Portland Week One

After a week in Portland with no job as yet (but a million excuses for lacking one) I’ve started facing the prospect of severely budgeting myself. Gone are the days of Amazon buying sprees which is quite difficult for me with so many great movies and CDs that need purchasing. I don’t even want to think about the great deals I’m missing out on.

Also, much to my dismay, my first weekend in Portland coincided with a pretty great city-wide musicfest featuring, amongst others, Modest Mouse, Love As Laughter, Dr. Dog, Blind Pilot, Explosions in the Sky, Beach House, The Pink Mountaintops, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and We Were Promised Jetpacks. Once again, monetary concerns and not knowing how to get anywhere prevented me from indulging me in the festivities. If only I still had student loans funding my frivolities (then again, had I been less whimsical with my loans, I wouldn’t have to be so worried about money now).

It’s pretty well established that grocery shopping is generally the cheapest way to eat meals, but I haven’t trained myself to think ahead about meals quite yet. Living with my parents the past month curtailed my self-sustaining instincts significantly. Sure, I was put to work, laboring endlessly painting the living room, but they kept me well fed with a roof over my head (added bonus, aside from the rhyming: free storage). In such circumstances, I recently discovered that a single, medium pizza is a pretty stellar option. Pizza is typically a communal food, and I never realized how long a single pie can last when I’m the only eater. One medium is three meals worth of food (should I decide not to gorge myself). Not at all bad. Plus, I’m learning that a smaller in circumference pizza is not necessarily worse because it may be denser. Something I never thought about.

Fortunately, my first month and a half’s rent here is significantly cheaper than the rest of the year and most of my bills won’t be due until November, so the real pressure is a while off. Of course, once I get a job, I can just throw all this out the window. Why bother learning how to live responsibly? There’s no fun in that. I am holding off on getting a dog because I’d rather my dog eat than myself, but I REALLY want to eat. Yay for responsibility!