POSTS TAGGED : seattle

Life Just Destroys Me Sometimes

Yesterday, I was transferring between the light rail and the 49 downtown, lugging awesome Uwijamaya groceries with my neighbor. As we walked down Fourth, we encountered a battle royale.

A boy of about five, wearing one of those half-face Batman masks and brandishing a toy katana, was engaged in a swordfight… with an old man in an impeccable suit and hat, who brandished his cane for self-defense. As he was much more enthusiastic than the kid, who couldn’t quite seem to wrap his brain around this much awesomeness, I am thinking the old man picked the fight. And then lost it on purpose.

I stood and stared and felt my heart grow three sizes.*

I’ve looked forward to being older/old for a long time now. And it makes me happy to see exactly the kind of old person I want to be, out there, being rad and making life so much better for everyone.

swordy

My favorite, most relevant GIS result for “batman swordfight.”

*I am actually mostly heart at this point. It’s getting kind of crowded in here.

Tales from the Ladies’

A very small selection of the carefully added graffiti in the women’s bathroom of Smith.

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A fact not universally known: women’s bathroom walls often contain some hot truth. If you need advice, especially on your worth and how to conduct yourself in a relationship, you could do worse.

These pictures are mine, but if you want LOTS more from other people, go here.

All of the Pinball Boobs at the Seattle Pinball Museum

I realized this past Sunday that pinball machine art parallels comic art so far as a certain kind of, oh, liberty taken with the depiction of the female form. I started with the picture in the last slide, and from there, I went to full-on demented documentarian mode.

At one point, having watched me walk from machine to machine, taking very precise, very close pictures of most of them, a man asked me what I was up to. “Oh,” I said, “I just enjoy the art of it.”

Not untrue.

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There are two ways to enjoy pinball in Seattle, because we truly live on god-kissed earth.

Want it buffet-style? Go to the Seattle Pinball Museum. They also serve beer and soda, and you can buy clever themed buttons and your very own pinball. (They have a delightful heft.)

Prefer a la carte? Consider Shorty’s, Add-a-Ball, John John’s, or one of the many solo machines scattered throughout the city.

Bellevue and Pine, 17 September 2013

IMG_0703aIMG_0704aAnd, later, at Cal Anderson, another of the ENORMOUS BEAUTIFUL INFINITE SKY moments I’ve been experiencing lately. I was born in the spring, and I was made to adore the in-between seasons. I’m going to say “liminal” here just so I have an excuse to use that tag again.

IMG_0708aIMG_0709aPeople who get it.

 

 

Get Her to the Greeks

Yeah, sorry-not-sorry.When I first conceived of this blog, the thing I most wanted it to do for my life was to get me to do things I’ve meant to do forever and to find the things the rut of everyday life had kept me from discovering. Well, I’d meant to go to the Seattle Greek Festival for, oh, at least seven years now.* Seven years out of the nearly nine I’ve lived here. Come the hell on, Standard Deviation. It’s like four blocks from the freaking 43. Continue reading →

I Love Bedlam

I think it makes me a bit of a traitor to Capitol Hill, but Bedlam in Belltown has been rapidly approaching the top of my list of favorite Seattle coffee shops. I know, I know. But there’s something about their constantly shifting art and t-shirts, their self-consciously-but-perfectly Seattle-funk™ decor, and their wonderful earnestness that just… works.

Also, the coffee is good, if you care about that too.

I was there today, and I spent some time reading in their excellent upstairs closet-turned-reading-nook.* Before I took myself upstairs, though, I saw this.

No-Sip Coffee Cup!Amuse your friends!I asked the adorable, always-incredibly-friendly ponytailed gentleman barista, “Did you guys get a shipment of bum lids?”

He grinned and gave me the slightest nod.

So this kind of thing? Where someone gets a super-goofy idea and carries it out to the tune of graphic design and completed packaging? This is genuinely what makes my days worth living sometimes.

Bless you, Bedlam. Bless you and your iced decaf Americanos, served in a mason jar with a handle.

*I am fortunate enough to be able to tell you that said nook is also a stellar place to squeeze in with someone you fancy to be cozy and ever-so-slightly inappropriate in a public space. Yes.