not EVEN givin' a fuck

soft serve

2011-08-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

Last night as we approached the Mr. Softee truck, there was a cop waiting in front of the adjacent street-level subway elevator but it looked like he was blocking our ice cream access on purpose. Until he explained what he was doing standing there. There were several ambulances parked around Columbus circle and the man in a wheelchair with his head resting to one side and his eyes closed tongue out was wheeled to one of them as I tried not to watch too carefully.

We had just been to Damrosch park near Lincoln Center to see Laurie Anderson perform. She made reference to a white weather balloon rising with the word "Delirium" printed on the side. She said she knew a woman who lived on Mott street on the 3rd floor. Every year during the San Genarro festival they set up a ferris wheel 2 feet from the woman's window so she could see the head of a stranger bobbing by every few minutes.

At the end of the show Lou Reed came on with a sleeveless denim jacket and played one noise rock song with no words.

Then I got a half vanilla/half chocolate soft serve cone and Tim got a cherry slushie and we went home to Brooklyn.

Life’s a gas

2011-04-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

fuel damp disengage the moon
brake clutch desert stone
crumble into the rumbling horizon
these skips of irreligious anticlimax
beat a reverence that survives as tears
a mistaken heart made game
in the lilt of positive swoon
the repetition of cards turning
cyclic gestures
as when a record skips
and no one is strong enough
to lift the needle.

lose touch.
hold on loosely sings 38 special
crave a blockade
to dam(n) the unswerving sieve,
the silken sewer suffused with
suffering succotash.
overcooked, unmediated memory.
drawing/shooting blanks
designate/assassinate forms.

hit return changed to enter
fast on feet, a mind that trips over cracks.
pick up your brain to save the tread
frozen radials
the helplessness, the late hour
a lost dog cuts across the square
and vanishes down the stairs.
I yawn again.
Even the pigeons are different here.

chateaubriand in cheyenne, wyoming

2011-04-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

escalated fever cracks
drips a river
drops over a cliff
recovers a dinner of chateaubriand
in cheyenne, wyoming.
we will always remember
the windswept gristle between our teeth
as we bit into the point where the high plains
turn mountainous.
whatever teeth we lose along the way,
we can still smile at the thought of a steak dinner.

porcupine personal symbology stinks.
stick it to this and stick with that,
become unglued.

electronic mechanism causes bark
to fold back from the trees,
exposes flesh made pulp by rains.
shake the remote control away from the new-
fangled forest warden.
let the skin remain in place.

in my hands, the company letterhead
would turn into an inky stain.
smear it all illegible. I swear
I am ineligible.

scurry alone through painted alley
and blend with night's clean.
untreated windows gleam welcome,
the safe gates snuff and snub fear.
but there's no gate on my door.

break the barrier a hairsbreadth bristle,
watch the temperature drop thirty degrees.
awake sweat-swept and drop into the day,
a waterfall.

This rainy morning in San Francisco

2009-12-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

I usually ride my bicycle to the Caltrain station at 4th and King streets whenever I take the train to Palo Alto for my job. Today it was raining and I needed to transport the company laptop - didn't feel like getting it or myself wet. So I walked the two blocks to the corner of 24th and Guerrero streets to await the 48 Quintarra. I planned to take the herky jerky ride up and around Potrero Hill to the 22nd and Pennsylvania street Caltrain station. I've done this ride before and it sucks. Slow crawl along 24th street on a bus packed with elementary school kids at around 8:30 in the morning is not for me. Well, this time, I got on the bus at 24th and Guerrero. But I got right off one block later at 24th and Valencia.

What follows is the paragraph I wrote, in total anonymity, on the SF MUNI transit complaint site:

At first driver waved me and another person away indicating the bus was too full. Then after a minute, he honked the horn telling us to get on, but to move back. I paid my fare in change and took the transfer from the driver and then set about trying to make my way behind the yellow line. The driver said something like: why did you grab the transfer out of my hand after I let you on the bus? you don't grab the transfer that way, "sugar" I said: don't I get a transfer? He said: yes, but don't grab it out of my hand like that. Exasperated, I explained that I didn't mean to do it and I was sorry and he said: "Yes you are sorry, uh huh" at which point I noted his employee number and told him I was getting off the bus. He basically made an issue where there was no issue. I was just trying to get to work and I got disrespected for no reason. I swear I didn't "grab" the transfer. It doesn't matter - even if I did he had no call to speak to me that way and act like he did me a favor by letting me on "his" bus. I don't think I'll ride muni anymore. I don't get insulted walking or riding my bike.

So, after I disembarked I threw the transfer into the air and huffed off. I was so mad. So mad! I decided that instead of using the next 2 hours to make it to train station and then to Palo Alto, I'd just go to a coffee shop, Luv-a-java in Noe Valley, and just start working. This worked out well for me today. Around lunch time I came home and put on my slippers. And here I sit at my desk. Not EVEN givin' a fuck.

Settle that shit

2009-09-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I learned how to play a new game, a board game called The Settlers of Catan. Apparently this is a German game but I am not EVEN givin' a fuck about that - it was fun. So the game involves receiving, trading, and building and there are sheep, wood, rock, clay (for bricks) to trade and receive and build with.

I liked it. I liked trading sheep.

OH shit, I forgot, there is also wheat to trade, receive and build with. Wheat is pretty cool.

Spring into fall

2009-09-08T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday night and Monday of this Labor day weekend, I went to a secluded spot in Colusa county called Wilbur Hot Springs. It's a geothermal deal that naturally puts forth waters containing many helpful, soothing minerals at a temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit and then cooled with spring water to 100, 105, and 110 degrees.

I've only done this hot springs thing once before at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. That place is like a spiritual retreat or something with all these classes about how to realize all your things you know spiritually and shit. They don't even let people who aren't staying there use the hot springs except for 20 people from 1am to 3am on weekends. So we went and it was amazingly awesome. The hot springs make you feel good. And at Esalen the pools where the springs are are set into a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was a cold night in December and so many stars were visible. It was sort of stupefying in its splendor.

Wilbur Hot springs in September was hot and sunny and down a long gravel road from the highway. Set between some high hills, there was no cell phone service at all. No tv, no phone, no radio. The place is running partially on solar panels, so they don't want you to plug anything in. It seemed really old west/new age to me - if that's a way that things can seem, and, in this case, it seems to be. Beautiful surroundings, beautiful buildings and baths. Sure, not perched above the ocean, but still really really nice and set along a river. The contrast from cold to hot was achieved by diving into a regular swimming pool from the baths. My only complaints were the excessive action of flies all around, especially by the pool, and the fact that no matter how fat a room you reserve, none of them have private bathrooms. I realize that this results from the age of the place: it was established in 1865. But still. Communal bathrooms or "commodiums" as they were called do not appeal to me.

So one thing with these hot springs is that most people soak in them without any clothes on. Without even a bathing suit on. It feels a little weird at first to be naked among strangers who are also naked, but then, after a while, it just seems like anything else. You try to be polite and not look, then you look, then you grow tired of looking, then you close your eyes and just relax in the sulphurous wonder of this relaxing soak that makes you feel like you are floating in space. If space were a lot hotter. and had more gravity.

Rescheduling...or randomization

2009-08-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was unable to keep my appointment with a sandwich last Friday. I was compelled to come into the office to demonstrate what it is that I do for the President of the company. There had been another time earlier in the week scheduled for me to do this, but that shit was rescheduled and, so, my sandwich also had to be rescheduled.

Yesterday I had a ham and cheese from this place in Palo Alto called Simply Sandwiches. Today I am leaning away from the sandwich and toward a salad. It is that kind of day.

I was late to work and then annoyed by the flaunting that some people do. People, I am haunted by your flaunting. I flout you.

Yesterday in my department meeting I compared one part of my work process with splitting the atom. No one laughed. Which is fine because I'm not sure that I meant it as a joke.

Yesterday evening I watched 3 movies in a row - the title roll reads as nothing to be proud of, yet, here I declaim: 1. Blame it on Rio - a sex romp from the early 80s starring Michael Caine as a man who has an affair with his best friend's 18-year-old daughter while they are all on vacation together. Demi Moore plays Caine's daughter. Hijinks ensue. They play the title theme "Blame it On Rio" like 8 times. I don't Blame Rio; I blame the people who made this movie. 2. Prelude to a Kiss - I can't believe I watched this. I've seen it before. I can't believe I just admitted that. Alec Baldwin is good in it. Seeing him so young made me want to watch Beetlejuice. 3. Continental Divide - This movie rules. John Belushi and Blair Brown. so rad. so many eagles and cigarettes. The city of Chicago plays a great supporting role. love it. If I could get the 5 1/2 hours back I spent watching these, I'd take it.

I'm so glad to be going to the Redwoods on Friday. I'm gonna hug a tree. then I will lean against one and eat a sandwich.

Sandwich Appointments

2009-08-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

This Friday, I will venture to the M&L Market, coincidentally located at Church & Market streets, for a sandwich. I guess the coincidence is only ostensibly in the word "Market" being contained in the establishment's name, yet the other part of this coincidence is that my "Church" is a sandwich. The fame of the place is soaked all over the internet. The place is venerable and appears to have anecdotal character. It is time for me to sample their sandwiches.

This past Sunday, I went again to Ike's Place and this time had a sandwich called the Menage a Trois. It contained 3 cheeses, bbq chicken, actual honey and six hallelujahs. It took about 45 minutes to be ready and the place was a total mob scene. While I was eating the sandwich, my hand began to stick to my root beer bottle from the honey. I glanced around at the groups of people waiting for their sandwiches and got a real school yard feel from it. It was a hot day. A group of girls in "stunner shades" had unfurled a rug around the corner in front of the glass blowing store and were picnicking on the sandwiches from Ike's.

I liked it. It was like the summer of love. I mean, what I mean to say is, it was like the sandwich of love.

I will note the results of the M&L Market sandwich sampling after it happens. I can't wait.

Birthday Sex

2009-07-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

All the way down 17th St. from Church to Harrison this morning there was a black sedan with all of its windows open riding along side me on my bike in traffic. The stereo was cranked and the chorus of the song that played was simply the words "Birthday Sex" being sung in a smoove and sexxy voice. I heard other words being sung in between the frequent explosions into the chorus, but have no idea what they were. It is something that I will enjoy pondering and perhaps, one day, finding out.

4th of fucking july

2009-07-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

Had friday the 3rd off so took a walk up to Russian Hill and ate at West Coast east deli. Then went to that spot that I like on the steps overlooking the condemned Russian Hill Resevoir.
We sat there a while. I was looking at the sail boats and there was also an enormous cruise ship docked along the way. We resumed walking and came down through Ghirardelli Square. Saw one of those dudes adorned in a sparkly silver suit having his picture taken with those in line for an ice cream sundae. For "tips" of course.

Walked around through Russian Hill to North Beach and stopped for a drink at Kennedy's. Played a few air hockey games. I won. Sat outside near some French punks - one of them with multi-pierced face, the other with stand-up Mohawk. Half-listened to some girl at the other end of the patio talk about how she once paid five dollars for a cigarette...went to a Barnes & Noble and thumbed through Michael Jackson's life in pictures.

Took some pictures of Tim. Had fun with him.

All in all the 3rd of July and the 5th of July were the fun times of this 4th of July Weekend. on the 5th we went to the Marin County fair. That was actually really an adventure. and fun. and there were pig races and sheep shearing and I ate a corndog and went on the tilt-a-whirl and ate a gyro and went on the ferris wheel. I also stared for a long time at a llama.

What's the next holiday? Labor day? holy sheeeze...

on the DL

2009-06-15T11:13:00.001-07:00

My old buddy D.L. was in town for a few days to do his opera thing: Lieder Alive

We went to a party on Friday night and it was really fun. I wanted to hang out more but he was busy doing opera fund raising types of things. I found out he missed his flight home on Sunday morning and so hopped on my bike and rode it (and walked it partways) to the Marina where he was staying. This in itself was an adventure. The weather was amazing and I saw parts and aspects of San Francisco that maybe I never have before...sure the Marina area is full of frat and sorority throw-backs, but that doesn't change how lovely it is.

We took a walk and smoked a joint. We went around the SF Yacht club parking lot to the wave organ

I guess it was low tide though because we couldn't hear much through the pipes. Still I liked the walk and I think D. thought it was pretty cool. It's a nice spot. I went there last year and then afterwards we all got sandwiches and ate them near this putting green and an old dude harassed us and started saying how he missed his daughter and we felt bad for him sort of but still wanted him to just leave.

Afterwards we went to some bars and started acting like we were back to 18 and 19 saying things like, "dude I am really fucked up."

Later, I rode my bike on the sidewalk of Van Ness Ave. for most of the way home. When I passed the Matterhorn I longed once again for the day that I may eat the fondue that they offer.

When I got home I watched an episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and went to sleep.

It's awesome that D.L. and I are still friends after all of these years. He even pointed out how we're probably family by now. And I think that we probably are.

Have I told you lately...

2009-06-03T11:06:00.001-07:00

that I am not EVEN givin a fuck? Well, that's the case. I went to the movies this past Sunday and saw Star Trek (my dad used to call it "Star Drek"). I thought it was pretty ok, but the smugness of Kirk put me off again. As it always has. I guess it isn't entirely William Shatner's fault - it's the character. This after I saw the actor who plays Kirk this time in a magazine photo spread where he had donned a white summer suit and I think maybe even some seersucker (both majorly awesome). After Star Trek, my movie-going hunger was not satiated, so I suggested we see Drag Me to Hell knowing full well that my squeamish self cannot handle that shit. Suffice to say - I was terrified by that movie; it's really good. I will not be viewing another horror movie until the 20's. This was only my 2nd one of the aughts (the first was The Ring which I saw with Anna Luckey at the multiplex in Long Island City and which kept me up all night and caused me to move the VCR to another part of the living room farthest from my bedroom door). All I can say is that the shadows and the goat in DMTH tore me up.

In other news, I have moved to a new apartment in the Castro district. I am very pleased to have moved away from my former roommates - those self-serving sanctimonious bitchez - and to be more centrally located. There are many uncharted sandwiches to sample. I will bravely and proudly explore.

Dan Fogelberg

2009-03-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Such hits! Run for the Roses, Leader of the Band - these are seminal favorites...but Dan Fogelberg inspires a certain amount of ambivalence in me. I remember his jams piping through my parents' car speakers on epic drives we'd take when I was a kid. The radio was always tuned to an easy listening station. I long railed against this "easy listening" tag as many of the "songs" they play on such stations are actually quite difficult to listen to.

this started out to be a post about my ambivalence toward Dan Fogelberg, but it isn't that anymore. Now it's about how I have 900 things to do at work and lack the focus to accomplish even 90 of them. about how I feel estranged from friends. and about how beautiful the weather is here in San Francisco right now. about how even with a linksys update my computer keeps dislodging itself from the internet.

about how I went to karaoke on Monday night and shared a moment with my friend S. about the Eagles' song "I Can't Tell You Why" and how it's amazing and totally the best Eagles song by far. or the heat wave and the park and how everyone went. even me. I sat down and ate a burrito with a group of strangers (friends you've just not met yet - actually friends of a friend) while they shot the shit. about the cops and how they said the park was "closed down" and we should move on.

about my sanctimonious housemate about the stars I saw right before the end of 2008 about time I had a place to lay my head without worry and without trouble and about time I changed my shoes.

big lunch

2009-03-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

I was fantasizing earlier about eating spaghetti and layer cake and having movie marathon. This may have led to my having eaten a real big lunch. I had some cauliflower dahl soup, two chicken tenders, some brown rice and one deviled egg.

I am about to bust and I feel dizzy.

Predelictions for predictions

2008-09-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

I always thought the weather forecast was the best part of the late newscast when I was growing up. Five day forecast. and weather.com has a ten day forecast. And then I check my horoscope fairly frequently, particularly when I am feeling sort of out of sorts for no specific reason. Like tonight. so I just checked that shit and the shit is freaky. I mean it is bringing up things like I have to not waste my energies now because I will need the strength in a few years and how I need to work diligently now to convince my employers and everyone that I am "worthwile" now, so that later when I am "challenged" things will go smoother for me. I mean I just want a regular horoscope. Just tell me something like: AM clouds, PM sun. Or 67% humidity or triple H's (hazy, hot, humid) or tell me about the wind chill, the bitter cold, the scorcher, the downpour, the t-storms, even the motherfucking wintry mix.

Thinking too far into the future has never gotten me very far, neither has concentrating on the minutia of the moment. Where is my present tense? It's in this headache and this vague feeling of wrongness and the 60 people who were bombed in Islamabad and I don't know what else.

I think I need to work out some interdimensional travel soon. Hopefully those hallucinogens will come through in time for my trip to the forest, or whatever's left of the forest. I will have to see the charred remains for the trees I suppose.

I am I said

2008-09-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

is what I'm listening to right now while I am typing this. Earlier I watched the fantastic Paul Mazurksy movie, An Unmarried Woman starring Jill Clayburgh and Alan Bates. That movie is so 70s, so laughably emotional, so emotionally engaging, and, in the end, for me, joyous. So good. I've only seen it once or twice before. It came in great handy today after a terrible telephone debacle with my father in the early afternoon. I won't go into details because it was pretty horrible, but at one point he said, "Now don't get emotional..."

But, basically, I am not even givin' a fuck about that. Not now, not while I'm killing this bottle of rum from Puerto Rico. I am prepping myself to go to my friend's karaoke birthday party. It's being held at an establishment in Japantown. The last time I went there it was six months ago. This time I will wear a hat.

I cannot change from the Neil Diamond pocket my mp3 player has landed in. I am prepared to walk to Japantown from here in the Noe Valley/Outer Mission hinterland. I am preparing myself mentally everyday of my life to go to Benihana Japanese steakhouse one of these days. Benihana is like Greece or Spain to me at this point. I can imagine going, I can taste it, but I will have to step through some real? imagined? perceptional or dimensional skein to actually make myself physically and mentally there. You know? Shilo is playing now. "Young child with dreams, dream every dream on your own. When children play, seems like you end up alone..."

a weekend

2008-09-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's been such nice weather in San Francisco - the summer, the indian summer, two months of pure delightfulness and then the cold backlash of damp rain that never pours just envelops. But later for that shit. I took a walk around Noe Valley on Saturday just to get out of the house. I considered heading to Ocean Beach, but didn't feel up to the bike ride that would've entailed and I didn't really want to take a streetcar all that way either. So I walked up Church St. to 24th and turned left and walked to Castro St. where I took another left and started climbing up into the hills. Around a corner after the first steep crest I saw these flowers. I've never seen anything like them. I continued on, getting winded from the hot still-winded day. It seemed to me that I was in one of those snow globes, except if the atmosphere shook, there'd be no kind of precipitation results, just the same blue bright stillness. I made it to a couple scenic vistas that were very satisfying. I called my grandmother from one of them and fielded her "so, when are you getting married?" questions for at least the twenty-thousandth time of my life. I let her know that I like my job now. She seemed satisfied with that and then started paying me a bunch of compliments, saying, "you come from a good background..." and so paying herself a compliment or two in the process. I love my grandmother. She's what they call formidable.

Eventually I made it to an art opening and then to Dolores Park for a bit before calling it a night.

Today I woke up late, made breakfast and had a coffee, rode my bike to the store to buy flour and nutritional yeast, went to Atlas Cafe and read some of Point Counter Point, the Aldous Huxley novel I'm reading, until these two ladies at the table next to mine on the sidewalk started raising their voices during the emotional squabble they were apparently having. Eventually, it became too much to endure, but not before I heard snippets of a quarrel about somebody's step-father and choosing not to continue friendships with people who one never got along with in the first place. To keep things short, it was a mess of third rate dross laid out by some typical-looking early-middle-aged ladies of the very tan, very much skin showing in mid-afternoon variety. I left to come back to the apartment and make Basil Pot gravy. I then feasted on 1 1/2 bowls of gravy, gomasio, red onion, tomato and shredded white cheddar cheese.

Full, satisfied, and fresh from reading an article about the mystery of who blew up the Los Angeles Times builing in 1910, I retired to my bedroom to make a mix tape for Mixing People is Meeting People - a monthly mix tape swap and dj nite that I think is an excellent idea. I'll head over there in about an hour I suppose. and that will be the end of the weekend. good night.

astro reflux

2008-08-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty into my job these days. my supervisor just got back from vacation today so for some reason I decided to ask her about discussing some research I'd done while she was away. I figured since she's so busy, it might take a while for her to get time to talk to me. But tomorrow morning is when she said we can talk. Tomorrow motherfucking morning. She is really nice and won't judge me if I am disorganized, but I probably asked for time to talk before I was really ready to talk so I'm a bit nervous about it I guess. and then...

I checked my astro.com, which I like because they ask you shit about like where and when you were born so they can get your star-cast sharper. But tomorrow I'm supposed to be under a negative influence. check this shit out:

Keep it simple ***
Valid during several days: This influence signifies a time of great uncertainty and possible confusion. Your objectives are unclear, and you may feel incapable of coping with even the ordinary details of your everyday life. One of the best ways to cope with this influence is to make your everyday life as simple as possible, because you are so easily overwhelmed at this time.

This is not a time of robust confidence. You are questioning almost every aspect of your life, particularly your goals and ambitions, your ability to attain them and even whether you are worthy of attaining them.

At the same time you may feel that your universe is constructed in such a way that you cannot ever live up to your ideals. Disappointment, discouragement and pessimism are all likely effects of this influence. The danger is that this kind of negative thinking may actually undermine your effectiveness in your work or other important activities. Feeling insecure often creates circumstances in which you really are insecure. Do not take things so seriously! Your negative state of mind is probably not justified by the facts of your life. This is just one of those times when your spirits seem to sag.

You should try to hang on without making any permanent decisions or commitments on the basis of your current pessimistic views. In a short time, you will understand that right now your view of reality is changing in a way that ultimately should be very constructive, although it does not seem so now. About two years from now, you will be able to make constructive changes in your life based upon your new understanding. This is probably not the best time to make changes.

Now ain't that a kick in the ass?!

well, at least I know about this influence, so my conscious mind, or whatever the fuck, the 2 shots of espresso I'll be high on during the meeting, can counteract the influences of the stars. Now, I know that sounds like a lot to take on, but stars, come on! try to get me down, just try me, try to sparkle me into insecurity, I will fuck up your negative energies like I am not EVEN givin' a fuck.

**UPDATE**

today really has been weird and it's not totally over but I didn't screw up w/ my boss anyhow and even though I've been thinking weird thoughts all day, it is ok.

parallel bars

2008-08-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finally tried the dark wood-laden paradise known as O'Greenberg's bar that sits less than half a block from my apartment. I've walked past it about 40 to 50 times. Despite it's abundance of tv screens, I loved it. It has darts and a pool table - neither of which are important to me, but both of which I feel are important for a bar to have, a bar like this, an old-fashioned neighborhood corner bar that is able to stay in business because it has 6 flat screen tv's all booming out NFL or the Olympics or Giants games maybe. But not booming sound. Nope, they had the volume muted on those obstructions of peaceful bar patronage tonight.

There is also a very compelling picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the wall toward the pool table antechamber. I suggest going there and having your picture taken in front of it. It feels almost as good, if not as good, if not better, than having your picture taken in front of the real thing.

Also, the jukebox is amazing. Many oldies are to be enjoyed via its jukeboxitude. While there this evening, "Joanna" by Kool and the Gang played and I was moved. So many la la la la's...

I started thinking while I was there that lots of the landmarks or lifemarks of my time have been bars. I have spent large portions of my life behind bars. If I went to AA maybe this would be an appreciated metaphor - the prison of alcoholism. But I'm not sure I mean it that way. Maybe it's more like, we all make our own prisons, so why not make them full of good cheer! But really, "behind bars" implies or even indicates that I've tended bar when really I've only been a juice bartender and that only for 8 months. So, I guess it's fortunate that I don't go to AA or I could've tried to tell that joke there and no one would've laughed and they're probably all so cranky there because they could use a drink, they may have gotten violent, at least verbally violent, and that would've been totally unfortunate because then I would've had to retaliate and, you know, go OFF.

Here is a lil' list of bars that I have frequented, it doesn't matter where they are, they are in my heart, or at least in my liver.

Group Therapy, Art Bar, The Elbow Room, The Hop Leaf, the International Bar, Lakeside Lounge, The Blue and Gold, Holiday Cocktail Lounge, Cherry Bar, The Green Mill, El Sombrero Viejo, Frank's Hot Dogs, Annie's on Rosewood, Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, Phone Booth, Glen Park Station, Cassanova, Catalyst Cocktails, The Makeout Room, The Levee, Teddy's, Mug's Ale House, Frank's (Bang the Party), The Whig, The Tempest, House of Shields

soup

2008-06-26T13:33:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's the smoke hanging over the entire Bay Area, even burning trees and crackling into Big Sur, or not being able to fully rest in a room of my own, or residual stress leftover from my recent housing hunt (shit, it only ended yesterday), but I am in a cranky mood and when I went to the grocery store to get some lunch and decided on a whim in favor of soup, chili actually, and some old dowager-lookin lady wearing dark sunglasses started to ask me questions, like, "which is your favorite soup?" and, "is this soup or chili?" I responded, "I don't know, I haven't tried them all." and "chili" and she goes, "is it spicy? it looks spicy.." and I just move away to the register thinking, "do I look like I work here bitch? do you see the words 'soup expert' or 'soup authority' anywhere on my person???" and now I am typing about it.hmm. It wasn't very spicy.

radio radio

2008-05-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

A guy in a mesh cap and a moustache. It sounds like one of the twenty-somethings populating my neighborhood or Williamsburg or any of the relclaimed-for-ironic-youth old man bars in cities across the nation. But this guy was the proper age for this look. No irony, no shit. He had a portable radio - no headphones - on the train with him today that he pulled from a beat up old brown soft leather briefcase. He had coffee and a juice squeeze to drink and from the sound of crinkling paper, something to eat as well. I wanted to read my book, Imperial San Francisco : Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, that is my train-riding morning highlight. But this guy's lack of headphones was hindering my ability to concentrate on the old players, movers and shakers, scions and swindlers that built this city (I'm not sure that this city was actually built on rock n' roll, Grace Slick). I said, "Sir, will you turn that down please?" He complied. Thanks guy. It was kinda nice to see an example of the actual prototype that hipsters have been ironically mimicking for years now. But really that guy belongs in a bar, behind a cloud of smoke. Or at the counter of doughnut shop late in the morning reading a newspaper. Or maybe I am being too judgemental and wherever we go, including this guy, we belong. I don't know. I do know that that guy needs some headphones.

unauthorized autobiography

2008-05-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

I came up with a new title for my autobiography: What I did and What I Ought to Have Done by Lauren Spiro.

it's a fairly unfortunate title now that I look/think at it. But I so could write that book. What if I did write that book and I lost track of what it was that I did and what it was that I ought to have done, and what I did actually ended up being what I ought to have done. Well, if I could do that, then I really would have done something.

It would be nice

2008-05-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

To find someone nice, who knows the correct definition of vestibule and would never stand in a vestibule with me trying to argue about the meaning of the word, the meaning of the place.

Live and learn and so it goes and tea for two but all the sayings in the world won't rival actually saying something to someone that's true or real or at least purports to be.

That's all I have to say. The cleaning crew is coming to get all the cluttered thoughts out of my head and I'll have to leave the doors unlocked for them or leave the keys in a convenient if not obvious place.

moving on...

Fuck the Ides of March

2008-03-02T02:39:00.000-08:00

Forever more and evermore I suppose. Beware and wary until unaware, and unbeknowst forces were at work when you thought they were out to play. Tonight someone asked me what do I do? as an opener to conversation. She was from LA she said and so I excuse her. I suppose. Cab ride up and cab ride down. A dance remix of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. Needing a different dance mix from the one I got. Timing probably. If I hadn't left, if I had arrived earlier. I think about the good news that I got. I don't trust it. I assume that it will fall through and I will be disappointed again. I am letting my fear of further disappointment interfere with my shit, I realize.

This is what it's down to. What's come up and what I can come up with. I let loose ends dangle as I am at my wit's end. It's beginning to and back again. That's the name of an album. Oh, it's an album by Wire, I find out after a quick search. I guess I always liked that album title.

Of so many minds, try not to mind it, don't mind me, I don't mind if I do.

It's possible that I will be up all night tonight. In fact, I predict that that will happen. If what is supposed to happen this month actually happens, I will try to take it as an opportunity to relax for a minute. But I will not go on travels and squander an opportunity to stay relaxed for more than a minute. Crossing my fingers at the possibility - I can't believe it yet.

Storm settlement

2008-02-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

Big Sur on Saturday morning. In an orange Volkswagen bus, an old one still running, veering from side to side because of great winds and pummeling rains. On the bridges, on the Bixby Bridge for instance, I thought we would tumble over into the ocean. But we made it with our brave driver and our strong faith in reaching our destination.

They said we were crazy to go on the trip, that it wouldn't be any fun because of the rains and the winds and not being able to keep a fire going or take a walk to see the ocean. But we went anyway knowing that there would be a shelter and that we would find some way to embrace the rain. At least, I knew this. And I think my friends knew it too. We did make a fire and keep it going. We even almost put up a tarp to shelter us from the rain, but, after much to-do with bungee cords and rope, it didn't work out. Umbrellas were in order and we were fine with or without them. My jacket got soaked through so I donned a sweatshirt under a sweater. We kept the fire going for hours. We saw the ocean during a detour on the drive back when we pulled over to a seaside road near Carmel and saw the huge waves tear at the rocks. I don't remember ever seeing bigger waves. The water was white with the violence of crashes and the sight calmed me.

We drank seven bottles of wine between the three of us. We danced in our cabin. We danced in the tavern. We were there to see a band. And we enjoyed the opening acts.

And inbetween bands, I saw someone that I hadn't seen in years. So out of place in Big Sur as I had known her in South Carolina ten years or so ago. We were never close. She was a friend of a friend really. But seeing her stirred up alot of memories that I've only just laid in a shallow grave again after another long haunting. But the stirring up didn't punish me as it has before, it only seemed like another ending, another epilogue, not a mysterious sign or signal. Only a coincidence. And as I sit here in the city in a coffee shop, I feel both more separated from these memories and more able to contain them somewhere safe inside me.

Life's a gas

2008-02-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

Pine trees aligned dream-like. a sharp fade into day from a long, long night. I am looking for a job and dream moments brush by my logic-laden rationale. The one I want. The one I am trying to pursue. The glances that bounce from me now, the reverberations not quite silent. So, begins from today another week of cloudiness and rain in this Pacific civilization propped up from behind with two by fours, marbleized cardboard facade.

The job. there is nothing romantic about it. It might not even pay enough to justify my doing it. Well, it really doesn't matter at all, oh it really doesn't matter at all...life's a gas, I hope it's gonna last.

ghost of christmas past

2008-01-28T06:47:00.000-08:00

I took Amtrak because I had always romanticized trains having grown up beside a railroad tressel. I thought sometimes I might want to take a train across the country to California and so I decided to try it out with a run from Chicago, IL to Columbia, SC around christmas 1997.

I remember having to stop and change trains in Washington, D.C.

I remember being so excited to get back to Columbia. It had been only six months. I was leading a lonely lonely life in Chicago. A life without a group of friends to cling to, to watch tv with, to eat dinners with, have a beer. Nope it was just my great uncle Benji and me living together in his apartment building on the far north side of Chicago.

When I got back everything was all the same and different.

One night there was a little party going on. It was at this house that had belonged to this couple - he about 21, she about 41 - and her kids when I had left. It was a nice house, it was a grown up house, but there were kids living there now. All around my age. Some I had known from working at the same restaurant. A few I did not know.

Those close friends who brought me to this house on this night (I don't remember when but I remember it was on this trip), well, this was their new group of friends to watch tv and eat dinner and drink beer with. But I didn't fit in with this group and I felt uncomfortable and so I went to go and hide out in the kitchen and sulk about no one noticing that I was not there.

That's what I was doing when I noticed a painting being painted in the breakfast area of the kitchen. The painting was of some rabbits ice skating in a park. I looked over the painter's shoulder and made an approving noise. When I realized that I had rudely intruded, I apologized, then introduced myself.

I am haunted by this memory and a dozen others.

I am waiting to be able to begin to hope to be free of this haunting.

I found the experience of being on a train for eighteen hours without a sleeping berth was too uncomfortable and claustrophobic to attempt again. I haven't been on a long train ride since then.

The Subtle Disntinctions

2008-01-25T20:54:00.000-08:00

is the name of a band in that novel i was reading.

I just realized that 1987 1997 and 2007 were all wild and crazy out of control weird years of my life. I moved to South Carolina in 1987, moved to Chicago in 1997, and had a crazy year in San Francisco in 2007.

I want to change my life.

Significant snow

2008-01-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

They're expecting snow - like it looks like a foot or so - in New York City. I used to get so excited when it would snow there. It's strange how snowfall was transformed into something less than magical during my time in Buffalo. At all other times and places in my life I have loved the snow. Snow days. Snow forts. Snow plows and snow angels and snowballs and snowbanks and snowflakes. All of it, and as much of it as possible, please. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow - I invoked it.

I guess I was just so down in the dumps in Buffalo that even the snow lost its loveliness for me. It was only the time or the place tho because I am longing for a snowstorm now.

Here in San Francisco, it's the first warm and sunny day after a solid week or ten days - it's difficult to keep track - of rain and storms. I took a little walk.

Thank you for letting me share your table

2008-01-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Since I am illegally, according to the landlady, staying in my friends' guest room and she came over today to fix a window that was broken by the storm, and the Mission branch library reading room was full, I sat drinking a hot chocolate in Cafe La Boheme for an hour or so's while this afternoon. In the middle of it, a lady sat down after asking me if one of the seats at my table was taken. She sat with a fat little notebook. She never ordered anything. She seemed to sense that her movements were distracting me from my book and so slowly inched away from me so that her chair was pulled up to the corner of the table. I just kept my face down and to the page for the entire duration of our table cohabitation. Then, abruptly, she asked, "Want to feel something?" I looked up to see her hand outstretched toward me. "Give me your hand," she said. "No," I said. She repeated, "Don't you want to feel something?" "No," I repeated. I went back to reading my book, carefully avoiding any semblance of looking up at her. Finally, after what seemed to me like hours, like time unfolding in another dimension, she got up and left. But not before mumbling, "thank you for letting me share your table."

Monster storm brings widespread impacts

2008-01-05T02:46:00.000-08:00

Up all night last night waiting for the second of three storms scheduled to hit the San Francisco Bay Area in over around 72 or 84 or 96 hours I guess. Read a cool interview with Dennis Cooper about his old zine, Little Caesar, that he made in LA in the late 70s.

I figured out that I really like Mary Gaitskill's short stories. I'm wanting to read more of them. I saw her novel, Veronica at the library. I guess I've started reading Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem though. It's so weird how my old buddy Alison Bauknight from the Basil Pot (vegetarian restaurant where I worked in college) lent me all of those Jonathan Lethem books way back then and I read them, thought they were strange but good. But I never yet have read his two big new hit novels, Motherless Brooklyn and now that Fortress one.

I'm losing by 20 points on my current game of online scrabble, or Scrabulous. It sucks. I won by 20 points on the last game though.

video killed the radio star

2007-12-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

Not really...corporate mediocrity and convergence killed the radio star. Also, television killed the radio star. Video is awesome. I love love love watching movies and also certain tv shows on dvd. for real.

The following is a representation of what went down yesterday after I received an irate phone call from a local video store at approximately 9:30am. The excerpts taken are from a Yelp review (or open letter) that I wrote to comment on what had happened and from the owner's response to my comment, and finally my comment back on his comment.

Last year in January I moved away from Bernal Heights and away from the proximity of Four Star Video. So, I haven't been there for almost a year. In June of this year, I received an angry, almost threatening call from an employee at Four Star urging me to pay the $15 in fines that I still owe them. I don't have a movie checked out from them. It's just the late fines he's trying to collect from me. Well, I was recovering from surgery at the time and my mind was on other things. This morning I got another threatening phone call from a Four Star Video employee which detailed the fact that I have not rented from them in a year but that if I do not pay them the $15 that I owe them, they will report me to a credit bureau. Please guys, who do you think you are? The video store mafia?? I understand the importance of supporting small businesses, but you are ridiculous to call me and speak on my voicemail in this fashion!! Save your threats and bullying for someone who gives a damn. Oh, and by the way, the video store is great - criterion collection, films organized by director, all the perks. I just object to this collection tactic.

[not an hour later, I received this response from "Ken Shelf"]

Hi Lauren,

I see you were very angry about our voice mails. Sorry about that. Our only hope by calling you is that you would pay your bill.

I also see that you signed up for Yelp specifically to give us a negative review. Why didn't you just call us and talk to us about your bill? That probably would have saved you time and saved us from wondering if you were planning on paying.

I am truly sorry that you had a surgery. I hope you are better now. And I see that you think we should just forget about the money you owe us. However, please understand that if we have 1000 customers who all think that we should forget about our fees, then our business suffers.

We are a small business, in a challenging industry. To that end, we have some of the lowest prices in town. In order to stay afloat, we need to be paid for the service we provide.

I really wish you would remove the negative post and call me to discuss your account. I am sure you would find me easy to talk to.

Regards,

Ken Shelf
Owner, Four Star Video

[to this bit, I responded...]

Ken,

I might have considered paying the fees if your employee had not used such a threatening tone on his voice mails to me.

The one he left this morning threatened me with a report to a credit bureau. I'm sorry but I really do think that's a little high and mighty and overblown for a small neighborhood video store. I, as well as I'm sure all of your customers, do not respond well to threats.

I chose to write an open letter on Yelp rather than contact you directly because I feel that this is the best way of exposing your employee's ridiculous behavior. Obviously, I was correct or you would not be requesting that I remove the post.

How should I respond to such negative voice mails? With a positive review? You'll notice that at the end of what I wrote, I had to admit that your store itself is great.

Actually, it's your job to monitor the behavior of your employees, not mine.

I support local businesses and appreciate the necessity of people paying fees to keep you afloat, but this is too ridiculous. You want my $15? Ask me in a civil manner next time,

thanks,

LS

time balm

2007-12-04T18:15:00.000-08:00

Today at the store I got into a situation with the guy at the register that I don't even really understand. It was at a health food grocery store on Divisadero St. I'd taken my time and selected some shampoo and stuff and then I noticed the larger selection of lip balms placed, for some strange reason, behind the counter. I wasn't wearing my glasses, and even if I had been wearing them I doubt whether I would've been able to read the labels. So while I was trying to select a balm, the register guy told the guy behind me to come on ahead. He got that impatient with me. I guess the guy waiting was one of the register guy's regulars. But it pissed me off. When I was finally paying for my goods, I told the guy how I felt. And then I just calmly continued the process of paying. And I was so silent while doing this that about a minute later the guy apologized to me and then asked me if I lived around there. He assumed that since I actually said something about all of this, that I must be an out-of-towner. Then I left and continued my walk to the pain management center to get a trigger point injection. happy channukah!

junkyard, dog

2007-12-01T00:49:00.000-08:00

Today, while sitting in her wheelchair, my grandma Rose told me once again a story about her mother, whom she admires more than anyone in life even after the woman, my great grandmother Annie, has been dead for around thirty years. The story goes like this:

My grandmother's family were unaffected by the Great Depression because my great grandfather, Carl Davis, and his brothers, Joe and Phil, were in the scrap metal business, basically they operated a junkyard. And junk is always a hot commodity. Apparently. Or at least in Duluth, Minnesota in the 1930s it was. There is another story about how Carl Davis somehow distilled his own bootleg whiskey and made money off that and that's the real true reason why his four children - Rose, Ben, Florence and Shirley - never wanted for anything while growing up. But grandma didn't mention that today. Today she said that Joe Davis, the boss, wasn't paying his brother Carl enough to support the four children, so Annie took the four of them down to Joe's office dressed in their best. She collected his pay for him, so she could get the things they needed before Carl could spend any of it. At one point she told Joe that Carl wasn't receiving enough to care for the four children she'd paraded in front of his desk and so the next week Carl received a raise. Then she went on to say that her mother marched the children to a local department store and charged new shoes for all of them to Joe's account. By her account, Joe paid the bill no questions asked.

These are some sketchy details of the powerful nature of a woman who I was too young to ever really know before she died of a gall bladder attack after eating some lox jarred in oil (instead of fresh lox which is always preferable) and about whose death my grandma today lamented, "how could such a smart woman be so dumb?"

I'm not sure what a scrap metal or junkyard business was all about in Duluth in the 1930s, but I'm tempted to do some research and find out. The fragmented story is so dramatic and colorful and filled with saddle shoes and gusto that I'm bound to be curious.

brrr

2007-11-29T22:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know why I moved away from Chicago in 1997. It's because it was fucking cold. And guess what? Ten years of global warming have not changed the fact that it is still cold as a motherfucker up in this piece.

Today I went to visit my grandparents in their suburb, Morton Grove. I really find the name unappealing and random. It's basically a little burg sandwiched between Skokie and Niles. But if you're unfamiliar with Chicagoland then this fact makes little difference to you. Anyways, I thought I had the route down when I left the house, but I was so so very wrong. And the cold cold fact of that became apparent to me while I was waiting in twenty-something degree weather for buses that just never came.

The worst was when I confused the end of the line for a bus route and ended up in the middle of nowhere on the other side of Skokie Sculpture Park. Ordinarily, and in much warmer weather, I would've been pleased to discover a random sculpture park in the middle of suburban wasteland, but today it was creepy to see a gigantic head rising from a landscape that resembled a golf course. The beacon of light in this cold darkness actually turned out to be a mall. I remembered from my journeys to Morton Grove from the far northside of Chicago ten years ago that the right bus stops at that mall and so hiked past the Olive Garden and through the parking lot into it to wait for the bus.

While I was in the mall, still all bundled up, some G'd-out suburban teenagers who were obviously cutting school to "chill" in the food court laughed at me. And I thought, "wow, I really am in the suburbs and I really did just get laughed at." The last time I was laughed at by teenagers in a mall I was a teenager and it pissed me off. This time I took sort of a bit of pride in it. Aah, how times change.

the sound of fucking

2007-11-28T00:37:00.001-08:00

I cannot believe that I just heard my old friend D. fucking his girlfriend in the next room. I mean, I believe that everyone should fuck who they want and when they want and particularly especially in their own homes. So, his bed is right next door to his office and I'm staying on the couch in said office and he's doing me a favor by letting me stay here tonight - my last night of this, ahem, vacation in NYC that I've been on for two weeks now. But dude, that was awful. (ok maybe not so awful as staying out in the cold or being forced to wander the streets all night but...) Yeeereesh...

Tonight, he brought his girlfriend over here to hang out and she was nice. I even maybe liked her. But that doesn't mean I was prepared to hear her get fucked - and, yes, she was really fucking noisy - by my old college buddy. I feel like that's just rude in a way, not to mention weird. I mean it's weird to be this old and still be in the situation where, against my own choice, I am forced to listen to some couple coupling.

Maybe this, um, position I've been put in should make me think about my life in a profound way. Like, say, if I was more on top of shit somehow I would've had the money enough to just stay in a hotel for my last night or two in NYC. or something.

Anyways, I just had to type this out so that I can read a book and go to sleep now without being all weirded out and also so that the couple next door can hear the sounds of my fingers on the computer keyboard typing this so that they will know that I am still awake and that I totally just heard them fuck. Maybe that will weird them out - or at least maybe her because she was so fucking loud - a little bit. or not. As for me, I am not even givin' a fuck.

movies

2007-11-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

I was at a loss for what to do with this rainy day, so I decided I would go to the Angelika Film Center and see the new Noah Baumbach picture, Margot at the Wedding. I set out from Fort Greene and made it halfway to the subway when I realized I had forgotten to take a crucial pill and so was forced to turn back. This interfered with my movie timing, but not severely since the film in question is playing every hour - in two different theaters. I filled the gap with shoe browsing, as I once filled much of my time I now remember/realize, on Broadway.

I decided a slice was in order, again, of course. So, I went to Pomodoro's on Spring St. There's a place called Pasta Pomodoro in SF, but it's totally different and only for yuppies or wanna-be yuppies. On the way back up to the Angelika, I walked on Crosby St. past the old freight entrance to Talas and that amazing taxi driver Pakistani restaurant and the Housing Works Used Book Store . There are a few more shops and maybe another gallery or so lining Crosby but it was so much the same that I got emotional - again.

Even going to the Angelika Film Center to see a movie made me a little emotional since I used to go there alot to see the arty (if not art) films to which I was (am) so partial. So, Margot at the Wedding: it's more subtle I think than The Squid and the Whale. Maybe that's a way of saying not as strong and it's true...I remember being moved to tears by that one and this one...well, a few chuckles, and some brow furrowing were it. I really love Jennifer Jason Leigh (the director's wife), so I enjoyed it just for her. Nicole Kidman does a great acting job, as per usual, but doesn't entirely escape being annoying, being Nicole Kidman, being such a big movie star for this smaller film. And Jack Black is actually not annoying in this movie. Go figure. He's actually good. I winced and cringed all through The School of Rock, which most people I know seemed to at least think was an ok movie.

After the movie, I walked over the Cafe Rakka on 1st Ave. and St. Marks and had a falafel and hummus sandwich. it was very savory and tasty, but, alas, the balls were smaller than I remember and the portion of hummus managed to stay within the confines of the pita - also less than I remember. Maybe I got a skimper for a sandwich preparer.

After that I started walking uptown. up and up and up I went until I reached Times Square. following a brief interlude in Bryant Park where they've set up a little skating rink surrounded by little shop kiosks like how they do in Union Sq. So, what does a girl like me do in Times Square? Go to see a movie of course! So, for the second time today I seated myself in darkness and did what amounts to meditation for me - I watched a movie. I saw the Coen brothers new one called No Country for Old Men. It was good. I didn't realize it was based on something written by Cormac McCarthy until the end, but it definitely smacks of his style. which I like. And Javier Bardem, who I usually think is totally sexy, is actually really creepy and scary in it while Josh Brolin, who never seems to be in many movies that I watch, is totally sexy in it.

Now, I'm back in Fort Greene. It's late. I'm tired. I think there might be a big party across the way, right beside the Talmudic academy, because I can hear all this bass just pounding - boom boom boom boom boom - very rapidly. Tomorrow night I'll move to Williamsburg and spend another whole week in nyc. oy vey.

a day in new york

2007-11-18T23:27:00.001-08:00

Today I woke up on an L-shaped couch sometime in the early afternoon and was presented with a nice glass of strong tea with a bit of milk and maybe some sugar. I went and brushed my teeth and rushed back to enjoy the tea.

I bundled up, borrowed an umbrella, and set out with my compadres in search of brunch. The place we wanted to go, called Maggie Brown's, was delightful-looking and smelling but had a forty-five minute wait. So, we decided to search on for brunch. (This is all taking place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn by the way.) Since I remembered, from back in tha day when I used to live in new york, that there are places to eat brunch on Lafayette street, that's where we headed until we happened upon a place called Olea. very pleasant inside. I enjoyed my basic breakfast and good, strong black coffee as well as the light coming in from the gray-lit foliage fringed outside. my fellow diners said that they too enjoyed their dishes.

After this and a false start, I made it to Union Square in Manhattan and began walking down University Place until I reached Washington Square park. I noticed every bit so keenly on a street I used to count as workaday. strolling by Washington Mews. and then at dusk standing in the center of washington square and looking upward at the towers, the spires, I was astounded by how much it seemed to move me.

I breezed down Thompson street until I hit Houston and then cut up it because I wanted to have a look at the marquee of the Angelika Film Center. Margot at the Wedding is playing. maybe I'll go and see it.

I walked down Broadway, braved the crowds, past Prince, Spring, Broome, Grand and then I cut east past Lafayette and to Mulberry then further east still to the L.ower E.ast S.ide (this manner of showing off abbreviations has suddenly become very attractive to me tho I have no idea quite why)

I wanted to see where Cake Shop the newish music venue, record shop, bar was because Michael Hurley was playing there tonight and I needed to know where to go. I succeeded in scoping out the place but I had time to kill so walked up Avenue A and got a slice at Two Boots. Then my friend Sarah called right at the same time as my old college friend David called. When it rains it pours, right?

So, after a brief detour while Sarah picked something up that she needed for school, I met David at the subway entrance. David and I said good-bye to Sarah and went for tapas. I dragged him down to the L.E.S. tho he did not want to go. We drank several drinks and reminisced, caught up, shot the shit. Then he said good-bye and I went in to watch the show. It was wonderful.

Now I am back in Fort Greene and very tired. typing all of this out seemed like a more exciting idea when I began. Goodnight.

new york, california, and my mom

2007-11-11T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm about to take a trip to nyc and I haven't been there since the end of July 2005 when I pulled out from the rent-a-car place in midtown, loaded up the chevy malibu with stuff emptied from the storage space in chesea and sailed up the west side highway and over the george washington bridge and drove to san francisco.

I've thought about the drive out to california many times since. It seems like a dream - for real.

So, now I'm going to visit new york after all of this time and I'm so nervous and excited that it's making my head start to turn faster again. Visions proceed now. textures and ideas agile sound angles.

I had this phone fight with my mother tonight. The details of it are too ridiculous to repeat, but at one point I said, "I can't talk to you because you never let me finish a sentence. It's like you finish the thought aloud, but it isn't my thought you're finishing and it's not what I mean to say at all, so that makes it impossible to talk to you." And she said, "Well, that's your mother, that's just the way I am." And her saying that somehow really calmed me down and made me consider the situation far less dramatically.

arrgh

2007-11-10T02:51:00.000-08:00

I hate how I can feel it when people get sad. It always makes me feel somehow responsible for their sadness and like I should be able to do something to help them. And when I, albeit inadvertently, contribute to their sadness, or discomfort, or annoyance I feel so guilty. I really do not want to do anybody any harm. But that sometimes seems impossible. So, it's easy to gravitate to the other end of the spectrum and claim to not care about how others feel as a compensation for caring far too much. Shit, what do I care. It's late. I've had a goodnight taco. I've changed out of my sweaty, oldies night dancin' shirt, I've got some DVDs from the library to sort of sing me to sleep.
But I do care. it doesn't mean I can't put on a DVD tho. (btw, I've recently begun to enjoy shortening the word "though" to "tho". I don't know when exactly that happened or exactly why, but it has happened. I actually derive pleasure from the abbreviation.)

babe-fest

2007-11-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight on PBS they broadcast three documentaries in a row: first, Cary Grant: Leading Man, followed by William Holden: The Golden Boy, and finally Steve McQueen: On the Edge. When I caught wind of this programming, I quickly dubbed it a "babe-fest" and set about making plans to watch all three. Except for a brief break at the end of Cary Grant: Leading Man, I succeeded. It was actually pretty great to see all the scenes from old films that these awesome babes had starred in. The documentaries were obvioiusly from the 80s and so less sensational than what you might find on an E True Hollywood Story or some such. It's strange to think that the 80s were actually a more innocent time than the present, even though that's sort of a no duh. Perhaps it's because I grew up in the 80s and had older, very old-fashioned parents who were amazed at the time how much the world had changed from the 50s.

Anyways, it makes me want to watch Sunset Boulevard and Bullitt and Bringing Up Baby all over again. Maybe some others also...Also, since McQueen starred in The Getaway, it reminded me how much a fan of Jim Thompson's crime fiction I used to count myself. These days, presently, seem actually the perfect time to revisit my appreciation of Jim Thompson. Thanks PBS. It really is another case of PB Yess!

whether or not

2007-11-06T02:36:00.001-08:00

The patterns of weather here in San Francisco are so different from anything I've ever known having grown up in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, and having lived, as an, ahem, adult, in Chicago and New York. It seems that Indian Summer carries on forever. It's the first week in November and tomorrow I know it will be warm enough for at least part of the afternoon, in one part of these microclimatized neighborhoods to wear just a t-shirt and to take a long bike ride. To do so in most other climates at this time of year, any time of day, would mean a scarf and a jacket and gloves and all the cold weather accoutrement. I guess, to be realistic, it never gets as cold as it does in those more easterly cities, more four seasons oriented places. It won't freeze here in the city. It won't freeze and it won't burn. The ground may open up wide from a gigantic "big one" earthquake, but a blizzard is out of the question. I am still, after over two years of living here, amazed at this. So amazed in fact that I have no pearls of pithy wisdom or anything resembling it. I have only the difference between what I have known and what is. And I suppose that's really all I ever have anyway. Goodnight.

fall back

2007-11-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day after the end of daylight savings time for this year. I took a walk to the park intending to walk as far as possible from there. I wanted to sort of try to take a long walk akin to ones I used to take in New York. Like a walk from Union Square to Battery Park or from Midtown to SoHo. Like that day four years ago when I won my bicycle ticket court case in Lower Manhattan and I was so proud that I had talked my way out of it I walked all the way back over the Brooklyn Bridge and down Atlantic Ave. to Bed Stuy where I was apartment sitting. Like that.

I wanted to see how far I could walk in this town before getting tired enough to retrace my steps. I wanted the exercise. I wanted, hoped, to clear my mind.

Instead, I ended up passing a delightful afternoon in the park sharing stories and trading quips with some friends in the bright Indian summer sun.

When I got home, someone challenged me to drink two Emergen-C packets at once. It seems like a silly challenge when I type it here, but I wasn't even givin a fuck at the time and mixed up two packets - one Super Orange and one Cranberry - and totally chugged that stuff. Since Emergen-C is an energy booster, I am filled with energy. Since I have had a full day of relaxing in the sun, and a full evening playing Scattergories, I am tired. The contradictory combination is so unsettling that it's destabilizing pretty much everything. What's the cure for this? Chamomile tea? muscle relaxers?

urge

2007-09-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, I totally listened to Urge Overkill and I am not EVEN givin' a fuck who knows about it. They were just good, straightforward midwestern rock n' roll as far as I was concerned and I recall rocking out to them in wild abandon. Like when I was in college or so. After college, I moved to Chicago - this was like 1997 and Lounge Ax, this awesome grungy rectangular spot where all of these grungy hardcore and grunge bands would play, was still open. I remember going to see Rachel's play a show there in November, by myself, and how some dude came up to me when I was waiting on the platform for the Ravenswood line train at the Belmont station and asked if I had just come from the show. I admitted to it. He said something about how one of their albums, Music for Egon Schiele, had "saved his life" after "last year". I think I said something like, "yeah, they're good. they were really good tonight..." And that was the end of that. Of course that has nothing to do with Urge Overkill, Lounge Ax, Chicago or anything really. But I'm not EVEN givin' a fuck.