Whew! That was some trip. Twenty six days, some four thousand miles – I ended up taking a shortcut – and enough gasoline to fill up a swimming pool. I am now safely ensconced in the urban micro-farm on the outskirts of Seattle and getting, as they say, all my ducks in a row. Not that there are any ducks here but I don’t know any organizational aphorisms that mention chickens or goats. I hit the ground a week ago and walked about five miles back-and-forth through the Belltown neighborhood. Belltown is a very hip and trendy neighborhood right downtown that is filled with cool restaurants, happenin’ cafes, and vogue nightclubs. It is right in the heart of the city and its urban-chic vibe definitely cast a spell on me. I spent the day wandering around and having apartment managers tell me that the places they had emailed me about, and which sounded so appealing, were the ones that shared a door with the entrance to the homeless shelter/methadone clinic/temporary worker employment facility. If I wanted to on the other side of the building and away from the commercial laundry/soup kitchen/bus transfer depot then the rents jumped up a bit more than quoted in the email. Like double.

There went my urbane urban aspirations.

It was back to the ‘burbs. Or more like urban residential. The neighborhood I next ventured into was the oft-slighted-herein district called Queen Anne. I know I’ve joked a bit at the neighborhood’s expense but that’s just me. Also, me being me, I was drawn to the west side of the hill – at the top of the hill – where I could look down and see Lower Queen Anne and all of the other not-at-the-top-of-Queen-Anne-Hill neighborhoods spread out like so many model-train villages at my feet. This area just made me feel at home. There were two big drawbacks though. First, if I ended up living here, I would lose out on a whole section of town and a class of residents about whom I could write. It’s just no fun to poke fun and feel the point of your own stick. That might lead to being sensitive to the feelings of others which is something of a death-knell to a writer’s career. Or so I’ve been led to believe. The other problem was that, living up to its exclusive reputation, there wasn’t a place in the ‘hood that could remotely be described as “affordable”.

Except one.

It was the alley-side apartment in a six-unit, well maintained, “older” building. It was very rectangular. The woodwork was original, the tile was original, the windows were original, and the kitchen was original. As I enjoy cooking the kitchen is the most important room of the house. This kitchen, which was about five feet wide – wall-to-wall – and ten feet long, had the useable counter space of a campsite. The electric appliances’ manufacturing dates shared an alarming number of digits with my birthday – in the same order. But it was in the right neighborhood and it was just a little more expensive than I had hoped. I rubbed the magic lamp and released my pent-up Genie of Rationalization. The Misty Mystic appeared and whispered things like “It’s only for a year.” and “It’s bigger than a boat.” and “It’s at the top of The Hill.”. Nevertheless, I was dejected and I headed downslope towards the bus. All of the things the genie said were true but that apartment just didn’t feel like a place I would want to live in. I was depressed, disillusioned, and alone in my new city. It was now raining. I needed some kind of pick-me-up. So I went and did the one thing that could be found at the very bottom of the “Things I Do” list, the last entry in the subsection labeled “Things I Do When I’m Feeling Down”, the ultimate dog-eared, faded, and coffee-stained entry in the sub-sub-section titled “After Nothing Else Works Out”.

I went out dancing.

Some background is in order. Apparently, in Seattle, dancing is a Big Thing. Everywhere you go there are flyers or posters or graffiti or words scratched into bathroom walls advertising dances, dance lessons, or combinations thereof. It’s not just “come on out to the dance” kind of stuff either. In Seattle there are sets and subsets of dance that defy belief. You don’t just go out Tango dancing. You go out and dance Close-embrace Tango, or Nuevo Tango, or others that were too numerous for me to remember right now. There is Blues Dancing and Western Swing and Tango and Burlesque and Contra and on and on and on. I saw advertisements which mentioned everything except Ballroom Dancing. I think this fractionation of dance is because each one of these individual dance styles is governed by a distinct and obscure set of rules. And, as you no doubt recall, for Seattleites it’s all about following the rules.

When I was here in early December Jodi, the woman who owns the micro-farm I’m staying at, was meeting some friends at a milonga which is the word the rules say you use instead of “Tango dance”. She kindly invited me along and I accepted. The milonga was well attended by about fifty or so dancers all of whom were everything I was not. For example: knowledgeable, skilled, and practiced. My first milonga was a Tango sit for me as I studiously avoided any eye contact that might lead to an invitation that would end up with me trampled into the hardwood floor. Seeing the skill that everyone else displayed was exciting and a definite incentive to learn but I figured that there could be no teacher with the necessary combination of patience and life-expectancy to get me to that level. 

Fast forward to the depressing end of my apartment hunting expedition. My phone goes *PING* as a txt message arrives from Jodi. 

“My boyfriend says there’s a Blues Dance tonight. Want to go?” Jodi’s boyfriend is a Blues Dancer and not a Tango Dancer. 

I write back “Are there lessons?” 

*PING*. 

“Yes.”

I am so screwed.

If someone were being charitable they would say about me: “He dances like he has one left foot.” While anatomically accurate this is really a nice way of saying “He dances half as well as someone with two left feet.” As soon as the music starts I become gravity impaired. The first Blues Dance lesson – there were two – was geared to the Absolute Beginner. This was way above my skill level. It was taught by Ari and Whitney, two Blues Dancers who were vivacious, talented and very flexible. They also seemed to be having way too much fun. I got sore muscles just watching them dance. “You want me to do that? Are you nuts? While the Blues Dance is a basic Step-Tap-Step-Tap rhythm it is also a close-embrace dance which means you dance as if welded to your partner. The instructors would show the class how to do something. We’d all take a turn around the room and then stop, swap partners with somebody else, and wait for the next chiropractic defying instruction. I scraped through the first lesson with nothing more than a bruised ego. My numerous dance partners were less fortunate.

The second lesson was Level Two but I hung in there much to the dismay of the instructors. A new wave of dancers – more experienced dancers – joined the lesson and it proceeded much as before. My mind has thoughtfully blocked much of the memory of the second lesson. I am left only remembering one partner who seemed to be more interested in finding someone to practice a horizontal dance form with and one partner who insisted on telling me things I already knew. Things like “Boy, are you new at this.” “Ouch.” And, “You really can’t dance worth a shit can you?”

I retired to the bar.

When Jodi found me there later she said “You know, you should sign up for Tango lessons. There’s one of the better teachers right over there!” So I went and spoke with the very scientifically named Max Kepler – www.dancekepler.com if you’re interested in lessons while in the Seattle area – and got all signed up for Beginner Tango Lessons on Tuesday evenings.

It is now Wednesday morning.

This class was a resounding success! Max is a talented teacher and started us all out at the most basic level possible which was walking slowly around the room. The class consisted of three couples and three single guys. Not the best formula for a dance but Max had a ringer who showed up and each of the single guys got to dance at least some of the time. This class is for “Close-embrace Tango” so having a partner is pretty much required for the embrace part. Practicing “close-embrace” solo just felt wrong. Anyway, the class moved rapidly up the dancing skill scale and by the end of the hour I was able to walk slowly around the room backwards! My dancing confidence soared. This was great! I and my infrequent partners all survived the evening and I headed back to the bus really looking forward to the next class.  As I left Max said that there would be partners all around for next week as she is going to merge another of her classes, which is apparently over-balanced in the opposite chromosomal direction, with the class I’m in. I pity their toes already.

My spirits strangely buoyed by my objectively mediocre performance on the boards I went back to the ranch and checked craigslist one final time before I signed the lease on the depressing little box I expected to live in. I fired up my computer and – *Click*. 

There it was.

As always happens with me, at the last possible moment I found what I was looking for. “Top of Queen Anne Hill.” “Walking distance to everything.” “Large one bedroom.” “Walk-in closet.” “Room for a garden.” “Spacious kitchen with gas range.” “Large East and South facing windows.” It had everything I could possibly want. The rent was in my budget. Something had to be wrong. I visited the apartment which is right off the bus line from downtown. It was great! I put in my application and waited.

I am now no longer homeless. OK, not quite because the owner is putting in new hardwood floors before I move in. But sometime in the next week or so I won’t be living out of a suitcase anymore. I’ll have my own digs, with my own stuff, my own pots and pans, and my own bed.

It makes me feel like dancing.