Juxtapose: Good manners and tits

(Note:I wrote this post on Nov. 8th and forgot to actually publish it. Someone pointed out to me that I was slacking, so I figured I'd finish it, then post it.)

So, because of a string of random happenings I ended up at a strip club last night. I don't really like strip clubs, I've been maybe two other times. I even have a general rule about strip clubs (necessary in a place like Portland where they are more common than starbucks, no kidding). My general rule is I don't go, because in order to go to a strip club you have to be drunk,I can't get drunk enough to go to strip clubs because then I wouldn't be able to drive myself home, a convenient and honest excuse NOT TO GO TO STRIP CLUBS. Last night it didn't work. I went sober.

It wasn't fun, I ended up having to hang out alone (awkward AND irritating), but that's not what this post is about. It's about manners. As we got there I was re-introduced to two friends of a friend. They are both laid back, Asian girls and I get the impression they do a lot of drugs. But, they are both socially acceptable, they follow the normative behavior of the culture. The societal expectation that fit the re-introduction is the prescribed greeting, "It's nice to see you again." Follow that with a handshake or quick hug. Manners after all, are what allow us to know how to interact with one another and this is important. However, in the exchange of pleasantries, as we shook hands and said the correct phrases a naked chick was sliding up and down a pole approximately eight feet away. All her assets in full view, performing for the room, an obvious deviation from socially acceptable.

Strange.

Understand, I do get that the whole idea of a strip club is a bit outside the norm. Or at least is dubbed a socially acceptable way to indulge in a little voyeurism, but the polite interactions, in such a seedy setting was more than a little ironic and for me was the high point of the night.

No rockets red glaring, but some fun pink fountains

I’m pretty indifferent to fireworks.

What I do like however, is watching people watch them.


The Fourth of July has never ranked very high among my favorite holidays or reasons to get together. I always remember being disappointed in the events as they actually unfolded. Happily, this year (and really the last several) was quite the opposite. At a party where I knew only a few people, I had a good time, surrounded by close friends and relative strangers who also turned out to beautiful, kind, funny people, who are examples of my favorite Portland stereotypes. It’s wonderful when people are both classic examples of what you think they will be AND surprisingly different. A happy irony.

Of course, this probably says much more about myself, as the one assigning those stereotypes and making those categorizations. Once I decided (about a year in) that I didn’t care that I wasn’t cool enough to live/socialize in Portland, people crackled to life both the stereotypes and exceptions. Amazing how much bigger the world seems when you are not overly concerned that you are not the center of it.