Electrolicious

Last night I rallied to go to a Decibel Festival show, and totally regretted the rally. The first band was awesome, and the between-set music was awesome (soul in seattle?! MIRACLE), but then the headliner came on and embodied everything I can’t stand about techno: fancy technique, but totally undanceable for me.
And worse? THE CLOTHES. [...]

Many of the little wannabe toughies in my neighborhood wear these enormously long tshirts. I mean, I realize that you need a really long shirt to go with your outrageously sagged pants. I get that. But when the shirt goes to your knees, and then you wear an only moderately oversized hooded sweatshirt, the overall [...]

Granted:
Seattle is relatively small
I’m a compuslive networker
I’ve lived mostly here for 12 years
But still:
Every single “new” person I have met in the last month has actually been connected to me via at least one other person I’ve known previously
That business contact? Turns out her barista is an old friend of mine. That friend’s roommate? Turns [...]

Why do I find it so irritating that after all these years, I still have the birthday of my first boyfriend burned indelibly into my brain? How unfair is that? I forget things all day every day, and yet some little corner of my memory is permanently dedicated to knowing that Chris Nordstrom is turning [...]

How passive are Seattleites? So passive that, on an overstuffed commuter bus, there are close to 30 people who would rather stand in the aisles than ask one guy to move the duffle bag that’s sitting next to him, or wake up a slumbering teen who’s taking up two seats.

The other day in yoga class, my yoga teacher called me “ar-ee-EL” again. It doesn’t really bother me, but she’s been corrected a few times by a mutual friend, so she tried to correct herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s ‘air-ee-EL.’”
I was upside down at the time, but I said, “Actually, it’s ‘AIR-ee-al,’ but you’re from [...]

Las week I saw a car with this bumpersticker:
HITLER LIVES IN THE KNIVES OF ABORTIONISTS!
I respect that we all have different opinions about abortion. But come on, folks: knives aren’t really involved in abortions. Most of them are done via suction or D&C. There’s no cutting; the cervix is dilated and then the uterine lining [...]

Further observations on the Seattleite demeanor:
…we generally agreed native Seattleites are “polite but not friendly”, rarely returning messages and almost impossible to pry away from doing whatever they’re busy with (even if it’s nothing) for anything spontaneous. One must give at least 1 week notice to have a coffee with a Seattle native. Anything less [...]

If I was still A) a sociology student or B) the editor of a west coast culture magazine, I would write about the emerging circus underground. Has anyone else noticed that all the old ravers, freaks, artists, burners, etc have all become fire spinners, burlesque dancers, stilt walkers, jugglers, and (yes) hoopers? How there are [...]

It really frustrates me how stereotypical people are with their vehicles. For instance, every time I pull up to a souped-up Honda Civic with an enormous spoiler and a 6″-wide exhaust pipe, I’m always secretly praying that the driver will be anyone OTHER than a young, style-conscious Asian dude with spiked hair.
I’m usually disappointed. Why [...]