Seattle revisited
2007-11-13 - 14:54

And so it has come to this again, entries sent by email from work, surreptitious updates in an attempt to capture fleeting ideas and emotions. This time around it is not the overwhelming quantity of thoughts compelling me to write snippets all day, send update after update, write diatribes and poems in Notepad and notepads all over the place, no. I have no time these days to properly reflect with my fingers on the keyboard, and I have no reliable internet connection to hijack. Even the internet at work has been unreliable lately. But here we are.

Yesterday the drive from Seattle was treacherous - I lived there, I drove into and out of Seattle many times in many seasons, but yesterday's drive was the worst I've seen. At one point, for no apparent reason, traffic stopped and stayed stopped for about 15 minutes. There had been incidents, evidence left along the roadways - disturbances in the snow, tire tracks, ruts in the mud and slush - but no overturned vehicles, no recently crashed crashes.

Days earlier, on the way over, I had complained about the creepy lack of snow in the mountain passes.

The fancy-schmancy party, the reason I went there - the raison de voyage - the invitations had been sent out on Vera Wang stationery. The original venue was the Sorrento Hotel but we were unceremoniously booted from there three days before the event in favor of a party involving my favorite band in the world. I am delighted by this - there were whispers: "It was Pearl Jam," they said. "They booted us for Pearl Jam."

Our soiree was quickly moved to the Fairmont Olympic, where the President of China stayed when he came to Seattle last year - remember? He stopped in Seattle to visit Bill Gates before he went to Washington D.C . to meet with the President of the United States. The accommodations were superlative. There was a harpist. Each guest received a large blue box from Tiffany & Co. containing a crystal candlestick. The food was fabulous, the dessert bizarre and uneatable, posh as fuck. Alcohol included an open bar from hors d'oeuvres on, white wine for the soup and salad, red wine for the main course, and then afterdinner liqueurs.

I did not get trashed. In fact, I managed to have an exceedingly healthy weekend. I drank only in moderation, I abstained from the time-sucking evils of weed, I ate good food, and I slept with fantastic quality.

Seattle: you are fuller of condos than you were when I last saw you, and even then you were pretty full of them. I am convinced that something has to break here. All these condos, in twenty years they will be out of style, and in forty years urban renewal will have to start all over again. Please stop tearing down lovely old brick buildings.

Coffee Messiah is now a noodle house without any hint of sacrilege. Ballard, I ate at a Puerto Rican restaurant. The beans and rice were delicious. I kissed no one's cheek but was asked why I won't move back. I have no answer for this. Why don't you move back, they asked. It would be nice if you moved back.