trying to be a little better than the best that i can

portland really is a nice city. probably the best. in the beginning of my trip, as i went to new cities i was quick to appreciate the little things about them and think that the towns were awesome. like prescott, az a small mountain community with a town square and an infoshop. a mix between crown point indiana and portland oregon but probably smaller than both. it was really great, but not as good as portland. then there was cheyenne, wyoming a wonderful little capitol city that had some kind of public and or art thing every night downtown, and a vibrant little arts community.

still, not as good as portland. the only place that almost measures up is richmond viginia. it is a firm and close number 2 of the list of places i would most like to live. clearly, number 1 is portland. a distant third might be chicago. but, certainly, that is only for the people.

and speaking of people, people are one of the reasons portland is so awesome. i have been here for going on eight years, the beauty of the city and the breadth of things going on kept me here early on. and then i made friends and started appreciating them as part of the city. when i left on this trip i was leaving so i could realize what i was forgetting and at the time of my leaving i had really forgotten about so many folks that make me love this place. so, i came back for the people - but the city and its surroundings are a definite plus.

everybody poops.

so, yesterday i caught up with my old friend arturo. he has been one of my better friends for almost as long as i have had friends in this city. the only person that may outstrip him is my old friend focus...we havent heard her name in a long time and it only comes up because she randomly text messaged me last night to welcome me home. the last time i talked to her she said she had deleted my phone number, so this was definitely a surprise.

but, seriously, we are talking about arturo. and he is great. i met him a short while before i met a majority of my friends as we were trying to organize a collective called ACAN. there has been dispute over what the acronym actually stands for, but my notes say "the anarchist community autonomy network." the purpose of this group was to bring together a few various smaller group into one larger working group, more like a spokescouncil for the various activist groups. i certainly wont remember all of them, but they included: the anarchist gardening and gleaning collective, the anarchist carpentry collective, brew bloc (a home brewing collective that i was a part of), and maybe more. i cant think of any right now.

it was at the first meeting of all of these groups and arturo had come for some reason, or maybe i had invited him because i knew that he was doing something with portland indymedia. or maybe we were both also doing things with pdximc but he had a radio show and i think i wanted him to interview people or something. anyway. he never interviewed anyone, but we became pretty good friends over the years.

i went over to his house and walked into the upstairs to find him brushing his teeth with another old compadre, comfrey. i chatted with them for a while and then arturo and i left to drink some beer in the middle of the day. unfortunately, arturo advised me not to divulge any of the secrets he told me during our date, if i did he said that we wouldnt be friends any longer. so then we went to the next bar. and after a couple of beers there we called it an afternoon. i took him back to his house, and for those that know arturo, we had the customary long goodbye in the truck.

after this i wanted to find steve so i could get the keys to his apartment and chill out for a little bit. that was harder than it shouldve been and instead of meeting up right away i went to a coffee shop for a little bit and found out that my friends were performing in their band !Powder Keg! tonight, downtown. since my bike had recently started working and i wanted to make more of an effort to go out and see people, i decided to attend this event. when the coffee shop closed i went to the local natural food store chain called new seasons and perused the face care aisle so i could get help for my fucked up face.

i really like saying "my fucked up face" i dont think the lady at new seasons appreciated it as much as i did, but due to not being able to shower regularly the last nine months or so my skin has become very dry and especially on my face around my nose and eyes. i dont like it at all, while i was staying with tiffany i was putting lotion on and showering every day, that helped a whole bunch. this lady told me that because i am older i could have new allergies, i dont believe that, but i also really dont want allergies. that sounds worse than a fucked up face.

i eventually got some special jojoba shampoo and broccoli. then i drove out towards patty's house. patty is steves lady friend and i figured i would meet him there eventually anyway for the key exchange. i parked about a block away and was prepared to just wait for him to call, he called within minutes of me parking there. just enough time for him to point out that it was creepy for me to do what i had done. i know these things are strange, but they are certainly not malicious. i hung out there for a drink, talking about my day, but i had to get out quick before patty's housemate came home.

when i got back to steves apartment, there wasnt any parking. there was a basketball game happening and his apartment is walking distance from the arena. so i parked illegally and went upstairs to wait it out. up there i perused the internet for a little bit, got the aforementioned text message from focus, and talked to arturo again. we planned to meet up downtown in a little bit to see some of our friends perform in the unique marching band: !Powder Keg!

i went downstairs and the roads had cleared since the game ended, so i reparked my truck. i was happy that my truck was not broken into, on the street there were just piles of broken glass from windows smashed during the game. luckily my truck looks shitty enough not to be randomly broken! after i reparked i pulled my bike out of the back and saddled the beast. i strapped on my helmet and powered over the broadway bridge into downtown. i heard !PK! before i saw them. i heard them a number of blocks away from where i was supposed to find them, so i parked near where i would end up and walked the few blocks back to where they were warming up.

let me just take a moment to say that being back on my bike is really awesome. it has been many months, from even before i embarked on this journey. i am happy to say that i can still ride real good without my hands, but i do need to dig my lights out.

!PK!

as i was walking towards !PK! warming up the smile on my face grew bigger and bigger. my friends victory, ashes, and balam were all part of the ensemble and it was going to be exciting to see them performing this type of art that i absolutely adore. when i got up there, i saw victory first and she came and gave me a hug, then ashes came over. we just said a quick few words before they went back into the art, ashes offered me a flag or something so i could be part of the show, but i told him that i would rather hang back and shoot video.

victory and ashes are awesome. they were both also people at that first ACAN meeting (come to think of it, i think balam was as well), i think ashes was mostly watching their child and i forget precisely which group victory was with, but it just makes me so happy to have kept these folks as friends for so long. especially because there were a few years there where i made myself unavailable and it would have been very easy for them to completely dismiss me (which i think is what i wanted everyone to do to me in those years), but they never did. i am appreciative for that.

after a short while, the assembled group starting marching. well, first, while i was walking from the bar to where the band was the feeling downtown was very much like a protest. not because of the people, but because of the cops. cops on foot, ATV, horse, car, all manners. i wouldnt be surprised if they had the boat cops out as well. they basically lined the quickest route that !PK! could have taken from where they were to where they intended to be. clearly, the folks decided against walking that way. instead they went through chinatown a little bit and up into a random bar.

they were playing out front for a few minutes and then someone opened the door and they continued playing as they walked inside. arturo found me around then and we went in to watch them in this place. there werent many patrons, but the few of them seemed to appreciate it. the dj's, however, did not look pleased. when they left there, they looped back towards where they began and played in front of a bar there until, similarly, someone propped open the door and they marched in. in here, it was different. there were more people, a stage, and a band that was currently setting up. !PK! took over the floor and then slowly the stage. it was really amazing.

this is some of !PK! on the stage

they were in there for at least twenty minutes, the band that was setting up was playing with them. eventually they moved away from this bar and started the march towards the thirsty lion, where they were scheduled to perform about a half hour ago. the cops had mostly found other things to do by then, but most of those other things were in the direction we were all headed. along the way someone reclaimed an uprooted tree and used it as a prop as we marched through the streets. eventually the tree attracted some horse cops and the tree had to be ditched. but the horse cops attracted the ATV cops, and so one. !PK! marched into the thirsty lion, which was packed already, and then the bouncers closed the door and didnt allow anyone else in. the cops slipped in and just hung out in there, all the while no one else was allowed in.

this included arturo and i. so arturo was talking to some friends out front and i was just hanging around looking like an idiot. shortly the bouncers were letting people in again, and arturo and i slipped in. we heard !PK! playing when we came in, but almost immediately it switched to a jam band and we walked over near the stage to investigate. there was no sign that !PK! had ever been there so arturo and i left but couldnt find the folks. so we settled into a bar and had a drink before parting ways.

on my way "home" i rode by where !PK! started and found many of them still around, i hung out with victory and ashes for awhile before riding back over the bridge to the apartment. when i got there i congratulated myself on a life well led. when i got back to portland i wanted to be more social and reignite some friendships that i had let lapse and repair some that i had broken. this had been a great beginning and i was proud of myself for sticking with the uncertainty of life.

then i slept because i was really tired. i got up late and redoubled my job search, i had skipped a day in it and much had changed. i mailed off a resume, and printed out some applications to be filled out and gotten to the proper parties this week. i am serious about this job thing, i guess i have to be since i am in debt. after doing this for awhile i wanted to go to the vegan chinese buffet downtown that i had always liked so much, i tried to get steve involved but he was busy. and after showering and planning my day i had to cut out the vegetarian house option. i will get it soon.

c'mon, my cat is smart

instead i drove back over to emily's to get some things that i had left over there, including the buckets of my life. i have these two buckets that attach to my bike, i have had them since olympia, and in one of them i keep all the important documents and sentimental things i have gotten and saved over the years. if the house were on fire, this would be the first thing i would grab. assuming that my cat were smart enough to get out on her own. i also got the laundry i had started the day before and my tax information. although i only worked for about four months last year, my earnings were almost $12,000! crazy.

and then it was all the way across town (fyi, i am doing these things in the truck, not the bike. it will take awhile to fully transition to the bike) into st.johns. st.johns is about the furthest place away from anything else in portland, but it is really nice up there and some real good friends of mine live there. these people are justin and tonya, i have known tonya from the ACAN days (crazy how many people i met then and have stayed with over the years!) and justin was a neighbor for a number of years when i lived at the mississippi haus. the four of us also served on the neighborhood association together and various other things in 2006 which culminated in all of us living together around 2007.

that didnt last as long as it should have, partly because both couples wanted to live on the other sides of town, our house was too expensive for how crappy it was, and they had just had a kid. that kid, solan, is almost two now and super-cute. anyway, i went up there and hung out with them for awhile. tonya had to take off about an hour into my visit to go to school and then i hung out with justin and solan for a couple hours, drinking some beer and just talking. it is amazing to me how much of the anxiety i felt has completely washed away. its true, i did have a slight bit before coming up to their house, but very little. and not even enough to persist at all once i saw them. yay for good friends! i look forward to seeing them a bunch more even though they lives at the outer edge of the city.

when i left there, i was determined to get some work done! life cannot be just an endless succession of fun. but, really, my work then included doing my taxes, looking for jobs, filling out applications, and writing this dumb blog. i sat at my new favorite coffee shop, albina press, and did very little of what i wanted to accomplish for the next hour and a half. i did get the videos of !PK! from the previous night uploaded and a little writing down, but not enough. and i didnt even bring the applications or my taxes in with me.

look at these folks!

while i was there my friend topher texted me and invited me out to a small birthday celebration that he was having. so i packed up and headed over there. again, this was all the way across town. but, it was really great. i got to see topher, sophia, and jennifer! (arturo was there too...but youve heard enough about him!) the four of them had just eaten and had some drinks, i just sidled up and hung out with them for a little bit. again, very nice. when we all parted ways arturo, topher and i walked back towards my truck and arturo gave us some info on the stars and constellations and stuff. i love that kind of thing, especially when someone i have known for a long time talks about it and i never even knew he cared!

then it was back to the apartment. since i have been here i have accomplished my taxes (hoping on a refund of $1500!!!) and this dumb post. because so much is happening and i'm not really living in a pickup truck anymore, this blog has only a very limited duration. i love writing, and hopefully i will translate that into something else, but i dont want to live a lie...or change the name of this one.