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George Sessions Perry on San Francisco (1947):

It’s civilized and robust, and its shoulder wouldn’t fit a chip. When you point out something wrong with the place, its people relish that defect too — because it’s a valid part of San Francisco.

My, how things change. San Francisco has long since lost any sense of humor about itself; criticisms are often seen as evidence that the individual uttering them somehow doesn’t “deserve” to be here.

One thing, though, is now clear: San Francisco has not been the largest city in the Bay Area for more than a decade, and the Census Bureau has recognized the fact. And no amount of whining about how cosmpolitan, beautiful, or popular the place may be will change this one simple truth…

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I’m always wary of those who would amend the Constitution in such a way that rights are rescinded rather than extended or codified.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…

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:

An antidote to yesterday: today we’ll be featuring one of the funniest things I’ve read in weeks (and how surprised am I that it was in the Guardian, which tends to get a little more humor-free with each issue):

Why is it that any mention of S-M nets more picky, niggling “corrections” than any other topic? … It’s the nature of the S-M community, which tends, as a group, to think too much and talk too much and write self-important e-mails when it could be playing. This could have something to do with it being full of the sort of people drawn to activities that, while they appear edgy and daring, are in fact safer than golf, which at least carries a risk of being struck by lightning. S-M lends itself to overplanning, overequipping, and an obsession with detail. In other words, it’s for nerds. I say this with all due respect and (as a risk-averse, nerdish person) self-recognition, but I say it anyway: S-M isn’t exactly running the bulls at Pamplona; S-M is a petting zoo. Get over your bad selves.

None of this explains why it’s always the scenesters insisting that any passing mention of perviness must include their own personal perversion. If I write about bondage, say, I’ll get “Of course, it’s originally an Apache initiation ritual, but you should never hang someone from their eyeballs without gloves. Also, I think you were remiss in failing to mention cortical saline inflation …” Sigh. I didn’t mention Apache cortical-inflation eyeball hanging because I was trying to make sure everybody understands what I mean by “top” and “bottom” first, and I only have this one little column to do it in, you self-inflated sixth-grade suck-up. Sit down. And don’t write me letters.

If I were going to have an affair with a woman, I think she’d be the one. Especially if she’d just keep saying this over and over again:

I’m just not convinced that sharing a taste for certain sensations qualifies a bunch of folks as a “people.”

Or maybe a community?

Why is it damned near impossible for me to type the word “September” without an error, no matter how much I concentrate while doing so?

I spent the weekend crankier than usual due to the miserable heat, although this very same heat managed to take my mind of Friday’s unsuccessful replay of my cardioversion. My rhythm remains as unnatural as ever. Does this qualify as an excuse for my inability to dance? Just wondering…

Happy thoughts:

• By the end of the week, my wonderful husband will have provided me with a brand new bathroom…
• In a day or two, I will own the widescreen laserdisc version of the (unavailable on DVD) After Hours…

A couple of things I’d have a hard time caring any less about:

• Whether on not Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are married, or are still a couple, or are even alive, for that matter. How did two so thoroughly unappealing individuals ever become such a “news” story?
• Anything Arnold Schwarzenegger may have said in a 1977 interview with a smut mag. In fact, I’m not much interested in anything ANYONE may have said in a 1977 interview with a smut mag…