P-Town

I'm home I'm home I'm home. The SLC airport was a mess, and I get nervous when I fly because I lack the necessary life skills to know what I'm doing and I'm usually pretty hopped up on cold meds to keep my ears from freaking out.(More on the history of my ears later) Luckily it turned out that M-Lite and I were on the same flight. Thank goodness is all I have to say. We flew in and then rode MAX to the Beaverton transit center to be picked up by our mom.

I've lived in Portland my whole life, but I've only been downtown 5 or 6 times, so riding MAX was a treat - I saw a million awesome old buildings, and a million more people smoking. I hadn't realized that I'd miss that. I saw a janitor-looking man in coveralls eating a banana, then on Morrison there were 6 chefs outside having a smoke, and they were all in their white smocks and hats which made me smile for no reason. There are random sculptures everywhere, one of which looked like the statue of liberty had taken off whatever that pointy thing is on her head and dropped it sideways to the ground. The Coliseum, the Rose Quarter, Pioneer Courthouse, Holladay Park, art galleries, small shops, and some really fat pigeons. I was stoked.

All I could do the whole ride was point and say, "treeeeeees! graaaassssssss!" because they abounded and I re-fell in love with Portland. It's like when you have someone you think you're over, but then you see them again and you know that you're not, and you're not going to be over them any time soon. That is Portland for me. The air tastes ridiculously good here - at one of the MAX stops someone brought on with them the piney scent of the outdoors, and it lingered for a good while. I'm in love with home. I've been drinking "Oregon water" non stop. I hope to eat a great deal of Tillamook ice cream as well. It's times like this that I wonder why I ever left home.

Our dad took us to eat at Shari's, a restaurant that Utah is seriously missing out on by not housing, and we ate dinner and dessert while catching up and our dad told us about a song about a dead skunk in the middle of the road. I think the title may actually be "Dead skunk in the middle of the road". I listened to it when we got home and then H and I went to hang out with her best friend A, who apparently had told everyone I was coming and it was supposed to be a bit of a welcome home party for me. When playing the game true colors, I got the most votes for questions: Who here would be most likely to have a secret tattoo? and Who at this table would get up and leave quietly when they're really mad? We went to Shari's for a second time, making me really full of mozzarella cheese sticks. We went back to A's, met up with another carload of friends, then all hopped to M's where we stayed and talked and hung out - M wrote an awesome song for his health class about why you shouldn't do drugs that I need to get a copy of.

I came home and slept - with finals and cleaning checks I'd slept less than 3 hours in the past two days. My dream last night consisted of the second coming coming, but it was kind of odd, because we knew it had come and we all still went around doing our normal things, a little bit more hurriedly than before, but everything was surprisingly normal - part of it even consisted of Flippin editing my English paper and him telling me that my characterizations sucked.

I woke up and my face was swollen for some reason. I went upstairs to get a second opinion but everyone was either gone or taking a shower, so when my brother F got out I asked him, " does anything look different about my face?!" he said no, and was probably confused and thinking to himself that this was one of those trick questions that girls ask, like does this make me look fat? I asked H and she said "kinda" until she saw it in the light and then changed her answer to "oh. yeah, you're really swollen." I called my mom and told her I probably shouldn't sleep in the basement then anymore because it tends to make whoever stays down there sick, so I moved into F's room.

F and I are the only ones home. We played duck hunt and he moved my mattress upstairs for me.He asked me if I wanted to make match rockets. I heard rat match rockets. I asked him if he was kidding. He responded with, "how would I be kidding?" and went off to get the matches and stuff and his book on backyard ballistics. We shot them off the front porch while we blared music from the computer downstairs and I ate an orange for the first time in 4 months. Next we're going to get a dry cleaning bag, some jellied alcohol, and make some sort of hot air balloon thing you can fly on a string. I'm excited for this.

When I'm home I listen to all of H's new music, and I heard the Decemberists for the first time that I know of. I'm in love with O Valencia! and need more. This song was just so sweet -

You belong to the gang
And you say you can't break away
But I'm here with my hands on my heart

Our families can't agree
I'm your brother's sworn enemy
But I'll shout out my love to the stars

So wait for the stone on your window, your window
Wait by the car and we'll go, we'll go

I'm also happy with bands "The Format" and "Cartel" and am looking forward to all upcoming musical exposure.

New fake hit song title from last night: Hungry for your lobster
Question F asked me: Do you need to be 21 to buy jellied alcohol?
Things they have here that I can't get in Utah: Tillamook ice cream, America's Northwest three berry blend jam, good tasting tap water, and my family

I'm cold and my face is swollen and I'm utterly happy to be home.