Living among the Trees

I've slept on a lot of couches.  I pride myself on the fact that I am just likable enough for my friends to offer me the couch for the weekend or after an evening bingeing on Quantum Leap.  When my friend Megan permitted me to stay with her while I was in Portland, I was very grateful, but had no idea the extent to how awesome it would be. 

She lives in a forest! It's like a little woodland bungalow.  This is the view.

Just look at all those trees!This morning I stepped outside to bask in it and make a few phone calls and this squirrel gave me a piece of his mind for a while, but the joke is on him, I think squirrel chatter is hilarious.

I spent a very relaxing morning watching birds flutter over to snack from the feeder and am just so tickled to be here.  Top all this off with a little bonus room and futon to sleep in and I am in weekend away heaven. 

Welcome to Portland

I'm in the fanciest car I've ever driven, surrounded by evergreen trees which are like a dream compared to the southern california July from whence I came.  Portland is such a welcome escape for the weekend.  I am just reaching the point of concern about where I am and how many freeways I have already been directed to since leaving the airport when a bridge comes into view.  A beautiful bridge, and I'm headed right for it.  As I drive onto the bridge I feel so light, the song on the radio changes.  It's that scene in the movie where the wide-eyed girl comes to a new city. It's an exciting montage that alternates between magical city pans   and enthusiastic facial expressions from the main character set to a song that is going to make a killing on itunes.  I am completely lost in my moment.  So lost that I miss the exit I am meant to take.  

At that point, I'm looking around and all the supposed exits just look like entrances onto more freeways.  I keep going, assuming an exit will eventually pop up and be obvious, until off in the distance: my bridge, and I'm heading right toward it.  I laugh to myself and enjoy the ghost of my movie moment.  On the second pass I'm not distracted, but I'm still a little confused, so I pull off and park to recollect my sense of direction.  I have no real destination, I'm just starving so anywhere with food will suffice.  My iphone tells me where to go and I'm off again.  Left, right, under a freeway, and first right… wait, was this the first right?  I'm not positive, I think I'm going the right way but I can't be sure, and then I see it: My bridge! …and I'm heading right toward it.

The Rain Song

This is one of my original tunes :-)

Kim Possible Cover

Girl Power.

The Monomyth Continues

The Monomyth continues.  I have dropped off the map recently due to a spring semester packed with crazy amounts of writing!

Last semester I took:

Creative Writing

Rewriting the Screenplay

Sit-com Writing 

Literary Analysis of Harry Potter

Shakespeare

So much writing!!  It was a blast, but this blog definitely suffered.  A lot has transpired, and it is my intention to catch you up with adventures that span from new songs to bike oriented crimes all before next Thursday when I will be heading to Portland and begin documenting that adventure! 

Free Food

I'm not sure if I have just been looking a little malnourished, or maybe people can just smell the starving college kid on me, but lately I have been given free food left and right. In fact, within the last week and a half, I have been given food for little to no reason on three unrelated occasions.

The first time it happened, I was at one of my favorite pizza places, Pie-ology. When my pizza was ready, the woman who gave me my pizza apologized again and again because they had accidentally put a dollop of marinara sauce on my otherwise sauceless pizza, and would I mind waiting for them to remake it?

Don't remake it! This looks delicious! I assured them.

When I was finished and just about to leave, the same woman came out holding a boxed up second pizza for me to take home. She thanked me for "being so sweet" and sent me on my way with lunch for the next day.

A few short days later, I was teaching a guitar lesson in one of my students' home. When I was leaving, his parents bustled out to give me a giant tupperware of homemade Korean noodles. I was touched, but already a little confused, if this kept up I'd never get to go visit my pals at the grocery store again.

Today my fears were confirmed. I stopped into The Monkey Business Cafe (conveniently located down the street from my apartment) to taste one of their newly advertised waffle sandwiches. It was delicious, and once again, as I was gearing to leave, the cook came out with a box. He told me he accidentally made two waffles when he only needed one for my sandwich, so he thought I would like the second one (packets of butter and syrup and all!). Needless to say, I have breakfast tomorrow covered.

I don't want to push my luck, universe, but I'd love a cup of coffee if you've got a second.

First Day of Spring Semester

Its important to start off a new semester right. This morning I got up early, made myself breakfast, and actually styled my hair before strutting out of my apartment in the outfit I layed out the night before. With my hair blowing in the wind and a "good morning" and a smile to everyone I passed, I peddled my little pink bike toward school happily anticipating the cup of coffee I would have plenty of time for before class.

Then it happened.

My bike slowed down, requiring more and more effort to move forward until it barely wanted to move at all, and my bottom became aware of every specific texture on the sidewalk. Readers, what you are dreading was the case. My back tire had gone completely flat and was threatening to fall right off. I paused. It is a two and a half mile ride from my apartment to school. I was already a mile in, and if I back tracked there was no way I'd make my first class (what a first impression that would make). So I trecked forward, my strut inhibited by the stuttering rise and fall of my bicycle as I forced it onward.

I built up a sweat. My off the shoulder sweater and high healed boots were a great idea for a bike commuter, but dragged down the pace and spirit of a stranded walker. Finally my longing to preserve my outfit in the long run beat out my modesty. I shed my sweater to walk the rest of the way in my undershirt.

As I pulled my sweater over my head I tried to ignore the low riding el camino that stopped in the middle of the street to observe and then give me the first whistle of my journey. (First of three, but who's counting?)

Finally, dripping in sweat and unforeseen pessimism, I arrived on campus. I was only four minutes late to class which means I didn't get to skip the biannual first day of class recitation of the syllabus, but I did manage to arrive after all desks were filled and was therefore placed in the front corner of class in a tall chair that my glistening out of breath form might be observed. At least I made an impression. One down, three classes to go. Happy first day of spring semester.

"Pretending" Music Video

Rooftop Sunrise

Every January there is a rush that fills the general population. The local gyms are crowded, there are a few less hipsters smoking outside coffee shops and I find myself spending a little more quality time in front of a blank word document. The New Year is a pensive and empowering time that begs the question: what will stay and what will go. Even with the most likely outcome of things disappearing and reappearing mid-February, its an important time for self reflection.

Around midnight last night I decided to continue my self reflection with a full season of How I Met Your Mother. This may not be the most anticipated facet of my New Year goals, but it did lead me to this moment as the sun is rising. I shimmied myself, my laptop, my quilt, and my cup of tea up the ladder to my roof (don't ask me how, its some miracle of Quantum Physics) and am sitting with the sunrising typing this blog with Ted Mosby's voice narrating my thoughts. It may not be the most productive moment of my self reflection, but it is specific. I think I'd like a few more specific moments this year and that in a nut shell is my New Year's Resolution.

My 2011 List

Happy New Year! Time to sum up my 2011 in a list of my favorite things from 2011:

- I released my album "Put Up Your Dukes"

- I played a super fun Cd release show

- I had lunch at Club 33 in Disneyland

- I spent a month in Florence, Italy

- I went to Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca, San Giamangiano, Venice, and Rome

- I jumped on the back of a vespa driven by an Italian stranger

- I went busking on the Spanish Steps in Rome

- I danced in the middle of an onlooking crowd to gypsy music played in a Piazza

- I learned conversational Italian

- I ate at my family's restaurant Cafe Cecere in Rome

- I saw the sistine chapel ceiling

- I threw a coin in the trevi fountain

- I moved back to Fullerton into an apartment that makes me happy and doesn't feel like a cave

- I got another couple semesters at Cal State Fullerton under my belt

- I brewed my first beer

- I got a kitty and named her Princess Mia Saberhagen, thus cramming two nerdy fictional cat references into one name

- I went skydiving.

Of my last year's new year's resolutions, there are many grey areas in which I arguable made some progress, but the following I can confidently say I accomplished:

-I went to Europe

-I wrote some more songs

-I played some more gigs