juxtaposition 2004

Spotted on my way home last night after the Other Magazine 4th issue release party and reading at Modern Times bookstore:

One of those FUNERAL signs in the window of a car with personalized plates reading ONLY JOY.

Oh, that old excuse 2004

According to the CDC there are 1,000 to 2,000 cases of bubonic plague worldwide each year. Can you imagine having to tell your boss that you're out sick because you have bubonic plague?

I can't be the first one to have thought of this... 2003

I believe henceforth mobile phones should be referred to as mofos.

Uh-oh. 2003

Is it just me or are you a bit unnerved by this Rite Aid Pharmacy slogan?

With us, it's personal.

And I'm supposed to buy medication from these guys?

Holidays 1998

This was a good holiday season. I went to my Mum & step-dad's place, Edgewood, for a Mendocino Christmas Eve/Christmas and then slipped across to Sonoma where my dad & step-mom had rented a big house for a second round of holiday time.

Edgewood was wonderful as it always is. Great company, great food. Mostly just sitting around having conversations, watching the plethora of birds out the windows and reading. A bookish, birdish household and very healing.

The other gathering was more rambunctious and lots of fun. The house was a little odd though. Here's the letter I wrote to Peter:

"12-26-98

Here I am in a rental house, more a mansion really, laden with a mix of cool and aggressively ugly items. My room, regrettably, tends towards the ugly.

On my right an object to which you might think I would be endeared, a black container with a round red lid containing, according to the label, 'Joy - perfumed body creme'. It has something of it of cheap Japanese styling and also a strong aura of 'The Big Red Shiny Candy-like Button' which must not be touched. If it were the only decorative object in the room, it might be tolerable.

Alas, it is not and thus clashes horribly. There is a gold non-descript lamp also on the nightstand. And a box of Kleenex with a box pattern depicting a quilt. And there is a small assortment of perfume bottles on a little plate painted in a naive, early 70's style as a fish. The pink quilt, the red top of the "body creme" container and the orange-blue-green-yellow-&-red fish all clash violently.

Beside the nightstand is a dark wicker hamper. There is an oriental rug on the floor below the brass bed with its flowered sheets and plethora of pillows. The oriental rug is predominantly pink and the main carpet is grey. To contrast with the nightstands (of which there are four in the room) which are styled like old oak iceboxes, there is a modern (well, modern in 1980) white dresser with a slight oriental air about it.

Atop this dresser are four bizarre objects. The first is a pottery jar with a greenish-blue glaze with a plain clay gecko (or some sort of lizard) crawling on the side. This lizard is the size of a rat. The other three items are carved wooden animals over a foot in length. They are painted very bright colors, well two of them are. There is a huge one and a half foot tall coyote-like thing with a blue body, a white face and enormous pink and teal ears. Its expression was so disturbing I turned it to face away from me, so it wouldn't be the first thing I saw in the morning, at which point its tail fell off. There is something I am hard-pressed to identify. I think it is an elephant, but the carver was clearly on some sort of hallucinogens because its overall shape is more piglike except for its long brush of a tail, pink spots on its blue body, enormous diamond-shaped pink & teal ears and huge drooping tusks that give it the appearance of having been caught midway through consumption of two albino anacondas. The fourth item is actually quite naturally colored and shaped and is a rather appealling zebra. Except for the small problem that the only piece of it present is its head. Most disconcerting.

Above this ensemble is a large 2' x 4' print labeled 'Contemporary Art - The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston' which shows a still life of a pretty party table of excessively bright colored objects. Pink & yellow are the dominant colors. Above that, crossing the plain white wall, is a solid natural dark wooden beam about a foot high. And then then white vault of the ceiling and an off-center ceiling fan with rattan decor in the blades.

Bad enough so far, wouldn't you say? Ah but we're only a third of the way around the room! Next to one of the ubiquitous nightstands is a completely unnecessary delicate little Victorian table, round, short, barely large enough for a doily and a saucer of tea.

There is a tiny little stereo sitting on a sort of bench-cum-bookcase across from the foot of the bed. The bench seems to have a somewhat churchy air about it (vaguely medieval, vaguely Roman) and is full of gardening books. Apart from the stereo the top is bare except for a dry branch mounted in a stand (the branch is not unlike the one the Grinch tied to Max's head midway through the sawing-off-bits process) and a large purple glass apple. Above this is a mirror in a cheap wood frame with stained glass around the edges - white and a green which miraculously fails to find an echo anywhere else in the room.

There is a television atop the third nightstand-icebox thing. And a bentwood magazine rack. And a bamboo chest of quasi-Mongolian style. This chest is flanked by two enormous, um, well, uh, urns, I suppose. Big pottery objects.They are covered with Southwestern motifs and do not match except in that they are both bigass semi-spheres which would probably cause about 18 Zuni apiece to spin in their graves. There is a bright red telescope sitting on the chest which I almost forgot to mention.

Almost back around to the bed again, we encounter a fake ficus-ish tree in a brown wicker basket. Above it is a picture depicting, in a naive folk art style, a French cityscape of about 1900. Beside the bed's left-hand nightstand is a brass lampstand rising from the floor to curlicued top and supporting, via a broken crosspiece, a lacey glass shade with a pink border. Partway up this otherwise Victorian object is a ball of marble with a natural earthy appearance. Inexplicable.

On the nightstand are two pale-green pottery pieces sporting pale green crawling lizards. And a little lidded dish in the shape of a rabbit. The bedspread is applicued in a design indicative of bunches of grapes & leaves, but the presence on the bed when I entered of three stuffed bunnies (one brown and teddybear-like, the other two wearing flowered jumpsuits and pink bows) lends a somewhat different interpretation to a field of small round lumps.

All in all, I would be hard-pressed to render this room any less harmonious or soothing to the eye. I trust it shall improve considerably when I turn out the light.

12-27-98

Here was my day: wake at 9am, shower, run out of hot water, rinse off shampoo with lukewarm water and towel off vigorously to recover from chill. Eat a banana and a couple pieces of cranberry bread and a half a cup of coffee. Get in the car and be driven to a gourmet food store. Sample mustards, olive oils and other dips. Pour back into car, nibbling bittersweet chocolate and proceed to the Culinary Institute of America for lunch. Appetizers: excellent bread and olive oil, stuffed calimari, grilled shrimp, dolmas, mini-pizza with carmelized onions and goat cheese, mini-falafel in pita, filled potato tortilla thing, olives, almonds. With this meal I enjoyed a Sidecar (classic cocktail) and a half glass of Dehlinger Pinot Noir, both very good. After the appetizer came a phenomenal wild mushroom soup with onions and cheese-sprinkled croutons - like an astounding french onion soup, toned down and infused with mushroomy goodness. Then my steak arrived with garlic mashed potatoes and dripping with delicious pan juices. Dessert really wasn't an option.

After dinner we went down to the CIA store and I spent my Xmas mad-money (courtesy of my stepmom, Lindy) on some nice kitchen things including a cheese knife and an ice-cracking bag & mallet for making cocktails. We returned to the house, stopping at the gourmet market to pick up the goodies we'd picked for dinner. Most of the party went to Ravenswood winery, so the house was quiet and I chose that time for a lovely solitary soak in the hot tub. First it was birdwatching, then sunset watching, then as the first stars came out I extracted my pink self from the steaming water and went inside for a refreshing shower - with enough hot water this time.

While I had been soaking and daydreaming, the others had returned and by the time I was dressed, preparations for dinner were underway. We had a small buffet of exotic cheeses, excellent bread, tapinade, pate, olives, intriguing mustards, fuji apples and a nice bottle of Merlot from Ravenswood. After we'd been nibbling on all this and socializing in the living room, my stepbrother Michael and his sweetie Deanna came downstairs with a sublime feast: scallops in curry cream sauce. To die for! I don't remember much of the rest of the evening except wandering around in a food-enduced bliss."

Breasts 1998

"Do you like boobs a lot?" Apart from being a catchy song, it's an important question to ask yourself. I think most people like breasts. And many people like breasts a whole hell of a lot. Trouble is, breasts, especially those in the San Francisco Bay Area, are likely to get cancer. So if you have breasts, you should learn how to examine them and find out dietary and other changes you can make to help reduce your risk of cancer. And if you like other people's breasts and they let you touch 'em, then you should learn how to examine them too. I mean, it's not as much fun as just touching them for the hell of it, but wouldn't you like them to stick around? It's easy:

At the same time each month, check for any changes in the normal look or feel of your breasts. Look for a lump, hard knot, or skin that thickens or dimples. Report any changes to your doctor or nurse. Go for regular breast exams and Pap tests. Ask about a mammogram. Check your breasts using these steps:
	Lying down: Place a pillow under your right shoulder. Put your right hand under your head. Check your entire breast area with the finger pads of your left hand. Use small circles and follow an up-and-down pattern. Use light, medium, and firm pressure over each area of your breast. Gently squeeze the nipple for any discharge. Repeat these steps on your left breast.
	Before a mirror: Check for any changes in the shape or look of your breasts. Note any skin or nipple changes such as dimpling or nipple discharge. Inspect your breasts in four steps: arms at side, arms overhead, hands on hips pressing firmly to flex chest muscles, and bending forward.
	In the shower: Raise your right arm. With soapy hands and fingers flat, check your right breast. Use the same small circles and up-and-down pattern described in "Lying Down." Repeat on your left breast.
Illustrations & text courtesy of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation

You can find more info via your friendly neighborhood search engine. [This post was originally under a section called "random synaptic firings" which was linked from the page about Dinah. The rsf section held longer, generally more emotional writings and was the precursor to my blog].

Passion 1998

After midnight and I'm sipping some single-malt (12-year Glenmorgangie port wood finish), listening to Thomas Dolby's "Budapest By Blimp" and reading something Peter wrote called "I want my passion back".

I've got passion and ideas and opportunities. I've got a burning desire. I'm ready to make bold leaps, try new things, create futures, but I'm chained to paying off student loans, personal loans, credit cards I ran up in the course of my business not being able to pay me, of getting out of a living situation that had become intolerable, of living higher on the hog than was prudent, and later of moving on from a relationship that no longer worked to create a space all my own for the first time.

I bought my present time with my future.

And was it worth it?

Yes.

But I still want more.
So, I back up a track and find "The Ability to Swing".

bookstore 1998

I finally got home from work after driving all over looking for a copy of Beginning Active Server Pages 2.0. <yawn>

Fourth time lucky.
Kepler's in Menlo Park had it. A lovely store, I'm always happy to give them my business and even more so this time because I ran into Laurie with whom I used to work at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books in Cupertino. A fine human being. So it was all very pleasant for 2+ hours spent driving from store to store looking for something and I am very cheerful.

And I swear I didn't buy those cards just so I could go back and talk to that gorgeous creature behind the counter some more. I mean, I had other reasons. I even know who the cards are for. Honest.

Mmm, bookstore boys.

[This post was originally under a section called "random synaptic firings" which was linked from the page about Dinah. The rsf section held longer, more emotional writings and was the precursor to my blog].

contact 1998

Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accomodate the universe. I mean the real universe. All those light-years. All those worlds. I think of the scope of your universe, the opportunities it affords the Creator, and it takes my breath away. It's much better than bottling Him up in one small world. I never liked the idea of Earth as God's green footstool...like a tranquilizer. But your universe has room enough, and time enough, for the kind of God I believe in

- Carl Sagan, Contact

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

-Arthur C. Clarke

[This post was originally under a section called "random synaptic firings" which was linked from the page about Dinah. The rsf section held longer, more emotional writings and was the precursor to my blog].

Posted on October 5, 1998 at 09:45 PM in random synaptic firing | Permalink | Comments (0)

connectivity 1998

God, I love the Web.

I love creating for it and I love exploring other people's creations. And that's what I feel like doing right now, but I'm supposed to be working on my project. Not that I don't love my project; the more I work on it, the more I enjoy it.

Tugging at the corners of my mind right now:
Peter Merholz's site and all his wonderful links.
Peter's latest piece on user-centered information design.
Karawynn's journal.
Exploring more of Justin's vast site.
Exploring the rest of the
art site I found while looking for Saelon to recommend her to Peter. (And the other one I just found getting that URL again).
Checking to see if Taylor's up to anything new since signal2noise.
Exploring more of the sites belonging to people in my second degree (that's the people connected to the people I'm connected to on sixdegrees.com -- I keep finding the best sites that way!).

But I need to work on the project, so that's what I'll do.

Completion of my degree shimmers like a beautiful mirage on my horizon.
Soon.
I hope.

Did you have time to give me feedback on my project yet? I'd really appreciate it...

[This post was originally under a section called "random synaptic firings" which was linked from the page about Dinah. The rsf section held longer, more emotional writings and was the precursor to my blog].

Posted on October 3, 1998 at 07:29 PM in random synaptic firing | Permalink | Comments (0)

Met 1998

I say I've never met Karawynn, Jamie, Carl and Justin. What the fuck does that mean?

I sit next to someone on the bus, I shake hands with a co-worker's client who I'll never see again, I chat with the bank teller and somehow these are people I've met?

Karawynn tells me about her darkest most depressing moments and sings the little song about her vibrator, Jamie lets me see out his window through his eyes and carefully shows me how to make something special that he made just to please himself, Carl makes me laugh and sigh and whispers sexy somethings in my ear, Justin shows off his pretty garters and gives me his thoughts on everything, especially the stuff that's usually kept private, and somehow these are people I've never met?

My body doesn't encompass me.
I don't have to breathe the same air to be in the same place as you.

Have we met?

Posted on September 29, 1998 at 11:45 PM in random synaptic firing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'm hoping these are unrelated thoughts 1984

I want someone near me, someone to learn and grow towards.

I wish I knew what happened to that check.

Posted on June 29, 1984 at 10:37 PM in random synaptic firing | Permalink | Comments (0)

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