Hierophany

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Epilogue

Epilogue Written 12/1
   -or-
The Finalé.

I am sitting at my little makeshift desk at home in Missouri.  The Rams are trailing the Niners at halftime, 13-3.

I have gotten a number of things done today.  These include: running an extension cord out of an attic peek-a-boo window and adding a few nail hooks alongside the uppers of the exterior of the house to route the cord through before dropping it down along the front porch so that, for the first time in right years in this home, we can sport a little "holiday cheer" in the way of lights out in front of the house; then cleaning the gutters, mostly of oak leaves, because I realized once I got up there that they really could use it.  Then I fired up the lawnmower to act as a vacuum-powered leaf shredder and I stuffed two-and-a-half lawn bags full of leaves.  After that I swept up the garage.

But it all started with me going to B at 7:00 this morning and shaking her from sleep because I needed her to go with me over to the nearby auto service place where my poor Jeep sits, dead as a rock.  We had it towed there last night because it would not start when we got back to it in spot 315 at Park Express.  It made this minimal, pathetic clicking sound when B turned the key. 

"What the...?" 

It seemed to be the battery.  So we went into the little Park Express office and I signed a liability waiver and the gal there had a shuttle take use out to the Jeep so she could use this little battery re-juicing machine they keep on site for just this sort of thing.  She put the red on red, the black on the black, and I gave it a try... it sounded more like a standard start-up, the interior lights came on at full, the clock had numbers (12:00)...but the engine still would not turn over.  I tried again, again. 

Another Park Express employee came over and suggested maybe the Jeep battery needed just a little bit more time to take the charge from the charging kitty.  So we waited, maybe just a minute, just kind of all standing around dumb.  I tried it again, no difference.  We waited a little longer, I tried it again.  No charge, no start.  We got back on the shuttle and B and I started to talk.  I figured our best shot was to consult Pat—maybe get him on site and see what he thought.  Maybe we'd just leave the Jeep there for another night, get a ride home from him or someone, or take a cab home, then come back and do a full car-to-car charge tomorrow if need be. 

But B was already moving on a tow, and had USAA on the phone as we got back to the Park Express lounge.  They would tow it for free—to a service station—and we would have the service station look at it in the light of day.  The Park Express gal had told B that "it wasn't the battery"...so what it could be, who knows, it deserved a professional look, was B's thinking.  Admittedly, the Jeep has had problems before—including electrical problems.  But it has never refused to start.  The tow truck company had gotten the call and they would have a truck reach us in 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, I am checking first one sports score app and then another to figure out what is going on in the 2013 Iron Bowl (Alabama vs. Auburn).  When we landed earlier, it was a 21-21 tie at the end of the third quarter.  The ScoreCenter app was telling me—with much deliberation—that the score was then 28-28, with only a few seconds left.  Then it was showing 28-28, end of regulation.  So it was going to go to overtime, eh?  I had a feeling....  But then the app was telling me that there was still a second left in the game.  This didn't make any sense and I got aggravated so I went to Yahoo's SportsTacular app.  That app runs a lot quicker—it gave me the news I feared: 31-28 Alabama.  The damn Tide had kicked a last-second field goal and won the frickin' game.  I'm not sure why but I went back to the ScoreCenter app to verify this result.  But now ScoreCenter was telling me that Auburn had won 34-28.  In a situation like this (confusion, chaos) there is only one app worth consulting: Twitter.

And so when I went into Twitter and looked at the trending it all became clear: Auburn had won!  One tweet said: The greatest finish to a college football game ever!  Another: That kid who ran the kick back is gonna get so hammered tonight!  Another pasted in screenshots from the telecast showing a shocked, crestfallen 'Bama fan.  Another showed a sullen Nick Saban.  At this point I've gathered that Auburn has won but I still don't understand how.  Did 'Bama indeed kick a field goal to go up 31-28 but leaving one second on the clock and then let Auburn run the ensuing kickoff back? 

Not exactly.  I had to play a clip of the Auburn radio call back to understand.  With one second left, Alabama had attempted a 57-yard field goal to win.  It fell short but was caught near the back of the end zone  by Auburn's Chris Davis.  In that scenario, the play is still live—the ball is not dead just because it was kicked.  So the Auburn player catches the kick and runs it all the way back for a touchdown and an Auburn win!  Can  you believe it?  The link I had found for the radio call was from a DropBox site—thanks to whoever posted that on Twitter.  B and I just sat there on Park Express's crappy pleather couch and listened to it: "To the 45, the 50, the 45—oh my God!—Auburn is going to win this football game!—Oh my God!—You're not going to keep them off of the field tonight!  Auburn is going to win the Iron Bowl!" Thinking of it even now—I've since heard the same clip another five or six times—I still get the chills and my eyes well up a little bit.  I'm not sure why, I'm not an ardent Auburn fan.  Maybe because it was incredible regardless of how I followed it.  Media-transcendent.  I texted Roy—he had no idea.  B got a call but it was just the tow truck guy.  He was across the street.

He pulled into the Park Express with his long, flatbed tow truck.  He shined a light on the little tag at the bottom of the Jeep's windshield.  "What year is this?" he said, with a tone of disbelief.  I told him it was a 1998.  He said, "Man, it looks a lot better than the 2001 I just got rid of."  I probably just said, "Hmmm."  My job was to steer the Jeep as he pushed it back out of its spot.  He said, "It's gonna be hard to steer without the power steering."  It was.  I tell ya—my parents have done as much as they could have done—and I have often been a willing accomplice—to keep life outside the walls, beyond the moat, for as long as possible.  But it creeps in, doesn't it?  At some point life will track you down and get you in its teeth—and it will bite down. 

Looking at my Jeep up on that flatbed, wondering whether it was worth holding onto, thinking about work on Monday, not having any control over this night or the next: this was life and this was how it was going to be.  Take it or leave it.  B got up there with the tow truck guy.  I walked back to the Park Express office and paid for our six days.  Then I hopped in.  His name was John.  He had lived in Texas—Galveston.  We spent a Thanksgiving there once, in 2004.  He asked us if we liked living in U City.  I had little to say.  I think I was in shock.

He got the Jeep down from the bed and had me steer it into a slot in the back of the auto service station.  It went in all catty-wumpus.  We just left it there.  We'd have to wait until Monday before we could even tell them it was there or try to make an appointment.  We thanked John and tipped him $20.  He said, "It was super nice to meet y'all."  And it seemed he meant it.

So there we are at the intersection, me with the rolling suitcase in hand.  It really was not a bad weather night—it could have been much colder.  We waited for the walk signal so we could wheel our stuff across the street, down the sidewalk, and back to what remained of the rest of our lives.


Seattle/St. Louis, 2013.

Saturday, November 30th
    -or-
Don't Forget to Mention Seaplanes.


One thing I forgot to mention earlier is about how after buying that Beam, I put it in our empty trunk and only faux-closed the trunk.  It was only the Jim Beam in there and it was right at the outer end of the trunk, so on a quick look at the car, the trunk obviously would have looked open but unless you walked right up on the trunk and looked straight down into it, you wouldn't have seen the bottle.  We had gone into QFC: The Food Part of It and shopped for 20 minutes, came out and B was like, "Uhhh... our trunk is open."

I thought instantly, "The Beam is gone—you clown."  Ha!  But it wasn't.  B says, "That's Seattle for you."  But I think if I'd done the same thing outside of Cheese Place, it would've still been in the trunk, too.

It's [7:35].  I'm a little tipsy, I must say.  B is over checking out and I'm stealing a moment for myself—the check-out seems to be taking awhile.  I'm not even going to ask.  I had about one-fifth of a one-fifth of Jim Beam left as of this morning and it just didn't seem right to leave it.  Where're Pat and Roy when I need them?  OK, here comes B.  Crows call, she coughs.  It's cool but not cold.  The birds sound off and here we go—

[10:36]

And we're back at SeaTac, checked in an through security.  We filled the car's gas tank just 1/4 mile away from Rental Car Return, at an Arco where a couple of young enterprisers had set up a stand for a 2-in-1 wax and wash car cleaning kit.  They had all of these bottles and I had to wonder, "How many of those could they possibly sell on a single day?"  I had a very uneasy feeling, looking at them.  Of course, I saw at first an Indian restaurant  up by the car return and then I saw a second Indian restaurant across the street from Arco and I uttered that common phrase of mine of late, "How can all of these places stay open?"

We woke up pretty early.  B got me up today.  We're sitting at the gate.  Some gal is yakking on her phone about keeping her hands clean.  At first I think she means it figuratively but now she's talking about wearing a mask so I guess she's literal.  Yak, yak.  She's talking with her mom and she wants people to hear what she's saying. 

After we packed and checked out, we went over to the BP and had coffee and breakfast.  I ate pumpkin pie with ice cream—a pretty good breakfast.  We said our goodbyes to everyone.  My sister-in-law and her two daughters leave tonight.

It might have rained just a bit over night.  The temp hasn't seemed to change much over all of these days.  If it shows itself, the sun can warm everything a few degrees.  Otherwise, my sense is that absent a system moving in, the standard range is ten degrees, say 38°-48°.

B is reading.  Soon enough we are going to make a Wendy's run and get ourselves set for a three-and-a-half hour ride east.  And then we'll get back to home, back to our little "grain of paradise."

Did I already write about how I drained some but not all of the Jim B that was left?  I couldn't finish it all—it would have been a bad idea.  It just wasn't necessary.  After we left the BP we had enough time for one last drive down to Matthews Beach.  It was the same as when we were last there.  The same group of ducks seemed to be there but I need to make some refinements to what I think I saw.  I'm pretty sure about the widgeons.  Less so about the gadwall.  And I think that the black and white divers were indeed bufflehead, not goldeneye.  This is what it was: body was a very distinct half and half—black top, white bottom, the dividing line going horizontally, breast to tail across the side of the duck.  Very art ducko—ha ha.  The head was also two-tone: black, white.  Black face, mask.  White ear, back of the head.  Smaller duck.

But there were two kinds of duck there today that weren't there Thursday: one loon, can you believe it!  I saw one loon in Minnesota and now I see one loon in Washington!  Then there were also a handful of scaups, diving all of them.  The loon was a ways out but it's profile is not mistakable.  I smoked a cigarette, threw away the tailings from yesterday after briefly considering them, and then we made our way back to 45th and I-5 toward the airport.

Now I am holding a table in the food court while B gets the Wendy's.  There are hardly any tables.  I pounced on this one as soon as I saw it.  There are huge glass windows lining one side of the food court.  Beyond those windows are runways—I can see the tails of two Alaskan Airlines planes.

[11:40]
 On the plane.  The crew was was well into the boarding process when we got back to the gate from Wendy's, a surprise! because I was planning on going to the bathroom yet.  Now I'm going to have to go on the plane, which I loathe doing.  My mistake—nonchalance.

[12:08]
Takeoff. By 12:10, after seeing just a little Seattle from the air we are solidly in cloud.  B says, "Nice view."  She is snoozing and coughing.  I hear about five different earnest coughers, some of the coughs sound the same.

I think what's going around is a new form of whooping cough—Oh WoW!—B tugs at my sleeve—Mt. Rainier does a bitch slap to the cloud and cover and says, Uh uh—I'm gonna see these people off, poking its head up above the top of the cloud deck—and not just a little bit but rather a good 1000-2000 feet.  I looked up how tall it was at Marlai Thai right near Talaris (where we ate twice—excellent panang) but I forget now hall tall it is.  20,000 feet?  The clouds themselves were pursed up around where Rainier broke through them, kind of arranging themselves about its visible base as if they were the skirts of a Christmas Tree.  Majestic!



So, as I was saying, it's a new whooping cough, "newtussis" I'm calling it.  It's being somehow emboldened by the flu vaccine.  It feels a lot like a regular cold at first but then it hangs around much longer, as a throat tickle/sore throat/nagging cough/hack-maker.  It cannot be fatal but it is fairly easily passed from person-to-person by water droplets—coughing stuff into the air and then having someone else inhale it.  In the lungs of people who've had the flu vaccine in the last 12-24 months, it mutiplies doubly fast.  It is especially easily pass among people flying together in airplanes.

[13:01 p.t.]
Drink service has delivered me a Coke.  I've got two little bottles of bourbon, one is Beam Black and the other is one of my little Beefeater bottles refilled with some of the Beam I had in the room.  I was telling B that I never should have recycled the other original Beefeater bottles—they could have come in handy: I could have refilled them instead of leaving some of the Beam behind—even if I didn't drink it until I got home, it would easily have been worth it.

One bottle down, three quick pulls my left hand clasping the mini bottle tightly, followed with a sip of Coke.  Not much to see outside.  We are above the clouds, straight blue above that.  B is opening her tiny snack pack.  The lady in the third seat of our half-row is reading Louis Lamour's memoirs.  She paid up for the full snack pack.  She used an Alaskan Airlines credit card.  I wonder what she's going to be doing in St. Louis.

That Beam Black courses through me.  I feel just the slightest bit jittery, but it'll pass: these two little bottles won't to much for me:  my tolerance is too high.  Then why drink them at all, you say.  Hmmm, not sure, good question—I guess I just think I need it.  I find it fun.  It's something to plot about, something to sneak—and that gives me a little rush.  It might get me amped up just a bit—might dehydrate me, keep me from having to get up and go on this flight.

I shake my head at the handful of people that get up and go right away—in the nascent stages of drink service.  So while they're on the can the stewardesses wheel the drink cart out and begin to make their way up the aisle, completely blocking it to traffic.  And the person in the bathroom is sitting in like row 10—they come out of the bathroom and they're like, "WTF?  How am I supposed to get back to my seat?"  So the stewardesses take the brake off the serving cart and sigh and start hauling the thing all the way up the aisle until whoever it is that was in the bathroom can get clear to his or her seat.  Ridiculous.

[13:23 p.t.]
Out of the window we are flying over what I assume are the Rocky Mountains.  That's kind of a lame name for a mountain range, now that I think about it.  Kind of a bad joke—The Rockies: they're rocky.

I've got eight-and-a-half pages left in this journal.  I am in serious danger of not finishing it.  I estimate I've written fifty-five pages so far this trip.  I'm preoccupied with the grim reality that going to have to get up and pee at some point.  We're only 40% of the way through this flight.  Only sleep would save me and sleep has been hard to come by.  The nights of this trip were some of the crummiest sleep I can remember.  Constant tossing and turning.  Comfort inachievable.  I try to fit a pillow between my legs as I sleep on my side, to keep my spinal column straight.  Or if I swivel my top leg over further so I'm moreso on my stomach, I try to set a pillow "out" a little bit further where the inside of that leg's knee is going to land when I swivel it out.  I go through all of those positions, sometimes in either full clockwise or counter-clockwise rotations where I'm rolling in full rotations one way or another.  Or sometimes I just go 180° back and forth without ever really being on my stomach.  Flat on my back is admittedly the most comfortable position, but it happens to be, unfortunately, the position I find myself least able to get to sleep in.  I'll be in that position and force myself to count to 10...one...two...three...repeatedly.  Or as many times I can do it without having my mind wander like crazy all over the place.  Like last night for instance, I don't think I got to ten once.  Maybe once.  Either I fall into that shallowest level of sleep...from which nothing materializes.  Or I get into that hypnagogic state where odd themes and a kaleidoscope of cracking colors move across my eyelids and the oddest old memories and names come to mind—an altogether unpleasant state.

At home I have been fighting the same problem but my fix there is just to get up and go to the futøn in the next room and that seems to work.  Why?  Because I can toss and turn just like I otherwise would but without the nagging notion that I am keeping someone else awake other than myself?  Maybe.  Or maybe it's got something to do with geographical orientation.  At home my feet face south in the main bed; in the futøn, west.  My feet on this trip faced...I think south, but I need to verify this.

[13:45 p.t.]
We are over Gillette, Wyoming.  So what exactly were those mountains we passed over earlier?
[15:45 c.t.]
[15: 51 c.t.]
Oh yeah!  Flippin' nailed it, Chet.  The gal at the end of our half row went to the bathroom and I made my move.  It was easy!  The peeing's the easy part—it's getting out of, to the bathroom, and then back to your row that's the hard part.  Some guy was standing in the aisle both times as I went by, rummaging around in his multiple bags for stuff with which to keep his kids at bay.  I'm not sure I got all of the soap off of my hands, though.  It is wafting up at me as I write.  Hearing that we were only over Wyoming—that was it, I knew right then I had to go the bathroom as soon as possible.  And now I feel like a new man.

[16:13]
We are flying over some pretty desolate-looking land right now.  First I saw a river, of decent size—the Platte?—then I saw steppes, or what could have been the wrinkly bald terrain of the Badlands.

B is snoozing.  Her mouth is open—hey, sorry, just reporting the facts here.  There seems to be a lot of to and fro bathroom activity—the drinks service talking hold, perhaps.

I thought for sure I'd knock this book out.  Some thoughts once I get home, a sort of "debrief" or "exit interview" would probably do the trick, and would be more useful that me just sitting here jabbering away in a half-hearted attempt to fill the notebook just for the sake of doing so. 

The only other thing I thought about during this trip that I figured I should/would/could write about is this: my thoughts on the soul, life, and whether we exist "as ourselves" in any capacity when/if we die.

When I mull this inevitable subject in my head, I tend to get incredibly, soul-crushedly depressed.  Because I can't fathom a likely or plausible depiction of life after death.  So until I settle on some believable "next phase" it's pretty hard for me to accept that there will be one.

It seems not just implausible but kind of dumb to be given this one-off: here, have a life, build this whole persona, history, soul, and existence—but then at some point all of that will completely and suddenly cease to exist.  Sure, the people still living when you die will remember you—but if you're dead and totally non-existent then you have no capacity, no facility by which other people remembering you fondly will mean anything.  Unless you can something "see it" or "feel it" or otherwise experience it, what difference does it make if people miss you?

One way to mitigate the blow of this version of death is to say—Well, yeah, we die: our individual existence, who we were, is done and gone but our souls do regenerate, take another turn as another life form—back on planet Earth?  This possibility really doesn't do much for me—OK, our souls go on, but I'm assuming that if we came back as a dog or as a lizard, we don't go around thinking—Well, OK, this is a lot different than my past life, but I'm going to make a home in this little hole and eat some cockroaches and it won't be so bad.  So perhaps our soul gets recycled but if we don't realize it, then what's the point?  It's knowing that we are who we are that makes our soul worth having.  This means that the only way that it seems to matter for me in the next life is if I at least can recall who I am and what my existence up to that point had been about. Because I'm telling you right now—I don't recall any prior existence.  Which means one of two things: this is somehow coincidentally my first go-round as a lifeform; or, there are no second acts—at least not as life-forms back on planet Earth.

If there is a second act, not on Earth, then it's only possible in two distinct places: (1) in our current universe but as life on another planet; or, (2) a life where we are "us" again in some other universe, call it Heaven if you want, it doesn't really matter.  If either of these are the case then I have to ask: Well, OK, this first "life" wasn't "it" but now this second life, will that be "it"?  And if so, hey, I'm happy for that second go-round (and that begs the whole other question of: how similar is that second life to the first—are we born to the same parents, do we find ourselves back in the same sorts of circumstances whereby this time around we have a chance to "do things differently"?) but if we only get that second life and not a third, a fourth, a fifth, ad infinitum...then it's still just a question of when and not if.

I cannot accept the concept of having my being extinguished.  Not because it's "not fair" but because I do not wish to cease to exist—or maybe it's more correct to say that ceasing to exist scares the shit out of me and I don't want to face it.  Writing about this makes me tired.  It leads to the inescapable concluding question: What the hell is the point of writing all of this?  If hardly anyone is going to read it while I'm alive, and even if people did read it when I was dead but I could derive no pleasure or satisfaction as a result of them having done so?

*

Enough of that for now.  B is having a tough coughing spell.  I'm done with air travel at this time of year—done!  No air travel from Oct. through Feb.

[20:18]
The Jeep Episode will be described shortly.  Until then some accounting:
            + I counted the room tip from this morning.
            + B got the Wendy's.

But it remains to be seen: what cost the Jeep repair?  So, total spending was $XYZ.49.

Friday, November 29


[8:37]
I'm sluggish.  I'm not sure what I want to make of this last day here.  We walked down to a shoreline access point on Lake Washington, very near where we're staying.  But it was an access point in name only—a crusty, old, stubby pier, pinched in on both sides by the longer, better-placed piers of the lot owners on either side.  I longed for where we were yesterday morning—the impromptu excursion that became the best part of the day, by attrition.

I'm going to gloss over Thanksgiving dinner.  The hosts have a beautiful home, which they opened to us in every way.  We were there for about five hours.  It was a case of too much: too much of this, too much of that.  I would have liked more time to talk to Tom, who poured me scotch neat right away.  But we didn't really talk much one-on-one until after dinner, before dessert, when he said, "Well, counselor.  I need some advice: I'm totally out of bonds, completely in stocks.  What should I do?"  Maybe it's the sign of a market top when a man who once asked you, "What's the secret to life?" is now asking, "What should I do with my stocks?"

Quaint suggested I should talk with him about books, Moby Dick...and instead there we were having a client meeting.  I told him to raise some cash—"There's nothing wrong with cash, as much as 10 or 20 percent.  Then put it back in when the market falls 10 or 20%."

I felt awkward through a lot of the night, and inept at conversation.  Someone snagged my scotch at one point—I had at least a finger left—and so I was stuck with red wine, which usually makes me woozy.  A trainer for the Seattle Mariners was among the guests and we talked for awhile—I enjoyed that: going through the roster of their players and hearing his behind-the-scenes observations.  But there were some folks there that I pretty much said "Hello" and then "Goodbye" to.  I hate that.  I guess it happens at parties but it cheapens the experience for me.  It makes the whole thing feel fake, like some production.  Too much, too much.

[9:27]
We're about to set out on a walk to "Gasworks Park" by way of the Burke-Gilman Trail.  We walked for over two hours total.  To get to the Trail from Talaris we go west down 45th Street until a spot where we cross the street and do a little dipsy-do under the street before turning in toward campus.

We walked amongst students and tailgaters.  There were some pretty elaborate tailgate set-ups and the tailgaters were in full swing.  Drinks, grilling, chips, bean-bag tossing.  Along the trail were more students, some already lit.  From up on the trail we could look down to the main tailgating lot, which is not too far from the stadium.  I guess I didn't go to a football school (Washington U.) or when I went to one later on I never went to a game (Texas).  Because this was a scene I had never seen.  The RVs surprised me most—just how many of them they were, how tightly packed into the parking lot they seemed to be.  We've been in town for four full days now—I've seen a lot of Seahawks pride but I can't say I've seen a lot of UW Husky support or fervor.  So to consider the convergence of all of this activity on Husky Stadium—dozens of RVs, thousands of students—and rowdy, gray-haired alums!—it was exciting.  We saw one RV with its awning propped out, a TV going underneath, and a fire burning in a little fire pit—like an outdoor living room: incredible!

For people watching, and for having a general atmosphere to usher us along our walk, we could not have picked a better time.  For awhile we walked with the crowd toward the stadium and the tailgating lots; then there was a stretch where the walk traffic did not favor any one direction.  Then, once we got to the stadium, we pretty much went against traffic as students, alums, families carried their snacks and beer to their particular destination.

It was a little over three miles to Gasworks Park, which took us about an hour.  As we got closer to the park the trail split into two, and as walkers we were supposed to walk up along the road whilst the bikers had the lower, better, wider trail to themselves below.  We did follow the directions on our way to but not on our way back from Gasworks.

The park actually does contain the pretty extensive remnants of what I assume are old gasworks:  rusty, ungulating wide tubes and flanges, some fenced in by barbed wire (but nonetheless even more inviting to the local graffiti artists—they don't hold a candle to you, RATFAG!) while others were sort of "open" to exploration but had been cleaned up: painted, thinned out, made less complicated.

We didn't spend too much time on the Works—what drew me right away was the waterfront and the view of the downtown skyline.  I told B that I thought we were—at that moment—closer to the Space Needle than we had been at any other point the entire trip.  I saw two crew rowers but they were too far away for a photo and they were rowing away from us (their faced faced us...ahem!)  I was looking for textures but for good or ill much of the place seemed to have been recently painted.  I swear I saw some of the exact same grey-blue—or perhaps cerulean blue—paint that I saw covering tags or other sore spots along concrete edifices along the other side of the waterfront on Tuesday.

Showing a few more signs of wear and tear were a series of recessed alcoves, or stalls, about 18 inches deep and twenty feet tall, with a little wooden bench inset, about three feet wide.  Considering the bench, the concrete's texture, some unwhitewashed graffiti in some, marks made from water dripping or consdensating above, and then some other-worldly looking purple ferns growing about fifteen feet up, I was made to think of these stalls as Joseph Cornell-style boxes—missing only an item or two: an odd ball of wood, some broken glass.  I rather liked them.  I took a couple of photos.  Unfortunately I can't seem to get them onto Instagram because they are too tall to fit into the square crop of the Instagram frame.  I'll figure something out.  Maybe I need to download one of those apps where I can do a diptych and then post two long skinny photos side by side.

B is napping as I write, all lit on cold medicine (dextromethorphan, or DXM).  It causes her to make strange, vaguely sexual gurgling noises as she struggles to find her way to REM sleep.  She'll make one or two of these noises here and there on any random night but when she takes some 'Tussin or one of the 'Quils she kicks this predilection into a whole 'nother gear.  It is entertaining to say the least.  Sorry, B!  She wakes herself up with a murmur and says, "I'm sorry!  I can't help it.  It's horrible!"  And then literally ten seconds after she says this she is back at it. 

For my own part, it is 14:29.  I am sipping my Jim Beam and drinking my third of four 7 Seas Brewing—British Pale Ale, crafted and canned at Gig Harbor, WA.  I'm not sure there is a better style of beer to drink while you're sipping some bourbon. 

In a few minutes here, I am going to finish off this 7 Seas and pinch in the can at the middle.  Because guess who found some you-know-what in one of those Joseph Cornell stalls down at the Gasworks.  I mean, sure: it could be laced with PCP but I don't care.  Thou shalt not want, indeed.

The only other things I want to remember about Gasworks are these two things:

(1)  From down by the water looking up at the big hill at Gasworks, where the people on said hill were silhouetted against white, cloudy sky—and one of those silhouettes, a kid flew a very colorful kite;

(2)  The lengthy row of blackberry bushes right along the water, still fruited with berries.  Although most of the berries were premature pink and small, some were all-out blackberries and could have been picked and eaten.  I took a photo and sent it to my Dad, who loves to pick berries.  I was surprised there were not birds working these berries.

The Huskies just scored and, with an extra point, will tie it 10-10, early second half.

The growing season obviously runs.  It's not as though it's warm—I had hat, gloves, winter coat, light fleece on for the entire walk down there.  The difference is the lack of extreme temperature—I am guessing there has not been any deep frost.  And probably not yet a 25° and stupid windy day.

Because we've seen all kinds of little flowers blooming or still in bloom.  I've already talked about how the green grass still is.  Very near Talaris are some red maples that are only about 30% dropped (and which 30%were indeed being leaf-blown by a groundsworker at the hospital on which ground they sat).  Does Spring start later here or is it just that much shorter of a winter?

Did someone say something about green grass?  Excuse me for just a minute. [14:42]

Onwards and upwards.  Texting with Roy.  Huskies up by ten.

Thursday, November the 28th
       -or-
Thanksgiving.


B is fighting through her cold.  I had at least two quick, deep thrusting, strange dreams last night.  For the first time in a long time I called something out in my sleep—three words I think, but I don't remember which—something like, "Oh, come on!"  B heard me, it woke her.  And I think she said something to me in response, but I had my ear plugs in so I barely heard her through my haze and I didn't respond.  I think the earplugs contributed to me finding that odd level of sleep-state.

I tossed and turned for most of the night.  I couldn't call it sleep exactly.

At 6:12 I got up for good and told B it was time for her to get up, too.  We had breakfast scheduled at eight and I wanted to be awake for awhile beforehand.  I grabbed some americano I had left over from yesterday.  It was cold but welcome.  I did my cash accounting.  B agreed to take me on a cigarette run!

We hit a 76 station down the street and I paid more than I have ever paid for a pack of smokes.  Then B asked me, "Do you want to go to the beach?"

"Uhhh, sure," I said.  We winded our way on down that same street and eventually I could see water.  Before long we were at Matthews Beach Park.  The sun was just coming up, joining a heap of fog, some mountains in the distance, and ever-present evergreens to create a tremendous morning sunrise melange.  There were ducks: probably four different kinds: mallard, gadwall, american widgeon, and farther out a smaller duck that I'm going to say were goldeneye.  I didn't have my field glasses so I am not calling these sightings officially.  There's a bird book here at the BP, and I have consulted it.  One of the kinds of duck was making a sharp whistling noise that I can't recall having heard before.  My first thought was, "Is that a whistling duck?"  But according to the book, the geography is not right.  It's the widgeons that whistle.  They are about the size of a mallard and although they sometimes have green on the head, which I didn't see, the tail was right as were the white wing marks, which I did see.

 The goldeneye were farther out, wary.  Divers, not dabblers.  Smaller.  White and black.  Some white on the face. My first thought was goldeneye.  Could have been bufflehead but I know bufflehead—I can remember where I first saw them, on a walk down Sullivan Road from my dorm at IMSA—on a pond near on office building on a blustery weekend day—no one in sight....

There were also crows and a few gulls.  It was chilly.  Leaves on top of the rocks at the beach were frosted.  The fog waned, then waxed.  We took photos, I did a Vine.  There was only one other person out there: a guy walking a dog.  I had a cigarette and the hand holding it got cold quick.  After that we left.

On our way back we stopped at the Safeway and B got some cold medicine.  I sat in the car, with it running.  A guy in an old white Honda parked a couple of rows away, locked the car manually.  He wore loafers, no socks.  Out to get a few last minute items for Turkey Day, I thought.

[later]
I'm now at the BP.  We had breakfast over here: quiche, turkey sausage, and pump-cran scones.  It was all good.  The quiche had spinach, two kinds of olives, onions, and maybe some red bell pepper in it.  I rather liked its formidable crust.  I'm on my second half-cup of coffee.  B's nieces are...constant but bright.  They're all out walking now.

It is quiet—exceptionally so.  JO is here but is downstairs watching TV.  His phone rang and he came up and got it with surprising promptness.  Maybe he just happened to be coming up at that moment anyway.

It's a nice house with numerous pieces of unique, original art.  B and I especially like this painting of a couple of barns:






Simple is beautiful.  That painting is basically ten lines and then a lot of color to fill in.  Add two windows, a barn door, four pieces of lumber leaning against the broad side of one barn.  Maybe that's a hay bale at the bottom left—could be a tank of some sort or a barrel on its side.  No horizon.  The same blue sky makes up half of the painting.  I'm not saying it's easy—simple is hard.

They're all back now.  Sheena has a book with a button—if she hits the button, the book sings, "Over the river and through the woods...."  She hits the button repeatedly and smiles.  I'm not sure what's on tap.  We're due for dinner up north at 16:00.  It's ten now.

[13:25]
Cash accounting: cigs this morn: $11.25.  Ouch!  Seriously, can we stop blaming the smokers for society's ills?  As if smokers are the prime reason healthcare premiums are out-of-control expensive.  The smokers are just an easy mark because they're not politically protected (how can they afford to make the kind of campaign contribution that secures a vote?)  Or they're so content sitting back and smoking their cigs that they just don't give a damn.  It's getting to be where I can buy a decent bottle of booze for less than I have to shell out for a pack of smokes.  Let's play a game.  The price of _______ is rising faster than a pack of smokes.  What fits?  Not food, not gas, not booze, not taxes, not rent, not houses.  Education?  Lobbying?  I'm to the point on these cig prices that if it's all for one, one for all.  Tax the hell out of: french fries, Mountain Dew, cable TV,  Halloween candy, sports gambling, footlong sandwiches, the Red Zone channel, acetaminophen, lottery tickets, religious redemption, frozen dinners, Botox, cheese sauce, Xanax, porn, Netflix, so-called natural supplements, next-day online delivery, etc.  Either tax it all or don't tax any of it. 

The smokers, the drinkers, the tanners: today's lepers.  I had about $5 in taxes on the quote-unquote $13.99 bottle of Beam I bought the first night here.  I pick up that bottle with the $13.99 price tag attached to it and I'm thinking, "Nice price."  Then I paid with a $20 and got back just coins.  I had to scrutinize my receipt before it made any sense.  And the rental car.  The base rate on a rental car is irrelevant.  Forty percent of the bottom line cost was fees and taxes.

It's gotten to where every city's tourism slogan should really be:  "Soak the people arriving in our beloved city!  We've got them by the balls!"

If we hadn't seen so many broken, disconsolate souls downtown on Tuesday I might be tempted to think that this approach actually worked.  I ask: Where does it all go?  I'm hardly a distributionist but this five-year, multi-trillion dollar, Federal Reserve-minted stimulus: Who is it really helping?  Stocks are up, corporate coffers are fat with cheaply borrowed money, house prices in this crowded city are in the stratosphere, lots of trendy shoppers were out and about...and, yet, downtown was also littered with so many people that had so little—not even a plan.  Dirty, ragged souls.  I was standing there at the bus stop looking out at these wretched people and thinking: God, if someone ever unites this strata of society, there will be a day of reckoning that us comfy cozies cannot today imagine.  The cost of maintaining status quo at all cost will be chaos!

[13:50]
I had one of my English pale 16 ozers—5% ABV, so relax.  Or maybe not because Jim just sat down at the table.  I am nervous about this Thanksgiving meal that's about to get going.  We are all going up north a bit to the house of Tom and Quaint, longtime family friends of B's family.  There will be a total of 15 people there.  But using my anxiety as a reason for why I just poured two fingers of Beam is b.s. because if I weren't going anywhere I'd probably have already drank that glass.  I guess what I'm saying is that I probably shouldn't be drinking and maybe I'm trying to kill the conversation in me right now—drinking and talking to myself.

I've gone on a much longer spiel about the Federal Reserve and the equity markets and my job just now that I haven't recorded in these pages.  I've given you just a taste.  If I thought it were that interesting—or fully coherent—believe me, I'd share it.  I'm just fearing that moment when someone asks me what I do.  I think I'm going to go with, "I manage money."  Ugh.  I really don't like talking to people I don't know.  I dread it.  B would probably tell me—or my Dad would—to just "be myself."  But here's the problem with that: this is me writing right now.  Writing, listening to my music on shuffle, with a Thanksgiving football game on low volume over my right shoulder—and me sipping Jim and looking out the window, thinking about what it is that I've got to say and how best I can say it.

We leave in about an hour.  The sun has broken through for the first time today.  Maybe it won't be so bad.  Here's the thing though: Tom, one of the hosts: I met him in 2004 and we were sitting out on a porch in Tennessee, me and him and two other people.  And he put to the group this question: What's the secret to life?  Crikey.  If I get another one of those today I might not make it.  You're wondering what I answered?  I said, "The secret to life is being content, i.e. not seeking happiness but being content with being content.  I do think back to that conversation every so often—wondering if that was/is a good answer and whether I still believe what I said.  I suppose I do.  Happiness, to me, has always been something you can only experience ephemerally, in the present.  It isn't some destination, with a border you can cross and where once you get to the other side you can say, "OK, I'm happy now!"  Good enough has to be good enough.  Happy scares the shit out of me because you can't get any better than happy.  I distrust people who claim to be happy.  First because I don't believe them when they say it.  And second  because if someone is happy why would he or she change anything, compromise, make an extra effort.  You can't improve happy.  Happiness is no different than perfection.  A moment can be perfect but the next moment is no more likely to be perfect because the moment preceding it was perfect.  At any moment something terrible can happen!  A windstorm could blow a tree down onto your house, your car, or your head.  It might be grim but it's correct—the happy happers can go on in their drugged compaceny—I'm trying to acknowledge reality.

[14:50]
I'm only halfway through that Beam two-fingers I poured...an hour ago.  B is back and has just gotten out of the shower.  My stomach is growling.

Wednesday, November the 27th.


Room tip $5.  B just left.  And I leave that room tip despite our Kleenex tin not getting refilled.  That's what I meant when I referenced the "indicator tissue."  Those Kimberly Clark (aka Kleenex) "professional" little boxes of tissue go orange for the last five or so tissues, letting you know you're just about out.  I really like those tissue boxes—I used to have them at work somewhere, or maybe I bought some sometime.

I've had a cup of coffee, I've counted my change.  I'm happily musing and looking out the window on a not-as-foggy Seattle morning, Wednesday the 27th, Thanksgiving Eve.  Hannukah starts today, too.  It's odd having T-give so late, X-Mas less than—or, no, exactly four weeks away.  That is not very far at all.

Dinner last night at Ray's was "just OK."  They served up a tremendous clam chowder and my blackened rockfish was darn good—a meaty fish nicely blackened, though inexplicably sitting in a pool of salsa.

But I thought the service and atmosphere was dreadful.  B's mom has requested something "on the water"—and maybe they told her they'd do their best, no guarantees—but all I had a view of was the kitchen.  And as K made this complaint to the hostess seating us, all the hostess said was, "Well, you can wait until something better opens up."  Barf.  That was a piss-poor thing to say.  I mean, could someone not have called K to say that her request could not be met but that the folks at Rick's Café would still love to have us and would serve us a hell of a meal?

Instead, what we got was, "Here's your blanking table, take it or leave it."  Then of course the two young kids at the table next to us were running around their table like it was the maypole, running down the path back to the front of the restaurant—spending less time out of their seats than in them.  Their parents didn't care, the waitstaff at Rick's Café didn't care.  What ever happened to being able to go somewhere—a café?—and get a nice, quiet meal?  Sorry, Ray.  But you did not seem to care what I thought about your place so I will not ever be back.  And that's all I have to say about that.

                                                                      *

I realized yesterday that there will be a football game—the Apple Cup between U Dub and Wazoo—at the very nearby Husky Stadium on Friday.  We are not quite but essentially on campus here at Talaris, smack dab in the midst of student/faculty housing.  I am excited for the atmosphere that will envelop us, probably early Friday with lots of early drinking, traffic, and tailgating.  We have no particular plans, and don't need to drive anywhere so I'm just going to do some people-watching, walk down toward the stadium, and enjoy it.

That sky out there is clear!  We had a little bit of rain late yesterday afternoon, just as we were walking back to Talaris from the bus, and then some again as we were slowly making our way by car through the campus toward Ray's out in Ballard.  But, for Seattle, I should think the meager amount of rain we've had in the 48 hours we've been here to be a great gift.

I've been back on through my photos and vids from yesterday downtown, along the harbor, on the ferry.  I got a few good textures, but with a little more time I could have gotten triple what I hauled.  Of course, those types of shots can probably be had by the hundreds in St. Louis and I've never really made any effort to capture them there so I can't get too claustrophobic about it.  The lanyard for my iPhone was very useful in giving me the confidence to have my camera (phone) out on on the sundeck of the ferry, and in the case of a Vine I shot, to hold the phone over the railing to film how the ferry was cutting through the Sound.

At some point I need to get a map of the greater Seattle region, or at least a good Washington state map.  Not because I have a collection of maps from many of the places I've recently been but because I generally have no idea where the hell I am most of the time out here.  Our drive out to Ballard last night?  I couldn't tell you what direction we went in, or how far we traveled in terms of distance. 

Lake Union, Lake Washington, Puget Sound, the Pacific Ocean.  I'm googled.  Sure, I could pull it up on my phone—and at some point I will—but I like to have it on paper in front of me without having to flick a screen or pinch/pull zoom.  I'm still trying to hang on to a little bit of the old school, for a reason that isn't at all clear to me.

I was sitting here, there...having an imagined conversation with no one...a terrible habit of mine and probably a reason I often don't have much I feel the need to say: because I've already said what I need to say, sipping a drink in an empty room, listening to music, looking out the window.  Or often just before a shower, during a shower, after a shower.  Talking, talking—not shutting up, not leaving myself alone—and so I say to everyone else: just leave me alone.

And I so I was telling no one about how I was just about getting to the end of this notebook, i.e. I'm going to fill this thing with my travel writing from/beginning with WI/MN nee Colorado 2013, following with Farm, Pere Marquette, and, now, Seattle.  I am feeling very good about this.  But then my imaginary interlocutor asks me if I've been writing any poetry and I respond by saying, "No, nothing like that.  I really haven't had the composure or the disposition to write any poetry.  Maybe patience is a better word.  I have to be capable of objectivity; I must keep from keeping distracted by anything that is not the body of the poem itself.  In other words, second-guessers make terrible poets.  And I spend way too much of my time—day in, day out—second-guessing myself about a host of decisions—mainly work decisions, i.e. stocks—to be able to sit down in the midst of one of those days and craft a poem that is at all useful.

Hence, travel writing.  With this form I have something specific to write about—a place, a doing—it's all around me: newness, something to describe, to record.  In that way, travel is like a writing drug for me, a catalyst.  It is the equivalent of blindfolding myself and painting with whatever paints I pull out of the bag.  Sure, I could regiment myself more forcefully and say, "OK, take this next hour, sit down, and write something."  But I imagine that what would come out first would be complaints, gripes, and hot air.  Writing while I'm in some other place, as long as I have a moment to sit and catch my breath, is the best I can offer today.

[14:53]
Nap sleep is the best.  It's like being passed out on life.  I slept for only a couple of hours but I was in such a deep state of sleep that the sun working its way west down the horizon and blasting me in the face through the window wasn't bothersome but quaint.  I was so out that, despite having ESPN on at normal volume, I somehow slept through PTI, with which if you are not familiar, can get boisterous on a normal day.  Today Tony K was dressed like a turkey and making more noise than a turkey would.

Compare this to my attempt to sleep at night, when every little house sound or the lack of perfect positioning bothers me back to a fully awake state.  When I'm tired at night I toss and turn.  When I'm tired during the day I could fall asleep on a set of traintracks and not care if a train were coming.

We shopped earlier.  American Apparel.  I've got several of their items.  I've always been attracted to their status as a domestic manufacturer (their stuff is made in downtown LA).  I've experienced some inconsistent sizing on their deep v-neck summer shirts but B wanted to go to their store on University Ave.  So I went in and ended up buying three things while she got nothing!  I found a beanie that is shockingly similar to one that I bought at a grocery store a dozen years ago and still wear frequently.  Then I decided to give their knee-high socks a try.  I got two pairs—I'm wearing one now and they feel good.  Though they are mostly cotton they have small amounts of both nylon and elastane in them so they slide on without a dollop of elbow grease.  That's my problem with too many of my other socks: they take such effort to get on my dang feet!  I have gone to the length of first putting these stubborn socks on my arms first, to break them in after washing.  It's ridiculous and I'd like to stop doing it.  So I have been and will continue to phase those stiff socks out of my lineup.

After American Apparel, I went kind of pen crazy at the University of Washington bookstore.  For years I have been having a hard time finding the kinds of Pilot G2 refills I want.  These are a specific kind of gel pen refill I am talking about, and the refills themselves come in different sizes, ranging from the "Bold" 1.0 width, to the very easy-to-find .7 "fine" tip, then to the fairly common "extra fine" .5 width, and finally on down to my preference, the elusive .38 "ultra fine" refill.  What I like about these pens—and why I want the refills—is that you can by a pack of .7 pens—which include not just the ink cartridge but also the pen bodies themselves—and then once the cartridge is empty, you can put any type of cartridge back in that .7 body—.5, .38, whatever.  So in my early days of using the G-2 pens I bought whole pens—.7s or .5s—and eventually used them up.  That left me with and empty pen body—sometime I call it a "chassis"—but no ink.  I could go and buy new pens but then I was just tossing a perfectly fine empty chassis and that struck me as wasteful.  So I started looking into buying refills and that's when I discovered the .38 size—and I've been hooked on these "ultra fine" badboys ever since.

Except for one small problem: they aren't very easy to find.  I can get the black ink .38s on Amazon but somehow that just feels like cheating.  So I've taken on as a kind of quest the mission of finding my .38 refills "in the flesh."  In 2012, B and I must have hit half a dozen Office Max/Office Depot/Staples stores in NYC and I might have come away with one .38 black ink two-pack.  Any time recently I've looked at the above-mentioned stores, I've struck out, including at the Washington University bookstore in St. Louis.  That was a total zero.

But B thought I'd have a good chance of finding what I wanted at the University of Washington bookstore.  And I did.  I wouldn't quite call it "the motherlode" but I came away with quite a haul of gel.  I got three two-packs of black .38s.  I probably should have gotten more but I didn't want to get greedy.  Because I also found something that I wasn't even sure existed before: blue .38s.  Now, they did not have blue .38 cartridges—I had to buy whole pens, but this was a small price to pay to get a crack at another color of .38 (which with I am currently writing).  Then I added a two-pack of red .5 cartridges (never seen them before), some blue .5 cartridges, and then I bought a stand-alone green .5.  It was a hell of a bookstore, probably the best office-supply offering I've ever seen.  I bought a nifty Made-in-Spain Miquelarius wire-bound journal (I am pretty sure I had one of their journals back in 2001, for a lot of stoned scrawlings).  Then I couldn't help myself in front of their Sharpie display and picked up a black Sharpie "Twin Tip": one tip is fine marker, the other is ultra fine pen.  All of that, which got me so hot and heavy, was $25.34.  I wasn't done.  As I was finding these various items that have eluded me in various aisles over the years, I thought of something else I had been looking for for years: book darts.  These are little bronze thing-a-ma-jigs that slide over a page and serve as an understated bookmark.  My mom got me a tin of 25 or so for Christmas several years ago and even though I was solicitous of my stash because I knew I was losing them, I have only managed to hold on to one—it is currently the bookmark in the book I brought on this trip, J.G. Farrell's incredible The Singapore Grip.  Long story short, they had the bookdarts, too.  My choice was a tin of 50 or a tin of 120.  I went with the 50: I'll take better care of them this time, I swear!

Addendum to my note about nap sleep: I was so tired I fell asleep with a toothpick in my mouth!

[16:30]
Ah, drinking (a beer), sitting in our hotel room, with the Maui Invitational on the telly.  Talking—chatting.  Taptowne won the Swatara Stakes at Penn National in Pennsylvania a few minutes ago.  He is a hell of a horse and was done a lot of wrong in California.

Before I forget this is where we are staying:

Talaris Conference Center
4000 NE 41st. St.
Seattle, WA  98105.

Tuesday, November the 26th.


[7:45 pacific]
The highlight of breakfast was a kind of Tazo tea that I had never tried before.  China green tips.  Yum.  Otherwise the breakfast offerings at the Talaris Conference Center were pretty remedial.  They had English Muffin breakfast sandies that had egg and cheese in them.  I had two, adding salsa to the second.  It was something to put in my stomach and go about the rest of my day from.

Looking out from the breakfast room at Talaris we looked at a serene pond scene, marked by a fountain running in the middle of the pond.  There were ducks.  As we walked from the breakfast room along one of the various paths at Talaris I had to stop and take a photo of one of the cracks in the pavement path.  The cracks, I think, are tree-root induced.  But much like any slowly developing crack around here—whether on the ground or in a tree's trunk—the moss moves in the fill the void with its spongy, brilliant green frill.  I put the photo on Instagram but I didn't feel like I really nailed it.

We went and saw B's parents at what I will refer to as the BP Station (BP=B's Parents).  They are a mere four-minute walk from Talaris.  They are renting a little bungalow here along a quiet street in the Laurelhurst area of Seattle, a neighborhood that is upscale but not gaudy.  JO is teaching a couple of quarters at the University, so this is a great spot considering the campus is about a ten-minute walk away.

There was some original, unique art on the walls of their place.  B and I were both particularly taken by a painting of a couple of barns.  I then perused the library and saw that the owners of the house had a healthy collection of books on hiking, flora, and fauna.

Walking back from the BP, I saw at first one and eventually a second enormous northern flicker.  A flicker is a type of woodpecker that spends more time on the ground than most woodpeckers would.  One of them was on the ground before we startled it.  The second was hanging around on a nearby chimney.  They were plump!  The markings I relied upon were the black throat band and the white rump-spot that is visible only when the flicker takes flight.

We were walking to the very nearby bus stop.  I had downloaded a Seattle transportation app at breakfast called Roadify.  It had a timetable in it, the only timetable we could find. We weren't sure about the price for a ride.  B had looked online and said it would be $2.50.  But the sign at the stop for the 25 bus to downtown said it would be $2.00.  So when we got on?  It was $2.25.  We didn't need a transfer but we didn't stop the driver from handing us each one.

[9:00]
There is a bit of fog yet.  It's cold enough to see one's breath, but there is no wind.  There was no one on this bus when we got on.  One of the hikes in one of those hiking books caught my eye: along the straits of Juan de Fuca.  The photo had a vibe of: raw ocean landscape, with skeletons of whales washing up on shore.  But I ask B and she says that the Straits of Juan de Fuca are up in the San Juan Islands.

[Pend Oreille Rd.]
  The bus marquee lists what stop we are at or approaching.  Before I forget I want to remember seeing the indicator Kleenex peeking out of our Kleenex box in the bathroom this morning.  The indicator Kleenex isn't white, but peach-colored.

I did not sleep well.  I fooled with the Keurig coffee for a few moments this morning before I respected the sequence and managed to get some coffee going.  We pass the Burke-Gilman Trail.  There are hills, students.  The University of Washington.

I haven't been on a bus since Puerto Rico in January.  A couple of other people had gotten on but they just got off so we're the only ones on the bus again.  The campus is cozy.  It's like UT in Austin but with mist and moss and evergreens.  Just now we see some sunlight for the first time.

[15th Ave & NE 40th St.]
I was telling B—the streets and the avenues—what gives?  We stop at a stop where people are standing but they don't get on; they want another bus.  We stop for a guy in a wheelchair.  Cigarette smoke.  There's a gal with him who gets on first and quickly moves to fold up the seat where he'll sit,  then does his seatbelt, finally sits behind him.  She is methodical and practised.

B points out the stadium, ascending in the fog.  We go over a bridge that marks the boundary between Lake Washington and Lake Union.  It's [9:53].  I haven't been on pacific time since...San Francisco, 2011.

There are lots of rock gardens.  Ferns.  The grass is still green.  The bus is winding and wending, lurching around turns.  I see piles of leaves but I'm wondering whether there is the sort of concerted leaf pick-up that we have at home.  Something tells me these leaves decay quickly enough.  A marina. This is a monied area we are going through, pretty similar to where Talaris and the BP are.  It's not a country club sort of atmosphere but it's money saying, "I want pretty.  I'll accept some modesty in terms of house size.  And I'm willing to give up the garage and park my Porsche or Mercedes on the street if I have to."

So many rocks.  Igneous, I'd say.  Thrown from the body of Helen?

[E. Shelby St.]...

[I-5 and Roanoke St.]
We are taking a bus downtown mainly because there isn't a whole lot of parking down there.  We're gonna hit the market and then take a ferry to Bainbridge Island.  At some point I'm gonna have a cigarette in this cool damp and it's going to be amazing.  Runners, cyclists, ivy coursing up trees.  We are getting closer.  There are bigger boats in whatever body of water I am now seeing.  I see the Space Needle.  A guy in a Seahawks jersey.  I had a beer last night called "The 12th Can."  A Play It Again Sports.  The Salsa N' Seattle Dance Studio.  [1200 Stewart St.]

Lofts.  A guy with a huge backpack gets on.  The people downtown seem to be, on average, older, harder up, carrying more.  Smoking more, too.  [Stewart St. and 7th Ave.]  There are some big hotels down here.

[12:47]
 We are on the ferry to Bainbridge, almost there.  One direction crisp, the next whiskered in fog.  We can see most but not all of Mt. Rainier.  We saw a big containership.  The view of the city behind us was good and got better.  Got to get off of this thing now.

[16:01]
Land of the unshaven sun.  Bus rides, ferry rides have whooped my ass.  My dogs is pooped.  I'm sitting down with this pen, this book, some Jim, and an Old Chubb.  I've got an hour and 15 minutes to be over at BP for dinner.  I've got a lot of thoughts, visions, and ob-v's to to get down...It'll be dark 'fore long.  We're opened the shade on our room.  I want to look out at those moss-trunked evergreens.  I didn't do any shopping.  I looked at things in the market.  Scarves, leather pouches, photos, woodcuts, seafood; B looked at some jewelry.  But I was more in a mind to find some textures—old or odd paint, the more layers the better.  Found some.  I wanted to get down to the water.

I never had that cigarette!

There was a great place for one down on the water, not too far from Ivar's where we had fried clams—but it was a little plaza with a fountain, a great view, and a half a dozen bums.  I would not draw a cigarette down there.

B has a bit of a cold.  Took Tussin, broke out in a handful of hives.  Other than that, she says she feels better.  Oh, the Puget Sound today—a mix of major container ships (Hyundai, Evergreen) leaving massive rolling wakes.  And sailboats, gleaming white against their steel blue backdrops.  And fishing boats, and trollers.  And the two ferries.  Ours to and fro Bainbridge...the other goes to...  I'm not sure—will check.

Best I could tell the Bainbridge ferry took a sort of curving arc of a trajectory, shaking with a deep thudding twang at moments it tried to define a more different line.  On the ay there we were up top, the "sun deck" and it got windy out at the front (prow?)  Windy and cold and that ferry was moving.  Seagulls flying overhead and planes—Boeing experiments out for their test runs.  They gleamed white, too.

On the way back we sat down in the "regular" seats—where the restaurant is, where the bathrooms are—maybe what I'd call the observation deck.  But it was actually quite sunny there.  The view was fine, just a bit clouded by whatever grime was on the window.  We could see all of Mount Rainier—it doesn't have a sharp top—I wasn't sure if maybe the very top of its cone was obscured by high clouds but B said, "No, that's the top."

It's a big mountain.  What I never appreciate is how two mountain ranges are represented in the vistas gotten in Seattle—one out to the west/north, then one behind the city in the opposite direction, the Cascades.

It worked out very well today because there weren't any mountains visible when we got down to Pike's Place this late morning.  The fog lifted and voileé—Olympic Cascade Surprise.  Not to mention how West Seattle became visible right in my line of sight ad we finished our lunch at Ivar's. I really wished I had some time lapse or a really long, patient view of it.  Because it was like a ghost ship  slowly becoming visible just...within...a day's reach...

Monday, November the 25th.


[14:53 central]
It has felt like morning all day.  I am all packed.  B is out getting sandies and little bottles of gin.


[17:08]
The guy gave us a card saying we were in spot 315.  We were the only two people on Shuttle 28.  "Shuttle 28.  Are we clear?" "10-40, Shuttle 28.  You're clear."  Alaska Airlines.  We did the self-service check-in, paid $20 to check a bag weighing 44.4 pounds.  Then we breezed through Security Checkpoint A.  That was some Checkpoint, that Checkpoint A.

When I raise my hands for the panorama x-ray machine my hands hit the top of the compartment.  I was kind of worried when I stepped in—not because of that—because the TSA guy kept generically saying, "Take everything out of your pockets—and I mean everything."  And I was thinking, "I nailed this.  My pockets were already empty even before he announced that."  But then at the last moment I realized I had a once-folded Post-It note in my front right pants pocket.  It was my final checklist, that I didn't want to leave out at home because then it would be obvious we were out of town.  So I was planning to put it in the first trash can I saw, which obviously I forgot to do.

But the x-ray guy waved me through anyway and then another TSA agent right on the other side of the machine issued said, "You're clear."  So now I'm writing all of this and B is getting a coffee.  There's a trio of Wash U kids right near us and I was listening to them disinterestedly.  One of the gals asked the guy if he would do her psych experiment.  I went through that—having to get enough "participants" for my study for whatever class that was—Psych Stats with Dodd?—that's a guess.

Ah.  One of the gals and the guy are bro and sis.  I find that endearing.  The other gal is fooling with her laptop and it's not really cooperating.  Her experiment is some EKG thing?  I find it kind of uncanny that all five people sitting here a second ago, with no one else that close by, were all Wash U people....

The EKG gal just came right over and sat by me to hand the guy her laptop so he could do the experiment.  I was worried she'd look over at what I was writing and see the letters EKG and totally make me.  But if she did, she didn't let on.  Now B is back.  The only thing I have left out is about how an older guy that came and sat down by us said that his son graduated from Wash U last year!  Did they know him?  He was on the baseball team, etc etc.  They conversed briefly and then abruptly the conversation ended.  Awkward!

Is he still over there?  I'm not sure.  I feel it would be rude to look considering I'm over here just flailing away.  But now B is drinking her coffee and getting all coffee paranoid and I think she's going to try to see what I'm writing. 

But my real fear is that the EKG gal is going to try to get me to participate in her study.  I'm either going to walk away for awhile or just stop writing.  B just looked over—she is definitely trying to read this.  Which is why I love my Pilot G-2 ultra fines (.38 tip).  They write like a chicken-scratch fart-in-the-wind.  One minute I have a thought and then: BAM!  It's down on paper—and not so easy to read, except by me of course.  Except I've had what has now become a recurring problem with my .38s, where it's like the tip splays and there's a little piece of metal sticking out—this piece of metal is like a sliver, very sharp—I could cut the page with it.  The ink won't flow except in sort of a bloody, spotty stain fashion—so the ink cartridge is obviously done as a writing instrument.  I can keep the chassis but if I don't have another cartridge I'm done.

I went online and Pilot says they guarantee their products 100 percent.  So this afternoon I sent my most recent busted cartridge off to their Customer Service department in Jacksonville, Florida.  All I put in the envelope beside the cartridge was an index card on which I said pretty much what I just said about the guarantee.  I'm real interested to see if they really will honor their policy and if so will they send me just the one-for-one "straight up" cartridge replacement, or will I get a two-pack, which is how the refills are offered online (I never see .38 refills in the store).

The coffee B got is a "tall americano,"  in which she put a little bit of half-and-half.  I let her use my Starbucks card.  That card had $48.41 on it when we started this trip and now it has—we'll see if she can tell me: she hands me the receipt and the card.  I'm down to $45.89.  She tipped them $1 out of her petty cash.  She's reading now.  She offers to let me keep the receipt.  I clear my throat.


[17:59 or so]
I went for a quick stroll down the concourse during which I drank one of my four small bottles of Beefeater, holding it in my right hand/fist—trying to conceal it because what else do people have to do while they wait to board besides either screwing around on their mobile device or people-watching the people who are walking down the concourse?

B: "The plane is here, they're getting off."

I chased the gin with water from a water bottle I was holding in my left hand.  Then I went to the bathroom.  At first I tried to go in the men's room near our gate but it was kind of crowded so I did a u-ee and went back to another one farther away from our gate that I had seen on my stroll and had briefly considered stopping at but didn't.  After that I filled my water bottle.  The plane wasn't quite there when I got back.  I looked down the gangway but all I saw were airport/airline personnel.

The incoming flight was due at 17:53.  We are supposed to leave at 18:30.  The area around the gate is pretty full—full enough so that I can't say, "This flight might not be full."

The Wash U folks were in the midst of talking about what they'd be doing during the summer—internships, I guess.  I heard the phrase "Wells Fargo" and then one of the gals was talking about how she had Capital One, and their website was confusing.

B is standing up.  I guess the incomers disembarked.  Then someone was talking about going abroad—or knew someone who was abroad in El Salvador.

"Is she coming back (for Thanksgiving)?"

"No,  She's with a group.  They're having it there.  Like, they're killing their own turkey—plucking the feathers from it themselves—."

Some kids now are on the chairs right at the back of me—flailing and wailing.  Here's where I pray I'm not seated anywhere near them.  Maybe this is why B got up—did she see them coming, and didn't mention it to me because she thought I was so deep into whatever it was I was writing?"

It's 18:04.


[18:25]

We are seated in Row 15, I'm on a window.  It's three seats to a row—the other denizen was here when we got here.  Alaska Airlines does a pre-board group, I guess that you can pay for on a one-off basis.  Then they do all their clubs.  Then they did service-men and -women.  Then they Row 6 for whatever reason.  We weren't sure what their boarding process was because we've never flown with them before and it didn't say anything about the boarding process on the ticket.

So after Row 6 they open it up to "travelers who do no need to put anything in an overhead bin: who either have nothing to carry on or whose carry-on will fit under the seat in front of them."  (The lady with us in our half-row has a cough but there is no sign or sound of the kids from the seating area.)  We had checked our big bag and whatever we were still carrying could fit beneath the seats in front of us.  So in that group we boarded.

That was a nice, unexpected perk—an approach to boarding neither B nor I had ever encountered before.  But as we're getting seated some lady who was camped out right near the gate but who had a roller carry-on walks right by us, looks up to the luggage compartment over us and says, "Oh, look.  There's the carry-on items that the people who boarded before us could supposedly fit under their seats."  Oh, that irked me.  Was she not paying attention there at the gate during the first fifteen minutes of boarding when it was all of the pre-boarding groups: families, the airplane club members, the service-men and -women.  Whatever.

[18:33]
The crew on this plane was trying to back us up on time but it was gonna be tough.  Close quarters on these planes bring out in me the same sort of derision I feel most mornings driving into work.  There's got to be a good place to put this negativity but in this cramped, capacity plane I do best just to keep it to myself, or let a little bit of it spill, if I must, onto this page.

"Flight attendants, prepare for cross-check."

We've got a cross-check, here people—let's do it!

At [18:37] we back away.  Not bad.  It's dark out, plenty dark.  Boeing 737.  A guy outside with red wands, one each hand.  A voice over us—not a recording—delivers the emergency instructions while a flight attendant mimics the specified actions.  B is reading, not paying attention.  I look up intermittently.  I'm afraid I'll have to go to the bathroom on this three-hour, fifty-nine minute flight to Seattle.

There's a little tag on the interior plane body right next to my seat.  It says: "Seats in this row do not recline."

I guess because there is an exit row behind us.  The lights go out in the cabin, but mine stays on—it must have been left in the on position.  We're rolling along the runway.  We're told that if we accidentally hit the call button all we have to do is just hit it again and that will cancel the call.  I had never heard that.  A truck goes by us in the opposite direction.  We pass Terminal 2, the Southwest Airlines terminal.  All of the Luvbirds are queued up at their respective gates, blinking.

I see a sign outside that says, "Please follow noise abatement procedures."

Along the runway are red lights in a row, blue lights in a row.  We stop behind a row of green lights that are inset in the runway concrete.  The plane has come to a stop but it is thrumming.  Now we are moving and it's for real: gunning, gunning hard, roaring, lifting, totally up.  As we rise the curvature of the earth becomes less relevant—the horizon opens up and lights further away become visible, uneclipsed.  It strikes me as dark out there on the ground, darker than I thought—like we aren't flying over a metro area.  Have we gone that far northwest in such a short time?  I have a pang for my compass, unpacked again.

The engine right outside my window seems to have a floodlight shining on it.  Otherwise, I can't see a g-d thing.

A few side notes:

(1)  I'm tempted to fork over the $7 for an in-flight Alaskan Amber.  But they only take credit/debit.

(2)  I can't imagine paying for in-flight wi-fi.

(3)  The Alaskan Airlines logo—the guy on the tail of their planes—I've always thought it looked like Johnny Cash.
 
[19:48]
 Drink service has come and gone.  They offered a meal, too: homestyle chicken for $7.  The potays in the promo looked pretty good but we came heavy with sandies.  And I'm not hungry anyway.

I am now three little Beefeaters in—the one in the airport concourse and then the two I just swigged with the cran juice I ordered.  B says she's drunk on her one Smirnoff.  She's got her headphones on now.  I've had mine in for awhile, sometimes pausing the muse-ay in lieu of announcements over the intercom—or to interact politely with the cabin staff.

It's DJ Koze, Amygdala.  A bit of a dance party, to the extent I can actually move.  I had to take my cord sport coat off a few minutes ago—not just because I was a tad toasty but because it was getting pinched downward along my back by the seat, resulting in the sensation that someone was yanking downward on it, causing undue strain on my neck.

I was feeling like that contortionist, what's his name?  Not Liberace—I always think of Liberace when I'm trying to think of this guy, don't ask me why.  Not Mesmer.  It's the guy who dies when someone punched him in the stomach, and his appendix burst.  He thought that when he flexed his abs he could withstand any punch.  Or maybe I'm making all of this up.  The Fabulous _____________.  Hell, I can't think of it.  Houdini!  Christ.

I did see some lights on the ground a while back.  It might have been Columbia, MO.  This was awhile ago.  The gin is working on me a bit here.  I see a few lights now but they're faint.

I've never been to Seattle.  It's where B is from (though she was born in Germany).  This vay-kay doesn't feel like a vay-kay yet.  It hasn't sunk in.  Maybe it won't until we're in the hotel.  Until then, everything just feels like work.  Every minute of this flight is like some protracted exercise or ridiculous yoga pose.   I wanted to put my "tray table" down but then my legs were pressing up against it, tilting it.  So for the moment I have my cord coat balled up and sitting in my lap, with my notebook on top of that, to get it a little closer to me, so I don't have to crane my neck so much.

I did not eat that little snack pack they gave us, but I will.  It's a King Nuts product.  I've had their work before, and I approve.  Or as Chuckie from SoA would say, "I accept that."

The lights came back on in the cabin when drink service started—probably forty-five minutes ago.  They brought some sort of e-reader by on a cart before that.  I didn't pay much attention.  ALK, hustling.  Can't blame them.  Our fellow Row 15 D-E-F denizen is now knitting.  I'm into it.  Her hands are going—moving in perfect rhythm to the beat from DJ Koze.  OK, I might be exaggerating that.  Seriously though: DJ Koze's Amygdala and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories are my two nominees for Album of the Year.  With both I've gotten a bit obsessed, whereupon once I started listening to each album I listened to just that one album exclusively for a period of a week.

Right now is the fifth or sixth day of my Koze binge.  He's German I believe.  It's an eclectic house album bringing in vocals from different artists on different tracks: Caribou, Ada, Matthew Dear.  (This is the same concept as Daft Punk bringing in talent on some of their tracks—but I can't name any of the vocalists they brought in.)  Koze utilizes a variety of horns/tooting objects and a few samples/non-song audio snippets.  Beats.  Some soul-style, some jazz-style.  Electronic, electronica.  Minimal in spots.  A bit of steel drum.  As one sample says, "We need to eat, we need to drink, and we need...music."  Most of the language is English but German is a close second.

I have been writing at a pretty thick pace.  I probably can't keep it up—and that's fine.  In some of my other travelogues, I spit heavy to start out and then I get distracted/lazy.  For Jamaica/Farm/Pere Marquette, my densest, most-detailed, most carefully wrought writing has been about "getting there".  This is because I don't have much to do but write when I'm on a plane or in a car, but when I get to the destination I'm out doing this or that and not sitting down to concentrate on describing what is happening or what is going through my mind.  I hate to flame out in this way but the only trip I've ever kept up a constant writing pace for was Europe 2002, some of my best work ever.

The service cart comes by—I smell and I want that coffee but it'll send me right to the loo and that I can't have. Go, Koze, go!

Matthew Dear is on a couple of these songs.  "Why do my plans always change? / And why does this make me laugh?"  I listened to one of his solo albums—or previewed it, anyhow, on iTunes.  I'd call him an acquired taste, Tom Waits-ish.  At some point I'll give Mr. Dear another once-over.  Koze throws him in with all kinds of other noise and verbs and sounds and it meshes well.  Some of these songs come on and it's like running into an old friend in an unexpected place.  "I remember you...."  There are 15 songs on the album and only two are under four minutes.  That's what I call value.

Multiple people are coughing/hacking on this plane.  Theory: the rise of flu shots has somehow made us more susceptible to common colds.  Can I prove this?  No.  But I had a dickens of a cold about a month ago that lasted for about a dang month—bad at first but then very much hanging around, and around.  Two other people at work had the same thing: respiratory infection I suppose.  Now, I haven't had a flu shot anytime in the last ten year.  But—B is fighting something and she had a flu shot last year.  And all of these people on here coughing and hacking (B just coughed!), I bet the lot of 'em had flu shots last year!  This flu shot business in not a zero sum game, people: you take from the viruses and you give to the bacteria.  Who are we to play God?  And this the cost.

Aside: the last two albums I've downloaded on iTunes are German electronica.

Aside: The cabin crew has drawn the sheer, mosquito-net type curtain between "us" and those flagrantly rich bastards in first class.  This curtain is the flimsiest, most inconsequential thing I've ever seen proposed as a "divider" of airplane sections.  I might call it a dead man's mosquito net.  I guess that eighteen-inch wide section of grommeted pantyhose really keeps the riff-raff from trying to sneak into the VIP section.

Aside: A guy in the row in front of me is playing Uno on his tablet and has been doing so for the last hour.

Just when I think I'm through 15 songs another one comes forth—don't stop, Koze!  This song is somewhat industrial/electro.  Very Munich/Kunstpark Ost.  The knitter is taking a break.  B is blowing her nose.  Travel: it just makes you sick.

In flight WiFi—"GoGo fuck yourself!"—send photo to Roy.

A voice somewhere in my head says, "Oh, yeah.  GoGo InFlight Internet.  The stock has been crazy."

"Hey, no stock talk in here," I say.  "That's your other life.  You'll just ruin this thinking of stocks you never bought or sold way too soon.  Go away for awhile, whoever brought up that thoughts of stocks."

"You want me to go away?" says the voice.  Let's call him J2.  "You think it's that easy?"

"I've got work to do," I say,  "beat it."

"Fine, fine.  But you'll regret it," says J2.  "I'll haunt you, flash ticker symbols in your decrepit, disjointed, jumbled dreams.  GoGo Fuckyourself!"

A third voice comes along and says, "What's going on here, guys?  A little bit of therapy?"

In unison me and J2 say, "Oh, fuck you too!"


[20:40]
The cabin is dark.  I need to remember to position my little drink bottles right side up in my ziploc slider bag next time.  If they are lying on their side or upside down they will leak because of the cabin being pressurized.  Also, make a note to bring a stir stick for B for her vodka/cran.  She prefers to pour the liquor in as opposed to using her drink merely as a chaser.

I'm on to Pantha du Prince, the other German album.  It's minimalist.  The only vocals to speak of are macro in nature: chorals or chants.  There is a bells motif.  There is an incredible painting on the album cover.

[21:21]
I've been seeing plenty of cities of late, lit up and laid out.  As I crane by head and put it right up close to the window...I see the stars.  It's the Big Dipper, hanging out along the horizon, plain as day.  Three stars make the handle, four the ladle.

[23:56 central, 1:56 11/26 in Seattle]
Goodnight!