my seattle

one week into the new year, and i am most certainly alive. in fact, i feel so happy and so alive, that i am looking forward to going back to school. :) this break has been very good to me. after a bit of a slow start, residual school stress, and then the stress of not knowing my grades, vacation has really taken off and is now treating me the way vacations really ought to. since leaving j in chicago, i've been meandering the streets of seattle, rehydrating in 19 days of rain, reading and drawing. i only wish i'd made it to seattle before SAM closed for two years. bummer. yesterday i had the opportunity to catch up with the one and only graham. always wonderful. talking with him really solidified my thought on the merits of bowdoin vs the uw. freshman year i almost seriously contemplated transferring back to the u. (ok more than almost seriously, i really didn't like bowdoin) now, i can't imagine being anywhere else. i wouldn't trade the people i've met at bowdoin for anything. kruiky...holly...freshman year sucked, but i wouldn't think the way i do without my friends - who i wouldn't have met at the uw! haha while thinking about thinking... j introduced me (or rather, her bookshelf introduced me) to pierre hadot. and while she confiscated the poor book from me before i left chicago, i had to keep reading. the history of philosophy and theological thought. it really amazes me, what we take for granted as being the standard or the norm. the role of misinterpretation, translation and borrowing in the development of thought. i love thinking about history, it makes change not seem so daunting. see noonie, i listened to you on the train to frankfurt! anyway, back to tea with grahammy - i couldn't ask for a better afternoon or a better friend. i find it funny how what you feel is important changes over time. there aren't a plethora of people i want to see now in seattle. haha j made a joke about me in hungary this year - something to the effect that i'm a matryoshka doll (haha her reasoning for the layers wasn't quite the same as i'm taking here, but whatever.) in some ways, i really feel that i am. sometimes i feel myself receding into the various layers. i love talking to strangers, and groups of friends, etc. but i'm realizing that i much prefer tiny groups. seeing people who were more like 4 year acquaintances in highschool is good for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes (or 3 hours?!) with graham are far more worthwhile though!
haha before i run off to be crazy somewhere in the udistrict (and by be crazy i mean go read at the bookstore) i just have to say one last time, i love seattle! i love the rain, and recognizing strangers who i've seen for so many years at these little coffee shops, i love magus and all the books i wish i could buy from them...the smell of the air (hehe..."the smell of people doing...i mean...") ach! i love this city!