Dear Robert, I'm sorry... 2012

... for how, at the party at your mansion in my dream this morning, I accidentally clicked the wrong place in that real estate app on your Kindle (you know, the one with the handle like an old hand mirror) and put in a bid from you on that house.

love,

Dinah

Brad is happy in our hearts 2011

I dreamed this morning of leaving a conference and hurrying around just once more to a comfortable lobby area to say goodbye until next time to Brad Graham. I found him, as expected, calm and cheerful, hosting a small group of men, listening, advising, laughing, dropping in the perfect witty remark as needed.

He looks great, with new glasses – bifocals, which we referred to as his "bi's" – and a short beard, which tickles you slightly as he kisses you with open eyes, no strings attached.

old snippets 2007

Probably written between 2000-2002:

When my grandfather was a boy, he used to go down to the park and sit in front of the bandstand. Then he'd take out a lemon and suck on it. All the brass players hated him because they couldn't play when they watched him. Wicked little feller, weren't he?

That was Grandpa Bob from whom I must have inherited my love of lemons and limes.

Candy Land memories 2006

In December 2000, my pal Heather hosted a fun game of Candy Land in which I played against, among others, Daniel of Waferbaby (who just posted this faaabulous photo today which got me thinking "How did I get acquainted with waferbaby?" The answer is, I think, through mutual weblog reading, particularly his fine interviews).

My player description for the game was:

Riding the extreme fringes of sweetness, I like blackstrap molasses, Altoids curiously strong peppermints, bittersweet cooking chocolate, and actual slices of licorice root. As a warning to everyone of my dangerous proclivities, I am playing the red piece.

(Only a shadow of the game can still be seen here in the lovely Internet Archive).

My love is with Heather and Jon 2004

I've been checking on Heather and Jon's sites regularly to hear how things are going with her struggle for health and adding my support to the comments. Among the wonderful comments today, this one from Julie:

Heather + Jon,
The culture of blogs is a strange thing, I find. We don’t know each other and yet I have been so moved by your truthfulness and your bravery and your unbelievably brilliant words that I find myself wondering how you are doing throughout my day.
I wish you rest and comfort.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

MARY OLIVER
Dream Work

Yes. Exactly. Yes. Thank you, Julie.

Stop. Design. 2004

I hit an odd rhythm this evening. After a delightful morning sleeping in and then puttering around the house - which is looking just great these days thanks to some furniture rearranging effected by my good housemate Chris - and an afternoon of friendly hanging out*, I found myself a little wiped out in the early evening. Partly it was being over-heated from my hike back up over the hill from Cole Valley, partly it's probably the low number of calories I'm consuming (running an approximately 500 calorie per day deficit most days as I lose weight on the hacker's diet), and partly it was just the option to flop out a little bit after a fairly intense week of work.

I decided that I was under no social obligation to attend the Annie Lin/Goh Nakamura show, as much as I enjoyed their last one. Having given myself permission to stay home, I puttered a bit on the computer (upgrading software and downloading NetNewsWire to give it a try) and thought about making dinner though the small snack I'd had at Reverie hadn't fully worn off.

Some time mid-evening - I wasn't paying attention to the clock - I decided to lie down for a nap. That felt so good that after an hour or so I decided to just go to sleep for the night....

...and woke up again at 11pm feeling great. I was refreshed and clear-minded, ready to get up and do things. So, I did. Dinner at midnight, watched some Simpsons, and a pleasant time reading the archives of Douglas Bowman's Stopdesign log. I always find his writing worth my time, but have been sporadic in reading the site. Since I was in a web design-y mood, want to dig deeper into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and will be giving a presentation later this year on "Building a Business Case for Web Standards", reading his log from day 1 forward was the ideal place to spend my time. I've still only up to about a year and a half ago, but I expect it will go a little faster as I get into the range where I'm more likely to have read the posts while they were fresh.

One thing is definitely clear after spending over two hours on a single site: good design makes reading more enjoyable. Even something so simple as a link to the previous and next entries at the very bottom of the page makes a huge difference.

So, two changes on MetaGrrrl.com tonight:
1) a global search & replace to change all instances of unencoded ampersands to the proper & format for better accessibility and page validation;
2) the previous/next navigation links are now repeated at the bottom of the my individual entry archive pages.

Thanks, Doug.

*An afternoon in which I met Joel in person after an online friendship leading up to his 1000 mile bicycle ride down the coast from Seattle and, thanks to a suprise encounter on the street with Min Jung, we got to visit with a cool crowd of photobloggers at the lovely Reverie cafe in Cole Valley.

A good evening 2004

Today was great. A generally satisfactory workday - alas, the last full one with the great intern we've had this summer - followed by two events full of cool web geeks. First was the Movable Type 3.1 release party hosted by the fine folk of Six Apart at (my SOMA favorite) Varnish Gallery on Natoma near the MOMA. Great venue full of bloggers & friends. Best part: seeing Doug Bowman smiling and moving easily, well on the way to recovery from his nasty back injury. Second best: happy, relaxed, successful Mena and Ben. They all deserve this goodness in their lives.

I got to hang out with many fun people including Zack Rosen (hi!) whose name kept ringing a bell all evening until, during our walk to the W hotel for LobbyCon in the bar, I found out he'd worked on the Dean campaign. I'm sure I'd read posts of his in the Dean blog or something. Funny that I hadn't put the name together with the face that was familiar from other web geeky events. Anyhow, nice to socialize a bit with him and lots of other good folks, new friends and old.

All in all, a fine evening.

Happy so far 2004

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. I'm having a lovely season instead of just a day. Thursday night was Derek's bachelor party and we had great tacky tiki fun and and a phenomenal dinner at Shi Mo. Last night I went to bed early and slept well in preparation for all the other socializing this weekend.

This morning started, a bit earlier than my usual lazy Saturday, with a trip to the San Francisco Flower Mart with Judith. It was great fun. I like spending time with Judith and the Mart is beautiful. I'd never been before and I really enjoyed myself. She loaded me down with all sorts of lovely flowers and foliage and then when we'd checked off the shopping list we headed over to Janice & Jason & Evan Fraser's in Noe Valley. They have a really nice house and I am experiencing serious kitchen prep space envy.

I played "line cook" and trimmed things to soak and prepped decorative leaves while the talented Judith and Janice made pretty bouquets and corsages. To ensure utter fabulousness of the results, we all wore tiaras during the proceedings. Jason played guitar for us for a while and Evan went fishing (best results in hallway, according to his papa). It was all quite delightful and I was astounded by Janice's ability to bounce back from cancelled-flight-travel-trauma.

Around noon-something I took off and was given a birthday wrist corsage on my way out which I wore proudly with my jeans & t-shirt all the way home.

I stopped off at Friendly Spirits to buy myself some birthday presents for my growing collection of single-malts. (These join the Genmorangie Port Wood Finish 12 year, Dalwhinnie 15 year, and Balvenie Doublewood 12 year). From my mum (thanks, Mum!) a bottle of 10-year-old Edradour, "Scotland's Smallest Distillery". Edradour is the name of a cat I used to have and I've always wanted to sample the stuff. So, since I can do whatever I damn well please today, I had a tasting at 2pm. Okay, so it was half an ounce, but still, 86 proof! I'm a hooligan! Anyhow, lovely lovely nose on it. Very odd main flavor which I can't put a description to yet, nice long finish. I think this one wants a bigger longer tasting and a bit of water to open it up. Great for smelling, though, when you don't actually want to drink anything and you just want to give your senses something complicated to enjoy.

Aside: I concluded after the bachelor party that though the sake at dinner was excellent (must consult the name on that gigantic bottle which Derek ended up with...) and my two tacky mai tai's were fun, I prefer quality over quantity. I'd rather have one glass of good scotch whisky than 3 of any other drink. And, since I almost never drink more than three drinks, that makes entertaining myself very cost-effective.

The big present, though, was something I've wanted to add to the collection for a while: the 18-year Macallan. This is one of the best, referred to by the folks over at single-malt.com as "The Wet Dream of Malts" and/or "the Special Occasion Malt". I've had it before and it is damn good. This one is for special occasions and discerning friends. Not sure how long I'll be able to resist at least opening it to smell, though.

Now it's time to relax for a while before showering and dolling myself up for early dinner at Buca di Beppo to wish my former co-worker Matt and his sweetie John good fortune as they move on to new adventures. After dinner my friend Fil is taking me to see Movin' On (Billy Joel music, Twyla Tharp dance thang). Should be a very fun evening. I have a suspicion some sort of drinks & or dessert may be on the plan for afterwards.

Tomorrow is Heather & Derek's wedding, so I'll be busy helping that special day go smooth as silk. Hope you all are having a lovely weekend and finding your happiness all the places you can.

The Life 2004

I have been living one hell of a life the past week and a half. It's been fun, but now I'm tired and needing to take a lazy Sunday to recover. Pride 2004 will just have to carry on without me.

In chronological order:
Suffered massive comment spam attack. Obtained great big set of data to recognize that comment spam pattern even when I only get one isolated message. Very handy for those abuse reports.

Saw Rube Waddell at Cafe Van Kleef. Great band, great bar.

BBQ with my old out-laws (B.J.'s parents). Genetic and official ties aren't the important part; they and B.J., his wife Bev, and her parents are part of my extended family.

Allergy attack prompting this message to my co-workers:

Hi,

I got woken up at 4something in the morning again with these horrible allergies and took the half tablet of Benadryl which doesn't normally make me too drowsy to function, but apparently when combined with either especially bad allergies or that time of day makes it impossible to wake up.

I am now moving sluggishly in the direction of the office ("...what rough beast slouches towards Emeryville...").

Regular allergy sufferers, first, my profound sympathies. Second, how the heck do you cope with this? Do I need to go to the doctor and get some prescription stuff to be on all the time? Do allergy shots help? And how long into summer do you usually suffer?

Representing all the dwarves (with Bashful manifesting in his Tardy aspect and Groggy, Itchy and Scratchy substituting for Greedy, Doc and Happy),

Dinah

Hanging out late at Tantek's place with Min Jung, Matt, Dunstan, Simon and Jane.

Dinner at Crepes on Cole with the WaSPs and party at Tantek's place. (Matt's pictures)

Thought I'd get a good night's sleep to recover from the prior 3 short nights. Allergies woke me up at 4am again.

Back to Cafe Van Kleef for As Is Brass Band (oh joy!) and my delighted introduction to 1 Man Banjo (Sean Lee), about whom you'll be hearing more. Caught ride home with the band and thus reached bed around 3sumpthin.

Set alarm for 7:30a.m. Woke up at 7:28a.m. Had a surprisingly functional and creatively charged day at work.

Expected to come home and go to bed early. Instead went to dinner with Dunstan and Min Jung, joined after a while by Tantek, Matt and Anil. Then we rambled around North Beach and ended up at the Bubble Lounge where champagne, foie gras, and chocolate with strawberries were consumed. (Here's a picture which sums up the decadence of the evening). Some of the party were interviewed by an HBO TV crew for Real Sex. Dunstan expressed a certain preference which I can hardly wait to see the footage of; I think I may want that sound bite as a system error sound. I stroked Matt's head until he became blissful. I got to see Liz, which was a pleasant surprise.

Finally, O joy! Sleeping in.

High tea at The Palace with a bunch of beautiful, intelligent women to celebrate Heather's upcoming wedding. Certain topics were approached and then veered away from ("You can't talk about that here; we're at The Palace!") and Anil would have been thwarted from making certain hand gestures, had he been there.

Went to Kaiser's pharmacy finally and picked up some of their generic Claritin stuff. I look forward greatly to non-sneezing, non-itching nights and days.

Started some food marinating, napped, cooked and then headed out at midnight to NIMBY in Oakland for the Extra-Action Marching Band benefit for their mission of good will from Amsterdam to Sarajevo. Wonderful humans. I got to see a few Burning Man art pieces I'd only enjoyed in pictures before and listened to more great music. Amazingly, I arrived during Freddi Price's second song, "Oh Father". and got to hear his whole set including an extremely-heartfelt version of John Lennon's "God". Wish I'd had the equipment to record that; it was perfect. Yes, Lennon's song when you thought about it, but in that moment, fully Freddi's.

The poor guy had some turbulence in the first part of his set. The power on the stage went out while he was singing, so there was a little dicking around fixing it and then he started belting the song out with no mike and no stage lights and no guitar amp. Just as people were huddled in close, clapping, feeling the raw version, *boink* back comes the power. A cheer from the crowd. Freddi's sideways smile, a grin and he steps up to the mike to really launch into it and *pwing* his guitar string breaks. Blink, blink, and then he roars with laughter. One song with no high string, followed by a quick string change, and then back into it. A great show, most definitely.

Oh, and Extra-Action was huge fun; there were other good bands to be heard (e.g. LOOP!STATION), art & wild outfits to be enjoyed and all the lunatic pleasure of an all-night party. I contributed a vegi dish to the food choices (recipe coming later) and kept the marching band hydrated during their set. At the end of the night, which is to say at 6am this morning, I gave four happy people a ride back into San Francisco and returned the City Carshare car. In bed by just after 7am and slept until 11:30am or so.

I feel pretty good. My legs are tired from standing and stomping my feet on cement all night, but it was fine fine fun. I encourage you to get out and do something. Share yourself. Appreciate what other people have to share. Life is good.

Where I'd Rather Be 2004

Thank you, Dean, for your lovely pictures that brighten even my bad days.

How to tell you've pretty much lost touch 2004

You know you're out of the loop when you get the announcement of the new baby and you didn't know your friend was even in a relationship.

Good Weekend 2004

It's been a great weekend so far. Friday night started well when I met my housemate Chris at the Metreon and saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which we both liked a lot. After the movie I went to Toronado's in the lower Haight and ate some pizza from the weird pizza place next door while my friends & their friends (Esin, ?Trish?, Esin's fiance whose name I really should remember but don't, Kristin, Joey, Jessa) drank beer. The pizza place was doing the worst marketing move I've seen yet in a restaurant: they had the tv where you stand and wait for your order tuned to the pet surgery channel. I was concentrating so hard on not looking at the screen and not imagining what the vet was describing that I completely failed to see Kristin and Joey had come into the tiny place right behind me. I fled as fast as I could and ate my slice back in the bar.

Once Suzan, Kevin and Min Jung showed up, the group migrated to The Top which is a swell little bar. Great physical space, good music. Unfortunately, really evil well liquor and bartenders whose idea of a gin & tonic is 4 parts gin to one part tonic. Ugh. I think I'll order whiskey there next time or bring enough money that I can call my drinks & stay away from their headache inducing well liquor. Despite that, though, I had a really fun time talking with folks and getting lots of nice hugs.

I walked home, drinking water on the way and hoping the fresh air and exercise would help fend off a hangover. Another glass of water at home and staying up a little later to answer email did seem to help make me slighly less pained in the morning. I woke up at 9 something, had a glass of water, thought I might get up and then fell asleep for another two hours. That meant I missed most of Heather & Derek's brunch, but I was able to get there in time to participate in the memorial service for the late great Tigger.

It was a sad occasion but brightened by people's fond memories, the beautiful location in Buena Vista park and the loving attention of Chieka, Bug, and the other attending dogs. At the end I was ready to be alone for a while, so I walked down through the park to Haight Street and slowly puttered along all afternoon, shopping. I was enjoying a rare clothes-trying-on-tolerant mood so I did actually end up with some nice new things to wear instead of just a new CD (Jump, Little Children's Magazine which rocks my socks right off). I had late lunch/early dinner (first dinner?) at Citrus Club. Mm, asparagus special.

When I got home I was tired and sweaty, but cheerful. I took a shower and have spend the rest of the evening in my feety pajamas puttering around online, looking at people's SXSW pictures and making an extremely token pass at working on entering my receipts in Quicken. Cooked some dinner around 9 or 10. Enjoyed listening to Van Halen's first album which Chris brought home this evening. Totally metal, man!

Now, somehow, without feeling like I was spending much time on anything, it's after midnight. Bed time.

Congratulations! 2004

I'm all misty-eyed now looking at pictures of my friend Jeff's wedding on Monday. Another happily married couple in the beautiful rotunda of San Francisco City Hall, the capital of Love!

Simianese Liberation Army 2004

Art by Crazy Uncle Joe

 

(Shared on Flickr on this date.)

Good Cat Seeks Home 2003

For the second year in a row I am assisting with finding a home for a sweet little black cat. This one is a 6-year-old male, but unlike Oban last year is not named after a single-malt scotch. He currently goes by Licorice, but I'm sure, being a cat, wouldn't mind if you wanted to rename him Laphroaig.

He's short-haired, very loving, but somewhat shy right now. The only home he's ever had was with my aunt's mother, who had to move into an assisted living facility, and he couldn't go with her. He likes to be brushed and purrs a lot.

He's boarding at the Feline Bed & Breakfast in El Cerrito (near the Target store), and my aunt could arrange to meet anyone who would like to consider giving him a home.

Please drop me a note or leave a comment if you're in the San Francisco bay area and interested in giving him a home.

A little more about him from my aunt:

Licorice would love to be an indoor/outdoor cat, I think. The place where my Mother lived before the rest home didn't allow outdoor cats, so he was indoor - but he got out occasionally. He would wander around the golf course, probably using the sand traps for purposes the maintenance crews didn't appreciate, and then return home when he got hungry.

He lived with another black cat, Tiger, and they got along quite well - sleeping cuddled up together, sitting in the window together, etc. Tiger, though, made his escape during the moving process and hasn't been seen since. He's somewhere in Albany, and I hope some kind soul took him in.

I go to see him every week, and take a brush with me. He purrs and rubs his head on my leg while I brush him. Then I leave him in his little room, and he looks so sad....

Things Learned Between 6 and 9pm on a Thursday Night 2003

• Derek is always an excellent host.
• One of the behaviors of an excellent host is to immediately offer the guest a beverage.
• I will, even on an empty stomach, when offered a beverage in a bar, fall back on a standby like "Bombay Gin & Tonic, please. Thank you."
• My commute makes me thirsty.
• The snacks at Cafe du Nord make a good substitute dinner.
• A gin & tonic on an empty stomach impairs the judgement just enough to prompt one to order a pear cider with said substitute dinner instead of a non-alcoholic beverage.
• My friends are delightful, intelligent company and damned good looking, even without the benefit of the afore-mentioned beverages.
• Armistead Maupin will high-five sassy Korean girls he just met, provided they tell him about doing shots with their grandmothers.
• Lance has great taste.
• When Lance recommends a cocktail, you should take his advice.
• A Grey Goose Vodka Martini is a work of art.
• It's fun to descend upon Sweet Inspirations with a rampaging mob of cake fiends.
• A Grey Goose Vodka Martini, even a small one, has a kick on it like a mule.
• It's a damned good kick.
• When I get tipsy and my inhibitions fade away a bit, I will be more impulsive, prone to laughter, and generally vivacious.
• Apparently, while intoxicated, my normally-somewhat-suppressed desire to repeatedly hug my friends goodnight comes out in full force.
• Hugging Derek & Heather goodnight 4 times in 3 blocks (as we figure out we're actually not diverging but continuing to walk the same direction) is an excellent way to round out an evening.
• I have great friends.

Down, down, down... 2003

My friend Meg is cracking me up.

Five or so months ago, Darin from darinsan.com emailed asking if I'd do a little "11 Questions" interview with him. I said, "sure" and then let the message sink to the bottom of my inbox (and by "bottom" I mean it was about 1500 emails above the darkest depths of my inbox, where those scary fish -- with horrible teeth and hangy things in front of their eyes -- live and use bioluminescence to highlight messages that have been there since 9/13/01).

I think we have a new status message for email accounts now:

Warning: Requires Bathyscape.

Continuing Support of Shellen.com 2003

Be nice to Jason, he had a really shitty day yesterday.

My Pals List is far from complete 2003

When I was editing my site tonight, I created a new style called thesmallprint and it made me go listen to the Tom Waits song Step Right Up which contains the line about "the large print giveth and the small print taketh away". Then iTunes played another song by him about New Orleans and it made me think of my friend Jay who's now over in Europe and that reminded me of my friend Mike who's way over in Japan which made me wonder if my friends Kate & Becca ever did take that trip or move to Africa.

And now that's got me wishing I was walking in London

Where'd the week go? 2003

I just realized I haven't posted anything for a week. Whoops.

Work was generally good this week. I'm feeling like I've got my feet under me more of the time and am actually making a useful difference. It's still hard and confusing and there is still that sense of "I've just learned enough to see how much more I need to know", but at least the major functions of my main product are becoming very familiar to me.

Not a lot of home news. Just a gradual process of cleaning up, getting rid of unneeded stuff. Today I may get some new kitchen shelves installed if Cliff's Variety (the fabulous Castro hardware store which sells everything from plumbing supplies to tiaras) has the bits I need.

Last night was glorious. In the afternoon, B.J. called to see if Chris and I wanted to get together in the evening, so we wound up meeting him and Beverly at the Edinburgh Castle pub on Geary for fish & chips and many pints (Guinness/cider/soda depending on the person). After a while we were joined by Keoni and Hudak (who is referred to by his last name a - because it's become something of both icon & epithet and b - to avoid confusion with my boyfriend Chris and Bev's brother Chris). The conversation was fantastic and frequently interrupted by wild laughter. When the pub, which had been pleasantly mellow on our arrival began to grow noisy (why must they turn the music up when more people come in and it starts getting noisier with conversation, thereby making it doubly hard to hear?) we migrated down the street to Julip.

Julip was an oasis of calm and style. Some of us ordered Mojitos while others obtained snacks from a corner store. After a short time, dozens of people began arriving and a dj started to set up right next to our table. Clear signs of an impending end to conversation.

We all piled into Hudak's car - and I do mean piled, as Chris said when four of us were squeezed into the backseat "if we weren't dating before, we are now" - and moved to an environment under our control: our house.

More libations were obtained and tasty little snack items and we stayed up until past 2 playing Fluxx (a card game of constantly changing rules), Encore (a singing game involving remembering song lyrics and which I think I'll do better at next time I play provided I haven't that time had 4 drinks just prior) and Unexploded Cow (which is pretty much just what it sounds like: a game combining the twin problems of unexploded mines and Mad Cow Disease).

I love my friends.

Hot Dogs? 2003

I get the distinct impression that it's very hot at Dean's house.

A Good Un 2003

Today I am wishing the happiest of birthdays to my extremely excellent friend Derek. Tomorrow we will drink margaritas.