anything but fine

I wasn't sure if I should call it rain or mist but I couldn't see the tops of the buildings downtown as I was walking home. Or not exactly home, just walking--headed north because that's where home was, even if it's five miles and I knew I wouldn't get home for hours and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going. It was dark but the sky was kind of grey and pale from all the city lights reflecting on the mist or the rain or whatever it was. It wasn't cold and there was no wind and it was exactly what a late autumn day should be in Seattle.

And I knew there were buses going my way, but I didn't have a destination in mind while the skyline I'd fallen in love with wasn't entirely visible and my hands were shaking and I felt restless from too much coffee and not enough sleep and not enough food though I probably had too much and sometimes I'm still not sure if it was caffeine that made me restless.

If you asked me I'd have told you everything was perfect. I still might if you catch me in the right mood. But still I was walking home and wondering what went wrong or what was going to go wrong or what was wrong. And I told myself it was really only bothering me because I always get like this after too much caffeine, and that might have even been true.

But Seattle is a coffee city. You ask people out to coffee. You go out for coffee late at night. It's a drug for those late nights that aren't supposed to end. Writing that paper. Studying for that exam. Your last night in town. Driving home late at night. Staying out too late with people who are too fascinating to leave until it's 5 am and the sun is coming up or it would be if it weren't raining or misting or whatever it was doing, and I wondered how I could ever think of this city as anything but a city of late nights.

After 45 minutes and a car drove by. I imagined it was a friend looking for me but if it was they didn't stop, they didn't notice, and anyway I'd rather be alone with my thoughts and a skyline I could't quite see.