How Soon is Too Soon?

Ok. I have long pondered this question. Someone answer it for me.

Say you express interest in a certain female. Maybe you had coffee and had great conversation. Maybe you just met and felt there was mutual interest, considering that you exchanged phone numbers. Whatever the circumstances, when ways are parted she says "Call me sometime." Or perhaps "Call me soon."

When is "sometime" and "soon?" Because the last thing I want to do is call that evening and appear overzealous, but I also don't want to wait two weeks, give the impression I'm not interested, and give her time to find someone else.

Such a hard question.

Because once I called too soon. And last time I text messaged too late. Maybe that's the problem.

So I leave for school a week from Sunday. That's weird. I was trying to get used to it, but I've given up on that.

Remember the "packrat of knowledge" thing I wrote about earlier? Yeah, it extends past knowledge and squarely into the "stuff" category as well. I suppose I'm just a packrat in general. Anyway, the last few mornings have been spent sifting through all of the crap packed away into my closet, under my bed, in my desk. I have found unopened junk mail from 3 years ago. Shoes that I will never wear again because I skated the crap out of them. Maps, old homework, like six music notebooks, which I did consolidate into -a- music notebook. Old guitar strings rolled up. The list goes on.

Sent an email out today hoping that someone will tell me what classes to take. Still haven't heard back from my roommate, which could mean I am either on my own, or that he's even more of a slacker than I am and just hasn't checked his email. I know my email is working because I just got one from my RA. Woo hoo.

I am feeling like I need to pack something, but chances are that I would need the object that I packed precisely six hours after I pack it, so I have refrained from doing such. I think that's after all the cleaning takes place, which means it will probably happen around 8:00 on Saturday night.

So I think I'll just sit here for now, because really I don't know what to do next, and I am sick of throwing things away.

The Last Resort

I love the Eagles. I really do. I love the harmonies, the tightness of their sound, the care given to things like tone and intonation.



So I'm sitting here. By myself. Rekindling my love for a band some people I know discard as ancient.



And this one song keeps hitting me. Everytime I pop in this song, I am rivetted. It's called the Last Resort, and it's somewhat a historical narrative of the American West. It was once this place of freedom and adventure. Dangerous, but if you made the journey, it was a dream come true. The last words of the last verse are absolutely astounding. I'll let you look them up, or better yet, listen to the song. It's one of my all-time favorites.



I love the northwest. I love the rain and the relatively mild summers, the green, and it's somewhat-hippy leanings. I am also a student of history, and never cease to find crummy things that people have done to others, no matter how good their intentions. So when I visited the river front last night, the lights of Portland and headlights reflecting off the water, I was torn. Sure, it was nice to look at. But how many people that lived there before Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Robert Gray were displaced because having them there didn't fit the national interest: raping the land of it's naturally abundant beaver population? I wondered what the Columbia River looked like before Portland, before Vancouver, before the Hudson's Bay Trading Company. No Bonneville Dam. No I-5 bridge. Just river and whatever plants or people were there before. I expressed this idea, which was quickly shrugged off as Brandon being a hippy. This seems to happen a lot.

While I am quick to gripe, it would have happened anyway, the westward spread of civilization. And I do like living here.

So I guess it's a mixed bag.

I still would want to be displaced or killed because I am interferring with commerce and still use a harpoon to catch salmon.

Call someplace Paradise, kiss it goodbye.