Skip to main content

Why I like Portland better than the Midwest.

Today, while visiting the "Mall of America" in Bloomington, Minnesota (Minneapolis / St. Paul metro) a late teens / early twenties woman walked by. She was dressed slightly punk. Something that you might find just about anywhere in Portland.

She had some black clothing on, some funky shoes with heels, a little bit of spiky jewelry, darkish eye make-up and had half her hair dyed green. Nothing really extreme. No visible piercing, no hard core tattoos, nothing that even really looked odd.

A girl, maybe around 6 or 7 years old, asked her mom: "Mom, why is she dressed like that?" and her mom replied "Oh, she must be in costume for the Harry Potter thing they have tonight."

Now, as a thirty something - I would look pretty silly if I suddenly went punk or goth. But by all reasoning, had I grown up in Portland - that is probably how I would have been. Most of the places I like best in Portland - *I* look out of place as the boring-ish guy in a T-shirt and jeans.

And that is what I love about Portland.

It really takes some looking to find those places in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Sure there are the obvious places, like around the University of Minnesota (Gophers easily make as cool as mascot as Beavers and Ducks) - but in my extensive exploring over the last 10 days, this area is EXCESSIVELY suburban and very homogeneous.

Of course, there are many other things I love about Portland too...

Comments

Anonymous said…
You know what I love about Portland? ...how much it reminds me of how much I love the other places I've lived. :o)
ValkRaider said…
Some times I want to kick my reader's ass.

;)

You are welcome to move back there, we won't miss you. Much...
Anonymous said…
Be true to your school. ;o)

Popular posts from this blog

Free Topographical Maps

The Libre Maps project has purchased and made available for free all of the USGS Topographical maps of the USA. All 50 states. The maps have always been free sort-of, there was just no where until now to actually GET them for free. The Libre Maps project raised enough funds to buy the many gigabytes of data and the Internet Archive is hosting them. These are great 24k scale topographical maps folks. The same types you pay for in sporting goods stores. And many applications on your computers can work directly with them and your GPS. You can get water and tear resistant paper and print them out.. All good stuff... For the lazy in the audience, here are Oregon's.

Every bit of plastic ever made still exists.

If you have ever crate trained a pet dog, you will have found that dogs will do everything within their power to not shit where they sleep. A dog will hold it until their face turns blue. Unless of course they are already blue, then they will just get a darker shade. And if you (and the dog) have had the misfortune of getting stuck a little to long, and the dog HAS had to go in their crate, the minute the poor canine makes eye contact with you - you know it. The dog will feel as though they have betrayed the universe by pooping in the crate. Well, humans are assholes. We could learn a thing or two from our dogs. We only have one earth. Only one. No "fall back" or "plan B" exists despite what you may see in the Star Trek movies or read in the Cristopher Stasheff or Orson Scott Card novels. I imagine that some day some poor wasted species - a distant relative to the Human - who has had to survive underground or in bubbles without being able to breathe ...

Not safer, just stupider.

The first definition of stupider is "Slow to learn or understand; obtuse." I think that there would be good cause to add to it "See American". Today, while passing through the security checkpoint at Portland International (PDX) I witnessed the TSA personnel sending people to the back of the line for not taking off their flip-flops. They shouted endlessly about removing liquids, regardless of size. And they generally treat every one of us like we were infants incapable of understanding simple instructions. But perhaps they might be on to something.