Where on earth is Ballard?

giant mushrooms in ballard

The city is booming. Condos are sprouting all around like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Restaurants are still jamming at 9 PM. The storefronts are occupied, the yoga classes packed mat-to-mat. The bassist/bartender Drew Church who co-owns Hazelwood, my new favorite bar, serves an amazing rose from Paso Robles between filling in the day's crossword puzzle. Everyone knows someone who works for Microsoft and hates it. Or they are that person. By all appearances Ballard is one happening place.

the view from my office window

And yet there are days when I can't shake the sense that I've been sucked down a vortex and deposited in the middle of small town America, circa 1954. I walk down the street and the Scandinavian Foods market and old lady thrift stores have gone unchanged since the middle of the last century. At other times, I could be in the most isolated spot on earth. I run out to the beach at Golden Gardens and there's nothing but water in sight, not even the mountains which surround the city. It feels like the edge of the world, yet it's not even the Pacific. It's the Sound. The sea is hours away. I'll never get there. It takes 45 minutes just to get downtown by bus.

my neighbor, Archie McPhee

I have plenty of associations with this rapidly gentrifying, Scandinavian-flavored fishing neighborhood, on the outer west edge of Seattle. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I came out here to shop at Archie McPhee (window display pictured below), among the world's greatest novelty shops ever. (If you don't get the catalog, you are missing out big time.) After college, I dated a boy who lived in Ballard, and with him explored the area's abundant divey sports bars and taverns--as mentioned in my article Liquid City, which appeared in Salon.com's doomed travel section Wanderlust. I came back a few years ago to write a feature for ReadyMade on an retro card-making concern named Shazaam. This time I'm subletting the apartment of my college friend-turned-travel writer, Amanda Castleman, who worries on her Web site that Ballard has become "alarmingly hip." Maybe it has. Shouldn't matter to me, though, as I'm here to write. It is my proverbial cabin in the woods, even though, well, it's more like a suburb here.

I forgot how much I love this city. Even with its gray skies and chronic Seasonal Affective Disorder, it's beautiful. Especially now, when all the cherry blossoms are in bloom. Passing their cotton candy pink and white branches, I feel as though I've landed in CandyLand. I love the illusion of the Puget Sound, masquerading as the sea, and the mountains that are so huge and imposing when they're "out," but they live most of their lives behind an opaque shroud of clouds. I love this city's quirkiness, exemplified by places like Archie McPhee's or the Coffee Shop/Cupcake Bakery (photo of giant glowing cupcake below) where I've been spending my afternoons writing and surfing the free wifi. You can be silly here and still be taken seriously. I still adore the Alibi Room, a bar tucked along an alleyway beneath the Pike Street Market, itself still an incredible, lively place to buy fish and flowers. And there are so many favorite places I've yet to visit: Gasworks Park, my alma matter, the James Turrell Sky Space at the Henry Art Gallery...

When not writing, I've been catching up with old friends from my wild, undergrad days at the UW Daily, the paper which declared me "The Most Controversial Student" when I graduated 10 years ago. My favorite line from this now extremely embarassing article: "I don't believe in marriage," she said. "When I am 40 I want to have a couple of lesbian daughters. They cost less, you don't have to buy them a $500 prom dress and they don't get pregnant or [get] AIDS." Wow. I was brilliant. Fortunately, most of us grow up.

A round-up of alumni I've seen since getting here:
--The ever-fabulous Robin G. is now a high-powered publicist for an architectural firm and has quickly renewed my interests in martinis and lingerie. Her friendship and company has really made my time here sparkle.
--Paul D. is a detective investigating things he can't talk about.
--John B. (aka Butter) is now a professional lute-maker. It's a career path none of us could have predicted. The last time I saw him he was living in Oxford, England, posing for police line-ups to make cash, and writing an epic poem based on the Odyssey and his experiences as an undergraduate Classics major. I visited his studios in neighboring Fremont and was blown away by his knowledge and skill of this obscure artform.
--Craig Romano is now one of the Pacific Northwest's most respected wilderness writers and provides tours of the Pyrenees with his fabulous fiance.

As for writing, I'm doing it. When my old, long-abandoned novel proved to be uninspiring, I started a new one. I'm about 40 pages/10,000 words into it and so far so good. Next week, it's back to San Francisco. After three months, it feels surreal.

--JENN