hot nights for hot thoughts

this fucking city.... jeez. she can still make me blush like a lovesick nerd...

*

15th Ave. I caught up with these guys at the crosswalk. it was poetically breezy!  "you have a really fun job!" I said inanely. they laughed. 

the sunsets have been decent. 

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inside the Airstream at Loretta's. 

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Broadway.

post-Pride litter is pretty spectacular litter. 

the 43. 

the ladies loo at People's Pub. 

my new and amazing Wurlitzer and one of the most dreadful songs ever. this picture's for my mama. shnink!

I acquired two Everett High yearbooks from the 30s today. most of the student bios were rather inappropriate! Poor Betty Buck, class of '35: "to all appearances her red hair and blue eyes are not characteristic of a bad temper"; or Albert Shaver '34, of whom "automobiles hold a fascination for his nimble fingers." they're probably all dead now. 

*

I just learnt the word "cremaster." it sounds like a sci-fi villain, but it is actually something very different. 

the school of hard equinox

today was my first day off in six days and all the bullshit from the past few weeks is mostly resolved! but instead of feeling giddy, I'm just drained. mellowly drained... it's over. bloody hell! is this the sensation one refers to as "calm"? 

it'll pass. 

*

these two were across from me on the bus today. oh, to be earnestly tattered and approximately fourteen again! no wait, being fourteen was fucking horrible. 

one of my favorite buildings in Seattle, the Laurelton. this was a cockeyed angle because it was taken very hastily; I didn't want to be just photographing people's windows like a perv. 

didja know that there are staples embedded in the floor of the Capitol Hill Value Village? I looked it up- all I could find about the space was that it was built in 1916, used primarily as a warehouse, and last renovated in 1985. and it's the Value Village someone I knew once got scabies from, and where someone else once found piss-warm pants neatly hung among the merchandise. the woman in front of me in line politely ignored me while I took this. 

I know that behind the walls of these beautiful houses in these gorgeous neighborhoods, people are dysfunctional and grubby and dealing with self-loathing and bad smells and addictions and bankruptcy and sexual insufficiency and gingivitis and stuff, but fuck this city has an overall patina of disarming eloquence. 

yes! 

there was even an immaculate Thing! 

as contrast, this is my view when I wake up. I call it "facing easst."

the surprise Ballard prelude to the Fremont parade! fuck yeah! everyone came out of the shops to watch. I stood beside an old man with a cane. "I love this city!" I said to him. he smiled and shook his head. 

I'm telling ya, go to Ballard about an hour before the parade's scheduled to start instead of fucking with the Fremont clusterfuck! this is one of the best accidental discoveries I've ever made here! you are welcome. 

16th & Aloha. 

some guy stopped me today and told me I had a "Minyan profile." "it's good!" he said when he saw my dumb American expression. apparently the Minyans were ancient Greeks who settled in the Aegean region (thanx, Wikipedia!). hey, it's better than being compared to Dustin Diamond, which has happened. 

summertime rolls

life is good. 

-agitated ears. probably because she has a post sticking out of her head. 

-the new $4 cookie jar. it's signed on the bottom and dated 1972. 

-I buy these fucking things (to which I am rather addicted) at Walgreens. I always get the same guy at the register. he seems to walk that precarious line between being really high and debilitatingly high. these were all I bought the other day. "how are you?" he asked squintily when I got to the counter and handed him my stupid lollipops. "it's gonna be a wild night!" I blurted out. thankfully he laughed. 

I am most assuredly never as hilarious as I think I am, but being constantly surrounded by fellow seattleites in varying levels of easily-amused inebriation is certainly good for the ego. 

-this is part of a 1950s set my mother inherited from my grandparents. notice the goblet-portals! 

-this is with the Noir effect and Vintage 6 (?) filter. behold the chalice of destiny! it's like a still from a terrible filmstrip! 

-warning-sign designers are probably on par with ER techs in terms of gallows humor. nice art, ya sick bastards. 

-one of my favorite houses ever! I get to walk by it every day on my way to work. 

-the new bookcase. notice how it does not appear straight or particularly stable. 

-four months later, it's time to say farewell to boxes-as-furniture. 

I'm writing this at 430am PST. I woke at 3 to someone ringing the building-wide, very loud bell. 3am booty call! it was actually kinda cute- I could hear them murmuring happily in the hallway. and then the birds started chirping and the sky got light. 

crass much?

I've mentioned before how wary I am of taking photos of strangers. I don't post many (any?) pictures of anyone else, really. my two vague self-imposed "rules" for this blaaaahhhg: only post pictures I myself take (hence the fucking selfies, and yes, I FUCKING HATE that term), and do as little harm as possible.

...but when I see an image as being 

fairly flattering and fucking awesome? hell yeah I'm gonna post it. 

so it was a hot day in the absolute ass-back of the 44 and everything was filthy: like someone had scattered a crushed bag of Doritos all over the seats and sprayed Coke on the floor (it was far too sticky to be urine). I was wearing another short skirt and had to keep my knees up so my bare legs wouldn't mash against the vinyl. and this guy was across from me. he was physically across from me, anyway. mentally, he was somewhere way the fuck else, but his allover vibe seemed pleasant enough. so while he writhed blissfully, his dog was being a doll. she politely greeted each of us surrounding this trippy kid, licking my leg, tail constantly wagging, trying to jump up next to other people. she actually seemed pretty well-cared-for. and the only time the guy seemed to be aware of his surroundings at all was when he finally summoned her back to him. that's when I snuck this photo. I daresay it's one of my new favorites. 

love the heels. 

I tore the gross opaque "privacy plastic" (you know, that shit you see in SkyMall that you can get in various stained glass designs to Cover Unsightly Views) off the kitchen windows the other day. it was only then that I realized the plastic (which was there when I moved in) was coated in a repulsive mist of old meat-grease. it smelled like fucking old meat! why the fuck hadn't I noticed this sooner? because I was too distracted with the ant infestation and other vile messes the prior tenant had left in his filthy wake? I haven't cooked once since I've lived there (unless the microwave counts, which it doesn't); thus, tis yet another nasty discovery that was not my fault! so now I have a bitchin' view out of my kitchen!*

*maybe you'll have to trust me on this one. 

random foliage tunnel! reminds me of "Grey Gardens"! 

Olive Way, because Seattle's classy as fuck. 

didja know Axl Rose is an acronym for "oral sex"? whatta guy! thanks, BuzzFeed! 

again with the shenanigan

my wee fridge crapped out over the weekend. apparently someone "comes through the neighborhood a few times a week" to pick up metal and appliances, so the dead fridge was cheerily placed (not by me) on the street corner opposite from the lair. I totally forgot to see if it was gone today. well cool, if this is actually a legitimate method of disposal (which I sorta doubt). 

this fridge knew all my strange cheese-loving, candy-freezing secrets. 

when I used to take print film I went through nearly an entire role of black and white one day taking photos of an especially lurid rainbow, to see if it would show up... how deep and metaphorical, this monochromatic re-imagining! it was a shitty idea. the sky just looked grey and sodden. the best part was showing people these dreadfully boring images and saying "yeah, I was trying to take a photo of a rainbow in black and white" and seeing their "oh, okay" reaction. 

anyway, here's some bright orange poppies that I completely neutered. 

in a secret little pocket of Ballard. 

bocarones (?): fried artichokes with sweet peppers and anchovies, in a shmutz of extremely garlicky aioli. 

the Brick, Roslyn WA. cool stovepipe. impressive archway. I would have liked to see this place 90 years ago. 

holy resting bitch face, batman. 

I had my second losing-gravity dream in a week the other night. I was in an elevator going one level down to "the parking garage" of a large desolate building. it was a large, freighty elevator car, and I was the only one in it, and when it started to descend I jumped childishly (like I always do). I was immediately thrown with my back against the ceiling, waving my arms like an idiot, yelling "god damn it! not again!" as I plummeted far deeper than one story down. it was another dream I woke myself up from. I looked up the "interpretation" on the internets: the direction of the elevator is significant, and if you're going down and floating idiotically, you're probably feeling helpless and out of control about something that's already negative in your life (like a job, or a relationship...) it makes eerily succinct sense, in terms of everything that's happened/happening lately; my brain tends to get fed up with bullshit long before I actually do anything decisive and proactive about it. 

so I have weird fucking nightmares and write about them. 

*

(whereas when you float in an ascending elevator, you may be insecure about your lofty abilities or something, you self-aware go-getter you). 

baby, it's you.

the mean streets of seattle. 

or not. 

I mean, ridiculously charming things like this happen. 

Mr Walken, made purposely creepier by my shadow. 

and these fucking things! 

reflections along Madison. 

or Pike? 

with the proper filter, any church can look sinister. 

my new complimentary tableau! thanks, alley twixt Denny and Howell! 

through the windows to the soon-reopening Canterbury. it's gonna be snitzy. they will have an acclaimed chef and serve oysters, for example. this vexes me. guess what restaurant has always been on my mental list of "where I never want to eat raw shellfish, because that's not how I want to die"? and I was okay with that. the Canterbury was a place for tots and flammable drinks and the Buzzcocks on the jukebox and a constant threat of booth-scabies, and it was fucking magical. 

at least the knight-thing is still there. 

so we shall see. 

¡huevos rancheros!

creepy Holga filter! 

Entropy the Fabulous Shit-Cat hanging out with Corinthians the Cobra.  

and a super-artsy bag of mood-enhancing candy! I dub thee "fuck-it fish"! 

I've had two no-shows at work today. thank god for all the what's-wrong-with-you Woman Magazines in the waiting area to flip through! nothing like surlily (?) eating shit candy whilst pretending to learn how to be a better lady. I feel more fucking delicate already.