Day 9 - May 28, 2006 - Seattle

It was raining hard when we woke up so I was in no rush to get out. We headed over to the Folkfair and the local Mall next to it and ended up getting glorified fast food for lunch and a frozen banana for desert on the way back. The goal was to be out long enough for the maid to come by and make up the room so we could come back just in time to make sure our door was closed and everything was in place. Unfortunately, we overestimated the efficiency of the cleaning staff.

We got back to the hotel to find our room unmade and went into the lobby, frozen banana in hand to alert the desk that yesterday the door was left open after cleaning and the worried man at the desk apologized and assured us that there would not be a repeat of such a mishap.

We walked down to the Pike Place Market, stopping on the way for coffee ant a local coffeehouse- Cherry something. I'm sure Doug will remember the name since he is big on noticing everything and pointing out that a writer needs to notice all that's around him. I point it out when he says it and I may have been insulted except that I am not feeling like much of a writer these days so such things cannot affect my ego.

We spend a while shopping, window shopping mostly, through collectible stores with old posters and Doug salivates over a Bettie Page cutout and I pretend to be jealous just to give him a hard time.

We find a windup toy store that we'd seen an ad for and spend time playing with windup monkeys and food and Frankensteins. We end up buying a couple of robots and some monkeys- one with cymbals and one that flips. I get a robot for Mike and a fire-breathing Nunzilla for Belinda. I get some postcards too but I don't find a mailbox, ensuring that they will come along with me to Portland.

After walking around downtown, we went back to the room to rest. Around 8 we walk a lap around the city looking for dinner, and disappointed and feeling lazy, we go back to the room and order from Pizza Hut which neither of us have had in ages.

Since we're leaving tomorrow, I find myself recapping the Seattle experience. The bums are pushier here, we've noticed, following for blocks. And though it has nothing to do with that, I don't like this city very much. I mean it seems like they've got a lot of festivals and stuff, but the city itslef feels dead, unwelcoming, cold. It might have something to do with the weather, though I am hesistant to lay the blame. It just feels like this is a place that could never be home.

I like to think that I'm adaptable, but I guess it's easy to think that when it's never been tested. Really, I'm awful with change. The other night I got to thinking about what will happen when I go home- that it will be the same troubles tenfold coupled with the responsibility of adulthood- a job and an apartment and paying for this trip. I'm not ready for that, not yet and I feel like something needs to happen between now and then. I need to change somehow. And it's sinking in that I'm done with school forever and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, except that I will miss some of the people I have spent this time with and I did not expect to miss them at all.

I feel like I've got more adventure in me- and I want to be more reckless than I am and maybe it's better that I'm not, but I have been having the wildest dreams lately and it is wonderful to be able to roll over and send them morning breath express to Doug.

Last night I dreamt that we were apart- in miles, not memories- and I was trying so hard, so desperately to find him because it was important, something was so urgent that it couldn't wait. And I remembered, still asleep that he was there, right there and all I had to do was take him.

I don't know what it is that makes someone a good writer, or a writer at all. I used to think it was a combination of honesty and insight but maybe it's something simpler than that. Maybe you just are or you aren't, maybe it's inherent like everything else and some people just see things differently.

I haven't felt like I'm seeing much. And there was a time, not too long ago that my senses were on high alert, waiting for a pinprick of a chane, looking to recognize the familiar in the new and the new in the familiar. Maybe I left that girl on the East coast. Maybe she is home.