you can drown in 6 inches of water.

-pike street, Saturday, 130am.
-the 130am queue at Big Mario's pizza.
-from the forbidden edge of the roof. my alley. everything weirdly aligned and peaceful.
-I haven't hacked it off yet, but this is what it'd look like. the missus.
-72 degrees, very late September.
-Mercer St.

"when I got to my apartment it was
early morning
close to
5 am
I stripped down to my shorts and
opened the pint of scotch
took the first hit straight
out of the bottle, a generous
and magic hit.

then I had a drink to Fletcher and
then I had a drink to the
bitch
that bitch with the bad mouth and
the bad ass
and then I drank to the old man,
this old man,
who'd finally found out
how to be
kind to
himself."
-Bukowski

(keep it light. this is just a stupid blog.)

-from the grrrl power corner of 11th & pine.
-it's a PLATE. for a slice of PIZZA.
-seattle is not returning my calls again.
-10th. I saw two different people look up in bewilderment; where did this fan fall from?
-more sinister accoutrements at value village.

"'that's the trouble. she hasn't been associating with anyone... she has thrown over all her acquaintances, and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars, getting in after dark. I tell you she's peculiar. I don't like it; I feel a little worried over it.'" -the awakening, Kate Chopin

equinoxious

-the last warm night.
-the bewitching black Victorian looming above Melrose Ave! I came back the next day to take this picture.
-N 36th. I've taken photos of this sign before. people keep adding cool shit to it.
-spiffy facade, 35th NE. this area of seattle has some amazing midcentury architecture; why did I tend to dismiss these neighborhoods as dowdy and bland? I am often wrong about nearly everything.
-I have a shirt I once wore to Paris. is if worth more?
-we played some pachinko. we played parcheesi. round there, calistan way. hey hey.

fo' pause!

-the harbor in magnolia, part 1.
-the crispy miss.
-the Bauhaus block.
-the harbor in magnolia, part 2.
-UFO fish in the pond at Palisade... very "play misty for me." didn't he have swarthy lair-ponds? probably had a waterbed also... with a bitchin' hi-fi built into the headboard. anyway, fish.

I'm so tired I'm soberdrunk. how trippy and economical!

blurrily yours

-there was a classic car show near where I work today...
-logos are simply crap now. bring back italics and serifs, I say!
-a vat of delicious, zesty tartar. fries: already devoured.
-broadway & john, 6:19pm.
-yearse?

"there wasn't much the food industry could do to repel a nation that was already stirring chopped tomatoes and pickles into strawberry jello for a Red Crest Salad." -Laura Shapiro

stars don't exist here

-at a bus stop under the Lucile St overpass, Georgetown. I suspect he did not actually write this.
-shrapnel, Airport Way.
-Toby the eerily social tortoise.
-I'm gonna start a business and call it "Fuck-You Furniture." it will be inspired and modeled after inhospitable benches such as this.
-lizard eyes. god, I love the roof deck.
-I wonder how many people had to get thwacked before they made these signs. I LOVE WEIRDLY GRAPHIC WARNING SIGNS SO.
-you can't do more than you can do on
the sexy seattle metro. don't even fucking try it.

TODAY WAS REALLY GOOD!

soundtrack: brightblack morning light, "all we have broken shines." you're welcome.

everything < nothing

"funny kind of a day. makes you feel restless." Sinclair Lewis

one of my clients today reminded me so much of someone I recently dated. same ethnicity, same hair, same sad kind eyes. they even spoke the same way, their words swirling like incense smoke. I was reminded that I miss them and of my huge role in fucking it up. it's weird- everything they teach you in school, about transference and weird emotions and letting your mind wander... it totally happens. no matter what we do, I guess: we're humans first, whatever-else second.

this day always makes me homesick as fuck. I remember the lurid blue sky and the decoupage and the phone ringing. I remember the padded edge of the bar at Darwin's and everyone riveted to the television. I remember calling him and crying as I asked him to forgive me. I remember singing "night moves" and smiling drunkenly across the empty dance floor. what did any of it matter? where has it gotten any of us? we all became jaded as fuck that day.

tonight, now, here:
-tombs the troglodyte. note the misshapen right eye. she doesn't care, still, even though her eye will totally fuse shut with cancer-snot. I clean her face a few times a day and I wonder what the fuck I'm doing. I wonder where we'll be in a month, a week, a year. I realize when I'm away from home that I actually sleep quite well. the silence is gorgeous. her ass is warm against my leg as I write this. tonight we're just hanging out, totally familiar with one another.
-the kitchen, part 1.
-the kitchen, part 2.
-facing west.

cheers.

today is all divisible by 3

today felt like the first day of fall, the first day of the beginning of the descent. it felt wonderful to wear a sweater with my hands balled up within the sleeves, wind assaulting my inconveniently mouth-length hair, sky hunkered down too low. it felt familiar. I can deal with it now, with wool chafing my sunburn from 48 hours ago, knowing it's going to be 75 again in a few days. I'm still in a tshirt on front of an open window. the grey comforts me. I like feeling less obligated by my surroundings. but fuck... I don't want to get as sunlessly sad as I did last winter. the prospect scares the shit out of me.
...of course, I've eliminated all my main sources of misery since then. surely that will help.
so I'm totally content, on this night when it's windy and cool and RAIN is in the forecast for the first time in, like, 40 nights, to clean my lair and hang out with the ladies and assault my neighbors with Cat Stevens- even his shitty late-70s stuff.
his later stuff did have some cool time signatures.

seattle smells especially spectacular tonight.

"'I learned her philosophy of dating: "don't fish off the company pier, and don't fuck your friends. I've tried both plenty of times and it never works..." OH YEAH... I nearly spat out my drink when she told me she has cats rather than kids because, and I quote, "you don't go to jail when you get your cats high."'"
-Tucker Max

-totally uncropped Los Seattle, from a bus window on the West Seattle bridge. I was happily surprised by this.
-creepy unrearranged still life, Capitol Hill Value Village. I've gotten into the habit of going there just to find sinister things. right now, for example, you can purchase a framed 2'x3' photo of Bluto from 'Animal House.' at $24.99, it is woefully overpriced. they also had a weirdly large and compelling collection of egg slicers. I love strange kitchen gadgets that serve very specific functions, but even I can't justify the existence of a fucking egg slicer.
-11th and Pine.

Cat Stevens' "Ruins" is definitely one of his better late-career songs. I used to listen to this song OVER AND OVER when I first moved to Fremont, December 2002. I received a jigsaw puzzle depicting the cover of the Rolling Stones "Some Girls" album cover (thanks, lady!) and I'd just broken up with the guy I would end up reuniting with and marrying, and divorcing.... anyway, "Ruins" defined that weird cold amorphous 2week interim. I felt clear and cold and alone and holding on. fucking with the puzzle. playing that song on repeat and repeat and repeat...
it's still fucking great. and it's nearly euphoric to hear it now and know where I've been. you should check it out. you'll probably like it too.

when given the option, say yes.

people constantly impress me. I am thrilled and amazed by their salty layers, their carefully divulged anecdotes, the adjectives they use, the way their mouths move. i love finding out new things, things I am now entrusted to hold sacred, things that make them so infinitely more adored and complex and colorful.

I wonder why we don't share everything sooner, more unblinkingly. I am aware that I default on the side of Mortifying Oversharing; there is not a single fucking fact about me that someone, somewhere, doesn't know about. does one person know everything? of course not. but the array of humans I've held dear over the course of my life? if they were pureed en masse into a gnarly honesty-pulp, EVERYTHING would be revealed.

today was warm, bare skin slick when I uncrossed my legs. this has been a shockingly good summer. I'm still reeling from my good fortune.

I was at the locks for a while today, one of my happy places (with non-hostile grass). I've been reading "angel", Denis Johnson. it's fucking brilliant, but not exactly an escapist knee-slapper. I had that revelation today: totally content, sprawled on soft grass on an 84 degree day, watching people dote on their dogs and consult maps and converse in other languages... reading about thieving and drug addiction and rape. in a bright September Seattle sunbeam.

"they needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshipped." Denis Johnson

-madison beach.
-at the locks.
-fairy lights.

bite down on this bar of soap

and you will taste the cloying, nasty flavors and undercurrents of september 6th, 2012.

what if you hold open a parachute with every intention of catching whomever needs it? and what if, once they're mid-fall, you realize that they totally don't fucking deserve that gentle landing, your strained arms, that charitable reentry? what then? who's the asshole now?

"the nurse hung the blood up next to the saline solution and adjusted the tubes and stoppers, and one tube turned bright crimson as it fed her own blood, minus plasma, back into her. 'new memories is what's inside that bag' the man announced calmly.
"'great' she said. 'I was sick of the old ones.'"
Denis Johnson

-a moment of peace, Volunteer Park.
-pulls.
-bench.
-rye, ginger liqueur, Fernet Branco, bitters, a fresh stark-white orchid.
-flowers jammed into brick. thank you, 11th and Pine: you remind me of who I always wanted to be.

ambient ambiance?

it's the last warm spell of the year, most likely. intrigue and pathos run rampant!

"it is easy to love, and there are so many ways to do it." Anais Nin

-17th and Marion-ish.
-and steak! 3rd and Union post office.
-damn it, Scotty, what the fuck?
-ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. it really is that easy.
-stridin'.
-Pine Street.
-the amazing church on 17th.
-the STAIRS! I took this picture through a dirty window. when I saw the luscious interior on my camera viewer, I may have moaned a little.