wildcat

I just had two bagels with lox cream cheese, the last piece of the Dada Cake, and watched the Hellboy Director's Cut. There were some deleted scenes, but I'll save those for later. I'm smack dab in the middle of lin edits and some tweaking to my short story, so that I can submit it for workshop on Wednesday. I'm trying to something with the retrospective narrator to imply his current life and physical position, but I'm not sure how well it's working. I'm going through and adding things while I fix up mistakes and reword things.

Seattle was a scene. It felt really good to get away from the responsibilities of Victoria and my life here, and to have some quality time with Michael. I'm afraid I drowned him in my neuroses, though. We had a variety of cuisine - Indian (at this place called "the Jewel of India," on 45th Street), Thai-Moroccan (which doesn't make sense, odd combination, at the Pike Place Market), and Japanese (again, odd, on Broadway, with mayonnaise in the sushi and fortune cookies at the end). I forget how much I love sashimi; it's a gorgeous way to break the monotony of rolls and nigiri. At the market I had a Vegetable Panang which was excellent, by that point I was in the mood for mild because the spicy Indian food the night before left both of us with the essence du methane.

It was in a lot of ways a culture shock. Seattle feels like some kind of other world - but rather than a completely alien planet, it was more like a parallel universe where everything is backwards or evil. Pagliacci's was a pizza joint. I kept expecting to see Spock walk in with a beard. The atmosphere felt tense and dark and different, there was a definite lack of public displays of affection - we were just never comfortable - and there were people in our hotel with confederate flags on their hats and plans to go hunting. What? The social climate and ambiance of the place felt invasive and while I was interesting to explore I definitely didn't feel comfortable there.

But we did some other cool things: at the market, there's a wicked Bohemian bookstore called Left Hand Books which was like a pocket of normal space inside the parallel universe, a narrow three-storey bookstore that extended up like a column, every wall made out of books. It had sections on Gender Politics, Animal Politics, and Dada & Surrealism. There was another bookstore with cats. A trip to a very busy comic book store and another one that was very, very confined. A wind-up toy store. I walked away with too much money spent: books by Gertrude Stein, André Breton, Martin Amis, and Kathy Acker. A pair of graphic novels. Too many toys, including an Edgar Allan Poe action figure. I bought my mum a carved wooden box from a Moroccon store, where Michael studiously avoiding asking about the hookah in the window.

There was a typewriter. It was glorious, but it had no case. It was at Twice Told Tales and there was no price either, and we couldn't lug that thing around. But the Typewriter Spirit in my head longed to get out and relax in its keys.

Interesting. I've always disliked my middle name because it wasn't spelled "Alan," and it wasn't "Allen" (like Woody). But it's the same as Edgar's. Cool. New spin.

Went to the Art Museum, looked at a big exhibit on Spain between 1492 and 1718, including a painting by Tiepolo. I had to do a paper on him for art history in first year. There were other floors, and I got to see several Andy Warhol silkscreens up close, a Roy Lichtenstein, amongst others. I was exhausted, but my spirit gobbled things up. Michael limped around with a bad knee after a fall on the boat, but it was looking better this morning before we left the hotel to come home. I'm amazed he put up with some of my more anxious moments, but somehow he walked away with more books than me (including a Dali retrospective, a consolation prize after I snatched up the Gertrude Stein How to Write book).

The trip back took to long and we had to get up too early, but I got home by noon and then went over to Joy and Matt's house to watch Kids in the Hall and drink cocktails. After that, a session at Second Storey where that same strange guy working on a novel was, peering at us at usual. I always feel like he's watching me out of the corner of his eye (or outright staring). But you know me - desperate to feel important.