Chez Shea

August 14, 2008
Seattle

Dear Blog,

Yesterday Michelle and I rode a shimmering green bus to "The City" where Michelle had been threatening to do some "serious shopping." Perched upon the green vinyl of the bus seat, Michelle, through subtle allegory, helped me understand that to her, today, I could only be a sick horse, possibly even a dead one. She gravely warned that she would not abide the burden. So when we spilled out of the bus into the station, she gave me a slug on the shoulder and a kiss on the face, then flew away, a pecuniary pollinator of Commerce's Westlake blooms, and a cute one.

I, lame stud, wandered slowly but directly to Barnes and Noble. I selected a book of Latin roots, sat in a corner and looked down at the pages expecting boredom. I looked back up with the expectation met.
Then I looked at a Russian couple looking at an English-Russian dictionary.
Then I looked over the shoulder of a guy studying rational expressions.
Then I looked at a book describing how to tie fantastically complicated knots.
Then I looked at the photo of the author on the back cover.
Then I wondered about the knot he was calling his face, and why he didn't pull it a little tighter.
Then I left Barnes and Nobel.

I walked to the Seattle Public Library, looked at a few books written in Finnish, decided it will always be a cognate language of Gibberish, then left.

Back at Barnes and Noble, a Michelle stitched together from smiles and spare princesses appeared on the most majestic of modernity's cascades, the escalator, seeming to have tamed a crashing waterfall of stairs. What can't she do? I wondered. She held three large plastic bags and a stack of fashion magazines. With a flip of her hand and a bounce in her step, she declared her shopping excursion a success, and claimed the coffee owed her by her manservant. Earlier that day he had argued with the passionate conviction of the utterly uniformed that it was the Ancient Greeks who had first included a senate in their government. Michelle claimed it was the Romans. The argument escalated into a foolish wager, and he found himself quite the fool. Young readers, pay attention, for I was that fool.

I languidly stirred aspartame or saccharine into our Americanos, quietly curious about the Persian man next to me furiously stirring sugar into his caramel machiato. "Sweet enough to kill a humingbird" I thought, and then never thought I would think of it again.

At seven o'clock we decided to dress for the evening. The bathroom floor was sticky and there were...things...on the surfaces. Only a thin partition separated me from a man malodorously trumpeting his egesta. It was the Macy's men's room, and it was nicer than I had expected. I pulled some crumpled garments from my backpack and goaled to make the switch without touching anything. Strange being on the defensive from the static inanimates of a bathroom. Mais c'est la guerre. I entered the bathroom a cool worm in shirtsleeves and short pants. I emerged cacooned in finery, overdressed for the weather and part of town. Two stories above me a lovely young lady was also changing for the evening, but in much more elegant surroundings. The Macy's Women's Lounge--not just a room, but a lounge--is clean and pink, comfortably furnished, couched, mirrored, stalls like toileted dressing rooms. Macy's, your gender preference is clear.

Michelle came out looking expensive. Black boots, black tights, shimmering green dress tied up in a sexy black trench. I escorted this lady of the evening to First and Pike, to Chez Shea, to a dinner unjustifiably expensive but indescribably amazing.

The restaurant is small, about 10 tables. Dimly lit, quiet, it overlooks Pikes Place Market and has a view of the Olympic Mountains. And 20 minutes before sunset splashed the clouds bloody red, you can take my word that there was more than one hopeful man ordering his date another drink.

I started with a glass of wine, which was served with a drowned fly. Michelle chose the limonada, ungarnished. A crusty bread was plated, buttered, devoured, delicious. The waitress came and stood beside me.

Accented:

W: Have you decided?
J: Yes. For the first course I will have the Amberjack Ceviche,

-Here classlessly throwing my thumb in Michelle's direction-

J: and she will have the Organic Spring Greens.
W: Ok.
J: For the second course I will have the Corn Soup and she will have the Pate. For the entrée we will both have the seasonal vegetable crepe.
W: Very good.

For the benefit of culinary dullards like myself, ceviche (unbeknownst to this vegetarian at the time) is a citrusy seafood salad. And pate was this particular menu's American bastardization of Pâté, a French amalgamation of minced meat, animal fat, and herbs. Discarding my meatless convictions with unexpected alacrity, I ate both. When in Rome, I said several times aloud, when in Rome. Flavor-wise, they were both exceedingly delicious. Everything was. Surely when time pulls the last threads of youth from my face and senility claims my most enduring memories, the last to be forgotten will be the taste of the lemon crème brûlée, and the retinal engraving of the beautiful blond girl in shades of green, smiling in the low light at Chez Shea.

We ate for two hours and have the bill to prove it.

Blog,

Josh

PS: Mike and Kindra--This was incredible. Thank you!

Not Sleeping

August 10, 2008
Seattle

Dear Blog,

Remember that four hour nap I took earlier? And those three cups of coffee after six pm? Yeah? I can't sleep. Whatever. Life would be better, though, if I wasn't wearing pajamas. I'm to scrupulous to wander the streets in bedclothes. And I would love to wander.

But actually I might hate it. The streets are loud, reverberating with the yells and cheap laughter from all the cool college kids at all the cool college parties. I've heard a few fireworks set of, which set off a few car alarms, the rhythm of which is about to set me off dancing. Every action is but a link on a chain.

Point of the blog in five words: I hate the University District. Impending graduation has found me suddenly too old a man and too stubborn a fool to tolerate all this intolerable youth. It was fine before, but now it seems valueless, dirty, abrasive, and its vibe is festering in my brain.

So sense my excitement to be leaving. My apartment lease is up at the end of the month. The landlord has been calling, trying to get into my place do some repairs, some spruce up work so he can trick some other poor unfortunates into at least a year of bad living. I'm not returning his calls. I may be personifying my frustration at the high cost of housing in this stink-town, but I hate his guts. He never gave us the rug he promised to cover the stains of dubious origin on the carpet, he never re-installed the hall-closet doors after removing them, he yelled at me for running down the stairs, and fined me $100 dollars just for being seven days late on rent. Jerk.

I'm planning on moving back to Port Orchard for September, and hopefully I'll be off to France in October. Michelle is flying off to Paris in 16 days. So soon! It's hard to think about. I wonder what I'll do with myself.

Maybe I'll sleep.

Blog,

Josh

Saturday Day

August 9, 2008
Seattle

Dear Blog,

I woke up alive this morning at 6:11, coffee pot time, related to actual time by making me exactly five minutes late for everything. I put on my adult clothes and ate uncooked oatmeal with milk over it. This is delicious for several reasons. First, it's easy. Second, heat and water turn an attractive collection of oats into something like a stoic puddle of starchy glue, so unbecoming of such a comely cereal grain. Third, an uncooked oat is much more of a challenge to digest, and with a stomach with a short attention span, I appreciate anything that keeps it occupied.

It wasn't raining when Michelle and I walked to work, though it had been. I commented that the earth smelt freshly bathed, which in the city is a heady, sort of concrete sweaty, kind of nearly pleasant stench. It was a cool, after-rain, August morning amble downhill to Parking Services. I don't remember appreciating it as it was happening. But it seems beautiful now. I was five minutes late.

Byron was fifteen minutes early. The man is a perverted, socially-inept, mild schizophrenic, and ours is a star crossed love that just shouldn't be. I should clarify: this is not in any way a romantic love, nor a love as between brothers, nor even one known between friends. Ours is something new, as of yet undescribed by poets, and totally one sided: His. I suppose it’s my fault, though, hanging those hearts in his eyes with that pity breakfast date, that pity Valentine’s Day card, the use of such strong words as “friend” in reference to him. He delights in crudity, and speaks to me without delicacy or decency. I alone know of his reprehensible online adventures and O! the things he’s seen! But I dare not burden the reader with any lewd description.

I hope that you can imagine my distress, then, upon discovering that I was to spend the entire shift today alone with Byron at the Central Plaza Garage. On the drive up he cryptically remarked that he had orchestrated our shift assignments. What? He must have hypnotized our boss then blackmailed him into putting us together, because I refuse to believe that Nick consciously and willfully allowed this to happen.

But it turned out fine. I ended up doing breaks, and in such a clever way that I was able spend most of the day at gate five with Michelle. And Byron was unusually preoccupied anyway with the important task of digitizing a pencil sketch of Bowser from Mario Brothers for some online collaboration of awful artists. The original wasn’t half bad. The final product was befitting of the web-site. He finished after my break, then turned his full attention to me:

B: Whacha writing?
J: Secrets. Important and interesting secrets.
B: You're writing about me, aren't you.
J: Of course not.
B: Oh. Then about Michelle?
J: Yes. And you mustn’t read it.
B: Alright.

Here he closes his eyes and points his enormous face at the screen, which I tilt downward. He giggles crazily, then sticks a few fingers into my sides.

J: No touching Byron! Never any touching!
B: *Crazy giggle* You know I used to be good at poetry.
J: Really? You should write some.
B: I’m kind of out of practice. I was mostly good at rapping.

He looks thoughtful for a moment, then:

B: Bitch, take this stupid pill
I want to fiddle with your deal
And you know I don’t want to spend no bill
You know me, just want to spill my seed.

proudly:

B: See, that was just off the fly!
J:
B: Am I annoying you?
J: No.
B: Am I entertaining you then?
J: In a way that no one else ever could.
B: *Crazy giggle*

But Byron isn’t the only hero of Parking Services. I can't forget the customers, those dears. Memorable faces today included Well-Dressed-Chemistry-Professor-with-Asian-Wife-in Front-Seat-Who-Kept-Repeating-YES-YES-YES-YES-YES, and the foreign couple looking for “The City.”

Byron and I closed up five minutes early.

It was a hot walk home, and I complained for the best part of it. Things in the apartment have taken a turn for the worst. A couple of apples went bad on the counter top, releasing a sour-smelling, brown liquid, which served as an open invitation for fruit flies and I am now cohabitating with about two dozen. I can’t describe to you how sticky the floors are, nor how they got that way. Michelle hardly wants to come over any more.

I laid down and fell asleep for four hours.

Now, Seattle is raining, Michelle is heating me up a cup of coffee, and she feels like she wants to bake me oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Or she could make a chocolate cake.

And I deliberate.

Blog,

Josh