Fortunately, Unfortunately

When I was a kid, my parents used to read me a book titled Fortunately, by Remy Charlip, which was a story told with sentences that alternated between beginning with the words “fortunately” and “unfortunately.” The way in which the story was told captured the continuously changing circumstances in which the main character found himself – rapidly switching between favorable and unfavorable situations. This was one of my favorite books growing up, and so I’m going to tell the story of my drive on the evening of Monday, April 27th in the same fashion (this is all true):

Unfortunately, at around 11:30 PM on the evening of Monday, April 27th, about 120 miles South of Albuquerque, New Mexico, an eighteen-wheeler either blew a tire or ran over a tire (it was too dark to see). I swerved in attempt to avoid it, but it was too close and so I ran over the tire on the right side of my Honda. I heard it thunk as it slapped the underbelly of my car.

Fortunately, I did not lose control of the car, and was able to safely pull over to the shoulder to stop.

Unfortunately, I now had to get out of the car to assess the damage, standing on the shoulder of the interstate in the black of night as more eighteen wheelers continued to blow by me.

Fortunately, I didn’t have a flat tire!

Unfortunately, I noticed that the right corner of my front bumper was hanging loose. And my rear bumper.

Fortunately, they didn’t look too bad, so they might not have even been caused by running over the tire.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t say much for me keeping a close eye on the maintenance of my car.

Fortunately, it looked like I would be able to hold the bumper up with duct tape.

Unfortunately, I think there’s a section in my owner’s manual explicitly stating that using duct tape does not constitute a legitimate repair to your vehicle.

Fortunately, I had “professional-grade” duct tape, which is capable of resisting wind, rain, and snow.

Unfortunately, it is also capable of resisting tearing, and I couldn’t break a darn piece of it off!

Fortunately, I came prepared with scissors.

Unfortunately, they were the little rinky dinky scissors attached to my pocket knife.

Fortunately, they got the job done – I was able to tape up both bumpers and get back on the road.

Unfortunately, after about 5 more minutes of driving, I heard a loud windy noise from the right side of my car, so I pulled over again, sure that I blew a tire this time.

Fortunately, I still didn’t have a flat tire!

Unfortunately, a piece of plastic near the front passenger-side tire was loose and flapping in the wind.

Fortunately, duct tape worked beautifully to reattach this mysterious piece of plastic. The car is finally all fixed and ready to go.

Unfortunately, my stomach picked that exact moment to let me know that I had to go to the bathroom – badly. And there wasn’t a rest stop for 20 miles.

Fortunately, there weren’t many people around for 20 miles either. I clambered up the hill on the side of the road to find a nice, secluded spot. Even if a car did pass, it was pitch black and so no one would be able to see me.

Unfortunately, it was pitch black, and so I wasn’t able to see either. And I couldn’t find my trowel.

Fortunately, with the aid of a headlamp and a rock, I was able to dig a hole and take care of business undetected. I made it back to the car and got on the road.

Unfortunately, there was still a rattling noise coming from the rear of the car.

Fortunately, I was too tired to investigate it at that point. I made it to Truth or Consequences, NM, and called it a night.

A Modicum of Vindication

“Riinngg….Riinngg.”

“Hello?”

“Hi, Sher?”

“Yes…?”

“Hi, it’s Scott. From the Obama campaign.”

“Scott? Oh, hi! Wow it’s been months!”

“Yeah, I know. How are you doing?”

“I’m ok. How are you?”

“Good, good. Listen, I’m actually in town for the day, but I’m just passing through, and I’m leaving tomorrow. I know it’s really last minute, but I’d really love to see you, and I was wondering if I could come say hi, even if only for a few minutes.”

“Uh, wow. Well, I don’t know. When did you have in mind?”

“Well I just got done visiting with Nancy, so I’m actually right around the corner and I was thinking about swinging by in ten minutes or so.”

"Oh, wow. You really did mean last minute notice!"

I had this conversation about ten times today, calling my former Obama volunteers to ask if I could come see them. Being the ever so organized planner that I am, these conversations often took place within a half hour of me showing up at their doorstep to say hello. That they agreed (and that they put up with me in general) is a testament to how wonderful everyone in this group really is.

It was good to be back. Colorado feels like home – a place where I can let my guard down, kick my feet up, open my suitcase and let my clothes spill all over the floor. These are my people – I know them, I love them, and they would never chase me with pitchforks.

It was supposed to be my home. I should be returning to Colorado to begin organizing for Stand for Children in Denver, not passing through on some half-cocked dash across (and then out of) the country. I was supposed to be returning to start a life here with the girl for whom my heart still yearns, not depressedly musing over how sad it is the way things ended.

I should be organizing. As I sat down with my volunteers today, and they told me about the work they’re doing to organize my former Obama teams into a community organization of activists, I got freaking fired up. As each person told me a new segment of what they’ve been up to – organizing a food bank, creating issue-based subcommittees to track legislature on education, the environment, etc., creating a database of people to send out issue-specific communication to interested parties – the gears started to turn in my head. It wasn’t long before I was making suggestions, offering ideas for organizational structure. I could feel myself start to salivate as I envisioned the potential power of this grassroots network. This is what I should be doing! Not running off, out of the country, when there is so much work to be done. This is the time to organize!

Oh. That’s right. I almost forgot. I’m not “a fit” as an organizer. But as I recount to my volunteers this explanation of why I was fired, they burst out laughing:

“Not a fit as an organizer? You?? What do they call what you were doing for the last year of your life? Did your supervisor ever actually meet you? Does she even know the first thing about organizing? Does she know what our Obama teams accomplished here in Arapahoe County? You, not an organizer?!?”

Yes, she met me, and yes, she knows quite a bit about organizing, I assure them. And I’m pretty sure my volunteers are biased because of a shared genetic disorder wherein they lack the normal human response of running the other way at the sound of my footsteps (I can’t fathom any other explanation of why they’re willing to hang around me). But even so, I can’t help but feel a little bit better at the supportive statements of my volunteers. I mean, they did work with me for 4 months. If anyone knows how I am as an organizer, it’s my volunteers. They suffered through my trainings, sat through my meetings, and participated in my conference calls. They saw me at my worst: when I hadn’t slept in days and didn’t feel human; when my spirit was broken and despair was setting in; when I had long lost hold of the reason we were working for Obama, and just continued stumbling through because I didn’t know what else to do. And if, despite all that, my volunteers still think I did a good job, still think I’m a good organizer – well, that must count for something, right?

At the end of the day, all emotions aside, here are the bare facts: my volunteers worked with me for 4 months, and they are many. My supervisor worked with me for 1.5 months, and she is one. Sarah, my dear, I think you are a little outnumbered.

Vegas Fo’ Free Ninety-Nine

Vegas is normally all about spending money, so I decided to go against the grain and do Vegas for free.* Here are 8 steps to avoid spending a dime in Vegas and still have a rockin time:

1. Arrive at 10PM and be prepared to leave early the next morning (it helps to have a 10 hour drive planned for the following day). The more amount of time you spend anywhere, the more likely you are to start spending money. And all the hoodwinkers and hobnobbers of Vegas will throw everything they have at you in an effort to loosen your pockets. The trick is to plan your trip to have the minimum exposure to Vegas necessary to reach the maximum enjoyment threshold before the urge to spend kicks in.


2. Upon checking into your hotel, one common pitfall is to be enticed by the free drink coupons. At first glance, this offer seems to be innocent enough – a way to partake in the delicious debauchery of Vegas without actually paying for it – but don’t be fooled! You know very well that as soon as you start to feel good from those two free drinks, you’re going to be sucked into keeping the buzz going, this time on your dime. Plus, it is not likely that you will retain enough willpower under the influence to resist the multitude of temptations that will be thrust your way. JUST SAY NO!


3. Ok, so you’re made it to the Strip with your judgment intact. Time to start exploring! Let’s start at Bally’s - the entrance is an automated walkway through a white corridor bordered by neon rings of light. It feels like you’re entering the Star Trek Enterprise! Ooh and look – there’s a hotel that looks like the entire skyline of Manhattan! And a castle… and a pyramid!
   • At this point I should note that it helps to have been diagnosed with a medical condition wherein you continuously fail to exhibit age-appropriate interests, and seem to be stuck in a childlike amazement for simple things like flashing lights and tall buildings. Because of this, where others of your age will be attempting to flex their machismo at the Texas Hold-em table (I mean, they’ve watched plenty of World Series of Poker, so they’ll be fine, right?) or filling the lonely void in their romantic lives with strip clubs or by buying numerous drinks for pretty ladies, you will be curiously fixated on the giant yellow M&M’s pouch suspended from a glass building. And whereas the former activities are quite costly, the latter is spectacularly free.


4. Wandering inside the casinos can provide ample entertainment as well, and makes for great people watching. But be wary of the flashing lights of the slot machines! While at first they might simply serve to fill your childish mind with wonder, it won’t be long before you find yourself captivated by the glittering machines’ allure, wanting to play “just one quarter.” Fortunately, there is an effective antidote – the methylprednisolone pills (an oral steroid) you were prescribed for your poison oak! A convenient side effect of this medication is blurry vision and dizziness, so that half an hour of the slot machines’ flashing lights will make you feel closer to an epileptic episode than to sitting down to play. Danger averted!


5. Hunger is normally the demise of any plan to resist spending money, so come prepared with plenty of cliff bars and trail mix to ensure a full stomach for the duration of your evening. It also helps to be vegan – no matter how much you’re salivating, it’s unlikely you’ll find anything you can actually eat.


6. As you walk down Las Vegas Boulevard, you’ll see Latinos on the street corners slapping stacks of cards vigorously. The slapping noise is to get your attention, to get you to look up and make eye contact – avoid this at all costs! If you make eye contact you are almost guaranteed to have a card depicting a half-nude woman slipped into your hand, and there’s nothing you can do about it at that point. You might think that these cards are harmless, simply advertising local strip clubs. But no, they are most assuredly the business cards of prostitutes. Now you understand why no one else is accepting any cards.


7. If you’re looking for something exciting like a theme park ride, don’t be tempted into shelling out the 12 bucks for the roller coaster ride at the New York, New York Resort. Instead, try out the diagonal elevators at the Luxor Pyramid. The trick is to figure out which elevator goes to the top floor, and then wait around until a guest from that floor is taking the elevator up (the elevators are room key-activated). The view from the top is pretty sweet, looking down at the Temple of Karnak and a mini city of shops that looks like Agrabah from Aladdin. You might panic momentarily when you try to return to the elevator shaft only to find that it seems to require a room key to enter in order to go back to the ground floor. Don’t worry though – after you alarm a couple by following them down several corridor repeatedly whispering “excuse me,” they will inform you that the door you were trying to enter is in fact not the elevator shaft – walk to the end of the hall, take a right, and you’ll be fine.


8. As you walk over the elevated path from the Tropicana to the Excalibur, a beautiful girl will approach you and say, “Hey there.” Do not be fooled into thinking this girl has any interest in you. Beautiful girls have no business talking to you…unless they are trying to do business with you, that is. Yes, that’s right, she’s a prostitute. To throw her off your trail, when she asks you where you’re headed, tap into you’re your most awkward, dorkiest inclinations; stub your toe and almost trip as you throw your hands up in the air and say, “uh…er…um – just, uh, wandering around, I guess.” Even a prostitute will not know how to respond to this spectacular display of social ineptitude. Having thwarted the final threat, you’re free to stroll the Strip back to the comfort of your hotel room having had your fill of entertainment for the night without ever cracking your wallet.

*Ok, so I didn’t actually do Vegas for free - this should actually be called “How to do Vegas for $33.32,” which is the amount I spent for my hotel room. But I didn’t spend a single cent outside of the cost of the room and probably had just about as much fun as any other bloke stumbling about the Vegas Strip.

Spell It U-R-U-S-H-I-O-L

I don’t know when I got it – it could have been from camping last Thursday night or hiking on Friday or Saturday - all I know is at some point between Thursday and Saturday in California I picked up poison oak.

While on a bike ride through San Francisco with my friend Paul, the back of my left leg opposite my knee started to itch (btw, what the heck is the back of your knee called?) I figured it was either a bug bite or poison ivy, and I was certainly praying it wasn’t the latter (or I would have, if I ever prayed). So, with these two possibilities in mind, here is the logic I used in my decision to start scratching my leg (remember that I have a degree in philosophy): if it’s a bug bite, it’s fine if I scratch it, but if it’s poison ivy, I can’t scratch it, cause it will spread all over if I do. So I’m going to play chicken with my itch. “You think you’re poison ivy? Well guess what, I think you’re bluffing, and to prove it to you I’m gonna scratch you. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it cause you’re just a little bug bite.” So I scratch it with the peace of mind that by expressing my overconfidence that it’s not poison ivy it will turn out not to be poison ivy.

I scratch vigorously all day, and by nightfall the itch is still there. The next morning it’s still there. And now there’s another spot on my leg. And a spot on my hand. So at this point I’m thinking, shit, it is poison ivy and I just spread it all over myself. Now I’ve had poison ivy before, and the rule of thumb is that if you can keep from scratching it, it will go away on its own. So I decide to ignore it and try not to scratch it.

Monday night comes, and it’s getting worse. I’m out at bar with Paul who encourages me to look up out to treat it. Now I’m pretty sure I know the basic gist of poison ivy, but I hadn’t ever done any actual research on it. Fine, I say. Let’s figure out whether it’s poison ivy or poison oak, and what to do about it. I have my Blackberry with me, so I Google “poison ivy.”

The first thing I learn is that poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac all produce the same toxin, urushiol, which causes an allergic reaction. I most likely contracted poison oak, which is prevalent in California. The type of urushiol contained by poison oak causes the strongest reaction. What this chemical basically does is “tag” your skin cells with a marker that makes your immune system think your skin cells are an invasive microbe or something, and so your white blood cells start attacking your skin cells causing redness and swelling. Freaking Fantastic.

Ok, so what do I do about it? I click on a link for “treating poison oak” and read the following instructions:

According to this article, the first tip in dealing with poison oak is to prevent contact. And it went on and on about wearing long pants when you’re going for hikes in the woods, how to identify poison oak to avoid it, recommending you wash your clothes and hands as soon as you get back, and some other helpful preventative advice. Great. Thank you very much. Well I’m already past that stage, so what the heck am I supposed to do now?

Next tip: how to treat it. Ok, this sounds more like it. If you do come into contact with poison ivy, the best approach is to make sure you treat it within the first ten minutes. You should scrub the contaminated area of skin with rubbing alcohol, then wash with cold water without soap (cold water keeps your pores closed), and then wash with soap. Wait - the best way to treat poison ivy is to respond within ten minutes? What percentage of people who come into contact with poison ivy respond within the first ten minutes?? I mean, you don’t know you have poison ivy until it starts to itch! Which, according to your website, doesn’t happen until 1-2 days after contact!

How is this information useful? You tell me, “don’t get it, and if you do get it, deal with it within the first ten minutes or you’re screwed.” In frustration I stop reading and return to savoring my Pliny the Elder IPA.

This morning when I get up, I decide that I better deal with the rash before I take off from San Francisco and go camping tonight near Big Sur, because I don’t want to be camping in the woods tonight and scratching all over. So here’s the plan: Don’t go back online and look for steps for treating poison ivy if you missed that magical ten minute window and symptoms have actually started to develop. Instead, just follow the advice that last night I thought was bullshit and hope that maybe I’ve been granted a grace period beyond those first ten minutes. And then I’ll go online and see what else I should do.

So first I gather all the clothes I’ve touched in the past three days and throw them in the wash. Next, I take rubbing alcohol and scrub down my computer, my phone, everything I’ve touched that can’t be thrown in the washer. Then I strip down and go over my entire body with rubbing alcohol – all the spots where the rash has broken out (of which there are now at least thirty). I then jump in the shower and wash off with cold water. I stand there for 10 minutes, shivering and letting the cold water rinse me again and again, hoping all traces of urushiol are disappearing. I then vigorously scrub everywhere with a wash cloth. Last, I apply soap and repeat the scrubbing.

I get out, and at this point I’m looking at my rashes, and I don’t think this is working. I don’t know what the heck this procedure did, because the rashes look worse - they’re starting to ooze. Is this good, am I getting the urushiol out? I hope so. To finish, I cover every spot of rash with Aveeno cream that contains calamine. Finally I’m sterilized, and I feel like it’s safe to touch my computer again to figure out what else I should do.

I Google poison oak and see a bunch of sites with “myths versus facts” of poison ivy/oak. Great. This is exactly what I need. OK, let’s see. Number 1 Myth: Poison ivy/oak is not contagious - the rashes cannot spread. Wait, what? That is the foundation of all my knowledge about poison ivy/oak, the fact that it does indeed spread.

Well, apparently while your rashes do look contagious because they ooze, once you’ve washed you’re skin they don’t actually contain urushiol anymore. Since urushiol is what causes the rash, and your skin can’t produce urushiol, scratching after you’ve washed your skin at least once will not spread the rash (though scratching is still not recommended because it increases the chance of infection). The rash only looks like it is spreading because your skin usually comes into contact with urushiol at different points in time. Because of the delayed onset of the rash, you will see a gradual development depending on when each are of skin was exposed to urushiol and how much it was exposed to. So my initial technique of scratching my leg did not actually cause this outbreak. And while washing my clothes was a smart move, my whole hour long song and dance in the shower was all for naught (I had already showered several times since contacting poison oak). Oh, and apparently calamine lotion doesn’t work, either.

So I’ve been standing here covered from head to toe in pink calamine lotion, wondering if I should stay in San Francisco to avoid getting poison ivy all over my sleeping bag and spread it further. But now that I realize I can’t spread it anymore, and since I look like a pink leper, I might as well get the hell out of town where other people won’t be able to see me.

The Landscape of Southern Oregon

Turns out I did not need to drive down the Oregon coast to see the beauty of Oregon. I thought the I-5 corridor between Salem and Portland would be representative of the entire trip – industrial, developed, marked by more strip malls than trees. But when you start to near Eugene, the terrain just opens up and devours your urban sensibilities. It’s breathtaking.

I’m in my little 1995 Honda Civic, 5 speed manual transmission. I’ve packed it to the brim with all my worldly possessions, as I am trucking my life across the country back to New Jersey. I have my Kelty pack armed and ready for me to pull over to the side of the road and set up camp at a moment’s notice (I try unsuccessfully to hide my excitement over my new REI tent), along with 7 pounds of homemade trail mix (gotta love New Seasons), 3 jars each of peanut butter and jelly plus a loaf of bread, and several pounds of apples and oranges. Given the recent development of my conspicuous absence of any form of income, I figure that I can pinch pennies by forgoing travel restaurant stops in favor of buying cheap food in bulk to eat on the road. I’m also incredibly lazy when it comes to food; whenever there is an opportunity to explore more or drive further at the expense of meal time, I’ll gladly eat while driving. I just don’t have the patience to stop, and sit, and eat, when I could be seeing more of the country.

In addition to my backpacking gear, clothes, and food, I have 7 quarts of motor oil squeezed in my trunk. The Volta (my car) has 131,000 miles on her, and so she burns oil like it’s her job. I’ve learned to check the oil level religiously at every stop, to avoid the unfortunate occurrence of the cylinders welding to the engine block. Without leaking a single drop, she goes through an entire quart every full day of driving (about 200-300 miles). But she repays me for quenching her thirst by faithfully carrying me onward, through the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. The landscape along I-5 in Oregon has a different beauty than Colorado. The mountains here aren’t as towering – I’m not even sure whether these qualify as mountains, or merely hills – and you don’t quite get the drastic diversity between the golden foothills of JeffCo and the red-rusted peaks of Aspen. But as soon as you pass Eugene, you’re hit by this effervescent green that just overtakes you. It’s as if the grass is phosphorescent – actually producing its own light rather than simply reflecting that of the sun. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if these grassy fields were still lit up after dusk. The mountains here may differ than those of Colorado, but they certainly do not lack in any majesty.

At first I feel like I’m in the Shire, in the Lord of the Rings. I can hear Howard Shore’s flute melody play blithely as I watch the rolling hills of green grass spotted with homes and farms and livestock. As the road bends, the terrain abruptly flashes from soft and dreamy to jagged and jarring. Now it reminds me of the terrain in Nicaragaua. The green hills are covered with the standard evergreens, but also jutted by rock outcroppings that thrust upward from the grass. Interspersed throughout the evergreens are bare deciduous trees that have not yet budded, thrashing their skeletal limbs in a scowling contortionists’ dance. This is the wild, they say to me. We, not humans, are the rulers here.

Fifty miles north of Grants Pass, at a town called Myrtle Creek, the South Umpqua River suddenly comes into view. Only it’s unlike any river I’ve ever seen in person. The color – a shimmering turquoise – is so striking that merely looking at it induces phantom experiences of the water via the senses of taste and touch. I can feel the temperature and taste the freshness. The color reminds me of the Gatorade flavor “Glacier Freeze,” and I imagine myself, instead of driving on the highway alongside the river, actually rafting down the river, water splashing up in my face and quenching my thirst with its sweet electrolytes.

My little Volta’s speed starts to decline rapidly as I ascend an almost imperceptible hill. I’m used to this by now, and I no longer panic like the first time that I saw my speedometer needle plummet though my pedal was pushed to the floor. Now I simply shift into fourth and pick my speed back up. My Honda is actually doing great with her 4 cylinder considering all the crap that is loaded in the trunk. There’s the occasional rattling noise and the perpetual smell of oil burning, but she putters on.

The highway bends to the right without warning and is swallowed up by the evergreens that border it on either side. The rain has begun to fall harder; the raindrops vaporize as they hit the ground, creating a thick mist that makes it difficult to see where the road turns next. But I’m fixated more on the moment, rather than the destination, and so I just enjoy my beautiful drive through the fog.

Top 5, PDX Style

In honor of the fact that I just watched High Fidelity, here are the Top 5 Things I’ll Miss About Portland:

Number 5: The Unemployment Rate:

I know, this is a bit of an ironic thing to miss, having just become unemployed myself. Seriously, though, the unemployment rate in Portland is over 10%. It seems like no one I meet has a job. Every person has some story about what they’re doing at the moment that does not involve a job. Here are a few typical conversations that evolve when people are prompted with the question, “So what do you do?”

A typical conversation with an artist:

1. “So what do you do?”
2. “Oh, I’m a painter.”
3. “Oh, wow you’re an artist! Do you have any stuff for sale or in a local gallery?”
4. “Oh…no, I’m still, uh…working on my first few paintings.”
5. “Ah, ok – just getting started, cool! Do you have a side job at the moment?”
6. “No I just, uh focus on my artwork.”

Alternatively, a conversation with an outdoorsy type:

1. “So what do you do?”
2. “Oh, I’m a climber at the local rock gym.”
3. “Oh neat, you work at the rock gym?”
4. “No, I don’t work there, I just go there to climb.”
5. “Oh, cool, I’ve been there a few times to climb as well. So do you work in Portland?”
6. “Not at the moment. I’m just climbing, pretty much.”

My coworker Kayla said that when she lived in Southeast Portland, she was literally the only person in her building who had a job that required her to get up earlier than noon and wear something other than faded jeans and sandals. And for that she was called “corporate” by the other people who lived in her building! This is someone who works 10 hours a day to improve public education in Oregon, called corporate because she actually has a job to wake up and go to. Only in Portland…

Number 4: The Recycling System:

Not only is recycling ubiquitous in Portland, but there’s also the possibility that Portland has curbside food compost pickup. I say possibility because I am still uncertain as to the definitive answer on the subject. While it’s not in question that our green curbside compost bins can be used for yard waste, it is unclear whether there is a unified policy on whether or not food waste is acceptable as well. From conversations with all other Portlanders, I was under the impression that food waste could be deposited in the green bins as well until my roommate got yelled was told the compost company would not empty our green bin. They will still take food compost, however, if you make sure to fill the top of the bin with leaves to cover the forbidden contents beneath.

But what I like most about the recycling system is the city’s very economical approach to determining the amount of resources to use in collecting recyclable materials. You see, when you look at the amount of recyclable materials produced and put in recycle bins, and then you look at the total volume that Portland has the capacity to pick up every week, there’s a gap. There are more recyclable materials put in curbside bins than could possibly be carried off by the number of trucks utilized each week. And yet, all of Portland’s recycling successfully reaches processing plants.

How, you ask?

The city government is aware of the fact that there are many homeless people who will go around and pick out of people’s recycling bins to turn in the bottles for money. It is the homeless can collectors who are responsible for making up the remaining gap in hauling capacity. Some of the homeless people are pretty sophisticated, too! They may not have homes, but they do have bicycles (which makes sense if you’ve ever been to Portland). On the back of the bicycles they have a trailer hitch that has of a sort of rectangular frame with wheels into which you can put a small recycling bin, and they’ll go around filling up the bin with recycling from various cans and hauling them off to get reimbursed. A bum-powered recycling system. Awesome.

Number 3 – Portland’s Cyclists

The bikers. They are everywhere. And in a good way. Not like scabies or chicken pox, but like beautiful women or, uh…chocolate covered marshmallows. Portland is such a haven for bikers that people actually move to the city because they want to get rid of their cars. They move here, sell their cars, and then they buy a bicycle that costs more the car.

The amazing thing, though, is not just how many cyclists there are, but that they have power, too. They have the power of a full-fledged lobbying group or a voting bloc. Most recently, cyclists in Portland pressured state representatives to sponsor a bill that would make cyclists exempt from traffic laws. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The bill (HB 2690) would permit the so called “Idaho stop” at stop signs. Cyclists will only have to slow down at stop signs, rather than stopping, and will only have to yield if there is other traffic present. Cyclists in Eugene, Oregon convinced the city administration to change its position on the bill, and now the City of Eugene no longer opposes the bill. I mean, cyclists in Oregon are serious about their bikes; these aren’t just pot smoking, no-carbon-footprint-wannabe hippies, these are representative-calling, letter-writing activists. If you’re a representative and you don’t listen to the cyclists in your community, you just might get a seemingly nice gift of a vintage water bottle – one that just so happens to have BPA, and will probably give you cancer. (all Portlanders now use metal water bottles to avoid BPA).

Don’t get me wrong, I love the cyclists. They’re fantastic. I’m not only impressed with their ability to overturn the law, but also their ability to thwart it. My roommate is part of a cycling social group called “Pub N Pedal,” and they have found a way around this age old conundrum: how to meet up at a bar with a bunch of people coming from different areas, have a good time at the bar, and yet make it home without endangering anyone or getting thrown in jail. I mean this has been a serious problem that many social groups still continue to face. Members of Pub N Pedal get around this conundrum by biking so they can get hammered at the bar, and not get hammered afterwards - for drunk driving, that is. Supposedly you can get a ticket for being drunk on a bicycle, but I hear it’s not enforced nearly as often. And it’s harder to notice because it is very easy to ride a bicycle safely and not wobbly when you’re drunk. I mean that’s what I heard. I wouldn’t know anything about that…

Number 2: The Vegan Scene

Yes, there is a vegan scene. Not just a vegetarian scene, like in many cities. I think there’s actually a commune of vegans living underground somewhere in the city where they don’t practice birth control, because man, vegans emerge from the woodwork here. It’s like you’re eating a nice steak dinner at a restaurant and then all of a sudden out the cracks in the floorboards you get 5 vegans who come up and swap out your steak for some marinated tofu and run around making chicken noises. Though a vegan myself, I don’t really understand it, to be perfectly honest.

There’s actually a vegan strip mall in one area of town that contains a vegan fabric store, a vegan bakery, a vegan grocery store, a vegan restaurant. There’s also a vegan option at nearly every regular omnivorous restaurant. There are even Friday night vegan Twister parties where groups of vegans get together play Twister naked while composting on themselves. It’s kind of weird at first but you get used to it after a while. There are so many vegetarians in Portland that the meat-eaters have actually had to start their own dating sites simply in order to meet other omnivores.

So how did vegetarians take over? Here’s my theory – they became chefs. I know what you’re thinking – vegetarians became chefs and simply stopped serving meat. But no, I think it was even more clever and conniving than this. They served meet, they just cooked terrible meat dishes. With sushi, there are only maybe 2 or 3 legitimate sushi places in town. The rest of the places are those sushi train places with the mass-produced sushi assembly line that goes around you on a conveyor belt. And in Portland they serve items on those conveyor belts such as tunafish rolls. No, not the tuna sushi you’re used to, which is a nice piece of raw tuna, often spicy. No, no – I’m talking tunafish from a can, the kind that is served with mayonnaise and occasionally celery. Yes, they put that in a roll with rice and seaweed and they call that sushi. So it’s through this subtle method that the vegetarians and vegans drove meat eaters away.

Number 1: The Weirdos

I love how there is a place in Portland for all the weirdos. People are just accepted here, even if they’re crazy, or smelly, or both. And there are a ton of weirdos here. At first I was a little alarmed, but I quickly started to find Portland’s weirdos quite charming.

There’s a woman at the Belmont Library comes in every day around noon, sits in on one of the tables at the back of the library, puts her stuff down, and spends about two minutes angling the chair so its back faces away from the person next to her at a 45 degree angle, as if to build a sort of barrier. She does this for two minutes: just wiggling the chair back and forth – arriving at 45 degree angle within the first 15 seconds, then moving it a little bit away, little bit back, until it sits at a 45 degree angle again. She then goes and gets 3-4 cookbooks, brings them back, puts them on the table (and at this point she turns her chair to face the table, negating her earlier work). And she just sits there, flipping through the cook book, looking at pictures of food. She just sits there for three hours, looking at food and muttering to herself.

That’s another thing, Portland has the highest population density of people who talk to themselves – and it’s not just homeless people who have been shunned by society, but people who are still an integral part of Portland’s businesses and/or families. I’m gonna miss the fact that people like that are accepted here. Even though I don’t walk down the street talking to myself, when I walk into the library among the weirdos, I feel like “these are my people.” The only reason I was taken aback at first is mostly because I was looking for someone to live with. Like I said, I like the fact that there is a place for weirdos in Portland; I’d just prefer that place not be in my home.

Finding Poetry

People often compare Seattle to Portland, and, depending where you are, assert that one is the “better version” of the other. Portlanders, while allowing that Seattle still has that rad northwest flavor, claim that Seattle is too big, too sprawling, too corporate. Seattle is a version of Portland that has “sold out.” Seattleites, contrarily, contend that Portland just doesn’t have as much to offer as Seattle; Portland is what Seattle would look like if Seattleites suddenly stopped applying themselves to anything worthwhile and just sat around getting stoned all the time.

I’d like to say that I have some meaningful social insight on the subject, but my first impression of Seattle was much more mundane; fucking traffic, and fucking hills.

It’s funny how we often have such grandiose, almost theatrical expectations of new experiences; we imagine driving around a bend in the road, and then suddenly the Seattle skyline emerges, as if rising right out of the Sound, with Mt. Rainier towering majestically in the distance. Then of course we imagine that this profound visage will provoke some illuminating revelation, something to pen down for all to read.

In reality such events are far less literary. We cave to the impulses of our emotions: shouting at an aggressive drive who cuts you off, thinking about how you haven’t peed in four hours, nervous about getting off at the right exit. But we shouldn’t be disappointed by these moments –It is to be expected that they fall short of our hopes. This is because we are looking for poetry in the wrong places.

I think the real poetry sits not in an image of a skyline or a mountain, but in human interactions. The moments we share with random people – a server at a restaurant, a crossing guard, or someone we sit next to on the metro. I’m fascinated by the idea that two strangers – compilations of thousands of different experiences and millions of chemical reactions – can intersect paths just for an instant to share a common experience, and then careen off at different angles with completely disparate interpretations of that joint experience. What might be a meaningful human connection for me (and maybe my only one that day), could have been an awkward and forced conversation for you, one that you engaged in only because I was obviously lonely. Alternatively, you might be thinking, “Wow, I just met a great guy,” while I’m walking away saying “Geez, what an asshole.” To me, this is where true poetry lies – the beauty, tragedy, and irony in human interactions and human stories.

Queen Anne – a neighborhood in Seattle – has a reputation for being “uppity,” I’m told. It is home to Seattle’s wealthy residents, who sit up on Queen Anne hill and look down upon Seattle City Center and downtown. The houses are certainly beautiful, as is the view from Kerry Park on top of the hill – the postcard image of Seattle’s cityscape with the Space Needle in the foreground and the Puget Sound off to the left. Interestingly, though, there is a pocket on Mercer Street that has a hipster feel to it – with a used book store and record exchange.

The book store, appropriately titled “Twice Sold Tales,” is run by a woman in her mid-fifties named Jamie. Jamie squints up from behind her spectacles as my friends and I enter the store, greeting us chirpily. A grey cat sits in a bed on top of the first bookshelf – Sam is his name, Jamie tells me, and he’d be happier to see me if I had a treat in my hand. I start to browse the fiction section while my friend Paul heads over to sci-fi. Embarrassingly, Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons catches my eye as a potential book for the plane to Honduras – after all, The Da Vinci Code got me through a few weeks of teaching – when I look back toward the door and notice something peculiar. Jamie is holding a book in her hand, but I can see that she’s clearly not reading. Her eyes keep darting up from the book to watch the customers as they browse the shelves. What is she looking for? Does she think someone might steal?

As I round the corner to check on Paul, I see a second cat strutting forward from behind a bookshelf – this one is black, beautiful, and very friendly. He nudges my leg and circles me several times, letting me scratch his head and coo nonsense at him.

“Do you have cats?” Jamie startles me. Suddenly she is somehow standing right next to me. I stammer, no, I don’t have any cats, but my ex-girlfriend had a cat that I’m very fond of.

“That’s a shame,” she says. Thinking that she is referring to the fact that I’m no longer with my girlfriend, I start to thank her for her sympathy, but she quickly interrupts me.

“No, I meant I’m sorry that she kept the cat. When I broke up with my partner 8 years ago he kept all three cats, and I had picked them out and raised them from when they were kittens.” I express my sympathies, unsure of the correct response in this situation. Undeterred, she starts advising me on picking out a cat of my own. “If you ever get a cat, you should go to a rescue shelter and ask for a Manx,” she says. “Manx are the absolute friendliest. Yes go to a shelter and pick out a Manx – but be sure to be ask for a rumpy, not a stumpy.” (are those scientific distinctions?)

“Or a Siamese,” she continues. “Also very friendly, but they can be very loud. Oh, the Decibals! You could hear it ten blocks away! Oh,” she pauses. “I didn’t mean to go on like that – you don’t mind my going on like that, do you?” I assure her that her advice is most welcome, and repeat it to make sure I got it right (rumpy, not stumpy, right?).

Jamie returns to her desk, and Paul and I consult about a few last selections. We proceed to the checkout counter – I smile at Jamie as I present her with my unimaginative choices: Angels and Demons and The Hunt for Red October. Upon seeing the latter, Jamie becomes very excited. She’s sort of a “sub-buff”, she tells me. She describes how this was Clancy’s first – and in her opinion, best – book, and that he wrote it based on a series of classified conversations he’d had with CIA personnel (I don’t know if this is true or not).

She proceeds to cite the technical accuracy of the novel, based on Admiral Rickover – wait, you don’t know who Admiral Rickover is, she asks me. I don’t. Apparently, as a child, Admiral Rickover had a visionary idea that led to the invention of nuclear submarines. If not for this incredible man, we apparently would not have had nuclear submarines, and may not even have had nuclear power as we do today – no one would have, except for the Russians, she tells me.

I thank Jamie for her enlightening tale and she scribbles Admiral Rickover’s name on a piece of paper to ensure I’ll look him up when I get a chance.

She is a fascinating woman, a self proclaimed “buff” on virtually any topic you can think of (she told Paul she was a buff of some sort as well), and yet there is a self-doubting urgency to her conversations, as if she desperately needs to talk to you to convince herself that she exists, or to convince herself that her existence is worthwhile. There is a loneliness in her speech, the kind that easily echoes down a vacant hallway, searching futilely for someone to hear it. Now I know what she was looking for while she was pretending to read – she was just looking for company.

The Loneliness of Uncertainty

I’m sitting on a post of a guardrail, at the edge of a bluff that overlooks the Puget Sound. Looking westward across the sound, I can see the Olympic Mountains. They’re covered by a thin veil of mist, and I’m almost wondering if they’re really there. They seem unreal...like most of today.

I’m in Seattle. I arrived here last night, and I’ve spend the day wandering along the Lake Union canal toward the Puget Sound. My walk is at once peaceful and serene…but also disturbing. The disturbing part comes not from the scenery, but from my mind’s reaction to this experience. I don’t quite understand it. But like I said, it almost feels unreal.

This morning I came to the Gas Works Park in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The area used to be a plant that manufactured gas from coal, and it has now been turned into a public park. The park sits on the north end of the most lake-like part of Lake Union, directly opposite downtown Seattle. Sitting atop the parks’ prominent hill offers a fantastic view of the city’s skyline. The scene was beautiful and tranquil – overall a pretty normal experience thus far.

Departing the park, I went for a walk in quest of the stone troll that supposedly sits under some bridge in Fremont. I started to walk along Lake Union toward the Sound. As I walked, I fell into sort of a deep meditation. I was awake and experiencing the world, but I was also removed from it. Rather than simply being present, and experiencing the moment, it was like ever sight, every sound, every smell evoked some vivid memory into which my consciousness fell. I would see the boats and suddenly be back on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. I would smell the salt air, and be catching a Frisbee with my Dad at the Jersey shore. I would see the greenery of the northwest – the evergreens and ivy – and be traipsing again through the woods of New Jersey with my childhood friend Max, who’s now moved back to Switzerland. I was at once enjoying the beauty of my walk along the canal – the foliage on my left and the Seattle architecture of the industries on my right – and also not existing in the present; my consciousness was housed more in memory.

As I was experiencing all these memories, I was also experiencing false memories – memories of things I’d dreamt, but not actually experienced. A field in the back of Jake Krueger’s house – whose father my dad used to do carpentry for – with a horse that had run away, and we were chasing it through the woods. A playground near the baseball field in Roseland that doesn’t actually exist, off of which I would throw myself either to induce a state of flying or to end the dream in the darkness of a fatal fall. I’ve had many dreams like this; they’re not connected by any theme – they just have a very similar feeling. There are certain sensations I have, certain experiences that I always associate with these dreams. And when I experience those sensations in life, those dreams are evoked as if they were memories I’d actually experienced. There are even times when it takes me a few minutes to realize the memory is of a dream.

As I walked along the canal, experiencing these memories, I didn’t smile when thinking fondly of my parents, or remember the excitement when Max and I found an abandoned fort in the woods. Rather, the memories came back to me as pictures of loneliness. Not that I had been lonely in any of those times or that I was lonely now in remembering better times, but almost as if the memories had been modified – like an old home video where the tape is worn out and the sound doesn’t work anymore. You watch pictures of familiar faces, some of whom have now departed this world, people you want so badly to reach out to and hug and hold and talk to and hear their voices. But try as you might, in the end you know you can’t – they just move on silently, mouthing inaudible words to each other while ignoring you – because the tape has faded. It’s like looking at a place you want to be from behind soundproof glass, or watching a scene that was once filled with people and laughter and life, and now there’s just the scene… no people, and no laughter. Just a field, or an empty house, or a vacant window.

And yet, although the memories are modified, they are still memories that I’m experiencing as sort of a reflection upon my life. I withdraw from the world into these memories, seeking shelter within them. I occupy my mind by reflecting upon anything and everything…anything but the fact that I’m now without a job. I'm trying to keep from slipping into the terrible void that follows the end of a dream in which you felt like you had direction, that you knew what you wanted to do and could have actually made a difference. I’m now without vision, without work. Just wandering the streets, half here, half not…half in the past, half in a past that never even happened.

The people I’m remembering, the ones that still exist, seem so far away, so detached from my memories of them. It’s like I want to sit back in those memories again, go back to the festival on the shore of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. Sit in that picture and talk to the people as they were then, not as they are now – alcoholic, or in jail, or dying. The people in those memories were part of my life, and they people that they’ve become are not. Who they are now is utterly alien to who I’ve become, and trying to reconnect would just be futile.

I pause my meditation to look back out along the Sound. A man, standing on what looks to be a kind of kayak, or a paddle board – flat like a surf board, single paddle, alternating sides with his graceful stroke like a Japanese gondola – coasts his way half a mile from shore, stopping every now and to inspect the red buoys that bob up and down with unknown purpose. He looks at peace, but I’m projecting my loneliness onto him, as his is the only vessel within eyesight. Not the loneliness of wanting company, but the loneliness of uncertainty, now that I’ve been violently jarred off course in one fell swoop. Is the paddleboard man actually out there on the Sound, or is it just my mind creating a visual image of what I’m feeling, as if in an effort to explain it to me? In the past I’ve made a mockery of such questions, but now I’m really not sure. I just don’t feel very sure about anything, right now.