sustainablehedonism

[sustainablehedonism]

october 21.2020

I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or an ongoing economic decimation, but every other building in the town was vacant. Richland seems like the perfect place for Venture for America to come sprout up new businesses. The population has increased a lot in the past decade and it has a lot of potential. 

[sustainablehedonism]

august 23.2020

Neil invited some friends over for a private dine-in party tonight: two old white men, one young white man, and one young black woman. I don't know what connection these people had with each other other than the young woman and man were married. Before they arrived, Neil told me the story of the woman: she used to work here as a server for many years, through high school and college. Neil met her when she was a tween, running around at a fundraiser for I think the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra. He handed her his card and told her to get in touch with him when she is old enough to work because he looks for people to work there who can move swiftly without looking like they are. He asked me if I was a runner today, and I said I was a dancer and he said it makes sense because I move quickly yet gracefully. She’s in her early thirties now. The restaurant must’ve just opened at that time. "She's an African-American woman who is married to a white Chicago police officer," he said. Figure that one out. She’s from Chicago, and her mom was in the marines and moved as a military family, which explains why there was a black child in Port Angeles. 

Neil explained to me that he’s had people work at his restaurant who go on to become extremely successful people. “Hey, maybe I’ll be a politician someday, and you can add that to your list of successful ex-employees,” I said. He said he’d support me if I did. I loved this lady. When I read off the nightly special to the table, she tilted back her head and savored the mere thought of Olympic Coast grilled King salmon with a summer vegetable saute of zucchini, corn, tomatoes, locally foraged chanterelles from the nearby forest, and orzo pesto pasta. When Neil told me to clear the table for the next course, she immediately stood up and touched my arm and whispered in my ear, "you get the silverware and I'll get the plates." When a customer came in, she was at the bar and immediately greeted them and asked what she could do for them as if she was working there. I loved that she just jumped right back in as if she never left. AOC said on instagram the other day, "I'll go back to bartending any day of the week because I'm not a classist who ties someone's worth to the prestige of their occupation." I want to be like that. I am pursuing a career in public policy, but I always love going back to hospitality. I love serving and I want to continue doing that as a side gig, but I also want to be a bartender and barista someday. While I was writing down the sales numbers for the night, I took longer than I normally do partly because I was tipsy from the cocktail but mostly because I was enveloped in eavesdropping on a story the woman was telling. She went to Arizona to meet her dad for the first time. One of the older men could not comprehend that this could happen, and really, neither could I. He suggested, "You know, because your mother was in the marines, she could have demanded child support and the military would have come after him," as if she had never considered that. "When I finished high school, mom asked me if I wanted her to get in touch with my dad and invite him to my graduation, and I said no. I wouldn't change my upbringing for anything." She didn't need pity from this old, privileged, ignorant boomer. She said that she found her dad because his sister had taken a DNA test and tracked her down. The inner feminist in me notices these kinds of things: Of course it wasn’t actually her father who reached out to her; it was a female on her father’s side. I was also outraged that something like this could happen. A woman finds herself pregnant and the man who impregnated her can just choose not to care about his own offspring? He doesn't care yet she does. How? Maybe I have had these over-simplified ideas about abortion because I have never actually seen what happens to single mothers in practice. This is all an intellectual exercise for me. I knew what kind of man this was. He is the typical Port Angeles resident. Old, white, and ignorant. Neil called this table by I'm assuming it was his name, Randy Riggins, and said he is the only conservative he is willing to associate with. Towards the end of the night, after I'm sure they had plenty of wine, said to me, "Hey Kristina, you're pretty cute without your mask on," which is normally something that I have only been warned about. Maybe it was a normal thing to say when he was my age. Witnessing this interaction, I realize that, as woke as I like to think I am, I am more like the boomer than the black woman. My opinions have been influenced by the fact that I was never exposed to many disadvantaged communities. I am from a privileged white nuclear family, and most of the people I knew did too. I do not know the chaos of Chicago or any other metro area; I am from a sleepy secluded retirement town. Lately I've been trying to reconcile my identity in relation to feminism, and hearing a story like this makes me so confused and angry. It makes me feel a lot of things, but lean towards feminism. Neil had me polish wine glasses today. The ones for reds, the ones for whites, and I finally learned what those bellowing round ones are for: pinot noir. I can’t tell the difference between different wines and I think expensive wine is overrated, but for some reason I took so much pleasure this simple act of making sure the glasses we served them in looked perfect. I even used a special cloth that had the logo “Reisel: The Wine Glass Company” on it. Simply being around many luxury items boosts my mood. I would not buy this food and wine personally for myself, but I like being on the receiving end of it. I think about the Gentle Art of Domesticity and the author who had a career traveling all over Europe as a wine sommelier and I automatically have a positive opinion about pretentious wine culture, not for the legitimacy of it - I don't take it that seriously - but rather for the type of life she must’ve had. I enjoy being around beautiful and glamorous things. That is a big factor in how I choose my career in fact. Neil told me to buy the back of house guys a drink. I finally found out how old Arthur is: 20. So I offered to buy him a coke or whatever, but he responded with a moody "don't waste your money on me" because he steals those out of the fridge every day anyway. And Josh isn't a fan of beer, so Neil told me to work on my mixing skills and showed us how to make his signature Manhattan. This is really the only drink he has in stock right now; we don't even have cocktails on the menu but he offers a Manhattan to his friends if they stop by. He says it will be our signature drink when we open our bar, whenever that will be. I took in every moment of this demonstration, and then every moment of drinking it afterwards. "Cheers. We made it through another week, you deserve it," Neil said to Josh and I as he handed us his masterpiece. I needed to drive home, but I didn't care. And Trent doesn't need to know. I ate the extra mushroom ravioli. I am perfectly positioned in this job to learn in a forgiving environment. It’s not like Oak Table where they have dozens of expendable staff and can - and will - fire you at any moment. I am pretty much the only server who works here and Neil is counting on me. Trent says this gives me bargaining power. Sometimes I think about how I never would have had this opportunity if I never came back to Sequim. But then I snap myself out of it because if I never came back to Sequim, I would have found somewhere even better that isn’t run by a crusty white boomer. But at least by being better than everyone in Port Angeles but not as good as everyone in Seattle, I can take advantage of this time to become Seattle-level material. If I can’t live in Manhattan, I can at least drink one.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 22.2020

Trent discovered Central Park on google maps this morning after I asked what Brooklyn was. It all started when I caught him watching a video about how Brooklyn has the best pizza. 

I told him how I really felt. It did include a heated argument about if audiobooks are better than paper books. So when I saw him watching this video, I said, "Did you know that Brooklyn is really far away?? I bet there's a lot of traffic there!? It probably takes forever to get there from here!!" I could have continued, "Why are you just looking at pictures of pizza instead of actually eating them. It's only about the aesthetics with you, you're so shallow...!!" He buried my head in his shirt to prevent me from talking because he does not want to admit that he is wrong. Then the subject turned to what the heck kind of jurisdiction Brooklyn is. My rural brain could not comprehend that there are subsections of subsections of a city. "Brooklyn is a borough right? It's in New York, which is a city? What is Brooklyn? Is it a city? Then why is there something comma Brooklyn?" So Trent pulled up New York City on google maps. He zoomed in and said, "Whoa, this is like a huge park." "Yeah, Trent, it's Central Park. Like, the Central Park. It spans several city blocks in the middle of Manhattan." He seemed astonished that there was so much open outdoor space in a metropolis. "You know it is possible to have a densely populated area that isn't just skyscrapers. Like when I was in Portland, there was that massive park where people were like playing tennis and going on jogs through the trails. It was right next to downtown, but you felt like you were in the National Park. Living in a city doesn't necessarily mean being stuck in some cramped tiny apartment. And if it does then that's just bad city planning, and we can change that." Remembering the conversation we just had about wanting to be able to openly talk about the things I enjoy, I timidly continued, "I like learning about different cities. I'm subscribed to a YouTube channel called City Beautiful, and it's really fascinating. And have you heard of Wenover Productions?" He did not. "They make videos like that too." I should have also said: "You like communism right? What if, instead of everyone having their individual American backyard where they barbecue or whatever, but it's hardly even used for anything other than lawn, what if there was one giant backyard that had a bunch of different amenities, and everyone in the city could use it for free. Congratulations, you just invented a city park."

When I leave this job eventually, I am going to look back and remember the awful coworkers and boss I had. The chef, Josh, is such an immature baby and a pain to work with. He absolutely hates this job and I wish I had the courage to tell Neil exactly what I am thinking, like Abbey did with me. Abbey had this skill of commanding those around her and gracefully steering the organization in the way she wanted even if she was just some lowly intern, but I am literally management and yet I am passive, only trying not to make waves. She is like Siana from high school, somehow having this magical quality of authority. I found myself asking her questions even though I didn't like her because I just had this feeling that she knew what she was doing. But as Trent says, my goal is not to get the work done, it is to make my boss happy. I don't want to overstep or ask too many constructive questions; I want to get in and out while learning as much as I can while avoiding getting pooped on.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 21.2020

I had a dream last night that I heard Abbey was to visit Sequim. I badly wanted to meet her, but no one would tell me anything. I was traveling with my family who were absolutely no help as usual. I sent a text to my mom with several questions about the whereabouts of Abbey and who she's staying with, and she literally replied, "I'm" which was clearly a mistake, and then forgot about the subject. I eventually heard that she was staying with the Lakashi people, which I didn't understand because they are a fictional indigenous Tribe in the remote Brazilian rain forest, but in the dream I couldn't remember where they were from so I erroneously thought they were from California. Abbey is from California. Once I finally tracked her down, I couldn't even see her - I was staring at Della's refrigerator - but I finally confronted her over ghosting me. She said she didn't want me to ruin my own life or some bullshit. I wanted to tell her that I am fine, I am thriving in fact, but it got cut short somehow. Then I woke up. 

Andrew Yang is officially a cringey podcast bro. He was always a cringey podcast bro in his heart, but now he actually unironically has a podcast called Yang Speaks with sponsorships from meal subscription kits and everything. I wish I could share this with Caleb, that intern on the campaign who would joke with me about cringey podcast bros. Actually - who says I can't, even if we don't work together anymore? After all, I have never met him irl, and the extent of my interaction with him has been digital. He lives in Connecticut for crying out loud. There is nothing stopping me from sending an episode over LinkedIn. I saw on Twitter that Rebecca is also trying to start a podcast. We'll see how far she'll get with that... maybe she'll actually produce it this time with all of the time she has on her hands. I would totally listen to that if she ever gets the motivation.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 20.2020

The DNC's opening, when they were talking about the Democratic Party platform, used the term "micromobility" while showing people riding over a bridge on scooters. Love that. Imagine a political party wanting to change the future to include better transit options. I needed to write the new phrase down right away after hearing it so I could look it up and add it to my nascent urban design repertoire.

I also recently saw something on Pinterest when searching "urban planning" for aesthetic pictures for this diary that said "urban theory." Don't know what that is, but it seems fascinating. I still have the tab open for reading about it later, and the link is literally just a dictionary/treasure chest of more sexy terms to learn.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 19.2020

I have always been used to living in a place no one has ever heard of. A small retirement town on the edge of a peninsula that is on the edge of a state that is on the edge of a continent.

If you're from the West Coast, the assumption is that you are from California. But I am not from California; I am from Washington. When I tell people I am from Washington, people assume I am talking about DC. When you say you are from Washington State, the assumption is that you live in Seattle. But I am not from Seattle; I am from Clallam County. When I say I am from Clallam County, people first think of Port Angeles. I don't live in Port Angeles: I am from a town called Sequim.

The only centrality I have ever been able to claim has been that I live in The United States of America, the center of the universe, the superpower of the globe. However, I may not be able to say even that for much longer, the glory days of American exceptionalism behind us, because I heard recently that "the 1800s was the century of Britain, the 1900s the century of America, and the 2000s will be the century of Asia." Global dynamics are changing. If there was any doubt whether or not that was the case before 2016, Donald Trump sealed the deal. We are now a laughingstock. Meanwhile, China and metropolises in Asian Pacific are infiltrating Africa with colonial imperialism. Even the dynamics of the US itself are changing: we will be a racial minority-majority country before we know it.

And to that I say: good riddance. Let the world change already. I am already at he fifth stage of grief: acceptance. Let climate change fuck shit up. Let the apocalypse come. Let the manufacturing jobs move to China. Let the protester riots burn cities to the ground. Let the coronavirus thin the herd. Bring it on.

You see, I am stuck in a town that is inhabited by a populace who still behave as if it is the 1950s. Conservatives who have always benefited from Americana are suddenly getting an ego check - and they are resisting it, hard.

In a way, I understand the marginalization of people dismiss "the flyover states" because nothing significant ever happens there.

My dad says Seattle is a nice place to visit but he wouldn't want to live there. When my best friend from growing up moved there after high school, that's exactly what he said about Sequim.

I wonder how much of my views are influenced by the people around me. I didn't know much about politics when I was in high school but all of my beliefs were from Mikaele. Now Trent and BreadTube led me down a communism phase. I've held beliefs that are not shared by feminists, antifeminists, or MRAs. I have never met anyone who thinks catcalling is a good thing.

There is an entire faction of disenfranchised young people who are facing the same problems as me and Trent; only they get radicalized in the other direction and turn to the alt-right. They diagnose the problems spot on, but their solutions are incredibly wrong by blaming those below them instead of those above. But I can't help thinking about what Pete Buttigeig said once when he compared Bernie to Trump: being othered can radicalize you to reject the "system" or "establishment" and look to populist leaders, and some people end up fascists or racists and some end up socialists or communists or anarchists. I am very obstinate about my politics, even though I have changed before (saying "it is not an opinion, it is just wrong"), but how do I know I am not wrong? Racism is decidedly bad, we know that for sure.

I watched part of the third night of the Democratic National Convention tonight. I didn't even know the convention was happening until it came on my parents' TV on the first night, and the first thing I heard about it was that John Kasich, a literal republican, was speaking at the DEMOCRATIC National Convention for no reason other than he hates Trump, and that Michelle Obama came out of the shadows to let lib peasants kiss her feet. I didn't hear anything about the convention. I looked forward to watching the debates with vigor, turned them into drinking games and date nights, but after all of the shit that went down, the DNC does not come up in the circles I am in. "DNC" is a dirty term.

Billie Eillish was there tonight to be the token hip young person to convince all the young cynical leftists to vote for Sleepy Joe. Barrack Obama gave a speech that seemed to stop time in my world. Like most politicians, I've heard a lot about him, but I've seldom watched him a speech from beginning to end. Then Kamala Harris gave her acceptance speech to be the Vice Presidential Nominee, and it wasn't as inspirational, maybe because I've already seen her speak at the debates, maybe because Obama is this nostalgic figure that I remember from my childhood. I thought about how she pooped on Joe Biden during that one debate by calling him out for supporting racist legislation, and how she threw black people in jail for nonviolent drug offences yet bragged on that one podcast about smoking weed and listening to music that hadn't come out yet. And now they are both pretending to be BFFs while talking about dismantling systemic racism, and it makes me wonder if all politics is pandery bullshit and lies like this. Obama says no.

I think I have made up my mind: I will vote for Biden/Harris, but I won't ever let my mom know. Her activism begins and ends with convincing me to vote for her milquetoast moderate boomer, and it is my job to challenge her to think about the greater world. At the end of the day, we live in Washington, and our votes ultimately don't matter.

I watched a YouTube video yesterday about the unique marketing of Trader Joe's, and all of the memories came back. They explained that you might not be able to get all your staples there but you will find special things that you can't find anywhere else. I miss being able to walk to Trader Joe's and find seasonal treasures. What a strange thought: I hate grocery shopping but I love Trader Joe's. I hate cooking but I love the restaurant business. I am dazzled, is that so wrong?

I mentioned to Trent while we were packing switch openers that maybe I could own a restaurant someday. "Owning a restaurant is just babysitting employees like Neil is doing." I yelled at him not to poop all over my dreams and it was just some thought I had. He said "Oh no." I can't stand him whatsoever. I can never say or even think anything around him; I need to be myself behind his back and "plot", as he calls it, my future through secretive phone calls. That's why I have this diary: I need somewhere I can say all of the things in my head without any consequences or judgement. Just thinking about owning a restaurant one day doesn't affect my or Trent's life whatsoever.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 18.2020

Today Trent made us a lovely breakfast, which we ate outside. He said it reminded him of when we used to wake up and make breakfast together on weekends in Olympia. It was heavenly. 

All in all, it was a nice day. I watched a PBS documentary-style short about how ten year olds across the country are coping with COVID. There was this one chubby white kid who was from Forks, WA who said the internet in his town is shit and it's hard to have social interactions, so he learned how to use a ham radio to make friends with random truck drivers. 

I made slow progress on my diary for the morning and when I felt lazy I had Hilary drive me and Trent to Port Angeles to finally do that bike ride back on the Olympic Discovery Trail, and it wasn't as hard of a trip as I thought it would be. I had never been on that trail, and discovered even more places in this area that were unfamiliar to me. I found it magical that I never new this trail was here. The first stretch is along the water in Port Angeles, and this section was accompanied the sound of the waves as they crashed on the shore. The next part is at the base of a green shrubby cliff, and I could pinpoint where in the world I was when I heard cars driving by on top of the hill above me. “Hey, I know where we are,” I told Trent. I rode on that highway my entire life and never knew that people were walking, jogging, biking and riding horses a short way below me. I imaged that this would be a destination that Charis would have loved to take advantage of if she was here. It actually is a work of urban planning genius. 

We rode side by side nearly the whole way and talked. “Do you remember when we used to sleep over at your parents’ house and get up and make breakfast and then ride our bikes to the Unitarian Church?” he reminisced. 

I replied, “Do you know that trope of a ‘summer love’? When time seems to stop and you don’t think about real life? That summer when we first met was that.” It was a wonderful, relaxing day off, and yet I felt irritated when I came home from my bike ride.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 17.2020

Today while I was helping reconcile payroll for the restaurant, the owner told me a secret. He told me that he has an opportunity for a new restaurant concept because the Mexican restaurant that currently occupies that the historic grain mill tower in Sequim is going to vacate soon and he knows the lady who owns the building. 

As he explained to me his ideas about a local-inspired PNW cuisine with Olympic Coast fish cooked over an open flame, and western bar, for a moment I imagined myself helping to run this cool place, waiting tables, helping to design the menu, keeping the books, bartending, maybe even helping hire people. Being an expert on our menu and ingredients and actually being proud of it. Going straight to the farms, fisheries, wineries, and breweries myself to source our ingredients and drinks and then having the confidence to describe them thoroughly to customers. The Terroir of the North Olympic Peninsula: diverse microclimates, coastal proximity and Native American heritage. Fresh salmon and Dungeness crab made with indigenous cooking techniques, and wine from local dry valleys. Having a sort of patriotism toward my home? What a concept. This would have been a dream job to my teenage self. I have changed to the complete opposite now, but a part of me will still always be the same. 

I do want to learn as much as I can from Neil and his businesses, and I would love to help at least get this restaurant off the ground. It sounds a lot classier than Italian-American food (except the western bar part, that sounds cringey and hickish). If I get sucked in to a job that I am actually invested in, that is more than a paycheck, I might not ever leave Sequim, and I cannot let that happen. 

One of the guys who works in the kitchen, is some skinny guy with big ears. He is tall and lanky, and with jutting hip bones, doesn't seem to have grown into his ears yet. If I was a teenager I probably would be helplessly crushing on him. When I first met him I assumed he was some poor quintessential Port Angeles kid raised by a single mother doomed to live the rest of his life in a dead end kitchen job in his shitty hometown, but I found out the other day that he grew up on a bed and breakfast in the middle of ten acres in Forks and that his dad died during his childhood. 

Neil also said today that he's had a hard time getting a hold of Madeline because her son dropped her phone in the pool. My response to him telling me this was, “How does she do it?” "It" meaning be a single mom, or a mom at all. I remember that Jackie's kid did the same thing and the moment I found that out was in the middle of my newly enthusiastically childfree phase. I remember thinking that having a child must be the worst possible addition to someone’s life; it makes everything infinitely harder and more miserable.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 16.2020

I was supposed to eat my cookie with Trent in bed but I got up by myself and went on a slow walk. On my way down the driveway, I found myself typing into google "BDSM is bad" or "BDSM is problematic" in search for something validating. What I found was feminist bullshit, but I did find one article about one woman who was into BDSM but has nevertheless had bad experiences with bad partners, which I enjoyed being angry at. 

On the drive to my house, I brought up a question. "You dismiss my sexual desires as being illegitimate because they are influenced by patriarchy. I like gender roles because they make me feel like a woman, even if they are socially constructed, the implications in the society we live in are real. You say they are not real or maybe that I shouldn't want to feel like a woman, I don't know. But the thing is... people say the same thing about BDSM. The biggest feminist criticism of how BDSM is problematic is that even if someone genuinely enjoys it, they do because they are influenced by a hierarchical, patriarchal society, which is still wrong. So what do you say to that? Are those two comparable?" He was confused. So I continued: "You don't like normal sex because you are suffering from some existential crisis. You don't want to be a human or something. You are just resisting whatever you're 'supposed' to like because you don't like being a mortal, insignificant animal and because you don't like the superficial society you live in. You only like BDSM because you want to be a rebel." What he said next was astonishing. "Even if that was true, what's wrong with that?" "What's wrong with liking dick??" He says I am simple. So? He says I don't even like dick: I like the space that the dick takes up in me. Yes and? He said that I still don't understand what he's trying to say. "I still like vanilla sex; but I also like other things too." I wasn't having any of it. "Then why did you roll your eyes at me? You have said that I'm boring. That's implying that being vanilla is bad." Then today I was still depressed so I compulsively googled "what is consent" and sent Trent the link to the first legit looking website that came up.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 15.2020

There is a gorgeous, charming house in Agnew that I always admired growing up. I would pass by it on my way to work at the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. It was a large blue-grey house with black trimming, with two rows of identical windows that each displayed a candle in the winter. It looked like it could be the estate of the Von Trapp family from The Sound of Music, with plenty of bedrooms for a family of seven children. 

Now this house has a massive "TRUMP 2020" flag bellowing off the front porch, and it is much less appealing. Like many properties in this area of town, it also had a "CULP (R) FOR GOVERNOR" yard sign by the mailbox. I find this disappointment repeated more and more since I returned to Sequim after I came home from college. The home I had always known seems worlds different. I am beginning to understand this community and the people who live in it, and discovering that they are nothing like me after all. Every day I find something that confirms that I do not belong here.

[sustainablehedonism]

Y'all shame 'Vanilla' sex all the time on here but it's amazing when both people enjoy it. It's not my fault you gotta have your leg in a bear trap and get punched in the face to cum. Relax.

someone named @TimAintCool on Twitter 

[sustainablehedonism]

august 13.2020

I was really high last night and a life-changing realization came to me. Is it possible to like be a feminist while liking problematic things in bed, like strict gender roles? I always thought I couldn’t date feminist men because they wouldn’t want to fuck me the way I wanted them to, but it had never occurred to me that I could have both. I could be a feminist and practice all of the respectful conducts normally and then be a lady in bed. For all I know, a guy I like who seems uninterested might just be waiting for me to say “I like getting nailed” instead of assuming. 

(The thing is, I don’t want this to be in a scene. I want to be this way all the time. I want men to flirt with me in real life. So that's another thing I have to work out with myself. I'll table that for another weed session.) 

Trent got really excited when I admitted that I was thinking about "problematic things in bed" because he thought I was thinking about BDSM. He was understandably disappointed when I said I was thinking about complying to gender roles. He was also high, and could not follow what I was trying to explain to him. This sentence in particular was lost on him: "Is it impossible to like feminist men if you are a woman who likes problematic things in bed?" I thought it was the double-negative that was confusing, but it was the phrase "male feminist." He didn't understand that what I am struggling with is the very fact that Trent confused “femboy” with “male feminist.” Trent is only enforcing my fears: that men have to be submissive wusses to be feminists, and women have to be dominant lesbians to be feminists. 

He asked, “Do you think gentlefemdom is feminist?” 

I deliberated. “No. What if the people involved don’t consent?” 

“Then it’s not gentlefemdom, it’s something else.” Hmm, interesting. The next time he asks me to do something weird I’m going to tell him that’s not actually gentlefemdom because I don't like it. "I think it is because you're dismantling the patriarchy by defying gender roles." 

"That's not how it works Trent. You can't get social justice brownie points for something that you happen to be into." 

"NO, I AM OPPRESSED. YOU'RE OPPRESSING ME." The irony. 

[sustainablehedonism]

august 12.2020

I helped the owner of the restaurant balance his books today and he is a real pain to work with. He kept complaining that the minimum wage is so high now. “That’s one way I stray from the party. The Democratic Party just bows down to labor, and that has it's place, like I guess they are taking on the big corporations who have been abusive so that’s needed… but none of those people fighting for labor issues have ever owned a business. They don't know what goes into it."

He is explaining this to someone who is making minimum wage at his establishment. I stared at him blankly while I fundamentally I disagreed with him. I thought about what Grant said about how “he is so comfortable in his own ignorance” or something, when he was so firm about Excel being industry standard when it’s not. Yet, I didn't think it was worth it to argue with my boss so I spat out some pander-y garbage: "When I worked for the Washington Hospitality Association, that was when the minimum wage in WA first started to rise, and they had an article in their magazine about how labor is the biggest expense of a restaurant so raising the minimum wage would be disproportionately devastating to this industry in Washington state."

"Yeah, that’s when I got more involved with the Washington Hospitality Association.” He gets so defensive. "This isn't an Evergreen seminar. This is a capitalist business. When you ask the back of house what their opinion is, it gets too convoluted. My thought process is that I have over forty years of experience in this industry." Classic boomer logic: I am old therefore I am right and don't need to explain myself.

Trent and other leftists would say that’s the one thing that the Democratic Party doesn’t stray from Republicans on: protecting and upholding capitalism. This reminds me that we are all influenced by our own biases. Trent is an angsty disenfranchised young person and Neil is running a business, and thusly, they have their own totally different perspectives on what the Party even believes. If we are impacted by one issue, the shortcomings of politicians on those issues are amplified.

[sustainablehedonism]

august 11.2020

Della looked up the PA transfer station today and as she was typing she said “Port Angeles dump.” I started cracking up and then said “you repeat yourself” and Trent started laughing. 

[sustainablehedonism]

august 10.2020

Trent says I am simple. I suppose he is correct; I am easily charmed, and I follow what is shiny. I remember when I was in the darkness after Evergreen and I still didn’t know who I was, after I came back from Seattle that one time when I met Mano for the first time, I made a list of things that are important to me: coffee, chocolate, sex, money, beauty, and prestige. That is still about the same, except I am more concerned about improving the general well being of the greater world through issues like reproductive rights, income and wealth equity, and environmentalism. 

I have always been simple. I fell victim to the capitalist propaganda marketed to little girls, and it worked. I loved Barbie and Bratz and treating shopping like a hobby. Then when I was a teenager I even made a word cloud in my planner of all of the farming and homesteading buzzwords I liked, but I never would have liked half of it if my magazines hadn’t romanticized it. Trent says I am being unbelievably stupid for wanting an unrealistic monumental change in our lives just for a change in scenery, and that I am shallow and immature for cooing over the sight of a European street side. Now my interests - urban planning, transportation analytics, public policy, international relations, the future of work and the internet of things - are still because of being awestruck by glitz and big and innovative ideas, but under a veil of intellectualism. I don’t actually know anything about engineering or taxes or any of the dry details. I am merely wowed by the clickbait of Wendover Productions or Beautiful City. I don’t necessarily need to be a congressmember. I could be a transportation analyst or some other title no one has ever heard of. After all, the transportation analyst they interviewed in "How to Fix Traffic Forever" was working at home from his parents’ house, so maybe it’s not that far out of reach. I could be the shy girl behind the scenes, and maybe after advising and observing the city council for a few cycles I would run myself someday and be on a couple of boards. That would be enough for me. 

So I might be a manager at QFC. I guess this is a good stepping stone. I guess there is a trade-off: I can either work a mediocre job in an impressive city or have an impressive job in a mediocre city. Maybe I can skip the mediocre job in the impressive city by having a resume filled with impressive jobs that I acquired out of lack of competition. I have dreamed about achieving the Millennial Milestone of working two jobs at once, and now I have the dream and I feel self-conscious about explaining it to my employers. I need to be straight with people without being too abrasive but I don't know how. 

[sustainablehedonism]

august 09.2020

“Seattle has so. Much. Stuff. Like, there’s a lot of shitty stuff, but there’s room for a lot of really good stuff."

Grant is a close enough friend to have the courage to tell Trent what I have wanted to tell him for a long time: "It’s a lot better than living with your parents and making key switch openers. You could rent a place with a basement to use for a shop and automate it with a much better CNC mill and just have it running all the time. You could split a place with someone you like.”

Trent spat back the obligatory excuse: “But they wouldn’t like the noise.”

“Levi wouldn’t mind the noise of the CNC machine running all the time.” He laughed with Trent. I have never met Levi.

“What, so I move to Seattle and get some menial office job?”

"It actually hasn’t been that bad. I have worked at soulless corporations and it’s been fine simply by the luck that my bosses are chill as fuck.”

I tell Trent while I am rubbing his shoulders, “I have been telling you for years that you need to move on with your life at some point.”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to make any big moves during coronavirus.”

“But you could think about it.” 

They asked me which games I played when I was a kid. When I said I had a Hannah Montana game on the DC, I was deemed "gamer gf" and I responded to that with, "I have been waiting for this moment," but the truth is I don't know how I feel about that. “Maybe if you were less competitive and didn’t call me a noob I would play more games with you.”

On the drive back I asked Trent, “Do you think you are capable of forming deep friendships in your twenties?” He talks to Grant every single night, something he would never do with anyone else. Trent said no, because it is so rare to find someone who shares all of his unique interests like synthesizers, keyboards, and machines. Grant does have some interests that he doesn't share with Grant, like sailing and keeping sheep, but other than that, they are synchronized childhood friends. 

[sustainablehedonism]

I want to be in the room where it happens.

Hamilton