Most of the time when I go out drinking/dancing/getting shot down by women, I stay in Seattle. I enjoy being able to walk home if push comes to shove or, at worst, take an affordable cab ride to get wherever I need to be.
Last night, though, to celebrate Shawty's birthday (as well as two years of us knowing one another; I'm sure that, while that factoid was unstated on the Facebook invite, it was the REAL reason she had the little get-together) I ventured north of the city. To a place called Edmonds. A place that is so remote that my phone auto-corrected it to "Redmond". Over the course of the evening, I had many thoughts, and here are some of them:
I don't drive on the freeway that often nowadays. other than to go to the airport, I simply don't have to. My morning commute is about three miles and it takes about 15 minutes due to traffic and I rarely go faster than 40 miles an hour. Part of the trip to the party, though, involved driving about 15 miles on I5... and I'd forgotten how maddening it can be. Traffic, of course, can be terrible, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the series of morons who were driving between 58 and 62 miles per hour in the fast lane.
C'mon.
If the speed limit is 60, please don't drive 60 miles an hour and stay in the fast lane. Please.
I wasn't intending to go any faster than, say, 68 miles an hour... but those 6 to 10 mph can make quite a difference for my peace of mind.
As a person, I have some strengths and some weaknesses. My strengths are more subtle than my nearly debilitating weaknesses--one of which is a terrible sense of direction. I can't remember where anything is without having driven there (seemingly) triple digit times. As a result, I usually map something on Google and write down the directions. Last night was the first time I used my phone's Google Map application as a GPS/directions thing. And it worked. And it was good.
Also good? The stars. After parking at Shawty's place I looked up and could see the stars. I think it was the first time that I'd seen (or at least noticed) the stars. Growing up in a rural part of Oregon I took the stars for granted, and living in light-polluted Seattle I had sort of forgotten about them. I looked up last night and saw the stars and stopped in my tracks, wondering at the enormity of the universe and the peculiarity of my life that I would allow myself to forget about the stars.
Later in the night, we stopped by the first location and were there for a while. I think we got there at 9:30 or so and we left at midnight. I'm not the biggest bar hopper in the world, but I am also not used to sitting down at a table for 2.5 hours on a Saturday night. I felt antsy and needed to get up and move around and do ... something.
As we made the move to the second (and final) location, I noticed that that part of Edmonds is actually very walkable. Nice sidewalks and traffic circles and things. But there weren't many people walking.
What was there? There were big trucks and older people. I didn't know there was a Ford F-350, and if I had known I wouldn't have appreciated the sheer SIZE of the stupid vehicle without experiencing it first-hand. But now I do and I guess I do. But not in a good way. As for "older people"... I know, as a semi-older person, it's a relative thing. But it's not just a matter of "older-than-me people" that I'm talking about. I would say at least 20% of the people in the bars we were in were 40 or older. Which is OK. Weird, though.
Speaking of weird: I was, perhaps, a bit overdressed. I wore a tie and sweater and a jacket, and as the night was wrapping up and we were walking to catch a cab, one of the smattering of people in the neighborhood guessed at Shawty's age as we walked by. I added 15 years to his guess and "corrected" him. And he didn't appreciate it. He called me "Pee Wee Herman" (which is a pretty lame neg, given the fact that the tie was the ONLY connection I could see). A bigger man than me (physically) might have punched him, while a bigger man than me (emotionally) might have let the comment slide. As for me, I immediately came back with, "Nice hair..." and kept walking. His hair wasn't even that bad, but it looked like he really had styled it just so, and ... he deserved it.
Overall it was a fun night. The birthday girl had fun and I didn't spend a million dollars and I didn't get beaten up. And I experienced a slice of small city living.
