Seattle at six fifteen

It's been awhile since I've updated you, Seattle, you shy devil - you masked seamstress of land and sea. Promises, Promises. And oh, what you produce.
Bragging rights for gooey-ducks? please.
how about this:
http://www.greenchairproject.com/

I'm sharing all your secrets.

With the TiVo on pause, my job search on pause, my night on pause, and my sister's cat sitting uncomfortably on me with his sharp-nailed paws I contemplate quite a few things currently. The first and foremost being when, where, and how am I going to secure a full time job that I can enjoy, feel challenged in and one that will provide me with sufficient financial and medical benefits. Secondly, I need a bathing suit. Thirdly, it is absolutely breath-taking outside right now. I went for a short jog along the Puget and though my pained knee is struggling to work itself out like a roadie after a couple too many, I enjoyed the sun and the sweat. And lastly, when, where, and how am I going to secure a full time job that I can enjoy, feel challenged in and one that will provide me with sufficient financial and medical benefits.
Briefly flitting across my funbrain, the side concerned with all things fun, I momentarily wished I had platinum blonde hair. Immediately following that thought was a feeling of excitement and anticipation at the idea. Then I decided I should stop trying to dye my hair because I get mad afterwards and it takes so long to grow it out. I think this illustrates perfectly my troubling decisions in everyday life. The immediate vs. the permanent and what either decision is worth in regards to its permanence or transience.
I feel right now that this current activity is no longer serving an immediate or a permanent need in any one persons particular life, including my own, and so I am stopping here to pick up at a later date. Perhaps it is time to read a few Fartkus.

Astrud Gilberto

Wonderful things in my life right now are as follows:
The kickin haircut I got today that is hot.
The cd I'm listening to by a really fantastic singer, Astrud Gilberto.
Phone call for an interview tomorrow.
Gorgeous day.
An email from friends.
Phone calls yesterday from my fave people.
That right now my phone sounded an alarm in accordance with my schedule to remind me to tell Sarah she has to bring ski socks tonite to the ski store for trying on boots, and because it does the T9 word-maker, it said "sarah ski rocks" because i couldn't make it say socks. why does rocks get priority over socks in T9? who decided that?
My sister just got home and I'm dying for her to see that I surprise cleaned her apartment and to see the surprise haircut. I think she'll like both.
Best things about Seattle so far,
1) The ridiculously enormous flag they sometimes fly on the space needle that I can't figure out what it means. Just a huge 12.
2) The people
3) The bus system, and that it is free all over downtown. helllls yeah.
4) The prices of things! HOLY BUTTDOG it's so cheap!
Things I don't like about Seattle so far,
1) The 3 hour time difference
2) I miss my friends
3) I don't have a job yet
Good News:
There is a Welcome to Seattle party for me on Friday night and karaoke afterwards. I'm hoping to get my memory card before then so I can post pics for my cool babies.

Bisounours

I'm such a bad kid. Even my aunt commented on my tendency to procrastinate the other day. I try to be productive, the desire, the commitment, the energy is all there...but if the structure is not (ie 8:00 work obligation) its feeble to even try. (It is known to most as lack of self-discipline, known to me as one of my most winning characteristics- I'm always free for doing something because I'm doing nothing while I'm avoiding the things I need to do)
Right about now my mother should be pulling into the driveway expecting to pick me up on my continuing search for the army duffle bag. (because clearly I wasn't able to do this myself, though I scoured Charlottesville like a little orphan dog searching for something to fill that orpahny void) Who would have guessed that this one item could simultaneously be so ubiquitous in traveling circles AND elusive in the shopping centers. Maybe some people would have guessed how hard it can be, unfortunately, I was not one of those people who grasped the full weight of the search for the army duffle bag.
I am supposed to somehow rationalize my time spent today doing everything except further my packing progress. Progress Report: C+ on that. The plus is because I did two loads of laundry. sweet. And the C because dude, I organized some shit, and I looked for the duffle.
Yes, I did watch the E! True hollywood story on the Simpson sisters. After 15 minutes or so, and by so I mean a solid half hour, I shut that crap off. Not for lack of interest in the show, but because of the commercials. Holy crap Batman. Who can sit still long enough to watch anything with that stuff blaring on and off, and most of it gets cut off for the next thing. Its like a bunch of fat kids at the Golden Buffet All You Can Eat Hot Dogs and Pizza Special Everyday Loads of Jello Special and you only have a half hour to fit as much food in your body cavities as quickly as possible. I don't even know what it is I'm talking about anymore.
Time to go find that duffle. And in regard to the title- this is a song by Cocorosie that I just discovered and love.

Saturday Afternoon Live

Today I went hiking with my Pa. First we tried out some four-wheeling in the Trooper. I drove it for a bit.
Highlights of the hike:
1) seeing SIX deer
2) seeing this purple pricker bush that was everywhere and really amazing
3) wearing a faux Russian hat that was made out of fleece and never stayed straight
4) petting a horse and feeding it grass
5) meeting A.Sears, the forest ranger, who thought we were hunters- but we only shoot with our cameras. aaaaah man. not even a pun, doesn't even qualify it's so bad.
6) seeing SIX deer
7) crossing the Appalachian trail
8) seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains, they really are blue. Bluer than the sky
9) seeing SIX deer!!
10) talking with my dad
Highlight of last night:
Watching The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
pretty great

when the stars make you drool, just like pasta fasciole

Dreamers with empty hands
may sigh for exotic lands

Its Autumn in New York
Its good to live it again

Last night I dreamt I was still living in New York. It was good to live it again. Today I am packing boxes for Seattle and unpacking boxes for here. Bizarre dichotomy. Ahh now my favorite song. 10cc, as covered by Jake, "I'm not in Love."
Perhaps its the irony, perhaps it is the denial, perhaps it is the subject matter.

T-minus one month. Writing that reminds me of another time I typed that to someone who also was moving. Except now when I say it I am leaving them, and when I said it months ago it was a sort of welcoming promise. Eh. It is what it is. regret is a four-letter word when said by a naive girl.
And this month is flying by like a dragon in heat. I can hardly believe how time is in manic mode right now; a day is a week, a week suddenly a month, and hurrah! because its only time that is between me and future me.
I dream of New York by night and I dream of Seattle by day. What a perfect thing. Today while I was packing I daydreamed three things: 1) dancing with my sister in the living room to Billie Holiday, 2) singing horrible karaoke in a small little bar and Eddie Vedder sitting in the front row cheering (yessss), 3) UWashington calling me to interview me and after I astound them with my witty social skillz, impress them with my clarity of mind and seduce them with my eager enthusiasm they happily offer me the position: when can you start? a week from today
excellent. excellent. simply mahvelous.

Everybody plays the fool
(somtimes)
There's no exception to the rule
(listen baby)
It may be factual it may be cruel
(I ain't lyin)
Everybody plays the fool

The question I ask myself now as I am making changes is this: What is a more powerful force: memories or dreams?
Memories keep you tied to so many things, and dreams can stretch those strings pretty hard.
I wonder if my memories and my dreams will somehow synchronize. Is that when your life is streamlined, you're doing what you love, with who you love, and so you just dream of your own life, and daydream of the same. Does that happen? That might be a little silly. And also, if you didn't dream of what you didn't have that might be a shame.
In New York I dreamt of Seattle, in Charlottesville I dreamt of New York, maybe in Seattle I'll dream of Australia. no worries, mate.

Waiting for you
I'm sending out this signal here
Hope you can pick it up loud and clear
I know you don't like weak women
you get bored so quick
and you don't like strong women
cause they're hip to your tricks...

If your head says forget it
but your heart is still smokin
call me at the station
the line's still open

Time time time. Interesting to see what it does. My parents are fading like the photographs of them from 1975. Colors draining, changing, spots appearing. My Pop-Pop is alive and waiting. He just called. Having lunch with him tomorrow at twelve-thirty. excellent. excellent. My cousins are in love with the new me. My Aunts and Uncles put their hands and their coats on my shoulders to keep me young. My brother is a stranger. My baby sister is taller and stronger than me, and in love, making her somehow so old. My older sister is the rowboat I'm floating to in my lifejacket, laughing with me at our adventures. memories and dreams collide there. Yes yes.

"Those who love me can take the train" a film about Jean-Baptiste et al.

Though I should have spent today packing, I did not. I spent the day, from waking at lazy mid-morning, after the sun had long performed its opening act (though isn't it funny this sun got the job as it is only a middle-sized star) until around 4:00 tracing with my feet on the wooden floors the circles my mind was working in worries. Worrying about the fact that I had worries. Why was I fearing that I am making the wrong decision. Why does this plague me. Change makes you vulnerable. Like a peeled tomato, hiding your gushy innards as a secret shared between yourself and those who made you.
With thoughts on family and thoughts on friends, I decided to rent a foreign movie because in addition to other reasons for renting a foreign flick I do not like to listen to what actors say. This one based on journey, appropriately titled "those who love me can take the train," was a French movie, and the white writing at the bottom of the screen (often eclipsed by a white tshirt, a bright table lamp, a slice of winter sky), is like everything else communicated by mouth: almost a fleeting afterthought. I watch the words perform their duty in my peripheral vision, leaning on their meaning when I must take a break from scrutinizing body language and emotive musical clues. The truth of the action has already spoken in pressed mouths, hard teeth, angry feet, soft hands, wide eyes, closed eyes, slow blinks and shoulder shrugs. And american movies are trash I've come to realize. The sadness is not sorrow... not long-lasting, generation-spanning, ever-affecting heartache; the sadness in American movies is like heartburn, easy to squelch with a pill of sorts and somehow seemingly avoidable if you make the right choices. I think when we fought the revolutionary war we also fought to free ourselves from that trail of heartache dripping through the generations, and maybe it worked. Maybe we are at the beginning and starting to slowly culminate and infiltrate our genetics is our own altered american tragedy. Perhaps while on our respective Mayflowers the Atlantic waters washed from our genes the codes describing the Acropolis, the Forum, the sight of Viking ships in shallowing harbors, forgetting the myriad murders while Lincoln and JFK shocked our system into remembrance, forgetting Mt.Fuji had already set flame to Tokyo's streets when America sought to do the same in 1945. And in school-rooms our hearts broke again for the first time while reading Shakespeare's stanzas; we listened to but could not recall even whispers of Homer's words long quieted in our minds; and our fingers barely tingled with recognition at seeing the charcoal stampedes on the walls of the caves at Lascoux.
Then I think of Tokyo, I think of Rome, I learn about Bombay, Beijing, I know of Chicago and Los Angeles and Toronto and Washington DC and Philadelphia and Atlanta. New York is simply another on the list, though it becomes somehow more to the people who hold their Harlem and West Side and East Side and Washington Heights and Midtown and Murray Hill and Chelsea and Soho apartments to their hearts at night, believing there is no city like New York City. And this is what makes my feet falter, this is what makes them pace cyclical patterns in my apartment and in my commute to work. But I cannot believe that this is the best city, because I haven't yet been to Rome and Tokyo and Bombay and Berlin and Prague and Paris and London and Buenos Aires and Madrid and so on. I should not let their laughter reverberate in my gushy insides when I tell them I'm leaving, when they say to me, "see you in a couple months" "you'll miss it too much" "what's there in seattle?" "you won't believe the mistake you're about to make." How these people must cherish their investment in this relationship with a place that has so many lovers, and when my one person decides that perhaps it may love other places as well or better, you can hear the fear in their rebuttals, the fear that perhaps they don't love that place so much as they've invested. That perhaps this city takes more from you than you realize, and before you get off the next stop on the train, it's taken the last ten years from you leaving its dirty streets like a map on your lonely grid-lined face, aging you more in one year than a calendar would attest.
But I have loved it. I love my newly wrinkled cheeks, cheeks that last year were smooth with fat and complacency. I love my wrinkled forehead that last year did not betray worries of rent payments and groceries and professional mistakes and moral dilemmas. I love the thinning of my wrists, waist and knees that betrays my choice of tea to bread, and beer to meat and vegetables to most everything else. I love my strong posture that last year was weak with insecurities and indecision. I love the fraying of my cuffs that like a pressed mouth silently speaks of matters more pressing than looks.
I could not leave here if I had not come here. But I would be mad not to leave and trace another city's streetmap on my body. I have been wanting a new tattoo. It's just inertia that's keeping me from packing. How funny is the fight between head and heart. For some people it is clear, for me it is as fogged as my morning medicine-cabinet mirror. I think I'll always be struggling in the space between the two, drawing conclusions that vaporize nonetheless, but perhaps that isn't so bad.
And now on the radio, it is Edith Piaf- and it comes full circle, jean-baptiste, just as you planned, la vie en rose.