home, sweet home

A new coworker of mine who tries to flirt with me even though she doesn't realize her body fat versus personality ratio* is too high for me to be attracted to her, asked me where in Portland I lived.
"Up in St. Johns."
"Oh... isn't that the ghetto?" she asked, a bit alarmed.
"I guess."

It's hard to answer this question because it's abrasive for a couple reasons. First of all, people have different qualifiers for ghettos and since I doubt most people who use the word ghetto for a neighborhood have dedicated extensive time into researching that neighborhood's poverty levels or crime statistics, I have to assume their judgment is based on hearsay or having seen graffiti and minorities in the area when they got lost there one time. I remember when I was living in Baltimore, both my parents thought I was living in the ghetto, not because they had gone door to door to discover the median income of the Waverly district was below the national average, but because they saw many more black people on the streets than in Lincoln Park, NJ.

Secondly, the fact that this coworker was shocked that I live in what she believes is a ghetto implies that I don't look "street" enough to handle living in the "ghetto." Understandably, the Northwest Airlines dress code strictly forbids me from wearing all the ice I frequently adorn, not to mention my Glock, but I assumed my "thug life" personality would shine in my every day speech, my way of checking in customers ("window or aisle, bee-atch?"), and my incessant origami folding. Do i have to drop an expletive-laced rap album with hooks featuring Pharrell on your cracker asses to prove I'm street? Believe me, if I have to, I will.

Anyway, I moved into my roommate Ross' condo in St. Johns over the summer and, I have to say, I've seen and lived in worse places. Yes, I know, I have a tendency towards martyrdom and want to always make it seem like I suffer with a stiff upper lip through trials that would kill the average man. If we both order soup at a restaurant, I will make the offhand comment that my soup is colder and less evenly seasoned than yours, but still forge on and eat it without nary a tear, so you can see how tough I am. I know, I'm a tool. So it's perfectly understandable if you think this is a trick and that I'm saying St. Johns is not so bad so that when you come to visit me, you'll be horrified by the gang rape and car fires in the streets and go back to your opulent, Rodeo Drive worlds and tell your tea time coterie that your friend Armin is nonplussed living in the ninth circle of hell.

At the same time though, St. Johns is not the prettiest neighborhood. I joke that the main employer of most residents in St Johns is Oregon Video Lottery. I've broken up a fight between toothless men in the street. In the public library, the vast majority of the patrons are not bibliophiles, but kids and old men checking Facebook for girls and I actually heard this lovely conversation paraphrased in there one day between two guys in stained beaters and large belt buckles:

"Yo, D, did I tell you I got shot?"
(jealous) "Really, where?"
"At Marie's party."
"Who did it?"
"I don't know. We just heard some shots and I got hit in the ass." (limps away)

The first time I rode the bus in my new 'hood, I was amazed by the crowd gathered at the stop. As I saw each possible bus go by, I realized I was the only one at the bus stop with the intention of actually riding a bus. For the rest, this was a club house, sort of a Peach Pit if they were the original cast of 90210, which they did not resemble at all. Two shaggy looking twenty somethings had found an abandoned milk crate of free Little Debbie Blueberry pies left on the street and were gorging themselves, the gobs of purple filling splattering on their beards and worn out cargo pants. Three other joined in the buffet; if nothing else, there's a sense of community in these parts. However, one woman with a droopy right eye was upset with one of the fellas at the feast; she turned to me, but without addressing anyone in particular, lamented, "He ain't sharing his cornbread." It's true, I concurred, hoping the damn bus would just get here already. One guy did indeed have a hunk of cornbread crumbling in his hand and did not offer her any. I guess she's not a fan of abandoned Little Debbie pies.

When I was younger, I fancied myself a bit of a nomad, a bohemian type--fringe, if you will--and these St Johns folks with their seeming lack of aspirations and simple desires, would have seemed cool to me. Maybe i'm getting snobby, or my privileged upbringing is truly showing now, but I'm getting a bit sick of it all, the loitering, the constant toping, the swearing, the smoking and gambling.

But, at the the same time, the rent is great, I have a roommate I don't detest, there's free pool and dollar happy hour PBRs at Slim's, free Wifi at Ladybug Coffee where the owner thinks my name is James and I've been too embarrassed to correct her.**

Sometimes I'll walk the four blocks from my place to the Willamette River to really enjoy my neighborhood. I sit on the docks if it's nice out, under the auspices of the great St. Johns Bridge, which reminds me of a giant green dragon crossing the river. The boats below are like remora feeding on its scraps and its head rests in the middle of downtown, its teeth made up of dive bars and coffee shops, while its tail circles the last pocket of wilderness left. That's a side of St. Johns even an uppity fat chick would love.

*I try to be politically correct with my blog, so I realize this might have ruffled some feathers, specifically, the feathers on fat people. Notice, I said the ratio was too high, not her weight. So for example, if her body fat was very high, but but her personality was like a Tina Fey and Sandra Dee from Grease mashed up, then maybe I'd be interested. Conversely, if her personality was significantly worse, but she had the looks to back it, then flirt away.

**If you don't correct someone the first time they say your name wrong, you never will because every subsequent time they call you that misnomer, you'll have a harder time pretending you just heard them wrong.

******

Letters

(in reference to an entry in which I did not pay a restaurant bill because I didn't have cash)
Adam writes: Has New Jersey figured out ATMs yet?

Yes, I understand I could have found an ATM while my friend was on the phone for twenty minutes. This is often known as the "Bathroom Quandary." You're waiting for something, say a friend picking you up, and you ask, "Do I have enough time to go to the bathroom?" You say, no, better wait. And you wait, and then ten minutes later say, "Dammit, I could definitely have gone to the bathroom already! But now I definitely don't have enough time." So you wait another ten minutes and now you're really pissed and have to go badly, so you pee behind an alley or something and your friend pulls up as you are walking out the alley zipping your fly. And unlike every other time you take a piss, you can't lie and say, "yes, i washed my hands" when you're walking out of an alley.

John Cocktoastin writes: I'm fine if you want to call yourself married to anyone. I just don't see why the government needs to be involved in it.

I have to agree that if marriage is a religious term with religious meaning, then it should have nothing to do with government. Here's a video worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY