Holiday Card Picture

Now that you have probably recieved your holiday card from us, (if you were on my list) I will publish the web-version for all to enjoy.

Happy Holidays from Chi-Town:



If you didn't recieve a card from us in the mail, and would like to in the future, please email me your address!

Holiday Wish List

What I really need for Christmas presents are Target gift cards. I figure for about $500 at Target, I can completely furnish and my my apartment very livable. I can maybe even get some toys and books for Riley too.

What do you want for the Holidays?

Comcastic

Well, after much struggle with the broadband-giant, Comcast, I am back on the internet at home. Which, for you, means more updates. It will be my New City Resolution to update at least once a week. I will also be back to updating the wadeandeva.com gallery (and working on the homepage updates) and flickr.

From Farm To Table

With the news of the product nutrition labeling McDonald's will be incorporating onto their packaging, I thought I might offer that you take a look at this website, From Farm To Table that speaks to McDonald's food quality.

Please comment or email comments

While you are in the land of The Golden Arches, fans of the McRib should stay tunned for this.

Apartment Search 2005 - Crazy Landlord Rules

Over the weekend I was talking on the telephone with my good friend Ben. I told him about this awesome apartment I saw that was 3-bedrooms (instead of the 2-bedroom I was looking for and ended up with) and cost $55 less per month than the place I we will be moving into in a couple of weeks. Also it was on Shakespeare. Which you cannot say without holding your nose up and using a bad British accent. Which is tons of fun. But crazy landladies are no fun.

I promised Ben, if I still had the list and could find it in my ever-growing pile of papers, I would list these rules. Maybe I am spoiled, but read through this list and if you don't think this landlord is crazy please leave you feedback. I request that if you read through and think these are not rediculous rules, please read through and do not ignore my comments below...because some of them appear to be a sane request but upon further examination are what tenancy rules might look like on Venus or Jupiter.

Your residence at XXXX¹ W. Shakespeare, Chicago, IL,² is conditional to your³ abiding by the following rules:

Tenants are the ONLY ones to have keys to the front door and apartment doors. No one else should have one except for the person whose name appears on the lease.⁴

Tenants should not keep anything that is flammable in the building.⁵

The apartment and entrance to it should be kept in clean and neat conditions, just like you received it.

Each tenant is responsible for cleaning their front steps and back steps section.

ABSOLUTELY NO FOOD IS TO BE THROWN IN THE TOILET. IT SHOULD BE THROWN IN THE GARBAGE. IF CLOGGING OCCURS BECAUSE OF A FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE MENTIONED, YOU WILL BE LIABLE FOR THE DAMAGE.⁶

The garbage should be thrown into the garbage can and the lids should be fully closed.

All gates MUST be closed at all times.⁷

Your monthly rent ONLY includes the apartment -- it does NOT include any other areas inside the building or outside the building. Keep ALL of your personal belongings in your apartments. Do not leave anything in the porch, balcony, yard, garage, or outside your door. There is no storage space in the building.

The porch is to be clean at all times -- NO PERSONAL BELONINGS⁸ ON IT.

There is NO grilling, barbequing or any other activity allowed in the backyard.⁹

No loitering in front of building or in the back of building.¹⁰

Tenants are responsible for the conduct of their guests and will be deemed liable for any damages to the building caused by them.¹¹

No visitors on premises after 10:00pm.¹²

Absolutely NO parties allowed in the building. We want to respect the privacy and tranquility of everyone in the building.¹³

If at any point, the tenant sees anything suspicious or unusual and relates the building contact the owners IMMEDIATELY.¹⁴

Landlord is NOT responsible for any personal condlicts between tenants. These conflicts should be reported to the Police at 911.

The landlord will only be notified when there is something going on in the building.

IF THERE ARE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK. IF YOU AGREE WITH THE RULES ABOVE, PLEASE SIGN AND DATE THE BOTTOM.

---

1.Actual Address hidden to protect the insane. Back to Rules

2.Improper use of puncuation. Back to Rules

3.Improper grammar. Could easily be corrected by adding "your ability to abide". Back to Rules

4.Just in case you were unclear on the term "tenant", it means "person whose name appears on the lease". Back to Rules

5.This was my favorite and absolutely the most insane thing on this list. Now, possibly I am being too hard on this woman, but if someone where not allowed to have anything flammable in the building that would restrict furniture, clothing and human beings from entering the building. Or, maybe, the word "keeping" implies that those items can be on the premises, but must be removed at some unspecified point during tenancy. Granted, Chicagans (yes, this is the term that people who live in Chicago refer to themselves by...) have a right to be a little fire-aware, but they still have to be realist human beings. Back to Rules

6.This rule makes my head spin. I guess it all boils down to how specific you want to get with the word "food". If you don't understand what I am getting at...Ask your parents. Organic waste is organic waste is organic waste. Garbage is another thing. Also, what if contraband "food" is placed gently in the toilet, rather than 'thrown'? Now I am just being a picky, judgmental snob, I know. Back to Rules

7.AM I SUPPOSED TO HOP THE FENCE? I guess all times does not include while someone is actually WALKING THROUGH! Back to Rules

8.Spelling error. We all make them, but most of us spell check at least the business documents. Back to Rules

9.Does 'any activity' include walking through the back exit? Why even have a backyard, if no activity is allowed, might as well build another apartment building. Back to Rules

10.If the reception on your cell phone is bad, you need to walk around the corner. I think this means no smoking or talking to other tenants in the building. Pastime of evil mortals. Back to Rules

11.Pretty standard lease language. Back to Rules

12.The ultimate deal breaker. Not because I am a like to bring my boyfriends over, but because I am not willing to make my family and friends get an expensive hotel when the visit me in Chicago, especially in a place with an extra bedroom. Back to Rules

13.What about the motherfucking sanity? Back to Rules

14.Holy shit, was this just translated from Japanese into Spanish, then to English and back to Japanese? Back to Rules

So Few Good Midwest Songs

"Have I got everything? Am I ready to go?
Is it going to be wild, is it gonna be the best time?
Or am I just saying so? Am I ready to go?
What do I hear when I say I hear the call of the road?

I think it started with driving, more speed, more deals, more
sky, more wheels
More things to leave behind, now it's all in a day for the
modern mind
And I am traveling again
Calling this a ghost town, and where is the heartland?
And I'm afraid, oh, was there any good reason, that I had to go
When all I know is I can never come back."

Invitation to Chicago

As you can see by the below pictures I have a very nice place to put you up in, so come on over and help me move in! Anyone with a truck or even a car, who has a couple of days to come out and help me move in and get some new stuff for my place will be rewarded with oodles of good times. My lease says my move-in date is November 15th, but since that is a Tuesday, I am going to try and get the keys for that weekend before. You should come and help me move the stuff I brought with me from Portland, plus the stuff my mom is bring from Ann Arbor next weekend, plus maybe a trip to Target or IKEA. I will provide the booze for the celebration once the labor is over.

Wade and Riley will be flying in on the evening of Nov. 18th and I would like to have all my stuff moved in by then. Also, if someone would like to help get them from the airport to our new place with all the rest of the Portland stuff, that would be super cool.

Let me know guys, I really need some help.

Home Sweet Home

Chicago has opened her arms to me and granted me a place in her lovely embrace. In other words, I've found a place to live. I will move in on November 15th and Wade and Riley will join me in Chicago on November 18th. We have a 2-bedroom apartment in a medium-sized apartment complex on the NW side of Chicago (yes, Chicago proper, we are not burb-dwelling people). If you would like the address, please send me an email.

There is a bowling alley about a mile from the new place...for those of you who may have been worried about that.

View pictures below of a similar unit:

Another Day in the Windy City

Most of you want to know how my first week in Chicago was. I have very mixed feelings and the answer to that question changes on a minute-to-minute basis.

I flew into Chicago on Saturday evening and started work Monday morning. Work is going pretty well. All the terms that I haven't heard for the four years that I have been out of the industry are slowly coming back to me. You may be able to relate to certain parts of that. You hear a term and you know you have heard it before and should know what it means but you don't at the moment you hear it. Then a couple hours or days later you start to remember. That is how this feels.

So, I am staying at Sara & Steve Hall's house. Sara was my boss at my last two jobs in Ann Arbor and is by boss at my current job in Chicago. We are trying to keep the fact that I am "sleeping with my boss" hush-hush (a.k.a. on the DL).

I am sleeping in Steve's office which is the second bedroom of their condo and where he works for an Ann Arbor firm during the weekdays. So this morning, right after my alarm goes off, Steve comes and knocks on the door. He tells me he has to be to work in 5 minutes (which, to remind you, is the room I am sleeping and storing all my stuff in). But in my AM, fuzzy head I thought he was telling me that I had to be to work in 5 minutes.

I thought maybe Sara had already left for work and called up to tell me to get my ass to work. So I rushed and didn't shower and after about 3 of those 5 minutes, I began to understand what Steve had said. So I went to work an hour early and used that hour to look for apartment listings online at my desk.

Then I had a somewhat uneventful day with a lot of meetings and work to be done, which is uneventful only because that is how every day has been thus far and I don't see the workload letting up anytime soon. Upon arriving back at the Condo building, which requires a pass to get into the building from the lobby, I found out that being on the guest list does not get you a copy of the keys (as Sara, Steve and I thought) but actually just gets you into the building out of the lobby and then you either need keys or the person you are visiting needs to be home.

Sara and Steve are in Michigan. And it is probably safe to say at this point, they are having a surprise Birthday Party for Steve. Sara is not answering her phone or checking her e-mail. I convinced the maintenance to let me into the building and assumed Steve would leave his keys on his desk, where he normally leaves them during the last week so that I can come and go, while they have been home. Not the case. He probably assumed that my name was on the guest list and they would give me a set of keys at the desk.

So now I am stuck in an apartment by myself. I have a dozen or so apartments to look at this weekend and my friend Matt is coming into town on the train from Lansing to help with the apartment search and hang out. It isn't like I had planned on putting him up in an apartment that wasn't mine, so that is good...He has a place to stay. But I need to get keys by tomorrow morning to meet him at the train station and look at these apartments.

Normally, your boss is the last person you want to hear from on the weekend. But, I am waiting on a call from Sara...So, if you see her, let her know!

Chicagoland Here I Come (Recap)

If you missed this email because I do not have a current email address for you, please email me your new address...If you did receive this email, sorry for the duplication. I wanted this to be documented here and I should have posted it last week, when I sent the message.

Hello Friends and Family,

For those of you who don't know and to update those of you who may have heard only a few details, we are moving to Chicago. Things have been so bad for the economy here in Portland it has been very hard for me and Wade to find work. I was offered a job in Chicago for an advertising agency (the same sort of work I did in Detroit before moving to Portland) by my former boss.

The salary and benefits are much more than anything I could expect to find in Portland, but we will miss Portland's overpowering beauty. Wade and I are both experiencing feelings of sadness to leave Oregon, where we met, fell in love, partied, bowled, had Riley, got married, lived in some great apartments and houses (and some not so great ones too) and built our lives together. Yet, we are both excited as well. A fresh start in a new city seems to be just what we need.

I am flying to Chicago Saturday morning (yes, THIS SATURDAY, Oct. 1st) and begin work on October 3rd. I will stay with friends who live close to the new job. Wade and Riley will stay behind and take care of packing or selling/donating the rest of our belongings, while I search for an apartment for us all to live in. If the apartment search goes well, Wade and Riley will fly out around November 1st and we will all move into our new home.

We will be traveling very light, so if you had a package ready for Riley's birthday, please wait until the beginning of November and we will give you our new address. If you want to send Riley something on his actual birthday, please make it small, light and easy to move (maybe gift cards for Amazon, Target, Old Navy or Toys 'R' Us). Wade, being a single parent for a month, will need a lot of help. Anything you can do, from a phone call to stopping by to watch Riley, will be greatly appreciated.

As always your love and support are greatly appreciated. We sadly say goodbye for now to our friends and family in Portland and are thankful to be close to another group of friends and family in and around Chicago. We are truly blessed with so much.

My phone number is 503-515-2008
Wade's phone number is 503-740-1101
Our address in Portland is:
1236 NE 112th Avenue
Portland, OR 97220
This is my new personal email address. I will no longer be with Comcast.

If you need more contact information, give one of us a call.

Love,
Eva

Lots of Great New Pictures

Check out wadeandeva.com/gallery for tons of fun summer pictures!!! We've been having a blast staying cool this hot, hot summer.

Low-wage Workers

There's this fucking kid...He works at 7-Eleven. You'd have to meet him to know the true depth of his incompetence. For all of you snobby skeptics, purely working at 7-Eleven does not inherently mean he is a 4-time loser.

You've probably met someone similar to him, in your fast-food, bar-hopping, convience-store-frequenting. If you have not been lucky enough to have a counter-job, serving countless idiots, most likely everyone you encounter in this position reminds you of this asshole.

Granted, you do not have to be a genious to work at a convience store (especially a chain one), but sometimes those geniouses need a change from their boring careers or fall on hard times or simply don't know they are a genious and take jobs that dont make them millionares and hardly pay the bills.

So, that being said, this fucking kid...
He is only a kid...
That's the only thing he's got going for him.
He was fired.

We were so happy.

He didn't knowwhat ginerale was.
He didn't know customer service.

I told him, I would have him fired.
I HAD HIM FIRED.

Now, he is rehired,
Now, he looks at me like I had him fired.

I never made a complaint about him. To anyone other than my husband.

I DIDN'T HAVE HIM FIRED?

This kid is a joke between my husband and I. He is a joke in our house. And the joke is the type that requires a story, So here it goes...

This guy doesn't know what ginerale is. He doesn't know how to ring my cigarette purchase in correctly..."What's gingerale? Is that a type of beer?"

I'm sorry for his parents, not teaching him what gingerale is....I am also sorry for him not knowing how to talk to customers.

We both hate him.

He is just a kid...

He thinks I had him fired. I did, with will-power, I guess I did.

Gay, Fine By Me

Original entry drafted 6/25/05, edited slightly 6/3/06:

A few weeks ago, mid-sentence, during a instant messenger conversation, Ben told me that Charlie (his roommate, and our mutual friend) was wearing a T-shirt that read: "Gay, Fine By Me". I immediately said, "what does that mean? Charlie isn't a complete asshole?" and Ben confered, "I guess so." He really should have said, "I guess ... not?"

I am offended for my fellow human beings. Can we be so stupid that we have to come up with gay rights campaigns (for straight people) that praise people for giving basic equal rights to gays? Oh, but wait, the campaign doesn't go so far as being pro-gay marriage or pro-gay family...this organization only goes so far as to say that Gay is Okay...

Sound familiar? Fine by you? Who cares what you think? Gay people...real gay people, the couple dozen I know in real life and not from the movies, don't want to be FINE in straight people's eyes. They want to be free to live their lives. Who doesn't? like all of us, they just want to be unique and in the same vain like everyone else.

Here in Oregon, our anti-gay marriage proposal was called 36. YES was a vote for a proposal that was poorly worded and meant gays could not be married. And I was shocked to see so many "YES on PROPOSAL 36" signs in my neighborhood. The YES campaign went with the simple "ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN" slogan...at first, even I thought the proposal was about poligamy...The first thing that crossed my mind was, "is someone proposing that ONE MAN should be with THREE WOMEN?"

I was even more shocked, amazed and uplifted to see that the "NO on proposal 36" campaign was coming at it so level-headedly. The TV commercials showed straight couples and families, saying, "I don't know how I feel about gay marriage, but I know Proposal 36 is poorly writen."

What does gay marriage threaten? Family? The families that already exist with two same-sex parents, without equal rights to their child? No, family values only serve the families that are practically extinct in our culture, the nuclear one mother, one father, two-point-five child homes. That isn't our America. It isn't our place to say if it should be, but I know it isn't right. Step-mother, step-fathers, half-children and grand-step-cousins-once removed, that is today's family. Children shouldn't be punished for the world they inhabit. And I do not mean that children should be punished for having gay parents. But instead, I mean children shouldn't be punished for their human parents short-commings and the close-minded settings of their community.

What does gay marriage threaten? Straight-marriage? I have had this conversatation a dozen times with my favorite Catholic Democrat Bartender, Glenn. Glenn is 50+ years old, he's been Catholic all of his life, married only 20 years of his life and worked at the same company over 25 years of those 50-plus, under 3 or more different owner/managers. Glenn is very educated and very political. He loves to stress both of these features. Glenn, like myself, doesn't feel gay marriage threatens what him and his wife hold as holy vows. He doesn't think a man marrying a man takes anything away from him, as a man, marrying a woman. He is very level-headed, hard-working, likes to drink and enjoy himself, and knows bullshit when he sees it.

What does gay marriage threaten? God? "It's against The Bible", being the most common response I can get from those so opposed. My response never falters, "Who are you to judge? Let them bring it up with God." If we all believe in The Bible and Judgement Day, and it actually turns out to be truth, we will all have to face our maker on the day of our demise. We will all have to account for the sins we have concured along the way...being gay and "acting upon" that gayness is no difference. Who are we to judge? God, did not put us here for that purpose. The great scripture states..."judge not lest ye be judged", "no one but God has the right". Jesus himself says, “Judge not, that we cannot judge." (Matthew 7:1). Let us all just stop playing God for a minute (in the form of the Father, Son or Holy Ghost) and let's try to live our own lives in the way of The Savior. Let us try to lead our own lives down a path of salvation and bring as many as will join us along. Jesus didn't want it and not even angry, vengeful New-Testimate God wanted us to live bullying and dragging people by their ears down the path of salvation.

I won't believe in a God who doesn't love all of his creatures.

Computer Error Messages

I would love to have a computer that taked shit to me. The error messages of Windows and even more so on a Mac are complete useless anyway, so they might as well be funny.

While working on my Greyhound Memoirs, I concluded that the ideal way to get into the same mind set of being a three day Greyhound journey would be to drink to the point of being slightly toasted. Sometimes this plan failed in one of two ways. Either I was not drunk enough or too drunk (more usually the later). Being drunk as a lot in common with the bus riding experience, but being very drunk is a little too happy a place to relate. Riding a Greyhound is more like being hungover than being drunk, but that is not a feeling I ever strive to achieve.

My saying became "Not Enough Booze in The System to Complete Download". Now why can't my computer come up with things like that to tell me when it doesn't want to cooperate? If it is going to be a moody bitch, the least it can do is have a sense of humor about it. That is how this moody bitch tries to be anyway.

Greyhound Memoirs #21

FINAL DESTINATION
5/19/01 3:10pm PST

My bus is entering Portland. It looks sort of lie Chicago; lots of run down little houses next to the Interstate. Holy shit, I just saw an ad for health insurance for pets. Fucking hippy town.

Big buildings coming up around the bend. Wow, a city. A real city, but so green (not bathed in concrete gray like so many). MAX train, not-so-distant cousin of San Francisco’s BART. “Amazon.com Wouldn’t Fit Here”, the side of a huge building reads as we cross the Willamette River into downtown Portland.

I hope I fit here...

Greyhound Memoirs #20

GREEN OREGON
5/19/01 2:16pm PST

About an hour to go and a hundred pages left in Slaughterhouse Five.

Oregon is so green, sunny, rocky and windy. Everything is going to be okay. After I shower and go to the dentist and chiropractor, that is. My teeth ache like I was socked in the face. I wonder what’s wrong. I’ve been drinking a lot of soda, but that isn’t unusual for me. It’s the front teeth especially. Maybe it has something to do with my tongue piercing. Maybe something about sleeping under a blanket of feel of sexual assault making me clinch and grind away at my teeth combined with the rattling of the uneven highway and jerky stopping.

It will take me two years to see a dentist. And after a series of consecutive visits, I will get fillings in almost all of my teeth and have 2 of my 4 wisdom teeth removed.

Huge green pines, mountains, and trickling water. The trees and water are things that have always been close to home. This flatlander will have to get used to the mountains. That shouldn’t prove to be very difficult.

Greyhound Memoirs #19

ROTTEN TEETH
5/19/01 10:30am PST

I’m starving and my teeth are rotting right out of my head. I can feel them throbbing with decay. I just brushed them for the first time on the trip and they feel slightly better. Portland is less than 300 miles away. Still five hours to go.

Greyhound Memoirs #18

STANDOFF
5/19/01 6:08am MST

Everyone’s got a hussle. Everyone thinks they’ve got to be a player. I almost lost my cool last night when an Esse named David tried to get “fresh” with me. He was talking to me, telling me he wanted to sit with me, when he had a seat across the aisle. I told him I had been traveling for two days and I was tired and I just wanted to get some sleep. I went to use the bathroom and he was sitting in my seat when I got back. I kept telling him I was tired and I wanted him to move. He was saying I could lie down in his lap and finally I got out of my seat and stood in the aisle glaring at him. Finally he moved back to his seat.

A couple of hours later, he apologized. Said he was stoned out of his mind and that I should get to know him. The guy sitting next to him, who was on the bus with me from Chicago apologized too and said he should have done something for me and to let him know if Esse bothers me anymore or I need anything.

This isn’t happening to anyone else. I’m not that cute. Do I look that much like prey? I wasn’t firm enough I am too nice, but I handled myself on both buses. I got my seats. Something I will learn as a cocktail waitress in a mismanaged bowling alley is to handle most any situation.

Greyhound Memoirs #17

VEGETARIAN
5/18/01 2:40pm MST

Quite a rowdy, lippy group on this bus. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they aren’t normally like this, but due to lack of sleep, shower and normal food bus travel multiplies their natural loopiness.

The driver just asked for the “off-color” remarks to stop because women and children are on board.

We stopped in Rawling, Wyoming for a cigarette and stretch near nothing. A bag lady from the bus made a remark about some of us smelling bad and “Tiny”, who is a truck driver and of course not a small man, said, “if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.” Everyone curses like a sailor. It’s absolutely wonderful. One woman asked another passenger to get her a soda across the street and he said, “Shit no, you’ve got legs.”

Last night, at a brief stop, somewhere in Iowa or Nebraska (pretty sure it was Iowa) the bus filled with the smell of slaughtered chickens. It was absolutely horrible. I was so nauseous; I thought I would lose it all over Jose.

Over four years later, I remember this experience vividly. We stopped for a 10-minute rest in the wee hours of the morning. I stayed on the bus for about 3 minutes, and then decided I might as well have a cigarette, since I couldn’t sleep. As I got off the bus, the smell was over-powering. The familiar smell was hard to place at first and once I did I never thought I would be able to eat chicken again. I lit my cigarette and smoked as much as I could until I thought I would toss my cookies. I got back on the bus to get away from the smell only to find the odor had completely permeated throughout the bus and remained for hours only slowing losing its offensive power mile after mile. Somehow, I was able to choke down some chicken only a few short weeks later.

My ears have been popping a little in the mountains. I hope my stomach stays settled. Driving through the Smokey’s always made me loose it when I was younger. All I have eaten today is beef jerky and soda pop.

Greyhound Memoirs #16

A LITTLE ANI FOR THE ROAD
5/18/01 12:40pm MST

I remember my first time
riding on a Greyhound bus
A man put his hands on me,
soon as night fell.
I remember when I was leaving
how excited I was.
I remember when I arrived
I didn’t feel so well.

I wish I wasn’t so nice. Because there are a lot of situations where nice gets you deeper in trouble. I am nice because I was raised that way, but I am also tough enough to get out of any bad situation I’ve ever been in.

Girl, next time he wants to know
what your problem is.
Girl, next time he wants to know
where the anger comes from.
Just tell him this time,
the problem’s his.
Tell him the anger just comes.

I wish my anger came at the right time and I knew how to express it. I wish being cute wasn’t such a damn burden.

I have my own set of seats, away from Jose now.

Greyhound Memoirs #15

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
5/18/01 11:02am MST

Everyone has heard a hundred stories about someone who “did it” on a bus or airplane. This is not one of those. I can't say people weren't having sex on any of the buses I rode across the country, but I never noticed any hanky panky and I surely didn’t partake in any myself.

Turns out Jose was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for seven counts of sexual misconduct, all on the same day.

We’re finally out of Nebraska.

There is a black woman on the bus who has her seven kids with her, she’s pregnant and smokes. I’m trying not to be a snob, I’m not trying to judge, that’s not working very well. My life could be much, much worse.

I called Kate and my dad from the last stop. They seem like they did when I left. I have to keep remembering that was only yesterday. Feels like weeks to me.

Greyhound Memoirs #14

MISSING ORDINARY
5/18/01 7:32am MST

Not sleeping makes me not hungry. I really like breakfast food, just not this early. The food was really expensive at our breakfast stop and I’m saving up for my chiropractic bill. Only one or two people on the bus actually ordered anything.

I want a shower. I want a bed. I want everyone to shut up. All night and continuing today these two guys have been ragging on Jose. While I was asleep, I guess he was talking smack about how I want to marry him and I was coming on to him.

Hopefully I can get more space in Wyoming. We’re still in Nebraska. For some reason I thought yesterday would be the worst, now I’m not so sure.

I can’t wait to hear familiar voices and eventually see a familiar face.

Greyhound Memoirs #13

NO WAY TO SLEEP
5/18/01 12:44am MST

I always thought Detroit was the most likely place to be panhandled. I never thought about bus stations. If you are taking a bus, doesn’t that wave a big flag saying you don’t have extra money to give away?

Another surprise, that wouldn’t happen on an airplane, is that they will actually de-board a bus in the middle of the night for “servicing”. So, here I am, in Omaha, my third choice of a place to make my new home to San Francisco and Portland.

Pray everyday of your life, to whatever god or gods or entity you wish, that you are never as poor and uninformed as I was when I chose this method of transportation.

Lowest fucking common denominator. That’s all I have left to say. Now I’m one of ‘em. At this moment, I am seriously considering spending all the cash I have, when I arrive in Portland, on the best massage money can buy.

Greyhound Memoirs #12

PEOPLE ON THE BUS GO ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND
5/17/01 8:20pm CST

The sun is setting and we’re chasing it west down the highway. Miles and miles of farmland, green and brown, rolled out along the country. So huge, is this country – huge and vast in a wonderful and lonely way.

This bus contains an interesting selection of people typically underrepresented in my life. I have this weird knack for knowing peoples race or ethnicity. It makes me feel less snobby, less white, to say, “Oh, Diem, that’s Vietnamese right?” People are shocked that I didn’t ask if they were Chinese or Japanese. Sometimes it’s as simple as a name, such as Jose (who a little black boy just asked if he was Russian). Sometimes it’s an accent, a word they use, sometimes skin color or physical features. It just makes me feel good somehow. We are supposed to be color blind, but since that is impossible, being educated and knowing Chinese from Korean, seems more refreshing to me.

Goodnight farmland, I’m sure you’ll be waiting outside my window when the sun returns.

Greyhound Memoirs #11

FIRST NIGHT OF NO SLEEP
5/17/01 6:55pm CST

Is Iowa still central time? I guess it probably is. I just ate the best Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich I’ve ever had in my life and I’ve had quite a few.

I’m not looking forward to sleeping sitting up right next to Jose (who sings bad pop songs to himself) and on a bus with constantly crying babies.

Ben’s coming to see me Memorial Day weekend. “Never.” That’s all I could tell him when I called him from Nebraska, never again. I haven’t even made it a third of the way. But I still have a few hundred dollars, so that’s good.

It’s nice to look down at the people in their cars. Not in a grand way, just a different perspective, it’s nice to have that once in a while. Just a few more hours of light.

Greyhound Memoirs #10

BOOK REVIEW
5/17/01 5:10pm CST

It’s very clever, this book. I think it’s definitely shaping my writing (as all books do). I like the second story much better than the first. Basically 1) the first is written in journal and inner voice style and that in itself is pretty hard to write without being cheesy, 2) the first section was about drug addiction, which is something I have a fascination with but no real connection. It sort of seemed like neither did Leah and the second section is about sex and relationships and we all know that’s something I love to talk (and write) about.

The whole book is about Hollywood life, I guess, I mean I’m not done yet. Maybe I need to live in L.A. Irving claims everyone he knows who has lived in L.A. turns out funnier and wittier than they were before living there.

Jose isn’t a great example. He was showing me articles about video game systems. Made me feel like I was in third grade again. But really, how have things changed? Boys and their toys, as I always say. I bailed out of the clubhouse gang a few years ago, now I can’t stand their world. I’m not gonna be a woman much longer, no worries.

Greyhound Memoirs #9

INTRO TO JOSE
5/17/01 3:45pm CST

I’m sitting next to a young man who was recently discharged from the Navy. His name is Jose and he enjoys talking, even though he doesn’t speak English very well and is therefore very hard to understand. I sort of wish he would just speak Spanish, I would have a better chance of understanding him and maybe I could drown him out and sleep. He’d be more comfortable and I wouldn’t feel so bad for the things I misunderstand. He finally stopped talking and is sleeping now.

I’m reading this book. It’s really brilliant and moronical all at the same moment. Princess Leah (Carrie Fisher) is the author, you may have seen the movie, Postcards From The Edge. I always sort of wanted to see the movie, but it looked too much like Thelma and Louise for me. A few months after being in Portland I rented and watched the movie and was not all that impressed, but Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep are wonderful.

The second section is quite wonderful. The first section was good, but the dialog lacked something. I’m not a writer yet, so I can’t tell what. I think maybe…

Jose woke up distracting me and asked if I was writing to me boyfriend. Boys, so subtle with their intentions. I told him I wasn’t he said, “you do have a boyfriend though?” I nodded, smiling. He said, “I could tell.” How sweet is that? I guess I am easily swept off my feet.

There are a lot of people on this bus. A few small children, screaming, of course. That’s what the adults would do too, if that was socially acceptable. I didn’t really notice the screaming baby, behind me until Jose woke up, but when I think about it, the screaming has been going on the whole time.

Boys notice how annoying babies are more than girls, I think. Now that I am a mom, I notice screaming babies more because I am trained to react to it, but I’m not bothered in the slightest by it.

We’re in farmland now. Ah, middle America -- Iowa, maybe Nebraska. We stop in Nebraska for dinner in a few hours. Stomach inventory: a can of coke, a bagel and I’ve had about four cigarettes.

This bus has the rainbow seats again, that makes me smile. I wonder if I’m going to make it in one piece. No, I guess I know that I will and crack within the next few weeks. To be perfectly honest, it took much longer than a few weeks for me to crack. Ben came to visit the first or second week I was in Portland and I read him this entire journal and we laughed and drank and went out to eat and had a good old time. The whole transition was still a vacation at that point. I didn’t start feeling homesick for about a month of dead-end job searching, eating TOP ramen and living in the apartment building we would later refer to as The Asylum.

I called Irving in Chicago. I think I might call Ben in Nebraska it only seems fitting with the neb/ben joke. But I should definitely eat first. I don’t change buses until Salt Lake City.

Oh! I forgot to mention – this bus' final destination is San Francisco. How sad is that? A couple of years ago, I planned to move to San Francisco with Ben and now I am moving to Portland “with” Irving.

I’ll finish the second section of this book and continue those broken thoughts later.

Greyhound Memoirs #8

WINDY CITY BLUES
5/17/01 2:40pm CST

Back on the bus. I packed too much stuff. I got rid of ninety percent of my shit and it’s still too much to carry and watch by myself. I’m never riding a bus again and I’ll think twice before traveling alone.

This whole bus system is crazy and unorganized. I hope I’m on the right bus. It is very hard to tell. I hope we leave Chicago’s lovely bus station soon. I was trying to perfect my big city, cold, blank look. No such luck, I’m obviously a naïve Midwesterner with too much stuff and no strength or coordination. Perfect target for pick-pockets and crooks. Everyone’s got their scam. A man asked me twice in the same hour if he could draw my face. “Such a pretty face, you don’t like it, you don’t buy it.” At least I know better than that, I’m not that gullible.

Greyhound Memoirs #7

LAST NIGHT OF SLEEP
5/17/01 1:40pm EST

Last night, around 4am, I said “Mom, fuck it. We might as well just stay up now. Let’s have breakfast.” She burst out into a sleepless cackle.

This morning waiting for the first bus, I was going though the contents of each bag in my mind. Worries. Why am I so worried? I said, “Mom, let’s just go home.” She was shocked for a moment at my frown and she smiled saying, “You are going home.”

Greyhound Memoirs #6

GARY, INDIANA
5/17/01 1:15pm EST

“Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana…”

Stretched hard and had a smoke in Gary, because hell what goes better with the lovely smell of steel factories and oil refineries than a nicotine fix?

The Australian woman, who’s been the only one with me this whole time (since Ann Arbor at 7am, yes this is still the same day I started my trip), said she thought someone famous was born in the land of Blast Furnaces of Northern Indiana, but I couldn’t understand who she was talking about through her thick accent. Thinking back, she was probably talking about Michael Jackson, but I was too exhausted to think of that then.

I used the bathroom onboard, for the first time, right before Gary. There is no sink. I hope tomorrow there’s a sink, because I am going to smell offensive. Turns out, I never even checked the bathrooms on any other bus. I figured if I smelled bad enough, maybe I wouldn’t get my own two seats to sleep in.

Ah, that Gary funk. Rivaled only by Detroit, that smell on a hot day after a light rain. I miss the D already.

Next stop: Chicago.

Greyhound Memoirs #5

CLASS STRUGGLE
5/17/01 12:10pm EST

I didn't mean to sound like a snob about homeboy. He was very kind to me, got off the bus and told me to have a nice trip. It's just, maybe I don't, what's missing? I just don't relate to people well. I don't know how to interact on a superficial level. I will soon learn, in my first ever job in the beloved and well-appreciated service industry. Customer service has nothing on service industry. It may seem obvious to you that they are completely different things, but for me, the way I am, I needed to learn it through experience. I will also learn, among the lessons that I can never relate to you, that I know nothing of relating on a superficial level. I did learn very quickly how to deal with drunks, how to defuse a possibly volatile situation and how to step back and let someone take care of situation. I continue in my Greyhound journal to say that I loath small talk, which I will learn to crave and respect. And I always thought somehow that made me a deeper person and I couldn’t do it because it wasn’t worth doing. And that’s the thing. I’m all talk.

My mother grew up in the south and in the 1950s. Needless to say, she is very chatty. Go to the grocery store, she talks to the bag boy. Go to the movies, she chatters to the ticket-taker. Go to a restaurant, she’ll talk the waitresses ear off. All these people are paid to be nice and so I always assume they are thinking, “Lady, shut up.” But now that I’m a mom, I think that was what I was thinking and those people probably enjoyed someone being nice to them while they were at work.

My personality confuses people. Well, it confuses me too. Most people see either one side of me or the other and think “Oh, I’ve got her pegged”. When I wrote this journal entry, I thought I was the only one person who was multi-dimensional.

It always made me feel like a fake. I was one way with my friends and another with my boyfriends and another with my parents and another with my teachers.

Insert rant about how this all ties into Irving and Jamie. Any rant will do and be better than the one originally writen in my journal.

Greyhound Memoirs #4

MEET HOMEBOY
5/17/01 11:00am EST

Switched buses in K-zoo (Kalamazoo, Michigan for you out-of-staters). I guess I don't have to move my own checked bags. I just hope they made it on with me. I saw one being moved on, so that is good. The other stops have more than a 5-minute layover, so I may have to watch and0 move my bags there. But that's okay because I have time there and time is important when I am worried. The more I write the less any of this makes sense because I am so low on sleep I think I could sleep through someone screaming in my ear. I'm more worried than I've ever been. I usually don't worry easily and I guess this is no exception because this wont be easy. Oh, simple naive Eva she thinks this will be the hardest thing she will ever do and there for worth wasting page after page of this nonsensical steamy pile of hooey about worry. But wait, more hooey continues...

I'm just all wound-up with worry and nervousness and hunger and lack of sleep. I'm sick to my stomach. Even the butterflies are hungry at this point. But I keep waiting for the tears. Have I really become that detached from my feelings that I can be strong on the exterior?

I didn't cry when I said good-bye to anyone (to everyone). I felt really good, really happy until last night. When I was frantically running around trying to tie-up last minute strings, it started to sink in. A lot of those strings we left untied and I will trip on them later, for sure, but I haven't shed a tear for any of them.

Saying good-bye to Jamie was really good. We sat in his car and he continued to flirt with me. He knew nothing sexual was going to happen and yet he was sweet and caring and funny and concerned. He started by asking me all the risk-assessing parental questions he was so good at. And then he turned light and funny, saying I had to promise to make out with him the next time I saw him (if I wasn't married, which we both would be) and continuing to tell me how much fun he had making out with me in the past. He threw my judgment of character out the window of his Pontiac. All this time I had him pegged for an asshole and I would reflect on so many times spent with him and realize he was nothing but someone honest and caring and emotional and fun. They say hindsight's 20-20, does that make foresight legally blind. What do we have in this world, if not our blind faith that things will be this way or that? Maybe I will never know how to think things out as well as sheltered yuppie Jamie. And maybe I will consider thanking God that lack of sight, everyday.

The last bus had rainbows on all the seats, so happy. This bus seems more modern, less roomy -- 80s, instead of 70s.

Homeboy who called me "sleepyhead" on the last bus is now looking over my shoulder and breathing down my neck. He asked if I was writing in a diary. What do you think? Is this a diary? I should have told him, "No, I am writing a letter to the president of Zaire about Greyhound travel". I told him I was just sort of writing, keeping track, and killing time. I'm writing my life story. My life and this trip have that story, shock value, adventure thing I thrive on, written all over it.

I love to talk about myself. I hate writing classes because there's all this talk about the reader and I should make a correction at this point. I used to hate writing classes because I didn't care about the reader. All I cared about was myself. I read my website and I know I sound like a pretension fuck, but it's hard no to. Writing things down make you feel like you have to be someone else. Writing makes words like "mom" turn into "mother". Uhms, and uhs and ers in conversation, completely disappear in writing. My goal is to write with the air of the common, but in the style of a pro. I won't learn what I need to know in school, but I will go and I'll take the required courses. Then I'll just write and it won't be awful, like this.

Greyhound Memoirs #3

SMOKER ON BOARD
5/17/01 10:25am

Just woke up from my nap for breakfast, which consists of a Cherry Coke from Arby's. Sleeping on a bus seat is like resting in a four-star hotel that you can't afford and have no intention of paying for. I am feeling really poor. This is just conditioning because as I live my low-wage, scraping-by life in Portland it will feel like I am very wealthy and rewarded with ample things people with money will never know. I feel like trash on this bus, but for some reason I thought I would feel powerful being within 10 feet of all my belongings and caring my net worth in cash. I tell myself that maybe I will feel better after Chicago, big-city trash to co-mingle with instead of these ten midwestern farm-town folk.

Had time for a cigarette, with so-called-breakfast. I spent the 7 minutes thinking about what my mom said about how I should be upfront with Jack and Sandy about my nicotine addiction. She thinks that would be "adult" and they'd respect that. I think I'd rather skip the lecture and be a kid in their eyes. I guess they're going to know. Non-smokers can detect a smoker from a distance further than bees can smell fear. I tell myself that I am ashamed of my habit, I have no excuse and if I was truly "adult" I wouldn't smoke. I tell myself I will quit after college, expecting that it will take me another 10 years to get an associate degree in anything. Four years after this bus trip Jack and Sandy still don't know I smoke (at least I've never told them and they haven't said anything). My father in-law and his wife and her two children and their husbands don't know I smoke, as far as I know. It's easier to hide habits you aren't ready to change, than admit things and apologize for the stuff you don't regret.

Greyhound Memoirs #2

BIRTHPLACE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
5/17/01 9:00am EST

As I glance up from the exciting book I just started, I see we are pulling off the highway. Exit 139. Why does that seem so familiar? Oh, we are stopping in Jackson "Birthplace of The Republican Party". I can't figure out if this sign was put up for bragging rights or warning purposes. Possibly both. I thought I would never have to come back here.

Jackson is where I came to file my unemployment. Oddly enough I've never spent a dry day in Jackson. I hope bus rides, unemployment claims and gray skies are not foreshadowing in this story of my life. But of course, they are. Because God is a literary man and enjoys a good lesson at his children's expense.

What kind of tattoo parlor opens at 9AM? Oh, the kind that is also a motel. Only in Jackson, Michigan. The bus driver makes an announcement over the muffled and scratchy P.A. "This is Jackson. This is Jackson." And I think, 'Hell it must be'. That which doesn't kill me...that which doesn't kill me...that which doesn't kill me...

Greyhound Memoirs #1

As promised here is the first entry from my Greyhound journal. It has been edited to include reflections and inserted explainations. I couldn't wait until May 19th, there are a lot of entries to put up. I may eventually have available the actual word-for-word entries, but for now, this is how I want it...

YOU DON'T SAY
5/17/01 8:05am EST

The bus hasn't left the station and my mind races as I leave the town I grew up in, headed west, in the early morning.

Mom and I spent the night chatting about boys, playing "You Don't Say*", trying to rest. I have exactly two hours of sleep to help me through, what I thought then, would be the hardest of a three-day journey. Or so I might have thought at the time.

I will find everything I packed within 3 seconds of wanting it, because 4 duffels is not much space to pack your life away. I forgot my face wash, along with probably a million other things. But they have face wash in Portland and I'm sure I'll find plenty of things.

I developed this attitude about travel when I was young, probably 7 or 8, when we went out on one of many family camping trips. I remember my father, perfectly anal and "like a boy scout" perfectly prepared, asking 3,000 questions. "Did we pack the toothbrushes?" "Did we pack the tent?" Us kids never dare respond, our mother always saying, "Yes, dear". We all answer our own questions. After he'd asked those three thousand some-odd questions, he’d always say, "You know what, we're behind schedule. If we forgot something, we'll buy it along the way."

This phrase has never left me. "If we forgot something, we'll buy it along the way." I once didn't have time to pack due to a hectic work/commute/class schedule for my first trip to San Francisco and bought underwear at a Target in Oak Ridge, instead of doing laundry. In that occasion and since, this sentence has come in handy when traveling.

My momma always said, "Everything’s gonna to be okay." My mom said, "You wanted an adventure and that's what you'll get."

“When you're run down after the first twenty hours and still have forty more to go, just think -- that's how long I was in labor with you.”, she said. And I guess the moral (although I know it wasn't exactly the moral she wanted me to get) is good things are worth waiting for or as I told myself pre-shower, blurry-eyed in the mirror this morning, "nothing worth doing is easy." Is that the way the proverb goes? Am I INSANE? Is it: "the right thing to do isn't always easy"? or "something a little less throw-myself-into-the-fires-of-hell-and-see-what-kind-of-cinder-I-become ? Anyway, I was a little more self-righteous then, but no-less impulsive.

I wish she hadn't told me, as I waited for my bus, her plans of buying me a plane ticket. but as Jamie would interject, "Everything happens for a reason" and of course, he is right, unoriginal, but right.

Mom slipped me some cash and packed me a bagel. Oh, don't you worry, I'll be just fine, Momma.

The bus pulls away. Mom waves and blows a kiss. She probably saw that in a train station scene in an old country western and found it endearing and romantic. But nothing really seems that way this morning as I look out at my arbor of green wet leaves for the last time as my home.

Portland will be exactly like this, wet, gray sky, green, charming. Why am I moving again? "Change is good for the soul." Oh right, of course, Ben, thanks I forgot.

Ben had been living in San Francisco for almost a year (and hadn't made any real friends) when he told me "change is good...". When I arrived in Portland, the weather was nothing like that of Michigan's when I left. The comparison didn't strike me then, because those three days felt like an eternity and I was more concerned with getting a shower than what the outdoor conditions might be. The weather was sunny, in the 70s and blue skies with light fluffy white clouds . This beautiful weather would help me fall in love with Portland that entire first summer.

*"You Don't Say" is a game show that was popular in my mother's era. The way we have always played (not sure these are the T.V. rules), since I was a small child, two player game. player one layer chooses a famous person and then gives a hint about their name (i.e. Audrey Hepburn, hint: when you put your hand too close to a stove you get...?), second player gives a guess to the hint until they get what the first player is looking for (i.e. "scalding", "boiling", "hot", "BURN!"). As this happens the first player can give hints to help the second player get to the concept they are looking for (i.e. "not scalding, what does the scalding liquid do to your skin") Once the desired answer is given the first player says, "right" and continues on with the second hint (i.e. hint 2: a sexually transmitted disease). The second player guesses at the second, third, fourth (if needed) hint, until they arrive at all the words that sound like the famous persons name. Then the second player (or "guesser") strings these weird clues together to create a name (i.e. Burn, Hepatitis, Awe, Dry) and throws them around in different orientations until they guess the famous person in question (i.e. Burn, Awe, Hepatitis, Dry. Awe, Burn, Hepatitis, Dry. Dry, Awe, Burn, Hepatitis, Hepatitis, Burn, Awe, Dry. Oh Hepburn...Audrey Hepburn!!!). Like this example, the hints often take a lot of reworking and are as far from the name as possible with out appearing to be a "cheater". It really is a fun game that will pass a lot of time. As the years have passed, my mother and I have created rules to bridge the generation gap (i.e. you can only use famous people you think or know that I would recognize.). My mother and I must have played 1,000,000 games of "You Don't Say" in our short time on Earth. It is something that always brings us back to square one, just saying those words, "Let's play a game of You Don't Say." Try it with your friends, parents or kids. It really never should have been taken off the air.

Greyhound Memoirs

In honor of my 4th anniversary in Portland (coming up in less than 2 weeks), I pulled out my Greyhound journal. The original idea was to transcribe the journal on this very blog. But after reading it and talking about it, I thought I should make a website for all the wonderful Greyhound stories. Then as I started to compose my journal into digital form it began to metamorphosize into something bigger.

I have 5 pages completed of my autobiography. I know that I cannot release it until I am at least 35 and I have no intention to. But the story begins with my Greyhound Memoirs and continues on into my life in Portland and beyond. The Greyhound Memoirs section (one of three) will be blogged with revisions and commentary on May 19th, the day I set foot in Portland four years ago. I haven't figured out how to make it readable (as far as mass amounts of text go) but I will come up with something.

Your project: think of good names for my Greyhound story site. greyhoundmemoirs.com is the best I can come up with so far.

Also, I am expecting critical reviews on my memoirs...so get your thinking caps on and your constructively out of its box and get ready to interact with the only true interactive media.

Read the entries:

Read the entries:


• Greyhound Memoirs #1
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #2
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #3
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #4
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #5
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #6
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #7
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #8
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #9
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #10
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #11
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #12
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #13
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #14
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #15
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #16
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #17
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #18
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #19
  
  
• Greyhound Memoirs #20



• Greyhound Memoirs #21

Books I Must Read Before I Die

I have started a personal book list of Books I Must Read Before I Die and if you have any title selections for me, I would be very interested. My current read is Me Talk Pretty One Day by the brilliantly witty David Sedaris.

I have seen a couple of good movies I would like to suggest. I have long awaited the arrival to DVD (I hardly actually make it to a theater) of A Love Song For Bobby Long and it was well worth the wait. One of the most flattering things a friend once said to me is that I remind him of hot babe, Scarlett Johansson. Ever since then I paying close attention to her career. Also, I have to say I very much enjoyed Finding Neverland. Of course, Johnny Depp is a hotty and Kate Winslet has come a long way from her Titanic days. I want to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind over and over and over and over. Of course, not such a new one, but Garden State is still on my top 5 recent movies.

When I first moved to Portland, I was so bored and lonely that I started making "TOP 100" lists. My favorite 100 movies of all time, my favorite 100 books of all time (I honestly don't think I have read 100 books, because I am a recovering literary degenerate) and so on. I have seen (and liked) so many movies that I easily got to 100 and beyond. I am a little pickier now and you might be seeing some of those pretentious lists popping up on this very blog. Don't worry, I will start with a smaller number than 100.

Send me your favorite 10 books (or authors) and I will get to reading (as part of my recovery of course). One day at a time...

Mix Tape Stories

My friend Kate, she has a website, which I think is a truely unique and interesting idea. Anyone can go and add a song title and a story or poem about what that song means to them or where they were we they first heard it or whatever. I have to say that I helped her come up with (if it wasn't completely my idea) the name vikingmeat.org and I couldn't be happier with Mix Tape Stories being hosted there.

When I went it looked like it was completely wacked out, but I will big her and see if she can't find some time to make it work again. So, try back soon. But here is my newest entry:

Caring is Creepy
by The Shins

I lost a boy...a friend -- who I never got a chance to become friends with because we worked together too long. And for a strange reason this song makes me think of him...

I know that what has happened between us "is way beyond [his] remote concern of being condescending". There's no reason for me to think of him and I'll try to just "Hold [my] glass up, hold it in. Never betray the way [I]'ve always known it is."

He sees the world as noise. As an inconvience for him. He couldn't understand
"All these squawking birds won't quit.

There's reason to forgiving their job to do...
"Building nothing, laying bricks."

Just maybe...
"One day [he]'ll be wondering how
[he] got so old just wondering how
[he] never got cold wearing nothing in the snow."

"I think [you'll] go home and mull this over
Before [you] cram it down [your] throat.
At long last it's crashed, its colossal mass
Has broken up into bits [your] heart."

I think I just might wonder why caring got so creepy and brought the stalker out in me.

"It's a luscious mix of words and tricks
That let us bet when you know we should fold
On rocks I dreamt of where we'd stepped
And the whole mess of roads we're now on."

At the end of that mess of roads, I'll find the answer. Has it been long enough to try again? And why do I want to? If caring is creepy, not caring is just plain terrifying.

Parenthood is Strange

Parenthood is strange and it involves a lot of change, but so do so many things in life. I know that sounds corny, but I wont retract it. I've gone through a lot of changes lately and I'm not ready to talk about them directly...but they have made me want to write more. That which does not kill me...makes me want to be a better person.

Untitled (for now)
by Eva G. del Vecchio-Porter
April 26th, 2005

My dad always said,
"I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you"

When I was young
it made me feel special
when I was older
and he witnesses the birth
of the woman he loved's baby
it made me wonder
So I asked,
"Did you love Aven, the minute he was born?"

He took a moment to recover.
"It didn't feel the same,
but I knew I would love him."
I wonder if he was lying.
I wonder if he was over thinking
what I wanted him to say.

Now, as a mother,
I wonder if I'll be able to lie
to my children
if I will want so much
to protect them that every word
will be geared at making them happy.

I didn't love my first born child,
my son,
the moment I met him.
He will learn through experience
I am selfish
I was happy when he was born
I was happy I had done it
I was happy he was healthy
and beautiful
But I didn't love him
Until I got to know him.

And everyday I love him
a little more
because I know who he is
a little more.

"Better Safe Than Sorry"

My blog (and all blogs, but particularly this one because it is mine) seems like the perfect place to explain something about myself.

I am a big fan of the Internet, always have been. But I don't think I will shock anyone by saying there are some aspects of the community I could do without. This is not a funny peice. There are many things on the web that are completely useless, harmless and can occationally give those die-hard web-surfers a chuckle now and then.

Bear with me while I digress a bit more. Email forwards are 99% annoying. Very rarely are they useful, but it's nice sometimes to know that your friends are thinking about you. Maybe they didn't have the time to write you an originally authored email, but the forward they send will do. And isn't it better than spam and pop-ups?

With that in mind, today I recieved an email from a friend. Well, actually one of my mother's close friends, but I consider her a friend. This email was titled: "a must read". I opened the email and the first line read: "Abduction Precautions for Women". I should have instantly closed the email and deleted it (I did actually close the email, but read it later). This is my least favorite type of email. Yes, I hate it even more than the religious forwards and the joke lists and the chain letters and stupid animated gif picture mails, combined.

These emails are even more evil than your local nightly news for one reason: I completely disagree with the theory "IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)". Personally, I would rather have no life, than a life lived in overwelming fear.

I know the world is not a safe place, but I try to live like maybe it could be. I'm not saying a woman (or man) walking home at night, alone, should choose to walk down a dark alley instead of a well-lit main street. Dogs (and assailants) can smell fear and I don't like to show any. You can hide some fear, but you can't hide as much fear as media and this kind of propaganda would like for us to have.

My friends email forward continued and gave all kinds of tactics to avoid being attacked and abducted. Statistically backed ideas and true-life what-not-to-dos can't compete with the advise I will give you right now. Don't be affraid. Don't be affraid and you wont appear weak, you wont appear vonerable. Walk down the street at night the same way you would walk through the park on a warm sunny day with your boyfriend (or girlfriend). That attitude would scare away the half-hearted attacker and the whole-hearted attacked wouldn't have been scared by much.

Horrible, aweful things happen to men and women everyday in every nation and culture. I hope nothing unthinkable ever happens to me or you or someone you love. And I hope it hasn't already. The same media that is mostly responsable for young boys seeing women as objects is now trying to warn us not to leave our houses. It's all a bunch of hooey.

I hope I don't die by the hand of anyone else. If I do, at least you'll all know that I lived my life without looking over my shoulder.

If you would like to read these Abduction Precautions for Women, here is a copy. Who am I to say anything, they just might save your life.

...Quarter of a Century...

Ben jenkins is my best friend. He has been for about 10 years. Today is his birthday. He is a quarter of a century old. He is in New York, with his "boyfriend". I don't know if Teejay is still his boyfriend, but obviously they are still very close and see each other on special occations. I feel silly, like in High School when Ben wouldn't return my calls and he wasn't online or checking his e-mail and I thought he was dead. But it turns out he is just in New York, having a helluvatime.

The way he was talking about growing old a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was head-under-the-covers sobbing about being old. That isn't really Ben's style, but he can disappear. He is better at disappearing than anyone I know, I wish I could disappear like him. I thought he needed me to cheer him up, but he doesn't. That's okay. I don't need him all the time either, just knowing he is there is enough to get me through most rough times.

I am getting drunk for Ben. I am glad he isn't unhappy on his birthday. I am looking forward to knowing Ben when he IS old (not 25, but 75) and still loving each other and being young at heart together in our golden years.

I love you, Ben. Happy Birthday!!!

a poem for review...

medium for the archieves
april 8th, 2005

my mom wasnt a stay-at-home mom
she was a housewife*
I dont have childhood memories
of her scrubbing, and vaccuuming
and moping the floors
to a spin-n-span sparkle
But the house was always clean

When I stay home
I get some chores done
but my house will never be
as clean as my mother's

My mother went to college
she was never taught
that she was to marry
a nice-man to take care of
she married for love
and took care of him
none-the-less

generations of women
are being rasied
to think they can be
good enough to work
but are they good enough
to keep up a home?

I remember the ironing
a lost art form
my mother would iron
a gargantuan table cloth
the "good linen"
with masterful skill
not a millimeter would touch the ground
not a centimeter ironed twice
in 25 minutes
the weeks ironing was done

I dont know how to
turn my own iron ON
i cant remember if
you wait for it to beep
or the light to go off
when it is ready
because I iron
once a year
at most

my mother is an arist
of ink and paint and word
but the thing I admire most
is her artistic stylings
in home care
because that is americana
and truely
a thing of the past

*revision -- after my mother's review I decided I should change this word to "homemaker". A) she like the word better (a.k.a. thinks it has better connotations) and B) thinks it drives home the point of caring for a home. I agree with point A, but point B...is actually more shocking to hear and therefore makes the poem more striking when it takes the turn of respect. We discussed this and we both agree, either could work either way. She also told me the story of how she learned to iron...from my father's father. A story for another time.

Pictures Worth A Million Cocktails...

24 pictures from my 24th birthday misadventures:

http://wadeandeva.com/gallery/evabday05

Need I say more?

Easter Hunt

Happy Easter, to those who celebrate Easter.

We had an Easter Egg hunt this morning for plastic eggs filled with m&m's. Yum. Riley is still saying "mo egg, mo egg".

Only 5 days until my birthday. If you would like to send me some money, you can paypal it to edelvecc@comcast.net.

Easter pictures of Riley will be up later today and possibly some other pictures I've taken over the last couple weeks, if I get time.

One Week Away

One week until my birthday. The big 2-4. Yup. I have always loved (and milked) my birthday. I start celebrating March 1st (at the latest) and end around Memorial Day. Last week was St. Patrick's Day and as much as I love holidays that focus on getting really drunk, this holiday has always been the 2-weeks-to-go-until-your-birthday Day.

Yipee.

I have started collecting bowling themed picture frames (I have always collected bowling themed things, just not that specific before). So if you find any, email me for my address.

Blah, blah Blogging and Such...

This is my new blog. I've never actually had a "blog". I had a web journal at eva.is.fierce.org for years, back in the day. I thought I would start this as a place to put random crap. Okay enough for now.