The first week!

Apologies for the delay in updates! For being untethered, unemployed, and generally without friends here yet, I've managed to keep myself incredibly busy in my time in Seattle so far. But I do fully plan on continuing to post here, at least once or twice a week, about my new life as it unfolds and develops.


First of all, I think I'm completely disillusioned - in the absolute best of ways! Seattle feels like paradise to me - everything I ever dreamed it would be, and then some. The Blue Scholars song for which this blog is named, Inkwell, sums it up so well: Ain't nothing better than summer in the northwest. I know I'm getting a massively warped impression of Seattle, but so far, it has been sunny and ranged somewhere between 65 and 90 degrees every day here. Zero humidity. Almost no bugs or mosquitoes. I can see the Cascade mountains from my (screenless!) bedroom window. A vegetable garden with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and snap peas and herbs below. Flowers blooming left and right. Living within walkable distance of downtown Seattle, runnable distance of the fantastic 24-hour gym I'm going to become a member of for the whopping deal of $30/month, bikeable distance of anything else I could ever need, and less than a hour's drive from vast mountains and national forests.


Look how beautiful my neighborhood is!
And just as I remembered, the trees are HUGE! Seyeon demonstrates:

I seriously feel as though I live in heaven now. (I'm told the grace period for the Northwest can last up to five years, before the rainy, overcast winters start to get under your skin...we'll see how I'm doing six months from now.)

So, most of my time is being actively absorbed with my job search - a daunting process that wavers between zealous excitement and energy-sucking discouragement. As much as I feel that blogging about the process would be of comfort to me (venting about the disappointments, celebrating the small triumphs and hopes at this point), I'm scared of jinxing anything, and so will leave it alone for now. With that said, in other news...

I got together for lunch with Zephyr, one of my friends I met in Amsterdam on my study abroad program several years ago. She lives in the Seattle area now, and it was delightful catching up with each other. Living with Seyeon is ever lovely - we're both in somewhat uncomfortable limbos of our own at this point, but not without big dreams and hopes for moving more in our ideal direction - jobwise and otherwise.

On a very happy note, I've been in email contact with the publisher of an outdoorsy magazine out here for several months. I sent her an email on a whim months ago, thinking she'd never respond, but lo and behold, she did - and last week, I got a "Welcome to Seattle!" email from her. She suggested I come out to CycleFest 2009 at Magnuson Park, an annual event where thousands of bike enthusiasts gather, picnic, listen to live music, get free gear, eat, drink, and be merry, and come sundown, watch the Tour de France broadcast on a huge, inflatable screen outside.


My bike is still back in Kansas City, awaiting eventual U-haul transport out here, but showing up to CycleFest was a great way to see more of the city, meet local outdoorsy enthusiasts (they're not hard to come by in the Northwest!) and get to know someone wonderful whom I think is apt to become a bit of a mentor figure for me here in Seattle. As I drove back from Magnuson Park, the sun was just going down over the water - stunning as this place is. I am content.