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Sunday, 10 August 2008 (the adaptation requirement) 3:26pm At Mission Creek, for the first time in months. There's a film shoot happening at The Dark Room, so I'm keeping my distance, at least until Bad Movie Night this evening. By which time they'll be done, right? Right. It's a lovely day, and I should be outside, prematurely aging my skin in the sun. In fact, it would be a perfect day to be on drugs in the park. However, it was yesterday that Ilene and I chose to 'shroom in Golden Gate Park, and the cold grayness was actually just fine. We were both sufficiently bundled against the cold, and it wouldn't have been so easy to combat heat. We stayed in Strybing Arboretum, and I made sure we were in the Redwood Trail when we started peaking. Because, you know, redwoods. We dropped around two, and I made sure to keep the dosage fairly low, since we would have to take public transportation when we were done. By seven we'd both come down enough to have dinner at the Ethiopian place in the Inner Sunset, and for me to rent a movie at Le Video. We got back to her place around eight, and napped until a quarter to nine. She then got ready for a club rendezvous later, and I walked back to the office, where Phoebe had been parked since I'd gone to the gym that morning. I considered going to Catalyst Cocktails around the corner from my office for The Moon and the Melodies, a goth/shoegazer club night, but the simple fact was that I was exhausted. I'd gotten all of four hours of sleep the night before from being at Midnites for Maniacs, I worked out for an hour that morning, and then walked around Golden Gate Park on 'shrooms all afternoon. True, Ilene and I ultimately did more sitting than walking, but still, there was exercise involved. Now and then she would bust out pen and paper to draw, and I got out the current drafts of the chapters I'm working on to edit them. Ilene was a little astonished that I could focus enough while tripping. I surely wouldn't have if I was on acid, but 'shrooms? Sure, no problem. She also pointed out that it was, like, work, which is true enough, but it's work which I enjoy. What's more, I do my best editing when I have a little distance from the words, and the hallucinogenic haze certainly gave me distance. I eliminated a couple pages' worth of material, stuff which I'd suspected wasn't going to last when I included it earlier this week, but you can't really know if it works until it's on the page in context. I hope that someday I'll tell someone that I deleted that material from the book, and they'll reply: what? how could you have taken that out? you must have been on drugs! And I'll be able to say yes, i was. All that, plus I haven't been able to find my makeup bag and wasn't about to to a goth club barefaced. So I was in bed by midnight, up again by seven, at the gym by half past eight, worked out for about an hour (this is how it'll work, this is what'll make it happen), then went to the six-buck showing of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Man oh man, that movie went out of its way to make me not like it. The script was two drafts short of being filmable, it could have used a real director rather than series director Chris Carter, and, really, the Silence of the Lambs allusions with the gender stuff pissed me off. Oh well. I'm sure I'll have my revenge on it at Bad Movie Night one of these years. From there I went to Divas (where I got carded by a new bartender who said I looked like I was under thirty—win!) to continue on the hand-editing I'd started the day before, and hopefully I'll get those typed up before this evening. Tomorrow I'm seeing Raphaela in the evening, plus the flyers for Working for the Weakened are ready to be picked up from PsPrint in Oakland. So many details. Speaking of details—in my Medialoper article last December about the Burt Reynolds triple feature at Midnites for Maniacs, I k'vetched that I won an LP of the City Heat soundtrack when I'd really been eyeing the Smokey and the Bandit LP. (This is what Bunny correctly calleds "bourgeois suffering.") (Haven't seen her for a while. No telling when I will again.) The curator and host of the series read the article, and at the show on Friday he brought me a Smokey and the Bandit LP. Terribly sweet of him. | ||
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Saturday, 9 August 2008 (the tress they grow so high) 12:37pm The 10:30am Saturday morning spin classes have been cancelled. They're still listed on both the print and online schedules, but they aren't held anymore. Deined! So, thirty minutes on the walky thing and thirty minutes on the crosstrainy thing. 4:22pm Irony and 'shrooms don't mix. That's Ilene's observation, anyway. | ||
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Friday, 8 August 2008 (eighth time around) 5:47am It's a quarter to six in the morning, and I'm at the office. And why not? I have nowhere else to be. 3:14pm Didn't make it to the gym last night. I was at the office writing until seven , after which I joined my coworker Fivestar for a drink next door at Mars (during which I evidently said something witty regarding Buddhism, about how resisting change leads to suffering, which was necessarily truncated for Twittter). They make a damned good Bloody Mary, which is dangerous at best. At a quarter to eight, I bailed on Fivestar—thus freeing her up to cruise a cute lawyer at another table—and tipsily walked to Ilene's place, stopping at the Starbucks around the corner to get the Java Chip frappawhatsit which had been on my mind all week long. Ilene was skeptical about me getting to sleep that night, but I wasn't worried. After watching the final two episodes of the first season of Galactica (she was appropriately shocked at the appropriate moment), we cuddled and I went to sleep with no problem. I described my dynamic with Ilene to Fivestar as "friends with cuddling," which is pretty much what it boils down to. We aren't dating, we aren't lovers, but we're friends who like to get cozy, fully clothed but cozy nonetheless, and it's just right, because aside from the occasional extended hug from Rhiannon—who I mostly think of as a younger sister—there's really nothing else happening in my life physically right now, except for the exercise and working with Raphaela, which is both extremely intimate and completely impersonal. We went to bed at ten, and I was up again by five, feeling as rested as I was going to get. It was too dark for me to feel safe walking to the office—there really isn't any way to get from one place to the other without going through some sketchy areas—so I took a cab. I'm sure my mother, who evidently couldn't get to sleep last Friday night until I got home (not knowing that I was sitting at Borders surrounded by teenage girls and their mothers), would have approved. Pounded out some client work for the next several hours, then went to the Gold's for a session with Raphela. Second of ten, not counting the first-hit's-freebie. I don't know, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but my body does feel different, just a little, and there are moments when I think I can actually see a little definition in my stomach again. Like it once was, see. My goals are not unreleastic, unless wanting to fit into clothes that I wore five years ago is unrealistic. And maybe it is. But I've done lots of unrealistic things in my time. I returned to the office from the gym to find changes afoot, long-rumored corporate restructing happening. I'm safe, as Officer Dave had assured me a few weeks ago I would be, and I'll be getting a quasi-promotion. More responsibility, to be sure, but in a good way, the kind that'll make my job easier because I'll have more control over it. Tonight I'm going to Midnites for Maniacs at The Castro, a triple-feature of Return to Oz, Beetlejuice and Meet the Feebles. San Francisco rules. | ||
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Thursday, 7 August 2008 (nowhere left to start) 10:36am Perdita rolled around on top of my sweaty gym clothes this morning. She used to do that with Vash's clothes, too, so I take it as a compliment. They've been extra-pungent lately, to be sure. I liked last night's spin class a lot better than Tuesday's, even though Raphaela got it backwards: the emphasis was more on climbing than speed, which was find by me. The instructor was a lot more personable, too. He kinda reminded me of what Chief Tyrol on Galactica would be like if he were a Castro fag. (And, presumably, ___ _ _____.) | ||
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Wednesday, 6 August 2008 (disquiet falling) 10:29am I revised last night's chapter list to include word counts. What Word tells me they are, anyway. Windows Explorer in Vista gives me a different, somewhat smaller number for each of them. So Word wins. 11:41pm Oh, and in terms of music references in the titles, I count three of Wille Nelson (one of them is technically a John Hiatt cover, but I prefer Willie's version), two of R.E.M., and one each of Pete Townshend, R. Crumb (from a book rather than his music, but pick pick), Billy Joel, Marilyn Manson, Diamanda Galas, Lou Reed, and least surprisingof all, Low. 4:09pm Made a reservation for tonight's 7pm spinning class, which is technically "Low Gear Training" spinning. Raphaela, who I talk to between sessions via text-message because it's mid-2008 and that's how we roll, tells me that it has more of an emphasis on speed and less on climbing, but is probably just as intense as the other class. And, that I should go a little easier on it because she's going to be working my legs at our next session on Friday noon. In meantime, I got a large nonfat mocha from the Seattle's Best Coffee in the Borders near our old office when I picked up my 'mones from the Walgreens out there (walking around that area feels like visiting my old neighborhood, which is exactly what it is) and I just go small nonfat latte from Caffe Roma around the corner to keep the energy level up for the next few hours until the class. There's probably something inherently wrong about having a coffee beverage so soon before heavy physical exertion, but I'm going to be drinking a lot of water, too, and it's either that or nodding off at my computer, and that's no good. So. 6:56pm I'm waiting for the spin class to start, feeling like the main character in The Vanishing. (Preferably but not necessarily the original version.) whatever she suffered, i need to know. i need to experience it as well. | ||
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Tuesday, 5 August 2008 (all coiled up and hissing) 2:48pm Made a reservation for a spinning class at the gym this evening. Basically, it's bicycling really really fast and really really hard and usually for extended periods of time. In this case, for an hour. Aside from the fact that the trainer said it would be a good idea—she's also suggested kickboxing, of all things—what really sold me is that they have blacklights in the spinning room. It's part of an attempt to give it a club vibe (quoth the description: "Ride to the beat in this intense spinning class, combining power moves along with the hottest music in town!"), and hey, I'm down for that. I had considered trying to make it to one of the Fresno locations while I was down there, but it didn't happen. I did, however, make it to the Central Valley Astronomers' monthly star party on Saturday night , with Jonco and Tom in tow. It was the first time going to such a thing for either of them, and the first time for me since June of 2005 with Collette. Like the last time, Perdita was much calmer and quieter on the drive back to San Francisco than she had been on the way to Fresno. After about an hour or so she stopped yowling, and by the time I hit I-5 (I've been experimenting with that as a way to drive home), she went to sleep. I don't know if it's because there are less hills than there were on Wednesday night's drive, or if it being daytime helps so she can get a better sense of what's outside, or if she'd just gotten used to the driving thing, or if she somehow knew that we were driving toward home rather than away from it. 8:57pm Wow. Yeah, okay, "intense" is a good word for the class. It reminded me of yoga both in terms of exertion and also in terms of it moving quickly and me not having the slightest fracking clue what I'm doing. I also didn't much care for the boy who was leading the class. Unfortunately, all their currently listed spinning classes are taught by boys, so I guess I'll have to deal. My trainer Raphaela mentioned that she might start teaching one of them. I hope so. As it often will when I'm really pushing my body, my brain wandered a bit, mostly thinking about the book. Among other things, I figured out what the remaining chapters will be called, and as a result I believe I now have all the chapter titles: Not counting inevitably having to a few more drafts of the whole thing, only four chapters to go. Definitely feels like the home stretch now. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Monday, 4 August 2008 (trembling in our crutches) 9:10pm Another sign that I'm back in San Francisco (along with the city and county limits sign I passed yesterday): while at the gym this evening with the personal trainer, a woman came up to me and said she really liked the piece I read at a show recently. She didn't remember exactly where it was at, but she said that mine was the best, which gives me a pretty good idea of what night it was. Meanwhile, my trainer was getting a major kick out of my quasi-fame. | ||
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Sunday, 3 August 2008 (trembling in our crutches) 6:54pm I just asked for a nonfat mocha at the normally reliable Mission Creek Cafe and got a blank stare, after which the clerk poured me cup of milk. I'm officially back in San Francisco. | ||
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Saturday, 2 August 2008 (a voice in the melee) 10:03am The now-obvious downside to the Vintage Coffee House is the large east-facing windows, which, on bright and sunny days such as this, result in a bright and sunny glare. Everyone else on laptops seems to be dealing with it just fine, but of course it's making my eyes feel like they're about to burst in flames. Right, Fresno. The fact that this place also shares space with the Holy Child Bookstore and thus is mostly populated by churchies on Saturday mornings is actually not so much of a problem. They're friendly to me, and I'm friendly to them, and I can be reasonably sure they won't steal my laptop when I use the restroom. | ||
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Friday, 1 August 2008 (taking the fall) 12:12pm The Hollywood video at Shaw and Marks doesn't carry VHS anymore. After fourteen years, the Video Zone has finally been versioned out. 5:27pm Note to self: next time you're in Fresno and hoping to get some work done, consider setting up shop at Vintage Coffee House. 8:11pm If the girls walking in and out of the Seattle's Best Coffee in the Borders at the River Park are any indication, teenagers wear a lot of eyeshadow these days. I approve wholeheartedly, of course. For that matter, John Waters would approve of many of the closer-to-God hairstyles I've been seeing. 11:09pm I considered going to the Starbucks in the Tower District this evening, but I came instead to this particular Borders for a few reasons: first of all, it's open until midnight; I don't care for most Starbucks beverages (though I did enjoy the Venti Java Chip Frappuccino Blended Coffee I got at the drive-through Starbucks in Cochrane on Wednesday night, and when I pulled up to the window, the barrista said oh, i knew i heard a cat in the background!); and whereas the Tower District being the Cool Part of Town it would be more likely to be populated by hipster douchebags such as myself, I wanted to get a sense of what mainstream/upper-middle-class Fresno is looking like these days, and nowhere exemplifies that more than River Park, a shopping wonderland which was nothing but fields when I moved away in '94. And, boy, am I getting that sense tonight. Seems I'm here on the night of a midnight release party for the fourth book in a series I've never heard of (I'd never heard of the Harry Potter series until Goblet of Fire was released in '99, either), and practically every teenage girl in town is here. In spite of my aforementioned fondess for the trash-heavy aesthetic they're sporting on average, it's a bit jarring, and doesn't do my self-image any favors. But what does, really? I'm currently listening to "Paint It, Black" over and over. Take that for what you will. (Sometime shortly after we met, while I was still living on campus, Maggie sobbed at me over the phone about the extreme cosmic unfairness of the fact that she never got to be a teenage girl, how that most blessed and sacred of experiences was robbed from her, and it was not so mean and unfair and just not right or fair! That I never got to experience teenage girlhood has never really bothered me much one way or the other, falling squarely into the "spilled milk" category. It's just how things were/are. I might as well be upset that I was raised in Fresno and not San Francisco. Besides, I've arguably gone through adolescence more than once in the past decade.) On the plus side, I've gotten a lot of the writing that didn't happen this afternoon done these past few hours, and the chapter which I started yesterday and which was my goal for this trip is nearly done, so I'm happy about that. It's currently about 4,600 words, which puts the whole as-yet-unfinished manuscript is currently about 78,000. It'll probably be around 90,000 when all is said and done, though there's no chance in hell that it'll get published at that length, not for a first-timer. But I'll deal with that when the time comes. For now, it'll be as long as it needs to be. I finally ventured in the women's restroom a little while ago, predictably filled with teenagers. The only girl who gave me a second glance was one who asked me about the squid. We talked for a bit about synthetic hair and different dyes and such, and nobody else paid me any mind. Almost as though I belonged there. | ||
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