Seattle Trip Part One
Sep. 5th, 2006 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radfrac_archive_fullSo... this past weekend? The apex of my life to date.
There were several, um, things, that made the trip a star of greatest magnitude, but the image in my head that incarnates this weekend is not my shiny shiny pants or the play party, not a workshop or a film, not a meal or any of Seattle's excellent stores or sights. It is the hour![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lemon_pickle and I spent sitting on the edge of the fountain pool in a Capitol Hill park, our feet illegally in the water (where dogs and children also swam in chlorine-y delight), singing Leonard Cohen songs in a hazy warm afternoon sky.
I didn't tell you, but all summer I've been afraid I've lost the capacity for a particular feeling, a combination of wonder and delight and deep contentment that is the most perfect state I know. I did lots of excellent things with excellent people this weekend, but it was that moment in the park that I felt it again, that sense that the world is both mysterious and filled with quiet glory. (I had already acquired the shiny shiny pants, so no doubt retail bliss and sleep deprivation were playing their part. I don't care how I got there: I'm just glad I got there.)
For context: If you have forgotten, or I forgot to tell you, my forensic anthropologist and occasional life model, S., finding himself obligated to attend graduate school in Dundee, gave me his ticket to the Gender Odyssey conference in Seattle. I pled for help on this very page, andsugarpunfairly, chromemagpie, and lemon_pickle came to my rescue by deciding to go along. SPF (I love that you abbreviate to that: I think of you as my protection from Harmful Rays) brought the excellent Alice, minivan, adventure-in-herself, beloved companion of SPF and thechuurchqueer.
And here we are back again, and I have been perfectly happy, and now I am going to tell you all about it.
But first, a cut tag.
SPF, I knew you were excellent. I knew you were funny, I knew you were whimsical, I knew you were a sorceress with a needle or a handful of Sculpey(tm) and that your heart was the size of a big red double-decker bus (and to crash into it would be to be saved, not killed), but I did not know you were one of those people who could Make Things Happen. And you did it for us!
sugarpunfairy booked us a hotel room when we thought none could be had. She drove Alice almost every mile she rolled, (lemon_pickle took a shift on the way home), including the demonic labyrinth they call a street system in Seattle. She looked up how to get to the conference centre. She researched markets in the area whence she could bring her wares. She breathed life into the flaccid balloon of my trip idea and made it fly.
And because I am a freak, she got up to drive Alice to the ferry terminal at 6:10am (Yes, that is Ante Meridian) and park her in line for the 3:00pm sailing.
See, we both called the terminal, but while the nice reasonable person toldsugarpunfairy that 10:30 would be plenty early enough to get in line, the sadistic lunatic I spoke to (possibly the same person) said that we'd probably miss the sailing unless we got in line right after the 6:10 left. I didn't insist on it, because I'm not evil incarnate, but when I'm anxious, I'm a little bit... let's just say I go to the Bad Place, and I think I transmitted a little of the Fear, and oh Dog I'm sorry, but anyway even at 6:10 we were third in line.
(If ever you find yourself stuck with me when I'm in one of these hideously defeatist moods,lemon_pickle has discovered a cure, which is to sing show tunes at me with all the first letters changed to "fl-". Try it. "Fle flantom flof fle Floooo-pera..." I just can't stay gloomy.)
We marvelled at all the differences in America -- the little packets of mayonnaise, the homophobia -- untillemon_pickle pointed out that we had not even left the harbour yet.
A bit of advice. If you are a tranny, and you are crossing the border, the better way to do this is in the back of someone's car or maroon minivan. The less good way is alone on foot. This trip was an impromptu experiment. I overprepared insanely, bringing every piece of I.D. ever invented, and I was fine. All I had to do was pass through my driver's license. If you go through the terminal on foot, you seem to be more likely to be subject to (and object of) much more official shittiness. I hate that we had to find this out, but I'm glad to know it.
This was what led me to embrace a member of our party with brotherly concern on the ferry, and then to the reconsideration of this action, cited in the spoilers post.
To be fair to America, I wouldn't tend to vigourously hug another man in my hometown either. Victoria is a particular place-out-of-time for being queer, and I forget how spoiled I am.
Once across the energy barrier, we were a bit disoriented initially by the whole driving-on-the-other-side of the road thing, but we got used to it. Plenty of other drivers didn't, though. Jeez. You'd think people who lived there would remember.
lemon_pickle made many notes for his upcoming study "American Signs: They Don't Make Sense".
"Look at them." He'd say. "The gas prices have two decimal places... and then a fraction. [Imaginary Image: Sign reading "REGULAR: 2.95 9/10"] The road signs -- '24 3/4 miles'?"
"Yeah, you don't see that on our signs... what would we do? Decimals?"
"I don't think you even see a portion of a kilometer on a sign."
"Right. We'd just move the sign."
"The directive signs are in random word order.
What does that mean? JCT? PT? There are blocks of empty space and then unnecessary abbreviations made of random letters. Look, we're going to drive through Pete Townsend."
We drove mostly to Yer Favorites, the great fan-driven compilation of Tragically Hip songs. It pleased me to listen to such quintessentially Canadian music on a road trip in America.
{rf}
There were several, um, things, that made the trip a star of greatest magnitude, but the image in my head that incarnates this weekend is not my shiny shiny pants or the play party, not a workshop or a film, not a meal or any of Seattle's excellent stores or sights. It is the hour
lemon_pickle and I spent sitting on the edge of the fountain pool in a Capitol Hill park, our feet illegally in the water (where dogs and children also swam in chlorine-y delight), singing Leonard Cohen songs in a hazy warm afternoon sky.I didn't tell you, but all summer I've been afraid I've lost the capacity for a particular feeling, a combination of wonder and delight and deep contentment that is the most perfect state I know. I did lots of excellent things with excellent people this weekend, but it was that moment in the park that I felt it again, that sense that the world is both mysterious and filled with quiet glory. (I had already acquired the shiny shiny pants, so no doubt retail bliss and sleep deprivation were playing their part. I don't care how I got there: I'm just glad I got there.)
For context: If you have forgotten, or I forgot to tell you, my forensic anthropologist and occasional life model, S., finding himself obligated to attend graduate school in Dundee, gave me his ticket to the Gender Odyssey conference in Seattle. I pled for help on this very page, and
sugarpunfairly, chromemagpie, and lemon_pickle came to my rescue by deciding to go along. SPF (I love that you abbreviate to that: I think of you as my protection from Harmful Rays) brought the excellent Alice, minivan, adventure-in-herself, beloved companion of SPF and thechuurchqueer.And here we are back again, and I have been perfectly happy, and now I am going to tell you all about it.
But first, a cut tag.
SPF, I knew you were excellent. I knew you were funny, I knew you were whimsical, I knew you were a sorceress with a needle or a handful of Sculpey(tm) and that your heart was the size of a big red double-decker bus (and to crash into it would be to be saved, not killed), but I did not know you were one of those people who could Make Things Happen. And you did it for us!
sugarpunfairy booked us a hotel room when we thought none could be had. She drove Alice almost every mile she rolled, (lemon_pickle took a shift on the way home), including the demonic labyrinth they call a street system in Seattle. She looked up how to get to the conference centre. She researched markets in the area whence she could bring her wares. She breathed life into the flaccid balloon of my trip idea and made it fly.And because I am a freak, she got up to drive Alice to the ferry terminal at 6:10am (Yes, that is Ante Meridian) and park her in line for the 3:00pm sailing.
See, we both called the terminal, but while the nice reasonable person told
sugarpunfairy that 10:30 would be plenty early enough to get in line, the sadistic lunatic I spoke to (possibly the same person) said that we'd probably miss the sailing unless we got in line right after the 6:10 left. I didn't insist on it, because I'm not evil incarnate, but when I'm anxious, I'm a little bit... let's just say I go to the Bad Place, and I think I transmitted a little of the Fear, and oh Dog I'm sorry, but anyway even at 6:10 we were third in line.(If ever you find yourself stuck with me when I'm in one of these hideously defeatist moods,
lemon_pickle has discovered a cure, which is to sing show tunes at me with all the first letters changed to "fl-". Try it. "Fle flantom flof fle Floooo-pera..." I just can't stay gloomy.)We marvelled at all the differences in America -- the little packets of mayonnaise, the homophobia -- until
lemon_pickle pointed out that we had not even left the harbour yet.A bit of advice. If you are a tranny, and you are crossing the border, the better way to do this is in the back of someone's car or maroon minivan. The less good way is alone on foot. This trip was an impromptu experiment. I overprepared insanely, bringing every piece of I.D. ever invented, and I was fine. All I had to do was pass through my driver's license. If you go through the terminal on foot, you seem to be more likely to be subject to (and object of) much more official shittiness. I hate that we had to find this out, but I'm glad to know it.
This was what led me to embrace a member of our party with brotherly concern on the ferry, and then to the reconsideration of this action, cited in the spoilers post.
Contest Break
Try to guess at which point in the trip each of my spoiler quotes comes from. The person who gets the most correct wins a pair of black latex gloves (the disposable kind) from Babeland.
End of Break
To be fair to America, I wouldn't tend to vigourously hug another man in my hometown either. Victoria is a particular place-out-of-time for being queer, and I forget how spoiled I am.
Once across the energy barrier, we were a bit disoriented initially by the whole driving-on-the-other-side of the road thing, but we got used to it. Plenty of other drivers didn't, though. Jeez. You'd think people who lived there would remember.
lemon_pickle made many notes for his upcoming study "American Signs: They Don't Make Sense"."Look at them." He'd say. "The gas prices have two decimal places... and then a fraction. [Imaginary Image: Sign reading "REGULAR: 2.95 9/10"] The road signs -- '24 3/4 miles'?"
"Yeah, you don't see that on our signs... what would we do? Decimals?"
"I don't think you even see a portion of a kilometer on a sign."
"Right. We'd just move the sign."
"The directive signs are in random word order.
Trucks When
Turn Here
What does that mean? JCT? PT? There are blocks of empty space and then unnecessary abbreviations made of random letters. Look, we're going to drive through Pete Townsend."
We drove mostly to Yer Favorites, the great fan-driven compilation of Tragically Hip songs. It pleased me to listen to such quintessentially Canadian music on a road trip in America.
{rf}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 10:26 pm (UTC)yes, but
Date: 2006-09-06 04:07 pm (UTC){rf}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-06 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-09 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-09 11:54 pm (UTC){rf}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-06 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 12:45 am (UTC){rf}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 07:34 pm (UTC)I think the bit at the water park was my favorite too because it was one of the few things we did that didn't cost anything, wasn't scheduled and that we did just because we wanted to.
When do your photos go up?
Much Love,
A Grumpy Bastard
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 11:20 pm (UTC)Some photos are up, though not nearly all.
{rf}