Once Upon a Time...

I am writing this at 5am because I know that if I sleep on it I will forget crucial details.

It is 8:30PM and I am eating a veggie dog on a stick at the Lloyd Center. I am by myself. My movie doesn't start for another 40 minutes so I call Beth Williams to update her on my life. She asks me what I'm doing-which is absolutely nothing-and at that point we decide that I should go to Salem.
I arrive in Salem at 11PM, drop my dog at the parents' house and Beth Williams and I hit the town. We go to 'The Brick' first which is a pretty low key restaurant-during-the-day-bar-at-night type of joint. We have one drink there and go to meet Beth's work friends at a place called "South Lib." Beth warns me that this place is ridiculous and I brush off her warnings. There's neon she says. There are naked robots on the walls she says. Psch. Sounds tame.
We enter and I remember that I am in Salem- so this ridiculous bar isn't filled with hipster kids it's filled with Salem people- people with tribal tattoos and white baseball hats. There's an unfortunate looking pregnant server whom I discover is carrying the child of a formerly good looking guy from my high school. There is glass thrown, girls fighting in the corner. On the wall above my head they are selling T-shirts with the bar's name against tribal markings and wings. I'm pretty out of my element. I am NOT blending. We stand with Beth's friends for a bit and they mention going to a strip club. Well, naturally. It's 1am.
Beth and I enter the strip club and because of our charm and good looks (or vaginas/breasts) we don't pay a cover. We sit down at a table and I discover that Beth and I are by far the most experienced strip bar patrons in the group. Her friends don't seem to know what to do with themselves. Just as Raven is taking the stage, (we'd been waiting for her. She had wild hair and wing tattoos on her back.) a man sits down at our table and introduces himself to Beth as Jean Luc. He is a BRO. He is quickly joined by his two friends- Rogan and Finnigan. Yes. Those are actually their names. Jean Luc, however, was not a real name. His name is Caleb. We never found out why he introduced himself as Jean Luc. These boys are from Corvallis- apparently they were sitting around playing MarioKart and one of them said 'we never do anything good' at which point they decided to drive to Salem and go to the strip club. Serendipitous.
Beth and Finnigan hit it off and we play the 'let's guess the middle name' game. There are four men by this point and Beth's friends are leaving us. The boys comment that Beth and I have a good strategy- going out together. "Two blonde haired blue eyed girls with beautiful smiles-that's not even fair." Think that's laying it on thick-oh no. Stay tuned. We close the strip club and Riley, the fourth musketeer, disappears into the back for a lap dance. Finnigan and Caleb decide they'd like to join Beth and I at Denny's so we give them directions and head over while they wait for their friend to finish with his lap dance.
We are at Denny's for ten minutes before Beth texts Finnigan for an ETA. It is another ten minutes without a response before we decide to bail and just hit the Shari's by Beth's apartment. We are literally walking out of the door and there they are- all four of them lumbering towards us shouting "WHOA WHOA WHOA ladies where are you going!? We just got here." We inform them that they took too long and after some debate we decide to head to Shari's as a group. After all, Shari's offers a full menu at night whereas Denny's has some bullshit late night menu and also the Denny's has been remodeled since I moved away and I hate it.
So we're heading to Shari's and Beth looks into the rear view mirror. Jesus Christ. They just turned into a bar. I turn around in disbelief and sure enough- they've turned off.
Beth gets ahold of Finnigan as we're pulling into the Shari's- we're eating dammit. He informs us that Riley left his phone at the strip club and they have to go back for it. Beth tells him that we'll be eating at the Shari's and 'If you show up you show up. If not, then okay.' Beth and I get a large booth and inform our waitress, Karen, that we may be joined by four more people but we need to order soon.
A note about Karen- on a scale from one to oompa loompa Karen was at least a lollypop kid. Chelsea Handler would have loved the shit out of her.
Beth and I order breakfast deliciousness and wait. We're halfway through our waters when Caleb and Riley walk in the door-stripper in tow. They went back to get a cell phone and gained a stripper. Are you fucking kidding me? The stripper's name is Megan. She is basically body-language-begging Riley to stick it in her.
We inquire as to the location of the other boys. We are told that they are peeing in the parking lot. Erroneous. They are drinking in the parking lot. They are drinking Busch Light(in a camo can) in the parking lot.
They roll in and join us at the booth. Finnigan says to Beth "Oh my god you're beautiful. In the light, now I can see that you really are beautiful." I laugh at him of course(not because Beth isn't beautiful, she is. But-who the FUCK says that?). But I think he was serious.
We're all talking and we start going over Finnigan's life story-including the fact that he is named after an Irish war hero. I wikipedia'd to verify and-it's true.
Seated to my left is Rogan-he's pretty quiet and somehow his age is questioned. Shifty eyes ALL around the table. This kid may or may not actually be 21. We can't get a straight answer out of these guys and that pretty much becomes the trend. These men have wing-man down to a science. They were making all kinds of eyes at each other the whole evening. I never again want to be told that women are sneaky. These men were shifty as fuck.
Prime example- Beth is trying to help Finnigan with his phone and opens up his address book. A couple minutes later she looks up and says "Please do NOT tell me that I am in your phone as 'Strip Club Girl'" They all immediately switch into cover up mode. It was actually impressive to watch them build and modify their story so seamlessly. I think their end story was that Caleb couldn't remember her name and so HE as the one that put her number in. The actual story, however, is that Finnigan could not remember either of our names-even though we had spent at least 10 minutes at the strip club JUST on names. Eventually Beth forgives him but not before we both harassed him pretty mercilessly.
Riley and Megan the Stripper order steak. Because, as Riley put it, "You must be hungry after all of that dancing." They eat about four bites and then sneak out to the parking lot. Riley tells he'll be back.
There is not, however, mention of the return of the stripper. This leads the boys to descend on her plate of food. Many good moments were garnered from this. "I'm eating stripper toast and my lips feel fine" "I'm eating stripper beef." "If I take the straw out I can drink the stripper soda right?" It was pretty phenomenal. Caleb then tells us- "We just obliterated your notion of normal" and he was right. What kind of fucking night is this?
The conversation gets better. A couple fun facts-Finnigan used to work at the restaurant, Midevil Times. He was once asked by a man to have sex with his wife for money. He also worked at a gay club called "The Diesel." Rogan worked on the Cornelius Marie-the crab fishing boat from Deadliest Catch. Yep. Not even a lie. We thought it was. It's not. He leaves in two weeks for another excursion into the Bering Sea. At the ripe young age of (??). Ladies, get him before he's taken by the cold depths.
Riley stumbles back into Shari's nearly 45 minutes after he and Megan the stripper had left. Of course, we are all curious. We start asking him if he's in love with her. Will it bother him when other men touch her? Is she still allowed to give lap dances?
Riley tries to be a gentleman and withhold the information but we tell him that we are truly curious. He informs us that he did NOT sleep with said stripper. You don't lead a stripper out of Shari's and return 45 minutes later without a story worth telling.
"If you guys really want to know, I'll tell you. We were about to fuck. Dick in hand. Then I'm like no, no, no. Not without a condom. Not this time"
Okay hold up- Beth and I are then informed that Riley dated this girl in high school and she is the reason they had picked that particular strip club. She has, apparently, pulled a billy jean in the past and he was wary tap it without wrapping it. By this time we had all assumed that the story ended with lack of condom.
"So we go to the circle K and get condoms" At this point Riley throws a full pack of condoms onto the table. 2 seconds of silence and 5 minutes of laughter. One of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.
"So I 'get ready' and I'm going to put it on and... bzzz bzzz. Her phone goes off and she tells me she has to go. She said she had no excuse not to be home yet because the club closed two hours ago." SOOO, Megan the Stripper has a boyfriend. That she lives with. But she was just buying condoms with Riley at the Circle K so that she could fuck him in the Shari's parking lot. I mean, she was dick in hand. I'm generally a defender of strippers. Megan, you are not helping me to defend stripper honor. You're kindof a skank and you smelled like neon and broken dreams.
Riley expresses his relief at not sleeping with her. Because then he'd have to get tested and she'd probably accuse him of impregnating her with tiny little stripper babies and that all just sounds like a huge headache to me.
We sit around a bit longer and the boys argue over who first made the move to come talk to us instead of staring at sub-par vagina (the term beef curtains may have been used). Somewhere in the middle of this argument Finnigan looks at Beth and says "I had tunnel vision for you. In a strip club. I mean, that's saying something." Wow.
At this point we all pay Karen for our food and her patience. Riley hugs us and gets stripper all over our clothes and hair. Finnigan invites Beth to come snuggle up with him. "I'm never coming to Salem again but if you're in Corvallis..."

I won't lie, I want to be friends with these guys. One of the most ridiculous nights of my life-and completely sober. It's light outside. Almost 6AM. Goodnight Salem.

Line Dancing

When I was working for Steve he purchased a giant ranch (1.2 MILLION acres) and one of the best trips I got to go on was a road trip out to this Ranch for a couple days. Steve had us stop in Reno and get outfitted properly-boots, belt, wranglers, tops. It was pretty fantastic. The photo above was taken on the ranch. I know I look pretty awkward. I felt like I was playing dress up. We were surrounded by REAL cowboys and I was posing for a photo.
It's crazy beautiful out there. I'd love to go back some day.
Anyway, maybe the best thing I got out of that job was these boots:

I wear them all the time and have pretty thoroughly destroyed them (they don't look like this anymore). My friends all tell me that I dress/look like a country western singer which I usually take offense to. Jason even called me Faith (hill) for an entire weekend once. So I stopped curling my hair. Tonight, Melissa and I are going line dancing at Duke's here in Portland and my hair is going into rollers as soon as I get off work.
Over the last couple weeks, I've been trying to learn some line dances off youtube- not in preparation for this night (we just decided yesterday that we would go)- this is actually something I've been wanting to learn more about since we went to Denver

(a year and a half ago-wow)

and went to this amazing bar called the Cowboy Lounge(photo above is NOT from the Cowboy Lounge. That is from the Bump & Grind Cafe's Drag Queen Brunch). People were line dancing and country swing dancing. But there was also top 40 and the same kind of dance club scene you'd see here in Portland-all in the same club. The men were so respectful and they could dance. We met a group of guys willing to teach us the line dances. They were very patient and by the end of the night we (almost) fit in. We were back the next night as well. I didn't learn to do any of the swing dancing but watched with SO much envy.
Even though I know Dukes will have nothing on the Cowboy Lounge (I don't have very much faith in the ability of Portland men to line dance) I'm still excited. Country music has always been a pretty guilty pleasure and I love it when I can just enjoy and be ridiculous. Usually those moments are confined to road trips with Melissa and Box.

***Disclaimer about my love for country music: I hate/change the radio station when any songs come on related to patriotism, putting a boot up someone's ass, soldiers etc. I also have a hard time with songs about how awesome it is to be trashy (redneck woman) but I usually end up singing along. See, guilty pleasure. I fully feel the need to qualify my enjoyment with the fact that I'm not one of those people.

Tid bits

The camera phone is great because it lets you conveniently and even discreetly catch spontaneous moments, pretty things, and what you did last night. I just put all of my phone pictures on my computer in order to clear some space on my phone and thought I'd go on a phone photo journey. It's questionable whether anyone would/should give a shit about any of these things so proceed at your own risk.

This is the Space Room which is a very high quality bar in SE. Notice planet-shaped lights. This might also be a photo of a mullet.




Real life stripper heels sighting on Mardi Gras. Melissa and I went to see Legally Blonde the Musical (which was surprisingly wonderful, btw) and came out of the show to downtown Portland enjoying Mardi Gras.

Saw this on the sidewalk at the bus stop. Made it the background of my phone as a personal reminder.

I don't know if we've been over this but I love cemeteries. This one is in Oregon City and Melissa took me to see it after milkshakes. Good day.

I went with Beth Williams to see Chelsea Handler do stand up. This is her. Ours was her second show of the evening. She was shitty drunk. Like, dropping her microphone and slurring her words drunk. Also, start-your-show-nearly-two-hours-late drunk. Hilarious. Sorta.

Melissa and I had green beer in my apartment for St. Patty's. We were too poor to do anything else. Doesn't it look like there's a little man in the left glass?

So when I get drunk, I sometimes decide that I LOVE PORCHES. There are about 15 pictures of porches on my phone. Some are too dark to really make out but I'm told this has happened several times. I'll get really excited and tell everyone that I want to start collecting pictures of porches.

The two above are from the hike Melissa and I took at Multnomah falls. Highlights: tiny toy gun (pew pew!!) I found and mossy tree/rock that looks like a monkey's face.

Kid Rock rides my bus.

I'm in charge of our volunteer program at work and I planned a trip to the Humane Society last month. Basically you go socialize the animals. For the feline portion of the afternoon, they had each of us choose a room in the cattery. I chose the ones with kitty AIDS. We asked how they end up with kitty AIDS. The guide told us "well in the usual way. Tomcatting around, being promiscuous" Slutty kitties. They were very sweet. But all a little crusty because their immune systems suck. Slutty kitties need love too.

This was sitting in front of me at Easter Dinner. This was not the only decoration with fiber optic lighting that day. Sigh. (ALTHOUGH, remember those really sweet fiber optic wand things they sold at the fair/circus? I loved those things.)

So I was lost in Winco a few weeks ago (that will probably be the last time I ever go there alone. I was actually lost, as in I was there for a few hours because I couldn't find anything that I needed and then couldn't figure out how to get out.) and saw these. I didn't buy this cereal but I regret it. It's like funfetti cookie crisp. That just SOUNDS happy.




I shadowed this guy in Target for quite a while trying to get a picture of him in his beautiful sweater and plaid fanny pack. It wasn't until we were in line checking out that I was able to sneak a photo.




Melissa and I were out and about killing time before kickball one day and saw some smoke. So, naturally we drove to the smoke. An old book store had caught fire in SW. It was crazy smokey. We watched the fire for at least an hour. And we were on the news for like 10 seconds.




So, remember that entry where I talked about tots and egg salad sandwiches. This is from that night. Mission. Accomplished.




Tiny Japanese man on the bus with his patriotic love socks.




This was my second encounter with this man. He plays the harmonica, but it's not a harmonica. It's a comb with a plastic bag on it. Same diff. Told me and Melissa not to be sluts on our birthdays, on Mardi Gras.

Bloody Mary in a tiki glass at the Yummy Garden which is an american movie/pop culture themed Chinese restaurant across the street from Melissa's new place. Had to add significant amounts of Tabasco to this but it ended up being pretty delicious.

On the Rocks. See previous entries. Swoon.

First time this happened to me. Reminds me of the part at the end of Grease when the car flies off into the distance.

We recycle our batteries and the folks who come pick them up told me that ODOT rules specify that they must all have their ends taped as dead/nearly dead batteries can charge each other when jingle jangling about in a box and this can cause an explosion. Apparently it has happened before. Who knew? So I got paid to tape batteries for about two hours.

This is the fabric on the seats on the bus. Two things baffle me about this.

1-someone designed this pattern. As in, this is someone's artistic expression and probably their claim to fame.
2- someone else then PICKED this. I mean, at some point someone looked at this pattern and though "that's the one!"

Emotional Cutting

This blog is enough to send anyone into a tailspin of depression and envy. These people sold their house, got married, and traveled the world for a year. Yep. And they won't be broke when they get back. They not only have their shit together but they're good looking and apparently are the coolest people in the world. Beth Williams, this is for you.

Dear insomnia, I have NOT missed you. Now, fuck off.

Rare and elusive

Behold.

the downside to my beautiful studio

Is that I don't have a yard. I miss gardening and having my very own flowers to pick/smell/admire. I have a moderate flower obsession that was only made worse during my brief stint as a floral designer/rose cleaner/ flower shop bitch. Also because of this experience, I generally hate the arrangements at the grocery store- which are the only flowers I can afford to buy for myself. My preference is to go to a florist and buy flowers by the stem and arrange them myself. Below are a few I did for funsies this last winter. I like asymmetrical, sorta wild looking arrangements, obviously.



I also have this fantasy of having Ink and Peat(my favorite florist) surprise me with an arrangement that I pick up on the weekly. However, this would probably cost me at least $30 per week and that's just not in the budget.
I am at this very moment considering, or lets be honest planning, an evening stroll around my neighborhood with scissors. That's right I'm going to steal other people's flowers. Mostly I'm planning on stealing some really beautiful peonies growing on the side of my building. I pay rent here, those peonies are practically mine. Right?

Chandelier Collection

Remember when I said I was collecting pictures of Chandeliers like 3 months ago? Well, it's true!

This one was posted before. It's the chandelier at backstage but this is a much better picture I think. At least, I like it better.

My little brother sent me this one. It's in the Red Lion Hotel in Salem.

This one is hanging in the accessory shop, Zida, in the VRC in Eugene.

I'm pretty sure this one is in Kells...I should put notes on these pictures when I take them.

This is at a lovely pizza place on Hawthorne that I can't remember the name of right now. It's not a typical chandelier but I think it counts.

Black chandelier at Bridgetown Pizza across from the train station.

The bathroom chandelier at Jameson's (where everybody knows your name) in Eugene.

I wish that I could skip work like I skipped class

One of my favorite things about being a college student (and a polisci major with exceptional procrastination skills and the ability to BS my way through nearly any test) was that I could wake up in the morning and decide not to go to class-usually consequence free. Not so here in big kid land. Today would have been perfect for skipping. It's monsooning outside. I could turn up my heat, put on some boxers and watch Sex in the City with my dog all day. Even better with some white chocolate liqueur. Memorial day, I've got my eye on you.

Seth Cohen withdrawals

Seth Cohen might be the number one fictional character that I wish was real. I actually never finished the series but I just added it to my netflix queue because...that needs to happen. I've been searching for quotes and pictures related to Seth Cohen for about an hour now. Good use of my time, I think. Here are a couple treasures.


Ryan: “Sometimes I think you talk just to make sounds.”Seth: “Well, sometimes I do.”

“You can’t ruin Chrismukkah. It’s got twice the resistance of any normal holiday”

Seth: I got a room at the Mermaid Motel.
Summer: You mean the place where Ryan may or may not have conceived Theresa's baby? And where Marissa's mom and Luke got it on?
Seth: Newport's very own Den of Sin.
Summer: Ew. But I like it. Seth: We can even... I mean if we have some free time. Whatever.

Seth: You know what I mean?
Ryan: Hardly ever.

Can I have the funnies?

So it turns out that hate speech was just a speed bump in what is shaping up to be an otherwise excellent day. I mentioned in my previous post that my cube was TP'd. The culprit is my boss, Colin. This is his TP job.

While it was well timed (all four of us who sit in this area had walked across the street on a whim) it was not necessarily well executed. And, probably without thinking, he happened to perform his act of vandalism on a day when he was leaving after lunch. Bad move sir, bad move.
Another coworker suggested that we paper Colin's office. Perfect. Splendid. So I went to the other offices in the building and collected newspapers. Discovered, btw, that the second floor has a ping pong table. New friends?
Anyways, this is the result. It took me about an hour I think. I'm pretty proud of myself. Pens, stapler, umbrella, extra set of shoes. Everything is newspapered.

So this is what I did with my afternoon. I might go back and do the windows.

homophobic slurs make me want to punch babies.

Generally, I love my job and the people I work with. I was having a pretty amazing day today. It's sunny. There was a man singing Meatloaf songs on the bus. My cube got TP'd. Just generally a really good morning.
However, we were shooting the shit when one of my superiors and someone I like/respect used the word 'faggish.' Immediately all three of us that were present reacted negatively to the comment. She continued talking as though nothing had been said. I called her on it and she got incredibly defensive. The conversation continued and another employee used the term 'tramp stamp' at which point my superior who had made the 'faggish' comment started insisting that if we could say tramp stamp then there couldn't be anything wrong with 'faggish.' At this point the situation became incredibly uncomfortable as I felt something had to be said. I tried to explain that while tramp stamp might not be the most appropriate term it most definitely was not a hate term used to oppress an entire group of people. She then told me 'well I don't think anyone here has a problem with gay people so I don't see why it needs to be a big deal. I'm so sorry if I've offended you." Since then the tension has been pretty noticeable. I definitely feel as though I'm being punished for saying something and the woman who made the comment is in HR. Stupid, hateful comment ruined my morning.

***
I started writing this before lunch and then went outside in the sun and talked to Melissa and I am again a happy person. However, still not pleased with the situation. And maybe sunburned. But that's kinda good.

***
Another edit- the next week Glee addressed the use of the very same word. It was incredibly well done. Here is the episode. I very very highly recommend watching it.

Ballroom Dancing

I used to take ballroom classes at UO and I miss the shit out of it. I also wish that there were valid reasons for me/everyone to know how to ballroom dance.
A ball? Big beautiful dress and fantastic dancing? Don't mind if I do.