The Journal of his Delights

I’m uploading the wedding photos as I type this. In the meantime, I also shot a short 1-minute clip from the wedding. the quality is poor, but you can see how happy Ned and Jamie are.

The wedding was lovely - Jamie was stunning in her dress, Ned very handsome in his tux. The ceremony and party were great. I took a ton, a ton of pictures. I’ll probably post a fair number of them, so that attendees can see them. But tomorrow. Tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to rest. A wonderful day, but also long.

The airline found my luggage and it’s just arrived! I don’t have to wear the same clothes 3 days running!

In other news, the rental tuxedo fits great. The bachelor party was fun - just 5 guys sitting in an East Coast bar trading stories. Tonight is the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. There’s also a chance I might go to a train museum, but that’s up in the air. In general things are going well. I hope to actually do a better job “traveling” the city once the wedding’s been held. I’m staying an extra day and hope to make some observations and photographs then.

As promised, I put together a slideshow of my Portland visit. You can find it at Flickr. I had a great time while I was there, and I look forward to my next visit. A special thanks to Kim, Jeff, and Kathy for their friendship and hospitality.

It’s 4 am and I’ve finally made it to Scranton. Along the way… a canceled flight (Dallas to Philadelphia), a missed flight (Dallas to Philadelphia again, but this time it was my fault as I forgot to account for the timezone difference), and a lost bag. All I have at the moment are the clothes on my back and my laptop. It’s been quite the day, these past 24 hours.

Given all that, I’m doing surprisingly well. Just tired and happy to have arrived. More, I suppose, later…

Today’s another travel day. I head to Pennsylvania to attend the wedding of a dear friend of mine. Four days in Scranton to be specific, approximately two hours outside of Philadelphia. I’ll be renting a car once I hit Philadelphia and driving to Scranton. It promises to be a very long day, but I’m looking forward to seeing Jamie and I wouldn’t miss her wedding day for the world.

My last day in Portland? I got my hair cut by my stylist from when I lived here. I had intended to surprise her, but she got curious about her appointment and peeked at the last name. I also did a little shopping to take advantage of the lack of sales tax in Oregon. Later I met up with Kim at Powell’s, and we went on a mini-food-crawl. Starters at Ringlers, dinner at Shanghai Tunnel, and dessert at Voodoo Donut.

Ringlers is a McMenamins is pub. It’s part of a chain in Oregon, but they specialize in converting unusual properties into pubs. Elementary schools, churches, anything really is fair game. They have decent food and beer. Ringlers is a small place with a first floor open to the street and warm, cozy lower floor.

Shanghai Tunnel is another two floor pub. The ground level isn’t very interesting and kind of a dive. The bottom floor however takes advantage of the old shanghai tunnels that exist under Portland; tunnels used to smuggle people and goods in decades past. Literally, people would be kidnapped (shanghaid) and taken unto to ships to work as sailors. There were also other darker uses for the tunnels, I’m sure. A part of Portland’s shadow side. (Which every city has.)

And finally Voodoo Donut. A tiny place with a wide assortment of weird and unusual donuts. Want bacon on your donut? That’s the place to go. A donut dusted with Tang? Yep, that too. There’s even one shaped like a human figure with a pretzel sticking out of his abdomen - the voodoo donut that is the namesake of the place.

A nice way to finish my stay, I think.

I am unequivocally a dork. Frequently I get excited and rush ahead. The littlest things fascinate me, and I make lots of mistakes in my enthusiasm. (Lots and lots of mistakes!) I love people who don’t fit in, and I love places that sing to me. The good news is the solid core that tends to balance out and temper the dorkiness. An earthiness that keeps me grounded.

Well… that bit about frequently making mistakes? In my hurry/excitement to upload photographs from my hike with Jeff yesterday, I managed to permanently delete every single photograph on my computer. Yes, that’s right… every single image, every picture. 3 gigabytes worth of data. That means Cambodia, Thailand, and Japan. And two hours mucking about with file recovery software - useless. Wow. That’s a first, even for me.

I suppose this is just a sign not to hang on to summer. The funny thing is that it’s even changing seasons as I type this. Fall officially started this past weekend, and the trees are starting to yellow in Portland. Maybe this is a message that what’s past is past, and that change is in the air once again.

Believe it or not, I’m mostly okay with the loss. The good news is most of the images are posted to Flickr. The quality isn’t as good, but they survive. And really, I am taking this as a sign. It would’ve been easy to hang on to my “Round the World Trip”, and this way, while of course it’s an important memory, I won’t cling to it. Loss, even small losses, teach us about what’s important. And in this instance, what’s important is now, and not what’s past. Eyes on the road, and not in memory.

Portland has been a vacation, a chance to relax and recuperate after all the traveling and the dissertation. There’s something innately soothing for me about this city. Maybe it’s all the trees - Portland is the greenest city I’ve ever encountered. They take their urban planning very seriously here, and the city’s motto is “The city that works”. That means lots of parks, lots of trees, and lots of opportunities inside and close by the city for getting away and into nature. Yes, that’s it - both in its people and places, Portland is a natural place.

It also helps to see how readily oddballs are accepted here. And not just accepted, but they’re a source of pride. Being cool means being different. Of course if everyone is different, then being different becomes the norm, but somehow I’m willing to forgive the conceit. Probably because there’s room for all kinds of people, even those who aren’t cool. Speaking of which, Portland’s “fashion” set have a very specific look - not necessarily in terms of specific attire, but in the tone that clothing and hair and piercings and tattoos convey. It’s such a visually interesting city. And not just the people, but also the streets and buildings. I’ve been making photographs, but so far I feel like I’ve been inadequate to the task. To do the job properly would mean moving out of vacation mode, and I right now it feels like resting should take priority. If you’ve been following along, then you know just how intense the past few months of been. A breather is necessary, I think.

So what have I been doing with my time? Well, I briefly mentioned my visit to Powell’s. That’s such a fun place - so easy to get lost among all the books. It’s also a fantastic place to people watch and eavesdrop on conversations!. I’ve also moved to my friends Jeff and Kathy’s house for a couple of days, so that I can visit with them. They’re a genuinely nice couple who I lived with for a couple of months when I first moved to Portland.

Yesterday, we went to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Portland. Talk about an excellent place for people watching! I had a huge grin on my face as I watched Portland swirl around me. I’d forgotten how quirky this city was, and the farmer’s market was a fun way to be reminded of it. I also helped Jeff with his home brewing. Over the past two years, he’s really gotten into making his own beer, and he’s very good at it. (I had a Belgian White that he brewed, and it was delicious. One of the best I’ve ever had, and I don’t say that lightly.) In any case, I followed along and helped him out as he started working on an IPA (India Pale Ale). It was fun to watch the process and see what’s involved in making six gallons of beer. He’s got another 20 gallons of beer brewing - open any closet in the house and you’re likely to see a big container of beer-in-the-process-of-being-made. I’ve also made pictures of the beer-making, but I don’t know how exciting they are.

Today, Jeff and I are going hiking, which I’m looking forward to. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a proper hike, and Portland has some of the best hiking. But first… home-made waffles! With bananas and raspberries!

P.S. A sample of images below. I’ll try and organize a slideshow soon.

Four floors and occupying an entire city block, Powell’s City of Books is the biggest bookstore that I’ve ever seen. They carry both new and used books, and I’m simply in awe of their selection. I have been ever since my first visit in 1998, and I saw so many out-of-print books in their science fiction and fantasy section. It was certainly one of my favorite places to go when I lived in Portland.

I’ll let you guess what I did today…

The past couple of days I haven’t wanted to do anything at all! I’ve basically spent the entire time wandering around my old neighborhood - visiting the local farmers market, sitting alongside the Willamette River reading the last Harry Potter book. Now that the dissertation is done, I decided to let myself rest for a bit. I did take care of some important logistical things yesterday, so today I treated myself.

At the same time, I’ve been trying to find a way to characterize Portland, Oregon as I’ve done with some of the other cities I’ve visited. It was while I was at the farmer’s market that it occurred to me. I was sitting listening to the live music - a small group performing Spanish opera of all things - looking at the people around me, and I realized that Portland was like my favorite burger.

You’ll have to bear with me as I attempt to explain…

The place where I’m staying in Portland belongs to my friend Kim, but she inherited from me when I moved back to Los Angeles. Her neighborhood therefore is my old neighborhood, and very close by is a New Seasons Market, a health food store, but one with a fine appreciation for food.

I used to go to New Seasons a lot. It was like having a second, much larger pantry near the apartment. They also had a pretty decent deli, and one of my favorite items to get was the burger. The reason? You can customize it any way you want and still pay the same price.

Hah! I loved it, but I also quickly settled into a set of favorite ingredients. They consisted of:

free range beef
tomatoes
grilled onions
roasted red peppers
avocado
havarti and swiss cheeses
mustard
toasted sourdough bread

It’s delicious, and here’s why… It’s a combination of tastes and textures. The red peppers, the mustard, and the sourdough all provided complimentary sourness and tanginess to the sweetness of the grilled onions, tomatoes, and cheeses. Then you have the smoothness of the avocado and cheeses balancing the crunchiness of the toasted sourdough. And underneath it all, there’s the wonderful earthiness of the beef itself. The foundation as it were. It sounds like it might be a fancy burger, but it’s not. It isn’t pretty, comes wrapped in paper, with a pickle on the side. But it does taste good in an interesting, relaxed sort of way.

And that’s Portland. Tangy, sour, smooth, crunchy, a little sweet, earthy.

In places, it’s really quirky, and prides itself on being different. At the same, it’s very, very natural and earthy. Very relaxed.

It’s an unusual analogy, I admit, but it seems to work. Or maybe it does only in my head?

I suppose if Portland is my favorite burger, then LA is like a buffet, where you get to choose your meal (your life) as you see fit, choosing from a wide variety of disparate options. London might be one of those Indian meals that comes on a platter, a diverse collection of items to eat, but each separate, contained within its own bowl. Hmm… Phnom Penh might be like bad pizza. You’re happy to eat it, and it’s strangely and somewhat guiltily fitting, but it also sits heavily inside you at the same time.

Hmm… how would describe where you live? What kind of food would it be?