#like my guys. portland is a super expensive city.

[saint-ambrosef]

i honestly, truly don't think most Europeans understand how big the U.S. is.

we are basically fifty different countries stacked in a trenchcoat. we are almost the same size as Europe in its entirety. it takes 15 straight hours just to drive across my home state. the cultural and economic difference between Oklahoma and California is like comparing Croatia and the Netherlands.

stop forming your ideas of what living here is like based on that one trip to NYC you took in college or that one influencer you follow that lives in San Fransisco

[olderthannetfic]

Hello, you seem open to answer some unusual questions too (feel free to ignore this one if it's weird or stupid) In a recent reply you said abt growing up being out "I think plenty of people build a life like that as adults, but they don't always get there until they've had time to escape their families and hometowns." My question is... how does one build a life like that? I'm an adult, deep in the closet and socially very awkward. I have no idea how ppl go about this. It seems like magic to me.

--

The big stumbling block is that it's something that requires other people.

So you have to get over yourself and go out and make an effort, but you also need to be doing that in a location where people who could be your queer, intellectual friends exist. If everyone around you is straight and hates to discuss anything, you're not going to have much luck even if you magically get all the social skills in the world.

Now, I'm not saying "Move to Portland! It's a liberal paradise!" or "San Francisco is super gay!" or "You have to live in NYC!" Most of those stereotypical cities are vastly too expensive these days, and the slightly less egregious ones like Portland aren't a golden ticket to a good queer community.

However, you should take a long, hard look at where you live. Is it an eensy, weensy town where there aren't any new-to-you groups of people you could go meet? If you want the life I described, you need to start the long, slow process of changing your life. Moving requires money. It requires a job that is in the new place or that can be done remotely. If you're rich, sure, pick up and go tomorrow, but more likely, a major shift in where you live will take a few years if you do it the sensible way.

If you already live in a big city, even a not-so-liberal one, the people you need are probably there somewhere. You just need to find them.

(Uh... well... assuming you live somewhere where queer people can congregate without being shot by the cops. If you live somewhere like that, you don't need my advice: you need language skills and job skills that can take you out of there. But given the tone of your question, I assume you're somewhere more like the US.)

The first step is some research. Are there extant queer bookstores in your town? Are there meetups? Are there gathering places? Bars are probably no good. Too loud. Too bad for awkward people. But what else is around? There's probably something. Are there indie coffee shops or bookstores that, while not queer overtly, have flyers for queer bands and things like that?

If you can find some activity-focused meetups, join them. If you can't, start one and advertise it in these types of places. Something like a book club would work best. It has a structured activity that gives you something to talk about. Pick a series of famous queer books (or, hell, BL trash) that will force you guys to talk about identity and what it means to you or to analyze culture or to have an actual opinion.

People cannot get to know you if you do not open your mouth.

You also need to engineer a number of these activities and chances to meet people. Not everyone clicks anyway, and the more awkward you are, the worse you come off on a first meeting, so you need to meet more people and see them regularly for longer.

You will not enjoy going outside of your comfort zone. Most people don't. But if you want your life to change, you need to do things that suck. Just don't pick activities that are the opposite of what you could ever enjoy. If you hate loud parties, that won't change. If you find it scary to go to book club because you don't know anyone yet, that could.

--

But before any of that, you do need to be out.

You cannot build a queer social group if no one can tell you're queer. More than that, queer adults who are out have usually made sacrifices to get there. They've had to lose bigoted relatives and risk shitty treatment in the street. And even if not, they might be like me and have been out and proud and not spared a moment's thought for hiding for literal decades. They're not going to want to hang out with someone who forces them back in the closet.

One of the things I hate most is friends who cringe when I act like myself in public. That's not everyone, but the loud-in-public people are the easiest to find and the least likely to put up with a deeply closeted friend.

Are you in danger of being physically assaulted if you're openly queer? Do you live with bigoted relatives? Is there a direct financial or safety reason you cannot be out? Because, if it's that, you need to work on getting somewhere safer before you do anything else.

But if it's more of a personal emotional sticking point, then focus on that. If relatives whom you don't live with and who don't have access to your bank account will hate you for being out, fuck 'em!

There are therapists who are queer-friendly. There are support groups. There are places you can go to work on whatever emotional things might be holding you back from coming out.

And being out doesn't have to mean running down the street at the pride parade in your undies. It can mean a quiet queer pin on your bag and not bringing it up unless someone asks you about it.

--

How easy it is to find community will also depend on exactly whom you are and where you live. If you are a cis gay man or a cis lesbian, you have more options, including for books for book club that more or less reflect you. Look for groups targeted at your specific identity if possible.

I dunno, man... aside from the being out thing and the seeking queer people thing, you could try finding a therapist or life coach to work on the awkwardness. That is a thing people do literal training on. If it's more of a social anxiety thing, meds might help.

Friends don't just happen. You need to put in work. And if it's hard for you, you need to put in extra work. Beyond that, it just depends on your personal circumstances.

[dwightkschrute]

In 2014 and 2015 I did a my year in review kind of thing where I, of course, reviewed it and accompanied it with a picture from that month. I somehow forgot to post 2016 (until now) and forgot to do it at all for 2017 but unfortunately, I am back with a really disappointing year. I was debating not putting myself through the legit pain of “reviewing” this year but I think of how I love going through my 2009-2010 posts and seeing how much I’ve grown so this is for you, successful and cooler future me.

2016 and 2017 were amazing but 2018 was my most promising year. My boyfriend and I were going to move in, I was going to start my dream job; everything was perfect. It definitely started out as one of the best years of my life! Then exactly halfway through the year everything changed and I was left having to pick up the pieces and completely restart, making it one of the worst years of my life.

I started January in Mexico, which was the best, but my family and I got home early in the month. I had quit my job the month before so I dedicated the entirety of this month to job hunting. Our friend (my bf’s bff who became mine and my brother’s bff early on)’s dad got a boat so it was like we got a boat too because despite the cold, we lived on it. (My boyfriend couldn’t go on the trip with us, which he was super bummed about (and that we had to spend like 10 days apart which was killer then), so he was the one to pick us up at the airport and he greeted me with a bouquet of flowers. Out of the many gifts/gestures he gave me, that was one of my favorites.)

February I started my amazing new job so life was back to 40 hour work weeks and not having much time for much else. I was always attached to the hip to my bf so almost every day after work entailed going out with him or having dinner with my family or his. That was my month. My favorite part of every February is Valentine’s Day and this one was as amazing as the rest. I don’t even have enough space (of the allotted space I give myself for each entry at least!) to describe that day. (My bf at our Valentine’s Day dinner. We finished our long day at this restaurant (so, so cool, once popular with Old Hollywood stars) on Hollywood Blvd and it was dreamy and romantic and amazing.) Oh man, I don’t have a lot of interesting things to say about March. Oh, my parents got Influenza (A/B/idk tbh), so it was two weeks of my brother, bf, and I taking care of them. My dad has a serious chronic disease so it was especially dangerous for him so it was a stressful time. Once we weren’t in hazmat suits anymore (no but really, we were gloved and double masked around them and kept them quarantined), I’d be at work or with my bf. I also started to get close with a co-worker, who I quickly became close friends with! (My bf’s two huskies. I’ve just loved that picture since I took it! I’ve never been loved by a dog more than the one in the back of this pic. Not even by my own! He has a special place in my heart.)

April was barbecues at my house or my bf’s, trying every brewery and bar around, hikes, bike rides, beach visits, baseball games, boat rides, late night cooking and baking. It was lots and lots of love and happiness and I would give absolutely anything to go back to those days. (My brother and bf grilling on Easter. This was a familiar scene, I have so many pictures of this exact scenario, yet looking at it just now made me so emotional! Stop! They’re just grilling!) May was so exciting! Very first day I got a new car! I was so happy! It was long overdue because my finicky, expensive Volkswagen had to go and I’d fallen in love with the new Honda Civic (I’ll admit I have basic taste but I don’t care!) so I finally bit the bullet and did it. This month my bf and I, after a long time of “oh wouldn’t it be nice!”, bit the bullet as well and decided to finally get serious about finding a place together. So the apartment search started, but we soon realized our home, Orange County, was super expensive. My bf, in that “ha ha jk but I’m down if you are” way, suggested we pick up and move to Oregon and I immediately agreed. It just felt right and despite us being the most careful and non-spontaneous people ever, we decided to do it! So we began to research, look for apartments but most importantly, jobs. (My car the day I took it home!)

Uhhhhhh, well, June hurts to think about! We went to visit Portland, where we decided we’d want to live because that’s where the jobs were, on a quick trip since it was strictly “business.” Portland was everything I imagined and more. We loved it and I think we loved playing house in our airbnb more than anything about the city. Back in LAX we came to the easy conclusion that though we lived Portland, that’d require a lot and for our first time moving out we’d like to stay close to home and above anything else, we just wanted to live together as soon as possible. We immediately started to look for places in LA, we spent the month apartment hunting, and towards the end of it, decided on one we really liked, one he begged me to please say yes to so we can move in already. I was so, so, so happy this month but what made me happier was seeing my bf, I swear, even happier than me. I seriously felt unstoppable and was beyond excited for our future. (I had a lot of Portland pictures to choose from but my bf and I liked this one because it reminded us of Always Sunny for some reason.)

In July, everything changed. To start, I left my job. I thought, new chapter in my life, new job coming, I’ll live really far, I should leave now. So I did. My last day was an emotional day because I loved my job so much and every single person I worked with. That very same day, my bf and I broke up. For unrelated reasons to my last day, to our moving in, to our relationship, etc. We had an amazing, amazing relationship but he has a lot of demons and issues/insecurities he has to deal with and conquer, and though I was aware and was there for him and would continue to be by his side no matter what, he decided that this was a battle he had to handle by himself and I figure before he got into a more committed situation. It didn’t have to happen, though. I hadn’t talked about the specifics of the breakup on my blog so  sorry for changing the mood of the post, but yeah, July happened and it felt like my world stopped. Really regret quitting my job now, huh? I was hit by two huge losses and changes right at the same time.  (I took this on my friend’s boat 20 tequila shots in, drunk and sad as fuck. Not to get fake deep but how sad. Literally on a boat, beautiful sunset, would rather die.)

August was a blur and I’m still not convinced I didn’t just dream it. God, alright, here we go, the rest of the year is a mess so get ready. I fell into a deep depression fast. It also didn’t help that my dad had to start getting radiation/infusions for his illness shortly after the breakup. I couldn’t believe how much my life had changed. I started dating someone else and then I dated another guy shortly after. I wanted to replace and/or forget and I really thought that’d be the solution. I was miserable when I was with them. I took absolutely any opportunity to get really drunk or high, and the opportunity came often so I spent most of my days desperately trying to not feel anything. The only time I’d feel okay was when I was extremely high and I couldn’t even think. Since I had a lot of savings for my out of state move, I had a lot of money to blow, which I did. I realized I even liked the feeling of the temporary “high” of spending a lot and receiving the stuff. I’d hang out with any friend who offered (out of boredom? loneliness?) and even ended up on a mess of a Vegas trip. Worst month ever. Maybe. (Here’s a positive! I like that bathing suit and my tiddie looks so round!)

When September came I realized two months had passed and all I had done was be a huge depressed mess. I no joke forgot about work. I just straight up forgot. I started to look for a new job, which hurt me so bad because I had to face the fact that it wouldn’t be my Cool LA Dream Job anymore. I stopped dating. Most importantly, I completely stopped drinking and smoking because it’d almost always make me sadder but also it scared me that I had no self control nor did I care. I saw a whole lot of my close friends and they, along with my immediate family, kept me afloat this month because time felt like it was going so fast. I couldn’t believe that at a blink of an eye it was night again and then a new day. Time had no mercy for me, please let me hold on. (Me at a baseball game. Tbh I’m looking at this thinking, did this really happen?)

October started out nice because my best friend of years, who I unfortunately had a falling out with three years ago, reached out to me. I’ll always give her all of the credit for doing that. I can’t begin to explain what this meant to me. It was a nice, bright shine of light that managed to shine through the dark clouds. Having my best friend is exactly what I needed. I’m a big believer in the universe acting in mysterious ways and though I had grown disappointed in its little surprise for me lately, this was the kind I always appreciate. I spent a good part of that month with her, catching up and doing things just like we did back then. It was like nothing had changed. That’s all I remember about this month, and a super fun Halloween! That day was probably one of the best days in months. (My best friend Rylee and me the first time seeing each other in 3 years. We’ve had our blogs for 8-9 years so please follow her for quality content)

November was rough. I was frustrated because surely things should had been better by then. I was still feeling so low, I was going to job interviews to no avail, I “relapsed” and had a high/drunk off my ass on a boat messy moment.. To make matters worse, I accidentally drove up on a cement divider in a parking lot and my airbags deploy, which is so expensive to fix, so my car was out of commission for a month. Then I got so sick and I rarely ever get a small cold. I seriously felt like I was cursed, even the smallest thing felt like an insult towards me. The one good thing is that since July I had been forcing myself to go to the gym five times a week. My mom said exercising was the only thing that’d help her feel that sweet release of seretonin, endorphins, dopamine, and all that good stuff when she was depressed so, though I enjoyed going to the gym before, I did it just for that reason alone. It worked and as another result I got like pretty fucking fit. Revenge body, you’re one of the few good things in my life right now. (I literally had no idea what to choose so I said fine, here’s a pic of the scene of the crime. Whatever.)

In December I turned 26. Which I hate, naturally. I went to a million more job interviews. I’m seriously so embarrassed to admit that but whatever, it’s the truth. (I have a degree, experience, and an awesome cover letter..I’ll keep blaming the curse!) What kept me sane was that we had different family members visiting from the very beginning of the month. Playing with an energetic, adorable baby kept me distracted and happy. Having so much company around also distracted me (slightly, but it helped!) from the fact that the holidays and my birthday would be quite different now. I’m one of those annoying Christmas lovers, usually at least. This year everything just happened and I didn’t care. But I survived December! (I don’t care. This is the appropriate representation of 2018 and how I feel at the end of it.)

Jesus if you’ve read all of this.. I’m sorry you had to read about the mess of my year but really more like the mess that is ME. Yknow those like “people my age I went to HS with vs me” memes? I seriously went from being that bitch with a good paying job, brand new car, a serious, great relationship with a promising future together (Like. We would color coordinate outfits! LMAO. We would have dinners with both of our families together. We were obsessed with each other. You’d roll your eyes if you saw any of this. I can’t get over how perfect we were, it’s hilarious what happened to us.) and then at the blink of an eye I went to not having absolutely any of that, casually dating (something I’d NEVER done) anyone who resembled my ex and sadly and drunkenly puking off the side of a pier. Who is she? I don’t know, I got whiplash. (Queen of parentheses and side notes, I know. But another thing about me is... I’ve never been affected by people leaving my life. I’m used to it. I’ve never been anywhere as affected as I was when my ex and I broke up. This isn’t normal for me, my ENTJ/Capricorn ass doesn’t know what this feeling is.)

Please curse that has been put on me, release me. Whoever is attacking my voodoo doll, calm down! Please! I’ve gone through enough sadness and loss. If 2019 is even slightly as bad, I’m going to be like that pigeon I reblogged the other day that’s like “fuck this I’m just going to sit here.” I can’t even make a cute but corny, hopeful “hope 2019 is great!” comment. I’m literally begging you...pleading you... I don’t believe in karma but after all of this shit, I better have something much better in stock for me. “Good things are coming!” I fucking hope so. Like, I’ll be even more annoying right now and say that it’s not fair that I didn’t get to have the future I was about to have. I don’t care about any cliche you may have for me. One door closes, everything happens for a reason, God has a plan, etc. No. Why did all of this have to happen? What can be better than the future I was going to have? I felt so unlucky. It all feels like a nightmare and I’m just waiting to feel whole again. Oh shit I got really intense. I know I’ll get over it and life will be good again eventually but for now, I am still so mad. I would have never in a million years guessed this is how my 2018 would go. 

So fine, I’ve accepted things now, so now I’m impatient and say please prove me wrong, 2019. I’m THREATENING you to be amazing!

[la-appel-du-vide]

07•11•19 - Day TWO (by Beach)

The morning came way too early for our tired bods. We woke up and proceeded to get ready for the day. I soon discovered my washcloth was bleached to shiz from my face wash…. had to pay for that later, oops. We left the house for our first stop, Voodoo Doughnuts. However….. I soon realized that our important documents folder was missing, and that perhaps the most likely last known location of the important documents folder was on the top of the car. I should never be in charge of important documents, as evidenced by this experience. We headed back towards our Airbnb, hoping that the folder was somewhere close by and intact. We found the folder a solid three feet from our parking spot. We were seriously relieved because the folder had our itinerary, tickets, and Airbnb locations. Now back to the donuts.

Voodoo Doughnuts is a very popular tourist attraction in Portland. They had some very unique donuts, including ones with fruit loops, cocoa puffs, bacon, and Butterfinger. I chose Raspberry Romeo and Blondie chose the famous “Voodoo Doll Donut” and a cinnamon cake donut. My donut was delightful, and Blondie enjoyed her cake donut. She hated the Voodoo Doll Donut because it has Raspberry filling  unexpectedly. Took some pictures as usual. May I add that I have now been conditioned to not eat any foods before pictures. Next we headed to the “Keep Portland Weird” sign, which was just across the street and took some more pictures.

Next on the itinerary was the International Rose Test Garden. We decided to go here because it looked cool although we had no background information whatsoever. This is generally how we do things. Later we learned that this rose garden was built during World War I. People wanted to preserve the roses, so they flew them in from Europe to protect them from bombings. We also learned that Portland’s nickname is the “City of Roses.” How cute is that? The rose garden makes different genetic combinations of roses and tests characteristics such as smell, flower durability, resistance to disease, and color, for marketing. There were dozens upon dozens of different rose patches, each with unique colors and styles, all extremely beautiful.

We then headed to Powell’s City of Books. When I had originally researched this location I found that there are eight different rooms full of book cases. When we got there, we saw that there are in fact, eight rooms, but each with a different color that helps categorize the books. There are approximately one million books. That. Is. Insane. We wandered around for nearly two hours and then decided on three different books each. I got a book about a murder mystery, Thirteen Reasons Why, and a book about a dystopian society. Blondie got a mystery thriller, Where the Crawdads Sing, and To Kill a Mockingbird, her favorite book. Honestly, we could have wandered that store for hours, but we had a parking stall with time running out waiting for us.

We headed to McDonald’s for some much-needed water, (we are dying of thirst all the time on this trip.) Next stop was Walmart because we needed water shoes to hike Oneonta Gorge, one of the items on our itinerary. We bought some very hideous water shoes/sandals and headed to Multnomah Falls. This was thirty minutes outside of Portland, the opposite direction of Cannon beach, (yay, more driving.) (; Multnomah Falls is a waterfall off the side of the highway with a bridge that sits between the upper and lower falls. We took a shuttle to the falls because there was road sign that said that the exit was closed due to no parking. When we got to the parking lot there were plenty of spaces, so that was garbage. We got off the shuttle, took some pictures and enjoyed the view before heading back to the shuttle.

After, we looked up information on Oneonta Gorge and discovered it was indefinitely closed due to safety reasons. This was a huge bummer for us because it looked gorgeous. We thought about just trespassing but read that the fines can be $5000. That was way too much money to risk. It actually ended up working out for us because we didn’t end up getting into Seattle until after midnight, even without Oneonta Gorge.

Next stop: Cannon Beach. We enjoyed taking pictures and running around on the beach. The water though, was freezing. I don’t think anyone besides children ever really swim. Plus, it was super overcast so that didn’t help with the temperature. We headed back to the car, bringing the sand along with us. (; We then picked a random restaurant to eat at because we were starving. It actually wasn’t that bad and seemed much less expensive than anything else in the area, so we were happy with that. We also loved our little waiter guy because he stood up for us and made some people wait that were trying to swoop our spot.

Next, we just wanted to kill ourselves because we had to drive to Seattle. Poor Blondie is just so optimistic about our drive times that she thought it was only two hours instead of four. I sure wish. She also though that Banff was only four hours away from Seattle so. (; To pass the time we played games, which I was glad to do because I was head-bobbing and didn’t want to leave poor Blondie alone. We probably would have been a sight to see though because we were basically delirious at that point.

After more like a five-hour drive, we arrived near our Airbnb and parked at a murder house. Sketchy, huh?  We dragged our luggage to the Airbnb and were a little disappointed to find that it was much smaller than we thought. In addition, they had a soap bottle that was empty, and they had replaced with water, tacky much? Regardless of the status of the Airbnb it was a place to stay with a bed, and we were super tired, so we made it work and went to bed.

P.S. My absolute favorite thing about Portland was the mass amount of pups.

[donutstopeatingpdx]

Eatin’ in the Rain.

*opens a bottle of wine*

Portland, Oregon: it’s home of a lot of things. It’s home to a variety of fashions, food, beer, trees, other trees, and people. Okay, I take the ‘people’ part back - it’s home to mostly white people, and a lot of them...I mean like, a LOT. Enough to make a brother feel like I’m doing an expedition north of the Wall in Westeros.

“The White Washers don’t care if a man’s free, woke or bro...we’re all the same to them - minorities that ‘add diversity.’ But together we can beat them.”

Despite that, I am willing to admit that living here has hella pluses. I mean, there’s amazing food of all kinds, a new brewery opens every time I blink, police can’t put me in jail for weed anymore, AND it’s an infinite resource for my latest project: a Twitter account exclusively made up of things white people say. As you can imagine, this project is coming along at speeds faster than I can tweet.

“It’s your insurance wet dream.” #thingswhitepeoplesay

Okay - last wypipo joke for a while, I swear. Besides, I’ve got quite a bit to cover in this blog in terms of my favorite round baked good to eat...panna cotta doughnuts. And boy, are there a lot of donuts out here. Let us begin...

If food is eaten in Portland but no one is around to Instagram it, does it get likes?

The obvious place to start is with Voodoo Doughnut, which is one of the heavyweight shops in the city. Tourists flock to it in droves, locals flock to it in droves, and the resulting line is borderline insane. The first time I visited it (depicted above), I came around 9:00PM and still stood in line for at LEAST a half hour...probably more like 45 minutes. This of course begs the obvious question: is it worth it? Well, it depends. I think several of their donuts are both creative and tasty, but I will say that I don’t think they’re worth waiting incredibly long for. That being said, if you are strategic with when you go, there is almost no wait at all, in which case the quality is VERY worth your time. The good news for that point is these guys are open 24 hours a day, so if you avoid the obvious rushes (breakfast, post-dinner/pre-party, etc.), you shan’t be disappointed. I say they’re worth it - they’ve got a good product and a strong, unique visual brand that is eclectic, yet strong.

What about their main competitor, i.e. the OTHER heavyweight donut dealer...

Blue Star Donuts, anyone?

When the plates are bigger than the food, that’s a red flag that I’m not fancy enough for the place I’m in. Better hurry out of here before they call the cops.

These guys are visually a little more by the book, whereas Voodoo Doughnut certainly embraces that ‘keep Portland weird’ motif. Their shops have a sterile, minimalist boutique sort of feel with simple displays and earnest presentation of their donuts. They are most definitely on the more expensive side - single specialty donuts can cost 4 dollars or more - but the flavors they have are often going for a high-minded artisanal feel, so it’s arguable that those prices are worth it if you like the flavors. A couple of pros: they make excellent vegan donuts, and they emphasize interesting flavor combinations (sweet & spicy, sweet & salty, varying textures, etc.), so it’s basically perfect for bougie white folks. (Sorry - that one slipped out. Okay, just one more GIF, then I’m done...)

Like, oh my GOD - the custard in this Cointreau crème brûlée donut is like, literally the perfect compliment to the citrus from the liqueur. #bestdonuteverrrr

My point is, if you’re someone who just likes a nice glazed yeast donut with no trimmings, this place is going to seem completely ridiculous to you. But if you’re someone who is interested in trying unique flavors, waiting in line for a bit and are making roughly $60K a year or more, then this is the perfect place to get donuts for you. You could even bring some to the office buddies - the variance in flavors alone would be mind-blowing, if they’re open to that sort of thing. 

Now, Voodoo and Blue Star are both amazing places. But I have to admit, if I combined my visits to both of these places over the past year, I don’t think I’ve gone ten times. Why? Because the lines are often crazy when I’m free to go, and I live inches above Portland’s poverty line (seriously), so spending lots of money and waiting in line are two things I cannot afford to do - figuratively or literally (and I literally mean “literally”). So where do I go for donuts the most?

COCO DONUTS.

*O.T. Genasis voice* I’m in LOVE with the Coco...they got it for the low-low.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - on a day-to-day basis, this place is no doubt the best bang for your buck. Sure, their product isn’t crazy original or inventive, but it is well done, and that’s arguably more important with food - I’d take well-made chicken fingers over poorly-made ahi tuna any day. They’re also cheap, especially by Portland standards - usually no more than 2 bucks for a donut, which means I feel that much less guilty about getting that third donut I don’t really need, but am going to buy anyway. From a tourist perspective, I could see how Voodoo or Blue Star would appeal more, but if you’re gonna be here for a while or you’re living here, it’s Coco all day, baby - no question about it, son.

Of course, the thing to remember is that these are just MY opinions, based off my experiences in these places. They’re not meant to be taken super seriously, and they’re certainly not meant to come off as negative in a personal way. 

When the amateur foodie insults your fav donut shop and you hella sensitive

I honestly hope that you have a chance to visit all three of these places for contrast’s sake - plus, there are many more donut shops in Portland that I have yet to visit. There will most likely need to be a sequel to this blog entry once I’ve done the proper research for it. I can see it now: 

Eatin’ in the Rain 2: I Can’t Stand the Rain. 

“Keep Portland Supa Dupa Fly.”

Coming soon, to a blog near you.

[bigyack-com]

The Work Diary of a Hairdresser So Coveted, She Travels by Private Jet

Jayne Matthews thinks that most hairstylists are doing it wrong: “A person takes a pair of scissors and cuts the ends, maybe gives the hair some layers, but in general it’s like a big, shaped block on the head that needs to be blown into a manageable style.” Ms. Matthews — the co-owner of two salons in the San Francisco Bay Area, both called Edo — uses a straight razor as a carving tool instead of scissors. “I can carve petals into hair so it can have length but be lighter,” she says. “I consider it the difference between a hedge and a bonsai tree.”These organic cuts, as she calls them, have garnered her a cult following of more than 82,000 on Instagram. Her signature look is a modern shag, heavy on the face-framing layers and bangs, inspired by Chrissie Hynde, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Stevie Nicks and Patti Smith. Ms. Matthews, 47, charges $325 for cuts at her salons, the first of which she opened with her business partner, Chri Longstreet, in 1998. At that price, many clients get just one or two trims a year. “When you get these haircuts, they look cool and lived in,” she says. “You can wake up in the morning, maybe tuck it behind the ear, touch the bangs a smidge, and it looks good. The less you do, the better it looks.”In 2014, after giving birth to a daughter, Ms. Matthews decided she’d try to get better at showing off her cuts on social media, practicing lighting and angles. Salons in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., were soon asking her to come do cuts and trainings, and clients now routinely fly to the Bay Area to book with her.

Tuesday

7 a.m. I woke up in an Airbnb in L.A., a little bit drained because I worked with a shaman yesterday on a cleanse. I drank a raw cacao and coffee thing I had delivered the day before.10 a.m. I took a private jet service that has like 20 passengers from L.A. to Oakland. I listened to a relationship podcast on Audible because there was no Wi-Fi. Then I went on a dating app and changed some of the wording to be more authentic. I also edited hair photos for my Instagram account and the salon’s. I take 25 to 50 photos for each cut and look for one where the client looks the most alive and interesting.12 p.m. I took a Lyft home and took a bath — I almost never take showers — and tried on a dress to wear for this big workshop I’m teaching this weekend in New Orleans.1 p.m. A friend is helping me get some online education going. We checked out a space to see if the light was right for filming. I want to sell classes online because it’s hard being a single mom and traveling around so much — I get messages daily from London, Berlin, Paris.2 p.m. With clients at Edo in Oakland. The first flew from Salt Lake City: an Asian woman whose hair was mid-back, all one length. I gave her a shag with bangs. Then there was a woman with blue, curly hair and I gave her bangs. I also taught an impromptu class with my assistant, who was doing a bob across the room that I thought was looking a little like a mom bob. I spent 45 minutes working with her to make it more cool and young.6 p.m. I picked up my daughter, Sylvie, from her after-school arts program. It was pouring rain and we ran out to the car to go get ramen.10 p.m. Answered some direct messages on Instagram. They’re always women. Half of them cut hair and half are fans. My clients are usually between the ages of 28 and 45. It is usually the girl who likes her expensive stuff worn in. She’s understated but not messy, she doesn’t have a lot of plastic surgery, she’s a farm-to-table girl who doesn’t shop at department stores.

Wednesday

7 a.m. I made Bulletproof coffee and opened email and DMs and made sure there wasn’t anything too pressing. I woke up Sylvie and made her peanut butter toast and took her to school.9:30 a.m. Back in bed. I had a call with these hair salon business coaches that are helping me navigate my separate education business and whether — after I move to L.A. soon — I want to open my own salon or a third Edo.11 a.m. I made a post that I was looking for hair models. Then I got a call from a friend at a modeling agency about girls who want makeovers.4 p.m. I picked up my daughter and we rushed to get to her ballet class at the Y.M.C.A. in Berkeley. Afterward we went to this place that sells really high-quality bone broth and premade foods that’s only open a few hours a week. We went back to the Y.M.C.A. and she went to the child care room while I ran upstairs and took a quick workout dance class that was kind of cheesy, but it felt good to work my body out.8 p.m. Took a bath, cleaned up my kitchen a little bit, edited and posted a picture on Instagram of a makeover I did, answered some DMs and online shopped for some new shoes.

Thursday

8:30 a.m. After I dropped off Sylvie, I had an hourlong phone conversation with my custody lawyer about my move to L.A.11 a.m. By then I was in a really big rush for work at Edo Oakland. I was 10 minutes late to my first client, who had just moved here from New York. She was wearing a great outfit and had a huge cowlick and very dry, kind of fuzzy, long hair. I gave her some cheekbone-framing layers. My next client was an intuitive healer and the next one worked at Google as an artist.4 p.m. There are these muses I do for free. I can do anything I want to with their hair. I gave one a mullet with choppy baby bangs, but a chic version.7 p.m. I started feeling like I had a sore throat, which would be terrible because New Orleans is this weekend.9 p.m. Into bed.

Friday

10:30 a.m. I got a message from somebody who said a photo that one of my stylists posted — braids with ribbons — was cultural appropriation and asked that I consider taking it down. If somebody asked me the origin of this hairstyle, I’d guess it was African-American, and this photo was of a young white woman.I thanked her for the message. I took the image down and told my manager that I wanted to have a discussion. We’re in Oakland, a historically African-American city, and it’s important for us to be able to grow in that way.1 p.m. A client came over for a trim. She started crying, which happens a lot with my clients (but not over their hair). She patches clothing with embroidery, and I gave her a pair of 1970s Wranglers with a hole in the butt to do for me.4:30 p.m. I went to yoga and came back home and made food. My personal assistant came over with my mail and packages. I listened to Kate Bush and started trying on outfits for what I’d pack for the workshop trip. I decided to be minimal.

Saturday

6:45 a.m. Woke up and flew to New Orleans. The workshop is called Bayou St. Blonde. It’s two days of education and networking that The Left Brain Group — my agency, which helps me grow my business — puts on every year.3:30 p.m. All of us from out of town are staying at a hotel near the French Quarter. As soon as I got there, I saw a friend and fellow stylist and educator, Roxie Darling, for the first time in years.6 p.m. Headed to a party for the attendees in this incredibly beautiful church where the entire inside was painted light pink and periwinkle blue and had arched ceilings, and all I could think about was when I find my guy someday, I want to get married in there.I saw the creative director for Bumble and Bumble, who has taught many classes I’ve taken over the years. I told her that a couple things she said to me years ago about face shapes and bangs made light bulbs go off in my head.

Sunday

9 a.m. Opening day of the event. I didn’t have to teach, but I ended up cutting someone’s bangs in the bathroom because I felt inspired.1 p.m. I went to the hotel to take a nap, and then a hairstylist friend came over and ended up doing an Instagram live video of me giving her a total transformation.

Monday

8 a.m. Room service: arugula salad, eggs over medium, orange juice and coffee.12 p.m. Went to a yoga class that was heated. I was super sweaty and rushed back to the hotel to shower. Then I threw on some cozy sweats and a sweater and Converse, and grabbed a fancy outfit to change into later.2:30 p.m. I’m scheduled to cut two models’ hair onstage at Bayou St. Blonde. Texted my makeup artist that I wanted matte, bright red lips on both of them. He arrived and started working as I was assessing their hair. Then I went downstairs and listened to a panel on self-care and thought about whether I had burned out.4:30 p.m. There were 250 people watching, in a tent decorated with garlands and wreaths, when I got onstage. I definitely did not have enough time to do two models, so I felt rushed — I would say the hair came out beautifully, but I definitely needed to do some more work when I came offstage before I took photos.8 p.m. We all felt like our legs were about to fall off and went to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Then I came back to the hotel and watched Instagram Stories of my teaching. It looked better than I remembered, and that made me feel good.Interviews are conducted by email, text and phone, then condensed and edited. Read the full article

[johnnypovolny]

Lima (A big disorganized hodgepodge of memories...)

-I bought a surfboard! The other day I successfully paddled all the way out in the weaker current near the dock (which is still scary because you have to avoid getting pushed under the pylons of the restaurant) and into the large break way out offshore and catching like a 10-12 foot wave, easily the biggest wave I’ve ever surfed, so that was super exciting. It’s also just beautiful watching the fish jump and the cormorants dive for small fry, the sunset behind the islands off the coast, and the evening swarm of paragliders on the cliffs of the Malecon.

-I’m starting to make friends: I have a group of guys I met at the outdoor workout equipment in the Malecon who train together (and the group is growing). Our whatsapp group chat is nicknamed Los Hermanos Sudados (the sweaty brothers), which i think is hilarious (mostly because it was my idea). The guy I’m closest with (Jhon, a personal trainer from Venezuela) invited me to the beach with his wife and some friends last weekend and afterward we had dinner on the open air patio at their house and played cards. I also spend a lot of time with my neighbors Andres and Ricky, and have been on a couple of fun dates with girls I met at the surfing beach.

- A lot of the fancy/expensive restaurants that are on the 50 best list (Astrid Y Gaston, Osso)  are very good but in my opinion not worth the big tab or the hype. The really impressive food for me has been at the more economical places like the dumpling tacos at Bao, fresh fruit, chupe, and ceviche in the Mercado Surquillo, lomo saltado in the menu del dia places, and the sandwiches and juices (pina or mango and grenadilla) at El Enano and El Chinito. Though my pumpkin risotto and pollo saltado at Tanta was incredible: that’s probably been my favorite higher-end meal.

-People here love grey Scottish terriers. I’m not sure if this dog is like a fashion or status symbol but they seem to be everywhere (like Subarus in Portland.)

-I live about 2 blocks from Parque Kennedy (the unofficial heart of Miraflores) and there are always people walking, buskers (watched an amazing group of 4 female singers kiling a harmony), street vendors selling sandwiches and anticuchos, and of course the wild cats (yeah, cats) that live in the park and are cared for by the people of the city. The city has a really live energy in general. There’s a bustle that makes it feel a little bit like if New York City was a surf town. So far, there’s literally nothing I don’t like about this town. The food is incredible, the prices are cheap, my apartment is amazing, the weather (and the women) are gorgeous, the sea is close by, and the people here are the most friendly I’ve met in my travels since Thailand. Everyone is helpful, kind, and extremely open to being friends right away (and the old ladies in the market call me “papito” and “mi amor”, which I find extremely adorable and welcoming). And in addition, I just really feel connected to the place I’m living, which is really fun- for the first time in my travels I have like my own place to live, walk past and greet the same people multiple days in a row (like the lady who sells arroz con leche, I need to learn her name). The one thing I haven’t really done much of is explore the nightlife, so I’m excited to make that happen soon!

-One evening, Fernanda (a friend from my surf beach) and I went to Malabar, the 38th best restaurant in Latin America. It’s a concept started by a chef called Pedro Miguel Schiaffino that focuses on recreating dishes from around the world using ingredients from the amazon and on avoiding preservatives, dyes, etc to create totally natural dishes. FINALLY, a high end restaurant that was worth the price tag! To me the fun of the meal was the contrast: in types and strengths of flavors (explosive strength from produce, subtle aromatics from herbs, etc), textures, and even temperatures. We had 6 things: Tika Masalu: a “banana ceviche”, raw sweet banana topped with cherry tomatoes, an aromatic herb that had a little bit of a thai/vietnamese food vibe, salty dried banana leafs that reminded me of nori, and a bright yellow sweet sauce. Jamon de Paiche: a cured “ham” made from the paiche, which is a giant amazonian river fish that gets to be between 7 and 15 feet long as an adult. Pato in Aji Negro: a braised or roasted leg of duck and a strip of rare seared duck meat with blackberries, more tiny herbs, a rich brown reduction, and some sort of crunchy roasted and crushed nut that also seemed like it would be really good in a desert with chocolate and caramel. Cocolon: AMAZING. A salty, savory, intensely flavorful stew of rice then fried in a large patty so the outside got crispy, served with shrimp, this sort of pork jerky, fried banana, and a “chorizo” (again made from paiche), and a drizzled in reduction/gravy made from the accompaniments. This is what I’ve always wished paella would taste like: something more approaching jambalaya. in terms of flavor intensity, but savory instead of spicy. Chocolate dessert (can’t remember the name) : A dense pastry of some sort of crumbly rust topped in a squishy white sweet filling (maybe coconut based?) and topped with a dome of dark chocolate but done with almost the squishy, pleasantly resistant texture of marshmallow. On the side was a crunchy roast nut that tasted kind of like caramel corn. This was one of my favorite contrasts of the night: the gooey chocolate-marshmallow texture with the crunch of the nuts. Coco y Pina: a coconut shell served with a sort of creamy, sweet flan made from coconut. The flan was served piping hot with a citrusy, bright, and freezing cold dollop of pineapple ice cream on the top and a drizzle of some sort of thin, sweet, brown sauce (might have just been simple syrup made from brown sugar). The contrast of this was insane also, hot, creamy flan and cold, tart ice cream. I also had a very passable old fashioned, which after months of not drinking any good whiskey was so welcome. Fer had a really cool drink made from gin with citrus  juices, some sort of salty ingredient derived from cacao, and aromatic herbs in it, served tall: really complex and delicious. It was also really nice to have company, someone to agree with me and debate with me on the food, share the experience, and swap stories and chat together while we enjoyed. 5 STARS FOR DINNER AT MALABAR. 

-My buddy Joanie that I met doing the salt flats tour in Bolivia came into town this week and we met up to go to the Parque de Las Aguas with some of the people from her hostel. The park is this huge greenspace with tons of different fountains, including a traditional circular one with arcing jets and a parthenon-esque backdrop, a tunnel of jets you can walk through, and a huge row of vertical jets that are lit up in rainbow colors and then every hour perform a show where videos of peruvian people and destinations are projected onto a curtain of fine mist, the jets performed dances of color change and movement, and lazer lights are used to create 3D animals and shapes in the curtain of water. We had a really good time walking around exploring (and in the harrowing cab ride on the way there, where we were nearly compressed between two buses merging towards each other), then afterward we got some mexican food near parque Kennedy. Super nice to see my friend again! 

-Went surfing on Saturday and got two of the best waves of my life, back to back: they were still green when I caught them (fast moving swell that hasn’t crested and broken yet) so I got the amazing feeling of riding down the steep face from the top as the wave as it broke and then turning to chase unbroken portions of the face, pushing down with my weight to stay on the wave as it got less strong and then feeling following waves catch up and pick my speed up again. I rode probably 150 meters on each one and it felt so amazing- I finally felt like a real surfer for the first time. I love that “aha” moment in sports, music, etc- when you’ve been putting time and effort into something really difficult and you get the first glimpses of what it feels like to actually succeed. Amazing. After my session, Fernanda and I went to go watch the Neon Night, a night time surfing championship, lit up by the huge on the water at Playa Roquitas. We got there in time to watch the women’s and then the men’s finals. SO COOL. The guys especially were insane to watch: they absolutely charge along the face of the waves, stomping over and over to gain speed, and the curving up to leap off the top of the cresting wave and spin 3’s and even 5’s, impossibly landing and riding out in the whitewater. There was stage set up with a neon background and huge spotlights going into the sky and we watched a local band from Chorrillos (pretty well known based on the number of people singing along) perform a sort of rock-reggae-latin blend that I really enjoyed (I don’t like pure reggae very much but this was enough of a mix that it was really enjoyable and fit the tone of the event really well).

-Andres taught me to cook lomo saltado: cube the meat and rub with salt, pepper, and cumin. Add to a pot with sliced onion, tomato, soy sauce, and a splash of pisco or beer, stew down! Make rice and fry potato wedges and eat everything together!

-Got a couple more really good waves recently- I’m starting to be able to occasionally catch a wave as it crests and really drop into it from the top, which is a crazy sensation- I went one day when the waves were huge (we got a safety advisory text from the city of Lima civil defense service to stay off the beach because of abnormally large waves and all the surfers were like “nahhhh.. We’re getting in”). Caught a wave that like fell out from under me and it was amazing! 

-Hung out with Sam and Erin a couple times when they were in town: once we got lunch in Mercado Surquillo and then in the evening met up with them and Fernanda to go out for many different beers and play ride the bus. Another time met up with them and their friends Kirsten and Nick to have beers at Nuevo Mundo, drink more beers at their hostel, and go to Chifa Hou Wha all together for a big chinese food extravaganza. I like all four of those Kiwis- they’re immensely open, interesting, and lovely people. I especially love to talk to Sam- he’s one of those people who just has tons of information and cool stories about the things he’s passionate about, and we have a ton of interests in common.

-Had a day of surfing where I met an older guy named Pablo, who’s a farmer and has a duck hatchery and almost got robbed on the highway one time. Caught some amazing waves including one where i was like pumping and riding along the face all the way to the end of the right break, screaming and hollering the whole time and afterwards he was impressed that I’ve only been surfing for a few months because I’m already standing up quickly! It was a day where I felt really in control and felt all the practice I’ve done paying off!

-OSKAKA: This is the best restaurant in Lima. I went solo the first time and had an amazing experience: an amazing drink with this sort of crushed pink sorbet on the top, steak and quail egg nigiri, shrimp nigiri with parmesan, ceviche made from smoked tuna and crispy sweet potato and these little balls of something that looked like salmon roe but green and with a yuzu ponzu sauce that will haunt me for the rest of my life, incredible slow cooked ribs, mixed seafood sauteed in spicy japanese butter served in shells on a bed of rocks interspersed salt on fire (yes, on fire), and so many other good things. I liked it so much that Sammya and I went back like a week later and had about 8 more things. Some highlights that I hadn’t tried before were a salmon and shrimp roll with this citrusy, creamy white sauce poured all over it that was insane and a spicy whitefish nigiri. I also had this drink that was like a rum old fashioned and came served out of a barrel over a ball of cacao ice (super tasty but not too different, just really loved the presentation). I had the same server (Leslie) both times, who was fantastic, and sat at the sushi bar where you can watch all the prep happening, so it’s like dinner and a show. Both times I went here, I left feeling that for once I got my money’s worth at a high end restaurant. 

-I watched Peru play a Copa America game on a big screen set up in the street next to parque kennedy and loved that experience- it’s fun to experience this part of the world has for the sport. I also watched a few games (including a Colombia match) at El Parcero- it’s a Colombian bar so when they scored things went WILD and the sassy lady next to me kept pouring me tequila shots from their bottle service

-Close to the end of the trip, Andres invited me to this event in Chorrillos called The Toro Fest. Earlier in the day, for which I didn’t make it in time, there was bullfighting (Ricky participated and almost got stabbed with a horn). Then in the evening when I arrived (with Andrea, a really cool, down to earth girl I met and danced with when I went out to the bars in Barranco with an American friend named Nate), there was this competition happening in a little ring surrounded by crowded plywood bandstands lit by a string of warm yellow bulbs hanging along the top railing. First was singers, then drummers, then dancers. Basically people from the crowd would sign up and on your turn you had to go in, chug a beer, and then perform in the thing you’d signed up for. After watching you the crowd would be asked “Se queda o se va?” (“Should they stay or should they go?”) and roar its judgement. It was really fun- there was a guy with a huge afro who played the cajon like crazy and then a pair of dancers where the guy was a professional and was such a good lead got paired with a really talented girl who could follow super well, so they looked completely choreographed after never having danced together before. Andrea and I drank some beers and had a blast watching everyone- I wanted to join the singing competition but it was ending when we arrived. After the competition, everyone headed over to the main stage where we got to watch a live salsa band (apparently a super well known peruvian group)- a huge group of latino guys of various ages with horns and percussion in jean jackets, led by this high-energy black singer with a shaved head. They were awesome- It felt so much more electric dancing to a live group, we danced a ton and had a blast!

Overall- I really loved this city. I maybe stayed a little too long, but it was a lovely place of food, friendship, and adventure. 

[andrewdburton]

“Playing with FIRE”, the documentary about financial independence and early retirement

In early October 2016, I flew to New York City to attend Ramit Sethi’s Forefront event, a weekend conference about entrepreneurship and excellence. As I always do when travling, I agreed to meet with a few readers and colleagues while I was in town.

One sunny morning in Madison Square Park, for instance, I sat on a bench and chatted with Travis Shakespeare. “I'm a film and television producer,” Travis told me. “But I'm also into the FIRE movement. I just got back from the chautauqua in Ecuador.”

The FIRE movement, of course, is all about financial independence and early retirement. And the chautauquas are annual gatherings for FIRE folks who want to dive deep into the subject. (I've now attended four of these myself.)

“I'm toying with the idea of creating a film about FIRE,” Travis said. We spent an hour or so talking about his vision and plans. When we parted, I never expected that we'd see each other again. I was wrong.

During the past three years, I've connected with Travis several times. (I've come to really respect and admire the man. He's a Good Guy.) And that idea he was toying with? The film about FIRE? Well, that project has come to fruition.

“Playing with FIRE” finished production earlier this year. Since June, it's been screened in theaters around the country — and the world. Today, at long last, “Playing with FIRE” is available for purchase (and rental) on various digital platforms.

iTunes ($9.99 to buy, $4.99 to rent), where the Rotten Tomatoes score is linked to the wrong film

Amazon ($9.99 to buy, $4.99 to rent)

Google ($8.99 to buy, $3.99 to rent)

Vimeo ($9.99 to buy)

To mark this occasion, I wanted to share some background on the film from my perspective. Here are a few of my thoughts on “Playing with FIRE”.

Behind the Scenes

Soon after I met Travis, he found Scott Rieckens, a San Diego film-maker with a similar idea. Scott too wanted to make a film about FIRE. They decided to collaborate. By October 2017, a year after our conversation in Madison Square Park, Travis and Scott had begun production on their project.

My first exposure to “Playing with FIRE” came in late October 2017. I was in Dallas for Fincon, the annual conference for financial media. “We're going to film a roundtable conversation about financial independence,” Scott told me by email. “I hope you can join us.”

Truthfully, I almost didn't attend the roundtable interview. Fincon is pure chaos for me, and this just seemed like more chaos. In the end, I decided to participate. I'm glad I did. I joined friends like Carl (from 1500 Days), Tanja (from Our Next Life), and Brandon (from Mad Fientist) for a couple of hours of talk about money.

True story: Despite all of the time and energy devoted to this roundtable, only a minute or so of footage from the night made it into the final film. That's too bad. It was a great discussion. I was particularly impressed with Liz from Frugalwoods, whose contributions were deep and insightful. As ambivalent as I am about her book, I am not ambivalent about Liz as a person. She's awesome.

My next exposure to “Playing with FIRE” came in February 2018. On a cold, rainy Sunday morning, the film crew visited our home here in Portland. We spent a couple of hours recording in our living room and in my writing studio, where the conversation centered on money and meaning. (Trivia: In the final version of the movie, every scene in which I appear was filmed in my writing shed.)

Over the past eighteen months, “Playing with FIRE” has been a constant part of the background of my life. I exchange email with Travis and Scott. (Kim is a fan of “Life Below Zero”, the Alaska-based reality show for which Travis is best known.) I've read the book. I've attended screenings. And last year at Get Rich Slowly, Scott shared his own experiences with making the film.

Playing with FIRE

Here's how Scott described the impetus for this project on Reddit last week:

I was a content creator for marketing/advertising firms for nearly a decade, so making content that focused on FIRE was natural for me. I was scratching an itch with this project.

I was so inspired by the folks that had shared their wealth of knowledge on finance and investing. And I remember seeing the Minimalism documentary and thinking…if the minimalism movement has a documentary, then surely FIRE would too. But to my dismay, I was mistaken. So, after some serious deliberation and reaching out to a few mentors and even a few FIRE writers and podcast hosts, I decided to dedicate myself to the idea.

Then, after an appearance on the ChooseFI podcast, my world exploded and I was able to raise money, connected with a fellow FIRE fan and director from the BBC (Travis Shakespeare), ended up with a book deal and shit got super real, really quickly.

[…]

I decided that leaning into this momentum made sense. Because the framework of FI, while painfully simple, has not been introduced to the masses and is far too important not to share.

Naturally, Reddit doesn't like the film. Or, more precisely, /r/financialindependence doesn't like the idea of the film. Those who have seen it do like it. Most redditors have not seen it…yet are happy to pass judgment anyhow.

This is Reddit in a nutshell: A bunch of people who are quick to have opinions and make judgments without having all of the information — or any of the information, actually. It's not just the FIRE forum. It's the whole site. Users are quick to assume the motives of others.

When I talk to people who have seen “Playing with FIRE”, their reaction is generally positive. It's not a film targeted at folks who are deep in the FIRE movement, folks who talk daily about saving rates and the four-percent rule. This film is targeted at people who are FI-curious, people who know that what they're doing doesn't work, but who haven't yet been exposed to the ideas of the financial independence community.

This movie is meant to introduce people to the world of FIRE. It wasn't made for the people who are already in that world.

Money and Happiness

I've seen the film four times already this year, and I'll watch it again later today. I may force my family to watch it during the holidays. While I don't think “Playing with FIRE” is perfect, there are many things I like about the film.

I like, for instance, that it ultimately isn't about Scott's journey of discovery; instead, the story is about his wife's journey of discovery. It's about Taylor wrestling with these ideas and how they apply to her life.

And I like that, really, the film isn't about money. Scott and Taylor don't embrace this movement to become millionaires. They don't “play with FIRE” in order to become rich. They explore this lifestyle in an attempt to increase their happiness, to create more meaningful lives.

There's a scene early in the film in which Scott and Taylor, who are trying to decide what to do with their future, sit down in a San Diego park to talk about what's important to them. Taylor shares the top ten things that make her happy on a weekly basis. These are things like wine, chocolate, exercise, and (especially) spending time with family.

“Any surprises?” Taylor asks Scott.

“Well, first off,” he says, “I didn't hear the beach. The beach isn't on the list? When was the last time you were on the beach?”

“Everything on that list is stuff we can do pretty much anywhere,” Scott says. He's implying that there's no reason they should be paying to live in such an expensive city when they're not deriving value from that city.

“What's going to make us happy?” Scott asks. “Because we can't lose if we keep happiness in the forefront. I really think we should [change our lives]. I think it's going to be the best thing for us…moving forward into the future.”

This is, of course, the stuff I preach day-in and day-out. This is why people ask me to fly to Portugal to speak, why they ask me to be on their podcasts, why they ask me to write for them, why they meet me for lunch. They want to me to talk about the relationship between money and purpose.

Playing with Fire tackles this subject head-on and in a real, honest way. The film isn't sensational. It isn't fake. It's simple, authentic, and open-ended. It doesn't offer pat answers. While this is in some ways unsatisfying (we want projects like this to provide answers, not create questions), it's also genuine. I like that.

Final Thoughts

Projects like “Playing with FIRE” are important. As Scott said in an email yesterday: “Each copy rented or sold is a vote for improving financial literacy and eliminating conspicuous consumption.” It's a good thing to increase awareness about smart money habits.

That's why I've embarked on a similar project of my own. I don't want to make a movie (ha!), but I am creating a ten-part, five-hour audio course to introduce people to the world of FIRE. In fact, that's where much of my time and attention will be devoted this autumn and winter. It's an exciting assignment, one that I hope will reach a lot of new people.

For now, though, “Playing with FIRE” is really the only thing of its kind, the only mainstream introduction to the ideas of financial independence and early retirement that's targeted toward a general audience (as opposed to targeted toward money nerds).

As I mentioned earlier, you can buy or rent the film from the following sources:

iTunes ($9.99 to buy, $4.99 to rent), where the Rotten Tomatoes score is linked to the wrong film

Amazon ($9.99 to buy, $4.99 to rent)

Google ($8.99 to buy, $3.99 to rent)

Vimeo ($9.99 to buy)

If you have family and friends who might be receptive to the message of this movie, you might consider sharing it with them. I intend to!

The post “Playing with FIRE”, the documentary about financial independence and early retirement appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/playing-with-fire/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[whirofinvention-blog]

Hard Times

Pairings have been posted and the timer has started. It is time to get started, so how do I begin?

Well, I'm Joseph. This first post is going to be a little long compared to most of what I am hoping to have be regular content. Today, I am going to go over who I am, what this blog is largely going to be about, and a tournament report for my first outing with Hardened Scales. If you want to skip the background information and go right into the tournament report feel free. My feelings won't be hurt.

First and foremost, who am I? I am a 25 year old male from Northern California who has been living in Portland, OR since 2011. Besides doing the day-to-day tasks you'd expect of a 25 year old (working, cooking, cleaning, watching Netflix, etc.) most of my free time is spent either bouldering, making art, or playing/thinking about Magic. Being completely honest, Magic is really the only thing that follows me around constantly. I have friends who climb who I play Magic with. When I make art or cook dinner I usually have a stream playing in the background. Even when I am relaxing, Magic is probably on my mind.

My relationship with this game started way back in 2001 when I was 7 years old. As an only child, my interests mostly came from my friends and what they were exposed to through their siblings. So, when two of my friends' older brothers were playing Magic one day, it piqued my interests and I wanted to learn. I had already been collecting Pokemon and Digimon cards, but Magic was the first game I actually wanted to learn to play. So, for my 8th birthday, my friend Cory gave me the 7th Edition starter. To this day, I still don't know if I should be thankful for him giving me my first real introduction to the game or whether I'm secretly mad at him for introducing me to this money vacuum but either way, here we are.

Now, where I am from is a small town of about 15,000 people, so it was not like Portland or any other larger city where there are ample game stores and a reasonably sized community of players. Instead, we had one shop and that was where I spent hundreds of hours of my childhood, but this shop was a traditional card shop first and a game store second. They still sold sports cards and that was the focus of the shop. Every Saturday they held a Magic tournament but looking back they didn't know what they were doing. No one had a DCI number. There was no banlist. We weren't playing Type 2 or Type 1. We were just there to play. In a way, I feel lucky to have had this store because I got to play Magic like I was in the wild west. I might not have been able to play during Alpha and Beta when the rules were still pretty loose, but I got the best approximation I could have in the year 2001.

I won my first tournament at the shop when I was about 12 playing a Goblin deck running Sharpshooters, Matrons, Lackeys, and even Recruiters, since no one really knew what they were doing. The spice I brought to the table with the deck was running a full set of Fireblasts as well as 3 Goblin Piledrivers and 4 Flings (notice the fitting flavor text) to push through the last points of damage. To this day, I still have a soft spot for Fling but it has been a long time since I have flung a Piledriver at someone for 17 points of damage.

Shortly after winning the tournament (at least in my mind it was shortly after), I started to lose interest in the game. Ravnica had just come out, and I bought a few packs but stopped playing soon after. To this day I have no idea why I stopped. Maybe it was as simple as my friends stopped playing so I lost interest. Or maybe it was because the shop had to move to a smaller storefront and was clearly not doing well financially (they went out of business within 6 months of me walking away from the game). It could have even been that as I was approaching high school, I felt embarrassed about this nerdy hobby. Whatever it was, I stopped playing.

Like a lot of other Magic players I found the game again in college almost purely by coincidence. It just happened to be the case that my dorm was full of nerds who had started playing the game together towards the beginning of freshman year in the common room. One day, I saw them playing and a week later I had bought the B/R Innistrad vampire precon and was playing again. Later that year, I discovered EDH in pretty much exactly the same way and that took over pretty much the next 7 years of my life to now.

Someday I will write about my EDH decks, which are pretty much my children, but for now all I will say is that EDH is the reason I am  even remotely good at Magic. A lot of people look down on EDH because it is for people who aren't competitive and don't know as much about the game. What I will say is that if it weren't for EDH I probably wouldn't have all of the rules knowledge and mechanics information that I do now. Hell, when I started playing EDH I didn't even understand what the stack was or how it worked.

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to play something other than EDH. I wanted to start playing a constructed format that was actually challenging. I had built a couple standard decks in the past but had never really made the effort to play them in tournaments. A friend of mine had asked me to go to modern with him once and let me borrow his Lantern control deck and I fell in love. A few months later I decided to build the deck (as an aside, I would like to say, I was already building the deck prior to Luis Salvatto's PT win with it). It took awhile, but I built the deck at the beginning of this year and have played it in two or three small tournaments since then.

So, this is where I am going to segue into the two larger topics that this blog is about.

First, it is about modern, the decks I play in modern, and my experiences in modern. This will probably mostly result in tournament reports for small to mid-sized local tournaments. Hopefully a PTQ related post here or there, and maybe a GP once or twice a year (there should definitely be something for GP Portland in December whether I play in the main event or not). There’s a chance I might even try and get involved in the local Open Series, but I have not really thought about that.

Beyond being about modern, this will also touch on some of the challenges that I think players regularly encounter when attending events in person. Not to promote stereotypes, but as someone who played the game 17 years ago and today, Magic players have always been awkward, shy and sometimes weird. It is a hobby that draws in the intelligent who may be picked on in school by kids who are jealous of them. It attracts people who like fantasy or sci-fi, interests that have for the most part always been categorized as nerdy. This is just a facet of the game right now. Maybe that will change. I think I am a pretty well adjusted adult who can socialize well, but I still have a ton of anxiety whenever I go to an event of any size. Whether it is a small FNM or a GP where I am not even in the main event. So, part of this blog is going to focus on my facing my insecurities head on. It probably won't be a huge part of every post, but just going to a tournament can be hard for me, and I hope this blog encourages me to go to tournaments and have fun. All that being said, I really do lover modern and think with decks this fun, I would probably be forcing myself to head out to some events anyways. This will hopefully just make it more regular.

Right now I have pretty much three decks built: Lantern Control, Hardened Scales, and Affinity. As you may have noticed all of these decks are artifact based. The reason for that is pretty simple: Mox Opal. Shortly after building Lantern, the printing of Teferi coupled with the unbanning of Jace and Bloodbraid Elf, created a lot of problems for the deck. Jund was becoming more prevalent meaning Kolaghan's Command and Abrupt Decay were everywhere. Blue White had even more card draw that needed to be interacted with, plus they already had Serum Visions, Opt, Cryptic Command and Search for Azcanta which are all nightmares on their own. So, I decided to build something else. I looked at results and at the cards I already had and figured I could either build KCI or Hardened Scales. Though I probably will build KCI eventually, I decided Hardened Scales has a more proactive game plan that can be harder to disrupt than KCI. Plus, I wanted to play a deck that turned creatures sideways.

Once I put in the orders for the Ravagers, Inkmoths, Overseers, and Hangarbacks, I realized that I was now in possession of all the expensive cards for Affinity and had pretty much built that deck. I still need the Springleaf Drums and a couple of Signal Pests, but  other than that I have the deck, except I am running four Bomat Courier over Memnite in my current list. I will admit, I have literally never played the deck, but with the current state of modern, I like the late game impact Courier can have .

My long term goals are to have a large enough selection of cards to build a few more decks. I would love to be able to play Grixis Control or Jund, but I don't own most of the expensive cards for those decks. For now I am just going to be jamming the decks I have and will go from there.

So, onto the tournament report. This tournament was around 20 people and seemed to have the expected spread of tiered modern decks mixed with brews and decks that are missing a few pieces so running budget options alternatives. As is the case in every modern event I have ever played, there was a disproportionate number of burn decks.

Round 1 versus Eli

My opponent this round was a super nice guy who was playing his deck in paper for the first time which was great for me since I was playing my deck in paper for the first time. Apparently, he typically plays Burn but was sick of losing to Dredge on MTGO now that they have Creeping Chill for that free six point life swing. Game one starts with him casting a Faithless Looting turn 1 on the play so I instantly have a red flag that he is trying to do something degenerate. He discards a second Looting as well as a Flamewake Phoenix so at lest I knew what he was doing at that point. The game goes pretty fast with him being able to deploy a turn two Angler and recur the Phoenix. A few turns later he has three Phoenix, the Angler, and two Bloodghast. I scoop them up and we got to game two. Game two is an extremely closed game where we are both able to deploy our threats but I am eventually able to go wider with the help of an Animation Module and Throne of Geth. Game three was one of  the better games I have ever played. He kept an extremely reactive hand without discard or early threats. I was able to get a Hardened Scales out as well as two Arcbound Ravagers and fight through the removal with a lucky draw of Hangarback Walker. After some aggressive attacks on my end plus heavy removal draws from my opponent, I was facing a Tasigur on 6 life with an empty board and an opponent on two. I draw an Ancient Stirrings off the top and find a Ballista to seal up the win. Walking away from this round, there was one moment that I was really unhappy about my play pattern during. I had a hand of all two drops, a Mox Opal, Darksteel Citadel, and a few more lands. Turn 1 I draw a Welding Jar and go land, pass. Turn 2 I draw an Ancient Stirrings, play Jar, Opal, Citadel and Steel Overseer and pass. For some reason, I just got it in my head that I was playing a two drop on two and that was it. I completely neglected to cast the Stirrings even though I had the mana available and had the ability to play multiple two mana threats on three. It ultimately didn't matter, and I definitely lost equity by making the mistake.

1-0

Round 2 versus Scott

Once again, I got paired against a really nice opponent. Game one wasn't really exciting with him on Bant Company and a turn one Hierarch allowing him to answer my Steel Overseer with a Knight of Autumn before I could activate it. From there, he pretty much used the advantage granted by Hierarch to stabilize with a larger board. Between him getting to Spell Queller a few threats and my not hitting a Hardened Scales until it didn't  matter, I just wasn't able to keep up. Game two was a slog, I started off with Hardened Scales which is always great, but over the game he managed to get a tempo advantage through Spell Quellers and Collected Companies that was pretty intimidating. Plus he drew three copies of Path to Exile which was rough since I had no sacrifice outlet for my modular threats. Beyond that he CoCo-ed into Kataki at one point. Fortunately for me, I managed to draw enough threats, without him drawing his Knight of Autumn or Qasali Pridemage at the right time. In the end, it was his pretty sizable board against my board of two Steel Overseer and one Hangarback on ten counters. I was able to sacrifice the Hangarback to the Kataki effect and gain 10 thopters. Because I had been ramped a few times that game, I was more than able to pay for the Kataki next turn and pump with the Overseers for lethal in the air. By this point we had two minutes left in the round. We shuffled and presented. Time was called on turn two. We talked for a moment and just agreed to draw. I made some mistakes this round too that I would like to address. Nothing catastrophic, but there was a moment where I neglected to Proliferate an infect counter onto my opponent with a Throne of Geth activation. I don't believe it made a difference in him winning that game, but maybe the threat of being one counter closer to losing to infect could have made him play differently. We may never know.

1-0-1

Round 3 versus Bodhi

This opponent seemed nice once again (3 for 3, not bad) albeit slightly more awkward, but we are Magic players, so that is not uncommon. He was on a weird brew. It wasn't Bridgevine I don't think, but it was running Vengevine alongside of Monastery Swiftspear, Goblin Guide, and Hollow One. It was like a weird culmination of three different modern decks. It may be closer to what the very first Hollow Vine decks were like, but it didn't seem to be running Goblin Lore or Burning Inquiry, so I am not really sure what was going on. Anyway, game 1 he started out aggressively with a Goblin Guide and Swiftspear. He eventually hardcasts a Vengevine, but by that point my threats were outsizing his and Arcbound Ravager proved itself to be a messed up Magic card. Eventually I was grinding value out with an Animation Module and presenting a wide enough board of threats and modular potential that he could not block in such a way as to avoid dying. Game two started out similarly with him having a Goblin Guide. This game was close and not too much of note happened until the end of the game. He was attacking with a Swiftspear, Vengevine and Goblin Guide. I declared no blocks since I was at 16 life and he proceeds to play Become Immense and take me to 2. I look at what I have in hand and pack it in. I probably should have kept playing since two is not zero, but it seemed pretty unwinnable. Game 3 proceeds in much the same way as game two but I have an opener with two Inkmoth. From the start, I know the most likely way for me to win is via infect, so I chip in with the Nexi whenever I can while tryinging to deploy threats. I eventually have him at 3 infect with 3 Inkmoth and 1 Blinkmoth on board plus one Throne of Geth. I really felt like I had this game in  bag, so when he goes to attack with a Insolent Neonate and a Monastery Swiftspear, I block the Swiftspear with a Thopter and leave back the Arcbound Worker in case I draw a Ravager. He proceeds to cast Become Immense on the Neonate followed by cycling Street Wraith into Temur Battle Rage for the win. I was definitely bummed to lose this round because I felt like I should have been able to win that game, but I had only the two blockers with all of my lands tapped. The real thing that was disappointing was losing to a topdeck that seemed like a poor play. The cycling after casting Become Immense just to hit the Temur Battle Rage off the top felt like poor sequencing. The results would have been the same regardless of his sequencing, but the way he did it meant he didn’t know if he had the win when casting the pump spell and he just drew into it. The loss was inevitable after I passed turn, but the sequencing was the rub-in more than anything. I played well though and I think I correctly evaluated that I need to try and maximize damage with the Inkmoths to stand a chance due to his potential for explosive draws. You can try and play around every card in modern but in the end that will just create a paralysis where you never attack, block or even tap out. Sometimes you play around the Become Immense correctly, but get blind sided by the Battle Rage

1-1-1 - DROP

It was getting late and a Wednesday. I start work at 7:30 the next morning, hadn't eaten dinner, and live on the other side of town from the shop. I decided it would be better for me to go home than try and get a win in the last round to earn back my entry since I never go to this shop anyways.

If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read through the post. I know it was a slog, and in the future they will be shorter. Let me know if you have any thoughts relating to this. Also, here is the Hardened Scales list I ran last night:

Creatures 4x Arcbound Worker 4x Arcbound Ravager 4x Steel Overseer 4x Hangarback Walker 4x Walking Ballista

Sorcery 4x Ancient Stirrings

Enchantments 4x Hardened Scales 1x Evolutionary Leap

Artifacts 4x Mox Opal 3x Welding Jar 2x Animation Module 2x Throne of Geth Lands 1x Academy Ruins 1x Blinkmoth Nexus 4x Darksteel Citadel 1x Horizon Canopy 4x Inkmoth Nexus 1x Pendelhaven

Sideboard 2x Tormod’s Crypt 1x Animation Module 1x Grafdigger’s Cage 4x Nature’s Claim 1x Pithing Needle 3x Damping Sphere 1x Evolutionary Leap 1x Dismember 1x Karn, Scion of Urza

[seecourtneytravel]

October 15, 2018 (Monday)

Last day in Singapore 🇸🇬 😥

I slept until 12, I didn’t get out of the hostel until 1. This was my last full day in Singapore. I made it my goal to see the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. I walked and walked on this day. I craved something revitalising and healthy. I found “The poke Theory.” It was like a salad making place with the main base was raw salmon. I had mine with quinoa and some other fillers.

I kept heading towards the hotel on foot. I walked through gigantic malls and underground and above ground tunnels. All connected by shopping centres. I don’t understand where businesses stay alive here. There would be a super expensive dolce and gabbana store tucked on a third floor of a maze of a store that looks like nobody would find unless they were lost, like I got lost. There were times where I was on stairway after stairway and run into more lines of food courts. A lot d “wtf” moments like a mouse in a maze.

I finally made it to the observation deck after zig zagging through the city. It costed $23 just to go up there. I initially went to the bar on top and asked if they gave out a free drink with the admission ticket. They said no and I was shocked I paid that for a few shots of the city. I asked a guy holding a nice Nicon camera to take my photo. He was about 60 from Europe. He took my photo. One shot from a low angle. Totally missing the city behind me.

I waited until he walked away so I wouldn’t offend him asking someone else. I saw this guy that looked like a super outdoorsman. Long hair pulled back into a man bun with a five o’clock shadow. He looked like tarZan or Thor’s brother who was a blacksmith. I asked him if he wanted his photo taken, he said no he was fine. I took the opportunity of issuing him as my camera man and asked him to retake some photos of me. When he started asking about where I was from I felt like I had a stroke and couldn’t get my words out. I told him, “buffalo.” Like why would I say that. He responded, “oh I’m from Portland.” He asked my name and gave me a firm handshake. His name was Shane.

We talked for a bit on the sun beaming deck. Shane’s plane was leaving that evening. I asked him if he wanted some company grabbing food. He said yes and boom! I made another friend over a food offer. It’s so weird because in the states this doesn’t happen. The confidence of people out of their country sours and your interest of a complete stranger and their story heightens during traveling solo.

We walked downtown and asked around for some real Singapore meals. We were pointed to another underground food plaza filled with places to eat. It looked a bit commercial of all the places but we did a thorough scan. We were looking for the chick n’ rice.

We saw and smelled all these awesome meals. We decided to share a few options. After talking and sharing a meal, we became pretty comfortable with each other it actually felt like a real date. Like a date where people talk to each other and don’t rely on alcohol to feel comfortable to make conversations happen. After eating, Shane said, “hey do you want to have a really expensive but known drink here?!” I said “umm yes!” We headed to a place called the long bar. Home of the Singapore Sling beverage.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect or more worse. Shane had to head to the airport. I had to head to Malaysia. It was funny because we both had plans to see Sandosa but spent too much time eating and talking over chick n’rice, dumplings, and a good Singapore sling.

[thebuffalohuman-blog]

Mount Hood: Cultural Sensitivity, The Ancestors & Knowing One’s Place

I recently made several journeys to Mount Hood. I went for two main reasons; the escape the bustling, loud and mundane life of the city and to enter sacred space, to heal and build myself after my trials in the city. I was never disappointed.

My first time, I took the trip via public transportation and because of a schedule misjudgment, it took almost 6 hours. Regardless, I still arrived with plenty of sunshine and time to have wonderful experiences.

On the trip up there, I had an interesting conversation with this man who was a foreman at a steel casting factory and told me all these cool stories about casting metal. It was interesting to me, this man’s passion for his work, even though he lived basically a “worker-bee” type of existence (has a house, kids, one grandkid, makes his life from residual checks from an event that disabled him, though he admits he has full capability to work now...)

To each their own. It’s not my place to judge.

Finally, I take the timberline express up there and I’m impressed by a few things.

1) The houses on the roadside are fucking incredible cabin-like retreats, hidden behind pine and spruce groves and windy dirt roads. Hidden sheds with animal skulls hanging off them. Really fascinating stuff. I hope that I get to own a house someday. With my current student loan situation, it looks as if that may never be a possibility. I guess we can hope, right?

2) The homogeneity of the people riding the bus. Literally everyone is white, has $500+ mountain bikes, wears expensive “mountain bike” clothes with expensive helmets and fancy gear and how many times I could hear them mentioning the hiker who got lost up there the week before. It’s almost as if I were tuned into the local news channel via their voices.

Alright, so I get off the timberline express at the ski lodge and start walking up and down the road, figuring out where I wanted to go. I ended up walking behind the hotel and calling my friend who knows the area. His suggestion didn’t help, but I did discover a hidden little grove of a few spruce and pines with a tiny circle of a plant that resembled the May Apples from back home. (BTW May apples are one of the coolest fucking plants ever. Every single part of the plant is deadly toxic except for the ripened, yellow fruit! The seeds are poisonous as well. Be careful! May apple colonies mostly grow in concentric circles. Every year or two, another layer is added to the outside of the circle. They are also known as American Mandrakes, though they are not botanically related to the famous European Mandrakes of Mythical Magic. It’s honestly too bad they don’t grow in the West. I’m not sure what this plant was.)

So, I find myself a nice fucking stream, way off the path and just camp myself there. I think I sit by that stream for 5 hours, absorbing the moss and the water and the bugs and processing the grief and trauma leftover from my forced relation to Portland and my recent breakup that I hadn’t had time to process.

For those of you who don’t know, in July of 2018, within two week span, I was assaulted in my own home with a baseball bat twice by my mother’s not-quite boyfriend, Gay* (I left the second time after diplomacy didn’t work, the police refused to help me and I didn’t want to get out my rifle), my van’s front wheel fell off while I was driving it, consequentially totaling it, my buddy who had plans to move with me to Portland in less than a month backed out of the trip without any warning,  my girlfriend whom I loved very much left me and someone tried to rape me. All of a sudden, I had nothing and my entire life was in shambles. I took what money I had left, bought a ticket to Portland and started over with $700 in my pocket. (In this time, I am very grateful for my brilliant friend, Red who held so much space for me and held me when I felt so lost and alone. Seriously, I don’t know what that traumatic time would have looked like without you and the support of a few other people who kept me going and safe during that time.)

So, after I’m done processing what I can of that, I’m waiting for the Timberline Express down the mountain and the Ranger tells me that it would probably be quicker and easier to hitchhike down the mountain and that riders where often quite willing to give a traveler a lift.

So, I stand out there with my didgeridoo and eventually this older woman pulls over in a beat up old stick-shift Nissan Pickup with a SUPER chill dog in a cage in the back, asks me where I’m going and tells me to throw my stuff in the back. I tell her I’m going to the Sandy Bus stop. She tells me that she can’t bring me that far, but she’ll bring me somewhere it’ll be a better wait. I tell her that I have no idea where I’m going and that it’s all on her where she drops me off.

Okay, so I get in and here’s where things start getting deep. To break the initial silence, I start asking her questions about herself. The dialogue went like this:

Me: What’s your name?

Her: *silence*

Me: I’m James.

----I don’t tell her that I prefer to be called Buffalo. Doesn’t seem right... Obviously  her name didn’t matter to her)----

Me: Where are you from?

Her: *in an irritated manner* Oh man! Isn’t that obvious?

Me: *taken aback* You’re right. I thought it was right to ask...

----Obviously she’s Native, given her physical features and the direction from which she came (Government Camp, the Reservation))---

*silence*

Me: Well, how are you doing? Did you have anything cool happen to you today?

Her: *gruffly* Why do you care?

Me: I reckon it’s right to care about people.

*silence*

---We make eye contact. There’s a connection established somewhere, oddly enough.---

Her: No. My day was pretty uneventful.

*silence*

Me: That’s a nice raccoon skin you’ve got there. *points to raccoon skin on dashboard*

Her: Oh, that’s nothing impressive. *turns her head and makes a face like she’s smiling, but hiding it*

Me: I reckon if I ever took a creature’s life, I’d have to use every single part of the animal. I feel like I owe it to Earth Mother not waste and to be grateful for everything.

Her: I guess that’s right. *pauses* People who love the Earth the way she truly wants to be loved are always going to be stepped on, though. If you submit to the way she wants you to be be, you’re always gonna end up taking the brunt of things.

---Now, honestly, I get this on a DEEP level. Sometimes, surrendering to the highest path is a scary thing and you get thrown into situations where you aren’t sure of your abilities to manage, people throw their emotional garbage on you at increasing levels and you’re expected to be able to respond in a way that teaches them compassionately, rather than return the violence. At the same time, I feel like I can’t accept this, because only by learning to be more intelligent in your dealings with people are you often able to both escape the negativity of dealing with less “realized” people AND to bring the kind of understanding and light you want to see in the world. It’s a matter of understanding the threat of uncertainty and embracing it. So, I, a culturally educated but “colorblind” white boy, open my mouth and say...

"It’s all about learning to fight SMARTER. You can’t just lie down and take their bullshit. We all gotta stand up and do our parts to stop this thing!”

---Honestly, I’m glad that she didn’t throw me out of the vehicle right there on the winding mountain highway and drive away with all my stuff. She pulled over quickly after that, told me that this was where she was dropping me off (by a convenience store, a dispensary and a coffee shop). I asked her if the bus came this way, she said it did, wished me well on my journey, let me get my stuff from the back and drove off---

So, after a nice, flirty, but intimate and deep conversation with the guy behind the counter at the dispensary, I roll myself a joint in this wooded area behind the convenience store that looks like someone’s far yard. I see ANOTHER cool ass, moss covered, old shed with an elk skull hanging from the outside and reflect on my journey... communing with this ageless spirit I encountered on the mountain that seems to personify all life on the mountain.

I learned so much from this experience about “knowing one’s place” in the world. We are all human beings and are on this journey of life together and there is NO excuse for racism or boundaries between people. We must all understand ourselves and come together to grow and ascend as a species, otherwise we are doomed... but it is CRITICAL that you understand your place in it all.

I am white. Not once did I ever kill a Native person, force them off their land, destroy their culture or attempt to destroy their spirituality. This does not mean that I get to ignore that my Ancestors had roles in these terrible genocides in history and that I have benefited in some way from this... through schooling or health care or whatever comes with the laws of the country I was “born” in. It is my responsibility to recognize where I am in the world.

I am male. Not once did I ever rape a woman or hit a woman... In fact, I have involved myself in situations where I aided a person in escaping these kind of situations. This does not mean that I get to ignore the fact that I may threaten a woman because I resemble her abuser or trigger her in some way, or that her female ancestors (and mine) have lost their birth names, or been repressed by marriage customs, voting rights, cultures and misogyny.

It is my responsibility to accept everyone where they are and to accept myself where I am and to not try to make the situation any better, just to learn from it and hold everyone in the highest respect and love as possible.

So, that’s Mount Hood. She’s ancient. She knows you and I and is willing to show us what we need to know. I am grateful for the experience.

[aka-cyp]

I am at work. Blerg. I have not updated this bad boy in a long time and I have one or two drafts hanging out waiting for me to get back to them and finish. But I have been busy! 2018 is The Year of Doing Stuff!!! I have been doing things! I have traveled! Gished! Made new friends! Traveled and then traveled some more and made more new friends! Fun times aren’t over but I fear they are going to be greatly reduced for the foreseeable future. I should use the time to get that mammogram I keep putting off.

But I have stories to tell! Pictures to post! I have shit to say!!! Here is a brief synopsis of all the fun I have had thus far.

So, travelling. I did some and this time it wasn’t a miserable time. The last few times I went anywhere it was to Oregon and I did NOT have a good time. There were dead people, weird memorial services (I think that one is maybe covered in a previous post), crazy family and active alcoholism. Plus, shitty beach weather. I need non-shitty beach weather and a good warm beach for a while. But that will have to wait.

Trip #1 – Seattle

So my gal Lisa got married to Dom and I performed the ceremony. I got one of those minister certificates just for that. So, now I am qualified to take care of all your christening and marrying needs. Whoop! That was such a great trip and it really started out as a HUGE cluster fuck. A winter storm across the mid-west delayed and cancelled flights for soooo many people and I was a casualty. I had plans to stop in Portland and spend the night with my brother in Salem then take the train from Salem to Seattle the next day, but that was nixed – I didn’t get into Portland till after midnight. I tried really really hard to make it happen and so did the lady on the phone for SW but nope. Had to change my train and plane reservations. I left the day I intended, only a few hours later. Flew to Denver, changed planes, flew to Houston, sat on the tarmac FOREVER, flew to Las Vegas, changed planes, flew to Portland. Got an Uber to the least sketchy hotel by the train station I could find and think maybe I should have looked a little harder. I was convinced that the front desk guy was a psychotic killer so I moved the table with the microwave on it in front of the door and slept with my sewing scissors. The next day was a crash course in the light rail public transportation of Portland, Oregon. I FIGURED IT OUT. But had to cart my luggage all over and barely made it to the train station on time. THE TRAIN RIDE WAS AWESOME. But motion sickness was a real thing. Mind you, at this point I am operating on about 2.5 hours of sleep and only two apples and some peanut butter. Miracle here is I was not cranky and did not cry. I was pretty good till about three that afternoon (after making it to Seattle and then following Dom around the city while he navigated the light rail system there for me) I about passed out in a bookstore. He parked me in a nice little coffee shop with some nice strong coffee and came back for me later. THEN I RODE A FERRY. I had never ridden a train or ferry and I did both in one day!! I was vibrating I was so tired and caffeinated though. (Let’s make this story shorter, shall we?) So, the Airbnb was so super fab. I was SO SUPER FAB. I’ll put some pics of the view after this. We had a nice few days, some shopping, some dicking around Seattle and Vashon Island (where we were staying). We got the cute couple wed, ate great food and saw beautiful things. I was so fine despite all the people, noise and stuff and usually too much of that stresses me the fuck out. I finally had a mini breakdown in a Starbucks somewhere in Seattle on the way to the airport the day I left. I can’t live in Seattle. But here are some pics:

Oh wait, ha ha, I lied. I don’t have the Seattle trip pics where I can get to them here. I’ll do a pic post later.

Trip #2 – New Mexico

So I love NM. It was where Ric and I got married and I have a lot of good and bad memories there but I just love that state so bad. I could probably live there. We stayed in Taos in this great Airbnb that comfortably slept all eight of us. EIGHT WOMEN. IN ONE HOUSE. NO ONE CRIED. There were a couple tense moments but nothing ever exploded into Lady Madness. It was so beautiful everywhere. Nothing really crazy stood out though, we were all pretty chill. Four of us went on an epic hike though and I damn near peed my pants it was so fun. We got sunburned, dehydrated and slightly lost but it was worth it. Trip pics below:

  Gish

That was a whirlwind and it was awesome. I laughed so hard with my new friends and can’t wait for next year. Well, maybe I can because it’s hard. But still, I am looking forward to it. This year was different from last year. There is an app now and everyone on the team was from here. Had about the same number of people participate though. I think that it’s just a Gish thing that people will ghost your team unless you’re like a fucking pro team or something. ALSO, we had challenges up to the actual hunt and that was fun fun fun!!! Here are some pics with my new GFF’s:

Trip #3 – SPNDEN

Oh holy fucking Christ almighty on a mother fucking cracker with cheese. That was one hell of an experience and I am still riding that one. Good god. Ok, so it was fun, scary, overwhelming, weird, exhausting and mind blowing. I met the cast of Supernatural. I cried in front of Rachel Minor. No, I cried AT her. And she was so nice!!!! KIM RHODES HUGGED ME. JENSEN ACKLES SMELLED SO GOOD. HE HUGGED ME TOO. AND HELD MY HAND. TOLD ME HE LIKED MY HAIR. LAUGHED AT ME IN THE PHOTO OP. JARED PADALECKI  HUGGED ME AND SQUEEZED MY ARM. BRIANA BUCKMASTER ALSO SAID SHE LIKED MY HAIR. MISHA COLLINS MADE A POOP JOKE AT MY EXPENSE. Turns out I really am quite good at embarrassing myself in front of famous people. That’s pretty much what I did all weekend. I FINGER GUNNED MISHA COLLINS FOR FUCKS SAKE. #ilikeraisins So the pics for that will have to be posted in another entry since they, like the Seattle pics, are not where I can get to them right now. So, with old friends, old/new friends and new friends I will be going to NashCon in March. So I can make another fool of myself. There are so many things to tell. I may share some in the picture post I make later. Jesus fucking Christ I’ve never had a time like that in my life.

So, ending this scintillating blog adventure here. I shall return sooner than last time and with more pictures and maybe a good story about my awkward ass.

laters!

Unggh, or Life as I know it has changed. Again. I am at work. Blerg. I have not updated this bad boy in a long time and I have one or two drafts hanging out waiting for me to get back to them and finish.

[healthprivates]

Crispy Prosciutto and Ricotta Gnocchi http://bit.ly/2HHIvix

It feels so freaking good to be home. After a week of traveling to Guadeloupe and being in paradise for 7 days straight, I was super excited to get back home to my puppy dog and get back to work. I needed a little time away, but now I’m feeling rejuvenated and excited for upcoming posts! Especially since summer is almost here and I’m ALWAYS happier once it’s summer. Happy people don’t kill their husbands. Name that movie. I really should just move to the Caribbean where it can be summer all the time so I can be happy all the time. How do people live in Seattle or Portland where it rains most of the time?! I love Portland so freaking much but I could never live there full time.

That reminds me…I think it’s time to book another trip to Portland since the sun is coming out there and new restaurants are popping up daily. Man I love that city.

So on Saturday night when we were heading back to the states from the Caribbean, we had to spend the night in Miami because we couldn’t get a flight out until the next morning. Luckily, MIA has a hotel in it’s airport just like DIA so we were able to get through customs then go straight to our hotel room instead of having to find a car, drive somewhere, find food by 10pm and so on. AND the hotel has a farm-to-table restaurant called Viena which was a much better choices than McD’s. This restaurant has amazing Brazilian food like yucca fries and Brazilian cheese bread. So bomb. It was an easy choice after a long day of travel.

Problem was, we decided to sit at the bar to watch the baseball game. Bad choice. You know why? Because a drunk old dude at the bar decided we were his new best friends since he quickly moved close to us. I don’t talk to many awful people at the bar because I’ll often pretend that I’m on the phone if they totally suck, but there was no way we could get away from him. And as soon as he started talking, we knew he was full of bull. He started talking about how he travels from Bermuda to Miami every weekend to visit his “7 babies”. Me being naive, I thought he was talking about his daughters. Nope. He was talking about his 7 girlfriends. And while he talked about his 7 “babies”, he mentioned his ex-wife 4 billion times and how much he hates her and how he hope she dies, while also saying that God knows what a good person he is. What a charmer.

While he told us how much money he has, his room number, how he’s going to ruin his ex-wife’s life, and showed us photos of his “babies”, we ate as fast as we could and paid cash before this guy tried to scam us or find our room number. I trust no one.

Moral of the story – don’t talk to anyone anywhere. Being friendly gets you into trouble. And if you are ever at the Viena restaurant in MIA, DON’T SIT AT THE BAR. The Bermuda charmer might be waiting for you.

Again, so happy to be home.

Crispy Prosciutto and Ricotta Gnocchi

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Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 0:35

Serves 2-3     adjust servings

Ingredients

5 pieces of prosciutto

1 package Cappello's Grain Free Gnocchi

1/4 cup olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup almond milk ricotta

salt and pepper, to taste

2-3 eggs

roughly torn basil, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place a piece of parchment paper on the baking sheet and lie the prosciutto flat. Bake for 15 minutes, until crispy.

While the prosciutto bakes, Follow directions on package to cook gnocchi then drain and set aside. (you'll want to rinse off the gnocchi to keep it from sticking together too much).

Place a large saute pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Once hot, add the rinsed gnocchi to the pan and cook on both sides for about 3-4 minutes, until crispy. 

While the gnocchi cook, place a medium saute pan over medium-low heat, add a bit of olive oil then crack 2-3 eggs to the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes, until the white is cooked through and yolk is still runny.

Once the gnocchi is browned and crispy, add minced garlic cloves, cook for another minute until garlic becomes fragrant then add lemon juice, ricotta, salt and pepper, mix to combine and cook for one more minute.

Top gnocchi with crispy prosciutto, an egg and torn basil with a little freshly cracked black pepper on top!

by juli

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[nataliealone]

I’m not a foodie, but I do love good food. Not necessarily fancy food, but tasty, filling, quality, fun, delicious food. Like grilled cheese.

A friend had given me the low down on Portland’s food carts before I left - she’s both a genuine foodie and a previous visitor to the city - and it held me in good stead. I’m a fan of food cart cuisine so as soon as I could drop my bags off after that stomach churning flight from LA (and the nausea had faded) I walked off to find some.

The majority of the food carts are set up in little blocks in different hot spots across the city. I was staying downtown so I hit up the one between Washington and Alder, 9th and 10th streets. There's probably about 30 options all up and mostly international cuisine, especially Asian and Middle Eastern. I cut a lap of the block before ultimately deciding that the Grilled Cheese Grill was going to take my money.

I loved this sandwich. It was hot and fresh and ready fairly quickly. I don’t get the American thing with serving chips like these with stuff, but I’ll take ‘em, and I always like the salty/sweet/sour of a good pickle. Not too expensive and super filling - I ended up giving part of mine away to a random guy who was hanging around.  I also tried an Asian noodle cart the next day and really enjoyed that one too.

If you’re visiting Portland then at least one food cart stop is a must, even if it’s just to say you did it. Pick your favourite cuisine and I bet it’s represented. There’s plenty of blog posts out there about what’s good and most hotels can give you a recommendation or two. Otherwise this website has a great map of current carts so you eat your way around the city. Enjoy!

http://www.foodcartsportland.com/

[benwade95]

i changed all the real names for fake names. this is what happened in second half 2012/ first half of 2013.

http://perfectbenz0.tumblr.com/post/58778147108/perfect-song

lexi was the most incredible girl i've ever met. she was almost my first love, she wasn't my first indeed because she didn't let me love her. we could've been something, but we weren't because suddenly, without explanation, se disappears of my life. but I'll tell you something curious, i wasn't; sad or brokenhearted...everyone who knew lexi would expect this from her.

she was so unique, she had the spirit of freedom. She had a light golden hair that matched with her hazel eyes, that were pure glow. She was so...her own. she used to tell she wanted to travel the world, and i don't doubt she is doing that nowadays. however she knew how to appreciate the little things of life, and I am so grateful she showed me that.

she liked to go to concerts of bands that no one has ever heard about, neither she. i guess the idea of sitting at a table in a corner of the bar alone was something appealing to her. and sometimes, early morning, she used to like to walk around the city, in silence, alone. at the time that no store was open and there were few people in the street. no music, just the sound of the great big portland. but she just liked to do that sometimes.

How I was saying, she knew how to appreciate the little things of life. When it is snowing, she just stop for a moment to appreciate every snowflake dropping from the sky and falling in her black coat from the north face, or falling right over her tiny reddish nose. When it was raining she became that one person who would jump in the puddles and get all her clothes wet, but she didn't care . lexi was too cool to care. I can't tell you what she used to do when the sun was shinning bright or when the flowers were growing, because, how I said, I didn't had much time with her.

Lexi was too cool for me, for everyone. the bad thing is that no one really noticed that. She appeared at school when I was at the middle of my junior year for the second time (yup i had to do my junior year two times because i used to suck in biology and other subjects). It was January and we had just came back from the winter break. We were at lab class and my partner was expelled so I was alone, lucky I was that she just entered at school and was going to be my partner. At first I didn't care, she wasn't hot or popular. She was cute, just cute. And I was hooking with jolie prinstson, a third year girl cheerleader.

jolie was half french, her grandparents were from France, so that's why the name.

So everything starts there, me and Lexi, biology lab partners.

We agreed to meet at cafe t',  a  café near our school that was more expensive than starbucks. She arrived there first, and when I saw her I knew there was something about her that was different of the other girls. She wasn't trying too hard, she wasn't even trying. She wasn't super flirty, or trying to be someone else to impress a guy or beeing slutty and stuff. She was just beeing Lexi.

When I arrived at that café, there she was. Sitted in a table on the corner of the restaurant reading a book. Harry Potter, what a clichê. With her messy bun, green-army jacket and round classes, she smiled at me and then she drinked her black coffe.

We obviously didn't make our work, we talked. talked and talked for hours and hours. That moment it was the one I knew I feel. She was so ambitous and talked passionately about travelling. She told me her mom's job requires her to move frequently. She has lived all around the world. she has a love-hate relationship with moving countries all the time.

first complaint; her mom always had new boyfriends and she hates that. she keeps in touch with her dad, that is from florida, her mom completely hated her dad, so their parents wouldn't; even talk. they met at college and her dad was an artist, and they really never dated but had lexi accidentally. after a few years trying to live together they had these huge fight and they now hate each other. 

second complaint; she has an awful relationship with her mom, that kinda doesn't give a shit to her. she wanted to live with her dad but he isn't financially able to live with her, and also her mom doesn't let her. 

She told when she lived at Australia, Perth more specifically. It was the first placed she moved in, she was five and didn't remember much. Than, at ten years old, there she went to South Africa, Cape town. And the city is pretty normal actually, people shouldn't get stuck into stereotypes, it's bullshit. Yeah, she met an elephant and a lion, that was named simba by the way, like the disney movie. And than between her mid thirteen and fifthteen she lived through europe. Manchester, Oslo, Barcelona, a city in France that I forgot the name, Amsterdam. Near her sixteenth birthday they moved back to USA. Than she lived one year in Boston, six months in New York City and than, there she was, here in Portland.

This whole thing of moving cities sounds exciting, but not for me. For her. And her australian-south african-little bit american accent she had , although she is American. She was born and raised until 5 years old in Tampa, Florida. Right now she is somewhere in the world, she constantly changes her number and she doesn't have facebook or twitter. I should try to find her on Instagram, but she probably uses a different name as her username.

I wasn't really into politics and this kind of stuff, even thought I am part of the LGBT community, I didn't really cared at all. She showed me that I had to care, that I had to fight for my right just like she fought for hers. She was so independent and used to talk about feminism in a really passioned way. I was always a really chill guy about stuff like equal rights, but the thing, quoting her: "it isn't effective if you are chill about it, you must do something." And she was right, she did something. She would go to that women's march and she really fought for equal rights, for every gender. She made me a better person.

So, after two months of talking about travelling and politics and don't doing the biology project, we finally agreed to come to my house and do the biology project. And we didn't do it, again. But this time was different, she was worried. She was kind of sad, and i asked what was the matter and she told she wasn't feeling well. I dropped her home and that was it. The next day she appeard at school, kinda depressed. And then, the other day she didn't appeard at school, and the following day too and the other one. She wouldn't answer my calls or texts, I tried to talked to a friend of hers but she didn't know about lexi. I was freaking worried, so I went to her house. One of her mom's opened the door and went talked to her.

"Sweetie, there is a friend of yours that came to visit"

"I don't want any visits"

So there was I, entering at her room. She was at her bed, with her purple pajamas. Adorable. Looking at her eyes I could't see that Lexi anymore, the strong independent empowering ambitious women. She was depressed.

"I was worried about you, what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"There is something going on."

"I know, but it it bullshit."

"Lexi, we all go through hard times and it gets better when we have friends to help us."

"I know"

"You probably heard something about me in this school. About me being gay or stuff."

"Actually I heard something about you hooking up with some other boy and something like that."

"Let me explain you this-"

"You don't need to explain me nothing. It's high school, people talk shit all the time."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But I want you to know."

"Go ahead."

"So, it was last year's summer that this happened. I was kinda questioning myself about my sexuality but i kept it a secret. I was really insecure, still am. I had friends, but not actual friends. Like the real ones who would be there for you in any circunstantes. That made the situation worst. I was really into boys, like seriously into. A sixteen years old guy is like, super horny and have you seen zac efron shirtless in high school musical?" She laughed. "But girls were still hot as well. The thing is...hmm..Do you know Dylan, school team quarterback, a senior?"

"Yeah, he is hot, but looks like an asshole."

"He is. So Dylan's grandparents have a house in Eugene and Dylan's had some friends at the University of Oregon Campus. So we went to a party and hooked up with a guy in front of everyone. I was a bit drunk, and it was a pretty bad way to almost having sex; a random guy called Isaac. Anyways, back to school and everybody was talking about me hooking up with a guy. And my friends weren't the same, they were like no homo all time and calling me gay all time. I still don't get the calling me gay thing, I think they were trying to insult me. I told them Iam  bi, but they still didn't listen to me. The only guy at the football team that was listening to me was Tyler. That's how we became friends. People still don't listen to me , and everytime I try to hookup with a girl from school they always ask me If I was gay, and there I go, explaining my sexuality to everyone. That's how fucked up the world is."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For having shitty friends."

We were in silence for about five minutes and than I left. It was April and I still didn't understand why did Lexi was kinda of weird for the past months. Now she was okay again, the same happy, euforic Lexi. And we finally had to do our Biology work, so we met at her house, on friday.

I was still having this thing with Jolie, the cheerleader. It was my dumb way to prove to my fake third year friends I was somehow straight, I hadn't hooked up with boys since the incident. Maybe I had with one at winter break, but no one knows. So shhh.

He was lovely, with light brownish hair and some curls. We spent our Christmas at a ski station, Timberline. Fun Fact, they filmed a horror movie called The Shinning there. So I met this guy when my snowboard got stuck and I could't move, so he helped me. We became friends, he kissed me first, and we were a thing through 2 weeks. He was from Canada, he knew French and it was kinda sexy when he talked in french. okay, maybe i just realized i have a thing for people who have any relation with france. We were the same age but I was taller. I should have almost-lose my virginity to him, not the Frat guy that i don't even know the last name.

Anyways, my thing with jolie was still up, but nothing serious, for both sides. We were friends and she was a really cool girl, sometimes she would make a stupid observation, but she was still nice. She used to hook up with Ryan blunt , the captain of the Lacrosse team at School. Yeah, apparently Lacrosse is a thing.  She was asked me If i wanted a threesome with her and Ryan, and I said no. I don't wanted and he didn't too. This was one of the stupid things jolie would say.

Back to Lexi, friday at her house. Her mom wasn't there. A boy and a girl all alone at her room. This time we actually finished the project, thanks god. So we started a conversation that leaded to some kisses. We made out for twenty minutes straight and we stopped.

"You wanna order some pizza?" She asked. She was the most random person ever. I loved it.

"Sure."  

And we ordered our pizza, and we talked for a while. But the we were running out of talking.

"So, this guys from the frat house you hooked up with."

"What?"

"Was he your real first or your first time with a boy?"

"We hadn't  had sex, I just blew him. I had never had real sex."

"I had a boyfriend when I lived in Oslo, Norwegian boys are my type."

"So apparently I'm not your type."

"Your not, but I like you."

"Thanks, I guess."

"We almost had sex, me and this boy. But he backed off. So I had this other boyfriend in Boston, Aroon."

"Sorry to interupt, but how many boyfriends have you had?"

"Two, you silly. It's hard to have a boyfriend If you keep moving cities all the time."

"Fair."

"So, I had my first time with Aaron. He was a sweet boy and than he broke up with me because he said I was crazy."

"Oh."

"So you had never had sex with a girl huh?"  She asked.

And you know the rest of the story. Lexi had atitude. 

It was Monday again and the school had announced Saddie Hawkins prom, the one girls asks guys out. Jolie came to talk to me and asked me, so I said yes.  I was really surprised because I thought she was going to ask Ryan. She also asked me If I wanted to go somewhere after school with her, she was kind of upset because her grandpa had just died.

That same day Lexi came really excited and asked me If i wanted to go to prom with her. And I wanted to, but I said no. I promised Jolie I would go with her, so I explained that to Lexi. She said okay and gave me a little smile and left, I could see in her eyes she was upset. 

The next day I went to cafe t' with Jolie. When I arrived there Lexi was there at the same table in the corner that I almost fell for her. She was alone, but this time not waiting for anyone, she was with the same jacket and drank a little bit of her black coffe. No sugar or anything else, coffe was coffe and it should be appreciated without any exterior things, as she said. She saw me with Jolie and Left the café.

It was prom night, I picked up Jolie at her house and she was wearing a blue dress that would look better on Lexi. It was a fun night until we left and than she got really drunk and wanted to have sex with me. Of course I didn't, it would be rape. The next monday she thanked me for not raping her (?) , and also for taking care of her. She slept at my house, she couldn't arrive that drunk in her house.

The day I refused Lexi's invitation to prom until two weeks after prom Lexi didn't talked to me. I missed her, and everytime I tried to ask her out she would say she couldn't. I knew she was lying.

She made me feel kinda bad, for real. She is probably thinking I just wanted to bang her and leave, and it wasn't that. I wanted to be with her, but she wouldn't let me.

June arrived.  It was thursday and I was studying because the final tests starts on monday. It's eleven at night and something was hitting my window, I looked down to see what it was. And here we go again, it was her with a tight little black dress and some black converse.

I went downstairs quietly to meet her.

"What the fuck Lexi?"

"I think we should have some fun, it has been a long time we don't hang out."

"It's almost mid night."

"I know, and I thing you should change. Like, this pajamas are not really cool."

She was crazy, seriously, but I wouldn't breakup with her like the Aaron guy. So I changed my clothes and there we were going somewhere I had no Idea. She was driving.

After 20 minutes we arrived somewhere. At first I was bit scared, it was dark, but she was confident, just like she went there everyday. And I was right, she knew everyone at this strange tiny bar.

"'Night Mark." She said to the manager and

" What up Steve?" To the waiter

Remember when I said she used to go to local bands concerts that no one knew, this one of those. It was a classic rock band and they made some cool Guns n' roses covers.

She was fancy, I can say. She didn't drink beer or vodka, not even tequila or something. She was a champagne girl. For some reason she had quite a lot of money with her, she bought two small bottles of champagne, one for me and one for herself. I felt bad for not paying it, I know this is a sexist idea i have to get off of my mind. But I should have payed mine at least.

We went to a park near her house and got pretty drunk. I can't remember if we hooked up or not, I think we didn't. Anyways, when we sobered up a little bit she drove me house and we chatted a little bit in her car.

"Hmm...Ben." She said before I was leaving the car.

"What?"

"I want you to know something."

"What? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I just want you to know that was really nice meeting you. you are an incredible person, and one day you will find a boy or a girl that will love you unconditionally, the way you deserve."

"what if i have already found that someone." i was referring to her, and she knew it.

"ben, you don't know me. "

"i don't?" i was starting to get mad at her

"nope. you just know what i letted you know, there is so much more."

"and i want to know the rest of it "

"ben, my love" she putted her arm over my shoulder. "before you think of dating me you need to know that i'm a huge mess. i have struggled with things for the past few years of my life. and there are nights i'm curled up on a ball on the floor and i won't talk to anyone. i'll shut you out, just like i did before. i'm not gonna be able to trust because everyone i knew during my life has always left or chosen someone else. i will need reassurance. i will need you. i will need you to keep choosing me. i'll need you to care when i text you saying i'm getting bad again." she takes a deep breath "i'm a lot. i know this. maybe that's why my past boyfriend broke up with me. so before you think i will be alway happy, and sometimes i will, that i will always be smiling- know the reality before you get involved. don't fall in love if you can't handled it." 

and i knew i couldn't handle her, so i kept silence. 

She gives me a soft kiss on my lips. "Goodbye Benjamin."  

And she left.

Forever.

one of our random hangouts, 2012, we shared the drink. we asked these random french guy to take a picture of us.

[wwoofcsa]

A sleep over in bend, oregon

The crew said goodbye a day early from the festival and it was back to just mike and i

it was a challenging day for me personally, it was bit gloomy and all of these people we love just left. specifically, after d left, it was a pretty heavy time, we had had such a beautiful and intimate week, it was goodbye for a long time. 

i went and saw the trevor hall set, which was incredible and really helped bring me out of my low, and mikey went to explore a bit more.

max and daniella took everyone to portland where noah and the girls flew back to their respective locations and max and daniella continued to hang for a few days in oregon, and they planned to pick us up two days later in bend oregon , about 70 miles from the festival

so mikey and i got the fuck up, and rode our bikes. we camped in prineville the first night and continued heading towards bend the next morning.

we arrived in bend at around 5pm and we hit up the australians (gretchen and pat) who we had made plans with to get a beer later on

mikey and i did some laundry and watched the sun start to set. it suddenly occured to us the challenges that laid before us that evening. we had no place to sleep

now heres whats weird

there are a ton of parks in bend, but its illegal to camp out in them...

homeless people sleep on the streets, every night, but we arent allowed to put up a much cleaner and more expensive tent. 

its like, we arent allowed to sleep outside, unless its on land that you’ve purchased or are renting in a camp ground.

so to sum up, you can hang out in a park all day, you can be awake in a park at night, but the second your eyes shut, you’re an immediate threat.

so we had to find a place to camp and hide, which was going to be impossible in the city, so i offered up a plan.

Sam: “mikey, what if we knock on peoples doors and ask if we can camp in their back yards” 

Mikey: Hmmm (considering)

Sam: and we can have a 5 house limit...if 5 people say no, then well go out of town and find a place to camp

Mikey: fuck it, yalla, lets do it

So we walked across the street from the laundromat and knocked on door number one

super nice guy, but he was doing renovations in his back yard

door number two:

a woman answers

woman: hey how can i help you guys (confused face)

us: hey! this may sound weird but we’re doing a bike trip from portland to LA and its illegal for us to sleep in a park, would there be anyway we could just camp out in your  back yard? we’d mean no harm, we wont bother you at all, just for a place to sleep.

husband in the kitchen: honey who is it?

woman (to husband) : these two boys wanna sleep in our yard! (shouting back)

woman (to us): listen, we’re doing renovations in our back yard..

us: hey no problem whatsoever, we totally appreciate it and we’re sorry to bother you

woman: buttttt, you can sleep in our front yard if you want...

us: (looking at one another)...uhhh, yeahh, that would be super awesome if thats cool

woman: yeah have at it

woman (yelling to her husband): the boys are gonna sleep out front!

us: ok thanks! have a great evening! we wont bother you at all!

so we had a place to sleep nearby and with that out of the way, we constructed our tiny tent home, went and got our laundry, found the australians, got a beer, and had a blast of a night.

the next morning, we packed up, bought some doughnuts for the family and by request of the husband, took a picture with him as a memory.

thank you family, for trusting us and for having us...well, in your yard, i guess.

thank you bend Oregon