14 January 2002 ~ Pie and pink cardigans in Seattle...

So much on my mind...

I would like some quiet, contemplative music to play. Most of the quiet, contemplative stuff I have has too many images attached to it, too many events and occurences and people...

I might mention, for those of you who were concerned (you know you're out there, you perverts who find yourself sort of caring!), that I did finish my 500-page book on Saturday morning. And, I wrote an essay about it, which isn't horrifically bad. (It's only a little bad...) So, school's going well. And, you know, that's what I'm here for...

*wink*

I'm getting to know my way around Olympia a little bit. I now know where four things are: the Greyhound bus station; this neat little place called The Zine Library, which looks like a café full of zines, although I didn't get to go in; a restaurant called The Spar, which makes kickass cheeseburgers; and, of course, the closest liquor store. Sweetly, Olympia has fewer than one-half the number of liquor stores as Binghamton, but that was the first place I was introduced to here in my new city, as I'm living on a floor full of 18-year-old booze-fiends. No, they're not that bad. They're sweet. They're good kids. I like everybody who lives on my floor. But you have to understand: alcohol is fun. And Helena is 21... And you know, that's what I'm here for...

*grin*

I spent a lot of this weekend in Seattle. First of all, I have to mention that I LOVE Seattle. And I'll be damned if I don't get the sincere feeling that it loves me back... I swear to gahd, when I'm there, I feel like I've lived there my whole life. I mean, shit, I can give DIRECTIONS to people by this point; I don't know how that works, as I, Helena "Disorientation" Thomas, could get lost in my own shower, but I have witnesses! I must have lived in Seattle in my last life; that's GOT to be it. Either that or it's got something to do with ley lines that Brian tracked there from Santa Fe. One never can be sure...

I arrived in Seattle during a little rainstorm, which turned into a big rainstorm, and then abruptly stopped at the precise moment that my friend, Mike-O, stepped into the coffeehouse where I was waiting for him. An REM song was playing and there was a rainbow arching across the sky. I told him he'd arrived under a good sign. Having been caught in the rainstorm, he wasn't entirely sure of that. But whatever. He's a good guy; I won't pick on him for believing in bad coincidences.

Now, Mike-O and I have both been frequenting the same online discussion board about David Lynch for ages now. It's a pretentious, witty, awful, hilarious forum, and it cracks me up more than it informs me about anything in particular. Lots of Euro-philiacs, lots of anti-Spielbergians, lots of sexist assholes, TONS of nerds, lots of folks who know more about EVERYTHING than I do. A good place, all in all. Occasionally, somebody even has something to say about David Lynch. I've been a regular since early 1998. I don't know when Mike-O appeared on the scene. But it really doesn't matter much. We got to be friends. Now, since he loves David Lynch, and I love David Lynch, and we "met" online at a forum about David Lynch, it seemed appropriate that we go out and do something that had to do with David Lynch. Perfectly, there was a theater in Seattle that was showing "Lost Highway" (by None Other Than...) at midnight!

Until then, we wandered... It shall NEVER be said about Seattle: "there's nothing to do in this town." It shall also never be said that there's not some good cheap entertainment to be had in Seattle. Indeed, we found it...

I may be able to give people decent directions, and I actually never have gotten lost in Seattle, but I have trouble gauging distances. So, when Mike-O said, someplace over on the more southern end of Broadway, "let's go to the U-District and get pie," it sounded like a fine idea. Not having the foggiest idea exactly how far the U-District actually WAS, that is, it sounded like a fine idea... And, come to think of it, it WAS a fine idea. After all, we discovered a REALLY rich section of the city, and sneaked through people's snobby, pretentious backyards and gardens to catch glimpses of the city lights at the bottom of the hill. We walked through dark streets talking about true crime and movies. We walked across a bridge, debated about what water was under the bridge ("Lake Washington!" "No, no, no; Lake Washington is over THERE!"), and watched a yacht swim loudly by underneath us. We stood on overpasses and watched the cars jet toward us. I decided I liked Mike-O very much. It may have been a long walk, and the actual length of the walk may not have been a fine idea, but it all worked out well.

...Except, by the time we found a place that appeared to have pie, I'd forgotten about pie and had a raspberry milkshake. Other than that, everything worked out well...

I'd never seen "Lost Highway" in a theater. Back when it came out, I was still in the land of the perpetually lost, and hadn't seen a movie in a theater other than "Air Force One" since approximately 1992. (...I'm seriously only exaggerating a little...) I told Mike-O I was a Lost-Highway-in-a-theater virgin. He looked a little nervous, a little anxious. Just a little. It was a sweet moment. So we held hands through the film. That was sweet too. Holding hands in a dark movie theater has got to be the most disgustingly innocent display of romance I can imagine, aside from, say, picking dandelions for somebody and bringing them over in an Orangina bottle (which, yes, I have done... *blush*). Holding hands: so intimate and erotic, yet so unassuming. So sweet: Helena holding hands at a midnight movie in Seattle with a sweet boy she met on the internet. Adorable enough so that, a year or two ago, I would have made a gagging face and abruptly slaughtered a pink cardigan in effigy.

But pink cardigans have their place... Even for Lynch fans. Maybe especially for Lynch fans.

......I have to cut this entry short; it's nearing time for the cafeteria to close, and I'm starving, so I'm going to rush over there ASAP...

~Helena*