s a l v a g e

Life in the Slow Lane

2006-07-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the bank, waiting in a fairly long line, and a guy came by and offered to take my deposit and give me a receipt 'so i wouldn't have to wait.' I needed cash back, so he couldn't help me.

But as I was standing there, I realized that I DID want to wait. That I LIKE to wait in lines. That I LONG to wait in LONG lines.

Waiting in a line is about the only time, during the day at least, that I can just Zen out...go into that zone where you don't think, but let your mind focus on nothing, like a cat staring at a wall. Or you CAN think about things that matter, like rolling a line of poetry around in your head, what color to paint a wall, what kind of sunflowers to plant, what a friend said, sex and how you want it, elegant numbers, etc.

Along the same lines (NPI), I think grocery store checkers are too speedy. No, I take that back. Sometimes I'm in a bitch-hurry, and then they are too slow, but most of the time, I love to languish at the grocery store, study the cheese section, wander the cool aisles, stand in front of the ice cream freezers spending too much time deciding to buy any or not, read bad magazines while I'm in line, then put them back without buying them.

This takes me back to my childhood, going to the store with my mother and brothers on summer nights at, like, 11 pm, playing football with a roll of paper towels, running around getting things for her. Then we'd stand in line while the checker took forever, chatting. It took forever, and was a lot of fun.

Now, I get to the line, and they zip you through SO fast that the next person is staring at you while you stuff your debit card back in your wallet and shuffle past, even though it took all of 70 seconds to do the WHOLE transaction even if you have a FULL cart. What with the conveyer belts, UPC code scanners and all.

Don't get me wrong. I don't need to be overly friendly with my checker. I don't need to chat about their dog. When I'm in a hurry, I'm TERRible. I'm a total bitch and stare at people (even poor little old ladies) who write checks in grocery store lines - "now HOW much was that? WHAT's the name of this store?" I'd never say anything, but I seethe. When I'm in a hurry. And that is altogether TOO often. I even go through the self-check-out line when I'm irritated just so I won't be grumpy...it is usually SLOWer, but at least I'm in control of my own grocery destiny...I'm just saying that sometimes standing in a line is the only brain down time a lot of people get in a day, and I KNOW I don't get enough of it. Hence brain fatique, bitchiness, and a sense of go, go, going....

I know, I'm a hypocrite and a whiner. But if I had more time to stand in lines, thinking, perhaps I could reevaluate my own morals and align them with my chosen ideology (if I weren't a nullifidian).

Reinstate lines! Create SLOW lanes. Serve tea.

No Confessions Today

2006-06-22T15:18:00.001-07:00

Ok, so i'm back in the land of the living, after four solid months spent preparing for a conference in St. Louis. Then the actual fact - 7 days up at 6, to bed at 2 craziness. I took this picture on the first day i had off, which was my last day in st. louis, spent on a massage table, and passing through this old cathedral, before visiting the Saarenin arch. I thought it appropriate, since I'm not going to feel guilty (or try not to) for not posting for so long. Who cares but me, it is just a personal goal/thing i'm interested in exploring...bob's yer uncle.

Here are a few pictures from the trip - spent with 1200 of my new best friends, glass artists/educators/gallery owners, etc. I'm not too hot on most glass art (chihuly was interesting initially, but he just repeats himself...) but there are some that do pretty fascinating work, for instance Elizabeth Swinburne, a crazy brit living in Amsterdam and Steffan Dam, a Dane who makes huge 'scientific slides' of what look like undersea creatures, very delicate.

Also visited the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis to see the largest (yes) collection of mosaics in the world - every surface is covered with glitter. And our closing night party was at the City Museum, a slapdash patching together of oil drums, an old bus that looks like it is falling off the roof, architectural facades from old Chicago edifices, license plates and the like, old Big Boy statues, etc. A kitch-lover's wet dream. I like St. Louis. Had a great bison filet at Lucas Park Grill, and excellent calamari at Copia Winery (they make three wines from Missouri grapes - the white is chardonelle, which grows in this very hot, humid climate.

Souvenirs from My Sunday

2006-04-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was the first day in a long time that I had to myself, just to wander and relax. Work has been a bit crazy lately, hence no postings! And the old 77 Bronco's outa commission, so my paths have been a bit restricted. Now it is not pouring rain, at least, so I will start riding the bike (thanks for the inspiration, Tinarama!) Anyway, one of my favorite places is the Ballard Sunday Farmers Market, about a mile from my house, in old town Ballard, originally the Scandanavian neighborhood of fishermen and sailors, mostly. Now on Sundays, there is a lovely collection of hawkers, including the BEST oysters (Taylor Shellfish Company from Shelton, WA), a couple of different cheesemongers including Estrella, who make this lavender and juniper berry covered goat cheese that is to die for, the forager guy, that brings Washington truffles, fiddlehead ferns, foraged mushrooms of all sorts, stinging nettles, and fresh huckleberries; and the pasta guy, Pian Pianino is the company, who makes the best dried and fresh pastas...Also, Fishing Vessel St. Jude Tuna, the best fatty albacore (canned) caught in deep waters off the coast by Joe Malley and crew...if you want some, let me know!

Also, though, there are the storefronts of Ballard, and today i just want to show some pictures of my favorite shop, Souvenir (even though it says Frank's on the sidewalk in front). They sell handmade cards, old buttons, jewelry, but mostly just found objects as you see in these window displays. You can also see the resident pooch, surveying the 'hood.

These pictures are for the benefit of Paul, who will enjoy their retro nature and photographability (even though these are just snaps)...

Rules of the Blues

2006-02-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

okay, this amused me ... Blues music - the fundamental rules - my friend Jessica (great poet, lives in Japan) sent me this, and I just had to post it. Partially because i haven't posted for a while -- busy and lazy at the same time. And partially because it will make a friend of mine in New Orleans laugh...

read on, friends.

If you are new to Blues music, or like it but never really understood
the why/wherefore, here are some of the fundamental rules.

1. Most Blues begin with: "Woke up this morning..."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you
stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with
the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it.
Then find something that rhymes sort of:
"Got a good woman with the meanest face in town.
Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town.
Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weighs 500 pound."

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a
ditch... ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, old Cadillacs and broken-down trucks.
Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most
Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet
aircraft ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the
Blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults
sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the
electric chair if you shot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or anywhere
in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just
clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City are still the
best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the Blues in any place
that doesn't get rain.

8. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting
is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot and sit by the dumpster.

9. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

10. Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom's
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you
happen to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied
No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color, it's a matter of bad luck. Tiger
Woods cannot sing the Blues. Sonny Liston could have. Ugly white people
also got a leg up on the Blues.

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the
Blues.

Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee
The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues
death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to
die. So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a
broken-down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis
match or while getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Alma
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and
Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shot in
Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name starter kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson or Cripple Kiwi
Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

20. I don't care how tragic your life: if you own a computer, you cannot
sing the blues

There's a Pawnshop on the Corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2006-01-24T15:12:00.000-08:00

My father, having grown up during the depression, used to sing that song to me -- and many others.

(This pic of a stainless steel car (1936 Ford Deluxe Sedan) is so indicative of the hopefulness in the future and the wealth that floated around, even in the depths of the Depression. So different from my father's poor upbringin'. I snapped it at the Pittsburgh History Center).

I've always been drawn to the meager. I remember as a child playing by myself, which I did often, being the youngest of seven (by seven years). I'd take my little red riding hood basket into the quiet living room on quiet afternoons, and pretend that all I had in the world was in that basket -- I was an orphan, I was abandoned. Once I even wrote a runaway note as part of my fantasies, and left it on my desk in my bedroom ... my sweet mother found it, and I felt terrible because it wasn't real, just part of a game, but she thought I really wanted to run away.

And I would make up games with Barbie in the backyard where she had lost her "Grand Tour" party and was left with nothing in the Sahara -- remember the contrast between rich and poor in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo ("We'll have a grand time at the Copacabana")?

Here are some lines:

Well, ain't life swell?

Hey. Open the champagne. I feel
like getting plushed to the scuppers.

(woman) I can't wait to get out of these
clothes and hit some of the nightspots.

Children, don't waste time. The floor
show at the Copacabana starts soon.
I didn't know any of you wonderful
people, and here I am now.

I'm on the verge of
a madcap Manhattan weekend.

I hope you like your martinis very dry.

These characters are rich, of course, and come back from an Egyptian excursion just in time for cocktails at the Copacabana...I was recently in Pittsburgh for work, and felt a strange connection to decades gone, with all the turn-of-the-century architecture and inner city decay goin' on.

I visited the Pittsburgh History Center and saw a great exhibit on the history of commercial glass production, a big industry in the Steel City between 1840 and 1880 (could be a bit off on the dates) & saw a 1903 film of glassblowers making windows from LONG (8 foot long!) tubes of handblown glass, then cutting them up, laying them flat and those became the wobbly glass windows we see in old houses. They found this film in the dumpster of the PPG (Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company), just as they were creating the history museum. An excellent collection of glass history, a subject I am learning more about with my new job. AND, in Pittsburgh, I stayed at the William Penn Hotel (built 1916), and surruptitiously snuck through the staff doors up to the 17th floor to the roof to look out over the city (74 steel bridges in the city limits, they say). The top three empty floors reminded me of Barton Fink or Jacob's Ladder...scary and old and worn. But somehow fascinating. I love forgotten/imaginary places (such a sap!), almost as much as I love the Copacabana, wherever that is...

And my heart beats so
that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together
dancing cheek to cheek
Heaven, I'm in heaven
And the cares that hung
around me through the week
Seem to vanish
like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together
dancing cheek to cheek

Here's that song, and another pawnshoppy thing I love -- one of my favorite poets who wrote about Chicago and New York during the depression and into the 50s:

The poems of Kenneth Fearing (writer of the FIRST Film Noir, the Big Clock)

(There's a pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
And I walk up and down 'neath the clock
(By the pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
But I ain't got a thing left to hock

She was peaches, she was honey, and she cost me all my money
'cause a whirl 'round the town was her dream (was her dream)
Took her dancin', took her dinin' till her blue eyes were shinin'
With the sights that they never had seen (never seen)
If you should run into a golden-haired angel
And ask her tonight for a date
She'll tell you somewhere there's a rich millionaire
Who is calling again about eight

(There's a pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
And I've just gotta get five or ten (five or ten)
(From the pawnshop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Gotta be with my angel again

Gotta be with my angel again

Do Not Golightly Into That Good Night, or What Is Your Dangerous Idea?

2005-12-30T00:02:00.000-08:00

When I was a mere freshman college student at BYU, I met a drama professor named Max Golightly. What-the-hell-kina-name that is, I don't know. Navajo, I think, actually. But he told me he went to a party once in Greeenwich Village in the early fifties and met Truman Capote, who was sort of strangely, quietly, fascinated by his name.

There you go.

Two days before New Year's Eve, I'm sitting here watching Audrey Hepburn at her party, with the long cigarette holder, the leetle teeny black dress and the up-do with the white-stripe, "reinforcements" showing up with boxes 'o bourbon and ladies with big pink fuzzy hats, and mickey rooney with that bad japanee getup. This is what joni mitchell meant in 'people's parties' -- I had hoped, in a certain way, that this is what would happen on New Year's Eve, my 41st birthday. I'm always of the mind that if you want your birthday done right, do it yourself.

Last year, on my 40th, the party was definitely Golightly-esque. People I hadn't seen forever, a girl group singing 60s three part harmony with a rockabilly guitarist, Festivus goings on (the airing of grievances, the pinning of the head of the household). Me of the last day of the baby boom -- December 31, 1964. Last day of the last year of the baby boom. Maybe that's what's wrong. Not a boomer. Not an gen-x-er, not a gen-y. That's okay. I'm happy here, in the middle ground, middle earth, the birthday cake between. Last year, a huge gingersnap cake with eggnog creme anglais frosting with little sugar handmade can-can girls on top, to be precise. This year was more mellow, barely.

What happened for all y'all? For me and mine, we had dinner at the Pink Door (first cocktails at ours, then cocktails there -- I wore a long green sequined thingypie I bought at the Pike Place Market garage sale space for $15, fit me nicely, nicely -- have a pic I'll publish soon as I find my camera cord) ... My brother and Didi & Sharkey, A & P, too -- pasta, lamb (i ordered something expensive just because). My brother gave me the best present, (which I advised him to), a Holga toy plastic camera! Found out about these roundaboutly from Paul's Modernistic World (a nifty site!)

And then to Il Bistro for a sort of irritating midnight. The sailor wanted to go outside to the clock, and I was too connected to inside, for which later I apologized. Drama. Ah well. Then too much hornblowing and singing from the boys, and too many cocktails at zigzag. In a way, not so different from Holly's evening. She wakes up with her eye shades and tassled ear plugs shutting out the world. I wake up not so different. Just 44 years later. The more things change...

Am approaching the new year with questions. I stumbled across this, and it is endlessly fascinating to me. Check out Keith Devlin Strangely comforting, for someone who has grown up in an American-Calvinist-Protestant-Mormon tradition. Strangely comforting, the thought that we are entirely alone.

What is your dangerous idea?

Not Surprisingly, I'm an Existentialist

2005-12-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of a gravestone from a cemetery in Cobh (Cove), Ireland, where the victims of the Lusitania are buried. I just loved the lettering on this headstone. I think there is a typo (Stepen? should be Stephen, wouldn't you think?) Sort of the ultimate irony...a typo on your headstone! It seemed appropriate for this posting:

Here's an interesting quiz...What's Your World View?

My results scored me as an Existentialist. I am surprised about the Postmodernist part...I don't feel that cynical. Although there might be a certain joy in obsessive maximalism...postmodernism IS sort of baroque, don't you think? I would have thought I'd be more of a Romantic, actually. The feminist sort... the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley sort, sort of. Although I guess Frankenstein is the ultimate postmodernist/existentialist symbol, really! Patched together from leftovers of a fallen world, creating new life. Read on:

This is what they said of me:

Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist 94%

Postmodernist 88%

Cultural Creative 81%

Modernist 63%

Materialist 56%

Romanticist 44%

Idealist 38%

Fundamentalist 13%

Miss Lonelyhearts Attends a Party, or, on a different subject altogether

2005-12-24T09:04:00.000-08:00

If I were single, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd be into, in a sick, half rubbernecking, half serious sort of way. You have to read the article above ... The London Review Bookshop in Bloomsbury (wandered in there this summer) is indeed clean and well-lighted, except, perhaps on the night in question, when a little low wattage might have come in handy to deemphasize the negative, as it were.

I’ve had three poems in there, but only two will be in the book, because my cranky friend/editor and the only one I trust, really, axed the other one. And rightly so, I suppose. I’m too damned sentimental about these things. This is what I’m obsessed with these days, and I guess this is the only place I can actually talk about it... the book, not the singles party. The fear is that it (being a first book) is very much no good – not dissimilar to a Miss Lonelyhearts party at the LRB bookshop. I'm not whining here (okay, so I am, it's my party and I'll cry if I want to). Some of the poems are passable on an individual basis, but a whole room of them?

Aach, aye.

The deed is done now. Hopefully nobody will actually read it. Or anyone whose ethos it is to think about these things…and review or respond. I’m sweating just thinking about it. On the other hand, damn. This is what I’ve spent the last ten years of my life doing, and there you go. It will be out there, on very few shelves with all the other unnecessary books, languishing in blissful dustiness. Bob’s your uncle.

Things I’m embarrassed to admit (today, anyway): I happened to be listening to the radio while driving over the Ballard bridge in the pouring rain yesterday, and heard the writer’s almanac where GK quoted (this, the embarrassing part) Robert Bly as saying something like ‘poets are people who spend their lives in confusion…’ and then quoted his poem “There are more like us. All over the world/There are confused people…” not a great poem, but at the moment it struck me. Of course,I know it isn’t just poets. Artists in general. People in general. Some just admit it more readily than others. But in a sense, this is the essential, the only thing that drives creativity, yes? Comfort, satisfaction might be the most truly terrifying state of being.

Eyes of the Consumer Soul

2005-12-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

I have two more pictures of windows from Fortnum & Mason. I love that they go to all this trouble and expense just to show off a few bottles of jam or whatever, when you really don't even see the product they are trying to highlight. I remember the Christmas windows in The Crescent in Spokane when I was a kid -- it was a huge deal to go down and see these windows at Christmas -- the train and the moving elves and all the velvet and fake snow, etc. I know it was a small version of what went on in larger cities. In Seattle, they have one at the new Macy's (used to be Frederick & Nelson, used to be the Bon Marche, used to be "The Bon") where the kids have to touch a pad on the outside of the window to make the train move. Not sure I like this idea -- they probably save energey that way, instead of having the thing move all the time. I suppose it empowers the kid in some way, but I liked the idea that it moved by itself -- it was a true, tiny fantasy world that I could only watch. This reminds me of a GREAT book called On Longing by the poet Susan Stewart. I think the subtitle is something like Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection and it talks about how comforting the miniature is to us as children (a la Barthes), giving them power over a little world. Perhaps that is why we like animals, and little animals at that...the fantasy of control over something. These windows just seem so frivolous. I love that.

Vertigo and Semiotics

2005-12-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

(a window display from a recent trip to London -- Fortnum & Mason department store. It seems appropriate...)

In the emergency room, I TOLD them if I opened my eyes, I’d vomit. And sure enough. The guy tells me to open my eyes so he can see my pupils, and I wretched right into the aluminum tray provided for just such a purpose.

This happened three years ago, and I’m just writing about this, but it was a damn weird experience, out of nowhere. I was experiencing Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo.

I try to trace it back. Too much wine at Vito’s? A rogue shrimp? The night before it happened, an old man read my stars. Rising sign Capricorn. Moon sign something dangerous, I’m sure. Dinner, then sleep. That was it.

I’m not sure what happened, but when I woke at dawn, skyscrapers looking in on me with their green, flat, flylike eyes, everything stopped for a second.

Then spun. And spun and spun and didn’t stop.

I spent the whole morning jerking between the square slab of my queen bed, and the round mouth of the porcelain throne. Back and forth. I must have thrown up twenty times. If I kept my eyes closed, things slowed. But open them, and, like a fan switched on, the room blurred and suddenly every circle – bowl, watch, glass, bulb, table, chair, swirled, while my stomach stayed in the same place.

That’s where it started. My brother came over at noon and said if it didn’t stop, he’d take me to the ER when he got off work. It didn’t stop, believe me. Three years later, and neither one of us can remember which hospital I went to – there are three in the area. I had my eyes closed during the whole ride.

They threw some meclazine at me, which I don’t really think did anything, and sent me home. I was in bed for three days. Good way to lose weight. Finally, slowly, I could open my eyes without them rolling back in my head…And it took me a few weeks after the visit to the emergency room to let my eyes adjust. Still, three years later, I have to make sure I don’t lay my head down flat, or hang upside down or anything like that. I need two pillows at night to keep my head up. Weird. It’s like my balance sloshes around in there, and runs out my ears when my head’s level…

Come to find out, somewhere inside my ear, something went wrong, suddenly. Usually brought on by a sharp blow, which I don’t remember experiencing. Even further in, past the stirrup in my middle ear, deeper into my internal ear, a chip of calcite plaque broke off from the wall of the cochlea and swirled around in the internal ear's liquid, then collided into the tiny grasses of my nerve of balance, lining the cochlear labyrinth. Sort of like a shipwreck hitting the silent bottom of the ocean, destroying the delicate ecosystem there. "I'd like to be, under the sea, in an octopuses garden, in the shade." So everything suddenly shuffled between my nerve of balance and my brain, a shark moving through the wreck.

The thing is, since then, I’ve often felt that perhaps this is the normal state of the world, that we are in a constant state of flux, movement, and our eyes have trained us to think the world is still. Our eyes make a table level. Our eyes make a road straight. Our eyes keep the room in one place. So now my eyes are out of whack with my brain, like the nerve of balance is the string that holds them together.

So my eyes had to relearn where things are. Remember not to vortex out.

And it seems to me like the way language works. Like how, in books, we keep language in rows, words in sentences, one word after another until the end of a sentence, where only then will a meaning become clear. This was one of Jacques Derrida’s theories. But when we apply it to real life, as in when we speak, do words work this way? Or blogs? Don’t they roll, don’t they swirl around? Through satellites and screens, through the ear’s rose, a bee reveling in velvet petals? And words in a room are like vertigo's effect, balance tossed out into the air, to fly or float, to turn back on themselves. To fugue, to repeat in another’s ear, to land, thunk! on the mind’s table like a piece of raw meat. Red and bloody, and waiting for us to cook up meaning.

The whole thing tweaked my perspective, and in some ways, I think I'll never be the same. I'm more fatalistic, I think, like I'm not sure what anything means, not sure of the meaning of anything, or how it will land.

The 25-foot Lounge

2005-12-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday at midnight, a smoking ban went into effect for the whole state of Washington. Not only can't you light up in bars, but you can't smoke within 25 feet of the ENtrance to any business. In Fremont, my next-door neighborhood, known to some as 'the center of the universe' according to at least one sign, a few lost souls found a way. The weather was chilly and clear all last week. Dry. Four or five locals hauled a tattered old pink couch out into the little triangular median just across the street from the Triangle Tavern and near the statue of Lenin (Julie has one near her place on the lower east side, too!). They set up a little tiny white picket fence, sat down with their cups of strong coffee and their cigarettes...and smoked. From now on, this little pie-slice of Fremont will be known as the 25-foot Lounge, believe me. When your neighborhood begins to be threatened by development and changes, you tend to hold onto the little things like diminutive place names -- the Center of the Universe, the Rocket, Lenin Square, The 25-Foot Lounge. Although, of course, the COTU is now being exploited by condo developers, too, which pisses a lot of people off...this little hippie hold out has changed, in the past years, when the Still Life Cafe changed to the 35th St. Bistro it was a big blow; when all the bars down 36th started attracting a frat boy crowd like unto the J&M in Pioneer Square...but it is heartening that there's still an attitude of individualism and rebellion that continues...

In the morning when I drove past, there were orange cones surrounding the place like it was a crime scene. The couch was gone, but the picket fence was still there, fallen. All the more reason for the proprietors to set up shop, as I'm sure will happen on a regular basis, and we'll inherit at least one new officer in the neighborhood to kick people off, back across the lanes of speeding traffic, into the land of law and order.

Wine Dinner Theatre

2005-12-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a wine dinner at a beautiful local restaurant with an incredible view of the Seattle skyline. "Wine dinner" usually means the food is all paired with wines from a specific winery and the winemaker comes and talks about the wines with each course. It's sort of a production, not unlike theatre, but the plot goes down your gullet. Dramatic irony takes on new meaning in that the audience knows the players will die when the play starts. Or rather, the players (i.e. the plate of Full Circle Farms organic mizuna, Laura Chenel fresh chevre and grassfed lambchop) have already been killed off, but their demise is proclaimed and their lives dramatized bite by bite by the chef, even as we chew.

And we wash it all down with a 1990 chateau de chassely whatever. In this case it was 2004 riesling (prounouced REECE-ling, come to find out!). Huge difference, I know. A famous German winemaker (following a new tradition of the past 15 or so years) has come over to the states to work with a US winemaker to create US riesling, cum Robert Mondavi and Baron Rothchild. Damn good stuff, too. Or as I heard descriptors flying around the room -- white peach (not too ripe, which would make our hero FLABBY); lime zest, and a touch of PETROL (too much in a young wine of this riesling characteristic would mean the wine would age badly).

So the petrol fuels the fire of conversation at my table, and the German uses the word 'shit' a lot (not that there's anything wrong with that). He talks about how riesling is such an underrated grape in the New World, true, and that even 10 years ago he would tour England giving tastings, and two or three little old ladies would be there, sipping a sweet riesling and saying "jolly good, old chap." You could feel the tension in this room, as the population was decidedly tipped toward LOLs, and little old men, trying to masticate the lamb chop (albeit a tender one).

On this stage, there's the US winemaker, (henceforth known as 'the American') who has learned a bunch from the German. But at the same time, the American is working for a big(ish) evil American wine company that consciously makes wine for the masses, religiously sending out its wine for auditions for the Robert Parker show. This means making wines that are big, fruity, fruity, big fruit bombs. Bombshells, as it were. The kind simple men fall in love with -- the leggy redhead with red lips and a red dress that you think you could love, but turns on you in the end. Or you turn on her. You like to look, as the German proclaims, flipping his long curly hair back, 'but people don't want to drink it!" It ends up a wallflower at the dinner table, and you take the plain girl home.

The German, and pretty much everyone at the table, including the American, agree with the German's diatribe, that US wines (and increasingly, sadly, European wines) follow Robert Parker like Star Wars fans follow George Lucas. Blindly, and with bad costumes. We all want wines that are more delicate, elegant, subtle, earthy, leathery, mineraly, mushroomy, petrol-y. etc. etc. but the market buys into the big wine thing so fully...So, the American roams the tables and talks to the blue hairs about how many barrels a year he makes, etc. etc. and the German takes the stage at our table -- we should create reputations for our appellations, like Oregon has with pinot noir, Bordeaux with cabernet; we need an identity. Devil's advocate, i tell him that the wine industry is so young, we're still sowing our oats, finding what works and what doesn't, experimenting. Europe is an intellectual exercise, America is a visceral one, one of the writers points out. Too true.

So the writers at the table are scribbling down what the German says, between bites of filet mignon, and his time is being monopolized by yours truly (i heard later). All i did was ask the man one question, and off he goes. But damn, it was like the Algonquin Round Table. Nice to be around complete geeks and not feel like the queen geek.

If Someone Says They Were Born on October 5, 1582, Don’t Believe Them

2005-12-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

Besides the fact that they would have been dead for a few hundred years by now. But the real reason is that that date does not exist. Since the Julian calendar was changed to the Gregorian Calendar (adjusted by 10 days), the day after October 4, 1582 was October 15, 1582. Quel dommage if your birthday really was during those missing 10 days! You’d be a lost soul.

So these are the things I’ve been pondering as one of my favorite holidays approaches – Winter Solstice. Since I’m an urbanite, considering myself a pagan would be hypocritical, but if I had a religion, that’s probably what it would be. (Hence the circle fort picture--visited this this summer in Ireland...thought it appropriate) Maybe its my Scottish/Scandinavian roots, but the idea of staying up all night to sauna and jump into snowbanks (not to mention smorgasbords and whisky and eau de vie) makes me very sentimental.

It's the waiting I hate.

All these long, long, LONG dark nights, when you go home and it is midnight at 5 p.m. I feel like a fool for not being able to play the bagpipes or the bodhran or something. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about happy hour, but with all those hours to drink, one can get oneself into a pickle periodically. So I'm trying to find other outlets. I know, read a book. Write a poem. Paint a picture. Take a cooking class. Have children. Get yourself a charity. I'm doing some of those (nix on the children), but still ...

AND, the Earth is actually nearer the sun in winter than it is in June -- by three million miles. Pretty much irrelevant to our planet, sure. Except for the fact that any time I feel completely crazy, I usually find out later (ha, ha very funny) that Mercury is in retrograde, the Earth is nearer the sun, etc. etc. So let’s review: I got three months of no sun, too much booze, no new romance, Earth too close to the sun, general hibernation of the brain and lack of imagination. Suggestions? My friend's website has some suggestions, but i'm still beneath the bumbershoot of ennui.

All I can say is Winter Solstice for 2005 will occur at 10:35 am PST on December 21. Set your clocks, stay up all night, down eau de vie, jump into a snow bank while reciting Beowulf in Anglo Saxon -- and let’s get this party started!

(and over with)

Perspective

2005-12-05T20:54:00.000-08:00

I have two old friends from college that have blogs, and I read them all the time. One lives on the Lower East Side in NYC, with two little girls. One lives in Sonoma and rides her bike a lot. And another, is single and lives in NYC, teaching science at a community college -- she is a brilliant ornithologist. These amazing women inspired me to start a blog last June, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to post anything after the first installment. I guess I didn't feel like anyone would want to read about my life, although I love to read about theirs, all the details and emotions, anxieties and fears. Why? It sounds so hokey, but it really makes me feel like I'm less alone -- it connects me. Not that I don't have friends here, because I do, but I often feel very isolated, because I don't want to go whining to my friends all the time...so I'll whine here for a bit.
At first I thought it would be a place to put real essays, ones that I'd worked on and thought about, but since I haven't posted those -- I have about 3-4 that fit that category, but they're not ready yet -- I think it might do me some good just to have a place to write that I know that at least there's the possiBILity that someone might run across and read. I'm sitting in front of a fire in my living room, with a bunch of candles burning down, and I feel some peace. But there is so much time in my life when I'm filled with anxiety, unable to sleep, wanting to run away, even though I know I have a great life, relatively! I feel selfish, like I just focus on myself too much -- Tina calls it dukka, the Buddhist term for dissatisfaction, the feeling that something is wrong. The theory is that this comes from being disconnected to your essential goodness. That just hit home so strongly with me, that I felt like I had to start writing, that although I don't really want to reveal my life, that it might help me to just get some perspective...we'll see.

Neighbor of the Beast

2005-06-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

I live at the intersection of several neighborhoods in Seattle -- Phinney Ridge, Fremont, Greenwood and Ballard. Each has its history and stories, of course, but a good place to start is an architectural salvage store in Ballard (originally a Scandinavian fishing town) called The ReStore. I stop in periodically just to browse through the glass doorknobs, wrought iron light fixtures, old church pews and tattered cabinets because I love old stuff, and I have an old house. Always looking for old stuff to put in the old house.

By far the best department at the ReStore is plumbing. It smells vaguely of rusty water, and is lined with sturdy shelves stacked with old (yes, used) toilets, sinks, mirrors, clawfoot tubs and other bathroom paraphernalia. Each item is labeled with a wax pencil for easy identification: a big green toilet from the seventies is Arnold Schwarzenegger; a delicate pink sink/toilet set from the 50s is Zsa Zsa Gabor. Each item has been given its name according to its personalite de toilette. After a while, you come to know these inhabitants, and when one goes missing, say Crusty McTinkle, for instance, an old, simple but rusted commode, you wonder who carted it off, and if it will serve its god-given purpose or end up a flowerpot. Pushing up daisies, as it were.

I've only bought two things from this store, I think. Two rusty old window sash weights -- the kind that are hidden in the wall, and help the old windows stay up. Most of the old sash windows in this town, and pretty much every town, I'd think, have been painted shut. People forgot that these old windows, with their wobbly glass and little square panes, have a purpose. There are two sections, one upper and one lower. When you unlatch the middle closure, the lower window goes up, and the upper window goes down to meet in the middle. Hot air flows out the top, and cool air is sucked in the bottom, creating an incredibly efficient cooling system in the summertime. In Seattle, we can leave our windows open all night, as we have very few bugs, and the light breeze (1-3 on the Beaufort Wind Scale) on a hot night keeps the whole place cool.

The problem is, in the 50s and 60s, the storm window was seen as a better option -- double paned, air-tight. So people either ripped the old ones out, or painted them shut. The window-knowledge lost, to a large degree. So I love going to the ReStore, perusing the old windows, and picturing the houses they were torn from. I'm visiting an orphanage, I guess, hoping that someone will pick one of them to take home and rediscover the simplicity of a window that does what windows should do.

At the ReStore they also have lots of odds and ends lying around. An old Sitz bath (small, low and square, with claw feet) with a sign: I'm a Sizt bath. You Sitz in me and you take a bath. Old mannikins with gas masks. Two cats, each with little carpet covered homes, kitty food bowls. One has an American Express Platinum card leaned up against its water bowls. In permanent ink a name has been written: "Oscar," it reads.

Many items are marked NFS (Not For Sale), and there's one I hope they never sell. It is a white piece of wood, about 18 inches high by 6 inches wide, with brass address numbers nailed on it that look like they were put there in the 70s. The numbers are 667, and the board leans up against the messy cash register, covered with receipts, papers, tape measures, books, an old cash register and Subway wrappers. Someone has written on the sign, in pencil, "Neighbor of the Beast." My brother, who lived in Ballard throughout the 70s as a struggling musician, pointed this out to me on a recent visit to the ReStore. I'm new to the 'hood, here three years, and I have to say, the locals (human, architectural, porcelain, feline and demonic) seem friendly to me.

Maybe I'll even go over and borrow a cup of sugar.