24/30: Evictions

Upside down American Flag                                                       Try me, fuckers, try me.
wheatpasted next to Johnny Cash                                                Ambiguous icons. No arguments.
and a robot lady with eagle                                                         Sexy, but not. Ominous.
tattoos on a brick                                                                         Plan your wedding photos here.
building that isn't long                                                                 I am surprised you are not dead yet.
for this block.                     

The key to my room I marked with a Hot Water sticker
from work in a month when all my keys looked the same
and I was frequently drunk and every other day they
entered my room to check for pipe problems or ventilation
problems or bug problems or window problems. They did
this with all the rooms, according notes on computer paper
taped to doors, minutes within compliance of renter's rights
law.

                                                        What do you want from a home
  These apartments are made of steel,
                                                                stucco, glass, cocaine, rat corpses
                                     and Adderall. No one gets out of these
                 apartments alive because these apartments
                                                          are the entire world, you are just moving
                                     room to room to room and sometimes
                    falling out of windows.

Saul is gone. Notice on his door.
Not sure why. He was skinnier and
skinnier and more swollen and he was
friendly enough and we talked
about PJ Harvey's fucked up
relationship with Nick Cave
and he was one of the few people
on my floor that neither twitched
and muttered nor wore
a backwards baseball cap.

I am a cold ghost. I am a fire alarm. I am a broken flatscreen. I am a home invasion warning from the new security team. I am here to answer any of your questions. I am a floor and a ceiling. I am fucking in the weight room bathrooms. I am constantly tuned to CNN while an elderly polish woman endlessly folds laundry at midnight. I am a bed of roaches. I am a hall of rat tails. I am a song about the same neighborhood that sicks in your throat. I am a book about prostitutes at the turn of the century. I am your neighbor's sex life, loud and unforgiving. I am a hot plate and a broken microwave. I am a block without trees. I am a manmade waterfall. I am your neighbor's toilet flushing at five a.m. I am a gathering of poets staring at night skyscrapers. I am a constantly reconstructing view. I am in the middle of everything and sending you everywhere. I am the reason you are gone. I am the reason this building still stands. I am temporary. I am permanent.

17/30! Fares (Fair?) Fares!

The mariners lost so
every jersey walking swagger
was denied entrance into bars.
the rest contemplating with
their shrines at home.
My grandmother was religious
about the Ms, also
religious. But wouldn't have
countenanced these instances of
"fucks" and "kill yourself dude"
from numbered, stumbling
players. Is that Griffey? I could
have sworn his number said so.

There is ice in my bones and
Rachel needs to piss. The 7/11
man shoes away the guy
who yells a little louder each
time for "just a five, man."
I already gave him three and need
the rest of my depleting ones for
a cab ride. Ludicrous, the four
block
jaunt, but cold, and weary
and what the hell. Arms full
of brown paper bags, feet
blistering.

"You must live here" he says,
pulled up just past a trio
who have not left that corner
for three stop lights. Speculation
leads to judgement, leads to
crow. "this is it," i say, and he's
all "give me whatever you feel
comfortable with" and as I hand
him seven singles I realize
the meters never been turned
on.

Now Closing: Othello

So recently, one of my favorite southend joints closed. It wasn't a perfect spot, but the owner was sweet, staff was friendly, food and coffee was good, and it was nice to get out of Columbia City now and again.
This was a fairly new place, so we aren't talking about the too-familiar "pillar of South End Community closes due to the greed of (_______)" scenario, but what we are seeing seems to be a bit of shortsightedness on the part of landlords who, for the last year have been using the presence of Deo Valente as a selling point.

The official website for The Station at Othello Park no longer lists Deo as a client, but the ads above (often with a photo of Deo's signage) are still all over the train.

So what's there now? Nothing. A much-anticipated mexican restaurant will be re-opening there, but with the lengths of the buildout, I'd be surprised if they last. There's a teriyaki joint on ground floor and then a few more empty spots. Retail for Lease signs. Bring on the graffiti and broken windows soon.
I don't know the specifics of the financial situation of the landlords or Deo (and honestly, if they do re-open in Othello, a smaller space might suit them both on a renting and atmosphere-creating end) so I'm not going to howl about this; there's enough in the world to be addressing these days. But it's a little sour to me that 1) Luxury Apartments in Othello Neighborhood (period, for a few reasons) and 2) The Station continues to use the little cafe that it evicted as advertising leverage to attract people to a "vibrant" and "cute" area. Hrmm.

#5 A Tool Breaks Its Promise

You tricked me, leafblower, out amongst
the lawns, admiring my own arms for

their usefulness, peeled bark, owned houses,
guidelines toward mulch. I wanted you

to be the wind, harnessed, finally, I wanted
you to make me God. But like the firehose

or blender or hangglider before you, this is a
clumsy toy, a dignity steal for men in buttoned

shirts even on their day off. Listen: my home
is my castle and the lawn is my moat and the

leaves, they are alligators, even in the fall.
You've punchlined me, set me to the neighborhood

council in apology rags, contrition tie, shame loafers.
I drive back, my savnat malfunctioning, Joe,

over there, on his riding mower, grinning,
near asleep in his beer.

Driving the Purple Family Deathtrap Around the Acne-Scarred Backroads of the City

In the last week, i have had access to the Old Family Van. There is a New Family Van, that exists in Stanwood, Washington, where the only way to get places is in vans, preferably family ones, because what sort of person are you?

This was facilitated by a post-vacation wrap-up-family-viewing of John Carter and the Olympics (there's an opportunity for a joke here about ridiculous physical feats and gratuitously sexy costumes) and realizing that it was 12:45 am and I was in Greenwood, but lived in Rainier Beach, and thus, a van was loaned.

It's hard, when you have access to a car, to give up said access. Even for a transit-appreciator like myself, the ones-own-scheduleness of a car is a real thing.

 There's a few things, though: 1) Not sure if it's the air filter, or something more sinister, but the engine stops. Usually at red lights, but occasionally just, you know, when driving. So the freeway is out, as the procedure then is to put into Park, shut down, restart, drive. This can take less than five seconds, once you're up to speed, but 4 seconds on the Lake Union Bridge. . . 2) The whole thing always feels like it is about to crumble into bits and pieces. It has a vibrato to it that many a trained singer would be envious of (or try to avoid? I try to avoid trained singers.) 3) The brakes are fine, but sometimes it feels like they might not be, or rationally, could be the next thing to go, in this shaky stop-and-start beast that renders a trip from Columbia City to Ballard a near hour of travel.

 This has led to a lot of ducking and trekking through less-traveled Seattle backstreets, neighborhoods, figuring out which bridges I'm least likely to die on, which arterials have convenient side lanes I can coast into should the engine cut out at 40 miles per hour. And something that's come to mind is: Seattle's neighborhood names are kinda boring. I know that everywhere has boring neighborhood names, but a name like Fishtown at least gives a peak at history, and more importantly for my very shallow purposes, SOUNDS interesting.

Because while sputtering from the edges of Maple Leaf into View Ridge Heights and Broadview and Leafton Park Pines and Pinehurst and Greenwood and Meadow Ridge I couldn't help think: Where the fuck is our Hell's Kitchen? I WANT THE TENDERLOIN.

Yes, yes, history, blah blah, property values, blah blah, monsters. I wish you could drive from, say Maple Leaf, turn a corner and be in Cannibal Ridge. or something.

Minimal Transitions

Morning on a hardwood floor, last one in Brighton/Othello/Graham. Yes, Seattle has a neighborhood called Graham, and depending who you ask, it's where I've lived the last year, nine months. Just a memory foam, laptop, stereo and odd assortment of shoes, boots and blankets left. The impulse being to get crippled-nostalgic, or not at all. Drive through Columbia City thinking how I'll miss it when, really, just as close, but north. I guess the possibility of a short walk to Mel's in Hillman City will be missed, but not practically. The taco truck a bit more so.
The sneezing and packing and all that other stuff about moving I will not miss. Practically, I won't have to-- still not sure how long I'll be at David and Lindsey's place on Beacon Hill. Rachel (who is moving to Columbia City-- I won't have to miss it) remarks that I'm sentimental for wanting to spend a little time alone here surrounded by dust-bunnies and burned CDs. I don't think sentiment is quite the right word, but maybe. Giving transitions their due.
Lets see-- I was terrible for stats in this house. Brielle threw a few great parties with trees and dinosaurs, we had I think four Your Hands Your Mouth readings here, featuring the likes of Robert Lashley, Chris Gusta, Ryan Johnson, Shane Guthrie, Elissa Washuta, Emily Wittenhagen, Caren Scott, Melissa Queen, Rainey Warren, Greg Bem, Jay Steingold, Jessica Lohafer, Cate McGehee, Bronwyn Isaac, Jake Tucker, myself and probably some other people who are now offended.
Good, solidifying family time here. Lots and lots of The Office, Parks and Rec, Mitchell and Webb, Bones, Family Guy etc etc etc; dangers/blessings of Netflix. So much family guy. It's like eating air with sugar on it. Good seeing the first seven months of my nephew's life, day to day, as he's gotten fatter and squawkier.
Won't spend much more doing analysis. It's not like I'm moving to another country, or even city and have spent the last day, week, month, in a frenzy to ham-press hot new memories into a current space. These things are usually done drunk and I so far haven't cheated on Sober September. I'd take a picture of my empty room but the camera and cords are already up on beacon hill.

Meeting Neighborhood Needs

it's commonly agreed that knife-throwing
is a good reason to end a relationship,
or a good way to end a relationship,
all the helping idea books say so.

it's with this in mind that there are such large
magnets overhead,to keep the hand-holding
and quicking kissing going.
as the tourists or townspeople walk through
this district, staring at tea-shop windows
or contemplating vintage autos,
all the knives are sucked from their pockets.

the money, too, but no one ends
relationships over that, the helping books
advise that there are deeper and greater
rewards than pennies flying out of pants.

it's with this in mind that the following district
is furnished with gorgeous apartments
for people to have sex in public places
in which to loudly discuss the length and curve
of pubic hairs and then laugh and
say "oh, you're so bad," because this is part
of an open society and plus, what else will people do
once their wallet has been stolen by sky-magnet;
can't get back-- one needs money for the trolley.