This

formatting really

hurts my eyes

to

read

please fix it as quickly

as is possible.

"But is this

place as full as life was full, of them?"

Is 'No' is the answer?

Welcome to Seattle, you'll get used to the weed and be able to write complete sentences again soon.

I love the format, your rhythm...

And this part:

"There are several construction workers on the avenue today, which makes it male and loud (sounds like Williamsburg -catcalls?). First The Fun House dies, then Piecora's, the the Hurricane. But is this place as full as life was full, of them?

And one is caffienated and one walks past the Babeland dildos (you sure you're not still in NY?!) and the posters for CASCADIA The Stranger's building, which they won't tear down (Hallelujah!!!!! Buildings stick around?!?!)

Don't worry. The literary wears off pretty soon.

@1

If only it was like intentional or something and part of the piece

Pretentious drivel.

ATT: Whoever is willing to read this

RE: CSS Revisions; "First Impressions of Seattle by Someone …," 1/28/15

/*******************************************************

Joe Szilagyi is spot on so maybe we should consider

these changes - [check it out/tweak them before the

sportsball match on Sunday?]

*******************************************************/

@import url(http ://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Noto+Serif);

@import url(http ://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Droid+Sans);

#dropcap, .dropcap {

font-family: 'Noto', serif;

font-weight: normal;

font-size: 48px;

padding: 0 5px 0px 0;

margin-top: -4px;

vertical-align: top;

float: left;

line-height: normal;

{

#story_text p, #story_text div.p {



margin-top: 0em;

margin-bottom: 2em;

text-align: left;

font-family: 'Droid Sans' sans-serif;

font-size: 1.15em;

line-height: 1.5em;

letter-spacing: -0.04em;

text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;

color: #222;

{

oops - should have styled my own comment. Lame

Stick to writing about the tunnel.

Tech
dudes
hate
people who
don't
write
everything
in dull,
aka
:
code;
esp
WOMEN.

@1 it is called a poem you half wit.

@10. Can't really argue with that generally. How the page looks is at least a legitimate concern. For the sake of the author and the reader.

No one should do anything for which they have to apologize to the ghost of Frank O'Hara.

Throwing shade on Paul Williams? Why for?

@11

Actually, it's called doggerel.

Dog Barf

slowly, imperceptibly
draining over the edge
of my beloved
heirloom
whole-grain toast

I know this makes me a terrible person, but my god I hate poetry.

My first (good) impressions of Seattle as a New Yorker on vacation (starting in Seattle and driving south to eventually fly home from Los Angeles two weeks later) were that it was clean, green, and to me unexpectedly hilly (like San Francisco) - something I was not expecting.

That vacation changed my life and when I got fired from my job in NYC two months later I spent three months getting my s*** together and moved to Seattle in October 2002. In October 2002 I found Seattle to be sunny and warm and every apartment building on Capitol Hill was BEGGING you to move in, with offers of free rent and other deals.

I was instantly in love with the mountains, the water, the coffee, the library, the cheap rent, and the fact that I could rent an apartment without a job or proof of income. I lived on Capitol Hill and could walk everywhere I wanted to go (including all but one of the jobs I had in Seattle).

I loved the tons of live music shows to choose from nightly (and unlike in NYC where everything sold out in 3 seconds, I was able to get tickets to any show I wanted to go to in Seattle, and some of those shows would even have tickets available the night of the show). I fell in love with KEXP.

I loved how quiet and beautiful Seattle was compared to NYC. I loved the smell of the air. I loved how easy it was to explore and find favorite spots. Seattle soothed my soul after living in NYC, especially after the trauma of 9/11 and the year living in NYC after 9/11.

Other not so good impressions came after living in Seattle for awhile and after I started working. Passive aggression is a plague in Seattle and if the constant influx of people over the last years has changed that, that would be the best thing to ever happen to Seattle. I did not understand how people got any work done when no one ever wanted to communicate directly with anyone else (yet they would have an unending number of meetings about things, talking things to death with nothing ever getting done).

I did not understand the "freeze." People would agree to hang out or go to happy hour or make plans and would just not show up. No call. No email. No explanation. And the next time you saw them, it was like it never happened. As a New Yorker, I thought that was f*cking rude. I burned through a lot of flaky people my first year in Seattle. Most of the people I met who I made lasting friendships with were not from Seattle or were from Seattle but spent a good amount of their lives traveling outside of Seattle, interacting with other people, so they knew how to properly socialize with other human beings without being passive and/or passive aggressive. I made some amazing friends and was able to meet some of the gems of the Emerald City, people whose philosophy is you introduce the good people to the good people and the larger the group of good people you have in your life and bring into your life and share with others, the better your quality of life will be.

When I had to leave Seattle in October of 2007 due to a serious, progressive, degenerative and rare ALS related disease (misdiagnosed in Seattle as MS), my friends in Seattle did everything to help me. They helped me pack my stuff, get rid of stuff I wasn't moving, clean my apartment, run errands, drive me around, and all the while managing to make me laugh and showed me more love than I can possibly express here.

New York and Seattle are two very different cities. I love(d) both of them. I am happy to have lived and worked in both of them. They are both drastically different now than the years I lived in them. And both cities now are almost completely inaccessible, each in their own ways, to me due to my physical disability caused by my illness.

I thought I would live in Seattle forever. What's sad is if I had never gotten sick I'd have been driven out of Seattle anyway due to how ridiculously expensive it has become to live there now. And NYC? NYC is worse with regard to how ridiculously expensive it is.

@22, your comment offered the kind of substance that Sydney should have come close to in offering. Thanks (as a NYC transplant myself)

In that big white space

with giant leading

could have been the place

for something worth reading.

If you imagine this poem being read 'slam style' it is much better, but it's not pretentious enough for "cap hill" yet. It's a good effort for someone from out East though.

Sydney doesn't strike me as a NYC native. It's missing any tinge of attitude, the cynicism, and, most telling, by being so earnest (and thus vulnerable), is putting a lot of trust in others (the reader).

Nothing wrong with that at all, but perhaps the title should more accurately read "from New York via ___."

To Xina (#22): Thank you for taking the time and effort to share both the good and bad of my home town. I read things that talk of the Seattle Freeze and I am completely mystified because I lived there so many years ago, long before it had become mecca for Amazon and Microsoft. Back in the day it was Boeing and a few companies along the old 99. I miss the "dry rain" that you would never open an umbrella for and the clean smelling air, going to Lake Washington or along Akli Point before there were condos and McMansions dotting the way, riding my bike from my place in Green Lake to the U District, having a picnic and biking back, eating at Ray's boathouse when it was just an affordable (to a student) clam bar, spending the day reading at the Public Library on 4th, taking the bus home from my nighttime job at the bank at 2nd and Columbia at 11 PM as a girl alone and not worrying too much about being kidnapped/mugged. It seems you can't "go home" again; if you try, it is never the same.