I pop out to my car to drive over to meet Dan and Eugene for dinner and realize that my battery’s dead. This couldn’t happen on a worse weekend, because (a) Mark‘s in Fresno, and (b) he drove this time rather than taking the train, so I can’t even use his car…
Fortunately, Dan has offered to jump me, so I won’t be stuck in San Francisco all weekend. That would be a fate worse than death…
Time for some barbecue…
Now really, who WOULDN’T want to do his laundry at the Pineapple Laundrette?
I drove down to the city on Saturday, taking pictures and generally poking around. San Jose is nice, and it’s a handy reminder to Bay Area residents that we do in fact live in California. San Francisco has its own charms, but it’s really Californian only by virtue of geography…
San Jose, on the other hand, is more reminiscent of that cliché Southern California “dream” which draws so many people to the west coast. With its cute little single-family houses and neighborhood shopping centers from the 1950s, and with its freeways and low-rise orientation, and its palm trees and semi-trpocal vegetation, San Jose looks more like California is “supposed” to look: informal, sunny, modern, and open.
San Francisco looks stuffy, cold, damp, claustrophobic, and old. Residents are stacked on top of each other, many of them don’t own cars, and the freeways are more likely tobe demolished than repaired or expanded. There are dingy corner stores rather than big (or small) shopping centers, and any palm trees one finds look rather lost. It’s no wonder people are so surprised to find this very east coast city on the tip of a Penisula in California…
I’ve been doing this for eight and a half years now, and I deserved a month-long vacation, even it was unplanned and unannounced, dontcha think?
Anyway, here’s what’s been consuming my time and attention of late?
Mmmm. Corvair…
A note to certain of my co-workers: if working for a large corporation so offends your sense of ethics that it becomes the only thing you can talk about — or think about — all day, do you maybe need to ask yourself at some point why you continue to accept that tainted paycheck every week instead of just moving along and doing something else?
It’s just a thought…
Yes, like many San Francisco residents, I work with a number of annoying anarchists. Actually, they’d probably be more inclined to refer to themselves as “individualists” or “non-conformists”. Evidently, individualism is defined by a need to recite recycled dogma on an hourly basis and to have as many tattoos and vaguely repulsive piercings as possible, while non-conformity means ignoring rules just because they’re rules and questioning all authority just because it’s authority.
Mind you, despite this focus on the individual, there is a community focus too. It usually seems to involves parking one’s obligatory, non-polluting, non-conformist bicycle in a narrow passageway INSIDE the office so as to make it more visible to the less-evolved (who take the bus), not to mention to create as much of a safety hazard as possible to anyone who might damage himself on its protruding handlebars. Like me. At least once a week…
I keep reminding myself that they’re young, idealistic poseurs who will eventually grow up and get slightly less annoying. But they probably won’t, particularly here in the insulating womb of San Francisco, where non-conformity is a fashion statement and individuality is rewarded (tolerated) only when it poses no threat to — nor asks any questions of — “the community”…
Yesterday on Mark‘s birthday, I joked that it was almost time for his spanking, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He was completely unfamiliar with the concept of kids getting one playful birthday whack on the butt for every year followed by “one to grow on”…
Now I’m wondering if it’s a generational of geographic gap. Was this a Southern tradition or just an old one that has since — mercifully, perhaps — gone away?
It was three years ago today that I emerged from my first (very unexpected) trip to the hospital, in which I learned that the hyperthyroidism I hadn’t known I had was throwing my heart into major turmoil. To say that I was scared shitless would be a significant understatement…
Three years in, I no longer have to inject myself in the stomach with mucous from pig intestines (that lasted a week), I no longer lie in bed paralyzed with fear that I’m going to die before morning (which only happened a few times), and I’ve come to realize that I’m going to be just fine, thanks, even if I do have to take certain pills the rest of my life…
That said, I’d like to announce that the aforementioned thyroid gland has this week been pronounced — with about 90-95% certainty — dead. Thanks to the fine folks at the unfortunately named Department of Nuclear Medicine at CPMC. I shan’t miss the little bastard…
Apparently, the ghost mall with which I am most acquainted (and where I first had tearoom sex) is about to become a Wal-Mart, eliminating once and for all the possibility that I’ll ever manage a clothing store across from the Chick-Fil-A there again. Which is probably a good thing…
Why yes, despite what you read — and despite what people in the Bay Area seem pre-programmed to believe — there are actually places where people (and local businesses) are HAPPY to see Wal-Mart coming. Knowing this part of my hometown as I do, I don’t think this will be quite the cure-all it’s made out to be, but neither do I see it as particularly damaging…
Speaking of huge chains, we had dinner at Ikea last night. As many negative things as I’ve had to say about the place over the years, our last couple of visits haven’t been nearly as horrible as earlier ones. And you gotta love anyplace that can feed the two of us so completely for fifteen bucks…
The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth:
Ah, those useless obsessions which have fascinated me since I was a kid. I wonder if anyone can tell me what the following cities have in common:
Put your guesses on the Message Board if you like. I’ll post the answer in a day or two…
It’s My Hormones, Really…
I’ve decided that menopause must feel an awful lot like going from being severely hyperthyroid to being severely hypothyroid in a very short period of time. And I have a bit more respect for all women of a certain age at this point. For the past two weeks, I’ve felt an awful lot like Edith Bunker in that episode from “All in the Family”. I think it may be starting to even out some. I hope so. At least I’m sleeping like a baby…
Did I mention that I’m married to the the most wonderful boy in the world?
Technology Sucks:
The Dish DVR has already crashed, taking with it about thirty epsiodes of “The Addams Family” which Mark hadn’t yet dubbed to DVD, not to mention a Cure special and a couple of “Fillmore” episodes which would have completed my collection. It’s the power supply, I’m told. Of course, there will be no effort by them to recover the data on the hard drive — not to mention a stiff penalty for us if we try it ourselves. We’re in a “replace, don’t repair” world these days, after all…
Twenty-two years ago tonight, at approximately this time (11:40 PM EDT), I was sitting in a little room on the third floor of Elliott University Center waiting for a stupid baseball game to end so I could be on the radio for the very first time…
Some days (years?) I miss it more than others. This is one of those times when I miss it a lot, perhaps because I’m scheduled to start my midlife crisis by turning 40 in just three weeks or so. Maybe I’ll start me one of them there internet radio stations one of these days…