Pioneer Square (A Brief Glimpse)

Every morning I walk through the Pioneer Square area of Seattle. Pioneer Square is where the city of Seattle started (sort of); and to celebrate that, it is filled with high priced boutiques and bars. On weekends, Pioneer Square becomes the Pacific Northwest’s version of the French Quarter with rowdy drunks bar hopping from place to place (but no open containers and no tits).

Pioneer Square also has old buildings. Not like Europe old, hell not even like America old, but I gotta admit that I dig those old(er) brick and stone buildings. There’s one brick building I spy every morning through the opening of an alley that is half overtaken by ivy. I LOVE IT! I makes me want to sing a song.

Maybe Neil Young’s “Needle and the Damage Done”, but I doubt it.

Anyway, this morning as I passed this building I heart so much, the sun shot out from the overcast and lit up the ivy like some kind of neon. All this green fire all over old red brick just made me kind of hard.

Seriously, it was great. I wish you would have been there.

I Wanna Be A Kid Again

I had a rough grandparent weekend.

My recently widowed grandmother was getting constant reminders of the loss of her husband throughout the evening, and a few times broke down and cried. This is of course completely understandable, but not easy to watch her go through. This was a marriage that I hold up as one of the greats, it lasted long and was filled with love and respect. Les was a great man; sharp and funny and loving, and I miss him terribly. I cannot (and probably do not want to) imagine the void left in my grandmother’s life.

My other grandfather is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and I’m pretty sure he had no idea of who I was. This is certainly a drag, but the worst part was at one point of the evening he went into some sort of convulsion. The image of this will probably never quite leave my mind, it was one of the scariest moments of my life thus far.

I have been told by numerous people, “don’t get old, it’s no fun”. I don’t have a lot of options here.

Saturday Grab Bag

I’m tired, so, so tired. And I have one of those headaches that 15 little 2 lozenge packages of extra strength PAIN CRUSHER™ can’t help.

I’ll tell you this: The new Mountain Goats album “The Sunset Tree” is a heartbreaker. It’s exactly what you’re looking for, trust me on this.

If you never checked out the Almodovar film “Talk To Her” from a couple years back, do it. It’s good.

Apparently Jagermeister and Red Bull is a real thing, but for the love of god, if you ever see me drinking one, do what you can to stop me.

Also, there is apparently a knitting craze hitting young Americans. These are sort of things I learn about late in the game when my subscription to Teen People falls by the wayside.

Random Film Quote: “That Buford’s a sly one, already know his ABC’s. Hit the deck boy!”

Just A Pyromania!

A few years back, in San Francisco, I was awakened by yelling voices. I attempted to sleep through it, except the panicky shrieking of, “get out of the house, there’s a fire!” got me a little bit motivated.

I bolted out to the porch (with no thought of the cats, by the way) and could see smoke pouring out of one of the Victorians up on Page Street. Okay, not my house, but bummer for those guys. Soon there were firemen scurrying around back of the house, and in what seemed like seconds after that, fire.

I watched in shocked amazement as that fire grew out of control. Minutes, this took. It took minutes for the fire to move to the house next door and start gutting that. Merely a few more minutes before the fire moved onto a third house and started working. It is shocking how fast a fire can move and how quickly it can destroy something.

I’ve watched a Ford Aerostar burn to the ground. It goes faster than you might think. This is a car that I set on fire – long story, I’ll tell it again later I’m sure. The thing is, for something that destroys so utterly, and so damn fast, I cannot help playing with fire like the dumb 5 year old I am…

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty...

I’ve got cats on the brain today.

I can’t stop thinking about the fact that cats crawl up in the engines of parked cars to warm themselves and then get all fucked up when the car owner starts up for their morning commute. What a crappy way to start the day, with a screaming and bleeding cat flying out from underneath your car. Not such a great morning for the cat either. Of course if you really can’t stand cats, then it’s actually probably a great way to start your day. Sicko…

And the musical Cats… Seriously, dude! I’ve seen it, I’ll admit it, but this sure seems like a primo-freakin-A-number-one example of how easily people are led by the nose. How did this become a hit musical for fuck’s sake? People dressed in cat suits – CAT SUITS! – doing a fake opera for the masses about which cat will go to kitty heaven. Andrew Lloyd Webber can lick my balls.

And while sometimes our cats drive me absolutely bat shit, I gotta admit that I really dig it when one of them crawls up on me and goes to sleep. That’s super nice.

Anger Is Not A Four Letter Word (But Maybe We Should Look Into It)

I gotta warn you all, I’m in that sort of mood today. That mood where I am annoyed with the people around me, especially the people that already sort of annoy me, and I want to hurt them a little. The guy who’s eating a bag of Frito’s, but being none too careful with the rattling of the bag, not to mention eating with his mouth wide open so every crunchy corn-fried bite can be heard loud and clear.. He’s asking for a bitch slapping, pure and simple.

The girl with the loud and nasal, sort of Minnesota-ish voice, who can normally spend six and a half consecutive hours talking about her freaking upcoming wedding, is boring the roaches with a pointless story of her father moving furniture around. Even her friends, who offer opinions on whether a bag of only red M&M’s is a decent gift for her wedding guests, are giving her the short, perfunctory answers as a clue to shut the fuck up. Which she’s ignoring! I want to scream in her ear, “you’re boring and not very bright” in a Scottish accent until she falls down in convulsions.

The one guy (who I’ll call 40 Year Old Fan Boy) is arguing with the other (who I’ll call Special Army Man) about which of them is correct in their assumptions as to the true goal of Islamic Fundamentalists. I can only wish that Islamic Fundamentalists would lock these two in a cage with rabid koalas who would then rip out and eat their bleeding rectums. I’m pretty sure the Islamic Fundamentalists would then mutter, “we do it for the nooky”.

None of this bodes well for the rest of the day…

I'm Sixteen All Over Again

I had big plans, big plans I tell you. I was going to get up early and get my hair cut and spend a large chunk of the day at the computer working on the novel that is floating around like a fragile little embryo in my head. But…

I woke up feeling a little not so well. I crashed out on the couch for awhile, just resting, but then I ended up side tracking myself by going crazy about the state of the living room. I mean how did I go this long without sweeping the floor for Christ’s sake? Well a cleaning frenzy ensued. The next thing I knew it was late afternoon and Biffy was asking when the hell I was going to get my hair cut.

So the thing is, I had spent all day in the apartment and when I went outside for the first time at 4ish I felt so weird and out of place. I felt like everybody was watching me and shouting with their eyes, “get thee back inside, you do not belong here”. I don’t know what my problem was, but I hate that feeling. It reminded me of being back in high school and being way hyper obsessed with what everybody can possibly be thinking about me, and how I look, and what I’m wearing, and the way that I am walking, and the pace of my breathing. I sat down in the barber chair and let some strange man’s hands rubbing my head calm me down.

I’m okay now, it’s cool.