lmnop

His bushy white beard and cold-reddened nose make him look like Santa Claus, and this depresses me. No one wants to see Santa panhandling first thing in the morning. The front of his sign is facing away from me (people on buses don't give handouts) so I can only see the back. It says, simply, "Please?" I wonder how he decided which side to use.

We're going to the ocean this weekend, since I've never seen the Pacific. The Atlantic never held any mystery. It was always there, full of sharks and leading to Europe, Africa, and Greenland. The Pacific, on the other hand, left from mysterious sunny California, contained Hawaii, and was, you know, a pathway to the Orient. I always imagined lonely gulls reeling over craggy beaches when I imagined the Pacific. It seemed colder, mysterious, ultimately unknowable, and I've always wondered what it actually looks like. So maybe this weekend I'll finally get to see. It will be cold, but it will be worth it.

When you bring deep sea creatures up into the shallows, the change in pressure makes them explode. I think that's what Seattle was supposed to be for me, a place so outside what I knew that I would explode, mutate, become someone else. I haven't yet, except maybe I have. The thing I think I understand today is that I, like the Pacific coast, am unfathomable until I actually get there. I'm not here yet but I probably will be. These are the good old days.

The furthur adventures

Arrived at ToST tonight for 'Girls Drink Night' with Kathleen only to discover, to my astonishment, a bar getting ready to be full of speed daters. I grabbed a drink and sat down to see if everyone else was late, too. A few minutes later, my second (strong) round (on an empty stomach) was on the house. ('Here, I'll get this one. You look confused.' 'Well, yeah...wouldn't you be confused to show up to meet some friends for drinks and instead find yourself smack dab in some bizzare post-modern dating architecture? Especially when there was a cute guy that you were especially fond of already existing in your universe?' 'Oh yeah, good point...let me top that off with a little more Stoli.') A man seated himself at the table next to me and introduced himself as Caleb; 'since we'll be meeting soon anyway.' I figured this was my cue to leave ('sure you don't want to stay?' 'As tempting as it may be to meet all the eligible bachelors in Seattle in one fell swoop, I think I'll pass.')

I wobbled my way to the U-district and then onto my bus but decided to stop on the way home for a sandwich. ('How are you tonight?' 'Well, I'm already a couple cocktails ahead for the evening.' 'I'm jealous. What's it like out?' 'Cold.')

I was feeling self-righteous about this whole episode until I got home and checked the evite again...Girls Drink Night is tomorrow night instead. I am, uh, such a dumbass. Maybe I'll hand-wash my handwashables tonight as penance for being such a dumbass.