Hemidemisemiferal

I went to Funny Lady's Halloween party down at her new place in Georgetown. There were no hot queer makeouts or fearing for my life this time, but I still had a perfectly pleasant time in the Devil Girl outfit.

The house is decorated with clear enthusiasm for the – How do I put this? – kitschier, googie-er, space-age variety of mid-century modern. I can definitely see that coming from Funny Lady's husband P; it suits them. I'm happy that they've finally bought a place, even though it's at the opposite end of the city from me.

As I pulled up to their place in a Lyft, I could hear a marching band playing a few blocks away. I knew Georgetown was, characteristically, having a Halloween parade. (They love marching bands down there.) That means FL & P are within an easy, level walk of Georgetown's commercial district on Airport Way. It's not Capitol Hill, their old neighborhood, or even quite Fremont*, but there's plenty of fun to be had near them. I predict some epic two-bus trips in my future.

I may have talked too much about my plans for my face and how they happened. They are, nevertheless, a big deal to me.

I didn't stand so much in the Grand National boots that I wrecked my feet. I'm not hung over. I got enough sleep last night. On call was mercifully cooperative last night. I feel as if I've been blessed by the old gods.



*Fremont: a knack for visual theatrics, live entertainment, the best eats. Georgetown: actual working artists and occasional bikers, rougher-looking. White Center: up and coming, with plenty of queers and a slogan of "Not so white, not so centered." Fremont was once Georgetown. Capitol Hill was once White Center. What changed things? The tech industry.

On call has been kicking my butt the last couple of nights, and it's only partly my fault. Basically, we're dealing with the collateral damage from Google's recent change in tactics to thwart scrapers that feed LLMs ("AI scrapers").

So on less-than-ideal sleep, I went for shiny drinks last night. That's why I passed up an occasion to be the Devil Girl and wore my lowest key latex LBD when everyone else was dressed up. I had a major ulterior motive: meeting someone there from a dating site. She begged off due to a migraine, though.

Not to worry! I spotted Rubbermaid across the room, unexpectedly returned from Europe. I all but squeed. I told her to expect private communication from me about just the two of us getting together.

So yes, it was a night of synchronicity. Splendid!

Bummer #1: I woke up at 0310 and couldn't get back to sleep.

Bummer #2: I broke something at work, and I wasn't around to fix it because I was at the dentist.

Bummer #3: The Halloween party that I wanted to go to so badly has been cancelled due to the hosts' need to recover from COVID.

But! I have backup and other plans for this week, next week, and the week after that. So take that, bummers!

I took a planned trip to Tacoma today to consult about a clothing commission with a seamstress of vast experience and competence who wants to start working in a material that's new to her. One that I, unusually, happen to own a lot of. Ahem. More about this in a few weeks when she's done. (She said three, which astounded me. She is not to rush on my account.)

But that wasn't mostly what I wanted to write about. What I wanted to write about is Tacoma. One of the first things any resident of Seattle and its immediate neighbors will notice about Tacoma is that there are many more old* buildings, not just in proportion but in absolute number. Like, a lot. Tacoma Girl says that's because it's hard to tear down old buildings in Tacoma. I knew that Seattle's historic preservation ordinance dated from when the Hotel Seattle was demolished and replaced with the notorious "Sinking Ship" parking garage.

But guess what? Tacoma's historic preservation ordinance was enacted a very few years later. Is Tacoma's ordinance tougher than Seattle's? I honestly can't be bothered to find that out, but I doubt it. First, the prevalence of older buildings extends to single-family residences, and I'm not sure the ordinances even apply to those, though I believe they do in Gainesville, FL. Victorian single family homes in Tacoma don't look immaculately maintained the way the are in Port Townsend, WA or, sometimes, San Francisco**. Second, Seattle experienced two economic booms in the last century that Tacoma mostly didn't: the aviation industry starting during Word War II, and the tech industry starting in the 1980s. Tacoma apparently did get a piece of the action during the Klondike gold rush of 1897, but judging by the number of architectural monuments lying around I don't think Tacoma's piece was as big as Seattle's. In other words, there was simply more demand for new buildings in Seattle during times when people didn't think twice about knocking old ones down.

And other things: one big pro-Trump flag on a pole in front of someone's house, but dozens of houses decorated for Halloween. Tacoma goes hard for Halloween, which kind of fits with their reputation. I approve whole-heartedly. Seattle, you need to raise your game.

One last thing: the seamstress was correct that Tacoma's mass transit is... not fabulous. The drivers are righteous, but the frequency isn't. Ditto the long-haul buses between the two cities, at least on Saturdays. Moral: if I'm going to visit people in Tacoma, at least half the trip should be on a Friday if possible. That's six bus trips and one train trip for me today. And the day isn't over.



*By American standards, meaning 19th and early 20th century. Europeans are cordially invited to shut up. This means you too, Brits.
**San Francisco has a huge number of "Vics" as they're called there, so they're not quite as special as the ones around Puget Sound, even if I do love the look of them. Any Victorian house anywhere in the world is surely a maintenance nightmare, but western Washington state has a much less forgiving climate than the Bay Area.

Susie Bright once said that there's no such thing as anonymous sex when you're a lesbian because every lesbian in your city either is one of your exes or knows one of them. Well, this finally happened to me last night on Feeld. It's not a total loss, though: she agreed to come to the next latex gathering with me.

Meanwhile, I've been invited to the West Seattle munch by the lady from the Blue Moon. For you non-local folks, West Seattle is nearly at the opposite corner of this sprawling city from the Devil Girl house, and is notoriously hard to get to in and of itself. Getting around on transit doesn't make that any better*, but I can do this with just one bus transfer, and I will.



*The 3 line of the light rail is supposed to serve West Seattle, but it's still in the planning stages. I know this because the Tickler is involved with them for work. Small world.

Good: I got a decent night's sleep last night, over seven hours.
Bad: It ended before 0315.

Those of you who can do arithmetic have realized that I turned out the light around 2000 last night. That's not ideal, but it's still better than the night before. Is it now taking me two nights, at least, to recover from a late Saturday night? Or do I need more time every day with the happy lamp, currently glowing away right under my laptop?

It's not that cold yet, thank Goddess. It's not unusually rainy for this time of year. I can't explain the strong urge to hibernate that's hit me this month. Whiskey tango foxtrot, over? If this is just How It's Going To Be every fall from now on, I'm not ready for that.

Time for yoga. With the happy lamp aimed at me.