Cien Puntos in Columbia City

RantWoman attended a lovely reading and book signing at Biznik, in the Columbia City theater recently.

The first lovely thing is that RantWoman got there! RantWoman was thinking of the Columbia City Cinema, conflating Cinema and Theater even though the directions, next to Tutta Bella were not computing for RantWoman's command of the Columbia City Cinema conveniently located next to Subway. Indeed, RantWoman was quite pleased to find the theater and will now put it into her list of venues to be checked for interesting live amusements.

The evening was the sort of charming evening one would expect to spend with reasonably literate technorati: the reading was lowkey; the more interesting conversation happened in the line waiting for the book signing. RantWoman was touched and amused in retrospect that it did not occur to her to buy the e-book instead of the print version that came with admission to the event but, alas, RantWoman is responsible for her own flakiness. RantWoman supposes she should write a pesky letter to the authors asking that the e-book be offered equivalently to the hardback for such as herself. However, RantWoman may simply lend Trust Agents out to one of her book digesters and see what interesting tidbits come back in conversation.

The most memorable quote of the evening from Chris Brogan with the rapt audience before him: "This feels too much like church. Go ahead, Text, Twitter, Get out those laptops and get acquainted ." RantWoman thought of coughing significantly, both at the thought of personal acquaintance needing to be mediated by electronic devices and by the unsatisfying logistics of her own current mobile communications possibilities. As time ran out for questions and the line formed for the book signing, we all learned that, surprise, everyone there could in fact converse without their electronic devices!

RantWoman was also amused to observe in the line another guy who, like herself, was quite frank about seeing badly even though at first glance, with no white cane one might assume by appearances that there was nothing wrong. RantWoman's multiple mixed experiences with Thwack the badly-behaved white cane as social lubricant and chaperone deserve their own post; in that event Thwack was being indolent, lounging in RantWoman's bag. RantWoman filed her impression of this guys massive red and white nametag with letters RantWoman could even read at the distance usually considered socially acceptable in her basket of experiences taking the blindness thing around whether one means to or not and then resumed the actual networking she had been managing tolerably already.

After the booksigning and a trip to Subway, RantWoman had a dilemma. It was a warm lovely night. RantWoman had the choice of walking about 5 blocks to the Light Rail or waiting for the next #7. RantWoman needed to buy bananas at the QFC part way home and would have to deal with some street crossing either way. RantWoman has not previously walked Edmonds St in the dark and was a little afraid of dark streets full of trees and bad sidewalks, not to mention God Knows What lurking in the dark in the 'hood.

The sky was still slightly turquoise and RantWoman rapidly resolved that the night was mellow enough for whatever came up. RantWoman wound up being delighted with what she found. RantWoman detected a whole bunch of new housing which she supposes--but could not really evaluate--probably fully conforms to the factors generating lots of ugly, or even FUGLY* townhomes. Nevertheless, the new housing more than meets one of RantWoman's preferred criteria for safe nighttime walking: lights on in buildings and obvious evidence that people are around even if they are not out on the street. The sidewalks are mostly brand new, the lighting is decent even with foliage still on the trees, and the curb cuts even align quite sensibly. In short, the walk was an absolute delight and RantWoman is likely to make it again many times coming and going from Columbia City.
(*RantWoman suggests filing FUGLY as interesting usage. She hopes her lexicography customers can tell from context what is meant and can guess on their own the etymology, but if not...)