I walked about 6 and a half miles tonight

[olivermoss]

I didn't mean to walk that far. I was just exploring and realized I'd made it to the waterfront. I had an extremely Portlandy ramble. I got free clay! A local place has been putting out free clay each day since Corona hit, and if you drop off your piece on a Saturday they'll fire it for free. Since I roam at night, there is never clay left. But I got a clay baggie tonight! I don't know what to make, but I am excited to have clay.

I am not going to pull pics from my camera tonight, but hopefully tomorrow.

Comments

Portland

[oldtoadwoman]

That sounds so cool and exactly what I imagine about Portland. (I've been there once and I mainly just remember cursing the road system because I kept getting lost trying to find my friend's house.)

Re: Portland

[olivermoss]

Were you in the SW part of town? Most of Portland is a grid, but SW is a plate of spaghetti. On the Eastside we do have Ladd's Addition and a few things that screw up the grid. I had to go though Ladd's last night to get home. It's pretty and has random rose gardens with benches, but I never emerge from it where I mean to.

Re: Portland

[oldtoadwoman]

SE, I think? (It was over 15 years ago. Memory is fuzzy.) I also traveled to and from that Catholic garden/grotto thing and another day a German restaurant (that might have been in a southern suburb) after picking my friend up after work in a southern suburb. So... SW,SE,NE and back and forth and I got confused every single time.

I left my car at her place and took public transit downtown one day and got around fine.

Re: Portland

[olivermoss]

Oh, you had to deal with Sandy Boulevard, I bet. Sandy breaks the grid and creates terrible intersections, including some of our most dangerous ones. The intersection of Sandy and 39th is a creation of pure evil.

Re: Portland

[oldtoadwoman]

My friend who lives there was encouraging me to move to the area, but she was the only one I knew who lived there. Meanwhile, I had two different friends trying to talk me into moving to Chicago (as well as friends in Michigan driving-distance from the city).

So I was sort of trying Portland on. It was pretty. I have vague memories of Japanese gardens? I loved the big bookstore downtown. Got yelled at by a homeless man. (He was yelling at everyone; I didn't get singled out.) Decided I could get yelled at by homeless people in Chicago just as easily (and a friend there helped make the arrangements so I had an apartment waiting for me when I arrived).

I wonder how my life would have been different if I'd chosen differently. Ironically, I'm still in touch with the Portland friend (she sent me a care package of dried food and fancy face masks recently) and I've completely lost touch with the friends who originally talked me into moving to Chicago. But I've made a completely different set of friends here that I can't imagine life without, so it all worked out.

Re: Portland

[olivermoss]

I love Portland, but the homeless problem here has gotten much worse. I don't know if I made the right call moving here, but right now Portland/Oregon Local Area Knowledge is one of the things I am good at. I had plans to do projects around that but *waves vaguely at world right now*

Re: Portland

[oldtoadwoman]

I'm always struggling with the idea that my entire life I've never found "home". Like I have this strong sense that there should be a place that feels like home, but I've never lived anywhere that felt like it.

And yet our society/economy does not make it easy to pick up and move. Would I be happier in the Pacific Northwest? Or New England? Or the desert? Or somewhere else? I can't afford to move without a plan and these days (even pre-COVID) I can't even afford to take vacations to try a place out. And how do I get a job when "reason for leaving last position" is "I got bored and wanted to live somewhere else".

Re: Portland

[olivermoss]

Portland seemed like the obvious choice when I left the East Coast. It's hard to get a feel for where is good to move. Some places with a lot of geek culture don't see being a geek as a reason to hang because everyone is. Places will a lot of X can be bad to move to if you are into X, paradoxically. Portland changes fast. Pretty much everyone posting to our local sub about moving is using outdated info.

I'd probably be better off if I started over someplace else, but I love the forests and street art here.

Re: Portland

[oldtoadwoman]

Pretty much everyone posting to our local sub about moving is using outdated info.

Yeah, my friend who lives there was trying to tell me how great the economy and job market are there and I was googling and um... Before I could even say anything to her about it, she got back to me a week later apologizing profusely because she'd just been talking to some friends about it and they went, "You told her what?!" In her mind, things were just as rosy as they were when she moved to town thirty years ago (also she had family in the area to fall back on while getting her feet under her which is also a huge difference).

I'm fine in Chicago most of the time, but in the winter I always go through a bad spell of "WHY DO I LIVE HERE?!"

Re: Portland

[olivermoss]

A LOT of why I've stayed afloat here is that I got my toe in the real estate market here in 2001. Part of why living here sucks socially is that the job market and real estate market are so out of wack that moving every two years within the city isn't unusual. Can't build neighborhoods in a tornado.

I need to constantly remind myself that most people are in a radically different situation than me.

[sperrywink]

Have fun with the clay! Mold something from your walks- a cat or a funny thing?

[olivermoss]

I keep thinking about some sort of desk object to hold stuff or maybe a little pot for a plant.