Tag Archives: Seattle

Brain tabs

I’ve had the same four tabs open on my Chromebook since New Years Day. A GQ article on the HBO show Succession, which I want to try watching but V doesn’t so it has languished; NPR’s Best Books of 2018 monster list, which I’m still picking my way through; a slideshow from Redbook called “25 Solo Vacations For Women“; and a spreadsheet tracking my paltry 2018 income for tax purposes. I just closed that one, because our taxes are done now, but I don’t want to close any of the others, because in my mind closing a tab = closing the subject in my brain. My brain is very literal like that.

The solo trip keeps getting postponed. Not officially, because I’ve made zero decisions or plans for it, but every time I apply for a Real Job (which I am still doing, albeit not terribly often), I think about how I need to get my ass in gear already because what if I do get a Real Job? Then I’m back in the weeds of vacation days and PTO and out-of-office emails, which are currently, blessedly irrelevant to me. I just need to pick a place and a time and make the damn plans, but I think I am subconsciously a little anxious about it. I would’ve done it already if I wasn’t. I’m not overly concerned about safety – I worry more about like, if I’ll be bored. But if I make enough plans, that shouldn’t happen. I just need to go somewhere that has a lot to see and do.

Two weekends ago, we spontaneously did a 24-hour Portland trip. I am, of course, going there again at the end of this month for #AWP19 (Association of Writing Programs 2019 conference), and that is sort of going to be my baby step solo trip. I’m taking Amtrak (a first!) down there on a Wednesday, doing the conference Thurs-Sat, and V is going to drive down to join me Friday night or Saturday morning. So it’s a half-solo trip, I guess. That will be a trial run. But I think the conference will keep me plenty busy so there’s not much danger of getting bored. Anyway, our little 24-hour trip was a good introduction to the city. Portland and Seattle seem to have a weird sibling-rivalry relationship that as a PNW outsider, I don’t fully understand, but I think it’s sort of like Madison and Milwaukee. Places that attract similar people; places that have a major influence on the rest of the state, which the rest of the state is not very happy about; places that are a lot more alike than they are different, leading to inevitable comparisons – I see some parallels. We didn’t see much of the city outside downtown, but there were some very pretty views of Mt. Hood. Not quite comparable to the views we have here of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades…like, everywhere you look…but that’s my Seattle bias.

portland seattle meme
I imagine it is something like this.

What I’m Reading:

  • I finished two books this week: “The Byline Bible” by Susan Shapiro and “Leaving the Witness” by Amber Scorah. I won’t get into the latter, because I actually want to pitch a review of it to Ploughshares, but I did receive an ARC (advanced readers copy) and let me tell you, I feel VERY important. The Byline Bible was great freelancing advice. If anyone is qualified to give it, it’s Susan Shapiro – she’s been published every-damn-where. I learned a lot and wisely bought it instead of getting it from the library, so I can refer back to it as needed.
  • I’m now reading Stephanie Land’s “Maid” and I’m less than 100 pages in but GOD, it’s heartbreaking. The book is about a single mom doing odd jobs to make ends meet, barely escaping homelessness, for herself and her daughter. The author’s own family of origin isn’t exactly the focus, but I learned enough to once again be extremely grateful for the healthy and loving family environment I grew up in. I don’t know what it’s like to live without a safety net, and I have so much admiration for people who persevere and beat the odds. Not a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of moralistic story, but simply people with difficult backgrounds overcoming them and blazing their own trail.

What I’m Watching:

  • I watched the first half of Leaving Neverland, and don’t know if I can bring myself to watch the second half. It is extremely rough viewing.
  • Captain Marvel was sooo good! I’m still working on forgiving Brie Larson for Basmati Blues, but we’re getting there.

What I’m Eating:

  • Dinner tonight is probably naan pizza. I’m trying to be good; I bought the wheat naan at QFC.

What I’m Writing:

  • Or perhaps more accurately, What I’m Getting Published. I do have a new piece in the March issue of BRAVA (page 23 in the digital magazine). Fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed for something else soon.

Extras:

  • We won $0.61 each on HQ last night! Because V is a Game of Thrones encyclopedia.
  • I have rose gold-ish hair again!

rose gold hair

Halloween twenty eighteen

All I am doing to celebrate Halloween today is eating a few more Dove dark chocolates than usual. A normal day I have 3 or 4. Today it’s been maybe 7? I know. The wildness.

I guess I liked Halloween enough as a kid; I dressed up in different years as Raggedy Ann, a princess, a “fifties girl” wearing a poodle skirt and my dad’s high school letter jacket – that one I recycled at least twice, I loved it so much. In college I did the slutty thing, one year as a French maid and one year as a “sexy gangster” – although looking back at the photos, honestly, neither costume was terribly risqué and I have no regrets.

But since then I’ve only dressed up and/or gone to a party a couple of times. And now that we’re firmly in our 30s, it’s obviously more about people’s kids now. Halloween is one of the few days a year that parenting looks genuinely fun. Of course I know a lot of work goes into some of those elaborate costumes, but really, you can put a cute kid in anything and people will gush. So, I don’t know, I guess Halloween is a little sad for me lately. I haven’t said much in recent months about our infertility issues because well, duh, we’ve kind of had some other shit to deal with. But now that we’re somewhat “settled in” here, we’re going to check out some of the Seattle-area fertility clinics and talk about maybe doing (yet another – like the 4th or maybe 5th) IUI or perhaps starting in vitro. IVF is so scary. I don’t want to do it. But maybe that’s what it’s going to take.

We are developing our new routines. Once a week we take the bus to eat breakfast at the Belltown Biscuit Bitch and have ourselves each an egg cheese & vegetarian sausage Bitchwich. V usually can’t finish his so I kindly help him out. Every Saturday we try to go for a walk around Green Lake, which is a beautifully peaceful 2.8 miles populated with a truly insane number of adorable doggos. (Seriously, Seattle has a TON of dogs, but at Green Lake it is on another level.) I’ve been exploring different neighborhoods on foot and via public transit, including the very nice (and simple) light rail. I go to coffee shops a lot and order Diet Cokes (though today I tried a delicious blood orange and hibiscus tea) and attempt to write.

Speaking of coffee, after agreeing we were both feeling pretty lonely, on Monday V and I joined a Meetup group that does trivia all over the city. It was us and three other dudes, very friendly and cool guys. One of the trivia rounds was “coffee” and wouldn’t you know, we’d somehow managed to assemble the only five people in the city of Seattle who do not drink coffee. We bombed that round, but actually ended up winning the night and leaving Mama’s Kitchen $11 richer. So maybe Meetup is all right.

What I’m Reading:

  • Just started “Calypso” by David Sedaris. I used to read his books as soon as they came out but I’m quite late on this one. It’s predictably great thus far.

What I’m Watching:

  • V keeps saying we’ll start Man In the High Castle soon. Tonight we watched the pilot of Bodyguard on Netflix, and I can’t say I hate Richard Madden (Robb Stark!) in a suit, but I’m hoping more happens in the next episode.

What I’m Listening To:

  • I made a playlist specifically for the hills and sets of stairs I must climb whenever I leave the apartment. Highlights include “Apes***” by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, some Cardi B, some of The Donnas, and “Cupid Shuffle” because damn if that bop doesn’t get you moving.

What I’m Fuming About:

  • White Nationalists. People who don’t vote. Writer’s block. Isis’s incessant overgrooming for which we are seeing a vet on Friday and for which maybe we will try curing with some CBD oil or something. And maybe Isis will share.

October

I don’t have a lot of words today for the Kavanaugh confirmation. I expected it. I expected Susan Collins (R-Maine) to vote yes, despite her appearance of perhaps considering giving a shit, proving herself as feckless and disingenuous and craven as all the rest. When will people learn that “moderate” Republicans don’t exist in elected office anymore? I know plenty of them IRL, but in the halls of power, there is no such thing and there hasn’t been for some time now. I have no idea what happens next. Hopefully a gigantic #bluewave in November, but I do not want to get my hopes up for that. We thought 2016 was more or less in the bag, and it fucking wasn’t. I just need to see a message sent, I just need to see that there are SOME consequences for these people’s detestable and immoral and hypocritical actions.

This past week I’ve been happiest when distancing myself from Twitter and the news – big surprise. That is the most obvious recommendation in the world for those of us having a difficult time with the current state of affairs. Tune out when you need to. Tune back in when you’re able. People on Twitter are so often more articulate than I am about what I’m mad about, though.

Related to that…V and I watched an episode of the Netflix mini-documentary series Follow This yesterday about tech addiction. The show uses Buzzfeed reporters to go and investigate weird or troubling or ultra-random shit and my girl Scaachi Koul (oh yeah, we’re besties) is on some of them. Anyway, tech addiction. They profiled a center for tech addiction rehab that’s somewhere near Seattle, interestingly enough, and talked to (all) guys about how their 14-hour gaming days or constant smartphone usage messed up their lives in all kinds of ways – bad sleep, poor nutrition, suffering interpersonal relationships, plummeting self-esteem, etc. The rehab center isolates them from technology for I don’t remember exactly how long, but I want to say like 2 months before slowly reintroducing it back into their lives. It was fascinating and V and I had a good discussion about it afterwards, both of us agreeing (not for the first time) that we are somewhat addicted to our phones and at a very very bare minimum should stop looking at them first thing in the morning and then lying in bed for an hour scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Hoping to break that shitty habit.

I miss my friends. I miss having people with whom I could make plans almost every weekend, even if those plans were just a movie night or a football game. I need to meet more people in Seattle, but it’s hard out here (and by here I mean everywhere) for an introvert. We were just so comfortable in Madison that I wonder if we were crazy to blow it all up and come here – but I don’t regret it, I think it was the right decision. Sometimes you don’t know you’re in a rut until you’re jarred out of it. Sometimes it’s good to surprise people who might’ve thought you were too scared to ever leave, especially if one of those people is yourself.

Snapchat and FaceTime have been my lifesavers. Being able to see and talk to my parents and my friends is huuuuge, I cannot overstate how much it’s helped.

One of my Hugo House classes has started, and there’s another single-day seminar that I’m going to on Monday that’s on the topic of writing about your obsessions. Its description said “leave your inhibitions at the door,” LOLOLOL. Me? Inhibited? In groups of strangers whom I want to impress? The devil you say. I’ll try to wing it. What am I obsessed with? Um…Korean skincare. Cats. Books. Feminism. My own baked goods. Those have kind of all…been done. I might need a more unique obsession. Ya girl is #basic.

giphy

What I’m Reading:

  • I just finished the sequel to “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” the book made into the overwhelmingly adorable Netflix movie. YOU GUYS IT WAS SO SO GOOD! If you liked the first book, you’ll like the second (“P.S. I Still Love You”) just as much. I’m sure it will eventually be made into a movie as well but I really need that to happen like RIGHT NOW and not 2-3 years from now. At a minimum I need to know who they’re going to cast as John Ambrose McClaren. But it will definitely be a young child I’ve never heard of because I’m 32 and had heard of *no one* in the first movie except, obviously, Aiden from Sex & The City.
  • I have so many other books checked out from the library but the one most immediately due is “Where The Line Bleeds“, Jesmyn Ward’s first book, and considering how much I loved “Sing, Unburied, Sing” and…literally everything else she’s written, I have a good feeling about this one.
  • I had pre-ordered Rebecca Traister’s “Good and Mad“, but honestly, it’s like TOO on the nose right now. I know my anger can and will be useful in the fights to come – which is basically the premise, along with how that’s gone for women historically – but right now I’m so angry that I don’t want to even think about my anger.

What I’m Watching:

  • More of the “Follow This” mini-docs. They’re 15-20 minutes each, which is a much easier sell to V than most regular-length documentaries I want to watch 🙂 There’s one about the opioid epidemic that focuses a lot on Vancouver’s “safe injection sites” (that Seattle is also considering) and I keep telling my dad to watch it because he is an addiction specialist and I want to know what he thinks but I don’t think he has yet. There’s less-heavy ones too, about ASMR and Amish romance novels (those are two distinct episodes, if that wasn’t clear). Buzzfeed gets a semi-deserved bad rap a lot of the time, but honestly, they also do some really interesting and solid journalism.
  • Looking forward to seeing The Hate U Give on Friday, I know it’s going to be amazing.

What I’m Eating:

  • My chocolate chip cookies, currently. I can’t help it that they are my masterpiece. Though I am also thinking about making either snickerdoodles or oatmeal Raisinets tomorrow.

What’s Annoying Me:

  • People’s Instagram stories that are just footage from the concert they are attending. The sound quality is always awful, they’re usually not in the greatest visual position, and it always startles the shit out of me when I’m not expecting the next story I’m watching to be LOUD INTENSE MUSIC AND/OR SCREAMING. I love you guys but please just enjoy the show and tell me about it later if you must.
  • We went to the International District today (aka Chinatown) and the veggie egg rolls we got at the Chinese restaurant were very clearly microwaved as they were cold in the middle. #firstworldwhitepeopleproblems
  • The Snapchat “discover” feed or whatever the fuck it’s really called. First and foremost on it is always the latest, most explicit Kardashian or Jenner selfie, and the rest of it is similar trash along with tacky clickbait and lingerie ads.
  • I think this is the longest post I’ve made and it’s about very little of importance, so that’s kind of annoying in and of itself. But let’s not end on that note…

What I’m Happy About:

  • I’ve found a competent lady to do my brows, an easy-to-book, not wildly overpriced nail salon that offers #roséallday, an adorable gift shop that has the coolest birthday cards (SO LONG, SHITTY DRUGSTORE/TARGET SELECTION), a “natural” beauty store/pharmacy, a bookstore, our favorite pizza place, a cupcake shop that has RED VELVET ICE CREAM by the PINT, a bar that does trivia nights, a Trader Joe’s, and more – all within 3 blocks of each other on Queen Anne Avenue, which is about a half mile from our apartment. Can you even believe that? This is, without any doubt, the best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in.
  • I really hardly have to go to Target anymore and it’s strangely liberating – I thought I would miss it, but I don’t!
  • My assignment for last week’s class at Hugo House got nice feedback.
  • We had a very sweet video chat with V’s mom tonight that was much-needed.
  • It is, at last, fall.

Image result for fall autumn memes

Chapter 1, Week 1

We’re here and it’s taken me a few days to gather my thoughts, I guess.

Moving day itself was a predictable shitshow, but all three of us survived the plane ride, despite Isis’s very clear displeasure. Actually “moving in” to our apartment wasn’t terribly difficult since all we had was a few suitcases (okay fine, 5) and an air mattress. All of our stuff is supposed to arrive (🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻) on Tuesday. At that point, I think it’ll start feeling a little more like home. A totally empty, echo-y living room doesn’t do much for the hygge vibes.

We’ve had a fun time exploring this week. We visited Discovery Park and Alki Beach and procured library cards and gone to two, yes two, movies (BlackKklansman and Crazy Rich Asians) and tomorrow night we’re going to go to a Seattle Storm game (WNBA) to satisfy my inner 10-year-old who so loved the fact that a women’s professional basketball league was finally being created. Who cares if the SuperSonics franchise moved to Oklahoma – we’ve got the Storm, baby.

(BlackKlansman was really really good but if we’re comparing Jordan Peele movies, I think Get Out is superior. Crazy Rich Asians was a lot of fun and it was refreshing to see a non-idiotic but also non-emo romcom in theaters again – God, it feels like it’s been forever – but I know from my Twitter feed that Awkwafina’s “blaccent” rubbed some people the wrong way. That’s really not my argument to have, though. And the whole character of Awkwafina’s brother, how his whole deal was just being really creepy towards Rachel, Constance Wu’s character? What the hell was that? Everything is at least a little problematic these days.)

Anyway. I really love Queen Anne. I’m glad we chose this spot.

The view on a hella hazy day

Today we largely got around downtown/Capitol Hill/QA without using Google maps 😎 which I think is quite the victory. Downtown is still pretty confusing in spots but it helps that the theater we have chosen as our own is right across the street from the hotel we stayed at on two different trips – so we’re pretty familiar with the area.

I’m a little homesick, but not terribly so yet. I say yet because I know at some point it’s going to hit me hard and I’m very much not looking forward to that. FaceTime and Snapchat have helped a lot, actually. I need to get more Snapchat-proficient. I’ve actually been wearing Wisconsin-themed clothes all week because that’s just what I packed, totally unintentionally. I’m still checking Madison.com every day. I’m not forgetting where home actually really is.

Why are you reading this, go watch Nanette.

We did apartment-hunting in Seattle over the weekend and it was fun, exhausting, surreal, weird. We had a rental car for the weekend and driving into the city from the airport, V mentioned that one reason it felt so odd is that we hardly ever drive ourselves around when we’re in a different city…if we’re visiting family, obviously they drive, and if we’re on vacation we Uber or take public transportation. Maneuvering our way to the hotel and then to a drugstore and then back to the hotel was…an adventure in and of itself. Their downtown has a lot of one-way streets, like Madison’s, but on a larger scale. I don’t think we’ll drive too much once we move unless we really have to. The apartments we looked at (10 in all) were all shiny and mostly new and amenity-filled and clearly very much catering to our particular demographic. I’m already feeling some guilt associated with being one of Those People in Seattle.

Honestly, all I really want is for us to find a good apartment in a good area and for us and our kitty to make it there unscathed and adjust as smoothly as possible. And uh, a job would be nice too…or at least steadier freelance work. I’ve got to start hustling, that’s the only way freelancers make it. I’m still anxious about everything, but I am also starting to feel more like this is very much the right thing for us right now, and that it will be good. If it turns out not to be, it’s not undoable. I always like knowing I have an emergency exit plan, even if I won’t need it.

seattle meme
looking forward to figuring out what the Spokane part even means

I had my last appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday, the same one I’ve been seeing for twelve years. TWELVE YEARS, man. I came to her when I was 20, fresh off a terrible breakup and not sleeping and feeling miserable. She helped me see that the breakup was actually quite a good thing. She guided me through many subsequent years of experimenting with different medications to treat my anxiety and depression. She was a constant in my life when I badly needed stability. She did talk therapy with me even though that’s not really what she normally does and normally she meets with younger adolescents but she kept me all these years anyway. Yesterday we talked about the upcoming move and about how I’ve changed since we first met. She said she could see that I’ve become a lot more calm and peaceful. Which I would partly attribute to medication, and partly to internal work I’ve done, and partly to the people around me who help me stay sane. But really…I wish every person in the world had access to this kind of care, and it bums me out that mental health still isn’t taken as seriously as it should be.

If I ever do write a book, she’s going to be prominently named in my Acknowledgments.

What I’m Reading:

  • I’m in the middle of “There There” by Tommy Orange, which has been getting praise every which way lately from people whose tastes I respect. I think I’m doing it wrong though – I like it so far, but I’m reading it on my Kindle, and that method of reading makes it difficult to go back and refresh one’s memory about who’s who and what happened when. In a story like this with intertwined characters, that is challenging. And I’ve been reading it in such small random intervals. For this book, I think a hard copy would have been a lot better.

What I’m Watching:

  • Uh, duh: Nanette. You’ve heard about Nanette, right? OK so it’s a Netflix stand-up special from an Australian comedy named Hannah Gadsby. I love a good stand-up, and Hannah is definitely funny, but this is unlike any other stand-up I’ve ever seen. She mixes humor with some really fucking raw and powerful personal stories about growing up as a lesbian in a conservative region of Australia. It’s a sorely needed perspective and brilliantly put together. Her pain is so visceral and visible. You wonder how anyone could hate her for being “different”. Homophobia really is a mindfuck and LGBT folks themselves are not immune to internalizing it the way we all have; Hannah suffered from it very much,  “soaking in self-hate”. Anyway. I highly highly encourage you to watch it, all of it.

nanette

  • I miss Queer Eye so much. I need constant new episodes. Following the guys on Instagram is fun and all but I need MORE.

What I’m fuming about:

  • Oh, the usual. I haven’t read up very much yet on new SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh but from what I know, it’s pretty much as bad or worse as we feared it would be.
  • White people are on a hell of a roll lately being idiotic and racist. (I guess by “lately” I mean that lately a lot of it has been caught on video.) There was #PermitPatty, there was #BBQBecky, then #PoolPatrolPaul. Now today I learned of this dude who harassed a woman in a park for wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag. (He was clearly not aware that Puerto Rico is part of the US.) There are cops *right there*, and the woman repeatedly asks them for assistance, only to be essentially ignored. The guy was almost certainly drunk and she had every reason to be fearful. One of the things he said was “you’re not gonna change us”. Which felt pretty chilling to me.

Curveball…

I have news.

You know how I’ve been unemployed for like…kind of awhile now?

A couple months ago I was feeling angry and bitter about it and I told V that maybe I would have better luck finding a job somewhere else; maybe Madison is too small, maybe my reputation has been maligned so much that nobody here will hire me. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself exactly, just trying to look at the situation realistically. So V, being the supportive partner that he is, started looking elsewhere for a job of his own. Over the last two months he’s had a lot of semi-stressful interviews with a lot of different companies kind of all over the place. Then Amazon invited him for an in-person interview in Seattle a couple weeks ago; we went. They offered him a pretty sweet job and he took it and…we are moving to Seattle.

seattle-state-map
holy shit

Still having trouble recognizing that as reality, even just typing it: we are moving.

Anyone who knows me knows I love Madison and I love Wisconsin – like hello, what did I name my blog? It’s part of my identity. And I love my family and my friends almost to the point of pathology. So while this might’ve been a no-brainer opportunity for some people, it wasn’t for me. We have such roots here with my family and our friends. We have this lovely home. When we bought it two years ago, moving to another city was nowhere on our radar. We both had good jobs that we more or less enjoyed. But a lot has changed. I don’t have a job, or prospects of a job, and six months of that has worn pretty thin. Much as it pains me to say, a lady can only take so many walks.

So as I’ve told everyone that I’ve discussed this with so far, I’m a huge mixed bag of emotions. Happy, excited, proud, scared, anxious, sad, apprehensive, curious. Honestly sometimes the negative emotions have been stomping their way to the forefront more often than I’d like. In that spirit of combating that, here’s a little list of things I am looking forward to:

  • not shoveling snow
  • not having a Cold War with my neighbor over our lawn
  • being able to go to Elliott Bay Book Company ANYTIME I WANT
    • sooo many awesome lady writers from Seattle: Ijeoma Oluo, Lindy West, Jill Filipovic, Carrie Brownstein! (I’m not going to link them all to Goodreads because I’m lazy but you should read all their shit)
  • better shopping in general
  • more racial diversity (which I know Seattle is not exactly known for, but it’s certainly more diverse than here…#perspective)
  • those gorgeous views

Another time I’ll make a list of things I’m anxious about. Won’t that be fun! I can guarantee it will be highly detailed and really pathetic.

The thing is, everyone else has already done this. My parents did this (Missouri and Michigan). My closest friends did this (all over the country and all over the damn world). Hell, my brother did this (Florida). It’s usually when people are in their 20s, I guess, that they venture out to wherever they fancy. I didn’t. I don’t know exactly why I didn’t. If you’d asked me when I was 16 what the next decade of my life would hold, I certainly wouldn’t have said “only leaving Wisconsin for vacations”. I mean at 16 I had no concept of things like tuition or literally anything and thought I was going to go east for college at Sarah Lawrence (because Julia Stiles wanted to go there so bad in 10 Things I Hate About You and she was everything to me). But what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t do it then, so if I don’t now…when will I? When I’m like…retired? Silly, everyone knows millennials don’t get to retire.

It’ll be an absolutely bananas next couple of months. Definitely gonna lose my shit more than once. For sure. But I’m gonna make it.