Again, walking around and admittedly am manic rn, but am astoundingly heartened by the changes in the neighborhood, before it used to kinda be at the border of “Felony Flats” and “inner suburbanites who watch COPS”, the types staying inside with bars on the windows, and and at first the last few years the new arrivals seemed to be people that would’ve lived in like Gresham 10 years ago but now it’s polished up enough for the shorter commute — y'know, like that but with even less tolerance for urban living – but suddenly oh no, the Portland I liked but was fading where I found it is just shifting this way

I repeatedly emphasize but cannot emphasize enough what a critical success (on the defense) the last decade was, all the bad stuff rearing up and gathering forces to nominate themselves for defeat, it was like one of those JRPG “seal the evil away for another generation” things (you know that’s how Chinese authors talked about bad emperors and dynastic succession, to not draw the displeasure of the current ones?)