East Coast Gazette

For work related reasons, and very briefly, I was separated from George Clooney by only a glass wall today — it was like, totally awesome.  And then!  Dinner at Momofuku Ssam, which is (a) as overrated as everybody says it is but (b) still delicious. I’m not exactly sure what’s Asian about the place (or if it’s supposed to be at all), but the bread and butter were enormously good, the mushroom salad was a dream, and the skate?  Divinely textured, but the sweetness of the fish was utterly pulverized by a heavy hand of salt — or maybe that was just me, my dining companion liked it just fine.  All in all, two out of three thumbs up.

And, for those of you who remember my appalling One Life To Ascend To shenanigans may recall the main characters in this little yarn that popped up today while I was “busy” at work:

(more…)

So I’m sure more than one of you has been wondering about the semi-cryptic and mostly-depressed posts that have appearing here (very very) periodically, and why the writing has come to a screeching halt.  I figure people deserve something of an explanation at least.

Since coming to Seattle, my car’s been held hostage by the people I hired to transport it — who did eventually show up, a week late.

When I got it, it was fried and scratched to hell, and the first day I drove home from work, it died on the side of the road from a shot alternator and by correlation a dead battery.  I’m lucky insofar as No Longer Amorous Roommate is a car guy, and replaced my alternator for free — after I had it towed to a auto shop and they wanted to charge me $900 to fix things and then charged me $100 diagnostic fee anyway.

$60 for a new alternator and 6.5 hours with my car later, No Longer Amorous Roommate made the damn thing run, and everything was pretty okay until about a week ago, when work started going to hell in a handbasket.

On top of that, Monday morning, right before my now-40 minute long morning commute (changed offices), my starter crapped out — less than two months after I had it replaced the first time.  I spent that day lying on the couch praying for sweet death.  But No Longer Amorous And Totally AWESOME Roommate came to save the day again — and with my help from a vantage point underneath my Corolla, we ripped out my starter, rushed into Schuck’s Auto Parts literally five minutes before it closed, knocked out a $100 starter and jammed it back into the vehicle.

And then yesterday afternoon on I-5 Southbound, less than a mile from my exit, I got into a fenderbender.  I’m fine; I’m not hurt; it was mostly my fault — I must have zoned out on the road or something.  Neither is the other party, but I’m not looking forward to dealing with my insurance.  Both our cars are still perfectly mobile, although mine looks kind of like it has a black eye — which makes it match every other vehicle on the road in Seattle, sort of.  But it’s bodywork and lights, which while frustrating, isn’t the end of the world.

And on top of this, I’m honor-bound to have a “meeting” about a work issue with my boss (read: scheduled to be screamed at) this afternoon around 1ish.

So for those of you wondering about the total communications breakdown, the lack of stories, the lack of updates (except in the “escapist kdrama” variety), or why I haven’t called or why I am constantly on the edge of a nervous breakdown and/or crying when you have talked to me, that’s why.

It’s going to be fine, I just don’t know when or how it’s going to get there.

First off, ya’ll, I am so tired.  I am also sort of sunburned, imagine me saying this all in Britney Spears English.  I just hit up Agua Verde on Portage Bay where friends and I kayaked for a while before climbing upstairs to gorge outselves on really wonderfully fresh Mexican food and eat salsa until it came out of our ears — fabulous.  So it’s with sore arms I sit down to write you about my NEWEST TRUE LOVE.

Last time I talked about kdramas, I was talking about the appallingly bad Witch Amusement, which actually took bad to such a transcendental place I’m pretty sure it was doing shots with Keats. In the past, I have also mentioned my fascination with the uneven but overall fantastic Goong, which re-imagined Korea into unified country with a constitutional monarchy — for the super important purpose of there being a royal love story. And since I have a penchant for following the careers of people I have been impressed with in the past, of course I followed up on Yoon Eun Hye.

Who is now in something called Coffee Prince.

Guys? The gay theme started by Witch Amusement? Is continuing in Coffee Prince. I am without words. It all starts with a picture. Of dudes smooching. I know. (more…)

It appears that The Stranger has done what slash has for many years: discovered the tantalizing joy of male pregnancy. Also, do NOT miss the cover art for this week: amazing.

This is only going to be funny to those of you who suffered the agony of driving around the slick hills of downtown Seattle in 2005, in the rain. Looking for an enormous Italian restaurant, where we eventually realized there were like, six parties having their birthday simultaneously — that’s right Slumberparty: Vancouver survivors (some of whom just came back from Slumberparty: Cruise), I found Bucca de Beppo again. WHILE LOST OFF OF MY ASS TRYING TO GET ON GOD DAMN I-5. YEAH, YOU HEAR ME SEATTLE? I’VE FIGURED YOU OUT. YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL ME WITH A CAR. BUT YOU WON’T WIN, DAMN YOU.

Okay, no, but for rill. Fo’ rill: the real point of this post is to talk about the beautiful saffron-scented crack that gets injected straight into my veins: Bravo’s Top Chef.

It’s important to understand that because I am a whore, I will watch almost anything with Ted Allen in it — you may remember him from such groundbreaking visual art as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Iron Chef: Battle of the Masters, and also, Decoding the Past: The Real Sorcerer’s Stone.

…And now that we’ve lost the entire contingent of tin hats waiting with baited breath for the Harry Potter book to come out that’s just disappeared to go look up that TV special, we can continue.

No, seriously, my crush on Ted Allen is somewhat disturbing.  He looks like the type of guy I would want painfully to date and then as soon as we went out we’d just spend the entire night talking about how Britney Spears needs to get back together with Justin Timberlake and pigeons or something and then by the time we finished up our creme brulees I’d think he was gay (rightfully) and he’d think I was a femme and/or hag (rightfully, well.  Sort of).  But then we’d become best friends until his boyfriend was all like, “Why do you like her better than me?” and I’d be all, “You need to get his face out of his junk because he is straight tripping.“  And then I’d be rightfully slapped for attempting to be ghetto — but you get the point.

The point is: I will watch…appalling things for Ted(dy).  So watching something as awesome as Bravo’s Top Chef is no dif. for me, especially when everybody is being catty over truffle oil and who was the poor motherfucker who got the geoduck (pronounced gooeyduck, yeah, I don’t know either, but I quizzed my roommate and the seafood guy at Pike’s Place for like, an hour) to cook.  I’m sorry folks: suffering is funny.

But it also of course makes me think about a horrible SGA crossover possibility where Rodney, John, Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon are all judges on Top Chef and Zelenka is one of the guest chef judges who gets into a slap fight with Rodney.  COME ON YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT.

My point is: who else loves this shit?

[SCENE: Finn MacCool's on "the Ave," as whorebaggish bleached blond UDub tweenies refer to it [eta: I have been alerted that most EVERYBODY calls it "the Ave," and now I am forced to assume that everybody who I heard referring to it as University Avenue in the bar was only doing so because they were, like me, grossly intoxicated.  D:  Note my distress.], and what everybody else calls “University Avenue” on Monday night Pub Trivia — packed house, hideous intoxication, trivia master forced to do jaegerbombs every time he messes up reading: it’s good stuff, folks. My cube-farm mate, work colleague one, work colleague two, some guy, and that dude, are part of a team that is kicking some serious ass. We are kicking it left and right. Visualize this.]

TRIVIA MASTER (after his second jaegerbomb): Okay! Last question!
EVERYBODY (all trashed): YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!
TRIVIA MASTER: Name the album this song is on!

[HORRIBLE MUSIC starts to play, recognizable to me -- who spent most of my 14th year on this Earth lying on my bedroom floor listening to this album and staring at the ceiling and really feeling it -- instantly as Celine Dion's "All Because of You."]

WORK COLLEAGUE ONE: What the fuck?
WORK COLLEAGUE TWO: I have no idea.
CUBE-FARM MATE: FUCK.
SOME GUY: This is Celine Dion.
THAT DUDE: This is totally Celine Dion.
ME: I CAN FUCKING PICTURE THE CD COVER.
THAT DUDE: ME TOO.
ME: ARGH.
THAT DUDE: Put down Because You Loved Me.
ME: I don’t know.
THAT DUDE: Put it down! I’m telling you: do it!

[SILENCE FALLS at the table as work people and some guy all go still in awareness.]

THAT DUDE: Uh.
ME: Do I look like the type of woman who takes orders from guys?
THAT DUDE: …
ME: Well?
THAT DUDE (feebly): No.

This is why I’m going to DIE ALONE: because I SCARE RANDOM DUDES AT BARS.

I like to think that somebody else made the community first then the responsibility for the madness of the Mac/PC pairing — spawned by the ridiculous cuteness of the get a Mac ads — is totally out of my hands! Really! And in that spirit, it’s also TOTALLY not my fault that I found these images and am sharing them with the internet:

Or you know, this:

I know. I know.

But I needed it today because, after more than a week of waiting for my car to arrive via shipping with Sketchtacular Russian Potential Mob Bosses, God Damn Them it broke down tonight — less than five blocks to my house. The situation has been dealt with, I don’t need any sympathy, really, because it turns out I have (a) seriously amazing neighbors and (b) seriously, seriously amazing roommates. Nobody was hurt; everything was fine. It’s all just money. But in the context of the generalized shit-tacularness of this past week — wow.

So! Instead, I challenge you, now that I have brought you the joy of…well, that — bring me joy of some other kind.

I’ve gotten so used to moving around I’m almost used to being in a constant state of upheaval, which I’m sure says many and sundry unflattering things about my generalized mode of existence. But as many of you who’ve been keeping a regular eye on this blog knows, I recently packed up 1/3 of my life and moved out to Seattle for (at least) the summer, and I have been freezing my ever-loving balls off ever since in this ornery Pacific Northwest weather. It’s good then to know that I’m having a good time, and that in the grand scheme of Summer Shenanigans, this has been one of the least traumatic (so far — there is still plenty of time for it go to downhill, way, way downhill). I had lovely meals with some local Seattle fen, including some adventures with finding jumper cables (for once, NOT MY FAULT) and finding the perfect Starbucks in Bellvue (don’t look at me like that, KZ, you know that was all you), plus, going out to amazing local places and having something that gave me the excuse to say “Yamhill County pork loin,” which really, really made my night.

It’s been fun, it’s been kind of insane, but mostly it’s been good.

And now, I’m ready to climb back on the wagon of having a semi-normal life — which means that I will be spending probably a lot of it watching season four of NCIS and shrieking at the television every time Madame Director appears, because her existence is the bane of mine.

So! On the agenda for the next three days is:

(1) Part 3/? of Arc
(2) Part 2/? of Septpartite
(3) Part 3/? of 48 Inches (which persists on not being a penis joke)

And, in conclusion, I leave you with this, because seriously — it’s beautiful here:

I could be cutting diamonds here with the magical freezingness of my tits.  And everybody who is reading this up in Canada or in North Carolina or places where I am not and your temperatures make sense to you can just go fuck yourself because I am freeeeeeezing.  Dear Gods of Seattle, please either magically warm it up 20 to 25º or for Jesus’ sake, GIVE ME A PARKA.  JUST RAIN DOWN A PARKA.

(PS, I know the tag reads “I do go outside you know” but really for this entry it should read “I do curl up under a fleece blanket and drink boiling hot coffee and cry softly you know.”)

(PPS, also, LJ, I ceded territory to you, acknowledging the higher power of your scads of crazy — leave me the hell alone.  Stop sending your nutbags into my email inbox.)

Seattle is — as expected — gorgeous. However, she outdid herself trying to live up to her press today: cold and drizzly all day long, which given the context of several phone calls I made back home to find that it was once again soaring into the 90s in the N.C. was kind of hilarious. I’m living in a neighborhood that’s lushly green and dotted with Craftsman style homes, beautiful quiet streets, and a distant view out into Capitol Hill; and not even the icy wind blowing through my window can bring me down. I took a long walk around the neighborhood today until the rain hit, and came back inside to watch NCIS and House and play with the dog, talk to my awesome roommate, and curl up under a quilt; it doesn’t feel like June, but I think I can live with that. Tomorrow’s goal? Acquire food. And also knock out another eight pages of Arc and post.