Desperately Seeking Salem

It was the best of weekends, it was the worst of weekends, it was the age of frantic consumption, it was the age of parsimony, it was the epoch of bedazzlement, it was the epoch of befuddled dismay, it was the sojourn of inspiration, it was the sojourn of exhaustion.

And if I haven’t lost you already with my attempt to capture what it is like for me to wander around downtown Seattle for a few days, then think about this: I think I am slowing losing all ability to be a city person.

I can spend hours at Pike’s Market and another few geeking out on brands in Seattle’s downtown shopping district. I can confront myself with the shock of the new at the Seattle Art Museum in almost-empty galleries at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night. I can walk on the waterfront and romp in the grass of Volunteer Park on a day so hot it seared my flesh. But at the end of the day, I would really rather be at home in my garden in Salem.

Also, I discovered that Seattle, despite being among the most tech-forward of American cities and having a Twitter presence to rival the Israeli Army, doesn’t respond as gleefully to Twitter-based requests for restaurant and tourist tips. I had more response to my shout outs in Park City, UT than I had there… On my personal travel-by-Twitter scale, it gets a 2/10.

So all in all, our trip Seattle last week for a professional conference and to visit our my brother-in-law Steven and his gal Jessica got me thinking about what got lost when I moved out of a big city (Munich, D.C.), and what might just be gained.

I could post a whole list here expounding the virtues and drawbacks of said cities, but to me, Seattle’s lingering after-effects are two:

1.) Nice haircuts - Working from home, and living in Salem, I kinda miss having to look sharp and move quickly. My pocketbook doesn’t look back fondly on my days as a short-haired upstart PR professional/book editor, but when I see a woman, early 30s, hair shaped like Brancusi himself had done the cutting, my heart gets a little sore. Being around attractive, upwardly mobile people who are in a hurry while I am on vacation tends to make me über-competitive. I saw one woman who looked so good I felt like I had to run home and crank out a screenplay. Is that odd? Perhaps it is not the haircuts themselves but the sense of teeming competition — all those people! And what are you doing with your life!?

2.) Hefty prices – We paid $3.75 a piece for two beautiful but utterly tasteless goat cheese and spinach brioches at a sexy little bakery called Sugar, just around the corner from Steven and Jessica’s apartments. Sadly, this was just one in a string of disappointing food experiences that were only assuaged by one great meal at Brouwer’s Cafe in Fremont.

By the way, the top image is of Adam giving a demonstration at Seattle’s Top Pot, known for their doughnuts, on how NOT to drink coffee. Sadly, I’m pregnant and off coffee for a while. I’m pretty sure that my affinity for Seattle will return post haste as soon as I am living on the stuff again myself.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.