My blog stats are pretty interesting to look at. I'd never paid attention to the isp addresses until today (I can only find out the last 20 that look at my page). I could tell that Erin checked my blog from work, and that someone from the US Treasury found me, plus there are some readers in Burton-Judson at the UofC, and at least one from the University of Washington and Reed. Who? Leave a comment and let me know who you are--I'm curious.

:o)

via Congresspedia, Stephen Colbert's "Better Know a District" interviews.

Hilarious.

An Open Letter to the Community
(regarding an FBI agent allegedly placing an informant within City Hall).

This letter is crap. Come on Potter, write something with substantial information in it if you're going to get so upset. How can the public believe this with no evidence and only guesses on what's happening. Plus, it's law enforcements jobs to follow up on leads! I do have a problem with phone tapping without a warrent, but just asking for information about wrongdoing is not a bad thing.

FBI's response.

my eyes are bloodshot from staring at a computer screen all day (and probably not blinking enough). so what do i do when i come home? clean the apt?....yah right. stare at the computer/tv screen some more. stupid. now my eyes are even more in pain.

part of the reason for this is the geocoding, and the other part is two new sites that I found:

20 Years of Birth Stories and Navelgazing Midwife. I am such a sucker for birth stories. I just can't get enough of them. And this lady writing/posting them seems pretty amazing. I love reading all the details and imagining being the doula or midwife (of course, with more experience) and the connection with the mothers and families and the POWER of the births and laboring. the birth process is so amazing.

I'm still searching for housing in Madison. Anyone have any tips for cool neighborhoods to live in (and neighborhoods to avoid)??

shower tomorrow and i do not have a shower gift yet. that's a problem
dinner and f&g with angie b the other night. a reunion after 5 years!
slowly shuffling through papers and files and books and thinking over what furniture and items to sell. started posting things on craigslist and half.com

this government site is kinda neat. names are so interesting. how popular is your name? Mine is ranked 834th in the year 2000 and is now not even found in the top 1000.

Randomness:
*It has been summer weather in Portland for three whole weeks now. today must have been in the mid-80s at least,and tomorrow is forecasted at 93 degrees! i got a sunburn on accident by just sitting in the sun for a little over an hour while reading and talking (and i usually never burn so easily!). i want to skip work and go bathe in waterfalls and gorge streams...
*I spent mother's day at my parents house. no surprise. and her only gift request was that i spent time in my room cleaning/sorting and ultimately getting rid of as much as possible in preparation for their big move (which has been anticipated to be late summer....although my dad surprised my mom by saying this evening that maybe they should wait another year).
*A freeks&geeks marathon will soon be taking place at my apartment.
*I am now one month behind in watching 24, and if any of you ruin the plot for me you will be in big trouble, so no spoilers!
*I tried on heidi's bridemaid dress today and it fits perfectly, except needing to get it hemmed because i am short. the last wedding dress i wore, i had alterations done that turned out horribly. if anyone has any advice on alterations places in the portland area i will love you forever.
*katherine and eric are coming to portland to visit. hurray!
*paul's parents are tentatively coming out to visit. hurray!
*paul's aunt becky who i adore is coming to stay with us for rose festival week. hurray!
*if your name would like to be added to this list, you better start planning quick because my last days in oregon (for a few years at least), are filling up fast. :o(


Things I wasn't going to blog about, but now feel I should disclose:
*I have a huge spider bite on my back. gross. i think i got it while sitting outside in the sun today. that spider must really hate me.

*I regift. And I will be doing so this week.

*I really superly enjoy giving and receiving mail. i know this sounds silly, since for the past year I have been the worst pen pal ever, but today I was going through my old desk and basically read every note and piece of mail I have received in my life. Which is why it took over 4 hours just to clean three desk drawers. And did i throw away/recycle them like I should have? of course not. only about 20% of them. I just can't throw out heartfelt letters which mean so much to me. today going through love letters, angry letters, year long pen-pal long distance letters, letters from relatives, birthday/christmas/graduation cards of all kinds, admiring letters, postcards from around the world, outdoor school letters, cheesy boycrazy letters, recommendation letters, returned letters, half-written attempts at correspondance, and so much more, i am just blown away. by the love poured out from close friends. by the dedication and caring nature of people i took for granted. by the four specific guys who sent letters of love. by the honesty, integrity, maturity (and of course immaturity), emotional intensity and close friendship of a certain someone who i will never forget. by letters received from those who harshly and unexpectedly passed away without a goodbye. by the continual support of two amazing and indescribable friends who I hope to spend the rest of my life growing in relationship with. by my loving husband, whose caring, complex, dedicated letter writing that kept us in touch even when we were many time zones (and sometimes continents) apart.
I am resolved to start back up my letter writing correspondences beyond the circle journal. this is one of my new top summer goals. if you would like a letter in the near future please give me your address and i will make sure to send you sometime. :o)

*In contrast to the above paragraph, which I would loosely label as goodness, something terribly violating happened this week. luckily not to me directly, but i still feel very disturbed. it's not the type of thing that is best on a blog, but i'm just going to throw it out there, because i really don't know how to process this information. i live in a very small apartment complex...there are only 10 units, and we all share one washer/dryer which is only about 50 feet away. i have never used it, because it sorta creeps me out where it's located, i don't trust the water from our pipes not to be rusty, and my parents house isn't too far away (plus it's free there!), but we were going to do a load yesterday for the first time. 20 minutes before putting it in, while bringing groceries up from the car, a neighbor stops me to talk. she's been trying to track me down the past day or so because she really needs to warn me about something. so she tells her story: a couple of days ago she heads down to put a load of laundry in, then makes sure the door is firmly shut before heading back to her apt (only apt users have a key, the washer/dryer unit it located in this semi-scary underground tiny room that is only accessible from the outside....it's supposed to be kept locked for safety reasons, esp. since there's a few homeless people who frequently wander the area). when she comes back to put her laundry in the dryer the door is open. strange, and annoying, but she puts her laundry in the dryer and no one is nearby. she firmly shuts the door after her. she comes back to pick up her laundry and the door is open again. when she gets her laundry she then notices that the liner of her underwear has been cut out, but that the underwear were placed back in her load. CREEPY, and very violating! i mean, what is up? only someone very insane or messed up could be doing this, and it's either one of our close neighbors or a past neighbor with a key. ahhhhhhhhhh. i live in a very wholesome, clean, nice, great neighborhood, and to think that this is happening around me makes me a bit scared. esp. since i live along for 5.5 days a week. but besides keeping my door locked, and avoiding the laundry room there's really nothing else I can do. Of course, I am writing a letter to my landlord, and hopefully she will change the locks, but other than that I can really only suspect and distance myself from unfamiliar neighbors.

it's now been a two-day stretch that i am not sick for once. hurray hurray. i feel like i'm back to my normal schedule for the first time in about a month. this week has been fun, although not as productive as i had hoped. tuesday i took off work early and drove out to namanu at 2:30pm. sweet. i am getting the hang of driving stick, finally, although i still have to work on my transitioning between gears. the one hour drive each way helped me practice. namanu was fun. caught up with some staff members a tiny bit, chatted in front of a wonderful fire in uncle toby's with polaris, started the campfire with shuffle, and watched drift and weasel lead field games (pirate ship!) while i basked in the sun. dinner was surprisingly good, and a trip into town for paul's night off was nice. it was a relaxing night. and it's just *so nice* to see paul in person. i love him so. :o)

last night i watched sunset boulevard (circa 1950) in black and white at the laurelhurst theatre with julie. pretty cool. and proceeds for concessions were going to se uplift, so we supported a good cause as we hung out.

tonight, well, it's a cleaning night. you would probably freak out if you saw how horrendously dirty/messy the apartment is right now. and i have been ashamed to invite anyone over (i had to desperately persuade my parents NOT to stop by the other night). this needs to change. and now that i am not sick, tonight is the night for some cleaning action. not fun but very needed.

mostly this week i have become pretty anxious about the move to madison that is coming up in only a few weeks! we have to be there by aug 28th, so i was thinking that if we are there by the 20th that would be a good time. right now the plan is to drive out with a rental hauling truck. which leads me to research uhaul ($1500 base fee, plus gas, with the truck getting 10 miles to the gallon!), and then budget (slightly less at $1300 plus gas), and then start trying to find cheaper options. or else sell off everything we have! which would be silly. but i do need to start sifting through my belongings because goodness knows i have way too much stuff and definitely need to give/throw/sell much of it away before the big move (like some old middle school clothes, and shoes i never wear, and wedding stuff, etc etc). consolidate consolidate. i inherited the worrying gene from my mom, so the past couple of nights it's been hard to get to sleep just thinking of all this stuff. plus finding housing. and applying to jobs. i am glad that we are fortunate to have a savings and a flexible schedule, but still. i want to save every penny if possible, that's just the way i am. but it might be one of those situations where it will be better to pay more in the end just to not waste so much time meddling and worrying and selling and sorting and packing for so long. we'll see.

ps. my sister's wedding is only a month away! i need to get my dress hemmed. and plan a million things for the shower next weekend, and buy a gift, and ....... hmmm, so much to do.

back from ods as a sneeds volunteer.
back from chicago and the communal grieving process.
back from the stomach flu and isolation.
back to portland. to a new life growing (and a heart beating!), to nice weather, to the job, to friends and the city. to thank-you notes and craigslist sellings and apartment cleaning. and lots of madison planning.