It’s a rule I have: Never take food from a guy who talks to himself.
Call me crazy, call me cold and unfriendly, I don’t care. If you’re having an animated conversation with people I cannot see, I may have … reservations … about most anything you offer me.
Thus the other day when Kevin (a guy I never met before) got off the bus behind me, talking a blue streak to no one in particular (he was not on the phone) and then, as we both walked toward the car park, asked me if I wanted a free bagel, I demurred.
I mention this because Kevin then went on to tell me how he just doesn’t like people here in Seattle. We’re not as “friendly” as the people on the streets of his hometown, New York City. People here—according to Kevin—are cold, unfriendly, and not to be trusted. Leaving aside for the moment that “friendly” is not the word that immediately leaps to mind when I think of New Yorkers, this is not the first time I’ve heard Seattleites described as being as cold and unwelcoming as our weather. It’s an actual thing, and it’s called the Seattle Freeze.
Unraveling Time
Desert Wind
Ploughman's Son
Ploughman King
The Year the Cloud Fell
The Spirit of Thunder
Shadow of the Storm
The Cry of the Wind
Beneath a Wounded Sky
Cryptogenesis: A Memoir
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 