Impressionable youth

By Jim

A hip guy--cool glasses, olive green Mao cap, "Factory farms are mean and nasty" T-shirt, plaid canvas shoes--is talking to another guy on the northbound No. 44 just out of Portland Community College. "I met an unbelievable girl," he says. "As it turns out, she dug me, too. I kept wondering when the other shoe would drop. Now she's moving across the country to work on a Ph.D. 'Nice to know you.' "

Hipster is a travelin' man: "Portland left such a strong impression on me I had to come back. I'd take it over New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Toronto, any of the other cities I've been through. I'm trying to contain my wanderlust right now. I've got friends living in Paris saying, 'I've got a couch if you want to come hang out.' Naw, no thanks, I'm headed to the hallowed halls of PSU."

Hipster tells the fellow traveler about "one of the most quality ventures I've come across"--a couple of people who made an indie film about their relationship. It cost them $100,000.

"The fact that two people put themselves a hundred thousand dollars in debt to do that?" Hipster says. "Amazing."

I guess if you have to choose between putting a hundred grand into a down payment on a house, or putting it into a DVD about how you met your girlfriend, the choice is clear.

The fellow traveler gets off the bus at the Hillsdale stop, and Hipster goes back to reading and sipping: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera in his left hand and a Starbucks in his right. Perfection.