In my previous post I mentioned a girl who I sat next to on the way to Medford the second time down. These are my memories from the conversation I had with her (Note: Her=Brittany, going into 5th grade; she seemed very precocious and had cute little freckles and a hair clip.) She took her seat next to me around 7:30 in Corvallis, I think.

Brittany: How long have you been on the bus?
Me: Not too long, but we left pretty early so I’m kinda sleepy.
Brittany: I got up early, too. Usually my dad gets me up early so we can all play more because he works early in the morning.
Me: That’s cool.
Brittany: This is my own purse! (She shows me her purse. It has a cowboy/Southwest theme.)
Me: Awesome! (I’m trying to be nice and excited even though it is probably 7:30 in the morning and I am on 5 hours of sleep)
Brittany: Do you like to draw? I like to draw horses.
Me: That’s cool, I used to like to draw horses.
Brittany: Do you know the five states of matter?
Me: I think I did at one point. Could you remind me?
Brittany: Solids, liquids, gas, plasma, and Bose-Einstein.
Me: Whoa, what’s that last one?
Brittany: I don’t remember. (At that point I wasn’t sure if she was making it up. Later I found out from my friend, an optics graduate student, that it is, in fact, a recently discovered state of matter)
Me: What’s plasma? Like the blood kind?
Brittany: No, like the sun and stuff. Do you like Pokemon? (Nice transition there, don’t you think?)
Me: Um, I don’t really play Pokemon.
Brittany: Want to see the level codes I got? I love Pokemon. I have loved Pokemon since my neighbor gave me this Game Boy Advance. (Nate noted that I probably did not want to know why her neighbor had given her a Game Boy…I think I might agree.)
Me: Uh, sure. (She shows me her little sheet. It is poked into her purse next to a stuffed horse.) Cool.

The trip continued this way, although she was pretty good about letting me nap during a lot of the ride to Medford. She played that Game Boy almost the whole time, even though her mom and grandma sitting in front of us had given her a limit on it. She shared her Starburst with me, so I gave her some PopTart. In the background I would awake to snippets of the Pokemon theme and a woman with a smoker’s voice a few rows back telling her life story to a young man her son’s age. I liked that she was so open about her life experiences.

There was also a guy who I did not hear except when he said, “Happy trails, man” and got off the bus to buy a smoothie at the fruit stand next to the station in Grant’s Pass. He had a scraggly gray beard and wore big bulky headphones and a tie-dyed shirt with jeans and Tevas. That dude rocked, and waved to the bus as we pulled away.

That’s the beauty of the Greyhound. You meet strangers to whom you may or may not divulge your soul–or be the recipient of a soul divulgence–and you share food and the annoyance of riding the Greyhound for twice as long as it would take to get to your actual destination. I might complain about it, but in the end I”m pretty glad I choose to use public transportation like that when I have no other options.

This weekend has been a fun one. I worked four out of five days this week, and then successfully spent a bunch of the money I made. But it was all for good causes of some sort. Friday I spent 9-4 with four little girls babysitting (note to self: sidewalk chalk still rules), and then in the evening I took a trip to Beaverton to meet up with Nate and his parents and their old college roommates for swimming and a BBQ.

First of all, it was the first time that google maps had given me the correct directions to get anywhere, as well as the first time I was able to follow them without frantically calling Tiffany and asking her to navigate me via my laptop. Their home in Beaverton was beautiful, overlooking the whole town; they had a huge backyard and a pool with some of those rock waterfall things, as well as a huge trampoline (like the one Max & Natalie & Oni used to have). We swam and had awesome grilled fresh wild salmon and halibut and marionberry cheesecake. The girls kicked the boys’ butts in a game of football and Nate’s dad and I just barely lost our series of foosball games.

Saturday was an adventure in Downtown Portland. We spent awhile in Powell’s browsing through their most amazing selection of titles. I got a really interesting book from the Anthropology section about the human face and how we recognize it, etc. I think I will take advantage of this super overcast, rainy day to read it. But that’s besides the point. So we explored Powell’s, and then Nate and I wandered around downtown. We got lunch in Pioneer Square at one of the carts–a Philly cheese steak sandwich cart. And then we ate Ben & Jerry’s. For the record, I had NO idea that there were retail Ben & Jerry’s stores until I came to Portland. Why don’t we have one?!

Pioneer Place was a nice mall, and Finnegan’s and its around-the-corner counterpart, Little Finnegan’s, was a great adventure to a toystore. They have Playmobil! And lots of other cool toys. It made me want to be a kindergarten teacher. I do love kids, I do love toys, and I do love teaching. Possibly an option to explore…Nate and I successfully lindybombed the Adidas, Puma and toy store(don’t worry, folks, we took it easy on my knee. One of the sales girls at the Puma store reminded us that tryouts for ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ were next week). And then…after all this exploring, we went on a Moroccan food adventure!

Marrakesh Morocco is an authentic Moroccan restaurant. Katie, Tiffany, Nate and I enjoyed our five-course dinner on pillows. The restaurant was dimly lit, and the servers all wore Moroccan outfits. Our server brought out a basin with warm water for us to wash our hands, because most of the Moroccan meal is eaten without utensils–as it is in most of the world, anyway. Plus, washing hands before a meal isn’t a bad idea anyway, I’m pretty sure. Our first course was a lentil soup, followed by a salad (yes, eaten with bread as an aid rather than forks) of carrots/squash+lettuce+tomato/cucumber. Appetizer was some filo dough covered in powdered sugar and cinnamon but filled with beef and eggs (sounds weird, is delicious) and then we had our main courses. Some of the main courses we ordered were hare, lamb brochette, wild salmon and lamb couscous. Yum! Plus, I got awesome leftovers. Dessert was fresh fruit in a bowl with awesome mint tea and we got to wash our hands again but with a spritz of orangeblossom. We all smelled like “Tucson and Hawaii,” according to Nate. It was a very satisfying meal, to say the least. I forgot to mention that a belly dancer came out at 7pm and shook her groove thang, also cool.

We came home to a potluck party with some live music provided by roommate Joel and some of his pals. They humored us with some bluesy music and there was some lindy jack that occurred. The standup bass and cello added a really cool sound to the 2 other guitars.

Overall, it was a great weekend. Today has been gray and chilly, so reading and movie watching are on my to-do list, as well as some consumption of leftovers from Marrakesh and SuperTorta. I hope you are all having adventures wherever you are.

My hair has been getting long. I’ve enjoyed its length very much, and Brittany was nice enough to relayer it for me over winter break when she was visiting Theah. I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten it cut since then. As such, I thought it would be a good idea to get it trimmed. Tiffany, my dear roommate, said she would love to trim my hair. After a rousing screening of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, I suggested she do so.

Scene: Our small bathroom, lit by bright fluorescent lights; the walls are pink; one wall has recently been painted to model a Mondrian; yellow plastic ducks line the tub. I am seated in a stepstool, hair soaking, Tiffany studying the back of my head like a surgeon or a master sculptor (she had recently watched a marathon of Shear Genius on TBS). Approximately one inch had been trimmed from my hair.

Tiffany: Okay, I think it’s done. Did you want me to do the layers?
Me: Uh, sure, have you ever done layers before?
Tiffany: No, not really.
Me:Well, Brittany did it before, it should be fine. Yeah, go for it.

Tiffany snipped here and there. We blew dry it and I put on my glasses. Lo and behold, one side is perfect! Looking at the right side of my hair, however, there was what seemed to be a big snippet that was a bit too chunky. Two too distinct layers had been cut, but it did not look as classy as on the other side…we both kind of looked in the mirror.

Me: Um, I think maybe we should fix this side.
Tiffany: Yeah, all we have to do is layer it up a bit, I think.
Me: Up? I dunno…I kind of don’t want you to go any shorter.
Tiffany: Yeah, you’re right. Oh, no! I ruined your hair!
Me: Don’t freak out, it’s okay. It’s just hair. We can get it fixed.
Tiffany: I won’t freak out if you’re not freaking out.
Me: Tiffany, I’m not freaking out.
Tiffany: I’ll pay for your haircut tomorrow, I promise!
Me: Tiffany, that’s fine. It’s not a big deal. Really. I might just give you crap about it for awhile.

To soothe our troubled minds, we decided midnight was as good a time as any to get completely gussied up and take model pictures. Here is one of me and here is one of Tiffany. Here is one of us together. Her camera turned out some really gorgeous pictures (she has a nice Nikon or somesuch), and I will post a few of those once I get copies.

This afternoon we went to Odango and I got my hair fixed by Heather Polishlastnameimpossibletopronounceandevenmoreimpossibletospell.

This is my new haircut. I think she did a pretty good job fixing the hole in my hair, which is I guess is what had happened. Don’t worry, Tiffany, I still love you!

I guess I like alliteration in my titles. Deal. So a few weekends ago I went down to Eugene to visit Oni and James. I hitched a ride from a friend and a friend of a friend, who had just returned from a trip to Europe and had stayed at our house. They graciously dropped me off at Market of Choice in Eugene near the freeway and I began my exploration of Eugene, Oregon, home to UofO, an awesome track team, one of the best playgrounds in the US, and lots of pretty sights.

Before I got to enjoy the company of my family, I had to deal with Verizon Wireless. Let me just say that I have so far had a great experience with Verizon. They have an awesome customer service line that lets you speak directly to real people who are almost 100% American. That being said, I guess I had some guy who was training, because this was how the conversation went:

Me: Hi, I just wanted to cancel my VCast service before I forgot about it and the promotion ended.
Verizon CS Rep: Oh, I”m sorry to hear about that. What’s wrong with the service?
Me: Oh, nothing, I just can’t afford to pay an extra batch a month and I wanted to cancel it before I forgot.
Verizon CS Rep: Well, is there anyone you can think of who would want to use the service?
Me: Um…I’m not sure…I don’t….No. No, I don’t think so.
Verizon CS Rep: Well, ma’am, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll cancel that right away for you.
Me: Wait, I don’t mean cancel the whole service. JUST the VCast. That’s it.
Verizon CS Rep: Oh, I”m sorry, ma’am, I miss understood. So I’ll just cancel this for you…now, miss, please hang up your phone and I’ll wait for you on the other line.
Me: …Won’t it hang up on you if I hang up?
Verizon CS Rep: ….I….oh….um….hold on, please…(he probably is looking something up on the computer or debating quitting after the first day on the job)
Me: Sure.
Verizon CS Rep: Ok, it should all be set up. I am canceling your text and VCast.
Me: Text!? No! Not the texting service! (composing myself, realizing I’m being a rude customer to this poor guy who has no idea what’s going on) Just. The. VCast. That’s it. I want to keep everything else.
Verizon CS Rep: I see. Okay….(fiddles with computer) Alright, miss, you should be ready to go. Thank you for using Verizon.

click.

Thank God Oni and James showed up as that conversation ended, because I was about to strangle that guy from the other end of the cell phone universe. Take away my texting!? The horror!

While in Eugene we did all of the following:

• visited a rose garden (beautiful!)
• ate salmon burgers (yum!)
• lounged
• watched How I Met Your Mother
• went to Saturday Market
• went to Nike Museum/Store (ok, that was a big joke. Online it said there was a Nike Museum, when in reality it’s just part of the entryway that has some historical facts about the founders of Nike, who attended UofO)
• went to an AWESOME toy store called the Elephant’s Trunk and found all our toys from childhood
• went on a pretty walk through the woods
• found out some big baby news
• found out some sad family news
• ate at a McMenamin’s
• accompanied Oni to check up on a beautiful newborn (the parents were VERY excited)
• babysat
• breakfasted with 2 of Nate’s friends
• I attended an Evidence class with James (he had suggested that it woudl turn me off from thinking about law school and it definitely did NOT. The lecture was on hearsay exceptions and I felt totally on the ball and it was super interesting. Darn!)
• Greyhounded it back up to P-land.

Overall, it was a great weekend. The weather sucked on Saturday, but whatever. I also was lucky enough to sit next to a really nice girl on the bus who let me use her iPod for the whole trip back to Portland. Thanks, Marie, wherever you are!

So every time I go babysit in Laurelhurst I pass a place that advertises on a big blue banner, “MEDITATION CLASS! FREE! TUESDAY 7PM!” One evening on a particularly stressful Tuesday (read: Italian Consulate hates me) I thought it might be fun to try it out. After all, it was free. What did I have to lose, right? So I called my roommate Charli and she agreed to accompany me. I needed a buddy just in case it was weird/awkward/boring. Unsure as to the rigor of the class, (I’ve never been to a meditation class, yoga sure, but just meditation?) I thought it would be wise to suit up. I donned my stretchy yoga pants and we took off.

We arrived about ten minutes early and found ourselves with a few other newbies sitting in the waiting room until the previous class had ended. Soon we were led into the meditation room by a portly fellow in his 50s. There were probably about ten or eleven people in the room; some were sitting on pillows and others were in chairs. There was a tv set up in the front and a table on the side with framed photos of ‘adepts,’ people who had mastered the meditation we were going to do.

The class started with the main guy telling us that it was important to connect with the higher being and to repreat the name of our god repeatedly to help calm us. And then he left us with the phrase, “And now the first thirty minutes of class will be dedicated to silent meditation.” He turned out the lights and left us to our own silent, unmoving devices.

I guess I hadn’t thought about the fact that my experience with meditation had all been guided meditation. I had never really considered the idea of sitting in silence, trying not to move, trying to clear away all the thoughts in my head. At first I tried, I really did. I tried not to move, I tried to breathe and repeat, but soon enough Sheryl Crow got stuck in my head. Eventually I couldn’t sit still so I leaned my head against the wall…I woke up fifteen minutes later with my mouth hanging open. I drifted in and out of sleep for a few more minutes, periodically jarring awake and re-closing my mouth. Any hope of actual meditation was gone. At one point I couldn’t feel my arms and got kind of excited that maybe I was being raised to some plane of nirvana. However, it was really that my arms had fallen asleep.

The lights finally were flipped on and the leader read some passage about self-deception for ten minutes. And then they fiddled with the dvd player for ten minutes. By that time, two of the other girls who had come to check it out had snuck out. Unfortunately for me and Charli, our purses were across the room. Five minutes into a dvd of some guy lecturing about meditation and Charli and I braved the cynical looks of the avid meditators and left.

Although we didn’t have any kind of revelation or even stay for the whole class (2 hours is a little excessive if you ask me), I was glad we went. It was an adventure, and we both tried something new. For free!

And that, my friends, was our meditation misadventure.

In January I joined the UA SwingCats, the lindy hop club at school. I have since then become an enthusiastic dancer of lindy hop & blues, I’ve learned some great Charleston and a little balboa, and I can’t wait to learn more. Just before I left for Portland, Tucson had its first big lindy weekend, aptly dubbed the Tucson Lindy Bomb by our lindy hop/blues teacher/mentor/friend, Stryder Crown. There we had our first real experience of what a dance weekend full of workshops and dancing that goes until 3a.m. could be. You can find photos of us dancing here, (hopefully) there are quite a few, but there are a bunch of me dancing with Nate and Cid Galicia. It was one of the best weekends in my memory. When I found out that one of Stryder’s friends was putting on a similar event in Portland (indeed, they happen all over the country, this one happened to be in my vicinity) I knew I would have to be there.
Even though I have a pulled ligament in my knee (yes, I know, I know, I shouldn’t have gone dancing at all but it was worth it), I was determined to dance at Come Rain or Come Shine; many people were coming up from Tucson, as well as people from California and Utah who we had met at our event, and I was SO excited to get to see them all and to make new dance buddies.
We hosted my boyfriend Nate, our friend Alyssa who hails from Seattle, Scott from Utah who we had met in Tucson, Kara, another Tucsonan, and my dear friend, Todd, also part of the Tucson lindy scene. Other representatives of the Tucson lindy scene were Jon and Stryder. Friday included a social dance that lasted late into the night. Saturday we had workshops and in the evenings part of the social dance there was also the Jack and Jill competitions for lindyhop and blues, West Coast swing, as well as diversity, which is where a bunch of different music is played and the lead decides if the couple will do west coast or blues or whatever best fits the music. The hitch? The dancers are paired with others with whom they have never danced. It was incredible to see all the awesome dancers groove together.
Sunday also had a bunch of workshops, and we stayed at the late night until the cows came home (read: 4 a.m. and Cid Galicia, one of my favorite djs/blues dancers ever, saved the last dance for me. AWESOME.) and then drove people to the airport and got into bed as the sun was rising. Overall, it was an awesome experience and I met more dancers from all over the place. Plus, Stryder represented us well by winning the blues Jack & Jill and getting 2nd in the Diversity comp! You can see video of one of his dances here.
Overall, it was an incredible weekend and we had a blast; I am so grateful I have friends in the dance community, because it really is a community. There is so much joy at our gatherings, everyone is feeling the music and dancing becuase they love it and they don’t care about how they look or how good their partner is, it’s all about having fun and dancing. Sounds cheesy, I know, but it is what it is. I hope that my knee gets better soon so I can do a ton more dancing and expand my network of hot moves and funkalicious friends.

**For more videos of us dancing, check out my YouTube account. I highly recommend the video of Stryder and Brenda Collins (a very well-known instructor and probably the sexiest follow I’ve ever seen dance) from the TLB.

Addendum: The morning after I wrote this I checked out Yehoodi.com and discovered that both the Munich Lindy Exchange, that happens during Oktoberfest, and a workshop with Frankie Manning, basically the creator of airsteps and lindy hop as we know it, are both over breaks I have from school. I fully intend on dancing with some of the world’s best (and mediocre, probably) overseas! I will be international! Hurray!