Ted the Hacker

It's New Year's Eve and I'm home drinking strong hot chocolate while watching trashy TV. My parents are still out, and I don't know where they are. Strange.

Earlier today I met some friends downtown Portland at the train station; they were picking someone up, driving to Seattle, and going to a dance concert. We almost got kicked out of the station bathroom for sitting in there so long doing each other's make-up. Then they took off, snazzy and excited, and Portland lay before me: parking is free after 7 pm on Saturdays and I had my teal cowboy boots on. Wander wander wander!

I love Portland. I love love love it. Out of every city I've been to, and I've been to a few, Portland is the best. It's clean and I feel safe (of course, police officers were everywhere: in cars, on foot, on bicycles, and on horses!). So I wandered around, not really worrying about choosing a destination. Eventually I found myself at Voodoo Donuts, and they have vegan donuts, and they are delicious. Mmm. Wander wander wander. Get complimented by slightly drunk guys. Smile, "Thank you!" and walk on. Give coins to some people sitting on the ground. Think of how nice people are when you're nice to them, when you're not scared of them. Around stores, all closed, even Powell's, which in my mind is perpetually open and awesome. I text some people to see if they'll come downtown. Nope, but that's not bad, I don't really want to stay down here and fight the hordes to drive away after midnight. There's a daycare open, saying that they'll be open till 1 am. All the kids are in pajamas.

I walk past a man standing, holding a cup. He asks for anything, and I see the cup holds bills and coins and cigarettes. He's remarkably sober-looking, and I stop and apologize about not having anything. He talks to me, gives me a long and detailed spiel about how to identify drug-addled pan-handlers. He shows me his hostel key and talks about how he's a web designer and computer programmer, that he hacked his phone because he couldn't pay for it, but he felt bad. I apologized for having nothing, and he said that's what people say, but they never actually help him--"my hostel's right there," he points to it, "no one takes me up on paying for a night. $17."
"What's the hostel name?"
"I'll escort you there myself!" and he offers his arm.
"Okay, lead me there!" And we walk the one block to the hostel, and I pay for one night's board. It seems so much better than handing someone coins, really; I want him to have a place to stay. I want a roof over his head. I know the money won't be spent on something else.
As I walk toward the door, he follows me, and says he'll escort me to wherever I was originally going. I say Pioneer Square, and he talks the whole way as we walk. Some of the things he says are somewhat strange, but a lot of it is detailed enough that it rings true. He graduated from college. His name is Ted. He tells me of various bars in town, including one where anyone can dance on a pole for 5 minutes and keep whatever money they earn in that time. He was there, he said, and he saw an old lady get up, pull her dentures out, place them in a cup, and dance her way up and down the pole--and she made $700. He talked with her. "There's no way you just got up and did that." She admitted to him that she had put her three daughters through college by dancing. She had 48 years of experience. Wow. And he doesn't stop talking. Yet, he seems like a beautiful soul, and I'm so glad that we met, and my idea that people are beautiful is reaffirmed. Ya just gotta give 'em a chance.

When I walk to my car, I realize that my parents would be horrified that I talked with a homeless man, walked arm and arm with him, hugged him twice. I know that I sometimes do things that aren't 100% safe; I realize that I could get burned. But I don't want to be scared of people. I want to love people, and I want them to know that I care.

5:30 PM and I'm...zzzz...

I stayed up too late last night, to the point of the TV being pure infomercials. One seduced me.

When I turned off the light and curled up under my blankets, my brain refused to shut up. I kept thinking of how insane my workout DVDs (freshly ordered) will be, how the Harry Potter series (I'm re-reading them, and am on book 7) are beautiful and heart-breaking, how I had to get up in six, five and a half, five hours, how a large chunk of my graduate school applications are due by January 1st (my top school's application is due the 31st--two days! Two days!), and how the GRE is going to kick my ass.

I don't think I actually slept. I dozed, sure, had twitchy dreams and a grey fuzz over my eyes, but my alarm went off and I wanted to cry. It was my early work-day today. And I had a full day, with clients wanting a plethora of things. One wanted the hour spent on her neck and jaw. Zzz. I did take a name for about 15 minutes when I was on my break. Then I was off work, I got lunch and cider, and came to Starbucks.

I'm falling asleep. My applications are very far from being done. The kids behind me remind me that I don't want kids, that I don't like kids, and that kids are really annoying.

Tomorrow I'm getting up even earlier so I can take the GRE. I'm very glad that not many of my applications want it; I have a feeling the math section is going to shove me in a blender and drink me for lunch.

Would it be inappropriate if I took a nap here in this church-carpet-orange chair?

Subcutaneous wanderlust

Although sometimes I wish I could be like the Magic School Bus and travel inside someone's body and really see how they function, I don't really want to travel under someone's skin. Yet the urge to travel, and move, and be tether-less is a, to steal the words of Thylias Moss, "subcutaneous halo." I feel it like a too-tight suit squeezing my essence, making me want to drive fast and cold and far.

To get out of the house and behind the wheel I did my mom a favor and went to the store to buy canned milk--twice. Don't send a vegan to buy dairy products. The first journey resulted in sweetened condensed milk, not evaporate milk. And people say vegan food is gross. Ugh.

All I wanted to do was take my mom's car to the wild forest and winding hill and perhaps all the way to Cali to surprise my friend Amy or perhaps more realistically just go to the Oregon beach. Sit on the cold sands, feel the cold water splash my legs to ice.

At times I wish I could crawl into my own skin and see what's going on: why do I feel my emotions more than my own skin? What is tight beneath it, tight under my sternum, compressing and twisting, making me gasp and pound my chest and tear my hair and--I understand why people scream in frustration. But whatever's in my lungs isn't the problem, although the air here is stagnant and I'm infected by its inactivity. I need out, but to get out I must stay longer. I hate this unmoving.

I'll call him Santa

At work, we have a computer in the break-room with everyone's schedule. When a client's name is underlined we know they're here; when their name is bold, we know they requested their therapist by name. My client today requested me. I couldn't remember who he was.

Till I got him on the table and saw the huge blackhead in the middle of his spine that was there when I worked on him several weeks ago. Dear lordy, it's still there. It's huge. I had thought it was a mole, but it's definitely a blackhead.

Odd how something so small can consume so much of my thought process. Seriously, I wonder if I can pop it without him knowing, even though I'm sure it would be REALLY gross and probably hurt and bleed. So I massage around it and passively try to burst it and am so thankful when it's time to move on to his arms and I can cover his back with the sheet.

He's middle-aged, wears a beaten-up wedding ring, and I can't help but wonder how his wife hasn't seen the blackhead, and I feel sorry for this man as I am growing more sure that his marriage is loveless. How could a lover miss that? It's huge!

Towards the end of the massage, after I've had him turn onto his back, when the lights are dimmed so I can just read the clock, he asks if I ever take a vitamin D supplement and goes on to tell me how they help so much with mood and depression and...I wonder what he senses from me. What imperceptible messages have I been sending? Has my sadness for him been perceived as a deep sadness in myself? It's got me thinking. The massage ends.

He comes out of the room, I give him his cup of water and tell him to drink more, and he drains the whole cup. Then he says, "Merry Christmas," hands me a tip, and hugs me. I've never been hugged by a client; I don't touch clients after the massage.

He tipped me $40.