Woman killed by own shoes in brutal downtown Seattle slaying!

I don't like pictures of me being taken anymore but I asked Dominique to take this one so no one would be able to accuse me of having any insecurities about having my picture taken.

This is the King Street Train Station in Seattle. It looks pretty ritzy from this view, but in another post I will show you all its dark secret dangerous deserted stairway. This part of down town is not so nice. I've lived in cities before, I still have a little tiny bit of city savvy left, so I wasn't that concerned.

This is one of the trains. I love the way they look. I love train whistles. I love train stations just as much as I love airports. But taking trains is actually better than taking planes, as long as you don't mind how much longer it takes to get anywhere. I enjoyed my experience.

I made a dreadful mistake booking my hotel room. I thought I was booking my room in the same hotel that I did on my last trip to Seattle. Imagine my dismay when, after walking for a mile and a half to the hotel, I find out that the hotel I'm actually booked in is directly across the small highway that separates the good hotel from the really scary ones. Not that Holiday Inn is that good, but compared to Quality Inn...there is really no contest. So this is the narrow scary endless hallway of the "hotel" I came to loath by the first night.

These shoes taught me a valuable lesson, one that-regrettably-I have had to learn over and over again...which now that I'm saying it here I realize means I haven't ever learned a thing... anyway, these shoes are NOT made for walking. After walking a mile and a half to get to the "hotel" the previous evening, on Saturday morning I had to walk in these stupid-ass not made for walking shoes another mile to get to the Convention Center for the trade show. I took this picture when they only kind of hurt. Long before the Seattle police found my mangled stumps of feet and me all dead in the gutter. This here is a still-hopeful moment. I was sitting on these steps to some government building (because all government buildings must have steps) while drinking a Starbuck's latte and an unpalatable "cinnamon roll" which I had to throw away in dramatic disgust.

After spending all day looking at the most incredible crap at the trade show I headed back to the "hotel". On foot. No, not on foot...on bloody frickin' stumps barely passing for feet. In all my dire pain, I stopped to take this photo in a fit of journalistic fervor. It has come to symbolize my own little corner of this city. I suffered for this photo, so you better appreciate that I took about forty snaps before I got a halfway decent one because the thing slowly revolves. What amazes me even more than this one interesting neon sign is the fact that there are actually TWO of them in Seattle!

This was seconds before I was brave enough to remove my shoes. I know you're admiring the lovely slick comforter on which I laid down my weary bones. It wasn't until I'd been laying there groaning for a full hour before it occurred to me that it is probably not washed nearly as frequently as the sheets. I quickly got under the sheets which I could at least hope were clean.

This morning I walked back to the King Street Station with a one hundred fifty pound suitcase and passed through this lovely little area of Seattle. It's one block from the station and just as you'd expect, one of the coolest looking galleries (for which you need an appointment) is one block from here.

Ahhhh...this was a sight for weary eyes! Oh he smelled so good to me. I hugged him and hugged him and smothered him with kisses. The only way I could tell that he was glad to see me was the way he clung to me like a monkey and let me kiss him without a single protest. I love time away from my family because it makes me love them even more when I come home.


Some highlights from the trip:

• I met a store owner from McMinnville at the trade show who, until then, I knew of but had never met. One I have tried so hard to be respectful of. One whom I have tried to imagine in the best possible light. Forget it. She turned out to be a... never mind. One must not slander others. (I was going to say she turned out to be a tepid bitch, but I think I may find out later that she's really a delightful bowl of lovins when I get to know her. Well, I'm pretty sure I won't. But she will turn out to be every one's best friend.)

• On Sunday morning I waited twenty minutes for breakfast because I like to see how close to passing out from hunger I can get.

• The noise of my "hotel" almost rendered me deaf in both ears.

• People buy the most stupendous crap imaginable.

• I became so hungry waiting for my breakfast on Sunday that I almost ended up not feeling hungry at all.

• I finally understood how a person could want to cut off one of their own limbs.

• Il Fornaio is a terrible restaurant whose ravioli tasted mostly like hot salt. I kind of forgave them though because they had Sierra Nevada beer on tap.

• A random guy on the street shouted out to me and said "Hey! You're really beautiful!" Proof that he had recently smoked some PCP, or that he likes his women to look frightened and tortured by their own shoes. He may have found my trail of blood arousing. Which leads me right back to supposing that he had recently smoked PCP. Can there be a less sexy drug than giant mammal tranquilizers?

• Sales reps sometimes resemble cackling hyenas whom I wouldn't leave my kid with for fear he'd be sold the second I turned my back.

• I did meet several super cool reps who I enjoyed talking with.

• Il Fornaio's cheesecake had no crust on it. I consider this to be a food crime.

*There will be more pictures of the trip, more ruminations on the business, and train notes. So stay tuned!