Thats Slade Gorton, a can of Four Loko, and me, in 2010. Memories!
  • That's Slade Gorton, a can of Four Loko, and me, in 2010. Memories!

Dearest Slog,

I have not left myself sufficient time to fully express my feelings for you, nor for The Stranger as a whole. It's been six years (full-time, with a good spate of freelance before that)—that's 2,178 Slog posts, 546 restaurant reviews, and between the years 2005 and 2012, I bit the bullet and wrote 257 columns about Seattle bars for you.

I was especially pleased, just off the top of my head, to write about the greatness of asparagus; a digressive, incomplete history of Mexican restaurants in Seattle; a piece about restaurant reviewing called “The End of Anonymity”; and a revisitation of the Double-R Diner from Twin Peaks.

And while the record of the time in 2010 when Lindy West and I drank Four Loko at the Rossi/Reichert party at the Bellevue Hilton seems to mostly be lost in the sand of the Slog archives—which is probably for the best—I'll never forget what I can remember of it.

I want to echo all the things Dom said about the greatness of the paper and of my colleagues. To leave these brilliant, bizarre, extremely funny people is heart-wrenching. I will also miss being here with you, more than you know. And I will miss Megan, the office mouse. (What will they name after me?!)

Starting later next month, you'll find me at The Seattle Times. Cheers, friends!

Yours truly,
Bethany