Bridges of Multnomah County

So as it turns out, Snakes on a Plane was an awesomely entertaining movie, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. And hanging out with Clint was wonderful! It was a great night, all around.

Yesterday, I went to go watch Paul play hockey with Ryan and his friends, out in Gresham. There's this old abandoned outdoors rollerhockey rink, so every Saturday (if plans go well) everyone gets together to go play for a couple of hours. Paul's gotten hurt every time he's gone so far, but he has so much fun he keeps going back for more. This time I wasn't the only one watching from the stands; April was there, too. I haven't seen her in a while, so that was pretty cool.

However, instead of going and sitting in the shade with her (which was the smart thing to do), I decided to stay in the sun so I could get a bit of color. But the color turned out a bit red. :(

Today was fun; Paul went out of town yesterday afternoon, just after hockey, so I had the rest of yesterday and all of today to myself. I honestly have no idea what I did after Paul left yesterday. He left at four, and it wasn't until ten that I realized that the day was gone and I hadn't accomplished anything. Woops... So today I decided to be semi-productive. I went out at noon to downtown Portland, and took 129 pictures (filled my memory card) in two hours, all of the bridges. I got more sunburned. But that's okay, I loved my afternoon! I saw the middle through the end of about fifty people swimming across the Willamette; I saw a lone, forgotten book underneath a park bench; I saw two people being led by two other people, one of which was reciting a poem, the other was playing guitar; I saw a ton of dads riding bikes with their daughters. It was a great day.

AAAAAhhhhhhhhh!!!! no way!!!

Paul's dragging me to go see Snakes on a Plane in about an hour. I'm not terribly enthused (sorry...). But he told me to go call and invite Clint to go with us, since Clint's been trying to hang out with us, and we haven't had a chance to get together yet. So I called him, and now Clint's up here, eatin' an enchalada, hangin' out with us!

Guess who got tickets to go see RATATAT???

That's right, the guy next door!

...just kidding.......


I DIDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

eviction of the brain

I feel melancholy, apathetic and generally caught in the doldrums at the moment. I think this post is probably meant for my public blog, and not my private one. So I think I'll post it there. Anyhow, I'm not quite sure how I got in this funk. But the song I'm listening to currently, Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, is cementing the mood. Oh, now it's Bright Eyes' Lua. Much better (/sarcasm)...

I keep finding remnants of the night I drank nearly a full bottle of wine (a big bottle, not regular-sized). I've found a few conversations and blogs I don't entirely remember doing, but I'm sure it was me. My sincere apologies to those I bugged and may have hurt. Way too much wine. And unfortunately, I don't think Paul will let me buy another bottle anytime soon...

I should be doing homework. Paul and I are going up to Centralia tomorrow morning. There's a family reunion on the Thomas side of Paul's family, and my presence is requested by his father, for getting to know the people I could one day be bound to the tree with. We have to be there at nine, so we (I) should probably wake up at around 6-6:30-ish. And it's nearly 11 now. And I'm not sleepy. Well, maybe a little...

I'm charging my camera batteries, because I need to get in the habit of actually using my camera when I take it everywhere with me. I've already missed two great photo opportunities this weekend (the beach with my family, and Potholes with my friends), and I'm super-bummed about both of them. I need to be making lots (hundreds) of photographs for my Advanced Image Manipulation class, and I currently have about thirty. Whoops...

I think I've found the source of my current mood. There's a being in the room that seems to be draining all the energy and life out of the situation. It does that fairly regularly... I don't think this regular exercise is a particularly helpful mechanism, but maybe there's something going on behind the scenes that I'm not quite understanding. Ugh.

I'm listening to a delightful song now, and it could just lift my spirits a bit! Hah, it's great. It's by The Boy Least Likely To, and the name of the song is I'm glad I hitched my apple wagon to your star. Oh, now there's flute, or pan pipes, or something. How happy. It sounds like something that would be sung out in a sunny field by little girls holding hands and skipping in a circle.

I think I should try to get some sleep now. Goodnight, all, and have sweet dreams!

Currently feeling awesomely productive...

...and not putting it to any good uses. I just ran for a full 21 minutes... putting me at a mile-and-a-half without stopping. I know this is a really bad time, but I ran very slow on purpose. A couple weeks ago, Meggan directed me to this site, which makes it sound very easy to get the exercise I want and need. So I finally gave it a shot, and I feel great right now! Woo (I haven't gone running in about a month or so)!

Also, I went swimming today. Ryan told us about these two places in Lacamas that are excellent for swimming; one place has a rope swing and deep water for jumping into, the other has big rocks and deep water for jumping into (that one's called Potholes, for the many holes the water has carved into the rocks). Anyway, it was a blast. I wasn't really in a "jump off these rocks and cliffs into water" kind of mood when we first got there, but I warmed up to it eventually and ended up having a great time. Unfortunately, however, I neglected to take any pictures, even though I brought my camera.

I suppose you could call "posting a blog" a good use of my productive mood, especially since I promised I would post more often, and I let it go another few weeks with nothing to speak of. I'm also thinking of uploading some pictures I took when we went camping last month (since I ran out of free space for the month of June on my Flickr account, and haven't been able to share them with anyone because of it). But, there are also more productive things I could be doing, such as starting on the mountain of homework I need to do for this next week. I'm going to be sooo busy this weekend. I should make a quick list, so I have things fresh in my head...

• complete home page for personal portfolio site, as well as make starts on other pages
• research historical or contemporary illustrator, put together presentation and then emulate style in my own illustration
• take-home midterm for C.S.I., which entails a ton of writing, research and probably collaboration
• do a couple quick "excercises" for adv. image manip. and burn them all onto one cd, along with my midterm project files
• my midterm project, which I got to choose myself, was to restore and colorize an old black+white photograph, probably made in the late 1800s. I worked on it for two-and-a-half days, totalling approximately 20+ hours of work. Bleh.

I thiiiiiiink that's it... I hope so, anyway. This is going to take a ton of time, as it is.

Damn this blasted chair, and its sinking tendancies!!

I saw my parents yesterday/today. They actually came to Oregon for a change. But they didn't come up to see me, they actually came up to look for a new place to live, on the coast. It was great to see them. I haven't seen them since New Year's morning, and I haven't talked to them since July 2, until this last Monday, when they told me they were leaving that afternoon to work their way up the coast. Abby is getting so big! She's three years old now. She comes up to my belly-button, and she's cuter than ever. She can hold a conversation with you, and she has interests in things (flowers, seashells, horses, etc.). A regular little person. I love her! Anyway, I drove out to meet them just north of Tillamook, and I stayed the night at their motel room on the beach. It was so good to see them. I'm happy.

Well, my energy has sufficiently wound down... I think if I'm still going to put up those camping pictures I should get started, 'cause I'm pretty sleepy. Motel beds suck for sleeping in.