Diane ~

I guess today I'm just taking it easy... My muscles are incredibly sore from my swim yesterday, although I'm not going to just sit home and whine... So I went to Taze's coffeehouse, B&O Espresso, where I bought him a half-pound of coffee. And then I decided to wander around Broadway for a little while to look for a souvenir or two for my mom and Penny... It's a good day to chill out and buy stupid crap for the Binghamton gang, anyway. I bought three little rainbow bumper stickers for my mom and Penny; they're shaped like dogs. How appropriate. And have I mentioned how ridiculously gay-friendly Seattle is? I think I could go out of my way to TRY to get gay-bashed, and I'd fail...

I sat for awhile at the Seattle Community College (I THINK it was the Seattle Community College; all the schools in the area seem to have the same name: Washington University, University of Washington, Seattle College, Seattle Community College, University of Seattle... You see my point...) on Broadway, atop this funky metal sculpture. A good vantage point from which to watch little freaky kids wander by. Oddly, somebody had left a CD sitting on the sculpture, simply called "Rachel's Handwriting." It's an absolutely beautiful CD, and I've been listening to it for several hours on repeat in my discman. It's sort of spare, minimal, with little bits of jazz and rock in it, and it's terribly melancholy. One song in particular sounds an awful lot like a rip-off of Angelo Badalamenti's "Laura's Theme," so you have to know I'm in love with it...

I emailed Jaymi a day or two ago, asking him where we ought to meet. I said, "You name a place, and I'll find it, I promise." He said, "The Westlake Mall Balcony, but I'm not sure of my schedule, so I can't give you a time and date..." So I emailed back and said, "All right then. Monday. Between four and five. I'll be there."

I DID find the Westlake Mall -- not without walking into Nordstrom's and making an ass of myself by asking "where's the balcony?" but at least I found it... So I'm here, and I will wait until five. Jaymi's not going to show up. I'm not going to get to see him before I leave; I know this already. But I have to wait, or I'll regret it when I get home. If I leave now, at 4.30, he'll show up in five minutes; I have no doubt of that. At least if I stay and he DOESN'T show, I'll have the security of knowing I was where I was supposed to be...

Am watching some kids play hacky-sack down below... The balcony is on the third floor, the top floor of the mall, right outside from the food court. I bought two little bottles of "Mt. Saint Helen's Ash" for Joseph and John at a gift store inside. Who KNOWS if it's really Mount Saint Helen's ash. It's probably just weird dirt. But they'll appreciate it anyway.

Jaymi's not going to show. But I'm staying here 'til five. Going to turn my CD back on, going to open my Tom Robbins book, going to read a few chapters, and am going to intermittently watch the hacky-sack kids... Am going to pretend I'm a native Seattlite: laid-back, a little melancholy, and fairly unconcerned with anything except how Mr. Robbins is portraying my city, and whether or not Ralphie Nader will run for president in 2008. "Native." Heh!