While taking the dog-faced boyos for a walk this evening, I took a shortcut through the Grace Baptist Church parking lot, near our house. Just at the edge of the lot was a bright green condom. I have noticed used condoms in other church parking lots hereabouts. At least, I assume that they are used. I haven't made a detailed verification of this assumption.

Years ago, when I lived in a different part of town, I noticed the same phenomenon. I even wrote a bad short story about it. What is there in common between that past and this present, besides continued bad short story writing? My apartment back then and our house now are both near areas of prostitution. The apartment was on 18th and Couch in Northwest, and the prostitution-free zone that took effect in Old Town pushed the activity west and uphill, up to the corner of the convenience store across the street, in fact. Quite often I and my friends would sit in my window and watch the transacting. Also the drug deals. That convenience store was fired bombed early one morning, with plenty of acrid smoke filling my apartment. And one night the car of a drug dealer who lived in my building had a pipe bomb rolled under it, which blew up nicely, ripping a hole in the floor of the car and spraying glass everywhere. That was one reason I moved back to Southeast.

Our house now is near 82nd Avenue, long an area for working girls to work. Though I read recently that most prostitution in Portland goes on over the internets now, and so any prostitute one picks up on the street is likely to be among the most desperate and probably skankiest.

Skanky they may be, but they are savvy about where to park with their customers. Presumably late at night most church parking lots are not busy, so they must be a quiet and safe place to do business. At least this time I can't actually look out my window and see the activity. And no one is bombing anyone, that I know of. Not much to note, other than an early morning raid on a meth house last spring, the noise of which (copes on loudspeakers and tear gas being fired) woke me in bemusement.