alexis in the city

Portland is the South of the Northwest

(my run this morning)

People here are slow. And really friendly. It’s weird. Ryan says the fact that I think this is weird just shows my level of ignorance; since most of the rest of the country operates at a much slower pace than I’m used to, I’m actually the strange one. That may be true, but it’s such a drastic, marked difference I can’t help but notice it.

I’m not a patient person and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Even things in so-called “big cities” tend not to move fast enough for me. I get stuck walking behind gawking tourists. Or the person in line in front of me can’t decide what to order. Or cabs take more than 30 seconds to arrive. People show up late to meetings, take forever getting on or off the train, forget my order, blahblahblah. It’s something I’m working on, ok?!

continue reading »

One fish, two fish

This is our old place, in San Francisco. What you can’t see is the second bedroom, aka Ryan’s office. An essential component of a happy, healthy relationship when both people work at home. We downsized when we moved to Portland, partly to save more money and partly because Ryan and Ben are going to be getting an office together to work on their startup. Until then, we’ve essentially downsized from a two-bedroom with lots of storage (two regular-sized closets, a coat closet and bathroom storage) to a one-bedroom with minimal storage (one regular-sized closet and one coat closet).

Oh, and there’s no dishwasher. (Cue weeping and gnashing of teeth.) If you’re so inclined, you can check out this totally professional-looking video I shot (HA) to see our new place.

Won’t you save me San Francisco

Twenty percent of the people in San Francisco leave every year. Statistically that means the entire city turns over every five years. I read a quote once that in order to have staying power here, you’ve got to accept that while SF is awesome, she’s also cold and hard; that these young, bright-eyed kids come to the city for various reasons - as recent grads, to be near Silicon Valley, to experience a city without committing to a place like New York - but they get easily disillusioned when the raw grit emerges after the shine wears off.

I came to the city as one of those wide eyed recent grads, but I’ve managed to stay here for five years - the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my life ever - and that to me is staying power. Natives get defensive when you start talking like a local after making it past the typical breaking point, and I understand that. But San Francisco will always be the place I broke some of my nomadic tendencies, and that is a personal milestone.

continue reading »

Overcoming the Summer of my Discontent

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Somewhere between not knowing where I’m going to live in a couple months, and losing my job, it hit me: I’m not freaking out. This is incredibly, fundamentally, anti-Alexis. Which can only mean that somehow in the past year or two since my last existential crisis I’ve hit some stride of contentedness. I’m sure it’s a combination of a lot of things: a deepened spirituality, a supportive community, increased financial stability, and probably a dose of good ol’ fashioned maturity. The Alexis of five or even three years ago would be in meltdown mode by now - so of course I’m bracing for that and worried it’ll happen down the road. But considering the massive amount of upheaval in my life right now I am somehow managing to not be curled up in the middle of the floor, sucking my thumb.

So back to the upheaval. Ryan and I started talking a few months ago about moving sometime this year. The exact where, when, how - and every other necessary detail - are still a question mark for a number of reasons due to other things we’re dealing with. That uncertainty alone would typically have been enough to send me into a hissy fit. Combine that with the need to cover other bases in case we do pull up our San Francisco stakes - like applying for schools - and the necessity of not losing sight of my commitments here, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a change-loving, uncertainty-hating gal like me.

Then last week I lost my job. Kind of out of the blue. Fortunately, I’d maintained my client relationships while working for Signpost so I had a safety net but nevertheless, I’d assumed that if I ever did lose my job I’d be reduced to the thumb-sucking, fetal ball of hot mess mentioned above. I’m not at all ruling out that this could still happen. But so far I’ve enjoyed re-discovering the flexibility of being completely autonomous. I think I’m going to go back to only working Monday-Thursday!

Three day weekends aside, I didn’t join Signpost for the great pay and shortened work weeks (c’m on, it’s a startup). I joined it because even though I could make more money and work less while working for myself, I wanted to be a part of a team again. I wanted to collaborate and have inside jokes with my coworkers and help determine the direction of a company. I still might want that, but I’m not worried about finding another job. I’m not even worried that I can’t really start looking until we figure out what’s going on in other areas of our life.

I’ve thought about just going to seminary full-time and pursuing a hospital chaplaincy internship like I was going to before I accepted the Signpost job. But I’m not worried that I don’t know what school I’d attend or that last year I turned down the internship program into which I was accepted.

And all of this not-worrying has me worried. It’s so unlike me. While I suspect that that thumbsucking girl in the fetal position is still inside me, I hope my new-found contentedness in the midst of chaos will continue to drown her out. I don’t have time for her anyway; I’m too busy being not-worried.

Primal

Since roughly the beginning of the year, I’ve roughly been eating a primal diet. It’s not quite as extreme as Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Body, but as a long-term lifestyle for me it’s much more manageable in that it allows me to still eat fruit (the Four Hour Body forbits all sugar, including fruit, which would be a slow death for me). I basically cut out anything processed - as I like to say, it’s like a raw food diet, except for the meat. That means no bread, grains, dairy (ok, sometimes I have Greek yogurt), or sugar, and instead tons of produce, nuts and protein.

It’s not a huge departure from how I used to eat, except for the bread. And oh, the bread; I was a raging bitch while I detoxed from all things carb-y, bread-y and otherwise delicious.  That by far was the worst part, but here’s the thing - now that I’m on the other side of it I can’t go back.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t partly looking to this change for its weightloss benefits and I’ve been relatively disappointed, at least in comparison to the rave reviews I hear from everyone else who’s doing something similar. I’ve lost a few inches but no pounds and while I know that I don’t have much weight to lose, and realize it’s entirely possible that to get that change I’ll have to tweak something further, I was still hoping with such deprivation the scale would budge a little.

But in reality primal is a lifestyle, not a diet, so this is something I plan on continuing indefinitely. The one thing I did take from Ferriss’ book was the idea of a cheat day. It’s a lot easier to tell yourself not to have that croissant or not to inhale an entire chocolate bar when you know you can just postpone your foodie debauchery till a pre-determined day. On those days, I eat things like this:

But over the months I’ve noticed my tolerance for these types of foods go way, way down. Eating one meal like this is enough to make me feel like sh*t for the whole day. Of course I still indulge but I no means binge on all the foods I’m missing out on. It’s kind of shocking to think I haven’t had sushi, pasta, a slice of bread or a sandwich in weeks if not months!

And that’s how I know this is a lifestyle change that’s here to stay. Knowing how bad I feel when I do put those things in my body makes me want to avoid getting to the point again where they don’t affect me.

Plus, detoxing bread was a bitch, and I don’t want all that effort to go to waste. And if I have to do it again, Ryan might not survive it the second time around.