In Which: Rural Thailand Treats Us Well

A lady on the trip with us, N, has written a really great email, so I am going to copy and paste hers below because everyone is waiting for the computer, with some edits by me. (Note: as I'm editing this, it is in fact 8:00 am, Wednesday morning.)

N SAYS: It's 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon as I'm beginning this story and we just finished our second exhausting but rewarding day of work.

We are staying in a small fishing village called Khuraburi. It is 3 hours north of Phuket and it was a very, very, long bus ride from the airport in Phuket to this place, Sunday afternoon.We began today, Tuesday, by walking around the weekly market. The 10 of us negotiated over gifts to give the children at the Burmese school we have been working at, sometimes haggling as much as 25 baht. (Less than a whole dollar.)

We moved on to a delicious breakfast in the local market--we eat there every morning--with hot thai tea and coffee, savory rice porridge with pork or shrimp, and what you might call patties of sticky rice made with coconut milk, wrapped in palm or banana leaves. AARWENN SAYS: This is real Thai cooking, and I am GAINING WEIGHT. It's all delicious, and dinner meals are spicy as heck. Our guide, and a few of us in the party, (including me) consider ourselves to be real spicy food connoisseurs, and our mouths are on fire. And it's absolutely wonderful. I wish I knew the names of the dishes so I knew what to ask for in the states at Thai restaurants, although I don't think most of them are even available. (Hi, parents and grandparents! C and I are not starving!)

Back to N: Next was our long bumpy ride on benches in the back of a "bus"--read: glorified truck--for 45 minutes. When we arrived at the school it wasn't long before the first of the children rushed out to join us in our painting, cleaning, and before long - picture taking. Three little girls took off with our camera and fashion-victim-style sunglasses and took photos of us, themselves, and their friends for the next hour or so. Those photos are priceless and I can't wait to share them.

The work is hard. It's hot. We sweat out the water faster than we can drink it. AARWENN SAYS: Which is good, because the latrines are...latrines. Holes in the ground, although they DO have ceramic or plastic "standing spots". There are about 6 of them at the school, and they vary widely in cleanliness--some are cleaner than most bar/club bathrooms back home, and some are...best left avoided. Thailand in general has a waste management problem, and the Burmese school is in the slums, so there is trash everywhere, huge piles of it out back of all the huts. It's depressing. HOWEVER. In ONE of the latrines, one of the feral dogs has had a litter of puppies! They were born just a day or two before we arrived, if not ON our first day--they don't even have their eyes open yet. It's the little things that make the slums bearable.

Back to N: The children are overwhelming in their enthusiasm. I showed them on a map today where Seattle is, and where Thailand is. Their eyes lit up as they drew their finger across the map and saw how far we had come before showing up to help at their school and entertain them.

We have another day and a half at their school. The last day we will do a skit to teach them about recycling, and oral hygene, and then we give them their gifts of tooth brushes and toothpaste. AARWENN SAYS: Thai food is very sweet, surprisingly so, and the children do not know how to brush, so their baby teeth are rotting out faster than their permanent teeth are coming in. THAT is depressing. However, the older kids, with their permanent teeth, seem to be fine. C and I aren't sure if that's because permanent teeth have better enamel or what. In general, actually, it's obvious throughout the entire area, with both the Burmese and the Thai, that the influence of Western culture has generally had a tremendous positive influence on the health of the citizens in the area. There's a huge difference between Thais our own age, who look exactly like us, and their parents or grandparents, who look much more...rural. Like they just left their hill tribes. On the negative side, the Western culture of consummation of pre-packaged things--sodas and pre-wrapped sweets and things--has TRASHED the area, see the Waste Management problem, above. That's a much longer conversation that I won't subject all of you to right this second--this note is long enough as it is.

Back to N: Then we move on to our home stay in Tung Dap where we will be staying with former people who come from a history of Sea Gypsys who lived aboard their boats. They will be much more modest, but it will be our first time to spend at the beach. They will do a traditional dance for us on the first night we are there--we are all looking forward to this.

AARWENN SAYS: It is hot, for sure, but surprisingly bearable, or maybe we're just getting used to it. And we are fairly covered up--capri pants and short-sleeved shirts--for modesty and to not stand out too much, but again, it is bearable. There is exotic wildlife everywhere, including geckos and the loudest cicadas I have ever met, but nothing invasive. None of us are sick, we are all working very hard, and in general, stepping outside of our comfort zones. I had no idea I would be working with kids this much, but I'm rolling with it, and our accommodations are WONDERFUL! Luxurious little huts with granite floors and gorgeous dark wood fixtures. C and I love and miss all of you. Stay tuned for the next update.

Made it!

We made it! We caught a taxi from the airport and arrived at our hotel with zero wrong turns or communication difficulties, in spite of it being only the second DAY of our taxi driver's career. (That was a fun exercise in translation, trying to figure that out. C rose well to the challenge, while I stared blankly.) It is very hot, no exaggeration; it was 2:40 am here when we arrived and it was at least 80 degrees, with 100% humidity. Customs at the airport took us very little time, in spite of my passport being four months from expired, and we are meeting our tour group tomorrow at breakfast at 8:00 am. There are little buglets everywhere, but they are shy--so far only C, who will attract the only mosquito in hundreds of miles, has a bite. Our hotel is very modern and the room is very large, with all the amenities, right on the river. Things are very, very cheap; a 25 minute taxi ride from the airport to our hotel was 15 dollars for both of us together (and we got RIPPED OFF) and bottles of beer are 1 dollar. (Roughly.) (I feel like we got our money's worth, though, since our cab had a bumper sticker of the Playboy bunny.)

We have not drunk the water--hence the beer--and we are looking forward to our day of rest tomorrow before starting our volunteer work on Sunday. Hello, from Thailand, to everyone.

Thailand in 2.5 Days!

My trip to Thailand is so close that I can start counting, accurately, in HALF days. Life is good.

There's just a few things I have to do before I leave, like, decide my entire academic future.

Dating Post! (Short and Non-Scandalous)

That's right. It's happening. And it's BORING, sorry.

Hi! I'm single. You may have noticed. Or maybe you haven't? I was dating AZ for a short time there, but I didn't really make a formal announcement, which saved me the trouble of making a formal announcement when we broke up. He's a great guy. (Hi, AZ!) But not for me.

Anyway. For those of you who read this blog mainly to catch up with my life and not for my witty commentary on Current Events, now you know what's up in my dating life. No, I'm not sitting at home alone o'nights. Yes, there's men in my life. Yes, I AM currently late for my next appointment, what makes you ask? Oh, you expected as much? Hmm. Eff you too then.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

It was daylight when Titan and I went into the Rite-Aid. Ten minutes later we stepped out into the pitch black of a murder mystery.

I ducked under the Chase awning to pull up my hood and arrange my coffee and plastic Rite Aid bag; Titan shook his head in a futile attempt to keep water from running into his eyes. The rain was going sideways, hard enough to drown out almost everything but the collective reaction of the hundreds of people on the street, all struck dumb by the sudden downpour. It was almost too late before I could aurally distinguish the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of the Ferrari motor, the navy blue supercar just idling down the street, from the shouts and distinctive tap-tap-tap sound of the heavy rain, and just as I turned to look at the gorgeous rear end as it passed, a giant glass splinter of lightning stabbed down from the heavens.

It was like a strobe light times a thousand and it seemed to go on forever--everyone on the street frozen, cars in the middle of parallel parking, passers-by in the middle of shouting, mouths open, and then the night darkened again and the Ferrari engine growls were forcefully woven into the cracka-BOOM of the instantaneous thunder. Apparently the storm was right on top of us, as if that wasn't already apparent with the sideways rain. Titan and I braved it home, snot running down my face from my stuffy nose and me babying my cut finger and trying to ward off hacking coughing fits and Titan taking his sweet time sniffing things, me pulling at his leash, trying to get him to just HURRY IT UP ALREADY. All around us, lightning flashed and thunder boomed and car alarms went off. By comparison, contracting swine flu eight days before I have to leave for Southeast Asia seems kind of tame.

On Writing

I've been accused, often--maybe not so much "accused" as I have been "laughably charged", as no one's really mad--that I distort the truth in these blog posts of mine. Friends who are present for an episode and then read about the episode later are always bemused. "That's not exactly what happened," they sometimes say, or else they say, "That's not ONLY what happened."

Hey: I haven't taken any oaths to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing BUT the truth (although I swear I don't make things up) and if I did, I wouldn't be writing.

Because writing by its very nature is a lie.

Or at least, it has only a passing resemblance to the truth. To what actually happened.

It's impossible, at least by amateurs like me, to really capture the wholeness of any scene taking place in Real Life. For one thing, Real Life doesn't stop or start--it's always going, always, and hundreds of back stories, side stories, and hell, cover stories are bubbling away at all times, informing every participant in the scene but totally impossible to capture in the written word. Blog posts, or novels, or newspaper columns, or whatever, have to start somewhere and end somewhere, and they have to make some kind of point. They have to illuminate a lesson or sharpen a moral truth, take 1000 words and create an etching in your mind of Real Life. A good column or blog post is 3-D; if you turn the page sideways you can almost see the image that the writer is trying to convey crystallizing over the page. A good writer sees a scene and cuts away everything that is not, in fact, the point, allowing the dimly lit kernel, the basis of human interaction, glimmer darkly from the page of newsprint.

And that is impossible to do while trying to capture every angle of every conversation said during the half an hour conversation that the writer caught and wrote down.

The best way to capture Real Life is not, in fact, to record every second of it, but instead to pull at a glowing thread, tracing it backwards, following its twists and turns and recording every second of that journey. If Life is a tapestry, good writing is about three inches of embroidery thread. Trying to describe the whole tapestry in words does not invoke images of Real Life in your audience; instead, it makes them think you can't write. Character development in novels is the same: a real 3-D character is almost too much, seems too unrealistic. It's better instead to shine a spotlight on certain characteristics at certain times and leave out most characteristics altogether.

And keeping this in mind is helpful as I try to paint a picture of Capitol Hill on this very stormy night.

SWINED!

Hello. My muscles ache. Like, a lot, a lot. I have a fever. I am fatigued as hell. It tires me to go up and down the stairs. I voted anyway, even though it took a lot of damn energy to walk to the mailbox. Fortunately my friends are effing AMAZING and have already brought me care packages! Seriously, you guys. My friends ROCK.

Now I just need to: a) kick the virus before I leave for Thailand, as they might not let me into the country with an elevated temperature, and b) not develop pneumonia afterwards, as I hear from anecdotal evidence is common. Popping more vitamins now.

A Good Reminder

Mom, by email, Friday afternoon: "I know you had a very exciting weekend, dear. But try to remember to take your phone charger HOME with you today."

Me: "Yes, ma'am."

And in spite of that I ALMOST FORGOT IT AGAIN--but I didn't! Thanks, mom. You rock.

In Which I Hose My Phone and Develop a Social Life Anyway

1. While playing snake pong, take out phone to text T and discover phone is dead. Continue to play snake pong. Move on to basketball. Arriving home at 2:30 am, neglect to attempt to plug in. (The attempt part is important.)
2. Saturday morning, wake up bright and early with dead phone. Only then do I realize--due to my inability to attempt this feat the night before--that my wall charger is at work.
3. Run out to Jeep, start Jeep, and plug phone, via car charger, into Jeep.
4. Not five minutes later, C comes to pick me up for full day of errands. Take car charger with me.
5. C's car plug-in no worky-worky.
6. Phone battery runs out immediately.
7. C drops me off from full day of errands. LEAVE CAR CHARGER WITH C ACCIDENTALLY.
8. Frantically email people about movie premiere plans for Saturday night, since I have no phone.
9. Drop by Neighbor's apartment to use HIS phone. Neighbor asks what my plans are and, hearing it's a ski porn movie premiere, immediately invites hisself. Sweet! Ride! Problem: There may not be any tickets left.
10. Arrive at the Hurricane for pre-funking. Realize I have left my ticket for movie premiere at home. Neighbor offers to go BACK to our collective apartment complex to get it. I tell him four places said ticket "might" be. He rolls his eyes.
11. I go to stand in line in the freezing cold to buy Neighbor a ticket.
12. I make friends with the people around me in line, one of whom lets me use his phone to call Neighbor. I am about to call Neighbor when he re-appears on the scene!
13. Neighbor found my ticket with only a medium effort and returned to the movie premiere on time!
14. Neighbor reassures me that super-mean attack Dawg barely stirred from his 13th nap of the day as Neighbor entered my apartment, rooted around in my stuff, and left again. Huh.
15. Neighbor buys an extra ticket from one of my new friends in line.
16. We even have time to get drinks and food at the Hurricane!
17. T, who was the whole reason I was there, is already there with the divine Miss D, surrounded by boys. One of the boys I already know from salsa. Obviously.
18. I also run into Miss A out on the town with her boy. Neighbor asks if I know everyone in this town. Um, No? Fine. Yes. So?
19. I save 13 spots for the entire crew against an increasingly hostile crowd at the King Cat.
20. Fall asleep on Neighbor's shoulder.
21. On to the next party! Half the gang, including T and Miss D, decide to go to Ozzie's. I am down 100%.
22. 2:30 am. Leaving Ozzie's.
23. Sunday morning: breakfast. And then major intense cleaning. After all, my mother's coming over later!
24. FINALLY, on Sunday afternoon at 4, C, bless her heart, drops off my car charger.
25. Run out to Jeep and plug in.
26. Mother arrives with finished pillow! And I have a clean apartment to show off!
27. Sunday at 6 PM: PHONE!
28. Sunday night: T calls. We chat briefly as we are both on our way to dates. Not with the same person.
29. Sunday at midnight: crash into bed.

Boa Constrictor

It's 9:00 pm on Friday night. C and I are outside Jazz Alley, black boots and trench coats on, swapping stories with a very opinionated lady from New Jersey. Spanish Harlem Orchestra has just rocked our minds for two hours. And then the Bat Signal illuminates the sky: BEER PONG AT ALLEY 24!

Dodging our way through the alley packed with the after show crowd, waving to salsa friends, the CRV carries us gently through the back streets of South Lake Union, following the signal. C makes sure we eat before we arrive on the penthouse level of Alley 24 to find beer pong games already in progress, the gentle rain not impeding either the speed of drinking OR the boa constrictor, who gets passed around like a heavy, moving necklace as we all want to hold her. She snuggles into our coats, trying to stay warm. Three hours later, we're shooting hoops in the park across the street and having the most fun I've had in some time, in spite of the fact that I can't dribble to save my life and S--who became my date after C left--totally shows me up.

The next day, C and I spend three hours jumping on mattresses before I accompanied her furniture shopping, with barely enough time to breathe in between shopping, dog-walking, and getting ready for a helluva party surrounding a much-hyped ski movie premiere. Movie: not great. I fall asleep on my neighbor's shoulder. Party: off the hook. There is much ridiculousness. Around all these events are many additional complications that my subconscious like to add just for fun, like: my phone died on Friday night at Spanish Harlem Orchestra and wasn't revived until the weekend was completely over. I forgot my original ticket for the movie premiere at home and had to send my neighbor to go get it while I held his spot in line, with no phone for last-minute coordination.

And then on Sunday I got to eat and breathe and to see my mother.

All in all, the weekend could not have been better. Plus I can now check "Play beer pong while wearing a snake" off my list of Life Goals.

Snobs

Tri-Tip: I'm in the line at Tully's and there is a woman in front of me gushing about New Moon. And according to her badge...she has a SECURITY CLEARANCE.
Tri-Tip: I cry for humanity.
Me: They should really revise the security questionnaire. "Do you think Stephanie Meyer is one of the greatest authors living today? You do? I'm sorry, the United States government no longer needs your services."
Tri-Tip: We are snobs.
Me: All the more reason why we deserve our security clearances.

Commonalities

There are several blogs I read on a regular basis. What's that you say? SEVERAL. No, I'm not giving you an exact number. Jeez. If you met President Obama, would you ask him EXACTLY how many times he did cocaine? Oh, you would? Forget you then.

Anyway.

Some of the blogs I read are definitely more on the conservative side, because a lot of them are frugality blogs and there seems to be a large overlap between frugality and nuclear family values. I would never read one that was political, but many of the authors might have a lot of kids and be generally really Pro-Family, and I was going along reading my Google Reader today and I came across this post:

AMAZING Freebie: Pregnancy Tests

from Frugal Homemaker Plus by Catherine at Frugal Homemaker Plus

Now, I've never taken one, and that's not just a statement made up to calm my parents. It's true: I've never taken one. Never needed to. (Thank you, comprehensive sex ed.) But a few of my friends, mainly due to high stress lives and high-control personalities, have had moments of anxiety, and bought and taken them at once time or another, and they've all been negative and everyone's moved on with their lives.

THE POINT IS that this is my context for pregnancy tests, and therefore I looked at this post and thought about the general audience for this Christian frugality blog and I was like, "What the heck would a bunch of goody-two-shoes Christian girls, married, need pregnancy tests for?"

Attention: Jetta

Hello, Green Jetta initiative. I appreciate what you're trying to do. I like the idea of the Portland to Portland test drive. If I ever buy another car, I may get a new "greener" Jetta TDI.

But when I see this car


hold up both lanes of traffic on 10th Avenue during rush hour as the driver makes two disastrous attempts to parallel park in a spot big enough for two Volkswagen buses, I am not impressed. It does not want to make me buy a Jetta. Or even go near a Jetta. Please train your drivers in the art of spacial recognition. THANK YOU.

My Social Life and Veronica Mars

I'm taking the GREs on Saturday, and I have just discovered the TV show Veronica Mars.

These may be the two worst events to happen in the same month EVER, where "worst" is defined as, "you have now stayed up until 4:30 am watching Veronica Mars TWICE in the last two weeks, are in fact getting sick due to your wonky sleep schedule, haven't studied anywhere near enough, and are, in general, acting like you're back in school again already, when in fact this tendency is just more proof you should NOT be GOING back to school, you piss-poor excuse for an adult, you."

It's a long definition, but the Devil's Dictionary is like that. Long entries. (And they're in really tiny print in faded gray ink in an unnecessary ornate font.)

Um.

Fortunately my social life has apparently disappeared this week. No one has called, or is calling, which is sort of a blow to the self-esteem, but damn near perfect for my studying.

The problem is, instead of hanging out with people, am I studying?

Why would I do that?

It's a Miracle My Dog is Still Breathing

My jewel box of an apartment is many things--beautiful, perfectly situated, priced right. What it is NOT: large. Or possessing garden space.

This summer, though, as it's the best summer Seattle has had in three decades (NOT an exaggeration, for once) finally propelled me to seek out garden space where I could find it and attempt to grow something. And so I found a sunny spot by a garage wall, bought soil, and planted seeds. Everyone else in my family appears to be able to grow things; my dad has his dahlias, my grandmother has blueberries, apples, and pears, and my mother is really gifted with plants, coaxing tomatoes from nothing.

Apparently I don't have the gene. Results have been mixed: my arugula (so I can offer the Prez his favorite salad green if he comes over) is growing like crazy, and I have one--ONE--nasturtium bravely making an appearance, but everything else was apparently DOA. I pointed this out to my mother on a recent visit to my apartment.

"Hmmm," she said, peering over my little plot. "How often did you water in the geminating stages?"

"Uh...once a week?"

She stared at me. "Daughter! You have to water them EVERY DAY!"

Me: "WHAT? How is that possible? I only have to oil my bike chain once every other fill-up!"

Mom burst out laughing. "I think you chose wisely when you stuck with engineering," she said, still chuckling.

No wonder people left farming behind as soon as they could. That's just ridiculous. At least Titan can tell me when he's hungry. I strongly believe that plants should just...grow. Apparently they don't agree.

Realization Of The Day

When both your mother and your GRANDMOTHER approve of your underwear choices, you are doing something drastically wrong.

Excuse me while I throw everything out and restock. Thank you.

A Single Girl Calls an Old Friend, Now Much Married With Two Kids

Ring. Ring, ring, ring. Answering machine.

"Hi L, it's Aarwenn! I just wanted to call and say hi."

Stuck.

"Um, so! I've been following you on Facebook, like everyone else, and it seems like everything is going well. Life here is about the same. Work continues fine and boys flow in and out like normal."

I realize how ridiculous this sounds, not that it's untrue but that it's so far removed from what her life must be like. Back in the day she used to TRAIN me on how to structure one's life so that boys could flow in and out, and now she's married. We used to be attached at the hip. She was the reason my entire sophomore year was a blur. She was a controversial figure in the sorority, a tiny bouncy ball of energy propelled by curly hair and a huge appetite for life that I've never met in anyone before or since.

How do you TALK to someone who flew out from the West for your 21st birthday whom you haven't seen for two years?

Oh yes! Kids!

"I hope..."

Brief moment of terrifying panic that I will get their names wrong. More proof of what a terrible person I am, as I am actually an adopted aunt for Big Sister, and of course there's no way I can get these names wrong--I know them. I KNOW them. But I'm terrified I'm going to suddenly blurt out the wrong name at the moment of truth.

...Big Sister and Little Brother are well!" Whew.

Stuck.

"Um, oh yes, and Husband!"

Oh dear, Husband. The man who fathered the kids who have created this vast chasm between her and me, not that it's anything he shouldn't have done but I can't help blaming him anyway. Otherwise I'd have to blame her, and my emotional connection to her is way too strong to direct any negative emotion towards her. Anything I feel towards her, I feel towards myself. I can't judge, because that'd be judging me, and I can't shun. And I can't blame. So Husband gets the lion's share. Which he fully deserves.

The problem is a friendship can't always be conducted at that emotional level. A friendship forged in the crucible of an evolving sorority and falling grades and a discovery of drinking games and the bone-deep chill of a Pittsburgh winter and a bleak sun rising on yet another sleepless night looks a little odd in the calm midday sunshine of a steady job and a marriage. She can always call on me, and has, in times of great trouble. And in return, I call her occasionally, leaving bright chirpy messages on her answering machine.

"So, guess I'll talk to you later! Bye!"

Things I Like

Which has this song in it: http://www.last.fm/music/Squeak+E.+Clean/Remixes/Lollipop-o+(Squeak+E.+Clean+and+Desert+Eagels+remix)

A more traditional version of which is covered here:



Which led to this girl's gorgeous rendition of Hallelujah:



Hooray, weekend.

Moving On With Life

The five-year plan for my life is coming to an end in January.

In January, I will have worked here at The Office for five years. I've had several different jobs. I am making the kind of money that I planned on. And I have paid off my car. (Because it got totaled, but I didn't specify HOW I wanted to pay off my car.) And thanks to my five years of work, my pension--yes, The Office still has pensions--will be set.

What next?

Well, I'm applying to grad school. And riding the motorcycle a lot, and traveling a lot (not yet at the same time) and completely avoiding writing my novel, although that's obviously what I SHOULD be doing. It's an interesting time.

I Can't Write To Save My Life

So I'll just write a List Of Happenings.

ON the plus side, I have finally waited at work long enough that the wind has died down and I'll be happier riding home.

My life, in handy bulleted format, definitely not safe for delicates:

• Sunday morning I stepped in dog doo twice before 10:30 am.
• This is only deserved for waking up early enough to be out the door at 10:30 am. Only idiots do that on a regular basis.
• I just read some of Tucker Max's updates from his movie premiere tour. No, but no one, should ever do that.
• Now that you've done that, you'll need to douse your brain in bleach; I recommend taking it straight up the nose. I'll wait.
• My car got broken into.
• My car broke down.
• Midas charged me 63 dollars for some hand-holding.
• My mother gave me an iPod to replace the one that got stolen from my car.
• My car runs okay now.
• But I have basically stopped running.
• I have rearranged my apartment three times.
• In two weeks.
• On Friday, I made a sofa.
• I can't decide if staying at home and making things is more or less lame than parking next to the swingers boat at Seafair.
• That was weird.
• Both ends of the spectrum are weird.
  
• I went shooting two weeks ago.
  
• On Sunday, I made a jewelry chest.
• I went go-kart racing last week.
• I made arugula pesto with my homegrown arugula.
• I made basil pesto with my neighbor's homegrown basil.
• I spray-painted things.
• Poorly.
• I'm on a budget and it's made me weird.

THE END.

I'm a Racist, and You Are, Too

Please read this excellent article at The Root: But My Best Friend Is Black!

Amen, brother. There's a reason why I am not a professional writer--I can't put my thoughts as clearly as this man has and I never will be able to. He nails an important point that I've firmly believed for years: We are ALL Racist. You are. Yes, you. And you, too. And you, up there in Canada, and you, over there in Pennsylvania. You are, and what's more, there's no way you can NOT be Racist. It's built into the human condition, and there's nothing you can do about it.

As the author points out, a lot of people seem to think that "Racism" equates to "Member of the KKK", and so they shy away from this word, and of course, with good reason. Very few people in this world would actually join the KKK, or admit that they think black people have less value in this world than white people. Or, indeed, actually think that way at all. But that's not the ONLY way to be racist, and in fact, that's the most rare way.

Much more common: happening to notice there's three young black guys walking toward you on the street corner and using that moment to power-lock your car doors while you're sitting in a parking lot. (For the record: that's awful. You should be ashamed of yourself.) What's even worse: convincing yourself that the presence of the young men had nothing to do with it and that you just happened to remember to lock your doors at about that time. Now you're a racist AND you're lying to yourself. Or, also very common, having a playlist labeled "Black People Music". (I'm sure John Coltrane is tickled to find himself lumped in with Jay-Z.) An example from my own life: I'm often too friendly to young black women here at The Office. (All two of them.) I don't know these girls from Adam and there's no reason for me to give them bigger smiles in passing than anyone else. But I want to encourage their presence, and I worry that they feel ostracized due to their race, and noticing that is just as racist as locking a car door.

Sigh. The problem, like I said earlier, is that being racist is part of the human condition. Humans feel most comfortable with other humans who look exactly like them. I'm no anthropologist, but my own theory is that back when we were apes, recognizing a strange ape in a nest could be the difference between living and dying. "Stranger" usually meant "danger". (And indeed, the two words are almost identical in French.) And until a method arises in which we can see into a stranger's intentions, judging them as a potential threat relies on visual cues, and for some reason, the prevalent social method to avoid danger involves preconceived notions about the stranger's race. This sort of broad stereotyping may have been beneficial as apes, but as humans, it's just as inhibiting to our development as our old "prevent starvation" metabolisms that make it much easier to gain weight than to lose it. It's much, much too broad. A human of another color doesn't signify danger any more than a piece of cheesecake should be stored as fat in case we don't eat again for three days. The scary thing is, racial stereotyping will blind you to the other contextual cues you SHOULD be paying attention to, like: Possible Intoxication. State of clothing. Time of Day. Intentions of possible stranger. Are they on their phone? Are they listening to music? Do they have their keys in their hand because they're obviously walking to their car? They do? Then why are you locking your car door?

I can't, and you can't, get over being a racist all at once, and in fact we'll never chase away the tendency entirely. But shying away from the concept isn't the way to fix it. When a black person says, "That's racist, and here's why," it's our job to listen. Yeah, minorities disagree within themselves, much like how women disagree over what's sexist and what isn't. And yeah, some minority representatives are super-sensitive and thin-skinned and appear to be constantly offended, and that's annoying. But the beautiful thing about humans is, that person would be just as annoying if they were white.

Two more fascinating posts on race, both short reads, one involving Mad Men*.

Feminism's Problem With Race

Why "Mad Men" Is Afraid Of Race

*Which has the official Stuff White People Like stamp of approval.

Taking My Own Advice

I can't believe this was a whole year ago, but it was: Good Reasons for Going to Goodwill.

I had one of those days yesterday in which I ran around and did a bunch of errands, and not ALL of those errands worked out--more about my Motorcycle Saga later--but a surprising number did, especially given that most of those errands cropped up on a moment's notice. I completely failed in Bellevue, which blew. But I checked Google Traffic on my storm and noted that I-90 was moving fine, while 520 was completely stopped for five miles, so I went south on 405 to the I-90 bridge. This was way out of my way, but a worthwhile detour compared to sitting still in gridlock for an hour. And then since I happened to be down by I-90, at the last second I glanced back at my passenger, who was wagging his tail, and remembered a dog park located off Genessee and Ranier, so I quickly cut right and took Ranier Avenue South. I had trouble finding the park on my phone--note to self, Genessee only has one 'n'--but right as I remembered to look for the Tully's on the corner, I approached the turn I needed and swung into the right lane.

Cut to Titan leaping about happily at the dog park and me worshipping my phone, even though it can't auto-correct Genessee.

And THEN I remembered I had a Starbucks Treat Receipt in my wallet from the morning and I swung by a Starbucks, between Franklin High School and the new Mount Baker light rail station, checking out the light rail as I did so. I thought maybe I didn't need the extra calories of a smoothie NOR did I need to spend $2, even though it was such a savings, but then I went ahead, and I'm happy I did, as my nice slow pace reminded me that I was right by the Dearborn Street Goodwill and I had a bag of things to give away in my car.

And THEN while I was there, I remembered writing a post about how everyone should go to Goodwill occasionally, and I thought I'd drop in while I was there.

And then I learned it was 30% off all Linens.

Which was fortuitous since I have two twin mattress-box-sets sitting on my living room floor pretending to be a corner sofa right now, and they could pretend a lot easier if they were draped in something. I walked out with a pile of linens and throw pillows for thirty-three dollars. And the music at Goodwill is way better than the muzak at, say, Dania Home Furniture. I bopped along to Elvis as I stroked used, beautiful, peacock-blue taffeta and was surprised all over again at how much fun thrift store shopping can be.

The Hack Shares

Customer Service Story of the Day: After owning my Storm for less than a month, the touchscreen stopped working. I was scared to take it into Verizon for trouble-shooting. I was certain it wouldn't be covered under any kind of warranty, as I had bought it on eBay, but I thought if I was charming enough, they might give me a quick diagnostic test.

The downtown store at Westlake and Stewart was packed on a Saturday, and I sat for a long time, listening to some melodramatic man's very long phone conversation about his crazy social life, before I got a smiley young man who heard my complaint, looked at my phone, checked for water damage, and said, "Well, you're still under warranty. I'll just replace it."

Wuh-buh-huh?

"Sure!" I said brightly, giving him a big smile. "Thank you!"

He smiled back. "No problem! Isn't this a great phone? We all have them here." As he spoke, his manager pulled out his own Storm to make a quick call.

"I'm a big fan," I said, watching the minutes tick by as the smiley young man transferred all my data and microSD card. Any minute now, I kept thinking, he is going to actually look at my account, realize that I didn't buy this phone here, and bring this entire process to a halt. Never happened. I now have a brand new Storm for the price of a used one.

The best part is, the whole reason I upgraded in the first place is because my Voyager camera only worked occasionally. And of course, the day I went into Verizon to replace my Voyager, they were out of them, so they upgraded me to the enV3, so now I have a brand new enV3 sitting at home in the box.

Waiting to be sold on eBay, obviously.

I'd Be Writing, But I Suck

Seriously, I keep starting posts and getting bored of myself. I'm a hack this month. Please move along.

That Look

I'm talking with my lead at The Office on a slow morning. We cover car radios, Crutchfield versus Car Toys, car theft, the merits of various GPS units, the new cell phone toy offerings at Sprint and T-Mobile, and the merits of various plans. Imagine the sound of this conversation like a train: chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga. Nice and even.

I mention that I bought a used Blackberry Storm and he wants to see it, so I pull it out. He asks how it is. "I don't know yet," I said. "I haven't gotten to the store to switch my account over. It's used and I don't know how to clear out the previous account."

"Can't they do it at the store?" he says.

"They CAN," I said. "I just...feel bad."

And the train slams on the brakes: SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH.

"Um. WHY?"

"I bought it on eBay," I said. "It feels shady."

"It's NOT shady," he says. "You could have bought a used phone at Car Toys. That would be an identical situation."

"I know," I said. "But what if something's wrong with it? I've never bought a used phone on eBay before."

"Better to find that out now before you sell your OTHER phone," he pointed out.

"Yes," I said. "But...I'm scared."

He gave me That Look. I get That Look a lot. That look that says, "I assumed you were a rational human being because you have legs and arms and look much like me, although you have long hair and boobs, and I work with you every day and I KNOW you're pretty rational and can do math and stuff, and all of sudden I discover this huge pit of complete irrationality and I don't understand and I don't know what to do and YOU'RE SCARING ME."

Only because he is a man, it came out like, "...Hmm."

I get it from my lead, and from my dad, and mainly from AZ. (That would be The Boy, who is from Arizona.) We'll be chugging along talking about...oh, food, or Obama, or whatever, and then I'll suddenly veer off into a long and involved story about the Blonde Squad and some extremely small disagreement that we had and who was at fault and what's been bugging me about hundreds of bits of minutiae, and right before his eyes glaze over, he gets That Look.

It's the look that says, "Oh, yeah. You're a woman. This irrational-at-great-length feature comes with the standard equipment. Dammit."

Adventures in Extremism

A few weeks ago I did something I've never done before: I woke up at 3:15 am. On purpose.

I've been UP at 3:15 am many, many times. It's not an exaggeration to say I do it at least once a month, sometimes once a week. (Hey, is it MY fault that all the fun stuff happens at night?)

But all my friends--and AZ--were running this marathon, you see, and the thing about marathons is they never schedule them in the evening. I was not running, but I did want to cheer on my friends, and because I like to be involved, it occurred to me that I could volunteer.

Yes. Well. Before I knew it I was signed up for a starting line volunteering shift, which seemed cool because I got a parking pass, and then I read the fine print.

"Arrive at 4 am."

Me: "Wait, there's TWO 4 o'clocks?"

The really odd thing about getting up at 3:15 was that it threw off the whole rest of my day. I came back at 8:30 am, slept for two hours, woke up AGAIN, and dragged my extremely disoriented ass down to the finish line to meet up with the people who actually ran the race, and then we went out to breakfast, and then AZ and I came home and slept AGAIN, waking up just in time to catch Transformers. Or at least one of us did. (Long story, the moral of which is: Avoid the the IMAX at the Seattle Center. Go to Redmond.)

By the end of the day I was so confused I felt like I had lived three lives and moved to Jupiter to raise unicorns. And then I added alcohol. Woo!

Charmed

At the M's game tonight, I am walking across the beer garden carrying a cardboard tray of food in one hand and a bud light in the other, and a man about my age on the prowl asks,

"Hey, can I have a bite of that?"

I shake my head and am about to smile politely when my steps carry me past him and he notices my rear end.

"DAMN! HOT DAMN! YOW! BACK THAT UP!"

His friends join in.

"DAMN, GIRL! WOOOOO-HOOOOO!"

(Actual BARKING.)

(More barking.)

(I begin to think maybe a litter of seals has somehow flopped into Safeco Field.)

Finally, thankfully, I am out of their range and they forget about my ass. The two guys I am with aren't sure whether to be amused or to jump to protect my honor. I assure them that, probably, those guys just liked my...shoes. REALLY liked my shoes.

Funniest YouTube Video In the World

Don't get it? You clearly haven't been surfing the internet enough.

Balance and the Girl In the Mirror

Man, trying to maintain sanity in a relationship is WEIRD.

I spent all weekend--literally, from Friday evening until Monday morning--with AZ, and it was...good, yes. Definitely good. But definitely a lot of time.

It never felt like TOO MUCH time. Nor did I want him to leave. (I would have just said so.) In fact, it was surprisingly comfortable. But it was definitely...odd.

I'm having a hard time pinning down what, exactly, was so odd about it. Maybe it's just that it's been awhile since I had a boyfriend--almost a year, to be exact--and I'm not used to having someone else in my space. But it didn't bother me. Maybe THAT was what was odd--I expected to feel more smothered and didn't. Maybe it's that having a boy in my space constantly would normally send me down a twisted pathway of "OMG THIS IS SO SERIOUS DOES HE LOVE ME? HOW ABOUT NOW? WHAT IF I FARTED? DAMMIT, I JUST DID--DID HE HEAR THAT? DOES HE NOT LOVE ME ANYMORE?"

But not this weekend. That might have been because we had some time apart--through accident, he went to see a movie without me one night, and I ran some errands by myself the next night--or it might have been because we're comfortable with each other, which is true, or it might have been because I'm working hard on keeping myself in an optimistic and self-confident headspace.

BARF. I'm sorry for that last sentence. That was terrible. But it's true. I can get wound around my own axle very quickly if I'm not constantly told by those around me how awesome I am. And even though they SHOULD be, because I AM, it's unfair to expect my friends and loved ones to spend an hour every day telling me how great I am.

Although obviously there's no better use of their time.

But seriously, they could probably be using that hour for other things, like surfing the internet, matching their socks, watching water evaporate from the sink, whatever. Until I become rich and famous enough to have an entourage, I'll have to have actual friends instead of yes-men, and my actual friends have their own lives and needs, which don't include only meeting MY needs. So I've been working on reminding myself that really, I don't need cheerleaders all the time. I can remind myself that I'm pretty or a catch or smart or an exercising machine. Having a great boyfriend or a great circle of friends only goes so far. If I can't conquer the girl in the mirror, I'll never be comfortable in my own skin.

Stupid BITCHY girl in the mirror.

ANYWAY. Some more thoughts about balance in a relationship:



Up until this weekend, I'd say I would normally agree with Maggie Mason and NOT with the other ladies in the video. After this weekend, I'm thinking that a few outside interests can be helpful for blowing off steam. The kicker: I always want to know that I'm number one. AZ wants to email other girls, fine. When he starts ignoring me to answer his email, THEN we have a problem. And this could change depending on the relationship--at six months, sure, keep those outside interests going. At engagement time, I'd better be the only one.

Thoughts?

On Two Wheels

Aarwenn: I'm standing next to the elevator and a guy in a wheelchair comes up.

Aarwenn: And I'm having an internal complaint-fest about why The Office doesn't put in more obvious stairs.

Tri-Tip: In your own head.

Aarwenn: Yes. So I’m completely distracted when he says, "So, who do you think gets more stares at The Office? A guy in a wheelchair or a cute girl?"

Tri-Tip: Woah.

Aarwenn: The funny part is that was I HEARD was, "So, who do you think gets more STAIRS at The Office?”, because I was thinking about stairs. So it took me a hot minute to process what he actually said, because how could a guy in a wheelchair go up stairs?

Tri-Tip: And you start looking at him funny, because you’re trying to process, "But dude, you don't use stairs!"

Aarwenn: Yes! Fortunately I snapped out of it.

Tri-Tip: Because then you realized he was being quasi-creepy.

Aarwenn: EXACTLY. But this distraction prevented me from reacting very strongly to the creepy. Which is probably better for all involved.

Tri-Tip: Probably.

Aarwenn: Still, I was impressed. It takes balls to call attention to your physical handicap and use that as a reason to be inappropriate.

Tri-Tip: True. Handicapped people get a creepy pass, I say.

Aarwenn: Maybe. If I see him again and he asks if I want a ride somewhere, I'm yanking the pass back.

Published in spite of my mother.

Um, not TO spite my mother. Just IN spite of my mother's advice.

Sniffle Sniffle SNONK

Hello! I have allergies. They suck. No, I would not like any Benadryl, thank you. I feel fine, I'm just sneezing all the time, and since allergies aren't contagious, I can at least go to work. (Woo.) It's just a pain in the rear. Or in the nose, in this case. No sinus infection yet, thank Blog. (At least I'm not flying to Japan.)

I am applying coffee.

What I am NOT applying: cupcakes. No, it's not that random. Surely you've heard that cupcakes are taking over the world? That there's now two competing cupcake chains in Seattle and they're opening up stores faster than Molly Moon?

Am I the only one who doesn't grasp the appeal of the cupcakes? I'm just not a fan of that much sugar and flour. Ice cream, definitely--Molly Moon's has a loyal customer in me. Frozen Custard? SIGN ME UP. I've already been twice.

Come to Mama.

But I am so over cupcakes. I was over cupcakes twenty years ago. MOVE ON, EVERYONE. Please. I am beginning to HATE cupcakes.

Other things I am over: Facebook.

Things I am NOT over: Robyn's new album. Yes, THAT Robyn, the one who put out two hits in the nineties. She's back and her new album is seriously AMAZING from start to finish.



Other things I am not over: Dancing! Sadly, no hip-hop for me this week--my allergies kept me home--but I CAN'T GET OVER this choreography:



I thought at first they were high school students, given the venue, and I was about to throw in the towel and never dance again if sixteen-year-olds were this freakin' good.

Then I realized they were all professionals. Whew.

Happy Tuesday! Also, I changed my mind. Please send Benadryl.

Never Mind

Forget that post from yesterday. It was funny and entertaining, but not PC. I'm still deciding if I will post it. If you want to read it and give your opinion, email me!

Moving on: the weather here is absolutely GORGEOUS and I can't get over it. I have all sorts of plans that involve actually BIKING to work and starting a garden, and yesterday I rearranged my entire apartment. The Dawg was very confused.

While I'm rearranging my apartment, I'm having design schizophrenia. Last weekend I tried to buy a TV cabinet; today I'm pretty sure I'm getting rid of my TV altogether. Two days ago I was sure I was buying a real sofa; today I'm thinking about recovering my current one. I'm organizing my entire apartment around a big pink exercise ball that I don't really use and hesitant about making any real changes, like removing a big door that only gets in the way.

However, I HAVE cleaned out my back landing area, so that's something.

Forget me and my design schizophrenia and listen to this song, one of the most romantic songs ever, according to me, and this new update is AWESOME. I didn't include the video link because the video takes the song in a much different direction than the original Toto version. (By the way: song is Africa, written by Toto, updated here by Karl Wolf--who appears to be too poor to afford a shirt on his album cover--and featuring a rapper named Culture.)

Break From Serious

It's a Saturday--watch a fun YouTube video!



I hope alex, especially, appreciates this, since we had an interesting conversation about music forever ago that I still remember. I like Massive Attack, and I like Ratatat and Wired All Wrong. I like Zeppelin and The Turtles and Buddy Holly. I like Beirut and The Duke and the Duchess. What I'm saying is, I like my share of GOOD music, independent music, old music, music with real guitars behind it and real lyrics.

But I also like to dance, and so I have a soft spot in my heart for pop music, even though I know it's terribly manufactured. And videos like this are a good reminder of that.

Here Comes The Rage

I was sitting eating sushi with my mother in the middle of a work day, and although the lunch was going okay, it wasn't our normal happiness level of pink champagne bubbles and newborn kitten fluff. My mom was way stressed out, which I didn't fully comprehend at the time, and I had a different problem: my head was so full of stuff THAT I CAN'T TALK ABOUT that I couldn't, for the life of me, make conversation about ANYTHING else.

You know the feeling, I'm sure. Someone tells you a secret like "I'm proposing to my boyfriend, please don't tell him" or "Sally's parents are getting a divorce because her dad's sleeping with the babysitter", or something equally absorbing and awful, and then you go to a nice party where everyone knows Sally AND Sally's parents AND the couple about to get engaged, unbeknownst to the would-be fiance, and some nice acquaintance asks you a difficult question like,

"Awfully hot weather we're having for May, isn't it?"

And you say, "....Mmmm." Thinking, Don'tsayanythingaboutsally. Don'tsayanythingaboutengagementorweddings.

And then the nice person makes a complicated follow-up statement like, "And I hear it's supposed to be 90 this weekend."

And you SNAP and say, "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MIKE PROPOSING TO JIM AND I NEVER MET SALLY IN MY LIFE PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE." And then your life is ruined. Boy, some people get so upset about a few secrets.

ANYWAY. That's how this lunch was. My mom was silent, picking at her food, since I had taken her to eat sushi, which she doesn't really like, and the rice was sticking in her braces, and I could barely eat since my head was so full of sex and violence and secrets.

She said something very prying and nosy, like, "Pass the soy sauce," and you can guess what happened next.

"OH MY GOD MY VIOLENT ALCOHOLIC EX DROPPED BY MY HOUSE AND KICKED OUT SOME WINDOWS AND THE COPS WERE CALLED AND THEN I HAD A GREAT WEEKEND WITH MY AWESOME BOYFRIEND WHICH INVOLVED A TRIP TO URGENT CARE AND A PHARMACY TRIP AND THEN I DROPPED MY BIKE AND BY THE WAY I OWN LEATHER PANTS."

She was a little startled, as you may imagine. She rallied, though, and spent the next ten minutes yelling at me for ever letting someone that could be described as a violent alcoholic into my life in the first place. Understandable. I said I had told T-Town, she of Insight and Intrigue, and mom said, "Did she say 'I told you so'?"

And I nodded, just keeping the conversation going.

But the really interesting thing is, T-Town never said I told you so. She told me plenty of times while I was DATING the loser that he was a huge loser who frightened her. But the minute the excrement really hit the cooling device, she was nothing but understanding. The Blonde Squad, too, was nothing but understanding when I told them later that night. No one ever said I Told You So except my mother. Which is only proper, as she does an excellent job.

YAWN

My brain hasn't really turned on yet and I'm having a hard time focusing. I'm at least an hour behind my first cup of coffee and it might be two hours before my current cup sinks in. This is always the difficult time of the work morning in which a meeting might happen and I would have to attend said meeting and I would leave said meeting an hour later with no idea of what had happened or why.

As a side note, totally unrelated, the Office has decided, for some reason, to stock PINK PENS in our supplies closet and they make me so happy. PINK! Now my notebook is covered with pink cursive, like I'm on my way to third grade or something, and it's wonderful. The pink wakes me up. A little.

Anyway. I've been silent for a little while, you may have noticed. A lot has happened in my life and most of it I can't talk about, or rather, THOUGHT I couldn't talk about. I mean, there's been some violence. There's been some bike rides. There's been some dropping of the bike. I bought leather pants and they look great. There's been some talk ABOUT looks. There's been some clubbing and dancing and some of my friends have made out with other friends. It's been unseasonably warm here and there's been a lot of beach-going.

In general, a very full life, but it's been full of the things that my parents wouldn't want to read about.

HOWEVER. I'm going to attempt to shake that off, because I'm tired of the parental gag order that I've placed on myself. My life is pretty interesting and if I can't talk about it here, where CAN I talk about it?

Happy Tuesday!

Was everyone ready to go back to work? Because I sure as heck wasn't.

A lot happened this weekend, but the upshot is, Angels and Demons is fairly enjoyable, La Spiga isn't as good as I remember it--although the lamb was excellent--and the SUPER BIG NEWS is that I learned that you can poach an egg in the microwave!

No, really.

I am so going to start doing this at work.

Get Out Tonight Because I Can't

Need something to do? Boy, do I have an event for you!

Lady Sovereign is coming to the Crocodile tonight and I am going to miss it. I'm annoyed.

And she's also going to be at Easy Street in Lower Queen Anne and I'm going to miss that, too.

BOO.

However, my mommy is coming up, and that's pretty awesome, too.

On Being Cool

Many years ago, I was driving my Wrangler around on a gray Seattle summer day, the kind of day where it's just warm enough to have the top down, if you have a convertible, if the heat is on full blast and your muscles are buff enough to keep your body temperature up with relative ease, and it may be gray but it is not raining and therefore you are PUTTING THE TOP DOWN.

Anyway, I was driving north on 99 about to enter Fife, and there was a girl ahead of me in a much older Jeep with the soft top down, her hair up in buns to avoid getting knotted by the wind, sunglasses on although it wasn't that sunny. She had some kind of smiley face sticker on her bumper and I pulled up next to her and waved enthusiastically. She looked over at me, eyebrows raised, and I practically dislocated my shoulder leaning across my Wrangler and rolling down the passenger side window as fast as I could. "Nice car!" I shouted.

She nodded politely, and gave me a half smile, and then the light turned green and she went straight and I took a left. She was obviously not the kind of girl who dug instant warmth from strangers, and we were not going to have a Moment.

And surprisingly enough, that was fine with me. I already knew by that time--and I have been reminded over and over again since--that girls who really are Very Cool don't often have time for Moments.

It's hard, being Cool, and being a Girl. I've met some Very Cool Girls in my time. Not the kind of girl that tries to substitute Attitude for Aptitude--those girls are a waste of space. I'm talking actually cool girls--girls that are, say, UFC fighters. Girls that ride motorcycles or drive sports cars. Girls that are firefighters or snipers or routinely summit Mt. Rainier. Classical musicians. Enterpreneurs. Rock Stars. Women that teach kickboxing for a living. Girls that do something dangerous on a daily basis, that could kill them or cause financial ruin, not just their own but the financial ruin of others as well. Girls that take huge risks. Girls who base their entire lives on a skill that requires daily practice, daily heartache, daily bruises, daily mental breakdowns. THAT is cool.

And surprisingly enough, girls who do that don't have a lot of time for, say, TV shows. Gossip mags. Long dinners with friends. Going out to the clubs three nights a week, or indeed one night a week. Whatever. They're not often in situations in which they need to make polite conversation with strangers, and so they're not in practice, and so they don't. It's one of the great paradoxes of life: those who actually DO something cool are actually the least likely to talk in any group setting. It's always the girl who drops four wine glasses and gets mascara in her eye on a daily basis that grabs the floor to talk about the fascinating daily anecdote from her paper-pushing job, while the girl who just hiked across Peru with only a sherpa for company sits quietly with her whiskey and coke.

There's a lot to explore here: how girls (and people in general) who make a living in a very specialized field have a very specialized view of strangers, namely, that a girl who routinely summits Mt. Rainier already has a group of friends in her climbing team, and her survival depends on being able to trust the team around her implicitly, and therefore may be rightly suspicious of instant warmth from a person she doesn't know. And a girl whose idea of big excitement for the day consists of an overflowing coffee pot is easily able to create instant warmth, because the word "trust" has no meaning for her beyond the obvious rules of life, that a complete stranger will not attempt to, say, punch her in the mouth. (Although that could happen, especially to her.)

Not to mention there is the issue of how best to balance living your life with HAVING a life, at least in which the definition of "having a life" means "going to parties". Which may not be the actual definition of "having a life", but is certainly a solid definition practiced by many. A boy and I were talking about this recently: he wants to be a millionaire by the time he is thirty, and he's exploring various ways to do that, but all those ways take time. And energy. And he wants to have a life as well, because even if he becomes a millionaire at thirty, where's the guarantee that he won't die at thirty-one?

Readers: thoughts? How do you balance the pursuit of amazing things with having a life? Am I alone in thinking that it doesn't make sense to put off "having a life" in order to work?

A Study in Walmart Blue

This article in Newsweek about Walmart's view of recession shopping is insightful and well-written--and NOT a bash on Walmart.

But I'm biased--I love these sorts of articles. I love articles that explore ground-up changes, like what a run on toilet seats means for the economy, and I love well-written articles about so-called Evil Companies, which remind me to pull my head out of my liberal ass, and I especially love studies on consumer patterns.

For more:


Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill

The Call of the Mall, also by Underhill. It's not as good, but still a fun read.

Through the Looking Glass

Are you shy and wonder why? Are you OUTGOING and wonder why? Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be on the other side for awhile? And not just with a few drinks: to really be able to try out a new personality?

This article is a quick and required read. Right now. It won't take you barely five minutes, even if you don't read as fast as I do. (My friend C is the only person I know who can give me a run for my money. Hi, C!)

Key sentences:

"Day 25: A pattern is emerging. Since starting on Paxil, I've been drinking like a fish. For some reason, vitamin P combines incredibly well with alcohol. It's more fun to drink than it was before. I want to be drunk every night. I don't get hung over now, and I remain pretty lucid even when sloshed."

"Day 27: Also, the last few days I've considered cutting down on free-lancing and getting a regular job—consulting or something. Previously, I couldn't imagine a job like this. Regular hours and no creative outlet sounded like a nightmare. All wrong for me. But now, stability, routine, and boredom sounds A-OK. Pleasant, even. An easy way to make a buck and just live my life."

"Day 29: After deciding Paxil is worthless and downing three glasses of wine, I find I want to talk to people. No, it wasn't the alcohol. I drink at parties all the time—and go from standing alone in the corner to standing drunk and alone in the corner. This time, I'm craving conversation."

"Day 35: Pre-Paxil, I was a social drinker. Now I'm walking a mile in someone else's brain chemistry. I can see why some of you like to drink so much, maybe even need to drink so much. It's fun for me now, in a way it just wasn't before. On liquor and Paxil, strangers mean novelty, not fear. Group conversations are a chance to play raconteur, not a chance to smile weakly and shut up.

And it's so much better than sobriety. Sober for me these days means extreme detachment. Movies, once a favorite hobby, do nothing for me now. Likewise books—I just don't connect with the plots or characters. I can't recall laughing (while sober) in the past couple of weeks. I'm never sad, but never happy. Why wouldn't I drink?"

"Day 52: It's mercifully over. But a new phenomenon has taken hold. When I get teary-eyed watching a horrid chick-flick on a cross-country flight, I recognize it: feelings. On Paxil, I barely noticed they were gone. Now that they're back, even overcompensating, I never want to lose them again. Bitterness, anger, jealousy, sadness: They all make me happy."

It often takes an outsider to accurately and poignantly describe a phenomenon, and it turns out that personality discussions are no different. Seth described my own brain to me in a way I couldn't possibly have come up with myself. I'm not quite as extreme, of course, and I imagine most other "natural" extroverts aren't, either--after all, extrovertism isn't the same thing as sociopathy. We have feelings. But it would have never occurred to me before this article that group conversations would equal "smiling weakly and shutting up" to some people. REALLY? Boy. Shutting up never even remotely occurs to me. I always have a lot to say, and I especially have it to say in groups. Get me alone with someone and I can be calm--quiet, even. Put me in a group and the spotlight's on me and I will do anything to keep it there. Until this article, I didn't really understand that some people didn't feel like that. I KNEW that, intellectually, or else the entire world would have gone deaf a thousand years ago from all the talking. But still: it's fascinating to see his take.

This article is especially interesting to me because I recently stopped taking personality-changing hormones, aka The Pill. Leaving aside the sexual revolution aspects of the Pill, what it does to your hormones is fascinating.

In a terrible way.

Don't get me wrong--I was on it for many years, and it performed its job admirably. But had I realized just how much more sane and non-emotional I would be OFF the pill--and that I would lose weight just by blinking and breathing--I might have disembarked the train a lot sooner. The most telling moments arrived over several months when my relationship with the LT was imploding, and I cried every day, sometimes times twice a day. The LT and I broke up, and I was STILL crying all the time. And there is nothing worse, men, than crying at the drop of a hat and having no idea why or how to stop it, and assuming you're going crazy and wondering if you'll ever be sane again. Even though I KNEW I was crying for no good reason, I couldn't get a handle on myself. Suddenly, once I stopped convincing myself I was pregnant all the time (that's what the Pill does) I snapped out of it. Immediately. And I lost ten pounds. It was like entering SaneLand over night. Turns out these "hormone" things really do affect this "brain chemistry" thing.

Obsessions of the Day

I absolutely cannot stop listening to Grown Woman by Mary J. Blige.
Seriously. I need help.

Also on the obsession radar this week:

HIGHLY OFFENSIVE BLOG WARNING: Texts From Last Night. Oh Dear Jesus. So Funny. So Addictive. So Impossible To Stop Reading. My friends and I are now emailing our favorites to each other. It is OUT OF CONTROL.

Old episodes of The Mod Squad on YouTube.

These sneakers. I've been mildly sneaker-obsessed lately, since I desperately need new ones, and these are EXACTLY what I want. I would even pay the outrageous price. Problem: they were already sold out of my size by the time I got to the site. (Damn East-Coasters with their three-hours-ahead bullpuckey.) I got plain black, instead, thinking that I would paint them silver, and...they look so much like combat boots when actually on that I have to return them. Fooey.

Uberconnected and Overwhelmed

See that post? That post that happened right before this one? That was sent from my PHONE.

I still haven't figured out how to get Titles on there. That's the next project.

In any case, though, it's a little nuts. I can now email or text posts to this blog. As I'm typing this, in my Firefox browser, my FoxyTunes plug-in is showing the name of the track that's playing on my computer. I can control that tune--pause, skip to the next track, whatever--right from within my browser, without having to switch windows. Or at least I could if it was being played by iTunes--but it's NOT. Today, that track is being played by Pandora, a website which takes suggestions from me and creates instant personal radio stations catered to my specific tastes, which is possible due to the work being done on the Music Genome Project.

Confused yet? There's more. I can add the track that I'm listening to into this post.

----------------
Now playing: Omar (New Age) - Dancing With The Wind
via FoxyTunes

There. And then you could click that link and look up the track and buy it online--instantly.

But wait, there's more. Because I'm not using just the basic version of Pandora. I'm using the special Pandora.FM version, a mashup created by just another guy, a fan of both Pandora and Last.FM and who wanted to do something to exploit the usefulness of both.

Wait, hang on, my song has changed.

----------------
Now playing: The Octopus Project - Hold The Ladder
via FoxyTunes

Pandora.FM takes any information I enter in Pandora--radio stations I make, tracks I "favorite" and sends it to Last.FM to be recorded in my library. And then my Facebook page takes this information, if I want it to, and records it on my page so all 435 of my friends can see what I'm listening to.

It's completely nuts and I'm loving every second of it.

And you better bet that I finally signed up for my twitter account. You can find me at Magreader. (My privacy behind this online name of mine is a rapidly dwindling thing.)

----------------
Now playing: The Gasman - Overlord
via FoxyTunes

This is a test of the Emergency Blogging System. This is only a test.

April is the Cruelest Month

I happened to be at my dermatologist's office a week go, trying to cure the flesh-eating virus that has made itself at home on my hands, and the nice lady at the front desk was trying to schedule me a follow-up appointment.

"Let's see," she said. "The doc has asked for a three-week follow up, so how's...April 28th?"

I was in the middle of pulling on my calendar on my phone, and I instantly froze. I tried to remain calm. "Wait a minute," I said, barely breathing. "Three weeks from now we'll STILL BE IN APRIL??" I realized only after the fact that I was, indeed, shouting.

In my defense, I hadn't eaten. And without regular food, I am one step away from being forcibly checked into a mental hospital. I know this about myself and try to work around it, with varying degrees of success. However, lack of dating apparently produces a very similar affect, which makes sense if you think about it--lack of sugar is, indeed, lack of sugar. The problem is, without dating, my personality schizing out when I haven't eaten apparently becomes 100% more noticeable--and I can't work around my dating break. Just a few days before I blamed the receptionist for the linear passage of time, I was at a loud bar with about 15 of my closest friends, and the single ladies and I were planning on pairing up and doing "a lap". As I was on break, I was just going to be wingwoman, which was fine with me, until my friend Calsee stopped me. She had been hanging with me for five hours, three of which were at a dance show during which we couldn't even talk, and her patience had already run out. She left my side in the middle of my sentence. I stopped, bewildered. She came back and pressed a few dollars into my hand.

"You are yelling," she said. "Seriously, you are yelling. Please eat something. ANYTHING. You cannot come and chase boys with us while you are YELLING."

I looked at the rest of the Blonde Squad. "Am I yelling?" I asked. The whites of their eyes were showing. "YES. PLEASE EAT SOMETHING," they all chorused. I was forced outside to the hotdog stand, where I ate as quickly as possible, but it wasn't fast enough; by the time I returned all the laps had been performed already. The group had decided I wasn't going to recover quickly enough to be worth anything, and they were right. After yelling about several more things, I realized I wasn't going to be able to "work around" my break, and grabbed a taxi home, muttering at the stars.

To sum up: my brain is on permanent hiatus and my temper has apparently shortened to that of a water buffalo chained to a hot poker, and it will be a miracle if I make it through the next week without being fired.

Put the Bone on Break

Welcome to Needlessly Graphic Monday, y'all!

In absence of actually dating, I'm reading a lot ABOUT dating, and in my various clicks around the internet I ran across this post by Ne-Yo, of all people. NE-YO.

For those of you over 25: he's a popular R&B singer. I'm not a super big fan, but I like a few of his songs, in particular this one:



Anyway. It turns out that not only can the boy sing (sort of) and dance (quite well) and look pretty (hubba, hubba) but he also has a few things to say on the subject of ladies.

In particular this gem, slightly censored:

"Appreciate if she’s doing you a favorite...Don’t be lazy. And when you're giving a massage, put the bone on break."

LOVE IT. Who knew that songwriters would have such excellent turns of phrase? It's like they're paid for it, or something.

Oh? They are?

I discovered this phrase last week and since then have been trying to work it into conversation every chance I get, slightly difficult as this does not actually apply to me, AND it's mind-stoppingly graphic, but I haven't let that slow me down. My boys and I used it three times while skiing last weekend, and just today I got the opportunity to shoot down a friend of mine who was complaining about women.

"Women are so NEEDY," he was complaining, never mind that he currently has two in the hand and one in the bush.

"You wouldn't be having so many woman problems if you could just lay off them for a bit," I pointed out. "Sometimes you just have to put the bone on break."

Love is in the air. Or not.

1. Confessions time: I had fully three hours of free time yesterday and I did NOT use it to post pictures from Paris. (Say that three times fast.) You know what? Forget you.

2. They’re coming, OKAY?

3. My uterus is a little overactive today. And by “a little overactive”, I mean, “I’m thinking of sending it to Cambodia.” I hear torture is well-practiced there.

4. I am thinking of building a shrine to ibuprofen. Ibuprofen is my new god. Ibuprofen has made it possible for me to stand upright today. I even feel hunger.

5. I might write a post in the future about birth control and why I went off the pill. (Sorry, Dad.) It's an interesting choice for any woman, and it seriously affects your life. Some days, I think the pill should be outlawed like steroids. Other days, I merely tolerate its existence.

6. I am on a dating break. For a month. So far I’m on day 9. There has been only slight back-sliding.

7. I am really trying to embrace the power of long-term gratification.

8. Did I mention I was on day 9? And tomorrow I will be on day 10? Only 20 days from the end?

9. Long-term gratification, dammit.

Notes on Paris: Fashion and Gender Identity

Yes, Parisian girls really are that pretty, and yes, Parisian boys are also very good dressers, and no, they are not at all feminine. In fact, the gender lines were very clearly drawn in France; it’s been some time since I felt so clearly that I was A Woman, put on earth to be Decorative, and the other person was A Man, put on earth to choose his Decoration. It must be a difficult task for any man in Paris, where each and every girl on the street would turn heads here in the States. Not being a man, I tried to break down Parisian fashion, if only to copy it correctly and not stand out so much as a tourist—especially important, I thought, when traveling on my own.

First: Parisian girls dress very, very classic. They follow trends, yes. But only to a very small extent, and the style of their pants and shoes and coats is much more classic than trendy. Their heels are lower, their pants are neither as skinny NOR as flared. My mother would have felt comfortable in almost everything a Parisian seventeen-year-old would wear, except...

Second: the greatness of a look is in the details. Bags, printed scarves, tousled, pinned-up hair, rings, necklaces, earrings: that was what made a look trendy. Jeans on the inside or the outside of the boots? Hair up or down? How many earrings? What kind? It was the details that made every outfit pop, and clearly, everyone had worked hard on those details. Jeans were covered with decorative seams and embroidery. T-shirts and hoodies were stenciled, painted, and ripped in just the right places. A single ring placed on the perfect finger drew the eye in. Comparatively, back in the States, everyone looked like they had just rolled out of bed.

Third, the details were even more important because, if you weren’t paying attention to those details, everyone looked the same...almost. For example, all the girls had the same coat. Except...that one collar might be a little taller, one hem line might be a little shorter, one coat might have trim on the sleeves where another coat has trim on the collar. Everyone had jeans with decorative seams...except that the seams were in slightly different spots. As opposed to downtown Seattle, where I can see the same pair of Rockin’ Republics ten times an hour (those are designer jeans, boys) in France I saw hardly ANY mass-produced fashion; I never saw the same pair of jeans twice. No, I have no idea how they did that. It's a hard balance: how to look classic while still standing out from the crowd? The girls nailed this balance. And yes, the boys noticed these details. French eyes are more attuned to that level of detail, across the genders, which is probably why they recognize country of origin so quickly, too. After all, if you'd grown up in a country in which every building, every post office, every PARK BENCH was decorated with levels and levels of gold leaf and tiny sculptures, you'd spot miniscule differences, too.

Fourth, that much attention to one’s outfit inspires confidence in oneself, and the Parisian girls had that in spades. Due partly to the culture—they know they’re supposed to be decorative, and they take that charge seriously—and partly due to the amount of time spent on looking good, the girls practically sang with confidence and poise. They didn’t trip, they didn’t bat their eyelashes, they didn’t sweat. They didn’t even wear much makeup. Many of the girls even had acne, which they didn’t bother to cover. They just stood there in their classic outfits and their heads held high, and boys fell all over them.

Fifth and final tip: Approachability. Sure, you can spend a lot of time on your outfit, but if you don’t have a look you’re going for and are COMFORTABLE in, what’s the point? Parisian girls had a look. They’d carefully studied themselves in the mirror, from all angles, and they made sure their shirts were tucked in and that their hair sat just right, and yet none of them looked too perfect to approach. They were almost casual in their great coats and black pants and perfect heels, just standing there, like it weren’t no thang. Again: comfort, and confidence, and one begets the other.

It was very inspiring. I didn't have space to buy anything--say, a coat--and take it home, but I wished I did. I did the best I could with what I had, wearing my jewelery and my scarf and my boots, and succeeded well enough that French people stopped me on the street and asked me for directions at least once a day, so I'd consider that a rousing success. (WOO-HOO!) Back here at home, I'm trying to spend more time on the details, and when I dressed up this past weekend for Bonza Bash, I thought ahead about comfort and ended up rocking my dress.

Travel is the best education there is.

Notes on Paris

I return!

I’d like to blame Paris for my long absence, but that would be totally untrue. Or, rather, only partially true. Yes, I was gone for more than a week, and yes, there was a lot to catch up on when I came back, but that’s not entirely it. What Paris really did was fill my head up with images of gorgeous young Parisians and gorgeous old architecture, and I’ve spent every second when I haven’t been at either job...well, thinking.

Yes, thinking. I don’t do it so often. (Practically not at all, according to some people.) But there’s nothing like going to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and spending hours upon hours each day in museums to make your brain go haywire, and I mean that in the best way possible, but it’s still unsettling.

I’ve had a lot to think about.

People Watching: On Ethnicity

American truly is the world’s melting pot. Blending of cultures and ethnicities is happening more and more the world over, but not half to the degree that it happens here in the States. It was a shock to be in France and clearly be able to see one’s country of origin stamped on one’s forehead. I was in a club in Eastern Paris down by the river, the Pont Ephemre, and was talking to a nice boy, and he said, very early in the conversation,

“So where do you think I am from?”

“Paris?” I guessed.

He shook his head sadly. “Tunisia,” he said, almost apologetically.

Like, “I just want you to know NOW that I’m not very respected here.” Like, “American girl, you may be the only girl in the club who is talking to me right now because the rest of these girls are from Paris and they won’t give me the time of day. I just wanted you to know so you could leave if you wanted.” Up until then it had never occurred to me that other countries in the world—even Western European countries that the U.S. gets along with, such as France—still have a class system. Yes, we certainly have racial and economic strife here in the States, but it is entirely different from the rigid structure in Europe.

Several days later, my hotel manager was telling me a story about going out with a lady friend of his and leaving her outside McDonald’s to finish her cigarette, only to come out and find her surrounded by Parisian roughs giving her a hard time. The minute he showed up on the scene, though, they showed hesitation. “Look at him, he’s North African,” said one. “What are you? Tunisian or Algerian?” said another. “I’m Algerian,” he said. “Get lost.”

They left. The North Africans have a reputation. To me, Maissy—the hotel manager—was just a dark-haired cutie who spoke three languages. He could have been Spanish, French, possibly Italian. Parisians clearly saw that he was Algerian.

It blew me away. Once I realized that Parisians could read faces the way I can read a book, I started to make the effort to read features and decipher accents. Maissy’s French was clearly more mumbled and less nasal than Parisian French, once I started to listen for it, and there was also a difference in class structure between Parisians—some deliveries were more subdued, some were more forward, some were more mumbled, some had sharper accents. All Parisian French was incredibly nasal, just like the stereotype. Amsterdam Dutch, on the other hand, sounds a great deal like American English except you can’t understand a word. German sounds more like British English—the speech pattern and lack of R pronunciation makes German and Queen’s English sound more like a caricature than real life, to these American ears. (Possibly due entirely to watching Beerfest.)

I had a difficult time distinguishing between Italians and Spaniards, in spite of all of my unabashed people-watching (read: staring). The two languages even sound so similar that many times I’d be eavesdropping and wondering why I couldn’t understand a single word, and it would take me fifteen minutes at least to realize they were speaking Italian.

Tomorrow: Paris Fashion!

Looking for Foreign Jobs

It's 7:34 am, Continent time, and I'm on the high speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, passing through Brussels and a few other places on the way. I have been to the Picasso Museum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Rodin Museum, Luxemborg Gardens, Tuileries Gardens, the Centre Pompidou, the Anne Frank House, and the U.S. Consulate, and I have been to the Louvre twice. And I have met some of Paris' finest, the gendarmes.

And it has all been fabulous (except for the Consulate and the police station) and I don't want to leave. I don't want to leave Paris EVER, really.

I have learned many important things:

1. Parisians really are very pretty and very well dressed, all of them. I arrived on a Wednesday and I kept thinking it was a Sunday morning, because in my mind, being on a train or bus surrounded by people who are all dressed up means it's church time. There ARE jeans, but there are no athletic shoes. Ever.

2. And yes, everyone is quite slender.

3. On the plus side, the girls in Paris have just as bad skin as we do in the U.S., so that's comforting.

4. On the other hand, Amsterdam residents--while still being skinnier than us Americans on average--are quite a bit heavier than Parisians, especially the ladies. And their skin is certainly not perfect, either.

5. Whereas the Amsterdam boys all look like they could model for Abercrombie tomorrow. It was completely nuts. I've never seen so many good looking straight men at once in my life.

6. The red-light district in Amsterdam is, still, the red-light district. And yes, there was hash.

7. No, I didn't try any.

8. Europe faces the same problems with socioeconomic class and underprivileged youth that we do. There is graffiti everywhere, and there is definitely some riff-raff. Sacre Coeur, a beautiful church on a hill, was almost ruined for me because of the persistent nature of the con artists. Seeing an American couple about to fall for the "friendship bracelet" scam, I approached them and told them about it, at which point fifteen members of the group standing around--and there are DOZENS of them all around Sacre Coeur--confronted me. One of them grabbed my arm. "What you saying?" he demanded roughly. "What you telling them?" I shook him off and kept walking. (About now is when my mother is having a heart attack.) It was certainly an adrenaline-producing experience, but I was happy I had tried to save the young American couple. Even if they brushed me off as a bitter American, I did what I could.

9. I probably did sound a little bitter, since earlier in the day, I had personally met a member of the pickpocket elite, who managed to relieve me of my passport.

10. Hence my experience with the French police and the U.S. Consulate. And among the OTHER important things I have learned, I have learned that the U.S. Consulate is in Tuileries Gardens, and it is only open until noon, Monday through Friday, and you have to email ahead for an appointment.

11. Since I showed up there on Friday at 12:22 pm, you can bet I didn't allow them to enforce any of these rules on me.

12. That's another post.

13. Aside from this episode, Paris is really gorgeous, I had a fabulous time, I could hear the bells of Notre Dame from my hotel room, and I got my art geek on at the Louvre and even met some Parisians, who were extremely hospitable.

More on the way!

Things I Have Learned About Paris (Before Trip Edition)

Does everyone know I'm gone to Paris for six days, very soon? You don't? You do now.

(YES I KNOW I NEVER FINISHED POSTING JAPAN PICTURES.)

I'm getting there, I swear.

ANYWAY. A good friend of mine--a friend of mine who studied abroad for a year in Switzerland and speaks French--called me this evening to mention, in passing, that HE had been the one to introduce me to Timbaland's Shock Value, nine months ago, and I had blown him off, as is my wont, and he was calling to gloat and remind me that I should always listen to him.

"Uh huh," I said. "Did I mention that I'm leaving for Paris in two days?"

Because if we were going to get into a contest of GLOATING, I wanted him to know that I had major artillery in store for him.

After he got over his jealousy, he and his lady--who also speaks French fluently--gave me a long list of their recommendations of places to go and things to do.

And he passed me the following story:

"So, my lady says that she was once hanging in the square before Notre Dame with a girlfriend, and two security guards came up and started talking to them, showing off their native charm. The lady and her friend were quite receptive, until one of the guards said,

"So, would you like to see the catacombs? Because my friend and I could give you...you know...a private tour."

"Uh huh," I said.

"So, no matter how hot French guys may be," my friend concludes, "I don't think I would recommend getting it on in a tomb with one of them."

I considered. "I don't know," I said. "I'm sure there are some girls that are into that."

"Well, sure," he says, "if you're the kind of girl that sleeps in a tomb, and..."

"...paints her nails black..." I interjected.

"Sure, and listens to Evanescence..."

"...right..."

"...then I can see how that might have a certain aura. But for you, I'd recommend against it."

"I will take it under advisement," I said.

And in this, as in the case of Timbaland, I feel he is correct.

Just Another Tuesday

It's been--not too long a day, but certainly somewhat long--and I'm walking up the stairs to my apartment. I open the door.

I close the door.

I open the door again. Nope, that smell is still there.

I close the door again.

I bite the bullet and open the door for a third time. Titan is confused, all the more so because he has been sick. Out of his bowels. In my kitchen.

I leash him up and we run outside. And then I start the horrible, disgusting process of cleaning up...well, you can imagine.

In the middle of this, I check my email. I have received an email from my mother, and it is not complimentary.

I text Molly. "My mother told me I look like I'm in pain on my recent facebook picture, and Titan has had diarrhea. In my kitchen."

She texts back: "You need wine. Immediately."

Brain Space Occupied

I have done nothing--NOTHING--for the past week except listen to Timbaland's Shock Value. It's brilliant, it's surprisingly dirty, it's genius, it's genre-bending. It's addictive.

And when I HAVEN'T been listening to Shock Value, I've been bumming around Seattle and outlying areas. So, in lieu of having any sort of coherent thought at all, I present:

Recent Seattle Reviews, by One Opinionated Aarwenn

1. I do not understand why anyone ever goes to Zeek's Pizza. I got pizza from there once--delivery--and it was about Domino quality, maybe worse. Only three times the price.

2. On the other hand, Olympic Pizza (in Queen Anne) was tasty tasty, even though it was many hours old and COLD by the time I had any. I ate four slices.

3. I'm probably the last person to go to La Spiga, and this was a serious failing on my part. The food was simple, but so tasty that I could only take a few bites of each dish before my senses were overstimulated. The wine list is all Italian, so my date and I were a little out of our league, and unfortunately our server wasn't much help. His blond, surfer-boy delivery clashed with the super-classy Italian vibe. However! It really doesn't matter, because everything you eat and drink will be wonderful.

4. I also can't believe it took me this long to go to Olivar'sm especially considering I could throw a baseball and hit them. I keep thinking of them as just opened, until I was browsing old posts on Capitol Hill Seattle and realized they'd opened last summer. They, too, pack unbelievable amounts of taste into each bite. The food is a little less simple--a little more show-offy, if that's your thing--and the servers are extremely knowledgeable. Wine list is much shorter and easier to understand than La Spiga's.

5. On to Poppy: Many things have already been said about this, and I'm not sure I'll be able to say anything original. It's good, yes. But the thing about getting seven pre-arranged dishes is that one of them is likely to be a dud. Still: tasty, and I'd definitely go at least one more time.

6. Oddfellows Cafe: OH MY GOD GO IMMEDIATELY. So. Tasty. So. Reasonably Priced. So. Pretty.

7. If you have an opportunity to go to the Paramount Theater, you really should. It's so beautiful. If you're at that kind of show, be sure and pre-order your drinks from the concessions for intermission. This service is popping up at many venues--Benaroya Hall also--and it's a godsend, if your god looks upon drinking with a kindly eye.

8. Final Seattle Opinion: Get thee out in the sunshine while thee can!

Seattle Is a Very Small Town

I was out at a restaurant with a date, a friend of a friend, and he had been reading this blog.

"I enjoyed your account of seeing the LT at Beth's," he said.

I laughed. "Thank you. It's funny now, but it was extremely irritating at the time. Sometimes I can't believe how small a town Seattle is."

"Uh-huh," he said, his gaze focusing on a point over my shoulder. "And while we're on the subject, MY ex just walked in."