The Tri-Cities.

The last two months have proven one thing to me. The Tri-Cities needs more brunch. Nuff said.

Maps and things are going on here. I've been working at Hanford for about three months now. It's intriguing in a "waste management" kind of way... I actually feel safer working there than I do drinking tap water in my apartment, but that's the way this cookie crumbles, I suppose.

I hooked myself up to a very nice apartment with a view of the Columbia River and of Bateman Island. I'm down the street from a greasy spoon diner, and I've been treating myself recently to Anthony's and Tagaris Winery eats.

Men in this town are so very different from the skinny-jean, panhandling hipsters in Portland, and I've been intrigued to get to know some of them. By far, though, I'm counting down the years (yes, unfortunately plural) before I can head west once more. Although I have been living in small town America for the last 8 years, being settled and stable in small town America makes me ... antsy. I want to travel, and perhaps this is my chance to save up enough capital to either buy a house, or buy many plane tickets to far-off destinations. We shall see.

My top three destinations are currently Peru/Chile, India and Australia/New Zealand. Lucky for me, I have a cousin with free floorspace and two cute-as-a-button kiddos for me to visit down under, so that may be number one on my list for a while.

The thesis is coming along. Hopefully will defend by the end of November, and be quit of this chain around my neck.

Wish me all the luck you can, I hate talking in public.

New Directions

Yes, that is an oblique Glee reference. Because I have recently become gleeked and I'm envisioning everyone in my quiet cubicle-ed office standing up and belting out some Britney song and it's endlessly entertaining to imagine.

There are, however, new things afoot. I have been offered (and have accepted) a position as an archaeologist at CH2M Hill. This job will entail much mapmaking, and very little archaeologizing. However, it's full-time, all year, paid vacation and benefits type work, so I'll take it, yessir. This will require relocating myself and my tiny mobile household to Richland, WA.

It's interesting to consider how my life decisions have led me to Richland. Particularly because Richland is the gateway to Hanford. My grandfather worked at Hanford since 1943 to later, maybe the 60's? And then my Dad, born in Colorado but raised in Richland, worked at Hanford in the 60's before getting a job with Boeing in Seattle. Now I will be the third generation of Clark to work at the Hanford site - cleaning up the mess that was created while my Grandad was working there. And living in the same town that my father grew up in. How strange, the ways that things work out.

I have memories of Richland. My Dad and Mom got divorced when I was very young (way too young to care). My Dad lived in Seattle and my Mom lived with us in Portland. My Dad, on the weekends, would drive down, pick us up and motor us over to Richland to spend time with his folks. This would involve hours of the "license plate game" and the "I spy" game. And endless explanations to my left-brained brother about how motors work, and how to make airplanes. Me? I was playing with dolls in the backseat.

Once we got to Richland, my Dad would tell us to play outside, pretty much all the time. My grandparents smoked, and he didn't want us staying in the house too long. We would get there, and Grandpa would be watching TV, while Grandma played zilch, which is still to this day my favorite dice game. They did that smoker's-cough thing, which freaked me out a little when I was young. I thought they would actually cough up a lung (too young to know that this was impossible).

So, once we had said our hello's and escaped outside, we would beeline for the gingko trees. These trees, well... in my memory they are very tall. Getting down once I'd gotten up... impossible. My brother had a lot of fun with that. Or, if the trees weren't magical enough that day, we would run across the street to the dike, tall and grassy on one side, rocky and treacherous on the other. Of course, the more dangerous the better - we would practice rock-hopping, running as fast as we could on the boulders down to the water and back up.

There is a shop in the Uptown shopping center called the Spudnut shop. I don't remember how they do it, but they make potato doughnuts. So good.

These memories and watching the movie Willow for the first 8 times are my only memories of Grandma and Grandpa's house. And Richland. Clearly, I'm going to have to form some type of adult opinion about this new place. Recently I have been having conversations with people about the trauma or joy of moving. It satisfies the itch to move on, to start something new, to explore. It also reminds me of why I keep returning to Portland. I like knowing where the streets are. Not being able to get lost, because I'm always oriented. Mountains on one side, ocean on the other. I like being close enough to visit my Aunt's house to do laundry so I don't have to pay for it. I like the comfort of knowing if I hurt myself or get super sick, my family will bring me soup. It's a comforting feeling, being close to people that love me.

At the same time, this is the first chance I have had to really pursue something akin to a career. Have a real job. Pay into a retirement plan. Save up some money for a rainy day. Finally fix the broken glove box in my car that hasn't opened in 2 years. Not panic at the thought of any tiny catastrophe wiping out all my hard earned credit card payments. This is my chance. This is the open door, the opportunity knocking, the choice to pursue stability and financial security.

I will like this new / old town.

Differing opinions

Alright, here's the deal. I have an issue with this claim that I keep hearing from my conservative friends that "the one thing you bleeding heart liberals can't do is let anyone have an opinion different than your own." Let's set the record straight here. I am a bleeding heart liberal. I am more middle of the road fiscally, but socially - bring on the liberal. I have strong opinions about how things should be, how those things should be done, and what things need to change. Mostly, I disagree with every conservative I know about pretty much everything except good music and good beer (sometimes they're PBR conservatives, though).

I have absolutely no problem listening to and engaging in a conversation cross-party or between interested and intelligent people. I do have a problem listening to a rant that has no particular purpose other than being expressly designed to push liberal buttons, and then when I have a statement to make in return to these type of inflammatory rants, I am accused of "not being able to stand someone having a different opinion." I'm not saying that I'm not inflammatory to some people, fact is I tend to get pretty passionate about the state of the world. However, I continually defend any person's right to have their own beliefs.

What I won't do anymore is stand for people ranting, red-faced with spittle flying near me while I idly wait for them to either die of apoplexy or finish whining about how they have to pay too much tax and then try to calmly engage them in discussion. No. I will not. I will walk away, saying nothing, mid-rant.

For future reference, all my current and future socially conservative acquaintances. I will not listen to you rant about the following:

Homosexuality and marriage
Welfare and stereotypes about poor people
Climate change and Al Gore
"Leftist" conspiracies
How Fox is "fair and balanced"
Anything Fox related
How colleges are brainwashing people
How Sarah Palin will be a good president
Anything about Clinton or Carter
Anything about to the Tea Party
Anything about the Founding Fathers

I believe this list is comprehensive. Now, I'm stating firmly that you can believe anything you want to. What you can't do is try to scream your ideas into my brainpan. No. Not going to work.

I believe I can firmly state right now that I am a person with a strong set of beliefs and ideas, and you are just going to have to deal with it.

Floored.

This morning, I got a call from a friend that I haven't talked to in about a year. We've been friends for a long time, in fact, he's one of my oldest friends. We met in college, through a mutual friend, and have been good buddies ever since. He's a good guy, and I count myself lucky to be friends with him. Don't get me wrong, we get in fights and get annoyed with each other sometimes - the usual good friend conflicts. I have a great picture of us with our other best friend at Alkai Beach in Seattle after our first year of college. We all look young and happy. It was a great day, I think we stopped by Spud's Fish N Chips that day, spent the day walking around the beach with nothing to do. I spent my summers in college up in Seattle, living at my Dad's house and working, generally at the Barnes and Noble in University Village. Later, a few years ago, I was one of three "best men" at his wedding. (Don't tell anyone, but he made chocolates for the wedding that were to-die-for good, and I stole a bunch to take home to Portland with me).

Anyway. I just found out that one of the big mysteries about his health got solved today - a benign tumor in his brain. He'll go under the scalpel within the month. I was floored. How can someone a year older than me...have such a terrible thing happen to him? I found myself, as I'm assuming anyone who gets this type of news does, remembering all the times I've spent hanging out with him, going to lunch, listening to him yammer on about food (he's a foodie and a beerie). I started crying. I'm worried and scared and I know he's feeling everything that I'm feeling so much worse, and that compounds my feelings - a never ending cycle.

This weekend, I'll drive up to Seattle and re-solidify my friendship with him. I feel like my efforts over the last year to talk to him and check in with him have been miniscule at best, and I'm feeling not only guilty, but also nostalgic for how we used to be friends, the three of us. Carefree, enjoying the Seattle summers, going to the beach or having a barbecue. Drinking heavily (that was always one of the mainstay activities with us...).

I can't wait to see him again.

The Tossed Generation

Okay. There's some confusion going on among the older crowd as to my generation. My generation is not hipster, nor do we generally wear saggy skinny jeans, nor do we whine and complain when our boss doesn't give us personal validation and a hug every time we do the job right, nor do we expect handouts from anyone. What we DO have is a list of bills we can't pay, not enough time to pursue a marginally significant hobby (let alone be happy for a few days), and we haven't been without responsibility since that first job, around 15, when we worked for shitty wages at godawful jobs. We are the generation that gets laid off first, and hired last. We are the generation that is paying for social security for our elders and rarely complaining about it, because we were told to respect our elders and we all expect to be taking care of our own parents someday, even though we will never see a dime of our money down the line when we're old. We got ourselves into a ton of school debt, because we were told that was the way to do it right, and now we're having a hard time finding work at low-paying, no benefits laboring jobs. Our entire 20's were dominated by war and color-coded terror updates. Our freedoms have been slowly stripped away by various powerful men who should never have been given power. We're broke, we're tired, we're angry and we want things to change so that for the love of god, we too can work a 9-to-5 job with benefits and go home. We have been tossed around by the vagaries of fate. That's MY generation.

Writing

I remember taking a introductory course in my undergraduate years in fiction writing. For one of the exercises, we were required to write the same story from each person-perspective (first, second and third). It was an in-class exercise, and the only idea that sprang to mind was a young boy (maybe 8 or 9) walking home from school, dejected and angry, with very little control over his life and what was happening. As he was walking home, he saw a line of ants across the sidewalk, and stomped on them, which alleviated his anger but also created a sense of remorse. The other perspectives were from the ant's point of view, and from the point of view of the neighbor across the street, an older man who felt sorry both for the ants and for the boy.

I had a great conversation tonight with a friend which made me realize that I used to love to write, and I'm not terrible at it, but I have ignored the inner voice telling me to continue writing in my journal, or even to continue writing fiction. This will change - I won't let myself ignore this any more. Perhaps a blog will help?

On another note, my trip to Texas was epic. A story for a night at the pub with some stiff drinks and good friends. Hopefully I will get to see you all at some point in order to share my ridiculously long and involved, funny and crazy story at some point in the near future.

For now, it's back to the grindstone of school, work and sleep, school, work and sleep. A never-ending cycle of too much of one and not enough of the other.

On a happier note, I completely ignored school work today in order to rearrange my apartment furniture and clean. So, at least something is getting done.

Hope everyone enjoyed a happy New Year, and it might be time to actually write down that list of to-do's in 2011. Perhaps I'll post it...