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...

Now he’s at the closet, Now he’s opening the closet

I'm back and for the record I didn't die in the tiny earthquake. Y'all will have to pardon my little hiatus, but things have been a bit crazy of late. Work was out of control for a couple weeks (World Cup, new projects with impossible deadlines, my own procrastinatory dumbassitude) and I wasn't feeling much like typing when not at the office.

Also when not at the office, I've been distracted. I spent a shocking sum on a fabulous shelving system and overhauled my closet, for one. Which may seem a trifle, but when it's the only closet in the apartment and so must serve to hold my clothes, coats (of which there are many, living in San Fran as I do), linens, shoes, camping equipment, luggage, snowboard gear, etc., etc., well that's a tall order for a 4x4 space. Anyway, that has taken more time than I expected. Because buried in that closet were piles of clothes and boxes I hadn't seen in years... literally. It frightens me how much of a fucking packrat I am and how hard it is to part with stuff when there's some remote possibility that it could come in handy in the distant future should I ever start that project, or in case it might come back in style, or just because I liked it when I could wear it which hasn't been for 5 years. But I did give a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. And I also had to overhaul my bedroom once there was space to put things away properly (more or less).

Then last week my family was in town (yay!), so look forward to photos.

Anyway, now that all the excitement of closet-cleaning is over (yup, that's my thrill-a-minute life), it's back to business as usual.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake

5:23 am. The sky is turning light in the east. The birds have already begun their morning chatter on the wires. Traffic noises are gradually increasing beneath my window. I'm only remotely aware of these things as I slowly surface from a pleasant dream.

5:24 am. The bed begins to thump against the wall as the building suddenly groans and creaks. I open my eyes wide and lay there gripping my pillow as all my furniture rocks gently and the things on my shelves start to rattle. No sooner am I perfectly aware of what's going on than it's already over, my heart the only thing left thumping, my nerves the last thing left rattled.

There's nothing quite like a jolt of adrenaline to start the day. It's just too bad it didn't happen about an hour later so I could have slept a little longer.

Bright College Years

Let me elaborate a little on my reunion which I had earlier called a giant mind-fuck: it was as though I spent the weekend in a perpetual state of déjà vu.

In one sense, it was seriously like I had never left school. I don't think I'd ever given a conscious thought to the scent of my freshman year dorm's stairwell, but the instant I opened the door to Durfee entryway B, the subtle smell yanked me back through time with such a jarring swirl that the woosh was almost audible and I had to pause to steady myself before climbing the steps. Later that first night, Bryan, Ben and I went to Yorkside for a slice (actually, I had the garlic cheese bread which tasted precisely as I unexpectedly expected it would), and as we lingered over the bill, I felt the creeping worry that my study break had already been too long and I needed to get back to my reading packet.

The sense of familiarity with my surroundings was overpowering, but it was as if I was in a some bifurcated bizarro parallel universe where almost everything was identical except that it rained donuts. Not only were we in Durfee, we were staying in the room next-door to my freshman year room (Bryan's suite). Everything was exactly as I remember - the 14-foot ceilings, the furniture, the nappy blue curtains... but it was all opposite of my frosh suite: the fireplace was on the wrong side of the common room and the bathroom was near the front door instead of at the end of the hallway. And the chairs had angled backlegs so you could rock back without falling over. Toads and Au Bon Pain and Ashley's were still there, but the Co-op was a Barnes & Noble and J.Crew and Urban Outfitters sat where some other miscellaneous shops should be. The Lipstick still stood in the Morse courtyard, but there was fancy leather furniture in the common room and Bryan's ex was now Dean. The lions still stood guard outside Wright Hall, but I'm fairly certain the flowering dogwoods framing the Durfee entryway don't belong there. The nave of the library was still flanked by card catalogs, but the central courtyard was instead a beautifully-enclosed music library. And what was that large modern building across from DUH on Hillhouse?

Similarly disconcerting, every time I turned around I saw familiar faces. You know what it's like to recognize someone but not be able to place how you might know them? Does she ride my bus? Is that the guy who works at Jamba? Did I work with that woman once? Is he the one from that party? Well nearly every face under the class tent was like that, though I never knew most of them even while in school. I saw people I felt like I should know and thought, wait, you went to my college? And of course many folks were a little thicker around the middle or a little thinner up top, had children in tow, dressed better.

Clearly, there were plenty of reminders that ten years really had gone by.

And now I have a new layer of memories associated with that place, which will surely make the next visit even more of a head game. What remained exactly as I remember, however (aside from the craptastic weather and sidewalks submerged by turbid puddles the size of small inland seas), was the great enjoyment of genuine friendship. Honestly, waiting with Ranie and the gang for a burger at Louis' Lunch, revisiting Zoe's tale of dating woe, meeting the newest member of Kristin's family, being jealous of Ben's chapeau de morses, waiting for the train with Bryan, I realized just what were the most important things I took away from school ... and I'm glad they've been there ever since.

To summarize (part tongue-in-cheek and part tear-on-cheek):

Bright College years, with pleasure rife,
The shortest, gladdest years of life;
How swiftly are ye gliding by!
Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?

The seasons come, the seasons go,
The earth is green or white with snow,
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale.

In after years, should troubles rise
To cloud the blue of sunny skies,
How bright will seem, through mem'ry's haze
Those happy, golden, bygone days!

Oh, let us strive that ever we
May let these words our watch-cry be,
Where'er upon life's sea we sail:
"For God, for Country and for Yale!"

Pressed between the pages of my mind

The last time I was at Yale was the day after graduation, as I emerged onto Old Campus in a daze, feeling as though I had just had the rug pulled from under me. Trying to process the flurry of activity and events and goodbyes and obligations and hoping I hadn't left anything unfinished, I dragged my luggage across the uneven flagstones and saw Ben (the Big) standing forlornly in the quiet quad, overlooking the remains of our college years as workers began to stack and store the neat rows of chairs, pick up the bits of paper, plastic cups and other detritus, and gradually restore a dignified peace beneath the towering elms. A final hug and I was hurrying out the High Street gate, into a cab with my sister and dad, and off to the airport in a panicky dash to avoid missing the flight thanks to the notoriously fickle New Haven taxis.

Over the ensuing 10 years, the well-worn pages of my memory book have faded with age and disuse, and I strained to recall place names, faces, instructors, courses, specific events, old haunts. There were people and things I had forgotten without even knowing I had ever known. And so, last weekend I returned to campus for my 10-year reunion and what turned out to be one giant mind-fuck. But in a good way.

It began as soon as I got off the train from Boston, emerging from Union Station and clambering aboard the alumni shuttle bus to be surrounded by oddly familiar faces, people clapping each other on the shoulders, shaking hands, hugging. And by sheer coincidence, Bryan showed up fresh off his train from DC so we could join in the preunion. Once on Old Campus, Big Ben was there to meet us and somehow, quite unexpectedly, as I rolled my luggage across the uneven flagstones, 10 years melted away as if they'd been a strangely vivid daydream.

Record time

I'm a terrible picture taker. Yes yes, I have a few really nice shots and several I'm especially proud of given my crappy little snapshot camera (which was super amazing when I got it), but in general I take too many photos of things and not nearly enough pictures of people. And while things are sometimes pretty, those shots are rarely as pretty as the thing was in person, and the snapshots of people are the ones I wish I had because they spur such great memories of whatever the experience was. And so, I'm making the effort to take more shots of people from here on out.

Similarly, I'm going to try to include more of these sort of shots in my ramblings on this here mess of a blog, because it's as much for me (my attempt to fend off the fog of failing memory) as it is for the infotainment of you, dear reader.

And with that, in a brief blog crossover episode, let's all take a moment to say Happy 1st Birthday Nolan! and to enjoy the difference a year makes.

Rats!

So much for staying on top of my writing duties. But this time I have a good excuse: I spent last week out of town and with limited computer contact. I was on my annual Back East tour, visiting Caroline and her family in Boston, and then on to New Haven, CT for some serious past reliving. I will write more on this in the next few days, but I've been busy at work catching up on e-mails and projects that have been lagging behind, and the weather has been so nice in the mornings and evenings that I haven't been taking the time to sit in front of my keyboard and screen.

Tangentially related, I've been toying with the idea of taking up running (next year's San Francisco AIDS Marathon or this winter's Honolulu Marathon, perhaps... Am I crazy?!), and later we can delve into why that may happen if I fully commit to it, but since I haven't formally exercised in years, I actually went out on a trial jog last night when I got home from work. It was a beautiful sunny evening in the low 60s, and I ran/walked down to the Wharf and then around to Levi's Plaza and then climbed the cliffside staircase up the east face of Telegraph Hill and back down to home. It wasn't a long distance and I was only gone for 45 minutes, but I gotta start somewhere.

Anyway, while pausing for a drink at the fountain near the base of Coit Tower, something came bursting out of the underbrush towards me, and I thought at first it was a chipmunk or squirrel or one of the rodents I'm more used to seeing scurrying around in the wild. But no, this isn't the woods, this is a city, and as it brazenly streaked past my shoes I saw its long thick hairless tail and recognized it at once as an enormous rat. Fortunately no one was around to witness my little don't-chew-my-toe-or-climb-my-leg dance.

Given that I haven't seen a rat in ages, it was weird then, that this morning as Janet and I walked to work, there was a second gigantic rat, though this one considerably more dead, laying in the middle of the sidewalk just outside the Clown Alley burger joint where I shall now never eat. First spiders, now rats... I'm a little afraid of what may be lying in wait for me next. If it starts raining snakes, I'm moving.

Me and Janet Leigh (screech screech screech)

San Francisco is blessedly free from bugs and pests in general, which is good since my windows remain open year-round and none of them have screens. The worst I have to deal with is the single annual mosquito who finds her way into my bedroom and interrupts my sleep by buzzing in my ear and vanishing the moment I give up suffocating beneath the sheets, flip on the light, and lunge around the room with a rolled up magazine.

Anyway, rarely do I encounter anything worse than that, including spiders - to my relief given my total and irrational fear of spiders. This fear is ridiculous, I'm aware, but completely beyond my control, and probably dates back to the clearly-remembered moment when, at the age of 5ish, I wadded up a tissue and bent down to squash one of those tiny little hairy house spiders on the bathroom wall. Those little buggers were remarkably nimble and as I closed in on it, with a distinct "boink" sound (surely not imagined), it sprang squarely to the middle of my forehead.

Ever since then, the sight of a spider from across the room is enough to set off my flight-or-fight reponse, torn between the urge to be in a far distant corner of the house and the need to stay close at hand so I know exactly where the thing is at all times lest it make a break for my bedroom where it would... I don't even know what, crawl across my prone body or something equally dreadful... while I slept. And each spiderweb in the face (of which there are many, I assure you, as a tall person) sends me into momentary panic wondering where the originator has got to.

Because of their rarity, it's been a while since I gave any thought to spiders, but in the last 2 days they've been the subject of several conversations as a friend and I recalled clutching each other in terror in Tuscany as tarantulas invaded the villa on the last night, my boss told me of the black widow she discovered in a bunch of grapes she bought at Safeway, and someone told me of the enormous spiders she was battling lately in her bathroom.

So of course, because that's the way the world works, this morning as I was at my most vulnerable -- naked in the shower -- what do I see (even without my glasses) on the ceiling directly overhead as I leaned back to wash my hair? It was enormous, gargantuan, horrifying, and it was staring right back at me with all 8 of its awful eyes. Seriously.

I fought the urge to scream, though I will admit to an involuntary gasp, and I finished my shower awkwardly, refusing to take my eyes off the thing should it decide to drop onto my bare shoulder when I turned my back. I even resisted the temptation to seek roommate assistance since I have yet to live down the mouse incident.

Fortunately, Shelob hadn't wandered far by the time I returned (with clothing and proper eyewear) to escort it elsewhere* with the end of the very long broom handle.

*and by elsewhere, I mean into the next world with a flush of the toilet. Sorry all you live-and-let-livers but I couldn't risk it coming back through an open window seeking revenge.

Now everybody do the propaganda

As I've mentioned at various times previously, there's been an increasing number of scientific studies being published reporting the mounting evidence of human-activity-caused global warming in the past year: collapsing ice shelves in Antarctica, quickening glacial melts in Greenland, dramatic retreat of polar sea ice, slackening North Atlantic Current just as the computer models predicted, massive temperature-related bleachings of coral reefs, hard evidence that the 1990s were the warmest decade globally in more than a millennium, increased global river flow not due to an increase in rainfall but due to plants' response to higher carbon dioxide concentrations, faster than predicted sea level raise, ice-core data indicating 30% higher CO2 concentrations now than at any time in the last 650,000 years, etc., etc. Even backyard observers are finding it difficult to deny when the spring thaw arrives earlier each year, and bugs and plants normally seen in southern habitats are working their way northwards, overwintering in places they had never been seen before.

Amidst all of this, then, we finally have the following, brought to us by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a "public policy organization" funded in part by Exxon Mobil, among others, which holds that the free market alone will settle on what's best for the indivdual: We call it Life (WMV; Quicktime). Yes friends, it's a commercial airing in 14 US cities extolling the virtues of the much-maligned air we breathe out: Carbon Dioxide. I shit you not.

Yeah, it's like that

You know those mornings where you slip out of your deep sleep somewhere near 3am because you have a pounding headache from that second glass of wine with dinner and you try to fight off waking up but can't because you're increasingly aware of the stiffness in your neck and the pain between your shoulder blades from being contorted around the pile of pillows you stacked up to prop against to read for a while but fell asleep upon without flattening out and once you're mostly conscious you pick out the sounds of the Daily Show coming from the TV in the living room where your drunken roommate is most likely passed out on the couch and you can't tune it out and you start tossing and turning and find it impossible to find a comfortable position and your internal thermostat seems to have aboandoned its temperature regulation now that you're half awake so you go from too hot and and annoyingly sweaty to too cold and still a little sweaty and you stubbornly refuse to open your eyes to see what time it is let alone get out of bed to take an aspirin and ask your roommate to turn down the television since you can't focus on anything but the muted laughter of a tivoed studio audience and the fact that you are not asleep but should be and you get progressively more pissed off at the situation which makes it even more difficult to go back to sleep until finally you sink into strange and unsettling dreams just as the sun rises over the hill and shines like a laser beam through the crack in the curtains directly into your eyes and you realize you have to get up for work?

This just in: Zoo Apes Have Taste For Red Wine

One of the first things I do when I get to work in the mornings is sign on to AOL Instant Messenger, and one of the windows that I always leave open on my desktop is AIM's little News Headlines screen. On a good day I'll actually go to a real news site at some point, although I'm sad to say that many days this little AIM window is the extent of my news intake.

Now, the headlines generally consist of the standard current events fare we're all used to seeing. But occasionally there will be a headline thrown in the mix which strikes me as utterly hilarious, especially since it's buried in the midst of the more weighty items. See if you can spot which of these things is not like the others:

House Votes to Cut Aid to Palestinians
Mexican President Fox Visits Utah Tuesday
Six Major Hurricanes Predicted for 2006
Penguins Do Not Topple Over When Aircraft Fly Overhead
Thailand Mudslides Leave 10 Dead, Many Missing
Raccoon Survives Massive Electric Shock
Former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen Dies

I believe you have my stapler

Ok, now that all my afternoon meetings have been postponed, I find myself with a few moments to spare. Don't worry, anyone with whom I work who might be reading this, I'm on break: I didn't take lunch because it was interrupted by the fire alarm and I was tangled in my orange vest trying to hold the stairwell door open and direct everyone to safety.

Anyway, an office-related topic today: the issue of the person who sits kitty-corner through the cubicle wall. He's a very nice, overly helpful IS guy capable of solving a Rubik's Cube in under 2 minutes, and I don't want to make fun of or put him down... but wholly craparoonie, he's been bugging the bejebus out of me lately. For one, he snores. Loudly. How do I know this? Because he does it in his cube. During the day. At work.

I seriously think he may be narcoleptic. I know I'm not the only one to have noticed (it's not subtle) so perhaps it's a known medical condition which explains why he hasn't been fired. Also, twice now he has dozed off right in the middle of installing or upgrading software on my computer. Right there, with me leaning on my desk right beside him. Asleep. It started out as sort of amusing, but at this point I'm just more annoyed with every snore.

Also? At the moment he's sick or has allergies or something, because when he's awake I can hear him snorting the snot -- not just sniffles, but full-on back-of-the-throat snot-rattling snorts -- every few minutes. I've had to start wearing headphones to keep from getting too grossed out. And like a true obsessive-compulsive I also wiped down my keyboard and mouse with disinfectant once he had finished upgrading my MS Office. *shudder*

If I could save time in a bottle... I'd certainly get a lot more shit done

So, sorry for the lull. I was doing well there for a while, but once I got out of the habit... well, you can imagine why my gym membership goes mostly unused.

I'm not sure what happened exactly. For one, the weather turned warmer and so I've been getting very little inside work done. Sunday, for example, unpredictably turned out to be one of the 6 days a year when it gets genuinely hot in the City - in fact, out of nowhere we broke the record high temperature set in 1970 by 2 degrees hitting a whopping 87! Of course, today never rose above 60. But anyway, Sunday, after checking out a photography exhibit at the Legion of Honor museum, I spent the afternoon at the beach because, well, any day that you don't have to bundle up in 5 layers only to huddle shivering with your back to the water to avoid getting sand in your eyes is a good day on the beach.

Also, things picked up a little at work (not that I was writing much at work, just for the record) so I've had less time to futz around with any side projects.

What this also means is that I probably won't be finishing my Post-It Note Mona Lisa anytime soon. I have occasional creative outbursts because my right brain has no consistent outlet, and since I spend such a big chunk of my waking hours at the office, I have amassed quite a collection of random office-object art: sketches on documents from boring meetings, Post-It Note mosaics, mobiles of useless CDs, paperclip sculptures, FedEx label origami, etc. I was thinking maybe I could have my own exhibit. Unfortunately some of my better works have been temporary, such as this short-lived dry-erase van Gogh rendition on my cubicle white-board...

Run for the border

Sadly, despite the title, this post has nothing to do with today's boycott or immigration reform or any other important topics about which I could comment. (It's not that I don't have some opinions on these matters, but I'm not generally the debating or political discussion type. I like to hear other people's opinions, but I'm not one to share my own thoughts or commentary readily. We can go into the reasons for this at a later date.)

No, this post is about my embarrassing love for the Taco Bell. Which I had for lunch today. You know, in support of the cause. Now I'm not really big on the fast-food (I haven't had a BigMac in years), but I do have a few weaknesses: mainly In-n-Out Burger, Arby's roast beef slathered in "horsey sauce", and sausage egg McMuffins. But Taco Bell, hell that's like my Kryptonite.

Perhaps because of the complete dearth of convenient Taco Bells in the City, when I happen upon one I am helpless to resist. I don't know what they put in the "tacos" but it's clearly addictive. Even the mixed KFC/Taco Bell sites draw me in, although frankly the idea of being able to order mashed potatoes and gravy with my chalupa completely freaks me out.

After a few months I'll actually experience cravings that get bad enough I've been known to catch a bus out to distant neighborhoods in search of a double-decker taco supreme. To demonstrate my addiction, let me tell a brief tale (which many of you have heard) from a few years ago of just such a mission.

Upon crossing town, with the Bell in my sights, I stepped out into the crosswalk -- with the light, I might add -- when out of nowhere careened a silver car, taking a left and slamming right into me. After flying into the street and rolling across the asphalt, I pulled myself up over the hood of the car (seeing the bloodied spectre of the person she just hit rise up in front of her totally sent the woman behind the wheel into hysteria, which was about the only satisfaction I can take from the whole episode, as it turns out), and after making sure I wasn't dead, trying to calm her down, and exchanging info, what did I do? Yes, I proceeded across the damn intersection and into that Taco Bell.

I did ask to use their restroom to try to clean myself up a little (though promptly realized that if I got my open wounds anywhere near that sink I was likely to contract something nasty), but when I returned the key I... also ordered dinner. After all that, there was no way in hell I was limping out of there without my gordita.