On the Return of SAD Season in Seattle and Elsewhere

Be vulnerable or go away by Clara Bee Lavery, via Bossy Femme

My curious superpower, which turned out to be vitally necessary in this region where I’ve chosen to spend my adulthood so far, is that I am emotionally unaffected by the changes of light and season.* Am I glad it’s dark before five now? No, but only because it means I have almost no free time during the daylight five days a week and because it makes the streets less safe for more time. But I persevere and feel generally ok through til spring, and my adaptations are mostly just to eat more soup, drink more tea, and wear more sweaters. And I like those things anyway.

It’s not thus for many people I care about, and I admire them so for crafting careful plans to get through approximately half of each year. Online and real-life friend Bossy Femme has created a smart roundup of things to be grateful for and things to keep close during this tough transition to a tough time. Follow the included links too – they are killer.

And as for the rest of you SAD people – may you have a happy lamp, a sympathetic friend, and a warm place to be when you need it.**

This will probably help too, considering that all 15 of the top 15 cities with the least sunshine are in Western Washington.

A post-script: here, we do not have groundhogs. Here, we have the guy I saw walking down Third yesterday, reading his Kindle, its screen illuminated by the pull-out light of its case. SIX MORE WEEKS (MONTHS).

*Lest you think I am a blase sort, here is a selection of things I am emotionally affected by: my art and craft, my job, my friends, triumphs and defeats, hopes and their fruition or dashing, the goings-on and well-being of my cats, fates of favorite fictional characters, dreams, imaginary conversations in my head, obligations, whether I feel I’m accomplishing all I want with this blog, choices, advice from Free Will Astrology, revelations and epiphanies, trial and error, longing, heartrending advice columns, the arrival and departure of cheap squash and figs at Trader Joe’s, the enormity of the world and its possibilities, the narrowing of our choices that’s concurrent with the broadening of our wisdom as we age, the possibilities and limitations of being fragile mortal beings, the quality or lack thereof of the upcoming Star Wars movies, and the constant indescribable beauty and horror of this world we find ourselves in. In short, my blood type is feelings.

**Fun fact: this was originally the stub of this week’s Hither and Thither, but I had more to say than I thought. Hello!

One of the Most Beautiful Things I Saw This Weekend

My god, it’s full of stars.

This was taken at the bus stop at Queen Anne Ave and Roy, just in front of Kidd Valley. Do you know how I have longed for this? Do you know how I have envied other cities this? Even One Bus Away is far from infallible.

Years ago, on my first visit to San Francisco, I was surprised to find that the thing I was most awed by – the thing I longed for the most in retrospect – was not the interesting culture or the beautiful houses or the great food (though those are all, of course, mighty fine, and continue to have their own gravity for me in these uncertain days).

No. It was the “bus is coming in X minutes” signs and the easy-to-understand, readily available bus route maps. Seattle, at the time, was still claiming that making a bus route map was technically impossible, a claim that was just insulting to all involved.

Because of that clear information, we were able to get around the city via the bus in a pre-iPhone era, even though we had no idea of where we were going. And, at the time, such a thing would’ve been just about impossible for a newbie visitor to Seattle.

So yes, this makes me happy. And it was accurate the whole time I stood there. May the lord bless thee and keep thee, Seattle. You’re getting there.

Though Sunday found me sick and coughing, I still had the good fortune to see a variety of beautiful things this weekend before the plague claimed me. The various short features at Hump fell within this category – or FAR WITHOUT. As is the way of the thing.

Happy Halloween.

To celebrate, here is part of a dismembered scarecrow I saw earlier this week on my way to work.

There were two of us taking a picture of it at the same time. Ah, Seattle.

Here is what this made me think of.

Belltown Invasion

In a window on 3rd in the vicinity of Lenora, this smug, be-nippled paper gentleman.

And then his legion.

Already gone as of this posting, though. Bye, paper dude herd!

WTF UW

Why?

Why is there a tank thing in front of Terry Hall?

Why is there a tank thing equipped with a fire extinguisher and surrounded by caution tape and telescoping cones?

Why is everyone walking around like it ain’t no thing to have a baby tank device hanging out in front of your dorms?

I would not have felt that way when I was properly in college. I think I can safely say none of my classmates would have either.

Apologies for the buscam photo. It’s just that I wasn’t at my stop yet… and some kind of DNA-deep self preservation says, “Do not get off the bus to investigate the large, weapony-looking thing. You stay on your bus. You just keep on going.”

Update: a friend who apparently knows these things has informed me that this is a core sampler, used to see what layers of minerals and rock exist at different depths of a piece of land. Relevant, because a scant couple lots down from this, a fair amount of construction is going on.

Gradients and Adjusted Opacity

It’s a particular kind of weirdness when your city’s most famous landmark is made to look like a cheap special effect by the fog that just can’t fully lift.