Weird Science

Wow! Did you miss me?!? It's like I got to Portland, and I was so busy talking to everybody all about my blog, that I forgot to write the stupid blog! But now, I'm back.

If the next few entries look or smell weird, it's because I'm writing them from Portland. It's different here. Portland is weird. I've come home to celebrate Christmas, but mostly to watch hilarious interactions between my mother's cats (the bulimic one versus the one with cacne, "cat acne"); to do a bunch of laundry for free; and to try to eat more than my brothers. It seems only natural that I blogtalk, for a hot minute, about Portland (though, who are we kidding, I live in Beaverton, which is a whole different ballgame. An altogether boring one).

A classic Portland bumper sticker says, "Keep Portland Weird." (This sticker may have originated in Austin TX, then P-town just changed the name of the city to suit our weird needs.) The slogan is meant to call attention to the fact that Portland is proudly, determinedly weird. Just a few examples: there is a velvet painting museum (I think there might actually be two velvet painting museums). Female strippers here get totally, totally naked. It rains all the time but you hardly ever see an umbrella. We've built a whole city for books. There is a forest in the middle of town. Etc, etc.

But what makes one place weirder than any other? One could argue that Moscow is weird. Is it not weird to live in a city that smells like a sewage treatment facility? A city that has cows with glass windows built into their stomachs? And a billboard outside a gun store that reads, "Your wife said it's okay, Buy a new gun today!"?

Still, I've compiled a list of events that have happened to me here in Portland in the past few days, and have never happened in Idaho.

*Hottest Bod in the USA. I met several friends out on Friday, where we drank fancy drinks, talked about online dating (good), online stalkers (bad), the inevitability that we will all accidentally bonk our future, hypothetical babies' heads on things based on our tendency to bonk our own heads on things (we decided they will turn out fine anyway), and of course, discussed who to vote for in the Hottest Bod in the World contest. This is something that happens when your friend is a public relations guru. JLG represents Bodman fragrance (we've all seen the "Hot bod!" commercials, right?), and she told us to tell the world--I was like, I'm bringing it to my blog, so don't worry, the world will know--to vote. Everyone, vote for Jordy! Not convinced, yet? Watch this video--and be warned, not totally SFW, since it features some awesome objectification of the male body. It is important to be an educated voter. But I think we can all agree that Jordy is the hottest bod.

*Singing Christmas Trees, and Progressive Political Carols. Notorious KMW suggested we go to a bar called the Slammer, because, as she said, "They kind of go all out with the Christmas decorations." She was not lying. I didn't get a photo, but it sort of looked like this, except a dive bar:

While we were there, guess who came in? Some progressive political carolers! They sang a song that went something like this (sung to the tune of "12 Days of Christmas"): "In the first year of Presidency, Obama promised me..." then, there were twelve things that included (I can't remember them all, but I think you'll get the gist): closing Gitmo, repealing the Patriot Act, reforming schools, no home foreclosures, and, instead of "a partridge in a pear tree," they sang, "open gays in the military." I said, "Toto, we're not in Idaho anymore."

Then, the owner of the bar gave the carolers twenty dollars, and the head caroler said, "Alright, now let's go to my Dad's!" And they were gone.

All that Christmas activism made me have to go the bathroom, where in the stall, right next to the toilet, I found a singing, gyrating Christmas tree! The song was an obvious one, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," though of course, in the bathroom I had to change the words to "Squattin' Around the Christmas Tree." There was a woman putting on makeup at the sink and I said, "It's weird that this tree is singing to me right now." She said, "Just be thankful you're not really messed up. I was in here last week, and that tree totally freaked me out." I was like, "Keep Portland Weird!"

*Inappropriate karaoke ballads. The progressive political carolers, and the singing Christmas tree in the toilet, got me in the mood to sing, too. So, we went to a karaoke bar where I decided that probably, in honor of Weird Portland, I ought to sing this song to a room full of strangers, with much love and deference paid to Wanya, Nathan, Shawn, and to Michael, above all others:

*POUTINE. Singing that totally seductive karoake ballad made me hungry, and KW said not to worry, that "the carts" were just down the street. I was like, "What are 'the carts'?" And she said, "You know, just a bunch of food carts." I was all, "No, I do not know. Where I live, there is only sometimes a single hot-dog cart that sometimes runs out of hot dogs before you can even place your order." So, we went to The Carts, which was, as she described, a whole wagon train of food carts, circled up, with Christmas lights all around the outside signaling "Come, Eat, Be Merry." So we did.

We ordered poutine from the Potato Champion. Do you know what poutine is? It's french fries, with cheese curds and gravy! It's apparently a French Canadien snack, and it is delicious. To the great dismay of my friends, I took some pictures of the cart, because I think it is the best idea ever that these little food villages are popping up late at night, for people who have gotten really hungry singing all FOUR parts of a Boys II Men song.



Do you notice that the Potato Champion is also the "Department of High Fives"? They were getting high fives right and left (literally, get it, left-handed and right-handed high-fives). I was like, "Weird. Portland is weird."

But synonyms for weird, according to thesaurus.com, include "awe-inspiring," "funky," "kinky," and "magical." Yes, yes, yes and yes.