NOVEMBER 28, 1999: A STRANGER IN MY OWN TOWN

SUNDAY MORNING. I woke up feeling hung over and empty. Something was missing for me in Seattle. Perhaps I was missing from it. I wondered if it was time to move, or time to go away for a while. Perhaps I was just experiencing re-entry since I traveled far away in both geography and my mind. It didn't help that I still had feelings for my ex-girlfriend, nor that she had started to see someone new, nor that she lived two floors directly above me in the same apartment building. Though I did my best, that was hard to deal with. Add to this the fact that my birthday was coming up, the first birthday I would celebrate without her and alone in almost five years had me feeling emotionally jagged. I went through my pockets and threw out the detritus I had gathered while travelling and at the Stereolab show the night before: gum wrappers, beer caps, my boarding passes. On the back of one of them it said: "NOTICE: Please retain this stub and your ticket receipt as evidence of your journey." Evidence of your journey. I liked that.
I walked down Broadway and felt like I was just visiting, like it was not my neighborhood, or like I was new and didn't know anybody. This made me feel lonely and depressed. It was an interesting feeling but I would have preferred to feel this way somewhere else, in a different city and not in my own neighborhood. A W.T.O. protest march moved slowly but noisily down Broadway. I walked on the sidewalk along with them, read their signs, and looked at the faces of the demonstrators. It didn't feel like a protest as much as it did a celebration. I got tired of watching the marchers walk by and decided to get something to eat. I went to La Cocina to nurse my hangover with refill after refill of Diet Coke and a big fat greasy burrito. As I read the Sunday paper's articles about what the city could expect in the way of demonstrations during the coming week, I remembered that I had been invited by my friend Curtis to be one of eleven Santa Clauses participating in the big protest march on Tuesday. Curtis had this idea in his head that it would be cool to be Ambassadors of Good Will from the North Pole. After lunch I left a message on Curtis's voicemail: "This is Santa Claus reporting for duty." Later, there was a message on my voicemail from him telling me there would be a meeting at 7:30 p.m. the following evening. I watched as the newscasters on television reminded everyone about the W.T.O. conference on Tuesday. Mayor Schell expressed his optimism that it was going to be a peaceful event that would show the world an image of Seattle at its best.