Nathan, enjoying a latte in the other Washington.

When it comes to trains, planes and automobiles, I'm like a wheat-colored linen suit. I pack easily, but I don't travel well. Take me out at my destination and I'm rife with wrinkles and motion sickness, Dramamine hangovers and jet lag. Being away from my Systems and Routines makes me anxious. So I don't leave home much.

I've been Back East only once since moving to Seattle; three years ago I flew to Massachusetts for an August weekend, in part to transport a cat. It was a whirlwind three-day tour of Plymouth and Cambridge, but I managed to see nearly everyone I knew in Boston. Since then, the astronomical cost of airfare, combined with my above comparisons to wilting fabric, have kept me largely stationed in the Pacific Northwest.

But I'm building a website for Nathan Bright Autumn Sky's new documentary film and the details are best communicated hands-on. So he flew me out to the other Capitol Hill, in the other Washington, for a few days of multimedia collaboration, fine food and sightseeing.

It was shaping up to be a monumental occasion. It was my first junket as a designer, my first trip to D.C. since the 8th grade, and my first visit with Nathan in more than four years.

Our past adventures took place mainly in New England. The last time I saw him was days before I left Somerville to venture West. An electrical storm seized the city and we sat on the dilapidated front porch of my old Victorian house, eating sushi and watching the lightning chase itself across the violet sky. Then I drove to Seattle and he flew to Guatemala. It was postcards and time capsules via the U.S. Postal Service for the next four years.

Speaking of the Postal Service, I had a minor epiphany on the Eastbound plane.
Knuckles clenched to white as the landing gear detracts for flight... I looked up from my CSS book, which had held me captive for endless hours, to see fields cut up into postage stamps below. I watch the patchwork farms slowfade into the ocean's arms. I breathed in the recycled air, realizing the entire album Give Up is about this very moment - flying from Seattle to Washington D.C. Later as I'm wrestling with the window shades in preparation for sleep, trying to block out the streetlights perfectly angled onto my eyelids, I'm thinking in the livingroom late last night it was almost too bright to sleep.

The night is warm when I arrive and Nathan and I take the Metro to a sushi bar in an old converted house, with a sprawling roof deck open to the autumn sky, with strings of lights forming a makeshift ceiling, and the full moon casting a glow through the haze. We walk for miles through town, and I try to take in all the details. It's exhausting; there's so much to look at. So much to archive for writing fodder later on.

On Friday we get all scrubbed up and suited and head to the best cafe in D.C. that has killer espresso served on tiny crystal plates with animal crackers. The huge windows are framed with bentwood art noveau flourishes. I order the item I have missed quite possible more than anything else: a bagel. A toasted sesame bagel, with cream cheese and lox.

We are there to do work before meeting with the media people at the non-profit. I look up at Nathan in his gunmetal pressed oxford shirt, about to dive into his latte, and I start cracking up. We're sitting there with our matching 17" MacBook Pros open back to back, drinking espresso and looking so intolerably yuppie that it kills me. It kills me because I know us. I know where we come from. And it ain't here.

The non-essential I was most excited about was a giant hazelnut iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. Admitting this openly in Seattle would get me drawn and quartered in short order. Many people tell me I can buy Dunkin' Donuts ground coffee beans in the grocery now. Apologies, but it's not the same. We had to wait in line for a long time to get it, but once my hands were wrapped around that ginormous tub of iced hazelnutty goodness, I could feel the actual joy racing through my veins. I took a long swallow and then smiled: Mission Accomplished. My work here is done.

Some tidbits from out on the town...

Just --- DON'T. Okay?

And for all the NW naysayers, here's the true identity of your precious "Dreyers." Now you can stop making fun of me for always calling it the wrong name.

Second floor: wooly mammoths, ladies lingerie...

Hi. I live in Capitol Hill. No - the other Capitol Hill - in Washington. No - the other Washington.

NaNoWriMo Agreement and Statement of Understanding

I hereby pledge my intent to write a 50,000 word novel in one month's time. By invoking an absurd, month-long deadline on such an enormous undertaking, I understand that notions of "craft," "brilliance," and "competency" are to be chucked right out the window, where they will remain, ignored, until they are retrieved for the editing process.

I understand that I am a talented person, capable of heroic acts of creativity, and I will give myself enough time over the course of the next month to allow my innate gifts to come to the surface, unmolested by self-doubt, self-criticism, and other acts of self-bullying.

I also acknowledge that, upon successful completion of the stated noveling objective, I am entitled to a period of gleeful celebration and revelry, the duration and intensity of which may preclude me from participating fully in workplace activities for days, if not weeks, afterward.

_______________________

Committed. In every sense of the word.

It was a slender slice of dream that carried me home. A memory of the magical afternoon I napped above the city in the open window of 610 Beacon St., sun on my face, wrapped in amber and dandelions, with piano music drifting in through the leaded glass. Swimming in a winterocean colored sweater. Hair long, dark and tangled, twirled around me like a mermaid. I dreamed about Eisuke and train bridges. For hours I drifted along in that twilight state, the music mixed in with my dreams and my dreams mixed in with the daylight. I awoke to a cup of green apple tea, a fuzzy scarf, stars in my eyes and tinsel in my hair.

That was ten years ago, the memory etched in my mind like a movie. This morning I opened my new notebook with the autumn ribbon bookmark from VVB that says October, hay rides and pumpkin pie, punctuated with tiny leaves and apples. I wrote about that mystical nap. In my freshly-caffeinated analytical mind - the part of me that sees colors in hexidecimals - I tried to parse that memory, to uncover the formula responsible for its machination. But staring at the neat white pages of my Blueline hardcover A9 journal, I realized I was the formula.

Instant dreamstate; just add girl.

It's the crap I heap on top of my inherently magical existence that renders Wishville uninhabitable. A theory of holistic healing: don't add something to an unhealthy state to make it well; see what needs to be removed. I get in my own way more often than I'd like to admit.

I uncovered this realization and instantly began the listmaking - the autumn rituals that make preparing for winter less like readying for war and more like packing for vacation. Mulled cider, pomegranate tea, baking bread in my tiny Parisian checkered tile kitchen. Mounds of velvet blankets, making soup, vanilla and sandalwood candles, new music, tinfoil stars hung from the ceiling. Tiny white lights, colossal honeycrisp apples sliced with cinnamon, a black and white striped scarf. Luxurious hours spent sprawled in a pile of old magazines with an x-acto knife and rubber cement, creating images for people I love. Painting my textured dreams with a fluffy Siamese asleep on my hip. Curled in a swirl of jewel-toned pillows, wrapped in amber and dandelions.

I sat down at my desk at work and several people commented on my appearance. "You must be feeling better." I called in sick Tuesday because I had projects to tend to; my job is interfering with my work. "You look... happy." My enormous light box is on full blast, bathing my relieved expression in artificial sunlight. It will suffice for now.

Last night I lie awake in bed, packing for the Rhode Island seashore. But I don't have to move to Jupiter, FL or Cambridge, MA. I need to stay where I am - stay who I am. Wherever you go, there you are. And I'm pretty good company.

TO DO
1. Nap on Flatrat
2. Eat
3. Look strategically cute

{ VVB took this photo of me searching for purple starfish on Alki Point. }

{ oh wait! here's one now. }

The summer has washed past in a flurry of sunsets and cupcakes, lakeside picnics and mountainview drives. This was the longest sabbatical I've ever taken from blogging in the past six years. I missed it. I kept feeling like I was forgetting to do something.

Breaking the seal here again is daunting. Like a long-distance friend whose phone calls you screen because the responsibility of bringing them up-to-date on your life is overwhelming. Like the first run after a decadent Thanksgiving holiday. Like three days' worth of dishes in the sink.

I thought taking a break would open up time and energy that I could invest elsewhere, but I'm beginning to see that's scarcity thinking. Creativity is not limited. In fact, it's like exercise; the more you do, the better you get and the more you desire it.

It's the "shoulds" that drown me. As soon as a task is relegated to "should" status, it loses its charm and becomes a burden. If I ignore the burden, it becomes paralysis. The other day I was ranting about Things I Should Be Doing, and VVB said, "You're shoulding all over the place!"

Let's remove the word "should" from the English language. "Should" is a weighted, multi-layered word that can only spell trouble. Take this example: late Saturday morning sprawled quite comfortably in bed, the question arises: "Should we get up?"

Now, "shall we" implies an invitation, and "could we" is a question of logistics. But "should we" implies some invisible jury lurking in the shadows, imposing their moral judgment on my eagerness to lounge another hour in sin. Could we get up? Yes. Should we get up? Probably. Do I want to get up? Hell no.

In any case, eliminating the "should" from my writing agenda changes my world view from one of scarcity to one of abundance. I can update, and I will do so whenever I damn well please.

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching. I anticipate it with a mix of titillation and dread. It's an insane undertaking but par for the course. I had some ideas flitting about my brain, mostly dreams I've had - images flickering across my lobes. At Band of Horses on Saturday, a boy asked his girl to marry him in between songs. My eyes flooded. It was perfect. Perfect as the image of a girl alone in a garage, smashing a guitar in her flip flops, feeling like an adulteress. Perfect as sunset lying palm to palm, ankle-deep in Alki sand.

I still spend my mornings at the Cafe, and I suspect that's where I'll write my novel. I'm homesick for the Someday Cafe lately, though the term "homesick" is no longer accurate. It's faded into garden-variety nostalgia. I was missing the crisp bricked streets of Harvard Sq. last week, September in Cambridge (a good book title, sequel to "August in Winter Hill"), falafel in Central Sq., the deep underground smell of the Harvard T stop.

But then I wonder if I miss Cambridge in actuality, or I miss how I saw it then, who I was. Because life in the Aloha Cabana is absolutely stellar right now, and my plans for the fall brewing like mulled cider, and I am still in love with Seattle after all these years - the millions of tiny charms that tickle me daily, still reeling over an August sunset behind the Space Needle, or the overgrown verdant tunnels of Queen Anne, or the mismatched gingerbread houses of Capitol Hill. The scene never gets old for me. I soak up Broadway on a Friday night, taking that route home even when it's unnecessary, because riding through the thick of it inspires me and makes me feel like I belong there - like I'm home.

And even now I can be nostalgic for last fall, in all its torrid insanity and upheaval. I was reading my journal from last September and felt a pang - compassion for myself, marked with a fleck of envy at being so wide open, even if it had been a painful ripping that got me there. Cease to Begin on my chunky headphones, the leaves gathering on the Blaine St. stairs as I walked to work, drinking homemade coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, sometimes angry that the Stella was out of commission and sometimes grateful to have an excuse to wander meditatively in the misty morning.

So maybe "missing" isn't any more accurate than "homesick" - maybe I'm just remembering and appreciating a time that was colorful and alive. Even if the giant Now is just as rich.


And arms outstretched
I embrace
the fall.

Good news first?

I finished my pro-girl scootering site. This means you non-scooter types will no longer be bored to tears reading about my latest forays into the underworld of Frankenstella.

The bad news? I'm taking some time off from Wishville to work on it. School's out for summer... you know how it goes.

But wait - there's more... I've migrated joyfulthing.diaryland.com into the Wishville archives, so you now have six years worth of my self-aggrandizing prose to entertain yourself, should you suffer withdrawal. More likely, you'll do something constructive with your extra twenty minutes a week.

I may be living in Wishville again this fall, but I can't make any promises. I also may be back here occasionally to share the truly noteworthy, like making the New York Times Bestseller list or figuring out how to type "restaurant" without spellcheck. So save my seat.

And now I present to you, my finest achievement yet in both CSS design and uber-passionate content (click the logo to see!):

Oh, and one last thing - if you're in the Seattle area, you should totally come to the All City Scooter Community Day on Saturday at noon. And I'm not just saying that because I built the web site.

Keep the rubber side down.

>^,,^<

Thankfully, opportunities in my chosen profession are already opening up for me. I've been putting my education to splendid use.

For example, I recently teamed up with Joni Jett to create the logo and patch for the Westenders first annual rally, Tour di Mari #1. Now this is why I went to college! Jett did most of the work, drawing the graphic, and I did the design. It was fun collaborating. I love working with other creative people. Here's the final product:

Anyways, I built the Westenders web site this winter. While brainstorming ideas for the patch on the Westenders Forum, Jett and I got into a Fark-style Photoshop war. The Rally is named after the "Water Ride" which features Lake Washington, Lake Union and Puget Sound, so Tour di Mari ("tour of the seas") seemed fitting. The topic of Swamp Thing naturally arose:

Jett added me to the equation:

I nearly pissed my pants when I saw it. She gave me a framed version of this brilliant piece of work to hang in the Aloha Cabana.

I had to get back at her when we started talking about outfits for the Cretins "Mods & Rockers" Rally in a few weeks. She wanted an outfit to match her Atomic Fireball Stella. I found a string bikini with flames on it, and someone suggested this as inspiration for Jett's outfit:

One thing led to another, and this was my suggestion for Jett:

Like I said, putting my education to good use.

Won't momma be proud.

I thought instead of jumping off the Aurora Bridge I'd console myself with this photograph I took of Bee shoveling twenty-six inches of snow off the front porch of Chaos Cottage in Summahville.

It's kind of related to this one, which is Bee eating a frozen rat in the kitchen.

I can't remember exactly why. But I'm sure it had something to do with being trapped in the house in May with twenty-six inches of snow outside.

So, I'm grateful it's only rain. Cause I've got some scary stuff in my freezer.

Last week Kerry and I headed over to Ballard to watch drunk rich kids attempt to maneuver their fathers' yachts through the Locks. More entertaining than television.

After we trolled the locks, we headed over to Lock Spot Cafe Trivia Night. I live in a little bubble, which often rolls into a cave. So unless the trivia focuses on animals, science, indie rock or scooters, I'm of little use. But my three teammates held their own, with Kevin's freakish arsenal of knowledge taking the cake, and Kerry's identification of Calista Flockhart's upsidedown yearbook photo winning us a pitcher of beer. We got stumped on the states bordering Wyoming, and I probably could have retraced my cross-country drive and been more helpful, but by then my brain had shut down and I was in a strawberry shortcake coma. That's okay. I won Scrabble on Saturday.

Long live Ballard!

I got a new front rack for Aphrodite. She wears it well, the bling. I said with finality, "Okay -- I'm done putting stuff on this scooter. I'm serious." And my friends laughed and reminded me that there are no further accessories available.

I finally got a Corazzo riding jacket, after much ado. I've been trying them on for a year now. Obviously, female scooterists are all miniature, so none of the jackets made it past my elbows or covered my navel. I tried them on over and over, growling each time. I contacted Corazzo and asked if they could make me custom jacket, and they couldn't. So I went down to Vespa Seattle every other week, hoping my arms shrank and my waist got shorter during the winter months. I tried on all the boy's jackets, too. The only boy's jacket that fit was the The Max, which is super-insulated and would be overkill in the summer - even in the Pacific Northwest.

The problem is that men's jackets are not proportioned for a girl's figure - imagine that! - and riding jackets have to fit snugly, with the armor lined up appropriately at shoulders and elbows. They also need to be comfortable when you're stretched out in riding position. So if the men's jacket fit in the waist, it was too tight across the chest, and if the arms were long enough, the shoulders made me look like a football player. It was just all kinds of wrong.

I even tried on a few different jackets up at Vespa Eastside, thinking they might fit better in Woodinville. (The altitude is different.) No go. When I was back at Vespa Seattle last week whining about my predicament, Tina offered to contact Corazzo and see if she could pull some strings. She's good like that.

Well, Corazzo still couldn't custom sew me any new attire, but they sent Tina a men's Speedway jacket that is two inches longer in the waist and arms, and slimmer fitting in the shoulders. She called to tell me about it and 15 minutes later I was down there trying it on. It fit! It's a miracle!

On a semi-unrelated note, one of the requirements for employment at Vespa Seattle must be stunning good looks. Everyone who works there is hot. Like, hello I-forgot-what-I-was-going-to-say hot. It blows my mind every time I'm there. What a fabulous marketing tactic.

My new jacket is electric blue, to match my scooter, with white stripes. It makes me look like Speed Racer. And get this - it makes my bike faster! At the Westenders ride on Monday I was talking to Nate, who got a new black GTS, and he'd put racing stripes on it. I told him it looked really sharp - and faster. He smiled and told me earnestly, "The racing stripes actually do make it faster!" His conviction was the cutest thing ever. I nodded wholeheartedly in agreement. When I put my new Speed Racer gear on and took a spin, I realized this magical law of physics also applies to jackets.

Now I'm super reflective and fully armored. A girl's got to protect her rack. It's not just for bling, you know.

Aphrodite reflects Queenie's scooter, parked nearby. God bless Turtlewax.

We down with OPP (other people's picnics).