In which I am schooled

A 25-year-old friend--student, cartoonist, gym rat--told me he'd read my story that came out in Neon Beam in March. You should think about adding some humor to your writing, he said. You know, funny sells.
I'd thought there were a lot of funny things in the story. Well gee thanks, I said, insincerely.
He went on, It's like when my friends text me, if they say Hey what are you up to, I probably won't text back. But if they say, Hey hooker, why don't you roll outta the bed and come rob a bank with us, I'll text 'em back, because they were funny.
*
I'm thinking about what he said. Maybe my funny is too subtle. Maybe my funny just isn't all that funny. A writer friend said she thought I had a trenchant sense of humor. Compliment? I dunno. In any case, it all feels a little like that Simpson's episode where Homer berates the television: stupid TV, be more funny.

Overheard around town part VI

The heat may have eased temporarily, but tempers are still crackling and frayed. On the 373 bus to north Seattle, an irate man with a phone clapped to his ear read somebody the riot act. Nobody's gonna tell me when I can go to the f*cking bathroom. How you gonna know when I'm gonna need to go to the f*cking bathroom? If I need to go to the f*cking bathroom, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna. He went on in this vein for a good ten minutes. Then, Hello? Hello, are you there? He closed his phone, disgusted, and stared off into space.
*
A few nights later, on the 73 downtown, two young men in slouchy jeans rubbed baby lotion into their hands and agreed on the importance of moisturizing. A pair of teenagers boarded, a big cute girl with rhinestone barrettes and a trendy white hoody, and her friend, as slight as she was generous, each of them carrying a rustling collection of shopping bags.
Oh no you didn't, I heard her say, in a sassy, tinkling voice. This is a Coach bag. Coach. Do you know what that means? Coach. She held up the bag. It was little. It was Coach. It was cute. She glanced at me, and I nodded. It's cute.
Couch bag, he joked. After awhile, he asked to look at her iPhone.
You can see it, but you can't hold it. Na-uh, I'm sorry. You're gonna be that way about my Coach bag, I'm not gonna trust you with my phone.
I'll let you look at my phone, he offered weakly.
She raised one eyebrow and sniffed, So? Your phone's little. Size matters.

The leaves they are a-changing

Not sure if this pressure-cooker summer has anything to do with it but the leaves are already starting to change in Seattle. This perfect golden specimen drifted to the pavement in front of me yesterday. There's something so lovely about the contrast between the rough-textured, pebbly cement and the fragile leaf.

Tweet

I love this bird, markered onto a pillar somewhere on 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Is that his head, or a cartoon bomb? Is he whistling, or about to explode? His unwaveringly shiny eye gives no clue.
*
Last week, when it was so hot, I witnessed an act of true seagull savagery. A fat angry male made a feet-first, three point landing on the head of another gull which was in the middle of packing half a bagel down its gullet. Birds are not known for their avian kindnesses but this guerrilla attack was both alarming and merciless. Incoming gull managed, with his sneak-bounce attack, to dislodge part of the bagel. Diner gull scooped up his crumbs and hopped-flew away, swallowing like crazy.

Beautiful street people

I visit The Sartorialist web site a couple of times a month.
The candid shots of street fashionistas never fail to inspire me.
Or depress the hell out of me--how can 60-year-old Italian men have more style savvy in their sockless loafers than I'll have in two lifetimes of trying?

Scenes from a hot city

The temperature topped 100 degrees in Seattle yesterday. We’re so not used to it. A few pollyannas say they enjoy it, and loudly proclaim their newfound love affair with the sun. The rest of us walk around slowly, blinking and frowning, alternately cranky or bewildered.

The unrelenting heat is prompting questionable sartorial decisions. I saw my supervisor in a miniskirt. For every lithe young campus hottie running around in flip flops and cutoffs, there's the Rubenesque bare-chested old guy with sweat dripping off his wrinkled nipples.

An older manager at work abandoned his computer, rolled up a copy of the campus paper and chased around an errant fly.

29 Seattle-area friends on my facebook page posted about the weather. No more archly clever posts; we're recording triple digit temperatures in our kitchens, posting screen shots of KING5, and passing around beat-the-heat tips (water soaked headbands, running through sprinklers) .

On my bus, no one talks. No one's sleeping. We all have zombie stares, behind our shades. And overhead, the sun continues to shine.

A priority message

Remember I told you to look up when you're walking down the street? (Be safe and all, natch.)
I snapped this series of doodled shipping stickers along a 1/2 mike stretch in Wallingford.

I tried to simply enjoy and not think too hard about what they were or meant -- poetic clues to a scavenger hunt? Coded messages? Or just random, disposable thoughts?