1999

This Waffle House in Burlington NC may be the only one in captivity which deviates from the standard brown walls and yellow roof prototype so common in the south. But even in its deviance, it’s still a chain prototype. It used to be a Sunoco station. That said, you’re now ready to read about my trip home to North Carolina a couple of weeks back. Finally. Enjoy.

If you’re inordinantly interested in my past life, you can also check out the lost journal entries from 1988 and 1989-1992 that I found at home, while dodging raccoons and squirrel shit. They come pretty close to filling a big gap in the series. Or you could just skip ’em.

Unrelated to the above:

I seem to have developed a strange sort of Christmas fetish this year. I’ve been listening to the music and watching the assorted cartoons. I have an urge to bake. I’ve even been contemplating buying a tree. I’ve never bought a Christmas tree on my own, although I used to decorate the elephant plant when I lived in Charlotte. I don’t think Irma would let me decorate her.

Maybe it’s because I probably won’t be going home for Christmas this year until sometime in January. Maybe it’s my newfound domesticity. Or maybe it’s because this will probably be my last one in San Francisco. I don’t know. All I’m sure of is that I really want an illuminated plastic snowman.

The lady from the credits on the Mary Tyler Moore Show just died. Not Mary, mind you, but the lady behind her on Nicollet Avenue when she threw her hat in the air. Why do I care? Because I have this strange connection to Minneapolis and because I’ve been on that very corner, taking pictures while someone who wasn’t Mary threw his hat too.

Minneapolis was my very first online road trip, over three years ago. I went back last year. It has even been suggested (on more than one occasion) that I should consider migrating. At times over the past few years, it has seemed like everyone I knew either lived in the Twin Cities or was from there.

But damn, does it get cold in the winter…

Speaking of strange connections, Bill tells me that North Carolina-based Krispy Kreme Doughnuts broke ground on its first Bay Area location today. It’s a good 30 miles away (in Union City) but this is a sign that there may yet be hope for this pretentious yuppie paradise. If I remember correctly, Krispy Kreme just serves plain old coffee and refers to its sizes as “large” and “small”.

First Chia sighting of the season: a commercial for the Chia Herb Garden on UPN44 airing as I type. When my ex-roomie moved out, he left me in possession of a couple of unused 1993 models. Do they keep? Would it have helped if I’d frozen them? Is there a Chia Pet website? I don’t feel like looking, but there has to be (there is).

By the way, UPN44 gets the above link as revenge against the other (unnamed) Bay Area station which didn’t give me a job a few months back and also stopped running “The Streets of San Francisco”. Damn them.

Lastly, having now rambled back toward the subject of TV, may I state how disoriented I’m going to feel tomorrow morning when all the cable channels change in San Francisco?

I’ll stop now.

1983. Before the phone phobia hit.

I will never own a cell phone. Before I start, Let me make it clear that this is not one of those increasingly popular rants against cell phones or their users. No, this is all about me, thank you, and about the fact that I absolutely HATE talking on the phone. Why on earth would I want any gadget which might make it necessary to do so more often?

My dad hates talking on the phone too. He always has. I guess that’s where I learned it. Dad is the kind of person who, when confronted with, say, an insurance billing question, would just as soon drive to the agent’s office (even if it’s in the next town) rather than make a phone call. I don’t go quite that far, although I will go online first wherever possible.

He also has a habit of going to the next room to make calls. I used to think it was because he was self-conscious about being on the phone in front of other people (as I often am). Now I realize it probably had more to do with the hearing problems he was developing after years of managing a pre-OSHA manufacturing plant.

My distaste for the telephone no doubt increased during all those years I worked in retail and customer service jobs. Invariably, a ringing phone meant I was about to get verbally abused by some yuppie slime who seemed to be on the verge of a stroke.

Phone etiquette pet peeves:

• People who call ME and then immediately put me on hold. I generally hang up.
• Call waiting. Possibly the rudest technology of the past twenty years. If you want people to contact you while you’re on the phone, then get voice mail so they can leave a message, dammit.
• Answering machines with interminably long messages.
• Idiots who, upon hearing your voice, realize they have a wrong number and then hang up without saying anything.

I’d be quite happy to avoid phone calls from here to eternity. But I probably won’t be able to. Thanks to email, I’m at least spared a significant number, though. Email is good. Email makes me happy. Phones just make me queasy.

No more banner ad at the top of the page. The election is over. Things don’t look good for Tom Ammiano. I’m not surprised. Money talks, here and elsewhere, and that’s what this election was really about anyway. Kudos to San Francisco for refusing, however, to paint it in terms of race or sexuality.

Enough said about the election. I’d rather talk about the demise of “Peanuts”. It’s almost a cliche to suggest that Charlie Brown, Snoopy, et. al. were among the greatest pop culture icons of the 20th century.

I was lucky enough to be a kid when Peanuts was at the peak of its popularity and impact, in the early 1970s. My life revolved around the whole scene during elementary school. I had the lunchbox and all the books. I had the pennants hanging in my room and the pajamas and the sheets. I ate cookies made using Charlie Brown cookie cutters and cereal served in a Snoopy bowl. I still have “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” all but memorized.

Best of all, when I was 6 years old, my parents gave me a stuffed Snoopy, which was my closest friend for several years. I slept with it every night until significantly past the onset of puberty. I was an insecure kid.

I know. It all sounds like marketing, and is vaguely reminiscent of Pokemon or the Smurfs. But “Peanuts”, especially in earlier years, was a little more intelligent and uplifting than the standard kids’ crapola of the past two decades (“Animaniacs” and Elmo excepted).

It wasn’t my favorite comic strip of all time. That honor goes without hesitation to the still-brilliant “Bloom County”. To be honest, I rarely even pay attention to “Peanuts” anymore. But I’ll sort of miss having it around all the same.