Blue-laced shoes etc

It was cold and windy last week. Then it reached 93 degrees, record-breaking temperatures for this time of year, and the whole city turned to mush. Just two days later and we're back to 40-some degrees and windy as fuck, and we don't really know what to do with ourselves.

I'm drinking wine now. M. is playing records. I worked from home today, finishing up a little past midnight. It's been a strange week of sickness or allergies, thoughts of ph-duhs, wearing shorts outside the house for the first time in perhaps ever. Our roommate of over a year is moving out, and we can't find anyone decent to replace her. Yet Craigslist has been overrun by douchebags. Longhaired self-styled gypsies; people who can conceive of no world outside Burning Man; robotic CS types with appallingly firm handshakes. Screw this. I don't think I can do the roommate thing for very much longer.

Secretly, we've been going to open houses. M.'s mom is looking to buy a house here, and we would live in it as tenants. Once, years ago, at the zenith of the housing bubble, we looked through some listings and laughed at the rundown pieces of shit priced at a million dollars. Not so anymore. Now, for half that, you can buy something pretty sweet. Something high up on a nearby hill, protected from roommates and noise, complete with deck and small yard. And--as the boring, snotty academic types we have indeed become--we're seriously looking into it. Let us snatch our schmancy espresso machine, our 1950s crystal, our dutch modern table, and rescue them from your unclean plebian hands!

Dispatch from Unreal America

Flux? Glacial, for the most part. I hate writing the kinds of posts where I list what I've been doing, get lost in anecdotes, save a file, return to it days later when it looks like old news, and dispose of it accordingly. So I won't even try this time.

I've never seen anything like the streets of San Francisco on the night of November 4. When I left the election-watching bbq at around 11pm there was a wild street party in front of every open liquor store. I tried to get home but instead ran into almost everyone I know. Old roommates, M.'s friends, the skinny hippie who works at the pie shop where we do our math homework. Someone uncorked a bottle of champagne from a nearby roof and showered us with bubbles. Hundreds of godless liberal unwashed unreal Americans hugged strangers, waved American flags, set off fireworks, and chanted "USA, USA." It was truly bizarre, but it was hard to avoid being swept up in the moment.

Well, it was hard for me anyway. M. was off his meds again and more than willing to temper the celebrations with realism. "That drum circle is annoying." Yes, true. "This street party is lame." Yeah, I suppose it could be better... "All these people are going to hate Obama as soon as he's in office and has to make compromises." True as well, but we can think about that tomorrow.

Another reason for celebration: M. and I were broke by the day of the election, I mean counting-quarters-for-coffee broke. But we had bet actual money on an Obama win on Intrade a while back, at the height of McCain's Palin-Convention bounce, the one time this year when his odds were just shy of 50/50. I don't care if all these SF kids hate him by January 20; we made 500 bucks! Now that's change I can believe in.

Adventures with Mace

The dog has been spared, for now: her health had deteriorated rapidly, but then it improved just as rapidly. Here's to her living to see her 18th birthday.

A few weeks ago, M. threw two parties back-to-back. It was an exhausting weekend. The second party was an underground affair--twice as exhausting, a zillion times as risky, and, it turned out, maybe half as successful as the legal one. The main act canceled at the last second, claiming that it was all M.'s fault for something-or-other. For an hour and a half I "worked" behind the bar selling drink tickets. Having never worked in any sort of retail, I was absolutely useless at making change, and the veteran bartenders happily let go of me once it started getting busy.

The night ended abruptly at perhaps five-thirty. First the smoke machine set off the fire alarm. Then there was a brawl. A nice nerdy hipster kid from Minneapolis was socked in the face, and someone, we don't know who, sprayed his assailant with Mace. Being a warehouse with no ventilation, the place was soon rendered a box of wheezy fiery pain; the partygoers fled, leaving us there with lungs full of spice and boxes and boxes of booze to bring home to our garage. Heed this advice: underground dance parties are NOT worth the bother, and this one lost money, too.

As long as I'm talking about staying up 'til dawn, here are a few of the heat-wave circa-solstice sunrise pictures mentioned in this post:

Newish Year

It's 2008. New Year's resolution: first of all, to make some New Year's resolutions. I did mean to, but I haven't gotten around to it. In fact I haven't gotten around to much of anything this year. It's clear that 2008 is waiting for me to make some resolutions before it can formally begin.

OK, here's a modest start:
- Clean my room.
- Start a savings account.
- Don't get in any serious bike accidents.
- Change party affiliation so I can vote in Democratic primary.

Somewhat more ambitious:
- Dental appointment.
- See optometrist.
- Sign up for more math classes.
- Go on one or more camping trips.

Very ambitious:
- Get into graduate school.
- Blog at least once a week.
- Drink less.
- Save enough money to travel to Iceland this summer. Perhaps Rome.

---

Monday night, around 11:30, M. and I were walking home from one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants. Just as we turned a corner toward our apartment, we heard gunshots ahead: first a set of three, then six more. They sounded nearby, no more than two blocks from us. So we stopped walking.

"Hmm. I think those are gunshots," I whispered, stating the obvious.

"They're not firecrackers," said M.

"Are there six shots in a round?" I asked. I know almost nothing about guns.

M. is from Wisconsin, so he knows enough. "Nope. Nine," he said. "Maybe we should walk this way instead."

We took a roundabout route back home. Approaching our house from the other side, we watched as a line of police cars raced down Mission Street; and then, just as we reached our front door, a very suspicious-looking car roared down our own street, all its windows rolled down.

"Oh, shit," M. said. "Don't look, don't look." I glanced away, fumbling for my keys.

When we were safely inside, M. wondered whether he should call the cops. "That was probably the guy," he said. "We didn't see much, but we may as well call."

He called. The cops were interested, and called M. back a few times with more questions, but we just didn't have enough information on the car, and it was all circumstantial evidence anyway.

Curious, I looked at the newspaper a few days ago and discovered that it's probably a good thing that we didn't see more than we did:

For the second time in two years, a San Francisco prosecution witness who strayed from witness protection has been killed in the city, authorities said Wednesday.

It occurred to me, moreover, that if we had chosen to walk on Mission Street back home--as we do about half the time--we probably would have become witnesses ourselves. Gulp.