A portrait of the Half&Half part Deux: The close

The market had crashed long before my supermarket got swept up in job termination. In late August of '09 I joined the rest of the unemployed Portlanders. For two months I lived in the lap of unemployed luxury, by scraping money from my $900 paycheck and my (extremely late) tax return. And what better place was there to go drown my sorrows at then the HALF. Where my losses were rewarded with free drinks, cheapened sandwiches, and hugs from the whole crew.

That Fall brought about the great Half n Half free show, in which former Half employees Sexy Jake and Davy Jones, performed with their band, "Poodle." The hipsters were gathered together outside the half and half in a beautiful, for once smugless, crowd. Mumford, Brian had his fingers clenched firmly in his ears, while Sonic Kayla sat next to me taking in the giant no wave sound reverberating from their guitars, while I puffed away at her Paul Mall lights.

Times were-a-gettin-harder in them last two months of '09. In between moving to felony flats and taking canvassing work, I continued to go to the Half and Half. After meeting Little R and Boy Wonder at a Bike Hospital show, we met up at Half and Half for our first friend date in which Little R. graciously bought me a sandwich, showed me the leaf tattoo on her ear, and Boy Wonder gave me a perfume cigarette.

On New Year's Eve, Alley Frey and I snuck free cups of refills in front of Brian's nose, and she pleaded with me not to move to California. Sayin that when one leaves, things change for the worse. I believed what she said, but speaking from that which is known as my cataclysmic brain stem, perhaps that is not such a sane statement to sign off to.

I continued to go, whenever time and money would allow. And come May, I discovered that the Half and Half would be closing at the end of the month. My sadness was coupled with acceptance. For I was in a position in which I would have to stay or go. And I didn't want to go, still wish not to for the most part, but the fact that Half and Half was closing eased my passionate feelings, just a little bit. For it was one less thing I would have to miss, should Portland ever be taken away from me. It was closing, it was ending. It would be gone forever. And it was sad, but yet, it was good.

Odd, peso/maso-chistic feelings aside, there was no time to waste. I planned a full days worth of Half and Half mourning, just a couple weeks before the official pulling of the plug.

I arrived at around ten in the morning and managed to locate my usual spot, back table next to the bathroom door. While keeping busy doing collage work, a few guests I had invited for the event showed up. Katiebug and Milo came to pay their respects to the place they had never been. Theo came for lunch and allowed me to eat off his table scraps. I gave the workers passionate hugs and said anything that was left to say that I had ever held back or would ever want to say.

On the Half and Half's last day there was a closing party I was invited to by Kombucha Tasha. Tonya unexpectedly invited me over for the night. And since its bros before espressos, I declined the offer. After all, I had said my goodbyes in my own way. And I wouldn't have wanted it in any other.

I can only hope that my words in these past two blog entries have been enough to symbolize and portray my deep feelings for this tiny little coffee creation. Lately I've not been one for dwelling on feelings for two long, but I will no doubt be returning to these posts to make many edits and editions. I feel all there is left to say, is that Portland has over 300 coffee shops. And whether we like it or not, there's always that one place that no matter where else we may choose to go, we find ourselves coming back to that same place that we didn't even know we were headed to. Half n Half, you were my first Portland coffee house. And to this, you will always be my last.
With that, I leave you with the rest of my photos.