GOODBYE PDX, REALITY CHECK; or, HOW TO KEEP IT THAT WAY

it’s twenty-four hours since i should have met joel downtown for the coffee and breakfast he promised me when he left the trash pile party just before midnight on tuesday. unfortunately, although joel had told me four, he didn’t show up to the courier cafe until ten minutes after the hour (made clear in a text exchange that occurred after I’d already left for the airport), so I didn’t get a final dose of joel’s drugs before getting on my plane. also unfortunately, the free internet at the Barcelona airport requires users to input a phone number to which an access code can be texted to them, so who knows when this post will finally see its posting, and by that point, who knows how far our memory of portland will have faded. i’ll admit that i was sure the spell of the place would have been broken by the time we deplaned in philadelphia, but it ended up taking another eight hours for portland to finally give up and relinquish its hold. when I woke up at the end of the next leg of the trip, however, it was completely outside of portland’s influence -- even if i was still feeling the effects of another hypnotic, that one intentionally ingested at the beginning of the flight.

and even if I couldn’t meet joel for that final coffee, i did leave with a solid memento: a half porcelain, half metal crown, specially made for me by a friend to cap and close off the right rear molar of my lower jaw, the decay of which was no doubt aided by my indulgence in too many portland microroasts and microbrews. would any of the staff at any of the airport cafes understand "single origin" if i could manage it in spanish?

...i thought, and then i fell asleep again on top of my computer. and again as the plane to sevilla was taking off.

we took a cab from the airport into the city, but i had the opportunity to learn the necessary bus route as well when i went back to pick up the bag of mine that i'd left on the carousel. everything is more exciting in an unfamiliar language. until it's not. but we'd long since conquered that bastion of europeania in the states, so it was well past time to make a go at the real thing. and the real thing is checking our reality real quick. but check yourself, too, portland. this time it's not just for a weekend. and don't think you can charm us back again this year with that pretty face we all know will turn ugly again come october. of course we'll stay in touch, but the separation is better for all of us. and this time is for real. oh so real: so expect to hear from us about the alimony payments.