Recently in love Category

i kinda dig where i live.

some of my snootier sf friends give me a lot of crap about living in "the burbs". they will admit (snootily) that their time living in sf has caused them to experience a failure of distinction between any places non-sf, such that they claim that they honestly cannot perceive a difference between a place like san mateo and, for instance, antioch or bakersfield.

such an absurd claim would be made jokingly by me, but i think they're telling the truth.

anyhow, on saturday, i hopped on my bike, hauled ass down to sand hill and portola, tooled around a bit waiting for my hetero life mate to arrive, biked all over the long, hilly, and eminently bike-friendly roads of the south peninsula, then rode home. we then walked downtown and had some fro-yo, and came home for a nap. around dinner time, some pals arrived and we walked back downtown to the bistro, where we were greeted warmly and given a special table. the owners and wait staff all know us -- they see us walking around town and we say hello, all the time.

we deferred the wine choices to the bistro's owner (though we did it wrong: we should have made it clear we would have two bottles so that we wouldn't have to spare the first until the food arrived), enjoyed the food, and were given a free dessert. on the way out, the owner dispensed hugs to us.

after that it was off to the bar. on the way to the bar we popped in to fish waffles to say hello, where the fish-waffleiers were happy to see us.

at the bar we go to, we can't get a good cocktail, because, as we discussed with the bartender, the bar stocks only crappy bourbon, which is odd, because they have an uncharacteristically good selection of scotch. we spoke at length about various things, and she said she enjoyed the home-roasted coffee we gave her last time, and that she'd try to bring us back some green kona on her trip to hawaii. then, off to see "district 9", which i thoroughly enjoyed.

the next day, we biked some more, visiting the pulgas water temple -- a very pretty park with an outrageously ostentatious greek-style parthenonian thingy built over an aqueduct. because of the location, it is accessible nearly only by bicycle, so the few people that were there with us had all arrived by cycle: my kinda folk.

after that, it was naptime, another visit to the fish waffles, and a surprise discovery of most excellent chinese food at a new chinese restaurant downtown.

yesterday, monday, we surprise-invited our upstairs neighbors to a hotdog bbq. their precocious 3 year old always says she wants her daddy to get a grill like mine (heh) and happens to love hot dogs.

last wednesday, during a speech i gave at a conference, i spotted an audience member with distinctive facial hair. afterwards, i asked him if he roamed san mateo, and he said he did: we're having a business lunch later this week.

in short: i spent pretty much the whole weekend interacting with my community and its inhabitants. i don't have 20 excellent restaurants within walking distance, and i don't have even 1 good cocktail bar. i don't have dirtbags, hobos, and crack addicts, either. What I've got is some of the best cycling in the country, and a community that is happy to have me -- a community that actually notices me. perhaps someday i'll feel differently, but at this point, that (and reasonable rent) are quite a lot more important to me than living someplace with better food, better liquor, and more smarm-appeal.

also: i just found out that there's an apple store in the hillsdale mall, so san mateo just got a little smarmier!

i've heard bagpipes while biking around crystal springs. not imaginary ones, not taped and broadcast pipes, but real, live bagpipes. usually, i heard them when i was in a hurry. last week, i heard them while i was not in a hurry, right as i was finishing the climb to sawyer camp and was in the mood for exploration. so i followed my ears.

i found the piper, a very short distance down from a parking lot, facing the reservoir. i figured he was practicing, because while he was bellowing his tune as loudly as his pipe set would allow (which is saying quite a lot), he was striking a lot of off notes. i put my feet on the ground and listened.

a while later, two more cyclists approached, coming off sawyer camp trail, and saw the piper (having heard him much prior, no doubt). not content simply to listen, they walked their bikes over to the piper and asked him something, or commented on how loud his pipes were -- chit-chatty smalltalk. the piper turned to reply, and i saw his face.

he wasn't practicing. he wasn't there to respectfully get away from neighbors, or to provide entertainment for walkers and bikers, or to work on his fingerwork. he was serenading the water.

he was not pleased with the cyclists' interruption, but he was not rude either. he answered their chitchat curtly and politely, and got back to his work. he resumed his paean to the sun on the water, as best he could, and with as much love and vigour as he could muster.

i smiled and went on my way, to do my best to do the same in my own way.

socrates never left athens.

if you're not working
and you haven't gone outside today

why are you living in the 650?

actually, that's not true. bas rutten makes me want to be bas rutten, which is a much better desire: i actually could take mma classes, which would be time consuming, difficult, and injurious. however, i can't be bas rutten, no matter how much effort i devote to the endeavour. thus, i can very efficiently quit without trying.

but i still want to be bas rutten. he got his eyeball plucked out and still put three dudes in the hospital.

someone hid my orange shirt, but i found it, my precious, oh yess!

once upon a time, i was a young man.

actually, the story i'm about to tell takes place before i was even a young man. i was very, very young, not even to the point where my grandma started calling me a young man, which was probably well before the age of young-manhood. the story i'm about to tell is from pre-young-manhood. i wasn't more than 10.

once upon a time, i was a pre-young man. because i grew up in a fabulously wealthy family, i had a clock radio. many of our neighbors were destitute, and did not have clock radios. my family, however, received monthly stipends from my uncle, John Peter Morgan, and thus, we could afford clock radios, even for the pre-young men in the family, possibly including my younger brother, who, at the time must needs have been but a babe. in any case, along with my silver spoon and my golden monacle, i had a clock radio.

i am not one for clock radios: to this day i do not use one to awake. instead, i have an internal chronometer, much like my idol, mister data. if i wish to wake up at 0630, as i did today, i simply set my internal chronometer before i fall asleep. then, at 0300, i wake up every 15 minutes, check the local time, and go back to sleep if it's earlier than 0630. if it's 0630, i also back to sleep, because i'm fucking tired and 0630 is way too early to wake up when i'm as tired as i am, so i stay in bed until 0700, which is also too early but i've got to get into work so i get up anyhow and make some coffee which is a little under roasted this week.

in any case, that's just how my idol, mister data, does it, i'm sure. except he probably has an event driven internal chronometer. that's the benefit of 23rd century positronic network programming.

so, when i was a wee lad, i had a clock radio which i evidently did not use to wake myself up. but, i did use it to lull myself asleep. the clock radio picked up the local Old People's AM Radio Station, which broadcast lame old people music at all hours of the day, because where I grew up, there were many Old People, and you never can tell when an Old People will be awake an in the mood for some smooth jazz or other easy listening music.

One song that put me to sleep on a regular basis, I remember clearly, as if i were listening to it now instead of Norwegiean symphonic death metal, which, in fact, I am actually now listening to. The Norwegians tell me it's A-OK to end a sentence in a preposition, and they invented symphonic death metal so I'd say they're pretty much an authority on the subject, no matter what you may personally think, dear reader.

The song that lulled me to sleep regularly in my pre-young-manhood featured the refrain (which google, damn youse, tells me I have misremembered):

If that's all there is my friend
then let's keep dancing
let's bring out the booze
and have a ball
if that's all
there is
to love

Apparently this is a song by one Peggy Lee, whom, I'm sure, is famous. However, be warned, o ye blog commenters: if you acknowledge the fame of Peggy Lee, you thereby mark yeself as An Oldster, since, as I've mentioned, I was listening, in my pre-youth, no less, to an Old People's Station, which would mean that should you recognize this song or Peggy Lee, you mark yourself as An Old Person 20 years ago when this song was new to me, and that makes you Old + 20, which is pretty freakin old, sorry mom.

Here are the full lyrics, which I have just located. I will read them with you for the first time, substituting in my mind the lyrics as I remember them for the lyrics as google reports them:

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire"

SUNG:
Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

Anyhow. Looking back, now that I am myself approaching Old, i find my view of life coming in line with Peggy's. much has changed, and i've suffered, to some minor extent, teh slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. i said recently that i used to have a fortress of solitude, but i lost the way to it (once again, ending a sentence with a preposition, but this time, for dramatic effect (no doubt lost on my illiterate philistine audience (not you, of course, dear reader))), and this sentiment of mine, worded so specifically in my own dialect, resonates with Peggy's words -- as if Peggy's words have been guiding me all these years to cynicism and un-impressedness, even though i had more or less forgotten all but the refrain.

the refrain, though, has been with me most days.

i don't care if they stink after just two uses.

i don't care if they gave me a blister.

i don't care if it's not a blister, and they gave me a toe infection.

i don't care if they aren't too durable.

my vibram fivefingers are the best shoes i've ever owned.

i <3 them bigtime, despite their flaws. other shoes just don't feel right anymore, and i've only had these for a couple of weeks.

can't.

it isn't today, but tomorrow that i find out if hops was consumed by the fires in yosemite.

when her dad called yesterday to find out if she was still alive, he and i agreed that it is probable that she is, as the park service would probably have contacted me were she not. still, the government is not known for its apt handling of such things.

my "let's do stuff" friend is out of town, so i guess i'm on my own for tonight after all. i know, i'll work late! hooray!