This week, I finally had the chance to check out 22 Doors, the newish place on 15th, just down the street from Victrola coffee shop and Rainbow groceries. Warm with light and the energy of people happy to be out on a Monday night, 22 Doors felt enormously welcoming.

The bar gleamed with beautiful bottles of expensive liquors in neat rows. The smells wafting from the small kitchen almost enticed me to eat a second dinner, even though I had eaten just before arriving. And the outdoor patio — even in early March — swelled with new customers, huddled by the heat lamps.

The name of the place comes from the twenty-two doors that fill the restaurant, making up the bar and the doors, which originally came from the old Camlin Hotel and the old Seattle Opera House. Everything is polished to a high shine. Everyone just seems so darned happy to be there.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the blind date that night as much as I enjoyed the experience of being at 22 Doors. Still, now I have a reason to go back: I have to try those shoestring fries with truffle oil and rosemary aioli.

Is nothing sacred?

Oh well, at least El Diablo was still open for a Cafe Cubano. And at least this dastardly thing is nearly over now.

Tonight, I did hear people whooping from here. I knew the game was going on, but I wasn’t aware of the score. Late in the evening, I was on the phone with a friend, when I heard screaming. High-pitched, warbling screaming. Repeatedly. Now, I live at the top of Queen Anne, so this doesn’t happen often. Alarmed, I looked out the window to see what crime was being committed. When I didn’t see anything, I wondered if the neighbors downstairs were having a nasty fight. Then, I noticed the repeated screaming seemed to be male, and it was joined by three or four other voices, all exulting, and perhaps a little drunk.

Then I understood. The Seahawks must have won. And they did.

i’ve never seen Seattle act like this, especially on the top of Queen Anne. Wonders never cease.

Go team?

Watch it all you want. Have all your parties on Sunday. Talk about it on every bus ride and in every grocery store line and on nearly every radio station. But please don’t ask me to participate.

I know that I’m only protracting the Seattle stereotype of bookish sorts who stay at home in the rain and watch a dvd from Scarecrow. But seriously, I’m a little frightened by how much the Seahawks are dominating everything. The annoucement board at the lunchroom of the school where I teach contained an intricately drawn logo in blue and green, and then: Go Seahawks!” Right next to the announcement that we were eating turkey sandwiches today.

And truly, I had no idea what the big 12 flag was on the top of the Space Needle until someone explained it to me this morning. Honestly, I thought it was some sort of televangelist flyer for awhile.

Okay, I’m being a curmudgeon. But please. Could we have another conversation?

Five minutes later. My bus still hasn’t arrived. I look up for it, then see something darting to the left of me. Shrieks raise into the air, all along the line of the people waiting for the bus. Everyone startles. There’s a young black man in saggy jeans, handcuffs behind his back, running awkwardly among us, zig-zagging through the crowd. And right behind him, seven to ten policemen in hot pursuit. And before I can even finish the thought — wait a second, am I on an episode of Cops? — three of them, panting hard, caught up to the kid. Their hands reached out to him, grabbed at the air around his head, then found his flesh.

And they slammed him onto the ground, head into the curb, hard.

All around me, people let out gasps, little breaths of confusion and shock. I just stood there with my mouth open. This is Seattle?

At first, I thought, “Oh god, it’s a bunch of white cops, beating up on a black kid.” But there were black cops, Asian cops, women cops, surrounding him, then walking back to the earlier scene. It was like the Sesame Street principle of policemen. But still, we all just stood there, dozens of us, staring at the spot where they had slammed that kid.

He stood up. He seemed okay. Dazed. My bus arrived, making a wide berth around the clutch of people on the street. I stepped on, slowly. They pushed the handcuffed kid into the back of a waiting police car as my bus drove by, me looking back.

I haven’t been able to get this out of my mind all evening.

Girl One: “You have the most amazing hair.”

(For the record, it was red, bedraggled, and pulled up into a ponytail.)

Girl Two: “Thank you. You know I just jammed it up into a rubber band this morning…”

Girl One: ” I know, but it still looks amazing. You know, some people just have this thing. Their hair, no matter what they do, looks great.”

Girl Two: “I know. I feel blessed.”

Girl One: “You really should cherish that. It’s a gift.”

Girl Two: “I know. Believe me, I’m grateful every day.”

I’m sure the Dalai Lama would be proud of their gift for awareness and gratitude.

Is this what we’ve come to in Seattle?

This is what I experienced last evening, on Greenwood and 84th. Luckily, I didn’t have to wonder at my own sanity when I saw the marching spacemen. And this certainly wasn’t a War of the Worlds enactment. Instead, this was a small parade, in honor of the opening of 826 Seattle.

826 Seattle is the latest incarnation of the vision enacted by Dave Eggers, writer extraorinaire and best friend to teachers. Eggers, who wrote A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius and edits the always-fascinating McSweeney’s, also opened a free tutoring and writing center in San Francisco, called 826 Valencia. Rather than being another do-gooder venture, this center set out to offer underprivileged children the chance to learn how to write from real, working writers. Wildly successful, 826 Valencia inspired 826 Brooklyn, then 826 Chicago. And now, our own fair city has its own wacky bastion of goodness, on 85th and Greenwood.

As I’ve written here before, I’m one of the volunteers for 826 Seattle, fabulously excited about the venture, and willing to help. I’ve marched in the Seafair Parade for 826. And I counted cash backstage at the now-famous Bumbershoot reading, in all its fabulousness. Soon, I will be the official SAT tutor at 826 Seattle, so if any teenagers you know need help making it through that debacle, I will be there to soothe.

But last night, I popped into the wild spectacle known as the Grand Opening for 826 Seattle. And grand it was. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to hear George Saunders. But I did wander into the back room, festooned with space paraphernailia and happy hipsters, and nearly bumped into Mr. Eggers himself. He was sitting in the back, taking it all in, wearing a baseball hat, looking low-key and happy. The space men (and women) walked around with clipboards, examining blank walls with infinite curiosity, then taking notes. And when I was there, a band of gangly late-teenage boys were playing music, flinging naked baby dolls around, and calling themselves Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head. How can you beat that?

Well, actually, the store itself beats all the hoopla. When you first walk in, your eyes want to wander up the walls, to the infinite infinities chalked on a board. Or to buy some of the gravity in a bottle, or crazy-colored boingy things with various names. There’s a darkroom door, spinning into infinity, which serves as the entrance to the tutoring center. And a wide array of 826/McSweeneys’/cool authors’ books for sale, making some of the best literature around available in fine Greenwood.

But the best of all of them is the fact that the center is now open for the real business of the place: helping kids learn. So if you know any students who need help with their homework, and they have a sense of adventurous humor, throw them over to 826 Seattle. Their lives will be changed.

I love these last few days of wild weather. Windstorms make me happy. Today it returned to flat grey, but the weekend gloomed and blew. And when it’s as stormy as the skies can be here, I like to go to a bookstore.

Third Place Books in Ravenna, to be exact.

We’re blessed with great bookstores in Seattle. Did you know that there are more independent booksellers in Seattle than in all of Manhattan? We haven’t been gobbled entirely by Barnes and Noble here, thank goodness. I’ll take the Elliott Bay Bookstore any day, with its lovely wooden floors and spiral staircases. And some time, I’ll have to write about the joys of being there. But right now, it’s Third Place that’s calling to me.

Filled with spacious light, new books and used both, and wide aisles for browsing, Third Place makes me feel at home immediately. The cookbook section alone, with its welcoming chair and rows of beautiful books stretching to the ceiling, demands part of my paycheck. And stroll through the store slowly for glimpses of photographs of famous writers in relaxed poses. Writers and readers share the space with equanimity.

And of course, there’s the Honey Bear Bakery at the back. Many will tell you that this version of the Honey Bear isn’t nearly as good as the one that used to exist. That may be so, but I never went to that sacred space. I’ve only had warming bowls of tomato soup and strong cups of coffee at this one, as I sat at large, scarred tables and watched the sunlight dance across my shoulder. I never feel rushed there. Everyone gathers to read and talk, and the laid-back employees never ask you to move it along. And besides that, there’s a working fireplace in the restaurant. What more could you need?

So on the next blustery day, I’ll probably be lingering at Third Place Books, eating a bowl of soup, sitting by the fire, and reading some Jane Austen. Come join me.

Apologies to those of you who live there, but Wedgwood seemed sweet and a little run-down to me. Not gleaming like the showcase parts of Seattle. Instead, squat and authentic. A real neighborhood. I was ogling the shimmering autumn trees and the small houses when I drove down 35th. And lo and behold, what did I see?

Top Pot doughnuts in Wedgwood.

Now, I have spent a fair amount of time in the spacious Top Pot doughnuts on 5th Avenue, reading and writing and admiring the view out the enormous windows. And I had sat with a friend on the Top Pot on Summit for many an hour, laughing so hard that the milk in our coffees threatened to come out of our noses. I like both the spaces. But mostly, I liked the doughnuts.

Pink feather boas. Sandcastles. Chocolate on chocolate. And the ever-alluring plain cake. These doughnuts beat greasy old Krispy Kreme any time.

Sadly, I can no longer eat them, due to nasty old celiac disease. But a girl can still dream. And when I drove by Top Pot doughnuts today, I knew I needed to check it out, after class.

Strangely, this one feels more like an old-fashioned drive-through than the urban oases of confection of the original Top Pots. There’s a giant doughnut mounted on a pole, with palm trees behind it. (Palm trees?) A patio area for children to run through. And the words written on the pavement, directing traffic, have the angular cursive of the Top Pot motto. Weird.

Inside, it’s still the same. The doughnuts called to me, hauntingly. But I ordered a cup of coffee. And talked to some of the employees about the possibility of gluten-free doughnuts. I’m on a campaign now. I’m going to persuade Top Pot to make them. Then again, they are already the heavyweight of Seattle. If they made doughnuts for those of us who can’t eat wheat, they’d be poised to take over the world.

On these chilly autumn evenings, with the makings of a lousy cold spreading itself from one clutch of people to the next, what do we need? Spicy Thai food.

Now, if you’ve been reading here, you know that I have deep allegiances to Thai Tom. However, I’m willing to bend my steadfast rules once in awhile, for my new favorite Thai place: May, in Wallngford.

On Monday night, I had the pleasure of eating dinner at May with several other Seattle food bloggers. We’re a picky bunch; we expect the best. And luckily, we weren’t disappointed.

We shared everything, and the rest were kind enough to make sure that every item was gluten-free, so that I could share in the festivities as well. We began with a delicate green papaya salad, shredded tenderly with plenty of spice. Next, the towering pile of scallops and prawns, pictured above. The Thai taste rang through clearly, not muddled by too many busy tastes. And finally, we stoked ourselves with the fires of Pud Thai. I have a clear guideline on this: if I don’t like a Thai restaurant’s Pud Thai, how could I go back? This one arrived with a flourish: a flat, green banana leaf encasing the steaming noodles, and a red banana with a chalky meat inside, to cut the spice when it became too much for our mouths. It never did. We ordered three stars of spice, and our obsequious waiter mixed the spices at the table. We couldn’t roll the noodles onto our forks fast enough. And then we sighed.

Dessert? Lychee nut sherbet, made with coconut milk and enough citrus taste (grapefruit?) to assuage the fears of the member of the group with a bad lychee experience.

I’ll definitely be going back. The decor is funky: more like Swiss chalet meets Buddhist temple than the average Thai place. The bar at the front was, apparently, blessed by Buddhist monks. (I’d like to see that.) And the giant Buddha statue out front has a glass of beer at his feet. Apparently, an offering.

Who could resist it?