I fear I may be becoming boring. Working a 9-to-5 (or 11 to 7, as is sometimes the case) seems to sap much of the energy I normally devote to dropping beats, owning punk bitches, and generally being rad. Instead, I’ve been doing things like reading novels, browsing the internets, and playing video games that I’ve already beaten more times than I can count. Perhaps owing to the sparser nature of my social life of late, it’s been drawn to my attention by several alert readers that I have passed over important events in silence, events which it is crucially important everyone understand to have happened. I will bring out the bullet points in order that they may be more conveniently enumerated.
Two weekends ago I made the exodus to Gig Harbor to visit with two of the people who made high school bearable, Lisa Coffey and Brett Ozolin. Lisa continually complains about her exclusion from this blog, despite my repeated attempts to placate her with token mentions such as this one. Brett is blissfully unaware of my online presence. In any case, we met with the Coffey family for a while at Lisa’s house, and they seemed glad to see us. Lisa’s parents both secretly wish that Lisa had dated Brett or me — we both tried to during high school, after all — and are very nice to us. I can only imagine what they say to Lisa about us when we’re not around. We passed the bulk of the evening at a local bar (one of two in Gig Harbor) whose name is a Native American phrase something like “The Hy Iu Hee Hee.” Maybe I’m not alone in this, but whenever I go out for a social event in my hometown I get very worried that I’ll run into someone I went to high school with that made fun of me all the time, while at the same time another part of me welcomes the encounter and the opportunity to demonstrate how much better I can handle myself these days. Thus I was secretly disappointed to see not a single drunken football player or cheerleader. The three of us had some enlightening conversation, learning, among other things, that Brett’s most fervent wishes for his life are to build a car from scratch, visit China, and learn to be an underwater welder. Noble goals, all.
Last weekend I attended my first party within walking distance of my new apartment. It was notable for three reasons. First, the house has a “playroom” in the backyard, which in reality is a sound-proofed recording studio complete with an eight-foot mixing board. Various musical types jammed inside all night, and apparently Roark busted some jams on the harmonica before I arrived. Second, I ran into my friend Leyla, whom I hadn’t seen since my freshman year in the dorms. Embarrassingly, she recognized me long before I could remember who she was. Third, the police showed up in response to a noise complaint and the party didn’t end. This ran so contrary to my every experience with parties that I had to ask the host if he was joking. He said they would come every two hours or so until the party ended at 6 a.m. See, in the University District, the police not only come, but are obligated to give you a noise ordinance violation on the first visit. Apparently they are much more reasonable in regions inhabited mostly by full-fledged adults.
On Tuesday, the Arcade Fire played a show in Portland to which I drove with Roark and saw with my older sister, who lives there. It was my first show at the Crystal Ballroom, Portland’s analog to The Showbox, and I was fairly impressed. The band put on a show to equal their appearance at Sasquatch Fest (or nearly so), and after the encore they played a two-song acoustic set outdoors, standing in the middle of what my sister insists is a major Portland thoroughfare, surrounded by grinning fans. The best thing about the venue is that it has a floating dance floor, meaning that it shakes up and down when people dance. Jen and I had the usual Portland / Seattle debate, but this time I think I won decisively: “Portland is where people from Seattle go when they just give up.” Roark and I drove back the same night, which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds — well, I should say that I drove back; Roark, despite promising to drive back to Seattle since I had driven to Portland, crapped out forty miles into the return voyage and surrendered the wheel to me. A combination of Red Bull, loud music and singing, and open windows blasting cold air into my face kept me awake for the three hours. I managed to make it to bed by 5:30, an event from which my sleep schedule has still not recovered.
Finally, as many people already know, Alice is coming back to Seattle somewhat earlier than originally planned. She’ll be arriving in 7 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 20 seconds. But who’s counting?
Note: I wrote this several days ago, but my free webhosting acted up and didn’t allow me access to the goods until now. One gets what one pays for. You can do the math to figure out the what “several days” is to me; the current Alice Countdown is 2 days, 7 minutes, and 27 seconds.
Posted in Musings.
By Zach Musgrave
– September 28, 2005
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