6:30ish pm, bright angel lodge restaurant.
as you may gather from my location i'm through roughing it for a few hours.
got up before 7 this morning to see what constituted a nondenominational religious service, since the trail to the chapel (nothing more than a few benches but man, the view!) wandered through my campsite. at 7:05 i arrived and found one character in attendance. Rob, an "interpretive ranger", whatever that is. he was there to worship, not preach (apparently the service leaders stood us up). so we talked about ourselves, our religious backgrounds, and relationships with god. he was remarkably accepting of my vaguely stated views on religion being personal and frequent or constant experience, as opposed to bottling it up for a sunday. a nice start to the morning, and we broke off around 7:45 so he could get to work and i could get to hiking.
finally i make it to the trailhead at 9:30. sigh. "don't hike between 10
and 4" say all the signs. don't die of heatstroke. don't go further than
7 miles total in a single day.
many
warnings. i felt like i was 6 again. so i did what Jon had
recommended, hiking down the
South Kaibab Trail to
Tipoff point. i went really slowly, trying not to completely blow out a
knee on hike #1 like i did at the Tetons. i was passed frequently, i
stopped frequently, consuming 160 ounces of water throughout the hike. my
back is killing me as a result of carrying it all down and back up (well,
to be honest, mostly empties came back up). but of course i brought
everything including the kitchen sink and managed to still have water left
when i returned. i've since drunk 5 more cups of water with dinner. i'm
beginning to feel more like a plum and less like a prune. it took me 7
hours to do around 10 miles horizontal, and just shy of 8000 feet vertical
(ahh, the vertical mile, er, and a half).
it was blindingly (ok thankfully not really) beautiful on the way down. and
not even all that hot. passed a few former austinites and chatted briefly.
was passed by almost everyone else i saw on the way down; i felt like i
was 60 or something (amazing how quickly i can mentally age in the right
circumstances, ain't it?). but on the upside, i could walk the next day, and
not with the "Kaibab shuffle" as Jon called it. which i definitely experienced
immediately following the end of the hike. i probably would have been
mostly unscathed if not for a bit of machismo that i suddenly decided i
needed to display during the last 500 feet--i hadn't been passed on the
upwards journey yet and wanted to keep it that way, but some powerwalkers
were coming up fast. so i powered the last 500 feet. breathing hard.
muscles straining, then spasming--i felt ever so slightly like the athlete
in the animatrix. a couple of thigh muscles started wiggling and i had to
physically grab them to keep them in place. i think this is what Cyndy
meant by "pumped" muscles at the climbing gym--and of course i worked
through it entirely contrary to her advice. and shuffled the rest of the
evening. but it was worth it; a severe sense of accomplishment ensued.
but i'm way ahead of myself. obviously by posting this i have proof of survival, so i haven't spoiled the ending too much. here's a recap of the hike:
it's easy going down. you're not thirsty, not sweating much, get enforced breaks every time someone comes up towards you since you have to yield. the main points of the down aside from 3 zillion pictures [linked first and last in the hike-series] was that i made pretty bad time but still had a good time; i usually hike at a fast walking pace and have done 20 miles in 6 hours or so before, including several thousand vertical feet and a good chunk of that through snow. so this felt pretty wussy mentally (physically, it was just about grueling by the time i was done). i stopped to eat lunch with some other folks at a lookout-y point (ok so most every point on the way down sported QUITE a view) and ate smoked oysters on the trail (i did mention that i brought everything with me, right?)
on the way down, i actually did pass a couple of other folks--they were sprawled in the first shade in probably a mile and a half pretty near my turnaround point, and i was a little worried, but also didn't want to intrude on their slumber (i did make sure they were breathing). the guy was actually still wearing his full backpack and laying on his stomach and the girl was laying on her back, head resting on her backpack. after luxuriating in the shade for far too few seconds, i plowed onward through the fog, er, dust. hit the turnaround point and used the privy since it was there and i didn't want any extra weight going back uphill. started drinking water like it was going out of style. found a telephone out there, out in the middle of nowhere. when i turned around and headed back up, i once again ran into the not-quite-dead duo. they were sitting up and eating by this time. i stopped and chatted a bit and they offered me some of their snacks. which primarily consisted of sliced raw red bell pepper. feeling a bit like the iron chef, i ate quite a bit. it turns out to be tasty. also turns out they were just napping before and were heading down to the camp at the river for the evening. said my goodbyes and started trucking uphill.
on the way up i met lynn, john and isaac, a cute family who were on their summer vacation. isaac, the kid, was probably 13 and was darn cool; actually even the parents were cool. it gives me some hope for the future if we're actually producing kids as cool as that, even just sometimes.
had a delightful dinner prepared for me by professional staff at the bright angel lodge; drank a good local beer (Kaibab Pale--yeah, i'm a beer snob even in moments of exhaustion and exotic locales), and ate dinner with a grunt which should be but isn't the noise you make when you're compelled by the goodness of consumed substances to continue consuming them despite lack of room in belly. and i was served by an excellent pierced waitress to top it all off--the scenery is great here, even inside.
unfortunately my evening was riddled with Kaibab shuffle, but i think that's just kind of a memento of the journey rather than a negative aspect.
note to Ann: i bought the backpack with the crazy gel-straps that we fondled at REI. they work. unfortunately i still carried too much so my back hurts. but, my shoulders are great! and i used the thumbloops too =)
7:13 pm, bright angel lodge rim patio.
the sun sets over the trees across a chasm, but still on our (south) side of the Big Hole. i repeatedly burn my retinas looking at it. ow. just did it again. fortunately my handwriting can't really get worse despite my blindness.
patience is a virtue. tonight i left before the sunset oranges were joined by the pinks. i'll try not to make that mistake again..
exhausted from my hike, i'll turn in early in hopes of catching the sunrise en camera.
11:30ish am, Williams, AZ, some Route 66 1950's diner.
it's not this place but it was next door and does have a soda fountain and all. i'm having a cherry lime coke and a burger. will prolly close out with a blueberry malt (why not? never seen one before and there's always my blue food fetish to satisfy). somehow ended up back on route 66 and paid what will hopefully end up a trip-long high for gas--$1.88 a gallon. i passed up $2.05 and down to find 1.88 at a one-pump tire shop that still lived in the dark ages technologically, but they were good folk nonetheless.
this cherry lime coke absolutely rules.
still cant tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue even with teethhelp. i think i'm getting closer though.
the blueberry malt is ok. not particularly blue, but my tongue is, a little.
not sure what the gold ball on top of the white pole is supposed to be. there's one at each end of town though. it has an FCC license.
1:52 pm Kingman AZ
i just turned off onto the highway to Vegas. it goes over Hoover dam! i might stop and do the tour if time permits. i bought a bottle of water because i was lazy and thirsty and it's 106 degrees. usually i abhor paying a buck (the cheapest 500ml available!) but this time it was worth it. the water is wet and cold, but the label sports a: "Useless fact: over 1/4 trillion Lincoln head pennies have been minted, making it the most numerous coin ever."
i like truth in advertising, and i'm quite the fan of self-deprecation. i'm not sure either of those completely describes this, but it's still fun.
a big rig had mud flaps: "jesus saves." and the logo on the side proudly procmailed "WASP transport". this was for real. felt like i was back in high school or something. s'been awhile since i've seen someone proclaim themselves WASP not in jest. the truck was going like 15mph up a hill on the interstate in AZ or i would have snapped a picture. my photo-while-driving skills are improving (probably not a good thing) but i'm still slow on the draw.
the mountains around Lake Mead/Hoover dam are phenomenal. so is the heat. even at around 4,000 feet elevation it's over 120 degrees out here. (at least - my car thermometer is accurate +/- 4 depending on which bank sign you compare to.)
i need to drive through again in like november or something though so i can actually stop to enjoy them without melting. i did stop at the dam and the dam gift shop, to kill some time (didn't want to show up in Vegas before evening, really. it turns out to be just as hot in Vegas, so i'm happy for my foresight). at the dam, almost accidentally pulled into the "pay $5 for the privilege of using the pavement" lot, but instead turned around and parked 100 yards up the road for free. both lots were 1/4 mile from the visitor center, so all who arrived and didn't use the parking garage (i imagine they charged a firstborn for that) were fairly well drenched by the time they got in. $10 to see the stuff. worthwhile, matching my recollection from my last visit.
fun fact i didn't know: after paying off their startup loan with interest, the dam operation has since been self-sufficient; paying the bills by selling power and tours. that is rather neat--i am a huge fan of nonsubsidized services. sadly our tour guides made exactly 0 "dam" jokes. fortunately the gift shop was called the dam gift shop, so i got my giggle on. pictures describe it better than words, but looking down the face of the dam itself sure brought back memories of coming out here with Steph and Rob. good times. i imagine Mystere will be similar and also similarly awesome in effect. dam.
a random police checkpoint out in the middle of the desert mountains post-dam, which i was waved through. poor guys, 120 degrees and no shade. all for the joy of hassling passersby. hmm.
6:10pm, LV, NV, treasure island buffet
i guess not all starbucks are wireless hotspots - couldn't get a signal in the one across from the Cirque du Soleil box office. i'm sure i can find some net in somewhere in LA...
cruised into town and down the strip with no issue. some cabbie liked one of my bumper stickers a lot, but went past too fast to ask which. the Cirque shows "O" and "Zumanity" were dark tonight, but i got a ticket for the show Mystere in 1.5 hours. suave! no standby line action this time, either. now for a bite, Cirque, heightened senses, and a trip down the lit strip. mm, tasty!
lost $0.75 on a slot machine in Belaggio. just what i happened to have in my pockets.
it's fabulous that parking in this town or at least on the strip, is copious and free. of course i feel like i really ought to be using mass transit or something--easy consumerism still isn't good consumerism.
dinner was definitely worth $15 -- all i could shovel shrimp (ok), prime rib (awesome) and misc nibblies. the bread pudding was an odd consistency but had the mad (good mad) flavah.
7pm. Mystere Theatre @ Treasure Island, LV NV
got the pre-show jitters. haven't had those since i was in a show last. yay.
9:20pm, post show.
truly breathtaking, amazing, hilarious, in a word superlative. these folks give me faith in humanity based on the beauty people are capable of. they also make me want to set standards similar to theirs for myself. inspiring yet unlikely, however i must try or forever view myself as a failure as a real person. but try i shall, and my life will be better as a result.
i believe the word Steph and i came up with at the last showing was "afterglow" and i'm certainly feeling that now. intensely happy, entertained enough, for once, and again reevaluating the realm of the possible.
as each act progressed, they made me want to be that good and that beautiful - in what i do, who i am, how i look. while i may never be perfectly sculpted or able to lift myself off the ground with one hand, what it really boils down to is doing the best and then a little better. and i'm sure somewhere within me is the power to do my best, and then push myself a little further.
this ties in interesting with the conversation i had with Rob at the Grand Canyon. it is an intensely participative form of entertainment/worship, and i need to be part of it again. i miss the energy and the camaraderie of the stage, the performance, and living loudly.
another thing Cirque makes me want is a 50 foot high room, some megarubberbands, and a gravity downpour. but i think i'll settle for a trampoline. praise be, so wonderful. twice the show of quidam or alegria, which are still good, but didn't leave me such a glow. oh. yeah.
10pm, lawn in front of caesars palace:
hot night, bright lights, streaming people.
a blurry reflection of shimmering self-promotion.
stream + pool = gush.
a dome of synaesthesia.
crowds steeping in a pot of advertisements.
sidereal landscapes of moving light.
excessively bright, excessively pink, excessively excessive, and so, fun.
foreign.
no expense spared; nothing ventured, nothing lost.
no stars, only mars. and many bars. Arr!
a bit later
so i'm wearing my fuck yeah i'm weird shirt, and keep forgetting it and wondering why people are looking at me funny.
but then i walked past 3 solo folks on the way into the hotel from the parking garage and thought they each needed a shirt:
a girl i passed on the strip: "plus there's more porno hander-outers"
tonight's photographic lesson: bring a 'pod.
best captions:
"this picture is the epitome of Vegas: neon, incandescent, and a little
bit of some guy's head."
"i bet every budding photographer does hundreds of these blurry shots when they discover long exposure times"
8/20, LA, starbucks, 10:30am.
i came to evil multinational swill purveyors because their wireless internet is a known entity. their chai is decent too tho i have conscience pangs from supporting one of the corporations that is sucking the world dry of hope and individuality.
anyhow had a fabulous day yesterday in LA, mostly just goofed off after an easy drive from the state line where i stayed - just couldn't stomach Vegas enough to stay there. it's like it was fighting me; i couldn't navigate well even when all i was doing was walking in a straight line down the strip - the sidewalk kept wandering and suddenly i'd find myself in the dirt next to the road as the sidewalk headed 50 feet west to lure me into some den of cards and chips. i couldn't find stairways pointed to by signs. i ended up parking 3 blocks from the luxor not because they didn't have ample connected parking but because i followed the road signs pointing to it in a circle 3 times before giving up and driving til i found some secluded curb.
saw several ditched kids tiredly awaiting parents who forgot time at the tables (3 of them after midnight).
stumbled onto some other kids arguing about whether wandering aimlessly was any different than sitting in their hotel room, declined to comment when the same champion of "not doing something in particular = doing nothing" went off on TV being even worse than a waste of time. so wrong but then so right, too.
since Vegas fought me in my varied attempts to navigate within it, i told it to piss off and drove onwards to the state line and stayed at the last casino. got up in the morning and drove some more. through the desert on I-15 which was some of the worst driving so far - not slow or really unreasonable, just annoying. sun too hot and direct for sunroof usage, 1001 people going slow in the fast lane, and fast in the slow lane, too inconsistent for cruise, sometimes holding up traffic but usually being held up and barely even speeding. this desert was more barren than the Hoover zone but less hot, by 10-15 degrees. even smelled a lot like rain for a few miles but saw nonesuch personally. stopped at the Joe and Steph (i think?) recommended Mad Greek's diner for a fresh strawberry shake created indeed afresh and in fact within about 20 seconds (very efficiently) - this beat out the blueberry malt (which took more than 5 minutes), both in flavor and overall execution.
as i drove into California, more of the bling-bling was evident, rolls royces and $120k porsches and mercs cruising next to the lowridin' Geo's.
LA goes on forever. there was a traffic jam going the other way on I-10 for at least 40 miles coming into town. (i'd failed to realize that i'd hit the suburbs until i found myself in downtown and realized that stripmallville hadn't suffered a breach for the past 45 minutes.) but someone smiled on me and i suffered minimal traffic lag - and even then entertained by the obviously spaced out character with dreadlocks in the pontiac doing a most soulful hendrix sing-along (i opened the window to figure out what his thrashing was all about).
found Hannah's with minimal difficulty and since i was hours early, checked the map for any points of interest nearby and found a convenient distance away the la brea tar pits (fancy that, her place being 3 blocks off of la brea avenue) which are colocated in a kind of park with the LA county museum of art. got in some nice people watching, photographing, art looking, and time checking out the city from a stationary vantage point.
went back to Hannah & Jeff's armed with some liquor and had a grand evening talking of everything and nothing.
Hannah: "i don't buy anything at the 99 cent store that i put in my mouth"
Jeff: "the entire 28th floor reeked of bachelor party"
aside from the good vibes of sleeping under the same roof as cool people, in a room comfortably cool from outside air instead of A/C, the cover art and Tricky Dick (Hannah keeps her Nixon collection in the guest room) smiled me to sleep.
now onwards to some kinda tasty lunch and the museum of Jurassic technology, as soon as these pictures finish uploading.
LA is full of beautiful people. or starbucks in LA are. or something.
lunch at ¡Loteria! grill at the farmers market. it's stuff like this that makes me aware that austin isn't quite the most that could exist & is why i'll have to live in someplace bigger like SF/NY for a spell sometime.
bustling, packed with a huge variety of people, customs, languages, and colors.
real mex/mex food complete with watermelon agua fresca. decent plantains. chilaquiles verdes to die for!
i feel like a cinematic effect - the one where the camera's subject stays stationary and unchanging while everything else zooms out around - life rushing by even as i sit still and just hum along with the rush of the rush rushing past.
Loteria was one of the best parts of high school Spanish - a play day in class that somehow passed as education even though it was pure silliness. not that we ever had to do much work, but Loteria was sanctioned slack. [for the home players, Loteria is like bingo except that you mark squares containing pictures of spanish words that the teacher reads out.]
6ish weds 8/20 El Capitan beach, CA.
leaving LA has been gradual. constant directional progress but population thins slowly. made Santa Barbara without being much convinced that civilization had receded at all since LA-levels. and indeed Mulholland Highway, a nice twisty section of road shooting off of the pacific coast highway up about an hour north of LA-mains showed that as empty as the land is (rather devoid of settlement) it's still technologically bound and ungagged (my "photographic memory" fails me here--i took a picture of a strange stand of huge satellite dishes in the middle of nowhere at the top of that road but cannot now find it).
the Museum of Jurassic Technology keeps odd hours. i should have scheduled the trip a few days in either direction and i would have had more cirque, more stuff in LA, who knows. but what i definitely know is that it's wonderful to just be and see, and sit, and think, and drink it all in.
i paid $2.18/gallon for gas in Ventura, CA.
the sun sags but still suspended above the sea crashes gently and the seagulls moan quietly, relatively. the earth spins and life goes on.
skipping a stone like throwing a frisbee like riding a bike like living.
driving into Nevada was driving into cliche - heat lines shimmered on the pavement, the sun beat, hammered, rained, and fell like a ton of bricks down into our world. the dam holds back the weight of megatons. it is the largest in america, and was the largest in the world for more than 10 years after its completion. it is massive. Vegas thrummed with the bustle of man and machine, technology versus nature, and endless battle, struggle. the brightest light in the world shines from the top of the luxor, challenged only by mars in the night sky.
the desert was most desolate, mountains extreme and sharp - no chia vegetation to grant them organic curves. California is like a huge pot of stew. full of fixin's, full of empty space, wasted space, people and their lives, dysfunction and incredible function. and peace. miles of beach that just are, never the same, but always there.
8/21 Thursday, San Luis Obispo starbucks
uploading the rest of my camera contents should only take another 30 minutes of so. i have to say it's a happy thing that these places uniformly seem to have sufficient bandwidth--200kB/s or so outgoing and at least as good incoming.
i let my car kiss the west coast late night. a short, violent kiss as i immediately regretted it, getting stuck in the sand not 100 yards from the pavement. of course there were copious signs warning that street vehicles were not recommended but the entry-guard chica and myself agreed that it shouldn't be impossible to drive and indeed it wasn't, until i got scared - the road quality degraded rather quickly from hard packed sand to moist but firmish sand to utter beach and i was doing fine even so. but having seen a car buried to its headlights on the beach before, i wussed out and turned around. leaving the vaguely packed path and entering the true sand trap. i sat sheepishly with my front end 6" deep and hazards on til a guy in a jeep stopped and gave me some tips, which i share with you here; keep these handy or at least on the tip of your mind since when you need them, you might not be on Pismo Beach with a zillion nice, smart people around.
8/21 2ish past ragged point, before Gorda, CA. on a cliff above the water.
even from 300 feet, the waves still swoosh below but are now drowned out by passing car noise; i sit hundreds of feet above the ocean but merely 20 feet above the pacific coast highway. there are an inordinate number of cars on this road for where it goes; i can only conclude that i'm in a local zone of people who like to drive, like to see the ocean (typically quite scenic for the past 50 miles since San Luis Obispo). here the mountains tumble down directly into the water, no beach intermediary, just big rocks then water. the plants are fragrant like some potpourri my grandmother used to have in her home.
the clouds hang low allowing the mountaintops and the sun to play hide and seek. they've been looming all afternoon, wanting to make known their impending arrival, their presence, but not quite marching on the coast somehow.
a string of barbed wire is tucked through the underbrush at the cliff edge 15 feet of thorns away from my vantage point. does it protect people from the fall, or the ocean from the people?
it's amazing how few people live in Harmony.
the mountains actually cascade down into the waves' kisses and caresses here. the water is untroubled by most evident human damage, clean enough to show off the sand and rocks below. halfway between SF and LA people aren't as important to anything anymore.
our detritus litters the borders of areas within our power but then all traces of us vanish.
the ocean isn't totally flat, smooth, or wavy. it changes. and it goes on far past where i can see.
a sticker on a sign proclaiming distance to San Francisco says "legalize happiness". a sticker on my car says "legalize yourself".
5pm big sur, CA
just stopped at the henry miller library / artspace and enjoyed its peaceful vibe very much.
bought more books tho it were verboten.
praise be that pockets of unadulterated happiness and joy still exist.
it's here that i bought the postcard i display in my bathroom. i bought it because i find it cute, and because it was pinned to the wall with a sheaf of letters to the museum/giftshop about how obscene/misogynistic it was and how could they even sell it?
5:30pm Santa Cruz.
what a nifty strip/drag/main street this burg has. population 55k, in the beautiful but not overcrowded pacific hills, it seems a truly nice ville. the street outside relaxes into evening, a few hundred folks hanging out or about their business or about no business. it feels like a less manic and harsh version of the pearl street mall in boulder. parked my car without bothering really to pay attention to exactly where because i seemed found rather than lost as i've been for most of the trip.
walked the strip, saw some neat stores, smelled some good smells and finally went to pacific ave pizza&grill where they had on tap joy of joys longboard lager which i first tried at Hannah's the other night. fine local (long beach, CA) brew. the PCH was wonderful and probably still will be as i drive up to SF through the sunset.
there's a bunch of kids from "apple camp" in the restaurant, i wonder what the heck that is...i guess we are pretty near Cupertino.
i think part of what's nice about this town and boulder is that families, or at least adult-kid groups are out and about in reasonable numbers but for the most part the kids are well behaved. it's nice to be around kids that aren't spazzing out.
also there were 3 vipers, one the mega edition, playing together on the PCH. innumerable porsches and ragtops and an AMG E55. lots of people out having fun in their funcars. saw ~10 ferraris in LA and accidentally drove past a dealer en route to the Jurasically closed museum. this is definitely a car-centric state. there was a parking garage by where i parked that had art composed of B&W hubcap/wheel photos and potentially ---- [transmission ends suddenly]
Santa Cruz natural bridges park, 7:30 pm.
randomly pulled up here around sunset. the sun sets over some houses to the west. they stick out just slightly too far to allow us to see sunset over the water, tho the waves crash feet away. there must be 4-5 other photographers out here, already picking up their tripods and heading out as the sun is no longer visible. their loss.
the waves here are sudden and occasionally 5' high, instead of the typical 1-2'. i suppose that's what caused the odd natural bridge thing.
musing to self: at sunset time, there's that weird lens/prism thing on the setting-horizon wherein ROYGBIV shows up in pastel muted glory. wonder why?
10:30 pm big basin redwoods state park, boulder creek, CA
well, fate smiled upon me: the first campground i actually found after dark (the third i sought--navigational skills waning. this one i only found because of a single sign in a 1-horse town that i had to circle around to look at a second time) had room and a friendly ranger who told me the ropes. i found a spot, made my lantern go on the second try. set up my tent with minimum head-scratching, saved my food from 2 wily fearless raccoons (they had the oreos out of a latched box before i heard them, and ran off with them only to drop them around a corner), and cracked a luke-cool beer to write this entry. i'm in a hurry to be done so i can turn off the lantern and check out the stars - through the couple-hundred feet tall trees i'm camping amongst. this place feels good and at least part of that is the trees.
the trees and the sky smile down at me, a big gaptoothed goofy grin. but serene, too - the stars glitter as innumerable as whale teeth (not as vicious as shark teeth)
the trees enfold, a hug for anyone who looks up.
10:30am, big basin redwood state park, boulder creek, CA
the blue jays are almost as brave as the raccoons but not as smart, and, i suppose, lacking "hands". they went for my nutella and peanut butter sandwich today with little success. they hop and flit though they are bigger than typical flitters. they're blue and have spiked mohawks. punk birds.
PB & nutella plus applesauce is my new favorite breakfast. no cooking or refrigeration required.
the beauty, regality, vitality of the trees here is difficult if not impossible to convey photographically. they are each of those things, intensely. and calm. calming. the air here is easier to breathe, the ground is easier to sleep on - thanks to the cast-off bounty of these majesties.
Saturday, 5pm, SF - a bar called "the bus stop".
this town is full of things, but i feel disconnected from them--decidedly a tourist. this place is pleasant and probably comfortable. i should go nap in a park.
6:30ish, levi's plaza, embarcadero & green SF, CA
this tiny slice of peace is still slightly assaulted by the civilized world without - a siren flies by, a sports car vrooms, a trio of notes floats out some window somewhere, an airplane roars by lowish overhead.
but the sounds, initially abrasive, start to blend with the sounds of this refuge - the talking gulls, the rush of water and rustle of wind-caressed leaves. this place harmonizes with nature and again feels comfortable on 3 sides. trees, leaves, blades, petals interweave in a visual poem for the eyes.
a bee alights upon my pen and waits for nothing before flitting off again.
the air is surprisingly easy to breathe here, the trees reaching into the azure above, the grass lush beneath, the people relaxing around a pool. the city and the sounds of here and now continue to sing their opera of calm amidst chaos, and i drift off to sleep in the grass.
[it has come to my attention during the webifying of this journal that i actually slept in the lap of corporate america--levi's plaza was commissioned by the Levi's jeans company and their headquarters building abuts it. can't argue with beauty, though.]
8pm ozumo restaurant, SF, CA.
this place is probably too cool for my current slacker/grungy-traveling self [though i've just noticed it's next door to the YMCA in that picture...the zone is awful high-rent for a Y], but it's what i found after walking yet more miles. probably 10ish total today, and 2 of those in search of dinner that sounded "right" and didn't involve dining on a crowded barstool or waiting 30 minutes, or being disdained for not pulling up in a ferrari. granted that i was mostly looking along the bay front but i was somewhat surprised at the average level of hoity-toityness or just plain superiority complex exhibitionism. i guess i've forgotten the dallas vibe while so busy soaking in austin, and i guess i'm not exactly in the hip young neighborhood unless you count the yuppies' kids that seem to abound.
but ozumo is interesting, less haughty but not less upscale. 7 dollar beer and all that. but a typically priced eel roll. the decor is rather interesting. mostly muted blacks, a very dark room with only localized lighting, all etched copper, dark stained wood, completely angular but not sharp because so dim. non-overpowering techno, what a delightful change! too bad i don't have a fellow conversant to actually enjoy the quasi-lull with.
the food was exquisite but tiny. a hockey puck's worth of tuna/guac/tofu and a rock-n-roll did not fill me up, but at least they were divine. this place does have quite a novel take on service, i suppose. i haven't seen my waitress since before the food arrived. no napkins (nor hot towels) provided. so i tried to eat neatly and mostly succeeded; it was fun to revert from wolf-it-down as quickly as possible to eat -delicately- and draw it out so it seems like more && don't make a mess.
mmm, dna lounge!
called iyean and finally got thru but he had a huge evening with a play and a date - might try him after dna if i feel up to it. quite probably easier than driving back to SJ at that point. and i'd love to finally meet him.
[later tried to call him from a gas station payphone with no luck]
SF has been interesting. more for Flex and his roommate Dev anything else except the overall vibe which i'm always interested in - the real feel of a place. i've kind of retreated from SF to some degree due to being a bit too involved in a couple books. cory doctorow's down and out in the magic kingdom and zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. my compulsion to read outstrips my compulsion to actually experience sometimes.
i think George Foreman just rode past me on a bicycle. but he was not the triumphant "my grill works miracles!" GF i expect, more of a "some lowdown jerk jacked my wheels yo and now i gotta pedal, sheeeit!"
since i wrote so little about san francisco, here's 10 of my favorite pictures. the entire album is here.
