I was thinking about this and about the fact that the previous night had turned out far different than I planned, as I sat on the 6 a.m. ferry to Bremerton.
I gazed out with sore eyes at the island's gigantic cranes with ‘Port of Seattle’ written on them. I’ve always thought those cranes looked like dinosaurs – brontosauruses with their necks straight up in the air or leaned forward over the water.
I was on the first ferry out of Seattle that morning because I’d missed the last ferry the night before. Just five hours before, actually.
I’ve ridden the ferries thousands of times in my life and gotten used to the scenery. But it struck me on that morning how utterly beautiful my surroundings were. Maybe I was just feeling high from a lack of sleep.
Behind the dinosaur cranes Mount Rainier rose up, covered from head to foot in a white blanket. I turned my head and could see the Olympic Mountains, all purple, white and jagged in front of a pale blue backdrop. All around me was green and blue, with the reflected sun’s shimmering gold below. We pulled away from the dock as a giant ship with “Hyundai” printed on the side eased itself toward Harbor Island, guided by two tugboats.
My contact lenses were dry, as were my lips. I’d only slept about two hours and couldn’t wait to get home to my bed. But seeing that sunrise and thinking about the events that had led up to it made me glad I’d missed the ferry the night before. As I’d breathlessly called Alex at 1 a.m. and asked him if I could sleep on his couch I was thinking, “This kind of sucks.” But at the same time I thought, “This is turning into an interesting night.”
The evening had started with me running to catch a different ferry. I had parked in downtown Bremerton, in a lot that allowed me to store my car overnight until 7 a.m. I jogged to the terminal only to discover that the bulk of the passengers and cars were still in the process of loading, and that the boat was five minutes late.
In Seattle, I hopped on a bus that I assumed would drop me off close enough to the restaurant where we were celebrating Hannah, Kate and Cheryl’s birthdays. I was lucky that I guessed correctly on the bus and the stop. But when I got to the restaurant, 10 minutes late, I was the only one there. After a few minutes, people started showing up, just as surprised as I was that the place wasn’t packed yet.
I could hardly believe how many times the subject of Facebook came up during our meal. Everyone there – about a dozen people – had been notified about the party via Facebook. Hannah’s boyfriend, Sonny, had reserved a table that would hold about 25 people because that’s how many had responded to the online invitation with a ‘yes.’
Alex wasn’t surprised by the low turnout.
“I’ve found that when people reply ‘yes’ to a Facebook invite, you can expect about 50 percent of them to show up,” he said.
“What about when people say ‘maybe?’ was Joel’s question.
“Maybe is basically like no. There’s like a 5 to 10 percent chance people will come if they say maybe. If I say maybe, there’s less than about a 30 percent chance I’ll actually show up.”
Alex was spot-on. None of the maybes showed up, while right around half of the yeses did.
Facebook came up again and again throughout the night. When we took a group photo, I said, “Tag me in that one!” We talked about the usefulness of the site, the uselessness of it, why we bother with it, and a variety of other things that made it practically unnecessary for me to ask my own Five Questions.
At the end of the evening, I asked only three of the nine Facebook friends at the party for their definition of the word friend. Alex, Joel and his wife Heather each gave well thought-out answers.
“I think there has to be some element of wanting what’s best for the person,” Joel said after much deliberation. I was riding in the back seat of his car at the time, while Heather drove.
We were on our way to the ferry so I could catch the 12:50 a.m. boat. We had just made our way through some construction projects and traffic on I-5, and weren’t sure if we would get there on time. As we pulled up to the intersection of Alaskan Way and Yesler at precisely 12:50, I jumped out and ran to the terminal. I could see a boat sitting at the dock. But when I reached the ticket booth, I learned that it was the boat to Bainbridge. Mine had left a couple minute earlier. Joel and Heather had just moved back to the States from Scotland and didn’t have a cell phone. So I had to call Alex, still up in North Seattle.
And that’s when I met Grant.
Grant was a college student from Port Orchard who had just been to a rap show at The Showbox, next to Pike Place Market. He left the concert early to catch the ferry, and was pretty disappointed that he’d missed the boat. He was still a little stoned and asked if he could crash with me and my friends if he couldn’t find anything else. I thought, ‘Ummm…’ and said, ‘Sure.’
When I called Alex, I didn’t mention Grant. I had hesitated slightly when Grant asked to crash on my friend’s couch and I figured Alex would be less than comfortable with the idea. So I figured I’d just walk out to the car with Grant when Alex showed up and say, ‘Hey, this guy needs a place to stay, so he’s coming with us. Thanks for understanding!’
Fortunately I didn’t have to do that. Grant remembered that his dad was in Seattle, so he texted him and secured a ride home.
“Alright,” I told Grant. “When you meet up with your dad, just remember to be cool.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, man,” he said.
My initial bummed-out feeling of missing the ferry turned gradually into a feeling of enjoyment and adventure because I chose to look at it that way. I’d met a new acquaintance (We weren’t going to be Facebook friends or anything, but he was interesting to talk to for a while. His dad was a camera operator and had worked on the sets of some TV shows and movies, and Grant had helped out, so it was cool to hear about that.), I had a story to tell, and Alex, Sonny, Hannah and I got to go back to Kate and Nate’s house to hang out and watch funny and freaky YouTube videos like this one of Mike Tyson, before I headed to Alex’s couch.
By the time I got to my own bed, at about 9 a.m., I was exhausted. But I’d had fun and the Seattle sunrise was beautiful.
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