So my bipolar alcoholic roommate is trying to kick me out of the house. Or, at least, out of my bedroom so they can put someone in who can pay rent. It is suspected to be a vindictive move for my vouching to give him a month's notice, or for having a problem with his drinking. Very mature.



My prospective house painting manager has been very flakey, communication with him has shifted from "I'll call you tonight when I've got the paperwork ready for you" to "You can start working in two weeks" to "Oh, I thought you were working for that other guy." Kids these days!



Even temping these days has become aggressively competitive. I was a hair late for my orientation at Labor Ready. I'll try again tomorrow morning.



I'm applicable for food stamps, but I need some proof of paying rent. Problem is, I'm still not on the lease and can't afford the application fee at this time. I'm pretty hungry these days. Thankfully, Chris took me grocery shopping a while ago, but food stamps would still be handy.



Um. N's beard is pointy!!

Update on me: hell of a lot more relaxed and satisfied than I have been in weeks, maybe months. Today might not have yielded massive productivity as far as money goes, but good things can come from spending the day in bed, too.

I feel a lot of my relationship issues lately aren't really romantic, though it's easy to put it in that box. The issue is constantly being around someone who is very angry and stressed out all the time. With those conditions I either need some space to get centered on my own, or the presence of people who are easy-going and relaxed. I haven't had quite enough of either, these days. So right around finals week, I was all but completely burnt out, and the stress just kept coming.

Right now, aside from chewing my nails off til I hear the verdict regarding school, all I need to do is convince my roomies I'll be good for rent later in the month. I've resolved that if for whatever reasons another month goes by and I still have no income, I'm as good as homeless again. Which I don't mind so much, except I have all this STUFF that will also be homeless. But that is a really ridiculous scenario. The Economy Crisis is nothing new, and I know how to get employed.

Now it's 1:30 AM and I'm welding, Christin's spray painting, Kirk is grinding, N is fixing the roll-up door. Oh, and there's a party going on. Shrug.

Five dozen eggs lasts so much longer when you have other things to eat! But thank god potatoes are so diverse. A soggy sandwich may not be a ray of sunshine, or even of hope, but it's a notch above empty-bellied hopelessness.

Though my shiny dreams for this house are somewhat tarnished, I still have to feel fortunate. Sure, the artists that drew me to this meth-ridden neighborhood have moved out, but that's more work space for me. Sure, my newish roommates are motivated by various chemical habits, but they're well-intentioned and generous with their softer stash.
So my financial aid is in jeopardy, but I know in my heart of hearts that I must be slightly better than a common criminal and perhaps they won't send the hounds after me if I play my cards right.
The manager of this job I'm allegedly employed in (starting next week? ish?) is really vague and uncommunicative, and it'll be at least three weeks before I see a paycheck (if I AM in fact employed), and bussing to effin' Gresham every morning to a different location each week is inevitably gonna suck balls, but I know housepainting beats the hell out of a fast food job, even if it were right down the street.
Both my laptops aren't working and the owner of the computer I'm using right now is very touchy about what sites I visit, but hell, I have a means of perusing craigslist, retrieving numbers and emails, and I'm not paying for internet needlessly. He's right anyway, there's no good reason for me to be goofing off on Twitter or OKCupid. (I swear that's just a thing between me and a friend.)

I suppose this city and I never truly melded together, but I can't say that living here hasn't brought me some happiness. I always thought it was cute, but not commitment material. It's not really that cheap, that green, that artsy. People mistake Making Things for being an artist, Recycling for conscientiousness, and Cheaper Than California for cheap. If the Pearl District were what it was before the condos sprouted up, I could live here. But it's not. The culture that made it popular has been pushed elsewhere.

Maybe the problem is that I don't look for those dingey overlooked places people resort to to pursue something honest and beautiful and difficult. Maybe I do want too much to live by the cute boutiques and hip thrift stores, and be a part of that kitschy art scene rather than establish something from scratch. But it may also be that any spare cranny in Portland is being rented out to Californians looking to slum it in the wild and grungey northwest.

Am I too old to start something new? Perhaps. Mainly I just suffer the same case of life phobia that most folks have. Being broke and at wit's end can be fabulous at times. I'm gonna miss these days.

So long, Skeleton Key. I got to fondle you for a week or so before you skipped off to have adventures. Wish I could've shown you to the bronze casting teacher before you disappeared with the other key I made. Sigh. I only had five or six things to show. :) There will be new pictures, but later.

I'm in the mood to get better. But most likely I'm having a minor reprieve before shit hits the fan again. I need to do something about my bipolar alcoholic roommate. I intend to move eventually, and he'll need a month and a half warning, and he probably won't fare any better in another house with a new slew of roommates to deal with his talking their ear off at 2:00 in the morning while sitting on their bed. But at least it won't be my house that's made uncomfortable. It's a tough enough task for me to make this place a home for myself.

At least since finals week blew over, I've had time to assess things at the house. As I'm cleaning out the garage and turning it into a workshop, it's the one place that feels like it's truly mine. It's a good feeling. I've got all of my stones laid out on the shelves, waiting to be carved. I moved the door-and-sawhorses table out of the walkway, where it's been since my housewarming party. There's still a pile of other people's garbage to be dealt with, and since it's in the garage, it's formally my problem. I'm thinking about incrementally shoving it into the trash bins around Fred Meyer. "Shawshank Redemption" style.

The studio that extends behind the garage hasn't been used at all, so I took the couch from Larz's area and moved it into the basement. I went through the stack of old roommate's abandoned stuff and pulled out a VCR and one of the TV's that worked. We now have a "media room", which will be a blessing when the weather gets hot. All the roommates brought out their VHS tapes. None of them had seen or heard of "Baron Munchausen!" I finally got to watch "The Jerk."

Everyone claims to have a DVD player "somewhere," which prevents me from spending 20 bucks on one on Craigslist. Bah.

While looking for the name of my Student Painters manager two summers ago, I've been scouring my blog through '07. It's sort of sad. I used to be interesting and stoked about life. With the new archive feature of skipping days without blog entries, I could speed through the year and read myself disintegrating, getting sadder and less confident, until I come to the miserable wreckage that I am now. What excuses do I have?

But then again I always look at myself a few years back and see someone struggling against pessimism, and searching for some way to direct her passion, which is apparently abundant in there somewhere. I want to feel joy, but also with meaning behind it, some consistency.

• 00:05 Average wage forces you to eat unhealthy, but extreme poverty compels you to eat healthy. Er. #
• 00:40 Being poor better make me skinny. #
• 09:50 Swinging back to "I need a girlfriend" mode again. Perhaps I just mean someone to use the way I've been. Boobs are always nice, too. #
• 12:29 Roomie took his beautiful lavender-point siamese to get fixed at place for strays. They took off a chunk of her ear. :( #

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Item One of the Broke-As-Fuck Diet Plan: tuna salads, minus mayo because mayo is gross and gelatinous and costs money anyway. And mineral water, because it has a flavor and isn't syrupy. Meanwhile, I swear I'm not a health-nut, it just comes together that way. Also, this house considers ice cream an absolute life-sustaining necessity and doesn't count as sugar intake.

Item Two of the Broke-As-Fuck Diet Plan: Without even two dollars to get on the bus or train, I am essentially forced to ride my bike everywhere, between school, northeast, home and the Watershed. My poor old Schwinn is feelin mighty rickety. I only notice how not-fast I'm really going when other bikers whizz right by me. But, it takes me 45 minutes instead of two days walking to get across town. Often it's faster than waiting for the goddamn bus, whose Portland system is not always as amazing as Portlanders crow about. I've found it immensely easier to get from A to B in Seattle by bus. And, at one time, cheaper.

I have been sobbing rather consistently the last couple days. It feels unreasonable, like PMS. At least it clears out my eyes and nose of the grossness I live in. No escaping the dust, mold, pollen at home. I get mold-whiff whenever I open a drawer or cupboard in my kitchen. So that's great news. It helps that my roommate's style of decorating favors dead bugs and dust-collecting decorations over functional things, even in the kitchen. That's become sort of a pet peeve. My old-fashioned kitchen has these bar-end shelves that are INTENDED for things like crock-pots, blenders etc. and it brings joy in my heart to have everything functional in a working place such as a kitchen. Nothing is as banal to me as decorative crockery and fake fruit.

But I still haven't had time to really cultivate my living space. It's been detrimental to my sense of well-being. I'm having doubts about stone-carving potential in that garage. Really, I need a down-draft table or something. It's irksome that such an ancient art requires so many frills.

And to put it briefly, relationshit has still got me very down. I need some reciprocity. Listing this off here worked pretty quickly last time, so it's worth a shot...

• Find someone who wants to rip my clothes off.

• 21:40 If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today,
  I'm gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway. #
• 23:44 fergodsakes internet I just want to watch my Netflix uninterrupted and unpixellated! PS, enjoying 1922 Cyrano. In segments at least. #

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• 00:09 Is a boba fett welding helmet too much to ask? #
• 04:50 Light is brightening sky, birds are tweeting, so am i! #

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• 16:32 Gimme a pig foot, and a bottle a' beer. bit.ly/ayWVq #
• 16:36 I have a sudden hankering to go live in Harlem... and have a baby? Damn my woman's brain, it's not like a Whopper or anything. #
• 16:43 My college career sits upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail! #
• 19:38 I'm tempted to walk 2 steps forward & pose for the waiting artists. #
• 21:13 Jessica rabbit strip teaser had me unzip her red sequined dress. This is why i sit in the front row... & i'm near-sighted. #
• 23:33 Won a plastic crab & a hula hoop. Oh, & posed for 15 minutes. Now @ shop for final throwdown with sculpture. So glad i'm alone here. #

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• 14:29 Finally a moment alone. I'm falling apart. Like a salmon that'll never make it to the spawning grounds. #
• 17:42 "It's a wonderful taking care of someone who's dying, but when she's dead, what's she going to do for me?" - Kiki #

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• 00:28 Heh heh. "Beavertron." #
• 13:41 Depending on preference, birthing should be less of an ER situation and more like a knitting circle among close friends, one screaming. ? #
• 15:10 #robotpickuplines - (something about: hard drives, compatibility, viruses..." #
• 15:12 There are unicorns, there are herbs that make your penis bigger, and there are black people on Twitter. #
• 15:18 N's sleepytime station is two chairs with an all-air mattress in-between. Spared no expense. #
• 15:26 Love is LogicOverride-"When any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" #
• 16:37 Declaration of Independence - all-purpose break-up letter? America's Dear Brittania note? #
• 16:49 So, the whole time I've been here, they've been setting up the Toy Art Show @ Watershed. Plastic and stuffies abound. Exciting! #
• 19:13 Waltzing backwards with a charming lady in someone's kitchen. To death metal. #
• 19:17 Its a good host who asks, "are youstoned enough?" #

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• 14:04 chest exploding with pain, lungs itchy, wheezing, coughing-- it might not be asthma, but it still sucks. #
• 16:58 Lawn looks like its having a bad hair day. Would mow, but already dying of the sneezes. #
• 16:59 And as of 5 minutes ago, its friggin windy! #
• 21:01 It seems I love people in whose life music plays an important role. #
• 21:09 Asthmar make boobs itch, then hurt?? #

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• 15:07 This is supposed to be my time, right? Why do I feel imprisoned all over again? #
• 20:27 Guy once said the northwest is rather provincial-- everyone is blown away by mere craftsmanship. #
• 20:32 If you can't be happy, be philosophical. #

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• 19:43 N gets hit on by gay boy @ Woodshop. Me: "Well you have to go meet people somewhere, especially when you deal in wood." #

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• 17:02 Walking to friends house, intermittently stopping to bury my face in fragrant plants vaginas. #
• 20:11 "i've got a girl boner. Except i'm not a girl." #

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• 01:30 I've resigned to taking a summer job over taking classes. I think it will be a relief. #
• 01:36 So the big scary twist in "Eagle Eye" is that a robot is gonna kill our biggest political figures? WTF... go evil robot, go! Stupid movie. #
• 12:02 Just assembled my industrial strength Foredom. Squee! #
• 15:43 That three hour night's sleep is catching up with me. But the reasons for being up late were quite worthwhile. :) #
• 19:32 Feel lots better with a beer in me-- especially a cold chocolate stout. A bit of alone time with a piano helps, too. #

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• 12:09 Anarchy only works if you're smart and self-sufficient. So why are so many anarchists little more than selfish thieves? #
• 23:24 Outside staring @ three fronds of spider silk waving in the wind. Beautiful. N is finally working. #

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• 17:21 Sho' nuf medicated, and zoning out. Whee. #
• 22:28 Nowadays people forget that they can fight back. #

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• 13:58 "Love is not what you think. Mem will never be what you hope. They are made to be decieved by kings, by women, by themselves." #
• 17:02 I smell a song coming-- "I May Not Have What I Want (But I've Got You)" #
• 17:07 Poor lonely authentic @BenjaminFolds. Only 57,000 friends! #

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