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Monday, 10 December 2007 (tears of rage) 10:42pm At Divas, of all places. The Sea Biscuit is doing a comedy open mic tonight, Java Beach was packed, as was the twenty-four hour Starbucks in Laurel Village. Unsurprising, given how cold it is outside. Though the beverage selection is far from ideal, Divas was the only place I could think of where I could get a table with an outlet and wifi. Except that they've rearranged the seating so it's more benchlike, and there's no good way to sit at a table than doesn't involve my legs or back starting to hurt. (Like they are right now.) And the main wifi's gone, too, so I'm leeching off someone's unsecured network like the bad person I am. Getting work done, though, and I suppose that's what matters.
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Sunday, 9 December 2007 (hard candy christmas) 12:30pm Vash did in fact join me for the Psychotronix Film Festival, and she had a blast. (Maddy had never gone with me, as sitting through a couple hours of weird short films and trailers and old commercials and Oscar only knows what else didn't exactly sound like her idea of a good time.) It included a film of a Punch and Judy performance, which may well have been the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. I shudder to think that my parents grew up on that sort of thing, since at the time my mom was the same age as the kids in the film. It's either a wonder that generation turned out as well as it did, or it's no wonder thay they're as screwed up as they are. I'm not sure which. I talked to Robert Emmett, the host of both the Festival and of KFJC's movie music show, about cohosting Bad Movie Night sometime, and he sounded very interested. Neat. Browsing through the merch table, I came across an American Apparel Classic Girl Baby Tee complete with the multi-circle logo, just like the SomaFM that fits me so well (hence it finding its way into so many pictures of me this year), the make and model I've been trying to find more of. And there it was! With a really beautiful logo on it, too! (Kinda looks like Vash.) For ten bucks! I bought the last XL, went into the women's room, changed into it, and...it...doesn't...fit...right. I mean, it fits, but it doesn't fit like the SomaFM shirt, in spite of ostensibly being the kind of shirt, down to the label and everything. There's some kind of lesson in there somewhere. Probably Buddhist.
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Saturday, 8 December 2007 (stealing the show) 11:39am I went to a Burt Reynolds triple feature at the Castro last night, and I'm planning on going to KFJC's Pyschotronix Film Festival tonight, possibly joined by Vash if she gets enough work done today. With those two events and hosting Bad Movie Night on Sunday, I'm hoping to squeeze a Medialoper article out of this weekend. Moviegoing off the grid, or something like that. It's a motivation to write, anyway. Which also partially accounts for my current xmas plan: staying with my Uncle Bill in Grass Valley. I've had a longstanding offer to visit him, and I don't think we've actually seen each other in person since...my college graduation "party" in 1997, I suppose. In any event, it's a nice area, quiet, no pressure, no relatives except for him and his wife (my plan is to miss the Saturday night family gathering with children I don't know and don't want to know) I can bring my laptop and write, and perhaps most importantly, it's different, neither San Francisco nor Fresno. I think I'm in serious need of a change of scenery, if only for a little while. There will possibly be snow, but I'll deal.
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Friday, 7 December 2007 (no secrets to conceal) 6:55am Then again, you can't be too good to yourself for too long, can you? No shower this morning. I could either shower or get a lift from Vash to work, and not having to deal with the Muni was evidently worth the extra bit of grunginess. What the hell. As we made and ate latkes last night we listened to a mix of Dylan stuff on shuffle including but not limited to "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)," "Going, Going, Gone," "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine," "Dirge," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Idiot Wind," "Most of the Time," "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," "If You See Her, Say Hello," "Love Sick," "Shelter from the Storm," "I'm Not There," "Sara," "Cold Irons Bound" and "Can't Wait," and it wasn't until they were playing that I became conscious of the fact that the majority of them were breakup songs. Subtle, huh? Of course, both The Ex and Maddy would agree that those were the particular Dylan songs I gravitated toward anyway. Yesterday was wet, but it wasn't raining as we left at half past five this morning. The sky was dark but relatively clear, with stars visible between the somewhat luminescent clouds, and a sharp but not altogether unpleasant wind. The ocean was surely loud, but it's so much a part of the aural environment of my neighborhood I tend not to notice it, which is something of a shame. It was kinda nice, though it helped that I was only walking the distance from the front gate to Vash's car and not to the bus stop. The ambience reminded me of a million years ago, when I would leave early to go to work at Autodesk in 1998 or CNET in 1999. (Didn't do it so much in 2000 after Maddy moved in.) It's one of those things I get strangely nostalgic for now, that kind of early-morning weather, somewhere between the hour of the wolf and daybreak, which I often saw in '99 either coming home late from a club or getting up early to go to work or more often both. Those days were often colored headache gray as a result, but it was all right, because it was all new and worth it and just part of the rush of the freefall. I wonder if I'm too old (or too older) to appreciate it anymore. I guess not, because, really, I don't feel old. I'm still not sure what it the word means. It blows my mind to think that I'm in my mid-thirties, as much of a grown-up as it gets, that me and my fellow Gen-X'ers are no longer the younger generation. All I know is that I still want, and I need to keep exercising that muscle before I lose it altogether. I need to write more, too. I've fallen off that horse in a big way this past month or two. I spent much of the time between laptops hand-editing my manuscript, retooling every line and paragraph and page, making sure that every word and phrase feels solid and part of the whole, and even though I estimate it's about two-thirds of the way done—I won't really know how long it'll be until it's done, and I probably won't know if it's done until it's long enough—I want what I have right now to be presentable and bulletproof before I send it off to an editor. I have no expectations of the book being published (hopes and desires, sure, no expectations), only to show that I'm capable of whatever it represents.
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Thursday, 6 December 2007 (fortune is waiting to be kind) 6:12pm I've showered the last few mornings. This has been important to me; wherever I've been, I've made sure that I've been able to clean off whatever may be lingering from the night before. I was feeling especially grungy and gnarly and dehydrated on Tuesday morning after the night-long crying jag at Vash's. It was the best way I could think of to take care of myself. I met up with Sadie that evening, having dinner at Paplotte and getting a mocha from Ritual before returning to her place. I'd already gotten Wednesday off from work and I'd been home earlier in the day to take care of Perdita, so I decided to stay the night at Sadie's. I crashed around two in the morning on her couch—I'd thoughtfully brought my jammies along, so I was quite comfortable—only really awakened around three by some texts from Ripley, then at six by some horrendously loud early-morning construction outside her living room window. Much like the street noise outside Ennui's bedroom window, I still didn't find it nearly as jarring and horrible as the giraffe above my own bedroom. (As I write this, I'm in my own living room playing the I'm Not There soundtrack very loud. I used to be concerned about such things, about my noise levels. Not any more.) I got up around half past seven on Wednesday morning, showered, and went for a quick breakfast with Phil and Peggy. Met up with Ripley in Dolores Park, where we processed for a few hours, deciding we won't be seeing each other for a while (but of course it'll happen sooner rather than later, doesn't it always?), after which I met up with Rimma for lunch in Japantown. From there I actually ran most of the errands for which I'd originally taken the day off. Going home I'd originally planned on just making a quick salad and then heading out to find a place to write, but it was quiet upstairs and I had no desire to go back out into the rapidly graying world, so I stayed in, taking advantage of the surprisingly available washer and dryer and doing some housecleaning. Stayed up longer than I'd intended, but I always do. Took the train to work this morning for one of the first times in months, and even more unusually, took the train back home. Naturally, I got the driver who's always very shouting into the speaker and treating the electronic bell like a percussion instrument. Got a good look at him, and I'm hoping to avoid his train in the future, but I doubt that'll happen. Vash is on her way over now. We're going to make latkes, something we did in '05 when things were wonderful, and had intended to but didn't in '06 when everything was turning out so dark, but now in '07 when things are over we're going to do it again. Spending time with her so soon after the disillusionment of Monday night is near the top of my less-than-wise actions of late, of which there have been dozens, but it's not quite at the top.
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Tuesday, 4 December 2007 (of my own free will) 2:53pm Vash and I ate at the Thai place across from the Castro Theater last night, then walked to Mitchell's Ice Cream and back before driving to Oakland. We talked, I suggested, she rejected, I cried, and that was pretty much that.
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Monday, 3 December 2007 (laying it down) 3:19pm Ripley blondified my roots yesterday. The squid still needs to be tightened, but it feels so nice to be entirely blonde again. Friday night we had dinner at Hanabi Sushi, then went to the Sea Biscuit to work. Much of Saturday was spent processing in various locales while waiting six hours to get a new stereo installed in Phoebe. We spent a lot of it processing, over breakfast at Los Jarritos, interspersed with napping at the Black Light District as Low's The Great Destroyer and Drums and Guns played, and elsewhere. We had dinner that evening at the new location of Spices! on Fillmore, then went to the Artists' Television Access for a Negativland DVD Launch party. Most of Sunday was spent doing my hair, and she left afterward. Don't know when we'll be seeing each other again. I'm really not sure about much of anything anymore, where I'm going or who I'll be with when I get there, if anwhere or anyone at all. Perhaps I'm not meant to know. The feature at Bad Movie Night was Eight Crazy Nights, which may vie with Four Rooms as the worst movie we've ever done. (Is it something about factors of four? I haven't seen it, but I'm told Ocean's Twelve is pretty lousy.) After work I have an appointment with the bad doctor person. Vash won't be with me this time, but afterward I'm having dinner with her and probably crashing at Wonderland.
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