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Monthly Archives: July 2011

bachelorette weekend

Posted on 07/28/2011 by alex| Leave a comment

In about 90 minutes, I’ll be headed to the airport for a red-eye to Florida to celebrate the upcoming marriage of my friend and college roommate, Taylor. Our Key West bachelorette trip will mark the first time in four years that my former roommates will all be sleeping under one roof, and the first time in over two years that we’ll all be in the same room (the last time was at Marissa’s wedding in 2009). Time flies when you’re having fun, so they say, but no one tells you how much more quickly the years after college go by, we trade in tailgates, and boyfriends and bars and class for weddings and babies and phone tag across time zones. I live in Oregon, Marissa is in Houston, and Jillian and Taylor both live in Central Florida. With full-time jobs, husbands, and kids, seeing your old partners in crime is a challenge. I’m glad we have the opportunity to take this trip, and that we’ll see each other again in September for the wedding. And…I hope it’s not another two years before it happens again!

I know I’ll come home with lots of new memories made, but just for fun, I thought I’d create a little photo-documentary of the last seven years (I found a lot of these photos buried in Facebook tags). They’re going to kill me for posting them.

Taylor and I, 2006. I think it was Chubby's, which is actually a little scary. I'm glad we didn't get shot that night.

Taylor's birthday, 2006 (it's 9 days after mine)

2007, last night out together as college students

Jillian, Taylor, Marissa and I

Marissa's Bachelorette, 2009

2009

Taylor and I, NYE 2008

Bridesmaids, 2009

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Posted in life, love, travel

Tagged beach, family, Florida, FSU, home, love, travel

hello, summer

Posted on 07/01/2011 by alex| 1 Comment

Here in Portland, we love the sun. Mostly because our opportunities to see it, much less feel it on our skin, are limited.

When I first came to Portland two years ago, I was told that it doesn’t rain between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Three beautiful, warm months, with days that stretch until 10 p.m., will make living here for the other nine well worth it. That first summer I spent in Portland was intoxicating. The sky was bright and blue every day, and the evenings were filled with a sweet-smelling balmy breeze that made it difficult not to be outside all night, sipping warm Willamette Valley red wine. I left Portland at the end of August, hair a little lighter, skin a little darker, dreading the likely snow flurries that would be awaiting me in Chicago within just a few weeks’ time.

Coming back to Portland permanently the following January, I patiently walked home from work every day in 30-degree drizzle, knowing, that in just a few months, glorious summer would descend on our little riverside town, making us all deliriously happy, and affirming my belief that my decision to move here was a psychologically sound one.

And then, it never really came.

An entire year went by, and the weather hit 80 degrees five times—maybe—at most. Or at least, that’s how I remember it. An entire 365 days of nights that couldn’t crest 60 degrees—pale skin, sweatshirts, and that inevitable question—why did I ever leave Florida?

And here we are—another Portland summer—and I’ve been told, now, that it’s not supposed to rain after the Fourth of July. That this, Independence Day, is actually the holiday that demarcates misery and a reason for living, and whoever told me about the Memorial Day thing, was wrong.

Might of have been good to know, right?

So, summer should be here on Tuesday. And we’ve gotten a few days of reprieve—almost like a trailer—to keep us all from moving to San Francisco. Or Austin.

Let’s see what happens. There have been a few promising signs.