Cloudy, 53 Degrees

Man, why do I feel so lazy lately? Not having any motivation is powerful, ain't it? I am guessing it is because (yes, I know, dead horse and all of that) we have had more rain this dear June 2010 than any other June in history. Ever. Oof.






By: Erik Johansson.

Rain, Fucking Rain, 53 Degrees

Portland doesn't love me anymore. WELL I DON'T LOVE IT.

In my own true fashion, I have only now discovered that I don't give a fuck if they don't want me listening to music so I brought my earphones into work. Some nice James Carr and Otis Redding are makin' it all so much nicer.

What I've Learned Part 3.5

When I stopped, for the last time, I stopped all of it. Recovery involves more self-analysis than one would otherwise ever wish for. What ever it was that made me say, "Yeah, alright, I'll try that." needed to be removed. They tell you that it's a long road, that it never ends, and I guess they're right. I am steeled against it still. Selfishness, denial, disrespect, and carelessness are tools for self-destruction and they never served me anyway in any way. I'm learning to lose them. To be a good person.

So, thank you, you know who you are, for teaching me:

-Time and patience is all it takes.
-Nothing is permanent and everything changes.
-Love reigns; choose those that you do for their good influence.
-You can leave your life open to varied interpretations or you can prove you are who you are.
-Always be kinder than necessary.

And, as always,

-Someone is always the wiser.

Happy three and a half years to me.

Cloudy, 54 Degrees

86! Degrees! On! Sunday! Oh glory, glory hallelujah, glory, glory, halleluuuuuuujah.

On another note, look here at this spooky stuff:







All By: Joao Ruas.

Cloudy, 54 Degrees

Let's Like Like bought a new dress. Pretty new colors, ain't that nice?

I need to vent for a mome'. Wicked Lady, who sits at the desk next to me, drives me pretty batty. Today the office manager from the second floor came up and asked if she could have a ream of 11" x 17" paper. Fine. Wicked Lady said yes. Second Floor Office Manager said, "Oh, you know what? We have a whole huge box of legal sized paper I can trade you for more 11" x 17". We never use it, ever." Wicked Lady accepts even though we have used exactly one ream of legal sized paper in the last year and a half. So they stuff the huge box of obsolete paper in a corner and I overhear Wicked say, "Oh, don't worry about it, Emma will put it away." Why, Wicked Lady, why do you remain so clueless about the office you work in? Grew more and more irate trying to find places for all that paper. Gonna fucking go bonkers.

And so!

I looked at bathing suits online to assuage myself. I want a one-piece. I think they are under-appreciated and very flattering. Plus, my tum won't get a sunburn, hey!

And now that I've typed it all out, yeah, you know, some people have to scoop garbage or sort chickens for a living. Not all bad, right, this? Not all bad. I feel deserving of a nice bowl of salmon chowder for lunch. So creamy.

Cloudy, 58 Degrees

Miso was a good friend to me for a long time and righted many wrongs in my tummy but now...now it's just some broth in a mug.

Via.

Rain, 52 Degrees

WHAT THE FUCK, JUNE. WHAT THE FUCK. ABOUT TO LOSE MY DANG MARBLES OVER ALL THIS RAINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

Okay.

Seriously, though, this seems to happen every year, don't it? Springtime in Portland is soggy and horrible and lasts too long. Really. We usually go from Autumn to Summer in an indistinguishable sweep of gray. DOWN WITH GRAY. Get up, Sun, get up! It's a new day.

Two weeks and one day of no cigarettes, rah rah siss boom bah! Go, Little Emma, go.

Oh, hi, I didn't see you there. By: Eris Yo, via.

Mostly Cloudy, 59 Degrees

By: Toby Burrows, via.

Light Rain, 57 Degrees

I was a scared kid. I wasted so many hours lying in bed, heart beating fast, imagining horrible scenarios to befall me. Bad dreams could make me feel sick for days, not able to shake that dread-stress feeling of being hunted down.

Well into my teens I couldn't really watch scary movies. The characters would stick around in me, inventing new and even more terrifying ways to keep me up, night after night. I grew out of most of it, finally, I think around the time I started to write pulp fiction. Scary stories and violent stories, to keep the wolves at bay.

So it's true, what they say, about writing as purging. Get rid of all of that nonsense. Write right now.

Cloudy, 52 Degrees

By: Oscar Mendoza, via.

Worrying about people you love is pretty tiring, isn't it? My best friend crashed his bike and got dumped by his girlfriend all in one day. He doesn't understand what he did to deserve it and I don't either. He'll be fine, I know him well enough, but it's just a shame. A simple, sad shame.

Mostly Cloudy, 57 Degrees

Even closer, even closer now! To the beach!

By: Jason Eskenazi, via.

Rain, 52 Degrees

Yes. The week is almost halfway over and at the end of it is a coast trip with the family. Yippy!

I wonder if the rain will ever stop. I remember this time of last year every year. So close to warm weather but still stuck in puddles.

Here is an old picture of my dad holding a black cat. Look at those chubby little paws! Ah, love. Via my Auntie Bonnie on Facebook.

Here is another great photo that my Auntie Bonnie posted. The sheep's like, "Hey man."

Heavy Thunderstorm, 57 Degrees

Today was hard. My butt hurts. Eating Taco Bell for dinner seems really great in comparison.

Cloudy, 53 Degrees

Like a rug. By: Charlie Engman, via.

I think I shall start shopping for a new job. One that will match my current salary and benefits would be really skippy. It might take awhile for something to catch but I've got a job now so no worries. It's terrible here. Really.

You know what are really terrific? Office pets. If only. A fluffy cat to sit on your lap sometimes or a nice brown dog to lay down and put his head on your foot. Make the day better, I tell you that.

I feel you, kid. By: Stephen Longmire, via.

By: Robert Doisneau, via.

Oh, P.S., FIVE DAYS NO CIGARETTES!

Light Rain, 45 Degrees

Today I am determined to have a good one. Second day of not smoking cigarettes and I get to online shop for the Dear Boy's birthday presents at work. What should I get him? I have a few ideas. It's Friday! The weekend I am extra stoked for is next one, though. A bunch of us are going to the coast to stay in a vacation house for a couple nights to celebrate my sister's birthday. Cook food, hang-out, play Apples to Apples. I love family weekends. I knew it would be so but I'm super happy that everyone likes the Dear Boy and he likes everyone. Figures, though, there aren't really any humans anywhere that don't like him. It's his nature.

By: Adam Kremer, via.

Rain and Hail, 47 Degrees

I had a dream last night that I had a small child. Probably around four years old. We were on a road-trip with the Dear Boy and the Best Friend. I had to scold the child and give her a time-out because she kept chasing after doggies (which is dangerous if the doggy runs across a road, see). She was cherubic and I felt so too.

Today the sun can't decide whether it is shy or not again. No new news there, really. Today I stopped smoking cigarettes. Again. I am repeating in my mind, "First commute, no smoking. First workday, no smoking," etc. Again. Oi.

I wonder if having a deadline for writing this book is hurting or helping. All the great authors maintain a writing schedule, I guess, they say. The thing is, I can write any lil ol' thing any time, it's the floods of hard inspiration that are getting this thing written. They strike at all times. That's kind of how I've always operated. I am an amateur, though, after all. I do not know, I do not know. I printed it all out today on paper and it's a bit heavy! That was nice to feel. Stuffed it in my backpack; it's now a thing that exists. It can be held in hands! Yours! And mine!

Anyway.

Oh! I figured out the strength thing, y'all. Some people have this tendency to hide their hurt at all costs. When something goes wrong in their life people ask, "Are you okay?" And they will always answer, "Oh yeah. Just fine." It leads one to assume they never have any problems. So there's that. It's just a privacy thing, I think. Some people operate in a solitary way that way, and that's fine.

Isn't it interesting how people are or are not the product of how they were raised? I see traits in myself that were definitely caused by my family. I also see traits in my family that I did not inherit. We've all met those people, too, that were raised in a horrible way but grew up straight and fit. Are our characters random outcomes?

Light Rain, 57 Degrees

Monday was a very bad day for me. So bad that I had to call in sick yesterday. I just couldn't pull myself to work and sit here biting my tongue, impatient, and irritated. This working is a penance I'm paying, I guess, just like everyone else. Today I am trying to keep the things to be grateful for in the forefront of my mind:

1. Low stress
2. Internet time
3. Writing time
4. Minimal customer service
5. Good pay
6. Good benefits

You can do it, Little Emma, you can.

What was it like for a young secretary out to fetch some lunch in brown heels and a smart little hat?
New York City, 1941, the year and approximate area my dad was born. Via.

By: Tom Lane, via.

I gave someone some advice the other day about what to do with someone who is rude. I said ignore them. Don't look at them, ever, even for a second. And when they speak to you, pretend you didn't hear them until they have to repeat themselves three times. After a while, they'll stop addressing you. I'm practicing what I preach. Grown men with ponytails must be ignored at all costs, y'all.

You know the saying about how you can't see beauty without first seeing ugliness, and so on? Well, the opposite is true too, isn't it, and ain't that hard. All weekend was spent in the backyard or on bikes or out with friends, just joy. Now, here, office lighting, office talk, and these terrible people. Spreadsheets that don't mean a single thing to me except the importance of their deadline.

I remember when I was 17 or so, driving along, and it hit me. After high school, I would be working. I'd be working until I was old. There was a small terror in this idea, and there still is. Only 11 years have passed and I feel like a lifetime's worth of working has been done. I've got miles to go before I sleep.

Sakes.

By: Jeremy Geddes, via. Same guy who painted that lady falling down the stairs that I posted up a while back.

Yuck. I am lackluster today. The sun is out there watching everyone but me. I WANNA BE SMILED UPON TOO, YOU KNOW. Four more hours of this office and its overuse of air conditioning. I try to think of it like two sets of two hours. But still. BUT STILL.

In two months and two days I shall have one of my molars removed. After that, another one. After that, tooth implants. It will be nice to have functional molars again. It would have been nice if my teeth hadn't started failing.

Laying my burden down.

It's time to write about almost losing someone I love to suicide. My friend, nonjudgmental keeper of my secrets and familiar respite from the strangeness of life, gave up. A fistful of time has passed since it happened and my mind is calming.

When I was younger and much less happy or adjusted to living, I thought I was unique in my terror of life and resignation to my weaknesses but I was very wrong. There are so many sad people.

I am only in the first part of my years here and I've known a few people who have killed themselves. The silent suffering that begins someone's plans to end their own life scares me the most. Those who succeed leave everyone saying the same thing. "I had no idea." And a steady, manic stream of whys.

I've talked with some who earnestly attempted but did not succeed. There is no choice sometimes, it seems, and the willingness to stay alive for the sake of others drowns in their inability to do so any longer. It is nothing personal, assured, and yes, they will miss you if there is any consciousness after death.

Myself, I slowly began to realize that my life is a story. Life will take you to faraway places you never planned and it will end. Everything changes, constantly, and nothing will last forever. Some have the kind of ending that trickle on and on after they are done and some are cut off in the middle of a turning point suddenly. I think long life, if we can help it, may be the pursuit of that lasting story.

We shouldn't think of ourselves as the titles that other people give us. Mother, co-worker, sick, rich. Or the ways people tell us we are. Happy, creative, controlling, shy. Our stumbling words, the way we wipe our noses, our eyebrows when we're curious, these are what make us. We are characters and the only way to tell any of us apart is that true, good sense of self.

I do not like that people lose their way. They do not wish for anything more to happen. The life picked out for them is a bad fit. They are limited and can not grow. They seem to hide this abnormailty like it's catching so that no one can stop them when the end comes. We get to know each other, love each other or hate each other, and none of us are truly permanent.

In the end, you can take yourself away and give your life up to other people's varied interpretations or you can stay around and prove that you are who you are. Wonderfully flawed, good and terrible, and only you.

Sunshine On

Via.

I am very excited that we're rolling into warm weather again. Each new season, I remember last year's just like it and take a little tally of my life. The decisions I've made, the friends I've kept or not kept, the belongings I held on to. I have a friend who has a very hard time looking towards the future with anything other than trepidation. I think most of us gauge it on our pasts and his has been stomped down with illness and loss. Can any of us truly influence each other? Are there words I just have not found to help change how he feels? Maybe it is his burden alone. But I'd really like to say, "Here, let me get that for you, it looks heavy."

Lundi

"DOESN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHIGN ANYMORE

ARE WE ALL JUST WALKING INTO ROOMS AND SAYING THINGS"

For Barry

Today is Friday. I battle between pleasurable excitement and irritated impatience sitting here at work. The tiny projects and tasks trickle in, too slow to tick the time away any faster.

I have been trying to quit smoking for so long now. What is with it? I quit a couple years ago for a few months and it seemed easy. I quit hard drugs years ago, so I should be able to quit smoking, yes? Well, hell. When I was getting clean, I read a few things here and there. One guy talked about retraining your thoughts to be non-addictive. To consider your addiction a separate entity. Like a monster in the closet. When it shows up in the front of your thoughts, you squash it by saying, "no." It's not you, it's an intruder. Also, seven minutes is all it's supposed to take for a craving to go away if you refrain.

When I think about temptation and guilt, I usually think about a certain loved one of mine. Sometimes it seems that she needs the guilt that giving in to temptation provides her to feel normal. Does that make sense? She's not satisfied unless she's beating herself up. I never knew what a broken heart really felt like until someone of my own blood stopped caring whether she lived or died. It hurts, boy, it hurts right in my chest.

A friend of mine recently told me I am brave and strong. I laughed because my heart is full of trembles usually. He said, "braver than anyone I know." I said, "emotionally, maybe." And that got me thinking. Maybe it's just a strong form of pride he sees. He and I had a falling out many years back and have reunited since. I took him in when he was unemployed and evicted. If a person I love needs help, I can be tireless in my effort to prop them back up again. To a fault, certainly. At the same time, my love and support will dry up quickly if I feel duped or schemed. I don't expect to be reimbursed, really, I just expect to keep my pride. I said some very terrible (and true, at the time) things to him back then. Maybe this is the bravery he saw. Not getting walked on, sticking up for one's self. Ah, ha.

Aye.

Next winter I am all over this. By: Robert Herman, via.

God I feel so sad about some things. I miss certain people just enough to feel it in my chest.


By: Alexander Kostinskyi, via.

Who goes there?

By: Brandon Pavan, via.




Both by: Dan Allegretto, via.

So darn excited. SO DARN EXCITED! Tonight, the beach! For three nights! Oh gosh.


By: Nicolas Poillot, via.

Too shy shy.

As a teenager, this was my favorite past-time. By: Oddio.

Mondayyyyyyyyugh.

Yup. By: Chris Piascik, via.

I think I like it.

I am so excited about life right now. It's Friday and the Dear Boy doesn't have to work tonight. PLUS on Sunday, my favorite dog in the whole world comes for doggy-sitting for FIVE DAYS. THEN! We go to the beach to stay for two nights. Oh, bless. La dee da, birds singing, suns shining, all that stuff of dreams and wonderment.






All three photos by: Michael M. Koehler, via.

...with jimmies.

Get that gopher. By: Bettina Lauck, via.

Did y'all know that after Ted Kaczynski’s capture, the FBI took his whole dang cabin and put it in a storage facility in Sacramento? True! Weird.


Girls are great. By: Mydeadpony, via.



Both by: Lillianna Pereira, via.

It's like this.

Whoa. From the National Archives UK, via.


Also from the National Archives UK, via.


By: Sean Stewart, via.


By: Ted Barron.

There is someone here at work that sits at the desk to my right. We're about ten feet apart, I guess. They talk to me a lot at a quiet conspiratorial volume, about our boss and whatnot, but I can never hear them. Never. At first I would ask "what?" a lot but now I just nod. I make the same face they're making and nod. I wonder how much pertinent information I'm missing. Not much, I wager. I damaged my memory with drugs years ago, anyway, so it's not unusual to be asked, "We talked about this, remember?" No, sorry, no. Sorry.

It's sort-of strange, anyway. I don't remember where common buildings are in the city I have lived in for ten years. I don't remember huge, important events that I have been a part of. I don't remember if I've met you or not and I certainly don't remember your name. Sorry. No, sorry, I don't remember this or that. Any of that.

And that's the way it is.

Shimmy shake!

Stick some sunlight through some trees and I'm a sucker for it. By: Sofia Torres, via.

These next two remind me of the art my folks had up when I was little.



Both by: Brandi Strickland, via.


Jesus christ, what a photograph. Taken during Holy Week in Greece. All of the photos from the collection are fucking amazing. I'm not a christian nor a catholic but I do admire conviction in others. By: Petros Giannakouris.


Writers have that simple way of saying things in a slightly new way. Bless. By: Katie Daisy, via.


By: Ted Barron.

Seriously.

Oh hi.


By: Joanna Bean (what a cute name, right?), via.


By: Adam Friedman, via.


By: Sasha Rudensky, via.

This whole set is great; I couldn't pick just one.


By: Bernat Fortet Unanue, via.

And that is that.

Oi.

I'm making a huge spreadsheet for white boss. Ugh.