a little more life than usual

While the rest of my week was the same old stressful, mundane adventure, yesterday got to be something different. Alex and I had decided early on that we would go to the coast this weekend at some point and Saturday seemed like the perfect day.

Now that I am used to waking up all to early, the butt crack of dawn didn't seem quite so huge. So we woke up early and packed up some snacks, a towel, and, of course, cameras and headed out to Florence. We were aiming for a quiet beach at the bottom of what is called Hobbit Trail. An online description of the trail and beach below went as far as to say that you could almost imagine a little hobbit scurrying along beside you as you made your way to the beach. I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't mind meeting Elijah Wood along a secluded trail that leads down to a fairly empty beach. Alex was the closest hobbit I could find, however.

After the Hobbits, we worked our way south through Florence and stopped to eat at a very nice Cafe. We shared a tempeh reuben and potato zucchini cheese pancakes of which I only ate about a third. Not the best move, but they were delicious! After grazing we went further south and explored the dunes. Now, I'm a pretty serious jerk because after those pictures from Hobbit town you're expecting dune photos as well. Unfortunately I don't have any, and you can blame my poor choice of eats. I believe I did not comsume enough calories or water or both yesterday and I set out on the dunes with a splitting headache. About the best I did after a few minutes of exploring was lay out a towel and fall asleep for about an hour while Alex explored. I did wake up once about a half hour in and sit up to look for Alex, only to find him down at the shore walking away from the water with soaked shorts. Does this sound like anyone else you know?

Cue flashback: "Kelly, don't get wet!" "I won't"... I don't think I was once telling the truth.

All in all, despite the headache, it was a great day. I needed a get away pretty seriously and this was the perfect outing. I must be off now, but enjoy the photos and I will be back again next week, like clockwork :)

over and out.

life in the far left lane

I did not think it would be this difficult to refrain from writing for an entire week.

Q: Why then , you might ask, do I not just write more often.

A: I use writing as a method of digesting all of my mile an hour thoughts, and most journals, no matter where or when I happen to create them, tend to become all too over-dramatized bitch-fests. Therefore, I made the decision to write once a week, which pretty much contains the whining to other outlets. Your welcome!

Back to Life.

Life in Eugene is very different from Southern California, as you might have guessed already. No one is in a hurry, hardly anyone cares what they look like, or if they do they have such an eclectic style that most people I know would assume that they don't. In a nutshell, I would define the general attitude of Eugene as simply being unpressured. These, and other factors make Eugene likes its own planet and this has been a wonderful change for the woman that seemed to do nothing but stress out over trivial things in life.

This isn't to say that I never stress out, however. This past week, for instance, was one of the more stressful ones that I have experienced here. Case in point that you should be grateful that I don't write on a regular basis, or the menagerie of moans, groans, whines, and whimpers, would have been museum worthy by now (if you're talking about a museum devoted to things that annoy people, that is). This stress built up to the point that by Thursday, my only (sort of) day off this week, I was a wreck. So, I put everything aside that morning, and walked down to the river path, and walked around the river path for about 2 hours. Between the cool breezes off the water, the sound of birds and critters in the trees, the happy families sharing the path, and the general peacefulness of it all, I finally got my bearings.

Now, if this scene wasn't enough to calm my nerves, towards the middle of my walk, tied to the fence of a community garden, was a hand made sign on cardboard, that simply said "let it go". Apparently a walk was the right thing to do that morning.

Eugene is its own planet for other reasons as well, primarily its liberalism. I live in the Eugene bubble, and after the college bubble of conservativism, its interesting to see how two bubbles can exist for the same reasons, and yet have completely opposite personalities. Now, I don't really want to talk politics here, but its almost necessary in order to convey this idea, so here it goes: I went to a get together at a friend's house in order to learn more about and discuss the Obama campaign. Obama contributes an interesting dynamic to the Eugene community, in that, we're all so excited about it that we begin to believe that our demographic of voters represents all voters in America. And being the separatist planet that we are, this clearly just isn't the case. During this little get together that I was at, the young man directing it said that Oregon could still swing and be a red state (meaning voting republican). Half of the attendees were aghast that right wing voters lived in their state. The Eugene bubble strikes again.

I suppose the benefit of the liberalism here, is the food. Everybody together now: Excuse me? Food? Yes, food. See, community farms, small privately owned grocery stores that carry organic products, the simple abundance of fresh from the earth produce, its not unique to a liberal society, but the high quantity can be attributed to it. I can buy fresh baked bread from a dozen local businesses, and even a ready made pizza dough. Eugene is a wonderful city for food, for whatever reason you want to attribute to it. Last night, in fact, I invited one of the students that I tutor (the one that I enjoy the most) to come over and have dinner with me before we got to working on Pre-Calculus. We made a pizza from a pre-made dough from a local bakery with red and green bell peppers, red onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and topped with mozzarella soy cheese (I like soy cheese). Nothing like a fresh baked pizza and a huge bowl of fresh fruit to get you ready to do some math... or nap.

And speaking of fresh fruit, I have just finished off the last of what we had last night, and now I must get back to laundry.

Farewell from planet Eugene! and remember to "Let it go" :)

a euphemism of a euphemism of a slang, and then some

I was considering my blog as I attempted to work out this morning (we'll get back to this point shortly), and I came across a euphemism: the butt crack of dawn; and as I was mentally composing in my head I found myself at a road block. How does one make this euphemism more extreme? If you want to further exaggerate the early hour of the morning, does said crack get bigger, or smaller? And, of course, why? I came up with a few answers.

I began with an analysis of the phrase: why a butt crack? I am guessing that this is based on the slang verb, to moon (revealing one's bottom to another as a rude gesture). It is very early in the morning if the moon is still out, hence, moon becomes butt, which evolves into butt crack, just to be a bit more crass. Thus, I have decided, the bigger the crack, the earlier it must be. Logical, no?

Now, back to working out.

Once upon a time, I ran before school almost every morning. This lasted from eighth grade through my sophomore year of high school. In my junior year, I decided to take a zero period class, which began at the butt crack of dawn, and would require me to get up at the biggest of butt cracks of dawn in order to run. That was just too much ass for my liking. So the running stopped for years. I attempted to start it back up a few times over the years, but apparently you fall out of shape really quickly with these things. "Where am I going with this?" you ask. Today I attempted running again, and this time, perhaps, it will become a more permanent fixture in daily life just like it used to be.

Unfortunately, the outcome was pretty grim, I only ran for about 15 minutes. Its a bit more satisfying to ride instead, as I go very fast and feel like I've actually accomplished something when I've finished. But running is one of the best things you can do to get in shape, and that's my goal, so running it is; even at the expense of a few butt mornings.

By the way, if you have not heard yet, I am working at losing weight currently. I'm almost back down to what has been my "normal" weight of 150 (meaning I don't have to try very hard to maintain it) for, oh, 6 1/2 years. The goal, however, is to get as close to 130 as possible. You'll hear about this progress now and then, so get used to it.

I had better get a shower and get ready for work. What ever happened to observing a day of rest? Perhaps I shall write about this next week, but for now, I must be off. 

Peace out.

(PS: I changed the "comments" link to "epiphanies" because I know how inspiring my writing can be and I wanted to make sure the link accurately represented this fact. You can leave an epiphany without being a member of the site, you just have to change your identity to "Open ID")

green, of course, is me.

And here it goes again, a chronicle of mundane proportions.

No one should be surprised that I chose the green template for my blog. In fact, I have a feeling that the fact didn't even cross your mind because it was so obvious that, of course, Kelly'd choose green. Now that I've mentioned it, though, you are looking around, possibly thinking: "what a pretty, perky, bright shade of green." It was my only choice in the green department, so I can't take too much credit for it.

Now that you've had a moment to look around and get familiar with the green walls here in my blog-land, sit back and enjoy the stories. I'll try to make it a point to tell a few every week so that everyone can stay in the loop as to the life and times of me.