Down-trodden weather this last week in Portland, and was hit with overcast and rain in Eugene over the weekend. It was great to see Russ and Zarah, though I felt the distance I've created between me and the place I went to college once. Ha.
We got a late start on Saturday, day of the fair but weren't late for the madness and festivities the network of forest in Veneta has to offer this time of the year. OCF was fun, though I cannot maintain that it was necessarily as bonkers as last year's, I still enjoyed myself immensely and the people-watching experience was quite phenomenal. I think it was the drum circle that started getting me into the vibe at first after watching people in weird interpretive deer outfits and stilts run around a crowd of peope, sniffing them and posing the threat of being caught in a butterfly net.
I saw a lot of people I never knew at the U of O, but could recognize their faces. Among these were the middle-aged white bald man with the handlebar mustache I used to always see surrounded by Japanese FOB girls at International Coffee Hour whenever Nick would drag me there. I even saw my old roommate Jon's girlfriend topless and getting her breasts painted as I walked by; a little boy with a balloon sword whipped an extremely tan guy in the junk who was wearing nothing but a mesh pouch over his junk; two kids walked by talking excitedly about a video game, so much so it nearly knocked me down and when the parade came by full of brass players and women dressed as goths and hippies and everywhere in between, there was a man dancing in the center of the parade dressed completely in a hockey goalie uniform, complete with the mask and the leg-guards... well, at that point I was just so very happy. But that wasn't even half of it. I encountered my old boss Gary from the organic chemistry lab working at the Odyssey Booth and carried on a long conversation with him, a big silly grin pasted across my face. After eating I found myself stuck in a whirlpool around the garbage center, tense hippies shouting at me to put different things in different places, which, in spite of my training through childhood to quickly differentiate trash into salvagable, recyclable, compostable, burnable, and actual garbage, I was rightly bewildered and pushed along by those behind me, terrified about what might happen if I accidentally recycled the compostable plate from which I had eaten.
It was a good day, wandered around the deceptively large fair with Shawna, Russ, Zarah, Paul and Shereen, and although the overcast sky was a little disappointing, we still had a good time.
I thought, and for good reason, that any notions that may arise of how weird I may be is completely drowned out by the weirdness of everyone around me. Country Fair is the place where you can be completely ridiculous and still be openly accepted.
Next morning, it was pouring down rain. While Shawna slept I scrambled to disassemble as much as I could in my room and pack it all out. We got brunch at a vegan/vegatarian restaurant that is actually good called Morning Glory with Russ and Zarah before hitting the nasty road back to Portland.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. Went to work today and put on a totally different face, the kind that no one thinks would love OCF. Even spoke differently, all diplomatic and such... business-speak.
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