Monthly Archives: February 2003

NYC “inevitable”, say Seattleites

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A big gathering at Molly Maguire’s tonight, and I meet two more people who are moving to New York. Something’s catching.

“You know him. He was the guy who used to walk around downtown capturing crows in a cardboard box – the guy whose girlfriend led him around with a dog collar at the Catwalk?”
Overheard on Capitol Hill

Pundits are declaring the Iraq war “inevitable” again, and the terror alert has been reduced to “Elevated”. I think I’m going to turn off the media for a couple of days for a well-deserved break. Like homework, for instance.

The upside of phlegm

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I’m finally finishing up five days of a flu bug that’s going around Seattle. Hacking less and less each day. How pleasant.

The cleanse has severely curtailed my tolerance to alcohol. I had a glass of wine with dinner, and then later on had another one at a icky-snooty bar with friends, and ordered a third, but couldn’t drink it. I used to be able to work with a whole bottle. Ah, well – at least this has an economic benefit.

SEAtoNYC.html

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My friend Raya’s back in town – she’s spent the last six months around the world, living out of a backpack. She’s moving to New York in mid-March and sort of feels in limbo – she wants to plant some roots after being adrift for so long. Like me, she has good feelings towards Seattle, but the call of a larger, more diverse city is too strong to ignore.

C’etait Toi

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I’m meeting with some people from the Green MBA program at New College on March 10th in Santa Rosa.After seeing a play called ‘Ballyhoo’ at Rebar, my friend Camille and I head to a restaurant named Toi (pronounced ‘toy’). The DJ in the lounge has just started, and most of the guys in the place look and dress like Matthew Perry’s character, Chandler Bing, from ‘Friends’. Two exceptionally-scantily-clad women dance together on the tiny dance floor, which leads me to believe they might have been hired to draw people in.

Outback Mountain Ramjam

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From now on, it’s two drink maximum per evening. I so didn’t want to break my no-hangover vow this year. Last night I went out with my friend Jeannette, and a couple of her friends, for happy hour at a steakhouse. Not much for vegequarians.At least we left the steakhouse to sing karaoke at the Comet Tavern. I belted out “Black Betty” by Ramjam (where are they now? One-hit wonder.) I think the taps were unclean at the Comet. I only had two pints of Guinness.

Barbara Lee at the rally

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Today, 200,000 people marched in San Francisco. Laura and I were two of them. We marched behind the official start of the march, which I would assume is where Joan Baez and Danny Glover were, but after hitting several stalls (and limited chanting), we found the real march was in front of the United for Peace and International ANSWER banners – there was dancing, drumming and singing a block further. So much better.I stayed at the rally to hear Barbara Lee speak, but left. As I left, I noticed the police were suiting up, likely for the unofficial breakaway march planned later that day. I have mixed opinions about the black bloc – true, one shouldn’t need a permit to march in the city, but when any media organization gets whiff of the ritual glass-breaking of Starbucks, Old Navy and Gap windows and mass arrests, that seems to overshadow and undermine the effort of the official, mainstream march. I lean towards the idea that the black bloc is a bad thing for the protest movement, but I can’t and won’t take away their right to do what they do. I only know that I won’t have any part of it because I saw how it undermined the WTO protests in Seattle.

Fortunately, the media separated the mainstream protest from the breakaway protest. This seemed to be reflected on major outlets nationwide.

Jim Crow visits the Embarcadero

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Yowza! I weigh 182 pounds – I feel so much younger with this 15-pound difference, and much more energetic.While downtown this morning, a Southern tourist asked loudly to his friend “why white people would want to visit SF, when there are so many of those sickly homeless colored people”? I wanted to tell him off (I suspect his name was Jim Crow), but declined. An African-American woman next to me shook her head. Ugh. I had several comebacks prepared in my head later that day to mentally pound him into a stain. Timing, natch.

I finally find my grade report in a filing cabinet down the hall from where the class meets, where I’ve received three A’s and one A-plus! Hooah.