At the laundromat 2004

While waiting for my wash I picked up a 1982 issue of Architectural Digest which was lying about. My goal was amusement at the ads and then-fashionable decor - a sort of do-it-myself Interior Desecrators - and I found that, but I also found a nice little piece by Russell Lynes "The Satisfactions of an Imaginary Museum". Must remember to look for more of his writing.

I should have been in bed a couple hours ago 2004

I blame movies, comment spam and sheer bloody-mindedness for my late night. On the bright side, I cleared up the comment spam, reported the offenders to their registrars & hosts, listened to the commentary track of Fail Safe and chatted with boys. My housemate was extra cool and brought me a slice of pizza from Marcello's. Mmm. Every now and then my body just screams out for some pepperoni.

Now it's midnight and I don't want to go to bed now. I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I don't want to volunteer this weekend. I feel lazy and petulant and I just want to booze it up, sing along with weird bands and sleep until noon. Of course I will actually go to bed and put in a productive day at my job which I do actually like a lot and I will volunteer this weekend and have a great time and see old friends and probably get more work done while I hang out in the operations trailer between handing out radios and dealing with the crisis du jour.

It's funny. I am tired, but I've got that classic exhausted little kid who won't lie down thing going on.

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.

no news is, in this case, good news 2004

I'm feeling much more cheerful this weekend, but just don't feel inspired to write much of anything. I cleaned house. I played computer games. Went walking a little bit. Had a drink with friends at Zeitgeist. Cooked soup. Saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban again. Still like it, slightly less rabidly, but a lot. Much sneezing. Still fine-tuning the allergy medication ("half a Wal-Dryl minitab? Hmm, not too dopey, but still a little itchy...") And that's really about it. Slept well. Nice weather. Pretty views. All fine here.

Small plates and a full course meal on a Friday night 2004

Last night was an excellent way to round out the week. I walked from the transbay terminal to the Mission district and had dinner with my friend Lenny at Esperpento (mmm, spicy potatoes, spicy chicken, grilled asparagus, garlic shrimp, good bread to sop up the sauces, and the best sangria in town) followed by the benefit for Right to Write at Amnesia.

That was a hell of a show. As much as I adore Amnesia - gotta make it down there more often - I think this line-up better do a repeat performance at a larger venue. The Whoreshoes are a ton of fun (I need to hear the song about "let me be your bull" again); Lord Loves A Working Man is getting amazingly good (and should really start thinking about their first CD); and good ol' Rube Waddell, even with Max and Freddi just having done a fantastic set with LLAWR, can get the whole place on their feet stompin' and hollerin'.

So, I stayed to the end. Closed the bar. Caught a cab home. Got to bed a little before 3am and slept pretty solidly.

Now it's coming up on 2pm, I've had my shower and a great big glass of water, but no breakfast. Today being officially "Stairway Day", I had planned on doing another nice big walk and making sure to include one of the city's many beautiful staircases, but I find I have a blister starting on the ball of my left foot. I guess the only walk I'll be doing is to the drug store to buy insoles for my newest shoes. I'm hoping if I am nice to it today and wear the right things tomorrow, I'll be able to get some walking in.

Larry (Reverend Whupass of Rube Waddell) said that he'll be playing at the Odeon Bar tonight and I would like to see what he does when he's not being a Rube. Plus I feel I ought to give the poor ol' Odeon a second chance. Larry says the porn isn't usually on the screen and it would be nice to be able to write up a review of an evening there that wouldn't scare away quite so many folks. (I do note though that my previous review is now no longer the #2 hit for a search for "odeon bar" on Google and is instead one of the last. Not sure what prompted that demotion, but I'm betting it has something to do with last week's comment spam attacks.)
Given how I'm feeling right now though, I don't know if I'll make it down for the show. Not even sure if I'll try to get out for the KFOG Kaboom. Too many late nights in a row and now my body clock is all discombobulated.

(It's now almost 3pm. I got distracted by the Google result thing and then reading some email and having a little snack. I think maybe it's just going to be a spacy day.)

Why all the trouble? 2004

So why was I so reluctant to leave the house for extended periods of time this weekend and doing all that handwashing instead of a big laundromat expedition? Because I don't have a laptop with a wireless internet connection.

I was working on two projects. One fun one which has a ways to go. Announcements later. One tedious one which I think may have worked out okay.

I've given up on buying Intuit software for the Mac. Quicken 2002 was a deep disappointment - buggy, crashy and, I hear, missing features available in the Windows version - and from the reviews Quicken 2004 for Mac is no better. Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth out there. It's a damn shame, really. I've been using Intuit products for almost a decade and a half. The started out on Mac and set the standard for personal and small business software. It's clear, though, that they've forgotten their roots and aren't about to rediscover them.

Intuit - if you think dropping Mac sales mean lowered demand, you're just in denial about the crappy products you've been putting out. You used to be good; hell, you used to be far and away the best. What happened?

I don't know, man; it's like some great musician going on the skids and losing his chops. Now he forgets the words, fumbles over the chords and he smells like he hasn't taken a shower for weeks. There's still time to clean up the act, but I won't be at the shows until I hear things have gotten a whole lot better.

So where will I be? Well, I spend the weekend trying some things out and there's this new act called Liquid Ledger I'll be giving a try. It's a bit heavy in the financial management terminology and it's missing autosave (argh!), but the planned features look right and it's a native Mac application. Best of all, it's built by Canadians. Must be good, right?

Another Lazy Saturday 2004

As is my wont, I slept in this morning and made up for a few short nights earlier in the week. Finished watching a video (Sister Wendy's Story of Painting), made a nice omelette, read email and then popped the DVD in the post back to Netflix so I can get the next one faster.

Now I'm feeling mellow (no better word for it, really, just roll with the 70s overtones) and disinclined to go do laundry. Once I tried handwashing everything but it was such a pain and this time there are sheets to do. Alas, the laundromat is in my future. After my little episode last weekend (scratched the rental car by rubbing it against another occupied car, did I write about that? *sigh*) I don't want to rent a car unless I really have to. Thus I am faced with the multiple loads of laundry and the prospect of taking multiple trips to the laundromat or having to get a car and trying to find a laundromat with a parking space next to it. I'm leaning towards the former, but thinking wistfully of the pleasure of having it all done and over with quickly.

So once again my brain comes back to wanting to do laundry at home so that I can work on bills and websites and other cleaning and such between handling the loads. It's a quarter to 2 on a sunny day. It'd all dry nice and quick... but oh the hassling with the bathtub and the hand scrubbing... but I haven't had a shower yet today... So indecisive!

***

Part 2:
2:45pm

How to wash sheets and pillowcases in the bathtub.

Don't do this unless you have a little metal mesh lint catcher for the drain. Just don't. You'll pay enough to the plumber to cover hiring someone else to wash your clothes for a couple months.

Also, don't do this unless you have a sunny, breezy area in which to dry the clean things and something clean to dry them on, like a clothesline or a drying rack. And don't start less than 5 hours before sunset.

This actually takes almost as long to describe as to do, by the way.

Plug the tub.
Put the sheets and pillowcases in the tub.
Fill the tub about one third full with water at your normal showering temperature.
While it's filling, squirt in a couple small squirts of mild liquid soap like Dr. Bonners. (Today I used Lush Happy For Sad shower gel).
Get naked, get in there, close the shower curtain and walk around on the laundry. Note the change in water color - oo! It's working!
When the tub is about at that one third full point, switch the water up to the shower and do your normal showering routine (except don't shave, you don't want little hairs in your sheets).
About halfway through your routine, or when the water reaches the two thirds full point, swap the plug for the little mesh lint catcher and let the water start to drain. You may need to empty the lint catcher if the water drains very slowly after a while.
Once you've finished your routine, pick up a pillowcase and rinse it in front of you in the shower spray. Rinse it good - your face will be on this and you don't want any soap residue. Drape it up over the shower neck or something when it's rinsed and you've given it a light little squeezing to get rid of the excess water. (You don't want to really wring and twist your laundry, it wears it out).
With the pillowcase(s) done, once the water is pretty well drained out, it's time to rinse the sheets. This is a three part process.
1. Statues - Put the sheets in front of you while you face the shower. Pick up one by the end and spread it out in front of you letting the shower rinse it. Fling the rinsed part back over your shoulder. About halfway through each sheet take a moment to adopt a series of Grecian statue poses. (Oration optional). Finish rinsing the sheets.
2. Stomping - Swap the lint catcher for the plug again and fill the tub up to about one third full while walking around on the sheets. You don't actually stomp since that'd be splashy and potentially dangerous, but give 'em a good stirring up.
3. More Statues - Swap the plug for the lint catcher. Rinse the sheets by the statues method again.

By now your sheets should be clean and the water rinsing clear. Put the sheets down at the non-drain end of the tub. Give yourself one last rinse to get any lint off and turn off the shower. Dry off and get dressed while the sheets drain a little. Set up the drying rack and locate your clothespins. Put the pillowcases out to dry (if using a rack put them in the inside middle). Then squeeze a sheet dry enough to carry through the house and put it out to dry (on one side of the rack). Then get the other sheet.

Relax.

After an hour or so, check on the sheets and turn them over (and rotate the rack).

***

Update:

It's 7:15pm and the stupid flannel sheets are still wet where the sun wasn't hitting them. This whole idea sucks. Forget about it and go to the laundromat.

I slept like a ton of bricks... 2004

...and awoke, predictably, feeling thick, ruddy and disinclined to move under my own volition.

Lining up the ducks 2004

I'm in an intense activity period at work for another couple weeks, then things should ease up a bit. Having to be in high gear all day makes me less willing to commit to social activities. If I'm in the mood to socialize after work, I'll look at what's going on and then see if I could still join in. If I haven't responded to your Evite, this is why.

At home, I've been trying to do a little Discardian action to clear out actual and virtual clutter. Caught up on bills and budget sort of stuff. Now whittling through stacks of little things to deal with, physical and electronic.

I upgraded to Eudora 6.1 in the hopes that it will be a little closer to the mail program of my dreams. I'm also beta-testing Gmail (name: metagrrrl) and, while the features are attractive, I won't move my data there until the export path to get it back is clear and easy. One nice thing about the new Eudora is that I was able to import my mail from Apple's Mail program and I'm looking at how I might be able to import some old backed up email from the PC. It would be pretty cool to have all my still extant electronic correspondence in one searchable chunk. Once I have it, the next goal would be to weed through it and see what is really worth keeping.

Spam continues to plague me terribly. It's about 30 or 40 junk messages to each real one. Eudora is about 95% accurate in its sorting and only a few things get classified as junk which aren't but it's still enough that I can't just trust the filter. (Does anyone know if Knowspam has changed their methodology so that you don't get tons of "Mail undeliverable" messages back from the "Prove you're human before I'll deliver this" messages it sends out to faked addresses in obvious junk mail?)

I upgraded my Mac to OS X 10.3.3 after James told me "Panther ith the anther, baby". Still wandering around my virtual space figuring out what's changed. Anyone got any hot tips for me? I'm taking iChatStatus for a test drive - anyone had any bad experiences with it I should watch out for?

Tonight I'll be going to see half of Rube Waddell in other guises:

Sunday night, April 18 at Amnesia (853 Valencia SF)
Lord Loves a Working Man, Max A. Million's proletarian soul machine, plays songs of the labor of love to the lumpen along with the Mahatma's Az Iz Brass Band, a pseudo gypsy horn ensemble that will take you places you didn't know existed, dancing all the while. 9pm

Now I'm going to go eat a yam.

End of Laziness 2004

My vacation this past week turned out to be kind of a break from new content on the site apart from my SXSW reports. And I celebrated Discardia this weekend by discarding the notion that its creator has to acknowledge it at all (though I did discard my old PDA to a teacher friend of mine - my token effort to offset school funding cuts).

Now I'm back to work. My computer started my day reporting "Downloading 1 of 860 messages" when I opened my email program. I'm making surprisingly good headway against them. Got through the first pass on everything and now have my inbox down to 123 messages left to work through, about 75 of which predate my trip. Not too bad for the first half of the first day back.

Astoundingly enough, I haven't lost the relaxed feeling yet, thus, maybe I'll blog more later and maybe I won't. I did manage to put up a nice new picture of me down there in the sidebar, though. (Thanks, Heather!)

Empathy. No, Really. 2004

I've been busy. Really busy. At work. It's the biggest product beta test ever for my main product and I'm the first and pretty much only point of contact for the customers who are beta testing. I have to hold a whole lot of details in my head, respond to lots of email quickly, and keep at least token progress happening on my other duties. It's a workout and I come home wiped out mentally.

I've been playing some Civilization, reading, watching movies, surfing the web, but mostly taking long showers and going to bed early. I've been listening to the same songs over and over while I stare out the window on my commute, even when the train is going under the bay. Also I find my stress-relieving technique of spinning long, incredibly convoluted fantasies kicks into high gear and all I can say is thank goodness for cute actors. Remarkably soothing to contemplate them, really.

So, with all this going on, my capacity to create intelligent, insightful posts that will give you intellectual satisfaction and a sense of purpose is pretty much at a standstill. Good thing no one was counting on me for that, eh?

Uh, point? What was my point when I started this post? Oh, yeah, empathy.

One thing that happened during this period of frequent mental vacancy and arms sore from too much typing which I didn't post about at the time is that TypePad got a big update and I leapt into it like a little kid on Christmas morning, but, alas, no change to the method of inputting the date of a post. I totally understand, really, I do. The Six Apart folks work way harder than I do and have been keeping at it steadily for years. It's fine. I have plenty of recent posts to deal with and anything within the last 5 years isn't too painful to set using the current method. It does mean you won't be seeing any more of my early years showing up in the archive for a while though.

I've hardly even played with my new Treo much.

You know I'm wiped out when I have a brand new device which will allow me to blog from anywhere and I've hardly posted at all.

Reveling in unproductivity 2004

As I think must happen every year as a result of holidays and my work schedule getting a little loosy-goosy, I have switched back to being a night-owl. Last night I went to bed around 1am but didn't fall fully asleep until 3ish. Then I slept until 1pm! I guess I needed it. Tonight I had dinner at midnight.

Obviously I didn't get much done this morning - though I woke up very well-rested which certainly counts for something - and the rest of the day hasn't been startlingly fruitful either. I totally forgot that today was my opportunity to go pick up my new glasses which have been ready now for a week or more. I guess I'll go into work late some morning or get them next Saturday. While Chris was out for a motorcycle ride I did get some minor cleaning done around the house, but I can't say I've even got the place back to a neutral thoroughly clean state, let alone made any headway on the neglected to-do list.

This evening around watching more of the first season of Kids in the Hall and the old John Cusack film "Better Off Dead" I did finish entering all my bills in Quicken and balanced my bank statements, so I guess I can have a gold star on the calendar for that. Still, it's a bit sad to look at the piles of papers and think about projects I've hardly put any work in on during my extra days off in the past couple weeks. Oh well, sometimes doing nothing is just what one needs.

***

Heh. And now it's a quarter to 2 in the morning. I started writing this post a little before 1am and then just went over to IMDB to check the spelling of John Cusack's name... Another hour gone by and no progress on any projects. I can tell already that Monday morning is going to be very tough.

Catching Up, Sort Of 2003

I just deleted about 250 email messages from my inbox which I have read and don't need to keep or do anything with.

That brings me down to 977. *sigh*

Virtual yard sale 2003

[August 2009, in cleaning up old papers - woohoo, single digital lifestream project! - I found an email I had printed out which I sent at work.]

To: community
Subject: Virtual Yard Sale

My boyfriend and I had been talking about doing a yard sale or a trip to the flea market, but we live on a very steep hill without enough foot traffic to make a yard sale successful and it seems that you're supposed to show up at the flea market at 5am, so that's right out. We'd have to make a lot of money to make that worthwhile, so we'll try a less painful approach: the virtual yard sale.

If you're interested in any of the following items, just drop me a note and make an offer. Please note that "I'll come pick it up" is a perfectly valid offer. (FYI, our place is in the Castro district in San Francisco).

- queen-size futon with simple wood frame & two pieces which act as side tables when in couch mode [gone]

- pressboard 2-drawer unit, 16" cube (might actually have two of these) [didn't go, not sure if I ever got rid of these or if they're still in that apartment with my former boyfriend/housemate]

- classic fold-up card table, 30" square, been in use in my family for decades, needs a good home [gone]

- blue leather Palm pilot case (suitable for Palm I-III, possibly I-V) [gone]

- 60's look checkerboard pattern knit mini-dress with red stripe, needs light repair, size m, very Speed Racer in aesthetic, could also pass for 1930's geometric [gone]

- round stone table fountain with pump [gone]

- Jensen JMP-33 computer speakers [didn't go, probably ended up in Goodwill box]

- small, extremely solid safe [gone]

- Honeywell air purifier [didn't go, probably ended up in Goodwill box]

- wooden folding tv-tray-style table [didn't go, probably ended up in Goodwill box]

- metal "No Dumping Allowed" sign [gone]

- comics: Paul the Samurai #1-3, Paul the Samurai: Tick Spinoff #2-4 & 7, Enigma #1-4, Marvels Book 1 (Flash), Superman the Man of Steel Feb 94 #30 Colorforms issue with Lobo. [didn't go, not sure what happened with these. I don't think I still have them. Maybe gave 'em to my friend Len?]

- SF Examiner article from Sept 23 1979 about Dungeons & Dragons "Joys, dangers of game where one's imagination is the limit" [gone]

- music memorabilia bag (cassette Green Jello "Three Little Pigs" pre-cease & desist order, button "I'm too sexy" from Right Said Fred tour, Bruce Cockburn's Big Circumstance tour button, repro of Rolling Stone #1, "I love the Bay City Rollers" patch) [didn't go except for the of-course-plaid BCR patch, rest probably ended up in Goodwill box]

- movie & tv memorabilia bag (Cool World Holli Would button, Naked Lunch button, 3 Batman logo from first Burton film buttons, Spike & Mike Twisted Toons barf bag unused I should note, Misery bookmarks & 2 buttons, Cool World promo postcard, "The Tucker Times" printed promo page for the movie "Tucker" with Jeff Bridges, People magazine Sept 25 1989 issue about Saturday Night Live, Entertainment Weekly #3 issue on Hunt for Red October with a little coming soon ad from NBC with this blurb near the bottom "The Seinfeld Chronicles: A different look at the life and misadventures of the single man, from hip new stand-up comic Jerry Seinfeld.") [didn't go, probably ended up in Goodwill box]

- collectible trading cards bag (unopened Jyhad starter deck from original version, 4 unopened booster packs ditto, promo material for re-release of game as "Vampire: The Eternal Struggle", complete set of Jyhad cards mint in binder, 1995 Magic: The Gathering binder, Tomart's Photo Checklist & Price Guide to Collectible Card Games vol. 1 first printing 1995, The Duelist magazine #6 featuring art of Rob Alexander, The Duelist magazine #5 featuring art of Liz Danforth, The Duelist magazine #7 featuring art of Mark Tedin, The Duelist #4 featuring the art of Melissa Benson, 1995 Other Worlds: Michael Whelan II collector cards binder w/ promo sheet & 3 cards 14 21 & 41, 1995 David Cherry collectible cards set {complete, I think, but the cards are sleeved out of order & I feel lazy at the moment}, 1994 MTG poster illustrating many cards and 1994 Jyhad poster plus bonus gift of Chris Baccalo poster of Death from Sandman, box from 1995 MTG 2 deck starter kit in very good condition, Mark Poole deck box with juggling sorceress, assortment of 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation cards including Wesley Crusher, 1991 3M Olympic Innovator's Collection Olga Korbut card) [gone]

- politics & news memorabilia bag (Spy magazine Oct 1997 with Bill Clinton on cover as superhero - bagged in very good condition with Clinton/Gore 92 bumper sticker, front section of SF Chronicle May 25 1987 "The Great Party" 50th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge, "No on 65 Stop LaRouche" button, front section of San Jose Mercury News FEb 8 1990 "Communists give up monopoly" "Bush backs arms control, SDI" "Top official [Gassee] on way out at Apple", used "Fight the Right" phone card with picture of Newt Gingrich on it, Garbage magazine Premier Issue, lots of 1989 Quake related newspaper sections including SJ Merc Oct 23 "The Long Road Back", SJ Merc Oct 22 "We will never forget" 16 page memorial, SJ Merc Oct 23 front "Thank God, I'm alive" Buck Helm story, SJ Merc Oct 19 3 sections including front section with "Cold fusion heats up", SF Chron Oct 18 8 page issue "EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA HUNDREDS DEAD IN HUGE QUAKE", Contra Costa Times Oct 18 "Earthquake: Over 200 die; bridge, I-880 collapse", SJ Merc Oct 18 "MASSIVE QUAKE 76 die in seconds of horror", SF Examiner Oct 18 "EARTHQUAKE EXTRA 7.0 quake stuns Bay", SJ Merc Oct 21 front section, SJ Merc Nov 10 story about Bookshop Santa Cruz, and the best thing of all, Kevin Cowherd's column from the morning of Oct. 17th about the World Series game which reads "Actually, I have no idea who is going to win the Series, because these are two teams from California and God only knows if they'll even get all the games in. An earthquake could rip through the Bay Area before they sing the national anthem for Game 3.") [gone, though it seems to me to someone who didn't want the newspapers because I remember walking those down and just giving them to a guy at the counter at an antique/ephemera store on Castro Street because I couldn't bear to just toss them in the recycling]

"Oh" they say. 2003

Important things learned on a Tuesday evening:

- That whole "set aside enough clothes to get you through the two and a half weeks of your move" idea works really well.

- Afterwards you'll have a lot of laundry to do.

- You might think that going to the laundromat to do all the laundry would be cheaper than paying the ladies at Gay Cleaners (yes, that's the real name) to wash it for you, but given certain surrounding factors, you might be wrong.

- If the dryers are really wussy seeming and the High Heat is lukewarm and you're plunking quarters in like this was Vegas to get things dry, maybe you should clean the lint traps instead of waiting until your stuff is finally almost done and the maintenance lady comes in and cleans them and suddenly the dryers are two or three times as effective.

- If you're going to forget a load in the washer until the rest of the stuff is halfway dry, maybe it shouldn't be the load with your sheets and towels.

- If you're going to have to rush rush rush to get stuff back to your place in order to return the car share car in time because the drying took twice as long, you'll probably do something like tear one of your pillowcases on some sharp bit at the bottom of the back of the driver's seat.

- When you get back to the lot to return the car, there will probably be some creepy old guys parked in the handicapped and car share spaces apparently just standing around drinking (soda? beer?) by the bus stop behind Walgreens. They will move, but they'll be dorks about it and make you wait for them move both cars, not just the one in the car share space. Also there will probably be someone else sitting in their car in the other car share space who will be completely oblivious to their need to move.

- As much as you hate honking, when you're all stressed out, you will honk. This is why driving is bad. When you walk, you don't honk.

- To move the car forward into the parking space rather than backwards frightening the pedestrians in the driveway behind you, it is best not to have the car in reverse.

- A slice of pizza from Marcello's, a brisk walk up a hill and slipping into clean sheets cures most ills.

Moving 2003

I am stiff and sore and aware of muscles I forgot I had.

Moving sucks.

On the other hand, the new apartment is absolutely sublime.

Very Small Achievements 2003

Well, I'm still sick. I got through my day of work all right yesterday and was even able to enjoy seeing the movie 'Rivers and Tides' about Andy Goldsworthy (Great stuff!), but when I woke up aching and coughing this morning I realized I wasn't going to be able to shake this sinusitis without some more bed rest. Thus I'm back to Monday's routine: pot after pot of herbal tea and naps. Fortunately, I do feel better than I did Monday so I have some optimism that this is actually working.

So, what can I accomplish while I'm sitting here in my feety pyjamas drinking two pots of tea in a row - hydration, baby, it's all about hydration - and eating a little breakfast before settling down for a nap? Update copyright dates on all my web site page templates, that's what. Happy new year!

*whew* Changing a dozen twos to threes, that's a good day's work for this sick little monkey. I'm outta here.

Free time! 2002

I was going slow this morning, resting up and hoping I've finally shaken the fevery illness I've had for the past few days. I was finishing a book (Hollywood History of the World, a fascinating critique of historical accuracy in American film and a more comprehensive approach than that found in the also excellent Hollywood And History: Costume Design in Film) and was running up against the time when I really ought to put it down and have a bite to eat before my friend Fil comes over. Fortunately, I read fast and the book had lots of bibliographic information filling up the last pages, so I finished it and took a quick shower. When I got out, I checked my email and noticed that the computer thought it was 11:30am.

Odd.

Then I realized it is that early; the clocks changed last night and I have an extra hour. Hooray! This sort of thing doesn't happen much more than once a year, so you've got to treasure it. :)

la la la 2002

Everything's fine. Really. I just haven't been inspired to write much for the past little while. Lots of offline real-time socializing, some hard work moving stuff from one storage unit to another, mellow time with Chris, Philip Glass & troupe performing the Koyanisquatsi soundtrack live to the movie last night at the symphony. That sort of thing. Oh and listening to books on tape and playing the Game Neverending. And sleeping and reading and cooking. Speaking of which, I'm a mite hungry. How about you? What is your body telling you? Mine says "Stretch, drink some water and eat something."

O sleep, why do I neglect you? 2002

I should have done as I told a friend I was going to do. I should have gone to bed early and gotten 9 hours of sleep. Instead I took a nice hot bath, read a magazine, did the dishes, wrote some email and then listened to a book on tape for a while.

I felt very relaxed, but my body is now informing me that that ain't the same as sleep. My mind is foggy, my head achy and my eyelids drooping. My job doesn't have a whole lot of mindless tasks - or at least I don't know enough yet for anything to be mindless. I guess it's a mercy that I'll be in an eagerly awaited training from 10-noon.

*yawn* *blink blink* *stare*

Temporary Cat? 2002

I need a home for Oban, the little black cat, for approximately 2 and a half months. She is a housebroken, friendly 6 year old who does not like other animals. I am pretty sure I have a new home for her - the prospective cat owners still need to meet her - but they can't take her until they are in their new place in a couple months.

I would just take her myself but
-it's against my lease
-I'm allergic to the dear beast
-my apartment is only 300 square feet

If you are in the greater San Francisco area and would like to provide a foster home for a couple months for a nice little indoor-only cat, please email me at this domain.

Hm? What? Must have dozed off... 2002

Hi. I was away visiting my parents. Usual sort of visit, lots of sleeping, reading, eating and walking. Very relaxing. Um, not much news to report. actually, why not pop over and wish Edmond happy birthday and good fortune in the remainder of his journey to the Canadian border?

Home. Safe. Tired. 2002

Too much driving. No messages or email regarding jobs.

Cures:
- sweet supportive email from my pal Edmond
- Annie's Macaroni & Cheese
- glass of sherry (muscle relaxant)
- computer games

I'm Driving In My Car... 2002

Well, technically speaking, I'm driving in my company's car, or rather, I'm probably driving as you read this. I'm picking up Grandma Susie in Shafter (near Bakersfield) and taking her to visit GranMary in Merced. Then we're meeting up with my Mum in the East Bay for a handoff. Grandma Susie and Mum will head up to Edgewood (their home in Mendecino County) and I'll come back home to San Francisco and lay on my face enjoying not driving.

I've got a pretty good stack of music lined up - variety for my solo part of the trip and classical for Grandma - so I'm actually looking forward to it in a way, but it's a lot of driving. The good part is that the second half is when I'll have company - by then I'm usually bored with the whole "sitting in a comfy seat enjoying my stereo system" thing.

On the whole though, and I can safely say this even before the trip, long-distance truck driver is not one of the career choices I'm considering. I'm thinking something more like flannel sheet tester.

"Hmmrm? Oh, I'm almost done with my evaluation; few more hours...*snuggle* *snooze*"

A pretty day 2002

Beautiful weather today - it'll be nice tonight for the KFOG fireworks show. Not sure yet if I'll go down to the pier or watch it from elsewhere, but it's not a show I want to miss.

My meeting with my boss went fine. He seems resigned to my not wanting to do the same job any longer. He offered me something else which may or may not pan out; I'm considering it. It has some exit points and would pay the bills, so it seems doable in the short term at least.

Stopped at REI and picked up a few items for Edmond, then came on home, again found a parking space on my block and bumped into the man from the post office with 2 packages for me. These are #2 & #3 of the boxes Edmond has sent back with things he doesn't need, but the big excitement is that they also have the flash card with the first pictures from the trail. I'm booting up Edmond's computer now (ugh. Windows. How gauche.) and will make a post to his site when I have them ready for viewing.