sowing the seeds

tomorrow it will have been a year since I moved to Alaska. what's different now? everything. I feel wiser and stupider and sadder and happier, often simultaneously. I feel both disillusioned and newly appreciative. my temper flares in unexpected ways, but there is a surprising amount of shit I've simply let go. I've always hated the term "whatever"; it implies passivity and indifference. but I find myself thinking it lately. whatever. it has a pleasant tendency of diffusing a lot of negative energy. 

yesterday I met someone at the farmer's market who makes various wood jewelry. I was admiring a pair of earrings that he gleefully informed me were marijuana shake encased in clear resin. "every time I see you you're always smiling" he said. I had no recollection of ever seeing him before, but maybe I'm not as anonymous as I like to pretend. I wander around with my hair and my headphones, completely fucking oblivious most of the time, so it caught me off guard. "sometimes I'm sneering" was what I blurted out in response. thankfully he laughed, because I really did mean it to be funny. we actually had a fairly nice conversation, but even still, as I walked away I thought "o poise and appropriateness, will such traits ever befall me?"

it's easier to pretend I can hide here.

16th Ave. 

the empty bus on a Friday night.

I forget how many filters I ran this through. a couple. my building is on the right. 

condensation in my window. 

cool aside: I looked up the property record for my new lair. it's a converted 1900 (the landlord was incorrect) mansion that's now 8(?) apartments on a 9000+ square foot lot with a big ol' yard at the top of Capitol Hill. price paid when the property was last sold, in 1999? $180,000. I said "holy fuck" aloud. it must have been a fucking shithole, or it was passed down somehow. 

señor mysterioso and culturally indelicate yet admittedly adorable salt & pepper shakers? check. 

it's mating season. every living thing is preening. 

these guys. I was just walking behind them and I had to. I love everything about this photograph. 

I have a phrasebook for amazing situations in eight different countries. so if you're in France, and you want to say "all I carry in my purse is a tube of lipstick and a revolver", it's "tout ce que j'ai dans mon sac, c'est du rouge à lèvres et un revolver." 

serenity. no, really! ...for now.

you ever notice how the right (or at least somewhat validating) things seem to find you at the correct times? this happens with me and books... 

"if things were going to change, I'd have to do it. it sounds easy, but try to let go of the one thing in your life that makes you feel that good. and then remember it's also the very thing that makes you feel that bad."

-Jill Talbot

I read that line by myself in a public place last night. the velvet underground was playing. there was a tiny candle in a votive holder. I was surrounded by the conversations of others, the sounds of dishes and coffee machines and laughter. I was sitting in the same spot at the end of the counter that I always gravitate to, legs crossed and dangling, in my own little world. and that passage brought tears to my eyes. it's nice to remember that whatever shitty drama I'm embroiled in (or NOT embroiled in) has already been experienced before, and probably more articulately.

two of my favorite houses in seattle. 

when I was about 9 and visiting from Alaska, my aunt drove me around Capitol Hill and Volunteer Park to look at the mansions. this one vaguely reminds me of Graceland. I went through a (very) brief girly-girl phase around that time: dresses and pink and chandeliers and that whole Traci thing. I wanted a purple MGB convertible. and a boyfriend named, like, Kevin or Blake or something. and I wanted to live in this house. 

riding your bike down this street may render you sterile.  

fever glare. 

I sat here for awhile yesterday. the crows were beginning to roost and making a racket. a couple sat on the grass a few feet away and smoked a bowl. a guy came by with his pointing toddler son. "he wants you to know there's a dog" he explained. occasionally petals would fall off the trees.

and I thought, okay. this is pretty fucking great. 

New York City is the place where

who's more thrilled? 

my ex-husband, probably! 

*rim shot*

15th & John. the dog-spliff is my favorite part. 

Last night's dream: I was riding my bike down Olive, by Glo's and that stupid Starbucks, into slanty orange sunsetty shadows. I had no helmet. I thought "I have to get there, so this might be how I die." I was in no immediate physical danger, but I felt the need to keep my options open. I couldn't just enjoy the feeling of summer rushing by me. 

opium den, minus the opium.

some days are better than others. 

I awoke at 5am today because the cat defecates loudly around this time every 24hrs. every single day I'm awakened around 5am by the sound of my cat shitting! so I blearily change the litter, toss the old stuff in the dumpster outside (sometimes people are already/still walking around glassily, or early commuters are driving by; this morning was dark and still. not even the birds are awake yet.), and then stay wide awake for an hour or two. 

every fucking day. 

so I've gotten even better at the NYT Sunday crosswords. i do them on my phone when I can't sleep. I average 2 a day. going backwards through their online archives, I'll soon be on the year 2010. thanks for indirectly expanding my brainpower whilst simultaneously destroying it with chronic insomnia, shit-cat! I'll just go fill my OLLA with the contents of the OAST and admire yoko ONO now, or something. 

also, insomnia gives me all sorts of uninterrupted time to relive every horrible thing I've said and done, ever. I get to replay the previous day in my head and amplify my copious fuck-ups. the middle of the night is never a time of blissful reflection and quiet appreciation. it is full-throttle anxiety and loneliness and negativity, watching the leaves cast shadows through the streetlight in a dark quiet room. 

Although, truthfully: I can trace my current "angst", if you will, to only a couple of major, recurring themes. everything else is actually pretty fantastic. 

good morning!

*

Pine Street. 

on the construction wall where Bauhaus used to be. 

plaintive practice with the color-block filter. 

this is on a locomotive. 

dracenas! 

bendy straw, ikea glass, chemical droplets. it must be my Klassy Kitchen. 

15th & John. 

I've had Bowie's "the man who sold the world" in my head for roughly 48 hours now. so apparently my brain knows how to do something right. 

and time wrinkled

I love having friends who are honest and actually call me on my shit. and I love being around people here who have known me for years, who supported my move to Alaska, who stayed in touch, and whom I can finally explain the Various Anchorage Snafus (Snafi?) (hereafter to be known as VAS?) with. and I love the reactions I've gotten, because they were honest and brutal and scornful and wise, and I totally deserved them. 

moving anywhere really shows you who your friends are. I fucking love you guys. you know who you are. 

I am so incredibly glad to be back in Seattle. 

*

I finally moved into my new lair last Saturday. entre-vous ma château d'amour, mes amis. 

the southwest wing. the Herb Alpert album is waiting for one's emergence from the surprisingly blissful shower. great water pressure, hotter'n fuck, and a south-facing window casting shadows of leaves! the secret? 1960s plumbing in a 1904 building, baby. 

a direct pivot from the above image leads one to the eastern wing of the galley.  

the loft. if I stretch my legs almost straight I can touch the ceiling flat-footed. By having an actual loft I am living my nine-year-old-self's dream. 

the view from said loft. 

this is a small place. 

the wee Tillandsia, aka "air plant." run 'em under the tap, shake 'em off, and go about yer fuckin' life, you wily botanist you. 

scenes from a shelf. 

and a reminder of Alaska... 

I actually ordered this pin off eBay when I lived in Seattle years ago. I remembered this slogan on bumper stickers from my youth, back when the Kuskalana Bridge had no guardrails and Chitina's crumbling buildings all had ghosts painted on them. I remember being about 7 and sitting on a bucket/makeshift toilet behind a tarp on the windy beach while my folks dip-netted, being too traumatized about possibly being seen to be able to pee. i think of Chitina and I think about fireweed and dust and eating Kudos granola bars in the backseat of the Jeep Cherokee and pulling over to grab railroad spikes out of the gravel....

...so, I dunno. it's this sort of nostalgia that makes me do things like buy pins and move to Alaska. not necessarily "great" memories, but formative ones.

still life with the face-scratchin' shit-cat. 

and my first photo taken with this new phone. I'm ferociously chewing gum on the 347 somewhere around North City (a twee scrap of Shoreline-ish) and didn't turn the fucking thing on mute, so the cheesy CLICK resonated through the bus. whatever. first shot. 

"this is the space between spaces, this is when the ever-war relents for just a moment, this is when you consider the inconsiderate years: 

the fight has been wearing.... but, at times, interesting, such as 

resting quietly here in the 

afterdusk as the sound of the centuries run through my body... 

this 

old dog

resting in the shade 

peaceful

but ready." 

-Bukowski

lo! the spastic's soliloquy

I hadn't realized it had been over a month since I posted anything... crazy times, man. february 2014, you were... damn. 

I thought about changing this blaaahhg (I really hate that word) to indicate that the Alaska Experiment is now over, but I dig the continuity. also, I am lazy about such things. 

For everyone I know and love in AK: my departure was definitely more abrupt than I intended. several very pivotal things happened in a short amount of time, and moving seemed like... the next thing to do, I guess. I'm a bit bewildered myself. at the very least, I think I got the novella-fodder I was looking for... 

I don't really do goodbyes, because I'll see you again. 

it was weirdly convenient that my camera crapped out a few days prior to leaving. I have no final photographs of the gorgeous drive to the Valley, or of my empty apartment, or of the sun hitting the mountains or of the light hitting the popcorn ceiling of my bedroom. my phone started working again on the plane, where I was sobbing uncontrollably in my window seat, Entropy in her carrier at my feet- it started working again about the time I decided "fuck it" and ordered this from the nice stewardess (who asked if I wanted any ice...? I must have given her a look.) 

this was the sky on the first morning here. I took a few artistic liberties. it was lovely. 

the money shot. 

golden gardens. 

lair-hunting has been a colossal bitch. here are the few who actually called me back and I got to look at, all with the vile Viewfinder 3 filter: 

attic in shared home (no private bathroom, chickens outside), Ballard, $825/month + 1/3 utilities.

300sq ft studio, ground floor, bus stop directly outside window, Queen Anne, $850/month + electric. 

squalid studio, overlooking parking lot and cement retaining wall, Capitol Hill, $850/month + electric. 

studio "being renovated", First Hill, $970/month. 

I found a place. yeah, it's as fucking expensive and tiny as you suspect. and I don't have any pictures yet... I signed the lease today and I move by Friday. THANK GOD. the kindnesses of others have saved my ass (let me repeat: THE KINDNESSES OF OTHERS HAVE UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY SAVED MY ASS), but the missus and I have been staying in a house with 3 other people and I desperately miss having my own space and being in no one else's way. and I miss having my own shit! everything I own is still on 2 pallets in a warehouse in Fife. this has been a most discombobulated month.

Ballard. oh Seattle street art, how I've missed the fuck outta you. 

I forget which bathroom. 

...perhaps the College Inn? 

on the windowsill at work. 

cATS. 

being back feels really fucking good. it makes a whole new kind of sense. and I think I found what I was looking for in Alaska, after all...