Amy Adoyzie Enjoys Life and Junk

A quick update to let ya'lls know that I'm alive and well, and will continue my regular bloggage soon. I'm still recuperating from my post-vacation malaise and the hot Hunan heat that is seeping into all of my tiny pores. I've got stories galore and I'm finally going to work on the traveling tales from Spring Festival (in February) when I skipped my way through western China, Laos and Vietnam.
It's only another month and a half of teaching, then another month of China travels. Soon I'll be back in Los Angeles, where I'll stay two weeks at mom and dad's house vegging out in front of their television set and air-conditioned living room. And on August 11th, I'll land in PDX, back to my retirement home.

Every morning at 6:00 AM, the campus loudspeakers swell with a light flowery melody- its the alarm clock. It plays for a few minutes, rousing drowsy students form their slumber in their unheated, cramped dormitories. I used to sleep through this. Exhaustion from teaching kept my eyelids heavy and blocked out all noises except the sound of my breathing.
But since the beginning of the new term, a bizarre mix of anxiety and fatigue has turned me into a light sleeper. I wake at the slightest sounds and I am kept up at night with 1.3 billion thoughts muddled in my mind.
My teaching position ends in late June. Its only months away, but feels like an eternity. Longing for something that you once had is like diving into an abyss of memories of your friends and good times, but not being able to join them.

* * * * *

I was late for class #5. There's one boy who expects more than that and loudly asked, "Why? Why are you always late?"
I explained that I was on the phone with a friend that I haven't spoken to in months.
All I got back were blank stares because they have no reference point to how much it meant to me to be able to chat with Gus and Marah, best friends who I lived with for a year before coming to Huarong.
They were supposed to come out to the middle kingdom in July and we were going to travel to Tibet together. Gus would bring signed black-and-white headshots and have his arm hair petted by curious Chinese. Marah might get in touch with her Chinese roots and get all native and start squatting everywhere while picking her ears with her pinky. I was going to pretend to be their adopted Chinese daughter, whining in English and refusing to speak ching chong language. It was going to be a grand ol' time in the PRC. But a couple weeks ago Gus sent me an e-mail that I hoped was a late April Fool's joke. He said that they weren't coming.
Their beloved home has a case of the moldies. Their house is infected and they must act as responsible homeowners and stay put to take care of it. This is after a string of unfortunate events like Marah's aunt passing away unexpectedly and Marah's car was stolen.
I was bummed that they coldn't make it to China, but I feel worse that they've been plagued with so much BS. For months, I wasn't able to speak with them because of a shoddy internet connection. I was overjoyed when I realized that Skype was working and called then in between my first two periods, which made me late for class #5.
It was worth it though, if only because I got to hear Gus order a pint of PBR at the Pub.

I've got to admit it's getting better
A little better all the time

Things are lookin' up, especially when snippets of my life in Huarong feel like Clairitin commercials of folks freed from their allergies and frolicking in open fields.
Initially, I was bummed because the one teacher friend I had at school is going to take a leave of absence so that she can concentrate on studying for an entry examination for grad school. What little socializing I had with someone else at the school was going to disappear. But I didn't have too much saddies time as I made a few new adult friends at school and it kinda broke a wall for me, making it less intimidating to speak with my colleagues.

November's giving me a good vibes. The month started with a couple super sweet packages from Marah and Gus, all the way from my beloved Portland. It was adorable to see pics of them and their sweet tandem and even a lil photo of my darlin' Basil!



And just in case I missed Amy the cat, here's a pic of her looking like the big furry mess that she is. Marah made sure to include a chunk of her fur, that I can put in my food or clothes, to alleviate my homesickness.



They even sent their back issues of The New Yorker (and a couple sports and gossip mags for my Chinese kids). *Swoon* The New Yorker is like my own portable version of PBS and The Daily Show. Deliciously educational with genius humor.



Gus also included a CD-EP by my most favorite Portland live band, Bark, Hide and Horn! I couldn't help but be a little showsick as I listened to their music, thinking of all the awesome shows plugged in and out as I've been chugging along in Chinars.
No basement shows and spilled beer. No bike rides hauling cans of Sparks in my bag. Nope, none of it. Instead, those moments of cliched young-people-hood have been replaced with unfettered China ridiculousness.

Here's my weekend re-cap:
Friday night:
Xiao Meng from Class #5 invited me to have dinner with her family and I was thrilled for three reasons. Firstly, I had no idea that this girl had any interest in English or in me. She had never really spoken to prior to asking me to dinner. And secondly, I loves me some free foodz! Number three: It was also extra special because this was the first time that a Huarong Yi Zhong student asked me out! "Awe," said the live audience.
Xiao Meng's family was incredibly sweet. Their "condo" (that's what we call apartment building homes in the States, right?") was immaculately clean. I've noticed that for all the litter and ubiquitous trash heaps in China, the people themselves keep incredibly sanitized living quarters.
Her father is the headmaster at a nearby Junior Middle school and her mother teaches Math there. I was surprised when she began speaking to me in English, and she was really flattered when I asked if she was an English teacher.
They plied me with fruit appetizers, refusing my refusal for more- I ended up eating a banana, an orange, an apple and even a single grape. I began to wonder if I would have any room for dinner. As I sat in their tidy living room, munching away on their entire fruit bowl, Xiao Meng and her mother tag teamed me with English questions.
"How do you pronounce this?" asked Xiao Meng's mother, as she scribbled 'receive' and 'passion' on a piece of paper. We spent a few minutes practicing pronunciation of a handful of words while Xiao Meng would interject with questions about "How to learn English?"
They were like hypomanic schoolchildren, clamoring over Santa Claus for one more Christmas wish. And I obliged, like the benevolent jolly ol' man that I am.
Dinner was a feast with duck, two types of fish, sauteed eggplant, greasy bak choi and fried eggs. I scarfed down whatever was put into my bowl, and there was a lot being chopsticked into it. Towards the end of the meal, I was not just uncomfortable from the ginormous amount of food in my belly, I was actually in pain. I was only trying not to be rude to my hosts, so I'll have to pace myself next time.
Xiao Meng's mom even un-did the top button of her pants midway through dinner, so I wasn't the only one pigging out.
Afterward, the family decided to show me around Huarong. An example of what a dinky-ness of Huarong, we ended up visiting one of the local supermarkets, Heart to Heart. Oddly enough, I had a great time poking around wooden bins of varied beans and asking about each one. Yellow, red, green, white, soy beans beans beans!
I think I was delirious from overeating.
As we were walking around, Xiao Meng's father bumped into many "friends," I figure that since he's a headmaster he must be a popular dude. We ran into one of his friends who happened to be a driver, and as the night was growing late (8:30 PM), it was decided that he will give me a free ride home.
"Do not give him money," said Xiao Meng's mom.
"Okay!" And I was whisked off.
When I got back on campus, I bumped into a few students who said they were going to "climb the mountain" because it was "exciting." I couldn't help but ask, "Can I come?" They were referring to the hill behind our school, where there are graves nestled on the east side.
It seemed like a good idea, to walk off some of the discomfort of my dinner rampage. Armed with two dim flashlights we hiked up the hill to a small temple that we thought was unoccupied. We all scurried away when we saw a light bulb flicker on inside. Adrian led us up a steep climb to the top of the hill, where I've never been before. At the peak of the hill, there was an abandoned house and cement debris. Way spooky. I asked the students if they believed in ghosts, and they all said that they didn't- but they were still scared. Spookiness transcends belief systems, I guess.
But the view was amazing, we could see the light across Huarong flickering throughout.
When we were back on campus, they invited me to their classroom. On this particular Friday evening, they didn't have classes but each class was still sprinkled with some students watching TV on the projector or just fooling around. In their class, they were watching a modeling competition and it made me miss America's Next Top Model.
Saturday:
Miss Cheng, my teacher friend who will be taking the leave of absence, took me out for lunch where I unwittingly ordered a fire-spicy fish dish. She could tell that my forehead was beading with sweat and that I wasn't really eating. For the most part, I wasn't eating much because I was still full of food from the night before, but she took it as a sign of me being unsatisfied. She kept offering to order a new dish for me, but I was being stubborn and choked down the heat.
After lunch, we headed to a local theatre where all of the schools in Huarong county were participating in a talent show comprised of only school teachers! Luckily, since I'm a foreigner, no one thought to include me.
On our way there, Miss Cheng bought me a bag of Chinese roasted chestnuts, something I've never had before and instantly fell in love with those lil brown nuggets of goodness! It's my new favorite Chinesey snack!
The talent show was nuts. It was like watching a fobbed out version of amateur night at the Apollo, filled with aerobic, tae-bo-lookin' acts and poorly-choreographed dance routines. Fantastic! (Shoddy, far-away pics coming soon.)
Unfortunately, when you've seen a few fobby dance teams, you've seen them all. An hour into it, I was falling asleep! No tact! Midway through, I snuck off with a group of Huarong Yi Zhong teachers who had performed and were returning to school.
That evening, I met with some students and was asked to judge an English competition later that night. I obliged and hauled booty and watched English skits for an hour and a half. I''m always down to see my students practicing their English, especially when it involves them performing original short plays with stories about domestic marital spats.
I got home at about 9:45 that night, crashed out and waited for the local TV station to play Lost. A few weeks ago, they showed the entire first season of Prison Break, and I guess they just bought a new DVD set because it's two episodes of Lost every night. I always chuckle to myself when the station doesn't cut away to commercials quickly enough after an episode is over, and the main menu of the DVD is on air for a minute or so.

There it is. Things lookin' up. Still exhausted, but at least I have good American TV to help me melt my brain at the end of the night.

In less than two days, I'll be in China trying not to freak out of my skin.
It's only within these past couple days, before I fall asleep on my parents' couch, that I begin to think of the enormity of everything. It's when I seriously start to get anxious and a bit scared. I begin to realize how different my life will be and how am I supposed to keep up with the latest Mel Gibson drama?
I'm trying to mull over really trivial things as to not panic about larger issues looming above. My latest obsession is what I'm going to wear on the flight. Sometimes I think I need meds because this I am totally inflicted with a condition.
Here I was on my last day in Portland, napping atop my luggage in between packing and moving stuff into Gus & Marah's new home (aka Lahn Uk):

On Monday, a week from the day till I leave Portland, I biked a few minutes to the Asian Health & Service Center to get some chinky medicine on. For the past few weeks I've had this hive-rash thingy that began on my left arm, then slowly moved up my right arm. I assumed it was from allergies but then Anna mentioned that it may have been stressed hives. On a whim, I was walking by the Asian Health & Service Center and just sauntered in because I figured that I'm Asian, I have health concerns and need their services. How perfect! That was last wednesday and they said to come back this Monday when they had a Chinese Medicine clinic.
Sermiously, I heart Portland and how easy it is to find naturopathic health care. I walked into this clinic, received thoughtful health care and an acupuncture session for $25. That's pretty awesome for someone with no health insurance. I was diagnosed with having a Wind-Heat disturbance and left with an herbal prescription and feelin' like I was giving the finger to western pharmaceuticals and their promotional pens and beach towels!
I got on a couple buses to the new Chinatown on 82nd Street to Wing Ming Herbs and dropped $7.20 for three bags of bulk herbs that I had to boil down and drink for 6 days. I was feeling like I was on the way to recovery!
Then I got home and opened one of the three small bags packed with a dozen different dried herbs, roots, vegetation and um, bug husks. Big brown BUG husks, the size of the last digit of my thumb. I was taken aback for a moment but went ahead and brewed the tea when Gus walked in and told me that they were Cicada husks. I figured that if those fools on Fear Factor can eat all that ridiculousness, then I ought to be able to drink this tea with bug cooties so's that I can cure my hiveys.
The last time I drank an herbal remedy, I was about four-years-old and our family was still living in LA's Chinatown. I recalled it being very bitter and I was a baby about swallowing the dark brown liquid. This time around, twenty some-odd years later, I thought I'd be able to handle it better until I downed the first gulp and realized why Chinese medicine isn't mainstream because there are bugs in their meds and it tastes like poo water.
I've been drinking it for a day and half now, and I guess the secret is to drink it very warm. The taste isn't as bad as I've grown used to it. And my hives aren't as itchy! Take that Wind-Heat disturbance!

[UPDATE 7/21]



And it's working too!

The FUNrazor was a super spectacular awesome! There was tons of crazy butt-shakin' dancin' and general hoppin' around and junk! So fantastic! And The Fuck You Charlies debuted our amazingly retarded set of about five minutes. We stormed through our first two songs and then our drunkeness got the best of us and we stank up the last two songs. All our friends still enjoyed us because we "reserved the right for do-overs," and we had a butt-load of hilarious do-overs. Our ineptitude was endearing to say the least. We all blame Sparks. And the fact that we hadn't practiced for two weeks because Jacie was in Michigan and we hired Chad to be on our team only three days earlier as our keyboardist. After our set, the four of us gathered together and meekly approached all of our friends to offer a band apology for having been put through our music. Everyone was very gracious and didn't throw rotten vegetables at us.

All in all, it was a success because I almost broke even on the keg and vodka ($10 short) and Gus and I stayed out of trouble all night! We didn't raise any funds per se, but we had tons of FUN so who gives a hoo-hah? I figure that it's good party karma, cause god knows I've been to tons of parties where I didn't buy any beer and this is my way of giving back into the party circle of life. Yeah, I just got all party philosophical and shiz!

However, I heard stories of stormy arguments with thrown beer and some dude stepping into pee and then rubbing his shoes on someone's face! Yuckies! And apparently Loren blacked out and did some sleepwalking where his face met some concrete. Yikes!



Pics of THE FUCK YOU CHARLIES!

And check out the Pinata Head! We were so drunkeneds and too busy dancing and forgot about the pinata! Luckily, it was saved and Scott ate all the goodies. It is now back at our place where Gus will hang it up in his new No Amys club house. And a few words about the "pinata." Y'see, Gus and I have never paper mached before, no less created a pinata. We blew up a balloon and draped strips of newspaper dripping with our flour and water mixture. Unfortunately, the balloon began to deflate and my face sunk in and then it just went kapootz. Since we're not people to accept failure, and we're particularly lazy, I decided that we ought to use the mushy face anyway. I spray painted the head a beaming yellow and Gus did the rest of the magic. Don't tell him I told ya because he doesn't want people to know that he is responsible for this pinata atrocity. Personally, I think it's kinda awesome and endearing. It's even got freckles and horn-rimmed glasses!



Then we got our dancing on!
Pics of DANCE CRAZYNESS

Slightly tipsy from sipping a mug-ful of whiskey and coke, I placed both hands on the sides of the ladder and steadily made my way up to Andy's roof. A few of us gathered up there as July Fourth turned darker and the neighborhood began setting off illegally awesomely huge explosions in the sky.
Southeast Portland lit up like a garden of twinkles while Gus sang "Bombs Over Baghdad." The shingles felt rough on the ass of my jeans as I tried to balance myself on the slope.
Andy looked over the skyline of multi-color bursts and beamed, "I love America! I love Portland! Look at this!" He was the drunkest of all.
Suddenly, Andy turned to me, in all seriousness like he was the head of the CIA and asked, "Amy, do you love America?"
All I could think was, "What answer will save me from getting shoved off the roof?" and I just muttered, "Uh... Yeah, sure."

The truth is that I totally dig this country and I'm so gonna miss sitting on rooftops with drunk friends daydreaming about hot dog buffets. I just can't stop thinking of all the junk I'll miss.

If any of ya'll reading this junk will be in or around the Portland area this coming Friday, July 7th, ya'll are welcomez to come and get our drunkeness on! Gus and I are in The Fuck Your Charlies along with Jacie and perhaps Anna if she wants to get on the kazoo. We have four songs now! In addition to our diddies abour Sriracha, robots and dinosaurs, we now also have a song that Gus wrote where all the words are insults and mean shit he has said to me like, "Why don't you build a great wall and live behind it?"

Gus and I also began working on a paper mache of my head for a pinata, but it's failing miserably (pics soon). As a result, we might just get a cardboard box, spray paint it yellow and draw some slanty eyes and glasses and fill it in with some Asian candies and call that a pinata. If you come by, you can take a swing at a fake Amy head either way!

Quite often I am accused of talking about my Asian-ness too much. "You know, like that gay friend that only talks about being gay and shit." Quite often I think that's bullshit.
How come you get uncomfortable when I point out that there are only two people of color at the party we're at? How come its cool to read and write about social justice, but when it's clear that there are divisions made in *our scene* we never discuss it?
Listen, I don't have a rice chip on my shoulder. I don't think you're racist because the majority of your friends are white. I don't give a fuck. I just think its funny to talk shit, on Asians, on honkies, on Gus. That's it. I just like to laugh. That's why I'm more amused than insulted about what transpired a couple Thursday nights ago.

I was at the ACME with friends I met last summer in the south, they were on tour and playing that night. Bradley had just finished his set as the one-man band Almighty Do Me A Favor and we were drinking cheap beer and shooting the shit when a woman came up to us. She must have been in her early 40s, a slender white woman with shoulder length dark hair and eyes so crazy you'd think they'd start shooting lazers if you weren't careful.

"I hate to interrupt," she said, interrupting. "But I really have to talk to you about something."
I began backing away, assuming that she wanted to talk to Bradley, congratulate him on his awesome set, offer a blow job or something. But then she looked at me and said, "No, I wanna talk to you."
Bradley walked away and left me with this twitchy sketched out lady as she stood close to me and began explaining herself.
"I'm starting an all-Asian band and I think you should be in it!"
"Really?! That's awesome!"
Besides Marah, who is half Chinese, I am the only other Asian in the joint. She was able to hone in her Chinkee detector skillz and root me out and asked me the join a band based solely on my ethnicity.
"Yeah, because Asians are hot!" She said as she stepped in close, her mouth blew hot air into my ear. "I just want to start a hot all-Asian band and you would be perfect!"
"I would be perfect! Because I'm Asian!" I was both enthused and cautious about this. I looked around to see if my friends are keeping a lookout for me in case this crazy lady tries to kidnap me. "Are you gonna be in the band?" I asked.
"No! I'm not Asian," she gave me that 'oh you silly girl' look. "I already have a gay Asian girl and a trans boy. The gay girl, she's kinda shy about it, doesn't know if she wants to do it. She's butch. You know how butch girls are about being shy."
"Actually, no, I've never heard that."
"Anyway, gay Asian girls are hot," whenever she declared something is hot, she placed her hand on my arm, and leaned in and almost whispers it into my right ear. "And the transgender boy, girl to boy, is so progressive."
"Yeah, progressive..."
"Progressive is hot," I began to think she might be trying to stick her tongue in my ear.
"Awesome!"
"So, do you play anything?" She finally inquires about whether I'm even suitable to be in a band.
"Yeah, I guess."
"I knew it! I could tell by looking at you that you're a musician."
"I'm not so good though."
"Don't worry about it. Listen, I've been putting bands together for a long time. I used to own a record store and everything. But now I teach, and I have lots of spare time and I want to start another project. And Asians are hot! This band is going to be great. What're you doing next week? We should get together and do a photo shoot. My roommate has a photo studio in the basement. It'll be hot."
"So, photo shoot before our first practice?" Dreams do come true.
"Yeah, what's your phone number?" I'm not one to pass up on one of the most ludicrous opportunity ever and she scrawled down my cell number on a crumpled ATM receipt. "I'll call you!" was the last thing she said to me.

It's been a couple weeks now, and I haven't heard from tweaker band producer. For a second, I thought perhaps that I might be able to partake in a bunk-ass Asian gay/transgender/monster version of the Spice Girls. That woulda been sweet! And HOT!

On Tuesday Portland broke the record high for the highest temperature in recorded history with 102 frickin' degrees. The heat was so oppressive that all I could do was lay still, and even then it was uncomfortable and sad. This city has the one of the lowest percentage of households with AC, I mean in LA even the dinkiest houses were fitted with some type of cooling device! Alls we got was a janky fan that would get stuck when it tried to oscillate. Boo!
So we did what every natural American should do in their course of Americanhood, we went TUBIN'! Oh my, oh my!
There I was, my yellow booty nestled in an inflated tire tube floating down the Sandy river, with the stifling heat all but a distant memory.
"You can't do this shit in LA!" I told Gus, as I kicked splashed him. The closest thing to tubing in Los Angeles was the time I fell into the LA river and probably contracted AIDS, Hep C and a huge batch of generic cooties.

It cooled considerably on Wednesday, to the point where it was kinda chilly out at night. But now it's settling back into a warm light summer. As I biked to Green Noise earlier today, I found myself thinking of how much I'm going to miss the nice quiet treks through these beautifully lush neighborhoods. How I'm going to miss the cool breeze and the sound of my own breath as I ride home drunk in the middle of the night. How I'm going to miss doing dumb junk with all my buddies. *Sigh*

As the departure date, August 3rd, approaches slowly/quickly, I find that my best defense mechanism against the stress is to just be lazy. I can be anxiety-ridden or I can sleep. I vote to sleep. Hopefully, in between my mid-afternoon napping and miscellaneous dumb junk I'll have figured out how to get myself to China in one piece.

After months of wetness of clouds, it feels like we're getting a beat down when it's 97 degrees out and the sun is in full effect. It reminds me of how much I hate heat. I don't mind it so much if I'm sitting beneath a tree, taking a nap or something equally lazy. But when I'm trying to bike to and from places, to run errands, I just wish there was a mini-cloud following me around overhead spraying mist.
How come life can't be more like cartoons and musicals?

Zie Zie, my new Macbook baby, arrived yesterday and the event could only be described as pee-in-my-pants worthy, even though I didn't wet myself. Since I don't have any real super software on here, alls I did was fuck around on Photobooth with Gus for about a half hour. Apparently, we are rather easily amused as we busted all of our guts laughing so hard at these dumb pics like these:

Going south in the middle of the road on SE 52nd, I'm waiting for cars to pass so that I can turn left. I glance at my mirror and see that traffic is moving steadily towards me from behind and I decide to get out of the road before the rush of big cars passes me. I turn left, in front of two cars. It was a slow move, not like quick cut-off and the car approaching north in front of me just slowed down and I made it fine. However, the car behind wasn't so pleased.
It was a late model sedan with all the windows rolled down heading north as I kept going west out of his view. It's irate driver honked aggressively at me and I turned back to see him shaking his fist angrily like I just ran over a nest of baby birds. He was an older white man, obviously empowered with the authority to tell me when I've wronged the rules of the road. His older white female companion sulked low in the passenger seat and looked at me blankly.
I was so discombobulated from the jarring honk that I became disoriented. It spooked me. I lost control for a second and my brain blanked and I forgot how to brake. I crashed into the grassy end of a sidewalk. My right shoulder and knee took the hit, and my helmeted head bounced lightly off the dirt. I got back up immediately, making sure that the mad-driver-dude hadn't seen me crash because I didn't want him to have that satisfaction. I imagine that a dude like that would have enjoyed seeing me stumble onto the sidewalk. I looked down the street and he was already gone.
My blue t-shirt had a slight grass stain, and when I rolled up my right sleeve I could feel the sting on my shoulder. I was mostly concerned about my wing because tattoos hurt, and getting one touched up because I retardedly crashed into the street would be no fun. Luckily, much of the scrape was right above the wing.
Moral of the story: next time a dude honks and shakes his fist at me, I ought to just flip him off and pedal as fast as I can.

After watching Incident at Loch Ness tonight, I have to make a couple confessions.

#1 I'm totally crushin' on Werner Herzog. This film, in combination with a recent New Yorker story on that crazy motherfucker has really got my googly girl eyes going! He's sooo nuts! And who doesn't love a lunatic?! [And an aside, if any of ya'll wanna get me an international subscription to The New Yorker while I'm in China, that would hella rule. I didn't used to like that magazine because I was under the not-so-misguided semi-mis-conception that it was just some high-falutin' highbrow stuff that I wouldn't understand- but I've been reading Gus's subscription and it made me realize that I really like their informative stories that keep be abreast on things I probably don't need to know about, like the latest in fake sugars and whether the Donner party really ate folks for fun, and they're the perfect length for my short attention span! But I do wonder if China would allow such material to touch their precious soil.]

So, back to the film... there's a character who is a crypto-zoologist, one Dr. Michael Karnow, a wacko "scientist" who explains that he doesn't wash his clothes because it degrades the fiber and thus destroys them. Instead he just hangs them on a line to air out. Like dry cleaning without any cleaning whatsoever. This notion seems ridiculous to everyone because soiled clothes don't clean themselves with wind blowing through it, duh! Anyway, it's a funny bit and Gus said that I reminded him of Dr. Karnow.
"Why?!" I asked puzzled.
"Because he doesn't wash his clothes and you don't use soap."
"He doesn't wash his clothes because he's a nutjob! I don't use soap because my skin's too sensitive! That's different!"
"Not really," he said.
There you have it, confession #2 I don't use soap. Most of my friends already know that, but I realized that the internet had not yet been privy to this information. But it's true, I don't use soap, not on my body, not on my face and only on my hands if need be. I really don't understand why everyone thinks I'm like some dirty dish rag because as far as I'm concerned I don't need to use soap. I don't have body odor or a dark sheen on my skin from years of scum accumulation, so what's the big deal? It also probably helps that I don't have a significant amount of body hair to trap all that yucky shit that the soap is supposed to battle. Actually, I feel sorry for all ya'll who are prisoners of suds and soap, just a buncha suckers who are victim to the monstrous hygiene industry.

P.S. Something may be happening soon, and I ain't want to jinx it, so I ain't gonna mention it till it does. But I just had to mention it because I'm a twerp.

Summer's schizophrenic here.
Three days ago, I wore my black hooded wool coat on a bike ride to pick up a craigslist purchase. The sky had been grey all day, threatening rain. The day before that, on Thursday, it had sprinkled dark water spots on my pants as I rode from work.
It's muggy and hot now, leaving me with a thin layer stickiness. Today, as I rode close-in to the river, the air had a stagnant poopy stench. But it could just be that I'm so goddamned hungover too.

Last night we crowded into Nat and Rene's house for Nick and Joni's going-away party. It was hilariously drunken and fun and complete non-stop nonsense. It was also filled with weird dynamics and small dramas that make you rethink putting so many drunken young people together in such a small space. I recall two missions I had: 1) to poke all dude's right nipples and 2) to poke all girl's left boobies. I succeeded mostly on mission #1, but got distracted by mission #2 when Elizabeth repeatedly rubbed her booty on me.
I also ate lots of tasty salmon.
Earlier that day, we had a yard sale where Nick and Joni gave away lots of their clutter and I sold Holy Shit! cookies for a dollar. I sold 8 and they're going into my Tampon Fund!

This weekend had been filled with a weird air permeating my pores. Maybe it's summer finally arriving.
As I left my shift at Green Noise on Friday, Ken told me about how a very young teenage girl bought The Post-It Diaries. He and I laughed at how I just destroyed her prospects of imagining anything but a lackluster adulthood amidst cubicles. I can't accurately describe how it feels to destroy hope and optimism, but it made me laugh nonetheless.
Then later that day, I stopped by Safeway to pick up some butterscotch chips for my cookies. The grandmotherly woman who was ringing me up asked how I was doing.
"I'm fine. How're you?" I automatically replied.
"Well, I'm good. But not as good as someone with such miraculous freckles! Look at em! There's just something so wholesome about freckles!"
"Oh, well, thank you," I said, slightly shocked by her declaration of my miraculous freckles. I really had to bite my tongue from telling her that I am about as un-wholesome as a the fast food industry and that lots of Asians don't dig freckles and they're almost considered blemishes.
It's bizarre to go from future-ruiner to miraculously wholesome in the span of a half hour, but I guess there's not other way of doing it.

It's nearly 1 AM and my armpits are sweaty. Welcome summer.

Portland folks cherish the sun and any excuse to party, especially when it's dry and yellow outside. 666 celebrations are abound today and the only evil I can sense in this town is the overwhelming havoc that it has lashed upon my sinuses. Portland is fuckin' my shit up, inducing allergy attacks with no warning. I know I've got a huge head, but I'm constantly surprised at how much snot is oozing out of it. It's draining, zapping lots of energy from me too. Anna said that her first spring here was terrible and now she's fine. I wonder if Portland is hazing me? As if getting soaked in rain while riding my bike to work, sneakers squishy with water and my whole body is damp for hours, as if all those months of grey wasn't hazing enough?

But I shouldn't complain because Gus, Jacie, Anna and I had our first full band practice last night. We're planning on playing my FUNraiser going-away party thingy in June and we have two songs! One of them is about Sriracha (the best chili sauce your taste buds have ever had the fortune of knowing) and the other song is about being a robot. We like to cover all the world's important issues. For about an hour, we settled on calling ourselves Tard Garden, but after a while Jacie felt guilty about it and she vetoed it and now we have to start over. (As if one should feel guilty about an image of a bunch of 'tards, sprouting deliriously from a garden!) Other names that have come up were I Feel Like Built To Spill, Hirarious, and Gus is particularly fond of Gus & Us.
We have practice again tonight, in a few minutes actually, so I'll let you know what kinda of completely stupidity we come up with this time!

My, what a busy busy week or so.
Here's a list run down because I'm not feeling particularly eloquent and prose-y.

. Finished Post-It Diaries. It was quite odd revisiting my old LJ posts of my short-lived career. I completed the zine exactly one year from the day I quit, May 20th. So many incredibly awesome things have happened within this past year that it made me realize I may have too many lucky stars to even begin counting.

. Did two readings! Paid readings! If we're talking about pay in exchange for time, I think I was paid about minimum wage per MINUTE! Keith hooked me up because he thought that my overtly obnoxious personality would make me a suitable reader-mate. We read at University of Oregon and an alternative high school. Jaden from Eaves of Ass was there too, and we were all collectively more nervous about reading to teenagers than at the Uni.
It was lots of fun, even though we spent most of the time recuperating from a party the night before. Ryan, our gracious host, had to drive our asses to and from Eugene (2 hours each way) and listen to us whine about our collective hangovers.

. Surprised I didn't get in a fight! So that party I mentioned above, it was for girl who busted out her front teeth while drunk on a bike. She had replacement dentures, that fell into the toilet while she was drunk vomiting, and consequently flushed. So that party was a benefit for her to get permanent teefs. I don't know the girl but that didn't stop me from loudly calling her "faces of meth" a few times after I had enjoyed about three cans of Sparks.
And then when Jacie's jaw dropped to the floor from hearing me say such terrible things, I justified it with, "What? It's true!"

. That same night Anna and I had a hankerin' for burritos and walked to La Casita where I found a wallet on the sidewalk. Anna googled the lady, whom the wallet belonged to, and called her up. She gave us a $50 gift certificate to a fancy schmancy restaurant on 17th and Hawthorne and we got to live like very poor versions of celebutantes for a couple hours where money was no object (as long as we had a gift certificate).

. Ordered a MacBook. !!!!!. I got the white 2GHz model (with upgraded 1G of ram). I was initially concerned with the white version, because they do offer a black version for $150 more (aesthetic rip-off), due to the fact that when I was a child a fortune teller told my folks that white was a bad luck color for me. But I asked internet's I Ching about the purchase, and it said it was a good idear. Gus relies heavily on the internet I Ching to help him make important decisions, and he's a white man who eats well and has never been to prison- so if the I Ching has been good to him then I figured it would work for me. So yeah, even though I was initially hesitant about the white purchase because of chinky voodoo- this thingy on the internet persuaded me with virtual voodoo.
Thanks Cormies!

. Got a physical. I need it to obtain a Chinese Visa because they don't want any inferior or infectious American folk fuckin' up all their billions of slantees. Getting a physical isn't a big deal, but when you don't have health insurance, it's a lot of wrangling. I've had a bad experience with a county health center and wasn't looking forward to this. The first place I called said they didn't have an appointment available until two weeks after I needed it. After many other disapointing calls, I phoned the SW Community Health Center that gave me an appointment two days after I first called!
I went yesterday and saw that it was a volunteer-run non-profit, staffed with seasoned MDs and first-year med students. It was kinda bizarre to see the young yellow faces of two Asian med students as I walked in because of our career-economic disparities. This is a leftover from having been raised by immigrant folks, when you see yellers in a place that is usually all honked-out, you notice all the little things. One of the med students, Monica, who didn't even look older than me, had to take my pulse using her cell phone timer because she forgot to wear a watch. It was kinda surreal to sit there in my dirty jeans, as she flipped open her Razor and felt for my heart beat.
In all, the SW Community Center visit was amazingly fantastic. I've never seen such a nice non-profit health center that relies solely on donations and government funding. Their staff was courteous and super friendly. It took me an hour and a half to get out there, but completely worth it considering that I only donated $20 and got a physical out of it.

Whew! No it's onward with planning the FUNraiser for moizes. There'll be a keggerz and mixed rink for a small donations. Anna and Jacie have helped find bands and a DJ for this party, so if you live in the PDX area, give me a holla and get up here!

Holy cow balls!
Global warming everywhere! Portland has been going through an unprecedented heat wave as of the last few days and it's killin' me! Sheesh, I surely did not move up here to get sweaty boobies just from walking outside! Even my wrists are getting drenched. My wrists, for chrissakes!
It's so hot that I called into work to tell my awesome boss, Maria, that I won't be coming in until this evening because it's too hot to work. And I have allergies to boot! It's such an oxymoronic experience, to be sneezing uncontrollably while praying for a/c!
I'm also working on a new zine The Post-It Diaries and it's so hot, it's difficult to concentrate on which pages go where and laying out old school, by way of cutting pages in half and taping them back together, is too much for my allergy-ridden, sweaty butt to handle!
Oh me, oh my!
I'll be at home until later this afternoon, where I'm going to half bike-half bus to the IPRC to continue on working on PID. It's too hot to bike anywhere because my jeans get so sticky to my knees from sweat! Everything is soaked and I can't think straight!
I'm ramblin'!
I have nothing coherent to say! Oh... except that Apple just came out with the new MacBook. Listen, I am sooo not a tech geek but I've been waiting for this all summer so that I can buy my first notebook ever! It'll accompany me to China so that I continue to do design work for Razorcake, write junk and watch bootleg DVDs!


[Update- 6:37 PM]

Check me out! I biked allll the way over herez! It's about 10 degrees cooler than it was yesterday, around this time, but it's still somewhere in the 80s. Yippee for the 80s!
Ramblin' again!

"Stress, allergies and PMS," I repeated to myself as I was riding to get to the bus that would take me north to Working Class Acupuncture. 

Only in Portland, it seems, would there be a non-profit clinic that offers acupuncture for as low as $15 a session. I was thinking about what to tell my acupuncturist when I got in to lay back in one of the cozy Lazy Boy chairs before she poked me with tiny needles. The three things plaguing me lately are stress, allergies and PMS.

The stress and allergies are nothing new, but I still find myself surprised when I realize that I'm PMS-ing. I didn't begin getting the syndrome until a few years ago, after a couple of years of being on the pill. I'm not one to take out my ovary-rage on others, instead my brain makes it so that I feel like a bipolar dish of wiggly noodles. I tried to make a new socially-aware sweet snack last night, something I'm calling the Solidarity Bars, and they didn't turn out at all.

I handed a chunk of the crunchy oatmeal bar to Gus, and after taking a bite he said, "Tastes burnt, man. Not even the chocolate stuff on top saves it."
"What should I do?!" I asked, clearly saddened by my baking failure.
He gave me that arched eyebrow, yea-this-sucks look before uttering, "I dunno. I ain't gonna eat it."

Ouch, like a dagger though my privates! I walked back into the kitchen and stared at my tray of burnt chocolate oatmeal and almost started to tear up. What the fuck, right?!

PMS the fuck. Right.

I'm gonna lay off baking until my brain restores its natural chemical balance. Hopefully, the acupuncture session has helped and I won't feel like crying over vegan snack treats again. Cause that shit is weaksauce and emo, and Jesus did not make me in his image to be all lame.*



*Ya'll love how I made two entries in a row about my coochie and how I end it with a Jesus reference?!  Ha!  So meh-tarded! 

You're the discerning public, right? You like to watch good television, correct? Well, lemme pitch you an idea for the next big hit sitcom. It's gonna make Friends look like C-Span in Seven jeans.

Picture this, you've got three kids in their mid-twenties sharing a two-bedroom apartment in southeast Portland. They're a married couple and the husband's best friend. The best friend and the husband dated for two and a half years while in high school and nowadays they're more like brother and sister trading jabs at each other at every oppurtunity.

Gus is the husband. Marah the wife. And I'm the best friend.

Gus and I talk so much shit to each other, it's a miracle that we've never made each other cry. Here's a sample joke that can be written into an episode:
"So, if you don't have feet, then you don't wear shoes, right?" Gus asked.
"Well, yeah."
"If you don't have feet, then you don't wear shoes?" Gus repeated.
"Yeah, no feet, no shoes." I responded.
There's a short silence and then he asks, "Then why the hell do you wear a bra?"

* * *

Last Halloween Gus dressed up like an apocalyptic bike gang warrior and Marah went as Frida Kahlo.



It was also around sometime last fall when we discovered that there was a small colony of maggots in our trash! Gus took a like for the buggers. He petitioned us to let him keep them as pets, but we were finally able to convince him to dump them in the compost. Before he parted with the little cootie-ridden maggots, he spent some time with them.



That story may make a good educational episode on what types of pets are acceptable. You know, to rid the world of ignorance with one less maggot-pet-owner at a time.

* * *

And if the staff writers should ever think that their sitcom gig wasn't sweet enough and go on strike, I've got a subplot that would write itself with its comedy gold: a long-haired white and grey cat with my name, Amy.



She's a sweet, retarded cat whose long fur seems to cover every inch of everything we own. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't have linger-poos that drop out of her ass after she's climbed out of the litter box and then someone inevitably shouts, "Amy shit on the floor again." For just a moment, I have to think about whether I have been black-out drunk recently and may have shat on the floor myself.

A few months ago I woke up to find that Amy puked in my room and it looked like poop. It also seems that little cat bitched aimed her vomit right onto my drum sticks. I couldn't help but to photograph this momentous event and then make it the wallpaper on Marah's computer.



See? Comedy gold? Okay, maybe comedy cubic zirconium.