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7 March 2004
77 Winter 17 Moon
48th Year of the Space Age
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
I went downtown in Seattle yesterday. In the park on the hill next to Pike street market, a little modern plaza with benches overlooking the waterfront near the market above the freeway viaduct I sat down and watched the ferries and cars and trucks and trains below. A half drunk woman came over and talked to me. I was writing in my notebook. No, she said, you cannot say who I am. I just lost my job for drinking anyway but no. But yes you can tell them what I tell you. So, dear reader: No name told me this story: about what she saw the 30 november 1999
nothing
to do with
anything but
theme my picture
and no, no one else's.
en-thirty they call it now the day WTO came to town and all the green loonies and anarchists showed us what police power really is
no I did not tell her I used to work with the cops down there 2000 miles from here I am green but not quite red maybe she saw this in my eyes when she told me her story
(N30)
ON N30
She was walking through the streets from the bus that could not get to the block where she worked that morning.
She got out and walked through the gathering masses.
She saw many strange and weird things. A delegate from India blocked at the doors of his hotel. Print journalists in their uniforms of raincoats and subtly nice clothes wandering the streets sensing the this would soon become the REAL story here, not the conference. Or at least that is what she would tell me she saw four years and four months ago ago agog magog. that means I should just stick to the facts.
When she got to work she told her boss that something bad was about to happen outside. Oh no, said her boss, that would never happen, you're exagerating.
Then other people on the other side of the office began to yell, hey they're gassing them! They're gassing them....
not apo-strophe remember
NOT to tell the husband did NOT want to know anything about what she saw no. No one else knows who she is. He eventually divorced her. That is my secret. Now her only friend is a drunken Indian on the waterfront. Even the punk runaways with teardrop tatoos on the corners of their eyes don't like her and the hustlers won't talk to her she's bad for business anyway cause she has a thing for middleaged men like me I guess but that's okay by me because you know I like like life life stories and so she told me one fragment of one figment of one moment of a day in the life of poor little big Seattle
but I have said too much already. just thought you'd like to know what I heard yes.
SEATTLE = d r i v e - t h r u
espresso @ the gas station
that's right believe it or not
there ARE little drive-through espresso stands
they look like little instant photo booths
even out in the vast suburbs that used to be farmers of the democratic grange (this aint no orange county oligarchy no is another kind altogether)
even in the endless suburban sprawl surrounded by forests and swamps (THIS IS WET WET WET LAND) there are little drive-thru booths on every third corner usually open only in the morning hmmmmmm
and throughout the city of course they are ubiquitous did I spell that right does Seattle have two t's or two l's I asked my niece as we bought gas near the ex-world's fair site and in back of the gas station a drive through window was there for espresso mmm-hmmm local color local color just like the homeless and panhandlers in the park outside the market
my brother makes coffee at home
is good
he was packing yesterday while I went downtown to see the old city.
genealogy future and past
My niece does not want to leave her friends.
the three of us went across town to her favorite playground today
by coincidence it happens to be across the street from where my father was born many years ago
in the neighborhood near the university of Washington where his uncle was a German professor married to my grandmother's sister
they are all gone now
this is all true by the way I love genealogy and I am such an always being able to look'em in the ey and say American flash bam stars and streamers can't you see the great good business going on in here??!!!!
we went to see my great aunt and uncle ashes in the columbarium and then, on a hunch, checked to see if her mother, my great grandmother Mary A. Burgess 1851-1926, was also buried there
yes in the green lawns and trees on Aurora out north of town it used to be countryside and now surrounded by city the great private cemetery elegantly kept and courteous, considerate management they looked in the computer and found aunt Caroline and Uncle Ernest and then great grandmother Mary. thank you Paul, thank you Scott.
For more on the WTO events of N30 check out
They both look and write okay.
BUT note how one guy capitalizes his name and the other doesn't. We are still in the WiLD WesT of the InterNet wRitinG eh? Si, verdad? Yep.
I walked all around downtown. Went to the observation deck on top of the Smith Tower. Walked around "Pioneer Square" the old original site of downtown with its gorgeous 1890s buildings. I hate to say it but this historic district is way more beautiful than San Diego's gaslamp. Sorry. I even went underground on the tour into the abandoned basements. Claustrophobics need not apply.
I wrote up much of Thursday the 4th's entry from the train in an internet cafe downtown. EESSSHHH so expensive like seven dollars an hour instead of the dollar twenty I am used to paying in Tijuana. But as usual I still wrote and write tooooo much for anyone's good.
You write too well, one professor told me at the university twenty years ago. No one will read it because it is too boring.
If you write really bad, maybe they will laugh, at least.
I have now re-read and re-written some of what I wrote on Wednesday and Thursday in my steno notebook on the train. Mmmm dirayablog is right! It is one thing to Write For Myself. It is another to write for you. That is like Hebrew National packaged meats. We must answer to a higher authority.
The level of language is questionable. ALWAYS
FURTHERMORE
I am not writing as much as I want to. There is sooooooo much packing to do. I almost unscrewed my back the other day moving furniture. Day after tomorrow we load the truck. The next day leave for the south. I am almost out of money.
oh well....
It's kind of pretty around here. I think I like the architecture.
I've never told you this but one of my pet interests is ex-worlds fair sites. So you can bet I visited Seattle Center. Not a bad job of recycling. The monorail is totalllllyyyy RETRO. But they will probably tear it down and replace it with a new system. So I am glad I rode on it last night. Got the front seat both ways.
Seattle is beautiful. But I will be very glad to get home to my friends in Tijuana. I am turning Mexican. I miss the language. Tere called. She got to Tijuana safely yesterday. And you can bet I miss her. Don't need no Indian casino to place that, nor nor foreign book.
I AM STILL MAD AT RaMoN FOR BITCHING AT ME ABOUT USING SO MUCH GAS AFTER HE went and roasted all his chirstmas turkeys and christmea puddings and christmas pies and christmas cookies in my oven maybe I will say something about it to him someday when I get mad enough. 
look I had to go two thousand miles away from Tijuana just to write it down. FRack him to hell infierno where Satan has a pleasant surprise for him he can frack his xxxxx at long last yes go ahead tell him I dare you he doesnt care i am just a gringo dog he can whip and spit upon look in the mirror dude and see its true its you goodbye asshole they only told you because they're jealous yes not you I know you wouldn't but the anonymous ones you remember the one who was screwing the chicken and then it pooped all over him and his mother said hey how did you get chicken poop inside your underwear heh heh heh who else could tell me stories like that eh? Eh.
I probably won't be writing much for a few days. We got a lot more to do and then we drive south. Bye. I may curse but I love you.
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