SEATTLE, A LOVE-HATE THING
I wish I had the foresight to carry a camera so I didn't have to describe this. The photo would've been poigniant and artistic and said so much more. You might even have cried a little. sniff.
Picture it: a typical mid-level income Seattle home. Craftsman Bungalow with the regulation environmentally correct semi-brown lawn. Under a huge tree sits an old home espresso maker, (you know, the one that makes a cup at a time) all by itself except for a small computer printed sign that said "FREE".
I used to own one alot like it about 15 years ago. My roommate and I used it so much we eventually broke it and I got an ulcer from all the coffee. I drink tea now.
I've lived in this area all my life with the exception of 6 rather hellish months in San Diego. Another story for another time.
Here's another list to read. I like lists.
It's true you can't swing a cat here without knocking over someones nonfat-extra foamy-half-caff-with-two-Splendas latte.
Theres far too many holy shrines to camping masquerading as department stores ( R.E.I. , EDDIE BAUER..etc..)
If you read nothing else on my blog, HEED THESE WORDS, NO ONE SHOULD WEAR WOOL SOCKS WITH BIRKENSTOCK SANDALS. EVER.
There oughtta be a law.
Way too much khaki.
It doesn't rain all that much. We just say that to keep people from moving here. In fact right now its so fucking hot I am wishing our fridge had the freezer on the bottom so I could sit in it.
It also sadly doesn't snow much more than once every other year or so. Snow is a beautiful thing, so is watching the local news when it does snow here. One intrepid reporter
used the words "god forsaken wasteland." I honor your process, mister reporter. However I do believe the snow should be at least half an inch deep before actual wastelands can be announced. It's a laugh riot worth missing a day at work for.
I've noticed people that do move to Seattle from other cities tend to bitch alot about how polite and quiet people are here. You heard me, complaints about lack of rudeness. Ok, once again, process honored and all, and oh yes, bite my ass. Do you feel better now?
I used to work for a woman who moved here from the Bronx several years before. She would always talk about how much more "real" everything was there, the food was better, theater was better and how she actually missed people being rude and really loud every where you went...BLAHBLAHBLAH.
I asked her why she didn't take her son and move back there?
She replied the New York is no place to raise a child.
There you have it.
posted by AAM at 7:54 PM
2 Comments:
The image of the espresso machine is just perfect. An epitaph, or--what's the word? I want to say codicil, but I know that's not right, so I'll stick with epitaph--for the Seattle I fell in love with, the stereotypical Seattle, home of the twin vices of coffee and heroin, where the people, forced inside by rain, produced highly personal and idisyncratic works of art, music, theater, comics, works that offered a profound glimpse into the minds that spawned them, so individual, so much the product of their time and place, that they blew my little air-force-town, white trash mind, and the mere possession of them would lead to hours-long screaming matches with my dad about the course of my life.
The first time I went to Seattle by myself was on a rainy sunday when I was 16. Like any newly-minted driver, I was feeling my oats, and wanted to sally forth to Pike Place Market, home of that huge comic shop I'd briefly visited when I'd been there with my parents (who just wanted to see the guys throw the fish, then take the ferry to Bremerton and drive home). I wanted to get the "true" experience of this exotic place hinted at in the copies of the Rocket that would occasionally turn up at the Brass Ear. It took an hour to get up there at the Grem's top speed of 60, followed by another hour of making random turns up and down the unfamiliar streets until, quite by accident, I spotted the big red PIKE PLACE MARKET sign feebly shining through the fog. I wasn't there yet, though; first was an interminable wait at a traffic light, watching a strangely-dressed, slow-moving dwarf cross the street, limping on his malformed legs and staring through the windshield at me with a strangely predatory look.
Hey, you know what? You remember I said it was a rainy sunday?
Yeah, back then, Pike Place Market wasn't open on sundays.
By then, craving some sort of touchstone, I stopped to eat at a Burger King by the Market (now long-gone), where I sat in a corner booth, in mortal terror of the guy at the next table, who appeared to be arguing in tongues with a phantom antagonist, or perhaps with his own tongue, which at one point looked like it was trying to leap out of his mouth and escape before he could clamp his mouth shut again.
How can you not love a place like that?
*sigh* I wonder if someone gave the espresso maker a good home, so it can live up its raison d'etre of providing the waterlogged and depressed Seattlites with Foamy Double Half-Caf Nonfat Caps while they work on their zine?
15/8/05 9:29 PM
Hey this is a great blog post in itself!
15/8/05 9:44 PM
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