A Mash-Up

"God, what a mess, on the ladder of success,
When you take one step and miss the whole first rung"
- The Replacements

Another week has passed in Portland.

The weather's been cooler and more typically overcast than last week, but still relatively pleasant, and a vast improvement from the constant downpours of February.

I still walk to work every day, cutting through the North Blocks Park and Duke Reginald's magical quantum basketball court of unending possibilities. I still walk home from work every day, sometimes stopping at Whole Foods as needed. One night, I attempted a walk to a Fred Meyer's supermarket and would have made it there if I had really wanted to, but gave up on the way as at some point it didn't seem that the long walk was worth the effort for peanut butter and Haagen Dazs.

The project that had brought me down to the Willamette Valley sawmills came to an abrupt and immediate end for reasons well outside of my control, which might be just as well, since I subsequently became busy on another project, one that might take me to Houston and Louisiana in the upcoming weeks. I hope that this next project doesn't interfere or distract me from my goal of a permanent re-location to here in Portland.

Some nights, though, it becomes very apparent to me just how alone I am here in Portland - how I have, to date, made no friends or social contacts here at all. In "The Boxer," Paul Simon sang that the only words his lonely character hears are "just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue. I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome, I took some comfort there."

La, la, la, la, la, la, la.

It hasn't gotten that bad for me, but I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome that for conversation I've had to rely on the company of strippers. Portland, it's been said, has more strip clubs per capita than any other city. They're everywhere. There are so many, in fact, that a dancer one told me that one-third of all women in Portland between the ages of 18 and 28 either a.) works in a strip club, b.) has worked in a strip club, c.) is considering working in a strip club, or d.) has some sort of offer or another to be somehow associated with a strip club. I'm not sure of the veracity of her statistics but it seems that at some level working the strip circuit is just a part of the local service industry, an alternative to unemployment for certain young women.

But counter-intuitively, considering they're in the entertainment business, many of the dancers are themselves bored and lonely, and not exactly thrilled with their recent vocational decisions, about missing that first rung on the ladder of success, and are appreciative and grateful for some intelligent and non-manipulative conversation, company and kindness. Many, perhaps not surprisingly, are interested in Zen, or yoga, or vegetarianism, or some other point of common interest, and I've had several interesting and extended conversations with dancers between their on-stage sets as I lean on the bar nursing a bottle of water. But as soon as I walk out the door and back onto the street - poof! - the friendship is over as soon as the conversation has ended, and I'm back where I started - a lonely middle-aged businessman in a strange city who's missed the first rung on the ladder to social success.

Lie-da-lie. . .