Over the August long weekend, I went back to the West Coast. I’ve got two brothers: G (25) who lives in Vancouver, and J (23) who lives in Seattle. I stayed in G’s appartment in Vancouver for the first weekend, and J came up as well.
I nearly passed out waiting for J’s train from Seattle to get in the first night, because it was past 3:30 am my time. When he finally got in, he said hello and then almost immediately got into a long discussion with G about whether or not The Castle, by Kafka, was a “big spray of words.” And something or another about a waterfall of language.
It’s weird to be related to people, because theoretically that means for sure that they’re not space aliens. I went to bed.
"I got a roomba," J said they next morning: finally common ground.
"I lost my roomba," I said.
"Oh my god, Laura, what?"
"It went out on it's scheduled clean and it never came back."
They both stared at me, baffled.
"I really thought I would happen upon it, but I haven't."
"Did you leave the door open?"
"No, it was while I was at work."
"How could it be lost? It has to be on the floor somewhere."
"I really don't know. I spent like five days squirming around on my belly like a snake trying to find it."
When I got home after the trip, I went hunting for it again. It turned out it was behind the clothing storage boxes under my bed, strangled in a yellow and white belt and choked by fake green grass from the terrarium crafting.
That afternoon, G pulled out his guitar and the two of them started doing a Waxahatchee cover jam session.
The deck door was open and I was there in the room listening to the song but I could also imagine being on a neighbhour's deck and hearing the strains of it, or walking on the sidewalk in front of the building and hearing it from fourteen storeys up.
After they finished, I said, "When I was listening to it, it was like we were in a movie and -- "
"The ugly girl takes off her glasses and she's pretty," J said.
G laughed.
"Oh my god," I said. "Never mind, I didn't like the song anyway."
"G has trouble with compliments," J said. "I just have to help him sometimes."
"No, you have a problem with G getting complimented. He loves them."
"Anyway there was one part of the song that you did wrong," J said and then starts giving G pointers.
Eventually they switched over to Modest Mouse. This will never end this will never end this will never end.
--
I went back to Victoria, spent a few days with my parents, and then all of us went in to Seattle.
I had no picture in my head of what Seattle would look like, which is kind of random. When I want to New York, it felt so familiar because the places have been in so many movies and TV shows. Seattle is gorgeous, though. I’ve been polling everyone to see if they had a mental picture of Seattle, and no one had much to say except rainy, but when I was there it was perfect and sunny.
--
I saw no one but family when I went back to the west coast. I hung out with my married friends, who also grew up on the Island, on the weekend after I got back.
“Did you hear about John and Jane?” Elizabeth asked.
I was friends with John from junior high onward, and sort of peripherally friends with Jane (who I’d also gone to Jr. High with), because she was also friends with John. She always seemed to be upset about something, whined a lot but was also One Of The Guys and went camping and followed… some sport, I had so little interest, I can’t even remember now. Maybe basketball. Probably hockey as well.
John said that I was like the good parts of having a girlfriend and she was like the bad parts, and I thought maybe that meant one day he was going to want to date me, but actually it meant that after five years of swearing up and down that he didn’t like Jane and would never like her and would never date her, he did.
“Are they engaged?” I asked. John had texted me after he realized I was on the Island from my Instagram pictures, but I was already back in Toronto.
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said.
“Of course,” I said. When I saw them at Christmas, Jane had been going on and on about how everyone expected John to propose over the holidays but he had said he was going to get new tires for his Jeep instead of buying a ring.
“It’s for safety,” he had said. They were living together, and I was sitting inside their living room for the first time.
“His mom wants him to propose,” Jane had said. “His aunt said, ‘It’s time to shit or get off the pot.’”
“I don’t know why you like that,” John had said. “It’s implying that you’re crap.”
I texted John the next day, after Jane put the announcement of the engagement up on Facebook: I saw Jane’s status on Facebook. Congrats!
He said: Thanks Laura - it’s so people know were in a serious relationship now.
I wrote back: Lol. As if they didn’t already know.
Got a west coast heart and an east coast mentality. Baby, let's push our limits.
