Stream of thought

One of the worst ways to find out your sister has died is coming in to Bean's and seeing her name on the deceased list.

Mark's hair has grown in and he looks a lot healthier. Mark is in his early twenties, he moved here for his g/f, they broke up and he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He also used to camp out at night during the summers because he couldn't stay in the shelter because his immune system was to weak to be around so many people. He spends most of his time at the library or the hospital, I want to be his friend.

While in Juneau we had mass in the chapel. The chapel was deep in the woods surrounded by water on three sides. It's probably the most beautiful and spiritual place I have ever been. The last day we had mass there and the priest was amazing. He said that in many of the villages when there's mass the whole community comes out for it. So when it's time for communion they allow everyone to participate in communion because it is such a community event. So for our mass the priest allowed everyone to take communion even if you weren't Catholic, I cried.

Starting in November we had a client come in who was suffering from some kind of dementia. Every day he would come in and ask the same questions day after day. He would also come in and say someone has to help me or I am going to die on the street. We got him a case manager and he disappeared about a month ago. I find out on Monday that he died on the street.

I have been listening to the same song over and over for the past hour.

For lunch I had salad, grapes, blueberries. It was very tasty.

Some days I get really annoyed with the Beanies.

Today I took a client on a van ride. He told me that he works every night from 4:30 to 1 in the morning. Then he walks 1-2 hours every night back to the shelter where he sleeps until they wake up everyone at 5:30.

I have some major gas issues right now.

I want

to cut my hair. I'm tired of having semi-long hair and I want to cut it all off.

Anyway I am sitting at a coffee shop right now. The goal was to finish my JVC essays for a second year and instead I've had 12 ounces of coffee, searched and stalked some people on facebook, and sang softly to some really good songs. The weather right now is amazing. I walked to the coffee shop this morning around 9 and the sun was just coming up over the mountains. I love mornings which are crisp and cool and it still seems like the whole word hasn't woken up. Now instead of sitting inside I could be on my way to snowshoeing with some housemates and FJV's but I have a semi twisted/bruised ankle. Now how did I twist my ankle some may ask? Well I don't know how much of the story I really want to tell in order to not lose all respect from the few people that read this blog. Well just one side note before I talk about that...this morning when I was walking I heard a rustling and I turn and a see a moose not too far eating and then I look some more and I see another one a few steps to the right. Times like those really make me happy to live in Alaska.

Well anyway as many know yesterday was my birthday. And as for birthdays go it was a really fun one. I got a really yummy cake delivered to my doorstep in the morning by a very nice lady. Then some of my housemates and myself went skiing downtown. Downtown is only a few miles from our house so it took only about an hour and the weather was great. A little chilly, but I was fine in a t-shirt and jacket. Once downtown we went on with out plan to go to Snowgoose and get a pint. It was funny because we kinda had a weird waitress. Snowgoose has 3 dollar pints during the winter months and we asked her what the special was and she was like "oh we don't have that anymore, that's only during the winter months." Hmm? Winter in Anchorage doesn't really end till the beginning of May. But not only that but Molly had been there the night before and gotten the special beer. So one of my housmates asked if winter was over which I thought was a valid question. And then Molly asked if winter ended at midnight last night. Anyway it was funny, but anway I guess the reason they ended the special was because fur rondy is coming up and a lot of tourists come in and thus no more specials. It's crazy here in the summer. All the hotel and motels double their prices and all the homeless people are displaced by the tourists. Right now there are weekly discounts so many of the homeless can afford to sleep indoors. And most of the restaurants have good deals/happy hour specials right now but that also all ends in the summer.

Well anyway on with the story, so the housemates and myself all have a pint and just sit back and chat for a few hours. It was really nice, snowgoose has a great view of the mountains and it was so clear that you could see Denali which rarely happens. Anyway as we are about to leave we go to the bathroom and then all of a sudden someone suggest we go to Darwin's as a joke. But the joke turns into reality. Darwins is a local bar down the street that has free popcorn and also place where most of the locals go. I've only been there once before at the very beginning of the year but it's a great place to go with friends. So the goal was to have one drink there, eat some popcorn and leave to ski back. Well lets just say that the locals here are very generous, especially the ones that pay with one hundred dollar bills. So anyway we ended up staying a little longer than expected and on the way back I fell while skiing and bent my ankle a little farther than it wanted to go. But we all made it back safe and sound and went back home to have some cake and talk some more. All in all it was a great birthday, I felt really loved.

Again

I fail to write once a week. I've been meaning to write something since Tuesday but I really feel like I have nothing to say. The last two weeks have been a blur, I go to work, I go to the gym sometimes, I go home and I go to bed at 9 and get up at 6 and the cycle starts all over again.

On Monday and Tuesday we had a two day bonanza with the community. We were supposed to do one on one's with the whole community over the two days and answer questions like "What is working in our relationship?", "How can we challenge ourselves more in this relationship?", and many others that were supposed to help us grow in our individual relationships. The premise was great but I really didn't get anything out of it. We had a closing circle at the end of the two days and many were saying how helpful this was and how they felt the doors of communication open in some relationships and I just felt tired and exhausted. For the most part I think my relationships in community are pretty great. Of course there might be some things that could be better but I have no idea how to change that. I'm as close to the people in this community as I am to any of my other friends for the most part. And then I had an epiphany. I don't know how to make friends. I either make friends in community or I date people outside of community. Community forces me to kinda have friends, I have to see these people day after day and opening up is kinda a requirement. But then when I meet people outside of community, I either don't put the effort needed in order for it to become a friendship or I end up dating them which is also kinda a forced environment where I have to open up. So that's what I came up with after the two days, and now I'm in a funk.

Juneau/How I stopped dating the bamboozler/ desire to write differentely

I am a very messy person…I am sitting on my bed with two apple cores and orange peels on the night stand. I have this desire to stay in a place for longer than a year. Before starting JVC I had this dream of living in five cities in five years and now I want nothing of it. It’s interesting to see how fast plans change in so little time. At the beginning of this year we were doing a community night where we were asked questions and then we went around and answered them. One of the questions at first seemed rather simple but I couldn’t come up with an answer. The question was “Where is home?” I guess the easy answer would be Indiana, but it doesn’t feel like coming home when I go there. For some reason I have this intense desire to find my home and I think that’s why I am becoming so stressed out about what to do in August. What if I move to a new place and it still doesn’t feel like I could live there for longer than a year? But then I remember to just step back and remember that I still have 6 more months in Anchorage and I need to challenge myself to live in the present. And yet again I write about none of the things I was going to in the beginning.

So Juneau was an amazing break from reality. Juneau is very beautiful, small town enclosed by mountains. The first 2 days were very rainy and snowy, but on the third day the sun finally came out and it was wonderful. I went out by the water and laid out on a rock in only my fleece. I could definitely see myself living in a place like Juneau if it wasn’t rainy all the time. In just three days I saw seals, bald eagles, and a whale…what more can you ask for? Well of course I need to see the sun at least once a week and that is not guaranteed in a place like Juneau.

Ah yes and I stopped dating the bamboozler. Last Thursday I went to first tap but I never even got to see the band. We ended up talking for close to 3 hours and I will spare the details of what was said. In the end she ended up leaving and I ended walking home with a bruised heart but I am doing a lot better than I expected. The next day I left for Juneau which couldn’t have been better timing. Looking back on it, I am still happy that it happened because I learned a lot about myself but I just wish that it happened a lot sooner.

I have this desire to write differently. I read other people’s blogs and they are so funny and deep, and I want to write like that. I don’t want to just write what I’m doing…I don’t know if I can translate the things I’m thinking into words. I will have to ponder this some more and see what I cam come up with. Maybe I need to write more so I don’t use the entries to catch up what happened in the past week.

Also today I asked my supervisor for a recommendation for a second year. So I guess I am officially applying for a second year. It’s a little scary to think about living in community for another year but it’s even scarier that the unemployment rate in Portland is nine percent. Living in community is hard and life giving, but after 4 years of it I wonder if I should try something else. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I kind of like the idea of getting a job and making some money…I wonder if that’s what I’m supposed to want after doing JVC?

I am unhappy with this entry but I will post it anyway.

Milk/How I went back to dating the bamboozler

I need to take a shower but for some reason if two people are taking a shower at the same time (in different showers of course, people get your minds out of the gutter) then only cold water comes out so I must wait and what better to do than to write.

So I just got back from watching “Milk” which is pretty amazing and by pretty I mean a great great movie. It surprises me to know how little I know about the gay rights struggle. What else is scary is how parallel the stories are with their fight against proposition 6 and the recent struggle with proposition 8. It’s also interesting that Anchorage will be having a town hall meeting on the 11th to discuss gay rights and if both straight and gay anchorage citizens are ready to start the fight for equality. I am rather excited for the meeting, I have no idea what to expect. It could either be like 10 people or the type of meeting where you expect very few people to show up and then you walk into the room and it’s packed. I miss the energy from such meetings where everyone is united and fighting for the same cause. I will keep you all posted.

So yes the second part of this entry is to discuss how I went back to dating the bamboozler. I feel like I need a name for her since I don’t really want to date someone called the bamboozler. Well I can’t come up with anything so if anyone has any ideas that would be great. Alright so where to start? I tend to not write a lot about my dating life here because it’s just so thriving that there’s not enough space. Haha I am joking. Well I guess I left the last story at the bamboozler dropping me off without saying thanks, and me face planting on the driveway. So the weekend comes around and I go out with my housemates to celebrate one of my roommates getting into grad school. As I’m sitting with my friends, I get a text message from oozler and she asks what our plans are for the night. I had invited her before she left for the Galapagos to come over to the house I was house sitting at and I was going to make her dinner. Now this was all before the incident and I was pretty much done with oozler so I was surprised to hear from her. I was used to going out with her and then not hearing from her for a week or two. But now she wanted to come over and hang out and not go out. So yes my fellow readers I got suckered back in with a promise of a night in and a bottle of wine. So oozler came over, and we cooked some lentils and wheat berries, and she brought some broccolini which gave her some points. Anyway it was a nice night, we talked and I told her I didn’t appreciate that she didn’t thank me and she gave me a gift from the Galapagos. Ahh so yes I was brought back into the trap. The next morning she invited me out for breakfast and the rest is history. It’s nothing serious, a few dates now and then. We both realize that it probably will never go beyond dating, she’s leaving in May to go back to teaching in the village and I will moving in August, hopefully by then I will know where I will be moving. So there you go that is the rather unexciting story of how I started dating the bamboozler again.

Alright so dating, I was going to finish this post but there has been a new update. So this is probably the first time that I have actually been dating people. Now I don’t really understand dating or the rules and I haven’t really mentioned this before but I might not just be dating the bamboozler. So around October I met this girl lets call her Sarah. Sarah is rather nice, and we’ve bumped into each other from time to time. But recently me and Sarah have been texting a little more and this where the dating gets complicated. Sarah knows about bamboozler and is not happy. I was under the impression that Sarah couldn’t just go on dates with someone who was already going on dates with other people and I am ok with that. I don’t understand the dating many people thing so it’s fine with me. But now as I was writing this I get a call from an Alaska number and I answer it and it’s Sarah. Now this is the first time we talk on the phone and she asks me out which is great…right? So now what do I do with the bamboozler? I mean I have to tell the bamboozler that I am going on a date with someone else, but the whole Anchorage community goes out to the same place. So now on Friday the 13th, how perfect is that, I might have the most awkward date of my life or maybe it will be nice. I really must take a shower now.

Redoubt

So I see that I failed at my goal of writing at least once a week. It's not that I feel like I am even that busy, maybe just lazy.

So last week happened and I can't seem to remember it. Ah yes on Friday we had Mid Winter Mayhem at our house. Mid Winter Mayhem was created to help with the boredom and coldness of the winter. It's pretty much a smaller version of the Olympics with opening and closing ceremonies and events like the luge, ice dancing, spelling bee, limbo, and then pool, darts and foosball which were to be held at our house on Friday. The part was pretty fun, I went to bed around 11 but I think people didn't leave until 2 or so. But the best part was that one of my roommates started talking to a guy by the name of Dave who was randomly invited. Dave is a professor at the university here in Anchorage and they just hit it off. The minute he walked in the door I could tell they would hit it off, it's so much fun to watch from the outside. But on the downside I agreed to go with her to First Tap this Thursday because she invited Dave along and wanted some of us to go with her. I don't know how it happened but now I am the only one going, so yes I am officially the third wheel. Oh and First Tap is when the local brew house unveils a new beer and a band comes in and plays some tunes. I've been to it once before and I would say every young person in Anchorage comes out for it. But yes the dilemma of being the third wheel. Of course I can't let myself do that, so yes I had to make a few calls and this Thursday I will be going on my first double date. And I don't know how far I want to go into my dating life in this post but I may be going with the bamboozler from a previous post. Yes I know, but I will explain in a later post. Or maybe no one even reads this so I don't have to feel guilty. But stay tuned and I will for sure write about how my first ever double date goes.

What other tidbits of information do I have? Hmm this past Saturday I went out and had some Vietnamese food at Pho Lena. It was a great place, very small and Pho Lena herself was there. The food was great, the windows were foggy, and yes I was out with the bamboozler. But let me just say living on 80 dollars a month one cannot refuse a free dinner out. So Saturday was a nice night and then Sunday morning I went skiing on the coastal trail. So pretty, crisp, and sunny. I've never loved the sun so much before moving to Anchorage. We also skid on the lake, which was fun until I heard cracks and then I peed my pants...of course j/k. But I loved the weekend, a nice getaway from work.

This weekend I will be going to Juneau for our second retreat. We will be flying which I hate but hopefully worth it because I get to see Juneau which I have heard is breathtaking.

And lastly I just received an offer from a client which was really hard to resist. He offered not only dinner but a taxi ride to dinner, very clever I must say. But he also offered...a bicycle for the summer. I will give him points for the originality of his request, but sadly I denied him. So I guess I won't accept every free dinner that comes my way.

Oh and I guess there is a volcano by the name of Redoubt that might blow at any time. We have to carry masks with us and not wear contacts. Apparently the ash is like glass and can get into your eyes and scratch your corneas. It all depends on the way the wind blows when it explodes, we might get ash for a few days or none at all. We're supposed to have 2 gallons of water per person just in case which we don't have, but maybe we can barter with our 60 pounds of wheat berries.