PDX PDQ

I actually wrote the following post some time ago, but I have not yet posted it to this blog. I was trying to make a sort of professional blog, but I have abandoned that pursuit. I have decided that I will just make this a miscellaneous blog; should I ever want to reference my blog writing, I will, hopefully, by that time have a website courtesy of some friends who do web-design--boosting the professionalism of my portfolio while padding their portfolios with another qualifying project. Collaboration is wonderful.

Anyways, I am on the verge of a new adventure in a familiar setting: I am planning on returning to Ann Arbor to embrace certain comforts. One of those comforts being the woman I love. Now is as good a time as any to reflect on what it was like to feel alone while embarking on an adventure to an unfamiliar but at-the-time-promising location.

I have enjoyed Portland (PDX), and I continue to enjoy its fruits: good coffee, unique beers, supportive camaraderie, mild winter, constantly green foliage, free public transportation, etc. Portland is not for me right now, though. My heart is elsewhere, and I feel as thought I am denying my passions by trying to force myself to find a job here.

Fear not, I head to Ann Arbor with cautious optimism (and zealous ambition). I will need to find a job there. AA will not be the same it once was when I was benefiting from the glories of the University's motherly embrace. But there are people I love and streets I know. I need that after my most recent adventure in PDX.

Enough preamble! Here is a brief photo-essay I created en route and upon arriving in PDX. Thank you to the wonderful people who have welcomed me in PDX, and thank you to those who have allowed me to come to realizations about myself at my own pace.

South of Pike's Peak, Colorado: My '93 Jeep Cherokee clamors on to "Everything in its Right Place" by Radiohead. All parties aware of my drive from Denver to Portland via Santa Fe and Los Angeles also know that the car will be shot once it gets to the Northwest--if it gets to the Northwest.

A cold snap has bid me farewell from my parents' house in Denver. It would have been better timing if the temperatures dropped tomorrow. Now my cloth-sided Pumas have absorbed melted snow, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to warm my icicle toes. If I turn on the heater, a burning smell will flood the Jeep; unless I turn off the radio. I try low-heat. Wet socks on or off? Off. How will I dry them? I drape them over the dashboard vents. I feel a draft on the bottom of my feet. The Jeep's body is nearly rusted through. The foliage is shifting from pine to juniper. I'm hitting New Mexico with one foot on a heater, two socks on the dash, and only a vague sense that I am going somewhere.

Route 66 outside Santa Fe, New Mexico: After "Almost Cut My Hair" by CSNY, I kill the engine to hop out for a photo of the red mesa in the distance. A setting sun bounces light off the clay faces, but I feel no thermal reflection. It's still December in Santa Fe.

Being on Route 66 forces me to consider the meaning behind road trips--my road trip. Thirty-some-odd-years-ago, my dad hitchhiked here. It was once safe to hitch. Now, it's not.

I sometimes wonder if paranoia like that of hitching aren't part of the zeitgeist, but I don't have the courage to test these limits.

Others told me I was courageous for declining my Peace Corps assignment in Rwanda. I agree, but sometimes I don't. What could have been if I could have seen past my concerns for security, ethics, roles, etc. ad-nauseum. Maybe I had the fortune of being courageous regardless of my decision.

Can one be courageous if he or she doesn't feel courageous?

Questions about how to find comfort ring through me like Neil Young's echoing pitch. So much of the quintessential road trip is a path to self-discovery or self-uncovering. I like to travel, so I'm traveling. I like to take in as much as I can, so I'm driving. I like being with friends, so I'm moving to live with one of my best friends. I like the nature, and coffee, and fresh food, and beer, and bikes, and public transportation, and thrift, and innovation, and liberal minded people, and diversity, and hiking, and wildlife, and whatever, so I'm moving to Portland.

I think I have a strong sense of self regardless of the part of my identity represented by my weak Jeep that's creeping slowly towards the junkyard and regardless of this legendary southern road that acts as an artery of romantic adventure.

The "road trip" is so stereotypically about a search or an escape.

With a failing economy and pressure from some to excel and pressure from others to explore, I'm searching for somewhere quiet where I can process or where an answer will be readily available on a silver platter and accompanied by a glass of wine and a hospitality suite--all paid for by the justices of the karmic courts. I smile for the timer on the camera.

While living with my parents and without any social outlet, I felt all too familiar with the depressingly overwhelming inundation of contemplative silences. Too much isolated reflection in the suburbs leads to feelings of hermetism, but without the benefit of integration with nature. I'm escaping raucous isolation.

But, I'm well-aware that my finances will probably run-out. And, I'm well-aware that my path may bring me back to my parents' home.

Maybe I'm searching for confidence in the arbiters of karmic justice. I've worked hard and ethically.

A shiver and a sigh. I look back from the mesa to my Jeep. It's no warmer in there than out here.

I have to be in Flagstaff by nightfall. Time to get off the scenic route and back on the interstate.

Outside the Mojave Desert, California: It seems to me that Andrew Bird's "I'm in a Lull" could echo through this valley and off the backs of every gila monster.

The morning after I couchsurf in Flagstaff, I discover my Jeep is dead. Another jab at my liberty to roam freely. My host (who is sporting a Ponce de Leone facial hair revival) helps me secure a mini-van to finish my pilgrimage to Portland. He pats me on the back and wishes me luck.

I rumble on in my mom-mobile.

Balboa Park, Los Angeles, California: I find comfort in reconnecting with a cousin who I haven't seen since before she was pregnant with her now four-year-old son.

Reassurances that my roots exist matches Sly's "Sing A Different Song"; I'm out of my woods and making a leap of faith forward. I'm moving.

Big Sur, California: I take each challenging curve to the sounds of Coltrane's "Giant Steps."

Sequoias bend over steep cliffs and towards a sun that peeks through looming rain-clouds.

The air chills as I move north, and I am now far from the hang-gliders who soared with Soullive over Moro Bay.

Mt. Shasta, California: I complete a 400-mile, non-stop push to the Cal-Oregon border as Andre 3000's "Favorite Things" falls into silence. A necessary bathroom and lunch break allows for reflection.

Last night, an old friend confessed his inner tumult and slight cynicism for his role as a teacher in Oakland. I feel a similarly optimistic cynicism.

A certain clarity emerges. How have I forgotten my passions for activism, for spreading knowledge, for the power of pedagogy, for creativity.

Maybe I'll find something in this line of living in Portland. Maybe I'll wait tables. At least I can achieve a certain peaceful silence in my mind. The Rockies' chill is behind me.

"Lost" Thoughts: Part I.c

I had a sort of "a-ha!" moment midway through the final episode. I believe some sort of contrived and hackneyed dialogue between Jack and Locke about fate and the island and blah blah blah provoked me to realize: I enjoy "Lost" because it is classically gothic. Substitute the haunted house as a character for a haunted island as a character. The show is a melodrama, a mystery, a horror, and an action; thus, the show is a wonderful pastiche. Gothic. Nicely done Sir Abrams. You pulled a fast one on me.

Speaking of fast ones, those final episodes quickly switched the path of certain questions and plot points. Additional questions that may serve as amendments to the preceding ones:

What's the deal with the black smoke?
What's the deal with the moving black smoke?
What was pulling Locke into that hole?
Did you see a chain, because I saw a chain...?
What do the others want with Walt?
How are the raft folk going to navigate back to the island?
Are the others affiliated with the black smoke?
Are they affiliated with the monster/security system?
Is the black smoke affiliated with the monster/security system?
Is Charley really going to have to struggle with Heroine again??? Really?
Come on. Can't we move forward in the writing?
Am I to believe the romance between Shannon and Sayid?
Was Ernst explosion necessary?
What's down that hatch tube?
Why's that ladder broken?
How are they going to get down?
Are the flight survivors really at risk now that the others aren't actually coming after them?
Where is that speed boat going?
Is Locke a religious freak or just spiritually super connected?
What is the deal with Hurley's numbers?

So, I also think it would be fit to make some predictions.
1) Jack and Kate hook up.
2) Sawyer and Kate hook up.
3) Sayid and Shannon give it a shot, realize they're both only shadows of legitimate characters, and Sawyer and Shannon hook up.
4) Locke becomes invaluable in exploring some new aspect of the island.
5) The flight survivors find supplies curiously well-stocked in the hatch.
6) The flight survivors find showers, AC, and a barber shop in the hatch.
7) The island is a space-time warp.
8) Langoliers show up.*
9) Walt is meant to be one of the others.
10) Vincent will have some sort of significance. Why else would a dog be on the island?

Ten solid predictions. I thought the season ended well, and, fortunately for "Lost" and all associated therein, the "bonus" episodes, courtesy of Netflix's format (Part I.b), propelled the show up a full star notch.

"Lost" Season One: Three.5 out of Five stars.

*I may have revealed a new low in my geekdom.

"Lost" Thoughts: Part I.b

It seems that Netflix Instant's format has created a fortuitous twist in my "Lost" watching endeavors. Two of the final episodes of Season 1 were hiding in a different menu.

This is stupendous for so many reasons that link into what I dig about "Lost." Mostly, this sort of "now you see it, now it's something totally opposite" style of divulging the island's shenanigans is one of the series most valuable assets.

I will have to amend my season-summarizing questions after watching the next episodes.

Bravo Netflix, "Lost," and the island that seems to be conspiring to earn my favor.

Instantly boosted to 3 out of 5 stars.

"Lost" Thoughts: Part I

Courtesy of Netflix Instant, I am now able to catch-up on all the pop-culture programming that I missed over the past few years. Sometimes I have elected to miss the shows or movies because they seemed passing fads to me. My free time has been precious and sparse, and I need to know that I am diving into a worthwhile distraction instead of a vacuum of brain cells or a frustration provacateur.

My recent indulgence has been "Lost." So, with only slightly further adieu, my wrap-up of the first season. N.B. There may be some sort of spoiling involved here, though given the premise of the series, one in which questions are the point instead of solved mysteries or grand reveals, I am not too preoccupied with offending anyone. Here we go:

As I come to the close f the first season of JJ Abrams and co.'s "Lost," I am annoyingly filled with questions which I know will not be answered in any of the next few seasons. I know this because the rate at which the show generates mysteries without constructing a realm for resolution seems to be the strong point upon which all the rest of the series is built. While I am sure certain intricacies and nuances will be fleshed out, I am also sure that the writers and producers will gladly throw more complexities, twists, and mysteries at me.

To summarize the season, I believe all the unanswered questions will suffice. I will try to recount all of them, but you should feel free to lambast me for missing a crucial plot point. Remember that this is just the first season:

What's with the polar bears?
What's with the forest whispers?
What's with the monster/"security system"?
Where the hell did Ethan come from?
Who are the "others"?
What did they want with/do to Claire?
What's with the psychic's reading on Claire and her baby?
What's the story behind the Black Rock?
What illness took Rousseau's people?
Where's the radio tower?
What's with the hatch and the light inside?
What's with Hurley's numbers?
Are they a Pandora's box?
Is this some sort of time-space splicing island?
Is this some sort of afterlife island?
Is this some sort of purgatorial state for more than just the viewer who is stuck between intriguing questions and frustratingly banal character development?
What's with the Nigerian priest-pilot and the heroin?
Where is this island?
What's with Locke's dreams?
What's with his legs/nonparalysis/occassional paralysis?
Is Locke's faith in the island dangerous?
How come Locke is so savvy and capable?
Why was he crippled?
What made him move to the box company?
Why was Hurley in a mental hospital?
What's with Jack's dad on the island?
What happened to Jack's marriage?
What's with Jack's tattoos--they seem so uncharacteristic?
What will happen with the raft?
What is Walt's super power all about? Future telling? Telekinetic?
What's the point of Vincent?
What happened to Kate and her husband?
Did she actually murder someone?
Why is she always running?
Did Sawyer ever find the real Sawyer?
What's with Sawyer's vindictive boar?
Who will Kate go for: Jack or Sawyer?
What is on either end of the cable leading to Rousseau's hideout?
What's the deal with the shoddy compasses?
What is up with the black smoke?

I suppose I should give the creators some credit. They have somehow disregarded reasonability and the audience's need for explanation, yet they have manufactured a hit show that captivates me amongst millions of others. That is the greatest mystery of "Lost": How do they make a show so annyoing and rife with shortcomings and yet grip my cynical attention?

My biggest complaints about the show are mostly related to character and dialogue writing. We go through the show only to find that each character brings a crucial element to the tribe's alchemy, but each character ends up type-casting their role in the daily mini-dramas that unfold on the island.

These mini-dramas seem to be time-filling devices demonstrating the shoddier half of the writing. The mini-dramas are thinly veiled depictions of the show-creators' alchemy: Which characters, when paired together, will produce television gold? The characters never seem to learn from their own mistakes or observe the way in which the others (equally stagnant characters) will respond to to certain scenarios. This results in regular disputes that I feel have reached the limit of permutations with regards to who is involved in the dispute. I have to believe that someone on the island would at some point acknowledge the absurdity that they all keep falling into the same roles in these disagreements.

A quick stray complaint: I can never tell if Sayid is being provocative, humorous, playful, sympathetic, or thoughtful. If he's not angry, he employs puppy-dog eyes, a faint smirk, and a patronizing forehead furrow.

Also, "Lost" is far too obvious about which characters the audience should hate:

-The underdeveloped, poorly explained, irrationally-constant-scrooge that is Michael: He's so isolating, angry, consistently stand-offish, and terrible at fathering Walt.
-The underdeveloped, poorly explained, and crudely acted Shannon: She's so oblivious, selfish, and prone to glazing her eyes while cocking her head and leaving her mouth slightly agape.
-The dismissable Jin is so unneccessary that the writers only provide subtitles to his Korean every now and then.

Why are the writers even bothering with the other, non-named characters of the Oceanic flight? And are they really serious about introducing the science teacher in the season finale? That dude is going to get eaten. We all know it. Also, are we really supposed to believe that Walt, Michael, and Sawyer will not be back to the island. Please. Taking note of the questions above, I realize that the show will not leave Walt's super power unexplained or Sawyer's drama with Kate and Jack left unresolved. And if Walt survives the raft, so must Michael--network television is not dark or twisted enough to burden the island or Walt himself with an orphanhood. Stop giving me obvious answers. These are distractions from the ten new mysteries per episode. Oh, and I am not remotely interested in whether Jin survives the raft. He was dead to me ever since he dipped out of the warm meal San made for him.

All in all, season one has been gratifying in its provocativeness and ability to at least begin integrating me into another niche of pop-culture. It has failed to "wow" me with acting, dialogue, or character development. I am definitely impressed with the style that transcends the show's inner time via flashbacks. I am also impressed with the audacity of the looming questions that the show makes glaringly obvious it doesn't have to answer for the audience's sake. They don't pander to me. I like that.

Two.5 out of five stars.

My Sincerest Apologies

My friends and readers,

I owe you an apology for being so aloof recently. To call my writing sporadic would be generous. While there is no excuse for me shirking my social responsibilities (i.e. retaining domain name and space, keeping in touch with friends and family, etc.), please forgive me in lieu of many stresses and distractions.

Since returning to Denver (see entries on Tumblr), I experienced an undue and illogical pressure to "get my life in order." I have placed the phrase in quotations because that's a phrase I repeated to myself. I was not entirely sure of what "getting my life in order" meant.

I am still not entirely sure of the meaning behind that line. I think there is some sort of implication about financial security, occupational direction, intellectual inclinations, and so on. Many peers probably know what sentiment I'm referencing.

In any case, I felt a certain stagnant solitude having to return to a place I had already spent 18 years (albeit, pleasant and warm years). I had a view of myself being someone needing active and new pursuits in order to be moving forward in personal development and personal exploration.

This impression had compelled me into zeal over a move to Portland, Oregon. Not to discredit this zeal as Portland offered much opportunity and camaraderie in a new and unexplored environ, my emotions misinformed me to the point of myopic expectations of myself, my new digs, and those around me. I did not expect Portland to solve my problems; I expected Portland to offer me some distance from the aforementioned solitude in such a way that I could gain a clarity about my contemporaneous self with regards to my priorities and my passions--ultimately, based on these factors, my pursuits.

Unfortunately, I have spent much of my time in Portland pressuring myself back into this notion of "getting my life in order." This time, the notion has implied more about economic stability so that I would have time and comfort to figure my priorities and my passions. This has been wishful thinking.

I don't think that life allows us these sort of mental breaks from stresses that we all hope will happen once we conquer whatever is bugging us. There is always something to worry about. This is not an original thought, and I am inclined to direct any questions pertaining to the matter to the Woody Allen filmography and/or library.

I have been forcing myself to find a job. Reasonable and not a totally irrational pursuit.

Of course that's reasonable! It's sane. Unfortunately, I have been forcing myself to pursue positions that have little-to-no interest to me and which I know would only elicit misery and self-pity should I work those positions just to pay my bills or pad my account for a later adventure. Still, my lack of success in finding a job after applying to close to 100 positions in just one month...well...it has been demoralizing in the face of my knowledge that it may not actually be a result of personal failure or my own shortcomings. I have felt pretty far down about the process.

But, I am coming to a point of contentedness. Portland has been one of many opportunities. While none of the sub-opportunities of Portland have proven successful, I retain the right to pursue others.

So, a commitment to myself: If I cannot find a position in Portland by the end of this month of aggressive job pursuit, I will admit that Portland is not a sustainable environment for me at this point in my life. I will not rule out Portland for the future. But, I will remember that I am experimenting with the world and exploring myself. Enough bemoaning that which is out of my control (Damn you economy and your filthy out-of-control unemployment rates and highly competitive job application implications!) and time to celebrate this unique moment in life.

Perhaps a visit to my friend Jack to work on developing a tour company in Buenos Aires? Perhaps I will find a program at minimal cost (Or, gadzooks, no cost!) to send me abroad? To send me into a domestic volunteering situation? Perhaps a reunion with my lady friend to enjoy love and collaborative exploration of the world? Perhaps I will find a way to pursue scuba diving in a Spanish speaking country? Sweet sweet options.

I am doing well. I am finding peace of mind with my moment. I am sorry that I have been out-of-touch about myself and my adventures. I vow more connectedness--after all, connectedness is what I have always found to be invigorating and motivating.

Thank you for your understanding; happy new year; and all the best, fellow travelers!

Brief updates on random items:
-Antony and I are working on starting a book club. Our first meeting will be at the end of the month and we will discuss the first half of "100 Years of Solitude." Excelente.
-I am also reading Richard Dowden's impressively insightful book, "Africa." For anyone interested in trying to understand anything about the continent, I highly recommend the book.
-I am reveling in Netflix glory. I've seen all of "30 Rock," the first season of "Lost," and oodles of Netflix Instant films. I will try to be more diligent about my media writing.
-I am interviewing for Princeton in Asia, American Jewish World Service World Partners Fellowship, and various catering positions.
-Enjoying the tunes of Local Natives, Miike Snow, Yeasayer, The xx, and Andrew Bird.
-I just started a Twitter account--feel free to follow.

More importantly, we must all revel in the spice of life.