Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I made it to the Blue Moon last night, having arranged to be there with Blue Moon Lady. Go me! It's a short bus ride for me, but for her it's a long drive. I appreciate it.

It was digital open decks night. Good: Hazel Zen for sure, and maybe Krystal? It took me a while to find the whiteboard on which Brit writes down the set times. Less to my taste: River, a young 'un who's about 90% limbs and 100% trans. River's hyperpop-flavored set was not what we olds wanted, and indeed, no one was dancing. I speculated that it was because the youth of today are doing the wrong drugs. BML's friend J concurs, saying that the increase in ketamine's popularity and the decline in MDMA's has led us to this pass.

Was it a date? Well, it didn't feel like a date. But! We agreed that we should keep each other notified if we're going to the Blue Moon or a north end munch. She runs the munch in West Seattle, if you'll recall. So, vict'ry?

I left at 2130 because I got paged for work. It was kind of a convenient excuse, though; remember, I get up at 0600.

Transphobia on the bus home. I don't think I was in any danger, because the bottle-throwing fool was getting off, but still, not fun. That's the second time I've had aggro at that stop. Some people's children.

Celebrated going off call with one of Brit Jean's FLINTA* open decks nights at the Blue Moon. I'd missed two of her nights in as many weeks, so it felt like payback.

I got to see, but not hear, Onyx; I still have to go to work this morning. But I did get to hear Hazelwood, Juju, and Miss Min D, who brought the sweet, sweet house music. Miss Min D even introduced herself as I was sitting, drinking a beer, and head-bopping. As always with open decks nights, there was one DJ I just wasn't feeling: River. Kids these days and their uppers, or something. But! It was a most enjoyable night out, and I even went to bed at a reasonable hour.



*Female, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender. I like it better than ABCD — anyone but cis dudes.

First a preface. I've written here several times about going up Aurora Ave., AKA State Road 99. It's a thirty-mile strip of car culture hell that extends from not quite downtown Seattle north into Snohomish County. It's basically a long, narrow blight zone that'll make anyone with any esthetic sensibility at all want to stick forks in their eyes.

But what if the stores were bigger and the place looked less seedy, as I've heard Aurora did fifty or sixty years ago? What you would have then is Federal Way, WA, about eight miles south of SEA airport, which is in turn well south of Seattle.

Sure, it isn't as soul-crushing as Aurora, but why even go there*? Because as of yesterday it's the end of the line for Sound Transit light rail's 1 line! That's right, three bucks and an hour get you from Seattle's U District all the way to Federal Way.

Assuming, of course, that some fool driving on Rainier Ave., the longer of the two at-grade sections of the 1 line, doesn't get in a wreck. I spent half an hour at Sodo looking around at my fellow passengers, texting the Tickler to let them know I'd be late for dinner, and wondering what was going on later at the Monkey Loft a few blocks away. Those at-grade sections, by the way, are the reason we can't automate our light rail as Vancouver did theirs. If I were Imperatrix Mundi they'd be elevated or, better, in cut-and-cover tunnels, and the NIMBYs would get mulched.

But! Onward and southward eventually to three new stations: Kent/Des Moines**, which is one block from Highline College. College kids are transit users, so the location of that station is absolutely correct. The next station is Star Lake; I hadn't known Star Lake existed until I read about the new stations. I guess they had to put a station somewhere.

And then Federal Way, where they put the station on the eastern edge of an agglomeration of big box stores and strip malls. The urbanist in me wishes they'd put it in the middle, but Sound Transit built a parking garage for the station. I can think of two reasons for this: we can expect Federal Way to be the end of the line for a long time, and it's so damn sprawly out there that suburbanites are justified in clinging to their cars for the last few miles. The sensible place for a parking garage is in a less crowded spot right next to I-5, right where it is.

Indeed, even before this latest extension, much of the 1 line's route at the northern and southern ends hugged I-5. It was probably the easiest place to get the rights of way; I know that's why there's no light rail on Aurora.

Is there new housing in Federal Way within walking distance of the station? Yup. Sanity comes to the suburbs, bit by bit.

How long did it take the Tickler to drive from their place in Tacoma to pick me up? Twenty-two minutes, baby. The drive from their place to mine is nearly ninety minutes in early evening traffic.

But! What's actually in Federal Way? Strip malls! Including one about fifteen blocks from the train station where nearly every business is Korean, including about half a dozen restaurants. The Tickler had done their homework and selected one for us named Moobongri. Not fancy, and not barbecue***, with Korean balads on the TV, but all about the tasty noodle soups. I wasn't brave enough to order the pork blood sausage, but the Tickler was. It's a bit chewy, so they ended up eating extra banchan. Would nom again, or would nom again at any of the gazillion neighboring restaurants. Ironically, parking is a bit tight there, so carpool.

But that was the early evening. What about the rest of the evening? I ended up taking the train to the bus to Ballard, where I shook my booty to a lady DJ named Leira and Riz Rollins. Lovely choonz but I went home at midnight because I'd woken up early and my third cup of caffeine was wearing off.

Fun fact: this has been a booze-free weekend by accident. I admit to feeling a lot perkier than I usually do on Sunday morning.



*Ms. Zappy's office was there. That's the only reason I'm familiar with the place.
**I had a friend who lived in Des Moines long ago. Pity she isn't still in this area.
***Korean barbecue really calls for a party of at least four. It's big food.

TL;DR: you get what you pay for.

With last night's Hardcore German Sparkle Party and Monkey Loft offerings promising to be too taxing, late, and/or expensive, I checked out my local listings for something mellower, and I found it: a night at Bad Bar in lower Queen Anne, 1900 to midnight, $10. Perfect!

So I take the brief bus trip down there and discover a bar full of visual allusions to "Twin Peaks". So far so normal for this area. There's a small but well-designed room for grooving, with walls and a door that separate the grooving area from the drinking, socializing, and pool-shooting area. If you sit in exactly the right spot in the latter, you can hear the two PA systems fighting it out.

Choonz? Not really my thing. Dubstep from Compound V and EDM (?) from Swirly Stan. I must admit, I'd never heard a techno remix of Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock".

Crowd? Young, like, whoa. So this is where all the kids with jobs go. Also kind of... het. And cis. The Monkey Loft, which isn't an explicitly queer space by any means, seems to have more visible (and, in my experience, invisible) queers. I didn't do my usual extrovert thing and talk to strangers.

Oh yeah: bathroom nastiness that rivals the late, great Re-bar. Yeah, that bad.

I keep forgetting that going anywhere near the Seattle Center at night entails the risk of a bus packed with either basketball or hockey fans. At least it wasn't too bad this time; I've been on more crowded trains thanks to football & baseball.

But first: I think my happy lamp has passed the test that I set for it. It's become a breakfast time fixture here at the Devil Girl house.

On to the booty-shaking! Roy Davis Jr., one of the (many) artists listed in Daft Punk's song "Teachers", played the Monkey Loft last night. I checked him out ahead of time and he sounded promising, so off I went.

Worthy of note: the local support that I saw was two women, namely Shannon Johnson and Emily Song. Go us! Maybe someday women DJs won't be remarkable, but that day hasn't arrived.

And what of the man himself? I wish he'd taken the stage at midnight and not 0100, but he did deliver the groove in big mirror shades. Not for him the gospel feel of Derrick Carter; I wasn't the only one singing along to the remix of "Enjoy the Silence" that he slipped in. But otherwise yes, it was among the best of Chicago-style house.

Also worthy of note: the ordinarily chill area downstairs had a second DJ, since they weren't using the mighty Funktion One in the adjacent room. (Why not?) Good grief, I hadn't heard "Din Daa Daa" in decades and had to stick around for that.

I got a wild hair late yesterday and went to the Blue Moon for the open decks night. Who should soon end up at the table with the promoter, B, and me but S, a rather attractive lady in her thirties who seemed to know B? B was naturally running around doing promoter things, so I soon found myself alone in the company of a woman who, she said, was in the middle of a manic episode from bipolar disorder.

Hooee! I didn't get too many words in edgewise, which is doubly impressive if you've ever talked to me in person. There were tales of the local psych wards, involuntary separation from her dog, being a Congressional page, and of course, BDSM.

She talked about "her AI" as if it were a particularly knowledgeable friend. She objected when I said, "You know that's just statistics, right?" She really wants to believe it's more.

I recommended Marbles by Ellen Forney to her. She seemed excited to read it. When I read that book, which is a clear-eyed, perceptive, and often technical examination of the author's own bipolar disorder, I thought, 'Ellen Forney in a manic phase seems like somebody I'd like to date.' Last night made me question that a little. Both Forney and S are queer because of course they are.

Seldom have I been more relieved that an attractive queer woman who shares some of my, uh, proclivities is maybe a hair too young. On my way out the door, I said goodbye to B as usual. She seemed worried that S might have scared me away from that night. Nah. If you can't handle some WAT in your life, you shouldn't live in a big city.

Rock solid house spun by Latino guys, though. Even with all the time I spent picking my jaw up off the table, it was a good night.

Tuesday: hit the Blue Moon alone. It was all right, but I'd much rather have been there with, for example, Much Younger Woman. Note to self: there's to be ravey goodness on May 30th.

Thursday: latex dinner. Also all right. I'm sad that Rubbermaid will shortly be leaving for Germany, and doesn't necessarily want to come back if she can help it. Who could blame her?

She did give me an idea, though: there's a monthly night in Vancouver called Sin that's been running for decades. I remember Dancer telling me about it sometime in the aughts. I've never gotten around to going there, though, and Rubbermaid says the best times to go are Valentine's Day and Halloween. I think I just found my excuse not to throw a Halloween party.

What really got me excited last night was that near-perfect mass transit mojo got me home in 45 minutes, including walk time.

Went to a ravey thing last night. I was one of the very few who weren't wearing blacklight-reactive clothing, but I did at least honor the hostess's request to dress up. It was a '90s-themed party, which the DJs apparently took to mean early '90s. I... didn't hate that? The vibe was excellent, though.

Not enough sleep last night, followed by lunch down the hill with T. (She's discovered a rare place that serves a chicken pot pie consistent with her dietary restrictions.) My strategy of pursuing women to date through my (ahem) interests is definitely yielding fewer dates than working the apps like T, but she's not any fonder of the grind than I was.

Outing the first: I went to the DJs in a Dive Bar night at the Blue Moon last night because, among other reasons, it was my rebirthday. The promoter, B, introduced herself to me. She told me that the night features young 'uns figuring out how to drive a Pioneer CDJ 1000 and whatever model of mixer board was up there. Yeah, I knew from the "open decks" on the flyer that I was in for something like that, but I liked the music a lot more than I expected to. And the n00bz really did make an effort; there were a zillion of them, each with a really short set. I overheard one of the DJs saying that he pulled up the CDJ manual on his phone right before he had to go on stage. B is also full of fascinating info about the Blue Moon, which has a long (by Seattle standards) and storied history.

I was a good girl, drank all of one beer, and went home at a reasonable hour. Go me.

Outing the second: On Saturday, I was doing crunches on my yoga ball as usual, and when I stood up — too quickly in retrospect — I had a dizzy spell bad enough that I had to hold onto something for half a minute. Dr. Funnyname had asked me to tell him about stuff like that earlier, and then Dancer nagged me to do it.

So I sent my doc a message on Sunday. One visit later, I'm wearing an automated blood pressure monitor that's checking me every fifteen minutes for twenty-four hours. I'm not sure how I'm going to sleep if this thing keeps inflating its cuff every fifteen minutes all night.

This just in from Evil Sister: she and her elder daughter are fine despite Hurricane Milton, and Gainesville, FL "dodged another bullet". I can't help but wonder how long that's going to last. I'm not even sure what my sister was doing there.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, I did my database monkeying for Lambert House last night at their newish temporary location: St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, an architecturally interesting church about a mile from the house.

I've been asked several times why the house has moved temporarily. It's having its foundation replaced; leaks had rendered the basement unusable and had imperiled the house. So, somebody's going to jack the place up and pour some brand new concrete.

How's the church, or rather, its carriage house? Swank! It's a lot of space, and it's in excellent repair; I had no idea the Episcopalians did so well for themselves. Our poor little house with its decades-long history of absentee landlords suffers in comparison. The move seems not to have deterred the kids youth from coming, which was the highest priority in the selection of the space. The IT situation wasn't quite ideal yet, but we made it work. Gotta crunch those numbers.

And another excursion: I went to the Blue Moon Tavern, which is an ancient dive bar in the U District with a venerable history of serving literati and pinkos, for of all things a house music night. Picture people, several older than I am, shaking their booties to old house on vinyl in a smallish, sticker-covered bar that predates my mother. That's why I live in a big city. I'll be back for "DJs in a Dive Bar", and preferably not alone.