Back on the single boat... or is it a train? Wagon? Not sure.

The boy called it off a month ago, just shy of us making it to the (legitimate) one year mark... and I understand why he did it. There was no fuck up, no "I accidentally hooked up with some girl last weekend," nothing that deserves me hating him for. And I don't hate him. At all. His reason was honest, though not easy to hear: he loves me, we've been best friends for seven years (eight?), but he's not in love with me. And for all the effort I put into this relationship, he feels like he's ultimately cheating me out of finding someone who wants to be just as invested as I am by keeping us going. We've been having fun, but he sees no future in this, so it's better to end it and give us both the chance to find something that really makes us happy.

I'm stuck somewhere between wanting him to find that person that makes him happy (as his best friend) and then wanting him to be totally miserable and sad that he ended us (as the ex-girlfriend). But in truth, the best friend half of me wins out, and ultimately I just want him to be happy with his life, wherever and whoever that involves.

I love getting advice from people around me, about how I just have to go out there and meet people and maybe have a random hook-up or two; this is the most popular piece of advice, by far. Yes, by finding some random individual and jumping into the sack with them, I will miraculously be over Chris and everything we were. I'm thinking that's probably not gonna work. And just to prove my point, I may have given it a shot. I was right, that is not the solution.

Luckily, my road trip from Arkansas back to Oregon got pushed back and it ended up happening the week after the breakup. Excellent timing, as I wanted quite badly to get the eff out of town. Saw a lot of very interesting things on the drive. Did you know that porn and tattoos are illegal in Oklahoma? I've never been stopped by so many people to comment on my tattoos. In Portland everyone has them, so mine are no big deal. In OKC literally every place I went into I got at least three comments on them. Made me feel a little special. Also, I went to my first dueling piano bar. It was awesome. Why we don't have one in Portland is beyond me. I loved that place. It was grand. I am going to DC in October and we already scouted one out for one of the nights we're there. I'm excited. The largest cross in the Western Hemisphere resides in Texas (shocker) and we had to stop to see that. There were so many amazing photo ops, but since I wanted to get out of Texas alive, we decided to keep our comments and funny picture ideas to ourselves.

Hit LA and spent a couple nights there with my sister and her husband. 20th Century Props, one of the major prop houses in the city, was having a huge auction, so we took an afternoon to go look at all the lots. I saw trees that were used in the Wizard of Oz, Dr. Evil's desk, the windmill from Moulin Rouge, and some of the most random CSI/Malcolm in the Middle props ever. Very fun. Hit Six Flags, rodes some roller coasters, and enjoyed the nice warm sun while everyone up in Portland was melting during the extreme heat wave. By the time we hit San Jose I needed jeans and a sweatshirt to sit outside, and my roommate informed me that my cat was panting from the heat. Nice time to be out of Portland. Caught up with my friends and family in Medford for a night, then made it back to Portland exactly one week after flying out. Overall a good trip. I think I should take road trips more often.

Word is that this week is going to bring more God-awful heat... I'm sort of over this really hot hot stuff. Why can't it just stay in the 80s and call it good? Also, in recent weeks I have taken to watching a couple of great shows which I am now addicted to and will share with you:

Dexter
Mad Men
Californication
Arrested Development (I know, I know, I'm like the last person in the world to discover how hilarious this show is, and quite frankly I'm not sure why it took so long. But it is so great and I love it so much, I wish I weren't so behind the times with it... but the upside is, since I've only seen half of the first season, I have all the rest of it to watch and it will be new to me!!!!)

Did I mention I got a dog? I'm fostering him, long term. He is an overweight short-legged Jack Russell named Petey who, aside from his terrible breath, is a delight. The roomie and I are both loving his presence as he is a constant form of entertainment, and since she is newly single as well (which means her boyfriend moved out and my rent went up... grr...) we need all the entertainment we can get (hence the rash of new-show watching).

This is my life these days. It's not too exciting, but the roomie and I are really enjoying our current living situation, our new four-legged roommate, and making an effort to reconnect with old friends who may have been pushed aside during our respective relationships over the last year.

It's almost birthday time, and I think I might just skip it this year....


always.....

Themselves + my birthday: The opening act was pretty painful to observe, so people stood towards the walls. He played with intensity, but he meandered and his complicated hand gestures were distracting. While I had hoped to miss the opening act all together, it gave ample time to visit with a slew of friends (SLDG, JRLY, WSPY, [ASSOCIATED SPOUSES / LOVERS & ROOMMATES]) and sip on strong drinks. And a shot of fine Whiskey (ELI).

Everyone seemed pleased when the opener announced his last song. But before it could sink in, he continued to speak, adding: "It's basically a 15 minute improv". I heard Ms. Kim groan.

The set eventually fizzled out. Ms. Kim and I managed to grab a spot near the center of the stage. After a wait of what seemed like ages, Themselves finally came on and played a loud, abrasive set. They favored their new material, but mixed in some obscure favourites from their debut. Further detail would be a disservice to the spectacle. It was wonderful.

All in all, it was a spectacular way to spend my birthday.

The following weekend, Ms. Kim hosted a party at our place. Best party we've had to date, without a doubt.

Since it was hot as balls, I constructed a drink based on the teachings of a wise man named Jos. He bequeathed to me a most sacred recipe. Mixing mass quantities of ice, limes, vodka and a little sugar (IN A GIANT BOWL) yields a delicious, thirst-quenching drink. It is mostly alcohol, but you can't taste it. At all. Which can cause problem.

While we sat on the patio, I noticed Jerly had a tall glass of the stuff. Look where he ended up:

*It should be noted that the tye-dye 'beater JRLY is wearing hadn't been washed since it's initial dye-job on July 4th. Later, he would develop a terrible itch. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Many people (including myself), drank way too much of the troublesome drink. We partied for nearly 9 hours. I haven't had so much fun in ages.

While this is going on, Nicole was staying with us for the weekend. Ms. Kim's friend from the wayback, she was very easy to get along with. I didn't have to censor myself at all, which is nice, since I'm not very fucking good at it. Visiting from California, we decided to take her for a tour of the through the gorge the day after the party.

I drove. We took Ms. Kim's car, so I cruised well over the speedlimit most of the time. It was evident that we were all hungover from the previous night's antics, so it was a quiet trip overall.

It did give me a chance to play around with my new camera. Ms. Kim replaced my broken with with a nice point-and-shoot model. It has a strangest feature -- 'smile detection'. When triggered, this mode will identify all faces in the frame and detect just how much smile is showing. Once the smile meter hits a certain point, it snaps a shot.

After extensive testing, I've found that it doesn't work very well. Only a handful of the pictures taken with smile detection enabled were not completely horrible. In fact, they are pretty rad.

Keeping in the vein of awesome, after exhausting the local blockbuster of good(tm) things to view, I finally broke down and joined Netflix. I signed up after purchasing a most-wonderful product, the Roku box. I can steam commercial-free movies (some in HD) from Netflix's ever-growing online selection. They have an impressive selection -- I already have over 100 movies in my instant queue. I don't usually hype merchandise like this, but I don't care -- this thing is amazing. $100 for a small, simple box + remote and a $9/month account gets unlimited access to some impressive stuff. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Okay. Enough shilling.

This past weekend was filled, to the brim, with a splendid visit from my parents. My father and I constructed a patio covering during the visitation. We traded sketches in the weeks prior and had things mostly planned, but we did have to improvise a bit. It uses wood harvested from the homestead and when you look at it from the inside, not a single screw is visible. I can cover it with shadecloth in the summer, but keep things clear during the winter, as I don't want it fucking up my natural lighting. Neat.

Bad scene: Me. Unforgiving 104 degree heat. Fred Meyer Bottle return. 4 machines total. 3 broken. A woman slowly feeds Tecate cans into the only functioning machine. She has two carts full. She looks painfully pregnant. Her mentally retarded teenage sister is holding a very young child. The child is crying and looks slightly sunburned. I'm next in line. I watch this. For nearly 30 minutes. For $6 worth of cans. SO NOT WORTH IT.

My parents departed early Sunday, so Kim and I had a chance to hit up the Escher exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. It was a wonderful collection. I enjoyed seeing his sketches. Some of them had a lot of eraser marks, which made me grin. Everyone makes mistakes. Right?