« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
August 31, 2005
Third and Close to Cherry
So today for lunch I go to Cherry Street Cafe on Third Avenue. I secure an outside table and a fresh copy of Seattle Weekly. There I am, set up for my lunch break in the sun, when these people sit down next to me and start talking loudly. (D’s pet peeve numero uno.)
Okay, you're going, “So? Deal with it!” Except that this has happened twice at this exact location!
The first time it was two guys in almost identical blue, pinstriped shirts, mostly just complaining, and mostly about their wives.
Today these two young dudes on a smoke break from someplace are talking so fast and so loud they can't even hear each other. But I can. Weekend plans, name dropping. And there I am, focusing to get through stories that start like “Lauren Weedman calls from prison.”
There is one redeeming quality of this cafe. It is located next to a tiny sandwich place that has very nice Asian people working there. This one lady always remembers that I don’t need a paper bag. And once she even gave me a free bag of Fritos.
Free Fritos. Sure, I don’t eat Fritos, but still.
Posted by Dipika at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
14 Minutes to Edmonds
Cabin fever. Head to the dining car. A guy gets on the loudspeaker. "Hurry up," he says. "Get snack at bistro bar before close."
People start to queue.
Try to look out window but it's getting dark. Teen couple walks by. "Bet you couldn't get this view from the highway," she says. Stars in her eyes.
Find seat. A lady across the aisle cranes her head sideways, stretches a leg. "What kind of shoes are those?" she says to the guy wearing them.
"K Swiss." Sounds about forty and like he works in software. For most of the trip he's ignored this lady, probably his mother.
"Ya like 'em?" Thick Midwest accent.
"They're all right." Shuffles his feet. "They're supposed to be hip."
"What?" Her face balls up in a crinkle. Either she doesn't like the shoes, or she doesn't get it.
"Hip."
"What?"
"Hip. HIP. Somebody told me that."
She stares at them a second. "They're hip 'cause someone told ya?" Snickering.
"Yeah, well they said that after I bought 'em." Getting impatient.
Now the woman next to him says, "Cause he's not hip." She has blond hair and has been reading Gangs of New York.
The older woman goes, "Do you ever have trouble with the laces?"
"No," he steams. "What trouble would I have?"
BISTRO CAR CLOSE. THANK YOU. The train rolls into Edmonds.
Posted by Dipika at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
Vancouver, B.C.
They have a "sky train" in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's like a monorail, the Yamanote line in Tokyo, maybe, but way less crowded and in the shape of a line, not a circle. Generous public spaces here.
There are bike rentals for the likes of us to scoot oceanside at Stanley Park, dotted with people fishing -- "Look at those!" -- or collecting bottles or rollerblading. Seagulls are fat. A public pool next to the ocean is good for kids, say our friends visiting this city from Japan. They are pleased.
We can hear the whoosh of water lapping against the seawall between chants from the Hare Krishna people, who are running a "Festival of India." (Thin cover for their mass recruitment, of course.) We park to watch the sun shrink and then go dark. Kids are silhouetted now as are the boats, sailing slow like skaters with just the jib unfurled.
Posted by Dipika at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
Two Lines from Euripides
"The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man."
.
Posted by Dipika at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
Happy Rakhi
So you know how they have those yellow Lance Armstrong bracelets everywhere? The other day I'm listening to the BBC Asian Network and they say “rakhi bands” are trendy now, with Oxfam running this fundraiser.
All this is 'cause today is rakhi, or raksha-bandan, an Indian holiday where sisters tie a string bracelet, the rakhi, around the right wrist of their brothers. They wish for the brother's health and happiness and get a gift or cash in exchange.
Aside from tying rakhis, Rumela.com says Indians are into “fresh flowers, exchange of gifts... new clothes, meeting new and old friends and offering of sweets” and that India's always been known for it's "celebratory fervor.” Not sure exactly what that is, but I think the Indian-Americans' national Bhangra Blowout competition in Washington, D.C., taps into it.
But "the beauty of Indian culture," according to this site, is that a girl can tie a rakhi on the wrist of any guy she feels close to. "Our tradition tells us that the world is our brother and sister... In this way, relationships are strengthened, solidified and purified. The tradition of rakhsha bandhan symbolizes and underscores the way Indians live together as brother and sister -- relationships filled with love, devotion and affection, but devoid of lust, attraction or violence."
On the BBC show, this caller kept giggling when she told the entire tuned-in world she tied 400 rakhis last year. "Most of them were on my gay male friends!" she said, practically in hysterics.
Posted by Dipika at 8:13 PM | Comments (1)
August 18, 2005
One mHz of Change
Sometimes if you're forced to wait and you can manage to not be mad about it, you notice things about a place you would never choose to be stuck in. So then, out of boredom that on a good day sublimes into curiosity, you think stuff that would never have entered your preoccupied, self-absorbed head.
"So this is Jimi Hendrix's neighborhood."
All the book learning about differential equations or Greek classics you did dives out the window. But if you're patient, you become slightly aware of the many things that are here that you can't see and don't know. That's when the dots connect, synapses pop and brain frequencies get blipped out of phase.
Posted by Dipika at 7:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
Sixth and Pike
There's a girl on the bus next to me reading Real Simple and popping gum. Today is warm.
A guy up front curses real loud, and the bus gets even quieter than it was when no one was talking. It's 5:30 and rush hour but no one moves.
Posted by Dipika at 9:36 PM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
Reminisces of West Cork
So today I meet someone who gets me thinking all about Ireland again.
The way it's normal to rent a house that comes furnished. Christmas. Lent. Long sleeves in the summer. Walks with A at sunset. Rounds and more rounds. Stars everywhere. Cows. Yachts. Gourmet cheese and fusion food at the restaurant in Glandore. Dancing lessons. Failed attempts to launch my kite at the beach where they race horses.
"How was Ireland?," the stranger asks, with no intent to care.
Posted by Dipika at 6:29 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2005
One Day
Two guys speaking in a language that's maybe Hebrew sit down on my left. The bench is worn and initialed and overlooks Elliott Bay. They begin lighting cigars, and pause midpuff for a photo. A navy-clad brunette snaps the camera. Resumes her place by the railing with another woman. They're watching boats. Smoking slim cigarettes. Freeway traffic drowns the words and salt interlaced in the air.
Posted by Dipika at 9:47 AM
August 10, 2005
Midnight Movie: AKIRA
Akira will be signing autographs this weekend at a screening of AKIRA.
"The visionary graphics and... hyperkinetic storytelling in this movie have yet to be superceded."
-- Randy
"Katsuhiro Otomo's masterpiece."
-- I(Heart)Anime
"Nice T-shirt."
-- Miss Moxie, Seattle
Date: Friday, August 12
Time: Midnight
Place: Egyptian, 805 East Pine Street (Capitol Hill, Seattle)
Posted by Dipika at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)
August 6, 2005
A Neighborhood Park Opens (well, no)
In the last year or so, I have been excitedly watching Cal Anderson Park being built in Capitol Hill. It's an old park that had a wading pool, playground, and ballfield (where local GLBT folks staged a softball tournament every summer). But the whole thing has been under construction as long as I have been in Seattle, so to me, it's a whole new park.
Part of the project's purpose is to cover up the reservoir, away from unscrupulous types who might poison our water supply, I heard. Where there was a water reservoir, all kinds of contraptions (trails, light posts and a fountain-like structure) and landscaping features have been springing up. It's been very cool to see it change every time I pass by on the way for coffee, music or beer.
But I am ready to see it for real, like, use it! Back in May, it looked pretty much done, and there was a posting that said the park will open in July, they are just waiting for the grass to take roots. The days were getting pretty long, and I have been daydreaming since about long evenings strolling the park, greeting neighbors and waffling away the time...
Now it's August, and there's a new sign that says it won't open until September. What, the summer will be over by then!
So, with a feigned desperation (I mean, I do understand shit happens, projects delay), I post a picture of chain-linked park, beautiful and still untouched.
Posted by Akira at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2005
Seattle SeaFair
A crew from FOX was at the waterfront today, trying to get this random, fortysomething couple to pose for a closeup. So the couple set aside their Banana Republic bag and got a crash course on how to “act natural.”
I think all of this was to collect footage ahead of SeaFair, this event tomorrow and Sunday. The Blue Angels are practicing all day today for this air show that's part of the whole deal. There was apparently a Miss Seafair contest this year, too. Here’s the winner, a girl named Melissa from Burien.
Posted by Dipika at 1:54 PM | Comments (0)
August 4, 2005
Gig
So the other day A and I headed to the Crocodile, this little venue downtown, to see the Crystal Skulls open for Brendan Benson. “The Crystal Skulls?” is what I said but they were charming, not metal-ly like I was kinda expecting with a name like that. I have been missing old school stuff like Motley Crue and Def Leopard, I guess others have, too, cause Crue is supposedly coming to play a show here. Odd, huh?
Anyway, Brendan Benson’s band looked really old. Their veins were popping out of their necks and stuff. I asked A about this and he says rock ‘n roll guys just end up weathered looking from an early age. I said ew, and he said the cool thing is they stay the same for a long time: “Look at Mick Jagger.”
Posted by Dipika at 7:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2005
Bad Ficton (2)
A white furball zooms across the blank of space in her spherical shell. The craft's casing is made of a heat-resistant plastic her people created many aeons before the Earth people evolved.
Her confident, blue eyes peer through the translucent shield as she expertly maneuvers. She plunges through the stratosphere. Crashes at 2 million miles per hour into a speck of the Pacific Ocean.
Not a problem for Furball 202.
Impact velocities don't hurt the Furball Populations. Which is why they could survive the sequences of asteroid belts that pelted their planets. Generations later the memories of those days are mere traces of myth. Now, namelessly and singularly, furballs leave their home galaxy to find less turbulent places of shelter.
Furball 202 is one of their expert explorers, those who choose to lose themselves on tangents and follow rays of otherworldly suns. The most curious ones. Built so as not to age. Heat won't ruffle them, and crashes don't faze.
She scoots to the edge of an archipelago the Earth natives call Japan. Rolls ashore. Shakes salty water free. Moves inland, sleekly.
“こんにちは," the natives say. (Konnichiwa). Must be a greeting of some sort, she surmises.
"私、宇宙からきました" (I’m from space), she replies.
"ふーん" [Expressing vague interest]. "あ、そうですか。"(Oh, really?)
"おなかへってるでしょうか。" (You must be hungry.) "お寿司いかがですか。納豆はだめかしら。じゃ、ざるそばかなんか。" (How about sushi. Do you like Japanese dish, natto? What about special cold noodles?)
“わたし、たべません。” (I don't eat).
“ふーーん.” [More curiosity.] Then the natives eye each other. Move closer. Form a circle to surround Furball 202. Unaware she knows jujitsu (柔術).
Posted by Dipika at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2005
Corner
Quiet weekend. Hung out with A, caught a pint in the sun, watched Batman Begins. Too hot to do much more. And A, in his Zenlike way, says we should have more quiet time like this.
A comma in midst of the paragraph of daily life.
I'm half-listening and going through old notebooks and find this old sketch. One of my old apartments, I think. Next to it, this little saying, scrawled in old handwriting in pencil:
The more you think, the more you will get into the corner and cannot come out anymore.
This is how August begins.
Posted by Dipika at 6:00 PM | Comments (2)