the Urban Archivist

On the route down to Pioneer Square, a trio of football fans gets on the bus in Eastlake. They are in their early 30s — one woman, two men, and three Seahawks sweatshirts between them. They find some disjunct, scarce seats at the front of the bus. One of them, unable to find a seat, holds on to the overhead bar. I ponder Standing Man’s attire for a moment, lamenting yet again about the unfortunate state of fashion for many men. He is wearing a wallet on a chain, which is fine except that his jeans are entirely too ill-fitting. This makes the chain wallet seem slovenly, sad, and unfortunate. Aside from that, though, it’s their conversation that is more intriguing, particularly the woman’s pontifications. She speaks with that somewhat sultry timbre that is quite possibly the gravelly-voiced result of several years of hard smoking.

“The place sucks,” she opines, referring to Bellevue, where she apparently works. She describes its vacuous landscape as “a strip mall surrounded by high-rises”. Finally, she offers perhaps the most succintly quote-worthy evaluation of the Eastside’s civic fabric: “It’s like they got their city planner from Pottery Barn.”