We’re having one of our rare bouts of sunny weather here in Seattle, and man am I exhausted. I must suffer from some kind of reverse photosynthesis. It’s, like, the more direct sunlight I receive, the less energy I have.
Maybe it’s an adaptation, having been raised in the perpetually overcast Pacific Northwest. Maybe our bodies are trained to think that there is only one explanation for a bright light in the heavens: God has come to take us home. So just lay down, lay down and sleep.
This may be the last post ever on defective yeti, as I started this blog with one main objective and that objective has now been fulfilled.
Yes, O envious Internet: I met Mighty Girl.
Long-time readers know that I have based my entire on-line literary career on Margaret Mason’s model: Mighty Girl started a blog devoted to conversations overheard on public transportation, so I started a blog devoted to conversations overheard on public transportation; Mighty Girl became a contributing writer for The Morning News, so I became a contributing writer for The Morning News; Mighty Girl launched a profitable website called Mighty Goods and started writing for The New York Times, so I often daydream about launching a profitable website and writing for The New York Times while squandering my life away playing Kingdom of Loathing. Fortunately, I hold an edge on Mighty Girl in one key category: production of small people. So when Mr. and Mr. Girl rolled into town last Wednesday, they requested an audience with The Squirrelly. It took some wheedling, but eventually they said I could come along as well.
We agreed to meet for lunch. The Squirrelly, perhaps sensing the momentousness of the occasion, spent all morning preparing. First, he woke up an hour earlier than he usually does. I realize that the non-parents in the crowd don’t recognize this as Ominous Foreshadowing, but when you’re going to take a toddler out in public around his usual naptime, any change in regular sleep patterns is as foreboding as a shark filled with nitroglycerin. Worse, The Squirrelly has music class on Wednesday mornings, which is applesauce’s only serious rival for the title of “Best Thing In The Universe” in his opinion. During music class the two teachers play guitar and sing while the babies and their parents sit quietly and listen enraptured — all the babies, that is, except The Squirrelly, who spends the hour racing around the room like an balloon released before it’s tied closed.
So by our prearranged meeting time The Squirrelly was both sleepy and tired. He had, in fact, fallen asleep in his carseat moments before we arrived at the hotel. Unfortunately I had arranged to meet them inside the lobby, so I had no choice but to wake him up and carry him in. So Margaret and Bryan’s first look at my child was as he was curled up on my chest, blinking sleepily and completely docile. I should have been wearing a t-shirt reading “WARNING: TODDLERS ON SHOULDER ARE CRANKIER THAN THEY APPEAR.”
We headed down to The Bell Street Diner, got a table, and strapped The Squirrelly into a high chair. He immediately set about demonstrating the suitability of his nickname, squirming about with such velocity that I was afraid he might pull a Flash and vibrate himself into another dimension. In an attempt to calm him down, I pulled out his bowl of food and set in front of him. He immediately began grabbing handfuls of avocado and cramming it into his maw. Remembering that I was sitting across from a woman who writes columns on etiquette, I said, “uh, we read that it’s empowering to allow toddlers to feed themselves like that, using their hands,” i.e., his complete lack of decorum is the result of a deliberate philosophy, and not because he is being raised by a race of subterranean lizardmen who live in our crawlspace.
Fortunately, I had an unexpected ally in Bryan. “Wow, lookit him go!” he cried with genuine enthusiasm. “He’s just shovelling it on in there!”
I spent the rest of the meal dividing my attention between my guests and my son, the former of which was politely asking me questions about my life and family, the latter of which grabbed everything within reaching distance and dropped it on the floor like he had been deputized to enforce the law of gravity. As a result, I have pretty much no recollection of our conversation. I do remember, though, that at one point The Squirrelly got so fussy that Margaret scooped him up and carried him around the restaurant, pointing out things and speaking to him quietly. Act like a savage and you get cuddles from Mighty Girl: take note, people.
(If “Touched By An Angel” has a spin-off show called “Cuddled By A Mighty Girl” I would totally watch it.)
All-in-all a complete debacle, I’d say! So we tried again later that evening, this time removing The Squirrelly from the equation and replacing him with The Queen and copious amounts of alcohol. We met at Cyclops for cocktails, and then moved on to the Dahlia Lounge for after-cocktails cocktails and six dollar doughnuts.
And I’m happy to report that Mighty Girl is every bit as charming as you’d expect, one of those rare Internet personalities that turns out to be as engaging in real life as they are on their site. And whatta great guy, that Bryan. If airplanes ran on charisma these two could fly around the world.
Naturally I have no photographic evidence of any of this, because I am a very poor blogger. But it all happened, I swear.
P.S. Seattlites will be pleased to know that I did my level best to convince the duo to move to our fine city. I think we have a shot, too — so long as they never do the math and realize that Seattle will one day be home to a teenaged Squirrelly, roaming the streets.
P.P.S. Those six dollar doughnuts at the Dahlia Lounge were freakin’ awesome.
My friend Kate Bicket and I collaborated on a Seattle-centric photo essay called A Run Around Lake Union, appearing today in The Morning News.
Wow, two anti-Microsoft posts in the last week — what’s up with that? I’m usually not a MS hayta — I’m a linux and firefox guy myself, but I like Word and Publisher just fine. But driving home from work yesterday I heard a story on the local NPR station about how Microsoft was announcing yet another “critical” safety flaw in Internet Explorer, and I remember thinking, “Jesus, haven’t I heard this exact same story, like, twice a month for the last four years?”
That’s one bummer about living in Seattle: everytime there’s a new vulnerability found in Windows we hear about it on the local news. At this point, the NPR affiliate probably just has a standard 30-second “Internet Explorer” piece that they use whenever they need to pad out their show a bit.
Confidential to the guy in sunglasses and muscle shirt who was driving around downtown Seattle this afternoon in a tricked-out, bright red convertible with the top down: your Herculean efforts to look cool are being largely negated by the fact that you are blasting Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years” at volume 11.
Waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle, I see a disheveled and possibly deranged man with an enormous duffle bag sidling down the sidewalk, stopping to bellow “Are you going to the library?!” at each and every person in turn. Most ignore him until he moves on, but some — out of compulsive politeness, or because they have somehow mistaken this raving for a sincere query — begin to reply “No, I’m waiting for my –” at which point the man cuts them short with an impassioned and spittle-intensive “GO TO THE LIBRARY!!!”
I dunno. Call me cynical, but I just don’t think Seattle’s literacy program is all that effective.
There are perks to fatherhood I never dreamed of.
Over the weekend, for example, I was walking through Pinoneer Square with The Squirrelly in a Baby Bjorn when I saw some youths on the upcoming corner handing out fliers about an upcoming protest of some sort. This is not an uncommon sight in Seattle, which has reinvented itself as Protest City since the whole WTO debacle of ’99. George Bush, free trade, carnivory, illegality of marijuana, Clay Risen not winning American Idol, compulsory pants-wearing — you name it, someone’s got a protest scheduled for it next weekend in Seattle.
(Sometimes you don’t even know what the people are protesting. I was on the bus last week and we passed by a municipal building were half a dozen people sat listlessly on the sidewalk while a women with a bullhorn shouted “What do we want?! {pause} When do when want it?! {pause}” The other participants were too engrossed in their own conversations to respond, so, alas, I was never able to ascertain what it was that they wanted, nor in what approximate time frame they desired it to occur.)
Anyway, there I was, walking toward the corner, and this kid was thrusting his protest fliers at everyone who passed. Most people were taking them out of habit, because people in Seattle are too polite not to take a flier from some kid protesting daylight savings time or whatever. And I, sadly, having lived in Seattle all my life, am one of these people who cannot not take fliers; worse, once saddled with a flier I cannot bring myself to throw it away, what with paper being a recyclable and all, so I wind up carry it around all day and eventually taking it home and leaving it on the dining room table where The Queen will later find it and wonder if I’m really going to attend a rally protesting “500 Years Of Polenta.”
I tried to dodge around the youth, but he saw me and extended his arm toward me, flier in hand. Instinct kicked in and I started to reach for it. But then he saw the baby strapped to my torso and turned to some other passerby, handing him the flier instead.
It took me a moment to realize what had happened, but, when I did, I was jubilant. I was all, like, “that’s right, don’t even hand me a flier, punk: I reproduced and am part of the corporate, conforming, consumerist culture now! Hell, this kid’s wearing a Baby Gap onesie right now: booyah!”
Seriously, I was totally all like that.
Update: Protesters in Westlake Park.
Ma Baldwin phones from the East Coast.
Ma: I got a question for you.
Me: Shoot.
Ma: Your dad and I were at church, and I was telling some people about Seattle and what a big music place it is. But I couldn’t remember the name of that one band. That band you like.
Me: [Inwardly sighs] Nirvana. You’re probably thinking of Nirvana, Ma.
Ma: Not Nirvana. After Nirvana.
Me: Pearl Jam?
Ma: No, no. This is a newer band. All women. And they’re named after a street, a street in Olympia, I think.
Me: Named after a … Wait, Sleater-Kinney?!
Ma: That’s it, Sleater-Kinney. I couldn’t remember their name.
[pause]
Ma: Hello? Are you still there?
Me: Yeah, yeah, I’m here. I’m just kind of, you know — I’m all choked up with pride right now.
Chance of continued, heavy showers: 70%
Chance of continued, tedious, “most rain in 50 years” chit-chat with coworkers and acquaintances: 100%
