Last night I figured something out that I don’t quite understand. I generally don’t write at all when M. is around. (Or anyone else for that matter, but he’s the obvious one to be around.)

I wait for him to go to bed or take a run or otherwise not be here. He doesn’t stop me or distract me. He’s happy to listen to music, watch TV, read a book, take a shit, any number of activities that don’t demand my attention. Still and all, I do all sorts of other stuff beside him but produce crappy prose.

Clearly, this entry is dedicated to his not being home yet.

I wonder if it’s my solo existence for so long. I’m accustomed to the thoughts in my head as company.

Or perhaps it’s the fantasy of a hunched over, grim typist, cigarettes and whiskey and a shotgun in the corner. Nothing makes American writing like the prospect of self-destruction and embodying an angry loner.

Of course, that fantasy suits serial killers as well as writers. Not sure if the verdict is in on me yet.

I wrote a whole thing about the Pope, his new “commandments,” marketing and all sorts of ranting goodness. Then the webserver hiccupped and my words were fucked and vaporized.

It must be the lord working in mysterious ways to prevent my blaspheming. Not to mention, jesus probably wants me in bed by now.

For fun, here’s the papal precedent for road rules from the “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road” with the top ten list.

. Back in 1956 Pope Pius XII exhorted motorists: “Do not forget to respect other road users, be courteous and fair with other drivers and pedestrians and show them your obliging nature. Pride yourselves in being able to master an often natural impatience, in sometimes sacrificing a little of your sense of honour so that the courteousness that is a sign of true charity may prevail. Not only will you thus be able to avoid unpleasant accidents, but you will also help to make the car a more useful tool for yourselves and others that is capable of giving you a more genuine pleasure”[17].

Didn’t know popes were into cars.

Here’s the list for easy reference:

Drivers’ “Ten Commandments”

In any case, with the request for motorists to exercise virtue, we have drawn up a special “decalogue” for them, in analogy with the Lord’s Ten Commandments. These are stated here below, as indications, considering that they may also be formulated differently.

I. You shall not kill.

II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.

V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

VII. Support the families of accident victims.

VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

X. Feel responsible towards others.

I think the pope could paraphrase, “Jesus doesn’t want you to be a huge dick.”

Oh, and I also wrote some shit about advertising on catholic.org and how I think I hate Steve Carell and probably won’t see in a million fucking years, expect on a flu-ridden couch moment, alone with cable, Evan Almighty.

I have that stupid poll thing over on the side over there. Look to your left.

Recently, there was an unexplained surge. (Are we allowed to even fucking say surge anymore, or did Bush fuck up that meaning, like he’s done with patriotism, mission accomplished, terror, etc., too?)

From a steady of like 11 voters, not even a dozen, I think, mostly voting for me to get fatter and bask more in the glory of Wal-Mart, suddenly 50 folks are telling me to perform.

Who the fuck are you people? Or who is the one person with OCD and a need to vote?

Leave me a comment. Say “hey.”

Maybe it’s what I need to get back on the trainwreck path of performance.

A friend of mine had an extra ticket to see Roger Waters tonight. Here I am, home, un-rocked out.

Besides it being Tuesday, and a bit of a drive to get to the Oracle Arena in Oakland, I just couldn’t jump on it for it’s own sake of promised fun. Is it because I’m old, or because Roger Waters is even older?

Truth be told, I was never that into Floyd. I mean, I chanted the lyrics of The Wall, especially this shit, alongside the rest of my high school, back when it was new and different.

We don’t need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

But I ain’t never owned the album. I doubt I even stole it off a brother’s turntable.

Maybe it was the flying pigs, or the ringing telephones, cash registers and howling, barking dogs. At some level, I just didn’t give a fuck. (I gotta say I fucking hate listening to Pink Floyd and looking around to answer the phone or otherwise responding to auditory stimuli. Makes me goddamn jumpy, it does.)

I liked my pretentious art-rock, poetry, bullshit set to music more NYC-style, CBGBs, Cale and Reed, Patti Smith, punk rock baby.

Conceptual stadium drama seemed too Spinal Tap. Minimalism and fast guitars yanked my adolescent crank. Besides Waters always sounded like he was kind of a dick.

Or, maybe I would have gone tonight, if I hadn’t given up on smoking the weed 20 plus years ago.

I’m thinking about retirement twofold. First, there’s putting on my PJs and snoozing my night away. Definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

Then there’s the real retirement. The one where I don’t have to work anymore and I use Medicare and I live as frugally as I can off Social Security. Or maybe I get two, three bucks in the bank enough to eat gruel and thrill to the sounds of the oldies.

Yeah, that’s the retirement that keeps me dreaming.

Alternatively, I want all offices everywhere in America, all of the world, every fucking corner to get a special “fuck you” policy. It’s a magic idea. Simple. Easy to execute. No downside, just catharsis.

Here’s the plan. Every six months say, each employee in an office cubicle, maybe a few offices, but mainly the cubicle rats, they get a free, as in pain free, penalty free, giant FUCK YOU. You just get to tell someone who pisses you off enough, that one simple phrase.

But you only get the two a year, so you gotta fucking conserve. Gotta bide your time, wait to execute. When the moment comes, though, it’s poetry. It’s brevity. It’s the soul of wit and it’s fucking work hell salvation.

Today, I would have invoked mine. I actually probably could have done it, probably could have gotten away with it, escaped unscathed. Could have said my fuck you, and no one would have been the wiser, given the hearer was mobile.

It didn’t roll off the old tongue, though. Instead, I went the route of karma and kept it all civil.

But, if only the world would think of my plan. Fuck you and move on.

My two favorites from the weekend. A weekend in which apart from juggling, a lot of eating and some walking, I did nothing. (Click on any of the photos to get to the whole gallery.)

I also learned lizards have some more intense coloring than I had thought.

A while back, as in 25 fucking years ago–Jesus christ, it really was that long–I was in college. I headed to Syracuse, NY in January, a semester after all the other kids, and in the cold, dead middle of winter.

Starting late and it being to fucking cold too barely move, let alone socialize, meant my first semester grades were fairly phenomenal, since studying was my only activity. But the life of a grind was not my highest quest, so I tried to figure out something I could do to kill the boredom.

Back then, there was no Internet to make fake friends on, sadly.

Backtracking a bit, the semester before I started my actual first semester of college I worked in a warehouse, packing school supplies. I missed the normal September start because of a late check to accept my place in class, and because it certainly didn’t hurt for me to have some dough in my pocket to live and shit.

Now, packing school supplies probably sounds like a beachwagon full of fun and games, especially the “mother shift” of bitter ladies working the only job they could find to make ends meet for their families. Yeah, fun with a capital F. True is, though, it had its down times.

To quell the boredom, I taught myself to juggle and then spent months juggling various school supplies in my little, dirty workstation. (One that I would have for several subsequent summers, as I worked my way through college and made some friends I still have.)

In 1982, bored with my own company, fucking cold to the bone in a miserable winter, I headed to Syracuse U.’s “Women’s Building” and started hanging out with the Juggling Club. Founded just a bit before I started by a local dude with a professor father and NASA aspirations, Paul Norton, it still exists. And, somewhere on that linked website, there’s an old, old, old picture of yours truly.

Today, I timewarped back to those days. I showed up to check out the juggling club that convenes every Saturday at the Klutz Store in Palo Alto.

There’s something comforting about a patio full of nerdly men with a variety of facial hair arrangements, the inevitable juggling core, and their colorful toys. For myself, I picked up a few of these.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be back, if only to work on the back fat oozing out beyond the elastic of my bra.

I haven’t been going to shows. I haven’t been doing shows. But, I have been doing some of the writing I am trying to do.

You can’t always turn off the part of the brain that looks for fun, fun, fun. I can’t just lay completely low.

So, with a couple other of chicks at work, we organized an after work happy hour. In and of itself an unremarkable event. Where I work, in the land of wonks and intellectuals and committed, earnest Californians and transplants, though, it was notable. They just ain’t natural partiers. Natural studiers, I’d say.

How do you hook the kids from study hall into going out for a post-work pop? Comedy, of course. A little group email with a chunk of satire, mimicking just the kind of emails and the jargon we all sup on, metaphorically, each and every day.

I’d add it here if I wasn’t scared of mixing work and my personal interwebs, and I though anyone reading this shit would get it.

Maybe a culture shift of more socializing. Or maybe a blip on the usually pretty staid collective radar screen. Time will tell.

Biggest thrill of all — I think the lords of karma rolling the universe around were particularly kind. The power went out about an hour maybe 45 minutes before go time in the building. Our computers were on an emergency generator, and thanks to shitloads of glass there was ambient light, but the mood shifted from work.

Without A/C there was really no reason to not got sit on an outside patio with a fruity drink.

I meant to write about the military’s research into a “gay bomb.” But, really, what the fuck can you say?

I want to write about a couple of work things, but, yeah, once bitten, twice shy, fill in your favorite cliches and lyrics. I will say one thing, however, read an awesome resume the other day. Person indicated they had “top notch communicational skills.”

I looked it up. Turns out “communicational” is a word, but fucking A, should it be? Is it necessary? Fucking awkward, every sentence I found on the interwebs.

Lastly, I’ve been dressing a bit different for me. Seems to be closer to the locals. Not sure what’s happening to me.

The think is, it’s a whole San Francisco thing. Pants with a dress. Dress and pants together. If you’ve ever frozen your sweet ass off in SF’s cold, it makes sense. But, fucking hell, what am I becoming?

(Worse yet, the boss and a co-worker were sporting similar looks today. Fucking uniform.)

(Worser yet, my dress was new and blue. Later the same day, my armpits were blue. Hot, hot, hot. Not.)

We bought one of those shitty throw away cameras, when I was too much of a dumb shit to have remembered my real one.

McAfee Coliseum before sundown.

More importantly, here’s M. in the stands being entertained after eating tasty Coliseum food.

More pictures are here, Baseball, June 04, 2007.

Unrelatedly, randomly and amusingly, this picture just showed up on the CD we got from Walgreen’s with the developing of the pictures. Not sure if it’s from the roll, somewhere embedded by FujiFilm, or a bonus Walgreen’s tosses to you.

Hello, stranger girl of unknown origin.