2001-03-14 || 4:32pm

|| portland ||

in portland. after arriving at a strange boy's chainlinked house at seven-thirty in the morning with absolutely no sleep since two nights before, after making the housemates believe we were supposed to show up that day, that is was okay to open the front door to the six of us, after yelling at the half of us who got to sleep in the van on the way up to stop yelling and playing the keyboards and laughing at my smelly feet (it was. the shoes.), after two and a half hours of trying to sleep on someone's hardwood floor and newspapers, after fighting over the shower, after worrying about the open bathroom window and the nice view of the outside which meant a nice view of the inside of me in the shower, after this o and m and i snuck out to explore. the three of us in hoodies and brown pants. walking fast down the sidewalks (parallel perpendicular letters and numbers and kids who should have been in school clogging up the corners with bicycles and tricycles and broken ice cream cones) from the heavy air stifling the six of us. putting harsh angles on our words and voices. making us criticize the show the night before and driving styles and restaurant etiquette and laughing too loud in the back of the van. we found a liquor store, bought grape soda and dr. pepper and fritos and powdery corn chips, and walked back. the three of us mostly silent, passing chips and pop back and forth, stopping in unison at stoplights and street corners. when one of us found neat things written in the sidewalk or on a wall, we'd point it out, stand in front of it and listen to the crunching of our chips.

there was brown grass. paper trash caught in chain link. middle-aged men drinking from paper-wrapped bottles in the park. blue mailboxes on every corner reminding me of the postcards i kept forgetting to send. flashing red lights at the intersections. stoplights strung up on wires, like metal pinatas. the stagnant feeling of a neighborhood at noon when most everyone is at work or school. the three of us walking in straight lines around and around the block containing the house we never wanted to get back to.

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