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An Exercise in Incongruity: Luminasia

When you grow up feeling out of place, it’s easy and probably healthy to grow a sturdy exoskeleton of disdain and ironic distance. We have to get out alive somehow, and if that means your default expression has to be a sneer of a derision for a while, well, then that’s what it’s going to take.

I think this is fine unless it follows you into adulthood. Some of my favorite people are the ones who came through hard times as teenagers and young adults; some of my least favorite are the ones who did the same but let those experiences rob them of their vulnerability and easy humanity.

As you might have guessed, I generally consider myself to be in the former category, something that took some work and distance to achieve. However, the legacy of a rich background of self-defensive contempt is that it can sneak back up on me without warning sometimes.

If you’re lucky, though, that makes certain things into that much more of a delightful surprise.

With that in mind: ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, I give you Luminasia.

luminasia-0I decided to go to Luminasia because a certain online travel deal site had a special and because I was then able to talk my neighbor into going. He’s just as into the unlikely as I am, and I sweetened the deal by buying his ticket. These are the things one must do when one decides not to own a car. By which I mean: make awesome friends who are willing to spend a Sunday night doing something odd. And, joy of joys, another friend decided to join us too.* Continue reading →

On the Return of SAD Season in Seattle and Elsewhere

be-vulnerable-or-go-away

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

the best sign of the timesMy 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.

Hither and Thither #10

Prosthetic eyesOcularists: a creator of prosthetic eyes. It’s meant a lot of things over the last couple millennia, but for a pair of families, it means two strikingly different philosophies. The LA Times explores the gulf that exists between the art and science of ocularistry.

division squiggleBecause Halloween is so awkwardly midweek, I declare that this weekend has also been Halloweekend. (The substantial number of costume-wearing people I saw Friday and Saturday night agree with me.) As such, this excellent roundup of horror movies set in New York is still timely. This is a new blog I’ve found, which looks at New York from the distinctive view of a location scout.

Also, this kind of thing is why going to New York feels like entering the real world, and leaving feels like going back to the outside to look in.

division squiggle

Capitol Hill has a new bookstore, and I can’t wait to wander through it!

Continue reading →

Mysteries of the 43

While bussing back from the U District a few nights ago, I discovered this bit of weirdness.

penny on a bus seatSo.

So!

Someone gets on the bus, has a penny, heats it up with a… torch, and then presses it into the plastic of the bus seat to leave this shockingly clear impression.

While on various buses, I’ve had my lungs corrupted by some truly evil decay coming from someone’s feet. I’ve seen a woman kicked off a Bellevue-bound bus for yelling clearly but insanely about how god should DAMN the United States.* I had a 50-some-year-old Texan offer to impregnate me – in a way so jovial it almost wasn’t incredibly horrible. I had a Vietnam vet on his way to the reservation to buy cigarettes inform me that “the queers” were going to try to recruit me.** I’ve made friends and been asked out and knit and read and done all manner of things.

But someone with a portable and apparently covert heat source that could accomplish something like that… this is new.

Alright, King County Metro. There is a new bar to reach for bus weirdness. Good luck.

*She was off at the next stop. Do not dick around with suburban buses – they will not put up with your shenanigans.

**He was right. A disproportionate number of my friends do indeed identify as being part of the gays. Whoops!

Update: did you ever superglue coins to things? You know, to be a jerk? I did, but only on wood floors.

A friend did too, but on a greater variety of surfaces than I did, it seems. And she postulates that this is the remnants of someone doing exactly that wonderful, hilarious dick move on the bus.

How much more sense does that make than my hypothesis? Oh, all the sense. All of it.

Hither and Thither #9

As I mentioned last week, I listen to a lot of podcasts. It’s at the point that I’m pretty choosy about taking new ones on, because I hate a backlog. (The 47 unheard podcasts on my phone as of this writing would be surprised to learn that.) However, when I read Sarah Vowell’s post about 99% Invisible on Facebook, I got that big-pupilled Kate Beaton drawing look on my face that means “WE WANTS IT, GIVE IT TO US.” I’m looking forward to diving in this weekend.

In the meantime, they have a Kickstarter to support their next season. I am 99 percent sure I will be throwing them money once I listen to, oh, about 0.75 of one of the podcasts. Because it is a podcast about beauty, design, intention, and history. Are you kidding me.

division squigglebavarians with gunsAn overview of Washington’s own deeply unlikely Bavarian-style town, written by a British woman on her Paris-themed blog. Yes, internet, I like you just fine.

I like Leavenworth, although I’ve been once and don’t feel compelled to go again. I went around Christmas with friends several years ago. Lots of tourists in weird hats, due to an oddly successful weird hat store, placed prominently in the center of the town. My favorite part was a big, big tree, its canopying branches carefully wrapped in softly glowing blue-white lights. If it hadn’t been about 25 degrees, I might’ve laid down on the stone wall beneath it and stared up at it and the peeks of midnight-blue sky showing through for hours. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that I didn’t have a camera up for capturing it. Continue reading →

Hanauma Bay: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

Or: A Semi-Complete Record of the Warning Signs of a Mighty Fine Snorkeling Spot.

hanauma bay 1

One of my main goals* for Hawaii was snorkeling, something I’ve been longing to do for the last, oh, four or five years. We decided to go to Hanauma Bay on the basis that it is beautiful, and because of a lovely teenage memory of chasing a glorious rainbow fish through the coral for what felt like hours.** Continue reading →