PickledCherub

I'm getting too worked up over something that is dumb. I hate that.

I don't ever want to be on the floor again. I just can't stand the thought of waiting on another meanie. I am sick of meanies.

I am so grumpy.

I hate the internet.

Chris and I are making children's music. Because we wanted to do something together, and because I want children. But not in a sick way.

Today, although it was my day off, I went into work for a coffee cupping. As I've recently learned, the way to taste and compare coffee is to cup it. Apparently Stumptown makes their employees cup twice a week. Just to keep up.

So, I ambled and rambled into work 20 minutes later than I thought I should be there, and nothing has even started. Michael, our trainer, was stuck in traffic. Everyone is stuck in traffic these days.

So, when Michael gets there, we start to get set up. He's grinding coffee, and I'm taking this lady's special order. A wedding order. Wedding orders are always and consistently the most difficult orders. Brides, their parents, their friends, are almost always totally nuts, and they want you to hold their hand along the way. Steve is making a cheese plate. This lady was rough. She had the budget, and the math, all worked out in her head, but it was wrong. And I wanted to try the coffee. Argh!

I hope, and I pray, that when I'm doing wedding stuff that I won't freak out.

My stomach still hurts. And Chris wants to do all this stuff. And it's Cary's Birthday, which is nice. We're almost at the age when you don't want to get any older.

I am hungry, and I put up some curtains.

I love highways, interstates, and overpasses. Maybe it's from growing up in Long Island. But I love the curves, the cloverleafs, the elegant military-industrialness of these things that our old president laid upon our nation. They feel so easy to use, so fast, and so simple. And, most importantly, they are grand. Expansive.

Portland has some lovely interchanges, the best ones on Interstate Avenue. Driving underneath them, for that is what one most often does, one feels dwarfed, and that's the point. Underneath the greater good.

Lindsay's wall, her mural and her gift, remind me of that feeling. It is a "You Are Here" kind of experience.

I would like, I think, to live in the interstices of the interchange.

Interaction after interaction went sour: an old classmate alienated; a customer miffed. That's about it, but I'm resonating with sourness, and a sense of failure as a person, server, friend. It's silly that I'm so sensitive, but that's me.

I guess, to examine it a bit, work has been increasingly stressful, and I feel sad sad about my friends moving away. I don't have to work tomorrow, so maybe I'll do something to push along the grieving process. Maybe a long drive. A day by the river. Sometimes I get so sad and I feel like a delicate little flower and I want to look myself in the mirror and say "What's wrong with you? It's really not so bad. You need to toughen up and get over it."

Maybe I could see a funny movie.

Melanie finished my tattoo this afternoon. It was pretty quick and not too painful. We talked about Glamor Shots and those booths at the amusement park where you can "Be A Recording Artist!" And the fear of flying.

The kitties are sitting side by side on the pillar on the porch. Another dead bird today, another fight with the neighbor's cat.

Greg and Chris are doing something for Music for Dozens. The moon is really bright.

We had customers stay late tonight. The problem was me: I was already far behind, and I knew them leaving wasn't going to get me out any sooner. I let them stay, I let them come in. It was my fault. But I made some good money tonight, alright money.

I like Target. I do. I like the bright colors, the semi-upscale mass produced bedding. I'm a sucker for cheap bedding, for any bedding at all.

I'm working tomorrow night for Melanie. I didn't have anything else to do, although in my head I was planning to call Amanda and see if she wanted to hang out.

I wore a dress to work today. It was so hat, anyway, and I didn't want to wear pants.

I heard that the boss is planning our Christmas party. Finally! I mean, it's mid-August.

I'm almost ready for my out of town friends to visit me. And Thanksgiving is coming up. We still need to paint the kitchen and the hallways.

Here's some news: I really like my job again! It's nice to feel good about it. I feel good when I have a challenge and I get it done! I also really love my co-workers. They are all so good. And I'm excited about having my own little restaurant.

I moved the kitty food and water today, to the kitchen. They seemed confused, but then I showed them where it is.

Chris and Patrick are working on guitars for Strength in the living room. Katy and I went to Target today. I put together a complicated thing, one piece at a time. I have to go to work in two hours. I don't like the heat.

Once it cooled off last night I did all of this stuff.

The past few weeks have been a real mixed bag. Lindsay leaving, and Shauna before her, and all that, makes for a sad Amy. I actually cried when I said goodbye to Lindsay. I'm not a big tear-up kind of girl (except at movies, or television), but I cried. Lindsay left the perfect present:
She painted us a mural! And it is all done, except for the pencil lines. We even got BoingBoinged!

And it's been so hot here. The AC broke in the kitchen at work today (the kitchen is also the office), so I did only the essentials and fled the 100 degrees and humid workspace. I hate heat.

Peter Jennings has died of lung cancer, at the age of 67.

I met him a couple of times in high school, because I was friends with his son, Chris. He was so nice, and warm, and polite.

Losing your father is terribly sad.

Work was looooooooong today. I've been making these little book menus that we have, and it's tedious, headache inducing work, a lot of measuring, cutting, cutting, stacking, and re-cutting again. I finally got it down into a system, but that system only worked for the bigger books, not the little petite ones. I finished! I am happy to be finished with them.

I've run into a bunch of our old neighbors in the past few days, almost all of them, actually. One couple is going to have a baby in a month, the others are busy bees. Our neighbors were all middle aged couples, one married, one gay, one domestic partnership. They were all gardeners, too.

Lindsay and I are going to see Strength play tonight. I think I've been to every Strength show that I could, so far. I genuinely like their music, I like their dance, I like their strut. I don't really want to go out, but Lindsay wants to go, so I'm going. Plus, I bet I'll see a lot of people from work, and that's fun.

I have to go to work first thing tomorrow, because I made a mistake (sort of). It wasn't really my mistake, but it doesn't matter. Life goes on.

A lady on the radio said that "everyone's obsessions are to be celebrated." I like that.

The cats are going a bit nuts right now, scampering and scratching. Sedna came out of Lindsay's room when I got home from work, but I put her back to bed.

It was slow tonight, until everyone left. Lots of late tables. One with teenagers, one of them with a bandaged eye and a stuffed snake around her shoulders. Ah, the beauty of youth.

I bought some new sheets for the bed. They are in the dryer.

I feel like I should take a shower, but I don't really want to.

I've been on a cleaning kick. Cook on the grill, scrubbed the bathroom. Mopped the bedroom floor, did laundry and put away the laundry. There was a lot of cat hair.

I want to paint on the orange wall. I want a stripe, a red stripe, or a white box.

Sedna was very happy to see me!

I had a fairly intense time in San Francisco. Shauna and Marian and I went to the first bar we'd ever been to in SF, for old times sake (and also because it is Shauna's new local) and had a long pow-wow session after getting our tarot cards read. It was almost exactly four years later.

The cats seem alright, the kitchen sink is sparkling, and I have to go to a meeting at work. Chris isn't here. I slept sitting up, my hands supporting my chin, as if I were deep in thought, on the plane. It was a full flight.