Rode the MAX all by my lonesome, and without looking like a total tourist, if I do say so myself. Caught up on some knitting, even! I love having someone else do the driving, leaving my hands free to do something worthwhile. And it's so green and, well, Portland, to use public transit. Always interesting people to sit by, I suppose. Overheard conversations in about seven different languages, the general vicininty of a really good crack dealer, a 'homeless argument' followed by a 'domestic argument' just short of a 'domestic disturbance,' the description of a guy to watch out for on the 42nd street crossover because these guys heard he 'shivved a girl this one time...' yeah. Makes me feel good to be a big-citier.
After some very successful (in my opinion, day after it's hard to tell) job hunting, I treated myself to a zoo afternoon. That's where I rode on the MAX. If you know your Portland Geography, I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the east in a suburb called Gresham, and the zoo is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the west, almost to Hillsboro. My secret MAX riding weapon is sunglasses. I can surreptitiously scope out fellow passengers, and in a pinch, pose as a blind person who's lost their dog or cane, and maybe people will decide not to mug me. I'm like an ice queen in sunglasses. Don't even bother smiling at me, street boy. I'm obviously not interested. I'm not too concerned about being harrassed (especially in mid-day traffic), but it never hurts to cover all your bases.
Saw some culinary students as the light rail zoomed past the school I'm going to, and they probably thought "look at the goofy grin on the ice princess in the sunglasses! What's her problem?" as I was not in uniform, and I don't really know anyone yet. I have to learn to keep my goofy grins to myself on the MAX. "Ice princess, ice princess, ice princess...."
So job hunting is going as well as can be expected in a city that posts roughly 500 jobs a day on craigslist, I'm getting along okay without a bike for now, I have a practical demo I'm going to for school on Saturday, I rode the light rail without getting molested or lost, my dear Myspace "Portland" group has instructed me on several bars in the general area with good old fashioned darts (I plan to get really good at darts while I'm here), I made some kickin' guacamole, I took pictures of wrestling Mayan Sun Bears at the zoo, my school uniform fits, and the Fred Meyer in Gresham has a Cinnabon (but at 1300 calories a pop, that's hardly something to be excited about).
In short, life is beginning to get good.
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