the honeymoon is over

another goddamn motherfucking deluge hit yesterday. snow was collecting on the hammering man.

...the sunday before xmas and everything was shut down by 7pm... except for bars.
i missed my 3rd day of work. the city is paralyzed. the undeniable beauty of everything is only marginally helpful in keeping my outlook optimistic.
queen anne avenue was a nexus of frolic.


...and my street, 5th N- still closed, still pristinely unsanded or unplowed.

the buses are nonexistant. i had to cancel going to see my family for the holidays. if this weather maintains (as it is supposed to for the next week), and the city continues to be COMPLETELY FUCKING INEFFECTUAL, i will also be unable to get to work, again. there is a very real possibility that i will be spending xmas completely alone. and that, despite my bleating about nonsentimental atheistic sensibility, is really fucking sad.
sweet green is holding down the fort.

fun with 8 inches

when i awoke yesterday morning it was completely cloudless and cold as fuck:

the city buses are still in a kerfuffle. none are running to my job in lake city. i found this out when the route ended in ravenna... my 2nd snow day. i am now working xmas eve and new year's eve to make up the hours. i am actually happy about this.
when trudging back to the u district the snow started to fall.

by the time a bus got me downtown there were about 2-3 inches. everyone was in a good mood. kids were wandering around catching snowflakes on their tongues.


there are still no buses going to my neighborhood. i walked up from the base of the hill. finally, after several days of treachery, my actual street is officially closed.

(i live at the very top.)
*
j lives on the other side of queen anne. he walked over. we went to dexter & hayes and played pool.

people were sledding on the street. there were no vehicles around.

in front of my building:

and the same view from my lair, 16 hours after the morning photograph:

there were not such angles in anchorage.

we have been anointed with winter.
the lair:

where my street terminates, just past my building... someone attempted it and thought "nah."

most of the streets connecting to mine have been closed.

this was my street, 5th avenue N, at 2 am. i am walking up the hill after being dropped off by coworkers at the bottom. i am carrying my shoulder bag over one arm and groceries in the other. and wearing scrubs. it was dicey.

parked vehicles had rolled into one another. this is an awful picture, but i was balancing on a 30 degree incline at the time.

i am temporarily mired atop my hill. the road is a vertical ice rink. most of the buses, including to both my neighborhood and my job, have stopped running completely. i made it to work yesterday by walking downtown in the sleet and catching one of the last northbound bus routes before they suspended service. i have already called in to work today. there is nothing more i can do. the sun is shining. it is fucking beautiful here.

so i'm stuck at my house... at least, severely limited... wearing a camisole in the 75 degree room as the air freezes outside... and taking pictures of my cat.

another storm hits this weekend.

...for everyone, myself included, who's ever wondered about that person sitting alone, writing at the bar, concentrating...

the sunset bowl, home of one of the best hangover breakfasts in town (complete with sunglassy tinted windows and pulltabs), has been defunct for months. it was sold to make room for condos that will likely never get built. the contents of the place were auctioned off last summer; one guy paid $600 for the large mat inside the door with the alley's logo- as a gift for his wife, a memento of when he'd proposed to her there. i think of that story (which i'd read in the Times) every time i drive by.
currently it is being used as a tree lot. i specifically visited at 'sunset', trying to be clever, but the wily light was too fleeting.

*
last night i went to hattie's to properly chronicle one of the oddest dreams i have ever had. i have only ever written on this blog (and i hate, LOATHE, the word 'blog'- please note) in a completely off-the-cuff, unedited fashion; but for this i am going to transcribe my barside ramblings instead of relive the weirdness.
i am such a pretentious asshole that i took a picture, by candlelight. bars in seattle like candles. perhaps this is why i like bars in seattle.

*start of transcript*
part 1
the dream: i have been warmly befriended by a group of women- loud, hilarious, heartfelt women with combat boots and flouncy ironic petticoats and bright shawls- bettie page hair and red lipstick and dangly earrings and lit cigarettes. they live, sorority-style, in a ramshackle house in the cd- in my mind, near 17th and jefferson. the paint is taupe, the yard scrubby dirt, the trees wintry and bare. there is a large deck that juts out over a carport. plastic deck chairs, dead hanging plants, xmas lights messily strung. they laugh hysterically at my anecdotes, say "how do you know shit like that?" with genuine respect, offer hugs and advice and drinks. they are also, as i realize, ritualistic killers. they murder people the way vampires attack- it is a need, a feeding. they are rueful but resigned. "some of them are really nice" they say soberly. there are various methods- throat-slitting is often involved. i am expected, as a new member of their fold, a recipient of their confidence, to eventually participate- "but we understand that it takes time." "it's really hard to get into" they say sympathetically. their kindness and empathy is disarming- and i am so flattered to be 'chosen' as their friend that i don't run like i should. i know, in the dream, that i will get to that mindset too- eventually. meanwhile, i observe and harden myself. they smell of perfume and flowers and giddily prepared meals, but there is decay in the corners. their usual methods of disposal have floundered- not wanting to draw too much attention to their goings-on, the dumpster-filling has been lax and corpses are stacked in the basement and stairwell. i walk past softened, slumped, reeking bodies, partially covered by tarps and raincoats, on my way to the washing machine, hoping my clothes don't retain the smell. the others make jokes about it. "it's getting pretty bad" they say. they are so convivial and extroverted that guests regularly come to the house- friends of theirs who may or may not know the extent of what goes on there. guys play volleyball in the bare yard. beer is drunk on the deck. a new friend, an acquaintance, is over for the first time- and she has no idea. she's nice, fairly peripheral, and we're all on the deck drinking and laughing and getting to know each other. "do you want another beer?" someone asks. she agrees. "there's more in the cooler in the basement" i say. "i'll show you." i forget. i am leading her down the narrow, bare-bulb-lit stairs and see the pile of bodies at the corner- seeping up from the basement. it smells horrible. and it's too late to turn around. why didn't i bring something to cover them? i'm thinking. the new girl is behind me, politely ignoring the stench- and has not yet noticed the corpses a few feet away.
part 2
one of the girls and i are walking down 17th. the road is gravel. it's overcast and cold. midday. we are headed north. her skirt is billowing. we're on our way to get food, or a drink. we pass a funeral parlor. "have you ever been in there?" i ask. "they have the coolest displays-old costumes." she enthusiastically agrees to see. the building is single-story, squat, bad late-'60s architecture, no discernable outer qualities. it could be a low-income day care or a rural prefab church. we enter through generic doors, streaky glass. the ceiling is low, acoustic, leak-stained. the walls are dingy white, half-panelled with fake wood. the carpet- low-pile industrial, blue-grey, dirty- and a 'path' of yellowed linoleum covers the room in a pentagon shape. the center and corners are filled with caskets- empty, for it is a funeral parlor- like a sick furniture showroom. the area is lit by buzzing, exposed fluoresent lights. no one else is there. and in the fifth corner is the display area. there are 'models' of burial options- like fortune-telling games, or old nickelodeons- glass boxes with bodies in frilly lavender finery, sitting in doily-covered wingback armchairs, at pianos, reclining on ruffly beds. they are all women. all enclosed in glass and metal framework- except for the bed, which is open-air but protected by a dusty velvet rope.
*
i awake at 4:21am. the room is black. i am flat on my back with my arms crossed over my chest- not a typical posture. i remember falling asleep on my side with my arms to my chest- it was cold. the cats are beside me. i lay there for a moment before i remember and start to gasp. i am spooked, panicked, wondering what i woke up for. i squint into the dimness, almost expecting to see someone, curious if i will find out later that someone i know died at 4:21am. the sleeping cats remind me that there is probably not an intruder. the house is so fucking quiet at night. i wonder if i made any noise while i dreamed. there is no one around to tell me.
it took several minutes to fall back asleep. i referenced it on facebook that morning. f wrote back: maybe it's like the tarot death card: change. that made me feel much better. death is never a bad thing- and nothing in the dream was bad. never did i feel scared, or unsafe, or otherwise icky- just a mild sensation of unease- a sense that "this is weird and probably not right- but i can completely understand why it's happening." the most unnerving part of the dream, really? it highlighted how lonely i really am.
since then i have also been realizing: how do i conjure this shit, having never seen a really dead body, having never been in anything like those situations, doubting that death-nickelodeons even exist- where the fuck does that come from? and why? in such detail? my grandfathers were sterile and made up- the only dead people- dead people facially- that i have ever seen. how do i know what it really looks like, when a body breaks down and slumps upon itself, when the eyes get filmy and the skin turns yellow at the top and purple-grey underneath? and why, WHY do i fucking dream about it? and participate in said dream- self-conscious, conscientious, a bit unnerved, but ultimately looking out for my own aesthetic comfort?
detachment is the key to survival.
perspective is the second key element.
empathy is a very close third.
*end of transcript*

i did not edit any of this. so i now have proof that, 1.5 gin and tonics in, i become much more liberal with my underlining and expletives.
*
snow was predicted yesterday. it blew castratingly-cold wind instead. the sky was clear when i went to bed around midnight. but at 5:30am, when (by my consistently cruel body clock, i am physically unable to sleep more than six hours at a time, ever) i woke up, the world was once again silent and aglow!

since i started writing this, another 1/2" has fallen. there are at least 3 inches on the ground. the last day of the school term is hopefully cancelled- i already took (and PASSED!) all my finals, i need to do laundry for work, and i feel like a fucking sloth.
now that the term, which all but handed my ass to me, is over, i can finally admit: my bitterness about school had a lot less to do with school and a lot more to do with me, with feeling overwhelmed and alone and unsupported. i had to try very, very hard to stay afloat, do well, study, focus. usually, if something proves at all challenging, or at least not automatically accessible, i lose interest. i pretend i never cared anyway.
but i PASSED, so- yeah. fuck yeah, actually.
and this is awesome:
http://www.fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com

je suis ici

things ain't thawing in these parts. not for the next week or so.

some days are just right. insecurities and neuroses are replaced- or perhaps, simply more favorably renamed- with a feeling of peace. last night, walking uphill in the breathtaking cold, blinking to warm my retinas, i felt pretty fucking serene.
it was very, very therapeutic to be reminded that i have a past and people in the world who care. seattle proper has been rather dearthlike in this respect, even still. it is a deeply picturesque berg... and a dumping ground for flaky, self-absorbed snark. as someone who is extremely possessive of my personal time and space, this is generally quite suitable; but when i want to feel an actual connection with another human being, it is a fucking lonely place.
last night i saw ya ho wha 13. they were fucking amazing- a more psychedelic version of can.

there were perhaps 40 people in the audience, mostly huge hairy men, and i leaned directly against the stage for most of the show. grinning. i had stumbled into a pocket of the world that immediately felt like home.
afterwards, waiting for the bus, camera aimed at ice:

...a guy walked up and asked if i knew where orion was in the sky. we were standing directly under a streetlight that obliterated any astronomy. i directed him south. he came back around the corner a moment later. "i found it!" he was very jubilant. we walked down the block together, into dimness, and admired the stars.
the GODDAMN COLD is making everything jarringly lovely. and people are nicer. faces are rosy. and the sunrise, just now, was once again beautiful.

split open and not melt

it snowed on saturday! this is the parking lot of my work, 2am. i was the only one excited about it.

an inch of snow is a pathetically big deal in seattle.


this morning: there is nary a cloud. in the local parlance, it is cold as balls.


...currently reading 'in cold blood', which is fucking fantastic, in leechlike spurts at various bookstores... a section at a time. i owe the libraries too much to actually borrow anything... and over the weekend, whilst trolling a thrift store, i bought tatum o'neal's autobiography. it is appallingly lurid. as per its genre, i place it a notch above 'elvis and me.'
drink your ne-hi and eat your coney island!

tensegrity

the aurora bridge is one of the most popular suicide vantage points in the country... a few times a year someone jumps, usually during rush hour, landing on the asphalt or expansive factory rooftops rather than the potential safety of ship canal. there is currently a proposition in city council to erect a 'prevention fence' of roughly 9' along both sides of the bridge. i think that's fucking bullshit. if someone is suicidal, a method will be found. or, if a nanny state is truly the fucking answer, why not take a far easier route and just eliminate the PEDESTRIAN SIDEWALKS on either side instead?
*
i love the aurora bridge. it is a marvel of pain and beauty.
*
approaching from the southwest, on this last disarmingly lovely sunday:

emergency boxes are stationed along the bridge. this is your view as you call for help. i almost cried whilst taking this picture. i wonder how many people, if any, looked at the vista before them and thought "maybe another day, but not now."
then again, something beautiful should be the last thing anyone sees, whatever the circumstances.

and on several pillars, a smartass bansky ripoff:

i was in an oddly humanity-loving mood when i got off the bridge on the fremont side. i passed the troll, a huge group of kids posing for photographs in front of it, everyone rosy-cheeked and darting around hyperactively. the leaves on the sidewalk were wet and slippery. permanent puddles reflected the sun.
*
i revisited another happy place, st ignatius chapel, last night. this is one of my oases of serenity. one need not be religious to appreciate goodness.
this is part of the ceiling:

and the functional contrast of the everyday, somehow more evocative at 12:45am, in black and white, with a mild alcohol buzz:

now: rain hits the window while a cat drinks water. i am surrounded by soothing sounds of wetness.

mise en place

the leaves are still red and tenacious.

the sky above my work as i arrived on friday: do you ever think, 'if i could make love to nature, this is what it would look like?' no, i don't either.

a study in textures:

'it's all over' on repeat

this is what i do on my nights off:

earlier wednesday i sat on the floor of the UW bookstore and reread 'less than zero.' it is still a novel with absolutely no redeeming qualities. i unconsciously seek out very grim books in the winter; it was about 8 years ago that i first went through my bret easton ellis stage, killing time at the anchorage barnes & noble before working my graveyard shift- not seeing daylight for days at a time, mean outside temperature -5 degrees, reading fucking 'american psycho' and wondering why i was depressed.
thursday morning, the non-view outside my window:

the fog has been a clingy mistress of late. i love fog. it makes everything immediate and dreamlike, sexy and haunting. the other day it never lifted at all.
normally my view is a bit more detailed. it is nice to have the perspective fucked with every now and again.
*
about 5 years ago i found this bottle opener in a ramshackle antique shoppe outside olympia:

the guy who owned the store couldn't tell me much about it. "from the thirties?" he guessed. it is heavy, possibly iron. it reminds me of a fucked-up toy that you'd receive at a carnival midway during the great depression. i use it, obviously, as an incense holder. it has left rust spots on the counter.
then, last june, i was in new orleans, skulking around another antique store, and found this... his lover!

(the bottle was sold separately.)
this other purveyor didn't know the history either. "she looks pretty drunk though!" he said, then laughed at his own joke.
i have (briefly) looked online for where the fuck these things came from. were they merely novelty goods, akin to troll dolls or slap bracelets or kit-kat clocks? just schlock that defined a brief gleaming era of americana?
*
a few weeks ago, during one of my nocturnal strolls through the seamy undercurrent, i saw this view through a restaurant window:

i try to picture what it must look like when brightly lit and bustling, when workers are bumping into each other and laughing and conversing loudly over the din- and what those workers do when they leave, if their clothes reek of spices (it's a thai restaurant), if their hands are sore, if they got burned or spilt upon, if they're completely fucking sick of thai food and curl up with a bowl of cereal instead. i showed this picture to someone. "that's creepy" they said. "why'd you take that? that place looks gross."
i see: a dim rec room in someone's parent's house. they're out for the night and you've just finished having furtive teenage sex. your clothes are everywhere, unfindable, and you are scrambling in the dark trying to locate them. your reality is completely altered, but in an environment so chokingly familiar you want to run away. but once out of the house, with the cold air and the silence and the sound of your own breath, LEFT ALONE WITH YOUSELF, you marvel at the possibilities of life-changing moments in every inch of everyday minutae.
the possibilities are the important part. the outcome is all but irrelevant.
or: i see the interior of a grimy restaurant, photographed from the sidewalk... while the city sleeps.

i write very eagerly when i am angry.
when i am sad - vulnerable, pathetic, pessimistic, ego-depleted - i write very little.
i'm embarrassed and ashamed.
and i've had enough moments of bliss to know exactly what i'm missing.