. This is in stark contrast to my method of answering questions (or statements, for that matter) which involves blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, be it truth, lies, or complete nonsense. ‘Cause it’s a race, obviously.
3. His love for his family. One of my friends at work has the In-Laws From Hell. Her husband moved as far away from them as he could possibly get, and only sees them when absolutely necessary. I always thought this was sort of the ideal situation for someone like me who loves spending time with her family, because then my significant other and I wouldn’t have to battle over holidays and such. However, I’ve realized that Galen values family over just about anything else, and THAT is important to me. He wants to go to his family reunions and family birthday parties and holiday gatherings, and he wants to share them with me. Similarly, when I invited him to come spend time with my family in Montana even though we’d only been dating a couple months, he agreed. Come to think of it, I should start prepping him for Waterton now…
4. He never complains. I mean, like, never. The guy lives in the middle of nowhere and is responsible for covering what amounts to about three full-time positions at work, two of which he didn’t sign up for. He drives to Portland almost every weekend for one thing or another (usually, ahem, me), totaling at least 6 hours in the car per weekend. He lives in a city with a population smaller than the average crowd at a University of Montana football game and he may be the only member of the city’s 24-30 age group who isn’t married or currently serving in the military. And he lives there because it’s the biggest town around – he works in an even SMALLER town a half an hour away. But you know what? He likes the company he works for, he likes being within driving distance of his friends and family, and he says he doesn’t mind all the time alone. Hard to believe he chooses to hang out with me, isn’t it?
5. He had the guts to ask me out in the first place.

“No one succeeds at failure better than FOX.”

- Seth MacFarlane, in Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show

Remember this post? Well it turns out Sam Adams wasn’t the first one to prove that Portland mayors are just as colorful as Portland citizens… and maybe a little more corrupt.

Connie McCready’s and Bud Clark’s are my favorites. Man, I love the Willamette Week.

Galen and I are headed to Hood River, Oregon, this weekend to celebrate our six month anniversary.  This “anniversary” may not seem like a big deal to you, Internet, but to us it’s the biggest deal that’s ever dealed.  So we’re celebrating.

Anyway, I was talking to my friend Annie from work yesterday about what there is to do in Hood River, and she said that she really liked the town, but the more she talked about it, she couldn’t quite figure out why.  Hood River is the windsurfing capital of the world, but Annie doesn’t windsurf.  They have interesting historical landmarks there, which she hasn’t visited.  They grow many varieties of fruit, but she hasn’t toured the orchards or tasted the goods.

Then Annie and I came to a joint conclusion, which is that we like to live near people who do things like bike, ski, climb and windsurf… But we, personally, do exactly none of those things.

And the more I thought about it… The more I realized that a lot of the things that typical Portlanders do… I don’t.  But I like typical Portlanders.  I like watching my friends run triathlons and relays, but I hate running.  I like that Portland has a strong bike culture, but I barely ever use my bike.  I like cities with laid back people who wear Patagonia and Timbuktu and have Nalgenes in the old grey-and-blue style (or white and blue, for a throwback).  But I would like to meet those people for beers after they get off the slopes.

And then, as if the world knew that I was having this revelation, as if it knew I had just figured out that I loved Portland although I seemed to be the exact wrong person for the place…

I was walking through the Pearl District last night, which was First Thursday, and a nice-looking man asked me if I was “from around here.” I happen to love giving people directions, so I stopped and said yes. And then he asked me if I could point him towards any of the museums or art galleries that were part of First Thursday.

If there’s anything I dislike more than running, it may be museums and art galleries.

I knew this was going to happen.

I tried to play tough when I moved into my own apartment… I did pretty well, too.  I learned to take out the trash regularly, I changed lightbulbs… I’m learning to deal with the odd hours of the laundromat downstairs…

But I knew that this day would come, and then It’d be over.

Today I found a millipede in my apartment.  When I saw it, I calmly shouted “WHAT IS THAT AND WHAT IS IT DOING HERE?!?!”  I was by myself.  Also, the millipede was dead.

But it took me a good half hour to calm down.

I don’t consider myself a very girly girl, but I have my moments.  Spiders are my number one irrational fear, and anything creepy-crawly that reminds me of spiders gets similar ridiculous reactions.  I still have nightmares of finding spiders in the shower with me (which has happened to me, and may be the most frightening experience I’ve ever had).  I also only recently got to the point where I could kill a spider myself without completely losing my ability to exhale.

I came a long way in the two years Brian and I lived together in our second apartment.  In the first one, we had a third roommate, Liesl, who was more than happy to kill spiders and make me look like an idiot (although not necessarily on purpose).  With Brian, though, I had to be tough.  The first time I found a spider in the apartment, it was actually in the dryer.  I was about to switch my sheets from the washing machine to the dryer and I opened the dryer door to see a gigantic black spider, roughly the size of an appetizer plate.  I bit my hand while I worked on regular breathing, and then calmly called Brian over.  “It’s a spider,” I said.  “Will you kill it?”

“Ew.  No.”  He walked away.

This tactic had never failed that I could remember.  Even if my brother or my dad said no, I could usually get the other one to take care of the thing or put it outside.  It was on that day that I learned to kill spiders on my own.

But this millipede thing brought up all the fears I’d been suppressing.  Where did it come from?  Are there more?  How did it get in?  How big was it before it died and curled up?  Does it eat humans?  Will these millipedes be peaceful overlords?

Answers will be forthcoming as they are revealed to me…

Top Five reasons I know it’s the holiday season:

1. I had my first Peppermint Mocha today. In a red holiday cup, no less. (I also tasted an Egg Nog latte for the first time and hated it.)
2. My coworker from Colorado has already started talking to me about how happy she is NOT to be living in a snowy place (and scraping her windshield and wearing long underwear and..)
3. I went to Ikea and they already are selling holiday decorations. I didn’t even know Ikea SOLD holiday decorations.
4. I pulled out my box of winter clothes because I wanted to wear my puffy vests and boots with the fur.
5. Burgerville has cranberries. (Fun fact: If it weren’t for Burgerville, I wouldn’t know when most fruits and vegetables are in season. Please don’t tell Michael Pollan).