A brief recap of the last few months

So, last I wrote it was high summer and we'd just finished OCF.

It was an incredible summer, despite my financial struggles as I looked not-quite-as-earnestly-as-I-should-have for a job. I sure miss having an income, but I really don't miss sitting in a concrete bunker all day in a cell in front of a computer.

I scraped and scrambled and managed to pay rent through August at my apartment in Beaverton, near Tasha & Jem. After OCF I started dating Mary, and we had a fun-filled late summer. Mary has a house near Mount Tabor, with a huge backyard and a gorgeous garden. I spent increasing quantities of time at her place, and finally when I couldn't scrape together rent for September I moved in with her. It was too early, but we were spending almost all of our time together anyway, and things were really really good. We worked out a way for me to meet my rental obligation by working for Mary - doing work in the garden, fixing up things around the house, refinishing furniture, etc.

Mary is amazing. She prepares wonderful food for New Seasons' Demo department, and she makes the most delicious vegetarian dishes in the world. Her parties are amazing and I haven't ever had as much delightful fun as I did last summer with her. We went out the beach a couple of times to stay in beach houses owned by her friends, and those trips were incredible. I fell in love with Mary, her dog Nellie, and her daughter Laurel. It was a spectacular summer.

Kazum has also been going strong. We now have 7 members. Me, Uli and Miranda are the longer-standing members. We've also added Dutch, a 250-lb college football player with the heart of a lamb. He's been working his butt off (pretty literally) and he's become an integral, core member of the group. I love Dutch.

Ari & James also joined us as mid-level flyers and light bases. James is a human muscle with a shaved noggin' and tatted-up shoulders. He's amazing at anything he puts his mind to, from gymnastics or basing to being the best boyfriend Dutch & I have ever seen. He leaves us in awe. We all wanna be like James. Ari has amazing balance and he's light enough that he & Dutch can do virtually anything I can do with the girls.

A few months ago Kazum did a show (at the Bossanova) at which the Yard Dogs Roadshow performed. They're astounding! But more importantly, Kazum met two important people.

Doc came up to us after the show and introduced himself. He's 6' 2", 170 lbs. with a fire-spinning and capoera background. He was interested in learning to do what we do. We were thrilled to teach him! After working like crazy he integrated into the new Piggies routine that we just performed for the last 2 Saturdays. He's recently divorced with a 10-year-old son, and he's just moved to Portland from California. We all love Doc, and he's learned an incredible amount in a very short time.

We also met a beautiful lady named Joey who bought some Kazum panties, so Dutch & I lifted her up in various poses to show them off for the camera.

As the summer faded into autumn I managed to land two teaching positions. The first was for a local downtown performance arts center, where I was supposed to teach gymnastics on Saturday mornings. A few times, students actually showed up! But overall we simply couldn't bring in students, and a few weeks ago we decided to end those classes. I've still not been paid a dime for 2 months of Saturdays spent teaching or waiting to teach. *shrug*

I also landed a job at Rose City Gymnastics Academy, where Melissa used to teach. That's been going really well - I teach adult gymnastics classes once a week, but more importantly I've been filling in for other teachers all the freakin' time. It's not much money despite that, though.

Although the relationship with Mary has been strong and wonderful, overall, my lack of income has been a constant thorn. A few weeks ago Mary and I finally had to acknowledge that it just wasn't working. She has been bothered by my joblessness since I met her, and with good reason. She wants a boyfriend who's self-sufficient and able to meet his obligations, and have enough money remaining to do fun things with her now & then. Who wouldn't want that? And being dependant upon my girlfriend for room & board & food makes things difficult & akward.

So, I've been moving into Haus's new place for a while. He lives with his girlfriend Dana and Dana's four sons who are nearly exactly the age of my younger 4 boys. They love me and I love being there. I work 30 hours a week for room & board, and we're all (so far) quite happy with it all. It's in Clackamas, though, which is lame... even though the new Green MAX line runs there it's still way out in the middle of nowhere.

That catches me up to a few weeks ago, when the White Album Christmas show took place. I'll post a whole new blog for each show, though.