Presidents' Day

Happy Presidents' Day! That's the correct use of apostrophe, right? The day of more than one president? I think so.

I had a very lovely weekend in Portland with some good friends. It was so fun to make the trip down there, imagining myself in just 5 weeks driving to Portland, stopping for a bit, and then driving on south to San Francisco! Adventure awaits, and close at hand!

I had some great coffee in Portland, first at Coffeehouse Northwest http://www.myspace.com/coffeehousenw (weird that they have a myspace) and then at a brand new cafe and roaster called Sterling http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2010/02/sterling_coffee_roasters_to_op.html, which I guess was started by a barista from Coffeehouse Northwest. Small world, well, at least the coffee world is small.

In order to be very Portlandy Portland I also went to Powell's to sell some books. That place was craaaaazy! There was a line for everything and a million people everywhere. What makes crowded bookstores so much worse than, say, crowded restaurants is that everyone has to saunter around. Yeah, looking at books is a slow process and you want to stop and pick up a book that interests you, read a paragraph or so, put it back and move a step to the right and do it all over again. I'm the same way. But when there's a MILLION people around you it makes things kind of difficult! I kept trying to get from the Blue Room to the Green Room or the Pink Room to the Yellow Room and had to push my way past moms with fanny packs taking a thoughtful look through a Jan Karon novel and groups of college students looking for Can I Smoke This (no, guys, it isn't in the 'green' room but feel free to stand in a large clump right in front of the door). Jeez louise.

Overall Portland was great and catching up with friends and family was great too. I had happy hour with my brother and I'm sure we confused the bartender by being:

1. a man and a woman

2. close in age

3. at a bar together

4. on Valentine's day

5. related.

But we had a nice chat and watched some of the Olympics. Great times in Portland. Here's to jumping in to a full week!

Also, I can't get this song out of my head. Happy Presidents' Day, part 2:

Right now I'm sitting on the floor of my room waiting for fresh sheets from the dryer and listening to Willie Nelson "Stardust". Lookin at this guy:

When I think about moving it's a relief to know that I can do pretty much the exact thing I'm doing tonight wherever I go. I like thinking about this lately.

Things I can do anywhere:

1. Get coffee and read.

Which, if you know me, is pretty much like breathing. Books are great little friends. They stay the same and, wherever you are, you can go into the book and be there instead. Waiting for an oil change, sitting in the airport, freaking out (anywhere)...all of these can be blissfully interrupted with a little trip to "Mansfield Park". Or wherever.

2. Do yoga.

Ok, I don't really do yoga regularly. But I have before and I can start again and yoga is always the same. It's just you and your body and a mat. All I need is, like, 5 feet of space and maybe only 4 if I just do backbends or something. Backbends- yeah right.

3. Explore!

The scenery is different but the adventure is the same!

4. Make egg on toast and eat it while watching Hulu.

This happens a loooooooot. Shows I usually catch up on (sort of in order):

Modern Family

30 Rock

The Office (yeah, it used to be better, but it's just Hulu so come on)

Grey's Anatomy (see the above parenthesis)

And then there's YouTube...

5. Organize my external hard drive.

Thatswhatshesaid?

So, yeah, wherever you go, there you are. And wherever you go you can still do the things that are familiar and keep you grounded. If I were to make a mantra out of this it would be: I am me, wherever I am.

Yazoo

I can't stop listening to this song:

Make sure to wear flowers in your hair

I'm moving from Seattle to San Francisco at the end of March and, because blogging makes everything more fun, I thought I'd write about it.

I came to Seattle for college in 2003 and I've been living here ever since then. That's six and a half years. It's time for a change, right? I mean, my job is fine, my friends are great, my band is great, but I think I'm ready for an adventure. I'm excited and scared to get out 'on my own' and I think I'll grow a lot and learn tons about myself.

If you've ever moved somewhere new please feel free to comment and tell me what a positive experience it was.

So...things I've been doing so far to prepare:

1. I sold a bunch of books.

This was soooooo difficult for me! I have this thing where I like to buy books, read them, and then keep them around like I'm going to read them again, even though I never do. Rarely do. Sometimes I do. But I like to keep them because I can look at them on the shelf and think, "Oh, I remember when I read that book" and sigh over the memories surrounding it. Nostalgia and all that. But who wants to haul boxes and boxes of books to California? Not me. So I went to Half Price Books and sold them all.

I would not recommend selling books at Half Price. They don't let you stand there and tell them the story of every book in the pile while they're going through your stuff - instead you have to walk around the store until they're finished. Then you come back and they tell you some ridiculously low price for a giant stack and point to a teeny stack and say "These are the ones we don't think we can sell". So you have to seem calm while you snatch Persuasion out of the teeny stack and maintain your dignity while they write you your receipt. I would recommend driving down to Powells in Portland to sell books. Seriously.

2. I sold a bunch of clothes.

This was not as hard as the books but mostly because I got waaaaaay more money for the clothes and the ones I sold were ones I don't really wear. Totally different from the books. Way easier.

3. Listened to a lot of records.

This may seem unrelated but it's not. I'm trying to psych myself up for this change and Joni Mitchell "Will you take me as I am? Strung out on another man, California I'm comin home." and Stevie Nicks "I've been afraid of changing cuz I built my life around you. But time makes you bolder even children get older and I'm gettin older too." are really getting me there.

Yes, ok, there may have been a breakup in close proximity to this decision. Yes, it is an incentive to start over somewhere else. BUT I've been talking about leaving Seattle for a looooong time and now there's even less keeping me here so it's time to go! So my girls are helping me along the way- getting bolder as I get older and, hopefully, comin home.

That's it for now. I'll try to keep this updated as exciting (and non-exciting) things happen.