[HAWKS]

I had not slept fitfully on the leather sofa in their bay condo, the wind blowing into the pocket of the balcony tirelessly. A & I went for a run at 5:45am the next black morning, the wind pulling live trees from the ground, trees across the trails. Thankfully we had a nugget dog with a beacon beeping red to give some indication of tread. On our run we passed cop cars parked all along the trail. At one point we came to heads with someone with a flashlight & when we shouted, "Who are you?!" and they didn't answer, we ran to a cop at a trail turn-off & asked if we should be alarmed. His response, "This is the safest place in Bellingham right now." We took his cryptic comment & ran by the creepy, gruff officer carrying evidence bags with our little rudolf blinking away. Leaping over trees & spooked we ended our 8-miler at A's house, put on our Seahawks fangear & took off to Seattle, confused. A coffee stop for wakemeups & breakfast burritos = many Hawks fans grunting in line for their coffee-first-beer-second-and-all-day's - America.

A festive group of us met at Elysian, which was a swankier place than I'd imagined I'd be, for watching football & drinking beer. There were cocktails & hummus for the table - it was like a sophisticated fansesh, except for that A was wearing underwear over her pants, making fun of her mother for wanting Lynch's big d***, with a couple across from me literally humping the tops of their chairs over talk about Russell Wilson. Those with season passes entered the stadium, and this lovely couple & I walked a mile to get to the Yardhouse to watch on the screens.

At the Yardhouse, the bar was standing room only with reservations accepted post football game. What I like about this couple was that this did not deter them from feeling & projecting the feeling that we were about to stand in the best seat in the house.We ordered amazing beer - huge selection - and booed, guffawed and crooned with the rest of them. I feel like I keep having the amazing fortune of being introduced to the coolest couples & people I've ever met. I'm almost bashful in my passion for these new relationships. It could be a bunch of different things - the fact that I didn't literally have time to do anything for myself in Boulder, or because I'm single & instead of putting all my love & emotions into a relationship, I puke it all up over friends, or just literally because I'm happy to share my life with others right now, but really, the NW is doing a good job of producing for me, an incredible support group. There was this handsome black man at the bar, being bought beers from an older woman beside him, yard-tall beers balanced on each tabletop; a plate of sliders in our hands, which we cherished as if high. His wife kept saying, "I can tell when I'm drunk if I can't feel my teeth. That or my ladyparts." It was either the beer warm in my stomach, the sliders in my mouth, or where I'm at right now, but I've been seeing people actually function wonderfully within their 10+ year relationships - it makes me wonder what it took to get there, because we all know it couldn't have been easy & yet everyone seems so at ease.

Seahawks won. We took shots of fireball in celebration. All the couples will reunite in Seattle next weekend for anniversary's and hotel pre-funking in celebration of when the Bronco's get whipped.

At our sleepover I had a dream I made love to a banana; hours later on our 16-miler there was a banana laying in the middle of the trail...Our long run was extremely exhausting; either we were haulin' or worn out from all the Seahawks sensations. The group of us laid around in their football room, with Russell Wilson posters all over the walls, husbands making omelets, sausage & coffee, watching the Broncos game. Ended the fab weekend with cardsagainsthumanity & everyone making banana jokes. It took days to find out what the cops wouldn't tell us on our early am run, but here's the story.