Time it was and what a time it was

The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.
- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

A moment ago, it seems, that I set out on my grand adventure into the unknown, waving goodbye to one life as we turned the aptly-named Explorer towards the new one ahead.

It had been a disorienting summer for me. After having the metaphorical rug pulled out from under me with much pomp and circumstance, I found it difficult to regain my balance at home. Where once I would have found bedrock, there was little solidity for me to grasp onto that might help me feel my way through the impenetrable fog of my looming future. My time back home was necessarily temporary.

Mom already had an apartment at the time, though she was still living at the house as she and Dad worked through the divorce settlement. With me there, it was too easy for all of us to fall into old habits, which is exactly what it no longer was. Dad & Mom were both struggling to pick their own separate paths forward and I felt like my presence -- the last vestige of normalcy, the life that was -- was holding them back in a way, too.

And so it was that they both came home at lunchtime that Wednesday afternoon to see me off. I had spent the previous two days madly sorting through my belongings, picking what to keep, what to discard, what to take, what to leave behind, with Bryan patiently idling by. But finally our stuff was stowed in the U-Haul, Dad had some last-minute trailer advice, and I hugged my teary goodbyes on the edge of the gravel drive. I suspect my parents wanted to stop me as much as I wanted them to, but my future was now officially in my own hands. Not only was I headed down an unknown road, but we all were, and my leaving this time somehow underscored the big change in all our lives; nothing would ever be the same.

These thoughts and more accompanied me on the first leg of the journey that led me here as we traversed the lonely hills and distant mountains, the enormous sky broken by solitary thunderclouds with sheets of rain trailing beneath. Bryan and I switched drivers at each gas stop, the passenger reading aloud from On The Road, as the miles and hours blurred by... Casper. Sheridan. Billings. Bozeman.

...Ten years ago, today.

When as a child I laughed and wept, Time crept.
When as a youth I waxed more bold, Time strolled.
When I became a full-grown man, Time RAN.
When older still I daily grew, Time FLEW.
Soon I shall find, in passing on, Time gone.
O Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then?
Amen.
- Henry Twells (1823-1900)

Were closer now than light years to go

Oh Amazon. We go way back, you and me, and I cherish the time we've spent together. I remember when we first met, almost ten years ago now, and how taken I was with the idea of you. You were shiny and new and smart and well-read and even in your youth before you moved beyond books, you covered a vast amount of territory, were quick and revolutionary in your own way, a fusion of what was with what would be. You were my first, you know. Yes, and after that first online purchase, there was no turning back.

But lately I've been a bit worried. I suppose it's natural to lose focus a little with age, and while I appreciate your offers of fulfilling my every need, whether they be intellectual pursuits or kitchen appliances and groceries, I'm not sure this is working for me anymore. I'll admit, it's kind of cute that you think I pursue ophthalmic microsurgery as a causal hobby, but really. It's almost like you don't know me at all. You've seemed a bit muddled and confused of late; you're all over the map and have been leaping to conclusions -- often wrong ones -- with scanty evidence. I think maybe it's best if we take a brief break from each other for a little while. Just a little while. I need some time to think and maybe test the waters out there, and perhaps you can use the time too. Take a look at yourself, sort out what's important, upgrade your recommendation algorithms...

*--*--*--*--*

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We've noticed that customers who like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle also purchased books by Marian Macsai. For this reason, you might like to know that Marian Macsai's Ophthalmic Microsurgical Suturing Techniques will be released soon. You can pre-order your copy by following the link below.

---

Ophthalmic Microsurgical Suturing Techniques Marian Macsai (Editor) Price: $139.00 (August 2006)

Book Description
Microsurgical Suturing Techniques is a reference text for both the novice and the accomplished ophthalmic surgeon. In 15 richly illustrated chapters this book imparts basic information on tissue tactics and knot tying and demonstrates the applicability of these techniques to various microsurgical situations, in both the anterior and the posterior segment of the eye.

*--*--*--*--*

*sigh*

An Inconvenient Twix

Welp, the heat wave has broken and temps have returned to the comfort levels I love. But lest we forget how hot it's been, let me share with you this little anecdote:

I'm all out of food at my desk, so to satisfy my mid-afternoon snack attack I just ran to the vending machine in the breakroom and retrieved a Twix bar. I love Twix with their chocolate and caramel coated cookie goodness. But these Twix had been standing upright in the vending machine for who-knows-how-many days -- certainly at least over the weekend while the building's air conditioning was off. So when I unwrapped my candy bar, guess what I found?

The caramel had melted and drained out! The top 2/3 of the candy bar was nothing but cookie and collapsed, sunken-in chocolate, while the bottom third was bloated and puffy, with caramel burst out and pooled in a sticky mess that fused the bars together and made them impossible to delicately disengage from the wrapper now that everything was solidified again.

If this is what we have to look forward to in a globally warmed future, then I want no part of it. Plant trees, save my Twix!

And the sun has come to Earth

Even though I still felt like crap yesterday, I couldn't bear another afternoon of laying around trying not to stick to things. So I went to the beach to escape the heat.

Now, I knew everyone else probably had the same idea, so I specifically chose a beach in the Marin Headlands that I had easy bus access to but is far enough away from population centers that I hoped would keep it relatively quiet. All I can say is, if that was relatively quiet, I'd hate to have been at any other beach. I was completely unprepared for the gaudy beach-umbrella bazaar of wet sandy tennis-ball-chasing canine bliss, wave chasing screamy toddlerhood and writhing mass of sunscreen slickened humanity that met me oceanside. It was something I've only seen in photos of vacation destinations, and it was difficult to stake a claim on my own personal stretch of strand without violating some of my personal space rules.

But I did and I spent four glorious hours in salt sprayed coolness. I read, I pocketed a few pebbles, I lost feeling in my feet wading in the freezing surf, I turned every 15 minutes like a pig on a spit, and... I fell asleep. A dangerous, nonflipping sleep. I have no idea how long I was asleep, and it was only last night that I learned the extent of the consequences of that nap, when I awoke to the extreme discomfort of sunburn.

Spare me the lecture, lovelies -- I'm totally paranoid of the sun as a general rule, wearing a hat and slathering the sunscreen on my face, ears and neck whenever I'm outside for more than 20 minutes. And I was wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt to protect my arms. But sunscreen and hairy legs generally don't mix too well, plus my legs usually aren't in a position to be getting direct sun anyway. ...Unless I snooze on my back at the beach with my feet splayed. So now exactly half of each leg is bright red, from my achilles and calf around the inside to my shin. The outside half, still the same white. It's seriously like someone drew a line down my shinbone and spray painted me on one side of that line.

Also, because my arms were behind my head, I have an inch-wide strip of sunburn below my bellybutton where my shirt slid up.

I'm a dumbass. And I'll be purchasing some spray-on sunscreen before I next venture out into the UV.

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Something has gone awry. We've already had one of our biannual hot spells in the City, and the next one isn't scheduled until October. Is this what we have to look forward to?

So I'm still sick enough that I feel I'm floating about 6 inches outside my body about half the time what with the congestion and fuzzy brain medicine head. All fine and well if it's cold and grey and miserable outside and I can curl up on the couch with some chick flicks. But instead of the normal cool July temps, San Francisco has turned into a blistering parking lot, and I'm the dog left in the car. All I can do is lay around and moan.

It's 97 degrees out according to weatherunderground, which means it's probably well over 100 inside my apartment, where all the heat from the building collects on the top floor while the blazing sun radiates right through the uninsulated roof and walls and windows. Our only choice is to open every window and hope that some sort of cross wind blows through. Though on a day like today there's no hint of a breeze off the bay. It's so hot, even the air can't move.

Yes, it could be worse. There are places inland that have been over 110 now for days in a row. But come on. This is why I live here. It's not supposed to do this. Seriously, we've shattered our previous record by 8 degrees! That's 26 degrees above normal!

It's too hot to type. It's too hot to think. I'm going to go back to moaning for a while.

U2 Bush?

This is the very reason I love the internet. And you know, it's nice to see that the wonders of modern technology can be put to such creative and good use by someone who clearly has time on his/her hands...

Summer Colds Suck Big Donkey Dick

Much as I fantasize about calling in sick on beautiful summer Mondays and skipping work, I've never actually done it. The guilt of sitting at the beach or riding my bike on Angel Island while everyone else is slaving away is usually enough to prevent me from doing so. Or perhaps it's just the fear of getting caught (me on cell phone: "Yeah, Boss, thanks for checking in, I'm *cough*cough* feeling a little better. What's that? Oh, that's just the sound of my, um, relaxation CD, uh, called 'Soothing Ocean Sounds'... Yeah, those seagulls sound realistic don't they. What? Uh, yeah, so does that Coast Guard helicoptor...")

Today, however, on just such a glorious Monday, I'm neither at the office nor on the beach. No, I have not left my apartment at all despite the fact that it's well over 80 degrees inside and I'm miserable. Because, yes, I'm actually sick. I was doing so well there for a while. I had successfully avoided falling down in the last several circuits of Ring-Around-the-Office, had survived unscathed through the last two roommate scourges, and blam. Completely out of nowhere, my sinuses have been running as if someone turned on a faucet, my lungs ache, my throat hurts. It tingles and prickles behind my face like I just snorted swimming pool water up my nose, and it won't go away. I had no idea that it was humanly possible to produce so much mucus.

Gross. I know. If you need me, I'll be on the couch playing Guitar Hero on the Playstation.

It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing

I try to pay attention to what's going on around me and consider myself a reasonably observant person... usually... at least about some things. A notable exception being when I was waiting to board the airport bus from the BART station in Oakland, on my way to Boston a couple months ago. It was only after the police came up that I realized the commotion was not just other travelers jostling for position, but that the well-dressed man a few people in front of me had just had his wallet stolen at knife point. So I was sort of dangerously oblivious there.

I also have pretty good peripheral vision, which is handy when you're trying to pay attention to your surroundings. And I don't turn my iPod up so loud that I can't hear what's going on too (I just pretend I can't hear the panhandlers).

Anyway, so this morning I'm walking to work and as I cross a street, looking both directions for traffic, I notice this tall beared black guy totally pimped out up ahead about to intersect my path. He's wearing a flawless brown bell-bottomed western-cut suit, a curled cowboy hat tilted at a jaunty angle, and shiny boots. I pass him without glancing over, but hear his footsteps and am aware out of the corner of my eye that he turned and is right beside/behind me.

Mind you, I hadn't seen anyone else on our side of the sidewalk, so it came as a total shock when, moments later, it was a white woman who passes me, wearing jeans and a cute brown camisole/jacket combo, her kitten heels matching the footfalls I was hearing. I was so startled, in fact, that I turned around to see what had happened to the guy in the suit. It was equally jarring that he was nowhere to be seen.

Now, it was quite impossible for him to have simply disappeared, yet it was equally impossible for him to have gone anywhere out of eyesite given his initial trajectory and the short space of time that had passed. But the fact remains that he was gone and this woman had appeared out of thin air in exactly the place all my senses and stream of continuity told me he should be.

This completely freaked me out. The whole way to work I was going over it in my head, all the possibilities equally disconcerting. Did I just hallucinate the pimped-out guy? Did I just not notice that he ducked into an alley while this woman was coming up behind me the whole time? If I could be that inattentive, how have I not been hit by a bus by now?

The conclusion I'm sticking to is that I just witnessed a momentary overlap between two of the infinite alternate universes, and that my continuity just happened to flow from one into another rather seamlessly. A wrinkle in the fabric of space-time? A slip in the timestream? A transparency in the multiverse? This is not as crazy as it may seem. Honest.

I'm convinced I've witnessed these things before. For example, back on the farm when I was briefly into making and firing model rockets, I had a little cardboard and balsa-wood rocket that, instead of blasting a parachute, simply blew out a side hole, starting the rocket on a turbulent drag-inducing spin that brought it back to the ground unharmed, whistling in the wind the whole way down. We even painted it day-glo orange the better to recover it. After several successful firings, the thing vanished. We could see it spiraling down, a tiny dot in the sky followed by a little trail of smoke and the faint whistle, and the next instant it was gone. The only logical explanation: it was whisked away in wrinkle between worlds. We scoured the ground for an hour and never found the bright orange rocket body. I think clothes dryers also tend to be vectors of plurality, what with all the missing socks and extra t-shirts.

Or maybe I should just start paying more attention.

Ephemera

Yaargh! I'm super annoyed right now. It's a minor thing really. But still.

Today was one of those rare bewitching evenings in the City when the fog rolls in low and streams between buildings whose tops are still in the blue sky above. The mist visibly flows around the skyscrapers downtown, making the air currents visible as it piles up on the windward side, pours around the edges, flows back up against the lee side.

If that weren't magical enough, because the fog layer is thin and low, the lengthening rays of the setting sun still strike the buildings which are weirdly simultaneously in the sunlight and obscured by fog. The light reflects off of the buildings' windows and bursts back out into the mist creating crazy reflections dancing through the clouds and golden rays radiating outward.

It's pretty indescribable, this fleeting phenomenon, requiring you to be in the right place at the right time to even be visible. And the only time of year when all the factors combine to make it possible, with the right angle of sunlight, the possibility of fog at just the right hour, is a few days in mid-July.

So I happened to be walking home from work between 7 and 8pm, just the right time to be in the midst of this downtown, staring up at the light show and trying to snap pictures. But the reason I'm pissed? My camera battery died!! I had just charged the thing and could only get a few crummy shots before it went kaput.

Sure sure, I could just get a new battery for my current little camera, but this frustrating evening is further impetus to buy a new damn camera instead. Yay, new toys!

Summer in the City

It was chillier than usual this morning; even with my sweater on I was shivering until I'd walked a few blocks. There aren't too many places where you see people walking to work wearing scarves and gloves on a lovely July morn. Ahhh, San Francisco summer, how I love thee.

Don't you hear the whistle blowing?

I need to get out more. Not having a car means that I don't escape the City very often unless I have a really good reason, and most little reasons just don't warrant the pain in the ass in figuring out public transit or spending the money on a carshare or rental car. But when I do venture forth, I'm reminded of all the good stuff in striking distance of SF and of all the exploring I have yet to do.

As I type this, for example, I'm clattering down the rails onboard a train headed west-southwest from Sacramento, sun streaming in my window. And it was only a minor pain in the neck. My good friend Jeff moved to the Sac a couple months ago and I hadn't visited him since I helped haul his crap up there to begin with (me following behind the u-haul in his jeep, so full of stuff I could only use the driver's side mirror, with Lulu the cat climbing on my head, as freaked out as I was on the highway).

Anyway, this weekend was as good as any to finally make good on my promise to visit so I took Amtrak up after work Friday and spent two days in ridiculous heat remembering why I like the coast. But otherwise it was like old times, hanging out, running crazy errands at garden centers, Home Depot, Target, with a few hours in an ER waiting room thrown in for good measure.

Sacramento isn't all bad, as it turns out. Some good bars (gay and otherwise), restaurants, shops, and such, and we spent a few hours in Old Town which was like traveling back in time. Right on the river, cut off from the sprawl by a freeway, sits a stretch of cobbled streets, wooden sidewalks, railways and original buildings from the 1800s that could be a movie set except for the cars and fat kids with their ice cream cones. I'd actually like to explore a little more of the city sometime, since it has such an interesting history, but I'll be waiting til the crazy summer heat dissipates. Gaack.

So now I'm staring out over the expanse of the Central Valley, broad and flat and shimmering in the heat, the Coastal Range rising in the blue distance ahead. We pass over canals and deep green fens overgrown with horsetails and swampgrass where startling white egrets fly between the low branches of overhanging trees. Further out, a jackrabbit tries briefly to outrun the train but dives into the furrows between the sunflower and strawberry fields. Hawks are turning lazy circles in the bleached sky that is faded and yellowing at the edges like an old newspaper. A grouse flees into the golden straw of a fallow field. In places it could be the heart of Nebraska, but for the occasional Canary Island palm tree or fan palm sprouting in the farmyards; and instead of Siberian elms or cottonwoods there are oak and eucalyptus stands. Bright blooms of oleander grow high along the tracks in places. Old telegraph poles parallel the tracks for a stretch, now barren and wireless, leaning at treacherous angles near collapse.

As we close in on the Bay Area, people are replacing the wildlife: near Fairfield & Suisun City several vagrants are lingering in the narrow strip of shade from a sole palm tree next to a power substation and a few rusted-out boxcars. We cross water again at Benicia, passing by graveyard rows of rusting ships, and dilapidated brick factory buildings near Crockett. The sulfurous smell of refineries wafts through the car as the delta widens into the Bay.

And finally, the train rounds a bend and I see the familiar grey wisps of fog hanging low to the horizon across the water. The Bay Bridge arcs into oblivion where the City's skyline is barely visible in its cloak of cloud, grey beneath but blindingly white above where the setting sun glares off the top of the fog bank. I'm already pulling out my jacket, eager to greet the cool welcome breeze when the train pulls in.

Maybe I don't need a car afterall.

Gewwgle

You know how Google is so good at placing ads on pages that are relevant to your search? Well they also do this with their e-mail (G-mail), and I've noticed side-panel ads for stuff remarkably pertinent to the context of whatever e-mail message I happen to be reading.

It may have gone a little astray, however: as I was ridding my spam folder of all the junk mail, I noticed the following link to a recipe for Spam Vegetable Strudel. So maybe context is something they're still working out. Also, yuck.

Twilight's last gleaming

After last weekend with the fam in town, I made the conscious decision to do absolutely nothing this weekend... as opposed to having a long list of things to do, still doing nothing, but feeling guilty about it, as happens on some weekends.

However, it wasn't nearly as satisfying as it could have been because my roommate had the same plan, and it's somehow less satisfying to be a lazy bum when you have to share the TV. Also, I was like the only person in the land of the free that had to work on Monday, which tended also to kill the weekendsloth.

And yes, I accomplished very little today too. But the 4th of July is the great American day of laziness anyway. I just took it to a new level, leaving the apartment all of once. No cookouts, no picnics, no nothing. But there were fireworks.

Mind you, I'm a big fan of fireworks. At least the professional variety. Not so much the sort that cause really loud obnoxious pops and blams and set off car alarms. All day long. But anyway, my rooftop is ideally situated for the city's annual fireworks show, as long as the fog stays away. And given the amount of fog we've had lately, this was not a foregone conclusion. Two years ago, all we saw was faint blurs of color through the clouds, and occasional semi-circles as the lower half of the lowest explosions dipped below the cloud level.

Despite the forecasts, however, the fog never returned after it retreated today. And after a glorious sunset, Josh & I went upstairs where we could see not only the 2 synchronized sets down by the wharf and piers, but in the distance we could also see the fireworks from Sausalito and Richmond or Berkeley at the same time. And one of the great things about being on the roof is the random comraderie you feel with the hundreds of other people on their rooftops or balconies, everyone ooh-ing and aah-ing and cheering together. As Joy mentioned in her blog, in fact, that's one of best memories I have from past years.

And though there were random people with us on our roof (the new neighbors and their cloying friends, and maybe one of the guys from the tattoo parlor and his date?), Josh & I actually chatted a little about how he was going to handle the impending return of Tranh, his girlfriend and our 3rd roommate, after her 6-month absence.

So that was nice. Maybe we should rename it Bonding Day.

Ev'ry stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be

This may come as a shock, but as a single thirty-something gay guy with generally single thirty-something friends, I'm not all that used to being around kids. It's one thing to go visit my sister's family since I'm the one being plunked into the middle of someone else's chaos, but it's quite another to have the mayhem plonked into the midst of my placid life. Now this isn't to say it's unwelcome, because quite to the contrary, I love having the family visit. It's just exhausting is all, because it's so far from my ordinary routine. Of course, it's a small price to pay to spend time with the nephews and my sister and brother-in-law who I don't get to see very often. And another upside: my fridge hasn't been so full of actual nutrition in ever.

So on Saturday Mom & I picked up the rest of the gang at the airport and commenced immediately with the craziness. First was an afternoon at the Aquarium & Academy of Sciences, next was the Pride Parade and an afternoon in search of playgrounds and frisbee fields in Golden Gate Park.

This was followed by a long but thoroughly enjoyable day in Santa Cruz fixing sandwiches in the car, riding the rides on the boardwalk, watching the boys get progressively wetter being chased by waves at the beach, eating funnel cakes and fried twinkies, rinsing sand from between our toes, laughing uncontrollably at the synchronous screamers on the drop ride, and trying to stay awake with caffeine and conversation on the drive back to the City.

Nikole had to leave early Tuesday for business in LA, and I had to spend the day back at the office while everyone else toured the ships docked at the Wharf. But Wednesday before heading for the airport we rose again above the fog layer for a hike to the top of Mt. Tam, and descended into the cool dark redwood groves of Muir Woods on the mountain’s flanks.

The airport goodbye is tough in either direction, especially after a particularly good visit and without the next trip scheduled definitively. So despite a certain guilty relief at the prospect of returning to life as usual, perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising that the suddenness of the silence still made the solitude sort of sad.

Find me in my field of grass

While living so far from the family is sometimes a relief, it's also very tough. I'm missing on out on the nephews as they grow up, I can't run to my sister's for a periodic home-cooked meal or a shoulder to cry on, there's none of Mom's chicken soup for my occasionally melancholy soul, I don't get to hang out in the yard with Dad and talk about the growing trees. So I'm fortunate that they make the effort to come visit me as often as they can afford to. And yay! they were just here for a visit.

I picked my mom up at the airport on Wednesday after work, we rented a minivan, and on Thursday I went to work leaving her to wander town on her own. We did meet for a Dim Sum lunch, and later headed to the Bruns Memorial Ampitheater (I know!) for a little outdoor Shakespeare. It was a wickedly hot day in the City (one of the 5 we got all year), but a perfect evening for outdoor theater. The fog rolled in on Friday, though, so we headed up Mt. Tam to get above the chill. Which we did. It was 95 degrees atop the mountain, yet 59 on the beach below.

Being of similar temperament, we get along really well and so had a terrific time, just the two of us, playing with her new camera, beachcombing, and just hanging out (though there was no hanggliding, which was on the original docket) -- even laughing about the giant wave that nearly swallowed Mom at the beach while she was picking through pebbles, unfortunately drenching her camera in the process, but hopefully not ruining it completely.

It was super nice to have Mom visit for a couple days before the rest of the crew came in, because, well, I miss her. So yay! Of course, the list of things we're going to do keeps getting longer instead of shorter. Next time it's hanggliding for sure, maybe after a spa day and camping down in Big Sur...