I searched, yea, verily, hither and yon for another node into which I might pour reflections, wild speculation, and erroneous
drivel concerning last night's glamorous and scintillating party...but hark! there was nothing. Hence I present to you this sparkling new
node,
redolent with that "new node smell" (kinda like
bananas for some reason). Please add below as needed or inspired.
As my work day ground relentlessly onward yesterday I began to fret (as I am occasionally wont to do) that the horny e2 Portland conflagration would be (dare I blaspheme?) less exciting than my fevered imaginings had painted it in potentia.
Thank goodness I was utterly wrong.
The evening began (for my late (chronologically, not mortally) self, anyway) by meeting the throng outside the 24-hour church of Elvis in downtown Portland. After initial confusion that I was, perhaps, some sort of wandering street lunatic or even an owner/operator of said C of E, I was swept up in the milling crowd and shortly discovered that dinner plans were in the works.
A few moments of heated discussion later (during which, I might add, we blocked the entire sidewalk with a large, chatty ring of people) I headed back across the bridge with three noders in tow (in my car, actually, but they might have been in a little trailer or sidecar if it helps you sleep at night to imagine it that way). We arrived at Montage (I hope that's right), a cajun restaurant fairly bristling with ambiance.
Dinner was a fairly impressive event (what with 20-some of us seated at a loooooong single row of tables). The waiter managed to get my order correct, and I met sarahh, so I was hugely lucky on both counts there. In fact, through some bizarre, 6°-type strangeness, I discovered that not only did I attend the same college as sarahh's cousin, Ted, but I am fairly certain I actually met sarahh on at least one prior occasion. I shiver at the myriad of vectors of confluence which put both of us at the same event and even seated us next to each other. Eerie.
After a dinner of much rich and hearty food (which most people seemed pleased with, if slightly overmatched by) we convened in an adjacent parking lot (post-bill-settlement...as if we could casually sneak 20+ people out of a restaurant without paying...the very thought) and attempted to organize a convoy to the funhouse.
As anyone who's ever tried to organize a herd of cats knows, it's a task which begs certain things...like a bulldozer or a collection of nets. So too was the logistical exercise we called "going to ideath's house". After much deliberation, I took a collection of persons (more than the capacity of my car, but that's a matter we will speak of no more forever) to another adjacent parking lot (there was a lot of parking, OK? Get the hell off my back or I'll kick you in the throat.) and attempted to sort out who would be going with whom (well, with me, really, but I've always thought of myself as a "whom" sort of fellow).
After sending some of our travelling party away to walk to ideath's on foot (gasp of shocked horror) I drove back over the bridge to begin the process of retrieving cars.
prole was first, and she proved to be the most skilled vehicular tracker I have ever been tailed by. She clung to the rear bumper of my Saturn like a heat-seeking Patriot missile through some of the most irritating downtown driving I've ever seen. Why, I must ask, is it necessary to have a stop sign every sixteen feet? Are people really so out-of-control that they must be stopped that often to regulate their behavior? I ran a red light later in quiet protest.
Next out was flamingweasel jeeves (I think so I have been informed by more knowledgeable (not that it takes much) noders...I was, I'll confess, a little unsure of everyone's names at this point in the evening, and reading name tags in the dark, backwards in the rearview seemed a little too challenging) and Kenny chinchila.
This was, I would later realize, my first mistake.
As the two people who actually knew where we were going exited the car with promises to "get their car and meet up with us right here" I had a fleeting moment of worry which was, ultimately, completely justified.
With prole following, I drove in rather elaborate squares around the nearby city blocks waiting for the aforementioned pair to return with their car. When they finally rejoined us we made it almost two blocks before losing them in traffic. Though we tried valiantly to find them, they disappeared like a child's balloon in gale force winds.
JasonM's plan was to collect his car, then for us to follow him to ideath's. Seemed like a good plan at the time. I was so very very wrong.
In the ensuing hours which followed (OK, that's a little hyperbolic...it was only about 50 minutes) we saw more of the wilds of Portland than I ever knew (or cared) existed. Streets rose and fell, we laughed, we cried, we stopped to call for directions (which didn't help even one whit).
When we eventually gave up searching on the west side of the river, somewhere north of Civic Stadium and recrossed the river, I realized that, perhaps, it would have been a good idea to have gotten my own set of directions from ideath. Hindsight is a irritating bitch, to be certain.
At any rate, we eventually wended our way to the right neighborhood (after a dazzling U-turn in the middle of the street by JasonM) and found the house of ill repute with little trouble. Ideath's house, on the other hand, was a few minutes' walk away, and well worth the hike and travails on the west side.
For those noders who couldn't make it (coughloserscough) the funhouse is a gorgeous place indeed. Even packed to the gunwales with Everythingians it was clear that ideath and megan (her roommate) are in possession of a fine home.
The evening began with a rousing game of cat-poop eat poop you cat (a new one to me, but amusing and not a little bit endearing to see how lame everyone's (mine in particular) stick-figure art can be) followed by music-making, drinking tequila (last time for me...my body has reached its tequila event horizon), rummy, and eventually a movie of some kind involving cats (which I missed due to a need for sleep and returning to work on time).
I am so very glad I went.
Much as Ed Norton's character in Fight Club sleeps best after self-help group fakery and eventually, beating the snot out of other people, so too did I sleep like a babe and awake refreshed this morning as if from a long peaceful slumber. And I didn't even have to embrace anyone with bitch tits or pound anyone into hamburger. Yay!