Note: This is my week 3 entry. I wrote it, but somehow neglected to post it.

My breath curls in front of me like a living thing, writhing in the biting air. It is cold but dry, my favorite kind of winter.

I am surrounded by strangers and happy to be so. When I’m not at one of my homes, I prefer to be unaccompanied. This particular street is bathed in the orange haze of nearby streetlamps, the rhythmic throbbing of bus engines creating a pleasant, exciting ambience. I love night and I love cities, so cities at night are heaven.

I feel like I grew up on this twelve-block stretch of 2^nd Avenue, downtown Seattle. I know every shop, every corner, every bus stop. I know ever cross-street, every bump in the road. I know the silly mnemonic device that lists the street names in order. I know the stupidly-designed monstrosity that is Terry Street and I know why it was designed that way. I know the bus drivers and they know me.

I call this “being anonymous.” It’s one of my favorite things to do when I have the chance to be in a city at night, alone.

The stoplights around me are rhythmic, changing politely in time for me to cross. The slipstream off a bus tugs at the edge of my scarf and I pull it tighter around my neck. I feel like a warrior, my black shoes clacking on the bricks, head up, strides long. I look like I have somewhere to be. I look like I might be important somewhere.

I fancy a cloak draped around my shoulders and trailing on the pavement. I fancy a sword at my side. I fancy rougher hands, broader shoulders, stronger arms, a flatter chest. Around my static running-man form I build an identity, a look, descriptive words dripping from the ends of my hair and the tips of my fingers.

Suddenly, I am different. The busy city becomes a dystopian ideal, my fellow pedestrians transform into guards or rebels or cowed civilians waiting for the nightmare to be over.

And as I duck into the transit tunnel beneath Benaroya Hall, I shed the last of my nonfiction history and give in to any one of hundreds of stories in my head waiting to be written.