I’m All Lost In, #69: Familiar Retreats
I’m All Lost In …
The 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.
#69
Like everyone else, I’m obsessing about the temper tantrum coup that’s taking place in D.C. right now; obsessing that I don’t know what I can do, obsessing about how the Democrats are not putting up a fight, and how the New York Times, with their appeasement coverage, is still…still!…pretending all this is normal.
Recommended headline, NYT:
Trump and Billionaire Ally Stage Lawless, Corrupt Coup.
As to the “What can I do?” question, Mario Savio’s 1960s exhortation to “Put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…” certainly feels right. That is: It’s time for bodies in the streets. Isn’t that what I’ve been imagining my whole life?
Unfortunately, I can’t help thinking that massive protests would be susceptible to violence of our own, or to Proud Boy (Brown Shirt) provocateurs, or to Trump’s twisted framing. And this is exactly what Trump wants. It will be the cover for his Reichstag Fire moment so he can officially declare an authoritarian state.
Perhaps, though, there’s a silver lining in that. Prompting Trump’s martial law clampdown may be the only thing that makes the majority of the country wake up.
It’s nuts that I’m even having to write this. But it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that the terrorists—i.e, Trump and MAGA—have won.
Trump’s oligarchy power grab is all I’m thinking about right now, so this week’s installment is not my usual list of obsessions, but rather an accounting of where I’ve been taking comfort, how I’ve been escaping. And mostly, it’s been to familiar retreats.
In turn, some of this week’s items are returns to favorites I’ve written about here before.
For starters, there’s Post Pike Bar & Cafe, which I wrote about in December when I mooned over their toasted sourdough vegan pesto sandwich. While I definitely got the pesto sandwich on one of this week’s frequent late afternoon visits to Post Pike (and where I’d inevitably run into my pal Charles), I’m now partial to their dripping Hummus Wrap with its sliced cucumber, tomato, spinach, and fresh banana peppers (the winning ingredient)—all rolled in a spinach tortilla.
Post Pike Bar & Cafe, 2/6/25
In addition to having good-for-you, cozy, and lovingly assembled sandwiches, Post Pike is an easygoing, small dive bar, where you can nestle into a booth and get work done unbeknownst to the playful regular crowd at the bar and the handful of other folks tucked into tables of their own while mellow jams (a lot of Quiet Storm R&B this week) lilting on the sound system.
Another magnetic spot I returned to this week to seek calm: Kajiken, the Japanese noodle place just off Cal Anderson Park. I first wrote about Kajiken when XDX and I went there over the winter holidays.
Once again, it was jam packed with chatty, eager diners on a random Monday night.
Once again, the staff was welcoming and warmly upbeat.
Once again, the city geography of this glowing spot, kitty-corner from the bustling city center park, makes you feel like you’re stepping out among hansoms and women in tea gowns.
And most of all, once again, I savored every bite of the Mushroom Aburasoba, a full bowl of shimeji and king trumpet mushrooms, rich spinach, soft tofu, and red onions piled over al dente soba noodles.
A bit more familiar with the Kajiken drill this time, I ordered two add-ons: bamboo shoots (game changer) and corn. And I doused the healthy noodle smorgasbord with all the table condiments, including chili paste, sesame seeds, vinegar, and oil.
I’ve also found myself gravitating over to the “Drag Beyond the Drag,” as I’ve taken to calling the boisterous and cramped southwestern edge of Capitol Hill that rubs against the freeway where my neighborhood segues into Downtown.
This is the late-night-eats and bar strip on Olive Way where I’d landed a few times earlier this month— getting a messy Middle Eastern gyro sandwich with XDX a couple of Friday nights ago, and then back again the next night, with Valium Tom for a substantive cheese pizza.
So it was that several times this week, I ended up walking the extra 10 minutes to find escape on this corner of the neighborhood. I was there for Thursday evening drinks (and a hot pretzel) with my pal Glenn as we settled in at the low-key, but electric Revolver Bar, where they spin vinyl (on this occasion, they had the Talking Heads’ 1978 LP More Songs About Buildings and Food playing as we talked the night away). And then on the following Tuesday night, I ended up just around the corner at The Pine Box for a savory jackfruit sandwich and more deep conversation.
This week also included a Sunday morning walk in a dreamscape snow shower to an old Central District favorite, Cafe Selam at 27th & Cherry for an Ethiopian Ful breakfast: berbere spiced fava beans covered in onions, tomatoes, serrano chilis, eggs, and feta cheese with an airy and crusty baguette. Apologies to my vegan self, but there’s no forgoing this delicious dish.
Back to cafe Selam for Ful medames, 2/2/25
Charles & ECB, 1/31/25
Charles & ECB, 1/31/25
Other comfort zone retreats this week included: madcap Friday night drinks with great longtime friends Charles and ECB at St. John’s Bar, and then promptly taking the light rail from Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square Station (and then walking through an alley off Yesler Way) to a new downstairs rock club called Baba Yaga to watch an earnest indie rock songwriter named Emma Danner and her band Red Ribbon.
Red Ribbon @ Baba Yaga in Pioneer Square, 1/31/25
Finally, and perhaps this explains my 19th Century disassociation (when I was pretending to be ambling among the gas lamps on Central Park East after dinner at Kajiken): I’ve returned to Edith Wharton.
You may remember last summer I was lightly obsessed with Wharton’s short story collection, The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. It turns out, I’d left off about 270 pages in with several stories to go.
I picked the book back up this week, starting with her 1909 story “Full Circle.” I was immediately drawn back in: “…those piercing notes of the American thoroughfare that seem to take a sharper vibration from the clearness of the medium through which they pass…;” “…they wanted his opinion on everything: on Christianity, Buddhism, tight lacing, the drug habit, democratic government, female suffrage and love.”
I’m not sure I want his (the tortured and defensive main character’s) opinions on that list, but some of those early 20th Century topics, like democratic government, do seem germane today.