stories

"I just need $14.50," the woman said anxiously, "And I'll have enough for a room for the night. That's all, and I'm not lying! It's only so I have a place to sleep." I'd had a rare hour to spare before my next appointment in Portland's Pearl District and so I did my favorite thing: I drifted through the streets and watched.

The important dude sat opposite me in the limo, confident and just a tad patronizing, flanked by his PR handler and the most amazingly beautiful woman I'd ever met. He was the CEO of a big multinational and I was covering his company's new product line. His only available timeslot was the early-morning drive to the airfield, so here I was, scooted in next to his grownup son.

The train was delayed--they didn't say why--so Mary and I talked about lonely. "The thing is," she began, "as long as you don't know you're lonely, you're not. But once you realize it, you'll always be lonely." I blinked at her logic. "So if I just don't think I'm lonely, I'm not, but if I do, I can't be anything else?" She smiled. "Exactly. Once you find out you're lonely, it's a permanent condition. But you learn to like it..."

It's 1:15AM, I'm wide awake and, uncharacteristically, writing this on paper. It feels odd, blogging with a pen, but then it's been an odd day. I'm stranded in a downtown hotel for the night, thanks to an unexpected snowstorm.

She didn’t tell me her name and I didn’t give her mine. She’d walked up to the bench I was sitting on at Powells Bookstore, killing time until I met a friend for dinner, and she waited until I looked up. “Are those your books? Is it OK if I move them?” She was about 50, a well-dressed blonde with [...]