Portland, parks, Powells and me....

We all have things about ourselves that annoy us, it's only human right.....things that we wish we could change.

As I want this to be a fairly short blog the one I'm going to focus on here is the one where I meet an interesting, cute guy who I'm interested in, who challenges me intellectually (not just in a shallow physical way) I act like a complete idiot...I mean so unlike predator Mel.  Two of my many ridiculous traits are 1. giggle and get nervous, mute and struggle to carry an intelligent conversation or 2. I'm just plain rude and criticise and challenge them with sarcastic overtones...just like a child in a playground, stealing some other kids toy just to get their attention. Quite embarrassing and cringey really. 

Afterwards I have flashbacks and am completely mortified but at the time I'm out of control, it's like I'm watching myself doing it and crying out nooooo stop in slow motion but it just keeps going like a runaway vehicle with no driver at the wheel.  Luckily this doesn't happen very often as I rarely meet men that are either intellectually challenging or really that funny (my kind of funny)....I think in the last year I could count three.

This doesn't mean I'm sexist ;)

So....back to Portland tourism....for now.

<-----one of the houses near Washington Park

Yesterday, the sun was out so after a bit of a sleep-in I headed up to Washington Park and checked out the rose(they actually do have a proper rose smell) and  the Japanese gardens at the top of the city.  You have to pay to visit the Japanese garden and it's nearly a tenner, but I really thought this was worth it, it was really beautiful and you could tell alot of work had gone into the whole place.I wandered around here on a another sunny Portland day and took lots of photos here and some of the incredibly huge houses near and in the park, damn these rich, lucky people and their choice bits of real estate.

I walked down Burnside Street from the park towards Powells bookstore, one of the largest bookstores I have ever been in and famous in Portland.  Here I was in time and lucky enough to attend an authors reading. Frank Meeink talked about his book, and his life in 'Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead'.  This guy's story was absolutely fascinating... and possibly the basis for the story behind the movie American History X.  There was so many questions I would have liked to have asked him regarding his time in one of the most notorious American neo-nazi skinhead gangs in Philadelphia.  This guy has lived through so much and I always find this incredibly intimidating and daunting, so my questions mostly and embarrassingly got stuck in my throat somewhere.  I have yet to read the book but will let you know how I rate it once I've finished it.

This will be my first non-fiction read since I graduated and the content of it isn't going to be happy and sunshiney and it might be emotionally charged and challenging, but I think it might be the right time to start learning about things, people and society again :) I can't escape in fiction and surrealism forever.