In Novels And Autobiographies, The First Positive

Because Washington State Now Votes By Mail, Elections Here Tend To Play Out, At An Agonizingly Slow Speed, Over Many Days And, Sometimes, Weeks.

The [travel] Writer, Looking Back At The Journey From A Distance Of A Year Or Two (or Three), Is A Different Character From The Hapless Character Who Undertook The Trip: Wise After The Event, With The Leisure To Tease Out Meanings From The Experience That The Distracted Traveler Never Had, And Often Impatient With His Alter Ego's Blinkered And Unsatisfactory Version Of Things.

At Night, What You See Is A City, Because All You See Is Lights. By Day, It Doesn't Look Like A City At All. The Trees Out-number The Houses. And That's Completely Typical Of Seattle. You Can't Quite Tell: Is It A City, Is It A Suburb, Is The Forest Growing Back?

Heartbreak Comes In Different Sizes, And The Departure Of An 18-year-old Child For A Far College Has To Be Treated As A Very Benign Form Of The Disease.

My New City [seattle] And Its Hinterland Felt Deceptively Homely. Their Similar Latitude Gave Them The Angular Light And Lingering Evenings I Was Used To. Their Damp Marine Weather, Blowing In From The Southwest, Came In The Right Direction. When The Mountains Are Hidden Under A Low Sky, One Might Almost Imagine Oneself To Be In Britain.