Snow, They Never Knew Ye.

I love it when it snows in Portland. The beauty of a snow-covered urban terrain provides a completely different feeling and contrast to that of the woodsy, field ridden countryside of my youth. Not to say that it’s any better or worse, just different.

Aside from that, the rarity of the occurrence here makes it more magical each time it happens. When I lived in Maryland, one could pretty much guarantee a good blanketing at least once or twice a season, requiring a yearly closet scouring for a pair of matching gloves and last years boots, making sure they all still fit. Along with it came a few hours of unpaid labor for my brother and me, shoveling the driveway like indentured servants to provide my mother with unnecessary but imminent escape. Following this winter tradition, we would hunt for the best local sledding spots and create any excuse to continue to wander through the white, icy utopia.

This routine made no school-snow days hard to come by, usually requiring up to a foot of snow for even a few-hour delay. My dad worked for Baltimore county, (and in turn, the enemy) and would leave the house in the middle of the night, driving his company snow plow to work and aiding to clear the roads before the morning rush. This countywide punctual preparation for the crippling winter weather grows exponentially based on each county’s increasingly bleached history. In the same vein, counties without consistent snowfall lack the felicitous accouterments to properly cope. Thus, a smattering of snow causes a city like Portland to cripple amusingly, making every inch a tiny snowy apocalypse.

The most scarily amusing thing about Portland snowstorms is the lack of driver’s education in Multnomah County for them, and the ensuing traffic issues that provide me with hours of entertainment, from the news, the streets, and the hill outside my bedroom window, proving why the city shuts down like a holiday for a single inch. Watching Portlanders drive in the snow is like watching a dog try to stand in the back of a truck. Thank you Portland, for being a ridiculous parody of yourselves and providing me with a jovial laughter seemingly lost due to my complete lack of holiday spirit.

Google, I Am Disappointed in You.

What?
One comments? Seriously Google?

Is it really so hard to program the singular form of "comment" for a single comment?
I can't imagine so.

This makes me want to throw up in my cereal.

I'll Just Leave This Here.

It's back in stock.

My Exciting Life.

It seems that in grabbing hangers for clothes hanging, I may have grabbed just the right amount! Can it be? Stay tuned to find out!

Edit: I was short by one. :/

Bah Humbug or How Adulthood has Ruined Christmas.

I'm ten years old, climbing out of bed violently rubbing by eyeballs trying to abolish the cloudy perception, a testament to my waking up far too soon. The clock shows 7:00 am, and my excitement drains like a recently prodded pipe as I realize that I must wait another hour before I can wake my parents. This year, they set a time, sick of the 6:30 Christmas, seemingly trying to torture me to my last nerve. How can they postpone any longer a moment I anticipated since Halloween?

This is how it used to be. Two months full of ritualistic activities: hunting for the most well lit house in town, circling toys in the weekly flier, drinking hot chocolate and eating deer stew at the tree farm, lighting the tree, decorating the tree, killing the thousands of baby praying mantis' that hatch from a tiny nest dwelling deep within the tree. All of the standard Christmas traditions.

But yesterday, I realized exactly how much things have changed. I realized that I hate Christmas.

I began work at 8:45 with a yawning smile and a cheerfully exhausted disposition, donning my walkie-talkie and perusing the stockrooms for work needing done. Upon stepping out of the shipping office, I heard the most familiar sound, pleasant at first, calling upon my childhood memories of cookie cutting and bad stop animation films. At that moment I snapped out of it, immediately reminded of the ramifications of this sound’s current implementation. It was the jovial sound of Christmas music; the seasonal change causing Pottery Barn to insert their holiday mix cd. For a short time, I thought I could handle it. If I remain in the back, I thought, I don't have to hear it! However, busy Sundays aim to prove me wrong, and 5:00 found me trying to find something small enough to fit through my ear canal and penetrate my eardrums.

Anyone who works a job in retail, or at a restaurant, or anywhere that uses a corporate predetermined soundtrack or radio station can relate to the troublesome plight plaguing me down past the very fabric of my humanity and into the individual threads, a seam remover pulling me apart with a painfully dull, overused spike. While working at Safeway, confined to my small Starbucks kiosk, the overhanging speaker blared with a capacity that aimed to provide auditory stimuli to the whole of the casual shoppers checking out at the front end. Although I made numerous requests for a volume reevaluation, the staff ignored my plea, displaying an inappropriate apathy towards the blood that my ears left in the coffee I served.

Unfortunately, I do most of my working through the holidays, during my breaks from school, and these troubles have done nothing more than filled me with a holiday rage and anger that rivals the Incredible Hulk.

Witnessing the holidays from my current state of mind has awakened in me the revelation that Christmas isn’t for me. My lack of cable television forces me to flip vigorously through the local channels at night searching for programming that pertains not to the holiday spirit, as I have grown out of these once beloved presentations. Watching family movies without the family is torturous in the same way as reading Nancy Drew novels for literary integrity. This brings with it an unavoidable nostalgia for a time when these specials meant something, when they were special, and a resulting loneliness that follows.

I may write this with a small bitter bias, seeing as my family lives on the opposite side of the country and I have shared all of my family interactions since 2005 with friends and significant others, but I think that deep down, this despise holds a special place in the hearts of all middle-class American parents, especially in this time of economic recession. Enjoying this time of year proves difficult for anyone without a firm monetary grasp on his or her lives, as the stress outweighs the capacity to enjoy the broad holiday traditions. Couple that with my complete loss of any religious connection to the time of year, and the result is a complete spiritual death that makes the elated holiday wonders a time for seemingly unavoidable depression.

My greatest hope is in the children, that one day my kids will refill me with a love and joy that exists in their hearts, and that I can reinstate my Christmas spirit through them.

Snow Dreams.

I found this snowmobile concept on Notcot and it made me pine for my snow-filled childhood and the small blizzards we often had back in Maryland.

I've never ridden one of these things, mostly because I could never afford one and partially because I never had need for one. But I always wanted to.

This one has an awesome snowboard rack in the back, which reminds me of another thing I always wanted to try.

Here's to hoping for a snowboarding trip in January or one of those impossibly improbable Portland snowstorms that blanket the city in that cold, wet, white, pure winter happiness... the only beauty that cures that otherwise grey-induced seasonal depression.

[snowmobile concept by Matus Prochaczka]

Don't you want me to have a great Christmas?

Searching for my perfect holiday gift?

Why not give a gift of sonic proportions?

Although sold out now, I will hold out for its return, refreshing the site like speed dialing a radio station.

Maybe you should too.
That is, if you care about me at all...

Here's the link.

La Souris.

I love this, and I want to evoke a delectable background in hopes of keeping this small guy from floating helplessly in a bleached white purgatory, but I cannot think of where to put him.

Maybe a cave? Caves are boring.
Maybe a cave with bats?

Tiny People

Marine biology, the study of aquatic life and the world below the sea, represents my highest aspirations as a small sixth grader sitting in the back of my science class, resting my chin on my fists, staring longingly at my beautiful teacher and losing myself completely in her posters, pictures, and presentations that augmented my knowledge about oceanographic exploration. During my other classes, I would daydream about Ms. Fletcher’s lessons, doodling tiny dolphins on the corners of my wide-ruled loose-leaf paper. Ask my parents today, and they will tell you that in those days, my future waited for me beneath the waves. Fast-forward eight years and picture a much taller me, standing in front of a college advisor who asks if I desire to pursue a bachelors degree in Art or Science, and watch me scowl at the latter, as if it directly insulted my grandmother.

Lynda Barry, in a graphic novel that I recently read called One Hundred Demons, states it perfectly while discussing dancing. She says: “Babies always look good when they dance. They have something that is very hard to get back once it is lost and it is always lost.” Children possess an obvious innocence and naivety, which as they grow and learn, slowly exits their body in exchange for knowledge, experience and uncertainty that spoils their inborn ability to argue with unjustified absolution. As I followed that sixth grade oceanography unit, I knew undoubtedly that my career rested on a boat coasting beside leaping dolphins, and no one could convince me otherwise. This complete faith slipped its tentacles into other aspects of my life, to the point where any doubt proved devastating, and shook my core into extreme discomfort. This faith allows children to speak the most profound ideas without realizing it.

As children, we all adhered to both elaborate and ridiculous convictions, never admitting our wrongs, despite cohesive evidence. I remember sitting on the front stoop of my house with some friends, enjoying a beautiful summer day and eating a bowl of mac and cheese. In those days, we never spent time inside, so watching me eat was a rarity. As a result, they noticed one of my subtle personal nuances, and with pointed finger and antagonistic smile, chastised me, accusing me of improperly holding my fork. Back then; I would place it in my palm and wrap my fingers around it, the rungs emanating from the top of my hand like a tiny silver fountain. Naturally I argued, what I truly believed: that since I ate comfortably, I couldn’t be wrong. Although they correctly dismissed my methods as impractical, and I now eat while holding the fork like a pen, I then stood by my convictions because I had no good reason not to.

Recently, a friend related a story about babysitting. She asked the small four-year-old boy what he wants to be when he grows up, to which he replied: “I want to be five, like my sister,” with staunch devotion. At that moment of inquiry, the small boy knew exactly what he wanted. In what one can only read as a complete representation of love and admiration for his older sister, this kid hides not behind a brick wall of pride, but instead offers forth his exact, unedited and unfiltered feelings. I know prideful adults who could never admit to these feelings of love and admiration, regardless of their potency.

After telling me the quote, my friend and I began discussing the beauty of children’s innocence, and in turn, their seemingly innate ability to profoundly inspire. The dancing baby’s beauty stems from an inadvertent apathy that I can only describe as a lack of experience. I minor in French, and am currently enrolled in 301. While sitting in class, I enjoy imagining how the lessons would sound if the professor taught them in English, and it reminds me of an elementary school classroom. This morning, for instance, during a lecture on vocabulary, she and a particular student spoke about the meaning of “un procès”, and a lost classmate raised her hand, asking for the translation. The teacher smiled, and turning to the student with whom she previously conversed, she suggested in a playful tone that said student describe, in French, the word’s meaning. The student attempted, using the vocabulary at her disposal, and although her description of a lawsuit as “something a man uses when his coffee is too hot” proved amusing, her ignorance failed the questioning girl, as she still did not understand.

In a way, all of my classmates share something with the dancing baby, in that they still have not lost their inability to grasp fully this new concept, and in turn craft responses that manifest hilarity from their innocence, like the baby manifests beauty in his. This idea reminded me of the other quote my babysitting friend mentioned. She asked the young boy his goal for the next day, and with simple absolution, he responded: “to wake up!” Similar to the student, in her full-hearted but half-legible definition, this kid knew the general meaning of the word “goal,” but did not understand its implications well enough to respond in the way my friend intended.

One might have trouble understanding how this lack of complete understanding suggests anything profound and rather perceive it as the simple naivety of childhood. While that is true, I refer more to the implications for me, and the things that I can take from the ideas themselves, rather than whose mouth divulged them. Life has taught me to set high goals for myself in order to become more successful, however, in doing that I seem to lose track of my goals for the immediate future. I mentioned earlier that my marine biology goal as a sixth grader died with my youth, and truthfully most childhood goals do. But as I stood there, signing up for my bachelor’s degree, I began an art major that I would soon also drop in exchange for a different career path, as my employment intentions have changed on a consistent basis since the days of my aquatic fixation.

The words of the four-year-old made me wonder if perhaps merit exists in what they don’t teach you, setting short-term goals for yourself. Sure, many people place their right foot forward at six-years-old, stating with head nod and arms akimbo “I want to be a doctor,” and twenty-five years later don their glisteningly white medical robes. But average Americans these days switch jobs something like every five years. Maybe to reach a high-standing future, I need to create more instantly gratifying short-term goals in order to arrive at my desired destination without falling off of the boat into a sea of impatience and seemingly unattainable expectations.

I thought of a couple of different ways I could possibly achieve this: I rarely allot myself the time to make breakfast in the morning, and perhaps I should. My schedule allows me to sleep until noon half of the week, and maybe instead I need to instill a goal to simply “wake up” and make breakfast. By arriving at this simple and gratifying achievement, I would accrue more time to finish things, and possibly head to bed a few hours earlier, preventing exhaustion during my days of early awakening. And these minor goals will spread in this vein, applying themselves across the board, and making my life more meaningful in the long run. For example, if I set the simple goal of obtaining my passport next week, and followed through, it would place me one step closer to riding up to Canada in a few months to visit my brother. This would then motivate me into eagerly propelling myself across the ocean to visit countries I have not seen.

Sixth-grade me had the wrong idea, it seems, planning his entire future based on his crush on Ms. Fletcher. Although I do not condone consulting a four-year-old for life advice on a regular basis, I feel as if we can learn just as much from the unlearned inexperience of these tiny people as they can in studying us. If only we would set upon ourselves the small task of simply listening to their words, letting them remain correct for a while, and smiling at the things they have to say, we could marvel in their innocence with the same attention that they assign to patronizing our experience.

Redefinitions #1: Napkins

Napkins are friends who nap alongside of one another.

PUNishment.

If the doctor runs out of tongue depressors, can he just tell your tongue that it's worthless?

A Few Words on Spheres.

I’ve afforded myself contact with numerous spheres during my nearly twenty-two years of existence. As young as four, during my crippling camera phobia phase, I found solace in a small red ball, which forever engrained itself into the photographic fabric of my childhood. Even now, while typing this and sitting cross-legged in my underwear and zip-up hoodie, I dig a serrated blade into the rind of a delicious orange sphere, slicing off and ingesting its juicy pulp. However, despite all of this experience, one increasingly popular sphere continues to elude me: the blog-o-sphere.

My relationship with the Internet reaches as far back as the days where one might describe a broadband as “a group of musician who can play anything,” and since those days of unfathomable patience, I’ve watched it grow. Taking part in the Mp3 revolution and the jump from dial-up and watching the social networking site grow from fascinating, to dangerous, to ‘the norm’, one can imagine that while swimming through the web I’ve at least dipped my toes in each new trend. This remains true, to an extent, but this blog . . . thing . . . has consistently repelled me.

However, I fear that now may be the time. Perhaps the people who have not yet heard the things I have to say need that seemingly white space colored with my markers of monologue. My pastels of prose. This is my third attempt to roll my way into the blog-o-sphere, and with it we will, once and for all, know the truth behind the number three’s charm.

Welcome to my head, and to the Place Where Balloons Go.