Category: Before

Saturday was just about perfect.

I accompanied Ingrid to a meeting of the Puget Sound Stereo Camera Club (at the Federal Way Senior Center?). We were immersed for three hours in a dark world of 3D slide shows, polarized glasses, and heated discussions about Nimslo and Stereo-Realist equipment. A couple showed some fine 3D slides from a trip to India, which were topped by a beautiful series of 3D images from another member’s six month solo bicycle tour of Ethiopia. At the end of the meeting, someone dusted off their Viewmaster projector and Ingrid showed a couple of her Viewmaster reels. The reel she did for the Turn-ons, classic bored band photos, was met with polite confusion. The landscapes recieved some appreciative nods.

In the afternoon, there was time for relaxing in the sun. The sun! Seattleites shed layers of clothes on clear but chilly days, we walk around trying to talk each other into believing that it’s a nice day. But this was genuinely nice – sunny, hot, blue skies, green grass, blooming flowers, kids picking dandelion and blowing the seeds away. Nice.

And Saturday night, Ingrid hosted a Scotch tasting. We sat in the living room and listened to bagpipe jazz. We didn’t read Robbie Burns to each other, so much as we occasionally waved around a library discard copy of his complete poems. We discussed the subtleties of each bottle: “This one is kind of . . . peaty.” “I think I detect a hint of peat.” “There’s a flavor here that I can’t quite put my finger on . . .”-“Peat?”-“That’s it!” I decided on Saturday night that I like Scotch, though I was a little less enthusiastic about it on Sunday morning.

Picking up a burger at Dick’s. I tap on the window, hello, to a familiar face. She was one of my manager’s when I worked here too many years ago to count (seven), she’s doing something with the cash register right in front of me. I warrant a brief glance, somehow confident and nervous at the same time. It’s something along the lines of: “Yes, hello. You’re tapping on the window at me because that’s what people on Broadway do. That’s all well and good – I’d tap back but I’m very busy right now, and besides, I never tap on windows with strangers.”

I’m going to take the top off my PC and wiggle my soundcard. Then maybe I’ll blow on it. I’ve actually never taken apart my PC before, so I’m excited.

I guess the fact that my PC wouldn’t make any sounds should have clued me in to the fact that my sound wasn’t working, but it took a dialogue box from MusicMatch saying “MMJB Soundcard Problem” to clue me in. I tried Windows Media, which also reported that there was something wrong with my soundcard. It pointed me to a Microsoft Knowledgebase article, which suggested that I change a setting in the control panel.

Ah yes, a software problem. It’s easy to blame Windows, especially when Windows points the finger at itself. The article says my hardware acceleration slider might be set too high. So I follow the directions to access my hardware acceleration slider, but the button that should give access to it doesn’t respond. I can click it all I want – but nothing happens. Discouraged, I think I didn’t install any software or change any settings, so it was just wishful thinking that it was a software problem anyway (ignoring that the control panel isn’t working – pretty much the definition of a software problem). So I’ll wiggle and blow now. Hopefully that’ll work.

Other people post photos of their cats. I post pictures of my teapot. Okay? Okay.

I dropped my teapot’s lid this morning, giving the teapot its first new blemish since I chipped it on the day I bought it more than seven years ago. Everything is fine here, no interruption of service should be expected. I was just saying, that’s all.

Did I mention?:

The comedian maintained his hammered-condition with straight shots of vodka. He repeated jokes and accepted requests from the audience, many of whom seemed to know all his material already. He made a passing remark about Vicodin, so a college kid walked purposefully up to the stage and handed him a prescription bottle. The comedian perked up as he squinted at the label. He opened the container spilling pills on the floor and crouched down to collect them. But he liked it better down on the floor. He gave up searching for Vicodins and laid on his back for the rest of the show, still delivering his lines.

The tourist asked directions from a woman reclining and enjoying her book: “Darlin’?” [no response] “Hey Darling?” [she looks up, gestures “me?”] “Which way is Pioneer Square?”

The businessman walked with another businessman, gesturing broadly: “I cashed in my 401k.”

I went bar-hopping in North Bend with Ingrid and her sister. First I unwittingly won a game of electronic darts at The Sure Shot. Next we went up the street to The Shanty. There was hollering coming from inside. We were careful not to swing the door to widely, that would’ve hit the end of a poised pool-cue – the table was right next to the door. A friendly drunk offered the girls drinks and his company within thirty seconds of our stepping inside. Drunks in the back got giddy after recognizing the first few notes of each song coming from the jukebox. They sang along, one using a mock-falsetto voice. The bathrooms were barren and filthy. We bought pull-tabs. Ingrid told a somewhat risqué story, talking louder than she realized; and two strangers gathered behind her to listen. At least one drunk marked us as outsiders – when we left he heckled us inarticulately.

Also: The bliss. The anxiety.

I put the finishing touches to my rocket this morning and took a quick trip to the moon. I didn’t have a spacesuit with me, so when I got there I just looked out the window. Re-entry was pretty sweaty, so I took a shower after I’d re-oriented myself to the Earth’s strong gravity. When I got out of the shower I had eleven messages on my voicemail – I guess word of my moon-landing got out pretty quickly. About half of the messages were from reporters, I deleted those immediately. The most interesting of the remaining messages was from Al Gore, he said he wanted to talk to me. I called him back and suggested that we go out for lunch. He agreed and asked if I knew of any good Mexican restaurants. I asked him if he knew where Taqueria Express was. He said no, so I gave him directions. I headed out right away, Al Gore was already there when I arrived. He looked at the menu and asked if I had any suggestions. I said that the cheese enchiladas were good, but he ordered the chicken enchiladas instead. I was a little confused when he congratulated me – I couldn’t figure out why until I remembered the moon-landing. I thanked him. I asked him why he’d shaved the beard and he said he was just tired of it already. He asked me what I was going to do next and I told him that I was thinking of taking the rocket to Mars tomorrow. He nodded and helped himself to a tortilla chip. I noticed that his eyes were watering a little, he told me that was because he wasn’t used to salsa that was so spicy. I asked him if he knew where I could get a spacesuit for my trip tomorrow. (I’d like to get out and stretch my legs after I land. Mars is a lot farther away than the moon.) He said that he wasn’t sure. I reached for my wallet after we finished, but Al Gore said, “No, no. That’s on me.” I noticed that the tip he’d left wasn’t very big, so I surreptitiously added a couple of dollars (I hope he didn’t notice).

Robert had been saying that he wanted me to help him write a letter to his mother. I’d been putting him off, “We’ll talk about it later.” I had visions of long paragraphs spiraling into nowhere and I didn’t have the patience to make sense of it. One of his pastors turned him down too. Robert said that the pastor had confessed that he couldn’t read or write either. I assume that Robert was filling some gaps in the story or that the pastor has a cruel sense of humor. Finally, yesterday, I said, “Okay. Let’s get this letter written.” And this is what Robert dictated to me:

Sorry I can’t make it down for your birthday. I’ll try to figure out a gift to send you for Mother’s Day. I hope you’re feeling well.

From your son,
Robert

I tried to draw him out, “Is there anything else you want to say?” “No, that was it.” We went out and got a card, he chose a postcard with Mount Rainier on it. I asked him for his mother’s address. He thought for a second, before admitting that he no longer had it.

I’m pretty much like this in real life too (once you get me talking). I can go on and on, recounting stories whose poignancy I feel but wouldn’t be able to defend.

Recently I’ve been self-conscious when I tell a story that I’ve written about or alluded to here. I’ll look nervously at someone who might have read it and see if I can slip it past them without them noticing.

Then when I write about something that’s come up recently in a conversation, I get the tiniest inkling that, on some low level at least, I might be betraying the person I was talking to – co-opting our conversation with a clumsy glossing-over of the facts.

When I tell a story aloud, the story is set free. It doesn’t matter if I’ve missed something, gotten something wrong, can’t find the words I’m looking for, or have misinterpreted someone else’s roll in the incident. There’s no record of my telling – I can’t be held accountable. When I type up a story and post it here, it basically becomes the definitive public record of my take on the anecdote. (Unfortunately nearly every time I look at an old story I cringe at the typos, unclear sentences, and the paragraphs that I obviously didn’t bothered to re-read before posting.)

Some small part of me worries that what I write down is truer than what I think or say.

Mike was a senior at the art school when I went there for a semester. He’s very enthusiastic and personable, a really friendly guy. Though I don’t think we ever had the kind of establishing conversation that’s usually the foundation for a rapport, he always greets me warmly when I run into him and we usually have a quick chat.

Ingrid and I were sitting upstairs at the Baltic Room yesterday, when Mike came upstairs and made a purposeful scan of the room. He saw me, waved, and headed over to a group in the corner.

He came over to my table a few minutes later and said hello, we traded quick summaries of our current situations, and he mentioned that he was on his way to see Tenacious D. He told us that his brother had backed out at the last minute, so he had two extra tickets. We declined the invitation and Mike returned to his party.

Ingrid asked me, “Who’s that?” I gave a quick summary and finished by saying, “Mike doesn’t know my name.”

I immediately regretted saying that. It was kind of a put-down, and I was worried that he might have overheard me. Worse, I think, Mike has always been especially friendly to me even though he probably only has a vague notion of me. I return his compliments and his thoughtfulness (regarding the tickets) with aloofness and then when he’s gone, I drop a catty comment at his expense. Not the worst thing in the world, but it’s the kind of little social-gaffe that bothers me about myself.

I recently fretted about some local store closings. Now I need to make a partial retraction.

I ate at Julia’s the day after it opened, and though I made some half-hearted jokes implying otherwise, I didn’t really miss Eileen’s much. The food was fine. My fellow diners’ scorn for the Liza Minelli posters decorating the wall was all in good fun. Though I tried my hardest I couldn’t bring much of a sense of loss to the surface. I still get a little shock when I see the big friendly windows instead of Eileen’s lopsided brick entrance. I guess I miss Eileen’s exterior more than I do the actual place.

The shelf paper was recently removed from the Green Cat Cafe’s windows and the legal notice on the door was swapped with a friendly note indicating that it would reopen sometime soon. I walked by today and saw a couple of men (including, if I’m not mistaken, the original manager) doing some remodeling work.

Clark Humphrey‘s Obituaries column in the Stranger, sometimes chronicles the closing and movement of Seattle businesses (though this week’s column is all death notices). Humphrey uses his nostalgia for and deep knowledge of Seattle’s recent past to find obscure threads of cause-and-effect that would otherwise go unnoticed.