Sunday, May 29, 2005

Kelly - The only real X-Girlfriend

Previously on the OR...

Mike: "Say Anything, now that's a great romantic comedy. You should rent it."
Kelly: "I'll think about it."

M: "We should go out sometime."
K: "Yes, well, that'd be nice, maybe, yeah."

M: "Pretty girl...."

M: "It just isn't working out."
K: "But WE can work it out..."

M: "Kelly, this is Sloth."

M: "You guys would make a great couple."
K: "You wouldn't think that was weird?"
M: "Weird? Nah."

M: "I LOVE YOU! I CAN MAKE THIS WORK NOW!"
K: "Michael, it's too late."

M:"Friends?"
K: "We'll see..."

And that right there is the pseudo-recap for my temultuous relationship with Kelly Armstrong. Probably the number one thing that I always appreciate about this girl, during the times I dated her and the times we were at odds and the times currently, is the fact that she has one of most infectuously, unabashedly honest constitutions I have ever come across. Also, she possesses one of the biggest hearts.

My relationship with Kelly has always been one of insecurity and uncertainty. I wasn't sure if I loved her, I wasn't sure if I wanted to break up with her, I wasn't sure if hooking her and Sloth up was a good idea, and I wasn't sure if having her hate me for a year was not without merit. I was a bad boyfriend and a really, really bad ex-boyfriend.

The thing is that she is the number one person you want on your side, in your corner. She looks out for her friends, loves meeting new people (though she may not say anything that first time) and has a great deal of enthusiasm for new things and little misadventures. She'll call you out and tell you to, "get the fuck over it," but say it in such a way that you're not hurt or defensive. She's calling you out because she loves you and she understands your pain, but wants you to move on. Wallowing is for wallowers.

If I could only be on good terms with one Ex, if only one girl that I'd dated, loved, and lost could still be a close, best friend... I'd choose her. Not for any "un-requited, one day we'll get another chance" -thing (trust me, her and Sloth deserve eternal happiness), but because we know each other, trust each other, and, sometimes, even like spending time with each other.

And I said "big heart" back there? The biggest. Probably the only girl I know who doesn't hate other girls for stupid reasons amounting to petty jealousy. She treats everyone with love and friendship.

Oh, and she got me hooked on the O.C. Maybe for that... I don't really owe her.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Yes I'm from Portland

About 24 years ago, my parents decided that having sex on the kitchen table of their little rented house in SE Gladstone sounded like a good idea. I wish I could have been in the room (outside of the womb at least) when Mom dropped the ball that Dad and her were officially expecting. Now, my mother's not the most rational person or the most level-headed so I'm sure that the revelation that they're were soon to be parents probably rivaled the death of a loved one in tears shed and screams uttered. My father probably thought that having a child with this woman he'd just recently married and nursed through a nevrous breakdown might have been the best way to keep his blushing bride on the the path to recovery and mental stabilty. Regardless, nine months later I was there breathing my first breaths of Portland air and promptly coughing a lot. That should have been a sign of impending addiction to a city that rarely returns the love you put into it. Living in this city at 24 with no degree and less direction is like dating a self-centered, naive slob of a woman that thinks she's modest when in actualilty she's the most conceited post adolescent ever to hit drinking age. Meaning, it's like loving someone that doesn't have the time to return it, but promises to get around to it eventually.

In a sense, it's why it's hard to find your way in this city unless you have money or a goal. Two things that not everybody in this day and age seems to have a surplus of. You make lists in your head of ways you think you'll be able to succeed (I've always like to refer to them as "hair-brained schemes") and when those plans have the tendency to eventually fail, you tend stop trying to dig your heels in to figure out a new one.

What I've always found hilarious about Portland lies in its constantly evolving identity crisis. Over in NW 23rd we have approximately twelve blocks of an attempt to copy the Beverly Hills coffee shop and high-priced cloth scene. Down in the Pearl District, it's basically the O.C. meets the club scene. Belmont, Hawthorne, and Woodstock are all areas of town where the hipsters have tried to carve out a niche of the city to call their own and make magazine covers and travel guides. The pattern here is that the city wants to be a less glamorous California neighborhood and citizen population that wants to be what Seattle and San Francisco have forsaken: a counter-culture paradise.

For every Bar 71 and Barracuda that seems to have sprung up, Pied Cow, Voodoo Doughnut, Dante's, and the Shanghai Tunnels still hold their ground as the actual places to patron on a Saturday night. The only difficulty that seems to be developing is that the two scenes clash in such a harsh light that it's almost like gentrification with the hip scene pushing the upstarts out to the outer rims of the East side to stake their claim. With the Pearl district firmly planting a flag that claims territory between NW 23rd and Chinatown (which is still a wretched hive of scum and villany, thank god).

The trick about Portland seems to be that you actually need a counter culture handbook in your own city. Chuck Paulanick's (?) Fugitives and Refugees is among many pocket guides that highlight hidden treasures that no one who lives here on a daily basis has managed to accumulate themselves over X number of years actually living here. The one thing you'll hear most from someone trying to partake in something new and trendy in this town is, "I just heard about this new ____" thus illustrating how no one just goes out and finds these places on their own: they just go read Portland Citysearch.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Past Poisons by Patrick Park (alliteration WOW!)

I pull up your drive and I lay on the horn.
Cling to the bottle that’s keeping me warm.
Sweet whiskey Jesus I wish I weren’t born.
You get up to leave and you hear in the dark,
Those early evening arrows missing their mark.
‘Cause they’re out to get you, but they don’t have the heart.
You’re just another one of last summer’s dreams,
Your eyes are blue, and your seas are green.
Some small consolation you get for a while
So drink down your sorrows and their crooked ass smiles
If you want me you know where I’ll be
Putting past poisons gently to sleep.
If you want me you know where I’ll be
Putting past poisons gently to sleep.
There’s a fire inside that makes your blood run.
The lovers who love you smell your smoke from your gun.
You keep your confusion to your hell made for one.
You’re just another one of last summer’s dreams,
Your eyes are blue, and your seas are green.
Some small consolation you get for a while
So drink down your sorrows and their crooked ass smiles
If you want me you know where I’ll be
Putting past poisons gently to sleep.
If you want me you know where I’ll be
Putting past poisons gently to sleep.

I was almost good...

"Actually, we're going out."

And with those words, I think I had my first panic attack since the Kelly/Sloth fiasco of '03.

Listen, these blogs are basically a place where people post what's on their mind and, unless worded carefully, can receive reams of shit for it. So I'll put this delicately: I have never been this hurt and it takes all I have (and about 8 hrs of OC dvds and Hefe beer) to be able to keep myself going into tomorrow.

There is one thing though and that's that I have the best friends anyone could ask for. Kevin, Will, Kelly, Lisa, Karl, Burton, Alex, Emily... All of you guys. You each have your own way of being there for me. After a shitload of sarcastic melodrama fiction I can say that I couldn't create the spirit of friendship that you as a group can heap on me.

Quotes of the day: "Y'know why they're called 'gay men?' Because they're happy!" - Me, "Every relationship consists of four people: the people who are in it and the people who are waiting on the sidelines for them to get out of it" - Will, "They're just life support systems for vaginas." - My dad.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled rants and nonsense writing.

Monday, May 02, 2005

well, that was fun.

So I'm of the mind right now that hanging out with your engaged friends while single is the same thing as a recovering alcoholic spending six hours in a blues bar with a sign in front of you reading, "Rehab is for quitters."

This in no way is to be an afront to Kevin or Bentley, but seriously: if you've just gotten out of a 9 month relationship with a woman that you were, at one time, madly in love with only to watch it fizzle up towards the end, spending time with the "we just bought a house together!" and the "oh, you just drove 88 miles spend 6 hours with me before turning around and driving back!" would probably be a wholly masochistic experience.

Will and I had a couple of conversations on the subject between cavity inducing scenes of affection where we waxed realistically about how since the two of us both got out of confusing and slightly frustrating relationships, maybe we should A) just try actually dating for once, B) work on finding something we like in our lives that makes us happy that does not have breasts, and C) distancing our time spent with those in the Ozzie and Harriet in training sect.

Again, it's nothing personal to these four great people we know, but the difference between hanging out with Brent+1 and Kevin+1 and hanging out with say, Sloth and Kelly is that one set of people is wholly in love with their coupledom because it feels to them (and in all honesty, they're right about this feeling) like they're about to make a leap they are truly sure of regarding love and life and, for the moment, the promise of happiness and adulthood as a result leaves them in a euphoric state that is akin to rolling on E. Sloth and Kelly meanwhie, are the archetypical urban 20-something couple (this is only my head, mind you, so I understand if you disagree). They're two people, passionatley in love, yet very mellow about their actual relationship and their own directions. They're not hung up on their careers or their impending nuptuals (they're not even engaged yet and they've been dating for almost 2 years . More than Brent and Kevin), they're just enjoying the daily grind and the fact that they have a partner to deal with it with.

I think I'd like that.