Clear Desk, Clear Mind, Clear Start
Monday December 31st 2007, 11:13 am
So.
It’s 10 in the morning. My throat is threatening open revolution; looks like the Airborne and liquids are about to lose the battle against the evil bug Anne’s been wrestling with since Christmas Eve. Next time the wife gets sick, I’m just going to make out with her right away and get it the infection out of the way. At least there would be smoochies.
My desk at home is swept clean, though the papers, catalogs and assorted crap simply moved to the futon. There’s about seven months’ worth of stuff to go through, but I have motivation: Scott’s going to crash on our futon tonight, so it must be done. And I have to get down to Casa del Mar by 4 for wedding stuff. Plus, there’s shaving, primping, tuxedo donning, the whole enchilada. I am a man with a deadline, people, and I will not be deterred.
I’ve spent the last week in a downward glide of self-pity (Oh, I’ll never make it to Ironman, I can’t write anything worth a damn, I suck, blah, blah, blah), and that’s fine. Little dips are nothing to get worked up about, especially after cruising along so steadily since June. But that bullshit ends NOW, because I’ve got a room to clean, stories to write, and a ceremony to officiate. Self-pity precludes ass kicking, and 2008 is all about kicking nothing but ass: applying to Clarion, rocking Ironman, planting mighty tomatoes, kicking a bunch of corrupt and venal assclowns to the curb and getting their greasy mitts away from the keys to the kingdom.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Time
Thursday December 27th 2007, 2:18 pm
Never enough of it. Always want more of it.
I need time for my now-injured pin to heal. I need time to write, train, eat, sleep and, y’know, be married. I need time to shrink during my commute, expand during everything else (except trips to the dentist). I need time to read, time to weed, time to let the bread rise. Time to learn fingering patterns, time to learn the steps, time to stretch, time to ice, time to heal. Time to slow cook that bolognaise, time to let the ribs sit, time to figure out how to move beyond this limiting, broken meat that hurts when it breaks.
Time. Let me know if you figure out how to do something with it.
Buzz, buzz…
Thursday December 20th 2007, 11:21 am
SMC closes their pool down at the end of every year for maintenance, so I’ve had to find other places to swim until January. The best option has been the Van Nuys Sherman Oaks pool, not too far from work. Granted, the showers are just above lukewarm, and the pool’s always short course when I’m there, but it does the trick.
This morning, as I was getting dressed, there was a minor commotion at the locker room door. The source was a small man on a yellow beach cruiser, wearing a yellow jersey, yellow shorts, yellow socks, yellow gloves and a yellow baseball cap. His shoes and Coke-bottle glasses were black, and his voice was tuned to somewhere between Aggrieved At The World and Annoying As Hell. “I’ll bring my bike where I want,” he said. “I don’t care what she says, let’s see her come in the men’s locker room and try to stop me. She’s just abusing her minute authority.” He leaned his bike against the wall, took off his cap, ran his hair through salt and pepper hair. He looked like a cheesed-off bumblebee.
Now. I bike, and I think everything who can ride, should. But I also have come around on the whole cyclists-as-privileged-and-enlightened-members-of-society thing. Riding a bike means responsibilities, and one of them is Taking Care Of Your Own Shit. Bumblebee Man didn’t have a lock, and he also sounded like he couldn’t be bothered to get one (even though I know there are models with yellow casings). Both the woman at the front desk and the lifeguard they called in to tell Bumblebee Man that he couldn’t leave his bike there were following city policy (ie the City of Los Angeles doesn’t want to be responsible for your shit), and he was peeved that someone was calling him on it. Eventually, the lifeguard made him sign a waiver, and Bumblebee Man went about changing for his swim.
His trunks, of course, were yellow.
Random Thoughts About New York City That Were Probably Too Long For Twitter
Monday December 17th 2007, 4:09 pm
Our hotel was a few blocks north and west of Times Square, which, I was glad to find out, even turns lifelong New Yorkers into goggle-eyed yokels. The light bouncing off the cloud cover was otherworldly, and I fear for when some enterprising jackass figures out how to project advertisements for Anderson Cooper onto passing cumolonimbus. I wonder what the glow looked like from Harlem? From Brooklyn?
***
I think it’s funny that our breakfast at Blue Fin, while tasty, was ten times more expensive and a thousand times saltier than our buffet munchies from the Diamond six doors down.
***
The pool at Riverbank State Park was excellent. However, even when submerged, New Yorkers still have that “get the hell out of my way” vibe.
***
And that’s one of the things we picked up immediately: when the traffic’s clear, you move. Does the NYPD even bother with jaywalking tickets?
***
Walking down 8th Avenue to the subway at six in the morning, I kept thinking about Black Star’s “Respiration.” Escuchela; la ciudad respirando. Listen to the city breathe underground as the train rolls by (I take the 1, transfer to the 2), listen to the swish of tires on snow slush, listen to the drips of melting icicles on frozen sidewalks. I get it now.
***
I was sad to say that the bagels, pretzels and pizza did not impress me. I wanted every New York-transplant who bitched about how we Angelenos don’t know how to make any of the above to be proven right, just because it would have meant some really good food. Sorry, folks, but I’ll take Bagel Nosh, the Breadman and Abbot’s over what I had in NYC.
***
Running in Central Park was one of those breakthrough workouts I’d hoped for, just because I was able to get through ten miles in the cold and not want to die. Also, the park was gorgeous, even with the barren trees and brown slush puddles. I have no idea how in hell the people in shorts and cotton t-shirts were able to keep going without, y’know, dying.
***
I want this subway. Oh, God, yes, please, I want this subway to clone itself underneath Wilshire Boulevard with lines running from the Valley to Long Beach. Please, please, please.
***
But without the shitty state-sponsored poetry on the tunnel between 8th Ave and Broadway. Better to say, “Why bother? Off yourself in the Hudson, only eight blocks west.”
***
Seriously, shorts and t-shirts. What, are you people insane?
“I am not attached to this car…”
Wednesday December 05th 2007, 6:47 pm
There’s a moment in Damian Lewis’s new show, “Life,” where he’s cruising around Downtown in a new Bentley, repeating that mantra to himself, over and over. “I am not attached to this car. I am not attached to this car.” He is, of course, but he’s doing his best not to be. It’s just a thing, and things can weigh us down.
But things can also be useful tools, and you can do a lot of good stuff with good things. My racing sunglasses, for instance. I got my first pair from Christian years ago when he walked into my office and said, “I bought these expensive shades, and they don’t fit my face. You want ‘em?” They gave me bug eyes, but they also blocked all that wind and made me feel like I didn’t have to worry about getting hit in the eye with a loose seagull. They were great, which is why Rudy Project discontinued them.
I bought many more pairs on eBay, including the infamous pink shades (note: when an eBay seller says an item is “red,” it will usually be some horrifying shade distantly related to red). And, one by one, they all broke, usually at the same spot on the frame (which, now that I think about it, is probably why Rudy discontinued them). My last pair busted after this morning’s brick, and, having just lost an auction for a new pair, I have now given up. Tonight, I’m putting every busted frame, scratched lens and clamshell case on eBay myself. Anne’s getting me a new pair of Rydons, which come with all kinds of guarantees and warranties and the like.
I am not attached to this piece of plastic. I am not attached to this piece of plastic.
Two Updates
Monday December 03rd 2007, 6:13 pm
1) Oh my God are my gums killing me, but that’s what happens when you go to the dentist twenty months after your previous visit. It blows my mind that we’re still scraping our teeth with sticks, but what the hell. I’ll never miss another dental appointment again.
2) Remember that blogging panel I was on in Yokohama? Tor recorded the whole thing and just put it up in the middle of November, but I didn’t notice until now. Here’s part 1 and part 2.
