soft serve

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.