sushi friday

on friday afternoons my co-worker and i order sushi from across the street. i was sitting at the bar today enjoying "sushi friday" when a customer walked in and announced to me and the bartender, "i'm visiting portland!" it's so funny when people are a totally obvious tourist with their little guidebook and khaki shorts, and yet tell you like you didn't already know. like someone with their bus pass in a lanyard around their neck telling you they don't have a car. or a little kid saying, "i'm a kid!"

he sat down next to me at the bar. "where you visiting from?" i asked with a mouth full of seaweed salad.

"boston."

"cool," chomp chomp chomp. "i've been there."

"i'm visiting my facebook friend," he said.

"oh yeah?"

"it's a weird story. i mean, i want to tell you but i'm worried you'll think i'm a weirdo."

"ha! i already think that," i said. "so you don't have to worry! ...just kidding?"

"ok. well. i met her because she saw me on tv, and wrote to me on facebook."

"oh yeah?" hard to talk a lot while you're eating. easier to ask open-ended questions and just listen, and then when the person's done talking you'll probably be done eating and can suggest they buy a lapdance.

"yeah. well i have this friend, you may have heard of her. the college professor from alabama who shot six colleagues, killing three of them?"

"i did. something about her not getting tenure?"

"something like that. anyway we've been friends for 20 years. i was on CNN talking about her, saying she was a loving amazing person for whom this was totally out of character. well annie, my new facebook friend, saw the story and was really moved that there was someone like me in the world who would stand by my good friend, even after they had committed such an atrocity. she wanted to get to know me."

"whoa. wow." (i wanted to ask, aren't you worried she only wants to be friends with you because she's planning out her own workplace massacre and wants to know she'll have someone who'll visit her in prison?)

"so we began a very deep facebook friendship and a year later, here i am visiting portland for a week!"

[very deep facebook friendship.]

"wow you never met her in person till now, and you're staying with her for a week?"

"oh i'm not staying with her. she's in AA and i'm a heavy drinker. i'm staying at the ___ hotel, down the street. it's really funny. annie hates strip clubs, she was telling me yesterday how there are more strip clubs here than anywhere else in the country, and how terrible it is. she said, 'why, there's even one right down the street from your hotel!' so of course, i had to come check it out."

i was done eating. "wow. that's some story! well, i guess you should really experience the club by getting a few lapdances."

"ok."

a little while later the club was dead again, except for this one guy who was playing the video poker. i saw him getting super stoked, and then cashing out at the bar. he'd won 500 dollars off of just ten. it's kind of hard sometimes to be nice to someone when they've just won a bunch of money and you want some of it, but at the same time act like you're not just being nice because they've just had a windfall. it's a fine line. i didn't get any of that guy's money.

slow slow slow, then a regular came in and saved the day right before i got off work, so that was nice.

and then i ate dinner and went to an art & performance thing that is part of the TBA (time-based art) festival here in portland. i was standing around with a few people, and this guy told a story about the time he and his boyfriend were laying in bed stoned, watching a movie and eating flaming hot cheetos. he got horny and his boyfriend started blowing him but after a little while his dick was ON FIRE. he had to wash his boner in cold water for 20 minutes. pretty sick. then this girl said how one time she masturbated after eating a burrito and didn't realize she had habanero hot sauce on her hands. another lengthy genital rinsing. and the other girl who was standing there told a story of having a bruise around her wrist from fisting someone who was not her girlfriend, and her girlfriend asked her, what's that bruise? and i guess she figured it out and they broke up. so i, being the fourth person standing around in a little crowd of 4, piped up and told them how one time i was at the movies after doing an outcall and i kept getting really strong whiffs of cum all through the movie till i finally realized there was a dried cumwad in my hair, dangling quite near my face. as soon as i said it, i wished i had thought of something else or just stayed quiet, because the wrist bruise girl looked so grossed out, and the other two people were awkwardly silent. oh well.