#pearldistrict

The Red Shirt Diaries #33

galby68, , , 4 Comments

CrazyTown.

The text I never thought I’d get:

I’ve had false hope with my unwell neighbor before. His family threatened him with eviction. His family evicted him. But he always made it back.

Under threat of eviction, he did just enough and knew who in the family to appeal to in order to avoid it. Once evicted, he caught a night patrol that the HOA hired and convinced him he was locked out. Checking the homeowner roster against his ID, the guy let him into the building, where CrazyTown broke into his own unit and stayed for a few days before getting hauled away again.

It was this skill that scared me. His breaking and entering skills. I’d had poor nights of sleep several times during his residency. The kind where you wake up and there’s an immediate sense of disease. Then you chalk it up to the preternatural quiet “waking you up” and try to calm yourself back to sleep, ignoring the fact that the silence feels like a living presence in your room.

The day he was finally evicted, my downstairs neighbor locked himself out of his unit. Being a renter, his landlord has a realtor lockbox in one of our fire exits. Only he’d forgotten the code, so he came up to ask my neighbor – the HOA President – if he knew it. Code secured, he was off to get his spare key and get into his unit before the food on his stove burned the place down.

He returned a few minutes later after the empty lockbox reminded him he’d failed to return the spare last time he locked himself out. They were discussing the urgency of the situation when CrazyTown emerged from his unit, insisting he could help.

Armed only with his Oregon Trail card – our version of Food Stamps, and remember this guy has a Trust Fund – he was off to save the day…despite the objections that I could hear in my unit. By the time the resident and the Board President caught up with him, he was moments away from having the door open. The more they insisted he stop, the more urgently he worked.

Seconds later, the door was open. Sure, the frame was cracked halfway up the side, but nothing was on fire.

In his haste to stop the burgling savior, my neighbor had locked his own self out of his unit. Irony! He was in in a jiffy, this time with no damage, too. Apparently, an audience of one is all CrazyTown’s fragile nerves can take before his helpfulness manifests as a destructive force.

That night, the day he was evicted, I dreamt I came home and found Myrtle’s litter box filled into a mound. I would never do that because she prefers a firm foundation for her business doings…otherwise it goes on the floor. Not thinking about how or why, I turn to the utility room to get the bag and return the excess litter to it. The empty bag was right by the utility room door. Of course, I had just walked by this door after I entered, but you know how your mind haphazardly throws these details out in your dreams. I scoop the excess litter back into the bag and return it to the utility room.

There’s a candle lit on the dryer. I blow out the fire hazard I am sure I didn’t light and close the laundry room up again. There’s a decorative ladder bookcase leaning against the wall between the utility room door and my front entry. Like the cat litter bag, it hadn’t been there before.

Turning away from it, I see a bunch of dark shadows lying on the floor of my bedroom and cross my dark living room to investigate. My darkened room is lined all around the bed with suitcases, including a ski utility bag. Then I notice the linens have been changed from my earth tone linens to a grey color scheme. I turn on the light and CrazyTown sits up in my bed.

I wake myself up. No more sleep for old Xtopher that night.

A few weeks pass with random stories around the neighborhood of sightings or updates from his siblings. One night, I’m walking to the bar around the corner in the hotel on my block. There’s a smashed but not broken out window on the vacant business on my side of the hotel. Instinctively, I know it’s CrazyTown.

During my second beer, while I’m chatting with the owner, CrazyTown walks into the bar with an open container and a mania you can feel. He takes the order to leave as an invitation to approach the bar and spew yeah-buts at the bartender until every eye in the place is on him. He’s standing between me and the owner and hasn’t seemed to notice me. I’m looking down and away, mentally offering up something approaching prayer.

Giving up, CrazyTown turns away from me to leave. By the time he’s halfway to the door, he’s come fully around and declares, “This guy here, though. He’s the best roommate I ever had!”, coming at me with his fist out for a broment I reject as every eye swivels to me.

Joisus feckin’ Chroist.

I order another drink and spend it explaining I never shared a home with CrazyTown – not that one, anyway – and telling the owner and bartender that was the crazy neighbor I’ve been drinking talking about for the last couple years.

When I get off the elevator later that night, I see our common area has been redecorated.

This leaves little doubt he’s back in the building.

A few days later he’s out and my neighbor has hired the locksmith that rekeyed both the building’s exterior locks and CrazyTown’s unit a few weeks earlier to come back and put a deadbolt on the once again empty unit.

The next day, I notice what I assume is one of Myrtle’s toys in the corner between my desk and hall closet. Do not judge the cleanliness of this space in the photo below!

I wonder how long it’s been there and hope it’s not new. I’m fooling myself into vaguely remembering it being there for a long while, but I know that’s just to distract me from the bowl of dum-dums CrazyTown kept on his kitchen counter.

I was never more sure that I needed to move than in that moment. I’m also not sure what’s worse, the sucker being a new arrival or one I’ve actively overlooked for months.

Sometime in all this my wallet also went missing. Luckily I had my “earthquake money” – a hundred bucks cash and a credit card – to get me by. I tore my place apart looking for it, more than once under the couch cushions, in the laundry room, bathroom, closet, dresser drawers…everywhere.

Nothing.

It finally turned up a few days later while I was cooking. I opened my knife drawer and there it was. I put it there when I entertain people I don’t know well enough to trust, if you get my drift. It’s a grim reminder that if shit goes south, I won’t be easily rolled and if shit only goes sideways, I have knives.

I counted the knives several times to ensure none were missing. Also wondering if my wallet being there indicated I’d had a specifically unmemorable fuck the night before I realized my wallet was missing or if someone was fucking with me.

Pretty sure I know which scenario was the reality. And. I. Don’t. Like. It.

So, color me optimistically relieved that this chapter is finally closed. 🙏🏽

The Red Shirt Diaries #33

A Return to Normal?

galby68, 3 Comments

…and just like that, I’m at 0 for 2 with my crazy assed neighbors.

That is not a gripe.

Maybe I should say 2 for 2, since they’re both out of the building now? Even if the latest departure turns out to only be temporary.

I haven’t started finished my post about CrazyTown down the hall, but his brother is here this weekend cleaning up after his trust and the family evicted him a few weeks back. I’ll get there, though. Know this: the sounds of repair work being done in the unit down the hall is quieter than the sounds of CrazyTown merely existing. That’s a surreal realization.

If I put a little work into it, there’s probably a great portmanteau in that last sentence.

Anyway, waking up to the above message was just icing on the cake of being able to feel safe in my own building. Finally.

For those of you who don’t know about my other crazy ass neighbor, he’s the guy I first met when the HOA President sent out a Ring pic of him asking if anyone knew who the heck he was. Turns out, one of the owners in absentia had hired a bottom tier property management company that had moved this lil creeper in without alerting the Board. Suffice to say, this isn’t the optimal introduction to your new community.

Especially one as small as out little 18-unit enclave.

My second “introduction” to this guy was the first time I heard him serenading his gun at the top of his lungs at 2 in the morning. That’s right, I said first time.

I’m happy if that ambulance trip is one-way. In a community as small as ours, two out of 18 units housing mentally unstable people seems a bit high. That is, unless ~12% of the general population is crazy? That seems high, even for Portland with its current mental health crisis.

A Return to Normal?

505

galby68, , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

If numbers could stalk, I’m convinced that 505 would be my stalker. The anecdotal backup for this suspicion goes back a good – or occasionally good – dozen years.

Back to Rib.

When we started dating and I found out his family was from a reservation in New Mexico (he was born and raised in SoCal, but spent summers on the rez growing up) I honestly didn’t give it too much thought. If anything, it was more a matter of, “Well, that has to be better than either of the Dakotas, right?”

Anyway, my home state’s area code is 503 and I found it interesting that New Mexico’s is 505. That’s all it was, though, a passing point of interest that amused my brain, that our area codes were adjacent.

Ironically, Rib’s also the high water mark in this story. Deservedly, so – don’t get me wrong. Our relationship was good. Fulfilling, even. Eventually it just ran its course and instead of letting it die a slow death, I pulled the plug on it. We’re still friends, too, so like I said…he’s earned his position at the top of the heap in this story.

I moved back to Portland a year or so after Rib and I parted ways. Shortly after that, I started dipping my toe back into the toilet disguised as a pool that is dating in Gay Kulture. It’s my usual rhythm, too: I was usually single about half as long as my prior relationship. In Rib’s case, that penciled out to about two years.

For me, not him. He was single for about three weeks. I never said the transition from dating to friends was smooth.

Literally the first guy I showed an interest in turns out to be a transplant from New Mexico.

…aaaand enter the Broken Poet. My dumb ass thinks it’s a second chance at the 505.

Three chaotic months later, he’s run off back to New Mexico to live with his dad.

Flash strangers forward about six months and I start running into the same guy all around town. Jeo. All around town is overstating it. I rarely leave my quadrant, so more like all around my neighborhood.

Mind you, this is not his neighborhood, so it’s fairly remarkable. But we share coffees, the occasional slice of pizza and even rarer adult beverage. He’s not much of a drinker, but down to watch me drink – not something I’m a fan of.

My favorite moment with him was introducing him to my favorite guilty pleasure – Ground Kontrol. It’s a classic video game arcade in Old Town, just across Broadway from my place. As we walked in, I finally noticed the address of the business immediately nextdoor: 505 NW Couch.

Hilarious. Of course, I pointed it out and mentioned he oughta feel right at home.

Turns out, the reason I ran into him all around my hood is because he works here. I was usually catching him before or after a shift – or in between work shifts. Turns out, both of his jobs were in my hood.

Gotta love gumption.

Anyway, it was fun. I was enjoying getting to know someone without the unspoken agenda of getting them between the sheets and then between their legs.

Growth.

All courtesy of me not being particularly attracted to him – probably not busted up enough for me, knowing my type – and him being emotionally unavailable. Turns out, he shared one day, that someone back home had kind of strung him along and he was still emotionally tethered to him.

I had found out early on that he was also from the 505 – as I was now openly calling it. It would be a couple more months before he told me the guy’s name and I eventually figured out it was the Broken Poet.

This could only happen to me.

Anyway. I wish I had a better lock on my WordPress archives so I could find the Broken Poet posts to link for you. But I don’t, so you give the search a try. Maybe it’ll work for you from the hashtag menu when I post this.

Jeo didn’t get a hashtag. I don’t know is it’s because we never really dated or if it’s because he wasn’t the typical Lost Boy that Gay Kulture tends to barf out at me. I’m leaning toward the latter. I enjoyed our time as friends and hangout buds. He just didn’t have a ton of spare drama overflowing onto my sneakers.

Refreshing. To be sure.

Until he kissed me out of the blue one day.

Caught me off guard, he did. I wasn’t offended, I just wasn’t prepared…and I don’t think he understood the difference between the two responses.

I’m going to jump ahead now. I’ll shorthand the interim with this: there were other guys from the 505 that I came in across and didn’t suffer, I’m less optimistic about the caliber of person that area code can produce than I was back with Rib. Hell, when I was a hiring manager, I had to actively set aside my misgivings about the residents of the 505 to avoid them coloring my decisions and potentially putting my employers at risk. I’m glad I’m either self-aware or professional enough to know to do so, though.

Flashing forward to the fall of 2020, I find myself down a “You busy?” fella. Someone to bang out with – now that I’m openly retired from dating. It’s not so much about efficiency as it is about boundaries around my own self-care. I can’t put it as succinctly as “come, cum, go”, because I do enjoy an intimate connection with my occasional erection. But I’m not investing long term here.

I’m sampling the menu, not buying the restaurant.

Enter BiBoi.

I’ve done a 180 on my attitude toward bisexual men. When I was younger and seeking a relationship, they bothered me. Most likely as ungettable. Now that I’m post-dating and more into relating while mating, they hold a functional and appealing disqualifier. Or, rather, I do: no titties. Or whatever it is that appeals to those fellas who can’t commit to a single gender dating pool.

We’ve been on and then off and now on again since November of 2020. Our first run was populated by interrogatories like “How long was your longest” this situation and “Do you think I’m maybe just mostly gay” type things, which I deftly batted aside like I’m King Kong atop the Empire State Building and they were attacking bi-planes instead of questions from a bi-guy.

The notable break came when he started dating a rack seriously and failed at juggling me to meet his needs that she could not.

“To thine own grumpy old man-ness, be true”, Me

Turns out, I’m not only his “what’s missing in his relationship” but also his adult, because when she dumped him…back, he came. Not for the sex, which he eventually got, but for the perspective, methinks. I don’t tell people what they want to hear. But I do tell them what maybe they need to hear.

He was in a mood to hear it this time around. To his credit.

Oh, and did I fail to mention he’s from a small town just north of the border in an area code known as the 505?

Sorry, that’s just bad storytelling.

Seriously, though…I am left to wonder why this isn’t my second question to someone. First, who are you? Second, from where are you?!?

Out, it always does, though. Surprised by it, less and less am I. Because, of course you are from the 505 if you run into me.

Ironically, that’s not where this story ends – even though BiBoi is texting me now that he’s off work.

Nono. As my neighbor, CrazyTown, has ridden further and further off into the insanity sunset, I’ve become more and more interested in leaving my building before I become associated with a tragic headline.

This has manifested in my joking to the Silver Fox that I was going to just move into his condo across the park. Mostly, that threat was meant to spur him into recamping to Portland from his ex-wife’s country estate. I get that being decamped there provides him with stimulation – not that kind – that he doesn’t get from life in the city: a free range dog, gardening, ok…farming, hot tubbing under the stars, non-tent-dwelling neighbors, no neighbors. Things the city life can’t offer.

Still, he has a two-decade long history with every older person’s most significant of others: doctors. If not for them, I might never have seen him after his pandemic escape. And his condo just sits there. Empty, aside from the every-other month-ness of his doctor appointments or even rarer relatives coming through town and crashing there for a night or two.

His counteroffer to my idea of establishing squatters rights? Use his Fox Network of relationships, both established and newly formed in pursuit of a friend’s in-need-ness, to find me a place in his building that is not…his.

Understandable.

The not-yet-exhausted option he’s sourced?

Yup…unit 50-fucking-5.

Because, of course it should all culminate there for me. If it happens, I don’t see myself getting out of it alive. It’s too neatly wrapped up.

Not that it comes with an executioner, by any means. But, don’t be surprised if it did!

No, I just mean that with the familiarity I have with his neighbors after running into them in elevators and hallways and (unescorted by a building resident) on the rooftop deck and on sidewalks and bars over the past couple decades, it would feel like home.

For as long as I myself, alone (of course) shall live.

There’s a certain fucked up I don’t know what-ness about the potential. We’ll see how the 505 saga ends…

505

Dispatch From the Peoples’ Republic of Portland

galby68, , , , , , 11 Comments

Did I put that apostrophe in the correct place? I wonder if I’ll change it – or more to the point, how many times I’ll change it – before I post this.

See? This was gonna be a quick post because I feel bad that I haven’t written in a while and here I am, letting my neurosis dither on and on for 200 words. <face palm>

Anyway, one of the things Portlanders do well – especially natives like me – is passive/aggressive behaviors. Case in point, my building has new plantings around its front entrance.

Olive trees, no less. RIP: Olive. Update: Olivier is doing well, although Myrtle is munching his leaves like she’s part goat.

How is olive trees at my front door passive/aggressive? Well, you have to pull back the curtain – or column, in this case – a bit to understand.

You see, those plantings were strictly passive/aggressive self-defense. Specifically, the plants take up a fairly private camping area for our randomly occurring houseless neighbors. The cute little bike sculptures attached to the bike rack ensure no one opts for the “close enough” next best option.

The inspo for this idea is becoming more and more popular in the urban core of the city. There’s at least a dozen that have popped up on or near the three to four blocks framing the park in front of my building.

Go another block or two away from the North Park Blocks and there’s even more. An art gallery on the corner of Broadway probably has the oldest – and most successful – crop of planters. They’ve been there for over two years and the plants are thriving on the busiest N/S street in downtown.

Go another block further across Broadway and you have businesses on the Transit Mall lining their sidewalks with planters to keep the tents away and the foot traffic customers coming.

It’s not always successful. The art gallery – what, it’s Portland…we have a lot of art shit around here, ok?!? – on the corner diagonally from me has some cheaper looking planters that have largely died off. Luckily, the weeds are thriving. The gay strip club on the other side of the block from the park lined its outdoor area with plastic fig trees in 55-gallon drums, as if they’re campaigning to prove not all gays have taste.

Then there’s the corner of my cross street –

– at least they’re keeping the big tents away? The other side of this street is an empty storefront and there’s a solid row of tents from the corner to a driveway halfway into the block.

While it’s all a pretty flower icing on a crap cake type of a situation, I’m glad that this is how our civic displeasure manifests over this situation versus anything more aggressive and less passive in nature. Oooh, foreshadowing!

But it’s not for lack of “trying”.

One of our old money family scions has loads of empty real estate holdings downtown. His first attempt to keep people from lining Broadway with tents in front of one of his empty buildings was to install bike racks.

A very Portland solution. Except it was twenty-six bike racks. Even if that building was leased at some point, there are likely not going to be enough bike commuters stationed there to create anything close to a reasonable bike-to-rack ratio.

Plus, he hadn’t checked permitting, so our local weekly rag did it for him. Willamette Week has taken down our current governor’s predecessor, at least one state senator – anyone remember the Bob Packwood skit on SNL? – our first gay – and shockingly couldn’t keep it in his pants or ID his paramours – mayor, local congresspeople and god knows who I’m forgetting; so this bike rack thing was just them passing the time between scandals or the upcoming midterm elections. Oooh, more foreshadowing!

Undeterred, our scion switched gears and leased some of his empty downtown office space to a city council candidate – that’s who I left out of WW’s hit list! – for $250/month. When they broke that story, the guy claimed he couldn’t rent it for market rate, which was probably true. Still, you don’t have to know commercial real estate to know that if you can’t rent a space with a $6800/month market value that your fallback isn’t $250/month.

I can’t believe they could put that press release out with a straight face.

Worst of all? It was a conservative candidate for city council. I’d say it simply isn’t done, but that’s kind of where the City’s dysfunction over the past 2-3 years has led us. Not that I’m opposed to more middle ground and less extremes of one side or the other.

Let’s do it.

But if you have to lie to do it, you can fuck right off. That’s both my hardline and my $.02.

And it’s not just at the city level of politics, either. Our Governor is term limited, so that job is up for grabs. It wasn’t, but now it is a literal tossup.

That’s thanks to a rural congressperson refusing to let the heir apparent just have the nomination – leaving the Democratic Party to run as an Independent against our lesbian Speaker of the House who we’d all thought was a like it or not shoe-in.

I gotta tell ya, she made me think about voting Independent this cycle, just because she’s been such a centrist Democrat her entire career – go figure, a Democrat from a timber family is centrist. The big surprise is that she wasn’t a Republican. But like I said earlier, I’m not opposed to more middle ground and frankly, at the local level, the far lefties have not gotten things done.

Anyway, that was all well and fine to consider…until the Republicants somehow managed to avoid nominating one of their usual milquetoast-perpetual-loser candidates like they normally do. Usually it’s like they are either not trying to take the top job in the state at all or they are strictly trying to please/fleece their base by running on crazy shit the red counties with more cattle than people care about, candidate be damned.

Well, not this time.

And it’s a perfect storm.

Because it’s not a normal election year. We’ve already got the opposing Democratic split vote candidates issue.

Then there’s the whole the Republicants didn’t run a non-starter candidate from their usual roster of losers. They ran a newcomer, who’s quite a firebrand. With only three years of experience holding public office – so there’s no record to run against.

And to make it all just perfectly awful…it’s another woman. Don’t be surprised if our ballot drop box is only located on Themyscira.

Go ahead and Google that. I’ll wait, non-nerds.

Yup. It’s a three-way, all-female race for the governorship between a lesbian, a septuagenarian and a fair-haired Sarah Palin.

Hold onto your goddamn hats, people, because I can’t tell you what’s about to happen in the Peoples’ Republic of Portland. In a state where the GOP can’t get a job holding doors, one might be holding the top office for the first time in 40 years come January.

If that’s the case, I’m thinking the best thing we can expect – and, surprise…it’s not getting tents off the sidewalks – is the second coming of Portland’s “Dream of the 90s” heyday following the Ds retaking the governor’s manse. Because without our last round of Republican governors in the 80s, we wouldn’t have had the collective spirit or financial incubator that created the environment that made Portland such a unique place to be.

Plus, the tents will be gone. I don’t know how, but I’d put even odds on it being chartering a plane to fly any of them with Texas or Arizona IDs back to their home state.

Whatever the solution is, won’t it be great that we have so many cool sidewalk planters?!?

Dispatch From the Peoples’ Republic of Portland

Lucky Me?

galby68, , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Not to overthink the classics, but you’ve heard the old chestnut, “You make your own luck” or the not dissimilar “Luck is what you make it”.

Ok, well…could someone please explain what they fuck I’m doing?!?

Is it bad that I’m crowdsourcing that information? Check it out, though, and weigh in…because I can’t decide if the universe is flirty with me, sending me warning signs or possibly both.

It started with this:

Yes, I have an unread email from 2019…

Ok. Sure. Let’s make a Will. For all of you conspiracy theorists out there, this could be my own fault. I’d literally said “I guess I’d better make a Will” after I opened my parents’ gift from grandpa’s estate.

Not that I’ve got anyone to bequeath my plant collection to – but that’s another blog. Let the government have it. That’ll piss off plenty of folks…just letting the state have my shit. Not my family, of course. There’s perks to being the brokest bitch in my family. Well, outside Black Sheep Bro, that is. But anyone that knows me will tell you that self-referencing “bitch” comment was not figurative and that I’m sure as Hell not rewarding that history.

So, there’s that. I wrote it off to a not-incorrect coincidence and went on with my life.

Then things leveled up a bit.

I came downstairs last Saturday afternoon – thank you, good night sleep herb – and from well inside my lobby, could see bikes whizzing by on the street outside.

Racing bikes.

Racing the wrong way on my one-way street.

The street I was parked on the night before.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

All I’m thinking is that my car got towed. Then I’m incensed because shit goes on in my neighborhood all. the. time. So I know what to expect when something is happening..

This is out of the blue, though. Literally. I’d walked home from my around-the-corner bar the prior evening around 930 pm. Usually, when something of this magnitude is happening, I have – at worst – last ditch reminders…like they’re setting up booths and tents and johnnies-on-the-spot in the park the night before.

Nothing.

And this is the last ditch visual reminders. Before that, there’s No Parking signs posted on the trees lining the streets for weeks ahead of time. Plus flyers taped to the building doors so you can’t miss them.

This? This is gotten a flyer about a half dozen trips to the recycler ago. Ok, fine…it was a good month and a half back.

So, what was it?

They’re riding the wrong way on this street, too.

The Portland Criterion.

I don’t remember this happening in the six years I’ve lived in this building. Apparently, though, it used to happen all the time. Local legend has it that ol’ uniball (Lance Armstrong) used to ride it before he started winning Tours de France.

If you believe that kind of scuttlebutt.

Anyway, it’s a nine block course – if my mental mapping math is correct. A three block straightaway, up a block, back a block, up a block, over a block and down two to the start.

But did I mention that my car got towed?!?

(Un)Luckily, I’d run into the chattiest mailman ever on my way out. He was telling me that the parking situation was a real shitshow. He’d had to park a half dozen blocks away instead of right in front, as is his norm.

“Oh, all the bridge and tunnel folk?”, I asked, knowing full well he is one.

“Yeah! Well, that and all the cars they had to move off the route!” My ears perked up.

“Say what now?”

“Oh, yeah. They call it a ‘Courtesy Tow’, but it’s not doing me any courtesies!”

Ok, maybe my luck is on an upward swing. All I had to do was scour the neighborhood clicking my alarm remote until my lights flash.

Knowing my neighborhood, some crazy would flash me before my Angela did.

My car was right around the corner.

Luck: fully functioning.

I did whatever I’d needed to do that afternoon and then realized there was the neighborhood dysfunction to deal if I went home, and decided to kill some time.

Hello, app of Lost Boys.

It’s an indictment of my decaying subculture that a man my age, in my wavering physical condition can get laid with only a modest amount of effort on these loathsome asocial media apps. But there I was, finding a safe harbor to park my lil tug in to ride out the Criterion storm in my home port.

Fun!

I’m still offended.

It’s like I’m the gay equivalent of Groucho Marx.

Autocorrect changed “gay” to “fat” in the prior paragraph. Oy.

Nevertheless, I am heading home from my afternoon delight and my drinking buddy neighbor from the Silver Fox’s building asks if I wanna meet at the neighborhood joint for dinner.

Dinner. Tomato. Potato. VODKA.

This is also promising because somehow I conflated this with the Criterion being complete.

Good.

“WHOA!!!”

The car in the lane to my right’s bumper literally peeled off the car and flew right at me.

Interesting life choice for a car. Upon closer inspection, though, the car looked like it should have the theme from Sanford & Son emanating from it. Checking my bitchiness in an attitude of that-bumper-missed-me gratitude, I checked myself and admitted that this car was likely someone’s residence.

Oh, yeah, the bumper missed me. Mostly thanks to me not being where I was heading toward being once I saw it depart its logical location.

I pull past this “How is this street legal” moving violation and glance in the window.

Let me tell you, I’d just gotten laid in the first time in too long and my sunny disposition had nothing on this driver.

“So, great, she’s under the influence, too.”

I swear, this shit could only happen to me. A bumper leaves home a few feet ahead of me in a once-in-lifetime occurrence? Yeah, just me.

Nevertheless, I make it home without further whatthefuckness. Until I have to park, and then I realize the Criterion is not finished.

Go figure, my original towed-to parking spot on my “Street Closed” street is taken. Turning around, I pull across the intersection and part in a Loading Zone with 7 am – 7 pm restrictions Monday-Saturday.

It’s 650 pm on Saturday night.

“Fucking ticket me”, I say as I walk away.

Minutes later, when recounting the afternoon’s events to my buddy, I recall that this is exactly what had happened last time I gambled on that. But that was a pandemic ago…so who’s winning now!!?

The next morning, my tire was flat.

Here’s why there will never be a musical about my life: days like last Saturday. You couldn’t write a song about that day. There’s no rhythm to it. My fortunes that day were nothing if not psychotic.

By comparison, a couple Saturdays prior, I’d had breakfast with my parents, they’d cavalierly tossed out a check I with more zeroes than my dating history and they’d bought. Then I went home and watched movies and snoozed the rest of the day.

That’s plenty of Saturday for me.

Criterion Saturday? Do not need.

In other random “luck” housekeeping…

Yesterday – Payroll Monday, as I like to call it – turned out to be just Monday. No payroll. Too much other shit going on, so I decided to punt and process payroll today.

Payroll Monday? Nah, surprise, bitch…just MONDAY.

On the other hand, I got it done in 2.5 hours. This is something that appeared to be taking 16+ hours when I came on board, so there’s that.

Additionally, I arranged to have the local tire joint – who I have unpleasant history with – look at Angela’s tire today. I was betting it would be $100. The Silver Fox was telling me they did it for free whether you bought tires there or not. I just didn’t want to risk putting a can of Fix-a-Flat into the equation and then getting in the freeway to the Costco for the free repair I was entitled to after my tire purchase there.

Right?

Yes, ok!

So, here I am…still living haphazardly but thinking critically!

I’d called ahead and was told a patch was $20. Fine. Get it done.

I drop it off three minutes before they open this morning and hoof it home – cajoling Jessla into a coffee along the way…barely missing my “late” start time of 945.

At 1030, the call me – but I’m on a Teams call and can’t talk. Voicemail. When I get a chance to listen, it’s some guy you know is hot but totally selfish in bed and barely functional in life telling me they couldn’t find a problem.

I hold the phone away from my face and wonder aloud if they were looking at the wrong tire. I watched my onboard count down four pounds of lost pressure on my nine blocks up, eight blocks over trip to drop Angela off. So I call back and tell them to take another swing at it.

It took a few hours, but eventually I got a callback that said they were able to find the screw and patch the hole.

Huzzah.

At 415 I feed Myrtle her 15 minute overdue dinner. Well, half of it because I can tell she’s gonna eat like she’s never had a meal. I figure, I can manage that and feed her the rest after she’s had time to digest a bit.

We’re talking 1.5 ounces of wet food here…and she still threw it up before 430.

I tell my coworker over Teams that I’m fucking off to clean up cat puke and then go get my car. I know I’ll come in tomorrow to an arms length of cat rearing tips – none of which will be “Don’t adopt a cat three other people returned”, but still well-intentioned.

I hike up to the tire place and am told it’s complimentary. Just remember them when I need new tires.

Goddamnit, the Silver Fox was right!

For free…unlike the person they paid to tell me the wrong answer.

Mind you, writing this out, I know it’s all nonsense. I got towed, I got laid, I got a flat.

Whatever, right? Free range bumpers notwithstanding.

But here’s what I didn’t tell ya: I’m between waking up on Saturday and getting laid on Saturday? A lot more happened.

I wouldn’t have been leaving my house at all that day if I hadn’t woken up to this random text message “from my bank”.

“Here’s the one-time verification code you requested”…only, I hadn’t? But, also…I had.

Days before. It was an aborted attempt to link my main account to my car loan – since my car loan had revamped their app (for the better) but had t imported any sensitive data. Basically, I had to set it all up again – because what benefits them, fucks me. Natch.

Sadly, that all ended in tears for the poor bastard I made help me after three failed attempts to link my main account to their new and improved shit.

But did I get three verification codes or just two? Was this random text something their new-but-still-having-a-stroke system buried out after a few days of rest or a legit scam?

I call the bank. It’s noon on Saturday.

By 1215, I’m being told that my account has been closed – for my protection.

“So, basically, you’re telling me I have 45 minutes to get out of bed, shower, shampoo and shine and make it over to my branch to re-open an account before they close at 1 or I can be penniless til Monday?”

“We’re super sorry (inferred, they didn’t say that) but our grocery store branches are open until 3! You can try this one in Portland’s version of Alabama.”

I Google “my fucking credit union’s branches in grocery stores” and counter that asinine attempt of theirs at help with, “How about I just go to this store a mile from my house?”

So I do all of this and end up leaving the branch with a new account and new debit card. It’s 245. I’m dreading all the new debit card ordeals ahead of me.

DoorDash.

GoPuff.

Assorted bill pays I have set up to my debit card.

This is gonna be Billy Hell.

But they’ve assured me that my direct deposit is flagged to transfer. Me, being an adult, resist telling them that that is literally my job so I’m not worried or asking what they do with my money that has them giddy that the flow will be uninterrupted.

Fine. Maybe I’m a little bit of that conspiracy theorist I maligned earlier. But only for my own entertainment!

On my way out, I ask if my pending bank to bank transfers will flow through, since I suspect they are still incomplete. My “transfer to” bank shows the deposits are funded, my “transfer from” bank closed my account without bothering to ask.

“I don’t see anything pending, so everything is good!”

So chipper.

“You’re telling me you could see transfers initiated outside the credit union?”

“Yup. Everything looks good.”

It wasn’t.

I woke up today to an email saying my $3000 transfer (the max allowed) had been rejected because of insufficient funds.

“Or a closed account and idiot banker” I mumble to my phone. Whatever. It only cost me time – since my investment account doesn’t charge for returned transfers and my credit union seemed to at least know not to trifle with that after my Saturday ordeal.

And that’s why I wanted to fuck someone after leaving the bank on Saturday…I knew my own fucking was coming. At least it was gentle?

I swear, if I find out Pam Ewing dreamed this whole thing…well, that might actually explain a few things.

Lucky Me?

This Is My Life…

galby68, , , 5 Comments

I’m bellied up for a lil post-Thor: Love and Thunder beer at my usual watering hole. Just, y’know, minding my own amidst the flyby conversations that happen to me here.

The perk/curse of being a regular.

I’m not complaining – this time.

But that ancillary type of conversation has its hazards.

For instance, when I walked in, the bartender asked how I was doing.

Me: Oh, y’know. Holding steady.

Him: <looks confused>

Me: <waits>

Him: <laughs awkwardly>

Me: <purses lips…here we go>

Him: What?!? You are not. <laughs again>

Me: What do you think I said?

Him: You’re not old!

Me: I said, “Holding steady”, not old and steady!

Him: <laughs raucously and minces off>

Hey, at least he didn’t question my sure-footedness.

But with that…we were off to the races. Before I even finished my first beer

Still working on #1, and yes…that’s Him in the background. 🤭

…we’d had another incident.

He has a habit of nattering incessantly verbally processing while he works. He was making a drink for someone and telling himself that something was missing. After his second verbal prompt, I jumped in to help.

Me: What are you on about?

Him: It’s missing something and I can’t. quite. <looks at me> Bitters!

Me: Glad I could help.

Him: <cackles> Nono, it wasn’t…

Me: Just. Don’t.

To be fair, there is a cluster of six bottles of assorted bitters just on the other side of my beer. I’m still taking credit for the alley-oop, though.

Im convinced that this would not happen to anyone else!

This Is My Life…

Crappy Pride, Y’all!

galby68, , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

I could probably just end this post at the title without leaving any mystery as to how I feel about how little my subculture deserves a fucking parade. Far be it from me to be succinct, though. But I also don’t want to bore you with my feelings about standing outside at a parade some stupid American would happily make a massacre of with a bunch of people who pretend both that I’m visible and that they’re decent people for one day a year.

Also, far be it from me to show restraint, so let the fact that I’ve been kicking this post idea around for about a month be known. Give that a damn parade. Rest assured, that’s not proChristination, either. I have literally been trying to decide whether posting a Pride month entry needed to happen. It didn’t last year, thank you for noticing.

Plus, being the volunteer voice of treason for my subculture has gotten me nothing but disavowed by said subculture. Not that I was expecting anything other than a culture I could feel pride in from those jokers. Me and my unreasonable expectations.

But that’s all I have to say about that. I’m Gay Kulture’s voice of treason, not their Don damn Quixote.

So I’ll just leave you with a little story. The Silver Fox has already kind of heard this – and I hate to bore my number one reader – although he may have unremembered it, as he likes to say.

Someone recently asked me if I had big plans for Pride month. Not sure how deep they imagined my pockets or clear my calendar might be when they asked, but it sounded like in their imagination, I’d be off traipsing around the globe, careening from circuit party to circuit party in some sort of cum-drunk stupor all month.

Ok, that grossed me out. Me.

Happy to burst their bubble – but with the style and panache a straight ally expects of their GBF – I set her, um…straight.

Here’s what I said, basically. She was rightfully near death when I finished.

“I dunno. I’ve been thinking about getting a haircut.”

I could see her translating my sentence from straight to gay and imagining me with rainbow colors died into my ‘do.

She needs a lot of setting straight. Straight setting? I don’t know what the proper Queen’s English would deem proper English syntax there…

“But then, I dunno. I’m kind of invested in the length at this point.”

“It’s never been this long before, has it?”

“Nah. Could’ve never pulled it off when I was working professionally. But that’s not the point.”

I see her confusion and debate dragging her along a little longer or moving in for the big finish. Knowing how tragically short American attention spans are these days – especially when the topic is not themselves – I decide not to risk losing my momentum to the “Squirrel! Phenomenon”.

“Yeah, at this point the rejection I get from trying to date The Gays just isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be.”

She’s starting to slow down during our walk, like a 70s-era robot being defeated by an illogic loop.

“So I’m thinking maybe – I dunno – maybe I’ll just grow it out to Locks of Love length and then try to donate it, because I’m sure they’d look at it and tell me in no uncertain terms that cancer patients would rather be bald than sport this stringy nest I call a mane. That seems like a man imminently satisfying level of rejection.”

Dead. She died right there on the sidewalk, dutifully swearing to me that my admittedly neglected hair was gorgeous. These are the types of transparent lies people who love me trot out…and that’s why I love them. That and their last gasp is apparently supposed to be an ego-boost to their favorite (only) homo.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go check the weather app to make sure it’s still gonna pour rain on Sunday’s parade. I will culturally fucking appropriate a dance if I have to…

Crappy Pride, Y’all!

The Password is: CULTURE

galby68, , , , , , , 11 Comments

Celebrity Host: Yogurt.

Me: <blinks>

CH: Kombucha.

Me: <blink, blink>

CH: Live performances.

Me: THINGS I SEE FOR FREE!

CH: Oh! Wait, what? No. I’m sorry, we were looking for “culture”!

Me: Same, yo…but not on my budget! Someone else gonna need to pick up that tab.

CH: No parting gifts for you. Can someone get my agent on the phone!

Ok, my skinflintiness is situational. I’m choosing to be amused by the pattern. I’m also choosing to be grateful for the opportunity to see live performances again.

It had been too long before the pandemic started. Tack on two pandemic years to that too long and you’ve got a real risk of Xtopher returning to some devolved Appalachian form of human.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my problematic drinking made me luckier than most during the pandemic. Geez, that sounds like a line from a winning entry for a free stay at Betty Ford…

Tis true, though. My former old standby, the Big Legrowlski, hosted music during the pandemic.

Daily.

It was quite…the salvation.

No, I wasn’t there daily, thank you.

But a couple times a week. I’d go and sit in their three-sided tents outside and watch people perform through the 10 foot windows, doors open and speakers on the sidewalk.

Plus, fire pit. It was the mental health booster I needed during the lockdown. Sorry for anyone who thought “alcohol” was the correct answer there. Close second, but…no. And that’s despite the fact that many of these mental health boosts happened in 40 degree weather, oftentimes with rain running in under the tent wall and right under my feet.

So when I was working from home and heard one of the DJs from my local radio station – Kink.fm – say he was giving away tickets to a Saturday morning performance at the inaugural re-opening of their live music lounge…I was on that phone! Despite the fact that refreshments were being sponsored by Coors Light.

And I won!

And that’s why I was out of bed before noon a few Saturdays back.

Tom Odell, that is, not free Coors Light. (Sorry, dad!)

Seriously, having a chance to see live music for the first time in over two years…we’ll, I thought Indigo Girls playing at the Pioneer Courthouse Square would get me fixed up. But that show isn’t until June. And I’d have to buy my tickets. I still might. Or I’ll just go hangout on the sidewalk, since the venue is literally a brick plaza on a city block.

Proof Portlanders use umbrellas?

Legitimately seeing live music for free, though? Highly recommend. And as if free wasn’t an awesome enough incentive? The free libations included some Topo Chico hard seltzer options, so I had some. Partook of the two free drink maximum, did I.

Booze Bracelet!

Then there’s the reality that this venue holds less than 100 people. I tried to count seats, and I don’t think it has 70. It had 7 rows of seats. I chose to stand close to the bar in the back, since I was alone.

Free, boozy, intimate…well, I doubt I’ve ever experienced those three adjectives simultaneously before.

Plus, Tom Odell has a seriously distinctive and evocative singing voice. The first note off the piano made the hair on my eyes stand up and when he opened his mouth, tears started welling up on my forearms.

Wait. Something’s not right in that paragraph…here, don’t think too much about that. Look at these pics, instead.

Ok, his voice and fingers do all the heavy lifting. He doesn’t have to rely on visual distractions like dancing and pyrotechnics to give a killer experience. But it does make for a dozen pics that look almost exactly the same.

But just look how small the venue is!

Pre-show audience games

Best part – besides standing in a room with a few dozen strangers having an aurally stimulating experience? When I turned on the car, guess who was playing on the radio?

Right outside the station, no less. Quite a meta-moment, if you ask me.

This is all top of mind for me right meow since I just got home from a show with Little Buddy. I was her +1 for Freestyle Love Supreme this afternoon. Yay for married season ticket holders with busy spouses!

That’s right, I am spoiled and got to see a second live performance in less than a month for free! I wasn’t super into seeing the show, but I was super into a social fix with Little Buddy. It’s always too long between visits, but since she moved out to the Columbia River Gorge, it’s even further between visits.

Don’t get me wrong, she invites. I think I’ve taken her up on it twice, although one of those might have been prior to the full-time residency. But it’s home to some of the best wine in Oregon – and that’s saying things! – so it is somewhat problematic for this light weight…since it’s an hour away.

So on the second-nicest day of the year so far in Portland, I donned my dress-Chucks and went to the theater.

Hey, it was over 70 today…I almost wore shorts!

For a show I wasn’t jazzed to see – call it a variant of something every younger sibling knows too well, since this was co-created by Lin Manuel Miranda and (through some scheduling miracle) playing at the same time that Hamilton was in town – this was pretty damned entertaining.

The premise is that it’s all pretty much improvised based off of audience feedback, hence the “freestyle”. There’s also a lot of hip-hop vibe going on with that improv. There’s a beatbox guy, a couple MC folks, not in the Master of Ceremony vein, rather the MC rappers tack onto their stage names.

And then a bunch of middle-aged or better white women from the suburbs yelling out suggestions.

FWIW, my word was gonna be orgasm – but some of these Karens brought proof they’d had sex with them. Since I have a modicum of decency, I didn’t ejaculate yell out my contribution.

I think part of the fun for me was judging what people did yell out.

Two people yelled out answers that one of the MCs had used as an example. Friggin’ brainiacs, those two.

Several others yelled out variations of things like “singing” or “dancing” and I was all, “Really? We’re here to watch some hip-hop improv and your subject matter suggestions are ‘singing and dancing’?!?”

Mouths shut, husband’s wallets open, ladies. That’s all the contribution to the arts you need to worry about.

Makes me regret not yelling “Orgasm!” when they were taking suggestions on the “Something you can’t live without” theme. Seriously, someone yelled “Banana”…to be fair, I think it was the sibling of the STD that yelled out “Monkey” when the MCs were looking for verbs as a cue. But who can’t live without a banana?!?

Despite my audience members doing their best to prove they are barely more tolerable only being seen versus heard, I’m in the mood for more super spreader events live entertainment.

Given my aforementioned pandemic “live entertainment loophole”, I can only imagine how exciting these past few weekends were for others. I can overlook them not fully knowing how to audience appropriately.

And, damnit…now I’m in the mood! I may need to pick up a rush ticket or two over the coming month. Who knows, I might even troll Craigslist for an Indigo Girls ticket.

The Password is: CULTURE

The Homeless Guy With Game

galby68, , , , , , , 2 Comments

You gotta admire a down and out guy with moxie.

I was running into my building to feed Myrtle last night. In doing so, I passed one of the fire exits to my building. These are recessed doorways, making them a perfect opportunity for someone wanting to duck out of weather, shoot up or take a nap – hell, maybe all three, depending on the day.

I saw the bike-turned-upside-down gate and a pair of feet stretched out under it before I passed by, so I knew it was occupied. Turns out, there were two occupants of the tiny makeshift shelter. He looked like he was feeling no pain. The other occupant was sitting cross-legged with a jacket draped over her head, like Cousin It went as a coatrack for Halloween.

“You’re pretty fun to hang out with. Do you want a boyfriend?”

I mean, way to just casually toss that out there. A directness I can appreciate.

“No”, I hear in a tentative voice from under the coat,” I mean…I already have one.”

Ouch.

And what had they been doing – and for how long – that this guy knew he wanted to lock her down but didn’t know she was already taken?!?

I acknowledged he at least shot his shot as I fobbed into my front door. My trip home was a quick one, literally ran in to feed my cat, hit the can and then I was off again.

Passing back by the door, I saw the girl was still wearing her coat wrong and the guy’s head had lolled back and to the side a bit. He was apparently not done making his case.

“…I also speak Japanese and Farsi, but I can’t write in Japanese…”

Geez. How far down on your assets list are those tidbits? I’m assuming his “physical” attributes – those most exaggerated bragged about by dudes – were either previously known or had topped the list. Then again, based on where this conversation was taking place, we knew he skipped right over where he lived and what kind of car he drives.

Oh, Portland…

The Homeless Guy With Game

Still Mad: An Update

galby68, , , 8 Comments

In case you were wondering, Mother Nature is still pissed at us. Feel free to see what caused me to make that obvious statement originally before reading on – or not. All will be clear soon enough.

I woke the other morning – yes, I was up before noon! – to find these pics of my beloved Park Blocks/front yard from a local news anchor on my Twitter feed.

Another of our North Park Block’s hundred-plus year old trees had fallen overnight. As you can see, it more tipped over after its roots basically failed to hold it in the ground. I mean, we’ve had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks…but not that fucking much rain.

Minimal upside, I suppose, could be that the building it fell onto is slated for demolition to make way for a hotel that will take up the park-facing half of the city block that it sits on. As soon as the other building on that half of the block is removed from the Historic Register.

Yeah, that part is kinda fucked up.

I walked past the site this morning after checking Angela into the “spa” for her repairs. It doesn’t look better by light of day.

The clean up isn’t done, obviously, but I’m surprised the building wasn’t more damaged. I guess that’s a testament to the masonry workers of the…19th century?

I guess the actual bright side here is that no one was hurt. This being Portland, home to the third largest homeless population in the country – behind NYC and SF, if you can believe that…we should not be on a population based list with cities of their size – we have urban campers on virtually every block in the close-in downtown area. Not every side of every block, but you’d be hard pressed to find a block without tents on at least one side. Not to mention RVs parked along the city streets for weeks at a time before being forced to move to another street.

That being the case, I’m glad these poor souls living just to the left of where the tree landed on the building weren’t harmed in the incident. But you can be damn sure they had the living daylights scared out of them.

Mother Nature is mad. At us…and with good reason. But I see no reason that the least among us should pay the ultimate or any physical price for the damage the wealthiest and more conspicuously consuming among us create.

That poor tree, though. I’m so sad for the ongoing damage our Park Blocks are sustaining. Everyone go buy an electric car!

Still Mad: An Update