lonely

truth be told, i'm having a bit of a hard time here. i've started seeing a counselor, which helps... but i'm still left to battle the solitude myself.

what's hitting me hardest is the absence of my dearest friends. the ones i used to be able to call up and say, "hey, whatcha doin'? wanna go get something to eat?" i am so thankful to still be in frequent contact with a number of NC friends, but there's really no substitute for sitting in a girlfriend's living room, drinking wine and shooting the shit. a mere phone call doesn't provide the same level of comfort.

don't get me wrong, i do have a good number of friends here... i just don't have anyone yet that i'm *that* close to yet. i've got friends and acquaintances that i can schedule outings with, but not any best pals with which i can just spontaneously create an evening. i miss that support network so much... so much that i find myself crying into my pillow every few nights.

i guess, too, that part of the reason i'm currently having such difficulty is because i *did* briefly have an intense friendship with one person here, but i screwed it up and it's gone now. this was an immediate and intimate connection, and it felt fun and happy and warm... a pretty good substitute for the girlfriends back home, actually. but like i said, it got all messed up and i'm really deeply grieving the death of that relationship.

i am still dating the boy, though. i smile just thinking about him. the time we spend together is incredibly lovely and remarkably fulfilling, but sadly we just don't get the opportunity to see each other very often. this guy has a really demanding family life and he travels a lot for business. our relationship is the total opposite of what i just came from; i really took for granted the constant companionship i had with ray. my emotional side is yearning for a similar companionship (which is more than the boy's situation will currently allow) but the logical part of me is truly thankful that i have a lot of free time to go out and work on building my own social circle. this is another big internal battle, and one that also has me in tears every so often... largely because that social circle is so slow to develop.

but again, thank goodness for the counselor. she is pushing me to expand my horizons. with this funk i'm in, it's tempting to sit at home and mope. but instead, she's armed me with the ambition to sign up for several local meetup groups... a book club, a wine tasting group, and one amazingly called "Portland Women Connecting for Friendship." exactly what i need, no? we'll see how it goes.

in the meantime, i'm struggling along, finding ways to get myself out there and see and do new things, to feel involved and keep my spirits up. todd took me to a trailblazers game tonight (unbelievable seats, i might add), and tomorrow (new year's eve) he's hauling me to a winterhawks hockey game with a dozen of his friends. there's a met opera HD broadcast new year's day, and then i'm back into the regular schedule of work and divaville and such. and i've got a few dinner dates planned here and there, and i'll continue to work on creating new friendships.

it's exhausting, though. i've vowed to myself that whenever i meet an interesting person, i'll hand over my business card and try to set up a lunch date. some people on the receiving end of the card and invitation are a little surprised, i think, by the aggressiveness... but i've gotta do it. i'm a social person; i need friends around me.

i just really wish i could have transported my entire north carolina network to portland. this town is great, the job is great. i'm thriving in my work, and i'm achieving an amazing degree of notoriety... it would all be perfect if my north carolina friends were here with me. tonight after the trailblazers game i took myself out to dinner, had a couple of scotches, and then went to a movie by myself. i had an ok time, but it would have been nicer to have been able to share it with good, old friends.

i'm back home...

...and sad, because i'm away from these darling faces:





it's always a deep pleasure (and complete shock to the system) to visit my brother's family. it takes me about 24 hours to get used to being under the same roof as 2 rambunctious kids. then another 24 hours to remember how to talk to them. and then another 24 to remember that wine makes everything easier. the last 24 hours are sheer perfection and utter delight. and then i get on a plane and come home again.

seriously, though. what a perfect way to spend the holiday... with family. a family that loves to laugh.



i miss them all constantly.

christmas in colorado

i'm in fort collins with my brother's family. it's cold outside, but (to turn a trite phrase) there is much warmth here. i haven't seen the t'wups for 8 months. that's more than twice as long as i like to go without basking in this family's chaotic love.

gib is almost walking (he was just a month old when i last visited) and roxi loves being the center of attention. she calls me "crazy aunt christa", but strings out the words so it sounds like, "craAYAYzee aYAYAunt chrAYistAYAYa". she's pretty crazy herself.

i brought my camera but stupidly forgot the card reader, so i'll post photos after i return. my flight home is on christmas day; i have to be back on-air wednesday morning at 9am.

bbq

one of the things i miss most about NC is the barbecue. actually, i didn't eat it that much while i lived there, but i find myself craving it now. when i went back in october, i flew home with a 5 pound container of bullock's. people here thought i was weird. people here don't understand north carolina barbecue.

HOWEVER, the people at russell street barbecue understand! it's not perfectly authentic NC BBQ, but it's damn close. it's pulled pork and not chopped, but their NC vinegar sauce has just the right bit of kick... you can taste the pepper and the vinegar. it's damn tasty. (their slaw, though, is made with mayo. no no no.)

the hush puppies are good (though i had a hard time getting past the occasional kernel of corn. what's that doing there?) and the greens... whoa, the greens are amazing. we saw a spider crawling on the wall while we were there and offhandedly mentioned it to the waitress. she rewarded our bravery with a couple of free pralines. incredibly rich and buttery. wowsers.

i'll definitely be going back there. plus it's within walking distance of my apartment. (which is good; that's a lot of calories that need to be worked off.)

BEST. DAY. EVAH!

my phone rang at 8am and woke me from a deep sleep. (i'd been out drinking the night before, at an informal scotch-tasting with a group of co-workers.) the phone call was a last-minute invitation to see an HD broadcast from the metropolitan opera. i'd seen several of these last year and really enjoyed them (live opera broadcast into a movie theater? with popcorn and milk duds? i'm there!) so even in my fuzzy consciousness i said "yes!" i rolled out of bed and into the shower, and by 10am was sitting in the cinema watching domingo, netrebko and alagna on the big screen. it was magnificent.

i had prior plans, though, to meet my friend joe at 12:15 for a crazy event downtown. the timing was more or less perfect; intermission for the opera occurred at noon, so i just walked the 100 yards from the theater to the train stop and we headed down to portland's tuba christmas. over 200 tuba and euphonium players belting out holiday carols. i loved it.



(even though the weather looks really grey in that video, it was quite a nice day. only a few sprinkles here and there, but otherwise pretty sunny. i'm just sayin': so far the winter isn't quite as bad as i'd been led to believe. though it *is* friggin' cold here. every day the high seems to be in the upper 30s or lower 40s. brr.)

anyway, i thought this was just a quirky portland thing, but when we got there we learned that there are tuba christmases all over the world.

so after the tuba christmas, i met up with my friend paula. we went to tony starlight's for dinner and a show. and OH MY GOD, what a good time we had. this is totally divaville-type stuff here, and tony's holiday show was a hoot. he did dean martin impersonations, bing crosby, jimmy durante... i swear, EVERYONE who comes to visit me is being taken to tony starlight's. you'll love it.

charlotte, i'm posting this tony starlight video for you:



seriously, this was one of my favorite portland days yet. opera, tubas and tony starlight. yeah, baby. yeah!

get lucky

my first rock-and-roll love, LOVERBOY, is performing at the chinook winds casino in february.

*on my birthday.*

do i go?

maybe the better question is "could i possibly find anyone to go with me?" :)

i ADORED loverboy when i was -what?- 12 years old. seriously. totally heartthrobby music.

but it's 2.5 hours from portland. and i suspect i'd be going alone.

i can't believe i'm devoting this much energy to the debate over whether to go.

odd things about oregon

freezing fog

"kicker" checks

pronunciations:
    Clatskanie (CLAT-scan-eye)
    Multnomah (mult-NO-mah. i guess not that hard to pronounce; but just weird-looking)
    Willamette (will-AMM-it)
    Couch Street (cooch. seriously... it's cooch.)

i'm sure all keep adding to this list as things occur to me.

milord

good lord, the sellers decided to simply *not respond* to my offer. their agent says, "my clients don’t want to outright reject the counter or counter back quite yet. they’ll see how things go over the next few days and then sign the paperwork as they see fit it at that time." meaning, they had some people come through the house this weekend, and want to wait to see if those visits result in a better offer. so the waiting game begins. this is not really the position i wanted to be in. i wanted to know whether i'd be under contract by now.

so, tonight i went to see vagabond opera and golem at the doug fir lounge. i knew i was going to like the vagabond opera; i'd seen the male singer perform several weeks ago with the portland cello project. the ensemble bills themselves as a "cabaret gypsy klezmer music jazz band," and that's about the most accurate description i can imagine.


golem is more authentic klezmer, but klezmer on crack. both bands were phenomenal. i'm exhausted.

no house yet

i made a low-ball offer; surprisingly, the sellers counter-offered. (i thought they might throw my offer in the trash, it was so low.)

their counter-offer, though, was still too high for me, so i countered- to their counter-offer.

confused yet? me too.

i should know by the end of the weekend whether this house will be mine.

that link, by the way, takes you to a site that ROCKS. jeezus, it tells you EVERYTHING about the property. the only thing it doesn't show is a front-view of the house, but google streetview can show you that. (it's the little gray/green cottage with the white picket fence, just to the west of the white house that you see first in streetview.)

i love that most of portland seems to be in google streetview. except my current address is not. weird.

from that streetview of "my house", if you go four 'clicks' east on emerson, then 5 clicks north on montana, you'll be in front of my friend todd's house. that's his gray mercedes parked in front. crazy, no?

if you click back to my house, then go *west* on emerson, in three 'clicks' you'll get to a cute little park. and the busy road just beyond that is interstate avenue. the light rail train stops right there. so convenient.

jeez, now that i've given you a tour, i hope i get the house! :)

if you'd like to see some photos of the inside, the house is question is the first one on this list.

ack!

i made an offer on the house today!

a total low-ball offer. chances are they'll reject it outright. but maybe we'll negotiate. dunno.

they have until tomorrow night at 6pm to respond.

ack!

wet and windy

a number of people have written to ask if i've been affected by the storm that blew through here. the quick answer is "no, i'm fine."

a shitload of rain fell sunday and monday... something like 10 inches in 12 hours. at the coast it was worse. that much rain, PLUS hurricane-force winds. over 100 miles per hour, from what i understand. there is flooding up and down the coast. the amtrak line between portland and seattle is closed. sections of I-5 are closed. thousands are experiencing power outages, but the worst of it is towards the coast.

here in my area of the world the fallen leaves have clogged the storm drains, so there is a lot of standing water in the roads. sunday was really windy, but i haven't seen anything get knocked down from it.

so, basically, i've been fortunate. others west of me have experienced the worst of it.

what's funny is that everyone who has been warning me of how gray and yukky the winters are here have been backtracking and saying, "this is unusual! it's never this bad!"

everybody knows your name

well, the house-buying bug has finally bit. i looked at a few places saturday morning, thinking it would be just a reconnaissance mission... but surprisingly, i ended up liking one of the houses pretty well. (it's the first one on this list; on emerson.) it's at the very tippy-top of my price range, though. i think i'm going to take another look later this week, and if the sellers haven't gotten any other offers i'll put in a low-ball offer myself and see if it sticks. if not, i'm sure there will be others. and i'm told that winter in portland is a good time to be a buyer... there are lots of houses just sitting on the market in the rain and wind. no one wants to move to portland in the winter.

saturday night todd & i went to a photography exhibit up in the st. john's area of town. it was curated by blue moon camera. these folks sell cameras, but also do film developing, too. their customers are incredibly loyal and the staff, apparently, worthy of worship. anyway, over the course of the year, the staff, as they're developing photos, will pull out anything that catches their eye. they'll ask the customer if they mind having the photo shown publicly. if the answer is "sure, go ahead!" it makes it into a yearly exhibit of customer art. the show todd & i went to was an anniversary exhibition of photos gathered over the last 4 or 5 years. there were some really great accidental photos, as well as some really beautiful intentional ones. there is some great amateur talent in the area.

this morning i met my friend paula for brunch at the utopia cafe. they live up to their name. i had lemon ricotta pancakes with boysenberries (!!!!) and an amazing egg scramble with bacon, peppers, mushrooms and potatoes. total yum.

then tonight i went to the symphony to see vivaldi's "the four seasons". can i tell you something about the symphony experience? the orchestra itself is fine and good... i always have a good time... but beyond that i've learned that i freakin' have to Look My Best when i go, because i am invariably recognized as the new announcer at the classical station. my photo is in every program, and sometimes TWICE. i shit you not. here's the inside front cover; the letter written by the conductor.


today at intermission i was stopped by a couple who recognized me by sight. this is a crazy life i'm leading.

friday night

my new friend matt & i went to a cute little coffee shop to see some live music. we arrived in time to see the opening act, who -i was shocked to learn- is a sort of musical legend: david provost, formerly of the dream syndicate. he was just doing a little coffee house show with a guitar player... and it was great. i talked to him a little bit after his set; both he and the guitarist were really nice. they play around town a lot and i hope to catch them again.

matt and i got hungry, so we actually left before the main act came on stage. we went to beulahland and had some nice chicken-fried chicken and mashed taters. yum. we then tried to catch the found footage film festival, but unfortunately it was sold out. so instead we headed up to an AMAZING 24-hour record store called everyday music and just poked around for a while. matt & i have really amazingly similar musical tastes, so we had a good time.