The store that I managed and ran has finally closed its doors after eight months of "store closing". When the year began, before the owner decided that she wanted to close the store, I had already decided that I would quit in the spring. Swahili was a great experience for me but after a while it was like locking myself in a cage for 8 hours a day, literally. It was a small store and I was the only one there, I couldn't leave or use the bathroom without locking up, I dealt with tourists all day long and never interacted with another human being on any kind of personal social level. And the amount of actual crazy people I had to deal with on a nearly daily basis was astonishing. I worked there for a little over two years and by the end of year one I started to go a little mad with solitude and cabin fever. The last eight months tested my patience beyond anything that I could imagine. Answering the same ten questions day after day, I slowly sank into this deep calm accepting that the redundant and repetitive nature of my life was part of a cycle that I had to get through to reach the next level of awareness. Some days I didn't buy my own bullshit and the wrath that perfect strangers had thrust upon them was impressive, even to me. My last day at the store was last Thursday. It felt like what I would assume getting out of prison feels like. You understand that you're free but there is a shadow of a feeling like you have to go back, either because it's so familiar to you now that it's a part of you and even though you don't want to be there you can't shake the feeling that you HAVE to be there, or that someone somehow will force you to return. In any case, your time isn't served, no matter how far away you walk from those doors. That feeling stayed with me for a few days. I didn't realize how relieved I was to be done with it all until that night when my friends and husband took me out to celebrate. Drunk isn't quite the word I would use to describe my behavior for that evening. I think maybe, a spastic dancing happy monkey who had one too many vodka crans would be more accurate. Thankfully I don't have a clear remembering of the last hour or so of the night, and it's probably best that way. All I know is that I was a human pogo stick. The following day was a Friday and like any good hangover it kept me on the couch in the dark for the entire day and night. It was a cathartic process, one that needed to be done whether I knew it until after it was decided or not.

Sunday was our fifth year wedding anniversary. Since Adam and I were together for six years before we got married it felt unfair to stop celebrating our original anniversary in lieu of our wedding one, so now we have two. They are both very important days in our past and both have very unique and very humorous or horrific stories attached to them depending on your disposition. At any rate, every year we try to do something special for our anniversaries. This year Adam had the fantastic idea of spending the evening and night at a local nearby place called the Kennedy School. The Kennedy School was a former large one level elementary school that was bought and converted into a unique hotel. The classrooms were converted into guest rooms (complete with original chalkboards and cloakrooms), the auditorium was converted into a movie theater, and other spaces were converted into various bars and restaurants. There is a on-site brewery, a heated salt water soaking pool, a gymnasium that you can rent for special events, and a library. We go to the Kennedy School on a semi regular basis because of the unique bars and atmosphere but never before have we rented a room for the night. It was awesome. We spent the entire evening bar hopping throughout the school, grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants, took cocktails out to the soaking pool and in the chilly cloak of darkness spend the next hour outside in heated saltwater surrounded by palm trees and bamboo trees and a black sky. The pool was packed. For overnight guests it's free but it's also available for non overnighters for a $5 charge. Everyone in the pool was our age, groups of friends and clusters of couples, everyone casually laughing and talking and drinking as they sat or stood (it's only about 4.5 feet deep) in the heated water. Sure, it wasn't romantic because of all of the people but it was lovely to be a part of a secret Portland night community of people our age, all tattooed and socializing in their bathing suits. Afterward we dressed and moseyed over to the movie theater where we caught a (movies are free to overnight guests) late night showing of The Prince of Persia. Popcorn and beer were consumed while watching the flick (I love McMenamins bar/theaters). After the movie we went to another bar, had another drink and some late night tater tots, the perfect drunk food, and ordered cheesecake to go. Back in our room we played Patty Cake, chatted and ate cheesecake in bed at 1:30am and drunkenly fell asleep. I had awesome dreams of the hotel that night. I dreamt that our friends and Adam and I were all staying at the Kennedy School and I woke up to find a pile of black hair in the bathroom sink, soaking in bloody water. Soon after every space of wall, ceiling and floor was covered in soaking wet black hair, hanging like thick vines. (Yes, it's your classic Asian horror flick - gross). The hotel management claimed it was a plumbing problem and ordered an evacuation, so the rest of the dream was spent with my friends and I traversing the labyrinth-like tunnels of the basement through soaking wet hair vines trying to find the exit. Then I woke up at 3:40AM and was convinced, CONVINCED, that if I got out of bed and turned the corner to the long hallway that led to our room's doorway that there would be a little girl standing there with soaking wet black hair covering her face. So despite the protests of my bladder I stayed in bed, you know, just to be safe. The next morning we had a quiet breakfast before checking out and then spent a leisurely day around the apartment napping and watching Dexter. Now I feel reset, reborn, cleansed of the bullshit that has shrouded my life for the last eight months (at least). So what's next? Good question...

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