Hattie Does PDX | Wherein Miss Hat gives her very precise perspective on Portland as an outsider with strange proclivities

Take It Off. Take It All Off.

Posted on December 2, 2012 by hattie

Over the last few months I have had the opportunity to but dip my toe into the veritable sea that is the Portland Strip Club Scene, and I have enjoyed it thus far. It all began when a friend visited from Puritan New England and he and my flatmates discovered that I had inadvertently moved us into close proximity of the local Gay Ghetto, a section of downtown Portland with gay clubs of varying flavors, and had chosen one in particular as the place to go, Silverado ($$, ***-1/2), a gay club with men stripping. It is not a strip club per se… You don’t belly up to the rail in a chair, doling out the ones, with the men’s private parts in your face, but instead hang with your friends at a remove, walking over to the stage or cage to tip a dancer. I won’t bother to go into detail on the decor, as they have apparently doing a bit of remodeling and my memory has faded, but I liked it, dark yet bright, filled with men, some of them naked. I might like it more if it were a bit more strip clubish, with stage-seating and music actually geared toward the dancers but I think the go-go dancers are intended as an addition to the scenery and thus an experience within the evening, not the focus of the occasion.

I discovered a few things here:
1. you can see more of the men than you can in many parts of the country – friends visiting from the heartland remarked on this during their visit, in fact,
2. the brtenders mix an excellent Cape Cod (or Cape Codder as it is known in Massachusetts,
3. I did not actually like to watch male dancers as much as I thought I might, and here at least here I think that might be okay.

I love men and their form, especially when they take the time to sculpt it just-so, but they are not dancing for women here, they are dancing for men, and I imagine as such they approach it differently, consciously or no. Many I saw didn’t dance so much as pose majestically, perhaps throwing in a shimmy here, a body pump there, but again it is aimed at the male customer, so movements reflect simulated male on male action, and while I am not above taking a temporarily-affixed phallus to a man, nor in watching some excellent man-on-man, the simulation of this movement just did not do it for me that night. I was impressed when one bloke placed his leg behind his neck quite comfortably while maintaining the suggestive motion of his dance and was sure to tip him on my way out. I didn’t stay too long as I had had quite a bit to drink at Hamburger Mary’s, as may possibly be detailed in a future blog post or a past Facebook post my friends may remember.

A couple things worth noting: I am told by my friends that the lounge food here is superb and that women are horrible tippers. Shame on you ladies! At least men are generous with the money when admiring women; we owe the same courtesy. As with all strippers, the money is in the lap dance, and here they set their own rates, one dancer I am aware of has a scale based on the guaranteed awesomeness of the dance to be provided (awesome literally, as in inspiring awe in those who observe). The music seemed easier to dance to and harder to strip to in many cases, but overall I liked the lighting and ambiance and the site of the dancers, like statues of gods, moving in their artful ways.

I hope to make it back soon to see the changes made and see if my personal assessment was simply the mood of the day.

Missed you!

Posted on December 2, 2012 by hattie

Hello friends! Sorry I haven’t posted in a couple of months. October kicked my ass and November was spent in recovery. I have five or ten posts started and I promise that you will have one of them when you wake in the morning or before you go to bed if you are a night owl. Hoot!

Trust, Respect, and Service

Posted on September 25, 2012 by hattie

No, I am not referring to the O.T.O. US Lover’s Convocation I attended this past weekend, though I could be judging by the title. Nor is this one of the three or more blog posts I have in process that I may have discussed with you during the weekend. This is a review.

Accidentally showing up a week early for a doctor’s appointment because I forgot to move it on my calendar, I decided to make the best of the moment and searched out the nearest hardware store to make a spare key I have needed for two months.

I found the Pearl Ace Hardware (****, $) a few blocks away and headed over on my walk home. At first, I was struck by how clean it was and then by the fact that they sell housewares in addition to general hardware things you would expect to see, instantly reminding me of the hardware store I used to go in Puritan New England (Economy True Value, Maasachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, ****, $$), where Harvard and MIT students could buy everything they needed for their dorm or new apartment.

I wandered back to the key aisle and did not see a key machine (which, by the way, the Ankeny hardware store, **, $, at SE 11th and Stark in the Buckman neighborhood did not have. No keys made in Buckman). I was instantly concerned that this would be one of those weird PDX things where life is completely different here and I would just not be able to get a key made without going to some giant, freedom-hating, national chain, like Home Depot, where they drug test employees before they will let them mix paint and cut keys because if you smoke pot in your spare time you obviously will do it at work thus endangering us all.

I turned, looking confused, and was immediately approached by an Ace employee wanting to help me. That is right, I did not have to wander the store looking for someone with a clue. He came to me. “May I get a key made here?” To which he replied, “Of course, head to the end of aisle 16 and I will meet you right there.” I did and he did and he made me a key in 31 seconds or something like that.

I noticed a sign on the counter for a knife sharpening service and excitedly announced that I would be back soon for this much needed and totally inexpensive service (size-based but most of my knives fall in the $5 range). He told me about the ease and speed of the process, welcoming my return.

He then handed me the key and thanked me for coming. I held the key looking confused again and he smiled and said that I could pay up front on my way out. No unnecessary paper bag with key model written on it, no escorting me and the key to the register, just here you go, pay as you exit.

I went to the front where he really didn’t follow me, and paid $1.99 for my key (ok, that is like $0.40 more than I am used to, but they are in the pearl district and the service was exceptional).

I told the cashier that I needed to pay for a key which she asked to see so she knew what to charge me and I commented on how at Hone Depot even if they had let me wander up with my bagged key to pay on my own, which some have, they would have a door person to check my receipt against what I was carrying when I leave.

She laughed and smiled and said simply, “we trust you here”. What an amazing statement in an age of RFID-chipped merchandise, receipt checkers, and sales associates who will meet you at the register with your purchase.

By the way, Home Depot does not sharpen knives and recommended that I try an Ace Hardware when I called to enquire, and even more amazing, the key from Pearl Ace Hardware worked perfectly on the first try. That hasn’t happened from the Despot in years, and I think that last time was when I was in the Badlands or Jesus Land, so at least a decade or more of key making for home, office, and temple.

I guess we know where I will be getting my screws, dowels, keys, and canisters henceforth.

Single Ladies (Put a Ring IN It)

Posted on September 14, 2012 by hattie

Two days ago I headed up to the Westover Heights Clinic (****, $$$) to discuss my birth control options as a sexually active, single, adult, non-breeding woman.

I lucked upon Westover Heights Clinic as a new resident of Portland. The staff has been tremendously understanding and supportive of my needs and decided lack of reproductive goals, and sometime tardiness or changing work schedule.

It is the small details where they really excel. I have tiny, hard to find veins and have had trouble my whole life with being manhandled and bruised in the oft repeated attempt to gather my blood. They have had no problem finding and using one vein, and I did not leave bruised and sore.

I am without insurance temporarily, living off what I managed to squirrel away on my HSA card in three months at my former employer, and they have worked with me to make my visits less of a burden, even giving me samples to tide me over until my insurance starts.

We discussed all my options, my past experience with birth control, the varying sec of my partners, the possibility of numerous partners, and my true commitment to the use of condoms plus another form of birth control, condoms being known to break sometimes. I also got a neat lecture on the history of the pill and its diminishing levels of estrogen over the years.

I decided against the pill. To benefit from its near perfection you must be rigid in when you take it, everyday. I don’t even remember to take my tummy pill everyday and I sometimes need it to feel good.

When I have insurance I will pursue being fixed, but now I am too poor but at least finally old enough people aren’t afraid I will change my mind about it. I have known since I was fourteen, but now that approach forty people take me seriously.

So, the pill was out and IUDs tempting but they have no idea how the copper one works and it is a bit expensive for a minimum wage worker. It is also mildly dangerous for someone with multiple partners, as it acts like a wick for bacterium. Since I am a bit irresponsible for timing the pill and on a budget, she recommended the vagina ring, which you insert and forget for three weeks, then you can take it out and bleed regularly or leave in the fourth week and bleed more lightly, eventually stopping as your body acclimatizes. She says that she has flight attendants who use it because they never remember the time to take the pill, crossing all those time zones. So, I inserted my ring and put a four week reminder on my Google calendar. The timing was perfect because you have to do it between day one and five of your cycle and my appointment happened to be on day five. Remember those samples I mentioned? A three month supply

Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the office is cheerful, pleasant, and just a joy to be around. I won’t be going anywhere else.

Oh, and the wallpaper is covered with vagina flowers. Lol. Love it.

L, M, N, O, P is for Pizza Schmizza

Posted on September 12, 2012 by hattie

I was up in the Alphabet District, at the bottom of the heights, the other week and invited a friend along to try out some pizza. I come more recently from a place with BAD PIZZA (Salem, MA), so was excited to journey out for a slice. As Ken’s Artisan Bakery in that area did not actually serve pizza, at least that day, we wandered on and found the Schmizza Pub and Grub (321 NW 21st Avenue, ****, $$, pizza restaurant, pub, pool table, daily specials).

Artist unknown.

Their sauce had a good flavor, tangy and sweet, the dough was light with a little salt, and the day’s special was crazy good. Spaghetti and sliced meatballs with chunks of tomato on a slice of pizza. Mmmmm.

I thought that I could have used two more slices of pepperoni, but no more than that; my friend Endymion felt the same about his pineapple The atmosphere was nice and quiet on a weekday afternoon. When the music was playing, it reminded me of Guitar Hero, in a good way. Service was friendly and fun, and on Mondays they have free pool, though I did not get to play due to my own schedule.

A slice of pepperoni and a slice of the day’s special the Schpaghetti and Meatball.

It made for an excellent afternoon, which we finished off with Coffee, Coffee, Buzz, Buzz, Buzz around the corner and slightly up the hill at:

Ben & Jerry’s (39 NW 23rd Place, Downtown Portland, $, **, ice cream parlor), which was a mixed bag. I was pleased, as always, with my coffee ice cream with espresso bean fudge chunks (made with Fair Trade Certified™ coffee and now only available in B&J’s locations). The server was even young, cute, and perky, but the store was dead and kind of a mess. The tables were dirty, but the shake I had sealed the meal.

Home is Where the Heart Is, Not Necessarily Where You Keep Your Hat

Posted on September 10, 2012 by hattie

For nine years I visited Portland, first for long weekends then for a week, finally for a two week vacation when I came to meditate on actually living here, to have Thanksgiving with my chosen family, and to celebrate fifteen years of not being a waste of space junkie waiting to overdose or be saved from myself. I have mentioned in a previous post how I came to feel like a Portlander-in-exile. This was the first sign I should live here and not back in the Boston area. I didn’t catch it right away, though.

Spending time in reflection is absolutely key to knowing yourself and where and what you should be doing. I was too busy filling every making moment with work, social activities, the O.T.O., and later still the New England Leather Alliance. Overworking led to days off sick, which led to contemplation, which led to realization of discontentment. I could have continued on autopilot as a blissful workaholic, unaware that I had deviated so dramatically from my chosen path. I thrive on activity and being needed; it was easy to follow one job to the next, and suddenly I looked up a former counterculture hedonist, somehow become a safety and security professional working for a government defense contractor.

Looking back through my journals I see list after list sprinkled through them of what I wanted to do with my time or my future or what I would do if I had al the money I needed. Over all these years, the lists were the same, and they matched the one I made as a teenager full of hope.

Study philosophy, literature, history, anthropology, and language
Travel the world
Write about my studies and my adventures
Teach others

So, how did I end up with an associates in chemistry and genetics and a security clearance? A series of well-meaning decisions while chasing after the dollar. There I was, thirty-eight years old, in Puritan New England, my work was becoming more and more stressful and unsatisfying, and soon to move to where I could not commute via public transit, and I was as far from my personal path as I could imagine, except for my work within the Order, which was completely on path.

One IM conversation with my bestie later, and I was set free… I would move to Portland. Then I had to figure out to do, but that was easy because I had a path laid out years before… School, travel, write, teach. So, here I go. I have been accepted to Portland State University as a Philosophy Major, which will become what it really should be by the time I graduate.

Why Portland? Because I felt like I was in exile from my home here for the last three years. In May 2009 e.v., I came and catered my bestie’s wedding at the Lodge. There was a horrible heat wave, I spent days cooking without air conditioning, and just being amongst my friends, pouring my love into the food, and it was like a switch inside me. When I flew back to Boston that trip, I cried on the plane leaving behind the people I love so much, going back to a cold, conservative land, with its serious people, pretentious intellectuals, and neopuritans, and yes the small bastion of freedom lovers and sexual deviants that brought me solace in that land.

Now, I sit in the middle of nowhere in Oregon on my first extra-Portland adventure since my move, and I am uplifted in the presence of my friends and family. But this joy is not limited to this place. I wake up every morning and look out my window at the beauty of my new city. I go to bed each night my heart filled with joy. Classes start in seventeen days. I’ve begun blogging about my adventures and I travel for my church and personal pleasure.

What, No Tentacles?

Posted on September 7, 2012 by hattie

Around a month ago I had a friend in town and we both have a thing for tentacle things. I have an amazing painting he did for the Lounge of Lust Art Show at Knights Templar Oasis which I snapped up. Though, between you and me, I have often wondered if he started painting it for the Lovecraft Show and hadn’t finished.

I apologize for the strange angle; it hangs ten feet in the air in my apartment.

On my maiden voyage to Voodoo Donuts (to be reviewed in a future post), I could not help but notice the adult theater with a giant sign inviting me to see Japanese hentai movies on Sundays from 10pm-midnight. This was exciting. I saw a hentai movie when I was seventeen, which I cannot remember the name of that involved vast tentacle monsters, young cute Japanese girls, and a demonic need to fill orifices, with some completely unremembered pretense of plot. I would be interested in seeing this again. I would find someone to go with me, as I never check out adult themed events for the first time without a companion..When he scheduled his visit, I knew he was the one with whom to go.. A completely platonic, not hyper-sexual friend. I am so glad I took him with me.

Hentai was not all I had hoped and yet so much more. So, if you grew up in the Fundamentalist Baptist South and lived the last decade in Puritan New England, Portland sex places can be surprising. In the Pit of Hell, where I grew up, places with full nudity were persecuted and closed, in Jesusland in the early 90s strippers were required to cover their nipples and wear three-quarter bottoms. Sometimes alcohol and full nudity were not allowed in the same place. Always there was something. Video booths, one per person to watch porn (though the attendant let us ignore that, it being my first time. View ports to watch strippers dance behind glass with no touching when tipping. I did see an all-female sex show in an old, gaudily decorated cellar in Paris that was sexy and surreal…they used an intro with creepy music detailing a woman’s seduction/consumption by a vampire from a Roger Korman movie. It was surprisingly stimulating.considering the bizarre nature of the act, but even they kept a certain distance from most of the audience.

In Portland you can get a little more hands on, and the audience at drag shows can strip naked in contests on stage (Hamburger Mary’s review to follow in a future post). So, it should have occurred to me that the Paris Adult Theater (***, $$, SW 2nd Ave., Downtown Portland) might be a little more than a place to watch movies, but it had not. We stepped into the first room after hitting the ATM right out front and paid admission. We were late, it being 10:16 and I asked if we were too late. The attendant told me that they only play the hentai by request and he would start it for us. It used to be more popular at their former location, but not since they moved Downtown. Oh, and that there is a couple’s area where we will be seated and he will explain in the next room. Really? This is interesting.

He buzzed us through the locaked door into the next room, where I found a wall of sex toys for sale and a second locked door.with various reminders of age requirements and proud mentions of their love seats and glory holes. We are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. Well, this will be fun. My friend is sort of an asexual person and has DEFINITELY not been to a place like this, and while I have been to more freewheeling private parties, I had had very subscribed public experiences.

Thank the Gods for the couple’s area and for my wingman! Had I tried to come alone as a woman with an appreciation for Japanese animated porn, I would have been extremely uncomfortable and hounded right out of the theater. No guests are allowed in the couple’s area and the duo having sex when we arrived got up and left, their work finished, so we were untouchable.

That did not stop the five gentleman occupying the theater with us from looking back to our area to check in on whether we were having sex yet. Thus, I would say if you bring your own sheet or towel, this might be a good place to get your exhibition on. The cushioning was covered with a slick man-made, easily washed material that just felt horrible that day, but it was also pretty sultry being 98 degrees F outside and weekly air-conditioned inside. There was a guy when we came in, about 4 rows from the front in a wheelchair facing the back of the theater. Clearly not caring whatever porn was to be played.

The other guys were not so lucky. They got to watch an hour and a half of hentai with no live sex show from the only couple in attendance. They dutifully checked in, every few minutes, and then went back to watching the movie or climbed into a video booth at the side of the theater, or maybe going and checking out the glory holes.

Meanwhile the hentai was a slight let down. There were no tentacles to be had, insteead limiting itself to fat grey sumo demons with giant phalli that roamed about and mildly humiliated young women and force them to have sex. Yes, I had fully expected forcing with tentacles, but this was kind of weak really. The filmmakers did not truly get the concept of good versus evil. Their minds clearly did not automatically fall into this pattern of thought, as the humiliations were weak, their verbal discipline barely abusive more suggestive. Their demons were far from evil, being pretty simple and direct: fuck-cum-leave wet, and again no tentacles.

I have since done some perusing of the internet and found the school of hentai I was seeking and had some suggestions from friends. No worries, though I had to take safe search off of my search settings.

I would go back to the theater, but never alone and likely only to force them to show hentai on the big screen or to get my couple exhibition on, but it is sadly not likely. They were talking about changing Sundays to something else due to low attendance but the hentai poster remains on the marquee. Gather in a safe group and go save hentai nights!

How We Got Here, Part III: A Map and a Plan, or the Second Love of My Life

Posted on September 6, 2012 by hattie

During the week we were here post NOTOCON IV, my friend and I decided to go to Powell’s. We began our journey at Powell’s City Of Books on Burnside in NW Portland (*****, $-$$$$$).

It is a little bit like the Tardis, this City of Books, for as you approach from parking the entrance seems so unassuming. You have no idea of what is ahead of you. You walk through the modest glass double doors into a vast interior that is awe-inspiring. They offer 68,000 square feet of multilevel, color-coded, sexy book love. There are more than 1 million books beautifully categorized and arranged new beside used, so that you may choose the exact quality or expense you wish. The store is so large you need a map and a day to spend in its stacks.

Nowadays, there is a app for your smartphone that will guide you there, direct you by genre throughout the floors, turn by turn, and allow you to search the in-store catalog. I recently discovered that I could trade in my own books for store credit or cash. This is an excellent way to revitalize a library. I realized I had at least a bookcases’ worth of books that I did not intend to read again. Down they went to the NW 11th and Couch (pronounced Coo-ch!) where I could trade them in for books on that which interests me most right now (e.g. writing, blogging, getting money for school, the best erotica of 2012, French travel guides, and art books). They take in 3,000 used books per day for this one location alone.

Before 2003, the best bookstores I had been to were:

Tappan Book Mine – Used Bookstore in Atlantic Beach, FL. ****, $-$$$$$, where I picked up Robert Anton Wilson’s Book of the Breast (later titled Ishtar Rising, in hardcover, first printing, 1974 with dust jacket).

Tattered Cover Bookstore – Independent Bookstore Chain in Denver, CO. *****, $-$$$$, both the Cherry Creek location, now moved to Lowenstein Theater, and the Historic LoDo Warehouse, offered floors of books to search from and nooks in which to curl up with a book. Where I fell in love with Mark Twain again, as an adult.
New England Mobile Book Fair – A large but unassuming warehouse in Boston suburb Newton Highlands, MA. ****, $-$$, a selection of thousands of discounted recent run titles and a small used books room. A great place for cookbooks; I brought home Jacques Pepin and Julia Child both from here, and my favorite cookbook Les Halles by Anthony Bourdain, (*****, $$) a perfect blend of great French recipes tailored for the home kitchen and Tony’s acerbic wit imparting kitchen wisdom and kick your ass advice and instructions.
The Strand – Epic family owned book empire at 12th and Broadway in New York City, NY. *****, $-$$$$, over 2.5 million new, used, and rare books. Where I found omnibus reprints of old Robert Heinlein stories I had never read.

Powell’s, like other successful independent booksellers listed here are a)considered one of the best bookstores in the world and b)have multiple locations. My friend and I here in 2003 decided to see more of Powell’s, especially being told that we could a find more extensive ceremonial magic and occult section at the Hawthorne Blvd. location. A perfect example of why you should sell your books online to them. This takes into account more than one store. But, before we headed out of downtown, we hit Powell’s Technical Bookstore, now I think part of Powell’s II across the street from the City of Books, though the website does not say so. Then to Hawthorne where they had good magic, sci fi, and fantasy selections, plus next door was the Crafts and Cooking Powell’s specialty store. We even hit the location in the airport on the way home to Somerville, MA, where I had a gift book wrapped with this lovely black, gray, and white fabric wrapping paper.

The giftee tossed the paper aside upon receiving the gift, so I recovered it; and again, and again, until finally my friend a few weeks truly appreciated the paper enough to take it home with her birthday book from her karaoke party. Amazing that it was given to someone in Boston, then Florida, then Boston, and then back to Portland, in lovely kept condition over a nine year period. Weird the things you save and tend.

Anyway, praise good books and praise my new neighborhood bookstore-city!

No Zones, No Freebies!

Posted on September 5, 2012 by hattie

According to Trimet, the organization that runs the public transit for my new hometown, the zones system was set up for the buses and trains to “keep fares affordable for minority and low-income riders who lived in the central city. Thirty years later, travel and population patterns have changed and the zone system was no longer serving this purpose.”

Are they saying that minority and low-income people no longer live downtown because a few yuppies and recovering Bostonians have moved into the Pearl and Old Town? That Lloyd Center has become a high income area? Did they provide maps of demographic data to back up this claim? Not that I found on their website.

I walk the streets of downtown Portland and can tell you there are plenty of people sleeping in the streets and poor college students trying to live in overpriced apartments near their schools that would benefit from the free zone. There are seven homeless shelters and missions within walking distance of the former free zone. A customer at the store asked me last night if I thought that the homeless population had gone up in the Buckman neighborhood in the last week. Maybe it has because they can’t get anywhere else for free anymore, or maybe because the weather is beautiful and everyone is outside. I don’t know.

The free zone also encouraged those living in inner east Portland to go downtown for their shopping rather than stay on their side of the river. How many people are going to just go online and order whatever they need now instead of hoping the Max to go to Pioneer Place Mall and the surrounding businesses?

Also, think of all the people who work downtown, who used to just hop to the other part for a quick lunch. Are they going to want to pay an extra $2.50 to get there quickly or are they going to walk a few blocks to something nearby?

Yes, the zone thing was confusing, but is it equitable to charge the same price for someone going one mile on a bus and someone going to the end of one of the train lines, such as to the airport or a suburb of Portland?

Maybe I am just cranky because I can’t take the Max for free to my best friends’ house anymore or to school when it starts in a few weeks, but I moved into Old Town in part because it was in the free zone and they took it away.

Trimet, ***, $. The buses and trains arecleanand the service pretty timely. I just disagree with their decision.

How We Got Here, Part II: Jerry Garcia and the Love of my Life

Posted on September 3, 2012 by hattie

In August 2003, I was a young (alright thirty year old) magician looking to connect with others in my Order and fouund myself in Troutdale, OR, at the McMenamin’s Edgefield. As I mentioned in “Past is Prologue” on August 29th, you really “should stay there, nothing compares; art, winery, distillery, brewery, salt-water pool, pub food to fine dining, $$-$$$$”. They did not have the salt-water pool back then, but they did have the winery with excellent tastings, the brewery with great pub food, and the distillery where I had excellent conversations with golfers about sex magic and occultism. The decor is very artsy, with strange things painted everywhere… on the shades, the pipes, walls, ceilings, closet doors, wherever they were inspired to do so. I had an amazing dinner I do not remember clearly in the Black Rabbit restaurant and fell in love with a Pinot Noir reserve that wee drank like water for the rest of the week.

The conference was only a weekend, but friends had decided to get married in the Portland Thelemic temple, so we stayed over. (Happy 9 years P&C!) We were nigh inseparable through the event, leading up to the wedding. Funny how you travel three-thousand miles to hang out with your closest friends from home, but that is the way it goes sometimes with busy schedules. Aside from the talks and food events, we were free to explore the grounds of the venue.

We walked through the gardens, attended wine tastings, learned about how they made their own mustard, and congregrated in little bars and grottos to trade stories of our lives away from each other. The Edgefield campus is ideally suited to this sort of event, though our biennial conference has outgrown their banquet capacity. No matter how many cool things we pack into the conference, I really feel like we are there to see each other and spend time together, but maybe that is just me.

Throughout the conference I watched the organizer of the event going from person to person and talk to talk, greeting and guiding, confident and happy. As a burgeoning event coordinator, I was entranced. Never had I known that sort of peace of mind during an event. I envied and most likely went and bought another bottle of the reserve to praise her to my friends. Who remembers exactly now?

I do remember a very strange occurrence, however, which is when I discovered Jerry Garcia. Not the artist himself, whom I was very familiar with, having spent a short time exploring his devoted subculture and their favorite pastimes, but the statue of Jerry Garcia (number 22 on the Edgefield walking tour map). I think we were in the Little Red Shed (21, or maybe back in the Power Station Pub (12). Anyway, we were there and realized that we were nearing midnight resh (a ritual performed by Thelemites at 4 time-points of the sun), and in our drunken state decided it would be great to go do it at the Jerry Garcia statue. When we got there, it turned out that about 40 people had decided it was a good place for resh, and we joined together in our ritual, and then laughed our asses off about all having the same foolish idea, and sat up half the night meeting new old friends.

The great thing about the Edgefield for a large group that can fit here (perhaps not needing larger banquet facilities for a formal dinner) is the range of possible lodging available. I spent my week there in a suite with a private bath. It was a comfortable, sparsely furnished, well decorated room. Down the hall, I had friends in “family rooms” housing up to 6 with shared dorm style bathrooms. It was pretty cool. They also have single occupancy rooms and hostel beds. Nowadays, a night could range from $30-155 per night, which is a steal for the quirky ambiance, good food and libations, and excellent, if sometimes odd, servers. They were fantastic, for sure. We are an eclectic bunch, but fun, and respectful, and we tip well, and it turned out they were the of a kindred spirit.. Again, *****, for my comfort level and happiness here.

The first 4 years I came back to visit Portland we went there for lunch and to buy wine. When my Pinot Noir Reserve ran dry, I switched to Umbrella Jimmy’s dry rose for a couple of years. Then one year we couldn’t make it down to visit, and then it was three, but I am headed back soon to stay for the weekend, and I will be sure to check out the innovations and decide what will be my favorite wine for the next couple of years.

It is like a strange homecoming for me, as my life in Portland really started here, and I am so excited to return there, where I made some of my best friends, discussed sacred sexuality with golfers at the whiskey bar, and found my groove. I love social and educational events, both planning, volunteering, speaking, and attending, whether it be a dinner for 40 at an area restaurant or museum for the annual work holiday party, a wedding feast for my best friend, a leadership seminar for 40, a small conference for 250, or a large one for 2500… This is what feeds my soul and makes my heart go pitter-pat. The true love of my life I found that week in Portland. was me, I just had to figure out how to do what I needed to be doing to be that person.