A Morning Cup: Three Friends
Last night a girl, claiming to be 40 but looking closer to 25 and dressed in a doctor’s scrubs, calling herself Richard (long for Dick) and perpetuating the theory that she was androgynous or perhaps a hermaphrodite but simply defining herself as non-heterosexual, stopped us as we were making our late night migration towards our new temporary home. She implored us to listen to her stance against hate, or more precisely the Hate that the next door bar was supposedly directing against her and her coffee shop. It was all very interesting as far as random things to happen to you while walking down the street late at night, and right around the point she “bumped monkey skulls” with Olivia and expressed her happiness that “the monkeys of South Africa had been freed”, referring to the dissolving of Apartheid there, I was less perturbed by her eccentricity than I was ready to move along and find a comfortable bed.
But today, after trying out a few different coffee shops worth of WiFi and all of which leaving me without a place to plugin and recharge my batteries, I made my way back to that particular coffee shop. The attitude was a good deal calmer today as a guy with Iggy Pop-like skin dripping from his cheek bones served me up my large coffee in a beer mug. As my computer flashed on, freshly renewed at the sucking sensation of electricity it was pulling from the wall, I was greeted by various WiFi connections, including the wonderfully high speed one the shop itself owned, but also MetriFi, Portland’s citywide free WiFi. (Too bad I can’t seem to get it in our accomodations, though.)
A few coffees later and I’m too jittery to ride my bike, so I’ve retired back to the house to wait this one out. Beer might help.
Up Next: Not to forget Homelands