Thoughts from New Year's

[algeh]

So, as I do most years, I went up to Seattle for Sean's birthday party on New Year's Eve. I meant to do an actual post about this, but then I got All Caught Up On The Internet instead of writing a post and I want to go to bed eventually, so you're getting more of an outline.

• On the drive up, one of the other women at the rest stop was wearing a tail. I almost asked her if she was going to the same event I was, but didn't when I paused to think of the the name of the event I was attending, realized that I couldn't remember the name of the event I was attending, and then realized that this was, in turn, because I was going to a birthday party rather than a con, faire, housefilk, or other such event. This was probably the only time all year that I drove to Seattle without doing something fannish once I got there, and it's clear that going to Seattle has been firmly associated with such things in my mind at this point (especially since Steve sold his house and moved a while back, and Sean moved to the tri-cities, which have combined to decrease my non-fan Seattle houseparty invites substantially). (The tail-wearing woman was not at the birthday party, but this is much less surprising than it would otherwise be.)
  
  
• I really need to find a nice place to hang out and decompress in south Seattle before actually going to wherever I'm trying to get. Now I always arrive in Seattle tired, grumpy, needing to pee, running about a half hour behind the time Google said it would take me, so glad to finally arrive at the address in question so I can finally get out of the damn car and WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO CIRCLE FOREVER TO FIND PARKING EVERYTHING IS RUINED AND I WANT TO SET SEATTLE ON FIRE. I don't know if all of Seattle is impossible to park in, but it seems like in the past few years all of the Seattle friends I've visited have lived places with really obnoxious on-street parking. Circling all over for parking while trying not to get lost in a place you've never been before really sucks, and doing so while really tired of driving and needing to pee does not improve the experience. Seattle also does all of their signage with with things like "No Parking West of Here", which is totally useless to me when I've been circling a neighborhood, not tracking all of my rambling turns, and had absolutely no idea which way was west to start with because it's not my city so I don't know the landmarks.
  
  
• Relatedly, I had to park on-street in Seattle 4 times on New Year's Eve this year. Blargh. (I got to the house I was crashing at, but the people I was meeting were at that point at a bowling alley in Capital (Capitol?) Hill, which was of course not anywhere near the apartment I knew how to get to and had parked near before texting people to let them know I was in Seattle. The party then migrated to Belltown, and then I had to drive back to the apartment I was sleeping at, which was of course also not in Belltown.) The first time was the hardest because I was alone in the car and had no idea where the likely spots in that neighborhood would be.
  
  
• Relatedly, I stayed sober enough to not need any cabs this year, which was one of my goals since getting a cab sucked last year. This made the Really Loud Bowling Alley less fun (I don't like loud music with lots of bass unless I am very drunk and probably also wearing earplugs) but otherwise didn't make New Year's any less fun (and probably made me a lot more fun to be around) so I'll try to keep it in mind for future years. Most years I try to keep up with Sean's drinking level, but this year he had such a head start by the time I got there (between 9 and 10 pm by the time I actually got to the bowling alley and parked) that it didn't seem reasonable to try to catch him (also they were at a bar when I got there, and I'm not going to get 5 or 6 drinks worth of drunk at Seattle bar prices).
  
  
• I didn't get to spend too much "quality time" with Sean this time. Often, we stay up all night drinking and talking, but because I was crashing at Jeff's I had to leave the party around 3:30 am. Sean and I were going to meet up the next day, but his phone died so he didn't get any of my texts and I finally gave up and left Seattle about 1:00 pm after spending over an hour reading in my car while waiting for a text back. (Jeff had to work on New Year's Day and he also has cats, which are the most adorably snuggly allergens ever, so I cleared out of his apartment when I woke up a bit after 11, and grabbed semi-breakfast at 7-Eleven while waiting for Sean to get back to me regarding an actual meal.) I guess I should have texted Jenny as well when Sean didn't respond, but it didn't occur to me at the time because I don't have her number programmed into my texting phone. Sean and I did talk some at the party, but he was pretty drunk and also was trying to catch up with all of his other friends, so it wasn't as much rambling Sean and Linnea talk time as I'd like. I hope our lives eventually get to the point where we can see each other when we're not in a hurry or at a party.
  
  
• Eating nothing but two terrible 7-Eleven donuts for breakfast and then driving all the way back to Portland without stopping for lunch is a dumb idea and I shouldn't do that. On the bright side, whole wheat pasta and a big kale salad for dinner when I got home was DELICIOUS and far better than anything I would have eaten if I'd stopped at a diner along the way. I need to figure out foods to pack in the car for trips like this because stopping at restaurants along the way isn't a great idea for either my budget or my food needs, so instead I sometimes talk myself out of eating at all. Picnics at rest stops seems to be the way to go, but I don't like or can't eat most typical picnic foods, so I need to think of things that I do like that can be eaten cold without a lot of fuss.
  
  
• Gas was easily the biggest expense of the trip, probably coming in at about $50 (I filled up the tank for about $40, and it took somewhat more than one tank to get there and back). Food was a distant second. Actually hanging out with my friends was negligible, although I probably should have gotten Jeff a thank you present of some kind for letting me crash on his couch. (I brought a box of brandy-filled chocolates for a host gift, but because I thought the party would be at Jeff's and then it wasn't I only brought one box and left it at the party house rather than the sleeping house.) Normally I'd have bought him breakfast the next day as a thank you, but he had to work.
  
  

Anyway, that was New Year's. I'm going to try to actually be active on Dreamwidth this year and see if I can recapture the spirit of online journaling, but I don't hold out a lot of hope that I'll stick with it. I just don't find what I have to say about my day as interesting as I did when I was younger, and I don't think I'll ever get back to the long, rambling, oversharing, whiny entries I used to write on my first webjournal (which is probably for the best).

This post originates at http://algeh.dreamwidth.org/288975.html, where it currently has
comments. Comments at LiveJournal are now disabled due to my dislike of their new comment format.