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I have a tattoo of a magic eight ball. I have several tattoos actually, most of them representing places where I feel like I’ve made an impression on just as much as they made on me. This one is my favorite though, because my favorite person in the world was with me when I got it. My freshman year of college, I booked a plane ticket to Portland on a random weekend that Mac Demarco just happened to be playing there. Skye picked me up at baggage claim, and so much had changed. I had purple hair, and she had cut hers short and had a new boyfriend by her side. We were still so excited to be seeing one another though. We couldn’t stop talking about our lives and how much had changed since we had seen one another. We stayed up until three in the morning that first night watching our favorite episodes of Bojack Horesman, giggling like best friends. I had never had a best friend before Skye, and it was only after she moved that I realized just how close we were. It felt so good just to be next to someone and feel seen for the first time in a long time. The next morning, I was determined to see all of Skye’s favorite spots around Portland. My vans were ready for walking around the city. We stopped for breakfast at Mon Ami, a café in Vancouver. The shop sold crepes, which I believed to be the best I’d ever had until I actually went to France. Some restaurants hand out numbers or buzzers for the table, but this particular café gave out random objects as ticket markers. The table ahead of us got a toy dinosaur and the one behind us got a rubik’s cube. We sat down at the window table in front with a magic eight ball. We took the opportunity to predict our day. I insisted that Skye and her boyfriend ask it questions and Skye started with “will we have a good day today?” to which I actually laughed out loud. Of course, we were going to have a great day. I had just flown the 2,512 miles to visit my soul person. She tried again, “will I get to pet a bird today?” We all laughed, and I joked about how birds terrified me. I thought it was hilarious that she chose such a random question but was proud that it was a step up from her first. We finished our crepes and went to a community festival in the park. I watched this teenager swallow a sword, bought sunflowers from an old woman, and listened to speeches about local organizations. I look up from a row of fresh vegetables for sale to see this tropical rainbow of a bird. This strange man was almost dancing down the street with the largest parrot I had ever seen on his shoulder. Skye and I immediately looked at one another with our mouths open. The man walked right up to us and asked if we would like to hold ‘Phil’. I was jumping up and down, but still terrified of birds, so let Skye hold him first. We got to pet this bird, Phil, who was a beautiful red, yellow, and blue. I let the man place Phil on my wrist and held him out at arm’s length. I kept looking from the bird to Skye in disbelief. Phil flapped his wings and I let out a scream and returned him to his owner. The man seemed so happy that Phil made the two of us so excited. Later that evening we watched the sun set at the Portland Zoo listening to Mac Demarco while elephants sprayed water in the distance. This was the first trip I took on my own, and I knew that I would never stop this adventure. A few years later, Skye and I got matching tattoos on a spring break trip to Phoenix to see Grouplove and camp at the Grand Canyon. We always consult a magic eight ball before deciding which place to meet up next.