Portland: A couple Weeks of Not Being There

It's a great city....

Checked out of the hotel a night early and checked in with generous family for that night. Hospitality is always welcomed.

Spent much of the last day walking and taking photographs. I'm not much of a photographer. Can't really play guitar, either, but I enjoy doing both. The two photos below involved steam, which in truth is a moving object, kind of like a cat. The first one was easy--nobody around, shooting through a fence. The second was involved a little trespassing and hoping nobody minded that I was creeping around the driveway.

The photo below is of (I assume) a homeless woman just up the sidewalk from Voodoo Doughnuts, where 50 or so people were lined up for their tourists doughnuts. I had to squat between two parked cars in the street, and I like how the dog seems attentive while the woman seems to be nodding off. I also like the juxtaposition of the woman with the painting above her.

The final photo is of a young man who said his name is Spike. This was a fun encounter. Walking along the waterfront, I saw him sitting on the bench. "Happy new year," he said as I got close. "Greatest hat ever," I said. "Everyone likes it," he says. "They want to take pictures of it." With that, I asked him if he'd mind if I did such a thing.

We talked a bit. His girlfriend Rachel, he said, had broken up with him at a New Year's Eve party, and he suspects it had something to do with the woman's ex-husband. Spike has been in Portland for seven years, he said, after living in Southern California. "Why'd you leave?" I asked, and he said it had something to do with...a woman who'd broken up with him. Poor guy. At one point a half-full bottle of vodka slipped from out of his jacket--vodka mean to be mixed with the tomato juice in the bottle between his feet.

He said he's had the hat for a long time. "What's it made of?" I asked. He didn't know, but he thought it was made out of wolf. In one of his ears was a long bone-like thing. The lobe of his other year looked like it had been split--as in, an earring ripped out of it. Ouch! I thought.

Here's the kicker: He wanted me to send one of the photos to the woman who'd broken up with him on New Year's Eve. Specifically, the second photo. "I want her to see what she's losing," he said. I felt bad for him then. If you've ever been dumped like that, you know that all you want to do is sit on a park bench and drink vodka and tomato juice. But it was cold outside, and I felt sorry for him.

He wanted to send a note to Rachel along with the photograph. He even gave me her phone number. Here's what he wrote in my notebook:

I'm sorry. Yu knew yu always had my heart yu dumb ass. I'm here for you. xoxoxo.

I asked him if he really wanted to say "dumb ass." He said he did, that they often teased each other in such a way.

And I'm not sure if it needs saying, but I never send the note. I couldn't. If I were Rachel, I might be a bit nervous that a stranger had my phone number. But I hope Spike is okay.

Dispatch: Portland, Oregon #3

We always return to the familiar, even after struggling to find and explore new places and ideas. And once again today I'm in the common experience of Starbucks, a common fleece-wearing man with a Apple laptop set in front of me as though I have something to scribble about. This particular Starbucks seems to be a gathering place for many people who are either (or both) slightly imbalanced and at least temporarily between residences. Even the crazy and the lost need an anchor.

There is a grand, lighted Christmas tree outside the window I'm looking through; it's a healthy looking conifer. The other trees in the area--leafless and deciduous--are also decorated with lights. I perhaps mistakenly find it ironic that the conifer will soon be mulch, and in the near future the deciduous group will be green again.

I woke up this morning and remembered something: today is the anniversary of my first day on the job at my first professional job. A cubicle seemed exciting then, though that it was in San Francisco certainly helped with that excitement. I actually think of that job often--something familiar. It was a good time, those four years in San Francisco, and I worked with some good, creative people. The cubicle I work in now, on the third floor of an office building in a dull suburb, is much less exciting. Or, I'll concede, the problem is that I am less exciting. 

Yesterday afternoon I saw Birdman, a movie that surprised me because I'd forgotten that it incorporates pieces of a Raymond Carver story ("What We Talk About When We Talk About Love") in both plot and theme. I first read that story when I worked in San Francisco, when smart and generous coworkers introduced me to writers of many types. I often return to Carver's stories, and references to him have appeared more than once in this blog. I've seen other movies based on Carver's works, including Everything Must Go and Shortcuts; both are worth watching. 

In a few days I'll have to return to my familiar suburban cubicle just as imbalanced though still not homeless. The stay here has been good.

Dispatch: Portland, Oregon #2

Happy new year. It's an odd-numbered year, so perhaps odd things will happen. I know some of the things scheduled and waiting just over the horizon, but the more new years I encounter, the less apt I am to either predict or count on such things actually taking place. It's a product of age, I suppose.

I spent some time last night trying to recall memorable New Year's Eve parties, but I couldn't come up with much. As a kid I probably stayed up as late as I could; when my children were small I assuredly wanted nothing more than to go to sleep as early as possible. I woke up to a new year in Pensacola, Florida, once, most likely after standing a main gate watch at the U.S. Navy's Corry Station, where I spent half a year getting trained to do what I did for a couple of years afterward. I do not recall if I was an especially good main-gate watcher, though nobody ever told me I wasn't.

And I started a couple of new years aboard an aircraft carrier or at least close by. One year I think I, along with other young men who were allowed to drink, spent a good amount of time in a club in Yokosuka, Japan, trying to name all of the Seven Dwarfs.

Last night my hotel was filled with drinking and over-drinking people who were there for some type of party that I was not invited to. You spend that much money for a hotel room, and you'd think you'd get invited to the parties. The party must have ended just after midnight because hordes of revelers were packed in the small lobby waiting for an elevator just as I was trying to my room for a good night's slumber. And with proper hotel efficiency, only one of the four elevators dropped to the lobby. The seemed to be stuck on the twenty-third floor, and the others seemed to go to the basement and stay there for awhile before rising to floors above the lobby. Based on my own experience, I imagine that many of the loud, happy people who were in the elevator car with me are less loud and happy this morning.

Good for those people! It's okay to let loose every now and then, even if it's only on the final day of the year. After all, for the first time in many years, I ate beef, lamb, and pork yesterday--by choice and not influenced by alcohol. And who could have predicted that?