PORTLAND

I've had my leather jacket two years and worn it most days in three European countries. But when I put it on last night, it smelled of Portland, where I got it, at least third-hand but free, from Twi, who didn't like the way it fitted her anymore.

It smelled of watching the carousels at the airport failing to display my suitcase. Being driven through the spaghetti roads by Jeff, only five years older than me, and feeling at once grown up and young. Cringing at the idea of potato bread and spreading it with plastic cutlery. Boys five years younger offering us tickets to a dreadful-looking "movie". Watching bony girls in leotards on the ice rink at the mall and wishing we had money. Going "keweliez!" at everything in Hot Topic, but handing over 15% of my confusing green bills that had to last another seventeen days. Playing with slippery things with a life of their own and sharing a thought. Dodging the spray of the sprinklers in the park. Jeff falling asleep in every movie we watched.

Jeff trying to buy fancy food when we knew we'd live on junk. Twi chasing him through the aisles with a giant sausage and the pair of them rolling on the shiny floor. Finding people's pairing up strange and enviable. A conversation on the bus, which all dozen passengers became involved in. Gutter punks telling me they liked my day-old Sex Pistols shirt. Buying bubble mixture, sweets, plastic handcuffs and a book supposedly consisting of the diaries of real teens. Getting more books from the library than we could fit in our backpacks. Reading those I couldn't find in England, while Twi devoured my copy of "Goblet Of Fire". Watching movies we'd seen before, rather than those we hadn't. Laughing at David Bowie's leggings in "Labyrinth" and hating the illusion-spoiling "how this was done" part. Devouring Hostess cupcakes in front of "The Tenth Kingdom" and silly Cure videos.

Dancing on the mattress to "Dead Man's Party". Planning to co-write loads of silly stories and never doing so. Making a list of words and phrases ending in "less" including "pantsless" and "strong as at-less". Disturbing ourselves with the Harry Potter slash mailing list. Annoying self-righteous eleven-year-olds at The Young Writers' Club, by posting under a false name, with idiocy, over-sophisticated arguments, then wacky but well-written additions to their stories. The best ones got deleted.

Sitting on the pavement outside the Paris between midnight and four, bitching about everyone who looked normal. It was too hot to stay inside, although this didn't stop Shadow from wearing a cape. Rollerskates too. The music sucked anyway. We requested "Tainted Love"; it was played last and left off the setlist.

Smearing ourselves with half a bottle of sunscreen whenever we left the house. Wishing we lived in the cool old houses we walked past. Getting stuck in the tube slides in a playground. Counting the numbered streets on our way to the park and wishing we were allowed to feed the ducks. The guy who owned the hemp goods store asking us if we'd model the clothes for $5 an hour. Twi changed in the park's grim toilets and felt uncomfortable in pale colours. He ran out of film before he'd taken enough shots.

Invading Every Day Music and Goodwill, making fun of most of the products, going, "Actually, I kind of like this" over most, and invariably buying them. Staggering around in the first pair of high-heeled boots I'd owned, which cost a staggering $6. Dragging Twi away from the hair dye and ice cream sections that magnetised her every time we entered a supermarket. Going on about deth, angest and gotheekness a lot.

Twi's Mom's workplace. Grocery shopping, keeping an eye on the industrial guy with hair spiked six inches high. Twi's Mom's house: by no means cluttered, but the most dirty disgusting residence I'd seen, including what my parents' referred to as "the messy house" to hide the truth: that someone had been murdered there. The computer under the stairs: the other side of our meeting place.

Running across four-lane roads to beat the impatient traffic lights. Charging after a bus, and slowing on realising Twi's Mom wouldn't make it even if we did. Twi getting wolf-whistled in her corset and her Mom telling her it was evening wear. Visiting farmers' market and the Iranian festival, where Twi got a henna tattoo of a swan and her Mom bought types of food I'd never seen before.

Jeff constantly swearing at an online computer game and threatening to eat his cat. The carpet vanishing beneath Jeff's relatives' unwanted furniture. A man installing a trial cable package they couldn't afford but couldn't bring themselves to get rid of. Watching the same ten pants music videos over and over again on "Total Request Live", dissing Madonna's new lesbian image. Watching "Undressed" marathons, although we knew that in three episodes, each set of characters would resolve their conflicts, then disappear forever just before getting it on. Watching an unintentionally amusing meant-to-be-horrific no-budget film by a local director. Watching "The West Wing", feeling a bit lost, while Jeff and Twi discussed politics.

Telling everyone when I got home "I turned nineteen in a country where I couldn't drink" although I wouldn't have drunk even if I could. Twi and Jeff arguing in the car about the election that wouldn't happen for another three months. To celebrate, seeing a documentary about dolphins accompanied by sappy Sting songs at the I-Max. Twi and Jeff arguing with Jesse about money while taking him home. Twi buying me an ankh necklace, which, five months later, I put in a safe place after staying out all night and never found again. Twi and Jeff taking me to a mall with a waterfall where they got me a box of divine chocolates I could choose myself. Twi's mother buying me a purple tie-dyed shirt, which has lost most of its mirrors, but which everyone still loves.

Mum getting annoyed because I hadn't time to e-mail daily and she couldn't phone as we were always out or online. Walking through a furniture store and discussing Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten "testing out the beds" in one thousands of miles away, twenty five years earlier. Scoffing Dove chocolates and "caramel thingies" and trying to find Cadbury's Dairy Milk: we'd had some and it tasted so much better than it did in England. Asking the clerk in a run down convenience store, where I bought some supposedly-black-but-rather-blue nail polish, if he knew where a fabled British food store was. Him saying, "Oh, you mean the shop that sells gothic fetish stuff?" Going there anyway and wincing silently at the prices. Not daring to speak. Twi buying some overpriced stockings that would fall apart if you looked at them the wrong way, so we didn't look like time-wasters.

Walking up the numbered streets to find out when "The Virgin Suicides" was on and never going. Walking miles to watch "High Fidelity". Riding the buses with expired tickets. Riding the Max without tickets. Going to the zoo and leaving silly messages for a dead cub we'd never seen alongside others' heart-felt sentiments. Seeing a grand piano there and taking a photo of it. Wishing we could afford to go to Seattle. Getting a V. C. Andrews book out of the library as a joke.

Wearing the same clothes for several days. Having a medley of Kinks songs stuck in our heads, when neither of us had any of their CDs. (Her ex bought me one shortly after I got home.) Going to a diner just to put change into the broken jukebox to hear "You've Really Got Me". The assistant helped us, but it came on just as we had to leave. Boggling at the tags in Saks Fifth Avenue, reading out the prices in pounds. I never learnt to say "dollars", much less "bucks". Twi asking store clerks to reserve CDs she couldn't then afford, and failing to believe that I spent my last six dollars on a Sid and Nancy poster. Squealing on finding an online friend's barely-disguised fanfiction, published, on a bottom shelf in a corner of Powell's Books, filling us with hope for our own futures.

Twi's Mom refusing to buy her $8 kick-ass boots in Good Will. She got wings there, but they soon crumbled. Discovering Tiger had spent two weeks moulting over the black unworn coat I'd arrived in. Spending hours trying to get the fluff out and even longer trying to get my suitcase to shut. Seeing Rocky Horror at midnight. I'd not seen the film and was confused. One of the actors requesting girls that weren't virgins to join him on stage. Twi said we should go, but I held her back: a good thing, since they were wanted for a slut competition. The girl who pulled her trousers down won. Jeff stepping to the right and jumping to the left on stage. Going to a Klub Z, rechristened Closet X: a dark basement, where even though I was the only person on the dance floor, when I twirled in Twi's multi-layered skirt waving her wand, I kept hitting my head on the speakers above. A guy who looked like a preacher introducing himself to us all. Going to the trendy club upstairs to laugh and pretend to pole dance. Driving to an out-of-town café at six in the morning. Catching the plane two hours later, going for fifty five hours without sleep and hallucinating wildly.

I don't remember half as much about any other holiday.

Since I was there in one of Portland's two non-rainy months, it was too hot for me to wear the jacket most days. But even after dry-cleaning it, its fabric holds a whiff of sweetness, haze and decay.

(Photos of the interior of Twi's Mom's house, which looks much worse in the flesh, can be found here.)