I’ve been thinking about my relationship with the different parts of Seattle:

In Capitol Hill, I’ll be walking out of dance class wearing green pants, a red bandana, and an orange windbreaker and this looks completely normal.

Magnolia is associated with Pamela and her baby. After the baby was born, I spent time over at her house helping out. Magnolia is fancy if not totally isolated, a maze of roads and bridges to get to, (similar to Ballard, which I unconscionably scoff at).

The U District and I are unusually close. I spend three days out of five in this neighborhood working, visiting my sister, and occasionally walking down memory lane. Yesterday, the smell of Thai food wafted over me and I was filled with the hunger that only inexpensive ethnic food can bring.

Georgetown is where my husband’s secret life is. Over the past year he has rigged up security cameras for a popular bar on the industrial strip. You can find him there when I’m at rehearsal, drinking off his extended bar tab and blending in with the locals.

My sister spent her first year living in a sublet in Greenlake, which is why I ended up spending so much time there. We did the usual Greenlake-y things: walked around the lake and made fun of all the rich people.

Queen Anne is the awkward home of Seattle Center–where I rehearsed constantly for Soft Rock. I’ve gotten very good at finding secret parking in this neighborhood…and I have a few friends that live there. For some reason, Queen Anne always feel ‘far.’

I baby-sit in West Seattle and it’s OK.

Freemont used to be the easiest place for me to get Peet’s coffee, (now I go to Cap Hill). In the 90’s it was way cuter and quirkier. Now it’s traded its hipster glasses for contact lenses.

I lived in Madrona for a year and loved its easy-to-walk streets, Cupcake Royale, and St. Clouds. However, despite being filled with children, none of the locals send them to the nearby public school, so the facility is floundering.

Downtown may be a mystery for many Seattleties, but since it’s the home of the Market Theater, I have that neighborhood wrapped around my finger. Every weekend I drive all over the grid searching for parking and every week I find it–the tricks and the secrets are mine!

Columbia City is worth it for the bakery, the famer’s market and its exemplary gentrification.

Rainier Beach is unique, diverse, fragile, and the place I call home. It is close to the water, cheap eats, and always seems to be walking a fine line as a transitional part of the city. Not a neighborhood I would have ever picked to rent in, we bought a house there instead! And that’s worth the adventure….right?