Back

Being back has been...interesting. Is there anything more deflating than being on the job market? I'm having trouble with the whole "I'm-looking-for-a-job-which-means-I-don't-currently-have-one-which-(in America at least)-means-I'm-a-sub-par-human-being" thing. I read the current copy of the Willamette Week in the MAX today and it told me that Oregon's unemployment (11.5%ish) is one of the highest around. But I still feel inadequate.

Also I'm living with my mom. The best part about that is drinking wine periodically, baking cookies, and watching Survivor together again (amazing how easily I can fall back into that, but it's a passion. Producers...you missed out!). The very best part is sleeping with Kucha. She's the cutest dog in the world, and I swear that being away from her for a whole year has exponentially increased my love for her. I've always been cautiously in love with her, but now it's all out-I hug her and kiss her (even though she licks my toes and various sundries off the ground), and don't even mind the dog smell anymore (much). The worst part is...I'm living 'at home' (even though I've never 'lived' here before, in this house, just visited), with all the nagging ('get a job!') and feelings of inadequacies that entails.

So even though I'm a complete pathetic loser, worthy of the 'pathetic loser' pants I almost didn't change out of at all yesterday, I'm still finding reasons to be optimistic, namely, the divine friends I've been reconnecting with, all across Portland. "I'm in Portland! Wow! I can't believe I'm in Portland!" I hear myself keep saying. A play at the Newmark Theater with Hannah (ok, ok, so The Laramie Project 10 years later isn't the happiest of pieces, but it was mindblowing, and amazing to be a part of something so big and cool and right), Rogue Brewery with Megan and Layna, and the Hawthorne district with Alisha, where I had very reactionary reactions against all the hipsters afoot. ENOUGH already with the vintage, the tight pants, the funky hair, the admittedly bitchin' tattoos, the macchiatos and the local pride! After thinking about why these harmless trendies were pissing me off so much, (-'really Annette, what's so wrong with local pride, when your local is Portland, OR??' -'true fact, inner reasonable self') I think it had something to do with all the Hindu- and Buddhism-inspired objets d'arts I kept seeing in the kooky little trinket stores, after just having been in the real deal in Cambodia. Over there, Buddhism is more than just a chintzy statue to stash on your sideboard, it's life, in a way I can't even speak to because I only really got a taste of it.

Enough already with the reverse culture shock! And can somebody tell me why Law & Order SVU is one of my current favorite pastimes, even with the preposterous plots of late?