Bridge City Dating Service

I was browsing profiles on a website similar to OKCupid (but for Portland only) when I was instant-messaged by an Asian girl in her early twenties. Most of her pictures revealed really beautiful features, but with the rest of the face either severely contorted by silly expressions, or otherwise blocked from view. Intrigued, I agreed to eventually meet her for coffee, but at an unspecified time of her choosing in the near future.

On the way home from work a few nights later, I received a message on my iPhone to get to a certain place nearish to my work. The message was cryptic, and contained no further instructions. As I was trudging uphill along the southwest border of the Portland skyline route, the streets were packed with people walking around. I had foolishly forgotten that it was David P Thompson/Cascadian independence day.

Fireworks had started before I left work, but as I reached the summit, the cityscape was ablaze and the smell of sulphur was hanging heavily in the air. I began to walk across the nearest junction to a bridge intersection. Finally, I received my next instruction. The voice in my earbuds broke in, and told me to catch the southbound tram at a very specific time. I made my way across the SW 60th avenue bridge junction to the Columbia/Jefferson bridge intersection, and got eastbound down Columbia.

The voice in my earbuds was breaking in occasionally to give me further cryptic instructions, or to make strange comments (often very nearly making reference to the podcast I was currently listening to), but the voice was unmistakably that of an Asian young man.

Finally getting to about 20th avenue, the bridge was being whipped by a sturdy gale, and the pathway ahead was, if not dangerous, then stressful to tread. Thompson day decorations led several of us pedestrians to bump into one another, but I made it to the Willamette avenue/Columbia overstreet tram station with a few minutes to spare. Looking down, I could just barely make out the festivities at Waterfront park, and waved back to some people celebrating from the helipad atop the newly rebuilt KOIN tower.

The tram arrived exactly on time, and I made my way on board from the tail end. Instructions came in to make my way up the cars. The tram was a local from Sauvie to Sellwood, so I had only a hundred or so cars to pass between before reaching the front car. Dodging commuters and families returning home from downtown, the way was slow going until we reached the old South Watefront district. At last, as I was walking through the dozen or so sleeping cars, a young Asian woman appeared by my side and began whispering instructions to me, and always jogging just slightly ahead of me. She disappeared entirely as we raced up through the mercantile cars, most of which had shut their shops for the evening.

I entered one of the quadruple long club cars, and discovered it blackly-lit with fairly loud music playing. I walked up to where the girl I saw earlier had sat down, discovering a small group of Asian people hanging out. Immediately the man whose voice I recognized spoke up, and introduced me to his companions as and old friend, making really oddly inside jokes that only I would understand as he did so. Immediately I felt a camaraderie with this guy, though it was obvious that it was him I had been communicating with from the beginning. He introduced me with especial warmth to the girl whose features I recognized from the dating profile, his sister named [redacted], who I began chatting up at once.

Despite the fantastic oddness of the situation, it ended up a surprisingly good first date.

Rush Limbaugh

I was standing in a parking lot and Rush Limbaugh was talking to a couple of older women. I began circling him at a distance and making oink noises at him, though he didn't show that he noticed, if he did. Eventually I walked up to him and started talking about how much I hate Olbermann's bouncing Boss Limbaugh at CPAC logo, and asked him what he thought about it. He wasn't bothered, really. He started talking about people who hate him being feeble-minded and for some reason I felt compelled to admit (untruthfully) that I didn't truly hate him, but detest everything he stands for. He told me you couldn't really disagree with him without being homosexual.

An argument ensued where I demonstrated that I was actually a fair bit more masculine than he was, and he seemed to think that my inability to cook for myself was proof positive that he was right about my queerness. I took this surprisingly hard, given the ludicrous nature of the argument. For a time, I walked away from him again.

Feeling conciliatory for no good reason, I went back and he was sitting down at a table having a drink. I told him that for what it was worth, I had found talking to him interesting. He didn't feel the same way, but we started arguing at a much lower level, with some mutually acknowledged humor involved. Things were going pretty well until Jen walked up and gave him some seed bombs (little ceramic balls prettily wrapped in rough twine that was clearly a nice gift). He immediately made a pretty skillful lob into a nearby bin with this gift. I was enraged. I slapped him hard in the face twice, and he went to stand up. But with his girth and poor health, he needed a cane to stand up, and I promptly kicked it out from under him. He retrieved it somehow and stood up again. I took the cane away from him forcibly, and threw it well off to the side, but Beth walked over and picked it up. She was holding it a bit like she wanted to give it to him, but I indicated that I wouldn't be very happy if she did. She held it hesitantly with both hands.

Another argument took place, and this one was far more heated than the last. Limbaugh told me what a scumbag I was for doing this, and how it only proved his point about everything. I felt slightly embarrassed, because what he was saying was true in a way: my actions really did confirm how he felt about people like me. Thus, I punched him in the face. From then on he just kept looking down and muttering the same arguments, but I continued shoving him and slapping the back of his head, and otherwise teasing the fat bastard. There was quite a crowd around us by now, but it wasn't clear that they really supported what I was doing. Finally, I socked him really hard in the face and took his wallet away from him. In it, he had the usual stuff, and about 200$ cash. I took this, and pushed him down into his chair, and walked away.

It was only slightly more satisfying to beat him up than it was frustrating that he made me look like such an asshole.