No Strings

Guess who got his cast off last week?

Hint: he's freaking impossible to photograph.

A Good Day

The summer after I turned seventeen I started volunteering once a week at a small, local nonprofit. It was a small house in a park and it served as a day space for homeless folks to get a cup of coffee, take a shower, do some laundry and meet with the Outreach workers who were working to get them into housing. I loved it so much that when school started I successfully petitioned my high school* to let me volunteer there on Mondays instead of going to school. I was there once a week for a year; at the time their only volunteer. My time there is what I remember most about my senior year of high school. The staff  became my mentors and friends, and the integrity and kindness they exhibited fundamentally shaped my worldview.

Then I left for college. As I grew, so did they. On visits home I saw the organization inhabit two different buildings, each larger than the next, and I heard about new and exciting programs.

When I moved back to Portland nine years later I started volunteering again. The building was bigger and nicer, some of of the staff I"d know where gone, and there many, many other volunteers. A lot had changed, but I was heart-warmed to see that the fundamentals of the organization remained the same. The character and conscience that shaped my outlook as a high schooler were still being lived every day, to a frankly awe-inspiring extent.

On my 29th birthday D$ and I attended the organization's second-ever "fancy" evening fundraising event. I dragged D$ over to the table where they'd posted their Values and Principles. He was so impressed he got teary-eyed and took a photo of them with his phone. Then, for the first time in my life, I gave a significant  financial donation to a organization that I fundamentally believe in.** It was a good day.

Today, I became the newest (and youngest) Board Member of that nonprofit.

I am so. fucking. excited.



* Literally petitioned. The administrators said no at first so I went to each of my teachers and asked if I could miss class once a week to volunteer. Every single one of them said yes and signed a letter showing their support.  The school caved, and I never went to school on Mondays again. 
**Of course I have donated to causes and nonprofits here and there for years but this was different. This was taking money out of savings to give to an organization because I 100% believe in what they stand for, what they do and most of all how they do it. It felt like giving myself a present, not them. 

Business Trippin'

Y'all, I'm on a business trip.

As I type I am sitting in a king-size bed watching cable while browsing the internet. Earlier I used the "fitness center" and then ate dinner on the state's dime. It's fancy times over here.

Tomorrow: free raisin bran and dehydrated eggs!

Something to keep in mind

If you're not

If you're not

If you're not

If you're not

If you're not getting happier as you get older

Than you're fucking up

Thanks, Ani. 

(Ani DiFranco opened up for John Prine (!!) at the show I saw this weekend. I was never a huge fan but she was awesome. My mom was totally enamoured with her. My Catholic mother-in-law was less thrilled with the song about promiscuity. You win some, you lose some.)

Vay to the cation

I left the office at 1:30 today, concealing neither the shit-eating grin on my face nor the spastic dance of joy I did in front of a co-worker's cubicle.


Just now I walked, bra-less, into my kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Glancing at the contents I selected the ice-cold IPA on the second shelf, flicked it open, and took a long swig.


What the hell, I said out loud to myself. It's after four o'clock...and I'm on fucking VACATION. 


D$ and I leave tomorrow for a camp wedding (I'll be b-maiding it up) and then a week - a full fucking week - by ourselves. In a cabin. On an island in the ocean.


Thank you, universe, for being so kind to me. Thank you, Self, for scheduling this vacation those long months ago. You knew I'd need it, and you were right.

Newsflash: Weekends are awesome*

Guys. I finally figured out how to have weekends.

After our hike D$ and I went out separately with friends. I met up with D$ and his new best-buddy later quite late in the night and let them buy me drinks while they got wasted and happy. The next day D and I lazed around the house and snuggled.

The weekend after that I: went on a long walk with my oldest (as in longest-knowing, not as in grey-haired) friend. Got dressed up in D$'s favorite green dress to go with D$ and the same new best-buddy to a Portland Timbers game. Drank microbrews and screamed cheers about my city. Found myself post-soccer game at a very strange party in a very posh apartment. Ate lots of free expensive cheese. Went out t0 breakfast and watched Bridesmaids with a dear friend. Shook, stomped my feet and laughed until tears rolled down my eyes.**

Then there was last weekend. D$ and I drove from forest to river to desert to visit our friend A in the very small town where he lives. A said you have to approach the town like a Study Abroad experience, and we did. The first night we went to a members-only "business men's club" with a stuffed bison head over the bar. We also went to a bar where - I shit you not - the short, blond, gap-toothed waitress was wearing a Merlotte's t-shirt. In the morning we drove to the Walmart to get bullets, targets and Coors Light (I am absolutely not kidding about this) and then drove out to federal land and I bruised my arm shooting a real-deal Remington shotgun. I hit one target and was damn proud of it. That afternoon we happened upon cheap tickets to the Sasquatch music festival and drank beer in the sun to the tunes of Iron and Wine and Death Cab for Cutie. I learned that MDMA = Ecstasy, and, no, strange young lady, my husband does not have any so please don't ask him again. I also learned that I'm not as curmudgeonly as I thought I was*** but I'm still not so hot about the combination of outhouses + hundreds of drunk people. The next day I hiked in caves and rode on the back of a motorcycle and then D$ drove us home to the kitties and a freezer full of Popsicles.


I did not spend these weekends cleaning**** or doing laundry or grocery shopping. I did not spend these weekends helping my parents or cleaning my car. I did fun things, with my husband and with my friends. And you know what? I didn't die from not being super-ready for the work week.

Have you guys been having weekends like this all along? How did I just figure out that it is okay to have fun on the weekend and not use it for errands and cleaning?

Also, what should I do next weekend? I'm thinking after last-weekend's escapades I should balance it out with a poetry reading, pedicure, maybe an art show.

Oh wait - actually next weekend I'm running my very first-ever 5k (in a costume) and then watching as my husband and my father drunkenly play bass drums in my favorite parade of the year.

Catch me if you can, y'all.


*If my step-brother MK were here he'd take one look at the subject of this post and say (in his best Ace Ventura voice), "Thhhhank you, Captain Obvious!"
**GO SEE THAT MOVIE. RIGHT NOW. Stop reading this post. Go!
***Although I cannot even TELL YOU how much I hated the skinny white girls and boys wearing fake "native American headdress" shit. I seriously wanted to slap them. How in the world do they now know how offensive and weird that is? 
****All right, fine, on Monday I did break down and vacuum the carpets a little and go grocery shopping and get food made for the week. But that was only a few hours of the day and the rest of it was fun, I promise. Plus, D$ helped.

Springtime in Oregon

This weekend was very, very good. 

On Saturday we went on a hike in the Columbia Gorge with other alumni from our college.* We drove to the Gorge with a couple who graduated in the early 70's. They met at our college and have been married ever since. They lived in the Twin Cities for 12 years, then in Wisconsin, and just moved out to Oregon to be nearer their daughter and grandchildren. Seeing how happy and healthy and awesome they were made D$ and I feel a little squishy and giddy inside and very much in luuuuv. 

Also, don't we live in a fucking gorgeous place? These photos were taken about about 30 minutes from my doorstep (well, 30 minutes plus the hours to hike around). All photos by D$, who gets shutter happy around any form of nature (including small "wild" animals). 

**D$, emailing me to ask if we could go on the hike: "Can we do this? I want to go chasing waterfalls." Yes, he was referencing the TLC song. 

Partial Victories

Things I got done this evening (from the list I scratched on a piece of junk mail right next to last night's to-do list):

• Made myself something to eat*
• Walked to the bank (in flip-flops!)
• Emptied and re-filled the dishwasher
• Made lunches for tomorrow
• Shaved my bikini line** (tmi??)
• Caught up on blog-reading while whitening my teeth
• Finally started reading nerdy book about Thrones, Games of (this will happen in approximately five minutes)

Things I did not get done:

• Writing a pithy, hilarious and thought-provoking blog post 

Seven out of 8 ain't bad, right?

Right?

*Okay, so it was a peanut butter and honey sandwich. So what? It was DELICIOUS.

**I'm budgeting out the waxing these days because I want to buy work shoes and I'm out of my fancy shampoo and hair goop. Price of beauty, I tell ya. 

Bone: picked

The meeting went pretty well. I was dead exhausted when I got to work so I pumped myself up by listening to Irish pop punk* (primarily this song).**

My hands were shaking during the whole meeting and I relied upon a ridiculous page of notes in order to ensure I completely said my piece, but I did  say my piece. I said it without being aggressive or mean, and I communicated that I also cared about Young Guy's needs. For his part,  Young Guy was very receptive. He hadn't realized that I was frustrated, which at least tells me that I wasn't being as aggressive and negative as I felt (this is a good thing). I felt heard and acknowledged and we figured out how to ensure that our discussions meet both of our needs in the future. Work went really well the rest of the day and I'm hoping that we're over the hump.

Whew.


Now I am off to Seattle to visit two of my very best lady friends on the planet. I am so, so ready for some female energy I might explode with joy.



 In fact, I gotta run: off to pack my cutest outfits*** and hit the road.

Me, snorkeling on our honeymoon and waving you goodbye as I head off for Sea-town

*What can I say? It was St. Paddy's day and I love a good theme.
**I forgot to note in my last post that we start work at 7 am so a 8 am meeting was not a cruel tactic on my part.
***Last night I asked D: What are some of my cutest outfits? I want to bring cute clothes. D's response (in a wrangled voice): I don't know! I can't think of these things on the fly! 

So I shot a 9 mm handgun this weekend.


WHAT??


I know.

Backstory: My good friend Z's step-mother died of breast cancer a few months ago. I've known Z since high school and I know that we share a common attribute: anger as a kneejerk reaction to grief. When I heard the news one of the first sentences out of my mouth was (after the requisite condolences) was, "Well...wanna so shoot some shit?"

He did. So we did.

For all our bravado leading up to this weekend we were both totally nervous, which surprised us both. When we walked in we tried really hard to look nonchalant. Then, as we stood in line and tried to look cool we overheard a bearded employee very seriously tell the father and son in front of us, "Now, you're gonna wanna use the restroom before you shoot this gun." Z and I turned to each other and stared wide-eyed without speaking. Should we go to the bathroom? Did we dare? I decided we'd be okay, mostly because I didn't want to call attention to myself by running to the bathroom and crying and/or throwing up.

A very nice and very tiny woman greeted us with a smile when we got to the counter.

"Non-member?" She asked cheerily.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"The huge smiles on your faces." She responded with a friendly laugh.

"Oh," I thought, "What a very nice woman! This isn't so scary at all!" Then as she handed me the application form I realized that she had a hook for a hand. As I handed her my drivers licence I suppressed the desire to wonder if she had shot her hand off and reconsidered my decision not to use the restroom.

Once we'd waived away our rights to sue if we shot our faces off another nice man helped us pick out our gun. We told him we had never shot a gun before and he gave us approximately 20 seconds of safety lessons, including such tips as "point the gun downrange," and "don't walk in the line of fire." We were smart enough to ask how to load the gun otherwise he wouldn't have shown us. Then we picked out two of the more-offensive shadowy figures to shoot at (Tactical Encounters 4 and 5), put on our eye protection and were on our way.

I'm so bad-ass I match the shooting range

I'm not gonna lie, folks: it was totally awesome. A crack shot I am not but I did hit Tactical Encounter No. 4 in his jaunty beret several times (I was aiming for his right eye, but whatever). I got Tactical Encounter No. 5 right in his jugular.

This is before I shot the shit out of No. 4's beret.

We went through two boxes of ammo, taking turns loading and firing the full clip. When we turned in the gun and our shell casings we still had the shit-eating grins on our faces but the fear was edged out a little by pride and wonder. Nice Hook-Hand lady asked us cheerily if we'd had a good time. "YES," we responded.


Then we got hotcakes and skillet breakfasts.

Life is so strange (and sometimes wonderful)

Today, four days before the one-year anniversary of The Great Fuck-You, my step-dad was offered a job. A job that pays well enough (although still way less than he made before). A job he actually wants.

We went out to eat tonight to look over the offer (yes I brought my negotiating book).

My step-dad was so happy. My mom was so happy.

I even let them pay for dinner and didn't have an internal struggle or panic attack or anything.*

Even in the midst of difficult things, my dears. Good shit can happen.

*Okay, I had a little internal struggle. I got over it. 

Paging Dr. D

D$ is now Dr. D$.

D passed his dissertation defense today and received his PhD.

I wasn't there to see it (and won't get to kiss his face congrats until the end of the month) but goddamn am I proud of that man.

Call the Goddamn Presses

Over a year after breaking our old one while on our honeymoon, D$ and I have (gasp!) purchased a new camera.

This is part of the reason we were over budget last month (although mostly we just like to tell ourselves that). It was also our Christmas present to ourselves.

It is just a fancy point-and-shoot - we can't afford (and don't deserve since neither one of us knows jack about photography) a digital SLR. Whatever. The camera arrived today and I ran straight home and took this photo of my living room. At 7 pm in the winter. Without flash. Also, without cleaning my living room or even taking off my coat.

Isn't she lovely? Yes, I mean both the photograph and my living room. And Oscar the Couch, who is excellent for napping and book reading.

Lucky

via

The housewarming party was a success. My mom, D and I spent all day preparing. Went I went to pick my mom up from her house she had three five-gallon buckets full of flowers from her garden and she spent an hour filling our apartment with multi-colored dahlias in gravity defying bouquets. She even put a tea-cup full of awkward teenage-looking flower buds in the bathroom.*

D$ spelled our last name on some of the sixty cupcakes he made, all of my favorite people showed up. If you don't count me getting a little tipsier than I planned on in front of my new work friend I'd say the evening was a success. So...why did I sob myself to sleep?

**
My mother's best friend and her husband, who I count as two of my favorite people in the world, brought us a gift from Crate and Barrel. I didn't open it while they were there but as soon as everyone was gone I ran over to open the box and see what was it in. D$ must have been outside because I was alone in the apartment, sitting cross-legged in the hallway. I opened the box to find the platter pictured above. I sat there silently for a moment, petting the copper veins of the platter...and burst into tears.

I pulled myself together for a while - enough time to pay a visit to our downstairs neighbors who were also having a party - but soon had to retreat back to our place to be alone. I pretended to clean until D$ came to find me and noticed that I wasn't speaking. When he asked what was wrong and then pleaded for me to talk to him I finally leaned into his chest and let myself be totally wracked with sobs. He got me into bed and hugged me from behind while I continued to wail and hiccup and shake.

Yes, I was drunk, so there's that. But I was also completely overwhelmed by how much love and support we had in our new house. How lucky we are to even have a roof over our heads not to mention a gorgeous old apartment that we filled to the brim with loved ones. For the first time I hosted the majority of the people I love most in the world in my own home. People who raised me even though no one asked them to, from the man (and his wife) I met volunteering in high school, to my grandma who brought us (homemade) bread and salt and honey and wine****, to my parents, to the five or six other moms and dads I had in that room. All of them helped me become a person and all of them were there ready to welcome us home, eager to fold D into the community that made me.  

I don't think I was able to form any complete sentences to tell D$ why I was crying. He figured it out.

*I SO wish I had photos. They were so lovely. Alas our camera is still broken and the photos I tried to take look terrible.
**I wondered why she got so many packages! D$ has started greeting the UPS man by saying, "Hello, friend!"
***Not all of you...some of you are very far away and I miss you very much and wish you had been there 
****We got SO much wine. At the end of the night we had more bottles than we started with, and we started with a case and a half of wine...most of which was consumed.

View from the Fremont Bridge

It is 12:45 in the afternoon on a Friday. I throw on a skirt and top, haul my bag over my shoulder and kiss D$ goodbye.

Outside it is 85 degrees with no humidity. I slip the mix CD C made me in college into the stereo. As I pull out of the parking spot the first song comes on, a song I had almost forgotten about, and a smile breaks across my face. I speed down the street, fingers drumming the steering wheel and head bopping. The sunroof is open and the windows are down.

I have no responsibilities today, nothing I have to do. As the car crests the Fremont Bridge I see Portland in all her splendor glitter below me on the banks of the Willamette River. I yell out loud with the sheer joy of this moment, of this drive, of this view.

I am out on my own in my city on my day off.

Blotto (or: post wedding sleep deprivation)

Photo from my very NOT smart phone

Holy Shit I am so tired. Got back to my apartment a while ago. Immediately took off all my clothes and laid down on the foot of my bed in front of the air conditioner and conked out for two hours. Now I am sort of awake and wondering how I will fill the time until I am allowed to go to bed again. (D$ is at a different wedding and won't get home until tomorrow.)

The wedding was amazing. I'm pretty sure I've never worn a prettier garment in my life than that sari*, and I'm including my wedding dress. The days leading up to the actual wedding were filled with other ceremonies, 12 trips to Walgreens, and approximately five hundred aunties and uncles hurrying to accomplish a largely incomprehensible number of tasks that were seemingly wedding related. I calculate that G spent about 30% of her time over the last few days changing outfits. To be clear, by "changing outfits" I mean that G stood in a room packed with aunties and cousins and was adorned (and unadorned, then re-adorned again) with layer upon layer of gorgeous fabric and jewelry. She endured haggling over every detail of her appearance. I was mostly in the way during outfit changes - I did dry G's hair once while the aunties got her dressed but I was pushed out of the way by an auntie who thought my diffuser was an inadequate drying tool (and wanted G's hair to be straight, anyway). Oh - I also re-painted her toe nails at the last minute because the tumeric that we rubbed on her feet to give her good luck totally ruined her pedicure.

The wedding night officially ended (for me)when I was woken up by a phone call at 4:30 a.m. telling me that the friend who crashed on the floor of my hotel room had slept-walked himself all over the hotel and awoken in a stairwell. Today began with my alarm failing and me waking up when I was supposed to be leaving the hotel for the airport. After throwing all my stuff in my suitcase (including that gorgeous sari that I will never be able to wear again) I checked out of my hotel room, although I declined to tell them that my sleep-walking friend was still asleep on the floor in the room. Here's hoping they didn't clean it early.

Now I am home - smelling terrible and looking worse. Which I guess is how you know that the wedding was a success.

* Pronounced Sare-ee, not Sah-ree. At least among the people I was with.

In Spite of Ourselves

Honey, we're the big door prize.

Happy anniversary, baby.

*Oh, did I forget to mention that I have a huge ass? I have a huge ass. I really, really like it.

In Which I Kick Ass and Take Names

I totally fucking rocked resolution number 8 with this new job.

Okay, when I say "totally fucking rocked" what I actually mean is "got ever so slightly over the target." But I am still really, really proud of myself. Not necessarily because of the money (although it is going to feel really good to make a comfortable wage), but because I made my goal by negotiating an 10% increase in salary, and I did it with class.

Okay, when I say "did it with class" what I actually mean is "freaked out for two days straight."

It was actually really hard, and there were several times when I got really down on myself. See, I was excited to negotiate, and I had a whole plan. I was pretty sure I was going to get an offer because I kicked serious bootay during my phone interview and they called my references an hour after talking to me. I thought I was going to be negotiating with the HR woman, and I figured I would see what they offered and then ask if I could have some time to think and respond.

But then, what actually happened is the director of the program called me to offer the job while I was cleaning my own vomit off of my car's upholstery.* As I wandered around in my parking lot, writing on the back of our road atlas, he offered me something less than I was expecting (although it was still decent). And when I asked "Is that negotiable." He said "Well let's talk about it...right now." And I wasn't prepared. I mean, I knew what I wanted, but I should have taken a deep breath and asked for some time. Instead I stuttered out a few sentences about why I thought I deserved more and stated a counter number that was little over my goal. (D$ pointed out later that it was about a 10% increase, but that, uh...wasn't something I was aware of at the time). Mr. Director came back with a number that was $200 below what I had asked for (because of the way that government jobs work you have to move up in "steps" and he moved me up two steps). He said he would have to check with HR about some things,** but asked if he could get me that number "Would that be okay?" And I said, "Yea, that would be great."

We hung up and I immediately started to doubt myself. Was that too easy? Had I sold myself short? Had they low-balled me? I spent the two days until he got back to me googling salaries for similar jobs and going back and forth between chastising myself and feeling good about things. D$ tried to tell me that I had done well, but I was having a hard time accepting it.

The day that Mr. Director was due to call me back I frantically g-chatted my friend A who works in finance, telling her the numbers we had negotiated and asking if I had for too little. Her response boils down to, "WTF are you mental, you did great!" She reminded me that a 10% increase when unemployment is at 10% is sort of amazing. And that the government doesn't usually even negotiate salaries. And that he had moved me up TWO PAY STEPS.

Later, the Mr. Director called me back and offered me exactly what we had talked about and I joyfully accepted. That night as we walked to meet friends to celebrate*** A called, saying she had made some calculations and figured out that I just made myself $200,000 over the course of my career.

Negotiating the salary was stressful and really emotional, but it was worth it. Both for my increased earnings ability and for the pride and confidence that I feel about having gotten what I wanted simply by being assertive enough to ask for it.

Eff. Yes.

*What? That isn't normal?

**This part is actually cool. What he wanted to check on was this other person they hired previously whose salary is lower than what I was asking for. He didn't want to give me more and have that guy be underpaid in comparison so he had to see "what he could do" for that guy. I think it is a good sign that he was concerned with equity and with this employee's well-being. Also that guy had better be nice to me when I get there.

***Cue massive hangover

Pins and Needles

Big things are happening around here, people.

Some of these things are stupid and involve vomit in cars.

Some of these things are huge and exciting and terrifying. And involve job offers in hometowns and salary negotiations (whee!) and the potential of renting large trucks to move one's belongings across state lines.

Big things. Big things that have my gut in a teeny twisty ball and a smile of excitement/terror on my face. Neither D or I have slept for the past two days (I woke up shouting at him in the middle of the night last night and don't remember why and he wasn't even mad. Because he hadn't been asleep.)

I want to share these things with you, have been thinking about what I can say. The whole point of this blog is to help me work through the transitions of this year, I know.

But I can't isolate my feelings just yet because I have about ten thousand going at once and am too jittery to put together a coherent thought.

Suffice it to say that I'm thinking about you and I will tell all soon enough.

Stay tuned for the big reveal!

I love my alma mater

We just got a piece of mail from the small liberal arts school where both D$ and I went to college (and where we met).

I recently submitted a photo of our wedding to the "Class Notes," and they must have used that information to list us as married in their files, because they sent us one mailing addressed to both of us.*

This level of efficiency would be impressive all by itself, but. But! Not only are they proving themselves to be well organized and saving paper, but they put both of our names correctly (keeping my last name instead of assigning me his).

And! And and and and: my name was listed as Ms. MWK.

Oh yea that's right - I went to a feminist undergraduate institution.

*They also called D$ on Valentine's day to ask for money - apparently they were calling all the married couples that both went to our school. I think that is pretty freaking cute and sort of genius.