58 - The Blog Stops Here

Tomorrow morning, up early, out early, and in early to take a quick glance at eight weeks of email to see if I can divine what's going on. People will pop in and say “Hey you're back!” and “Who are you?” and “Did you go anywhere special?” and I will try to avoid answering questions without being too diffident. People will want to know but they will also want to be polite and it will be the expected thing and I just won't want to go along with that. Time to move forward. I will survey recent emails and get bored and go down for coffee and hopefully see someone I want to talk to (i.e. someone who isn't in my work group) and I will think, hm, I'm already failing at my resolve to integrate better, I really need to get to know my cow-orkers better, and I will go back upstairs and wryly bug people and ask if the boss' new hire is the meddling micromanager everyone says he is and go back to my desk and see if I can't try and keep it neat and organized for once in my life on the theory that an organized desk is an organized mind and dog knows THAT wouldn't hurt. In an instant of boredom I will come THIS close to checking for any action on Facebook but I will pull my hands away and say, whew, let's not let THAT happen and go for a walk. By then maybe something will have come up that I can put some billable hours into so to speak and the new post-sabbatical life will be off and running, the most important thing being that I go to the gym at eleven sharp and do so every single day from now on. That will be the easiest part of the day.

* * *

I’m going through books my father didn’t want, sorting through for any I do want and stacking them with my own books, all of which will end up in the shelves I put in the upstairs guestroom / library / workshop that will in theory be my approximation of a mancave. Well, I guess it is already. It’s where the writing gets done, the electronics work (e.g repaired the el-wire in my fur vest last week), planning for any Burn-related projects (the Burn will be a major part of my life this year), plus there’s a view out towards the cul-de-sac so I can see the mobs with their torches and pitchforks before they see me.

I’m learning something about books and that is that coffee table books are nearly completely worthless. They are given and received as gifts and when sorted through thirty years later are just not worth keeping, having spent the last twenty eight obscured on some shelf behind piles of other stuff and never missed. They’re not uninteresting: My father has a vast interest in history and philosophy and his books reflect that. So do I. It’s all good stuff. It’s all gaw damn space-consuming too, and they won’t be looked at, and they’re no good for research, and so they won’t be going into my shelves.

Some books, though, are priceless whether or not they're worthless. Not to denigrate John Muir but I don't know if I'll ever actually read The Yosemite.  However, my grandparents honeymooned at Yosemite in 1924, and Desmond gave the book to Dorothy on their anniversary:

Heart-strings, plucked

* * *

We went to Nevada City today. It is unbelievably beautiful up there in the spring, with tulips and lupines and poppies abloom in the well-tended gardens and wild hillsides alike. It is an old Gold Rush town hence the streets are narrow and contend with the slopes rather haphazardly. I guess a street grid didn’t work when people were digging up the ground wherever they found any hint of a vein. Today it is successful as a draw for shoppers and pleasure trippers, and the entire downtown was prosperous with cafes and dress shops and bookstores and bars in the hundred and fifty year old buildings, all freshly painted or artfully not so, and people everywhere. It was rather magical.

The general idea

The Nevada County Courthouse is an art deco treasure (1936)

One of the phallic "monitors" that washed half the Sierra down into the rivers to the destruction of towns and farms alike until some limits were finally established in 1884

* * *

I would like to thank everyone for reading this blog and making comments and generally doing what blog readers are supposed to do, make the blogger feel like a real person. I managed to meet my goal of posting something, with a picture, every day. I cheated a little now and then: Some posts were put up the next day and the time set to the intended day at 11:59pm.

Will I continue with another? Maybe, but if so, not just yet. I need to return to the rat race and establish better work habits. Constant improvement is not only a good idea, it’s a necessity for remaining employed. Bloggery can be distracting so for a time I will turn away.

All comments will continue to be forwarded to me via email.

57 - Tequilacon, Not

Until a couple weeks ago I planned to be up in Vancouver tonight for a blogger convention of sorts.

Then I came home and we had a serious talk and decided to get divorced and I thought running off to party with a bunch of people I've never met would be bad form. Very rude. And inconvenient.

Then we talked some more and reset the conversation and decided there was a lot more to it than reflexively going our separate ways and continued to get along great as usual (that is not sarcasm, I'm serious) and I decided I still wasn't going. Too much I wanted to do around my house on the last weekend before returning to work.

Why the big D? Why not the big D? None of that is material for this blog. I just mention it because it's late at night and my brain is long gone and I don't know what else to blagger about and after tomorrow this blog thing goes quiet anyway. Should have had a few shots of the distilled blue agave juice but I didn't think of it and it's too late now.

Today was an excellent day in that it was very physical. Went to the shop to finish the post party cleanup. Carried a whole lot of plywood sheets from various places and stacked them all together (they're good and heavy). Broke down some playa furniture, took down big plastic sheets that had delimited areas, cleaned up this, that, I don't know, point is it was very physical and I like physical. The more muscle and less brain I have to use, the better. Went from there to the landscape supply place and got thirty wall blocks which at 55 lb each means I loaded, unloaded and stacked 1,650 lb of concrete, then dug a dead tree out of the circle in the front walk where I think we might next put in a lighted fountain, why not, it has both water and power, we'll see how it looks. Last night I moved all my books out of the bedroom as well as all my dad's books out of the garage and put them upstairs where they will be sorted and shelved. More heavy lifting. In all, I feel pretty good. Would rather like to put all this fitness to good use.

For ex, when I left the shop I got not one but two hugs from M, who I like to think fancies me, I just have to figure out her husband. I've seen him shield her from prying eyes while she's making out with some chick at a party, but he probably draws the line at males. Then again, what do I know. She's six one or two, and when in platforms quite the Amazon (previous blog readers might remember a pic of a pose on a cop car). Good hugs. Tight, none of that butt-in-the-air bullshit.

All that is on the subject of fitness. On the big D too, I suppose, if you want to draw lines and make assumptions. But doing that would lead you astray, so never mind.

So here's something we found on the dog today.

Sumbitch popped like a water balloon. But it wasn't water.

That wasn't very pleasant so here's more or less where the wall blocks go.

I took this picture for the flowers.

I completely love this time of year.

This one too.

56 - Testicle Chop Boy and the Cone of Shame

55 - I Can't Drive Fifty Five

Admit, I wrote the title before I knew what I would write tonight. I dig Hagar (as the kid said in that old video). Besides, the standard speed is seventy these days, and I did that a lot today. Went down to the East Bay. My parents have been separated and divorced since 1962 yet they live only 13.2 googlemiles apart down there. Makes visiting them a little easier.

Mom needed her AOL address book exported to Yahoo. Dad needed audio cables plugged in. Plus we met with a realtor. Had lunch at the old folks home. Shrinking worlds, trivial conversation, relentles politeness except when some cranky old man forgot what he ordered for lunch and insisted they take that sh*t away. My pop ain't like that: as one of his friends there says, he's one of the few who still has his marbles.

Before leaving I sat with him, looking through various manuals he acquired when in the Navy, books put together when suddenly the service was overloaded with eager former civilians brought in to fight the Japs. Somewhere I caught a sentence to the effect that the Navy's job was to prevent the war from being fought on American soil. There's a reminder of how sheltered we have been.

(Is "Japs" impolite? To me it was always an abbreviation that people mysteriously disapproved of, in a far more serious manner than, say, "Russkies". Anyway I use the word as a relic of a former time.)

Of course, the Japanese knew they couldn't win if they didn't wrest from us an early capitulation. The immense weight of our industry would make sure of it. By the same calculation, if we go to war with China, we will probably lose. Let's not.

The Mothball Fleet as seen at seventy miles an hour from the new bridge

54 - The Divine Design of the Canine

By which I mean their natural sense for interior decorating.

Mother and son greet the new day

Trust an intelligent creature to transform a space clearly not to his liking into one that is much more appropriate and comfortable.  After his tutoring session, Darius will need a confined space so he can't roll his stitches around in the mud and have some other dog biting at them.  I was going to build a kennel out of spare fencing material but, you know?  This room will do just fine.

53 - Weep Wowp Woop

What is it with a moose-sized eleven-month-old labrador puppy who's used to being with his mom all the time that he can't spend even one hour, much less the night, all alone in the laundry room without yapping out his high-pitched cry-like-a-girl weep wowp woop whine whine scratch wowp yow? The lad whose bedroom is right above isn't going to sleep well. Neither is his girlfriend. Or maybe they will. I don't want to think about that.

He just doesn't like being alone. If he had his mom, he could tell her how excited he is that tomorrow he is going to get tutored.

52 - Furr Your Review

I said it was indescribable. I don't want to try. Just come with me next time.

Having said that, I'll scribble notes in random order.

I got there about nine thirty and the place was crawling with people in their furry counter-cultural finest. To dress normally at one of these things is to feel like Church Lady at a metal concert. I wore my black leather Australian cowboy hat with a fur tail pinned onto it and my fur vest with the el-wire star and moon sewn in and the black loose-mesh muscle-t I got off some gay underwear website and was just pleased as punch I've joined up with a group at whose parties the fine young wimmins are comfortable wearing their fur bikinis.

Booze was free. The organizer's brother is a construction contractor by day and for reasons I don't know just loves working his ass off tending bar, making drinks, and giving them away. His tip jar was filled generously.

I did the fashion show by putting on this ridiculous and hopefully sexy thing I made last summer but no one I know saw me on the catwalk. Just as well.

It's easy to decry techno for being an artless and monotonous eurotrash noise but the fact is, a good blues tune or a rock song with a good bass line or whatever else it is you prefer is made for listening to, not for dancing, whereas twelve solid hours of DJ-run dance beats overlaid with various textures that don't really need a close listening to is a much more appropriate way to keep people happy.

I felt like I had a lot of friends there.

No visits from cops or fireman. This was particularly interesting given the amount and fury of the fire thrown into the sky.

I counted forty people still there at seven. We left around eight. Nice vibe at that time of day, and beer still tastes good. I think by then we were all on playa time.

Pictures by:
Playarazzi
Me

51 - Silent Sunday #2 (with notes)

Part of the yard at seven in the morning.  Hell of a party.

50 - Preparation, Anticipation, Celebration

Gonna be busy the remainder of the day and night. Come join us! Wear (fake) fur. I can get you in. (Click through image for more info.)

49 - In Which I Am The Rake

No, this is not about leaving a string of broken hearts in the Vieux Carré. As if. I don't think there are any hearts there to break.

This picture has nothing to do with this poast

I'm making a sign. What's my sign? "Welcome." It's ten feet wide and it's for a party and the idea and overall implementation were not mine, I'm just doing the painting, in the garage with the door up. Unbelievably beautiful day, so I let the dogs out. They jumped and leaped and chased each other out onto the lawn and I painted and forgot about them and they disappeared. Eventually I realized it and found them wa-a-ay down at the neighbors'. They were happy to come back since I was now paying them some attention and they were all wet from getting a good creek romp out of their system.

I was in the cul-de-sac now and saw the other neighbor's For Sale sign and took a flyer. "Country Elegance," 3-4 bedrooms, etc. It was built by our previous neighbor for himself and his wife, who had multiple sclerosis, and then he came down with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and they moved away. The next people bought the place in a pretty strong market.  They owned a recycling business and were doing well, and in fact after paying more than I thought it could possibly be worth, spent a few hundred grand extra on landscaping. All this while we were over here pulling weeds by hand and puzzling over lawnmowers that won't start.

Then one day the recycler guy was riding his Harley on the freeway and got run over by some gal who was talking on the phone -- by run over I mean hit, knocked down, and literally run over -- and while he was in recovery his children, assuming he would never walk again, took over his business and ran it into the ground. But he rose from the dead and damned their eyes and now he doesn't get to see his grandchildren. Maybe he does by now, I'm at least a year behind on the neighborhood gossip, but let's not let that ruin a good story.

Whatever the denouement of the family drama, they need to extract their money from the property and are trying to sell it. I on the other hand am just trying to keep mine from disappearing behind the long grass so after reading the flyer I started a lawnmower and mowed the grass. But I didn't feel like installing the grass catcher and left behind windrows of slaughtered grass blades, which in retrospect I decided would look funky once they dried out. So I braved the dogs who were now pent up again and retrieved a rake from the shed and set to, with back, arm, and fist, and cleaned it all up.

While doing so I decided that today's poast could not wait, because I will not be home tonight, I will be out late setting up for the aforementioned party, and so here I am now. Being here (I am), I went ahead and looked my neighbor's real estate listing up at trulia.com and *choke* they are asking $1.274M. Much as I like the idea of our house's value somehow being comparable to that, I really think they may be reaching a bit, concerned more with making up for their business than what their house is worth. But who knows? Once they see the nicely raked lawn across the street, someone might actually pay that.

48 - Vacation's Over, Next?

The past week has been a life of sitting around up late, sleeping in, and wandering off about town. That pretty much covers it. I guess that makes it a vacation. After today, no more of that.

If I'm to post today, it has to be now, at the airport, in the next few minutes, so I'm just going to say I'm not a big fan of Robert E. Lee. One of the greatest military minds of all time, sure, and a member of the same extended clan of noble Virginians that produced George Washington, but so what? Even though he found slavery "distasteful", ultimately he lent his efforts and the lives of countless men in the service of prolonging the institution of slavery. I know there's a lot more to it than that, and I know enough to be able to argue his side. But at the end of the day, he's just not one of my heroes.

Of course, Southerners have deified the man. Lee Circle is quite the monument. But I'm not a Southerner. Sue me.

47 - Nap time

At the Audubon Zoo.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

46 - Disaster Tourism

I like walking among the moon and stars

I have not adapted productively to the schedule of the household in which I am a guest. It is on a very slow and late West Coast time. Maybe that fits with the typical rhythm of life as observed by some people about New Orleans. But I feel time passing swiftly and with little to show.

Maybe I'm actually on vacation, and it is being on vacation that I have not productively adapted to. Surely the cook and dishwasher and occasional driver has noticed I am not productive. (I do offer, for the record -- but we all know it's easier just to do it, than to try and tell the guest where the dishes go).

The other day I walked from my brother’s house almost to Canal -- to be precise, to the corner of St. Charles and Gravier. This is a walking distance of 3.2 googlemiles. I was trying to walk off dinner from the night before. I could happily have kept going but my brother called to see if I wanted to go to lunch, so I stopped there and caught the streetcar back again.

About halfway along my trek, I was accosted by a tourist. This was not a surprise. It seems wherever I go, tourists mistake me for a local. I've been asked for detailed directions in New Orleans, Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles before I've been there a few hours. Oddly enough, this never happened in Taipei.

Anyway, he smiled self-deprecatingly and apologized for being a bit ghoulish but wanted to know if the Ninth Ward was anywhere near. He was, in other words, a disaster tourist, and feeling bad about it. It told him if he walked from there to the French Quarter, and then continued to walk about as far beyond it, he might get near the Ninth Ward. I knew this from having looked once at a map. I've long since given up wondering why so many people can't or won’t read maps. I guess it's only occasionally a survival skill.

He thanked me and went on but before he did I said something to make him feel better about his ghoulishness. He mentioned that there were good things happening there, green technologies being incorporated into rebuilding or something like that. This much I did not know. But this inspired me to point out that the area was in a stage of rapid evolution, and that is always worth taking a look at. I felt if he wanted to go see it, he should do so without making apologies.

This is an impulse of mine. I want people to feel better, not worse. I’m not consistent about it and I don’t do it dishonestly. I mean, if someone should feel bad about themselves, I’m more than happy to assist with their enlightenment. But this one didn’t merit it. My attitude contrasts sharply with certain personality types I’ve encountered on the internet. The internet, by enabling rapid communication without the natural modification of face to face interaction, allows some people to be mean just because they think it’s fun, or at least to come off as meaner than they really are. Unfortunately, some people really are that mean.

Anyway, if there’s a point to this rigmarole, it’s that I’m not doing any disaster tourism while down here. No trips to the Ninth Ward for evocative pictures of tragic outcomes, symbols of broken lives, any of that. No five-years-after-the-hurricane-porn from me.

But I did get driven up past Claiborne and shown an interesting contrast. The house on the left has recovered. The house on the right has not. Just before August 29, 2005, they looked much the same. Now the abandoned house is just glass and tree parts and, in this tropical climate, fading quickly. Very sad, but without knowing any details, it really just fades into the ebb and swell of people’s lives. We’re a vast cloud of six billion organisms, and at any moment some are less fortunate than others. Later, things change. They always do.

I wonder who's mowing the lawn

Most of this was written before dinner. After dinner I looked at it and went, uh, I should have gone for the brevity. But, to paraphrase Lincoln, I don’t have time to write something brief, and nothing brief comes to mind anyway, so I’ll just add a water meter cover I saw the other day to the top and call it done.

45 - Walkabout Gumbo

Walked up to St. Charles and saw no streetcar coming.

I never tire of these oak trees.

Walked upstream instead of waiting for it and saw this rather impressive Catholic school.

Good idea, locking them in like that.

Saw a streetcar coming, got aboard.

Is it just perfect, or what?

Walked about the Quarter.

Ain't I artistic.

Looked at things.

An old store mannequin, a bunch of mirrored tiles, and boom, post-modern high art.

Walked along the levee to the ferry dock.

Actually I ran so I wouldn't miss it and the motherfucker wouldn't let me board using the auto ramp and they left before I could go around the pedestrian way, long story, never mind.

Climbed aboard.

The next one.

Dodged traffic on the way across.

Totally bitchin'.

Disembarked at Algiers, where they have a statue of Scary Green Laughing Man.

Louis had nothing in particular to do with Algiers, it's just a donated statue.

Walked around at random in this nice little town across the river which is actually a part of the city.

And I was by myself and so it was pretty boring.

Went back.

Trust me, the other river pictures are less interesting.

Passed through the big Harrah's at the foot of Canal.

This shit does nothing for me.

Had a drink and a meal at Pierre Maspero's.

I do not know how I let them talk me into a Bloody Mary at five in the afternoon.

Annoyed a cat.

She was predisposed. I take no responsibility.

Took pictures around Jackson Square under the watchful eye of Vin Diesel.

But he just readjusted his apron and walked away.

Wandered aimlessly about the Quarter some more and had a beer and got all tired and wound up taking stupid pictures such as this one of a door.

I also have three hundred eighty seven pictures of old buildings (rough estimate).

Caught the streetcar back uptown.

Ain't I creative.

Decided the Anne Rice place isn't spooky enough by a long shot.

The statues' eyes should be bleeding.

There. Another relaxing day in the Crescent City is in the can. Now, hm. Speakin' of the can, guess it's my turn ...