Roadrunner Twice

For one reason or another, Google Maps' satellite view shows our street (out in the boondocks, remember) at a much higher resolution than is available for downtown Olympia. It seems kind of perverse; these satellite pictures are at least nominally meant for finding your way, right? Except out here, there's not much of a way to be found, and certainly not the variety of way for which you'd need good resolution. Everything is painted in broad strokes, huge swaths, empty spaces. Or spaces that'd be better off empty.

Anyway, I was cruising around near our place, just for larfs, and noticed that one of EVN's white trucks was parked in the driveway. So I started trying to date the picture: The lawn was brown and the trees and garden were green and plants were being sold, so it was sometime in the deep summer, probably July or later. Doesn't tell you much more than that. Then I moseyed up to the corner.



Kelly House.

My memory isn't quite doing the job here, but this has got to be after Midsummer in either 2003 or 2004. But that's not quite the point, because dating the photo was only the MacGuffin for this post.

Mostly, I just wanted everyone to witness this tiny, tenacious little digital ghost. Kelly's Corner started fading out of the local consciousness a long time ago, and the House itself has been down for at a year or more now. (Again, my memory and the fuzzy state thereof.) But little bits of it are still clinging on. Here, there; on Google, in the high twigs and branches of the law-bound oaks; in the lake, on the shore, under and over the railway bridge.

Mind you, Kelly's Corner wasn't anything particularly special. Just a place. A little piece of the boondocks between Olympia and Yelm. I'm not even really interested in the Kellys themselves.

What DOES interest me is that this place had a Name, and Names are peculiarly tricky and squirmy things. They have a funny effect on the people who live under them; they leave marks and traces and stains all over the place.

Here's one of 'em, for your viewing pleasure. Consider it for a moment.

I think the ideal state of existence is to be constantly in the process of leaving Olympia. Because Olympia is nearly the best place on earth, but unless you're actively wrapping up a stay there, there's always one thing or another that will keep you from realizing that.

Anyway, so today was one of the Four Perfect Days, and after dealing with something online that had been bothering me (and which is now no longer my problem, hurray!), I spent it tooling around on my bike. Tooling around where, you ask? Why, the Eastside, where we used to live until I was partway through my third year of life. I had dropped a paycheck at the bank in Lacey, and decided to head west and poke around.

So yeah, I saw the water tower, and Lions Park, and got all misty and nostalgic. And then I found some weird stuff. You guys ever heard of Madison Scenic Park? It's basically just this place on the hillside, just south of where the hill down into Olympia is at its steepest (which is 7th, BTW), where they put some benches and a little stage. I'd seriously never seen the place in my life, and had no idea it was there.

THEN, while I was sitting on a bench and contemplating my place in the cosmos, I looked down and saw this weird, abandoned-looking playground. Or it looked like a playground. It was actually this weird, abandoned elementary school. And one of the doors was unlocked and I took a quick look around. Hella creepy, I'm gonna go back and get pictures one of these days.

I just went to see the Gossip at the Backstage, and they Rocked as Rock Ought. It was totally sweet.

The show was pretty classic Olympia: the opener was supposedly going to be a band called "Numbers," but they fell off the face of the earth or something, and instead we got openers from Joe Casio (who wasn't nearly as shitty as the name implies, but who had a pretty bad case of hipsteritis) and a duo called Romantique (who were pretty great). And then Gossip came on and rocked everyone's socks. There was a bit of that dumb ironic, faux-tentative dancing going on during Joe Casio, but once the Gossip hits the stage, no one bothers feigning disinterest.

Anyway, I taped Gossip's set, and I'll let everyone know how it turned out. I also bought their brand new album, which seems pretty good so far. Sounds a lot cleaner and more produced than Movement did, which I'm still trying to decide whether I approve of. I think I'll end up liking it very much but in a different way. And it was probably a good idea for them to change their production up a bit—Movement was such a perfect specimen of its style that topping it would have been difficult. It's like a shining diamond of fury.

Also, don't mix beer with Tim's Cascade Style Jalepeno potato chips. It hurts bad.

Oh, god.... I'm listening to this song, see, and I've got to say, that is EXACTLY MY QUESTION. WHYYYYYYYY?

When you don't grow up in the 60's or 70's, and you hear all these things about Yoko, eventually you just have to figure that it's mostly exaggerated. I guess everything I know is a lie!

Another confidential to Katie and Chris: I'm thinking of detaching that Garfield toothbrush holder from the bathroom mirror. What do you think: childhood kitch that ought to be preserved, or so totally devoid of taste that it doesn't trip the childhood history exemption?


ALSO: Couldn't wait, just watched Resurrection Ship pt. 1. Can I get a big fat ARRRRRRRGH from the people assembled? I mean, holy balls, people.