It's 80 degrees outside

posted by jeremy on March 29, 2005

& clear blue skies swaddle this gorgeous shlump of a city. I'm sitting at the local coffee shop where a John Waters doppelganger is playing a dusty old piano...

& as I sit here listening, sockless in dirty converses, quite unbathed, with my hangover and five day beard, cigarette dangling from lips, It strikes me that I'm truly growing into the spirit of this place. It's a comfortable murderous lusty 3rd world whore of a city.

Here, everything is strange... which means that nothing is. Do what you want but watch your shit: That's the agreement, the premise of this weird tropical anarchy. It doesnt work that well, but it still works... Or, at least, it makes things interesting.

I fought the hedonism of this place when I first moved here. Lazy fucking savages, I thought, dreaming of Portland's tight creative industrious beauty. But I eventually had to give in & when I did, once I just relaxed & learned to accept what this place is, the fun of it opened like a door.

Cocaine, whiskey, miniskirts & 5AM miracles. Small kindnesses, bizarre interesting interactions blind-siding you out of nowhere, parades, street parties, profane puppet shows, tourist puking in the streets. Getting kissed by a strange beautiful girl for absolutely no reason as little green lizards scurry underfoot. Fistfights, fellatio, frenetic bike rides thru the hectic Decatur traffic. Having a gun get pulled on you in the middle of night & nowhere & yet getting away & feeling quite OK about it all.

The list of things to hate & love here goes on & on & on & you have to pay attention, if you want to, literally, survive. My feelings about this decaying cesspool were ambivalent, but I've since decided: Fuck this place, I'm going to stay a little longer...