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Thursday, August 12, 2004

 
12:53 PM: one day at a time [#] [0]

on monday i had dinner at the heathman w/ michaelmas to celebrate my birthday. at this time last year, i had just recovered from the worst illness ever and we toddled to the heathman, ate my salmon very carefully, and toddled back home. this year i careened through the streets of portland trying to avoid traffic tangles, picked michael up at the library, indulged in a fabulous meal, and hung out with him at his place. -much- more satisfying. :)

on tuesday, sven & i took pamela & her family to multnomah falls! pamela's in town because her daughter larkin is attending psu in the fall & they're getting her settled into her dorm room. it was great to see pamela, who was a huge influence at the end of my time in california and the reason why i want to do artist's way groups in the fall. i had met her husband archie in passing while attending artist's way, but hadn't met larkin at all, so it was good to see them in more context. they are way more fit & walk faster than me, so we ended up splitting into two groups, which gave us a great chance to use the walkie-talkies sven & i have been experimenting with for burning man, and they worked like a charm here. so while they sped up to the top of the falls, sven & i explored the gorge trail and came upon a large landslide of rocks that had been still for so long they were covered in thick tufted moss. we climbed them and sat amongst their quiet lumpiness. :) we met up with pamela's family for lunch and had a great conversation. afterwards, i showed pamela the studio & gave her the dried flowers & herbs i had saved from her place which burned to the ground last year.

yesterday was full of ups & downs:
the group that manages my working assets credit card just sent me a notice saying they were raising my rates to 26% (!!) at the end of this month. i felt it was a ridiculously high rate and i was going to call to complain and possibly close the account. but going through my records, i realized my rate had actually dramatically increased from 14% to 25% in march! if i was going to squack, i ought to have done it then. *makes gurgling noise in back of throat*

and for whatever reason, citibank won't let me do a balance transfer onto their card, even though i've just paid it off (ha! i thought it was the higher-rate card!). "it's not on the account. i can only do it if there's a promotion on the account," says the ever-so-helpful customer service guy, and doesn't feel we can just skip to the next promotion. *sigh*

speaking of which, i saw the corporation last night w/ sven, leopoldo & dinnergrrls jessica. it made me depressed: are local businesses the only trustworthy ones? somehow i don't believe -that-'s true. i hadn't realized corporations were considered legal persons and had exploited a loophole in the 14th amendment to be that way. noam chomsky made a great point likening the institution of coporations to the institution of slavery: the the individual people can all be very nice and can even treat the people involved very well, but the whole concept is unavoidably monstrous. anyway, i'm at a loss because after fahrenheit 9/11 i can't work for the government, and after the corporation i can't work for a corporation. universities truly are the lesser evil. or working for oneself, i suppose.

the good news is that in between all that, i managed to score a large-format mobile cartthrough freecycle yesterday, the kind architects to hang plans. (those things go for more than $350!) it holds art paper tremendously well. :) it was downtown, though, and i only had trixie, so i'm sure it was comedic to try to watch me fit it into the car, give up, disassemble it, and tie a big chunk onto the roof. i have the bruises to prove it!