inspired by Joie: part 1, angels
I do believe in angels. Growing up, I always felt a presence around me, following me, protecting me. Uncanny things happened to me that I couldn't explain, strange guidance, and I would often feel something like an energy on my shoulder, like someone putting a reassuring hand there. I won't even get into the how many times I've fallen asleep while driving, that's another story.

I related this to Hiromi back in college and she felt the same thing, but for her, the spirit or presence was one of her ancestors. That works for me. My model for angels is depicted in the Wim Wenders movie "Wings of Desire", that they are wanderers exerting their divine influence at random. And some do that. Others attach themselves to one person and follow them (mine). Others may attach themselves to significant people, ie, descendants, relatives. Others attach themselves to a concept, the angel equivalent of patron saints. There is not one model.

To be honest, I haven't felt this for quite some time. More times than I can count, there were occasions when I would see a random child who would touch me so much just from their being, that I would think to the presence that I always felt following me, "If you really exist, leave me and go with this child and protect and guide it as you have me. You've given me enough, I don't need any more, so go!" I haven’t done that in quite a long time. I haven't felt anything, any guidance, in quite a long time. Lately I've been wondering if I should try to recall that presence.

Armeen Mix: 

1. Birdhouse in Your Soul (They Might Be Giants) 

2. This is the Day (The The) 

3. Galileo (Indigo Girls) 

4. Never Again (Slumber Party) 

5. For What Reason (Death Cab for Cutie) 

6. So Long (Rilo Kiley) 

7. Blade of Grass (Versus) 

8. The Field (Throwing Muses) 

9. bbtone (Pinback) 

10. Long Division (Aisler's Set) 

11. Trash (Suede) 

12. Disposable Parts (Enon) 

13. Shrinkwrapped (Sleeper) 

14. Skylines (764-HERO) 

15. Watching the Wheels (John Lennon) 

16. Nobody Like You (Echobelly) 

17. Magic Fingers (Bela Fleck & the Flecktones) 

18. Flowers (Cibo Matto) 

19. Heartbreak Even (Ani DiFranco) 

20. Friendship Station (Le Tigre) 

21. Times Like This (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians) 

I'm diversifying my mixes, not relegating them just to recent listens.

   

Forever wishing someone near the goal 

Forever pushing, Sisyphus'd know 

Forever wasting promise as it goes 

For cynics shows a summer in the hole 

"bbtone" - Pinback 

 The field has melted snow in Summer 

Black with lousy rain 

One more star above the clouds 

Is not such a bad thing 

"The Field" - Throwing Muses 

 Everyone knows I've always craved 

And tried to feed the hunger of an empty grave 

You've shown me secrets I've not forgotten 

I'll give you all the love that I take 

Oh, that I'll take

"Nobody Like You" - Echobelly 

 I can still hear you 

Laugh at something I 

Say without a word 

Such a dirty world

"Skylines" - 764-HERO

Then we watch the spooks on the news 

Playing chess with the cynics 

Hope you die in the arms of your shrinks in your clinics 

Now it's gone 

5 A.M., we smile and plan our revenge 

By the end of the night has found its true friends 

Up all hours sketching a thousand great schemes 

Maybe I'm too tired to colour them in

"Shrinkwrapped" - Sleeper

Right now, now is not the time or the place 

To count each blade of grass for you, alright 

I'll never lose control, not there 

But everything else is gone

"Blade of Grass" - Versus

Bowling for Columbine:

Two thumbs up for this documentary exploring why Americans kill each other with guns more than any other country.

What I found ironic is that the audience never failed to laugh at what I considered inappropriate moments. I don't think it was coincidence that those moments, regardless of content, were the ones that made someone look crazy, or dumb . . . in short, the ones that made them feel superior.

It's one of the bases of American humor. Ha ha, we're down with Mike Moore, look at the stupid cop, look at the goofy militia people, look at the straight-laced corporate PR rep feeding lines, ha ha, look at the slick news sharks that don't give two craps about what they're reporting about, look at the loser delinquent Canadians cutting class (who ultimately get in the last incisive jab about Americans), ha ha.

Shit isn't funny, San Francisco. That insensitivity must be somewhere in the equation.

Anyway, I highly recommend the film. And I'm moving to Canada.

I remember there's a point in running races, maybe three quarters through that everything seems to get quiet. No hubbub or hullabaloo you get at the starting line and finish line. No jostling and maneuvering to get past the slower people or the faster people jostling and maneuvering around you. No more talking as people find themselves in "the zone". The zone cracks me up for some reason, but I think it's real. Also the talkers generally fall to the back, I gather.

You're just cruising along, people in front of you, people around you, people behind you. And the steady sound of footfalls is all you hear. You're on a journey and in the natural course of the race, you find yourself surrounded by people who run at your general pace. There's no talking or communication, but there's a feeling of connection with these random strangers, right here, in this calm and peace, on parallel courses.

Blogging is feeling like that. May be time to put comments back up. Maybe I'll do month on, month off. Wax on, wax off.

Anita's Revenge: Music Blind Date

So . . . I talked to this guy last week about jamming. He had my number, claimed to have met me before through Anita, fine. He talked on the phone about having percussion, timbales, congas, Brazilian rhythms, so my first thought was to think this was a chops heavy gig, I'd need to be diverse with rhythms and time signatures, groove, and be able to follow through changes. Riiiiiight.

On the other hand, if this was through Anita, he must have known I'm a rock bassist, not jazz or brazilian or latin. I decided to go jam and keep my expectations low. How low can you go?

Can you say "Spinal Tap Cliche Hell"? Oh my God-d!! Come to think of it, he kinda looked like the keyboardist of Spinal Tap. Really, think of the most painfully embarassing scene from Spinal Tap and imagine it real. There ya go.

And get this, he wasn't kidding about the percussion. That would be like Ozzy asking Ladysmith Black Mambazo to join him on stage. Suppressing the horrified look on my face was all I could do to keep from busting out laughing. Painful, painful, painful.

If he asked me out on a second date, I would have to say no.

bike geek shit:

Climbing Mt. Diablo kicked my ass, but it was a perfect day for a ride in the East Bay. Two people on the summit asked me if I rode all the way up and how long did it take? An hour and 45 minutes from Walnut Creek BART. One lady took my video, "here's a guy who rode up all the way". My hands were shaking as I was downing Gatorade.

On the summit looking around at the surrounding landscape was like being on top of the world. But it was like that on Mt. Tamalpais, only 1000' lower. The climb was over 3000', summitting at 3549'. I passed 8 or 9 people on the way up. I wouldn't pass as many people climbing Mt. Tam. Marin County has more serious riders.

From Walnut Creek BART going up the north side, it was 16 miles and took an hour and 45 minutes. From the summit going down the south side and swinging back around on flat roads up to Walnut Creek BART, it was 22 miles and took 47 minutes. It was as perfect a ride as I've gone on this season. The only downer was getting back to San Francisco and finding it frigid.

So yes, with Daylight Savings ending, I think today was the end of my riding season. I've improved my downhills quite a lot this, my first, season. I was pretty timid about downhills when I started these long rides. I still ride my brakes more than I should, but I've gotten better about being more horizontal on sharper turns. It's still scary for me to be leaning way over into turns to maintain speed, but I think it's something that experience takes care of.

Self-Evident:
Prior to the ride, I stopped by the anti-war rally at Justin Herman Plaza, and someone handed me some minor newspaper. I was reading it on the BART and it contained the entirety of a poem by Ani DiFranco called Self-Evident. I wanted to keep it, but then decided to leave it on the BART, hoping that someone else would pick it up and read it.

After last month's overwhelming Critical Mass, tonight's was awesome!!

It was the Halloween Critical Mass and a lot of people were in costumes, so that added to the fun. It was a good turn out but not overwhelming. None of the hostility of last month. There was a heavy police presence, but they were hands off. We just had a good time, it was one of the longest Masses I'd been in, I left after 15 miles.

There's this one guy who attaches a trailer to his bike with a PA on it and blares out music. When he started blasting '80's tunes on Polk St. it became a party, people getting off their bikes and dancing at re-grouping intersections. This continued into the Mission, into the Castro, and then back into the Mission, where the Mass stopped symbolically at 18th and Dolores where the big mess ended last month. "Funky Town" is the greatest song to blast out of a PA in public.

Weekend upon us. End of Daylight Savings Time weekend upon us. End of DST used to signal the end of my running season since I used to get asthma when I ran in the cold. Out here the rainy season is just kinda miserable.

But out of that habit, I have made it the end of my riding season, too, so tomorrow I'm gonna do the daunted Mt. Diablo in the East Bay. I read about the climb on someone's website and it doesn't quite sound like fun. Tomorrow evening maybe I'll go somewhere to watch the last sunset before it starts setting an hour earlier.

Sunday I'm supposed to jam with someone who called me earlier this week who said we had met before. I didn't remember him, but he mentioned meeting me through Anita maybe five years ago at her apartment or 111 Minna. I'm not psyched to do it, but I feel I should see where I'm at with bass playing.

There was a great documentary on PBS last night called "Presumed Guilty" about the San Francisco Public Defenders office. I think it was primarily made to give insight into the work of public defenders. They aren't just making sure drug addicts, criminals and social low-lifes don't go to jail. They are the most humanitarian cross-section of the court system. The documentary puts human faces, lives, and events on people that society is readily willing to throw away.

I used to think that there must be some moral wrangling within the PD's office regarding guilt or innocence. How do you morally (or effectively) defend someone when there's overwhelming evidence of guilt?

I still think that's valid, and it's an individual public defender's choice on how to pursue cases on those grounds. But much more importantly, the PD's office makes sure everyone not only gets their day in court and a fair trial, but that these human beings are treated humanely. Because no one else in the court/legal system is going to.

A nice subtext of the documentary addressed the corruption and cronyism of San Francisco political machines. The SF Public Defenders office is what it is today through the efforts of attorneys Jeff Brown and Jeff Adachi, the number one and two people in the office.

Last year, Jeff Brown resigned allowing his position to be appointed by the mayor of San Francisco. Jeff Adachi, a man of integrity who had earned the respect and reverence of the entire PD's office, was the logical choice to succeed as head of the office.

But! There was someone else who had aspirations for the job. Kimiko Burton, an inexperienced attorney who happened to be the daughter of John Burton, a strongarm of the Democratic Party Machine. John Burton is also close friends with corrupt fat-cat mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, the epitome of political smugness and arrogance.

Willie Brown, without any consideration, not a thought of Jeff Adachi's 15 years of successful service, (smugly) appoints Kimiko Burton to head of the PD's office. And her first move was a suicidal move – she fired Jeff Adachi, making it clear that it was all politics, and she was part of the political machinery.

When her term as appointee ended, to keep her position, she would have to win in an election. Jeff Adachi ran against her. Kimiko Burton had big money behind her. Her campaign for Public Defender received probably the only endorsement ever from the Police Department. Police don't like public defenders because they undermine their work.

Jeff Adachi's campaign was grassroots without a lot of money. He soundly defeated Burton. It was a feel-good moment in SF politics.

If I had seen this documentary when I was in law school, I would have leaned towards going into public defense. And if I were to grow up and take life seriously, I would look seriously at trying to become a public defender. But I'm not an attorney, I really can't even be considered a lawyer, and realistically I don't even have the background for it. And I'm not about to grow up and take life seriously.

current soundtrack: Deadweight - "Stroking the Moon"

Well, I got kicked in the butt at work. I screwed something up, nothing major, but some damage control was needed. If boss-lady was mad, she didn't show it. She was mellow about it, but it was a screw up and it was mine. 

I don't like screwing up, even if it's something I really don't give a rats ass about. I don't like that feeling that I've let go so far that a screw up can occur. It makes me feel slovenly and dull. My response was to sharpen up and I got my shit together and banged out more work than I have in a long, long time. It's a personal responsibility thing. I can't explain it. 

I still go through a daily ritual of asking why I don't give notice, what's paralyzing me? My diagnosed adjustment disorder? Reason and logic itself should overcome that. But I guess that's why it's called a disorder. 

If boss-lady came down on me for screwing up, I would definitely have given notice on Nov. 1. It's too undignified for me to stay where I'm not wanted. What she probably doesn't know is that if the screw up was bad enough, I would have given notice regardless.

   

Lay me place and bake me pie 

I'm starving for me gravy 

Leave my shoes and door unlocked 

I might just slip away 

Just for the day 

- David Bowie "The Bewlay Brothers"

I went to Sai's for pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) for the first time since chocoliz went San Francisco bye ta-ta. Sai's is my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in downtown San Francisco. I think it's the only Vietnamese restaurant in downtown San Francisco.

ancient conversation revisit:
Joycee: I'm in the mood for pho.
me: How 'bout Sai's?
Joycee: Medium!! (with appropriate hand gesture to indicate a medium size bowl)

Getting Here from There #4: Parents

I consider myself pretty well-adjusted. Yet, whenever I tell people about my upbringing, it sounds like it was pretty fucked up and that my parents were negligent, absent, bordering on abusive.

In elementary school, it’s not normal to be setting fires in the woods behind your school on your way to school. It’s not normal for school administration to wonder why you’re coming to school in short sleeve shirts in December or why the tongue of your sneaker is sticking out of a hole in it.

Both were my choice, it’s not that my parents weren’t providing, they just didn’t see what I was wearing when I walked out the door in the morning.

And in high school, it’s not normal to adjust sleeping hours from 6 at night to midnight to avoid simultaneous consciousness with your parents. We don't want to discuss anything else about high school.

I no longer speak of my parents with the invective that my acquaintances from 1996 and prior may have observed. I speak of them with understanding, pity even. But when I talk of how my father used to punish us, whipping us with plastic Hot Wheels tracks, shaved down for greater velocity and pain, I tend to get raised eyebrows in response.

The thing is that my father never went too far. He never lost control over his anger. It never crossed over into what I would consider “violence”. When he punished us physically, it is clear to me now that it was a matter of discipline, and not a matter of emotional lashing out at what personally displeased him.

There was one time with my oldest brother that he may have gone over the top, but he caught him having stolen money, and that was a pretty big deal. The strange irony was that he used the money to buy a really nice calculator, something my parents would have considered educational and glad to have bought for him.

I also stole money from my parents plenty later on, but it was only in small amounts to buy records. And a thought that occurs to me now is that as they caught him, I'm wondering if they knew about my pilfering all along. I think they did.

I can’t speak for my brothers, but I think it’s safe to say that we do not “love” our parents. We . . . whatever, but the word isn’t “love”. We've all wondered whether we'd go out of our way to attend their funerals. They wonder why they don’t have grandchildren, but it never crosses their mind that we don’t exactly have positive models regarding “family”.

Before my unilateral reconciliation with my parents, I moved 2919.56 miles away from them. It was a good decision, it was a survival instinct that I curse but have. There was a Taiwanese movie that came out last year called Yi yi. I loved it, it would be near the top of my list of desert island movies.

The movie gave such a sense of inter-generational continuity. Life is hard, life is full of scenes, glimpses, moments, that are hard and profound and intense, and through it all you have your past and your future through the generations of your family, some of it virtually unsaid (the grandmother, the past), some of it incisive and articulate (the boy, the future).

And that's what I gave up by running away. Maybe that's what my parents gave up by having the wrong priorities (you might torment your children, they might think you're shitty parents, they might resent you and carry issues, but at least be there – mean something to them).

So who knows if my parents will ever enjoy grandchildren. I reserve judgment on whether I think they deserve them or not. They won't from me. Although if I theoretically did, I would certainly let my parents have as much time as they wanted with them.

My mother's two brothers now have grandchildren. My cousin Audrey had her first daughter last month. My cousin Mimi's brother had his second child within the same week. I'm very proud of them both. But I wonder about the pain my mother feels. I sympathize. I empathize. But I'm in no position to do anything about it.

Oh, and my parents did not like "Yi yi".

I believe the position of the Native Americans. Modern, Western, technological society is inherently suicidal and cannot subsist in perpetuity. Native societies have existed for thousands of years in harmony with nature. Modern technological society has been around a little more than a century, and it seems to think this is status quo, this is the way it will always be.

I can't imagine how this will all collapse and disintegrate, but I believe it will. We've been destroying the Earth and removing ourselves and our reliance on nature for a little over a century and the process is only accelerating. We can take comfort in that it will continue for a while, but a few centuries is an infinitesimally small slice of Earth history.

I think technology can be used with nature, but if technology is being used against nature or in arrogant defiance of nature, which is how we're utilizing it, I don't think it has a chance in the long run. Whether indigenous/aboriginal ways and wisdom will reign again, who knows? I know I'm romanticizing them, but not really.

Week off - day five:

I am a lump of coal in this world. I am a barren lifeless asteroid hurdling around the sun. Where there is light on a movie screen, I am the shadows. On the surface of this world, I am what may be described as a "low-impact" soul. And this is why I have been able to continue existing. Because if I were living true to my life, which fully and richly recognizes and appreciates death as part of the life-cycle, I wouldn't be here.

That's horrible.

Now I feel bad for myself.

Week off - day four:

It is on today, the fourth day off, that I can say that I've attained some sort of baseline level of recovery from the wretchedness that is work. One week, however, is not enough to give me the clarity to walk in on Monday and give notice. I'd like to say I'm eyeing particular dates, but I'm always eyeing dates and nothing ever gets done.

I also came close to the surface of considering my priorities.

If I grabbed my priorities and owned them, I would give notice right away. This isn't what I want to be doing. It's a safety net and it's not even the kind of safety net that I want. Safety net! I don't even want to be here and I'm talking about safety nets!

What even are my priorities when I don't even want to be here? First of all, get rid of the safety net. Second, get rid of all the stuff. Third, jump off that bridge when I get to it. Not literally, but that might be the most important one. Maybe literally. Something has to happen. Something has to change.

Today's gray and cold gloom had me wondering how to get through another rainy season intact, but then I realized, "I wonder that every year". Get over it.

Coming home from Beale Street, I think I found a fairly reliable test of my sobriety. Put me on a bike and tell me to ride with no hands. I can do it, but the amount of wobble will indicate how drunk I am. If I fall over, you probably don't want me driving you home.

I wish I could get paid for waking up in the morning and lying in bed for another two hours in the warmth of my incredibly comfy sheets.

Week Off - day two:

Yay! I bought new sneakers. My knees are complaining, but I think they'll hold up. It's been a while. I wonder how drinking and running will square these days, my old age.

I don't mind inquiries regarding drinking. I've always accepted challenges and inquiries because I feel I know what I'm doing and I'm comfortable with it. I welcome all challenges and inquiries, I don't expect anyone to pussyfoot around the issue. Bring it on. The moment I avoid the issue or deny it, that's when I recognize it as a problem and need to deal with it.

In a nutshell, alcohol is not my problem. It's just a symptom. Fine, maybe it's a threat to my liver or my health, but I'm sort of counting on that. Not a problem. And, if anything, that is where my "problem" may lie. I appreciate being kept on my toes. I intend to keep on them.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: Wait a minute, whoa, what are you doing?
Maurice: Disrobing, son.
Joel: What? Why?
Holling: You see, Joel, in this particular race, the men of Cicely run in the buff.
Joel: No!
Chris: Cicelian tradition, Joel.
Joel: You're gonna run out that door, down Main Street, out to Highway One in front of god and everybody in near freezing temperatures with absolutely nothing on?
Chris: That's right!
Joel: No!

Week Off - day one: me, me, me, me, me

My job is crushing my little, innocent spirit. I'm taking this week off for the hell of it because I have over three weeks vacation time accrued. That's ridiculous. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything special. Partly because I have no where to go, but mostly because I want to see how it will feel to be unemployed. 

No riding today, maybe run. I have a muscle at the back of my knee that is still tight and sore and shouldn't be. I might have slightly damaged something. Saturday's 58 mile ride was hard, much of it climbing. It began with a 7 mile 2100' climb from Saratoga to Saratoga Gap, which actually wasn't bad because I was still fresh. It started getting hard around the climb at mile 35, and it got excruciating around mile 43, still climbing. 

It was reminiscent of the Tahoe climb that nearly killed me (well, not really, but it was really, really hard) in that it just seemed to go on and on and on and on. But there's no comparison. At Tahoe, I had no idea what I was doing, couldn't even be considered a cyclist at that point, near-demobilized me, and resulted in a week and a half of going to my chiropractor. 

This time, it was just hard. I just tried to stay focused, stayed in lowest gear, head down, eyes fixated on my front chain-reel, and using the white line in my right peripheral vision and the yellow line in my left peripheral vision to stay on the road. The highest point I reached was 2950'. 

And there was no yelling, "Fuck you!!" repeatedly at god that there was at Tahoe. Yea, that was pretty bad. 

It was pure joy when I got back to Saratoga Gap, I could've raised my arms in victory but I would've just looked like a nut. I didn't even stop to rest, all there was left was the 7 mile, 2100' descent down to Saratoga, no more climbing. I was so exhilarated at the prospect of being done, that I burned it down the mountain. According to my watch I was descending at 160-180' per minute. At one point a bus had turned off at a turnout to let cars pass and I approached just as the bus was pulling out again while a car was coming up the other way. I don't know how close it was, but I think I crossed the yellow line very briefly and then got out of my saddle to book it up an incline at like 40mph. Bus driver must've thought I was suicidal. Not there. Not then. 

When I got to Saratoga, I let up and my left leg completely cramped up and I almost fell over. My muscles were tapped. The bus came up behind a couple minutes later. I thought I was more ahead of it than that.

More than 4200 ft. of climbing on my bike today and what I'd like to talk about is the veritable 7-11 garbage wasteland that lined the otherwise scenic Santa Cruz Mountain roads. I just don't understand the mindset of driving around these beautiful mountain roads, getting drunk, and chucking your shit out the car window. Is that supposed to make you feel cool? I don't get it. This land is sacred. And you're just an idiot.

So here's my solution: collect all the trash and return it to the corporation that created it, and for each can or bottle, they should be charged an exorbitant fine. The cost of the fines should be passed on to the customers. It seems people who drink Bud Light are the biggest assholes worst perpetrators, so they get hit with the higher price.

My rationale is that trash on the side of the road is free advertising. By not properly disposing of the garbage, it's dumped in full view of the public. The public, seeing roads lined with Bud Light, thinks, "wow, a lot of people drink Bud Light. Maybe I should buy a case and see what the hoopla is all about". The advertising has achieved its purpose. Advertising is worth a lot of money. (even though it's probably only the cyclists who see it)

I seem to recall some legal theory about court-ordered remuneration being justified when a party has received financial gain, even though they didn't ask for it. Maybe someone who paid attention in law school can help me out.

These are the thoughts that get me up those grueling climbs.

Legs sore. Walkin' around like mack-daddy.

I heated my sore muscles and Bengayed them, heated and Bengayed my arms . . . why the hell are my arms sore? Right, of course, running. A lot of running is mental. If your mind is thinking of moving your legs, it feels hard because they're doing all the work already. But your arms move in coordination with your legs, so if your mind can forget about your legs and just concentrate on the pendulum swing of your arms and move them, which is easy because they're just swinging, you can pick up your pace. Not that I achieved any great pace yesterday, but the muscle memory was there.

current soundtrack: Three Mile Pilot - "Another Desert, Another Sea"

a sort of homecoming:
With the revelation that Joint Juice really works on my knees, I went for a run today, thinking of maybe getting in a 10k race before the season ends at the end of November (I never liked running in Winter). I stopped running after my knees never recovered after damaging them doing my second SF Marathon in 1999.

I started off with a measured mile and did it in 7:02. I can't complain about that, it sure felt slower. I felt awkward and wobbly, all the wrong muscles were working (very different muscles from cycling), I felt heavy, like I weighed a ton, each step was coming down too hard. I probably need new sneakers if I want to keep this up.

Then I continued untimed and unmeasured just to see if I had any form left. Cycling has been bad for my breathing. I've noticed for a while that my breathing is undisciplined when I ride and I've been trying to work on it. It's more obvious when running, where it needs to be relaxed, even, and efficient.

Otherwise my muscle memory was pretty intact. But I just wasn't strong enough to lift my knees and get out of the jogger shuffle into a runner stride. (Not that I was ever a good enough runner to sound this snobby). I would like to get that feeling again, though; the stride, the motion, the zone. Cycling is all good, but I didn't "grow up" cycling.

what a gorgeous day!:
Hell, it was a gorgeous weekend, but I didn't get out of my apartment at all yesterday except to clean out the front hubs on my bike. I've had a low-grade cold since Tuesday, and I don't know about you, but in the last throes of my colds, they flare up one last time. That was yesterday and I knew it was almost gone, but too weak and blah to get out of the apartment.

Today I woke up bright and chipper, hocked and hacked up and blew out the last bits of the cold (felt like Dizzy Gillespie), and went on an easy 30-mile S.F. perimeter recovery ride. Spent 30 minutes lying on a concrete wall at Ocean Beach, just breathing (through more or less unclogged nasal passages!).

At Jamba Juice, I saw a mother playing with her baby daughter. It was incredibly cute. The daughter was delighting in playing with mom's face and mom responded in kind, delighting the baby even more. Such a happy smile. There's no way this baby will remember this far in the future, but it's the kind of thing that I think contributes to shaping a child's personality.

Little things, little moments that add up and subtract, reinforce and cancel elements in a personality that we have no idea about. A smile on a baby is so pure, so sincere, you can't fake something like that.

Well awright! 

I've always been a Mets fan, but growing up in a suburban New Jersey enclave of hardcore Yankees fans, some degree of Yankee indoctrination was automatic. I mean, what can you do when you had friends who bragged casually about having Yankees over for dinner. And who wasn't moved when catcher Thurmond Munson died in a plane crash? Then my personal fave was Graig "Nettles to Ball: Thou Shalt Not Pass" Nettles on 3rd base. 

People always gave me a hard time when I mentioned I like the Mets and the Yankees, an alleged baseball impossibility that would cause the universe to implode. 

When I got out to the Bay Area, I quickly learned that the Oakland A's weren't from Oakland, New Jersey (I always wondered where the stadium was), but from Oakland, California, and grew to really like them over the years. But whenever the Yankees came to Oakland, I was always unsure who I wanted to win. 

But then the Yankees went and bought Jason Giambi, who I saw as the quintessential Oakland A, young, talented, energetic, playing for the love and not the money. I was really hoping Giambi would turn down the Yankees' offer, but when he took it, that greed stamped on his forehead tainted any prior Sympathy for the Yankees. 

So it is with great satisfaction to hear that the Angels, of all teams, have sent the Yankees home! I've always liked the Angels, too. I actually have an Angels baseball cap. 

The A's still have to beat the Minnesota Twins tomorrow. The A's going all the way would be the best way to tell Jason Giambi to go suck an egg New York-style.

So my cousin really was thinking of setting me up with this person who works in an organic sushi restaurant not far from where I live. 

"So what'd you think? Wasn't she incredible?" I didn't know what to say, yes she was really impressive, incredible even, but . . . 

"She's so incredible, I totally love her! She totally reminds me of you, like she lives her life on her own terms". 

"She makes very good eye contact," I replied. 

But I don't live my life on my own terms. Within certain boundaries I do, but my life itself is like a pinball bounced around, careening haphazardly in control of forces other than my own. I do whatever I like to inside of the actual pinball, which is fuzzy and orange and has track lighting, but that's pretty much the extent of it. My cousin is just coming at me from a completely different angle from which I come at me. That's why I couldn't respond to her afterwards, because her queries were loaded and assumed things about me that aren't reality to me. 

"Yes, Mimi, she was awesome, maybe even incredible, she made great eye contact, and if this was five years ago maybe I'd see if there was any potential. But in the here and now, I'm done with relationships, period, yes, for the rest of my life. That's the way I've set up my life at this point. If I'm here a year from now, I'll question my own assumptions then, but one thing I am settled on is that I'm not going to get to a year from now 'riding it out' on a relationship. I've done that before and have regretted it." 

That would have been an accurate response, but one does not make one's baby cousin ask what you mean by "being here a year from now". You make very different assumptions about your life than she does. She could handle anything I had to say, I just couldn't handle saying it. It's old. And tired. Like, "I'm quitting my job". If I get to a year from now or not, it's gonna be on my own terms and of my own accord.

As a "morale boosting" measure, the firm is showing "employee appreciation" by giving us all a half day off this month on a rotating basis. Today is my day for our team.

Right.

Our salaries have been frozen for a year and a half, we've had two lay-offs, our workloads have doubled in some cases, the management continues to insult our intelligence (and in some cases our work ethic (not mine of course, mine went out the door sometime last January and is therefore hard to insult)), and a half day off is supposed to make me stop hating being here.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take what I can get and I'm marching out of here at 12:30, but talk about empty gestures. I even wrote a sarcastic e-mail about it to Cass. Can you imagine? . . . me?? . . . sarcastic???

Nina Zero Mix:
1. 3rd Planet (Modest Mouse)
2. Science vs. Romance (Rilo Kiley)
3. Offline PK (Pinback)
4. You'll Be Sorry (Versus)
5. I Was a Kaleidoscope (Death Cab for Cutie)
6. Flowers (Cibo Matto)
7. Center of the Universe (Built to Spill)
8. Heartbreak Even (Ani DiFranco)
9. Skylines (764-HERO)
10. This is Not (Blonde Redhead)
11. Underdogs of Nipomo (Archers of Loaf)
12. Devoted (Julie Plug)
13. Cashout (Fugazi)
14. The Path of Least Persistence (fig. II) (Shannon Wright)
15. bbtone (Pinback)
16. The Get Away (Pretty Girls Make Graves)
17. Underground (Versus)
18. Broken Bones (Seam)
19. Hell or High Water (Rainer Maria)
20. The Frug (Rilo Kiley)


Morning commute photo. Oakland across the bay.

Does becoming an "adult" involve developing the ruthless ability to betray? You become so afraid for your own feelings that you're willing to sacrifice someone else's to protect it. Why do I see betrayal as an "adult" attribute? And who have I betrayed in the past?

". . .betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side and then being on someone else's" - Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

current soundtrack: Echobelly - "ON"

UP

If it wasn't clear, Peter Gabriel was a huge obsession of mine in high school. I can't put my finger on what it was, the way he spoke, the way he communicated, very dry sense of humor, the enigma of his career from bizarro Genesis, to solo, to "Sledgehammer" super-stardom. Something resonated about him as an artist, something zen-like, something sincere and egoless in its expression.

So it's no surprise to me that he can not release a record for 10 years, release something, I'll buy it without hearing a note of it, and it just latches onto me all over again. Totally unfashionable, the guy is 52 years old now and looks like gramps, and his new album is a step into the past into a pair of incredibly comfortable shoes.

Shiho Nakai is long gone out of my life, but recalling the Peter Gabriel obsession must recall Shiho. She shared it, too. Although I did resent much later on that she implied she would have come upon Peter Gabriel/Genesis without me. And she might have.

But mystory as I recall it, her obsession into Peter Gabriel was rooted in an 'infatuation' in me. No, I laugh at that now. I just wonder now if she did the same thing I did. Last week, when word was out that Peter Gabriel's new album was released, did she shell out the 3000 yen without a thought. I like to think she did.

I had a particularly hard time getting out of bed this morning, and having showered so close to sleep-time last night, my hair was a veritable Frank Lloyd Wright. Hehe, I was cranky and had a sore throat and was tempted to not comb it down (”wait’ll they get a load of me").

This morning was nice and mild with a distinct smell of Autumn in the air, but it was windy. I rode east and the wind was blowing hard from the east, I turned north on Embarcadero and the wind was blowing fiercely from the north. The remaining mile and a half to work was a 10 mph crawl until turning west on Market St.

When I got out of the elevator at work, attorney Mailine was right there and looked at me and said, “whoa!” I thought she might be referring to my tardy, and I put on my best I-don’t-give-a-crap-if-I’m-late,-this-firm-is-lucky-that-I’m-even-here face. She clarified, “wind-swept”, and made a gesture with her hand over her head. “I just got buffeted by the wind”. All you can eat.

current soundtrack: Peter Gabriel - "Up"

Is honesty an intent or a result?

It occurs to me that my weblog is supposed to be a journal, a record, the intent of which was to record my decline so that it's out there somewhere, since I sure as hell know I don't show it in person to the people around me. And, well, yes, it is doing that, my decline just happens to be very sloooooow (20 years (at least) and counting).

It's not that this weblog is dishonest. I don't think. No, wait, it is dishonest. It has to be dishonest because even though I only post what I really want posted, I know and have known for a while that I'm not honest with myself. So how can this weblog be honest? It can't.

So much is buried and denied and I keep trying to access it to deal with it, but like Data on Star Trek meeting his match, as fast I pursue the circuit pathway to get to the problem, the problem creates blocks and diversions and always stays one step ahead.

I've known for a while that I don't know what the problem is. I've also known for a while that what is going on below really is my worst enemy but I think of it as a friend because it's still me.