a tranny and a mathematician walk into a...

I love the people I play board games with once a week. Mostly because they are the perfect embodiment of what Portland is about. The campaign "Keep Portland Weird" comes to mind.

Let's take an outsider's view to the group. Let's say you walk in to your closest Fred Meyer (grocery store) for your typical day of errands and saw this group playing board games, you would likely stop and stare for two reasons. The first would probably be on the grounds that not only are there people playing board games in the dining area of a grocery store, but they are the strangest group of people you've ever seen in one place at one time. The second thing that would halt you in your tracks would likely be that not only do the people all look completely different, despite their many differences they are having fun. A lot of fun - fun with yelling, laughing, and giving off a sense of complete comradeship. Except you're in Portland, so perhaps you wouldn't stop and stare because weird things happen all the time here.

So perhaps it's no surprise that on Wednesday night at any given time I can be found playing board games with a tranny named Becky who has more cleavage than I will ever have, a mathematician recovering from an alcohol addiction, a zealous dude who's hitchhiked across the country, a conservative banker, an overweight DDR champion, or numerous other individuals even more normal or zany than the rest. We are the unemployed, the employed, the stoned, the sober and the "weird" that help make Portland so amazing.

The greatest thing about this city and the thing that I love the most is that nothing is too wacky or too out there and you can literally be as weird as you want and nobody will stop to stare at you. You want to paint your body pink and run through downtown? Go for it. In fact people will probably assume you're doing it for some sort of breast cancer campaign and may even throw a few dollars your way. You want to sit on a street corner and play the national anthem on a kazoo? Be prepared to compete with the guy on the other corner with the same act. We have one of the largest parks and the smallest park in the world. This city is the perfect blend of books, food, music, art and people. Like a voodoo doughnut - there's something for everyone.