Raw
    words
        manifested
            by
               my
                  imagination.

Woah. I'm existing right now. Overwhelming!!! Everything just feels like this movement is what I'm supposed to do next, these images are there and everywhere because I have eyes. Drink some water. See that. Sneeze that out. Scratch there. Speak this. It seems hardly as if we're in control of our existence. Could the entire point be to feel as free and living for oneself and by oneself as possible throughout our lifetime(s)? There is so much to be uncovered.

I omitted these parts (the parts in green because color is wonderful) from an email to Dale, the guy I met last summer in Newport who I finally emailed (he emailed me back with lots of enthusiasm!) Here's me rambling on about my hangups: 

Thanks for telling me about Vipassana meditation! I may have to check it out. There's a bummer-ey, practical, atheistic part of me that shies away from spirituality. I try to overcome it enough to be open to experiences, which is definitely what it sounds like the retreat could act as-- an experience for any kind of person with any mindset to find their inner, truest capacity, which I totally dig and I feel everyday. I think my hesitation towards spirituality, just as did my past dubiousness towards feminism, springs from my parents. My mom was mistreated by men her whole life and is now pretty man-hating which in the past led me to not want to listen to anything having to do with feminism. I've very thankfully worked through that subjective, tainted viewpoint through discussing and reading feminist ideas and literature.
My dad was religious and he's a terrible person and my mom is spiritual and when she talks to me about her ideas about the universe they're just so unfounded and hard for me to take, I typically am closed to hearing any of it. I do comply with a lot of what Buddhism teaches though. I believe in the Bodhisattva I just call it something else. I find it essential to have my own philosophies and I don't like being influenced heavily by one kind of thinking. I have immeasurably more respect for eastern philosophy, teachings and religions than others but still there's a wall in my mind that I think the education system has built that cuts off my right brain at times and stunts my open-mindedness towards a lot of things. It's really unfortunate. I believed in fairies and wanted to be an artist when I was a kid and now look at me! Mainly though I think my hesitation towards spiritual teachings comes from my whole distaste for the entire idea and impact of religion. I appreciate Buddhism's openness though to people of all sects or no sects to be free to use specific teachings, philosophies and experiences derived from the Buddha to grow from.


And I took out this:
PS: (This is a clear example of how bizarre the trails are my imagination follows.) Your name makes me wanna call you Dalewhale which reminds me of Pinocchio because of the wale in the story who swallows Gepetto, which makes me see an image of you as a happy dancing marionette. Freaky.

Rightfully so, I'd say.

I baked valentine's day cookies today! Heart-shaped sugar cookie yummyamazingness with frosting dyed pink with beet juice. www.vegalicious.org/2009/12/11/vegan-sugar-cookies/ So, although that idea I came up with for improv about the kid getting killed via juicer was not based off a true story, I do think that juicers and Alyse may not mix (hahahaha I couldn't resist the pun!) So, I was thinking some of the pieces of my mom's roasted almonds for her truffles she was making last night and had in the same bowl I used to make the frosting in had stuck to the bowl and were in my frosting mix. That's what those little pieces taste like and they're the exact color of the almond slivers. There were a few that were the right shape, too so I'm going to tell myself that's exactly what went down. Buuut while I was juicing those beets...well, my mom got the juicer used and lost or never had the pushey-downey thing that you use to shove the stuff you're juicing down with. So I was using a long wooden spoon tonight to push down those beets (this sounds dirtymcfreakinweird!) and i notice the very edge of the bottom of the spoon has been sawed to a flat edge-- just a tiny bit of it was made no longer round at the very end...by the blades in the juicer. So, I kind of juiced a tiny bit of wood into the juice I put in my frosting which I put on the cookies that I'm bringing to work. Shhhhhhh. Hahaha. So either those pieces are almond, which I really think they are or they're wood chips. Hahahahaha. Pretty sure they're almond...the wood just got liquefied in that insanely powerful juicing monstrous beast machine!

 I just found my hemp lip balm I've been missing for a week now inside my rainbow striped jacket where the hole in the pocket has gotten bigger. So big that I can now stick my hand inside the interior between the cloths of the jacket and I finally got that bottle cap out of there that had been stuck in that area inside the jacket for two years. It's a Jarritos Mexican soda cap. [:

I'm not in love with anyone. I don't have romantic feelings for anyone. All of that kind of energy of irreplaceable love is no longer a part of the shape of my reality. I feel as if, without that, my life's capacity is being hugely wasted. I have so much inside of me that can bring so many energies, feelings and experiences that make life worth living for myself and others. I am not particularly lonely, I'm not needy, I just feel as if I'm not making the best use of my existence without loving someone and being loved. I miss it because it makes me feel fulfilled, I know that I'm giving my best self in order to bring out someone else's best self and celebrate and live within that which we build together, through living and being our most in-tune, honest, truest, best people. Being in real love is so productive and healthy for you and everyone who knows you. I want to be existing with the most efficient use of the love within me, the essence that makes me and all life.

 The other night I explained to LaKisha what carob is and she said "weird". Then I told her I think milk-chocolate is weird. I explained that it doesn't make sense to me that it's considered a chocolate equal just different from dark chocolate. There's a cocoa plant but there's no milkancocoamixedtogether plant. (Hopefully that will not be a product of biotechnology in the future!!)  Then I made myself some vegan chocolate milk and compared it to "conventional" (fuck, I hate that word) milk-chocolate and chocolate milk (from animals). Almonds and water (what my milk is) and cocoa beans and sugar (what the chocolate syrup is) can all grow in the same local environment. It wouldn't take a giant stretch of the imagination for the three to get mixed. But cocoa and cow's milk are so fucking random! While a cow could live in the same area/system as a cocoa plant grows, isn't it unlikely? Wouldn't the cow eat the plant before the milk that the cow produces could get mixed with cocoa? The closest thing to that combination of milk chocolate would be the cows' "waste" ( i hate that word, too-- both "conventional" and "waste" in these contexts are words people made to acquiesce to this backwards, illogical, unsustainable world we've created.) For us to take the milk a cow produces for its baby and process and mix it with processed cocoa (powder) from a plant grown possibly on the other side of the world or some other random distant location from the particular cows who make the milk is crazy nonsense to me!
I feel strange even eating foods that have ingredients that come from completely unconnected, random environments and locations from each other. It just seems wrong to me. I think our bodies would be healthier if we taught them to become used to one environment that we live in, if everything we put in them came from our direct ecosystem. It doesn't surprise me that people have so many food allergies, intolerances and reactions-- we eat things from every corner of the planet that our bodies and lineage have not evolved along with. I don't think we put the right things in our mouths. I long for a truly sustainable, local ecosystem-abiding life. When petroleum runs out, it seems like the most logical next step.

Man I've been dreaming a lot of random crazy-ass dreams (52536 a night!) lately. I dreamt last night that Sammy ran away and came back later that day and had a meow instead of a bark.

It was so beautiful waking up to the sun this morning (and then going back to bed and waking up to it in the later morning!) And it's still there!

This is a Ted video, my latest favorite lecture presentation. It is so inspiring, well said and important. It's about the girl in everyone. Please watch it! www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_embrace_your_inner_girl.html
I emailed that very thing to people, too but it needs to be on here!!

I'm soooooo excited for Valentine's day. I've been makin' valentines and I'm going to make baked goods for flipping everyone! [: 

Everyone I know has been damn dramatic today! Goshus (i love you, Levi. Hahaha.) By the way, I know what you're making me. Silly.
And there is something more I want to say, to share, to express and analyse, feelings to let out and know better-- but they arose from events that I don't talk about to anyone including my blog which is read by many. And not surprisingly, Zack is not available tonight when I planned on talking to him about this and now I'm stuck in a mute fog, still and I want to speak about it to try to understand it. It wouldn't be nearly as big if I could just talk about it!
Fucking shitsticks.

Learning a second language is hard. Especially learning the grammatical rules and workings of a second language purely with instruction and explanation in that language. v_v I got all my French homework done tonight though so I'm happy about that. That Power shit in statistics is insane though-- I don't even know what the fuck is up with it. I think I should go to Marciniak's office early on Wednesday and have him help me with that section before the quiz that day.

Jordan and I discovered that we both used to play basketball for some years. We're going to get together with whoever else we can (an even number) and play some basketball soon. I'm excited. I can't not think of this and remember that episode of the L word when Papi and Alice and everyyyonne played basketball in the park. Hahahaha. I'm thinkin' Jordan, Me, Maddy, Jeannine, maybe LaKisha if she decides to see me some fricken time, Levi, Tanner, Zack. That would be immensely entertaining. TRULY. Ahahahaha.

I get soooo excited about health/vegan/unusual/awesome/hippie/sustainable food. Ohmygaaad. I got Monterey Jack vegan cheese, coconut milk yogurt, a Dave's Killer Bread Sin-amon dog<3 and chickpea miso base at Whole Foods and Limbo's yesterday. I'm all pumped. Hahaha. I made yummy miso soup and I'm going to make kick ass vegan mexican food perhaps for my lunch to bring tomorrow. I wish so much that peppers were in season alwaysssss. Levi and I found vegan, RAW ice cream at Whole Foods that was made in LONGVIEW (yes, meth-baby Longview, Washington!) Wtf is an understatement. I can't imagine what those peoples' lives are like nor why in the fuck they're in Longview. It was 9 dollars and small so I didn't splurge but I promised the first day(s) it's over 65 degrees and sunny I'll go buy it. Very bizarre.

http://community.livejournal.com/veganism/1076387.html
Hahahaha. It's so true. I too, think soy is a big cause. Another reason not to base a whole freakin diet around one plant. Soy pisses me off. My cheese is rice cheese. 

Damn! When Levi was here I forgot that we needed to watch The End of Suburbia together. I haven't finished it. >:| Our visit was brief and packed with stuff unfortunately. ]: The park, dog-walking, cooking together, movie watching and sleeping next to each other was still a good time, though. I felt like I was more of just his best friend than I've felt in as long as I can remember this visit. It was bizarre how it just occurred this visit and stuck to my reality. I wonder if it's there for good. It's a great thing but it's so sad and feels out of my control at the same time. How can things happen so quickly without you taking great notice of them while they're transforming and manifesting themselves? I'm growing and it feels like a beanstalk being morphed by the force of the wind and weather that I have no impact on.

I miss Heidi. Monterey in the summertime is so fun. Being there as an adult is such a different experience, there's so much I can live that I didn't get to experience as the young child of a single working mom. I've met and bonded to the parks, the laundry mats, the elementary school and the beaches but there are so many other parts of the city for adults I've yet to explore! And even the parts I once knew so well are all different to the different person I am now. I can hold my breath through the tunnel where Lighthouse turns into Del Monte blvd. and make a wish and feel completely unattached to past times but one with them in the same instance. I've never kayaked. I've never gone out to a nice dinner to the place of my choice treating someone I love. I've never done yoga on any Californian beaches!! I've never walked Chloe in Monterey or Pacific Grove. I've never helped clean up beaches down there. I've never gone to school down there past sixth grade. I have an entire world to discover anew.

Why didn't anyone show me that the University of Portland is a totally viable option?! You don't hear much about it, why not?
college.up.edu/envscience/default.aspx
"The University of Portland, closely affiliated with the Congregation of Holy Cross, prides itself on providing a traditional, values-centered education that is attuned to the needs of every student."
Damn. That's why. Nevermind!! So, basically, if you're an atheist in Portland and want to go to a four-year you have to go to get into and want to support a private college or be an asshole who loves shitting huge classes and a fucking assshitty campus in the middle of downtown? I give up. Ugh.

66 and 67 passed! [: I was a part of that. ^_^ I was biking home from work tonight and I realized "I did that! I helped make that happen." It felt incredible. My first voting. I love it; I'm addicted. I feel the importance and power of the privilege so much more deeply now, particularly voting for legislation. Legislation is sure, unlike politicians. I love how direct and no-bullshit voting for legislation is. It helped that the wrong side barely had a limb of lies and slants to stand on against these measures; they were just obviously needed. I love how Oregon as a state votes. [: We need to do it more with more challenging, essential legislation. Like marriage equality!

It has dawned on me, a thought with the ability to manifest ideas i've never quite come to and expressed before. A more completed shape of my understanding and movement towards the oneness. I feel I've broken ground. I may have reached a new plateau of understanding human destiny, which truly, is what I'm always obsessed with as a philosopher; how we're supposed to live.
I was watching this lecture: www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html And from 24:26-26:30 the speaker uses photography and historical art to show us how these mediums can act as vehicles for our unique levels of empathy that only we humans have. In this lecture, he's been discussing complex understandings and mental connections that only our species can make. Homo sapiens are the only species that as we've evolved, a significant portion of us choose not to eat other animals. Yes, established, but why and what does it really mean? It means, when people choose not to eat animals for the animals' sake, we are able to feel levels of sympathy more transcendental than any other species we know of. We are the most developed species on Earth so does it not seem fitting that said species should be some kind of leader? My thought is this: perhaps human destiny is to be the species to unite all species under a common love and respect for life. We are not just a part of the oneness which we need to respect and nurture, but we are the ones who must facilitate the presence of the oneness in everything and make its relevance and meanings known and wide-spread. We are destined to find our best selves that are most in-tune with every other living thing and to develop more and more so into oneness-creating role-models for other species. This does not mean our destiny is to all become plant-eaters and for all animals to become plant-eaters; that's not sustainable and this idea is not about vegetarianism. Our results in-line with the oneness may be different than any other species; each species may have a different place to reach and find their niche in within the realm of the oneness. But I don't think we're there yet-- none of us.
Countless species other than humans kill their own species and engage in organized killing of their own kind (this is also touched on in this lecturer as a commonality between us and other species). Perhaps, uniting all species under a common love and respect for life means (or is partially ramified by) all species no longer feeling the need to kill members of their own species in warfare because they are of a different tribe, nationality or group of any kind. Humans are the most widely spread and developed species on this planet. We have the most capability to do anything including the most unprecedented things in this evolutionary time. Perhaps to develop into a species that have no wars pitted against our own species is the first stepping stone included in our human destiny to become the ones to reach our own true understanding and action that is most in-line with the oneness first. If we stay the dominant species of this planet, dominant only meaning the most developed and wide-spread, I think it will be our duty, our ultimate job to be the catalyst species of the oneness. If we do not reach it, there will be no means by which all others can.

The oneness is the connectedness and sameness shared by all things that live. The oneness is life. The oneness is what's inside us that harbors the desire to find harmony with all life, to make a world that functions for all and is completely united by the fact that we all share life. When speaking of reaching the oneness I'm speaking of becoming most aligned with ones being that is most true and most optimally an embodiment of the oneness. Life creates conditions conducive to life. Our destiny is to be life and be able to manifest infinity.

This is the biggest threat to democracy the United States has seen since the 2004 Presidential Election. This country will no longer be for the people and by the people by any extent with this Supreme Court Ruling intact. If we believe in all America is, we will defeat this ruling and restore the people's basic powers to have the ultimate say in this country's elective processes. It's not as if corporations don't have enough of a voice already, funding campaigns, ads, and often spreading slanted truths, propaganda and lies about opponents, not to mention pressuring and trying to pay-off politicians to stop change that is best for all at the expense of the greedy, powerful minority special interests working solely for personal gain. There is already too much money involved in politics and with this ruling we are forfeiting completely the entire integrity, accountability and enforceability of even a semi-fair, true democracy. The notion that through this ruling the supreme court is creating legislation that lives up to the 1st amendment's promise of freedom of speech for all people is ridiculous. Corporations are not people, they are business entities. A church is not a person, a hair salon is not a person, a bank is not a person. People create and make up the functioning parts of these businesses but the businesses themselves do not vote, the individual people do. We all know the power of the individual voter and understand that therein lies all of a democracy's point and integrity. Each one of us has the freedom of choice. To take that individual freedom away by undermining the power of an individual vote by money corporations are able to spend entirely unregulated and limitless completely undermines the entire idea of a democracy. With this ruling we may as well toss out voting all together and just let corporations dictate how the world will work ultimately for them instead of for all people; doing so would have the same effect.

I got called "ma'am", "lady", "sweetie" and "honey" today by strangers. Eeeehhhh. I'm eighteen years old people! And i resent all of those names.
Everyone at work loves my cookies. [: I'm officially permanently on the door team. I averaged above quota for my first two weeks on this team. It's exciiiiting. I love canvassing St John's. I hung out with two tipsy college guys tonight. They were hilarious. They signed post cards and I drew a picture on their coffee table with a built in chalk board!! Kick ass.
I love the people I work with. The directors are awesome. I especially love Tanner, Rachel, Dan and Kyala (no idea how to spell her name...). I have Dan dancing on my phone. It's fabulous. I'm going to need to make a Red Hot Chili Peppers mix CD for the office. Rachel and Dan love them like crazy, too. When we were walking back into the office Tuesday Dan started singing part of Sir Psycho Sexy and Rachel joined and I joined. It was great. Dwayne is really freakin' spaztic and a scary driver scatter-brain...but he's okay, his intentions are kind, I just don't love being on his crew. I really dislike this other dude whose name I can't spell. He's crude, idiotic, arrogant, always has an unpleasant expression on his face, a creepy mole and his vibe makes me unhappy. But that's like 1/20 people I work with that I don't like. So that's wonderful.
I really don't want to sleep lately after I get home late. I just have the urge to stay up and not do homework. It's sucky. It feels like I don't even have control of it. My brain is really demanding lately and wanting all this stimulation and craving more awakeness than my life is catering to right now. It's really, really sad. Like a plant trying to grow in a pot that's too small for it, or a bird growing up in a tiny cage, I feel like I'm doing damage. I need to go to the library tomorrow. I need to buy more valentines-making stuff, too. C:
I need to find a mental safe-haven where my brain can feel nurtured during this time without mind-bending schooling. Who the fuck knew this not going to school full-time, having my thoughts brought out and mind challenged thing would be so hard for me? I feel blocked.

 I made my first baking recipe. They're in the oven now and smell wonderful.

Alyse’s PB&J Sandwich Cookies

Preheat oven at 375°F.



Ingredients:
1 ¼ cup Sugar
1 ¼ cup Chunky Peanut Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1/3 cup Vegetable Oil
A little less than 1 cup Almond Milk
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt
1 cup Rolled Oats
2 cups Flour
At least 1 tsp. Cinnamon
As many raisins as you want! (I use 1 1/3 cup.)

Instructions:
In a large mixing bowl, stir together first five ingredients. In a small mixing bowl thoroughly stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into wet. Add cinnamon, oats and raisins and stir well. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on the size of your cookie, (check in 2 minute increments after the initial 10.) Let cool for at least five minutes. Enjoy with the nummy vegan milk drink of your choice!

________________________________________________________________________

My mom bought me a used cashmere sweater (I don't know what she did with her time before Value Village...) so I baked cookies tonight in a cashmere sweater (I had my apron on that Nate stole from the Country Village Nutrition Shoppe/Cafe). I felt pretty fricken happy-go-lucky. Next time I bake I'll do it in a baby-beater (Zack and I renamed wife-beaters) to even things out.
I had organic mexican food for dinner tonight at Tobel's on Albina. Ohmygod. Reaaaallly fantastical. It gives mexican food a whole new meaning! But way dairy-ey and my allergies almost ate me. I couldn't talk for a while my throat was so bad and I got a headache. The waitress gave me the alcoholic beverage menu. Oh yeah. Idk what the fuck that black lady and Zack are talking about (he just doesn't notice I have boobs like I don't notice his ass because we're homos and opposite sexes)-- I do not look like a 13/14 year old, goddammit! Ask that thirteen year old that i avoided creeping on, she thought i was at least sixteen/seventeen. Fuck, I don't think i look that young. Damned braces.

Secret:
I love sticking my finger under/in the drippings from nut-mashing machines at stores where you pour in the cashews or peanuts or whatever and press the lever and out comes the butter! I walk by and my fingers stab those and lick it off. It's always kind of surprising because I don't read the sign on the machine before sampling as I walk by. It would blow to be allergic to nuts. ...That just plain sounded gross.

Statistics II is sooooooo boring. I'm in it right now. Haha. It's over in 5 minutes. I finished the quiz. I'm a good critical thinker already. Faaack. I feel dead this term. I NEED MIND STIMULATION. There is no reading for French or Stats!! Just practicing and studying. O_O Nostrils are flaring right at this moment. My teacher is obsessed with Statcrunch (a statistical software database program online) instead of calculators. Obsessed.

I remember Alyssa who used to recognize, embrace and egg on my expression and creativity. There was always more road to be built. She was such a pisces and would bring out the same bursts of sensitivity, creation and innovation within me. We were like two fish swimming about, everywhere we swam, there appeared more and more river. We would swim up mountains and decorate the caves lining the waterways. She used to see the unobstructed pieces of me and she used to help me feel free to organize them as I felt appropriate. Her reality was only one I could be contented in part-time. I needed balance and desired knowledge that could help me create more meaningful things with my words. I needed a different kind of stimulation, I wanted to know how to better the world by uncovering what was wrong with it. I grew far from the parts of myself that created garbage art, danced on the side of the highway with Alyssa, took photographs, made up dances to Regina Spektor demo mixes and shared notebooks with Alyssa. So I then delved into the submersed world of books and classes and all that academia promises. I have focused on discovering and since then have not myself been discovered.

Alyssa was a great source of inspiration and was an amazing friend and teacher of all things artful. I've got to see her again before I move. I had such an eventful, interesting, creative, peculiar teenage experience.

Since Levi and I argued about what constitutes art, sometimes when I'm lying on the floor or anywhere at all, i see around me and see all the various art of strangers that make up the world we've invested time into making and maintaining. We are all foster parents for one another's creations. 

Uh, yum. ----> theppk.com/blog/2009/03/30/peanut-butter-pillows/ I'm making these soon.
I've been pretty in love with cookies lately. Ask Zack, the Environment Oregon/Sierra Club/FFTPI office and Mom!
I don't know what the deal is with Zack and lasagna. Every time Zack and I get together I happen to be making lasagna. Haha. I make kick-asshole lasagna, it's very true. I made an in-season lasagna last night with cauliflower, mushrooms and winter squash. Of course, marinara sauce with tomatoes is only in season during the spring through summer into early warm autumn. Eating in season and living locally is soooo easy in Monterey by the way. My lasagna last night had Parmesan (note the capitalization!!) by Monterey Gourmet Foods and mushrooms grown around Monterey. I love how grammar-editing programs on Google chrome and in Microsoft word make --not only their own names start with capitals, but cheeses, too. It underlined it all squiggly like until i capitalized the word Parmesan! Did the first manufacturer of the cheese name themselves after it or something or do some people just really value cheese? "We at Microsoft and Google equate cheese with the holy 'F'ather." I personally would worship a Cheesus before a Jesus, although both are the rotten fruit of man-made processes.
I took Zack to Microcosm Publishing Store, Food Fight and Herbivore today. Haha. It was wonderful. I love shocking his senses. He was born to be born elsewhere. He traces all his issues and personality flaws back to growing up where he did. I can't disregard his hypotheses on the matter at all. I love Zackery. We drank yummy sweet white wine Lane gave me for graduation with our lasagna and watched Little Nemo, that freakin amazing, kinda scary movie that we both loved during our childhood. The two of us loved the same things as kids even more than we love the same things now. [: We both loved Fern Gully, The Page Master and Kazzam, too. Hehe. We fell asleep half way through Little Nemo but we'll finish it.
At Microcosm (AMAZING PLACE!!!) I got a patch, buttons, stickers, the most amazing shirt ever that I'll take a picture of and put on here and a book called Ten Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military I'll jerk it into the hands of people i care about who think they want to enlist. I think it's pretty essential to own. There is a book there called The Vegetarian Myth which i want to get from the library. I am open to challenging how i live. Particularly because I see the holes in everything including my eating choices and food philosophies. I think we're stuck behind a wall of agriculture and beyond that wall could be something a million times more beneficial and right for the planet and all species on it. If you don't examine how you live and if you stop at some truths and refuse to hear more you're not acquiescing to the ever-changing, always-developing versions of the truth. I will always want to reach more truth. If i ever somehow stop, i hope someone makes that fact a ready truth to me.

Today was epic. I wish I were using another more original adjective right there because there was nothing but complete infinitely stupendously freshly original manifestations of living today, but alas, both the human English language and an 8 hour work day have vastly stunted my ability to put effort in making my words reflect the infinite-nature of my life. Oh, words can never equate to the experience of the infinite. But sometimes they birth their own as they are now, and we find yet more pieces of the infinite within them. This is why we know time cannot be wasted when forming language.

After I spurred conversation in the crew's rental car on the way back to the office (after canvassing you still feel really talkative, you're on a roll of just saying everything that comes to you) a new chick started talking to us about improv stints like the flash-pillow fights in populated areas (everyone shows up at one designated random time in the middle of the day with a pillow in a downtown populated area and have a 30 second pillow fight like mad and then disperse without saying anything!), ninja/robot/colors vs. colors battles in Pioneer square, no pants on public transportation day, the naked bike ride (improv and protest in one!) , silent disco in the streets.
What a creative, silly, spontaneous, workable world we live in. I want in on a pillow fight, man!!!
"The world is run by those who show up." That's a bumper sticker (one of many stickers throughout the office) above a door in my Environment Oregon office. It's raw truth and my applicable motto lately.

After I got a flat-tire on Hawthorne on my bicycle on the way to work I tried hijhiking Hawthorne waiting for the next bus (there was a bus directly in front of me I couldn't catch up to while on my dying bike so it was 15 min. til the next one once by tire was completely deflated!) No one stopped. I had to lock my bike up, call work and tell them I was gonna be late (they totally didn't mind; there were also 34646324 people there between Environment Oregon and the Sierra Club getting ready for canvassing!) I hopped the next bus after my failed hitchhiking. I'm just satisfied to know that someone somewhere tonight may have said "Honey, I saw the weirdest thing today! I saw a girl hitchhiking on Hawthorne blvd."
[:

Door-to-door canvassing is probably THE most entertaining job I could freaking imagine! There was a big, missing a tooth, fat older EXTREME fishermen today with this crazy, crowded, could barely even find the door insane outdoor set-up with fisherman stuff, plaques, signs that were "funny slogans" that when you took them in all reality and literally, didn't make sense and there were decorations and hanging things and tarps and dighsidhsth everywhere! I came back after he wasn't home the first time because that house was too....yeah, I had to come back. A fisherman should definitely for fucking sure care about clean rivers!! He and his family probably have a crazzzzy high Mercury level. When I came back this guy was drilling some shit on his house beneath the porch light with a fricken powerdrill just drillin away. I come up and when he pauses drilling I introduce and start the wrap. He's all hard of hearing at first and doesn't really stop on and off drilling and asks me all these questions like "Right so, blah blah blah?" Which have NOTHING to do with what I've been telling him about. And he keeps interrupting the wrap asking me questions about it that show that he actually isn't getting what I'm talking about at all. "THE CLEAN WATER ACT!!" "Do you know snoopy?" I'm not kidding you. Quotations are used there for a reason. "No, I mean not personally. I know of him." "Well..." -shifty eyes- "I don't want to make a big deal of this or anything but...he's got flees." He takes a one-time contribution form to go over with his wife and plans on mailing it in because he cares and he tells me what a great job I'm doing and thanks me for doing what I'm doing (many people do). He starts telling me dirty potty jokes and like getting all excited about punchlines. Oh my gosh. Favorite place of the night. ONE of MANY amazingly entertaining houses and people!!!!!!! St. John's is fucking hilarious and so diverse. Oh my gosh. Hahaha. I kick ass at my job. I raised $212 tonight with ease. Under the words "Hot Nights" we have a giant homemade Oregon map on the wall in the office at work that has peoples' names and how much they raised on it in the location they were at in Oregon. There are ones that go over $1,000. It's nuts. Quota is only $105! Anyshit, I'm going to get on the map a crazy amount of times. [:

One day I'm going to walk the boardwalk at Venice Beach and enjoy the people who are like Hollywooders on crack cookies...
Speaking of cookies! I found pieces of my giant, too hard trial sugar cookies from Christmas time in the fridge today. Mom put them in there. Hahah. Those are getting old. I love cookies and baking. Next time I have time (imagine that...time...that is my own to do whatever I want with, no obligations...[I'm dreaming]) I will bake! I can always make time for making peoples some vegan baked greats.

http://weeklyworldnews.com/mutants/14893/bigfoot-diet/

http://weeklyworldnews.com/politics/14741/new-airline-restrictions/

http://weeklyworldnews.com/politics/14443/dc-gay-marriage/

http://weeklyworldnews.com/politics/14621/mexico-city-gay-marriage/

Jesus I missed the Weekly World News. It's my stats teacher's own fault that I'm reading these articles instead of doing my statistics homework. He brought up how much he missed the Weekly World News in class! Batboy and half-fish-half-human babies...oh, I loved the 90s. Why aren't they at check-out stands in grocery stores anymore?!

I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my frostbitten feet soaking in the warmth of bathtub water with my chin in my palm. Very ends of my weathered hair dangled in front of my face from the big clip it was all bunched in, falling over my head. I was hearing my mother doing bizarre singing voice warm-ups by vibrating her lips while humming some of the highest notes I'd ever heard be made with vibrating lips. I thought my life is a painstakingly likely story. The whole thing. It's like depressing, believable, inevitable fiction.
-The French-English dictionary we own is a very basic illustrated one that I think we got from a garage sale or Tanya and them or something a very long time ago.
-The sewing that attached the patch on my jeans ripped apart in the washing machine the first wash and just gets worse.
My job put me on the door team because even though I raised enough money in my only three day first week I only got one "sustainer" (monthly contributing member) and I needed to get two to stay on the street team. Now I have no choice if I want to work for them but to work from 1:45pm-10motherfuckingpm. I don't know when I'm going to eat dinner or talk to Levi and I'm going to have no free time for the next three months. I've decided I'm staying here for that very short amount of time and will pay mom rent and move to California by the beginning of April in light of basically, my demotion. I get the same amount of pay but the hours utterly suck on shit. Jocelyn was extremely superficial; now I won't be working with her. I would work with her though if I had a choice, to keep the position of a street canvasser. 
I've eaten four doughnuts and two cookies today in coping with my anxiety and...over all upsetness level over me not making the street team. I was kicking so much ass, too. Hawthorne was impossible today! My boss had a hard time, too. Okay, FUCK ME EIGHTY TIMES PLEASE I did not want to talk about this on here. On with the list of ways by which my life is all of the things I've described it to be:
-I like girls but the person I'm closest to is still a male and that male is still in love with me.
-I wake up in the morning to bands I love still like Ugly Casanova.
-I tell local band members I see on the street how much I love them but don't ask for an autograph when I want one even if its silly and even if I've been an equal audience member with this same person who happens to be in a band I love and even if I've talked to them briefly before.
-I only have for rain shoe ware $20 rubber rain boots from Fred Meyer which have tears in the sides.
-I'm in Portland for a quarter after my associate's degree taking yet another cockfuckingassholehumping statistics class and two other classes while I'm at it. 
-Every Monday/Wednesday I'm on the bus and in transit for 6-7 hours, each day.
-I realize that the people's democracy of the United States of America is helpless and dead.
-I don't have anyone else to relate to. No one I know goes through any of the difficult trails, efforts, endeavors or tribulations I go through, at all, to try to make the life they want for themselves and for the world.

I don’t think it was because of a less decrepit short-term memory that when I was young and came to conclusions in my thoughts I would remember them for longer. I think it was because as I’ve aged, my conclusions are more developed, much further from the obvious and less reinforced in the world around me, because my thoughts are further from what most of the world is geared towards and I often times think of what's more complex than what is able to be remembered and established only in ones mind. I’ve been collecting too many building thoughts and conclusions over the years. This is why I must write. I miss writing papers. I want to be learning and expanding myself, writing and thinking in complex ways as I have before, I want to be immersed in thought and learning again. I feel far from the life I want. I wish I was in California now preparing for Berkeley. Making my life really isn't easy.

Seasons exist to help us cope with change. They chop time into segments. We can feel some control in our rightful expectations and memories of weather patterns. We can feel far from times of the summer, light-years from the springtime. That whole part of our life has detached itself from us, forever, as we walk on the frozen sidewalk in December and stay inside too much. The seasons are the push of memory’s fatigue. An event is paint and time weathers it as the seasons are a brush that take some and spread it thinner.

I watched a french film called Water Lilies that my friend Justin recommended. (No, not the Justin who came home with me and ate dank soup.) Wooooonderfuuuuul movie.

When you thought the only words beginning with "dic" were dick and dictionary...

di⋅chot⋅o⋅my  [dahy-kot-uh-mee] 
–noun, plural -mies.
1. division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2. division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.
3. Botany. a mode of branching by constant forking, as in some stems, in veins of leaves, etc.
4. Astronomy. the phase of the moon or of an inferior planet when half of its disk is visible.

It seems as if the moon hasn't been in dichotomy for over a week! I keep seeing huge, seemingly-full moons. I know there were supposed to be two this month but I swear I've seen more-- and they've all been particularly beautiful. Getting up early monday-friday starting the day after tomorrow (today, really) is going to bloooooooooooow. I'm going to be standing a lot Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays. Mergh. I need to call Jocelyn and tell her I can't find my passport. I feel as if I'm trying to run while submerged in water. I want to move and travel and work and finish this part of my life and go places. Moo Rah Rah Rain...

I found myself drawing this past three in the morning.
My cookies turned out perfectly this time.
My mom doubts that I can keep my job. She is such a phony supporter. It's a wonderful feeling knowing your only real family member in your life doesn't believe in you. Fucking fabulous.
She found me a $6 dollar USA-made blender today at a thrift store. Now there's enough moolah left for my own rice cooker, too. I'm glad it's second-hand. I don't like "new" things.
Anywho, the picture-- click on it to see it bigger, but alas not in as good of pre-uploaded quality. A medley of instances inspired its creation.

 

stuck-in-themusicbox.deviantart.com/art/Snapshot-of-a-Dream-149034368