Bitter Blossoms in 2014

I'm here. I live in Portland now. I've left nearly everyone I know behind, again. All because I am insane and have to give the whole rockstar thing an honest attempt. I can't say I'd have it any other way.

Things are far from perfect. The couple that I live with generally has some sort of underlying tension existing between them. Chris can be grating at times, though he is talented at bass and the best shot I have of starting a band with someone right now. His girlfriend, Ella, is just kind of here right now, but I think it will be good for her too, as there is a large theater scene and that's what she loves.

I've been in a weird vacationy period between jobs. My last day at the Medford center was the 22nd, and I've been on PTO since then. I start tomorrow at the Gresham center. I have a pretty sweet schedule, four 10 hour shifts Tuesday-Friday. Already I'm being treated much better than I was in Medford. The drive will suck, Gresham is 45-ish minutes from Hillsboro. We were supposed to start work on the 3rd at the Hillsboro center, but it's been delayed until the 20th. Oh well, at least we are working. Our apartment is very nice but rather expensive, so working is certainly required.

I have been making slow strides to exercise more and eat better, as have the roomies. We've been hitting up the pool in the apartment complex every day, and doing a little routine of squats, pushups, crunches and planks once a day. There is a tiny little exercise area attached to the office of the complex, as well as a sauna. We haven't experienced those yet, as they are having trouble with the key cards for new tenants. It's been a couple weeks, I'm realizing the staff is rather inept. We were given two unactivated keycards, only one house key, and only one mail key. We didn't even realize the other "house key" was a mail key until we tried to use it. Oh well. Too late to back out now, haha.

I took out a 1200 dollar loan for moving expenses, and it's pretty much gone now, d'oh. It won't take too long to pay back once we start getting full-time checks and Ella finds work, it just sucks since the burden is all on me. I have been making the most of my free time I suppose. I've been out and around downtown Portland several times, I checked out OMSI(a pretty cool science museum) and have eaten at some awesome burger and sushi places. The nightlife feels distinctly different than Medford, and the only place we've really been to was Ground Kontrol, a barcade. You have to pay to park anywhere downtown, but there are young people everywhere, and well, they are generally more attractive than similarly aged people in Medford. Augmented by that are a fairly regular stream of presumably homeless people who badger you for money or cigarettes. I enjoy downtown and plan to frequent it but I am glad to live in a much tamer suburb.

I was going to look over my OD the other night, but I can't find my archives anywhere. I guess I must have accidentally deleted the backups I downloaded right before the site died. It's a huge bummer, but I have always been one to dwell on memories way too much. I could probably be considered a cold person if someone knew my thoughts now, but there is still that part of me faintly existing that is extremely interdependent. I never forget about people who have made some sort of lasting impression on me. Even people online who I haven't chatted to in years and who I know I'll never see again. It's odd that I went from being so warm and sentimental to being detached and isolated. It may not be unlike a teenager who is kept on a short leash by their parents and rebels because of it, going crazy in the process.

I have been wanting to post some lyrics again for a while, like I did eons ago on OD, but the formatting on this site is terrible. It doesn't space out lines of text very well, so everything runs together. The best I can do is just link to my dust-ridden devniantart page. I'll start wth my favorite. I feel like it's feasible to create it within a few months, even though I'm still pretty terrible on bass and have no knowledge of how to produce music. I hung out with a couple friends a week ago and discovered that one of them is really into music and a badass on guitar, plus he is trained in other things. I think he will be able to help me out once I am ready. I would like to collaborate on other stuff with him if that works out, as Chris and I have some similar music tastes, but he isn't into anything heavy, and a lot of the stuff I'd like to make will be hard rock/metal.

Smoldering