#like I don't want it to be hot don't get me wrong 85F and up can go fuck itself. something above 40 would be nice is all I'm saying

[v-iv-rusty]

room too cold but if I turn on the heater it's going to get so warm I'll feel sick. a dilemma

[aprillikesthings]

lol yet another nostalgia post, I never did have a tag for these

Summer used to be my favorite season in Portland because I was outside doing things constantly (especially group bicycle rides, the kind that were parties or had themes and started or ended at food carts and beer) and we had the windows open 24/7 so it was like living outside, we would just shut the blinds on whichever side of the house was getting full sun and that was enough to keep things comfy for all but like a week or so of the summer. You'd fall asleep to the sound of the breeze and the trains and cars going by and sometimes people walking outside and chatting to each other, and you'd wake up to birds and the sounds of the city.

(worth noting: due to the low-ish humidity around here it's perfectly comfortable up to 85f/30c if you're in the shade with a breeze/fan, and it often cools off to 60f/15c at night)

You'd go out for a walk just because it was nice out and everyone else would be outside, too; it seemed like. I would walk to the store and someone would be playing the banjo on their front porch and I would love the sound even though it made me feel like my neighborhood was a Portland stereotype (spoiler: it is. or was). I would pass by free piles and poke around and maybe find a book I'd been meaning to read. Or maybe a shirt in my size. A house down the street from me used to be full of Burners (aka people whose lives revolve around Burning Man) and someone in that house wore the exact same size I did and was constantly putting clothes in their free box that fit me and that I liked. They also used to have huge plywood things on their porch they were painting for that year's burn.

A house across the street from the former Burner house is for sale right now. Daci and I walked by on the way to Los Gorditos last weekend and I said, "guess the asking price," and they guessed right: nearly $700,000. (Hah, the asking price went DOWN 20k, that's a good sign.)

I wonder if I still have any of the clothes from that bin?

But now I'm always too tired to do anything outside or too worried about covid or it's too hot.

It's often just too hot. ;_;

Look: I hate air conditioning. I hate it. Don't get me wrong, I love walking into an air conditioned space when it's hot as balls, but I hate needing it. I hate feeling like the house is shut tight even in the summer. I hate the weird refrigerated air. I hate going outside and there's literally nobody outside and all you can hear is the whirr of dozens of air conditioners.

If I wanted to live that way I'd move back to the east coast, quite frankly.

We probably won't stay here. I keep saying that. So many of my friends from that era of my life have left anyway. But my family is here, so I don't know.

I look up other places to live in the Pacific Northwest, maybe further north? a little closer to the ocean?, and it's the same story, over and over. Every halfway decent smaller town* is already getting an influx of people from the larger cities and causing the same problems there: rising housing costs, wages that don't keep up, gentrification. People in those towns are pissed about it. And sure, some of their anger is tinged with a kind of localized xenophobia, but nobody likes watching their home turn into a different place over a handful of years.

Which is, ironically, why I think about leaving Portland.

But also: no place stays the same for long.

(*which is to say: not full of right-wing nutjobs. I have a lot of sympathy for folks brave enough to move to those places anyway, but as a polyamorous quad of queers, three of whom are trans, that's not something we want to do. Otherwise we'd all just live in bumfuck North Carolina, where Pan is from.)