Time To Say Goodbye (Imagine this in an insipid Sarah Brightman voice)

Ian is moving to New York on Monday morning to start Columbia's MFA prgram for dramaturgy. Ian's parting is significant for me in many ways, not the least of which being that for 3 years, he's been the one person I could really talk shop with here in Seattle as far as theatre/collaboration/avant garde/narrative studies/crazy theatre patrons/crazy actors/and all the other things that marked my life before moving to Seattle. Not that I don't have great conversation partners here, but Ian felt like the place where I didn't have to do any translating about what the last ten years of my life have been about. With him leaving, I almost feel like Im losing my last link to New York. Which is ironic, since he's moving to NY.

But Ian leaving is also- as far as I can remember at all, the first significant time where I am the friend being left, not the friend leaving. All my partings have been me moving on to new adventures, or all of us friends in mass departure from college or something. I've never known Seattle, or Intiman Theatre more specifically, without Ian. I have no idea what it will be like without him. No idea how to prepare for that.

But at least we're doing a pretty good job with the saying goodbye part. Sunday, after the closing matinee of Othello, we raced over to Palomino via the monorail, whilst making a quick stop at the FunForest roller-coaster. As Ian is a crazy theme park fanatic, it felt appropriate that we ride at least one roller-coaster together before he departs. After tasty cocktails and wood-fired pizzas, we still had an hour to kill before revisiting Star Trek at the downtown Regal. Ian still had some GameWorks credits, so we journeyed into the darkened depressing depths of the arcade land to play some shooting/driving/dancing/tossing games. It was hilarious. After the movie, (which is like an amusement park in and of itself) I couldn't believe all the random entertainments we'd encountered in downtown Seattle. Felt more like a day at Six Flags. Love it.

We've been doing more celebrating since Sunday, but I'll do a separate post, otherwise no one will read it. Long posts = inevitable non-readership. But oh, last night was so blog-worthy!