As I’ve said before, one of the benefits of living 3000 miles from your family is that you very often get to choose who you spend the holidays with. I spent mine having a most luscious meal with Sarah and Brad, and later having a shop, a drive and a snack with Jamie. Both worked quite nicely, thanks…

Realizations:

• Sarah can cook. But I already knew this.
• High definition TV is a very good thing. I pretty much knew this too.
• Thanksgiving Day is a surprisingly easy day to park in North Beach.
• Thanksgiving Day is a good day to shop at Tower Records and a bad day to shop at Kmart.
• The Tower Records in North Beach is much better than the one at Stonestown.
• Having one’s laundry done before the weekend really starts is a significant source of contentment.

Mark arrives in the morning, and I’m now popping in a movie and officially placing myself on email sabbatical until Sunday. You are forewarned…

If anyone cares, I’m testing a new front page at Planet SOMA. I’ve decided that since I can’t seem to add any new content over there, I’ll just keep remodeling so it looks new…

Y’know, I can’t say for sure how I’m going to spend the Friday after Thanksgiving. One thing I can say for sure, though, is that dragging my ass out of bed to Kmart for a sale at 5:00 in the morning will probably not be a part of my day…

Popped by the miniature Safeway on Jackson Street in the Financial District this afternoon on the way home from work. It’s my secret Safeway where I avoid turkey-crazed crowds on days like today. I’d never do all my shopping there, but it’s a great little hidden place to pick up things when I’m in the neighborhood. But even it was more crowded than usual today…

You can tell the holidays are brewing downtown. The Christmas Muzak has already kicked in at Embracadero Center, and the crowds on the streets look slightly less constipated than usual. They’re all still tight-assed suit monsters at heart, but around the holidays, they’ll sometimes actually even pause from their terribly important cell phone conversations to say “excuse me” when they ram into you…

Upcoming:

• Food on Thursday, although I’m still firming up the details of where and with whom. Conflicting invites. Which is sort of flattering in a way.
• Mark’s coming on Saturday. That’ll be much fun, as will the fact that I won’t be the one fighting the traffic on Sunday.
• A visit from Mom in early December. Which means I should pay a little more attention to all that stuff that’s growing behind the toilet.

Annoyance du jour: being in a hurry and sitting on a non-moving bus for ten minutes while the driver argued with a passenger about whether or not her transfer was valid. Yes, I understand in theory how important it is for Muni to grab all the revenue it can. No, that understanding doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that 20 people with lives to lead and places to go could do neither for ten minutes because of a dispute over a fucking dollar…

Finally, another passenger walked up to the front, put a buck in the slot, and asked the bus driver if we could please get going. We did, eventually…

Why is it that every time I leave the SF for a few days I hate it even more when I get back? Why must every little thing be a hassle here?

It’s midnight. I was restless and burdened with overabundant nervous energy earlier, so I cleaned up the house (so as not to return to a mess on Sunday) and then popped some Dragnet into the VCR. That did the trick. What is it about old police dramas that soothes me so?

In about 18 hours, it’s Fresno, Mark, and a much improved disposition…

Y’all have a good weekend now, y’hear?

Happy belated birthday to Becky. I hope you get what you want too. It’s amazing how effective bullet points can be sometimes…