Life in Portland

So I went to Portland for a few days last week... and had a rockin’ ole time. Every other couple there is gay; it’s like Mecca. The feel of the city is so different – so unabashedly open to all that is the diversity of planet earth. I didn’t feel like it was liberal or gay or anything. I just felt acceptance and knowledge. Not questioning what shouldn’t be questioned and assuming nothing improper. If a girl has a girlfriend that’s okay. Apparently Portland has the second largest proportion of lesbians in its population in the US. If you don’t have a job that’s okay too. People don’t assume that you’re in med school and check and ask to see if you are. In fact, while I spent my week there not a single person asked me what I did for a living or if I had a living. I was living and that was all that mattered.

Everywhere you went there were attractive women with piercings, without, with children, without. It all didn’t matter. With straight men and gay men, who could tell? It’s said that every bar there is a gay bar and every bar is a straight bar. Out of the people I visited, they (two straight women) have only lesbian friends. They can’t seem to find datable males… it’s like a struggle. They can’t, and excuse me for using this word but it’s fitting, penetrate the scene. It’s just organically set so that they have to ask discretely whether a guy is single and straight. The men they do find are mostly not of interest for being, well, themselves and perhaps a little more grizzly than what they’d like, not to stereotype.



photo of Alberta St. taken from apartmentstherapy.com


Going to parties and out there it was just one large mix of people. Locals could care less if you were gay or straight. At parties girls were paired with girls or guys and it was evident that it mattered not. This should be the paradigm for the future of every city and I think that civilization is matriculating in this way. Even our pilot coming out of PDX was this awesome gay girl. People did make fun of the fact that they had a female pilot, which I wouldn’t have expected coming out of Portland…

What emanated from the city was a vibe of fun. What mattered were people’s relationships with one another. Jobs, the rest of the world, they can just fuck it, as a true Portlander would say. Being able to go out in a safe city, walk around at night, drink any night of the week, and have a good old time with whomever was the key of the city and was offered to everyone there.

I would go back there literally in a heartbeat. Vacations are meant to be refreshing, but this was more than a vacation. This was the epitome of vacations. This was like a cleansing of the soul. I would go back there to garner to: quit my job, write a novel, travel the outdoors (well, maybe not in the winter), and basically listen to my soul a little more and what drives it. I could become a productive nightmare of creative goodness (either success or failure, but I feel I’d have the inspiration to do something) if I moved there.

So I think I’ll just take another trip there in the coming months… not that it’s cheap or anything. It’s just refreshing. And reaffirms my core value of individualism and love for the United States – to exist on a dance floor where no one cares what your orientation is or whether you’re wearing leather or not.

For a little taste of the retiring village for younguns, check out “Portlandia” (first episode free on itunes). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1780441/