Before Capitol Hill, I’d been living in another apartment — until China Blu got us kicked out. Well, he actually didn’t get us kicked out — he got us escorted out, which is somehow worse.
He was a lover, not a fighter, but he had opinions about the other cats in the building. And when China had opinions, he expressed them the way male Siamese cats do:
by fighting and then peeing on his enemies’ doors like he was tagging gang territory.
Management didn’t appreciate his artistic expression.
So we were asked to leave.
Which is how I ended up in the 1930s Capitol Hill building — me and China Blu, starting over together.
Capitol Hill was already part of my family mythology. I grew up hearing stories about the De Luxe — the bar my parents went to on “date night” when they didn’t have enough money for both a babysitter and dinner. My dad would hustle a pool game to pay for dinner — he’d put himself through law school playing pool, so it was a sure bet. That was the Seattle I was raised on: grit, charm, and the belief that a good hustle could buy you a night out. So moving up to Capitol Hill never felt foreign. It felt like stepping into a neighborhood I’d been trained for.
Capitol Hill was its own ecosystem back then — a place where the creatives, the misfits, the glam kids, and the people who believed deodorant was optional all coexisted.
My studio apartment was in a 1930s building with creaky floors, thin walls, and was only 500 square feet. But it was mine — my first place alone, my first skyline, my first sense of self outside the duplex era.
Capitol Hill was gritty, loud, and alive in a way that felt like oxygen.
It was the first time I felt like I was living in a city instead of orbiting one.
And the building itself?
It was a character — a gorgeous, crumbling 1930s relic that had clearly lived a life before any of us ever walked through its doors.
The halls always smelled like weed.
Not occasionally.
Not on weekends.
Always.
It was the unofficial scent of the building — a mix of skunk, incense, and old plaster that somehow felt comforting.
The stairwell was wide and open, three flights of polished wood and echoing footsteps. Along the walls were mounted, rounded chrome ashtrays — the kind you’d see in old Art Deco theaters or train stations. They looked like chrome fans, curved and elegant, relics from a time when people smoked indoors and nobody cared.
Sometimes I’d walk those stairs and wonder who built this place.
A Seattle timber baron?
A wealthy family with a view of the Sound?
A private residence turned boarding house turned apartment building?
Whatever it had been, it must have been stunning in its prime.
By the time I lived there, it was a beautiful, feral ecosystem of characters.
Across the hall lived an escort who worked nights and slept days.
Downstairs was Chet, the property manager — a man who liked me a little too much and expressed it in the most Capitol Hill way possible: unsolicited home improvement.
But before we get to Chet’s crimes, here’s the part that still makes me laugh:
For all the chaos in that building — the weed‑scented hallways, the escort across the hall, the filmmakers dragging my furniture into the hallway — my apartment was beautiful.
It was my first own place.
No roommate.
No boyfriend.
Just me.
And my mom — who could design a house from dirt and make it look like a magazine spread — insisted on furnishing it for me.
She bought me a matching cream leather loveseat and an overstuffed leather chair.
She gave me a big couch that pulled out into a bed.
For a young woman just starting out, my apartment looked like I had my life together.
Just ask Chet.
And while my apartment looked like a young professional’s dream, the rest of my life was pure twenty‑something chaos.
I dragged my poor father to every video store in Seattle so he could pay my late fees.
Every. Single. One.
He’d walk in behind me, wallet already out, muttering,
“I’m sensing a setup,”
while I pretended to be shocked — shocked — that I owed money again.
This was the same man who would later threaten to put a hit out on Chet for touching my Vanity Fair.
He adored me.
And he knew exactly who I was.
One day Chet offered to “fix a few things” in my apartment.
I thought he meant tightening a hinge or replacing a lightbulb.
Chet meant a full renovation.
He laid parquet flooring in the main room.
He white‑tiled the kitchen floor.
He blue‑tiled the countertops and backsplash.
He even installed glass doors on my cupboards.
My studio went from “quirky 1930s rental” to “Capitol Hill showpiece,” and I didn’t pay a dime.
Which, of course, is why he kept letting himself in during the day.
How did I know?
Because he’d move my magazines around.
And here’s the part that still makes my blood pressure spike:
Chet didn’t just sit on my leather loveseat eating whatever he brought from the gas station.
He touched my magazines. I’d had subscriptions to Vanity Fair and Vogue since I was a teenager.
I coveted them.
I saved them.
I stacked them like art books.
They were my early education in culture, fashion, storytelling, and the world beyond Seattle.
And that fucker Chet — laying on my couch, crumbs on his shirt, drink on my coaster — was flipping through them like they were junk mail.
My dad was ready to put a hit out on him.
Eventually, Chet got fired — because lord only knows what else he was doing in that building.
And that’s when the filmmakers moved in as the new property managers.
They were young, broke, wildly ambitious, and exactly the kind of people who would look at my apartment and say, “This would be perfect for a scene.”
And I was exactly the kind of person who said yes.
More than once, they moved every piece of furniture I owned — including China Blu — into the hallway so they could shoot in my unit. I’d come home to find my life lined up against the wall like a yard sale, and a camera crew inside capturing the view of the Space Needle.
It was chaotic.
It was unhinged.
It was creative.
And it was perfect.
THE DOT‑COM YEARS — THE CATALYST
After years of nylons, navy suits, and the unspoken dress‑code politics of law, tech felt like oxygen. No stockings. No heels. No silent rules about “professional polish.” Just the work, the adrenaline, and the sense that no one cared what you wore as long as you could keep the whole machine from catching fire.
Seattle was vibrating in those years — the tech boom, the IPO frenzy, the grunge scene still echoing through every bar in Pioneer Square. It felt like the whole city was plugged into a live wire, and somehow, I ended up right in the middle of it.
My dad was ready to put a hit out on him.
Eventually, Chet got fired — because lord only knows what else he was doing in that building.
And that’s when the filmmakers moved in as the new property managers.
They were young, broke, wildly ambitious, and exactly the kind of people who would look at my apartment and say, “This would be perfect for a scene.”
And I was exactly the kind of person who said yes.
More than once, they moved every piece of furniture I owned — including China Blu — into the hallway so they could shoot in my unit. I’d come home to find my life lined up against the wall like a yard sale, and a camera crew inside capturing the view of the Space Needle.
It was chaotic.
It was unhinged.
It was creative.
And it was perfect.
THE DOT‑COM YEARS — THE CATALYST
After years of nylons, navy suits, and the unspoken dress‑code politics of law, tech felt like oxygen. No stockings. No heels. No silent rules about “professional polish.” Just the work, the adrenaline, and the sense that no one cared what you wore as long as you could keep the whole machine from catching fire.
Seattle was vibrating in those years — the tech boom, the IPO frenzy, the grunge scene still echoing through every bar in Pioneer Square. It felt like the whole city was plugged into a live wire, and somehow, I ended up right in the middle of it.
Merchants Café — where Seattle’s nights hummed with ambition and questionable decisions. Merchants Café wasn’t just a bar — it was a mood, a backdrop, a character in my twenties. The neon, the brick, the slightly‑sticky floors, the way the night air in Pioneer Square always smelled like rain and cigarettes and possibility.
After years in law — trial prep, litigation war rooms, the whole thing — I pivoted into tech just as the city was exploding. I interviewed with the CEO of a startup in a Pioneer Square coffee shop, and he hired me on the spot. It was a hybrid legal/Executive Admin role, perfect for someone who could read a contract, manage a board meeting, and keep a dozen executives from setting themselves on fire.
The energy was electric. It felt like stepping into the future.
And then came the IPO.
I became the Executive Admin taking a company through the early stages of going public — the girl with a legal background who somehow became the glue holding the entire operation together. I wasn’t supposed to be the one holding the threads, but there I was: coordinating filings, wrangling executives, managing board calls, and keeping the whole machine from flying apart.
My partner in crime during that time was Kimberly.
Kimberly was the in‑house attorney. Together, we were the unofficial command center of the company — the two women everyone relied on but no one fully understood.
By day, we kept the IPO from collapsing under its own weight. By night, we were wild.
We’d stumble out of the office after a long, grueling day, adrenaline still buzzing, and head straight into the Seattle scene — the bars, the music, the chaos. We were young, exhausted, overworked, and absolutely determined to squeeze every drop of life out of the hours we weren’t chained to our desks.
And somewhere in the middle of all that pressure and possibility, I cashed out some stock — not because the IPO was done, but because I needed a break from the grind. A breath. A reset. A moment to figure out who I was becoming in a city that was reinventing itself every five minutes.
And that’s when everything changed.
THE HOLLYWOOD MOMENT
I booked myself a long weekend at the Hollywood Film Festival — a treat, a splurge, a moment of breathing room. I stayed at The Hollywood Roosevelt. My suite faced the Hollywood sign. It felt decadent, cinematic, like stepping into the life I’d been orbiting for years.
On my first night in town, I was waiting in the lobby for Mara. She had moved back home to LA, and it had been a few years since I’d seen her. And Mara was still — Mara. Late. Always late.
I didn’t mind. It gave me time to linger in the lobby of the glorious The Hollywood Roosevelt (originally named Hotel Roosevelt) and study all of her magnificent, timeworn beauty. She was a pretty old girl — built in 1926, opened in May of 1927 — and she wore her age like a story.
My stay was before the big glam makeover, but honestly, I preferred her just the way she was:
A little worn
A little haunted
A little glamorous in a dusty‑mirror way
Still carrying the bones of her 1920s glory
This was the Roosevelt of whispered stories, not curated experiences. The lobby glowed dim and amber… the edges softer, the carpets older, the energy more ghost of Hollywood past than Hollywood power brunch. I soaked it all in, fixated on the vibe of that moment in time.
As a kid, I devoured classic Hollywood movies.
After years in law — trial prep, litigation war rooms, the whole thing — I pivoted into tech just as the city was exploding. I interviewed with the CEO of a startup in a Pioneer Square coffee shop, and he hired me on the spot. It was a hybrid legal/Executive Admin role, perfect for someone who could read a contract, manage a board meeting, and keep a dozen executives from setting themselves on fire.
The energy was electric. It felt like stepping into the future.
And then came the IPO.
I became the Executive Admin taking a company through the early stages of going public — the girl with a legal background who somehow became the glue holding the entire operation together. I wasn’t supposed to be the one holding the threads, but there I was: coordinating filings, wrangling executives, managing board calls, and keeping the whole machine from flying apart.
My partner in crime during that time was Kimberly.
Kimberly was the in‑house attorney. Together, we were the unofficial command center of the company — the two women everyone relied on but no one fully understood.
By day, we kept the IPO from collapsing under its own weight. By night, we were wild.
We’d stumble out of the office after a long, grueling day, adrenaline still buzzing, and head straight into the Seattle scene — the bars, the music, the chaos. We were young, exhausted, overworked, and absolutely determined to squeeze every drop of life out of the hours we weren’t chained to our desks.
And somewhere in the middle of all that pressure and possibility, I cashed out some stock — not because the IPO was done, but because I needed a break from the grind. A breath. A reset. A moment to figure out who I was becoming in a city that was reinventing itself every five minutes.
And that’s when everything changed.
THE HOLLYWOOD MOMENT
I booked myself a long weekend at the Hollywood Film Festival — a treat, a splurge, a moment of breathing room. I stayed at The Hollywood Roosevelt. My suite faced the Hollywood sign. It felt decadent, cinematic, like stepping into the life I’d been orbiting for years.
On my first night in town, I was waiting in the lobby for Mara. She had moved back home to LA, and it had been a few years since I’d seen her. And Mara was still — Mara. Late. Always late.
I didn’t mind. It gave me time to linger in the lobby of the glorious The Hollywood Roosevelt (originally named Hotel Roosevelt) and study all of her magnificent, timeworn beauty. She was a pretty old girl — built in 1926, opened in May of 1927 — and she wore her age like a story.
My stay was before the big glam makeover, but honestly, I preferred her just the way she was:
A little worn
A little haunted
A little glamorous in a dusty‑mirror way
Still carrying the bones of her 1920s glory
This was the Roosevelt of whispered stories, not curated experiences. The lobby glowed dim and amber… the edges softer, the carpets older, the energy more ghost of Hollywood past than Hollywood power brunch. I soaked it all in, fixated on the vibe of that moment in time.
As a kid, I devoured classic Hollywood movies.
As an adult, I collected oversized coffee‑table books filled with portraits of the stars of the 1920s and ’30s. I loved the glam, the art deco architecture, the drama of it all. The Roosevelt lobby felt like stepping into one of those books — the carved beams overhead, the wrought‑iron chandeliers dripping warm light, the circular velvet settees arranged like little stages for passing characters.
And beneath all of that beauty, I felt something else — the haunted hum the hotel had long been rumored to carry. A strange gift from my childhood accident is a sixth sense — a quiet knowing, a sensitivity to the unseen. I’ve had too many random, unexplainable encounters to dismiss it. And in this place? I felt it deep in my bones.
Sure enough, Mara finally came rushing in — out of breath, full of stories and laughter. We slid onto bar stools and immediately picked up where our friendship had left off in Seattle.
On my last morning, I ordered room service: breakfast and champagne. I stood at the window, watching the Hollywood sign glow in the early light, and I said out loud:
“I’m moving down here.”
It wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t a fantasy.
It was a decision.
VIVIAN — THE CO‑CONSPIRATOR
Back in Seattle, Vivian asked how the weekend went.
Vivian wasn’t just a friend — she was my counterpart.
While I was the Executive Admin and legal right hand inside the Seattle tech company, she was the Executive Admin for the venture capital firm in New York that funded us.
We were the two women on opposite coasts keeping the entire IPO machine running — scheduling board calls, coordinating filings, managing executives, and translating chaos into order. We talked every day, sometimes for hours, because our jobs were intertwined. We became fast friends long before we ever met in person.
When I told her I’d stood in front of the Hollywood sign and said, “I’m moving down here,” she didn’t hesitate.
She said she wanted to move back to California, she’d grown up in San Francisco.
And just like that, we decided to be roommates.
We booked a trip to LA to find an apartment.
She put her belongings on a moving truck in New York and flew west.
I flew down from Seattle.
We met at LAX — she was holding a sign with my name on it because we had never met in person. By Sunday, we had rented an apartment in West Hollywood.
Vivian moved in immediately.
I flew back to Seattle, packed up my life and China Blu, and headed south.
We ended up living right behind the House of Blues off the Sunset Strip — the perfect backdrop for the next chapter of my life.
And beneath all of that beauty, I felt something else — the haunted hum the hotel had long been rumored to carry. A strange gift from my childhood accident is a sixth sense — a quiet knowing, a sensitivity to the unseen. I’ve had too many random, unexplainable encounters to dismiss it. And in this place? I felt it deep in my bones.
Sure enough, Mara finally came rushing in — out of breath, full of stories and laughter. We slid onto bar stools and immediately picked up where our friendship had left off in Seattle.
On my last morning, I ordered room service: breakfast and champagne. I stood at the window, watching the Hollywood sign glow in the early light, and I said out loud:
“I’m moving down here.”
It wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t a fantasy.
It was a decision.
VIVIAN — THE CO‑CONSPIRATOR
Back in Seattle, Vivian asked how the weekend went.
Vivian wasn’t just a friend — she was my counterpart.
While I was the Executive Admin and legal right hand inside the Seattle tech company, she was the Executive Admin for the venture capital firm in New York that funded us.
We were the two women on opposite coasts keeping the entire IPO machine running — scheduling board calls, coordinating filings, managing executives, and translating chaos into order. We talked every day, sometimes for hours, because our jobs were intertwined. We became fast friends long before we ever met in person.
When I told her I’d stood in front of the Hollywood sign and said, “I’m moving down here,” she didn’t hesitate.
She said she wanted to move back to California, she’d grown up in San Francisco.
And just like that, we decided to be roommates.
We booked a trip to LA to find an apartment.
She put her belongings on a moving truck in New York and flew west.
I flew down from Seattle.
We met at LAX — she was holding a sign with my name on it because we had never met in person. By Sunday, we had rented an apartment in West Hollywood.
Vivian moved in immediately.
I flew back to Seattle, packed up my life and China Blu, and headed south.
We ended up living right behind the House of Blues off the Sunset Strip — the perfect backdrop for the next chapter of my life.
END OF EPISODE 2 — THE LEAP
The girl from Two Union Square is gone.
The Capitol Hill girl is evolving.
The dot‑com girl is cashing out.
The writer is emerging.
The risk‑taker is steering.
The destiny is calling.
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Wonderful storytelling!
Thank you, Nennie!