Category: Before

A woman I pass in the crosswalk plucking dollar bills from one hand where they’re wadded together like a used tissue or a head of cabbage.

A Teenager skateboarding shirtless in the dark. Something hurtled in my direction lands far enough away that I’m confident it wasn’t thrown at me. He bends down and as he passes, plucks something else from the ground – an anti-war protest sign – tosses it into the street. More signs scattered on the ground and planted among the shrubs.

A truck parked outside of The Gap, the back door open. A truckload of boxes. A portable conveyor belt leading from the rear of the truck into the store. A dozen small boxes lined up on the conveyor belt from the truck, only as far as the sidewalk. The driver standing in the street, barcode scanner held idle beside him. Another person moving around in the back of the truck. The Gap employees standing inside, staring at each other’s feet.

The Homeless Guy, a blog written by a man who’s living homeless in Nashville. Often thoughtful and well-written:

I believe some people fear this web page may legitimize homelessness as an acceptable lifestyle, but this is not my intention. Rather, my intention is to legitamize homeless people, to show them as worthy of being treated like human beings, with compassion, acceptance, and assistance.

Link lifted from Boing Boing.

I’ve been resisting my caffeine addiction for the last few weeks. I cut my tea intake and have even spent a couple of days virtually caffeine-free. I’ve sat outside soaking up sunlight, feeling recharged. A couple of cups of tea will cut through my natural tension and leave an alert but nervous buzz in its place. But five minutes of light and stillness left me feeling good and relaxed, but a little uncomfortable.

The weather today has been cold and grey. There’s been a steady drizzle, interrupted frequently by a barely measurable mist.

In the afternoon I settled into a coffee shop and read over a cup of tea. My socks were damp and my feet were clammy. There was a chill whenever someone opened the door.

Today I understand Seattle a little better than I have before. I understand why the clichéd latte culture is still so conspicuous here; and I understand why we bear the stereotype of being polite yet standoffish.

Summer days in Seattle are beautiful – believe me. It’s sunny and warm. The air is fresh. But I think it’s better in the fall. It’s more comfortable and familiar.

Today was a quintessential Seattle day, all the more striking because it’s the first of its type since spring. The balance of the days in the coming months will be more like today than like yesterday. Hang your head cheerfully, Seattle.

There is much to discuss like, for example, stoplights. Sometimes a stoplight downtown will turn red, but the stoplights in the other direction, the cross-street, fail to change. They stay on red. Everyone at the corner, driver and pedestrian, has a red light. No one has the right of way. All the stoplights stay on red for what seems like three or four minutes – longer than a regular stoplight cycle. I’ve witnessed this four or five times in the last several years. I don’t know what causes it.

Another, quicker, phenomenon may be related. Stoplights downtown sometimes change abruptly when an ambulance or police car comes through an intersection with its siren going. I don’t know if light changes for emergency vehicles are triggered by a remote control in the vehicle, a dispatcher tracking the car back at headquarters, a sound sensor, or something else. But emergency light changes are over with quickly.

Scenes from a movie that I only saw a few minutes of:

Various founding father-types are sprawled around a big room. Ben Franklin is leaning against a window frame, staring outside. It’s a meeting of the Continental Congress.

James Adams is arguing that the Constitution should ban slavery. Someone points out that Adams owns slaves himself. “But I’m going to free them,” he explains.

Another founding father stands up and counters in a twisted voice, “Slavery is a matter of commerce, not liberty.”

Adams has plenty to say about this. His opponent, whose name we learn is Rutledge, ups the ante by breaking into song. It turns out that this movie is a musical.

There was a mosquito buzzing around me last night. When its high whine first woke me, the logic of the dream that I was escaping made me certain that I could get rid of it by downloading some new fonts onto my computer. The mosquito kept me up for a few hours. The buzzing would get louder and higher as the mosquito wandered close to my ear. I had to draw my arm out from under the covers before I could take a blind swipe at it. By the time I’d get my arm free, the buzzing would be more distant and I wouldn’t know where to aim my slap. The refrigerator started humming across the apartment and I listened for the mosquito sound through the refrigerator sound. I was scratching at ghost bites before getting in the shower this morning.

Then I was writing an email to Amazon’s customer service. My order had been mishandled in a couple of different ways. So I layed out what needed to happen to resolve the situation, then I closed the email by explaining that I’d worked at Amazon for four years and was embarrassed that such a thing could happen. What was I trying to do – raise some sense of shame in a customer service rep? The best I deserve for that line is a touch of contempt. I’m embarrassed for having resorted to that line.

I had never dialed 9-1-1 before today. I was working at my computer and I heard arguing outside. I assumed I was hearing a disagreement between people from the building next door. The noise persisted, so I turned down my music. There were actually several voices I went down the hall and had a look at the street, there was a mob of teenagers milling around, gesturing aggresively at each other. I ran back to my apartment and dialed the phone, carrying the cordless into the hall so I could peek out the door. The arguing started to die down while I was giving the operator the address. So I stepped outside, people were strutting off in a couple of different directions still chattering aggressively. A police car came around the corner and “whoop”-ed it’s siren once. The operator asked me, “Did you see anyone with a weapon?” “No.” Later I walked down to Broadway and saw part of the group of teenagers assembled outside of Jack in the Box. They were still making a scene, but not really guilty of much more than being stupid teenagers. I may have over-reacted by calling the police.

No harm done in either case. But I’m disappointed that I over reacted like that.

Ingrid and Sam went out to get websites, but there was only one website left. Sam got the website and Ingrid got a house instead.

Cheese, Nintendo, Ingrid’s house, and the size of George W. Bush’s penis at Sam’s weblog, Fox in the Snow.

A loud thump above me, the window pulses and I sit up alert, expecting a rain of shattering glass. The window doesn’t break, there’s another thump and the window shudders again. I jump and look up. There’s a pigeon flying around inside, bumping up against the glass, trying to get out. A sprinkling of dust and feathers falls around me. The panicked pigeon reels away and tries to fly through a window across the room. It manages to get itself cornered, flapping nervously behind the propped-open door. One brave soul walks purposely over and reaches for the bird. It flaps wildly, feathers fly loose. He achieves a firm two-handed grasp on the bird and carries it outside to a round of applause.

These fast little Coast Guard boats have been zipping around Elliot Bay off and on for the last week – since the country was put on a high threat level. They pace back and forth, patrol along the docks, and ride alongside ferries as they pull in and out of docks. Those appear to be machine guns mounted up front.

I don’t have any commentary, it just seems like something worth noting.