Viv and I are driving the last load from our apartment to the house as I thumb this into the Treo.

I loaded the car with fragile things, paper sculptures and the like before our final meal as Capitol Hill residents, at the reliably delicious, and reliably overpriced, Coastal Kitchen.

We picked up a few replacements for things gone AWOL in the move (scissors and scotch tape and the like) on 15th before we got in the car to head north.

Once we started driving, without thinking, Viv adjusted her seat, audibly crushing part of a paper four foot scale model of the Space Needle I’d carefully stowed behind the driver’s seat. I didn’t flip out, I’m happy to report. But that accident is a perfect metaphor for my dissatisfaction with the move and the house.

The Seattle I built for myself in dreams has been crushed. I don’t feel connected to this new phase of my life by desire or joy, only obligation and economic realities that I can never control. Life out past the end of the sidewalks was exactly what I had as a child, and I hated it, and I hate it still.

UPDATE: Upon unloading the car, the Needle and the damage done turned out to be, unsurprisingly, mostly in my imagination. I retain the right to excercise that gloomy entity.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Burn ban cancelled, there’s a fire in the hearth. Finally.