a few weeks ago-

hannles said, "Claudia, the world is the oyster!"

one of the many questions we ask ourselves

i've started letting all of my shirts be pj shirts. i couldn't find my pj pants the other day and forgot that my entire life i've put my pjs under my pillow. that's where they were.

Does growing up mean a larger pj selection and less lumpy pillows?!

hedonic treadmill

“About 50 percent of happiness is genetically determined, so some people are born Tiggers and some people are born Eeyores,” said Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home.

Our landlord is a total Eeyore.

Makes me feel lazy

Sometimes I feel like I get trapped in my dreams and can't get out of bed- even when I know it's late and I need to start my day. (I hope when I have a real job I can get out of bed on time.) It's like a deeper state of day dreaming. I will continuously fall back into some elaborate (usually random and insignificant) dream. This morning I was stuck in a dream about graduation. It was college graduation, but I was home and my mother was there. I was graduating, but I was also in the audience and looked on stage where 5-10 fellow graduates were sitting in chairs in a row. I made eye contact for a moment with someone who I don't talk to anymore. I looked away. 

If I were to write a haiku about something I would say: 

Care about people
Worry what they think of us
I don't feel guilty

Today I stepped out of an apartment building downtown and walked two blocks to a bus stop. The air was really crisp and I felt like I was walking around Boston. One of those moments in a season that brings you back to the same feeling you've experienced somewhere else. I was excited to be starting my day and glad to be alive. It is officially fall again and it will be okay. Okay? okay. I'm in control of this decision.


love.love.love.

our landlord said we look moved in. and we're getting a new fridge!

I would say that my inability to give the camera a posed smile comes from michael here, but I think this has been a problem of mine from way before our friendship.

The other day my sister and I had a serious conversation in the backyard about how I may have changed; and this seems to disappoint her. I felt it was clear that I've changed in the past couple years, but I can not pinpoint why or when. Really, I don't think I've changed much on the inside, I think I just have a different demeanor.

Today I mentioned to my roommates how a year+ ago, one of my former roommates mentioned that I never really laugh out lout, or laugh in general. Once this was pointed out to me, it really bothered me for a while. I generally don't think about it, because it still kind of bothers me. I think a loud laugh, or someone who laughs often, is a lovely thing.

Now that I've been in Portland a year, it feels like everything is repeating itself. It's strange to realize this is the first time I've lived somewhere a full year as an adult, not a student. On one of the first days here I went and saw the Swifts, and this happened again on the second or third day of my anniversary. I went to Confluence's alumni panel during their AmeriCorps orientation, and was lost in a trance about having done this orientation a year ago. Then last year I saw Future Islands as part of MFNW, and that festival rolled around again too. The other day I walked into a store that I realized I had only been to once before, a year ago. Last year I saw a cool African dance performance as part of TBA, and I might go to a TBA event tonight. There are posters up for Birdfest in WA, and I'll probably attend that as well. While sometimes I experience serious foma due to the various directions my friends and friendships have taken, I think I made the right choice in making Portland my home.

Katie and I even reflected on our first walk together, crossing the Ross Island Bridge to get downtown. I said, "hey we should do that again", no. No we are not doing that again, that was possibly the scariest bridge crossing experience to date.

All day today I have thought: is it September, or October?

Another day another dollar!
love.love.love.

there are different kinds of death

Hannah says I'm going through a mourning period.
I get in my head very easily.

That is why I need to put on my ipod and dance while I make Mahi Mahi for lunch

Haikus

A couple weeks ago I decided, "I'm going to start writing haikus".

I wrote one that I only liked the first two lines of, and I haven't bothered to write another since.

Things are going pretty well except that I feel like I go from feeling fine to a mess pretty easily. It's very hard to live a balanced life! I can only pull it off for a couple days at the time. Lately I feel that I am easily irritated...and if I'm in a bad mood I'm not very good at being friendly. Of course I'm not saying we should pretend to be cheery if we are grumpy, but there is a way to be grumpy in a graceful way that doesn't leave you feeling like you're being rude to others around you.

So I took a bath for about an hour tonight. I think my next investment will be a bath pillow, because this has been a dream of mine the past two times I found myself in the bath. We had a professional development day a few weeks ago where we talked about self care and different forms of ritual. I appreciated that "bubble bath" made the list. To complete this ritual, I set candles around my bath tub (on the inner shelves and outside the tub boundaries) and plugged in my speakers to listen to music.

That was nice.

So I'm feeling a bit calmer now.

And I'll probably watch a movie before bed. I am starting to feel "too grown up" because I go to bed so much earlier than I did even six months ago.

Last night I watched a documentary that I was so into it made me wish I studied geology. It was called "They Mystery of the Megaflood" about the Scablands in Washington state. I was so into it! It just seemed like the most interesting story about landscape that I had ever had explained to me...

I have learned more in the past few months of my life than I have in the past few years.

Hope you're well world. Thinking of you.

love.love.love.