Meetup.com

I 've taken the ultimate new-to-town step and looked for Meetup groups to join. This being Portland, the Meetup groups can be broken down into: spirituality, fitness, programming and drinking. There's a small-dog group, but it's The Portland Small Dog Group (and Wine Loving Fur-Parents).

I found a group to my liking, if not to Isabel's liking as I don't bring her. She would have preferred the Wine Drinking Fur-Parents. I have found my niche in PDX Crafternoon. Even sexier, it meets in my quadrant. My mother says that when people move to Portland they are assigned a quadrant. She also says after a while you don't get rained on. Anyway, North West is the quadrant she's assigned me to. It's not necessarily a perfect fit. The artsy riffraff is in South East

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Crafternoon is BYOC (bring your own craft ) and do it with the company of others It's kind of like sewing doll dresses watching TV with Leif, only none of the crafters seem to be upset that I'm not sitting completely still. The variety of crafts represented at Crafternoon is vast. For instance, the 50ish woman next to me is crocheting a beard for her 9 month old grandson. It will attach to a little hoody and be red like his father's beard. See? Even male babies have beards in Portland.

The big-haired, full-sleeved-tattooed woman on my right, is so close I could touch her tattoo. She is originally from Folsom, California. Yes, like the prison (I am fond of prison documentaries, something about how the incarcerated half lives). She is making a scrapbook on her Dell laptop, combining digital graphics and digital photos to make an album which she'll print out for her mother-in-law for Christmas. She is bitching heavily about her walk to work. I am thrilled. I mention I thought everyone in Portland was creepily exercise obsessed. She says, "Not everyone". The other crafters in the room all nod.


The woman across from me, at the table I helped unfold, moved to Portland last year from "K Town", Los Angeles' Korea Town. When I was looking at apartments in LA, those had the most afforable rent. She says she moved from K Town because she didn't feel safe. She's Korean. She is cutting blocks of wood with a set of knives, laid out as if for surgery. Her ultimate goal is screen printing (stamping pictures on cloth). She says she cuts herself regularly with the knives and has a huge trove of bandaids. So do I. She says the woman who taught her stamp making swore "art is pain". I am intrigued, but somewhat scared of this craft. 



The woman next to her is more safety conscious. She is playing with strips of paper to determine if there's anything kindergarteners can possibly do with them without scissors, She concludes there isn't and leaves early.



The woman hosting the event (It's in the community room of her condo. Her doorman makes me homesick for mine.) is from New Jersey. I imagine she spent her youth unhappy in a mall, not fitting in. She is making a friendship bracelet now. I forget to ask whom for. 


Inevitably, a woman here is cranking out jewelry.  Her necklace isn't far enough along that I can tell whether it's pretty, but I can determine her supplies are expensive.



I am using wood putty to fill in the battered limbs of an antique doll. This isn't my art. I just do it because I feel bad for the doll.

It's very nice here, just right. I know these are my people because I can instantly chat with them and get to work. There is no adjustment period, like there would be if I joined Brewing Buddhists or The C+ Plussers or any of the other Portland meet up groups. 

But I will not see these people again for another month, during which I'm on my own. Fortunately, I have a date tomorrow with a married sex offender.