PDXtreme!!

I usually like flying into Oregon because there are lots of clouds and everything looks wet and green. This time there were no clouds, no rain and the horizon looked like a blurry line of orange. It was hot and dry when I stepped off the plane. Even at 9 p.m. it was bright as midday and roughly 95 degrees. Strange.
My buddies Andy and Peter were there to pick me up at the airport. I'd left straight from work so I still was dressed up for the office, prompting them to ask "yo, what's with the tie?" or something to that effect. We got Frosties from Wendy's, went back to their apartment and played Streets of Rage and Guitar Hero, so nothing had really changed. I slept on the couch.
The next day I went to Powell's Books with my mom because I needed to buy a couple of novels for my summer class. Powell's is probably the best gigantic bookstore in the world, and I picked up a couple of zines as well as the required reading, because they have a great selection of them. Is there anywhere that even sells zines in Orange County?
So anyway, I was happy to be in Portland, at Powell's, buying great reading material. After paying, I turned around and who is in line behind me but CORIN TUCKER FROM SLEATER-KINNEY. I do not care much about celebrities -- since I've lived in Southern California, I've brushed shoulders with a number of famous people, and for a while I tried to keep a tally of who I'd met just in case anyone from Oregon asked me if I knew any movie stars, but I can't even remember who was on the list anymore. Except Coolio.
But Sleater-Kinney is basically my favorite band ever. I like a lot of bands, but their's is probably the only one that I would say changed my life, and I never got to see them live before they went on "indefinite hiatus."
So there's Corin Tucker right there paying for books and I would really like to ask her ten million questions, but she is just a normal person, really, and she's only trying to buy books, but thank goodness someone invented the concept of autographs, so that I'll at least have an excuse to say "hi" and then get out of her way, so I say to my mom "Do you have a pen I need a pen!" and she's digging through her purse and she can't find one and I am keeping my cool, because after all, an autograph isn't that big of a deal, but she can't find a pen and Corin's right there and Mom is saying "are you sure it's her how do you know it's her" and I feel a surge of adrenaline in my chest, which is just a little embarrassing (although I don't think anyone else can tell), and I say "Yes it's her, I can tell."
After she paid for her books, but before she was totally out of the purchasing area, I stepped up and asked if she was who she was (which, of course she was), and asked her to sign (in pencil) the course syllabus for my Experimental Course in Post-Colonial Literature, which was the most appropriate thing I had on hand. "I really like your band," I told her. And that was it. Whew!


(Note that she signed "s-k" along with her name, which gave me a tiny bit of hope that the band might eventually reunite.)

Mom and I went next door to Whole Foods after that to get lunch. The delicious pastries and fresh fruit alone would have been enough to put me in a blissful daze, but they were also playing the Beach Boys on the radio and I was carrying a bag full of wonderful books and I had just gotten one of the few autographs in the world that would mean anything to me, and there were interesting people with tattoos and green hair and strange suits all around me, and I felt that there could be no more perfect city than Portland.