The Unbearable Strangeness of Seattle

Liz and I get bonus frequent flyer miles if we hit three iDine restaurants before the end of the month, and it turns out this Italian place we get carryout from occasionally has quit doing iDine, so we've got two days to try to meet our goal. Tonight we drove up to Kirkland for some "family dining," which translates to the kind of restaurant where you can get chicken fried steak and no one bats an eye.

The other patrons only served to reinforce my belief that "Twin Peaks" was a documentary. It's not that people in Seattle are strange (well, they are, but that's not the problem); the problem is how consistently strange they are. At first I thought I was imagining it, but the more I think and experience, the more I realize that people up here march to a totally different beat - and sometimes, it's a little disconcerting.

It was another great day today; I walked in to work (woohoo!) and had a great day. I realized, though, that one of my major personal problems will need attending to sooner rather than later. See, I crunch ice. If I have an ice cube in my mouth, invariably I start chewing on it. That wouldn't be a big deal under normal circumstances, but since I started actively trying to lose weight, I've been drinking more and more ice water at work. Which means, I've got ice cubes in my mouth constantly. Today, I began my campaign to actively not chew on ice anymore. You'd think someone who suffers recurring nightmares about his teeth breaking would have done this a long time ago, but it's time to put my foot down damnit! No more chewing of ice!