Predelictions for predictions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.