In the summer of 2008, I moved into a little apartment in Portland, Oregon’s Kenton district. It would be my first experience of living alone. The great thing about living alone is that you can use your free time to do whatever you want. I spent the majority of my free time watching baseball and soccer (live and on the internet), making cocktails, comparing Scotches, perusing Goodwill, reading comic books and manga and watching Japanese movies and anime. The downsides are there is often nobody to share your experiences with or offer alternative suggestions for things to do.
That autumn, I found at Goodwill a gold sequin dress that I, for whatever reason, thought would make a hilarious Halloween costume. For obvious reasons, I didn’t try it on until I got home. I had always been skinny, but as I tried to squeeze myself into the dress, it became obvious that I had gained some weight. If any man wonders why so many females struggle with body image issues, I highly recommend he try wearing women’s clothes. They are highly successful at highlighting non-conforming areas.
I realized my lifestyle had been both unhealthy and lethargic of late. My solution was to purchase a mountain bike from a pawn shop. Now, to those that are only aware of Portland by reputation, this might sound like the hip thing to do. After all, doesn’t everyone in Portland ride bikes everywhere? No, not actually, but they do talk about bicycles a lot. Regardless, this was a mountain bike, with thick tires and more gears than the Antikythera mechanism, which is as repulsive to a Portlander as a Casio keyboard to a classically-trained pianist. Riding one was an open invitation for a lecture on the superiority of the “fixie.” Riding one while wearing a cotton t-shirt, blue jeans and no helmet was enough to give a large percentage of the population a nervous meltdown.
I started getting up early on weekends and riding my bike west to St. Johns and traversing the trails in a park at the northwest corner called Pier Park. These trails were intertwined with a disc golf course, which was a game I had played with friends back in the late 90s when I had lived in Cedar Falls. It was fun- more fun than riding a bicycle, which is, quite frankly, boring as hell. Turns out all you do is push one foot down and then push the other foot down ad nauseam. It struck me that disc golf might make for a more entertaining exercise option. So when I found a guy selling discs out of a truck in the parking lot, I bought a couple.
I practiced throwing these discs in a baseball field next to the course and then played the first hole. There was a group waiting at hole two, and they informed me that I should join them because the course was too busy for me to be playing by myself. I meekly replied, “That’s okay,” and walked away back towards my bike as someone in the group laughed, “I think we scared him off!” I learned that the best way to play the course on weekends was to be done before noon. I also found a friend that often played the course with me, but on those occasions he picked me up in his car, even though he was an avid biker.
The logical place to ride a bike from Pier Park is Cathedral Park under the St. Johns Bridge. One weekend, I decided to stop at an uninviting bar I passed along the way cheesily named “Your Inn.” I felt that the lack of a bike rack gave promise that this would not be the typical Portland hipster bar. But upon entering, I discovered the bartender was a girl with jet black hair, arm sleeve tattoos, a black spaghetti-strap top, jean shorts and fishnet leggings- typically hipster. Since this was Portland, I figured she was probably a lesbian. But next, I discovered the strangest thing of all: here were only three beers on tap- Bud, Bud Light and Ninkasi Total Domination IPA. No joke. I didn’t know of anybody in Portland who would even consider two of those three options.
The regulars, I would learn, were retired boaters. Although there was a lot of flannel being worn, they were, for the most part, oblivious that Portland had been taken over by hipsters. They drank Budweiser (and Old Milwaukie,) but preferred it out of the can. They would ask me what an IPA was, but had no interest in trying it. They watched NASCAR on the two televisions strategically hung in the little place and tried their luck at the video lottery machine.
By law, every bar in Portland has to serve food. There are weirder laws, like the one where a vehicle has to stop for a pedestrian in an uncontrolled crosswalk (regardless of whether they’re actually wanting to cross), but I’ll not digress. This bar had a menu written on a chalkboard… and only the French fries were vegetarian.
I became a vegetarian before I knew there was a word for it. I didn’t know another vegetarian for years. Back then, in Iowa, vegetarianism was seen by the vast majority as an affront to their entire way of life. Therefore, I learned to be as discrete as possible about my personal food choices so as to not seem judgmental or disrespectful. I realized, for example, that when I was a guest at someone’s house, the only polite thing to do is to eat what you are served.
Then I moved to the west coast. In Portland, specifically, nearly everyone you meet either claims to be, used to be or wants to be a vegetarian, or worse, a vegan. Vegetarianism is the “in” thing to do. Consequently, when vegetarians go to a restaurant in Portland, they expect, nay demand that their diet be catered to. Portland vegetarians tend to be smug and sanctimonious. So while I was grateful that vegetarian meals were easy to find in Portland, I didn’t relate to the vegetarian clique.
Back at Your Inn, I asked the waitress if there was anything else to eat besides what was on the chalkboard. “Oh, yeah, we have all kinds of stuff back there.”
“Do you have anything vegetarian besides French fries?”
“Uh, I’m not sure, but I love experimenting with things. How about I invent something for you?”
“That’d be great, thanks!”
The waitress disappeared into a room behind the bar for about fifteen minutes, peeking out every so often to ask questions like, “Do you eat cheese?” Someone entered the bar, and the patrons explained that she’d be there to wait on them shortly.
This waitress would make me various random sandwiches on many weekends throughout the next six months. None of them were particularly great, but I really appreciated the gesture. Then one week, she wasn’t there. The gossip was she had been fired after an argument about her giving away too many free drinks. That was the last time I went to Your Inn.
I killed it as Liza Minnelli in the sequin dress on Halloween.
