beamed up

it is hot and sunny; i find myself 36 hours into an unseasonable cold, coughing up snot and acting narcoleptic. i have fallen asleep four times since actually waking this morning: twice at home (once on the sofa, once on the floor); twice on buses, all times deep enough to dream.
the eclipse was fucking incredible, wasn't it? it started on my drive home from work; i stopped for groceries and babbled excitedly to the cashier. ("my mom called to remind me" he said. "she knew i'd be awake.") i passed people standing in the middle of the street, watching. i did the same thing, in front of my silent and dark apartment building at 3 am, smiling at the absurd beauty of it all.
saturday s and i went to portland. we spent the day wandering hawthorne street, playing with toys, looking at antique crap. he bought a metal lunchbox with thermos ("i need this" he said reverently). i bought music. we drank margaritas as the sun blazed overhead. afterwards we got lost under one of the bridges and stumbled upon a severely snitzy restaurant, where we had raw oysters (him in a chewbacca t-shirt, me in some stupid thrift-store thing, both of us in jeans, looking frizzy and blissfully out of place). went downtown after it got dark, laughed at the prime real estate of the store selling wall-to-wall shit (ceramic frogs holding bouquets, chinsy windchimes, commemerative dolls and the like), drank from the relentless water fountains, took a photograph of the salmon going through the building. "i have a crush on portland" i said as we left. "yeah" he agreed. "i could definitely live here."
i daresay it has usurped my new orleans fixation... especially since i find myself fidgeting uncomfortably here as it hits 75 degrees... i am meant for a temperate clime.
but i do like seattle. i like it a hell of a lot, actually. i like meandering by myself at ungodly hours and always feeling safe. i like hearing the bells when the bridges are raised. i like the fog obliterating my view. i like knowing that this weekend, bumbershoot is a mere ten-minute walk from my lair, and i could see crowded house, the shins, and menomena in the space of six hours. and i very well may.