When I wake up in Portland, I barely know what to do with myself. I roll over and tell Maya that here, it is hard to know whether or not you are alive, really, or just making shit up. Inside joking. A day, a year in Portland has a deep, wholly overcoming sense of stasis, harmony, okayness. The air is refrigerator chilled, dry but still some breath in it, and everything is alive but graywashed still.
When I was in school, I had a lot of my favorite things that I did all the time plus a lot of deadlines, and that is how I, we, filled this space with an urgency that is simply not in its nature. But its not been hard to kill a day in my non and post academic Portland. Its the easiest breeziest thing in the world to do, and if you don’t actively try not to notice, killing time seems like what everyone is doing.
So we woke up on Foster in Portland’s most never-coming-up neighborhood and stared at the Taco Bell across the street for awhile. We talked about how drunk we were/are/were going to be, ate some fibrous cereal. Went over to get that clutch smiley face paper you gotta carry across a country at the best art store that exists anywhere, I’ve Been Framed on Foster, the place that I think about when I think about missing places, lacking things.
Went to the Reed gym where the bouncer is the dude who was in my hip hop dance class and the people on the free weights and the elliptical are the same guys and girl who were always fucking there. Kill it for 60 minutes solid, meaning we were totally ready to house my all-time best option besides groceries meal: the New Seasons hotwok. I once lived a roll out the doorstep walk from this one duper yuppie market that I’m very mood-ring about. To shop there for things with regularity was unnecessary, foolish! Why buy audaciously overpriced basics, and shop among folks who dig on that? But still, all the best meat cuts, artisan froyo’s, and all this food, anyway you like it, for 7 bucks plus you get to read Oprah magazine (or whatever!) in great light while you do it and decide what fruit samples or unwarranted mid day wine bottle you’ll choose for dessert.
Artichokes, edamame, cherry tomatoes, celery, teeny chicken, all tossed up with just Braggs and hot peppers with sesame on top.
So whatever, we’re full. Ditched the car and kept walking. Hit the goodwill on 6th, the best one. Drop west to the Hawthorne bridge, grab the esplanade, meet Hana for a couple cigarettes, walk the river. Make pilgrimage to the Rose Quarter Transit Center, a good bus hub, even a great one! Make sure to pay my respects to the boys who gave me a spirit where I had none so many winters, even this last one in New York. These boys, that give this whole town a soul.
Ride a good ol TriMet number 4 straight back to the market, get some beers and a melon to bring to Emma’s party, where there’s a wealth of not-photographed great party food: grilled veggies and a spicy quinoa and corn salad and some blue chips and fresh salsa. Word on the street is she won’t visit New York for awhile because she bought a new saddle for her horse, instead. This house she just moved in to is a mansion, her 22nd year will be a good one, for sure.
