Today I am distracted by worry. I don't know why my worries are so distracting. None of the worst case scenarios I'm imagining are very bad, yet I have failed to wrangle my emotional state into a productive mode. This is particularly irritating because the Flux Space post I'm working on for Papers & Pencils is really good! I'm eager to complete it so I can share it.
Instead of doing the thing I want to do, though, I keep cycling through social media, junk youtube, and rumination. Well if I'm going to fail to accomplish the things I want to do I may as well fail while making something fun for myself. Who would like to see photos from my recent trip to Portland?
We didn't expect to go to Portland the day after New Year's, but circumstances conspired to force my partner Morrie to go there, and I offered to tag along so she wouldn't be alone.
Most of the day she was occupied with the serious affairs of business, and I stayed here in our AirBnB. An ancient apartment held together entirely by white paint. It had this odd rotating door right in the middle that serves no function I can figure, but worked well enough as place to hang clothes. This place was a cozy spot to sleep and stash our stuff in for a week, especially because the Providence Park rail station was maybe 15 steps from our front door.
Somewhat surprisingly, having this thing ring its bell and roll by every 10~15 minutes wasn't as much as an annoyance as I expected at first. Plus the gains of having it so close to our doorstep seriously built up over the course of our stay. This was especially good because my bad knee has been acting up lately. So while I normally enjoy long walks, they're currently a bit of a challenge.
Note to self: figure out how to display YouTube embeds attractively.
Here we stand in an art supply store. It's a good photo of us, blurry though it be. I got a notebook for myself, and we picked up a puzzle for my sibling Drew. (If he ever finishes his own website, someone remind me to link to it here.) As if to spite me, Drew uploaded his website 10 minutes after I wrote this. He didn't even know I was about to upload this gentle ribaldry to my website.
Yet another apartment photo. I spent a lot of time here, and I didn't always take my camera when we went out! Plus taking pictures is a good distraction from writing, and for some reason writing has been difficult to focus on lately.
Here you can see my improvised standing desk. The chic-looking wire chairs functioned better like this than they did as something to sit on. Though even then I needed one of the apartment's tiny cutting boards to make my laptop rest level. Also visible: all my junk. Does anyone actually use the drawers and cabinets when they're staying in temporary lodging? I'm absolutely convinced that anything stored out of sight will be forgotten when we leave.
This Tapas place charged $8 for a plate of olives, but their booths were fully enclosed on 3 sides, which felt pretty nice.
Also: Morrie just looks really cool.
This thrift store was the last stop after a long night! We played with some drawing tablets Wacom Experience PDX, had dinner at the Tapas place above, did some shopping at a great sex shop called Spartacus Leathers, then headed here before the long walk home.
I've recently discovered that men's medium clothes fit me comfortably, so I've been having a lot of fun cycling new stuff into my wardrobe. I wound up getting three of these shirts. As much as I liked the black shirt with the red/yellow/green/white stripes, something about it just didn't look right once I put it on.
And speaking of that sex shop...
Morrie was enthusiastic that these would look good on me. I was surprised, but flattered. It's a much bolder style of underwear than I would have attempted to wear without her encouragement. Now that I've got them, though, I enjoy wearing them a lot. ^_^
On my way out to have lunch with Morrie on our last full day in Portland. Showing off my favorite of the new shirts from the previous night, and some lace gloves which…just don't go with this outfit. I struggle with lace gloves. In abstract they're great, and in closeup photos of my hands they look great, but every time I try to combine them with an outfit it looks wrong. I will continue trying.
We went to Potbelly Sandwich Works for lunch, then watched as the Pioneer Square tree got "disassembled?" It was odd. It looked like they'd taken a real tree, cut off all its branches for transport, then used metal brackets to re-attach them to the trunk as a Christmas decoration. They weren't actually working while we were there to watch, but we saw a detached branch with a bracket on it, and a pile of brackets sufficient to account for all the rest of the branches. Wish I'd had my camera with me at the time.
Also: I have no related photos, but I wanna give a shoutout to Kalé. It's where Morrie and I had dinner on this evening, and it was by far the best food we had the whole time we were in Portland. And I'd have to double check, but there's a pretty good chance it was the cheapest as well! Huge thanks to my good Comrade, Pollux, for recommending it. And for helping me learn Portland's train system. They're a real mensche.
Here we are on morning of the day we left when I realized "Shit, I really didn't take that many pictures."
I wanted to make sure I got some record of this corner, 'cuz I thought it was neat. Can you guess why? Scroll down for the answer!
It's a whole-ass old-timey unfolding breakfast table set! Sadly, as I mentioned above, the whole place is held together by paint. If we'd tried to use any of this stuff it woulda collapsed into a heap of wood splinters for sure. Still, it was charming to see. Sad this sort of space-saving build-in isn't common anymore. I really could have used it in a few apartments I've inhabited.
Between our desire to sleep in, and our bus departing at 10:20, our choice of breakfast restaurants was dictated by whatever was within easy walking distance of the bus station. Lovejoy Bakery was in the right place, and to our surprise it turned out to be quite good! From the way the business presented itself I expected an offbrand Starbucks that got away with charging 50% extra because they were "local." But not only did this place have good coffee and decent pastries, but we were also able to order diner style eggs, sausage, and hashed browns. Just what we needed, since between the bus to Seattle and the ferry to Bremerton, we weren't going to be able to eat again until the evening.
We also got here with time to relax a bit, leave our backpacks on the ground while we picked at our breakfast and sipped our coffee. Then we wandered around with the camera making up for all the photos we didn't take earlier in the week.
I have an abiding affection for crudely drawn pornographic graffiti. Crudely drawn graffiti illustrations of any kind, really, but there's just something charming about pornography. It's like a whole cocktail of adolescent impulses. Self expression, defacement, and fucking in a few scratchy lines. Whether or not the artist of this piece was actually adolescent is beside the point. They manifested that energy.
The nude figure is a pretty basic example; though I'm actually more taken by the unfinished attempt to draw her hands clutching at her breasts. The specificity of the action is intriguing, even if the artist appears to have abandoned it when they couldn't get it to look the way they wanted.
This is just a great photo of Morrie. She's so fuckin' cool.
Portland's transit hub has a big eye, and behind the eye is a seat with a steering wheel, and the back of the seat is numbered like a clock face. I speculated that perhaps it was meant to pay respect to the diligent awareness of bus drivers. Their job requires long hours of focus, and there are lives at stake if they slack off! Whatever they get paid, it's not enough!
—Nick LS Whelan
January 10, 2023