confusion doesn't always mean uncertainty

As my time in Seattle continues, at a steady enough pace, soon to pick up I'm being told, I take what I can get and spend my days going back and forth between being good to myself and making...interesting life choices. That's besides the point. I sit here in a Starbucks, yes I know I know but it get to use the internets and people watch in one of the most dynamic sections of town. I just completed my YMCA child abuse prevention awareness modules and paperwork and as I lift my head to see the sun, start playing my music, I sense it's  good time to take a few notes of the interesting intersection of lives I see in front of me, so bare with me please.
I live next to a Bread of Life Mission and other social service organizations that serve the King county less fortunate with food, showers, work and shelter. Pioneer Square, the original city center of Seattle is a bustling hot spot for homeless wanderers, work stay participants, tourists, locals on their way to a Mariners/ Sounders game and a very few residents ( including myself). In back alleys, the youth of our nation get high, argue about each others legitimacy and other nonsense. On the water front those without a home find solitude with a nice view of the west, Olympic mountain ranges and incoming cruise ships carrying waves of tourists sure to clog their streets. People are coming and going from their service jobs that make up a huge percentage of industry throughout Seattle, right up there with Boeing and Microsoft. Art is everywhere, as tattoos, on murals, in galleries, and on street corners in the form on buskers or public art. Girls wear their skirts, ride their bikes with dogs in their baskets, stop for red lights and turn heads. The man sitting across form me in front of the Italian Roast sign looks happy but perhaps not with this reality. Magic Mouse Toys has an underground tour group of 30 in front of it waiting to hear about Seattle's seedy happenings during prohibition; when seamstresses were taxable prostitutes and booze was allowed only if you knew the right stairwell to the underground. Sounds of the city are just as messy. I hear erroneous shouts on streets corners, conversations for one, business men expressing impatience, tourists talking about the Starbucks in Tennessee, delivery trucks and construction on the Alaskan Viaduct, duck tour quacking and horns honking but not at the bikers taking up a lane rather at other cars who continue to fail at making left turns. The pungent mix of pizza, coffee, Vietnamese/ Thai food, washed up fish, garbage, urine, concrete dust, and when the wind blows, fresh sea air fills the city as well as the sounds. Coming close but not quite overwhelming the senses, this place is rather a confused hodgepodge mix up of worlds collided into a center or square or hill. In a different world and up these hills, the other day I biked close to 20 miles and found Lake Washington and a serene scene of families and suburban Seattle-ites enjoying their weekend on many a different lake front beach with a collective appreciation for one of the first beautiful weekends of the Seattle summer. It seems everyone has a different agenda, no one the same, a world of different drum beats.

wood floor sleep overs

So now I've been in Seattle long enough to know my way around but still new enough to get excited when on a clear day you can see straight to Rainier, the Olympics and the Cascades. What a sight, completely awe inspiring every single time. I still have my moments where I forget I'm actually in Washington but fortunately reality has a way of sinking in no matter how strange it seems. We have moved from Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square, a difference of about a mile and a half and until paperwork cleared, Ryan myself and for a short couple days Branden our third tour guide stayed as inconspicuously as possible on the floor of our office. Yup, curled up nice and cozy like on a sleeping bag and layered blankets right next to our segways and some other odd and end storage things. At least in AmeriCorps I had the excuse of it just being what we did, but here, well lets just say the benefits are out-weight the temporary sacrifices so I'm dealing with it :) A 45 minute train ride away is the home of a cute boy that I am lucky to be able to extort for his shower and eating out has been a habit but soon, at the end of the week, things should be looking less like a drunk college weekend and more like the illegitimate sleeping arrangement I had before coming out here. Seattle itself is a wonderfully interesting place. in Capitol Hill I felt the people were as transient as the wind that hits high speeds up and down these hills. This hipster/ gay district is lit up with colorful people, bars, businesses and true to Seattle even its architecture. The transient feeling was replaced with tourist season when we came down the hill to 107 office space. I like living in a downtown, there's always activity and we are a 5 minute walk to Pike Place Market, the oldest running farmers market in America. It is complete with an unofficial pig mascot and local produce, tulips and most recently the sight of my collision with a bike pedal resulting in a huge bruise on my foot and a new rip in my jeans that seem to be disintegrating anyway. I'm getting more comfortable giving tours, stumbling through my fun facts which I still think are fun, and all in all I'm still happy to be here, smelly and happy. Even if I get weird looks because I smile too much.. or maybe it is in fact because I smell, who knows but I don't care.