I'M BACK. And Pokemon Go.

Okay okay. I know it's been weeks since my last blog post. But I'm back and I'm going to be trying to make this a real habit from now on.

But anyway! I haven't been scratching my ass and doing nothing these past couple weeks. For real! I went to Portland for 8 days and since I've gotten back I've been in the process of moving my things because I'm going to be moving out of the house soon.

There's a lot of things I want to write about though, and truthfully, thinking about all the things that I want to write about makes me not want to write about them. Not because of anything bad really, but I want to make sure that I write about stuff in the best way possible and, well, you can't fail if you don't try, right? (Don't listen to that, kids. It's horrible life advice).

So I'll start right now with something that I've been doing lately that's been on my mind.

Have you guys been playing Pokemon Go?

It might be the Pokemon lover bias in me, but seriously guys, it's so freaking cool. It first came out when Nick and I were up in Portland, and honestly, we were going to skip it because we heard the app was crashing harder than Nick after 3 beers (inside joke that my boyfriend is really bad at holding his liquor).

But Nick had lent me his 3DS and a copy of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (which is a great game, by the way) to play on the plane and during downtime on the trip, so we were chatting about all the new and improved Pokemon features waiting for Nick's drink at Starbucks in Lake Oswego.

I guess the barista overheard because she asked us if we were playing Pokemon Go. Well, we got to chatting with her and though she did acknowledge that the app was super buggy, she was very excited to tell us that they found a bulbasaur in the backroom. The guy who found it (I'm assuming the manager) rushed over to show us a picture that he'd taken of it.

Now if you haven't been playing or seen the funny pictures of pokemon in really opportune places, I should probably explain that the game asks you for access to your camera, and if you allow it, you'll be able to see the pokemon through your camera and in your immediate area. Augmented reality!

It was that moment that Nick and I decided to get on Pokemon Go, just so that we can say things like "I FOUND SNORLAX AT COSTCO." Or something along those lines.

Let me just say right now that it was totally serendipitous that Pokemon Go came out while we were in Oregon because we walked so many places. I'm pretty sure we got at least a 5 level head start than we would have if we had started playing back home.

We also met or saw at least 30 other trainers while we were up there, just randomly walking around.

Like, we were at the Saturday market in Downtown Portland just minding our own poke-business. Just in that little area, we saw about 15 other people playing Pokemon Go as well. And as we passed these two other trainers, they happily let us know that there were two rhyhorn just up the path. That happened on multiple occasions in multiple different areas.

There's this park near Nick's place that's the epitome of a Poke-hangout. Like for real. There's always at least 15 people there at every time of day, just hanging out there. It helps that three things in that park are a PokeStop that always have lures on them. Just last night, Nick, his brother Dan, Dan's friend, and I went on a Pokemon journey to that park last night, and to the little downtown area nearby. I even completed my eeveelution collection out of it!

All goofiness aside though, let me just talk seriously about Pokemon Go and what it's actually doing for a second. In a matter of a few weeks, the whole world has been connected over one thing. In the short time that I've been playing, I've met and spoken to dozens and dozens of people. Even if many people's interactions with other trainers are short, it doesn't change the fact that we are still having these interactions. People are talking to other people that they would have never spoken to - if it wasn't for Pokemon Go. People are walking around their cities and getting to know them like they never got the chance to through PokeStops.

I say I'm lucky to be alive a lot, which is true, but I particularly mean it when I say I'm lucky to be alive, right now. Because right now could only be happening in this day and age, with the technology that's been built and that's accessible to us. Sure, the same could have been said 10 years ago with the Pokemon games on Gameboy and Nintendo DS, but those games were not being played in real time, with real people going on their own real pokemon adventures.

The hype will probably die down soon enough, but for now, I'm happy to be enjoying this new Pokemon world.

And here's some pictures of Nick with a rattata and a zubat.