Background Notes

Dating without Novocaine

Portland, Oregon, is a long way from New York City.  The 20 year olds may go club-hopping, but most of the rest of us spend our time in coffee shops, bookstores, pubs, and hiking either in Forest Park (the largest city park in the country -- something like 8,000 acres of wilderness) or in the Columbia River Gorge.  Then there's the beach 90 minutes away, Mt. Hood an hour in the other direction... Well, you get the idea.  The labels on our spendy fashions say Gore-Tex, rather than the name of a designer.

Which isn't to say we don't love the Saks that came to town a few years ago.

The characters in my story, likewise, are less interested in sophistication than they are in trying out a new dessert shop.  I really don't know any sophisticated people (well, maybe one, but she's originally from Brazil, so she doesn't count).

Portland is just big enough to have the elements of a big city like a symphony, and still small enough that you feel like you're a part of it.  I love the place, and hope to set more stories here in the future.

Doing a Marilyn Monroe impression with my hiking skirt in
the Columbia River Gorge.

Photo by Bill Yeaton
Portland and Mt. Hood, seen from the International Rose
Test Garden.

Photo by Bill Yeaton
Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland's "living room".