The Chronic "What" cles of Portland.

I went to a Trailblazers game last night. It was my first NBA live experience. It was totally fun. Basketball is very enjoyable in real time. Afterwards, I went to the Langana Lounge, which is a bar right next door to my place, and ordered some Mild curry chicken Ethiopian food. The spicy food in Portland is no joke, so beware if you decide to go beyond medium. After I got my food I sat down next to some people I had met a couple of weeks ago. This is very unusual since I am having a hard time meeting anyone since arriving in Portland a month and half ago. Before eating, I took the meat off the bone and put the bare bones on my bread plate to my right. The girl to my left then asked if she could have my napkin. I of course was like "Sure." She took the napkin, unfolded it, reached across the table and covered my chicken bones in order to hide it from sight. This sorta thing is something I have had to get used to since moving to the SE part of Portland. Were the bones unsightly? Was she a vegetarian and felt the bones represented a corpse? I don't know. It made since to her though and I didn't bother asking what the big deal was. The problem was solved. My dinner, my napkin, my responsibility. I should have thanked her for correcting the situation I suppose.

As I ate, some other girl sat down in the chair on my right and started talking about how wonderful Portland is. Most of the people I have met in the SE part of town are not from Portland. In fact, they are not even from Oregon. New York, Mass., Penn., and other East Coast places plus California are the common areas of transfer. Despite all of that, it is very easy to run into someone who has lived here for a long time. As the girl continued yacking and laughing with a weird nervous little stammer, she complained that California had nothing to offer the world anymore. In fact, she explained that Portland is what San Francisco used to be 35 years ago. I could only imagine what she meant by that statement, especially since I had come to a similar conclusion. I made the mistake of pointing out that California has one of the most productive economies in the world and that the GDP....She stopped me right there. Apparently GDP means nothing. She got up and left.

Some other people arrived shortly after. The girl to my left pulled out a credit card receipt from her pocket. Apparently, Johnny Marr had come into her bar/cafe earlier that day. Finding someone who works in a bar, coffee house, or bakery is not hard to do in SE. Finding someone who loves beer and cigarettes, American Spirits of course, is also very easy. God, I should be doing well in the friends department...oh well. Moving on, the girl kept the receipt with his signature on it and showed the new arrivals what she had. I thought that was pretty cool. I like the Smiths and Johnny Marr is like an Indie Rock icon. So good for her. After that, my company started talking about how interesting it would be if Prince came into her bar. "Would he sign it with that weird Prince symbol?" was the obvious joke that followed. This led to dicussing his new album, as well as, "Diamonds and Pearls."

As the night wore on, I started to feel out of place. The dead give away was that the four of them got up from my table and sat at a table in another room that only had four chairs. To be fair, one of the people said it was OK if I joined them, but I was tired and I needed to get some sleep. I forgot my sweater and went back to my table which was already taken by a group of 3. One of them was the yacker. When I picked up my sweater, the fella asked "is this your stuff?"
"The sweater is mine" I replied.
"What about this beer and the Empty dishes?"
"No" I lied. Actually, they weren't all mine. The others left their empties on the table also. I had this feeling that these people wanted me to bus my table and of course I wasn't going to do that. So I left.
Ahhhh....Making friends.