04 February 2002 ~ Misadventure ("this boat is definitely sinking...")

Wednesday afternoon ~ Evergreen College, Olympia
Helena, exhausted and pissed off at the world simple because she's exhausted, decides she needs a vacation. And where better to go than Seattle, where the people are friendly and freaky, the air is caffeinated, and the sunsets knock me flat on my ass with amazement?

Friday night ~ Evergreen College, Olympia
Mike-O calls to shoot the shit. I tell him I'm coming to Seattle, and ask if he wants to hang out. He responds positively, but with questionable enthusiasm. Perhaps he was just tired. Who knows?

Saturday night ~ someplace in Olympia
Helena attends a party with her room-mate Louise, and a boy down the hall, who calls himself Dracor (sorry, kids, I cannot come up with an appropriate pseudonym for a dude who calls himself DRACOR...). A nice time is had by all, except those who spend the night weeping in the backyard of the hostess, or throwing up in the toilet of the hostess. (It might be noted that Helena was not one of those people...) Louise and I attracted the interest of an attractive fellow with lovely blue eyes (they get me EVERY time...), and the two of us shot each other a couple of glances. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'? Indeed. But alas, when it all came down to it, no numbers were exchanged. Back in our room, the two of us debated going back in the direction of his building, trying to find him, and attempting to seduce him into some form of debaucherous threesome. We decided against it. Or rather, I, intent on going to Seattle the next morning, decided to foil the plans and intentionally fall asleep. I'm such a bitch. Sorry, Louise... Sorry cute boy with the pretty blue eyes... Can't say we didn't dream...

Sunday morning ~ Evergreen College, Olympia
My alarm goes off at 10. I shower, dress, brush my teeth, all that good shit... Then I pack: all of the phone numbers of everybody I know in Seattle; a bus schedule; a handful of sugar packets and teabags (I don't know WHY I thought to bring these, but gahd bless, it was a good idea!); my wallet, my keys, and a few dollars.

Sunday, 11.30 AM ~ downtown Olympia
I find out that the local busses don't do their express route (ie, to Seattle via Tacoma) on Sundays. Frustrated, I get a cup of chai (note: Helena began the caffeine binge VERY early into the adventure...), and think about it. Having promised Mike-O that I'd call him between 12 and 3 from Seattle, I decided to buy a Greyhound ticket (which would have me arriving at 3.15). I bought the Greyhound ticket, called Mike-O's answering machine, and left a message that I'd be getting in around 3.15 and I'd call him then. Then, I sat in the sun across the street until it was time to catch the bus.

Sunday, 1.30 PM ~ downtown Olympia
The Greyhound is late.

Sunday, 3.00 PM ~ downtown Olympia
The Greyhound is REALLY late. I talk to the guy sitting next to me. He says, "there'll be another one in about 20 minutes." I have two options: I could wait twenty minutes for the next bus, or I could call the whole thing off and use my ticket some other weekend. But gahd-dammit, I WANTED an adventure! Yeah, it looked like some sort of omen that I shouldn't go; don't think I wasn't aware of that... But I didn't pay any attention; I just wanted a fucking adventure!

Sunday, 3.15 PM ~ downtown Olympia
I call Mike-O. I tell him I'm still in Olympia but that I'll be in Seattle around five. He says he has plans to check out a place in Seattle called the Timberline with some friends from work that night, and we decide to meet there. The Timberline is appropriate, because it was one of the filming locations of Twin Peaks, so naturally, Mike-O and I are both fascinated with it, regardless of whether or not it presently has anything to do with Twin Peaks. (I'm warning you now: it doesn't... But we'll get to that...) And of course, we both know EXACTLY where it is, because we stood outside on the porch and peeked in the windows, though we don't really know what it looks like inside, except from, of course, our favorite TV show in the whole wide world... An ideal spot to meet! He says he'll get there around 7.30. I say I might show up a little earlier. He says, "see you then." I say, "Yeah," grin, and hang up.

Sunday 3.30 PM ~ En route to Seattle
I start to think about stuff... Like... why am I going to Seattle when I'm pretty sure the last bus home is at 10.30? I'll have three whole hours there. Great. Some adventure. But fuck it; I'm 99% sure that Mike-O would make space on his floor for me if I missed the last bus home. Mike-O is a real sweet guy.

Sunday 5.30 PM ~ Seattle
I find the Timberline, just to make sure I know where it is. Just to make sure, mind you. I decide I don't want to go in yet. I buy a pack of expensive cigarettes and walk down to the shore to watch the sun set someplace off beyond the Puget Sound.

Sunday 6.20 PM ~ Seattle
The sunset is so fucking beautiful I want to cry. I manage to refrain from that, which is good, because I'll certainly have more legitimate reasons to weep before the night is over... Meantime, the sky fades from bright pink to subdued orange, to turquoise, to light blue, to deeper blue, to near-black and star-filled... There can be nothing greater than a Seattle sunset on a clear day; I swear this to you.

Sunday 6.40 PM ~ Seattle
Okay, so I couldn't figure out how the fuck I got all the way down to the shoreline, didn't know exactly which street I was on, and was feeling a bit lost... So I wandered until I saw something familiar, climbed an enormous set of stairs, and found civilization again. Then, off to the Timberline.

Sunday, 7.00 PM ~ The Timberline, Seattle
A quick look around the Timberline assures me that this ain't no ordinary bar. For one thing, it's REALLY huge. For another thing, it's PACKED, and something that sounds kind of like "Dancing Queen" is blaring through huge speakers. Yep: you guessed it! A gay dance club! I might have guessed it from the rainbow flag outside, but CRIPES! I did NOT expect to enter into a room full of 600 (I'm not kidding; I'm really not exaggerating at all... That place was FULL!) homosexual men. Now, to find Mike-O...

Sunday, 8.00 PM ~ The Timberline, Seattle
Still haven't found Mike-O. Stood by the door for half an hour watching people go in and out, before getting the bright idea that I ought to go stand on the balcony above, instead. That way, I'd have a good view of the door, but also, if I remember correctly, it appears to be the place where a couple of neat shots were filmed in Twin Peaks. Mike-O will know that. Mike-O will go up there first. Half an hour there yields no results... I'm starting to get discouraged...

Sunday, 10.00 PM ~ The Timberline, Seattle.

No Mike-O. I've been looking, but either he's not here, or he's really well hidden. Saw a couple of people who looked like him from a little bit of distance, but one was drinking like a fish, and Mike-O's not much of a drinker, and the other turned out to be a very, very masculine woman. Weird.

Sunday, 10.05 PM ~ The Timberline, Seattle.
Fucking HELL, it's WHAT time?

Sunday, 11.00 PM ~ Seattle, wandering...
After all that, it turns out the last bus left at 8 PM or so anyway. This whole night has been so fucking stupid. I cannot believe I spent three and a half or four hours in the stupid dance-club checking out gay men from a balcony, trying to spot my friend. I can't FUCKING BELIEVE HE DIDN'T SHOW UP.

Sunday, 11.20 PM ~ Seattle, wandering...
I don't have any idea what the fuck to do. I call Mike-O. Nobody's home. I call my friend Brian. Nobody's home. With that, my calling card runs out. Fucking hell.

Sunday, 11.25 ~ I find another calling card. Turns out it's not a calling card at all, but prepaid cell-phone minutes. I freak out. I whimper.

Sunday, 11.30 ~ A bar/café called Rosebud's...
This has got to be some sort of good omen. A place called Rosebud's. They've got posters of "Citizen Kane" all over the walls. Hell, it's a good omen that something is OPEN at this hour on a Sunday night in Seattle... I go in. The bartender sort of glares at me. He takes his sweet time getting to me, then asks, as if he's in a hurry to get someplace important, what he can get for me. "Diet coke, no rocks," I say. The other people at the counter check me out, then pretend I'm not there. I have never, ever, EVER in my life experienced anything like that. If you're at a bar, you talk top the other people AT the bar; that's the number one reason why people sit at bars, isn't it?! It's not like I look like shit! I've been out at a club, yeah, so maybe I smell like cigarettes and gay men, but it seems to me that Gap-boy bartender should appreciate that scent... These stupid fucking yuppies! What the hell!? They think I'm some kind of BUM just because I'm not wearing something that's obviously from Nordstrom's. Fuckers. I finish my Diet Coke (no rocks) as quickly as I can, then ask for a cup of hot water to bring with me to keep my hands warm. Hell, they already think I'm a bum; I might as well let them keep thinking it. The guy gives it to me, and takes my money with no small amount of disgust. You'd think he was afraid of girl germs. Probably he was, actually. At least my stop inside Rosebud's afforded me a little bit of time to find my THIRD calling card, this one of which actually works.

Sunday, 11.35 PM ~ Corner of Pike and Broadway, Seattle

I call Brian's house again. No answer. I call Mike-O's house again. It's not really cold out, but I'm not wearing anything really warm, either. My fingers have gone numb and I'm shaking all over, uncontrollably. I've been outside for awhile now, just walking. Good gahd, I can't keep this up all night. But if I don't reach somebody soon, I'm going to have to; I can't exactly go around calling people at 4 in the morning asking for a place to sleep... I call Norman's brother. I'm pretty sure I have the wrong number written down, and I get a "this number is disconnected" message. Finally, I come to the very last number on my "Northwest Phone Directory" list: Jane's mother. Jane's mother is a real sweetheart, but is she going to remember me? Is she even going to be awake? What if I wake her up and she's pissed at me? But no: I call, and she picks up, and I nearly sob, "Susannah? I'm Jane's friend, Helena, and I need her number REAL bad... It's sort of... it's sort of important..." Wonderful woman that she is, Susannah finds her daughter's number and gives it to me, once she remembers who I am...

Sunday, 11.40 PM ~ Corner of Pike and Broadway
"Jane? Jane, I'm kind of in a little bit of trouble... Um... Do you have, um... a couch I could bum on for the night? I mean, it's okay if you don't... I mean... but I'm a little bit cold and I'm a little bit lost, and everything's going really, really wrong, and there's a weird Indian dude talking to himself and pacing around me..."
"Where are you?"
"Broadway and um... I think Pike... Pike or Pine... No, it's Pike..."
"I'm going to walk down to get you. I'll be right there..."
"No, no, I mean... I'm not really lost... I know where I am... I'm just a little bit cold, is all... If you told me where your place is, I could just get there... But I don't want you to have to go out in the cold."
"No, just stay right there; I'll be right down..."

Midnight, Monday morning ~ Jane's place, Seattle...
"So..."
"So..."
"Yeah..."
"Neat..."
It really sucks making small talk with somebody you haven't seen since last August. It especially sucks if you're not really sure if you have anything in common anymore. It especially sucks when you're pretty assured that you still have an old friend in common whom both of you have slept with. I almost wished Jane had just left me there on the corner of Pike and Broadway. A creepy cracked-out Indian guy had been pacing around me for awhile, and another kid shouted something like "get a job" at me -- for what? Because I was out late at night on a Sunday? Because I was sort of whimpering and clutching my knees, feeling extraordinarily cold and wondering why the hell Mike-O would have just stood me up like that? Because I felt like such a stupid twatrag for having to call Jane that I probably LOOKED cracked-out? She should have just left me there, though... I can't even tell you how bad I felt to think of imposing on Jane. There was a supremely disgusting irony in all of this, none of which escaped me.

Jane went to bed. I lay on her futon in the next room, tears running down my face. I felt SO guilty, and SO stupid... Not that it was humiliating to ask a friend for a favor... But it was humiliating to ask JANE for a favor... She was so gracious, and so kind... But she always seems to have her shit together, and obviously, calling her from a payphone and spilling my long, stupid story to her in a quaking voice was a pretty good indicator that I do not, and may not ever, have my shit together. And I hate to have her see me like that. Especially her.

The Diet Coke, no rocks, was making my head buzz. Couldn't sleep. Tried to write a letter to Norman, but couldn't concentrate. I think it was actually the caffeine come-down that allowed me to sleep eventually: that horrific crash. I slept in my clothes. Jane had offered me a set of pajamas, but I refused. What a stupid thing to refuse, you know? It's not like she had to go out of her way and knit them or anything... But I felt guilty even flushing her toilet. I just thought she'd seen me broken enough as it was.

I fell asleep with tears in my eyes. How could I be so stupid as to not know when the stupid busses arrived and left? How could I have been so irresponsible as to not have a place to stay the night? WHAT the hell was Mike-O's problem? What had I done so fucking wrong that he wouldn't even show up to meet me? What had I done so wrong that would make him SAY he'd meet me, and then just let me go there to wait, and wait, and wait... It wasn't as though we'd made plans to meet at a hotel room with a can of whipped cream, a riding crop, and a prostate-stimulator; I can understand backing out of that, but it was just a bar, and an important bar to both of us, as well. And Mike-O grew up in San Francisco, so I'm SURE he didn't poke his head in and run screaming away from the vast number of homos inside... No, it was either some sort of horrendous misunderstanding, some sort of emergency, or he just didn't want to see me. I'm still betting on the third option there. And what the hell was everybody's excuse for treating me like a bum? I wasn't asking for money! I was even actually dressed pretty well! What a horrible night; what a fucking horrible night...

I fell asleep with tears in my eyes, clutching Jane's pillow and whispering, "I'm sorry Norman..." Why? I'm not sure... It was just this overwhelming feeling that I was really, really stupid, and had thrown away something wonderful for a bunch of stupid crap that was making me miserable...

Monday ~ 7.00 AM ~ Seattle
Jane shows me where to go to get a bus schedule, then dashes off like a good little scholar to her class.

I get on a local bus headed for Tacoma.

Monday ~ 11.50 AM ~ Tacoma
I was supposed to transfer here, but there's a TWO hour layover here in Tacoma. I sit and stare at the mountain. I decide to write a letter. I'm just getting to the good part when my pen runs out. My very favorite pen in the world: the one Brian stole for me from Twede's Diner... I swear to gahd, things just aren't going my way...

Monday ~ 12.30 ~ Tacoma
The bus-driver refuses to accept my student ID, and makes me pay full bus fare. I called and ASKED if the out of town busses accepted student IDs in lieu of fare, and they told me yes!! Two more dollars I don't have, down the drain...

Monday ~ 1.35 ~ my dorm room, Evergreen, Olympia.
I have never, never, never felt so happy to be home from an "adventure."

Monday ~ 9.12 PM ~ my dorm room, Evergreen, Olympia.
I miss Norman. I'm not going to whine "I wanna go home," because I don't, but I really, really wish Norman was here, maybe just for a few minutes...?

I'm exhausted... I'm not entirely sure this entry is going to make any sense... I have to go to bed, because the sound of my own typing is lulling me to sleep...

Thank you Jane. I owe you, bigtime.

Foolishly,
~Helena*