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These are my last few days in Portland. Next week, I'm going to go to Los Angeles for good and drown my sorrows in money. I've been sketching business plans in my head, plotting my future upward mobility. Money doesn't mean anything. I just have nothing better to do than accumulate it.

The night I arrived in Los Angeles, I saw a man killed on the Pacific Coast Highway. He was trying to cross the road when an old man from Malibu ran right over him. My brother and I were the only witnesses. We made a quick U-turn and stopped. From 100 yards away we could see that he was dead. His soul had already escaped his body. Death seems to be following me everywhere I go.

Half an hour earlier, we were on the beach. My brother told me about how he had frequent dreams about the ocean when he was eleven years old, and suddenly he heard screams in the distance. I never heard. We watched the waves crash, reflecting the blue glow of the parking-lot lights in the distance, waiting for the perfect time to depart. The time we picked set us up to be in just the right place to see that nameless man blasted across the highway as we were passing in the other direction. The images permeate my thoughts as I try to sleep. As if I didn't already have enough thoughts to keep me awake at night.

I saw my favorite Portland band last night at Produce Row Cafe, and along with them came some of my favorite Portland people. I almost wish I hadn't gone. It's been so long since I've seen so many of these people. Seeing them again is just a reminder of how much I'm going to miss everybody. In an earlier entry, I said that I would only want to give genuine goodbyes to two people, but that couldn't be more false. I'm going to miss everybody. There's no time left to be bitter.

In the years ahead, I'll have to remeber that I don't want to be stopped trying to cross a busy highway, but I don't want to be the one to do the stopping either.