2:42pm, 23rd and Columbia

By Keith | Published: Friday, February 26, 2010

I was sitting on the bus, one stop away from mine on 23rd Avenue, wondering self-pityingly if maybe nobody actually wants me, but just wants someone like me. I had just come from Wallingford because I was picking up a book by a local poet for class (extremely late, mind you). It was rainy and my fingers were cold. My iPod earbuds were in they way they usually are anymore when I’m alone in public.

The bus pulled up to the stop light at the intersection with Union and next to it, a late-model sedan with a dog in the back. Clearly a friendly dog, it was at eye level with me and seemed particularly interested. We had a little bit of a staring contest: I smiled at him and considered waving, but didn’t want to seem insane. I also didn’t want the driver to turn around and see me waving at her pet.

I suddenly remembered that I had my K1000 with me and, conscious that the red light would soon be turning green, quickly and clumsily slung it around my shoulder. I advanced the film and had to adjust the exposure really quickly and focus. By the time I clicked the shutter, however, the car was in motion and the dog had moved. It was disappointing certainly, mainly because the dog had such engaging eyes and a friendly face. It probably would have been a better remnant of our little interspecies exchange through glass had he been looking.

The bus stopped and I stood and got off, thanking the driver as I left, which he didn’t notice because he was too busy looking into the rear view mirror at someone repeatedly shouting “Back door!” from the other end of the bus. Walking along the sidewalk I thought I heard something through Sufjan Stevens’ singing in my ears. A woman was trying to get my attention.

“I know this might be random, but—” I took my earbuds out. She repeated herself. ”I know this might be random, but I just really wanted to tell you how happy it made me that you took a photo of that dog. I saw him and he was really cute.”

“Oh, yeah!” I was excited that she stopped me to tell me something so mundane. I would not have the same courage. “I tried to get him while he was looking at me, but I think the car had already moved, so—” I shrugged.

“I just loved the fact that you captured that moment. That’s what life’s about.”

I thanked her again and walked home alone, grinning.

Posted in Stories | 4 Comments

True Things

By Keith | Published: Friday, February 26, 2010

The truest thing you said to me was that I needed to love myself before I could love anyone else, though it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

The only compliment that you ever gave me (besides “You’re a good looking kid,” which I do not count as complimentary) was when you told me that I had a knack for picking the perfect descriptors for things. You won’t ever know how meaningful it was.

The best times I had with you are the simplest to describe. The happiest I felt were the times when we shared more than we spoke.

I have this hope that life is so much simpler than each of us makes it out to be. The problem lies in that, being simple, it isn’t made any easier.

Posted in Life | Leave a comment

Things I Will Miss About My Apartment

By Keith | Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010

  • The sound of light rain on the skylight, lulling me to sleep.
  • The way the early-setting sun’s light falls on me while playing guitar and singing pitchily in my bedroom on an afternoon just after daylight savings.
  • The sound of passing planes through the air vent above the stove.
  • The way it’s impossible to see what’s on the television screen at around 8:30pm during the summer time.
  • The way my bed shakes lightly when people downstairs walk around too heavily on their heels.
  • The view from the back deck of the surrounding evergreens, the DSHS parking lot, and the tall illuminated central spire of the hospital.
  • Four words: porch light dimmer switch.
  • The sound of the wind chime attached to the front door when someone comes home.
  • The bathroom mirror that takes up nearly an entire wall.
  • Walk-in bedroom closet.
  • The “Elizabeth Caval” pukey spot in the living room (don’t ask).
  • The quirky suns with happy faces drawn clandestinely in corners around my room and the sticker that says “You are here” behind the door in my closet, all of which were there before I moved in.

And yet still many more that I can’t think of at the moment. My lease ends this coming July and I will be moving elsewhere, after having lived here for two years.

Posted in Lists | 2 Comments

Attention Paid to Unnecessary Things

By Keith | Published: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

You were upset with me again.

You were wearing that white hoodless sweatshirt with an image of a wolf on the front and, unintentionally, I had just gotten a young girl at the park to repeat out loud that “wolves are so last year.” I thought it was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard and getting someone else’s little girl to repeat what I’d just said made me feel accomplished in that silly “ha-ha that was a joke, but some day having kids is actually going to be pretty awesome” sort of way. I wonder now why it was you I had this experience with and no one else. Like it only ever could have happened with you. That it was supposed to happen that way.

We took a walk up the next few blocks. We were waiting again for him to get to my apartment and you were mad at me, trying feebly to explain why. Or perhaps the opposite, trying to shroud your feelings from me against my incessant needling. It was so early on. Now that I’d annoyed you, the only way I knew how to explain myself was to tell you truthfully how I felt. I was never certain if this worked. But on the way back to my place—after walking several blocks up the street and after he was already waiting on my doorstep—you took my hand in yours.

It was one of those moments when the bottom just suddenly falls out of pretty much everything; when you realize why exactly it is people feel a need to do silly things like marry, to try to suspend a moment in time for as long as they’re alive; when you understand that how you feel about someone has absolutely nothing to do with how long you’ve known them or the things they say or especially with how you want to feel. It’s the kind of moment that invariably fills me with a sense of elation and anxiety, with hope and despair.

I’m not sure that you noticed.

Posted in Stories | Leave a comment

The Way Things Go

By Keith | Published: Monday, February 22, 2010

My best friend in Seattle leaves today to join the Peace Corps and will be in Rwanda for the next twenty-seven months.

I met Ryan on September 20, 2006, five days after I arrived in Seattle. We sat next to each other in the back of the room of our first class of the quarter, Dr. Cohen’s SOCL-210, American Sociology. I forget exactly how, but we introduced ourselves and were fast friends because of our shared sense of humor.

Since then, very few of the the most fun moments I’ve had in this part of the country didn’t involve Ryan in some way. He’s been the kind of charismatic sun to my social solar system, so to speak. That is to say, almost everyone I know here I know in some way through my friendship with Ryan. It’d be an understatement to say that I would have had a very different experience out here had we not met so early on. I’m not sure I’d still even be in Seattle if it weren’t for Ryan.

As such, it would be utterly impossible to articulate to you the impact Ryan’s had on me. He’s been the most consistent friend I’ve had here. In the past four years, he’s been my gym buddy, my wingman, my ride (more than a few times), my co-party-hopper and, before he graduated, my study partner. Since we turned 21, he’s always been good to post up at a bar for happy hour beers and good conversation. He’s one of the most selfless people I know and has dedicated himself not only to his close friends, but also strangers as part of his work with Face AIDS on campus and multiple study abroad trips. And I couldn’t be more proud that he’s following his grandest ambitions through service to the Peace Corps.

My mind balks at the idea that I won’t be able to see him for almost two and a half years. That the next time I see him I’ll be 25 years old. Seattle already seems like such a different city knowing that I won’t be able to call him up and kick it, talk shit about the girls that snub us, talk up the ones we’re interested in, and simply judge the rest based on their visual merits with those distinctly snarky, sarcastic exchanges we find ourselves in. My only hope is that twenty-seven months goes by faster than it sounds like it will and that when he gets back it will feel like nothing’s changed and no time went by at all.

Good luck and be safe out there, buddy. And I can’t wait to meet the bushwife.

Posted in Life | Leave a comment

One Or The Other, Generally

By Keith | Published: Sunday, February 21, 2010

I went out for drinks last night with some former coworkers, which was really great. But one of the things that kept coming up was relationships. I think it was because we’re all single and confused as all get out about what the hell one does exactly to not be single and then to feel happy in relationships. Or something.

Anyway, one of the things that came up (I forget how or why) was the idea that people who don’t think as much are, in general, happier people. I’m fairly sure it was me who said this and, if you’re a regular reader, this kind of broad stroke cynicism coming from me is probably unsurprising to say the least. And when I say “don’t think” what I mean mostly is “don’t self-analyze” as much.

But I think that this idea is interesting to consider. It reminded me in particular of this blog post I found from a friend’s tweet about the choice (disposition?) to be either a happier or more interesting person and furthermore that these two things are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. A lot of this kind of stuff is self-explanatory. For example, blind certainties such as religious faith make you happier because you don’t force yourself to confront undesired possibilities, but it’s the openness to those very possibilities that make a person dynamic.

This is a difficult possibility to confront, I feel. It’s one of those classic dilemmas that on the surface seems dull or obvious: you may not be happy, but that’s OK because you’re interesting. Or vice versa. But these kinds of things become problematic because they’re limiting in so many ways. And it probably accounts for some of the polarization and misunderstanding between people. The ones who overanalyze too much, such as myself, become the self-conscious, self-loathing emotional wrecks. We’re unfun at parties, the Eeyore of the group, quick to remind others what’s still wrong rather than what’s getting better. And the happy people become the cocksure, self-important jerks, the proselytizers and, more than likely, the people making us overthinkers feel like total garbage.

And the insidious thing is that both of these groups are equally socially repulsive.

And the answers? Well, I don’t have any. It’s just scary to consider the possibility that I’ll spend my entire life unhappy because of silly reasons like that I would prefer some measure of proof before I actively believe that a so-called “God” is out there and quote loves me unconditionally. And perhaps this is part of what I was getting at with my whole steamrolling spiel: it’s annoying (to say the least) that it’s these happy people that will continue, at least in part, to make me miserable while moving along on their smug, happy, non-questioning little way in a life devoid of consequences or basic human empathy.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is: Bitter, party of one?

Posted in Life | 4 Comments