boring boring boring

Reasons Why I Don't Use This Blog Anymore

2011-11-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

1. I

2. Just

3. Don't.

4. listgeeks.com

March Forth - the umpteenth time I "get my life in order"

2010-03-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

1. Stop spending frivolously just because I can manage to pay my bills.
2. Plant more stuff in the backyard. 4 of my 6 hyacinths are poking up, but I want wildflowers and a lettuce patch and more moss!
3. Organize my pantry and get a collection of mason jars for storing bulk items.
4. Give my bedroom some personality, as I'm probably going to be here for awhile.
5. Treat my poor car better.
6. Try not to get so worked up about work, and refuse to let my inferior superiors get to me.
7. Throw a small cocktail party (with food, of course.)
8. Actually work toward paying back the large sum of money I owe to my parents.
9. Interview my grandparents about their lives.
10. Look for public fruit trees and harvest them.

My mom looked at my bank statement and told me that I have a bakery problem

2010-02-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

Food cravings, February 2010. I am obviously listing on an empty stomach.

1. Al pastor burrito/tacos with cheese and cream from Tacos Mi Rancho
2. Duck confit hash from Bistro 1491
3. Rillettes from La Bedaine (and I haven't even tasted one yet)
4. Macaron (especially pistachio) from Feel Good Bakery
5. Breadsticks from aforementioned bakery
6. My sister's shortbread
7. English muffin sandwich from Piedmont Cafe

Ferocious Wants

2009-07-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

I want a lot, luckily more than I need. Gotta get it out of my system.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice with no pulp.

A back rub from someone I know and like because I don't really like strangers putting their hands all over me.

More days to just spend going to the library.

A Fudgesicle, or something like a Fudgesicle.

A nice leather bound dictionary.

Money for interior decorating.

Sunlight for plants.

A cat.

A moped.

A letter.

A really cold glass of water with no ice.

A large vase with some branches in it and a place to put it.

Pan-fried trout with butter and a slice of lemon.

A roof garden.

A really soft, large blanket.

More privacy.

Some kind of coherent color scheme in my living quarters.

The opposite of an impending headache.

A rich old lady coat.

Some fog that lasts all day.

A mystery to solve.

A temple to deposit coins in and ring a bell or something. Like, down the street.

Eine Kleine Sommer Buchliste

2009-07-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Just finished The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian (see digital shrine on other blog) and after getting my brains pounded into the back of my skull in a pleasurable literary type way (Shut up.) I am ready for some shorter books or a really long one about food. Might read a geology book over again, too -- maybe an actual textbook, but more likely the one by John McPhee.

1. All or some of The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher

2. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

~~3. A Mouthful of Air by Amy Koppelman~~

3. Motorman by David Ohle ✓

4. Your Body is Changing by Jack Pendarvis ✓

5. Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy

6. Butterfly Stories by William T. Vollman ✓

7. An Oz book or two

8. The Road by Cormac McCarthy ✓

Rereads

9.The Little Friend by Donna Tartt ✓

10. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan

Getting Sadder House Sitter

2009-07-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Finish the book I’m reading, start another.

Touch the spines of all of my books.

Scrub myself clean and raw.

Look at my body.

Look away.

Look at my face, hair.

Note that my hair is the exact color of mouse fur.

Look at my movies.

Note The Last Unicorn.

Think about being the only one here,

The only one not on this vacation,

The only one alive in my family,

The world.

Stop thinking.

Floss my teeth, especially the back ones.

Hope my sister’s cancerous rat doesn’t die.

Decide to put it in the freezer if it does.

Let my hair get dirty.

Move on all fours.

Go wild.

Play the piano, my own songs.

Pedal the piano, someone elses songs.

Howl when the dogs do.

Give encouragement.

Turn my phone off.

Turn it back on again “for safety reasons.”

Look at my messy room that isonly kind of my room anymore.

Think “My stuff is still here, but that hardly matters.”

Push everything into a pile like my mom taught me to do when I was to force myself to clean.

Clean.

Seperate and wash, dry and fold.

Think about monotony and banality and the doldrums.

Think about being taken on a date by someone who has brushed up against my unshaven legs in bed.

Think about staring at that someone from across a table and feeling slightly giddy.

Think about feeling new.

Think about going to buy new underwear and socks because all mine seem to keep disappearing.

Read the newspaper that comes daily because no one else is here to do it.

Look at things I don’t need or want in the classified section.

Pick a flower, put it in a vase, set it where I can see it.

Watch television with the dogs.

Tear the pages off of my calender.

Feel nothing, bordering on fine during the day.

Feel scared at night.

Reach out for one of three small warm bodies.

Know they cannot help me in the way that I need.

Try to sink into the bed like in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Wonder what everyone else is doing.

Wonder if anyone is thinking about me this very second.

Write an email to my boyfriend and then delete it.

Write a list about loneliness before anyone has actually left yet.

Everything is and will be just fine or more than fine or just great and I am so happy, are you?

2009-06-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

This was a writing exercise in the form of naive apology to the sir I once had another blog with. I haven't wanted to do any of the following things for some time now, but have decided to keep this posted in order for this blog to remain (mostly) intact. Man I am in love with: forgive me and consider this list fictional.

1. I want to cook dinner with you and for you and pester you in a charming way until you pretend to clobber me and squash me on the bed, or we both pretend to fall asleep and snore loudly.

2. I want to go to a party and be less scared because you are there and occasionally squeeze my hand or rub my knuckles with your forefinger and then I will find out that it’s easy and then I have fun.

3. I want to clean your bathroom. No seriously - it’s a little gross.

4. I want to eat your frozen Ding Dongs.

5. I want to rub your shoulders after a stressful day at work or take a train and meet you there when your shift is over on a sunny day or a foggy one or a night of any kind.

6. I want to hold your hand.

7. I want to make up funny, snide things with you about your boss.

8. I want to co-write something with you.

9. I want to lie in bed with you on a shared day off and press myself really close, falling asleep almost, until you break the silence with some burst of sleep-laughter, waking yourself up, too.

10. I want to make-believe in a room in the Palace Hotel with you.

11. I want your parents to like me.

12. I want you to like me more.

13. I want to earn it.

14. I don’t want to be in some 2009 self-staged production of Oedipus Rex.

15. I want to bake you a birthday cake.

16. I want to cat-burgle a rare books dealer and procure for you a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus and never get caught and laugh my ass off in an alley somewhere while the sirens blare by.

17. I want to make you things and make things with you and know we are making each other happy.

18. I want you to be proud of me.

19. I want to inspire you to sit up in the dark and jot something down in the middle of the night.

20. I want to sail a boat with you and go to the desert with you and Big Sur and Hawaii and Portland and Austin.

21. I want fennecs in Marfa.

22. I want the Alaskan salmon stickers to never fall off of your wallet.

23. I want to give you those frequent haircuts you seem to need.

24. I want to tell you your mustache looks nice. (Your mustache looks nice.)

25. I want to read all of your books, I want you to read all of mine.

26. I don’t want to write another autobiographical story about a break-up.

27. I want to get a better coffee maker.

28. I want to see movies with you.

29. I want to own the Criterion Collection.

30. I want to watch the sun go down again with you.

31. I don’t want our sun to go down.

32. I want to watch the sun come up with you, too, from some high vantage point.

33. I don’t want to put out your campfire.

34. I want to find Sasquatch with you. Maybe he is in Hawaii, sitting on a surfboard, fishing.

35. I want to make a coffee table from that Rand McNally map of the world and arrange your zine collection on it, like some kind of cool dentist’s office waiting room.

36. I want to make up Casio tunes with you.

37. I want to share a bottle of decent champagne with you.

38. I want to drink it in the bathtub, cramped, slippery, happy.

39. I want to go to a parade in Japantown.

40. I want to ride on the back of your cafe racer.

41. I want to act like I’m boring you about cemetery history, but not have you really be bored.

42. I want you to encourage me to keep going.

43. I want to tell you - “Keep going.”

44. I want to cause you to float away on a regular basis.

45. I want to do my homework in the living room with you.

46. I want us to shake our fists at the sky and roar “Coppola!” or “Reveaux!”

47. I want to cloudbust with you.

48. I want to photograph more picnics and make movies.

49. I want to go grocery shopping and buy cheese. Goat cheese and olives.

50. I want to go down a big slide in San Francisco with you.

51. I want to Mraw mraw mraw, mraw mraw.

Book/short story recommendations to make you a better person (even though I like you just the way you are)

2009-06-14T16:18:00.001-07:00

1. Milan Kundera - Immortality

I feel like this is one of his lesser read works, at least compared to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but I think it is his best.

2. John McPhee - Annals of the Former World

This is actually 5 books. They are about geology. McPhee travels across the country east to west on I-80, meeting up with a different geologist for five different regions. It is not boring, but still puts a text book to shame.

3. Joseph Mitchell - Up In the Old Hotel

This is a collection of stories mostly about New York City, all of them published in The New Yorker between 1943 and 1965. They are nonfiction, often profiling just one person who happened to have enough eccentricity for a small kooky army. If you are into writing creative nonfiction, this collection might either make you feel completely inspired or totally like shit.

4. Harry Mulisch - The Discovery of Heaven

I found this book by accident. Most I bought it because I liked the cover and it was thick and would last me a long time. I read it religiously every morning in my miniature Masterpiece Theatre chair (see this month’s issue of the Believer for an article on the “cultural history of wing chairs” -- also for Reynard’s question on the letters page!) after I made my coffee. It ended up sticking with me so much when I was finished with it that I would be reading another book and find myself wishing I was still working on this one.

5. Donna Tartt - The Secret History

This was a NYT bestseller book, proclaims my small drugstore-paperback-type copy. But, oh, it was so much better than that.

6. Millard Kaufman - Bowl of Cherries

Ask Reynard! And R.I.P., Millard.

7. Yasonari Kawabata - Snow Country

Crisp and clean like snow.

8. Kanai Mieko - “Platonic Love”

E-mail me and I will send you this story, which is otherwise a little hard to find. I lovingly transcribed it some time ago.

9. Italo Calvino - Under the Jaguar Sun

Yes, Invisible Cities is very good. But these three stories (meant to be five -- one for each of the senses -- but made incomplete by Calvino’s death) are incredibly rich. A slim volume for carrying around with you as a salve for mundane places.

10. James Schuyler - Collected Poems

One of the “New York school” of poets (Ashbery, O’Hara, Koch, etc.) Writes a lot about flowers, but manages to sneak some perversity in with his pensiveness.

Favorite Places in Portland, OR

2009-06-09T18:13:00.001-07:00

These might only be “summer places.” Also, out of sheer obstinance and some childish wish to be original, I am not going to put Powell’s on this list. Like most everything else on here, there isn’t any real order.

1. Zach’s Shack, for eating wicked hella lots of hot dogs at indecent hours.

2. Laurelhurst Park for watching dogs run around and jump on your picnic table. (Guaranteed by Boston terriers.)

3. Calvary Hill cemetery, for dinner picnics and coyote howling.

4. Skyline Drive, for the diner and for driving by and ogling people’s mostly-ugly mansions in the middle of the night.

5. Vivace, for feeling like you’re having crepes and coffee in someone else’s kitchen.

6. Sauvie Island, for being equal parts French countryside (Reeder Rd) and creepy (Collins Beach - though not because it is a nude beach or because of some dumb Pahlaniuk rumor about being mostly made of deceased nudists’ ashes. It’s creepy on it’s own.) Also for having a lighthouse (Warrior Rock.)

7. The fountains in the park blocks at night in summer, for magical cheap dates.

8. Tiny’s on 12th and Hawthorne for their nice heated patio and complimentary daily crossword puzzles.

9. 24-hr Hotcake House on Powell in SE, for when you want everything cooked on the same grill.

10. Rocky Butte, for Shakespeare play/80s hair metal music video reenactments.

11. Gleall Castle, for being castle-y.

12. Chez Machin on Hawthorne, for being reasonably priced honest-to-goodness French food. Like....one dollar-sign reasonably priced. There is no place like this around here in the Bay Area (that I know of.)

13. The tire swing in the empty lot on Mississippi, for existing.

My trip

2009-06-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

1. I made a list of all the plants I knew off of the top of my head (mostly flowers, didn't feel like doing trees) and so far I've got 112.

2. --- got a tick. I put toothpaste on it, then face wash, then I got impatient and pulled it out with tweezers.

3. I've been reading Bed by Tao Lin, which is strange for camping and being in the wilderness. I had a dream that I met a witch (who looked like a middle aged Mexican lady) and she made me a disguise (androgynous supermodel) so I could get into a special gala event for the rich. We stole a car, turned it into a Porche and when I got to the ball it was actually a bunch of high society folks shopping in a Wal-mart. The aisles were very narrow and people were fighting because of it. I picked out some cassette tapes. --- said I'd had too much Tao Lin and that I was weird.

4. It is June and I can't wait to carve pumpkins.

5. I like Sunset magazine.

6. I took a detour through Petrolia but it wasn't an exciting ghost town, so I didn't stop, except when I had --- get out to pick me two foxgloves, a regular one and a white one. They wilted and I left them in Eureka. Cape Mendocino was nice and Ferndale was surreal and I predicted its existence before I saw it by saying 2 minutes before arrival, "Wouldn't it be neat if there were a town that was all Victorians." It was like hacking through the jungle and pushing back the final branches to see El Dorado or something.

7. There is a Wurlitzer in my grandparent's garage.

8. Being here is kind of sad: my grandpa's mind is going and he is distant and easily frustrated. My grandma showed me her yearbook and pointed out all of the people who were dead.

9. I am reading "Lady into Fox" by David Garnett.

10. The lake is very low. You can see the foundations of the old town.

11. There have been many lightning strikes.

12. The redwoods still amaze me. I forgot a lot of food for our camping.

13. I had a soy latte from Starbucks in Eureka (--- needed the internet) and felt bad for liking it.

14. This town is dying.

15. The big Magnavox fancy turntable still works, but most of the records are 78s from the early 1900s. --- has listened to "All Things Shall Pass" like 3 times already like I used to do. I like "Music from the Mother Church" -- Christian Scientist pipe organ stuff. Christian Scientists kind of have good taste, in music and architecture at least (see: Church of Christ, Scientist; Berkeley, Calif.)

16. The mosquito hawks are dropping like flies.

17. I couldn't find the schoolhouse in Bodega Bay, though I didn't try very hard. Or leave the highway.

18. Everything costs $7.00 (Fort Ross, Point Arena light station, most likely the Drive-Thru tree, etc)

19. Sea Ranch is like a subtle nightmare of pre-fab cabins meandering up the coast.

20. I am going to read My Memories by Edwin W. Scott, because I feel like it will be enlightening and he was a nice old man.

21. L.M. Thornton

22. Bocha (Tibetan tea) -- good?

23. My childhood is gone forever.

Phases

2009-05-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Right now, --- is writing something about phases. I told him that I like breaking up life into “minor” phases. My minor phases thus far have been:

1. Barefoot, sunbleached, scraped, putting things in old coffee cans and getting lost in the woods behind the house; not thinking about whether or not I was happy. Alternately, having seizures and not being able to go to sleepovers; needles, tests; a lot of stuff being “unfair.”

2. Anonymity and embarrassment; better at Scrabble than classmates; try to figure out the best way to stuff bra, still not allowed to shave legs.

3. A blur of compromises; too much booze, forced laughter, forced sex; an introduction to bad grades; acne.

4. Unemployment, Natalie, and a lot of hair dye; stealing, selling clothes for money; whiskey and water.

5. Cold all the time; childhood pets die; develop anxiety over silly things (cannot leave the house if it is after twelve noon on the dot); beginning to write.

6. In San Francisco every Monday just to walk around; in love with a well-known 40 year old tattoo artist who begins to walk with me; extreme celibacy extending over years; taste in music improved.

7. Stalkers, dead-air phone calls, spy games; wearing high heels and tweed blazers to dinner.

8. Portland; smoking habit skyrockets; celibacy broken; doing 2 crosswords religiously each morning at the same cafe; a lot of lists made; more friends than I’ve ever had; happy and broke.

9. Home again; isolation, calm; dissatisfaction; CraigsList personals ads; afraid to drive in wet weather; go back to school, become a commuter; write more; polish my appearance for a grad student.

10. Impetuous romance; skipping school a lot; true colors shown by all; start hating sex, stop having sex, writing; crying; physical violence; Netflix.

11. Dried up; safe with family, but restraining order considered; writing CraigsList personals merely to exercise writing skills and for the load of emails in inbox every morning; optimism.

12. Now.

Things I’ve Come to Terms With Today

2009-05-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

1. There was a cockroach on the kitchen counter when I went down to make a sandwich five minutes ago and I didn’t do anything about it and it is probably still there now.

2. I was asked to “make art” at work with chalk, because my coworkers think I am good at it and I drew something for all to see on a sandwich board and it turned out really shitty and I just let it be, because the whole time I was getting paid to do it.

3. Fiction Circus blogged about me but I will not get any blog hits because there are no links and maybe this is for the better, because they said I contribute to Memorandoms and I actually haven't at all. This is for the better.

4. I pledged to work on my science fiction tonight and managed only to write a longish paragraph about the decor in some alien’s bathroom.

5. I am probably not going to age gracefully and I am not going to be 110 lbs forever, because I never exercise and I like bacon sandwiches and everyone who has ever claimed that I am going to get fat will be right and gloat about it.

6. This may be the last time I see one or both of my grandparents. Actually, I haven’t come to terms with that.

7. I’m really good at plotting, placating, appearing sympathetic, lying through my teeth and deceiving, and am actually just a well-disguised brown-noser at work.

8. That they don't really make polaroid film anymore.

2009-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

If I see another quote clusterfuck used merely for style or irony or as a transparent shield to hide behind (poorly) while gesticulating wildly at what one means to say without actually having to say it, I might throw up.

Editing my Facebook interests

2009-05-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

These are my Facebook interests:

Books, peasant food/fine dining, postprandial strolls, the arts,botany, Soul Calibur II, maguro, bicycle rides, architecture,coconut milk, writing, cemeteries, Edward Gorey, geology, baseball, Nordic aliens, teacups, inventions, blank paper, violet mints,dawn/twilight, kitties, California history, dreams, Ambrose Bierce

Sometimes I remember I have Interests and I look at them and think, Am I misleading people? This is what I actually mean:

I obviously only like reading specific books, but I like touching, smelling, admiring a lot of books, but this is too complicated to say.

I also like Carl's Jr. and Church's Chicken. I could just put "food."

I like walks after dinner in clement weather, but I also really love the term "postprandial" so this one stays.

I like that art exists and I like to draw and I really liked this painting on Antiques Roadshow today, but I do not really like "the arts."

I mostly just like knowing the names of a lot of plants. Also being surrounded by them. Putting them in vases.

I haven't played SCII in awhile. The last video game I really played was the Mortal Combat guys vs the DC Comics guys and I lost a lot. SCII was really only fun in Portland when it was projected on a wall and me and my friend Kate took turns watching each other "train" for hours.

I really like maguro, mostly because it looks like raw steak and I really want to eat raw steak sometimes, but don't.

I really only like about 10 blocks on a smooth, low-traffic street on the way to get a cup of coffee in the morning at some place where I can lock it where I can see it, because I don't really look where I'm going and my bike is an expensive hand-me-down.

I do like architecture.

I do like coconut milk.

I love writing, when I don't hate it. Most of the time, though, when I think to myself, "I really want to write," I actually end up meaning something like "I really want to get up and do something and maybe write about it later."

I do love cemeteries.

I do love Edward Gorey.

I like the geology where you have a valid reason for clunky lace-up boots and collecting samples of things in some gulch somewhere. And earthquake stuff.

I like baseball because it is the only sport I actually understand and it is fun to play sometimes.

I actually like all aliens. By "like" I mean "am interested in" which I guess is very different. Nordics are just friendlier.

I care very much about cups and what kind I am drinking out of at any given time. But saying just "cups" sounds dumb.

I cannot honestly say that I enjoy the atomic bomb or the electric chair or blood pressure cuffs.

I do like blank paper.

I do like violet mints, and have come to find out that, besides me, only people from New York like them. I acknowledge that they are somewhat like eating nicely perfumed bits of chalk. I think it runs in my family to enjoy candy that my friends spit out. My dad is a Dutchman and likes double-salt licorice.

I like both dawn and twilight equally, though maybe sometimes leaning more toward dawn.

I fucking love kitties. All of them. Every single one.

I enjoy California history, maybe a little more so than other histories.

I have dreams.

I like that Ambrose Bierce just disappeared. I like people who just disappear for some reason.

SF list #2: Stream of consciousness San Francisco in cute alphabetical format (E thru J)

2009-05-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

E is for earthquakes. Don’t even get me started.

F is for Frank Norris. He has a street named after him, which is really just a very shitty alley. He might like this. Semi-interesting fact: Robert Altman thought his novel McTeague worth basing an opera on.

G is for Grace Cathedral, which I have visted in times of both loneliness (personal) and curiosity (for ceremony, which I have a deep interest in, no matter what kind.) They have two labyrinths there, one indoors and one in a courtyard outside, if you’re too scared to enter the church, which I was the first time. Once I went inside and walked slowly and lit a taper because I like lighting candles regardless of the situation or potential religious meaning, and it felt sneaky and satisfying, like shoplifting from your own work. I was also carrying a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum.

H is for hills. Most of the nicest places in the city, for me, involve hills. Except when I'm driving a car and freshly terrified of gravity. I have never even seen the zig-zaggy part of Lombard. It has taken me forever to do the things that hundreds of tourists do everyday. Even though I have a car, it took me 22 years to go over the Golden Gate Bridge, and I didn't drive, I walked. Twin Peaks is a good hill and terribly dramatic (and windy) when the fog starts to roll in. It is good for sub-par two person reenactments of the movie Highlander and there are also nice, visible deposits of the state rock: (Mg,Fe)3Si2O5(OH)4, known to regular people as serpentine, or "that neat greenish rock."

I is for ice cream cones from Bi-Rite Creamery, which I haven’t had yet, but I plan on it. They have long lines, apparently. My mouth is watering. I have been clinging to the idea of the pleasure found in ice cream cones versus ice cream in bowls, no matter how good. Walking around licking an ice cream cone says to passers by, “I am probably happy.” If you are with your significant other and they are licking an ice cream cone too, it is almost better than holding hands.

J is for John MacLaren, who is responsible for Golden Gate Park, which I know an almost embarrassing amount about. He planted over 2 million trees in his lifetime and grew redwoods from seeds and hated statues. He is responsible for the original (but now cement) bulwark at Ocean Beach, which built itself naturally in 40 years using the tide, sand and the piles of clippings John MacLaren placed along the beach.

Movies I’m Going to See, Good or Bad

2009-05-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

1. “Antichrist” - Willem Dafoe + Charlotte Gainsbourg + Lars von Trier directing a horror movie. Could be amazing. There is probably going to be lots of sex in it. The letter T in the title looks like some creepy zodiac sign at first inspection but is very much the symbol for woman. Ha.

2 ‘The Brothers Bloom” - Looks cute. Sometimes I need to see something cute. And the guy who made this made Brick, which I liked.

3. “Sherlock Holmes” ---, you’re going to be mad at me...but it has Robert Downey Jr. in it. They could have set it in space for all I care. Rated “D” for Movie I’m Probably Going to See With My Dad.

4. “Inglourious Basterds” - I usually see all of the WWII movies. I don’t ever expect Brad Pitt to put on a showstopping performance, so I’m not particularly worried about the rumors of “bad acting” in this one.

5. “Departures” - Japanese, award-winning, something about becoming a mortician, a man playing a cello on the poster, ok, ok, I’ll go.

6. “Blood: The Last Vampire” - Because I own the complete anime DVD box set shipped to me from Japan. The trailer looks subpar, but whatever. I might change my mind about this one, though.

7. “Tetro” - Because --- is likely going to see it, and I’m curious.

8. “In a Dream” - Looks pretty and inspiring and the guy does picassiette like my mom. The trailer used a song that is clearly by the Books.

Maybes:

“The Road”

“Land of the Lost”

“Public Enemies”

“Year One”

“Whatever Works”

“Guest of Cindy Sherman”

SF list #2: Stream of consciousness San Francisco in cute alphabetical format (A thru D)

2009-05-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

A is for aquatic park, which is one of the most pleasing things to look at for me, for some reason. The old ships are there, the Ghirardelli sign with the nice font is there, the weird old judges towers and the buildings in a style called Streamline Moderne are there. The swimmers who swim in the freezing water in their unattractive second skin wet suits, while leaving all of their stuff on the grass near the shore, so trustingly.

B is for Beard Papa cream puffs. No -- Bernard Maybeck, who built a lot of things I like to look at. If he had followed through with his City Beautiful plans all of San Francisco might look something like the Palace of Fine Arts. The corner stores might be carved with acanthus, Poseidon might spit into your mouth in the form of a drinking fountain. At the Palace I usually feel like some European school girl walking around the duck pond and consulting my pocket book of architecture about the different types of column. The houses across from the park and the pond seem to reflect it’s beauty back at it. I’ve imagined being the maid and while the owners are at work downtown I sneak out to the terrace at about 11 o’clock for a cup of their strong coffee, watch people at the Palace feed the ducks, squint in the sun and pretend I am not a commoner like them.

C is for cable cars, which I have never ridden, but which I am both interested in and proud of the city for holding onto, to the point of adopting other cities’ unwanted cars.

D is for Dolores Park, where I used to spend a lot more time, mostly sitting on a bench by myself, reading and trying to look semi-tough so nobody would bother me. There is a disappointing movie called Casualties of War with Michael J. Fox in it that features Dolores at the end. It is about Vietnam and the last person who should act in a movie about Vietnam is Michael J. Fox. Trust me. Anyway, I liked watching dogs in the park, and also people using their dogs as an excuse to talk to other people, while their dogs were like “Can you just please throw the ball?”

6 Random Sentences from my 2006 Journal

2009-05-09T16:05:00.001-07:00

1. “Matt mindfucked Natalie and got her pregnant...temporarily.”

2. “Last night, my friend Michael and I were married -- twice -- by a tipsy Rastafarian in front of the Roxy, but only after he kissed me on the cheek, I gave him some change, Mike spilled his Pepsi cup full of beer and I had to give him more change.”

3. “I need to start hanging out at fairs prowling for greasy carnies, or just spend more time in deep SE.”

4. “I really want to clean under my nails with my knife right now, but I fear my lady status going even further down the drain.”

5. “Okay, so the guy at my chessboard is growing less and less cute.”

6. “It took me a millisecond to lock the door once I was in the car, as I thought that this was the perfect scene for an alien abduction.”

Top 10 Appealing Hypothetical Couples

2009-05-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

1. Archaeologists

2. Writers or writer + editor

3. Painter + ballet dancer, circa 1940s

4. South Pacific charter pilot + co-pilot

5 Horse trainers

6. Marine biologists

7. Documentarians

8. Male school teacher + female confectionary shop owner

9. French folk musicians

10. Straightlaced, hardnosed professors who love each other

Top Ten Flowers I'd Make You a Bouquet With

2009-05-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

1. Anemones
2. Peonies
3. Ranunculus
4. Poppies
5. Narcissus
6. Hellebore
7. Sweet peas
8. Tulips
9. Calla lilies
10. Nigella

Things I Have A New Fondness For vs. Things I've Inexplicably Lost Interest In

2009-05-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Fond

1. Irish Spring soap
2. Podcasts
3. Summer houses
4. Madelines
5. Building sandcastles
6. Single espressos

Unfond

1. Crossword puzzles
2. Beer
3. Letter writing
4. Watering my own plants
5. Baths over showers
6. Non-stop Hulu

"things that make me so angry i could write a letter to a congressman if i thought they actually read those fucking letters"

2009-04-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

1. Amenities fees.
2. Bluetooths and not being as sure these days about whether someone is schizophrenic or not.
3. Sharing the road.
4. The popularity of the movie "Juno."
5. An attempt at "sustainability" and not a recycling bin in sight.
6. Carl Sagan never came to MY classroom.

Things I Talk About Doing Too Often vs Actually Doing Them At All

2009-04-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

1. Drive to Mexico
2. Replace "Mexico" with "Canada"
3. Build a shortwave radio
4. Put together a baseball team and play
5. Grow my hair out
6. Start a budget/balance my checkbook/grownupstuff
7. Wear shorts
8. Do ALL of my laundry
9. Organize my iTunes library
10. Replace Mexico with Canada.

10 Books Crammed Deep into My Closet

2009-04-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

1. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
2. The Little Women - Katherine Weber
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
4. The Tortilla Curtain - T.C. Boyle
5. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
6. Illusions - Richard Bach
7. A Taxonomy of Barnacles - Galt Niederhoffer
8. Five Dialogues - Plato
9. Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
and the one I just shoved up there right now --
10. An Alchemy of Mind - Diane Ackerman

My Top 10 Supernatural Topics

2009-03-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

1. Reptilian aliens
2. Time fogs
3. Skinwalkers
4. Grim Reapers
5. Pterodactyls
6. Blobs
7. OOPArts
8. Doppelgangers
9. Silver space threads
10. Pure evil

Things I Look at/Listen to When I’m Depressed/Bored That Usually Make Me Feel Better

2009-03-25T18:36:00.001-07:00

1. Ghosttowns.com
2. My page-a-day calender of cute animals
3. “Danke Schoen” but only if it’s pre-pube Wayne Newton
4. Seed catalogues
5. Jamiroquai
6. About.com’s Your True Tales

My Favorite Coffee Cups

2009-03-17T20:12:00.000-07:00

1. The dalmatians one
2. The classy NYC cityscape one
3. The thick white one that was likely stolen from a diner or a hotel
4. The one with the pissed off Sandra Boynton cat on it
5. The handmade one with the dogwood flowers on it
6. The John Lennon Imagine one

Top 10 Player Piano Rolls I Am Likely To Choose If You Come Over

2009-02-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

1. The Nutcracker Suite Pt. 2
2. "Flight of the Bumblebee"
3. "You Are My Sunshine"
4. The Little Mermaid Pt. 2
5. "Rhapsody in Blue"
6. "Moon River"
7. Mary Poppins Pt. 2
8. "Claire de Lune"
9. "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde"
10. Theme from "The Godfather"

10 Skills I Don't Have, Thus Making Me Less of a Person

2009-02-01T18:48:00.000-08:00

1. Woodworking
2. Complicated knot tying
3. Patting my head and rubbing my stomach
4. Two-hand tapping
5. Blowing smoke rings
6. Phosphorescence
7. Playing bocce ball the right way
8. Taking the hook from the fish's mouth without gagging
9. Archery
10. Soldering

Things People Should Leave To Me In Their Wills

2009-01-30T11:20:00.000-08:00

Is this totally disgusting?

1. A white Austin Healey Sprite convertible
2. An Epiphone
3. A teacup collection
4. A motley 70s record collection and some knickknacks from Goodwill
5. A freezer full of venison
6. A laser disc player

Fictional boyfwend

2009-01-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

A list I made some time ago, discovered in Stickies, entitled "What I look for in a companion." How very Jane Eyre of me.

1. Not crazy, even in a mad genius way, and stable enough to handle little bouts of harmless creative insanity or restlessness on my part.
2. Likes it when I read aloud to them.
3. Competent when and where it counts.
4. Rarely says “I don’t care” or “It doesn’t matter.”
5. Doesn’t need constant social stimulation, or civilization for that matter.
6. Civilized.
7. Tidy, to a point, and cares just enough about his appearance.
8. Gets excited when I successfully cook something fancy, but eats my failed first souffle without complaint.
9. Doesn’t mind when all I care to do is watch TV, laugh together and binge eat.
10. Lives to create....something.