I don't even know what I'm supposed to be anymore, and that's scary.

First off, you don't have to read this. I won't be mad if you don't. But I'm just putting things out in the open because I can't hold them in any longer. It's like I'm being torn apart from the inside out.

First off, it really pisses me off when I'm expected to keep secrets for people with the understanding that we're still friends, and then things change. I'm tired of being taken advantage of. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely open to hearing whatever problems you have, whatever's on your mind, and you can rest assured that I won't tell anyone else. But I'm tired of being strung along with the idea that we're friends, and then having shit happen to make things not ok, and then being blamed for the situation going wrong. There are a handful of you who already know about this situation.

Second, it's getting harder and harder to be home. This applies to any of the places I've called "home" this year. In the case of my "home" in Newberg, things are getting less and less stable as my stepdad prepares to sell the house and move up to Alaska, where my mom has been for the past three weeks. Once that happens, things are going to change drastically. And my parents don't seem to get it. My mom keeps trying to reassure me by telling me that I'm more than welcome to join them in Alaska after I graduate. (This is, of course, with the assumption that I'll be done with school by next June, which looks a lot more possible now than it did a month ago, but is still unlikely given the fact that I may end up changing majors -- still trying to figure out this decision. More on that below.) Of course, this is with their romanticized notion that a job's existence meand that I'm immediately qualified for it. Yes, I'm aware that there's a newspaper on Kodiak Island. No, that doesn't mean I'm going to be able to work there, or that I even want to -- I'm discovering more and more every day that I might not even want to have anything to do with newspaper writing anymore, thanks to Reporting 1 (aka the bane of my existence, worse than info hell, you get the picture.)

As for "home" here in Eugene, and I know a lot of people are going to respond to this with "What did I tell you?" but I'm finding out just how complicated living with a couple can be. Yes, there are clear benefits to this, the most visible one being a mere $230 in rent, which is almost unheard of for an apartment this nice, in a convenient location. But, the difficulties are starting to outweigh the benefits. I'm starting to solidify my conviction that people should not be acting "married" before they're actually married, or at the very minimum, engaged. Not dating. Not just "in a relationship." And all of the crap I've observed -- one person not being able to make decisions without consulting the other, the "Making Marriage Work" DVD that showed up in our living room one day -- is only strengthening my own desire for independence, which is a tough prospect considering I have "honey" this, "honey" that, mushy bullshit being rubbed in my face all the time.

And it's getting more and more clear that I'm more and more of the third wheel. At the beginning of the year, Brian and I had joint responsibility for the apartment. Legally, on paperwork, adding Bess's name to the lease should have only given her some responsibility as well, NOT shifted it so that Brian's in charge, with Bess as his "pseudo-wife" also in charge and me having no power in any situation and therefore being expected to follow Brian's rules. WHICH WILL NOT BE HAPPENING. I will move out before I get walked on. I'm his roommate, not his child.

While all this is going on, I'm still very much in the process of trying to figure out where I can fit in and thrive in the world. I don't stand out in any particular way. I'm not the person whom you can easily pick out of a crowd. Most people probably wouldn't notice if I just escaped to Alaska and never came back.

I'm discovering, as the year goes on, that I'm not cut out for journalism anymore. Even as sure as I was before I left high school -- so sure, in fact, that I declared my major and had my concentration pretty much set in stone before my freshman year at UO -- now I don't know. But it's too late to change now. I'm a junior in college. Any sort of change at this point would guarantee me another year or two of college, more if I were to pick one of the majors that takes a full four years to complete. So unless anyone has any insight, I'm pretty much stuck limping through another year of journalism, graduating somewhere in the middle of my class. And I don't have any sort of "thing" that would make me stand out from everyone else. I'm not good enough at what I do to pursue an internship, I can't write for an on-campus publication because interviewing scares the crap out of me, and I don't have any special skills. So, I'm basically trying to survive instead of being able to get as much as possible out of my time here.

I need to figure my life out. I need answers. I need to catch a break. Unfortunately, I don't have time for that last one.

LTD...I love you, but sometimes I wonder.

This year, I'm fortunate enough to live on a bus line that serves the UO campus an average of two times an hour on school days, with up to five pickups outside my apartment complex during the "morning rush" hour of 9-10 a.m. and often with two buses making the 9:39 trip to campus -- the last one before my class starts at 10.

Figures, the day I have a midterm at 10 (meaning, I can't just miss class) is the day that the overflowing 9:39 bus, with its "Not In Service" sign glowing mockingly, passed by the stop at the corner of MLK at Kinsrow. The driver threw up his hands in defeat, like he couldn't believe it either, while still communicating the fact that unless we could make it to campus under our own power in less than 20 minutes, we were screwed.

The group of roughly 50 students, suddenly left without a ride to campus, sort of looked at each other and commented on the injustice of the situation. A few broke from the line and began walking to campus via the bike path that passes by Autzen Stadium. I went back to my apartment and retrieved my bike, and somehow I made it to campus, out of breath, with five minutes to spare.

In LTD's defense, they do a pretty good job considering the transit district is having a rough time economically. They've made service cuts year after year, with more routes on the chopping block for next year, including the Breeze shuttle which connects campus with Eugene Station, the 5th Street Public Market, the downtown post office and Valley River Center. At the same time, the ASUO, which pays LTD more than $100,000 per year (coming from student incidental fees), is faced with the dilemma of raising the I-fee to provide more money for this contract or keeping fees low enough for students to afford.

At the same time, I think there should be a special emphasis on certain routes frequented by students. Many students depend on the bus to get to school and around town. University students make up a significant portion of LTD's ridership, so every effort should be made to preserve and improve routes such as the 79x, which is the only reasonable transportation option for students living in the Harlow area who don't have cars.

Maybe this situation is what it takes to support the argument for better bus service for students.

More sweet photos!

So, I did another shoot with my friend Ashlyn. This one was a concept shoot that she came up with in which whoever wanted to could come in, use a whiteboard to complete the phrase "Beauty/Happiness is..." and then use clothes/props to visually portray that idea. This project was stretched over several different shoots, in order to facilitate those who were interested but couldn't make it to a certain date.

Pics can be found here and here.

Enjoy!

Nicole

Team Coco

So, last night I, along with my OMB friend Amanda, went to see Conan O'Brien perform at the Hult Center in downtown Eugene. The show last night was the first on Conan's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" tour.

Kristi Turnquist of The Oregonian wrote a pretty good article covering the show. I'll use this article as a basis for my own recap of the night.

The tour came about after Conan's 17-year career at NBC ended in January, when he left the network rather than give Jay Leno his time slot and push "The Tonight Show" back to 12:05 a.m. Among the conditions of his walk-away deal: Conan is legally restricted on how negatively he can talk about NBC, and he can't return to television until fall.

The aforementioned return became a reality the morning of the performance, when news broke that Conan had made a deal with TBS to have a late-night show starting in November.

The show included many classic elements from Conan's two previous late-night shows, including: Andy Richter, LaBamba and the band (minus Max Weinberg), the masturbating bear, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, "Walker Texas Ranger" (including a special guest handle-puller, Jack McBrayer from "30Rock"), and even a musical guest: Spoon, who had performed minutes before at the nearby McDonald Theatre.

Amanda and I got to the Hult around 7:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin. The lobby was packed. After purchasing a white shirt emblazoned with "Team Coco" in orange and dark gray lettering, I entered the hall just in time to see a guy with a giant Afro going crazy with his own unique mix of voice changing, beatboxing and plenty of explicit, raunchy lyrics. Although I didn't catch his name, the Oregonian article identified the performer as Reggie Watts, who has previously performed at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art TBA Festival.

A short intermission followed Watts. Then, the lights went down and Richter's voice made several crazy announcements. Then, the lights came up, and the band started playing and walking through the audience. The sellout crowd went nuts.

On a giant video screen above the stage, a video began to play. In it, Conan, with overgrown hair and a huge gut (reminiscent of the "strike beard", only more ridiculous), moped around the house until he got a call about a 32-city national tour. "Am I in shape? ... Yes I am!" Then followed a montage of Conan cleaning up and working out, and the video finished with him looking into the camera and saying "I'm ready. Let's do this!"

Then Conan came out. He looked pretty good, although I'm not a huge fan of the beard. The audience got to its feet, clapping, cheering and chanting his name.

He opened by welcoming the audience and announcing that he has a new job. He said starting tomorrow "I'll be the assistant manager at the Eugene Banana Republic." He asked how people felt about his beard, adding that some people think he looks like "Paul Bunyan with an eating disorder." This tour, he continued, is a "huge milestone for me," because "believe it or not, this is the first time anybody's ever paid to see me."

All of the time off, he said, allowed him to reflect and take a good look at himself. He also said he went to therapy and learned "The Five Stages of Grief Over Losing Your Talk Show," starting with denial, proceeding to "Blame Myself" and "Blame Everyone Around Me," and finally, pull yourself together and "Get your ass to Eugene, Oregon."

About halfway through the show, Conan announced that the tour needed a "wow moment" and introduced "the inflatable bat from Meatloaf's 'Bat Out of Hell' tour." After the giant bat was fully inflated and towering over the stage, Andy and Conan commented. "Look at the teeth," Conan said, in dismay, about the colored triangles that were supposed to be fangs. "It's like a used-car lot," Andy said. "That's the least threatening bat I've ever seen!" Conan added.

Another highlight was when Conan announced that he wanted to have "an intimate conversation" with the audience of more than 2,000 people. Conan would say something, and the audience responded by reading, in unison, lines shown on the video board. This resulted in Conan walking over to LaBamba and licking his face passionately, to the delight of the audience.

Near the end of the show, Conan thanked his fans for all their support, and played a cover of Cake's version of "I Will Survive." The show ended with an encore, during which Conan walked out into the audience and interacted with his fans. Four giant, bright yellow beach balls were thrown out into the audience, and it ended like one giant party.

It was, quite possibly, the best Monday night I had ever had during a school year.

everybody's watching, everybody's looking...

I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up.

I can't stand not being able to be friends with him. Well...I guess we're still friends, but...like, I want real friendship, the kind where I'm not afraid to talk to him.

Communication is important, and right now we're not communicating.

I want clarification. I want reassurance. I want one of your big bear hugs. I want to snuggle and watch 24 without a care in the world other than the fact that I'm with one of my best friends.

I want my buddy back.

(The Juliana Hatfield 5, "Spin The Bottle")

Random inspiration strikes again. Slash, I think I feel a series coming on.

I awoke this morning (well, this afternoon...oops) to a non-functioning internet connection. After unplugging the modem several times, restarting my computer, all that fun stuff, I concluded that it wasn't gonna work for me anytime soon.

However, I still needed to do homework, so I packed up my stuff and headed over to campus to chill in the School of Music for a while.

Anyone who knows me reasonably well knows that I am a HUGE fan of the building that houses the University of Oregon School of Music. Built in the 1920s, the building recently underwent an extensive expansion/renovation project that resulted in the addition of two new wings (and increasing the size of the building by 50 percent) and the updating of existing facilities. Along with all the new amenities such as a spacious courtyard, student lounge, practice room suite, symphony-size rehearsal room and more, one of the main reasons I love this building has to be the atmosphere.

The lounge is a wonderful place to study or do homework because it's quieter than more public places such as the EMU, yet not as eerily silent as the Knight Library (which I've always found to be too quiet.) In addition, due to my involvement with the Oregon Marching Band, I rarely make a visit to the SOM without seeing at least a few friends, which adds that extra bit of happiness to my day. :) And there's usually at least a few people practicing at almost all times (the building is open Monday-Friday 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. for all students and community members, and 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. for music majors only) which adds just the right amount of background noise.

As strong as my love affair with the music building is, it's just one of a few place on campus that I feel deserve special recognition for being awesome. So I'm thinking about starting a short series of blogs in which I highlight my favorite places on the UO campus.

I leave you with a question: Have you hugged a musician today? (Screwing a musician is optional. :P)

Tonight = WIN.

So, as promised...

After a series of complications involving both Katie's car and Josh's truck breaking down in the same afternoon, Katie picked me up. She instructed us not to speak to her because she was the chauffeur...except it was sort of hard to forget she was there when she also demonstrated very taxi driver-like driving skills.

And then...we went to the Olive Garden for dinner and talked a bunch, and then had to wait a little longer because Katie was taking a shower, Josh was on his way to pick us up and it was cold outside so we didn't want to wait. However, there was a line so eventually we had to get up from the table, and we just sort of hung out inside the door. Josh arrived, and he did a much better job of playing the silent taxi driver than Katie...

All in all, a good night. :)

I gotta feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night, that tonight's gonna be a GOOD night, that toNIGHT'S gonna be a GOOD GOOD Ni-i-ight.

And...I can think the wonderful Katie Kinney for this one, haha.

So...Katie set me up on this blind...ish date with one of her friends who goes to OSU. I say blindish because he randomly messaged me on Facebook one day last week and we talked a little, although he didn't friend me yet because he didn't want Katie to know that he was kind of cheating the whole "blind" aspect of it.

I hope it'll be fun. I've never actually been on a real date before...Chase never really did that, and since then I haven't had more than random hanging out with male friends that turned ugly. :( So this could be interesting.

I'll post again later with what went down.