Donna and I just preformed a heroic victory over procrastination, and moved all of her stuff out of "my" room, as well as the cat-pee-stained area rug and a bunch of trash. Actually, she moved most of the stuff because I threw my back out rinsing my hair in cold water this morning (it makes it shinier!).

Now my only problems with the room are:

1. Everything that has ever touched the floor, including the floor, has some amount of cat pee on it.

2. I have no furniture.

My things are piled in boxes and crates, my clothes stuffed in a variety of $5.99 clear plastic bins from Fred Meyer, which give me the illusion of organization because I can see how messy and unfolded my clothes are without opening the bins. Each morning I tear through my clothes, all the sweater sleeves wrapping around each other like snakes, as I try on different shirts that make me feel ugly, and eventually wear the same jeans and same hoodie every single day of my life.

I pray to the god I cannot believe in, that someday, my things will be arranged neatly and stored in beautiful furniture, clothes folded, room smelling of flowers. Until then, I like to sit in the kitchen with my laptop and not think about it.

We went to Safeway on one of our marathon shopping trips, where we bought two containers of strawberries, two cartons of soymilk, two dozen apples, two bottles of wine, and four bags of cat litter. I always feel like we're a domesticated lesbian couple. If only people knew the truth: we're straight!

The shopper behind us in line looked at our cat litter bags and said, "How many cats do you have?" I took a deep breath. "Thirteen." Everyone in earshot said, "Oh my god!" I said, "We used to have sixteen," as explanation. I was blushing.

It's Sunday so I spent most of the day reading the Sunday paper. Our free Oregonian returned (ask, and it shall be given). And we went to the Fresh Pot so I could read the New York Times. This boy I've seen before was there. I tried to talk to him once because I thought he was hot and he was reading about cultural studies, but he was unresponsive. This time, Donna was reading "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and we were discussing that he is the greatest living writer. Hot Boy walked by and pointed to the book, saying, "That's an amazing book." Then he left. Damn!

I like local news. The New York Times is great, in style and content, but I like the Portland papers. I like neighborhood papers. And if there were a newspaper devoted solely to my block, I would totally read every word. I like how the "Metro" section makes things like bake sales sound epic. I like the endless debate that goes into the city charter and obscure zoning laws.

I especially like reading about public transportation, being both a firm believer in, and a user of, it. They're going to build a MAX to southeast! (If they can ever stop arguing about it.) (MAX, for non-Portlanders, means... metro area express??? Or something like that. It's the light rail line. "MAX" always seemed like a stupid name to me, but I suppose it's no worse than BART. Also, then we can anthropomorphize it, like "Mad MAX ran over another ped!" [pedestrian]).

They're going to build a new bridge over the Willamette for the MAX!!!!! When was the last time they built a NEW bridge? That's fucking huge.

So we were walking out of Powell's and I saw a Charles Bukowski book called "Slouching Towards Nirvana", and I said to Donna, "Please, don't ever write a book called 'Slouching towards.. anything.'" She agreed. (For those of you living under a rock, that is a very tired reference to a Yeats poem about the apocalypse.)

Then we discussed how the people who write things like book titles, and especially newspaper headlines, will use any pun or reference, no matter how hackneyed or overused.

"Slouching Towards The Eastside MAX," quothe I.

And we couldn't stop laughing.