Better than hallucination.

I got home from my twice-yearly gluttony with Il and went to bed right away. I was pretty tired. But I didn’t seem to sleep all that well and when I finally got up I wondered if I was just getting too old for the kind of excesses I’ve been used to. I cut down on the food and on the drinking, but maybe splitting a bottle of wine three ways and then having a dessert cocktail is too much now. All I had planned was to go to the gym and then crawl around in the attic today, but I didn’t get to any of that. I went back to bed and slept in until 1:20PM.

When I finally got up I figured out that I wasn’t hung over, I was just coming down with something. The difference was sort of like the difference of having a cold vs having the ‘flu. What felt bad wasn’t the same. Plus, I slept well most of the time and had weird dreams. The construction noises from next door were incorporated into a dream about an awning project over our driveway that my dad was overseeing. Later I was watching people innertubing down a ski slope and my co-worker convinced me to glissade down because there was a free soda machine at the bottom. The soda machine was Japanese, with Japanese Fanta in it. All very bizarre and amusing.

I spent most of the day just sitting around watching TV from the past week and finally saw Portlandia, the show all the California transplants think is so funny. It’s OK, but I didn’t find it that interesting. Things that annoy me about Portland were on the show annoying me. Hipsters, check. Hippies, check. And I hate when people complain about Portland drivers. The only time I drive slowly is when I don’t care, or when I’m purposely trying to fuck with some douchebag who is speeding on a city street. On the freeways I agree with the speeding. On the surface streets I think people need to go the speed limit. If you think the driving is bad then MOVE THE FUCK BACK TO CALIFORNIA where you can either drive 90 or drive 5 because of the awful fucking traffic jams.

I suppose I’m just too much a native Portlander. I remember meeting a friend’s wife a few years ago (ex-wife now) who as well as being loud and large, she wanted to me to know she was a belly dancer. “I AM A BELLY DANCER! DO YOU KNOW ANY BELLY DANCERS? I BET YOU DON’T KNOW ANY OTHER BELLY DANCERS!” Uh, I grew up in Portland. I know several. The friend went on to date several exotic dancers (strippers to you and me) because there are a lot of them here. No shortage of meth or narcissism and so you should be able to follow the cause and effect.