I know just how he feels. I’m pretty excited about Washington these days myself. Guess we all are. The night of the election, walking around Southeast Portland, I saw no fewer than three groups of twenty-somethings celebrating in the street in front of hipster bars while waving American flags. That is quite possibly the very first (and maybe the very last) display of un-ironic patriotism I have ever seen in this town.

At the corner of Hawthorne & 37th, in front of the Bagdad Theater, there were hundreds of people, yelling, whooping, and crossing back and forth in the crosswalk. They’d wait for the light to change, then all rush out into the street from both sides, jumping up and giving each other high-fives as they went. Seriously, hundreds of people. I told my co-workers about it later, and several of them said, “I was there!”

If you’re excited too and want to see more phallic, gun-totin’, flag-wavin’, God-bless-America, US fuckin’ MC pride, I got that shot and the ones below from here.

Every Monday I post photos of guys smiling. This time, it’s actually on Monday.

I stumbled on this guy’s photostream featuring polaroids — just simple portrait shots. They’re kind of charming. Sometimes the same person is featured both smiling and not. Most people are not. Smiling that is, which, somehow, is still appealing. Melancholy, surliness, introspection, vacancy, guardedness, pretense, silliness; they’re all qualities that make people watching — and people — so compelling.

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to go to Ikea and buy curtains. I guess it’s a nesting instinct. Winter’s coming; time to make my home a cosier place.

 Portland Ikea: Visible from space

So on a sunny day last week, wanting to get out of the house, I hopped on a bus and then a rush hour train out to the Cascades station, which exists only to serve a brand new, big box retail ghetto. There’s a Ross and Marshall’s and Staples and Sports Authority and, of course, an Ikea, which sits alone in its own sea of parking spaces. The doors of the train used to stay closed at this stop, and you’d look out the glass at vast, empty fields and wonder why we were even sitting here. Now, just two years later, there are streets and lights and banks and restaurants and an all-you-can-eat buffet of American binge consumerism.

And there I was, ready.

 Välkommen

 Träsh

Browsing through the example living rooms at Ikea, it at first seems like an affordable version of that most cruelly named modern furniture store, Design Within Reach. How exciting! Good, modern design actually within reach! But as everyone knows, a closer look reveals that virtually everything in the place is made of industrial glue held together with bits of sawdust. The stuff is cheap in every sense. And what I always forget to remember before I visit is that everything, but everything, is made in China. Basically, Ikea is just Walmart for city people.

Still, there I was, ready.

But first things first. I had actually planned, as part of this little four dollar vacation, to eat at the Ikea cafe. On previous visits with other people, I would look over at the wall of glass with the airport view and sigh longingly. I figured that this time, if nothing else, I could get, I dunno, tea or something. Actually, though, I didn’t have to pinch pennies. I ended up with a fresh veggie wrap in a whole-wheat tortilla with poppyseed dressing, and for desert, an almond cake. Both were relatively wholesome, filling, and enjoyable. Not bad for under five bucks. If I were a sales girl over at Dress Barn Woman, I would definitely walk here for lunch.

 Dinner

 The million dollar view from the Ikea Cafe

At the next table was a young rock hipster, all self-consciously cool, with furry mutton chops and a vintage suede bolero jacket. He was sitting with a much older couple who seemed quite conventional and very clearly Midwestern. I assumed they were his parents and that they would soon be footing the bill to decorate his apartment in a style to which he would like people to think he is accustomed. Later, I saw them all shopping. The son had a big bag bulging with goodies, and the parents walked passively behind him, side by side, saying nothing. I wondered what they thought. Did they get a vicarious thrill helping their son look cool? Or did they just philosophically accept more money down the drain?

Ultimately, I didn’t get any curtains; nothing was right. I just got a blanket (or is it a table cloth?) from the “As Is” section for three bucks. (Made in India.) And I got a box of imported Swedish cookies for one dollar. Clearly food is the best deal in the place; the lingonberry preserves ($3-ish, Sweden) are less than half the grocery store price. I made a mental note.

The trip wasn’t a total wash, though. I got a 2G XD memory card at Staples ($24, Japan). And at Ross, I walked away with a two pack of black Levi’s boxer briefs ($5, Dominican Republic) and a eight-piece placemat and napkin set, much needed, I assure you, and a steal at $7 (India).

(After writing about it just now, I feel the way I felt when I was actually shopping — kind of gross, like I’d just eaten fast food.)

 Ikea bike parking, 100% availability

It was dark when I left. The station was eerily quiet; the train, which was packed full of cell phone chatterboxes on the way there, was almost empty. All the way home, I stared at my sad reflection in the windows.

 Cascades Station

 Empty MAX

 Self-portrait

Back at the house, I knocked on my roommate Will’s door and asked him to give me a hand. With considerable effort, we slid open the dining room table and put in one of the leaves, transforming it from round to oblong. I placed the new placemats, neatened the centerpiece, and put the high back chair at the head of the table. Will and I both stood back and admired it for a while.

Growing up, all of our family meals were taken together at a dining table (and beginning, yes, with bowed heads and a prayer) — no eating alone in your room or over the sink or in front of the TV at our house. That place to sit and eat together has always been for me the hallmark of a healthy and stable home life. I had been wanting a real dining room table for a long time. Now, finally, here it was.

As with many households, the kitchen is the main communal space in our home where everyone inevitably crosses paths and, while chopping, frying, or chewing their food, has extended conversations. Yesterday, Joel and I were tossing back and forth our usual mildly sarcastic banter, when I asked to eat a slice of his bread. I was out, and his heavily-seeded, multi-grain, sprouted, all-natural, bio-diesel, carbon-offset health bomb smelled really delicious in the toaster.

I grabbed a slice, and when I went to close the bag there was no twistie to seal it. I asked if it was okay to just spin the opening and fold it over. “That’s what I do,” Joel said.

“Ah, the holistic solution,” I replied. “…or the homeopathic?”

“Hehe. I don’t know,” Joel mumbled. (He clearly didn’t care.)

“:…or,” I continued, pulling another vaguely similar word out of the air, “the heuristic?”

A little later, I saw Joel carefully spelling out “heuristic” on the dry erase board in the kitchen. I asked, “What’s that?

“Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s related to the other two. I don’t really know what it means.”

“Well, now it’s on the list to look up. Anything else you want to know about?”

I touched my chin in faux contemplation, which, as it turned out, was not so faux. I asked, “What’s the difference between ‘proto’ and ‘ur.?’”

“I think proto means first, like ‘prototype.’”

“I don’t think it does. I think it means, like, before. Like, prototype is the thing before the type, what comes before it is what it becomes.”

This was a challenge that could not go unmet. Joel went to his room and grabbed a dictionary.

He looked for “proto” first, but then ran into something else on the way.

“Prosy,” he read, “matter-of-fact, dull, commonplace.”

“Oh, like ‘prosaic,’” I said. “I like that word. I need to use it.”

Joel moved his finger on the page. “Prosaic! Lacking in imagination and spirit, straightforward, unimaginative,” he read.

“Ah, so basically the same.”

After a pause and some more searching, he continued, “Proto! … indicating the first or earliest or original.”

“Hmm” was my only reply. I didn’t like it that he was right.

He flipped some pages, then read, “Ur! Prefix. Original… prototypical… a combining form meaning ‘earliest, original,’ used in words denoting the primal stage of a historical or cultural entity or phenomenon.”

“So ‘ur’ is kind of the same as ‘proto,’” I said.

He was still busy flipping pages. Finally landing on his target, he read, “Heuristic! …constituting an educational method in which learning takes place through discoveries that result from investigations made by the student.”

“So,” I responded, “… this is kind of heuristic, what we’re doing now.”

“Yeah.”

“Sitting at home, reading the dictionary! It’s always a party around here!”

Joel looked up and, with a smirk, mustered his best ironic tone to highlight the genuine enthusiasm: “A dictionary party!”

It’s still Monday (somewhere). So here are some guys smiling.

Today on my lunch at work, I sat in the park and took pictures. I work every Sunday at Patagonia, which is in the Pearl District, a former warehouse district now redeveloped with Yuppy lofts. Very shiny.

Almost always, I first walk to Whole Foods to get a granola bar, then eat it while walking back towards work, leaving a trail of crumbs and seeds in my wake. In the hottest part of the summer, I would sit in Jamison Square, actually a new-ish park, which is catercorner from our block. I would lie on a bench and nap and then rise with the alarm on my cellphone.

 Jamison Square

The main attraction of that locale, however, was always the men. There’s a fountain that’s a popular place for kids to play, and they are often joined by their hunky shirtless dads. They would preen and strut and stretch and show off their muscle tone (and high sperm count) for the crowd of moms. I refer to the park as DILF Island.

 Tanner Creek

To get away from the throngs of screaming children, I sometimes walk two blocks further to Tanner Creek Park. It’s internationally notable for being an actual restored, functioning, one-block marsh in the middle of a city. Dogs are not allowed, and neither is playing in the “marsh.” So it is quiet and clean.

 Readers in Tanner Creek Park

 Double rainbow

Today, it was in the 80s. So beautiful. I took off my shoes and sat in the grass at Tanner Creek and snapped pictures. Shiny condos, a bride and groom, garage door, exaust vents. Whatever.