wtf, life.

I know it has to be some kind of faux-pas to blog twice in one day, but I lead a very exciting and important life.
So, lucky for me I did not put "Don't get in any car accidents" on my summer goal list because today that's exactly what I did. You could say, however, that in this case I did not get in a car accident but a car accident got me.

Either way. I was driving through the zoo parking lot, pretty excited that I was getting off work a few minutes early. Just as I start singing along to Taylor Swift ("Fifteen," if you're wondering), some guy backs out of his spot and into the side of my vehicle.

"A collision occurs when two bodies attempt to occupy the same space at the same time." I have always found this statement to be somewhat beautiful and strangely romantic. Except when actually applied to cars, as it turns out.

So anyway, the guy gets out of his car and starts apologizing profusely. I'm super pissed, but don't want to be a jerk so I just keep saying things like "DUDE," and "SERIOUSLY," so I don't say things like "What the fuck were you looking at that was not your rearview mirror?!" Because I'm trying to curse less these days, what with camp being around the corner and all. I just want to get out of the rain, so I ask him for his insurance. Three times. He keeps apologizing and asking if I'm alright. Finally, he gets his girlfriend, who gives me her name and phone number but NOT her insurance number, and I angrily drive off.

When I get home, there is a crack in the paint and a dent squarely between the two doors on the driver's side of my car. I am more angry now. I'm particularly angry because I'm sure the last thing these two young people with a three-year-old child want to do is pay to fix my car doors, but there's a freaking dent and isn't that what insurance is for anyway? As much as I'd like to say forget about it, I don't.

I go inside and realize that I cannot possibly tell my parents until I have called the insurance agency. Not being able to tell someone and receive the sympathy I think I desire makes me angrier still.

Finally I call Progressive and get a wonderfully kind woman with the thickest, cutest North Dakota/Minnesota accent possible who is sympathetic and says things like "Okeeaay" and "You betcha." And I feel a little better, because she's nice and says her words in a way that reminds me of Fargo. While I'm on the phone with her, Kelsey calls and leaves a completely darling message. After I hang up with the nice Fargo lady, I lie on my bed and call Kelsey and she tells me how she was thinking of me in her yoga class and when she went to call me she saw my angry-Kathayoon G-chat status and knew she had to ring me right away. We lamented the two car accidents we'd been in together (one, at 4:30 AM, in college, us versus souped-up pickup truck with the vanity plate "QT ALEX," my fault; and one, in Virginia, in a parking garage, us versus concrete pole, her fault), and the possibilities of sauteeing arugula, which it totally only popular because Obama likes it.

In conclusion, I am still pretty angry but significantly less angry than I was before. I can't help but think, however, that this is some kind of instant karmic due for trying to get away with parking in the visitor lot when today was the first day that we were required to park in the employee lot.

Summer Day 2, guys. Day 2.

let's start over - i'm kathayoon

Well, well.

Here we are again.

"Again" back to blogging, because I can't keep all my thoughts in my head, so why would anyone expect me to? "Again" back to Fauna Incognito, but please ignore EVERYTHING that I have written before this. It was all written for the benefit of my advisor and the inherent pretension and brown-nosing makes me queasy. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. I wanted an H.

And "again" is the place where I find myself, back in Portland with my ever-expanding collection of academic degrees, ready to spend another summer with my friends and family, working at the zoo and kicking around the state of Oregon.

Yesterday was my first day back in Portland. I woke up at 6:00 AM, hanging on to the last vestiges of jet lag. Fortunately, this seems to be the normal time that my parents and brother wake up so even if I had not naturally woken up, I would have been roused by the sounds of spoons in tea cups and Kavi running up and down the stairs. In an effort to not go to the athletic club with my mother (working out indoors? Please.), I decided to go for my first run in a year.

Readers of Colleen's blog will quickly see where this is going. But I promise - Colleen has the monopoly on running and then blogging about it. I'm just going to do it this once.

After struggling to find my running clothes spread out between my five suitcases, my shoes in the cavernous hall closet, and having to jump start my car, I finally made my way to Powerline Park.

There is nothing special about Powerline Park. At all. I started running there when I was training for Hood to Coast, senior year of high school. I would try to find somewhere else to run, but it's close to my house, I know all the mileages, and frankly I don't care enough. There is a nice pond that I go by in the middle of my runs. It has geese and people fishing and that's good enough for me.

I simultaneously hate and love running. I hate it because it hurts and sometimes it's really boring. I don't like running for a long time, ever. I like running fast though, so I like going short distances and doing them more and more quickly. I like having 30+ minutes to listen to music. It's an especially good excuse to listen to pop music. Songs I like to run to include "There Are No Mathematics To Love" by Anberlin, "Disturbia" by Rihanna, "Hands Down Ghandi" by Legion of Doom, and any Bieber or Kelly that my iPod will play.

During my run yesterday, I came up with my list of things that I want to accomplish this summer, which is the point of this inaugural entry. So, here we go:

- Run every other day, at least until camp starts. Attempt to run with some sort of regularity after camp starts.

- Lose the winter weight (disclaimer: don't freak out. The other day, I couldn't fit into a high-waisted skirt that I wear all the time in the summer. I refuse to buy things larger than a size 2, not because I care, but because I know that I can fit into small sizes when I am living a healthy lifestyle. So not being able to fit into things indicates that I am not leading a particularly healthy life. Next bullet point.)

- Don't get any speeding tickets. Not that I get a lot of speeding tickets normally, but when I do it's for stupid things and it makes me angry because I'm not a fast driver. Also it's a waste of money.

- Go to the beach. A lot. I went six times last summer. That's the baseline.

- See at least one of my friends every day.

- Write and actually record more music. Get better at guitar.

- Be better at my job. I was okay at it last year. I want to be good at it this year.

- Stop freaking out about my birthday. I always freak out about my birthday because I think it won't be fun. But I have amazing friends, so it's always fun. But I still freak out.

- Have as much fun as possible before heading back (back) to Cali (Cali).

That's as far as I got before my run was over. It was a short run, but I managed to stay around 10 minutes a mile which is crummy for everyone else, but an accomplishment for me.

Maybe this will be the only entry I write. Maybe I will write more. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.