Linds and I tried Portage Bay Cafe for breakfast. Here's what you should know: the food is amazing. Organic, fair trade, and all the other adjectives that impress Seattleites. I had a scramble with chicken sausage, mushrooms, spinach, and asiago. So good! Lindsey had a bowl of porridge, filling and delicious... "just right," as Goldilocks would say. The coffee is great, the atmosphere is fun and modern. The only Achilles heel we could see was the service. Our waitress was... shall we say... cold? She forgot some of the things we asked for, didn't apologize, didn't even smile. I was actually a little frightened! Anyway, it was odd but not enough to spoil our experience of the place. And, to be fair, I went back recently with my parents and the service was much better.

And now, here's a question: Do people change? It's a question that's been bothering me for a while now. Some would say they don't, at least not in the ways that matter. For us to expect that they will is foolish. But what about choice? Is it true what Dumbledore tells Harry Potter at the end of The Chamber of Secrets... that there is light and dark inside all of us and it's our choices that make us good or bad? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there's someone I was very close to, someone I trusted and knew really well. One day, this person does something I was sure they would never do. And, almost overnight, this person becomes someone else... someone I don't know at all. Did they really change, or was this stranger inside all along?

Here's what I have concluded thus far: on the deepest level, maybe we don't change. What does change, however, is what we wear on the outside. I think I'm realizing that I don't want to be the kind of person that does a sudden about-face. I want the people I love to know me on the deepest level... the level that doesn't change.

So, the internet, I pose these questions to you. What do you think?

Love,
Stace