Travelogue Chapter 3 (part deux): Portland, Oregon, USA

Dear readers,

This entry is for a very select mailing-list because it is going to contain details that i don't feel are fit for general consumption. Feel privileged.

Some of you I'm taking a risk with - trusting your descretion and discernment - so be good.

My friend Ryan, a couple of people he knew, and yours truly, had what's known as a 'bourbon night' (its known as this by no-one except myself) and so, as is traditional, went to a strip club last night. Needless to say this was my first experience of such an establishment - and very likely was my last. I won't say
the place lacked class, but i will say there were no doors on the toilet cubicles and said facilities were designated to their respective genders with the graphic titles 'chix' and 'dix'. Enough said. But don't get me wrong though, the atmosphere wasn't actually at all intimidating and we're not talking (please pardon the phrase) 'crack-ho's' here.


Now it's not that anything happened to me personally that i would be ashamed of or even embarrassed about that I'm not mentioning this little adventure to everyone. It's just that I wouldn't want to worry people who might read into it some kind of desperation or self-destruction that really isn't there. Though I had reservations about the venture, Ryan is one of the only friends i have here, i do respect and trust him, and hey, I'm on friggin holiday! It was however, a night which sailed pretty close to the wind (or whatever) in a number of respects.

Well let's leave the details, I'll not sensationalise. I would like to say this though: while the initial novelty of naked and - how shoudl I put this? - 'talented' women does appeal to some instinct that is quite compelling, and produces something of an intense experience, I found it so short-lived that i could hardly believe it. First I was bored and then I was depressed. I brought
this up with Ryan at the time and he didn't have much to say about it really - though I could tell we were on the same page. We moved on to this other place that was much less in-your-face (particularly appropriate phrase actually) where there were still alot of naked, but it was more about just playing pool or talking with your friends. In this place Ryan spoke with such clarity on how the idea of strippers made him feel (particularly in the wake of a break-up of about three-weeks of age), that I could just about stop myself from hugging him (you definitely don't want to start hugging guys in this kind of bar by the way). It was a beautiful moment. After that, we (certainly I) began having a really great night. Went to a more regular bar (though it was still kind of gritty) and I was talking to some really nice American girls and all in, a good time was being had by all.

So the conclusions I'm drawing, the 'moral of the story' I suppose, is a bland and predictable one - not worth spelling out. So I won't. But i will say that the experience was very worthwhile for me, opened up areas of thought i hadn't considered before, and last night was one of the best nights I've had in Portland.
James.

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Travelogue Chapter 3: Portland Oregon, USA

Dear readers,

day fiveish/sixish. I am now living with Kerry (pronounced 'kiri'), who is an improv comedienne. And yes, I do think that's pretty funny! LIfe is, as Gump of
course famously said, like a box of chocolates: Even if it get knocks out of your hand and its contesnts scattered all over the ground, you can usually salvage quite a lot of it, it doesn't taste too bad, and you might even find some discarded change or other treasures while you're down here. Kerry's nice. And I'm really glad that about this. It'll certainly be much more comfy than the hostel. I saw her act. She had quite a range from 'kid divorcing her mother' to 'leather shoe addict' to 'squirl making a living through sex appeal and a bushy tail'.

Could someone please send me a list of how animals' names are spelt? It's a real weak-point for me.

And here's another serendipity: I had, by chance, met the local bartender, Ryan, in Dublin a few months ago. He came on my tour of the gaol. To him I am most most grateful for the hangover i am now suffering from - which was procurred at a very very low personal cost (present headache, mild ausea and blearyeyedness excepted).

I went busking a little bit after i sent the email. I was just playing to relax and cheer myself up more than anytihng else. Didn't pick a very busy spot; Just outside the library where I go online. I made one dollar and about a third of a bag of American Spirit tobacco. Cool.

Last night in my drunken slumber i had the returning sensation that i was sharing my bed with a rodent of some description. All became clear in the morning, as the smell from my blanket (which I had put on top of the hostel's ones because i had been cold the night before) came to meet my already sensitive stomach. I had shook myself free of my hairy nemesis - but its scent stalks me still. It seems the f-creature had been sleeping in it.

All in I'm very happy now. I've met some great people and I'm having fun Everything, as they say, is coming up Millhouse.

James.

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Travelogue Chapter 2: Portland, Oregon, USA

Dear Readers.

Day four. Now living in a youth hostel. While herself was swing-dancing last night, I made good my escape. Things had taken a turn for the worst, not so much that anything had changed, but with Donal's departure (more on that later), there was silence and quality time enough to realise that I was deeply unhappy and had had all the discussions about elaborate and complicated feelings that I ever wanted or needed to have on this holiday. Besides, myself and the ferret were particularly disagreeable. He had nicked my shoes. All of them. Hidden them under the couch.

She had given it a bath, and in a confounding sequence of cause and effect - it actually smelled worse than it ever had before. As I was contemplating my situation while sitting on the couch, it transpired that it was not happy enough with the shoes i had carelessly left inside my rucksack, but wanted the ones on my feet as well, and he began tugging at the laces. I was living in a hostile environment. I was reminded of Wilde's comment to the wallpaper in the room over Shakespeare and Co. where he Died, "One of us has got to go..." and decided, as Wilde did, that it was myself. My race was run and kirby the ferret had won the lady's affections.

On the trip to the hostel, my bags were considerably heavier than my heart, I'm happy to report. I'm sharing with a guy who introduced himself as Udon from Japan. I grinned slightly as i resisted the temptation to say that I was Potato from Ireland and met his friend Baguette from France on my in. Udon sleeps like someone who is blowing up a beach ball but doesn't have to inhale. Always exhaling. It's quite comforting. Almost oceanic.

The weekend was fun. Donal from fourth-year philosophy, who some of you might know (but I didn't), came for a visit - and his companionship was much much appreciated. It really is nice to hear a familiar accent in a strange city. Went to a Saturday market where almost everything had to be made of something that was perfectly useful before it was made a craft: Jewelry made out of coins, forks, spoons, bike parts, fossils; chopsticks made out of... eh you know, trees. All kinds of wierd stuff.

By the way folks, if anyone is looking for a particular book, I live beside the biggest book shop on the West coast and I have a voucher for the place that needs using so let me know. I'll save it or post it or whatever. Really.

Just briefly, to let you know what the place is like: Portaland has an 11% unemployment rate so everybody hangs out. All of the time. People play chess, drink coffee and pierce and tatoo themselves all the livelong day. Everything is pretty laid back, no-one seems angry about anything. Haven't seen a single drunk person, and the homeless community (which is thriving) seem to be content and polite.

C'est tout.

James.

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Travelogue Chapter 1: Portland, Oregon, USA

Dear readers,

It would be great to compose a really witty and incisive account of my first full day in the US on my shambolic holiday, but sadly jetlag is not just the excuse of a few grouchy flyers, it is a condition which actually exists (whooda thunkit?) and from which i am now suffering. NOt so much that i sleep at the wrong time so much as i can only now sleep for four hours at a time and my
mind is now only geared to recognise if my body is tired or hungry and has dictated that i must be at least one of these at all times.

Now its not that i'm such a self-centred person that I imagine that you all want to hear what i ate for breakfast this morning, but it really is the little things that make you feel like you're on holiday. To say that the Danish was bigger than my face, is not only far from an exaggeration, but is in fact a great insult to this pastry, who if it could talk (and hey why not? This is
America!), would suggest that if only it had had teeth (like it had asked the wizard of oz for) it would have been it that ate me. I then picked up the local paper to see that a 15545 pound, five foot tall, rodent was the subject of a small front-page article. Naturally given the culture i now found myself in, i was expecting the article to read something like, "Mrs. Schneider (57, Idaho) made the discovery when she went into her garage (pronound garaujsh) to get some supplies from the Y2k stock-pile, which had remained the family's main source of nutrition when their apocalyptic predictions proved false..." But it actually turns out that the rodent in question is a native to prehistoric
Venezuela. So there you go, America hasn't always had the monopoly on 'big',that it currently enjoys.

From door to door was a twenty-two hour journey, and while i won't say that the welcome i received at the airport was worth it, the wealth of goodbyes I receieved before i left certainly was. So without naming names, thank you to all the lovely nice people who lent support, advice and farewells. For those of you I didn't tell (and let's face it, i didn't have a lot of time on my hands to do so), Gabrielle phoned to end our relationship, forty-eight hours before i left for Portland. This was, to put it mildly, unfortunate. NOnetheless, I'm staying with her at the moment and the situation is workable. We're not 'broken-up' exactly, but hairline fractures are visible from the initial collision. What can i tell you? She's complicated. I probably won't spend more than a week here now, I don't think. Heading to the East coast to catch up with DAve and Rob and see my favorite New-Yorkers.

For the moment I'll hang in here. I've actually had a pretty good time so far. Had a fun night out with Gabrielle's friends last night. I've little say, but that they were nice (and a just-nice amount of crazy) people and I had fun with them. Drank something called black bew which was nice. Kind of like Newcy Brown. It turns out they do have Amber Bock here - it's not just a Texas thing. Saw a billboard but haven't located it in a bar as yet. Living with a ferrit has proven a little strange though. it's a very docile creature, and does have its moments of playfullness, but, and honestly this is true, it is much smellier than a dog, and while it is considered by some to be 'cute,' I don't think i will ever, as long as i live, see benignity or normalcy in drinking water from a glass that a ferrit has stuck its head in and licked from or allowing it to hang out on your bed when it feels like.

For those of you who haven't met Gabrielle, she's lovely really - but eccentricities abound and recently have become quite
prominent. I'm sensing that this is not a holiday I will quickly forget, but suspect that I'll soon suppose many of its scenes were in a film I once saw, because the sheer madness and novelty of it all has left me with a peculiar detachment as if it were all fantasy. It's all just too strange to take seriously.

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All the best,
James.