I HAVE BEEN AWFUL

AT MAINTAINING THIS.

I Tread Like the Concubine

I will never slip on a freshly mopped floor again.

"Good Sir, You Shot the Rainbow."

...I'm gonna try to keep up a streak of things-said-at-work titles.

This and that:

-MOVING SO SOON. And my awesome roommates-to-be have been (successfully) scavenging furniture, so...we's gonna have an eclectic mess. Fuck. Yeah.

-So, my job. I work at a cupcake bakery (Cupcakery? That a thing?) that also has a shave ice cart. (Mrs. Boss runs the shop, Mr. Boss runs the cart. It's adorable.) There's way too little space for everything and everyone and we fight about leaving unintelligible notes for each other and who gets to pick the music. Basically, we're like newlyweds on a road trip... Except there's eleven of us. And we make cakes. No big deal.

-Today, Mr. Boss was in the walk-in, getting syrup to refill cart stuff, slipped, and took the top shelf with him. What was on the top shelf you ask? Every syrup flavor known to man, milk, and an industrial-size jug of vanilla. It looked like someone had not only murdered the Kool-Aid Man, but massacred his entire family. And as we all heroically ran to his aid...Down we went. Well, 2 more of us did, anyway. Chivalry stains and bruises, yo. Fast forward, 3 of us on the ground,  Mrs. Boss comes back in from running errands, doesn't miss a beat, looks down at us with a perfectly straight face, "...Honey, this is why we can't have nice things." There's a bruise on my knee and a rainbow of carnage on my pants. 

Customers were watching. It was awkward. I'm calling it a bonding experience.

-On a rather different note, people are fascinating. Each person has so much beautiful, weird, wonderful...ness that they bring to the table and it really bums me out when folks feel, I don't know, like they have to be...broken? To be interesting. I'm not quite sure that's what I mean. Incomplete? A lot of people do it, though. I think I do. Maybe. Like, when feeling happy for however long makes you feel almost guilty. Or maybe your problems are the only thing that don't feel trivial...so you hold on to them. Me? I sort of cling to being on edge, restlessness. Finding something that makes me comfortable or feel safe eventually wigs me out. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of losing something that I've come to love and depend on, or it's the thought of not-doing. Like, finding something that makes me feel whole might eventually seem like a kind of trap. Being stuck sounds a lot more dangerous than never finding home. Or something. That got a little off the map. 

What I was going for: A lot of the time, it feels like the negatives are the only things that "matter," so that's what we dwell on, talk about, give power to.

We can make stuff, you know... Really cool stuff.

Let's do that instead.

It'll be okay. It'll be great.

It's International Left-Handers' Day?!

Apparently, that's a thing.

Coincidentally (IN CELEBRATION), my boss surprised me with left-handed scoops today! So pumped! Now, I can portion cupcake batter without the weight of oppression!

Joke. That last bit.

(It's honestly not much more convenient, but the fact that she noticed and even bothered to seek out and order some specifically for me is the nicest damn thing. And I still have a big, stupid smile on my face.)

Sorry for the two-in-one-day thing, but that made me happy and I wanted to share.

With you.

And by "you," I mean that rad Australian chick and the handful of inexplicable Russians that read this.

(How did that happen?)

Or whoever. Whatever. I dig it.

That's Okay, We've Got Triple Sec!

So, I keep doing this thing where I say that life is really crazy/chaotic/busy/ridiculous/weird/messy/hectic ...right now. Now. For now. Recently. Of late. At the moment.

Right.

Not sure what that's all about, because that(the hectic thing)'s been pretty consistent for the past mmhrrnfhrm, and I don't have any real intentions of changing that. Kind of wondering whose benefit I use the short term for, actually.

Yeah... There will always be so, so many things on my plate. And I put most of them there. Sometimes, I get all overwhelmed and WHY-y about it...but no. I crave it. I dig it. I am addicted to this (semi-)organized hurricane.

Let's just admit it. Stuff is always gonna be out of control. That's, apparently, just how it be and how I roll. Right now, there's the work thing, I'm moving in a week or so (yeah, again, what of it) (WE JUST FOUND A HOUSE, AND BY "WE" I MEAN YOURS TRULY AND A PACK OF MY FRIENDS' YOUNGER BROTHERS BECAUSE I HAVE THE BEST TASTE IN ROOMMATES), fightin' the Man on financial aid and school scheduling crap, doing that guinea pig thing, and am rehearsing 3 plays. Bend's been pretty...fruitful...(?) in the stuff-that-sucks-up-a-lot-of-time-and-energy department. Which rocks, but what I've been lacking this year have been close friendships/connections/stuff like that. It's not that I feel like a mindless cog or something, I genuinely like that there are things I contribute to. The places I go are sort of awesome as fuck, and I end up in plenty of weird shenanigans and spontaneous hoopla around all of the structure, so it's not a humdrum experience a-happenin' right now. I guess I could have condensed that into: I feel so freakin' alive, but kind of alone.

Not exactly in a bad way. It's free. And I like that a lot.

Bah. Redo. Kinda.

Point is: My friends are flippin' amazing and I want, miss, need, love being with them. I've been kinda bad about visiting this year, but have started committing to it in recent months. You know what? Once you just...do it, it's the easiest thing in the world. No matter how much is going on, you can find/make room for what's important to you. And maybe it's a little backward that I'm starting to split my time back into Eugene. And want to give more attention to friendships from high, middle, elementary school instead of slowly getting around various boundaries here. But I don't care.

They're my family. And I love them. Feels good to say. I love them. I love them a lot. Butt-tons! So much! Oodles of love! From here to fucking Jupiter.

No matter where I go, there will be a school, a job, a theatre, a team, a whatever, a place. I can leave a place. It's in these people, some person, that I'm gonna find home. Life with a capital "L." You get room, feelings! Sorry about being a butt to you.

I am going to be so there for the folk I care about.

I want to do this. So, I'ma do it.

As for the title: At work (which, by the by, is the best job ever) we've taken to replacing missing ingredients (like lemons, or vanilla extract) with liquor. And it's hilarious.

OUT.

Wrock On

I had my first Harry and the Potters experience on Sunday night.

It may, or may not, have been spectacular.

General picture: My TD was all like come-to-Portland-with-me-and-my-visiting-internet-friends-we're-gonna-see-wizard-stuff-also-Hank-Green.

...You had me at "internet friends."

But yeah. They picked me up from work (update on that front: it is the best damn job in the world), intros were made, and the road was hit.

Now, it is probably time to mention that my love of Harry Potter is about on par with my love of tortilla chips. Pretty casual. Yes, maybe I've worked at wizard camp, but the series wasn't exactly a game changer for me. And it had definitely never occurred to me to seek out Potter-themed music. (I was pretty much just in it for my second favorite Green brother and the why-not factor of the situation.)

Long story short: As I stood in the sea of nerdalicious enthusiasm and varying degrees of wizard attire, listening to happy tunes and gloriously literal lyrics, I remembered that music can just be so much...silly fun. And sometimes, it's just nice to be excited about something because it exists and that fact alone is ridiculous and great. Sometimes, you just gotta groove about Hagrid.

Hours on the road: 9

Hours in Portland: 3 1/2?

Dark Lords defeated with the power of love and the magic of rock and roll: 1

Wizard rock, thou hast wooed me.

BATMAN.

See it.

Just...

Please.