I wonder if anyone besides myself reads this journal, and blunt's, and Eric's, and Anita's as a matter of course? I can imagine some crossover between two or three, but not all four. We're none of us much alike in terms of writing style. Yet we discovered enough pleasure in each other's company on Sunday to spend five hours eating and drinking and loafing about. It was my fault, of course. I have rather a passion for arranging events like pub meetings and book discussions and conventions. It's because I want to see people all at the same time. Possibly I have a limited social attention span; I do better with small, concentrated bursts of activity. At any rate, I set the time and date and place, invited five people, and then managed to turn up late.
It was easy to spot our group. There wasn't anyone else in the cavernous pub echoing with an endless tape loop of something tedious. The staff were all tremendously pierced and tattooed, and dressed in black. Friendly, of course. The beer was good though I can't remember what I had. I ought to have eaten but I couldn't face big plates of greasy food. Family matters had distressed me profoundly, and I was suffering an acute physical reaction on top of what I can only term an emotional hangover. I was more interested in listening to everyone, and watching their faces.
You want to know what these people look like? Well, I want to tell you and that's what counts. Eric was small, wiry, self-contained, with large, dark eyes. I was conscious of wishing to speak to him in greater depth but there was nothing to be done; I'd invited a group and I rarely speak profoundly in group situations. Blunt surprised me by being fairly young, and sporting a goatee along with brightly dyed locks in a very bad haircut, both de rigeur for geeks these days. I'd figured him wrong. In my head I was sure he was more of a brush cut type. It's his prose that misled me.
Anita looked as Anita always looks: smiling, ready to be doing something, full of good conversation, wearing an interesting dress. She brought along Andrew who was quiet and dark and fairly self-effacing. I effectively ignored him but not deliberately. It must happen to him a lot. Anita invited Helen as well, who was so sympatico that I felt I might really make a new friend if she allowed it. She had a beautiful face, gentle and strong. She exuded good health. I resolved to read her diary later. To round out the gathering, my close friend Janice and her husband invited a woman named Bonnie who does not do an online journal but coincidentally works with Blunt. Bonnie and I have been told we must meet for something like two years now, but fortunately Janice was right and we hit it off. As usual at gatherings I organize, several of my subcultures collided. I always enjoy that.
So we drank, and ate, and talked. Blunt lived up to his name and asked appallingly impertinent questions of Eric who was perfectly gracious about it. He ignored me, mostly, preferring to extract information from Eric like a dog going after a badger. Bonnie and I exchanged business cards. Andrew amused us with his comments on color in journals. Everyone drifted from sofa to couch to chair and back, forming and reforming conversation groups. I became animated on only three topics: the stupidity of my clients, whether or not people should alter their diaries when those diaries become the subject of the media, and (I am thoroughly ashamed to admit this) Beanie Babies. Bonnie left, and Andrew left, and Alan left, and the rest of us agreed to go sit in the sunshine. I drove the three other women to Volunteer Park; the men walked the 15 blocks. Out in the 90 degree heat under a leafy tree there was more talking, and eating, and drinking. My head was pounding. I could feel my temperature rising steadily, skin flushed and pale simultaneously. I sat dizzily looking out over the cut between Capitol Hill and the U. District. I wanted to really talk to everyone, to connect, to make sure they knew I was pleased with them for being as worthwhile knowing in person as online. But I could not.
Eventually, I had to leave. The deep greens and blues of Seattle had no affect on my hazy yellow ill-health, and I regretted not properly seeing the area. The most difficult part of leaving Seattle in 1982 was saying goodbye to the colors and shapes of the Pacific Northwest. More than family, more than friends, I missed and was conscious of giving up the land and its spirit. This sounds impossibly New Age, but I tell you truthfully that I feel it when the land around me is wrong. Seattle is right, and San Francisco, and Reykjavik, and Quito, and Kyoto. Nashville is wrong, and London, and Washington DC, and New York, and Geneva. I know where I am happiest, and I am always sorry to not take advantage of being in one of those places. But what would you? Family brought me up there and I did what I came to do. Afterwards, I went home again, and here I am now.
I do not think I will go to Seattle again for a long time.
