soul stroll

one of the many reasons I love Seattle: I'm easily bored and it's not boring. there are mammoth negatives about such frenetic flux also, but I'm even mostly okay with those aspects. 

Belltown! apparently in 2007 it was named one of the "best neighborhoods in the U.S. to retire in." hahahaha! I learned the term "cracktivity" from someone who worked in Belltown. Belltown remains a weird mix of absurdly expensive condos and effluvia-scented alleys and empty storefronts and dopey youths and sporadic pedestrian activity. it was named after William Bell, the dude who bought a lot of land in the neighborhood in the 1800s. I remember when Belltown had single-family houses. and Sit & Spin. and I Spy. and that weird Russian restaurant. and the place with the gelatin molds affixed to its exterior.

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are we not all insects?

the remains of the Hurricane. 

looking northeastish. 

and amid all this gentrified kerfuffle, an Alaska Car! ...even if it has Washington plates and Washingtony bumper stickers. I get you, crappy Frankensteined Geo Prizm. 

41 stories. prices start in the $700Ks. I looked it up. this building is entitled The Insignia! of course it is. 

and an unrelated photo of horrifyingly lazy and wasteful products at Le QFC. 

traipsing

Ballard. 

it took me a long time to get this fucking photo. such a twitchy and restless world we careen blindly through. 

flowerification. 

(one of) my happy place(s), volunteer park. someone once called such spots "perches", as in everyone should have a perch, a place they can go to write and think and brood. I consider this different from the concept of a third place. perches insinuate contemplation. weird thing is, I usually sit, or perch, in a different spot right around the corner from this particular statue, and thus had never fucking noticed it until yesterday. and I've been coming here for years. 

my new habit whilst watching Chopped. What Would Someone Who Doesn't Fucking Cook Do? I was unfamiliar with beef tips. apparently they are far too lean to be tartare-acceptable. and I had to look up moustalevria (not "moist sativa", autocorrect, Jesus), hence the scrawled definition. this is a fun exercise, downright raucous really!, because it shows me how much commonplace shit I'm stupid about.

scowly insouciance with brick filter. 

"perfection is instant despair. instant despair. nothing to do with time." 

Iris Murdoch

drinking

it's been 23 days since I've had alcohol. I've been reluctant to write or talk about it because it immediately invites scrutiny

and judgment- does Brynn have a drinking problem? I never knew. or worse, I totally knew. what constitutes a "problem" for me is likely very different from anyone else's definition. ultimately, my reason is this: I wasn't living up to my expectations for myself and I wasn't behaving like someone I respect. alcohol has significantly contributed a subtle, sinister undercurrent for most of my life, some times more than others, sometimes not even involving me directly. when I go through the times I am happy and the times I am not, the people and situations that bring out the best and worst in me, my relationships and those whom I choose to spend time with- alcohol is always a prominent variable. and while it's usually quite fun -so fun!- at the time, it occurred to me that there is no memory when I can think "drinking totally improved that." and I'm fucking tired of it.  so if not now, when? 

*

I've been in a better, more "even" mood over the past few weeks than I've felt in months. I've actually paused before reacting to shit, like an actual grown-ass adult might. I've thought about what I say before I fucking blurt it out. I've slept awesomely. I feel great in the morning and I'm getting up earlier. I'm drinking tea and hanging out with my cat and reading and walking in the rain and feeling functional as fuck. 

*

but the longer I go with this smug "clarity", the more time I have to think. the giddy novelty of Not Drinking is starting to wear off and a weird bored restless loneliness is setting in. I realize that most of my social situations have always involved alcohol. I tend to hang out with people who drink. even when I was by myself, I'd go to bars to read or write. having other humans around, noisy humans (unlike coffee shops with their surly laptopped introversion and twee music) was very therapeutic for me. now I feel like an awkward kid all over again. is it okay to go to a bar and just drink soda? honestly, do I want to be the only sober person in the room? there are few things more repulsive than being around drunk people when you're not. and being sober at home is exactly as fucking scintillating as it sounds; I've cleaned the fuck out of my lair and watched way too much stupid shit on Netflix. I've had to rethink my free time a lot, and how I interact with other people in general. realizing that I apparently have to (re)teach myself basic social interactions at my age is very... I was going to say sobering, ha ha, but depressing is almost more appropriate. 

*

I also realize that it is alienating to some people when I tell them I've stopped drinking. I remember feeling that way when others (whom I knew primarily through alcohol) have made that decision in the past. I'd automatically, shamefully think oh, guess we can't hang out, because if I get a drink around you I'll feel guilty and self-conscious, and we probably don't have a whole lot in common after all, so uh... good luck. I uncomfortably knew at the time that this feeling reflected solely upon me, but it was icky and embarrassing for me to stare down and deal with, so I'd dickishly just kinda stop hanging out with them. so I get it. but it fucking sucks. karma's a bitch. 

*

I still have fantasies of how I'm gonna be when I grow up. fantasies! a thriving herb garden and goddamn brunch and falling in love in the desert and writing an amazing novel in an ancient garret overlooking the rooftops, all whilst laughing and witty and nurturing and not pissing anyone off too badly.... and nowhere in that montage do I ever envision myself unimpressed by my behavior or the decisions I make. 

without being at peace with who you are, you are of no good to those around you. or something. 

*

when incense does this. 

autumnal bombast! 

sneakiness. 

life is good. 

*

thanks for reading. 

heat on, windows open

I've been really fucking happy lately. peaceful. peaceful with myself, peaceful with the universe. lotuses from dirt 'n shit. this sensation is shamefully rare for me. this time I'm trying not to feel immediately wary about what details I must be missing. 

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it's black & white weather! my favorite of all the weathers! 

*

Montlake. ever consider what the dullest neighborhood in Seattle might be? or at least the most blandly pleasant? Montlake would be the bronze medalist, after Laurelhurst and Magnolia. 

there is a cloister of brugmansia versicolor outside the UW greenhouses! they've been considered extinct in the wild since March 2014. I did not know this until I tried to just find these guys on the internets. I love these trees. they conjure up idealizations of a fancy 1950's tiki bar. 

django django! these guys were so good and so young. perhaps I am merely old? not as elderly as the fellow in front of us, at least 70, dancing in a suit. 

this was here when I sat down on the bus tonight. I left it. 

self-portrait with teapot. i quite like the wristiness. 

"how false it is to say that love is blind. I could even judge her, I could condemn her, I could even, in some possible galactic loop of thought, make her suffer. but this was still the stuff of paradise because I was a god and I was involved with her in some eternal activity of making to be which was of sole and absolute value. and with her the world was made, nothing was lost, not a grain of sand nor a speck of dust, since she was the world and I touched her everywhere." Iris Murdoch 

the perpetual epilogue

I take the ferry a few times a year, usually alone, usually maudlin. it's where I can most feign anonymity. open water gives clarity: seeing the city from another angle, everything functional and linear, surrounded by people who are simply admiring the view without any weird emotional undercurrents. 

it was a gorgeous day. "starless" came up on shuffle. a toddler ran up and down the deck, avoiding his father, making everyone else smile. I stared into the sun and thought about what I need to do differently with my life. it was and remains pretty fucking obvious. 

*

everyone filed off the ferry at Winslow. an older man walking next to me glanced over a few times and then said "excuse me, but I have to tell you, you look very nice today." 

I was wearing a dress and heeled boots and had applied mascara to hide my swollen eyes. "thank you" I said. it caught me off guard. 

"striking, actually" he added. 

"thank you" I said again. "I really needed to hear that today." 

he wasn't being swarthy. his kindness and ability to not sense what the previous 24 hours of my life had involved was intensely, I dunno, empowering in a way- like, a reminder that I'm okay. I'm always, ultimately, okay. my internal dissonance and frustration and anger comes from involving myself with situations that aren't positive, and not getting out of them or being able to resolve them despite "knowing better." that's all my dischord ever is, really. 

...and fuck it. despite myself, I did look pretty good that day.

I walked ahead of him so he wouldn't see how much that affected me, and I cried like a dork. poignant tears: this is the first moment of the rest of your life, baby. 

and I walked up the street with my weepy waterproof-mascara'd self and impulsively bought fortune cookies from the bulk bin at Winslow's amazing grocery store. one of them: others will take notice of your positive attitude. 

and I found myself eating fortune cookies in the sun on a day-trip, watching seagulls, feeling better... 

the sunset that night. 

the valerian coffee grounds incident. 

shadows erupt from the light of my life. 

Fremont. this is a horribly framed image, but I really loved all the different textures and angles, and that fire escape thing, my god. 

I saw this downtown and immediately thought of "cups & cakes", that twee song from spïnal täp, and posted it on Facebook because it made me laugh, but after walking a few blocks I realized how this is funny to exactly no one else, so I deleted it. but it's still kinda funny to me. I imagine the naming process; did everyone converge around a table with tea and cigarettes and debate long into the night? I think of variations of that stupid Saturday Night Live skit: eggplants: neither eggs nor plants! I wonder if there was an argument over the ampersand. 

and then I was on a bus and saw the ad for the allergies. underneath it specifies the contact info to participate in clinical trials. but what was weird was that for the first few minutes that I stared at this i didn't notice the kitten as being part of the ad. i thought it was some nihilistic lonely is that why everyone's avoiding me? Seattle thing. I mean, what better ad to put on a Seattle bus in the darker seasons, really? 

the princess is the Entro-pea. 

"good sense does not always rule love." -Molière

the newer normal

gettin' lucky. wait... 

my old building is still not demolished. apparently the entire block will be uprooted. proposed in its place? 2 towers, one 7 stories and one 11, with about 500 residences and street-level commercial space... likely to be occupied by, like, a Pilates studio and a small-dog daycare. and there's already a Subway nearby, so maybe a pho place instead. I'm getting depressingly accurate at this. 

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I threw a rotten pumpkin off this roof once. 

two nights ago I had a dream. I'm walking along this shiny orange metal ledge, at least 15 floors above a dark empty industrial street. it's the middle of the night. the ledge is illuminated quite brightly by lights attached to the building. a gleaming copper-colored dumpster is in my way. I'm already feeling intense vertigo and don't look down shit don't look down. I have barely any space to move around the dumpster so I hold onto it to steady me as I inch by, but it's fucking empty and as effectual in stabilizing me as grasping an empty carton of milk would be and suddenly it and I are slow-motion-falling off the ledge. I let go of the dumpster and think this is how I'm gonna die? seriously? a weird lazy lucidity takes over, hey you, make this a flying dream, but I can't. I grab onto the rough concrete wall of the building- no windows, only random bits of rebar. I'm holding on by two fingers and it can't last. if I let go of this I will definitely fall and die. there's nothing left to catch me. and I make myself wake up. 

*

points contemplated later: 1. didn't actually die, or get to that point. 2. letting go of garbage/useless shit, even if it was empty and beautifully hued. 3. narrow path of my favorite shade of brilliant cheerful orange... there was actually something rather fanciful and optimistic about this dream, in a fucked-up kinda way. 

and later that same morning I saw this. 

others, on recognizing the dissonance in

started it last night, completed it this morning: the first ill-fitting hat of the season. yarn's on sale at Jo-Ann's, y'all. 

blurriness secondary to rapacious croppage. the sky tonight was coquettish as fuck. 

15th & Republican. 

I started this scarf a few months ago and finished it earlier this week. this is therefore, technically, my first completed project of the fall. you know, fortunate folks and their chilled necks. 

I apologize for the lack of focus. Christopher Walken is inexplicably popular around these parts. my future-icon streetside stickery predictions: Kurt Russell fucking with his, um, garb (don't call it a wife-beater, shit! tank top? muscle shirt? that's somehow more offensive) when he's standing in the closet in Overboard. Michael J Fox and the gum on the bottom of his shoe from The Secret of My Success. the screenshot of when they're contemplating the anatomical computerific possibilities in Weird Science. any of these would be excellent pervasive-iconography, ye wily youths! enough with Christopher Walken. 

-sincerely, I'm Old, I Guess

"we were so very much in love.

and then, one day, he went away. 

and I thought I would die,

but I didn't. 

and when I didn't, I thought:

is that all there is to love?"

-Peggy Lee