The Pabst Blue Ribbon Neighborhoods of Portland, Oregon

All dreams seem to be about losing something you never had. That's why most of them are so scary.

You either thought you wanted something and what you wanted turns out to be something else, or what it turns into wasn't what you wanted in the first place.

Thank goodness there's a real city called Portland, Oregon, with so many different walkable neighborhoods, a place where it's still possible to not only open your front door and walk around the corner for a beer, but to be among people who believe themselves to be real while doing so.

People say hello to you in Portland, as if both of you are awake and, not only awake, but that both of you really exist. It's off to hear Portland compared to San Francisco, where people either no longer exist or, if they do exist fail to acknowledge your existence, and people who do so must be dreaming.

It's possible that should you decide to live in Portland you might wake up one morning with a tattoo just below your right ear, something discrete, connoting your existence. A blue butterfly, denoting empathy for an endangered species.