Man, I’m pretty beat from a day of ping pong. Ok, shit, yeah, you caught me, not really ping pong just metaphoric.

Here’s some shit that made the day sweet —

– Surprise Thanksgiving bonus (I knew about the special brunch, but didn’t know about the envelopes handed out)
– Brunch and brunch food (which I extended to all day long by checking out the leftovers)
– Persimmons (yeah, man, still loves me the exotic fruit selection available at the office)
– Airline prices for Asia look like they may be dropping (better figure out our Chinese New Year plans soon)
– Life’s little bowl of irony, I’m becoming a weblog/website/Internet source at the new office (HAHAHA. M. said it best, “Don’t you wish you could just call up some people from your old job?”)
– No one else showed up for Mandarin class (much needed tutelage)
– The man o’ mine got a little further in his home-grown business

Here’s the shit that made the day, I guess, shit (or at least exhausting):

An obsession since moving west has been my growing awareness of earthquake preparedness kits.

I half-assedly started putting a few things together (mostly just a dynamo-powered, crank radio and similarly powered flashlight). But, on my outstanding list of shit I gotta do it was on a growing list (as it turns out a list that included “pay my fucking overdue mortgage already.”)

The other day, though, the boy-o of my dreams calls from lunch, because he spied with his little eyes something I would LUV, love, LUV. Working out in front of Oracle HQ were these folks. These lovely folks who have now become (second only to my sweet patootie) my entreprenurial heros.

A check of the website and a phone call later, we figure out they were basically having a survivalist yard sale. Whoo hoo. Thankfully, in many ways, I forgot my camera. Otherwise I would have committed an act of high douchery, photographing dad and sons stuffing away boxes and stacks and ziplog baggies of disaster-surviving wonder in nylon travel bags. I would have made Ansel Adams like coolness with the dramatic lines of a trim suburban lawn, driveway and garage neatly arrayed with bunker supplies enough for Armaggedon.

Here’s what we walked away with in a fetching emergency red knapsack:

What you got there is your US Coastguard and Red Cross approved water and “food” rations for two adults over three days. We got the “Double Deluxe” portions, rather than the leaner just plain double (non-deluxe) kit. I plan on swilling the water orgiastically, while either mounting a game of warfare with M., in which I seek to ration his intake into delirium, or just making him feel guilty and strong to my needy and weak. Either way it’s a win-win for me. The only downside is what with all the marathon running, his carcass will likely be heavy on the stringy and lean when I’m forced to consume his flesh or die.

My favorite aspect of the kit for the moment is the single maxi-pad. The water and food is for three days, but let’s hope Aunt Flo doesn’t visit the day the big one strikes.

It’s probably nutty and unnecessary or at least overkill to arm the barricades, as it were. But as long as GWB keeps fucking the country, I’m thinking these kits would make sweet XMas gifts for the whole family. Sure, they won’t be slammed by an earthquake (well my sister’s pretty damn close to the tectonic activity of Old Faithful, a zillion hotspots and a once-active volcano.) As M. pointed out, probably a few folks in New Orleans wouldn’t have minded such a kit by their doors.

It is very wrong, however, that as of today, I’m kind of hoping for a little danger so we can play with our rations, whistles, light sticks and radios. The kit comes with a notepad and paper. I’m thinking my first note will say “Thanks, M., for inviting me to Cali.”

Maybe this will be the post that gets me sent back to an occupational psych consultant. At least, it has overtones of perversion and skin-crawling creepy.

I work in a modern “green” building. It’s design with skylights and huge open windows and huge open spaces, it’s cubicle space meant to give you the feeling of space and privacy, it’s warm woods and recycled fiber carpeting say “come on in, we all be getting comfy here and living a simple, plant-lush life.”

To maximize light and minimize hierarchical, clandestine power grabs all office space is enclosed by glass. (Perhaps a tactile representation of an organization whose values are poised gracefully on transparency). Even doors are glass. Privacy is a theoretical construct.

I sit in essentially the point of a V, facing down the lines to the transparent-walled offices of two of the people with whom I most work. My field of view is they who toil above me. I cannot easily look away.

So I watch. It’s kind of fascinating in the same vague way watching an aquarium is interesting. It’s not so much that the fish are doing anything worthy of your rapt attention, but the movement, the wall of separation, the otherness and the silent, unrevealing constancy of action constantly catch your eye.

I occasionally draw conclusions based on the actions or create scenarios in my head that match the actions in front of me. Or I imagine a wacky sitcom where I, the viewer, am entertained by a split screen view of alternate realities. As with fish, I will always be an arm’s length of knowing what really motivates the actions behind glass.

Although, I could ask.

Tonight I think I experienced the magical fantasy place that I envisioned in a corner of the skull when I said “I’m moving to California,” more especially the Bay Area.

In fact, I should say, every now and again the fact that I have moved escapes me. My life is obviously a continuum, not a sudden wake-up from a walking coma. Still and all, I saw something on my own web page in my stand-up comedy bio that mentioned Northern California, and it felt foreign, like stepping out of the person whose bio I was reading (let alone living).

So, with that “Huh, is this really me,” disorientation, I headed off to a storytelling, spoken word evening run by this vivacious and interesting and compelling chick.

It’s probably a testimony to my lack of civilized manners, but I let her know that meeting her the first time had creeped me out. But, at 72, as a writer, a painter, a scholar, and given her dimunitive pocket size, it’s impossible not to see an imperfect, funhouse reflection of the woman Pat might have been, had she lived (of course) and had she ultimately had the gumption to fulfill the long list of unfulfilled dreams.

But, back to that theoretical space that “coming to California” invoked in me. California is sprouts and lattes and hippie shit and “rapping” with the kids, ya dig. It’s sun and ocean and mountains and windy roads and canyons, wind in your hair, rugged western and independent. Only I live in the ‘burbs and it ain’t like that living every day.

Tonight, though, I drove north on a stretch of highway that’s about as good as it gets scenery wise. Rolling canyons and wide open, unblighted space and sky. Crackling across the usually pleasant Route 280 was wide-arcing and multi-colored bright lights of lightening, kicking out from dark rain skies. I, then, eased the Beetle onto the quintessential adventuring stretch called Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, the road that killed Jimmy Dean.

Yeah, so there I was easing to the beach and ultimately to a cafe/restaurant with a satisfying but sprout-ishly described list of homey, hippie sandwiches, where I entered to a couple of dudes on guitar. Free wine and, thank god, a non-strictly vegan, ham sandwich later I was easing to my seat and meet some of the others.

A cafe, a few like-minded folks, adequately diverse, wine, a nearby ocean and hippie sandwiches, and I was living that deja vu tripped by my own view of Cali.

I figured my storytelling, unpolished, unstudied as it is, would be out of sync among actual storytellers and authors, but I believe myself adequately acquitted.

The loose theme of the night in honor of tomorrow’s Veteran’s Day was “Battles you have won.” Guess which career-changing adventure in lawyers, knives, money and psych exams I thunk up?

It was the closest to home on “stage” I’ve felt here. It was Thursday night at the Walsh Brothers just kicking back and swapping tales.

I just perused the website of a co-worker who gave a lunchtime lecture on the world of weblogs. (Try as I might to not comment during the talk, it couldn’t be done. At least not with duct tape and the threat of a tazer. I’m fucking irrepressible.)

Checking this guys frank and open site, which I learned of in the workplace with no nefarious plot in sight, makes me in no particular order:
Glad I left Massachusetts, angry again at my situation’s absurdity and almost (stress on almost) comfortable in my new employer’s halls.

Natalee Holloway is still missing.

If I still lived 3K miles to the East, I would be laughing at this little feller’s apoplexy in person. He does get into a groove of righteous, why can’t they see what I can see umbrage. Fun to fuel in person. (Not to mention his inclination to troll the boards of morons and hangers on, who feel it necessary to follow the minute war of the Twittys.)

What hbee is missing, however, is not the somewhat important story of this being an election day. No, the real story is this earth-shatteringly important one. Radio personality James Keown may have offed his wife in a story involving two of my personal favorite made for Court TV details — Lying about an Ivy League legacy and ethylene glycol.

If you watch too many episodes of Court TV’s Cold Case Files or any of a number of A&E true crime shows, you know the dangers of anti-freeze. It appears to be the poison of choice among the lazy murderer grabbing at anything around the house.

Of course it’s not really possible, but I want to see one case in which someone gets away with that kind of poisoning. Thanks to how it all breaks down, the appearance of crystals and oxalic acid, it seems pretty easy to find (thus, in my opinion an unworthy poison).

(So far, in this hot, breaking, dramatic unveiling, the best detail was siphoned out from the wacky shenanigans and emotional interviewing of CNN’s favorite minx and former prosecutor, Nancy Grace. She just got into a little spar with some expert about the sweetness of ethylene glycol, which involved his clarifying he had tasted but not chugged Prestone 3.)

Meanwhile, in the annals of dating advice — any time your man mentions a grad school education or acceptance to a major program, ask for a letter or maybe some transcripts. It could save your life.

Man, hard to believe that old Cali is the world’s eighth largest economy in the fucking world. Today’s election cried the fuck out for a UN inspection of the voting process for this western country.

First, a governor, who rode in on the fixing a broke government horse, throws out a crazy-ass list of initiatives. Par example (which I should be writing in Austrian, only I guess in Austria they speak German or some shit), any way, in the middle of a decade between the statistical bookends of a 10-year national census, Arnie is hoping everyone will want to change the current gerrymandering shapes of voting areas. Great fucking idea, if the people who pay attention to this shit didn’t keep pointing out how quickly the demographics keep changing.

And, fuck representational democracy, better we pick three old men to make the plan and draw the new shapes.

As stupid as the questions may be, and some of them just piss me off (I’m thinking parental notification for abortion, including “minors” old enough to be married), that’s not why I want some investigatin’ going on. Nope it was the process. Today’s experience had me longing for my distant land of The PR of Cambridge, which even though it’s done on paper with the kind of magic markers your mom wouldn’t buy, because they dry out, and included a complex algorithm of proportional voting, left me feeling safe and democratic.

I live in what is actually the largest city in Northern Cali. San Jose trumps the far more fabled and touted San Francisco. However, here, it ain’t like no city I ever seen. My neighborhood apparently has so few registered voters, it doesn’t rate a polling place. Nope everyone in my precinct had to vote by a paper ballot mailed as to an absentee voter. (Which, according to the Santa Clara County Dems, with whom I registered my rock the vote right, is just fucking ducky. Apparently, this major-sized county is one of the ones in which voters have no proof of voting (or some shit, I don’t quite get, because it’s done with computers and somehow that translates to an inability to proffer evidence.)

M., who kept his address from the presidential race, voted in some dude’s garage that was converted to a polling place. What the fuck? Ain’t there enough schools, classrooms, old-age centers, administrative offices or whatever municipal floor space in this town? A citizen’s garage? How developing nation is that?

I forgot to mail my mail in ballot, but that was fine. I had a list from the officially poll-type organization that uses garages and doesn’t give me a place to go with drop off points for my ballot.

In my head, I imagined one of the big metal boxes with some kind of roller and lever and mysterious clockwork gears, in which I would lay my ballot, just like I knew from back home. Or maybe, a big metal mailbox labeled ballots, but otherwise looking all voter-y official.

What I got was a canvas bag with nice embroidery on top with the county name and a precinct number. The zipper encircling the lovely embroidered top seemed sturdy and athletic and secure. And, the leather-lined, ballot-sized slot made it all seem quite official. But, honest to fucking god, I just slipped my precious civic duty into an official county gym bag.

M. is a asleep in his (d’oh, should be our) little bed. I foolishly am updating this piece of shit.

If you care, the buttons on top are a bit different. The one called “VIDEOS” is a dung heap, toxic waste pile of random shit. Here’s an interesting comedy tidbit — It’s an unfortunately not uncommon thing for new comics (christ, I almost wrote “newbie”) to listen to their tapes or reflect on their performances and hear uproarious laughter. Basically, a lot of performers are delusional.

I, on the other hand, watch my sets on video and think only, “Jesus fucking christ, stop fidgeting.” Or, “Goddamn, you look bovine.” Or, perhaps, “Look, you are wearing the same clothes in half of the videos.” (Apparently, I have a couple of comedy shirts.)

Occasionally, I notice laughter. But, it seems thin and week and pitying. (Despite my belief in my funny, ha ha, point of view, else why would I make us all suffer so.)

So, yeah, check out the videos.

So a rather famous, Irish band is playing at the Oakland Arena this
week. Turns out someone in the band, who is also quite famous, does
some of the same kind of stuff that goes on in my office. Although,
we don’t generally wear sunglasses.

But, you know, with shit like ethics still extant in the world (yeah,
I know, hard to believe), ain’t no one here going. Boo hoo.
Especially for me (even though I wasn’t actually on the ticket list.)
Boo hoo for my proximity to fame.

In completed unrelated news, other than in a sense of dogooder
happiness, I’m mildly obsessed currently with “Perverted Justice”
and MSNBC and this ongoing story.
Don’t get me wrong, I will go out on that obscure little limb and
state unequivocally, I am wicked anti-pedophilia. Yup, diddling the
kiddies is a big moral black hole in my personal philosophy. I’m
against it.

Still and all, sting operations in which creepy guys are invited to
bring beer and drop by my lonely, alledged, left at home alone
13-year-old lair are almost as creepy as the guys themselves. Imagine
the fright of Chris Hansen, a microphone and a camera in your face.=20
That can’t be good can it?

As sick and dangerous as your neighborhood predator might be, I’m not
sure high-profile vigilante fun for the rolling cameras is a panacea.