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August 2003

Randomly Friday

Love is all around…

Seeing Mary and Rhoda again last night on TV gave me fond memories of this particular weenie roast from a few years back. It also made me sort of glad the proposed series never got off the ground. I imagine it might have been right up there with Bradysomething, never quite sure if it wanted to be a comedy or drama (and not doing either very well). All the same, the movie made for a good two hours…

Not the one near Fayetteville…

Mark and I made a rather arduous trek to Fort Bragg last weekend. I was all excited about seeing the place; I’d envisioned an interesting, quirky coastal town. And maybe it might have been, had we been able to cure our hunger pangs. Imagine a town of about five thousand people which tries very hard to attract the tourist trade, but which can’t seem to provide a single donwtown restaurant open on a Saturday afternoon…

Wait. There actually were two open restaurants downtown, now that I think of it: a Chinese takeaway, and a pizza parlor which was OUT OF PIZZA. Scary place. We ended up eating at Taco Bell, ferchrissakes, before finding two or three open places in a small marina under a bridge…

But Fort Bragg is home to the last remaining Purity supremarket on the west coast, which was one of the main reasons I made the trip. Until about 1973, Purity (then based in Burligame and no relation to the northeastern chain of the same name) was one of the largest supremarket chains in Northern California, with stores from Eureka to Fresno. Now it’s one little store in Fort Bragg. But by God, I’ve been there…

Annoyance of the week…

I’m always wary of those who would amend the Constitution in such a way that rights are rescinded rather than extended or codified. Flag-burning and same-sex marriage come to mind. We tried that once before with Prohibition. Remember how well that worked?

Other annoyance of the week…

I’ve noticed more panhandlers (oops, I meant “differently-economized individuals”) using “share the love” in their pitches lately. This is a phrase which has always annoyed me, because it’s almost invariably used as an attempt to get me to donate money to individuals or causes which I don’t even particularly LIKE, much less LOVE…

I’m pretty stingy with my love, thanks…

Things Fall Apart

Why yes, I am indeed falling apart. Thanks for noticing…

As of today’s diagnosis, I apparently now have bursitis in my elbow. It’s due to a work-related injury and it should go away soon, but I can’t even take the right medications for it, thanks to my other medications (which I’d hoped not to be taking at this point). All of which is starting to make me feel very old indeed as my 39th birthday approaches this weekend…

And no, that last sentence was not a thinly-veiled hint…

Fuck that. Of course it was…

The Hometown Paper

Ah, the hometown paper:

Council members asked the city staff to consider whether a now-vacant building once used as an ice house on the land that dates to the early 20th century might be saved and reused by a business.

Remember when newspapers used to have editors to keep this sort of sentence from happening? Is it the land or the actual building which dates from the early 20th century? And which one are they trying to save and reuse? How about maybe “whether a now-vacant ice house dating from the early 20th century might be saved and reused…” That wasn’t so hard, was it?

And maybe I’m being just a little juvenile to find this headline so amusing, but I do anyway:

The Recall

A few things which are really annoying me about this recall silliness:

  1. It’s putting me in the uncomfortable position of supporting Gray Davis, the worst governor California has seen in recent memory.
  2. Repeatedly hearing about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s having posed nude is making me visualize him nude, which makes me a little queasy since he’s quite repulsive enough fully dressed, thanks.
  3. In addition to avoiding Arianna Huffington’s columns in the newspaper, I now have to avoid her voice on TV.
  4. I can’t quite fathom just how spending all this money on an unecessary and (in just about any other state) unconstiutional extra election is going to help the budget crisis.

39

Realizations upon hitting Jack Benny’s age:

  • Love has a way of sneaking up on you and finding you when and where you least expect it, and of being a more wonderful thing than you ever thought it could be.
  • Domestic bliss can be amazingly sexy, even when it involves seven or eight potted plants sitting in the bathtub.
  • Health insurance is a pretty damned nice thing too.
  • Most people on the planet will never drive, walk, write, nor place orders at fast food restaurants the way I think they should. The fact that they all suck will probably never motivate them to change.
  • A cheap roadside tacqueria is a wonderful thing.

11 August 2003

The cure may be worse than the disease: ever since I went to physical therapy (for my elbow) this morning, my lower back has hurt like hell. If it’s not better by tomorrow, I will be much pissed, since I neither wanted nor needed physical therapy in the first place, and even the physical therapist herself admitted as much…

The birthday was low-key, involving pizza and snuggling on the couch. Mark got me cool stuff, including a pipe and a pouch of tobacco, which I’m using to wean myself off cigarettes. Thanks for all your cards and letters and assorted good wishes…

And, in case you were wondering, a video camera CAN successfully recover from being doused in grapefruit soda, even without a repair bill. Not that I know this from experience or anything…

I’m Alive

Baby, it gets even worse after living in the fog for more than a decade. But living under the same roof with you for the past 363 days has made this city almost palatable…

Sorry for the extended absence. It’s been a long couple of weeks…