Trips to Portland and Suburbia

Last week, I took a vacation day and went to Portland with Nordic Boy. We arrived late, late on Wednesday evening (ok fine it was 11pm but that is way late for us), singing Journey songs at the top of our lungs the entire way there. It's a good thing we did that because it was most depressing for us to realize that when you drive to Portland at night, you can't get a good look at the Hamiliton Corner billboard, which for those of you that are unaware is a giant billboard along the I-5corridor with a big drawing of Uncle Sam on it and an everchanging string of right-wing batshit crazy written in big block letters, usually having to do with the Mexicans wanting to take jobs away from us including Obama (who is really Mexican, or Kenyan, or just, you know, brown) who is also interested in taking away all the guns that the folks in Real America use in order to defend their homes from the rabid Commie librarians who want to turn all of our children gay by reading them picture books about the two male penguin parents. Is it wrong that I sort of love that billboard? Maybe love is the wrong word. I just look forward to reading what it has to say every time I drive to and from Portland. But at night there are no lights for it so we missed out on the crazy. Rats.

While in Portland, I met an old friend for lunch. He's a friend of mine from high school who I literally have not seen since 12th grade but through the magic of the Faceplace we are all the sudden friends again. I must cop to a small amount of trepidation for this meeting because you never know what a person who knew you in middle school might remember about you that you have totally blocked out about yourself (hey, remember that time you pooped your drawers in Algebra class??). The friendship also has the misfortune of his knowing me starting in 7th grade, when he moved to Flint. 7th grade, can I just tell you, was not my finest hour. It was, actually, my worst hour. I know many of you feel that way about middle school, so I won't get much sympathy. But for me, 7th grade was the year that I pulled a total Angela Chase and dropped my childhood friends for the cool crowd. Dudes, it was GROSS. Luckily I snapped out of that shit by 8th grade but of all the years to make a first impression in my life? Seventh grade would be last on my list.

Luckily, my friend either did not remember this about me or was gracious enough to not mention it, and we had a lovely lunch. I am always amazed at how many cool people I seem to meet everywhere. Aren't cool people supposed to be, like, rare? In my world, they seem to just come out of the woodwork everywhere I go. Perhaps you are thinking that that is because everyone is just cooler than me, so I have a skewed perspective or something, and to that I say an unequivocal WHO ASKED YOU.

Speaking of cool people, Nordic Boy and I then had dinner with the ever-lovely @metaleah that night. She was in town for a museum conference (a librarian crashing the museum world! like a secret agent or something!) and so we went and picked her up from her hotel (in Nordic Boy's company car which this week was a gigantic white pimping Pontiac that was just begging to be donked) and went out on the town. Once again, cool person, in my immediate vicinity. I must have a magnet in my brain or something.

We got back to Seattle in time for a lovely weekend, which included a field trip out to the burbs with BioGirl for a day of getting ridonkulously lost in mall-land. This is not unusual for me (people who plan suburbs, do you not believe in grids? Or numbered streets that actually go in number order? Or sidewalks?) but BioGirl is my go-to guide whenever I need to burb it up. She's like a burb sherpa or something. However, this time, she seemed just as lost as me. Which takes some doing, let me tell you.

Yesterday Neighbor J came over for the day and we just sort of ran our mouths for the entire day. Sometimes I think that if there was such a thing as a conversation contest, Neighbor J and I would be like, the Tiger Woods of that sport. When we lived in the same building as each other, we would talk on the phone for 3 or 4 hours a day. We both had to invest in a headset phone just so we could stay verbally attached while we went about our day.

Finally, last night I watched The Way We Get By. Don't let me stop you from watching it because I thought it was great, but let me tell you it was depressing. It really crushed the everloving hairy Jebus out of me and made me go to the bad place where I just wanted to hug Nordic Boy by the neck and weep about him not dying and leaving me all old and alone with my cats and the headboard of our bed. Never mind that I don't have cats and that you don't know what the headboard reference is unless you have seen the movie. Just watch it, but be warned that you might feel like shit afterward. Wow, how is that for a recommendation? Nice one, LG.

At any rate, to combat the depressing, we then watched Beach Girls and the Monster. Which might qualify for the weirdest double feature ever.

Hope you all are having a loverly Monday!