Seattle Sinister

Seattle is a truly sinister place. Sometimes it's pure evil. Please, I'm not being over dramatic, this city is in some ways, at some times @#$%ed-up!!!

Exhibit A. Parking
Have you EVER seen so many parking patrol cars? I saw a meter cop on a segway the other day! "Dear Cop, we already do not take you seriously since you are a parking enforcer, but you ride a segway and you think that it necessitates wearing a helmet?!?"
But seriously. The revenue gained by writing tickets left and right would be fine by me if I thought it was being spent to give us more buses, better sidewalks, and finish that damn monorail already!!! From the numbers I could dig up, Seattle made over $210,000 on parking fines last year and bought at least 8 Dodge Chargers with custom paint to use on their "Aggressive Driver Response Team". Ahem. WE WOULDN'T BE SO AGGRESSIVE IF YOU STOPPED TICKETING US FOR PARKING ON THE STREET WHEN WE HAVE NO OTHER MODE OF TRANSPORTATION!
Also, have you ever seen a city with more on-off parking restrictions? On many streets in Seattle you need a zone# parking sticker to park there more than 2 hours. Other streets you can park on the right side of the street, but not between the hours of 4-6pm, the other side of the street you can't park between 7-9am and there are so many bushes and signs and posters it's like decoding a Mayan tablet while drunk and blindfolded!

Exhibit B. Lincoln Towing
If you own a car and you live in the 206, I don't have to explain how @#$%ed-up this company is. I have seen them waiting on certain streets for the hour to end so they can car-nap your little VW Golf and then hold it for $200.00 in ransom. I HATE THEM.

Exhibit C. Delivery/Restaurant Hours
There is none. With the exception of a pizza, or Thai food(with a minimum or $30.00) delivered to your door in an hour-hour and 45min. it just plain does not exist. And who needs $30.00 worth of pad-thai?
Restaurants in this town are LAZY! Or is it the lazy people who eat dinner at 5pm are ruining it for the rest of us? Most restaurants in Seattle are on a cryptic time frame where they are closed Sun-Tues., open 11:30-2pm for lunch then closed until 5pm for dinner. Then they stop serving dinner at 9pm. 9:00?!?!?! I'm sorry, we are not all wanting the early bird special and then to go home and catch re-runs of that terrible Charlie Sheen show, Two and a Half Men. Was there never a time in this fair city when people left work at 5-6 and then grabbed a couple cocktails before wanting to eat? Or what about going to see a show and then getting dinner after? Guess not.

Well, no more negativity for today. I guess I'm just crabby since the car was ticketed and towed this morning and no one will bring me Indian food for lunch.

Watch what you Wear

Clothes say a lot about a person. For example, if I wore a postmaster uniform, you would assume you could ask me the going price of a postage stamp, and presumably I would tell you to buy the really ugly liberty bell "forever stamps" since stamp prices will jump another 3-7 cents every 2 months and your stupid Picasso stamps will be worthless. (also, I just noticed that there is no cent symbol on the keyboard. There is the $ symbol...looking, looking...nope. No cent symbol. Strange).

Back to clothes. It is not only uniforms that say something about you. Very tight thin black jeans, a checkered middle-eastern scarf, large plastic framed vanity glasses(non-prescription lenses), and flat pointed shoes is a good indicator that you listen to obscure bands, spend your paycheck on PBRs and t-shirts from Urban Outfitters. OR you are a 56 year old lead singer from a 70's cover band that works 3 days a week serving pizza, and you date 20 year-olds whose biggest dream in life is to get a turntable to actually play their loose collection of vinyl on. No judgment.

The other night I went with my friend to a restaurant I had never been to before. I was wearing a super cute asian collared, red with silver and gold dandelion print dress from the 60's I found for $18. It was very cute. Very red. And very Asian. The restaurant we went to was Benihana. For those of you(like me), who don't know what that is, it is a Japanese(loosely inspired) restaurant with 0ver 80 locations in the US, including 9 branches in Texas and 4 in New Jersey. Imagine my delight(read: horror) at finding myself walking into an Asian-ish restaurant wearing what some could guess to be the uniform of it's employees. My best friend told me not to worry, no one would notice anyway.

The first round of food was served to us with impressive knife skills, however we were bathed in the steam and smoke from the grill being located at our table. I decided to go to the ladies room to see if any of my makeup had survived the grill-side facial. On the meandering walk back through the cavernous restaurant, I was asked by a woman "oh! is this your restaurant?" Even though all the employees wear black at this establishment, this woman assumed that because I was,

a). half the age of all the employees
b). a white woman
c.) wearing that damn red Asian-inspired dress!

that I owned the restaurant. Well, there was really only one response. I gave her a 100watt smile and said, "why yes! Are you enjoying your meal? Can I get your waitress to bring you anything else?" Thankfully the patron declined, because had they ordered another round of Sapporos or some edamame, they never would have gotten it. I posed my hands in that Buddhist prayer style, gave a bow-yes, BOW, and then told her "Dōmo arigatō" and walked away. I think that means "thank you"....or "make me a awesome sword so I can avenge myself against my former Judo Master"...I've seen Kill Bill like 20 times...either way... it sounded pretty good.

Well, thus proves my point that clothes are powerful. In the right hands they can bring you fraudulent restaurant ownership fame, but in the wrong hands they can make you blend in at a Phish concert. Moral of the story: I don't like hipsters or trust the post office. Also, Phish fans are ridiculous.

Sriracha Syndrome

So, it's been a couple of stressful weeks lately. Between work, making plans with friends getting back into town, moving and painting every wall in my house, and preparing for a show at my shop, I have started a strange activity I like to call "stress-spicing".

A close cousin to stress-eating, stress-spicing is when whatever you are eating or drinking you feel the need to punch in the teeth with cayenne pepper, cocoa powder, hand shaved nutmeg, bucketloads of curry sauce or my favorite: sriracha, sriracha and more sriracha!

What is this? Why does this happen? Well, having a degree in medicine and a doctorate in the way the brain works(also known as brainyography), I can tell you that the neural receptors for taste and sight are un-affected by time of day, amount of direct sunlight, or sexual preference.* Thus, I feel fairly confident in my assessment that "stress-spicing" (or as us medical professionals refer to it in the 2010 bio-medical journal Health-ish as "Spicicological Predispository Manipulating Syndrome*), is caused by the need to feel aware, awake, engaged and otherwise involved. Patients studied with this syndrome were found to have fairly boring, mundane, or lackluster lives. As Clinical Study Patient 2B put it; "I just don't really give a #$%&". Adding spice to foods is one way those suffering from SPMS try to enhance their lives and deal with the symptoms if not the actual cause of their condition.

A sister condition known as ACTE, Add Cheese To Everything, can be even more serious than SPMS since dairy and heavy calories are known to be hard on digestive tracks, and excessive calories can cause weight gain creating a side affect to ACTE known as WWMMNDA, Want to Watch Mad Men and Not Do Anything.

Hopefully my disclosure and honesty of suffering from SPMS will cause more people to come out of the closet where they have been spicing up their foods and we can all go play a super-charged game of tackle kick-ball while wearing flight attendant uniforms and chewing 18 sticks of gum. Time to spice up our lives not our mac-n-cheese!!!

*all medical claims and sources sited are fraudulent and have no basis in medical fact. The blogger does not posses any actual knowledge biologically speaking, or medically. In fact, she never learned the song the "leg bone is connected to the hip bone" and thinks that blood is "icky" and will faint at the sight of needles. She once asked to have her uterus removed so she could wear tinier belts.

Almost isn't Good Enough

This morning my lovely friend Jamie and I were piling brightly colored and patterned lamp shades into the car so that we could take them up to Queen Ann for a window display. Neither one of us had been indulged with coffee or breakfast and as we merrily finished loading the last of the shades, all we could think was- "great! this is only taking 10 minutes, soon we will have a cup of coffee in hand and we will finish this window so we can go get some delicious food at Cafe Presse".

Please note that I mentioned we were maybe parked on the side of the alley for 8-10minutes.

I had made sure to park against the wall so that other cars could still get by, and since my shop is in a fairly residential neighborhood, I figured at 10:37am, who is going to care?

Old, crotchety, barkingly-mad octogenarians that's who!!!

Old-man-white-Ford-Taurus pulls up and climbs out of his car- his little sedan that I guarantee you- could well make it past my car to drive on through the alleyway, and starts berating Jamie about parking there when I walk out with the last load of lampshades. Not only does he NOT ask if we(2 young girls in various un-practical shoes & over burdened with armloads of shades), need help- but he berates us? Jamie tells him "we're almost out of here", and he proceeds to yell at her as he clambers back into his white Taurus- "Almost isn't good enough!!!"

Um, what?

Yes. He actually said that. I think we can all surmise that this man was told that countless times as a child by his abusive mother before she walked out on him, thus leaving him to feel like all well-dressed, busy ladies are abusive and are taking up HIS valuable space- along an alley or otherwise. Look Scrooge, go get a therapist and work out your issues so you can leave un-suspecting ladies loading lamp shades into a beat-up Subaru alone!

Long blog short, why don't we give each other some leeway, a couple grace minutes, and back off a bit!? If we don't, we may find ourselves facing a alley in a white Ford Taurus hating our mothers and cursing out- "ALMOST ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!".... sounds good enough to me.

Stayin' Classy, Not Trashy.

Just in case there are any young, impressionable ladies reading this blog, here is a post especially targeted for you:

NO naked pictures.

They seem like a good idea at the time. It's 11:30 at night and you are texting a cute boy and he requests a "pic" of you. Send him a cute shoulder, elbow, knee, even your feet in a bath tub, but I guarantee you, sending a full frontal, boob shot, money shot, whatever shot- will not end well. I'm telling you the truth. Plus, why throw out all the mystique? A well captured coy look over your bare shoulder is by far hotter in tiny pixelated format than your boobs shot with your iphone's anamorphic lens. (Making them seem bigger but also completely distorting your nipples and honey, you don't need that).
Also, sending naked pics on the internet, or even uploading them onto your computer, is bad, BAD, news. Once it's in the interweb- you can never get it back. If you're looking for a career based on bad PR and gossip columns, by all means, send that money shot and hope it goes viral. For the rest of us though? Stay classy, not trashy.
Back in my day, or rather slightly before, naked Polaroids were the way to play it. They produced that under-developed artsy look and made all your flaws fade while casting you in this moody blue tone. That said, you can burn a Polaroid and there are no negatives, no back up files, no hard drive-thumb nail-copy folder somewhere. The carefree Polaroid was killed by the scanner though, so all in all, it's best not to get too risque in front of the lens these days.

Darlings, I hope you take this to heart. Sexting is great fun, but safe sexts is the best sexts. After all, as my good friend Lynda pointed out, Peaches Geldof was penned to write and produce and rock the UK fashion/editorial world until nudie pics of her surfaced. Let that serve as warning enough...oh, and don't name your daughters Peaches, Pixie, or Fifi.

Grab the day by the pink panties.

Yesterday I decided since I was in an "off" mood, the weather was bi-polar and my steam iron broke, I would pull myself together, wear my favorite panties, and just go get it! (the day I mean).

Well, here's how that turned out. I had to redo a lamp shade twice(I make lamp shades for a living if you don't know that), I received multiple texts from someone who I had canceled out of my life for good reason over a year ago, and I a ran into a girl on the street who the last time I saw her, she basically insulted me for half an hour over a coffee I bought her!

When you are feeling fragile and sensitive, the littlest things can seem huge. Yesterday when I got those "little texts", they sent me into this wretched freak-out attack, making me question if I was still "back there", or if this person would turn into a crazy stalker/killer and come and get me while I would be redoing this shade for the 4th time late that night. Today, having erased all those stupid texts, I realize that no one can come into your life if you don't want them to. They can text or call, maybe show up at your door. But you can, erase, not answer and slam that door in their face and go back to watching 30 Rock on your sofa, "eating my night cheese!", thank YOU, Liz Lemon. Sure they can pop back up when you least expect or want them to, but they don't get to take up any more space in your head then you allow.

That girl on the street? Well, she seems to have forgotten that last time I saw her she had left her manners, charm and common courtesy at home with her wallet, but it was classy and kind of me to buy her that cup of coffee, and it was absolutely RIGHT of me to not spend any more energy on someone like that. I have plenty of friends who deserve a good cup or charitable coffee that would spend that half hour sipping it and telling me jokes, witticisms, or just chatting pleasantly with me and appreciating the time spent together. I will continue spending $3.75(Seattlites will pay up to $8.50 for a cup of Joe, it's a sickness), and 30 min. with them. Done.

The lamp shade? Well, since my iron is still broke, and the new one hasn't arrived from the magical Amazon truck yet, I have a slight reprieve. I think I will use this time to hunt online for more pink panties, wearing them on days I don't feel "off" seems like a plan.

2:16 AM

I'm not a great sleeper. Ok, actually, I am horrible at it. Always have been. I read that people with insomnia are cheaters. Well, I've never been good at it, I haven't a clue who or what I was cheating on when I was 7...I'm pretty sure it is a biological flaw, not a character one.

You see, I am tired at all the wrong times. 3 in the afternoon, Sunday brunch hour, 8pm at night. That's what happened last night. I was falling asleep at 9:30 and had I forced myself to stay awake, read a book, watch Beetlejuice(again), it wouldn't have made me drift off perfect and peaceful come midnight. I would have stayed fixed on that book till "the end". I would have put in Edward Scissor-Hands after the credits rolled naming Michael Keaton in his(as far as I'm concerned)best role. I just do NOT sleep.

When I get to sleep, its either a strange and disturbing nightmare, a simple sound not expected, or the slight shift of my dog at the foot of the bed that wakes me, then the vicious cycle starts all over. I wish I could say I did something constructive with all the extra waking hours, but for the most part they are spent lying there in the dark thinking thoughts not allowed in daylight hours; "what if it doesn't stay this busy at the shop?", "did they mean it when they said that?", "is that spot on my arm cancer?"...it gets more creatively horrible from there.

So tonight, when I fell blissfully asleep at 10:49, I was due to awake with a start at 1:38. I laid there for 12minutes and then decided to just finish reading the latest Esquire, take(another)bath, write a blog, check my email, and then watch the damn Beetlejuice dvd again. (Dear Netflix, I don't care that I will never get to watch anything new, you are never getting this movie back).

I will go to work tomorrow, probably 2 hours early as always since I will wake at 7:34 and the shop actually opens at 10. I will make a bunch of lampshades, I will drink too much coffee, and I will inevitably be ready for sleep come 3pm. But at least with this ruined night I did something...productive; I took a bath.