1st Saturday Night in Olympia

Ok, so I'm in downtown Olympia looking for a coffeeshop with wireless so I can chill with my new laptop. I see a sign: "Espresso/Internet Cafe." It's called Veritas.

Looking back, this should have been a warning sign, but I interpreted the name, as I do with most of Olympia, as kind of pretentiously faux trendy and semi-hipster. Like the restaurant "Le Voyeur" down the street. After all I associate the idea of veritas more with Harvard than I do with Truth and the word of God. Anyway, I get a chai, take out my new laptop, and after an hour or so of web surfing and listening to the Nirvana CD I bought this afternoon, this band starts setting up and I see on the door that there's live music every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday at 7pm.

Since I have nothing to do tonight and since the band sounds decent, I stick around. The band is done sound check and music comes on. There's something a little different about this music.

"I'm asking for forgiveness, I see you loving kindness. Lord, my God, creator of my heart, make me clean again."

Ohmygod this Christian music. Is the band going to play Christian music? Is this a Christian coffeehouse?

Thanks to Google (and my new laptop, have I mentioned it?) I find the Answer.

And now that I look around, it all comes together. The t-shirt for sale that says "LET THE TRUTH BE KNOWN." The angel statue next to the menu boards. The bumper sticker on the drumset with the name of the band-- SoulFill. The lifesize crucifix above the espresso machine.

They're starting their set now. They just called themselves a "praise band." They said that they're going back to their roots and if we know the songs we should sing along.

Gordon College has followed me to the west coast.



(I lied about the lifesize crucifix above the espresso machine. It was a cappuccino maker.)

The Bus

You get a different crowd out west, I think. Most of the people getting on the Portland to Seattle bus were going much farther-- Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin-- and the bus was already half full with people travelling through when it pulled up two hours late. The girl in front of me was coming up from California and had already been on the bus for 16 hours. A generally amicable group, a few families, lots of joking around in the back like we were on a rugby trip or something, not a completely random bunch of strangers.

A row back on the other side of the aisle there was a guy in a black cowboy hat trying to convince his seatmate to join Americorps. Or maybe he was just selling the idea in general because every time I tuned in he was listing another benefit. "They give you $1000 a month and pay for your travel."

The guy next to me in line at the gate was obviously intoxicated. But in a friendly, semi-stranger you might meet at a friend's party way, not the sketchy guy on the street way. He was headed to Billings, going home after three years of living in Portland, and hey, if I had that many hours on the bus ahead of me i would have shown up drunk, too. At that point I was so sleep deprived I was probably less coherent than he was anyway, and it reminded me of the time I spent the night in the Atlanta airport and had a conversation with the cleaning guy at 2 am trying to explain why I had been in Florida, because I was on the rowing team. Not the growing team.

Asked if I was backpacking, I said no, I'm just going back to Olympia.

Marmot

want to be

sitting on a porch drinking a beer listening to van morrsion. summertime. as a permanent state, though, not just an occasional glimpse of relaxation. a hammock is always nice.

not sure when this blog turned into a journal for random thoughts. must have been around the time i abandoned capitalization (a few minutes ago).

ME

You'd think I'd post a picture of Seattle or Portland or maybe even Olympia, where I'll be spending the next eight months. But since I'm still doing the whole film thing, here's a picture of Maine.

I think I have some good ones of the Seattle skyline on this next roll, though, and also one of I5, REI, and then the mountains in the background.