Sangria + Frozen yogurt + the future...

My friend Liz is moving to Chicago in less than a month, and I discovered today that she had never been to Pambiche. Portlanders, if you haven't been here, go. It's a fantastic Cuban restaurant, and literally everything is delicious.

After finishing up at Pambiche, we headed over to Swirl on Hawthorne. We talked, in both places, about a number of things, but I started to tell her that last night I woke up panicked about the prospect that I may not get this super job I so desperately want.

And so we started discussing options. Maybe, as my parents have said, I should go back to school again, and become an LPC (licensed professional counselor). It was something I had in mind for the future, years down the line (after seeing the requirements, I understand why most counselors are older!). But I have seen many, many jobs requiring this or an LMHC (mental health counselor), so maybe it's time.

Maybe, Liz suggested, this is meant to push you to commit to your writing, and do it full time. I have to be honest, the prospect of this filled me... with fear. I love writing, don't get me wrong. And I've mentioned here that when it works, it can make me feel more awake and more alive than almost anything else. But the idea of committing to it and making writing my official career choice, with nothing else behind it, is frightening.

For one, I don't know what kind of writer I would be. Would I freelance, scraping up what I could, at least to start? I have one freelance project now, and that hasn't even finished.

For two, I don't know that I'm actually good. I think that I am, and believe that I am, and I know that people who love me and care about me have said that I am very good. But millions of people in this world are fully supported into doing something they, in fact, cannot do well. Who's to say I'm not one of those millions? I know I'm biased; chances are you are too.

For three, melancholy stretches aside, I'm extroverted and highly distractable. I still don't understand how I began to write in the first place. Even with collaborative projects, writing is a deeply lonely practice. It's shared once it goes , but the actual work of writing requires you, and something to write with. That's it. I don't know if I have that in me.

Maybe you need to go somewhere else, Liz said. And this is when the conversation really got depressing. I love Portland. I love living here, and I feel more at home here than I ever have anywhere else. I feel more at home here than I did when I lived in Ireland, and at the time, I claimed that I would live there forever if I could. I would still go back... I just don't know about forever.

Aside from the job market, Portland has treated me extremely well. I have an excellent community of friends here. The city is accessible and welcoming, in its cynical Portland way. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. I'm practically an evangelist for Portland. Maybe that's the problem.

Still, maybe this super job will call me, tell me they loved me, and when can I start? But if they don't, I am certainly at a crossroads. Here's hoping the second half of 2010 will provide more answers than the first.

Sights around Portland.

I tried editing the pics for text, we'll see if it worked. :)

It's late!

I have officially missed my deadline for the WordCount Blogathon 2010. Technically, this is the second time I have missed my deadline, since I didn't officially write a post on the first of May.

Call me lazy (go ahead, do it), but I think sometimes the act of missing deadlines is important.

I visited with a friend today who, for reasons both in her control and out of it, has been struggling with anxiety. As we talked, I heard her saying that every activity she had, every bit of time she spent, had a purpose.

For the record, I am all for having structure and purpose and a plan for your day. But sometimes you just need to hang out and be dumb. My advice to this friend was to find some women she could hang around and not have to grow with, not have to learn from, not have to work her brain over.

"Sit and talk about purses if you want," I said.

And tonight, I could have stayed home and written one of those deep, thoughtful posts that has been brewing, but I went to Eric's and watched The Wire instead. And the time, I think, was well spent. I brought key lime pie.

You can't (or at least it's not wise to) be lazy every day. But by the same token, you can't have every moment scheduled and planned and full of opportunities for growth. Sometimes things have to calm down, lay still, and chill out. And as luck would have it, we grow in that.

What about you? What's your favorite way to be lazy? What do you wish you worked at less?

And by the way, the Bipartisan Cafe, on SE 78th and Stark in Portland, makes the best key lime pie I've ever had.

"I would like to preemptively apologize for whatever comes next."

Today, I did many things.

I had a job interview.

I had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in six months.

And then I saw Birdemic: Shock and Terror. And it was all over.

Birdemic is a film made by a James Nguyen from San Jose. His budget was $10,000. The story is simple: A bunch of maniacal crows and eagles suddenly attack Half Moon Bay, killing the patrons. Oh, the shock. Oh, the terror. Right?

This movie got attention because it is so absolutely, completely horrible. There isn't a thing done well. To be honest, my brain is still recovering. It feels like oatmeal.

The highlight of the film is the killer birds, who are entirely computer generated, and made with the kind of technology that was outdated years and years ago. The images, superimposed on the film and observed crookedly by the actors, flap in place and then burst in crayon red when shot.

The director apparently took himself to Sundance, and passed out flyers hoping someone would pick it up. Someone did, and now it's being hailed as the new best worst film ever made, and a cult classic.

It's also playing for one more night at the Clinton Street Theatre in Portland. Originally, my friend and I were the only ones in the theater, and we were hollering at the screen in glee. Eventually, about six other people came in. We more or less continued to holler. Apologies. But seriously, when a movie's this crazily bad... I don't blame my friend for shouting, "This movie made it to Sundance!" at the screen. Among other things.

If I haven't convinced you to see it, watch the trailer.



You're welcome.

"Jeanie? Jeanie! JEANIE!"

I've had another couple lovely days...Molly threw a toga party in honor of her birthday Saturday night. Because I was driving, and I am "responsible", I had one beer and nothing else, and if life has taught any of us anything at all, it's that being the only sober person at a drunken party can either be the sixth layer of hell (or so), or it can be fantastic. I chose fantastic.

This morning, I went with Eric to Screen Door for breakfast, and I wish I had thought to take a picture of it, because it was, if nothing else, imposing. Goaded by someone else's Facebook bragging, I decided I needed to try the chicken and waffles, which is apparently their breakfast signature.

What I GOT was a giant sweet potato waffle with four huge pieces of chicken-fried chicken piled on top. The whole thing was held together by a giant knife. Yeah, that's right. And you know what? My body probably hates me, but it was so delicious. Most of it is in my fridge right now, which means tomorrow is destined for equal deliciousness.

Today was also the big relaunch of Emmaus church, and I have never seen that many people in that building on a Sunday night. The message was great (and will be posted here tomorrow for those of you who are interested), the mood was great, and my parents finally got to come down and see what the church was about, which meant a lot for me.

Tomorrow is another launch into the finding-a-job foray. To be perfectly honest, I kind of gave up last week, and am really hoping to knock out some good work starting tomorrow. In the morning I'll see if the house or the coffeeshop is the best place to do that. If I can manage to not have an interruption of someone wonderful (which of course, I always welcome) maybe I can actually do myself some good. As always, prayers, positive thoughts, tips, and good words with YOUR boss are always appreciated. :)

Before I go, I have to share this, courtesy of the Willamette Week, and spotted by Beth, under "Musicians Available":

"Crappy bass seeks crappy band to play crappy music for skanky ho's...Serious about improving, having a good time."

So, who wants to hire Jeremy? Oh, Portland, I love you.

"'I'm too blessed to be stressed' and other lies."

The past couple of days have given me fantastic laughs, an abundance of things to think about, and little sleep. The best part is that I spent most of Tuesday in one place.

I met up with a handful of Emmaus girls at Anna Banana's in St. John's yesterday morning, and it was a great reminder to me of how much I love being a girl. And I love hanging out with other women and being silly and funny and giggly, and just getting to share life that way. It also gave me a chance to tell a couple of the girls what I have been telling everyone for months: that they need to see Twilight.

In the interest of being honest, let me make it clear that you should not see Twilight because it is particularly scary, particularly romantic or even particularly good. You need to see Twilight because it is easily the funniest movie made in the last few years. It's unrelentingly serious and overdramatic, and any movie about a vampire who a) refuses to eat people or suck their blood and b) does not die in the sunlight, but rather sparkles, as though his skin were covered in thousands of tiny diamonds (that are most likely not conflict-free) is a movie you should see.

The vampire also tells the girl-in-question that she's his "own personal brand of heroin", and he sneaks in her room and watches her sleep. And if that doesn't make you feel all romantic and fuzzy, then apparently nothing will. So, in closing, go see Twilight. Have a beer first.

When the party broke up, I stayed behind with my laptop, "determined" to get work done. And in the interest of my own determination, I immediately texted my friend Matt, who lived nearby, and invited him to come have a coffee, which he did. Every time I hang out with Matt, somewhere around ten minutes in, I regret being in whatever public setting we may find ourselves. This isn't because Matt is embarrassing to hang around or ugly or overly political; it's because he makes me laugh so much and so loudly that I feel I should apologize to everyone else that they cannot possibly be having as much fun as I am.

So we did this, the talking about whatever crossed our mind or our path (for example, upon seeing this blog, Matt informed me that Brian Williams has a crooked face, which he then proved by Googling "Brian Williams has a crooked face". Other people think so, so it must be true.) for a very, very long time. And then, without much warning, the conversation took a distinctly serious turn.

I won't divulge the details of the conversation, but suffice to say that the conversation hinged mostly on the ideas of identity and personal value, and how we find those things in this day-to-day life. It was a conversation that made me thankful that I was able to be in that coffeeshop on a Tuesday afternoon.

The rhythm and cadence of speech and conversation has always fascinated me, and I tend to be extremely sensitive to shifts in mood or tone. And while we were still having fun, and making a joke here or there, everything changed. The volume of both our voices dropped (his more than mine, I'm sure), there was a lot less eye contact, and a lot of sudden detached interest in the art on the walls, the positioning of my hands, whatever else.

But here's the amazing thing: Matt and I have disagreed strongly on some huge issues in the past, points where we've had to realize that there was going to be no meeting closer than partway to the middle. And so, as I got to talk about my life, I felt sure that there were going to be points where Matt told me that I was full of shit, delusional, confused, naive, or any number of other things. But I decided to just be honest, and to not try to fit my story into any mold I knew. I told him that while I was not particularly happy with life at the moment, but that in the face of the most uncertainty I have ever known, I had joy. I told him that I knew what my identity was, even as it changed and shifted continually, and I knew that my work status or position had no bearing on my value. I told him that in the face of that, I still wanted a good job, and I was running on hope more consistently than faith. And it was all true.

It's possible that Matt may have really wanted to tell me that I was full of shit, delusional, confused, naive, or any number of other things. But he didn't do it. What he did was help me see that our stories, disparate as they may have seemed, bore a lot of similarities. I don't know about anybody else, but I find the idea that everyone else is, to some degree, confused and constantly trying to know who they are incredibly encouraging. In the face of that, I have been given joy that I can freely share. And I have hope for the future, a hope that maintains even when my faith is weak.

I was at home this evening and one of my roommates had a photo album out on the table in the main room. She wasn't home, so I suppose I was snooping, but when I opened the photo album I found something incredibly beautiful inside. Every page had pictures of people who were important in her life before she moved to Portland, and on every page she had written a part of her story of the last ten years, and how God continually showed Himself faithful in her life in that time. I don't tend to have much of a weak spot for stories of miracles, but all throughout her book, she explained how God repeatedly asked her to trust (sometimes with things that seemed devastating), and when she did, He repeatedly was faithful to supply what she needed.

It made me wonder how much of that I am doing in my own life right now. I know that I have trusted God many times, and I know that He has always been faithful, but the conscious decision to trust has been a long time in coming. I don't know how to do this well; I want to rush to extremes. And yet, I know no one can live there. I cannot announce that I am trusting God for all my needs, lay down, and sleep until He makes my life ideal. Likewise, I cannot push myself and work myself to the end, exerting all my effort and never prayerfully considering rest, and claim that I am trusting God when really I am only trusting me. And trusting me is foolish, to say the least. I have seen who I can be on my own, and it was not a pretty picture.

I guess all of this is to say that I don't feel like I know how to trust in the way I need to (I hardly know where to start), but I am willing to try. Most of all, it's because I know that my identity will become clearer when I see more of who God is, and who He tells me that I am.

"I like the one with the flat hair. He's my favorite."

My lofty goal of posting once per day kind of fell off this weekend, and since I know you were all sitting on pins and needles, I apologize. I do hope you all had a lovely long weekend.

Laura came for a visit Saturday, and breakfast (at 11:30 am) with her at Utopia Cafe was lovely and wonderful. She was one of my best friends at the seminary, and when she graduated, I had no idea when I would see her again. What a blessing! Add to that the fact that I get to see fellow graduates Beth and Gabriele in the next two weeks, and you have yourself a seminary girl party. And trust me, it doesn't sound like it, but they are the best ones...

Sunday I got to see Laura one more time before she left, when I met up with her and (yet another) fellow grad Crystal at Cooper's. Crystal and the owners are buddies, and so we got a tour of the new bakery space in the basement. They were making individual quiches that looked delicious.

Sunday was also the first time Emmaus Church gathered for a service in a long time. Our official relaunch isn't until this Sunday (and the beginning of the series "Jesus Hates Religion and You Should, Too"), but it was really good to see everyone together again. I am honestly stoked for next Sunday.

Tomorrow, aside from meeting with some of the Emmaus girls in the morning, the plan is to re-attack the job market, hopefully with a renewed energy. My parents had a barbecue tonight with me and some family friends, and of course everyone had some advice... at this point I really am trying to explore every avenue, but it's frustrating when people are offering advice that you really don't think will work, but there's no way (and honestly no need) to tell them so.

So, the job hunt once again. Prayers, positive thoughts, a good word to your friendly neighborhood employer will all be deeply appreciated. I'll do my best to be here tomorrow night again.