Day 17: love our postal carriers

You know what?  We don't say thanks enough.

For example, our postal carrier walks all over our neighborhood in the hothothot sun and the wetwetwet rain, putting miles on those shoes, fearing dog bites, picking up cans for the annual food drive, decoding incorrect addresses, and carrying that heavy bag full of red Netflix envelopes and porno mags.  We expect our mail to arrive every day, and at approximately the same time each day.  And, sure, I might wave hello when I see my neighborhood carrier on the sidewalk ('specially if he's a hottie), but have I ever stopped to say thanks?  

And I've lately realized that I haven't said thanks because I've been walking around with this latent sense of entitlement that I'm somehow owed mail.  That these people, dammit, are doing their jobs and getting paid, so what else do they need?  Duh, Eva!  Duh!  They need what we all need: acknowledgement, purpose, validity, joy, peace, techno music, and stockpiles of toilet paper in case of the Apocalypse!

But I am thankful for my sweet postal carrier (who I once saw at my local cafe.  And who, upon my introduction, recited my address to me, all the way down to the apartment number and zip code!) and I wanted to give a little gracias.

So I got together with a pal and wrote some little thank you notes!

 Of course I wrote this one!

Do you hate the Val-Pak as much as I do? 

I challenged Frank to include the subject of Rollerbladers in his love note.  Nice work, Frank! 

 $5 Starbucks (I know, I know! Start throwing stones now!  I just wanted it to be something accessible and those damned Starbucks are e'rywhere) gift cards attached to every love note!

We drove all over the neighborhood and deposited the notes in the big blue mailboxes! Yay!

We ended up making about six little love notes and making the world a little nicer place to live.  And I'm going to make a donation to a Colombian coffee farming family to make myself feel better for supporting Starbucks.  

Day 16: MAX rush hour dance party!

A photo essay...

Brett and Ruby shine in the sunlight, dancing to The Jets

 Eva knocking it out in low-res, baby

Andrea, Jamie, Ruby, and Jane challenge you to a dance off!

Kat gets down while a nearby employee gazes out from her corporate prison wishing she were us.

Our music man, Andrew Ox

Lucie wearing the Sparkle Jacket (a Hobby Horse Original)!

The first ever MAX rush hour dance party proved to be a startling success, despite the many challenges imposed upon us.  Turns out, 8:30am is a little early for a party, and our crew was plagued by oversleep, lack of motivation, and tardiness.  And it also turns out that boom boxes are not welcome in many of Portland's public spaces.  We were repeatedly asked to turn the music off and were even threatened by a cop in Pioneer Square!  Who knew, but "amplified music" is against the rules without a permit.  

Dear fellow citizens of Portland: in what kind of city do we live?  We live in a city in which ya gotta have a permit to get down! A PERMIT! TO GET DOWN!  It's like Orwell's 1984.  No, not really at all.  It's more like Footloose.  And I am Kevin Bacon, only with better hair, sparkles, and fifty percent more bitchin' dance moves.

But, all in all: awesome.

Day 15: bake a cheesecake with Jane

Jane's awesome.  This was the first time we hung out and she inspires me.  Plus, the cheesecake was super good, even though it was loaded with dairy products and was gluten-free.

six whole eggs, two egg yolks!

Beating the cream cheese!

Yes!  Two of them!

Bake that shit!

Fresh rhubarb compote, from rhubarb grown in Jane's backyard!

Day 14: the pet psychic

Those of you who've met my K-9 companion, Ralgh, know he's very special.  He's an anxious rescue who always sleeps with one eye open and is afraid of flashing lights, cameras, sirens, skateboarders, compact discs, the vet, fireworks, people, children, anything that beeps, the oven, and (of course) the vacuum cleaner.  He's undeniably a giant pain in the ass, a truly difficult dog, but dang if I don't love the crap out of him.  He's my sweet little boy.  We understand each other and keep each other safe.

Scared of the camera!

On day 14 we had an appointment with a pet psychic named Patricia.  I could tell in the conversations leading up to our appointment that something was off.  She needed to be constantly reminded of who I was and what I wanted.  She insisted on a telephone reading because she wanted to know as little about Ralgh as possible, including what he looked like.

At 11:00, our scheduled appointment time, I went to a coffee shop and rang Patricia.  No answer.  Tried her again at 11:05.  She finally called me back at 11:08, saying she was embarrassed to admit it, but she was stuck on the toilet when I had called.  Professional!  Next, she said, "So, we're going to talk to George today!" "Um, no, his name is Ralgh," I corrected.  This was not going well. "Oh! Oh, Ralgh!  There he is!  I see him now.  Oh, he's a sweet boy.  He's medium sized, and he's brownish? He's floppy! He has floppy ears."

Not so much floppy.  I'd more lean toward describing him as tense...

I really wanted her to give me something I could believe in here.  C'mon, Patricia (or should I call you Pamela?  Close enough, right?), I want the smoke and mirrors, the velvet curtain, the crystal ball!  I want to see you get all possessed with Ralgh's spirit and start speaking in tongues.  Anything!  Just give me something...

I want the crystal ball, dammit!

 
The conversation continued to enlighten me at every turn.  I found out that Ralgh likes his food, he sleeps a lot, he loves watching TV (FAIL, Patricia!  I don't have a TV!), and one of his favorite things to do is sleep in my bed (WIN, Patricia!  You got that one right!).  The gravy on the metaphorical dog food?  She said that Ralgh wanted her to tell me that he saw a squirrel.  WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY?!?  There's a squirrel in my house?!  I swear, if I go home and there's a squirrel in my house I don't know what I'm going to do!  How do you catch a squirrel?  My best guess is with nuts and a shoebox, but that could be pretty messy.  Oh, Patricia, thank you, THANK YOU for the warning.

But I got home and there was no squirrel, which leads me to believe that Ralgh was lying to Patricia.  I'm going to have to have a chat with the little guy about that.

Day 13: learn to throw a punch.

I believe in peace.  I remember screaming, crying, and jumping in the middle of a playground brawl that my older brother, John, got himself into as a child.  "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" I yelled.  And I broke it up.  I hate war, I'm disgusted by bar fights, I despise arguments... Physical aggression and yelling have no place in my life, unless they're, you know, consensual. *wink!*

But Dan Darling gave me this fabulous idea that I should get in a fight as one of my hundred things, and well, I was intrigued.  I've never experienced the adrenaline rush of fist on skin, the crack of my knuckles as they break a nose, the anger and release of anger.  Plus, I just wanted to know how bad I'd be at it.  Or maybe I'd be good at it?

You want to be the red guy!

I started by doing what anyone would do: I googled "how to fight".  Just reading the tips that came up was enough to talk me out of it.  One website told me to punch my knuckles together in order to destroy or desensitize the nerves.  Another page taught me how to head butt, bringing my head down onto the bridge of another person's nose to disable him.  I learned the importance of not letting my opponent get me to the floor (you're pretty much getting your ass kicked if that happens) and what to do if I end up there anyway.

No bueno.

This fighting is serious business, folks, and I don't want to get hurt.  Am I a wimp?  Am I just being a chicken?  I'm not sure yet, so I decided to start by taking a safe little boxing lesson.  Maybe I'll get in a real fight by the end of the Project, but for now, just knowing how to punch is enough.

I showed up at Northwest Fighting Arts during a tai chi class, still not believing what I was about to do.  I let the slow, detailed movements of the students calm my nerves.  I filled out paperwork, sweat a little, and acted very serious and respectful, mostly concealing the fact that I was sort of checking out all the dudes.  But I swear, I spent more time being nervous than checking out dudes!  Then Jeff came and collected me from my bench.  He had me kick my shoes off and put on some boxing gloves, then we went for it. 

Sometimes I think we adults never try anything new because we aren't okay with not being perfect the first time.  Looking like an asshole is uncomfortable; messing up is humbling, admitting you're not perfect takes patience and practice.  And I wasn't perfect.  My million trillion years of dance training didn't really have my back here; Jeff immediately taught me to lift my shoulder to my cheek when I punched, which is exactly opposite from what I've always practiced.  It was foreign movement, the rules had changed, and I was at the edge of my comfort zone.  I squeezed my shoulder to my face and tried to be okay with not being perfect.  I threw some punches, blocked my face, chased Jeff around, ducked, and smiled.  I smiled the whole damn time (which I think would be unsettling to my opponent were I in a real fight... could put me at an advantage.  I've gotta remember that.).

So, now I know how to punch.  Maybe someday I'll get to use this new skill!  Oh, god, who am I kidding.  I'm not going to be getting in any fights.

Day 11: scoop ice cream, Day 12: Elephant's Deli

A friend of mine, Chad Drazin, owns a kitschy little ice cream business called Fifty Licks out here in Portland.  I say kitschy because it's based on creating "Portlandy" ice cream flavors like "Maple with Bacon," "Stumptown Coffee," "Pineapple Jalapeno," and (vegan) "Coconut Lemon Saffron" sorbet.  Anyway, the annual Mississippi Street Fair was on Saturday and Chad needed some extra hands around to scoop perfectly spherical balls of ice cream for a needing crowd.  I'm a sucker for things like this, especially since beginning Project 100.  I'm so desperate for ideas of new things to do that I can't really say no anymore.  And that's the fun of the whole project, really: saying yes to things I've never said yes to.

So I drove up to north portland on this eighty degree Saturday, and entered the fair (wouldn't you know it was packed to the gills with people and the absolute first person I saw was my ex-boyfriend.  Errrr, good sign!).  When I got to the ice cream stand, there was a line ten-deep of sunburnt-nosed folks pointing and rubbing their greasy fingers on the glass shield of the freezer case.  This, my readers, was human enthuisam in its most unadulterated form.  Read my next sentence out loud while sighing and groaning and you'll get the picture. "Goddamn bacon-flavored ice cream on a hot Portland day"  I realized I was actually scared when Chad handed me the "Zeroll," an expensive high-tech professional grade ice cream scoop engineered specifically for rolling the frozen cream into perfect balls with a penny-saving hollow center. 

Rolling ice cream is tougher than it seems!  It took me a good three hours of scooping to get it down.  It was a joyous three hours of practice, though.  By the end of the night my sticky wrists hurt, but my face hurt more from smiling so hard.  People are happy when they get ice cream.  Seeing this pure enthusiasm was a dose of good medicine.  Shiny.  Happy.  Fat.  Lactose tolerant. Joy.

I will only say one thing negative about the experience: I didn't hear nearly enough magic words.  I gave free samples all day to folks demanding, "Let me try the Carmelized Apple," or "give me a sample of the Tahitian Vanilla."  In case you haven't been told, the proper way to ask is, "May I please try the Pineapple ice cream?"  It's not simply a question of manners, but something more troubling.  To me it speaks to bigger issues of entitlement and pretension.  It makes me feel a little yucky.

On day 12 I woke up grieving.  Had a good cry again with Trina in public, then met my friends Lucie, Kat, and Christine for our weekly coffee date at Coffee House Northwest.  We decided to go to the Portland International Rose Test Garden because I'd never been there while the roses were in full bloom.  Turned out to be a bad idea, though.  It was crazy busy.  A total madhouse.  Instead, we made our way to Elephant's Deli, one of those fancy delis which sells high-end cheeses, wine, and charcuterie.  It's a deli made for people who know what charcuterie is.  I liked it though.  I bought a big sandwich: fresh mozzerella, basil, and tomatoes on a baguette.  It was perfection.  Way more up my vegetarian alley (sounds dirty) than I thought it would be.

Lucie and Kat consider what it must be like to drink coffee at home.

Christine in her element.  She's a fancy lady.

Day 10: try not to talk for a whole day

Born with the gift of gab, I was.  There's just so many things happening all the time that are worth sharing!  Look around you.  Look inside.  Look underneath.  Listen.  Feel.  We're so immersed in sensations: physical, emotional, auditory, visual - shouldn't we be relating these wonderful and terrible things to each other?

I think I talk to bridge the gap between myself and other people.  We people tend to keep our relationships superficial, especially during the beginning stages.  We limit our conversations to our occupations and our pets, which, mind you, is a perfectly acceptable way to start.  But I want to know you and I want you to know me, the real me.  The real me leaves her job at work when she clocks out.  The real me explores feelings and asks lots of questions.  The real me has a lot of demands of the world and ideas that run so so much deeper than the average conversation goes.  I think most people can say the same, so why are we being so... secretive?  I think that if I share some of those deeper thoughts with you, maybe you'll feel safe enough to share a little more of yourself with me.

We have to talk about things which are important to us, so we can evolve as a society.  We have to talk about the funny stuff so we can have a little laugh in this crazy stressful world.  We have to talk about the meaningless stuff just to pass the time on a hot day.  We have to talk about sexy men just to make sure we all agree!

On Friday, I accepted a challenge to not speak for the whole day.  I made it all the way until 4:00.  I was silent through my visit to the grocery store, when the cashier tried to start a conversation only to be met with silence and miming.  I was silent at the gas station, when the attendant asked me what I wanted and I could only point.  Both of these people thought I was deaf, I think, because after they realized I couldn't talk they looked me right in the eye and enunciated very well, moving their lips clearly just in case I needed to read them.  Which I found to be very sweet.  I could hear though.  Just couldn't, no, wouldn't, talk. 

The story of my failure isn't a very interesting one, I'm afraid.  Of course, I'm going to tell you anyway.  We've already established that I'm a sharer and this shall be no exception!  When I fell off the wagon, I simply forgot that I was on a wagon and began my normal chatter with Ralgh.  It was exclamations of joy over making it to the Oregon coast, mixed with disciplinary commands, mixed with questions.  Yes, tons of questions.  "Do you want some water, Ralgh?"  "Are you a good boy, Ralgh?"  "Do you want to go for a walk, Ralgh?"  A half an hour into our gabfest, I interrupted, "Shit!  I failed!"  And Ralgh totally didn't care.