The Dream of The 90s

This is week 3 of the the rest of my life. I don't know if I'll be in Portland forever, but I dig it now. The dream of the 90s truly is alive here. I thought it was a joke, but when I walk around downtown, I feel like I'm in a time warp. People are dressed gothic and meth-amphetamines seem to be the drug of choice. I mean, crack is wack, but meth is just wrong. They're very friendly addicts. They run up on you as though they're gonna rob you, then they just say "hi". I really don't see the purpose in that.

While walking on Davis from the Max station in Old Town last night, this meth addicted dude (I knew he was meth addicted...they have this look) ran up on me. Well, he didn't run up on me. I saw him anticipating the run in my peripheral, so by the time he was in full motion, I had already started running. I slowed down when he stopped cold in his tracks and just started yelling "Hi!" Not my usual drug addict interaction. My old neighborhood crack heads would never stop chasing me just because I made it difficult for them. In fact, crack heads are a lot like ghosts. You think you've gotten away from them and they pop up around another corner. Furthermore, crackheads seem to have things thought through a little better. They chase you with goals in mind: they're either gonna rob you or sell you something. Meth addicts...not so much. I guess they think chasing is something they're supposed to do; like they grew up watching crackheads and figured there must be a chase involved. But since they have no real goals, they just run after their target, get as close as they can, then start saying "Hi! Hello! Hi!" first softly, then louder. Weird.

You're probably thinking "Blue, please be careful out there in those mean, mean streets." But you have to understand, the meth addicts are everywhere all the time. Daylight, dusk, doesn't matter. It could be a street full of people; middle of rush hour and a meth addict will start randomly chasing a passer by; sometimes on skateboards. I told you: they have no real plan or goals in mind. They just run around trying to say "hi" to people. I saw this addict catch a woman recently. When he caught her, she looked at him as though to say, "are you gonna rob me?" He looked at her as to say, "I was hoping you'd tell me what to do next." I stood nearby waiting to see if I should call for help or something. After about 4 minutes of this standoff staring contest, I decided my time would be better spent checking my email at a nearby coffee shop where I could still see the scene, but wasn't actually on the street. After about a half hour, I looked back out the coffee shop window. The woman was gone, but the meth addict was still standing there with this confused look on his face.

Speaking of the "dream of the 90s", when I told my broker I was moving to Portland, he started singing "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland..portland...portland...). Staring at the phone, I was confused; partly by the lyrics, but mostly that my broker suddenly broke out in song. He went on to tell me about this show called Portlandia. So I went to trusty youtube and found a clip. I'd been to Portland before, so I got the humor. Here's the clip:

So, if you're curious, this is exactly what Portland is like. It's uncanny.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. Love ya!

Blue