Scenes from hell:

• It was as hot today in San Francisco as it’s ever been, at least since they started keeping records in 1871. That’s a milestone I could have missed, thanks.
• Today’s high was 103. The normal high for today is 71.
• The power went out just as I was typing this entry before. I imagine it’s because I turned on the TV, giving the whole west coast power grid that last push it needed before collapsing.
• I was scared to turn on the microwave earlier for the same reason, but I did it anyway when I considered the implications of turning on the stove.
• It 11:30 at night, it’s almost 90 in my living room and I’m sweating as I type. And I don’t type very fast either.
• Any of the seven San Franciscans with air conditioning could easily have his way with me tonight.
• I skipped dinner with Dan and Jamie tonight rather than risk being on a crowded bus or (God forbid) walking to the Mission.
• Instead, my neighbor and I hung out at the deli case at Safeway. It was nice.
• It’s ironic that my trip to LA next week may actually expose me to better weather than we’re having here.

On that LA subject, thanks for all the tips, dinner invites, etc. Next week’s trip will actually be a bit of a quickie, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have. The “official” Planet SOMA LA Road Trip will be later this summer. I may even make it to San Diego, although I must admit I’d be doing so only to visit a few friends there and not because of any particular affection for the place.

More to come. I’m going to bed now. I harbor no illusions that I’ll actually sleep…

I have to say this. I don’t believe that Steve Young’s retirement from the San Francisco 49ers is really so newsworthy as to merit consuming a good third of the 6:00 News yesterday. He’s a football player, for God’s sake, which makes him essentially nothing but an overpaid entertainment personality.

They didn’t give Joe DiMaggio that much airtime when he DIED, and he was even multi-talented. I challenge you to compare his Mr. Coffee commercials to Steve Young’s half-assed Toyota spots any day of the week…

More non-news: Sinead O’Connor is officialy a lesbian. I imagine she’ll stay true to her track record and approach this development just as annoyingly and self-righteously as she does everything else. Molly Ivins’ quips do more for progressive politics in any given single day than Sinead’s tortured whining will do in her whole lifetime. Why, pray tell, do so many of my fellow leftists feel that having any discernible sense of humor somehow detracts from their message?

Enough of this. I’m now being excited that, a week from today, my pal Duncan and I will be tooling down Highway 101 to Santa Monica to stay in a spiffy, expensive hotel by the beach. We’ll be doing other things too (I, for example, plan to be seducing several of The WB’s male stars), but the hotel is what I have a link to right now…

We may hit Fresno on the way back, but I’m not sure, as I’ve already done my laundry for this month. And if you don’t know what the two have to do with each other, you haven’t been reading long enough…

Besides, Fresno can’t be much hotter than San Francisco feels today. Second ugly heatwave so far this year. I am not enjoying this summer…

I’m really proud of myself tonight.

I did my laundry without having run completely out of socks and underwear, and with only two months having passed since the last time I did it. This is pretty major; doing the laundry is, at best, a quarterly occurence in my washerless world.

Afterward, I made this glop with chicken, macaroni, and broccoli for dinner. I’m not nearly as proud of it. It’s good enough that I’ll finish it, but not good enough that I’ll ever make it again.

Things I love today:

• $2.99 Double cheeseburger combo at the Burger King in San Bruno.
• Lady Chablis, the drag queen in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
• Just about all of Oakland.

Things I hate today:

• Lukewarm onion rings with a double cheeseburger combo.
• Laundromats.
• A significant portion of Daly City.

I took a bit of an email break this weekend. I should be caught up tomorrow night, so if you think you’re being ignored, you’re happily mistaken…

For those of you who have asked, I am indeed the adorable brown-haired tyke on the left in Wednesday’s front page picture. I have no idea who I was holding hands with, although I remember that I was vaguely related to him and he lived in Florida. I did, after all, warn you that I’m bad with relationships.

Don’t you hate it when you go to the grocery store just to get a gallon of milk, end up spending thirty bucks, and come home to find a phone message from someone you’ve really pissed off with an old (and now swiftly removed) journal entry? Especially when the last thing you wanted to do was piss them off?

It’s happened once or twice before; I was writing something that I thought revealed (comically or otherwise) what a head case I was. But it was read by another person in the scenario as a slight to them instead. And probably with good reason, as I read it again. As I mentioned in a desperately apologetic email response, the sponteneity of the web is both a blessing and a curse.

OK, you’re right. The average person probably doesn’t hate it when that happens because the average person’s evening probably ends with the thirty bucks worth of groceries. Which is probably best. After this, I think my evening’s going to end with a beer. Or seven.

If anyone has a spare hole around the house, I’d like to borrow it so I can crawl in and die, please.