celebrate with me

yesterday I went to my thrice-yearly neuro appointment. for the first time in ten years, my doctor decreased future visits to every six months because I'm "doing so well." 

it's always awkward to go in, to be reminded that I have a disease and that it can re-manifest itself at any time. the MS Center at Swedish has been expanded to an entire wing of the hospital. two people in the lobby were in wheelchairs; I came bouncing in after a two-mile walk from my lair. I never feel like I belong there, even as I feel numbness in my hands and twitches in my face, even as I inject medication every week that makes me feverish and maudlin. it's still difficult to reconcile a diagnosis with my self-perception. but I guess that's true for everything. 

afterwards I walked downtown in the pissing rain and passed one of my favorite buildings: 

the King County Administration Building was built in 1971 and has been voted the ugliest government building in the country! I love its hostile edifice, and that creepy skybridge, and the fact that it looks like noplace else. 

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empty signage on 2nd Ave. 

the loo at Café Ladro on Capitol Hill. 

daisy gravity. no part of the mug is touching anything except the windowsill. 

today is my 100th day without alcohol so I just took this impromptu (unwashed, bedheaded) self-portrait to commemorate my new and titillating lifestyle. 

"once again he stood in the world empty, naked, and stupid. but he was unable to feel sorrow over it; no, he felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh at himself, to laugh at this strange, foolish world." 

-Siddhartha 

'sall good

I recently read that there are two ways to determine likability in a person: are they trustworthy, and are they competent?

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...a lot of incredibly provocative bon mots have been sashaying into my awareness lately. ever feel like you have all the ingredients lined up before you, and all that's left to do is make something fucking delicious? it's kinda like that. 

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on hold with my health insurance. 

I bought this fur-covered magnet when I was in Copenhagen. it was meant to be a gift. instead I stuck it on the metal stairs outside my door. nearly two months later, it's still there.  

the view from my Lazy Place. 

and the view from below my fucking IKEA shelves. 

and the plastic covering the school grounds at 16th & Union. it was raining lightly but sounded poetically torrential. what else does rain sound like? really loud rice cereal. kindling igniting. dying bubbles. 

after I finished the Danish duolingo program I thought "hvad næst?" and then decided "Deutsch ist nächste!" so I've been (re)learning German. it's so fucking refreshing to study a language that sounds like it looks. and it has phlegmy melodramatic words like Krankenwagen and Schildkröte.  

27... if 6 were 9... 69

this week, I tell ya. oh January. 

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Beethoven's wearing carrot-pants! 

the squatter lairs on 12th & John. 

the dying schefflera. the Internet offers conflicting causes: too much/not enough light, too much/not enough water. it's not root rot, at least. after I took this I plucked all the yellow leaves whilst telling it positive things about its planty self, so hopefully it'll start fucking thriving again, the jerk. 

at my workplace. this makes me really happy. 

the 'Pants. 

today was sunny. I rented a zipcar for a celebratory houseplant run and listened to the radio for the first time in years. I know, U2 = minivan-uncool, but "with or without you"  came on and there's something about that song, driving alone on a sunny day and already distracted by all sorts of poignant weird thoughts, that's just like nnnngggghh. I sang along, loud as fuck.  it's a song I always forget I know every single moment of. 

after that I got stuck in construction traffic to "you spin me right round." 

the shit

January is always difficult. after so many years working swing shifts under artificial lights, spending my evenings surrounded by people and activity and feeling useful, it's still clumsy for me to navigate prolonged darkness on my own. January, for me, is about feeling amorphously lonely, able to speculate about my weird life in a detached, practically apathetic way, but still not wanting anyone else around. sometimes I think of my introversion as just another addiction, and by indulging it I potentially cause greater harm. 

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I get really relieved when it's rainy and grey; I am removed from any sort of obligation to be boisterous and cheerful. I get to cut myself some fucking slack. it's a frustrating fucking trait, but it's also why I like Seattle (and winter in general?) so much: we all do this. everyone here kinda hangs on by a thread until late February, it's just that some threads are far more tenuous than others.

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16th & Denny.

Boren & Stewart (?). this was a former auto dealer. 

and the old Valû Villaž on Capitol Hill. 

Mt Rainier via the Broadway post office. 

and last night's sunset in monochrome. 

just now: true love masquerading as bored narcissism. 

another massive contributor to today's mood: David Bowie, man. I am fucking gutted by this. this feeling is another thing we all have in common, I suppose; there is strange comfort to be found in that. life is fucking short. so what are you going to do now? 

whispering pragmatic nothings

ever thought about how all kitchen appliances can be feminized? refrigeratrix? toastress? percolatrix may be my favorite thus far.

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behold, the first impulse buy of 2016:

we had a pineapple plant when I was growing up in Alaska, ooh! friends would come over and I'd giddily show off the plant, and then regale them with our vile 10" plecostamus. pineapple plants kinda just sit there and look exotic and hostile, admirable qualities in any living thing! 

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perhaps GOSH rules the south end, and G-WILLIKERZ has taken over Magnolia. 

Stairwell Bloody Stairwell. 

brick walls look really cool with a Holga filter. 

New Years Day: frozen reservoir at Cal Anderson. artsy. 

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"for even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you." Kahlil Gibran 

applying knowledge

vaguely chronological shrapnel from the last (and inexplicably zesty!) ~two weeks: 

I passed this, kept walking, thought wait, and turned back half a block later to get this picture. I love everything about this view: the vague similarities in shapes, the wires, the three-nesses, the peeling paint, the chimneys at the same angle as the towers. 

when I lived across the street from these towers (from the opposite vantage point) I'd go onto the roof deck at night and watch the moon rise among them. 

sunset from the warm laziness of my lair. 

a saucy bannister. if this bannister could talk, it'd say "well hello." 

a lone figure cavorting wetly. the lights made everything edgeless.

I love this city. 

every time I pass this building, if I'm (hopefully) alone on the sidewalk, I sing its name out loud. sometimes I mix it up a bit and sing it to the "Ricola" ad instead. why do I fucking admit this shit? 

they were human-sized gloves, so one can only assume they were made with kittens. 

we waste classy food in my neighborhood. 

another filter of the minivanned Trumpet. traffic was completely stopped, I should point out. this is alongside Fife, naturally. 

three fucking pillows. 

entropy's other spot is above the cabinets. I took all the doors off this week (I eventually do that at most places I live) and noticed her year's worth of disgustingness seeping through. 

this is my palatial kitchen now! remember Growing Pains, how they had a fucking sofa in their kitchen? 

Xmas stroll at Golden Gardens. the tide was mostly in. 

it was desolate and cold. a dog in a Santa coat ran ahead of its owners. I stood in the water in my boots and thought about how we're all gonna eventually end up as like, sand, you know?  

currently occurring. occurrently? the lair smells like love. 

"instead of oxygen and stress, she thought now of hushed and quiet words: glide, fur, banana, peace." 

E. L. Konigsburg 

titles narrow your possibilities

today is my 60th day without alcohol. 

I am uncontrollably grinning as I write that!

And I am deeply astonished and humbled to report that there is nothing negative happening in my life right now. I desperately don't want to jinx anything, and in mere nanoseconds I'll likely regress to my typical habit of imagining all the shit that can go wrong or if I have a brain tumor or every stupid thing I've ever done... but for one warily blissful moment documented in print, fuck it! I imagine a horrible motivational poster:

jeg er meget glad, eller noget.

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maybe it's because I never cook that I am constantly impressed by the magical shit that happens when I do.

me and my arrow. 

in my neighborhood. 

and today's very brief sunrise. 

"a human being is not mindless or mentally deficient without language, but he is severely restricted in the range of his thoughts, confined, in effect, to an immediate, small world." Oliver Sacks