Good evening, friends and neighbors.
Emily and I stood in front of the sleek, modern apartment complex on St. James, our coats bundled up tight against the wind. It was carrying something beside freezing cold, though, and we wanted ALL of that. Greasy food, car exhaust, wet leaves, motion and attitude and frustration. The smells of home.
We were back in Philadelphia.
Good evening, friends and neighbors!
The hint of fall is in the air as I sit under the blacked-out stars on the patio of the Space Room on Hawthorne.
Usually it’s a lot wilder, with hipsters celebrating the coming of Friday like the weekend was starting Thursday- “Thirsty Thursday” I think some people still call it. I always really liked this kind of weather, where you packed a light hoodie for the morning and evening, but crammed it in your bag during the hot sunlit hours. It certainly seems more pronounced in Oregon than it ever did in New Jersey. I suppose that’s because most of my autumns in New Jersey were home by the sea, not out in the Pinelands or anywhere especially wooded. Even in super-hip and compulsively urban Portland, you can’t forget there are woodlands out there. The trees are starting to change, littering the streets with scarlet and ochre leaves. It’s turning into the time of year that demands light music, whiskey, and warmth.
Well, I’m having a martini. Cucumber dill-infused vodka, a refreshing little twist. It’s my Friday. After coming home, stripping off the remains of my work of the last week and zonking out for about an hour, I decided that was break enough, and time to get out among people and back to work.
I tend to do my best THINKING when I’m moving around outside.
My best WRITING, however, tends to happen in pubs and restaurants.
On my current schedule, Thursdays are my first day off of the week. While there is plenty to be done around the house- cleaning, planning, organizing, errands, and so on- Thursdays are MY day. While wandering the city, I learned of the existence of the Oregon Jewish Museum and decided to mosey down and check it out- get a little bit of my family’s history and culture in this strange new land.
Which is why I am currently sitting in Lan Su- Portland’s Chinese Garden in the heart of its Chinatown.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a simple, less-guided entry, hasn’t it? Ever since the move out to the Pacific Northwest, I’ve had to re-establish a few things that I generally took for granted in my daily (and writing) life: favorite dives, favorite restaurants, local bars that I’m pretty comfortable walking home from when I’ve had too many. With Portland’s fairly-excellent public transport, “stumbling distance” can mean a few miles- provided you can keep straight enough to hop the right bus/train combination.
The Black Hat Baker 