Filed under: reflection, updates | Tags: about me, books, life, music, non-profit, nonprofit, portland, san diego, work
existence:
yeap, i still exist. this blog still exists. as i wrote in my first post, this blog remains a place to write whatever i feel like, and i’ve taken the liberty to make this blog a virtual place in which i can write whenever i feel like. so here i am on a coldfreezing wednesday afternoon in portland, warming my feet with the warmth of my laptop’s battery.
san diego:
on november 26, i reluctantly broke away from my life in san diego. saying goodbye to my dearest friends one-by-one was perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching experiences i’ve had in my life as a young adult. no matter how much i wished for the contrary, that wednesday saw me cry. a lot. with the apartment mostly clean and wholly devoid of my belongings, i drove northward in a car weighed down by the material crap i deemed slightly worthier than all the other material crap i ended up throwing away. every foot of nondescript I-5 pavement that passed underneath my car was a step away from the life i’d spent six years carefully nurturing. sure, the prospect of moving was reason to be excited and anxious and hopeful, but in all honesty, there was very little, if any, joy in the leaving.
thanksgiving:
thanksgiving weekend in milpitas was wonderfully calm and enjoyable with my family. the older i get, the more i’m able to pick up on the humor of my parents. they’re weird, zany folks and i love them for it. i picked up on the fact that i get my playful self-aggrandizing tendencies from my dad; twice during the weekend he said something along the lines of “i’m always looking good.” from my mom, i’ve inherited a general playfulness that i never noticed until the last few years. more than anything, i think she truly enjoys the act of laughing, and it’s an absolutely beautiful thing to witness.
portland:
after a great but altogehter too-short stop in sacramento, i set out on the long drive up to portland. 11 hours, two audiobooks, seven energy drinks, and one instance of peeing into a bottle later, i made it to the city.
the most common questions i’ve answered over the past couple weeks is “why?” and i’ve resorted to answering with “why not?” i’d been in san diego for six years, and while i simultaneously grew into community as it grew into me, i knew in the back of my mind that i needed to be stretched, challenged, and, hell, broken. if i didn’t do it now, the skeptical/scared voice inside would only have gotten louder, and i would probably have ended up laughing away the opportunity.
in the many nights i spent trying to decide whether or not i should move, i’m afraid that i antagonized the concept of comfort. comfort, i decided, meant stagnancy, a conclusion with which i’m already in disagreement. whereas comfort and being comfortable aren’t bad in and of themselves, i think there are particular times in one’s life to embrace them and particular times to eschew them. for me, it was simply the time to deny them, a difficult decision as i feel as if i’ve been on a six-year journey to create for myself nothing other a comfortable niche in this world.
portland is a good place with good things and (hopefully) good people. i think this place can become home. this, of course, won’t happen overnight, but i like my chances.
as of this entry, i’ve been here for 16 days.
work:
my last day of work at einstein industries was the 17th, and i spent the following week-and-a-half packing up my life and cutting some severe deals on pieces of furniture in an effort to sell them before i left. i could write more about that place, but i think the linked site is sufficient.
i came to portland without a job, but a much clear(er) idea about what i wanted to do and for what i have a passion. for the past month or so, i’ve been applying to nearly every non-profit job for which i’m sorta qualified. no big breaks yet, but i’m praying, hoping, and dreaming that i’ve got one coming on the horizon.
shameless request: if you know anyone in the portland area who is involved in non-profit work, please let me know or pass on my resume/information to him or her. a million thanks!
residence:
through the friend of a friend of a friend, i found a room to sublet through the middle of january. the house is absolutely charming and i’ll be sad to move out when the time comes. i’m starting the process of looking for a new, more permanent place in southeast portland, and am keeping my fingers crossed for something good. in the meantime, i’m enjoying having a basement.
music:
bands i’ve been listening to the past few weeks include
- band of horses
- thrice
- blitzen trapper
- the snake the cross the crown
- fleet foxes
- colour revolt
- tv on the radio
- bon iver
- ida maria
- denison witmer
- rosie thomas
books:
well, during my drive, i listened to stephen colbert’s I am America (And So Can You!) and david sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. i guess that sorta counts.
this past week, i’ve been on a wendell berry kick. he’s the author of my favorite poem ever, and is a profound essayist with ideas and convictions that make so much sense that they sound crazy to most. on saturday, i stopped by the ever-amazing powell’s books and picked up three of his works: Standing by Words, What Are People For?, and Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays. i’ve started reading all three and am blown away not only by his thoughts, but also by his ability to bring biting wit to serious subjects and to inject gravity into humorous constructions.
. . . . . .
so there it is – a part-encompassing update of where, what, and who i am at this time.
’til later.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: about me, blog, reflection, self indulgence
hey again, everyone. (dear homeland security, this is not a dangerous/threatening blog.)
so, my previous attempt at blogging was a fantastic flameout. it started off well – I was more than excited to write things that I hoped were funny at best and non-boring at worst – but I greatly underestimated the amount of creative energy and impetus it would take to maintain such a blog. thus, the haikus, state rants, and song explications ground to a sudden halt. assuming someone out there hoped to read more, all I can say is “my bad.”
I reckon that I’ve always straddled the line between the creative and reflective. most people have found a way to meld and intersect the two (semi-) successfully; just read the massive amounts of beautiful (and bad but genuinely honest) poetry. these two facets – creativity and reflection – make up a substantial portion of who I am, and my inability to negotiate and combine the two like so many others already have serves as the axis around which my most frequent existential crises and questions revolve.
I reluctantly admit that I’ve got a knack for non-serious, silly writing, but also acknowledge that I’m incapable of masterfully manipulating written word to my liking. I also admit that I possess a penchant for recollection and insight, but am way too self-aware and self-wary to record my thoughts in a genuine manner, which I guess pretty much defeats the purpose of insight. style and wit frequently take precedence over substance and honesty, and I get trapped in the effort to make my thoughts come across as awesome. to whom, I don’t even know.
looking back at my past blogging attempts, it seems as if I’ve played into each of my shortcomings. my first blog ever comes across as a carefully hedged, perfectly managed cross-section of who I was at the time, and ultimately, how I felt about everything. my last blog was, in a way, the exact opposite: an attempt to deflect and distract away from reality, and instead paint skewed, disassociated, and momentarily humorous versions of such.
in light of all that, I guess this blog is my first real attempt at finally striking some sort of agreement between the creative and reflective. in essence, it’ll be a blog about whatever I feel like writing (god, that sounds ridiculously mundane). I assume some days will take on the “today I did this, this, and that” format, while other days may simply be a picture of bird poop on my car that I, for one reason or another, find relates to my attempts at living out some semblance of young adulthood.
so here it goes, another attempt to sequester the internets as a tool for personal growth. we’ll see. in the words of tobias funke, “Let the great experiment begin!”
