my name is karel. i'm 26 years old and reside in portland, oregon, although i'm from the east coast - new jersey and new york city, specifically. currently i'm a graduate student in school counseling. i have numerous artistic pursuits, including writing, graphic design, jewelry design, and knitting. (although i'm actually quite bad at knitting.) i have a failproof weakness for chef boyardee beef ravioli.
portland blog - my boyfriend brian and i document our adventures out west
sunshower design jewelry - my handmade jewelry business
scrawl - password-protected site for my writing (email me for access)
pdx hoods - coming soon!
frustration
future
living
pop culture
school
self
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010
puppies and rainbows
Monday, February 1, 2010
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Okay, sorry for the vaguely cryptic follow-up post to my heart-wrenching gutspiller of a previous post. I didn't really know what much else to say without involving you all in the grisly details of one relationship's issues. We're not broken up, we still live under the same roof, and sleep in the same bed.
Although, if he keeps sweating out half his weight every night the way he has been lately, we might have to consider separate beds. =X
Anyway, things seem to be on the mend. We both have a lot of our own stresses going on and I think they got tangled up in a messy way. Funny thing, these domesticated relationships... sometimes they are just so good at distracting you from your own goals. And by you, I guess I mean me.
I've got a lot coming up for me, which makes me feel happy and invigorated and alive :) My birthday is in three days, and I guess I'm not yet at the point where I wish the numbers would stop going up because I kind of love the idea of being 27. I'm doing the whole entrepreneur thing with my jewelry and hoping that I can work it into a comfortable routine - have lots of marketing ideas. And I'm applying for a graduate assistantship on campus that would give me full tuition remission, as well as a monthly stipend, ideally until I graduate (unless I suck miserably and get fired).
The funny thing is... when I first found out about this assistantship position, I wanted it so fiercely that I thought I would be depressed to the ends of the earth if I didn't get it. Maybe I was having a bad financial outlook day, or something, but the idea of free tuition was just too alluring for me to think clearly at all.
Then all that shit happened, and I took a long, critical look at myself, my life, my priorities, and what I really want and need to subsist every day... and I realized that life doesn't have to be some crazy competition. If I don't get the position, then my life won't be all that different than it is now. And I'll have time to do other things, whether it's focus on my jewelry, other creative projects, or a different part-time job. Everything will happen the way it should - and I'll take what's handed to me and make it work for me.
That may seem like a small realization, but for me it was pretty groundbreaking. Now I've got to run off to class and talk about bipolar disorders. :)
a path toward peace
Sunday, January 17, 2010
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Does this mean this relationship is saved? Unfortunately, that’s not for me to answer. What I do know is that I have the resolve and the strength to overcome this part of me – now that I have uncovered it, it cannot elude me. I hope that in learning this, he finds the faith that he lost along the way, in me and in us.
He found it. :)
some long-absent truth
Saturday, January 16, 2010
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There’s nothing like someone trying to break up with you to really jolt you out of your cozy existence and alert you to basically all of the bad things about yourself that you either never thought about, or have been trying to ignore. I’m beginning to think that I recommend it. A threat of a breakup, every few months or so. It keeps me on my feet, and helps me continue to dig deep and reflect on my character.
I’m being glib, of course. Of all life experiences, I fear few more than the end of a relationship, because the first time it happened to me, I fell quite readily into the bottom of a very deep and very cold pit of despair. Consequently, that pit remained gaping and waiting for me every time I entered into a relationship, and every time it ended, back into it I fell. This fear became so crippling that eventually I unwittingly stopped allowing people to actually get to know me, even as I thought I was being completely genuine, because my heart desperately needed to protect itself from being thrown back into the pit.
At a turning point in my life, I broke that cycle and as a result was lucky enough to experience a kind of love that I had never understood before – one that is simultaneously selfless and selfish, sacrificing and needing, exhilarating and comfortably mundane. I did not think much of my old fear, because I had such engorged faith in our ability to cope and work through anything. He did, too.
Until now – now, my faith is stretched severely thin, and his seems to have completely deflated. As his words cut through my eardrums and punctured my core – I quit us … I’m giving up … I’m sick of you, you’re not worth this – all I could think was, what in the world led to this? As perceptive and analytical as I know that I am, how have I missed all this? How many ways have I screwed up – and how could I have pushed him, the recipient of all that selfless, sacrificing, and exhilarating love, to feel so trapped that he could spit such words at me?
There is a Chinese saying: “One coin does not make a sound.” In this circumstance, I’ve been victimized – the one I love is trying to leave me. But something about me, something that I’ve done, has led him to believe that that is his only option – whether or not I agree that it is the only one, it is the one he has chosen. In the estranged silence that has followed this admission and the time we’ve spent apart, I’ve replayed our life in my head over and over, turning it around and addressing it from all angles.
And I don’t recognize myself. I see a manifestation of qualities that I had never wished to attach to myself, and it shames me. In some lights, I see shadows of my mother, and in others, I am my mother, encircling and encroaching to a stifling point out of an aggressive and unbridled love. A love that doesn’t leave room for interpretation or deflection – the selfish love. So much of her is ingrained in me that I haven’t been able to define which needs and desires are hers and which are truly mine.
I wish he had said something earlier – and I could have seen it earlier. For all of the introspection I’ve done, and all of the careful ways I’ve calibrated my life so that I could detach myself from my mother and my wounded childhood, somehow I missed this. Perhaps I was too busy feeling hurt about the ways that he has strained us to realize that my coin was just as noisy as his. I put us at odds with each other and stormed and wept and forgot to do what I continually implored him to do – I did not empathize. I did not stand in front of myself and hear my words with his ears.
I did not do what I have always wished that my mother did for me.
I can’t truly express how sobering this realization has been without delving into a long, considerably twisted and complex history. Suffice it to say that I am sad and humbled, regretful, ashamed – but also relieved in the way one is in finally solving a complex equation after covering the chalkboard with smears and scribbles and tearing the room apart in frustration. I get it. I can finally release that piece of my mother from my being and view it as a separate entity, and then rid myself of it.
Does this mean this relationship is saved? Unfortunately, that’s not for me to answer. What I do know is that I have the resolve and the strength to overcome this part of me – now that I have uncovered it, it cannot elude me. I hope that in learning this, he finds the faith that he lost along the way, in me and in us. I truly believe that we still have so much of ourselves to give each other – but if he disagrees, then he will join the ranks of people who jolted me awake to self-discovery, then left before he could experience the better version of me that emerged.
Hot Pot: The Premiere Edition
Saturday, January 9, 2010
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Last year, which I dub 'the year I read the entire Internet,' I discovered this blog. I've read every single one of his entries, which was a daunting task in the beginning, because I had to go back through his archives and, well, read every single one of his entries, but after I had done that, it was pretty easy to keep up because he stopped posting very frequently. Anyway, that's not the point. The fact that his kid is freaking adorable isn't the point either, but I had to mention it. Oh yeah, and they're Asian. That's not the point either.
The point is, every once in a while he would title his post 'Chaos Theory' and then just write a bunch of random, unrelated yet poignant and mostly funny paragraphs. At this point in my blogging career, I think that's a good idea... I feel like I have a lot of little things to share, but none that warrant a full post. However, I can't very well go stealing his very clever post title, so I'm going to call it Hot Pot!!!
Okay! Here goes:
Speaking of Hot Pot, we're going here for dinner tonight. It'll be my reward for hours and hours of reading for school.
We're eating organic! Well... sorta. For a while I pooh-poohed the organic food movement. This probably won't surprise some of you (like... my brothers) because I tend to pooh-pooh anything trendy for a while, until it's proven worthy to me through research or its desperate appeals for acceptance. Mostly, my reluctance to go organic was financially-driven. Brian and I are both students, I don't have an income, and since we'd been living together we had tried to grocery shop as economically as possible. But when school started, Brian learned all sorts of scary food industry stuff from his Sustainability class and started to preach to me about organic and sustainable food. Even then, I wasn't completely sold...
And then we watched Food, Inc. and I decided that maybe organic would be a good idea. Now, I know that documentaries can be skewed (Michael Moore + Cuba? Please) but all of the information that's being thrown at me, plus my realization that, um, I would really like to eat better, has convinced me to give this a try.
What this means is that we're buying organic foods as much as we can, straying away from processed foods (snif, bye bye Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli), and on the whole eating a lot less, since our dollar won't go as far. Although, as our most recent shopping trip proved, I need to pull the reins in on Brian, who bought a pound of $9.99/pound ham without blinking. Unless he's putting one slice in each sandwich and not the three or four he usually does, that's not sustainable... not for US, anyway!
We're climbing rocks! Well... sorta. We went down to San Francisco for Thanksgiving and spent a few days with my cousin and her family, and in an attempt to not do all touristy things, we took them up on their offer to take us rock climbing at their local rock gym. I didn't do so well, but Brian was scaling walls like a monkey, which made me jealous, and we decided to join our local rock gym when we got home. It's been a bit of an expense to get started, with an intro class and all of the equipment, but we're making the most of it by setting a regular climbing schedule. It's been about three weeks and I can totally see my improvement, both on the wall and on my body. It's pretty awesome!!
Something I've always wondered... why don't Gap models have eyes?
Okay kids. I've been awake for an hour and it's time to get down to some studying business. If anyone can find out the answer to my Gap model question, you would truly end my sleepless nights.
new year's meme 2009, aka am i still a blogger?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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The answer is: yes. No. I'm not sure. But either way, I wanted to do this meme because it's about looking back and you know I love doing that...
What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Broke a lease, bought a car, learned to drive stick, applied to, was accepted to, and started graduate school, visited Lisa in Edmonton, learned to rock climb and belay, caught a fish!! Wow, it was a big year.
Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes! I did! Maybe not exactly in the way that I'd described (uh, we do not live on the west side, and we may never) but done. Will I make more? Of course!
Did anyone close to you give birth?
This was last year's answer and I think it still applies: 'No, but I have been fortunate enough to stalk many a baby on Facebook.'
Did anyone close to you die?
Not emotionally close, but close enough in a way to shock me for a few days ... my boss from my last job at Portland Public Schools fell to his death in the Columbia Gorge this last summer. I didn't know him well, but I still couldn't wrap my mind around how it happened, and the broken hearts he left behind.
What countries did you visit?
CANADA!!!! Home of loonies, toonies, donairs and, at least where I was, 10:00pm sunsets. Seriously.
What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
You know what? I can't think of a single thing. How awesome is that? (I mean, I can think of things that I'll want to have in 2011... 2012...)
What date(s) from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 3 and September 29 - big wakeup calls and pivotal points in my experience of loving someone, and what exactly that means.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Learning to drive stick. Seriously, people. I still feel awesome when I get on the road :)
What was your biggest failure?
Letting depression take over the things that should have been bringing me the most happiness.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Oh, yes! Upper respiratory infection, bouts of eczema, sprained ankles, and a nasty gash/bruise combination on my knee from falling on an ill-fated night run. Oh and my eyes continued to bug the shit out of me until I finally saw the 11th eye doctor and was put on Restasis for a year. Month 3 and things are looking pretty great :)
What was the best thing you bought?
My little car, Grover :)
Whose behavior merited celebration?
New friends I've made through school, who have allowed me to remember who I am.
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I think last year's answer also applies here: 'Ah, bureaucracy.'
Where did most of your money go?
If I have to be truly honest... home decor, kitchen supplies, and clothes. Yikes!
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Quitting my job and starting school!!!
What songs will always remind you of 2009?
Turn Around, Jonny Lang. Follow Your Lead, Hanson. Remain, Tyrone Wells.
Compared to this time last year, are you…
I. Happier or sadder? happier
II. Thinner or fatter? probably about the same
III. Richer or poorer? poorer :( shit, that was my answer last year, too... this is a very bad downhill spiral...
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Blaming Portland for not being New York
How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent Christmas with Brian and with the Bartells, opening gifts, eating yummy snacks, and playing board games.
Did you fall in love in 2009?
Yes, many times over again.
How many one-night stands?
ZEROOO
What was your favorite TV program?
X-Files, Army Wives, True Blood, House, HOARDERS!!!! Clean House. Freakin' love Niecy Nash and her crew. And House Hunters, My First Place, and Property Virgins. :)
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Uh... yeah. Sucks.
What was the best book you read?
Oh shit, last year's answer: 'I DON’T THINK I READ ANY BOOKS!! OMG' could be this year's answer! I know what my New Year's resolution should be...
What was your greatest musical discovery?
Tyrone Wells. Oh, and this kid:
What did you want and get?
New friends, a great neighborhood, more freedom (aka WHEELS), entry into the School Counseling program at PSU
What did you want and not get?
A graduate assistantship. When I didn't get that, a part-time job this fall that would have been PERFECT for my skills, interests, and schedule. Not bitter...
What was your favorite film of this year?
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Up! Slumdog Millionaire (I didn't see it til this year...)
What did you do on your birthday, and how old?
26 - Brian took me to play pool and bought me my own cue, and that weekend we had a potluck at our house. :)
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A graduate assistantship
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Comfort with eclectic style. Bargain :)
What kept you sane?
Haha!! The very same children aged 6 and under who drove me absolutely bats sometimes. Freaking love them.
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (faint), Taylor Hanson (of course), Tyrone Wells, and Kit Karlson (of Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, better known as "Goose")
What political issue stirred you the most?
Universal healthcare...
Who did you miss?
My old self. And Brian, for a time.
Who was the best new person you met?
An adorable little baby who loves chicken nuggets more than any baby should, and his precocious, hilarious, adorable older sister.
Was 2009 a good year for you?
I'd say so. Could have been worse...
What was your favorite moment of the year?
Driving home from San Francisco after Thanksgiving, coasting on I-5 toward the east side of Portland, city lights coming into full view, and feeling like I was finally coming home.
What was your least favorite moment of the year?
Hearing words that I never thought I'd hear come out of Brian's mouth
Where were you when 2009 began?
On the couch watching X-Files with Brian. Yeah, we missed the stroke of midnight. Oh well!
Who were you with?
Brian, Scully, Mulder, and Luna
Where will you be when 2009 ends?
Not sure... either at a bar with a bunch of people I don't know and Brian, or at home with Brian. Or without him, maybe he'll want to go to the bar. Haha.
Who will you be with when 2009 ends?
See above
What was your favorite month of 2009?
June. Or December.
How many different states did you travel to in 2009?
Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, D.C. - I'm assuming this question doesn't include traveling through
How many concerts did you see in 2009?
Jonny Lang, and Tyrone Wells with Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers :)
Did you have a favorite concert in 2009?
Tyrone and SK!!
Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
Yes, but why on earth would I go blabbing about it?
What was the worst lie someone told you in 2009?
It was more of a perpetual withholding of the truth... but still, worst.
Did you treat somebody badly in 2009?
Yes :(
Did somebody treat you badly in 2009?
Yes :(
If you could go back in time to any moment of 2009 and change something, what would it be?
I would have applied for more assistantships and jobs at the beginning of the school year instead of thinking I was going to start my school placement right away. Ha!! Biggest lie ever!!
What are your plans for 2010?
Develop better friendships and do more brain-stimulating activities so that I continue to feel invigorated and challenged. Also, I'd love to find a job.
goodbye, november
Monday, November 30, 2009
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Hard to believe it's almost December. Brian and I returned to Portland last night from spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco, and somehow the city seems transformed. It's still damp and grey, just as we left it, but the promise of holidays has settled in.
This year marks the first Christmas that I will spend without my family. We're not huge Christmas people as it is - meaning we don't go to church, our tree has steadily been shrinking over the years, and we haven't put lights up since I was in college - but it had become the only time of year when all five of us were home at the same time. Now that I'm on an opposite coast, though, and with the economy the way it is and my bank account the way it is, the best we could do was for my brothers to gift me a flight home a couple weeks earlier. During the actual Christmas holiday, I'll be back here, and so will Brian.
When I look back on this time last year, I remember a sense of strange loneliness. I had Brian, we had our dog Luna, we had a house... but in some ways we weren't quite cohesive. Living here, living with each other, living with this perpetual not-quite-daylight was still new enough to leave us out of sorts. Our house was always cold, because we didn't want to pay for oil heat, and all of the magic that I'd always tried to revive every Christmas as I'd gotten older was missing. Both of us went home last year, to our separate homes, and I missed him so much more than I perceived that he missed me. I worried about his whirlwind travels, a holiday truncated by limited paid holidays from work. I felt both at home and foreign in my beloved New York City. My friends had continued on without me, of course, as I had continued on without them - but I didn't feel quite continued. My life had come to a slow, molasses-like crawl.
This year - this fall, especially - has been an accelerated period of growth for me. I say this about every year, and I notice that I say this every year, but I guess that's what one's twenties are all about. I entered graduate school, something to take me away from the monotony of the paper-pushing of the past five years, have begun to build a network of friends, and made some serious re-evaluations to my relationship and the expectations that I had subconsciously inherited from my surroundings, but did not actually fundamentally agree with. After a year of picking up and moving around this city that I did not allow myself to like, I finally found my relative place here. I can finally look around and say to myself, This is home. And I believe it.
As the last month of the year rolls in, I look forward to finishing my first quarter in grad school. I look forward to using our brand new crock-pot to make warm, delicious comfort food. I look forward to hot chocolate and gingerbread and sticky sweets. I look forward to stringing white lights in our living room in lieu of the tree we don't have the space to house. I look forward to a week at home with my family, but also spending Christmas with the love of my life, in a place we've made our own and call our home. I look forward to the possibility of snow, however ephemeral it may be this year, after the anomalous blizzard of last year. I look forward to celebrating the end of another year in life, and reflecting on the forward momentum that I've made.
Hello, December.
i relived the experience just so you could read it
Monday, November 9, 2009
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So, here's my problem. I have way too many things to talk about these days, so that when I think that I should maybe write a blog post, I become so overwhelmed with deciding what to write about that I just decide to decide later. (This dilemma is actually the #1 reason compulsive hoarders are hoarders, by the way... they have so much stuff and have such a difficult time making decisions that they simply can't decide what to do with all of their stuff, and eventually even the thought of trying to make that decision is so anxiety-provoking that they just never engage in that thought process. Hence, clutter. Tada!)
I just finished an exam and have about 45 minutes to kill before we reconvene for the second part of class, so I decided that I should make use of this time and come to the computer lab and blog. What shall I blog about, then?
How about Halloween? It wasn't TOO long ago, was it?
Okay then. We weren't going to dress up for Halloween. We kind of made some half-hearted attempts at costume ideas, but neither of us are really in too many social circles in which we'd be invited to big parties, and more importantly, neither of us are big partiers, so the dressing up thing kind of just fizzled out as we realized that we would basically get dressed up and then sit around and watch House on DVD. Except then my friend Lise and I decided to make plans to go to a haunted cornfield up on Sauvie Island called "Field of Screams." Then, that morning, the morning of Halloween, I was suddenly hit with a strong wave of costume inspiration, and this is what resulted:
Cute, huh?
In case you didn't immediately figure out who we were supposed to be...
Hahaha!! Anyway, off we headed to this silly little haunted cornfield. Since there was virtually no description of it on the website, I had no idea what to expect... but somehow because it was outside, and the farm offers hayrides during the day, I innocently believed that it would be hayride-esque and maybe even a bit corny.
So there we were, waiting in line to enter the cornfield, dressed like a dopey British man and his mute dog, when I started to hear lots of screaming and what sounded like a chainsaw coming from inside the field. Wait a second... was that what we were about to walk into? A freakish slasher-film live experience?
Well, not quite, although I actually don't know for sure, for reasons that you will find out in a few paragraphs. When we finally headed into the cornfield, we found out that we would be on foot, in the dark, and around every corner of a winding, maze-like path could be someone in rags and horrendous makeup ambling toward us (OR JUMPING OUT OF THE CORNSTALKS), moaning and growling and generally acting like they were about to die, or had just come back to life after being dead for centuries. And while we had been told that no one would actually touch us (and we were instructed not to touch them), that didn't stop them from coming within inches of our faces and generally sending creepy crawly shivers up and down my entire body.
What? That doesn't sound scary? Well, have you ever seen... The Ring? Or... The Others? How about... The Orphanage (aka quite possibly the creepiest, most bone-chilling movie I have ever experienced in my life)? Just take the central creepy, haunting, scream-inducing figure out of any of those films and imagine him/her/it shoving his/her/its face in yours, with its dead fish eyes, and then following you around a dark, muddy cornfield even as you bury your face in your boyfriend's back and cry. (Yes, that was me. I am not ashamed.)
At one point, I really did cry, and I guess the half-dead girl who was presently spooking us recognized that I was quite literally about to pee myself (or pass out), and not having any more fun, because she promptly broke character and said, "Hey, it's okay. I'm just a person in makeup."
At least, that's what I think she said. I actually have very dim, fuzzy memories of that moment, because my blood was racing at triple speed and all I could focus on was not having a heart attack. All I know is that at some point, I realized that she wasn't making throaty, guttural noises anymore and instead was speaking like a human being, and I regained consciousness of the real world.
"I know," I said stupidly. Duh, I know that! But that doesn't mean you're not SCARING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME, HERE IN A DARK MUDDY CORNFIELD ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT WHILE PEOPLE SCREAM INTO THE CHILLY NIGHT AIR.
So anyway, some guy in a windbreaker appeared out of nowhere and very calmly gave me the following options: 1. He could lead me out a side entrance and my friends could continue on in the maze, 2. He could stay with us as we finished the maze and say "Don't scare" every time someone tried to scare us, or 3. He could lead us all out the side entrance so I didn't have to be alone.
In the end, I chose option 3, but I did feel bad for ruining the experience for Brian, Lise, and her boyfriend Ben. I also had a suspicion, however, that Lise was getting pretty freaked out and was more than glad to get out of there, especially after the half-dead girl told us that we were only 1/3 of the way through the maze. "I thought we were almost done!" Lise said. Yeah, me too. I had been hoping extremely hard that we were.
So, we left the Field of Screams early. Wah-wah. I'm a wimp and I couldn't handle a haunted cornfield whose age restriction is... wait for it... AGE 6 AND UP. What the heck?! What kind of mutant 6-year-olds are they raising in Portland? Do they not have brains? Or hearts? Or any sort of imaginative cognitive skills? Or are they all just that RATIONAL that they could just greet these monsters without even one blink and say things like "Hey, you've got something on your shirt! *Nyuk nyuk*" (oh wait... that was Brian. Kid does not register FEAR on any level)?
The truth is, I don't care. I'm not ashamed that I scare easily. I have a very active imagination and quite readily blur the edges of reality. I'm okay with that. Plus, after we left, we changed out of our muddy clothes and went to a late night creperie and stuffed ourselves silly. It was totally, totally worth it. :)
How was YOUR Halloween?
