Bah!

All the decorations are up this week. The giant tree in Union Square. The six-story wall of neon wreaths at Macy's. On my walk to work I pass this hideous affront to good taste involving fuschia baubles and purple tinsel trees, which sort of typifies Christmas in California in my mind. There's even a sad little tree in the lobby of our building, which smells nice and pinesol fresh now, but is already losing its needles and will be nothing but a tindery fire hazard by Christmas. And holiday music has been prematurely belting out of every store for the last month... if I never hear Mariah Carey screech "All I Want For Christmas" again, it'll be too soon.

For all the years I've lived in California, I still haven't adjusted to the holidays in a temperate clime. It seems fundamentally wrong to have Christmas lights and palm trees simultaneously in my field of vision. I don't miss the snow, necessarily, but I do sort of miss the winter chill. And despite the newspaper's proclamation that the winter was upon us as temperatures "plummeted" into the low 50's, it's just not the same. Okay, okay, my wuss ass did turn on my heat, but give me a break: my building has no insulation, and the wind whistles through the crooked gaps in my window frames (I swear I see more cracks every week... I won't be the least bit surprised when the room off the kitchen shears off completely and, when trying to take out the trash I step out my door into empty space and plunge three stories to my untimely crumpled demise).

I'm also annoyed that I have three holiday parties to attend on the same weekend that my two Must See movies of the year open. Yargh.

I sound like a Scrooge, I know. I'll get over it.

Well it seemed like a good idea...

So that rain yesterday and today? Not so cleansing afterall. Now the storm drains are clogged with leaves and litter, and the sidewalks slick with a film of pulpy paper and wet trash. This town may require a biblical deluge for adequate purification purposes.

Out, Damn'd Spot!

It's raining finally. None of that drizzly crap, but a good drencher. Hallelujah! The City could use a good hosing down.

Gobble gobble

You know what I love most about Thanksgiving? I think it's the two days off work. A four day weekend! Why can't they all be this long and wonderful? Sure, sure, there's all the turkey and starches and friends and pies and family and tryptophan-induced napping, and those are all swell too. But many of my Thanksgivings over the past decade have not included such delights because of distance, expense, or what-have-you (though I have spent many a lovely holiday hiking through redwood groves with a turkey cranberry sandwich). Yet I always get the time off, and nothing beats having two days to lounge around doing jack and still have a full weekend to get all the weekendy tasks accomplished...like my laundry, cleaning the bathroom, sorting the junkmail, reorganizing my closet, watering the plants, dishes, bill paying, shopping... Shit, I have a lot to do still - where did all the time go! With the roommates away, maybe I've reveled too much in my unaccustomed leisure.

Speaking of which, I find I get the urge to bake when the roommates are gone. How weird is that? Ordinarily I hardly ever use the kitchen, yet in the past two days I've baked banana bread, orange-cranberry bread, snickerdoodle cookies, and a poundcake. All from scratch. I'm not really sure what to do with it all, short of dying from butter intake, yet honestly the only reason I stopped there is because I have no mixer and my arm is sore from all the stirring.

Anyway, it's a great holiday. On just this day, all you friendless, you without family, you poverty stricken, or living in the third world, you stuck working retail, you can bite us in our oversized asses. Here's to our glorious national day of guiltless gluttonous overindulgence. I have stuffed my face because I can, dammit, and for that, I'm thankful.

Great Googly Moogly

This? Is real. From today's SFGate:

World's Ugliest Dog Dies at 14

Tuesday, November 22, 2005
(11-22) 14:54 PST Santa Barbara, Calif. (AP) --

Sam, the tiny dog whose hairless body and crooked teeth earned him a reputation as the World's Ugliest Dog, has died. The pooch died Friday, just short of his 15th birthday, his owner said.

"I don't think there'll ever be another Sam," Susie Lockheed said, adding: "Some people would think that's a good thing."

Lockheed said she initially was terrified of Sam when she agreed to take him in as a rescue dog six years ago on a 48-hour trial basis. Although she fell in love with him, his appearance repulsed her then-boyfriend and prompted the man to break up with her.

Raise Your Bloice

The question has been raised about the purpose of this whole blog thing. And I'm still trying to figure that out, to be honest. I mean, there's not a particular topic about which I'm so passionate as to devote my time or this little corner of the web to it solely (there will be no knitting podcasts, I'm sorry). I suspect that I may find direction as I continue to write, but my main goal is really just to write. I've never been good about keeping a journal, much as I tried, and that may be because a journal's intended audience is only me. Somehow an actual audience, or perceived audience in this case since I don't think many people are reading this (but bless you, everyone, who do), helps motivate. Perhaps because there's no need to face all the deeply personal revelatory topics head-on.

Anyway, so please bear with me while I strive to find my blog voice, or bloice, as my friend Zoe dubbed it, while she sat on the beach staring out across the Pacific towards the setting sun during her all-too-brief visit from New York, surrounded by Beth, Adam and Josh, with whom I'd spent the day and eaten Dim Sum and promised to include in my blog however clumsy my sentence structure.

Spearfish, SD

20 GB's worth is a whole lot of tuneage, especially for someone who's not really into music that much. So I'll admit there's a lot of random crap on my iPod, some of which I don't even think I've heard yet, and some of which I'm not entirely sure how I acquired. I also generally just let my iTunes play songs at random while sitting at my desk at work, which can be equal parts surprising and embarrassing, if, for example, my boss is standing there talking shop and suddenly Donna Summer starts belting out from behind me.

But just now, the strains of Europe's "Carrie" (remember "Final Countdown," eh??) emerged from my computer speakers and, while fighting back the involuntary urge to gag a little, I was simultaneously transported back to the summer of 1987, I think, and a nerd camp I attended in South Dakota with my sister. She was, at the time, rather into the Big Hair Bands, and I was just entering the height of my self-loathing awful awkward want-to-crawl-out-of-my-skin-to-be-anyone-but-me traumatic adolescent geek spurt. Consequently, I remember very little about that experience (though it is where I learned my main stupid human trick, aptly named the "William Tell, You Knock Me Out") except for a girl named Carrie who may or may not have had a camp crush on me while I obviously did not have a crush on her but tried to act like I thought one would if he did. Which seems to have involved playing that ballad at every opportunity. Little did I know then all the repeat bumbling jittery hand-holding nose-bumping evasive-maneuvers horrors that lay ahead.

Anyway, that aural link to the deepest recesses of memory is pretty remarkable. And sitting here shuddering, I think maybe it's no wonder that I never was a fan of glam rock despite my sister's best conversion effort.

Electro-shock Blues

I'm still at the office. Actually doing work. I've hardly futzed around at all today. Did I get to leave at 5pm and join the gang for Friday happy hour? Umm, no. How many hours ago was that? Gee, only six?

This sucks. Remind me why I'm doing this? Oh, right, because I have yet to come up with a better plan. Maybe I should get on that. A social life would be nice. Then again, so is a paycheck and 401k.

I found Jesus!

Turns out he was under the couch this whole time.

I'm so going to hell.





But how awesome are these old album covers?
(There's a crapload more here.)

Neener neener

It's 76 record-breaking degrees in San Francisco at this moment before noon in mid-November, and the sun is blazing from out a cerulean deep marred only by the faint wisps of cirrus swirls. If this is global warming at work, I'm all for it. And for all the rest of yous bundling up against the autumn chill, think fondly on the fact that I'm wearing shorts and left my jacket at home.

I kid with the global warming crack, of course. So before I go catnap in a sunbeam 'neath the magnolia in the park, let us all take a moment to distress over the record loss of Arctic sea ice this season. At this rate, people, there might be no ice left by the time we die of old age. Seriously.

Tippy Hedren

Ew. There was a freshly squashed pigeon in the crosswalk on my walk to work this morning. Now, I'm generally not very fond of pigeons, especially in this town where so many of them are clearly diseased or maimed to the point that they resemble a Jim Henson creation. But I have oh-so-many pigeon stories. I used to enjoy eating outside in the fresh air and California sun, so most of my stories involve ruined lunches... except the time I got beaned in the noggin by a pigeon as I was walking to the bus stop one morning. Actually, now that I think of it, a baby robin flew right into me at that bus stop too. Huh.

Anyhoodle, though most spoiled lunch hours have involved a pigeon crapping on or near me or my food (I'm a birdshit magnet, seriously), I recently learned two things: A] there is a very mean seagull in the park who tried to eat a pigeon, much to that pigeon's dismay (I really wanted to watch the scene play out -- would it swallow the thing whole or would there be gore -- but some hippy animal lover shooed the seagull away and it dropped the freaked-out pigeon before any damage was done); and B] pigeons have the ability to throw up, as one did near my foot. Now, if it's gross enough to make a pigeon vomit, you know it's bad. Of course, that didn't stop other pigeons from coming up and going, "Hey! Free lunch!" which is precisely the point where I packed up and left nature to the birds.

Eat your heart out, Gary Wright

After turning off Rosie O'Donnell, I looked up to see that I'm on a stage with an audience who's expecting me to perform the dress rehearsal of the big production number. But as the curtains rise, I am now watching the show involving Mickey Rooney in a sequined blue tux popping out of the floor lip-synching to the Gay Hits of Broadway. My attention shifts to the stage itself, which moves like a massive conveyer belt, speeding set pieces off stage. I watch with my mother as the panels of the stage open up to reveal the depths below, and suddenly begin to line up on edge to form a big herring-bone pattern. Turns out that this is all part of a famous but anonymous avant-garde artist's latest piece which also involves shreds of cardboard, a bucket, and some raw poultry to spell out the word "imagination" which my mother is convinced is spelled incorrectly, though I can't tell for sure because of the glazed donut in the way. I nod approvingly.
When I look up, I'm in my friend's bedroom where she's being tied up by an unlikeable coworker who then drives off in her pickup truck across the farmfield outside, waving at me pleasantly over her shoulder. Once she's gone, I bend down to undo the bungee cord strapping my friend to the pipe below the window, which I look out to see a stunt plane flying overhead. In the distance is a giant flock of migrating black-and-white birds, which I first mistake for flying penguins but realize are auks and tufted puffins. My friend starts to freak out as she views them through her binoculars and one veers straight towards us at a high rate of speed. Turns out it's a guy sky diving with batwings, and he crashes headfirst through the bedroom wall and starts to sell us insurance against pipe and plaster damage in case anyone else decides to plow through our walls. I turn away from his presentation and back to my desk where I'm getting instructions on turning high-grade uranium into fissile plutonium from a guy who, after answering my many questions and assuring me I'm not receiving a lethal dose of radioactivity, proceeds to demonstrate proper bare-handed technique to apply pressure to the little grey chunk of powdery metal, making it brittle and silvery. I hand him a towel to wipe the brown-sugary sticky metal from his fingers, get an in-depth lesson in secret government programs to stockpile and purify the necessary uranium, and offer him a cow with his coffee.
Then I wake up.

Sshhhhh, I think my subconscious may be insane.

Gesundheit

I'm not generally one to talk about things that take place in the bathroom, mostly to spare myself (and you too, my dears) from unpleasant mental images involving people we know. But I will allow exceptions since I'm a dumbass. And occasional discussions on office-place restroom etiquette can be the source of much humor... or horror, depending. For example, every office has an unpublished, yet widely circulated, list of "bolters" - those who leave without washing hands. Word gets around. That's the horror. On the humor side, now that I think of it, here's a lovely little test of innate male bathroom etiquette that invariably guys will ace and women will not. Very enlightening.

Anyway, so for the last few weeks, almost every time I'm standing in the office bathroom (do not use your imagination here), thinking it's empty (since there are only two urinals, the only time you're allowed to use it is when it's empty... see the link above), I'll suddenly hear a "wah-chshhh" noise behind me, sounding just like someone stifling a sneeze. Yes, one time I even said "Bless you." It was involuntary. I fled immediately before anyone could recognize my shoes. Still, several times a week could Sneezy Dwarf be lurking in the stall?

Today, I caught the culprit in the act. Meet the Microburst 3000 AutoFresh Metered Air Freshener.

Corinthians 6:19

I was visiting a friend last weekend who recently bought a house in the town of Roseville, just outside of Sacramento. I know. But the house is actually really cute -- although admittedly I'm suffering from both home-ownership and yard envy (my rent alone is like a mortgage, people, and you want grass and trees in the City? Forget it). Now, I've been to the Sacramento area a whopping 4 or 5 times, and mostly stopping at the In-N-Out burger off I-80 coming home from Tahoe. Not counting all we learned as kids from "Eight is Enough", my main impressions of the Sac were: Blech. The whole Generica suburban smoggy nightmare level of hell. The taste of evil? A little chalky.

And now another reason to grit my teeth. A few blocks from her (cute) house was The Lord's Gym. The building is painted with a giant muscular bleeding Jesus doing pushups with a cross on his back. Horrified, I sped to the internet only to learn that these gyms exist all over the freakin' country (though I stood agape before the original!) and their T-shirt happens to be one of the best-selling T-shirts of all time (His Pain, Your Gain). I wonder if they have Steppin' the Stairway to Heaven aerobics classes. I do see they offer boxing, so basically you can beat the shit out of someone in the name of Jesus. Anyway, I guess the fact that this is all new to me just proves what a glorious godless Gomorrah I live in, even if I can't rake any lawn.

The same thing we do every night

'Twas a dark and stormy night...

I used the back entrance when I left the office this evening, and as I was walking along the sidewalk in the shelter of the building, I noticed some weird little wet marks on the dry concrete. Now, it has basically been raining buckets all day, just as it did most of last night, so some wet splotches on the sidewalk weren't particularly unusual. But these marks were narrow little streaks that all came from the edge of the walkway and traced parallel straight lines, with the occasional graceful loop or sweeping curve. It took me a moment to notice that nearly every little trail ended in a big gruesome splooch.

Upon closer inspection, the trails that didn't end in messy splats each ended in a sprawled-out earthworm, agonizingly making its way across the concrete towards a ghastly doom under someone's foot. Now, I'm used to seeing earthworms emerging from rain-soaked dirt and pointlessly trekking out across treacherous sidewalks in places where there is grass and dirt and, well, nature. But what surprised me here is that there is no nature in this spot. My office is surrounded by asphalt and concrete, streets, sidewalks, and parking lots. Seriously, the only exposed earth is a tiny strip of decorative rocks with like one distressed bush losing its battle to exist. Yet there were a lot of worms.

Where were they going?

I'm sure the night guard was wondering what the hell I was doing, but I tried to save as many of the not-quite-dead-yet critters as I could hold in my slimy fingers, dropping them in the grate surrounding a tree out on the sidewalk next to the street, assuring that at least they would not be squashed.

Weird. And amazing. A little sad. And pretty gross.

Co-Workers Gone Wild

I've just discovered perhaps the greatest invention in the history of snackfoods. Ritz Bits S'mores. Little bite-sized bits of manna from heaven: marshmallow and chocolate-like filling stuck between two tiny graham cracker cookies. I have just eaten the whole box in a single sitting. I'm slightly hung-over.

My crapulence results from last night's company holiday party. Now, the company holiday party is an interesting phenomenon. It serves as a sort of release from the daily work environment, a chance to socialize and let loose, get dressed up, drink excessively and so on. Yet the fact remains that these are all people you work with, or worse, work FOR, and you still have to face everyone on Monday, so it's really not such a release at all so much as a unique new workplace torture: an opportunity to make an ass of yourself (or to watch others do so) and spend the weekend regretful and anxious about Monday morning coffee in the breakroom.

But, highlights did include a complete collection of Degas sculptures; large slabs of roastbeef but a complete absence of knives, forcing people to stuff entire chunks of meat into their mouths and hope someone didn't choose that moment to introduce the wife, which they inevitably did; the museum's complete underestimation of my co-workers' ability to consume massive amounts of free booze and the near riots when the red wine, vodka, and beers had all run out; and a DJ who played a little too much Michael Jackson.

The UN, the Snitch, and the Bathrobe

A great deal of important things have occured in recent weeks. I'm not going to write anything about them.

Instead, let me relate a dream I had last night in my cough-addled semi-sleep. I was on the Yale Old Campus, attending an evening lecture on jewelry making led by a bathrobe-wearing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and attended eagerly by White House strategist Karl Rove and my mother. After pairing off, Mr. Annan handed out fabulous gold necklaces to each student to inspect and attempt to mimic. Of course, when class was over, one golden chain had not been returned and Kofi threatened to bring down the might of the Security Council upon us all if someone didn't admit to the theft, while we all shifted uneasily in our seats waiting to be dismissed. Someone finally snitched on their partner, but details are fuzzy since I was starting to wake up.

I have no idea what this dream means. Truly not a clue. I didn't even know my sub-conscious was aware of the existence of Karl Rove. Where does this stuff come from? Taken in hand with my dream of burying FDR's protesting Scottish terrier in the White House rose garden with the help of Hilary Clinton during a flood, I'm beginning to worry about the inner workings of my mind.

Doppelgänger part II

The most extraordinarily weird thing has just happened. If you haven't already, read the original Doppelgänger entry below. It just got a lot stranger.

I recently checked my hotmail account which I never ever use because it is overrun with spam. But this time, there were tens of e-mails from a zbruns@xxx.yyy which were not the usual spams that look like they're from my own address but are still just touting reduced mortgage rates, septic cleaning systems, and penile enlargement products. These all appeared to be messages forwarded automatically to my address because the original account's inbox had filled up, and were from this zbruns's coworkers and friends. A typical message: "Hey Zack, hope you're having fun in London. Let me know when you're back. My roots are becoming noticeable and I was hoping you could squeeze me in after work and maybe do some extra hilights".

A little freaked that there was yet another me running around out there, I forwarded some of his mail back to him explaining what had apparently happened in the e-mail mixup since he might have missed some important messages. And, on a whim, asked if he knew Caroline from high school.

After a brief e-mail exchange, it turns out this Zachary Bruns (Zack) is in fact the very one being sought by the random phone caller of a few months ago. Only he lives in NYC now. He grew up in a small town, is gay, and completely convinced we're in the midst of a Twilight Zone episode. (Unsurprisingly, his Caroline who called me, is nice and means well but is something of a stalker.)

Anyway, i'm deriving small comfort from the fact that one freak event has come full circle. Granted, given the tiny number of Zachary Brunses, it shouldn't be shocking that wires were crossed several times with the same individual. But still, what are the odds of any of this happening at all? Let alone twice? Within 2 months! What's the universe trying to tell me?

Maybe it was the lightening.

2 things you don't want to overhear at lunch

From the guy behind the counter while indulging my craving for Taco Bell: "Yeah, they were making everyone sick so we changed it..."

In the sushi place near my office: "Well the CDC said there was no way to be sure, so they'd send someone..."