Homecoming Queen

Dear Blog Readers,

I always wanted to be nominated for homecoming queen, or prom queen, or one of those gay embarrasing titles for which I was clearly too cool to occur to my classmates when it came time for them to vote. My sister Nadia got nominated. Voting for her was as close to irony as highschool kids could ever come. So they did it twice, and left me with a complex.

Last night I ended up at Nevada Smith's- a bar that has a decidedly highschoolesque hype about it. One beer into it, an unattactive horde of women on a bachelorette party scavenger hunt nominated me to wear their "Awesome 80's Prom" banner, and I immediately channeled all of my repressed high school disappointment. I didn't get Rose Queen of St. Mary's Academy, but I got a sash from a very raunchy bachelorette. Can you blame me for being excited?

"You're the Awesome 80's prom queen!"

Claire, an admirer.

I was congratulated with a beer, but Kirsten was clearly much thirstier.

Back in Beans

Beans n' Beer night is back. As the bean queen, I have to say it is back with a vengence. This season, the addition of a handpainted fixins centerpiece has joined the scene, thanks to Claire.

For the kickoff of Fall beans n' beer night, we also welcomed special guest Matt, from down the hall. Matt really made the whole night possible because without him, I may not have had a roommate. Thanks to his heroically honest feat of returning Emily's wallet to her with all of the $1000 in cash still in tact, life moved forward as we know it.

There was one minor hitch. Due to our downgraded room assignment, we now have to eat sitting on the floor around a stolen table from the entertainment lounge. Oh well, the bean pot is still hot!

Nebraska Binge

I had the pleasure of attending a Nebraska-themed birthday party last weekend. The birthday boy was indeed from Nebraska and so were all the other Runza-loving football fanatics. So really, there was nothing too out of the ordinary about the whole affair. Except...the surreal condo building in the Financial District where it was held. Velvet curtains, 10 foot high mirrors, burgandy couches, a glass-rimmed pool table, the bar, and the pièce de résistance: a screening room showing the Nebraska football game.

Perhaps the elaborate setting was then to blame for the extravagant behaviors. I didn't catch it all on camera, but shortly before the handcuffing fight shown below, a scooter negotiation took place and resulted in a highspeed crash in the street below. I may take a lot of pictures, but that's one good instance when I clearly wasn't taking enough.
________

HANDCUFF FIGHT
________

SCOOTER NEGOTIATION















POSTSCRIPT


As far as I know, no one was hurt in the highspeed scooter crash. However, I still feel bad, as a soon-to-be health care professional, that upon witnessing it I laughed before I became concerned.

Vacation Postcards

Wheat in gravel. Overly, North Dakota.











Plane over sunflowers. Pierce County, North Dakota.











Lone Pine Valley. Oregon.












Ponderosa Pines. Black Butte, Oregon.
















Wine at Navarre. E. 28th St., Portland, Oregon.















Stumptown. Portland, Oregon.












Alona's Wedding. Lake Metigoshe, North Dakota.















Magic. Adirondacks, NY.

Almost Back

I'm coming around to the old routine, if but a little slow, and that is absolutely fine. I say it is fine because one week I was sitting in a pontoon on a sunny Saturday in North Dakota, laughing at my friend in her wedding dress and reflective sunglassess, and the following Saturday I stood on the 14th floor of a hospital in Manhattan, next to the bed of a man so jaundiced that the sweat on his forehead looked like Mountain Dew. Last Monday I woke up in my big old bed on my Dad's farm, and the very next day in a twin bed overlooking Joey Ramone Lane. Jolting contrasts.

Today the reality of the next 13 weeks is starting to set in. David left yesterday, which is a sad way to refocus, and from this morning on I will be waking up in the cramped twin bed alone; not with him somewhere in the middle of the Adirondacks, or on a peaceful farm with my family, or with the Ponderosa Pines of Central Oregon, or in a fluffy white bed in NE Portland. This is it for a while (but only a little while).

Writing this blog is harder when there are more interesting events than the gross things I'm studying, which is a shame because I've had an eventful month and I would have liked to share it along the way. I guess the best I can do now is to go back and revisit it all.