All Things Profane and Sacred

Today is going to suck more than most days, and this is in comparison to the stupid piano weekend I've just waded through. You see, J has this piano, his grandma's piano, a piano that was made in the 1800s and came out here strapped to a conastoga wagon. It has lived at his mom's house for as long as I've known him. When his mom's house burned down, the piano got a little scorched on the outside, but was still standing. This weekend, he was determined to get the damn piano. The perverse bastard insisted on bringing it all the way to Portland, I suspect in hopes that the mojo created would be such to generate a job offer in far off Newport.

He made a dolly for the piano, and his mom rented a truck down in McMinneville. I dropped him off down there, made my way back through damn hell Dundee (may you all rot in hell) in the Sunday going home traffic, head pulsing and aching in same areas that my head pain has lived in since the bar exam-back of the eyes, front teeth and jaw, bridge of my nose. In Newberg, I was involved in a minor auto collision, which is probably going to bring my whole financial house of cards falling down. The piano made it fine.

Today, I get to again go to court over this stupid fucking driving uninsured ticket, work late, wait for a phone call from down in Newport, wait for another call from Newberg, and call one of my more ominous creditors and explain that I don't have any money just now, and they should just get in line and wait, goddammit.

Newport was beautiful yesterday. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the waves were crashing. J thinks it's very funny that I changed into my suit in the Subway bathroom-I was hoping to show up unwrinkled and goddess-like, but when I stepped outside into the ocean breeze, all my best laid plans quickly went astray. It's ok, though-the lead attorney was wearing jeans and a cordoroy suit jacket, so maybe my windswept look will work out fine.

At one point in the interview, the lead attorney asked me if I liked country music. I told her I was listening to Johnny Cash on the way down (true, but I felt like a suck ass). She nodded her head approvingly and said, "Johnny Cash, very good, I'm writing that down." And she did. Then she underlined it.

Yesterday J got paid. He's been working a lot of overtime, so we had a bit of money in our pockets, which was totally exciting. We splurged by geting some deli chicken and fancy bean coffee (something with a lot of 'ochas' and 'capas' and 'chinos' in the name). Then we extra splurged and paid our water bill in full-yea!

I don't have anything super great to blog about today. It's been cooler these last few days, blessedly cooler, and I've been tinkering around the house on projects that were abandoned in the heat. Tonight I'm going to actually do some baking, and tommorrow I'm driving to Newport for my interview.

I feel like I've been stuck in a holding pattern. The days are rather similar-worry about unpaid bills, go to work, clean the house, worry some more, walk the dogs, go to bed early, get up in the morning when worry and anxiety creep in on my unconsciousness. I'm ready to have some different problems to tackle. The ones I have now aren't any fun anymore.

I woke up this morning to blessed coolness-the blistering heat wave seems to have mostly passed. Now we gotta take care of all the vacuuming, piles of laundry, and rolling dust bunnies that backed up while we were conserving energy like backwards lizards. This last weekend, at some ungodly hour in the morning, we were sitting on the porch catching a breeze as the sky lightened in the east. J pointed this out and said, "Oh, shit. Here it comes again." I think the animals felt much the same-they were sacked out like us for most of the last 4 days, getting up only to eat, unload waste, and drink more water.

104 on Friday, 100 on Saturday and now today we're supposed to be down to 95 degrees. I had an interview Friday, and was just about melted to my suit by the time I walked from the car to the building. Saturday, J and I both woke up about 3 am, in a salty tangle amid the damp sheets, and got up to sit on the dark, cool porch before trekking back inside for a few more hours of restless sleep. This weekend has been full of odd hours and low energy laziness. Watching the Best of the Muppet Show. Learning how to make a D&D character. Browsing Pornography. And so on.

The sun, she burns us, my precious!

I got a "Notice of Class Settlement" the other day in the mail. As a member of the affected class, I am entitled to a brochure that tells me about getting a free credit report. Are they fucken kidding me? Progressive is in the dock, and I get information about my free credit report? Weak, dude.

I feel pretty exhausted today, but not sleepy in the slightest. I always feel wound up after volunteering at the night clinic. Today was a pretty easy day, client wise, but I was training a newbie, which always gets me nervous. I could tell our last client was going to be difficult when I looked at her handwriting. I dunno, but it just looked like trouble, ya know? Then I called her name and looked in her eyes and knew it was going to be a long one. In a way, I'm glad, because our other clients that night were pretty easy-straightforward people who were able to articulate their needs and wants-and I didn't want the newbie to think it was all cakewalks and fanfare. Nope, low income clinics have quite a share of mentally ill, drug addicted or mentally challenged clients, and you gotta be able to work with them just as you would any other client. Well, this client ended up flipping me off and screaming "Fuck you!" before she left, so Newbie got a full helping of what he'd be shrugging off if he wanted to continue volunteering at the clinic. I must be adjusting to legal life-it didn't particularly bother me (maybe because I saw it coming), but Newbie looked rather shocked.

I somehow got lucky enough to get the interview for the job where my application got in late. Even though the job would require a move to Newport, I'm rather hoping to get it. A change of scene would be nice. As much as I love my house and love Portland, I also wouldn't mind getting out of the big city and living somewhere in the back country, somewhere woodsy and quiet. It would be a pain in the ass logistics wise-I'd have to move first, and then J and the boys would have to join me after we got up some cold hard cash, and I'm not sure what I would do for housing, broke as I am, but I figure that if I get the job, something will work out. It has to.

I had a dream last night that I lived on a houseboat, and I came home one day to find it sinking, ala Titanic. I hope that isn't an omen or anything.

Our dog, Pogo, is a sneaky little poop. Jude is too big for sneakiness-he tries to creep, but his big whacking tail and clumsy oafish feet usually give him away. Pogo is delicate. He doesn't barrel over to the cat box and rummage around until he has a sand mustache. He delicately picks over the box, carefully snapping up cat treats, so it isn't until he comes over and licks you that you notice someone's breath smells like cat ass.

I've been biking to work in the mornings, waiting for that magic day when I can make it all the way up the hill on Russel Street on my way home. It's a short trip, but I'm terrified of biking in traffic and still have some problems not visualizing getting run over, doored, tripped or squashed. Since a big chunk of my route is right on the bike superhighway, serious bikers tricked out with all their bike bling (there, that stupid word must be totally out by now, since here I am using it. I killed the bling bling, yar!) keep passing me effortlessly. Of course, they also have bikes that cost more than my car, bikes that my 1970s Schwinn, Squeaky, just can't compete with.

So, I threw my cards yesterday in a quickie reading and basically got back the message "Remain strong, obstacles will be overcome. Check out how much you're learning!" Pttthb. As I was telling J yesterday, I don't mind being poor, but being destitute really super sucks (he, of course, pointed out that we weren't destitute-we have a roof and electricity-just really really poor. We need to step up to sorta poor-able to pay bills and keep our beater cars running).

I have a few job prospects on the horizons, but they are really squeakers, as opposed to all the possibles I've interviewed for over the last few months. I have a Legal Aid job that I missed the deadline for (Thanks L&C job database!), but still have a chance at an interview for since I know the woman I'd be replacing and she put in the good word for me. It's out on the coast, so I'd have to move, and probably live alone until J and the boys could afford to move out, but on the other hand, it's on the coast, the pay isn't bad, and it's a 35 hour work week.

I also have an interview for a job I'm grossly underqualified for-a result of either my mad cover letter skills, or my mad networking skills. I guess you never can tell.

So, when J finally got back up to where I was with the packs and dogs, it was getting on towards dark. We scurried up the last half mile of the trail, draped in blankets, sweating like bloody hell. There was a beautiful campsite right on the lake, but another camper with two loud dogs had secured it, and it was right on the trail, anyhow. We moved off to the left and found a nice private place, threw down our equipment and started making camp as fast as possible. As the last of the light disappeared, J put up our tent and I gathered firewood like a motherfucker.

It was dark by the time J started working on the fire and I started to rummage for dog food for our ravenous beasts. We were supposed to meet up with J's brother and his wife, but since it was fully dark, I expected they weren't coming. I told J we should just quit for the night, climb into the tent, make some body heat and sleep. I think we were both pretty cold at this point, since we were really sweating on the trail, and hungry and tired. It was then that J's brother and his wife showed up, walking through the dark by the light of their cell phone.

They couldn't get a fire going either, at first. But with the help of some magnesium (?) and a cig pack stuffed with toilet paper, we soon had a cheerful little blaze going. Sucess had never been so sweet.

So, you know, we watched the fire like bazillions of humans have done before us and talked and looked at the shapes the embers made deep within the blaze and thought about dragons and hellfire and the end of the world. And then we slept.

I found out this weekend that it is not Lake Melmamoose, but Lake Memaloose. I also found out that when a trail is referred to as "easy" "not too hard" and "moderate" you should be prepared to scale cliffs. We additionally learned that we are all-J, me and the boys-soft and out of shape. Our adventures were many, so here is part one of our little drama:

I met J in Sandy when he was done working Friday, and drove with him over to his friend's house in Estacada. We dropped off my little weinie car that doesn't like driving up and down mountains and packed everything into J's car. Since we decided on the trip all last minute, I just had a lot of gear thrown in helter skelter-the three tents I found, J's backpack and some extra clothes, bedrolls, and the cooler. After picking through the lot for what we thought we'd need, we tossed some trash, left his friend a voicemail and the car's spare key, and took off. Hilariously, J's friend got home from work, saw a strange car parked next to his trailer and strange garbage in his can, and gathered it all up in a huff, putting the trash and a nasty note on my car. Then he went inside and listened to his messages.

Anyhow, we got out the mountain, and J's car is losing power and overheating. Then he remembers that his fan is not working. As we're stopped by the side of the road, a hillbilly with a gun in his lap pulls up to see what the problem is. He helped us to canabalize a wrecked, shot-to-hell car for the wire we needed to 'fix' the fan and continue up the mountain. Later, J's brother ran into the same hillbilly standing by the side of the road looking his freshly wrecked car. Apparently this guy took a corner too fast and slid off the road into the woods. Glad his gun didn't discharge into his passenger's face or anything like that.

We got to the trailhead a bit late, but it was still light. We ran into some day hikers coming down the trail and asked them how it was. They told us the trail was only about a mile, and was pretty easy. Well, a mile isn't much, so I decided we could haul along the cooler. We tied the bedding and tents onto us and started hauling and dragging the horribly heavy cooler over increasingly rough terrain. After about a mile of this, we decided to leave the cooler and come back for it after making camp. Another mile down the trail and we decided now was the time to double back, grab the necessities and ditch the cooler until we were ready to go home. I waited with the dogs and the packs while J went back and secured the cooler in a tree.

Going camping up at Melmamoose Lake this weekend. Gotta get away for a while.

Well, I got the rejection letter I was waiting for in the mail yesterday. Y'know, I'm getting to the point where I'm scared to death to come home-I'm afraid I'll get there only to find a smoking hole in the ground where the house used to be. It's been a month of disaster-2 more rejection letters to put on the wall, a good fucking by one of my student loan companies, a deep wall of inpenatratable debt and steadily declining credit, no job prospects of any sort, a 'burglary' that called me home from work only to find cops in my basement, constant collection threats, car trouble of both the legal and mechanical stripe, and a million other small things that I can't think about right now because my kindly mind (and just maybe a goodly dose of alcohol) has blocked them from my memory. How long, oh lord?

I know this is totally crazy, but it's my blog and I'll be crazy if I want to (and these days I'm feeling pretty crazed-I'll probably end up wandering around downtown, homeless, in a suit, begging for change). After every job interview, I tell myself not to get my hopes up, that until I hear word, I must assume the worst. But usually during the course of the interview, I start really liking the people and feeling like it is the sort of job that I would like to have and picturing the way I would do things and how I would fit in the office. As much as I try to smother that hope, it's still there lurking.

And when I get the inevitable rejection letter, I feel like they were laughing behind my back the whole time. That they were smiling and nodding encouragingly the whole time, and, after I left, they all pushed back their chairs, looked at each other and had a good laugh over what a bozo I am, and how I must have gotten my degree from a mail order catalogue and how they need a better screening system. I almost feel these days like poverty is in my genes, that the 'better class of people' can see through the cheap suits I wear that are getting more threadbare by the day and see the desparate scramble in my eyes, the debt and foodstamps and unpaid bills.

I had a long 4th of July post written, but it was too depressing. Let's just move on, shall we?

It's been quite a weekend so far. My car broke down Friday night, spent Saturday fixing it, spent Sunday dealing w/J's mom and her burned out place, and today I get to go downtown for this stupid fucking driving without insurance $242.00 fucking ticket. FUCK FUCK FUCK.