Trueself Takes Seattle by Storm! Part I

I never really did talk here much about my trip to Seattle with BJ. I’m not sure why. Of course I don’t have all the pictures to post like BJ does because I don’t have a camera so you won’t be seeing that kind of post here. While I was on the trip I was enjoying the nothingness of it all so much that words for a post just didn’t come. Then when I returned home I had to smother N with attention, and catch up on work, and catch up on laundry, and catch up on All My Children, and watch N play more baseball games as a sub on another team, and mourn with the rest of the Illini Nation when Jeff Jordan announced he was quitting the Illini basketball team, and pick up wayward youth from jail, and there just didn’t seem enough time in the day to ever blog about the trip.

I did very much enjoy the trip in spite of massive spasms of guilt over letting BJ pay for most of it. That is so very unlike the me of the past – the letting someone else pay part, not the guilt part. The guilt part is terribly like me as you probably know if you read here much.

This post (unless it gets too long in which case it may be multiple posts; with me, you never know ‘til you get there) will look at the trip from a few different perspectives: (1) the travel part of the trip, both to and fro and while there, (2) the sights of Seattle and what I did there, (3) the Saturday evening we spent with jeniangel and her boyfriend, and (4) how BJ and I fared “living together” for an entire week.

Travel (or Don’t Go Anywhere if You’re Fat)
I am officially (in my own mind) too fat to travel unless riding in my own car, a taxi or a limousine. I am one of those dreaded people who takes up more than my allotted 17.2” wide airline seat.* Not only am I fat, but most of that fat is in my hips and thighs, the parts most impacted by 17.2” seats with armrests on both sides. When I am not next to a loved one (and on two legs of our roundtrip extravaganza I was across the aisle from BJ rather than next to him) I refuse to raise the arm between my seat and the seat next to me. It isn’t, after all, their fault that I am too wide for the accommodations. What I do is sit down the best I can, allowing my body weight to slowly push me down into the seat, squeezing my flesh up against the boundaries of the armrests.

What this inevitably leads to are bruises on my thighs. I think BJ was surprised by the damage done when he first saw them. Me? I’m used to them, or as used to them as one can get I suppose, kind of like how an abused spouse just keeps taking it even when they know it’s coming.

You will never hear me espouse the theory that it isn’t my fault, or that the airlines or other airline passengers should accommodate me and my extra bulk. It is my responsibility that I’m fat. That is all on me. I know the way to eat healthfully, and most times I choose not to do so. That’s me. That’s not anybody else. Nobody pushes the food down my throat. I wish I had the money to pay for an extra seat so that I wouldn’t inconvenience anyone else, but I don’t. Yes, if I gave up those fast food runs for several months I could probably save enough to fund an extra ticket. Anyway, I think I’ll go back to the I-don’t-ever-fly-without-N-because-he-doesn’t-mind-if-I-slop-over-into-his-seat-so-I-can-put-the-armrest-up rule of flying.

Then there was the good side of transportation on the trip:
Free bus service in downtown Seattle? Good
Monorail to the area where the Space Needle is? Good and fun.
Limousine between airport and hotel? Fabulous
Various taxis we took to navigate the steep hilly terrain of Seattle occasionally? Serviceable, but you know, typical taxis with drivers I can’t understand and questionable cleanliness. At least there was enough room for my fat ass.
Town Car sent to take us to and from brunch at the Palisade for no additional charge? Magnificent!

Okay, I can see this is getting long. I declare this to be a multi-part blog post. It looks to me like there will be two or possibly three more posts. Hmm, wonder how long it will be until I get around to writing those?

*Average commercial airline seat width according to the website www.independenttraveler.com. I didn't measure the actual width of the seats in any of the planes we flew, but I do know the seats in the little jets the regional airline used on our first and last legs of our trip were damned small, and I'm guessing they are helping to keep that average seat width low. I would be real surprised if they were 17" across. Maybe I'll take a tape measure next time and check for myself!