Throwback Thursday #5: 2004

I will again take one side of the journal and give a little blurb/picture romp through Tricia at age 25.  Then we will read the other side of the journal and take a romp through that Tricia still age 25- (it’s only like 2 weeks apart!)

Journal 2004: 10/23 visiting St. Louis for World Series. 11/7 back in Eugene, OR

Translation:

the reality not set in
here I am sitting on the steps
of a porch I’ve sat on million times
before before before
so do I feel different- hell no!
the grass seems fuller and the streets
cleaner but the differences are minimal.
the abnormally nice weather
seemingly greeting us a hello
like it knows the weather we’ll return to.
The sticky thick air
fills up the lungs and I remember
st. louis nuances and innduendos
of watching leaves turn bawdy
not sickly like in Eugene.
the stability of my favorite mug,
that waits on a shelf in St. Louis
is a direct representation of the
people I love and know here too.
That I can pull them down
and let them fill me with love
and warmth of memories
those coffee mugs I hold dear to me.
These people I long for constantly
on a street in a house in old St. Lou
10/23

This is the Yale House, with Red Dog sitting on the front steps. Spring into winter. Love this photo!

Roland and I at this point were visiting St. Louis after living in Eugene, OR for half a year.  The Cardinals were in the World Series and we were back to cheer them to victory- but alas, it was not yet to happen.  I have so many memories tied up in this house, and it is still “in the family” so we continue to make memories there!  This poem/prose piece is a weird one, in that I wasn’t missing St. Louis all that much yet, we hadn’t been gone long enough to really miss the city- but I always missed my friends.

I wish I had a picture of that fucking mug… I loved that mug.  It was smallish and white with orange and yellow flowers and brown was in there too.  It was very 1970’s.  Which was the “theme” of the decor in the Yale House, if you could call it decor and not the mish-mash of objects and trinkets that the numerous roommates that filtered in and out of the Yale House left behind.  Also, Brad and I were obsessed with Free Stuff and both had sizable cars to transport said Free Stuff so that our house was usually discarded furniture and turntable consols.  None of us really liked to paint or wash walls or dust or anything like that so tapestries were employed to look like we care.  I loved this time at the Yale House!

Brad put the timer on the camera to take this picture of a moment in time as we all watch the TV, which I assume had some sporting event on.

In this photo you see our remnant from Audra, the day Bush declared war on Iraq, she painted ‘Those who do not remember history are destined to repeat it. Peace *symbol* not War on an old tye dyed tapestry we had.  This hung outside on the front porch and we even put out a tall candle holder that we tried to keep a candle lit at all times (which proved to be too difficult and costly).  However, the city of Maplewood has some law about banners that it has to be made of “banner material” and of “an appropriate size” (all technicalities) and forced our landlord to make us to take it down. It then moved in doors.  The Canadian flag was either Jason’s or Brad’s (my memory is failing me) and the paintings by the window and above the window were from Aubrey.  OH SHIT!!!! There’s the mug!! It is next to me (you only see the back of my head) but there it is to the left of me.  WHITE MUG!!!! I MISS YOU!!!

My favorite people who I still love and adore!
Aubrey, Jason, Brian, Shannon, Roland, RedDog, Aimee and Brad!

So this photo: Roland passed out: He is behind Shannon next to RedDog.  We all fucked with him all night, made the alien that hangs in the bathroom hump him and put flowers all in his hair.  He never woke up.  So Brad set another timer and we took a picture all hanging out around him.  There are too many things to love about this photo.  But the best thing to me is how almost every person in this photo I still care about A LOT!  (Aimee’s friend Lisa I do not keep in touch with- and I think her name is Lisa… shit I could be wrong about that- but here she is regardless- immortalized in my blog)

PAGE TWO:

Translation:

11/7
I’m back home
home in Eugene
and here I feel, it better
suits a transitioning
soul like me.
Under an overpass
ramp access to highways
on a crisp near winter day
the sun sets on
the red ball
that I throw and Red Dog plays.
His yellow coat
against a strikingly green grass
with the redness a perfect contrast
As the late changing leaves
offer displays of fire red
and orange on the branches
and dispersed on the ground
Autum in the Northwest
A dreadlocked psudo hippie
and her faithful companion
play at roles they play so well
they’ve become a fact
and a testamony of what
the mind can change by repeating.
I hate to sound cynical
when its the last thing I feel
that I’ve found the point of this path
and it’s right for my ideals.

Where we lived in Eugene Oregon. The bottom apartment to the far right. And RedDog chillin’ in the front yard.

I loved living in Eugene in 2004.  I mean, I was ready for the city by 2006 and the smallness of the college town was a tad annoying for the city girl I am.  Plus, there were a lot of stinking hippies out there. Dreadlocked bitches and their dogs hanging out in parks and writing awful poetry- oh wait!  That’s me!  Much like the Yale House, Roland and I decorated on the fly, grabbing all the awesome discarded furniture that would become available in the alleyways by the college come May/June.  Using tapestries to cover windows and walls.  Our other favorite decoration was Amber.

Amber lounging with her lover, RedDog on our Red Couch. This was where we spent our Hangover Sundays. There were three couches so each person had their own couch to recuperate on. It was kinda spectacular!

Amber was my best friend, the first friend I made in Oregon outside of the Fund… well, I mean kind of.  She worked for them a little bit- but when I met her she was already done with them. (The Fund for Public Interest Research- or PIRG’s.  They knock on your doors or stop you in your streets.  90% of my adult friends I have met through the Fund. )  We met at the Mac’s Vets Club the St. Louis hangout in Eugene, OR (and before you laugh- it is true- all the Midwest, St. Louis especially, people we met in Eugene we met at the Vets Club.  Probably because they had $4 pitchers of Busch and blues music every weekend night). She was the sauce in my applesauce and a fixture at our home.  I would have HATED life for sure, if it wasn’t for her and our hi-jinks.  She is still one of the few people in my life that I can say truly ANYTHING and know that she’s got my back and won’t hold it against me.  Unless she can make me do something stupid by blackmailing me with it- which is not beneath her- and which is why I fucking love her fucking face.

Here is our Thanksgiving Family! Mo and Jef and Greg and Brennan!

I am adding this photo because I would be remiss to not mention these beautiful people at this time period.  When Roland and I first moved to Eugene in 2003 Greg, Mo, Jef and Brennan were our first friends.  Shit happened and Roland and I got stuck in STL for 6 months and finally got back to Eugene the summer of 2004.  During the time of these journal entries we flew to STL for the World Series and then came back to Eugene.  When I wrote the second entry we were a couple of weeks away from Thanksgiving.  Mo and Jef hail from Minnesota, Greg from Iowa (and now I am unintentionally singing the Iowa Song) and none of us were heading home so we had Thanksgiving together.  Thus began our tradition of transplant thanksgiving and we would be doing this every other year for the next 6 years.  Thanksgiving 2004 was the shoe in the aquarium year and the Roland peeing in the backyard year.  (Shmee has every right to hate us- but she doesn’t! Amazing!)  When Roland and I moved to Portland in 2006, Brennan came shortly after and by 2007 we were living in the Michigander together (You’ve seen Greg in Brennan in the post from earlier this week!)  But that is for a future Throwback Thursday.

My favorite bit from this poem/prose is:

A dreadlocked pseudo hippy and her faithful companion play at roles they play so well they’ve become a fact and a testimony of what the mind can change by repeating.

I may not have those dreadlocks- and I miss my faithful RedDog so much sometimes I still cry- but what a great sentence to sum up what I have been toying around in these blog posts since they began.  Playing at roles, that I’ve begun to play so well, they become who I am.  How powerful is our brain to allow us to become what we put out there to be!