Top 10 Lessons Learned from Memorial Day in Manson

10) No matter what your plans are, it’s always a good idea to leave an extra car at Cappy’s.

09) The best and most instantaneous hangover cure is to jump in the glacier-fed lake.

08) Recovery from a weekend in Manson will take at least twice as long as it should

07) Your top for the bar should be a similar shape to the swimsuit you got the sunburn in

06) Your top for the bar should be something you don’t mind wearing to breakfast the next morning

05) A paper cut could become a life-threatening emergency if you’ve had so much to drink that your blood won’t clot anymore

04) Always bring a hair tie

03) Multiple days of heavy drinking may turn you into someone you don’t recognize and wouldn’t invite to a party

02) If you can’t remember it, it’s up to you whether you want to admit that it happened

01) If you can’t remember it, maybe it’s just better that way

Top 10 Things I Will and Won't Miss About Seattle

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss About Seattle/Westside:

10) Being able to get everything I need within 10 minutes of my house
09) Vietnamese food
08) Japanese food
07) Thai food
06) Cheap and expensive versions of all the above foods
05) Happy hours
04) Trader Joe’s
03) Sweeping views of Rainier, the Olympics and the Cascades
02) Weekly barbecues
01) My friends! ☹

Top 10 Things I WON’T Miss About Seattle/Westside:

10) Spending most of my money on Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese food
09) The drive to the weekly barbecues
08) Rolling down my window on a nice day on the freeway and smelling exhaust instead of nature
07) Traffic
06) Rain
05) Mold in windowsills
04) Soggy grass
03) Shopping
02) SUVs that people use to only to drive the 10 minutes to work
01) Bellevue

Love and Top 10 Kisses
Morgan

Leaving Seattle

I’m having mixed feelings about leaving Seattle.
Okay, granted, I officially left three months ago when I moved to Camano Island. However, Camano is only an hour and a half away from “the city” and in truth it was so close it was easy to head back on a moment’s whim. I really wasn’t gone. (I also realize that, technically, I was living in Bellevue for the past year, not Seattle, but just go with it, people.)
There are a lot of great things about living in or near a city. I’m sure the longer I’m away from it, the more reasons I will remember, but there are some really obvious ones that I’m already missing: finding everything you need within a couple miles of your house; a multitude of ethnic foods at a multitude of prices; tons of friends your own age with similar interests; and plenty to do. These are the things I will miss.
However, the move away from Seattle has been coming for quite awhile. Some people say they need the sun but manage to live in the shadow of the Cascades without needing more than a weekend or two away. They are, as far as I’m concerned, lucky bastards. I am not happy here. It didn’t matter that friends and family and a beautiful place to live surrounded me. There is nothing as amazing as crossing one of the bridges over Lake Washington on a crystal clear sunny day when you can see the Cascades, the Olympics, Mt. Rainier and even Mt. Baker. The friends I have and made here are what kept me in the area longer than I’ve lived anywhere since college. But it wasn’t enough.
Each day that it was sunny and I was working, my spirits were mired in a puddle that never dried up. It didn’t matter that it was sunny, because I couldn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t sunny enough days outside of the workweek for me to feel okay about sitting inside as the birds sang and the boats hummed on the water. It killed a part of me every day to watch this sunshine and not be in it.
It’s possible I may move back to Seattle at some point, but I really hope not. I hope that what I learned about myself and the rain will stick with me so I don’t make the same choice again. I like myself better when I have a sunglass line across my cheeks, when it’s awkward for me to wear dresses that reveal my farmer’s tan, when I feel like it’s okay to write today while it’s sunny, because tomorrow’s going to be sunny too. Because of Seattle, though, I will never take that sunshine for granted again.

Love and Emerald City kisses
Morgan

I see you.

It’s the peak of an orgasm. It’s the point of zero gravity at the top of a roller coaster. It’s the butterflies you get in your stomach when you think he likes you, but you’re not sure yet. It’s the first shock of freezing water. It’s the time you’re suspended in the air after you’ve leapt off a 40-foot cliff. It’s the extra long minutes once you’ve begun to spin out of control on a snowy pass, when you’ve had time to say ohshitohshitohfuckohshit more than could actually be possible, considering the fact that it only takes .5 seconds to slide to a stop. It’s the moment when you know your relationship is going to end and you have to say it out loud.
What is it? It’s the edge of living life to the fullest. Those moments of raw emotion that are too painful to touch for longer than a couple seconds, yet you strive to find a way to connect with that power and draw strength from it.
I feel most alive on mountain tops, in glacial waterfalls, when every sense is being stretched beyond my comfort level and part of me wants it to go on and another part can’t stand the electrifying jolt of life: of pure, unfiltered existence.
I get glimpses of it, and it’s not enough. It’s like a drug that I have been searching for my entire life, but I only get fleeting tastes of it mixed in with all the everyday flavors. Some days, I feel it stalking me, waiting for the right moment to pounce, and suddenly I get a tightness in my chest and it’s hard to breathe and I am right on the point of letting the animal consume me, but I can’t figure out how to unleash it and it slinks away, to wait until its next chance to be free. It is not my muse, per se, but the rocket ship that carries my muse to me, and I feel the heat as it burns past me with my muse in tow, screaming in thrill and delight, and I never seem to be able to catch the rocket and hold on tight enough to ride it to pure ecstasy.
I am closer to it than ever before. There is a path that is so full of bliss, so charged with energy, that to follow it is to get dragged behind a speedboat and all you can do is try not to lose your swimsuit bottoms in the process. It is the spark inside that can be stoked to wildfire heights, if only there were enough wood.
It is there, and I will find it, whatever it is. I will keep searching until it pounces on me and I scream, consumed.


Love and searching kisses
Morgan

Wake up, Creativity.

“Come on, Creativity. Up and at ‘em.”
Nothing but a muffled reply reaches me. I pull the covers off to reveal my own little writing style: young, full of passion, and dead asleep.
“Come on Creativity. It’s almost 11 a.m. I let you sleep in, now let’s get going.”
She groans and throws the pillow over her head.
“Mmmphf.”
I sigh and leave the room. I get another cup of coffee, a glass of water and turn on the live stream of NPR. I open up my guide on how to write the best f*ing book proposal in the world (not its actual title, just my name for about four books on the subject I’ve been reading lately) and try to concentrate. I jot down notes that will probably be useless to me according to the next book’s bright ideas. I read a chapter and put the book down. I take a glance toward the room where Creativity is blissfully unaware of how much this sucks without her, and I open up the novel.
I scroll back up through the last chapter and read through it again. I check spelling (when she gets going, Creativity doesn’t even make sure to spell her own name correctly) and try to look at the prose from the eyes of an editor, a reader, anyone but the mother of this darling child who is my pride and joy and the bane of my existence all rolled into one.
It’s pretty damn good.
I decide to try to start the next chapter without her. I crack my knuckles, take a deep breath, and dive into the keyboard like it’s a pool of dreams and all I have to do is plunge in.
I hit concrete.
No problem, I think. I must have just tried to jump into the shallow end. I turn the keyboard sideways, so that the Q, A and Z keys are at the top. I think this is really clever and chuckle to myself. Sometimes it’s just about finding a different way of looking at it. I leap into the role of being a writer, something I have just recently claimed myself to be on my tax return.
“What are you DOING????”
I jump and nearly spill my coffee all over the keyboard. My head hits the concrete at the side of the pool and thumps like a melon.
“I was…you weren’t awake and I wanted to start. I was going to try it myself…”
Creativity gives me a look only possible in a teenager. It encompasses pity, loathing, and a little dash of self-satisfied smirk.
“You tried that before, remember? You know you’re no good at this all by yourself.”
I sigh. I want to yell at her but I know she’s right.
“Okay fine. You sit here and I’ll get you something to eat.”
Creativity sits at the table, her long legs curled awkwardly underneath her. They’re longer than she’s used to, and she hasn’t managed to make them very sturdy yet. She looks at me deliberately and turns the keyboard so that it’s facing the right direction. I turn away and begin to make her some eggs. I get caught up in what I’m doing and daydreaming about what it will be like when we get to show Creativity’s work to people. She’s not ready yet, of course, but it won’t be long now…
I turn to give her the plate of food I just made and she’s not there. I look around. The door is open and the sun is shining in through the doorway. I groan inwardly. Creativity loves the sunshine, but not for work. She wants to go play. She’s probably out planning elaborate gardens or making up stories in her head about meeting a tall dark and handsome man walking on the beach.
I sigh and sit down at the computer. I turn the keyboard sideways and take a bite of her eggs. Maybe she’ll be in the mood to help me tomorrow.

Love and adolescent kisses
Morgan

The First Day of My Writing Life

I was recently offered a job as a caretaker for an island property in Panama. It was an unpaid position, mind you, but it would have been a place to live in Panama for free in exchange for showing guests around the island and a nearby town.
This may seem like an easy equation for people who have full-time jobs: no pay+work as caretaker+no vacation time=no. And they would be right. The fact that it’s unpaid is only one of many reasons it’s not a good idea. However, I labored long and hard over whether or not I should go. I thought about it for most of the day, then emailed the property owner and told him I wouldn’t be able to make it down there for three weeks. I am a writer, taking time off from “the real world” as some people call it, and it doesn’t really matter where I am when I write. Or that’s what I told myself. I told myself that it was just my kind of opportunity; it wasn’t the first time I would have worked for next to nothing (or nothing) to go abroad.
The more I thought about it, the more I decided it was almost inevitable, and the more and more depressed I got. I felt like it was the straight path I had been following for years: work, hate it, quit, go abroad, spend all your money, come back, get a job, hate it…
And out of nowhere, as I went through the day-to-day activities of my meager but pleasurable existence, I realized that I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to start my cycle again. I enjoyed getting up and knowing that I could do whatever it was I wanted to, and all I wanted to do was write. If I moved to Panama, it would be admitting that my path would never go anywhere but in a circle. I would inevitably not make it where I wanted to go, because being abroad would take precedence over my writing. I didn’t want that spiral into madness. I wanted to write.
It really shouldn’t have been that big of a decision. I should have perhaps been able to come to the conclusion sooner, or earlier in my life. However, when it did come to me it was like a thunderclap. I want to write. I knew it, I told people about it, I worked at it, but until I decided not to go to Panama, I didn’t realize how much I had grown to love my writing. Not as a person in love with themselves and their own prose, but as someone who has given birth to a child and cared for her by necessity for so long that they don’t realize how beautiful she is until one day she comes into the room in a prom dress and spins around.
My writing isn’t very mature yet. She is not grown up, ready to drive or move out or go to college. She doesn’t quite fit into that prom dress yet. In fact, my writing is prone to tantrums and illogical conclusions and PMS and adolescent hormone imbalances. She has pimples and braces. But somehow under the awkwardness I see something to love, someone to lavish with praise and patiently wait for her to stop wobbling and begin to walk with confidence and grace. She may be a late bloomer, but I want to be there to watch her bloom. So I’m going to stay here and let her grow, where I know it’s safe and stable and where we’re happy. There will always be time for Panama when she grows up.

Love and pubescent writing kisses
Morgan

The New R(e)lationship

I knew my relationship was over when my boyfriend took me off his Facebook. That was his idea of a clean break. He removed my friends and me at the same time and avoided eye contact when he saw me in person. He broke off all e-ties and hoped that physical contact would follow suit. Of course, no one else noticed because we had never gotten to the point where we said on Facebook that we were dating. That was apparently a bigger step than we were up to. It was almost faux pas when I put a picture of us up on my page.
So, now what? Do I e-flirt with my male friends online? Do I go to all my male friend’s pages and check to see if they’re single and change what I’m looking for to “Whatever I can get,” which I think may be the e-equivalent of “I’m desperate?” How do I meet a new one? What am I looking for on his Facebook page that will tip me off to that sort of behavior in the future? Too many friends? Too many status updates? Too much Facebook activity period? (If that's the case, what, then, does my Facebook activity say about me?)
I have a strange habit of checking out people’s fridges the first time I go into their house. I am convinced that there is a lot you can tell about a person by their refrigerator contents, much like they say you can determine a lot about a woman by the shape of her lipstick or a lot about a man by his car. My point here is that my method is pure madness and not based on anything at all scientific. For example: you open a fridge and there on the top shelf is a cut of expensive steak. This tells me a couple things: 1) fridge owner eats meat (duh) 2) fridge owner had expensive tastes 3) fridge owner can cook. So then I bend down and take a closer look in the contents around the steak: are there makings for a salad? Are there 45 different kinds of barbecue sauce? Are there potatoes? Real butter, margarine, low-fat, non-fat or whole-fat sour cream? Beer, wine, champagne? Is this meal meant for me, or is it apparent that this fridge owner cooks like this on a regular basis?
Slowly but surely, we’re moving away from the physical realm and into the r(e)lationship age. But what will my new e-gadget be to determine the same sort of information? How can I take my fridge test and apply it to a Facebook page? This isn’t as easy a switch as it seems. Facebook organizes the page for you and it’s constantly updating your content as it comes in, so it’s harder to have moldy old cheese on your page, so to speak. Just as with any new piece of technology, the amount of time put into learning how to use it is directly related to how much you get out of it. This could perhaps be the moldy cheese test. Does he have a picture of himself up? Does he change it constantly? Is he changing his status 8-10 times a day? Does he sign into Facebook randomly throughout the day, or just once in awhile? Has he moved more to the digital realm, or is it obvious that he is perhaps still strongly attached to the real world? There are at least a few fridge comparisons that I have come up with to help the hapless Facebook r(e)lationship virgin.
1) He changes his status 8-10 times per day = this man would have ingredients for a number of dishes in his fridge. He would keep enough around that he could cook whatever he fancied at the slightest whim, from nachos to filet mignon.
2) His status is constantly referring to a sports game or some new broken record=beer and leftover dominoes pizza.
3) He writes on other peoples’ walls a lot = cheese, tortillas and hot sauce
4) His status constantly refers to some sort of alcohol = Bloody Mary mix, celery, hot sauce and an array of pickled vegetables
5) He pokes people on Facebook = he’s gay. Move on.
6) He’s constantly sending you requests for new quizzes, like “Which race car are you?” = This man is insecure beyond belief. His fridge holds a lot of food he never cooks but buys in his more well-meaning moments. He mostly eats out…with friends whenever possible.
7) Every time he posts pictures, they’re of his car. = All clear fluids and foods that don’t stain. If you got as far as his fridge, it would be after having taken off your shoes…and maybe your socks if they looked even semi-worn.
8) Every time he posts pictures they’re of him and a bunch of different hot women = he has no refrigerator. He eats all his meals out at nice restaurants with these women, hoping to bed them later...at their house so they don't know he doesn't have a fridge.
9) He’s constantly talking about getting laid = his fridge is actually the most well-stocked, because he still lives with his mom.
10) He posts pictures of his wife/girlfriend = he's as good as gay. Move on.

Love and r(e)lationship kisses
Morgan