Mr. Lyster And The Ephemeral City

In Olympia in 1997 everyone I knew was moving to Seattle, including my man Dan who upon college graduation announced he was gay. I had just finished a BA in theater so now I was just a bit overqualified for the housekeeping job I held at the Golden Gavel Motel. I started taking day trips on the Amtrak train to Portland to look for work. I knew no one there, but the city had the reputation of a working class town with lots of warehouses, factories and breweries, and had recently started building a light rail system and adopted a new slogan; “Portland, the city that works.” Would it work for me too? The optimistic slogan was painted on the side of every vehicle the city owned. It would be years later that I would find out for just whom it works, the stolen slogan from Chicago so promised. While walking through the park blocks I noticed a sign commanding, ‘Come work in Paradise’ with arrows pointing south. More signs led me to the Admissions Office at PSU, where the last sign offering...