***Warning: the following post is almost ridiculously long. Not too many pictures...mostly words...I apologize in advance.***
Below is as close as I'm gonna get to a comprehensive List of Things I Have Learned After My First Time Moving On My Own to a City (Specifically Portland). The title was a bit long, so now you understand the shortened version.- Portland lives up to all of its stereotypes. Sorry, guys, you know I mean it in the nicest way. It's just...there ARE people who use double-tall bikes as transportation, and there ARE more beards than people here. And this is city is so white we won't even notice the no-snow winter. We're still cool, though, right, Portland? .....but really, this town is pretty boppin, and for people obsessed with food (moi), it's dangerously delicious. For people with bikes it's just dangerous.
- No sales-tax doesn't make it as easy-living as I assumed. In theory, I don't mind paying taxes. You know, assuming that they are going to programs for education, health care, and aiding the middle class. However, knowing just where my taxes are going (abstinence programs and current/future wars), I feel a bit more peeved upon seeing the tax deduction on my paycheck. Even so, I don't really pay that much attention to the Oregon income-tax; why should I when I don't pay sales tax for my Sweet-Tequila Burrito at Pepino's? Plus, my paycheck isn't big enough to really have that much taken out by state taxes. Oh, wait....THAT'S the problem. Coming from a big-industry state like Washington, I definitely expected higher wages in a state so proximal to my homeland. Such is not the case. There are so little jobs and so many jobless baristas, that starvation-wages and the promise of a free macchiato is enough to earn their loyalty. Nothing like minimum wage and coffee-less grumps to get your sense of self-worth down...but, hey, that's what travel is for.
- Working too much is no fun for anybody. For a while there, I had zero days off...In fact, there were a couple hellish weeks in which my coffee shop shift was followed by an all-night pastry internship, and after 5 hours of sleep I was somehow back at the coffee shop, as if I existed in a sick 24-hour marathon of coffee and cakes. I got grumpy, and stressed, and imbalanced-- but most of all just tired. Really freaking tired. So I quit one of my jobs. I'm about to leave another to go traveling, and I already feel better. Sure, I needed the money, and the experience was great. But now that I know what that feels like, why don't I go see how sleeping under the stars in Theodore Roosevelt National Park suits me? (That there's an insider clue to my travel plans)
- Being alone is fun, until you realize you're alone. I get plenty of things done when I'm alone. When I first moved here, I was getting a lot of writing and reading done, and even a little artwork. As I feel inspiration waning, I find myself focusing a lot more on my loneliness. And if I know one thing about myself, it's that I have an impeccable ability to over-think things. So, through my circuitous soul-searching, I have concluded that being alone is just fine and dandy, until your brain, heart, and appetite realize that they simply can't go on making family-sized dinners for one. It's time to be around my friend-family once again (and maybe my real family can join in on the fun if they don't mind stomaching a few vegetarian meals).
- I need to stop saying "yes" so darn much. #1 talent: I am super good at doing favors. Somebody's all like, "Hey, Maddie, can you make me a pie?", and I'm all, "BAM. You gotta pie." Or, it's, "Yo Maddie, I got, like, twelve people coming to dinner with me tonight, dat aight?"-- and I coolly reply, "I had the feast planned yesterday." As much as I have fun helping people out...I have slowly been awakened to the sad truth that the world doesn't actually turn in a 'what-goes-around-comes-around' fashion. A more accurate idiom would be: what-goes-around-keeps-on-going-until-the-fountain-of-going-runs-dry-and-then-falls-asleep-standing-up-due-to-mental-and-physical-exhaustion. Actually, if you've read Ishmael, I'll be damned if the world isn't just a big ol' mess of takers and leavers, with leavers outnumbered 10:1. I'm lucky in that my closest friends always help out in one way or another. I just need to learn how to pronounce the word "no" more accurately, so it stops coming out sounding like a big fat "yes"--before the takers take me over.
- Moving isn't so hard, after all. I am pretty excited that I got myself out there and moved for the first time. The fact that I'm leaving has (mostly) nothing to do with this city-- as I've re-hashed more than is probably acceptable, it has more to do with the concept of movement rather than stagnancy. I just need to release my emotional attachment to books....then moving would be A LOT easier!
I think that is about as much as I'm willing to write about all that. Your eyes probably hurt, anyway. By the way, I have been writing this over the course of a week...so if my tone has shape-shifted, I apologize.
I do, however, want to leave y'all (I like to believe I am writing to an audience greater than 2 or 3) with some musical inspiration--as per usual. The following songs have been hanging around my brain while I've been here--enjoy, and thanks for suffering through another extensive Madeline-sermon.
Bob Dylan- Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie-- Just click the link and close your eyes. Probably my favorite poem ever; inexplicably bone-chilling. There's no way you can't identify with a part of this poem.
Not normally a Joni Mitchell fan, but this song is pretty alright....maybe I just really want to be warm...
Wonderful Swedish sisters covering a bad-ass Swedish electro artist....gaahhh so good!
Ramblin Jack Elliott is awesome, this song is beautiful. That is all.
Buffy Sainte-Marie-- Welcome, Welcome Emigrante- I LOVE Buffy, and this song is so tongue-in-cheek about the hypocrisy of ostracizing immigrants in America (Buffy was a Cree Native American).
Oh yeah.....
And I got a car.
See YOU soon.
