One night in Seattle: whatever should I do?
Don’t be silly – there is a routine to these things!
Jeffrey picked me up, we acquired Sophie, and then it was onward to the familiar old places. We grabbed a vegan Vietnamese dinner then stopped in at the Bus Stop so I could talk to Niki Sugar, for a scant few minutes, say hello to Genevieve and Gary, before hurtling across to the Crescent.
I was still feeling too queasy from Disneyland gastritis to handle even a bold fruit juice, and I don’t really drink nowadays, so this was my first time in the bars and clubs of Capital Hill completely sober.
The experience was…. interesting.
The Crescent Lounge is a particularly intriguing swirl of despair and joy, a rumbling mix of street people, punks, drunks, frat boys, opera singers, the deranged and dismayed. It is the only place in the whole world where strangers feel they can touch my face and tell me that I am beautiful.
DJ Laura was on the microphone and shouted impossibly sweet greetings before singing just for me. Her new husband, a writer who constitutes one third of Guyscraper, was summoned from home.
That fellow who declared himself a lifelong enemy last April has decided (because someone tipped him off about who I am, whatever that means) otherwise and tried to chat as I stared in bafflement.
When my friends were singing or chatting or otherwise engaged a stranger tried a poignant pickup; where else would this happen? Nowhere.
Those who know me only from these trips never fully appreciate that the nights are an escape from my domestic commitments and career. I can throw a brilliant party and keep it going, but this isn’t my scene, it isn’t how I live. I’m just visiting.
We always end up at City Market two minutes before closing, buying cheese as the drunks stock up on cheap booze.
