Washington suicide tourism

Now that my mum has finally let me go to Seattle I've realised I never really wanted to be a heroin addict after all. But I do want to visit Kurt and Courtney's old house, just for a look. I'm too embarrassed to admit this to anybody though, except for my host, Claire, who's taking me there and swears she won't judge me for it. Her three-year-old daughter doesn't judge me for it, either. Where are we going, mommy? she asks from her booster seat in the back of the car. We're taking this lady to see Kurt Cobain's old house, says Claire. Oh, okay then, she says, looking back out of the window again.

Washington is nothing like I expected it to be. One day we drove for hours north of the city through an amazing landscape of snow-capped mountains and bright red forests, stopping off at one-horse towns along the way for a look at their one church; their one pub; their one antique shop. Seattle itself is beautiful too; I've never seen a city with so many trees, surrounded by so much water. What was I expecting? I don't know, I can't remember, and this is only the second state I've visited since I arrived.

Kurt and Courtney's house belongs to someone else now, obviously. I wonder if they mind groups of suicide-tourists turning up at their doorstep trying to get pictures of the gazebo, the same gazebo I had pictures of when I was kid; Kurt's poor dead foot sticking out of the doorway and onto my bedroom wall. Oh, there won't be anybody else there, says Claire. Maybe ten years ago, but not now. She pulls up opposite the house and I get out and wander over to a big tree with RIP sprayed over its trunk. There's a bench underneath it, covered with Nirvana lyrics. I read some of them and feel vaguely embarrassed by their crappiness. I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black. Oh dear. It all seemed so impertinent at the time.

Kurt Cobain's suicide was the worst thing that happened to me as a teenager; which might give you some insight into the incredibly fortunate and largely uneventful adolescence that I had. I'm glad I'm not fourteen anymore, I think, looking up at poor dead Kurt's gazebo and feeling not a whole lot more than nothing at all.