29

There's no denying the fact that I am a very lucky man. I have been fortunate enough to find myself surrounded by the most incredible people and I can't express enough how grateful I am for all of them.

A week and a half ago, I celebrated my 29th birthday. I had not been looking forward to it as it would signal less than a year until my thirtys. However, a good group of friends can get you through such trying times and a great group of friends can help you forget that you were even bummed about getting older to begin with.

The weekend of festivities began Friday night at a jazz club in downtown Portland, Jimmy Maks, to watch my friend, Debra Arlyn, perform. The vibe at Jimmy Maks was certainly cool, even if the older female bartender was obviously lacking in any social nice-ities or customer service skills. Jimmy Maks, you would be wise to let this one go. I also didn't like the fact that if you didn't make reservations to get a seat, you were pretty much screwed as there was minimal standing room. For a venue that specializes in live music, how do you not have a decent area for patrons to stand and watch the show? They do have a back room with pool and TVs that is great for lounging, but with no view of the stage. In any case, I had good friends Gears, Tim, Nathaniel, Matt, Nikki, Clarissa, Dusty, and Marcie all join me for the show. My ex was also there with a friend of hers. The show was, as usual, amazing, though Debra was obviously fighting a cold or some other illness, as well as exhaustion from a long week of travel. Took in a few drinks, some tunes, and company from my friends. An enjoyable evening capped off with a trip to Life O' Riley for yet more drinks and a full-on view of a couple going to town on eachother (the girl was straddling the lucky bloke; Tim coments on the incident on his website at http://www.northwestnoise.com/articles/making-out-at-bars) and another girl that was flashing her breasts to distract her pool opponent (I was buzzed enough to believe the girl had a decent rack). As the lights went up in the small bar, it was time to call it a night, but the rest of the weekend awaited.

Saturday brought with it a "surprise" party planned by Nikki. While Nikki had every intent of making it truly a surprise by telling me that she was taking me out to dinner for my birthday, she neglected to let everyone else know it was a surprise, so in the days prior to the party, I had many friends tell me they were looking forward to seeing me Saturday night, or they were gonna to be a few minutes late, or so on. So the cat was out of the bag. I still didn't know where or who was to be there, so at least that remained a surprise. We met at the Manzana downtown and Nikki had managed to round up Cla, Gears, Marcus, Sara, Becky, Christy, Timmers, David, and the Johnsons (Ryan, Robin, and Matt). Of course, having Nikki put this all together meant the world to me as she had obviously spent a lot of time planning everything. The restaurant was decked out with balloons and party favors. She even had a cake brought out with a Chinese candle, which is more like a firecracker and quite frightening to try to blow out. After the restaurant we headed to Blitz, a cool little bar that I had not yet been to. There we were joined by Luketan, (Holla!) Kristi, and Lil' Willey (if any others joined us and I have forgotten, I apologize; there was a lot going on and I had been drinking). My friends made sure the drinks were flowing and both hands were always full, with an extra on the table next to me just to be safe. Thankfully the darts were plastic tipped, otherwise that's an accident waiting to happen.

While at Blitz, I met a 5th grade French teacher. Not sure how that works, but after all that drinking, I may have crossed some of the details. Maybe she was French or she taught French; I don't know. Now as she was talking to me, I gaze around the room and notice that no less than 10 of my friends are gawking at me. Yeah, that's not incredibly creepy. We talk for awhile, but with all the eyes on us, I'm uncomfortable and she obviously is as well. We say our goodbyes and as she leaves, a couple of my friends take her place to ask me what was going on with the situation. Ask they are asking their questions, one of the members of the girl's group is still sitting next to us, listening to my interogation. Needless to say, my friends are horrible wingmen/women and I don't think I will be talking to ladies while they are around. But an amusing story anyway.

After Blitz, it was off to Life O' Riley once again where luckily we managed to miss out on any couples straddling and making out, but sadly missed out on any flashed breasts. At this point, I don't remember much of that bar, though I do remember Audi Isaac joining us with some of his crew and the return of Kristi. However, after closing out that bar two nights in a row, Matt brought a group of us to a late night Jewish deli that was nothing less than "da bomb." The service was a little strange, but nice enough. Our server provided us with a toy elephant, giraffe, and My Little Pony to play with, which reverted all of us to our middle school years as we posed the toys in pornographic positions. But little maturity can be expected at 3am from a group of drunks, I suppose. While I can't remember the name of the deli, I can say that the pastrami was incredible. Easily the best late night eats I have ever had, surpassing even Old Mac at the Montage (though the vibe of the deli could never stand it's own against the all mighty Montage). The deli does have an interesting environment in that it is located in close proximity to one of Portland's gay clubs and has big windows for the exiting club patrons to display their "talents". It also happened to be Mardi Gras weekend, meaning we did manage to see many breasts, unfortunately none of them female. I also did manage to see one of the scariest transsexuals I had ever seen in my life as this "lady" was way too big and burly to ever legitimately pass as a lady. I must say though, no matter how conservative you are, the pastrami is by far worth the sideshow you have to watch.

That ends Saturday night and sadly for now, this post. I didn't even get to the Super Bowl the next day. I'll have to save that for another time as I'm at work and have already wrote way more than I anticipated writing today.