Of pitching tents, pricing, preconceptions, precognition, and prejudice...

I do mean pitching tents in a figurative term, but I can at last say that the that I have arrived in the Seattle area and have set my GPS coordinates where I am currently bunking. It is still a tad unnerving when my GPS has told me I have arrived “Home”.

Home... the word has an odd, nostalgic meaning to me in the sense that Home was the City I had lived in for over a decade, and Wyoming for almost all of my life. Now that I have arrived in Seattle, I have uncovered certain truths that I had not expected. My answers and explanations will most likely cast me in the light of a bigot, but almost all I say is true, though there are most likely to be exaggerations of some details for posterity, clarity, and entertainment value.


Of those, the homeless situation is pretty dire here, which is surprising considering the fact that there is a large number of employers here looking for people with various skill sets from the humble yet determined blue-collar workforce to the white-collar elite. There are pan-handlers on every corner, and even with the increased costs of living, anyone who is determined enough can make it in Seattle. Though, I suppose I should reserve judgment in this area as I was almost immediately hired via a transfer.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had to interview for the job, and paired with my work history I still had to do cold-calls within the company I work for in a period of over two weeks for the specific position. That being said, yes, it did cost me about $400+ for the preliminary round-trip to interview and tens of hours (if not several days) to arrange interviews and to process the transfer post-interview, but I was hired on within minutes of my first interview starting. Anyone who lives in Seattle doesn’t have the additional cost of gas of traveling over a thousand miles one-way, renting a hotel room for a few days (in addition to the hotels rooms to and fro). I have come to the conclusion that anyone that has been unemployed is either setting the bar too high, lacking the finances to get to where they need to, or lacking the drive necessary to get a job nailed down.

But again, I have always been pretty fortunate in terms of my employment with me being hired at my first job before I even realized I even had a job, as well as before even realizing that I was moving to the City. While various jobs have been the same company, I have explored different venues of employment, and I will acknowledge that when I tried pinning down a specific field-related job, I struggled. Though, there is not that much call for graphic designers in Wyoming. Regardless, whenever there was generalized work, I was still able to find it.

Which brings me to my next point: what is this “Seattle Freeze” I keep hearing about? Granted, I know I have only been here for a total of a week between my pre- and post-interview, but if this occurrence of indifference and disinterest I keep rarely seeing is the fabled freeze, then Seattle has nothing in comparison to what I have coined the “Wyoming Shut-Out.”

When compared to Seattle, the shut-out pales in comparison. As cliquey as Seattle is, its dynamic is barely two-dimensional. Wyoming, initially you are either a native, or you aren’t. Once that bridge has been crossed, there is the biases of which industry you work in, what neighborhood you live in, if you are student or faculty, college or tech, republican or democratic, Christian or Other, TEA partier or dirty Commie, straight or gay, creed to follow or preaching to followers, community college or university, who’s friends with whom, who do you respect, who do you loathe, who do you loathe yet respect, what social events you attend, etcetera ad nauseum…

Which yet brings me to my next point. The social and ethnical diversity here is just that: diverse. It is in fact so diverse, that you cannot pick out any specific demographic as it all blends together. There are Asians and African-Americans and Hispanics and Latinos and Aryan and all other shades between. If anything, I was surprised at the healthy population of Muslims and Hispanics there were in Seattle.

I personally thought the Hispanic population being heavier than what it was in Wyoming was due to the fact that it is almost a full 500 miles further away, though I guess that could be attributed to California, Nevada and Arizona’s unemployment wrecks that they have been experiencing as well as the increased crackdowns forcing a large population out, paired with Wyoming trying to follow suit.

For Muslims, it is not a rare sight to see hijaabs and burkas everywhere (which I personally find a welcome change, considering many situations such as the one documented here as well as the undocumented that appears on a regular basis). In Wyoming, if someone wears a burka, one does often pay attention not only for the racially, culturally, and overall extrinsic-laden aspect of Wyoming being such a xenophobic place, but for the sheer novelty of it.

Muslim-related paraphernalia is as rare as manatees and unicorns, and similarly, most people in Wyoming don’t know how to interact with them as they stare slack-jawed in bewilderment or trying to play it off as if they are irrelevant to their interests, even though they are most likely secretly terrified of them or foster a deep-seated hatred towards them, quite often for no logical reason.

There is even a town that pretty much ostracizes you if you haven’t grown up there or have not lived there for at least forty years, according to various reports from multiple individuals that I have talked to that have lived there, including one of my best friends, whom is quite level-headed and a friendly guy in general whom has confirmed this bias.

On the plus side, almost every foreign person I have come across here at least knows basic English. While their accents are heavy, I at least don’t have to bring out my Pigeon Spanish for the Hispanic customers at work (which, quite frankly, I believe is a benefit for both the speaker trying to poke the areas of his language synapses, and the listener whom has to listen to the gringo pendejo murder said language). As such, I suppose that I also have more respect to the multicultural, multilingual people for learning the language of the country they are living in than the uneducated masses in the City.

In fact, Washington is more Hispanic-oriented 

That being said, in my attempt in trying to describe the various bigoted intricacies and eccentricities of Wyoming and the City, I may have cast myself in a negative light by showing my own prejudices and pompous arrogance, but what I have written I believe is the truth all the same.

Getting back to the current, I am finding it fairly hard to find a reasonable studio or single-bedroom apartment up here that is in the $700 or under ballpark that isn't too shady and is fairly close to Seattle (<30 miles). This isn't too much to ask, is it?

So far the studios and apartments start at that price. If my two roommates would move up and help split the cost, I'd probably fork out the extra $50-100 to get a 2- or 3-bedroom. The ironic part is, it's almost sad that studio efficiencies start at around $750+, whereas I can get a 3-bedroom for $900. So, if anybody out there has any suggestions to cheap apartments that aren't fleabags or has any jobs out there so my roommates can get their asses out here to help, it would be greatly obliged. Hopefully in the mean time I will be able to get more of an idea of the surrounding neighborhoods by going on random roadtrips up and down the sound, talking to people, and doing research online.

A typical day at my new job... except a little more chaotic.

As for work at my new job, to say it has been keeping my slightly busy is like saying triple digit weather is "slightly warm." Between recovering from a cold the very first day I was traveling up here, working close to 40 hours the very first week I was here, and walking everywhere in search of apartments on my day off (resulting in my walking over what I estimate 30 miles in a period of less than three days).

And so far this new job has had one helluva learning curve. My old job that I transferred from at this point looks damned cushy right now. I usually help between two- to five-hundred customers on a slow day right now. I wouldn't put it past myself to be underestimating this number.

Additionally, I now help operate an entire store, not just a small glass box with maybe half a dozen items. Furthermore, my register I use to ring things up freezes at random intervals, sometimes only for a split second, and sometimes for almost a full minute. On the plus side, thus far my new boss is considering me a quick study and a pretty decent worker, so I suppose I have that on my side. However; eight-hour shifts where I probably log on average five miles walking to and fro in the store makes for a long day.
 

It's like looking to a mirror... but not.

And on a completely unrelated note, as I was traveling up from the City on the first trip, I encountered a landscape that I was all too familiar with, though I had never been to that area. It is sort of like visiting a room that was recently rearranged, where you have a strange feeling of déjà-vu; where you have a sense of familiarly, but everything is different. You know where everything belonged and the more permanent has not been changed, yet it has been altered. This landscape is a river that passes right by I-84 through Oregon. I knew every hill, every island within the river, the bank, the highway… all in a reoccurring dream that I have had multiple times over a period of weeks.

I have yet to detail that I am mildly precognitive in my ability to foresee events before the events have passed. I have no control as to what I see, nor do I have the capacity to predict certain future memories until right as they are about to pass, nor do they involve anyone except myself. My first instance was when I was four and I accidentally broke the facing off of the family entertainment center while trying to get something off the middle shelf by trying to get leverage via climbing the shelf. While some of you may associate correlation by causation, this first instance took me by a mix of surprise and terror as I hid in a hard-to-access area to anyone but a four-year-old with a matching-sized body.

Duuuude... I thought I had déjà-vu!

Ever since, I have had varied glimpses in futures that have yet to pass, and I am presented with the option to let them pass and come into fruition when they arrive, or to do something about them and cause an altered future reality. Unless the events that come to fruition favor me, I usually try to alter that potential reality.

As I said, I usually try. The period of time of perception to progression varies from a couple of seconds (which did not help me right before jumping out of a bunk-bed, realizing that both legs were asleep, and winding up breaking my toe on my way down about nine years ago), to several months or years (assuming I still remember the instance in time, of which I usually don’t).

I found out during my adolescence that this was not uncommon within my family, as my mother (according to her stories) was able to predict an accident of an acquaintance that was a professional driver that was horribly mauled, and to foresee her life with my father by her marriage and shared life with him, among other things. While I have not had that level of control, and her abilities have since faded since then, I would most likely called bunk had it not been my similar ability.

Say what you will about this, but I am certain that since I have started heeding this fortunate information, I strongly believe that I have avoided three back-alley brawls, two hold-ups, an auto-accident, a few extravagant and believable lies, and a rather potentially violent mugging involving a knife while I was visiting an ATM.

What bothers me about this most recent vision is that it was reoccurring over a period of weeks. I have dreamt of this same spot at least three times that I recall, and that this precognitive memory has occurred only in dreams.

The last dream-related vision I had was the knife mugging that was prevented, and that was months down the road. The mugger of that dream was, in what details I vividly recall, identical to the tall, short curly-blond haired, square-jawed, lanky yet toned body with a tattoo on his left inside arm with a white muscle shirt, baggy slacks and white tennis shoes with red laces that was behind me.

The period between the dream and the event was slightly over a year, so I do apologize that I didn’t recall much more due to my fallacies with remembering details. Also, the guy was right behind me, and as I avoided eye contact while was passing him, all while making up a story about my card being drained of all funds and I had $2.67 left to my name and swearing profusely under my breath at the receipt that said otherwise.

I must have made a convincing act, as the guy looked kind of dumb-struck as to what to do next before slowly crawling towards the teller machine after I left and acting if he was to withdraw his own money...

That being said, the fact that this is a reoccurring dream that takes place in a place that I have never seen in person prior to that point, yet distinctly see myself driving from west to east on a grey, hazy midday winter, of which I have no context of the events prior to cause me to arrive to that point, nor the events after traversing the surrounding hills bothers me—this vision deeply bothers me. I know that it is important, but I do not know what for.

And on that note, I think I'll conclude this rather lengthy post.