5 Dirty Words

Caught your eye, didn’t it? I know it caught mine. And no, it’s not what you think.
Like most Portlanders I tend to have an eye toward conservation: I take public transportation to and from work, I combine trips when I’m out driving around, I recycle, I even compost.

In the first part of May, MINIGirl and her family took a trip down to Southern California so I had the opportunity to “sublet” her parking spot in the garage next to our office building for a week. In the two and a half years I have worked in that office I hadn’t once driven myself to work. In fact I frequently extolled upon the virtues of taking MAX to work daily, and for the most part those still hold true.

After the week was over I gave MINIGirl her parking pass back and went back to my daily commute on Max. I hated it. I’d had a taste of freedom and now I was locked back in to the schedule that the MAX set for me. So I began to think to myself: “What if I drove to work everyday?” But logic hits me upside the head noting all the money I save by taking the MAX, and how virtuous for the Earth it is. So I quietly take my seat on the MAX and contemplate what another few months of light rail commuting would mean.

In between podcasts I looked up at the posters that line the walls inside the car and I see one from TriMet: “5 Dirty Words: POLLUTION. Fact: 4.2 tons of smog-forming pollutants are avoided every day by leaving our cars at home and riding TriMet.”

GUILT. Pure and simple. How selfish of me to want to shave ten to fifteen minutes off of my commute home and contribute to global warming.

If you would like to read the rest of TriMets 5 Dirty Words look here.

Sushi Me Sushi Sakura!

I’m going to take this opportunity to do a restaurant review. As you may have noticed, I’m not a restaurant critic but I enjoy eating well.

I’m a big fan of sushi and when the sign went up for Sushi Sakura I don’t know how many months ago now I got excited. A sushi-go-round so close to my office? I was nearly giddy. And no, I’m not over stating. MINIGirl was on vacation last week and made me wait to go try it out.

So, today was my first endeavor in to Sushi Sakura. When we first walked in the place was packed, and that says a lot at 11:30. When we sat down and I started to eye the sushi passing by on the conveyor belt I couldn’t help but want just about everything that went by, and everything I did grab was very yummy. I have to say that I’m very glad that it was, because after waiting and building the anticipation for nearly six months they could have easily disappointed me and I would have never gone back.

Is there such a thing as TOO crafty?

I had some one tell me that I was too crafty for my own good. At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant, and then I thought about it. I realized what she meant was that I’m dividing my focus among too many things trying to be amazing at all of them with only being good at most of them. I love to make jewelry, I love to write, I love to travel, I love planning events. I like to sew, I like to garden, and at times I enjoy working for an online high school, but where do my passions fall? I know I’m not one dimensional, no one is, but for me to be ultimately successful with any one of my endeavors involving something I love to do, then it’s quite likely I’ll need to buckle down and focus on the thing that I want the most.

So my good friend, and coworker, MINIGirl asked me: Why do you have to choose? My initial thought was: Yeah, why do I have to choose? But the reality is: do I want to be a Jack of all trades, but a master of none?

So, how do I decide? Why does it feel like so much of what I decide is going to define me as a person? A big part of me wants to just cut loose from the traditional work world and endeavor to pursue all of the things I love and some how make a living by doing it. What would my life look like if I did do that? Do I really have that kind of drive an initiative to achieve what I feel like I deserve? How long am I willing to be the starving artist before I can achieve something that may never come?