artist growing

taiko, to the rescue

last night, sonja and i attended a portland taiko workshop on columbia boulevard. taiko is a performing art that combines drumming with a kind of dancing. it is booming, thunderous. you can feel the sound reverberating in your chest and belly. i love it.

in the workshop, we started out by naming a one-word response to taiko. mine was "texture".
then we warmed up our muscles. we practiced by playing "air taiko" before playing actual drums. finally, we got to play the drums. we even got to learn a song, which taught me how remedial my muscle memory is.

i loved making such enormous sound. i felt so proud of myself when i could remember what i was supposed to do with my hands. during the drum rolls, i found myself laughing. it was ridiculously fun. i enjoyed not thinking at all for hours.

now, we're going to take a class every monday night. yippie!

owie

i really should have been keeping a log of everything for the last few weeks. bleh!

On Friday, January 6th (I think), I called Fred to see how he was. We had broken up, but I wanted to maintain our friendship. He was grouchy because he couldn't find his wallet. I offered to come help him look for it, 2 sets of eyes being a bit more useful in that case. He came to pick me up and we drove to the County Vector Control Office. We checked his desk area and ended up finding his wallet in his County vehicle. Afterwards, we drove back to my house and watched television and ate some food. Eventually, we made our way to Yorgo's, a bar round the corner from my house. We met up with my housemate Joshua and had pleasant conversation.

When Joshua left, Fred became sharp with me. He kept saying how being lonely was a perfectly good reason to date someone, which I disagreed with. I didn't want to talk about our break up or our relationship and said so. He said that I was being manipulative and went off on me. I left the bar in tears. Fred followed me back to my house because he'd brought his dog and she was in my kitchen. When we got to the house, Fred kept yelling at me. He wouldn't leave initially when I asked him to go. I tried to walk him out, but he got upset with me and felt like I was pushing him. At the back door, he threw an umbrella (that I'd lent him for the rainy walk to Yorgo's) in my direction. Finally, he left.

The week following that encounter, Fred called me repeatedly . Most of his calls involved yelling and sharp language; I ended those calls by hanging up the phone. It took a few days to find out that he was asking for a joke ID that he'd made from his Multnomah County Vector Control ID. I said that I would look for it, but that I wasn't sure where it was in that moment.

On Friday, January 20th, I was making dinner when the doorbell rang. I ran down the stairs and peeked out the curtain. Fred stood in front of my door with his hands in his pockets. I opened the door and stepped outside. He had been agitated and upset with me the last few times that we had spoken over the phone, so I felt a bit wary. He asked me again for the joke-y ID that he had made from his Multnomah County ID card.  I said that I'd still not found it. I was in the process of getting ready to move and I felt very disorganized. He seemed to be understanding about it.

I remembered my eggs on the stove and said that I needed to attend to my dinner. He came in the house with me, but stayed by the front door. I walked to the kitchen and scrambled my eggs. While they were cooking, I prepared some brussels sprouts. (I know, it sounds like a gross dinner, but it was the only food that I had.) The whole time that I was cooking, Fred was standing by the front door. He kept asking me why I was so angry at him and I kept saying that I didn't want to talk about it. I tossed the eggs onto a plate and turned my back to finish the sprouts. Suddenly, the plate of eggs crashed on the floor at my feet.

I told Fred that he needed to leave. He wouldn't go. He became verbally abusive. I got scared and tried to call the police on the landline, but he pulled the phone cords out of the wall. I ran to my cell phone (next to the front door). Again, I tried to call the police, but Fred struggled with me for the phone and the call didn't go through. I tried to call Will and Fred grabbed the phone from me. He pushed me and I fell into an end table. I started crying and continued to ask Fred to leave. I sat on the arm of the futon couch while he stood over me yelling that I needed to go find his ID card that instant. When I realized that he wasn't going to leave the house, I bolted out the door to the coffeeshop next door.

I went behind the counter and asked the barista for a phone to call the police. The barista, Slavic, asked me what was happening, but I couldn't speak much. My words weren't working so well. I sat on a bar stool and watched out the windows. I thought I saw Fred drive past the shop headed east on Killingsworth. A few minutes later, I thought I saw him drive past again, toward my house. By this time, I calmed down enough to tell Slavic sort of what was happening.

I started to feel anxious, so I wanted to get back to my house. After about 10 minutes, I walked to the windows to see whether I could see Fred's car. I wanted to ask someone else to come back with me, but I was still having trouble with my words, so I didn't. I couldn't see Fred's car, so I ran back to the house and locked all the doors. I tried to get the landline to work, but I couldn't. (The landlord had shutoff service to that phone number previously.) I wanted to call someone for help, but I couldn't remember anyone's phone number.

I ran to the basement to get into my email account to try to find someone's phone number. A few minutes later, I heard pounding on the back door. I pulled the light cord and hid.  I heard Will's voice calling my name and  I climbed the stairs and peeked out the back door. "Will?", I called. He heard me and came to the back door. He asked me if I was okay and I started to tell him everything that had happened, but he interrupted me to say that the police were on their way. I sat in the big armchair in the living room and waited, while Will paced around the windows. When he saw their flashing lights, he ran outside to greet them. They came in the house and asked me questions. Will sat on a couch behind them.

It was very stressful and tearful to answer the police questions. I don't tend to have quite enough adrenaline in my body and I felt overwhelmed. I still hadn't eaten my dinner and I was having trouble focusing. The police ask you the same question 3 times or so to make sure that you have your story straight. They poked around the house a little bit, presented me with information for filing a restraining order, and left.

Will started to clean up the broken plate, but I asked if we could please just leave. We drove to his house where I stayed the night. The rest of the weekend, I stayed with either Will or with Joshua. I was feeling pretty frightened. I talked with family and friends. My godmother urged me to find the ID card, which I found.

On Monday, January 23rd, I called the Portland Women's Crisis Line to ask them about filing a restraining order. They said that I'd have to go down to the courthouse and file it in person. Melinda and I left our office and headed to the courthouse. I filled out all of the paperwork and handed it in. I had to return at 1:30 pm to stand before the judge. The judge initialled everything. The sheriff would serve the papers to Fred the next day.

Melinda and I drove home from work. I thought that I saw Fred's car in front of my house and I felt scared. Melinda agreed to come into the house with me. We walked up the driveway. On the back porch was a bouquet of flowers with a note from Fred.  It was an apology. I still felt shaken, so Melinda and I went to Sagittarius to wait for Will (who was meeting me for dinner anyway).

Slowly, over the last week, I've calmed down a bit. I'm trying to focus on finding a place to live before the end of the month (tomorrow!). This morning, while sorting the mail at work, I got a letter from the Sheriff's Office. Fred is contesting the restraining order. I'm going to have to go to court now on February 13th.

portland bridgepedal

today i biked over 20 miles as part of bridge pedal.

portland has so many beautiful bridges. some of them are old drawbridges with wide sidewalks for bikers and pedestrians. others are new(er) highway bridges that only allow cars. since i don't drive, i have rare occasion to see the city from such high vantage points. bridge pedal is an event that allows bikes on all of the portland bridges. i heard about it a few years ago, but i had never involved myself in it, until today.

i biked over 8 bridges for a total of 24 miles. i biked alone since i had trouble finding friends who were interested and available for biking with me. i liked being independent. i got to stop whenever i needed to stop and i didn't need to adjust my speed to keep up with a group. instead, i biked slowly down the big hills and speedily in the straight-a-ways. i had so much fun...

i froze 3 water bottles the night before so that i could have cold water during my ride. unfortunately, they were too frozen to get any water out of until i had been biking for about an hour. it was okay-- since there were so many people (18,000, by some estimates) we hadn't gotten very far in the first hour. we walked on most of the ross island bridge, the marquam bridge, and the st johns bridges. i think people kept stopping to admire the views of the city and the crowds and to keep up with their caravans.

after the 3-hour ride, i attended The Bite since we got in for free with our bridge pedal registration. i had a delicious crab cake because i was ravenous after the ride (despite being offered food so frequently).  i walked around a little bit, but there was very loud christian rock music and not very much shade.

i cooled off in salmon street springs and then biked over to the Lucky Lab to join my friends Fred and Jessie for some beer and sammies.

yay weekends/

it is hard to come back to work after a fun, sunny weekend. i got to do so many of my favorite things this weekend. on saturday, i had breakfast at equinox with fred. we sat on the sunny patio and played with the kitty who liked to play with the diners. we drank lots of coffee and then came home and did nothing for a while. we gardened and played with the cat and chatted. i love summery days.

i find that i can't do much work when other people are around, so i ended up strongly persuading fred to go home, so that i could paint. i painted for a few hours. i worked on a painting of a drawing that i made a few months ago. i also worked on a big canvas that i have no good plans for. i covered my previous painting with white paint. so much for that!

later that evening, i took the bus forever to fred's house and we had barbecued sausage and rice salad. jessie and i drove to pix patisserie to get delicious desserts: pear rosemary tart, drunken cherry- almond chocolate tart, mango-pineapple souffle, and a creamy berry pudding. we ate them while watching lemony snicket's series of unfortunate events. it was a fun evening.

on sunday, i rode my bicycle from fred's house all the way to my house. it took almost 2 hours and there was almost no shade the entire ride. it was exhausting. when i got home, i had to lie down before i had enough energy to get up to shower.

today, i biked to work. i think i'm going to try biking in the mornings and bussing home in the hot afternoons. it is so fatiguing to ride my bicycle uphill in the sun.

lousy lack of health insurance

.

i had to go to a doctor today and, because i don't have health insurance, the options are few. i took the bus to Outside/In, a service that provides sliding scale health care to low-income (and homeless) youth. when i got there around 8:45, there were already 10 people on line ahead of me.  the doors open at 9 am. i completed my paperwork and sat down in the waiting area with my sudoku puzzle. i waited.

i shared my puzzle with the homeless kid sitting next to me. he was so interested in it that i just gave it to him. i waited some more.

i read a magazine cover to cover. i waited. after 11am, they called me to the front to tell me that they couldn't see me today. they suggested that i come back tomorrow morning. bleh!

so, it's been a terrible while

there's a strange thing that happens when you've stopped writing and you want to resume. you have so many stories to tell, but your mind can't settle on anyone of them. you find that instead of having so much to say, you have nothing to say.  yeah. well, that's not very interesting.

in brief: i visited my folks in new jersey and my mother got me hooked on sudoku. i made a rock-n-roll poster for my friends' band.  i'm starting to cook bachelor food all the time. i went to a party this weekend. i saw fireworks from OHSU's roof. i have a new housemate. my cat is still cute. my job is still lame.

greek easter

today was greek easter. i live far away from my folks and i didn't get to celebrate it in as big of a way as i would have if i were with them. yesterday, i didn't go to church for the midnight mass. instead, i rode my bicycle to smith and bybee lakes and ate teriyaki for dinner at the cheap japanese place up the street.

i had a good day, though. i talked with my brother and my father in the morning. then i rode my bicycle over to SCRAP to volunteer. i spent a ridiculous amount of time matting and framing a poster. it didn't even come out that well when i finished. i did learn a lot about how to use a mat cutter, though.

i also got to work the cash register today. i loved it. people would come up to the register with a pile of goodies and i got to guess how much to charge them. i charged a little girl .75 cents for her basket of yarn and toy compost, she said, "i don't have 75 cents. i only have 2 dollars!". her mother very carefully explained how she had more than enough money for her stuff.

as a nod to my greek heritage, i made spanikopita and meatballs for dinner. the filo dough at the grocery store was pretty yucky. it had probably been made years ago. it didn't come out great, but it was also not terrible.  the meatballs were delicious.

10 days and counting

it has been 10 days since i've been working in the mailroom at fancy-pants financial. it is a lame-ass job in its mindlessness. i forgot corporate culture and its stifling yuckiness that is so boring that people have to fuss over ridiculous rules and such. people really care about the size of their offices and whether or not i can have something printed for them by this afternoon.

everyday, i walk 5 blocks up couch street to the building where i work. i ride the elevator up to the 9th floor. i check my email. i check the ups shipments. i read random websites surreptiously as i'm not supposed to use the internet for personal use. (ha!) the fedex packages arrive; i sort and deliver them. the mail arrives. i sort it. i might do a project for someone. i collect internal mail and sort it. then i deliver all the mail for the folks on the 10th floor and the folks on the 8th floor. on the way, i always chat with laura because she's cool. otherwise i smile and nod. i try to act not very smart because i think that they are more likely to hire me for a long-term position if they don't think that i'm intelligent.

by the time i deliver the mail, it is almost lunch time. i check my email again. i check ups again. usually nothing interesting has happened. i draw pictures of my office or make photocopies of something. then, i go to lunch. i walk around the pearl district and look in the shops. sometimes i go to powells to browse or to the pearl bakery to munch brioche. sometimes i browse through whole foods. today, i ate a grilled cheese sandwich and an enormous chocolate milkshake at byways cafe. it was delicious. i got to sit at the counter, my favorite.

after lunch, i check email and ups yet again. still nothing has happened. i start entering ups delivery information into the system. i deliver random late-arriving packages. i pretend to work.

at 4:30pm, my coworker covers the receptionist desk. when she's there, i finish ups shipments and clean up the office. if there's a project going on, i try to get as much finished on it as possible. then the ups guy comes and picks up our out-going packages. they will all arrive at their destinations in 24 hours. there is something magical and decadant about such extraordinary urgency... after that, we pick up any remaining internal mail. we sort it. we stamp anything leaving the building.  the mail lady comes and gets the mail. 

then we get to go home.

bleh. i was really not liking this job until i saw my bank account today at lunch time. i found out that i had money. i even had more money than i thought that i did. yay! i don't know if it is worth it, but it sure is nice to be paid. and it is really nice to be bored enough that i'm doodling constantly.

boring job, but on the plus side

i work near the pearl bakery in the pearl district. today, for lunch, i had a brioche and a cappuccino. a brioche is not very much food by volume but pretty much has enough calories for one person's lunch. the trick is that you need to eat it slowly with plenty of sipping between bites.

i've been doodling tons since starting my new job. i'm in the process of putting those images online. i'm about halfway through.

today, i finished my art therapy school application. man, i'm taking forever on these sorts of things. it feels good to be almost done.

i've also made the first round of attempts at getting my alice in wonderland book club meeting together. things are just moving and sliding along, smoother than usual. i spent more money than i had intended at the grocery store, but now i have pillows that don't scratch, plenty of laundry supplies, and a case of odwalla bars.

my new job

i work in a mailroom at a financial company so fancy that they only have one letter in their name, "M". they are so fancy that they have a waterfall between the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of their fancy-pants building in the pearl district. the company is so fancy that people don't even refer to whole foods market as "whole paycheck" because they make enough money that the gourmet groceries don't register as overpriced.

we  are not supposed to walk around with uncovered beverage containers because of the beautiful bamboo floors, but the floors are already damaged with pockmarkes and gouges from high heels.  i wish the company banned sharp shoes and offered visitors fuzzy slippers to wear instead. i bet they'll never do that, though.

i'm a temp worker. i applied for the long-term position, but i don't think that the company will hire me for the position in a long-term way. i don't take it seriously enough. i find it hilarious that they want me to wear "business formal" clothing whenever important clients are in the building. i work in the mailroom. my job should not require me to look formal anything. i also openly discuss ways i

it is nice, though, to have a job and to get paid, even if i'm getting paid for mindless busywork.