Entries this day: Stuff bike skate

Stuff

8:09am PST Friday 20 December 2002

Just so lazy and emotionally confused the past couple of days. Wende and I watched Lara Croft: Tomb Raider on the first day she had off from work (Wednesday) and then went to get some sushi from the restaurant built into the bottom of her building.

I'm thankful for her paying; the prices were certainly higher than I'm used to paying for dinner. But I hopefully kept her entertained by consuming more and more wasabi with every bite, until at the end my eyes were all crying and sad. In a funny way.

Did laundry after that. Cost two dollars for each washer and $1.50 for each dryer. Funny thing is that the back of the sushi kitchen is 20 feet down the hall from the laundry room.

Surprised me that there are exactly five washers and Wende filled them all, and no one else tried to do laundry at the same time as us. It's like, wow, do they have the perfect number of washers and dryers for the building? One of the dryers was apparently out of service though; there are only four working.

- - - -

Have been sorta poopypants lately, have had lots of dreams about old school YRUUers. Just last night Sean Murray was there again, and something about Jason and a friend of his not from YRUU was in YRUU. Something like that.

I can feel myself falling into old relationship patterns with Wende. She's got this cat named Tai (unlike her cats Peter and Tinkerbell) that she's sorta but not really dating and has explicitly told me that no kissing will happen between us (me an' Wende, not me and Tai), and we've maintained that boundary. I'm thankful for this; it makes my life less confusing, if more frustrating. I did ask her on the first night I think, no on the second night if she would do my back, which in our language means basically to preen me like monkeys would, if they had tweezers to pull errant hairs and bobby pins to extract blackheads from backs and ears. This process is simultaneously painful and comforting for me, especially in the ears for that's one thing my mom used to do for me, back in the day.

Sally called last night, and after days of being cooped up inside because of the rain and my addiction to internet LJs, AIM and such, I went outside to talk with her, all loud and boistrous at times. Far louder than would be acceptable inside Wende's apartment at 11:30pm.

Sally and I yammered for an hour (and 7 minutes and 29 seconds, according to my cellie). Mostly she asked me about my latest adventures and who I had gone to see (no one) and what I saw on the way up here (lots) and how it's been chillin' with Wende (fine) and what are my future plans (see Dude and Veronica for a couple days, then try and get back to Dallas by 31 December), and as soon as I said "try" to get back, my brain saw that as a word-fuck, as we would call it in my men's group, for the phrase, "I'll try and call you.." - that's a word fuck. Either call me or don't call me. But tell me what you intend to do. Or "let's try to do lunch sometime" .. man just fuckin' get out the day planners and schedule a fucking lunch. But then I basically allow myself to "try" and get back, because it's a 37 hour trek (according to mapquest), plus I'm specifically on my own vacation time.

So I left it at "I intend to get back by 31 December," which is true, but because of the inherent challenges of driving 37 hours in a week... shit I can make it. Scott rocks; we will make it no problem. Nevermind. I'll be at that New Year's Eve Party. You be there too. (and you don't know who you are, for I'm not saying that to anyone in particular)

I asked her about Rick and his surgery recovery, and about her situation at work, to see if it's recovering as well.

Got a call from Jennifer a couple nights ago and am scheduled to see her at 11am this morning to pick up the stuffed animal Sally left there (she bought it at the same store/time that I bought the mechanical Winnie the Pooh pencil for Wende) and chat or whatever. When Sally and I were here last weekend, Jennifer said she and I should hang out and then said something that hangs in my head like an echo that my mind has been trying to take apart and decide what she really meant, for she has a fiance and is going to leave today to see him (though she certainly didn't predict that the only time I would see her this time was on this last day that she would be here) overseas though I'm wondering what she meant by, "I think you'll enjoy how I treat you," or something like that for my mind went, what when I heard it and played it over and over and took all the words apart and put them back together even though it forgot which ones they were and where they go in the sentence, as if I'm Mitch Hedberg fixing a joke by taking all the words out and putting new ones in. Talk about a fucking obsession. Blah.

Watched Lara Croft again last night, this time with the English subtitles on to see if they match the actual spoken dialague. They do, but infrequently words are left out of the subtitles, usually not to the detriment of the viewer, but in one case, when Mr Pimms and Mr Powell are leaving The Illuminati meeting after Mr Powell has just assured the Illuminati that he's got everything handled, Mr Pimms goes "We.. we don't have everything, do we?" or something like that, and Mr Powell goes "No," in the movie, but not on the subtitles. That's a pretty significant word to leave out. Not that it destroys the movie without it, but certainly helps confirm the swindliness of Mr Powell to include it. After that, I watched the special effects, (and right now as I'm typing I think I remember having already watched them at Maggie and John's house back before they got divorced (I say that like it was so long ago, which it really wasn't, though Maggie has moved her life right along brilliantly and beautifully, blossoming herself into a whole New Improved and Continually Improving Maggie)) which I enjoyed pretty well, and then I watched the movie again, this time with the Director's Commentary... and I realize why the average bear might not have the ability to make such a movie as Tomb Raider or at least has basically no idea what really goes into a movie like that.

Officially I have been prim and proper on this trek to the west side (Last night I found the picture of me sporting the Westside gang symbol standing in front of the UCLA sign and laughed my ass off) and since that's not quite true I'm going to hang out with Veronica (or her friends) a bit more that I might have otherwise, hoping to get this all resolved and ready to swim again. The news has been somewhat disruptive yet releasing as the truth shall set one free. Buddha can watch with detached amusement all our follies as we seek that ultimate connection with God that seems so elusive.

Speaking of God, I enjoyed Ryan's idea of a book called WHY CHRISTIANITY IS WRONG which he disclosed in discussion subsequent to his posting an email he wrote to his mom after she sent him some overtly Christian video message thing. I don't have the URL handy, but look for mynameisryan from a couple days ago on livejournal.

Speaking of Ryan, I really hope he makes wads of cash with his cartoon Boy In The Machine boyinthemachine.tripod.com I think.

- - - -

"You can write 'Wende is the most perfect goddess angel in the whole world and I'm lucky to be in her presence.'" says Wende.

- - - -

9:32am

Going to take a shower now before I go to Jennifer's.

bike

11:30am PST Friday 20 December 2002

Just arrived at Jennifer's house, and she's not here. She had to zip over to the post office for a second; she left a message for me about 11:10, 10 minutes after I said I would get there.

It took me longer to ride my bike here than I guessed.

I called her to find out that she'll be back in a few minutes.

I arrived just as it started raining. San Francisco misty wussy cold rain, not a Houston thoroughly pounding rain.

My bike is chained and cabled to a sign. Bad guy would just have to knock the sign off and lift my bike over the pole to get it off. But the cable would still have to be cut to allow the wheels to roll. I think I'll thread the chain through the spokes too.

There we go. That's what I'm talkin' about. Security.

11:49am

Jennifer's neighbor needs to run off to pick up her grandson, and asks if I'll stay here for PG&E (which, after working with GenXchange, I happen to know stands for Pacific Gas & Electric) to come by.

skate

6:15pm PST Friday 20 December 2002

I'm about to get Scott from the garage where he's been sleeping, retrieve my skates and join the Friday Night Skate around SF. Nice.

11:57pm

Back at Wende's now. What an incredibly excellent skate!!

The short version is that no one else showed up for the Friday night skate, but I saw two trolleys driving by with Carolers singing and wishing people happy holidays and all sorts of positive energy flowing from them, so I followed them to Ghiradelli Square and hung out for a bit.

Left Wende's with skate on feet around 7:20pm. I found the streets quite wet, but not too slick, though some of the downhills were a bit tricky to slow down completely before I got squished by cross traffic.

I thrilled down Mission (?) toward the downtown area where Wende works, right down the lanes with the cars, and sometimes faster than them down the hill, especially if they were slowed down by red traffic lights, I'd zip between the cars to the front of the line, and sometimes skate across the red light if I could do so safely.

Awesome to roll along with traffic across a big intersection with several slick and slightly bumpy trolley tracks strewn across it. Navigating myself along within the cars, watching the street to make sure a skate doesn't get lodged in the groove of a track (mostly difficult in this case because I was mostly going right across them, not along them) and watching for pedestrian traffic that might be jaywalking (how rude!).

Dropped off Wende's apartment keys at her work (she has an extra set of all but the outside door to get into the building) in case I was still skating at 11 when she got off work.

Basically hauled butt down Market toward the Embarcadero, sometimes having to stop for red lights, sometimes getting to sail across the intersections, navigating people and sometimes jumping off the curb into the street if the sidewalks were too crowded. The streets were awesome because the rougher surface allowed my skates better grip and therefore greater acceleration and speed for me.

At what I presumed was the Embarcadero, where we were supposed to meet, I found no one. Well, no skaters. But then again I was 15 minutes earlier than 8pm, which is when people were scheduled to begin arriving.

I people watched a bit, skated around a bit (despite the no bicycles, no skateboards, no skates sign (could this be the right place, sporting such a sign?)) chilled out a bit. Talked to two people to make sure I was in the right place.

One person was John, a limosuine driver whose fare tonight was paid by like 8 or 10 high school girls celebrating one of their birthdays. The girls were all at the ice skating rink while I talked with John. He used to ice skate, but has never inline skated. His son can snowboard (and does it well, according to his friends) so John may go watch that sometime this season.

The girls all arrived, unfortunately all with long bread loaves that they used like swords and littered across the pavement. Not like all of them, but 1.5 loaves were left on the ground. I picked them up and threw them away.

It began to rain around 8:30, so I figured that no one would come skate with me. I took off up Market the same sort of way as I had come down it, but this time up the slight incline instead of down.

Around 8:45 it had stopped raining, and I headed back toward the Embarcadero just in case someone else was there at 9.

Nope.

But!! Two trolley busses drove by, and people all over them were all, "Merry Christmas!" and "Happy Holidays!" and singing Christmas carols and good stuff like that.

I watched them go past and then realized this was my chance for something fun to do tonight, so I caught up with them. All the girls in the back were all holding their hands out so I could give them five, and then a couple people up front were so I moved to the front of the bus to give them five as well. While I watched their hands, I couldn't watch the ground much; I'm so thankful that I didn't eat it at that point, so early in our newfound game.

I found it relatively trivial to keep up with them, basking in the girls flirting with me, "you're my hero!" ("aw thanks; you're my heroes.. wait you're my cheer leaders!") and "how far are you going to skate with us?" ("until I get bored or can't keep up") and "will you go to Ghiradelli with us?" ("Will you buy me chocolate?" "Yes!" "Whoohooo! Chocolate!!!!") and "where are you from?" ("I'm from Texas, Houston Texas.") and then, all in unison, "what's your name?" and then the game ender, "how old are you?"

I changed my speed to visit the lead trolley, and they were all, "do you have any requests [for Christmas Carols]?" "Rudolph!!" So they sang Rudolph for me and I totally sang with them and did gestures to represent the different parts of the song. Totally thanked them for blessing me with a song; it was so so great!

Stopped at an intersection where a bunch of open air restaurant places teemed with people (maybe not teemed, but sported several staff and customers) who all cheered when the trolley finished whatever song they were on at the time. One young boy inquired what I was doing and I told him, "I'm skating along side of these trolleys while they sing to me." "Really?" he asked with large eyes. "No actually," I looked up at his dad, "but I like to pretend they are!"

Turned another corner and then headed up a pretty steep hill, two blocks worth. I basically kept up with the trolley on the first hill, but was losing ground on the second hill. Fortunately we turned and I didn't have to haul butt up the hills. I basked in lots of cheers and kudos for having made it up the hill.

Then we turned and went 1 block and then down the same hill, one block over. I put on mad brakeage, and made it down the first hill okay, but on the second one, I somehow screwed up and twisted and fell right beside the trolley as it was moving. I did a full 180 onto my butt and bounced my ass back up, simultaneously turned around forwards again, made it the rest of the way down.

Some cheers, some jeers for that. "You're still my hero!" ("thank you!!") and "Not mine; you ate shit back there." ("yeah, but did you see how quickly I bounced back up? That's where it's at." My cheerleaders had boosted my ego enough to deflect the jeer a mile away.)

We had arrived at Ghiradelli Square and several people said HI and one cat came up to me, looking like Johnny the German exchange student in OKC with dreads. Looked also like Leif from Canada sorta. His name was Jake. He asked if the Friday night skaters still skated each Friday and I explained what I knew. ("yes, but apparently not tonight, maybe cause of the rain")

A woman named Mary introduced herself as well. Cute face and smile with what I'll call a traditional fuzzy black Russian hat thing on. Like a fuzzy top hat looking thing almost.

Ended up sitting between Jake and Mary, as our seats spilled off the end of two small tables mushed together. Jake and two of his friends shared a sundae of eight scoops of ice cream, eight toppings, and a pile of whipped cream. Called an Earthquake. They devoured it in 15 minutes while Mary and I shared an excellent theological discussion, started by me telling her I am a youth advisor, etc ("oh, for what church?" etc)

I was impressed that she didn't seem to take "offense" at our lack of a set creed, and even tried to summarize it in her own words.

I found it difficult to hear her in the din, but I got that she believes ultimate sin exists with two results/causes: (wait, shit I'm getting this wrong) (!) God created the world with a bunch of set laws and (@) The Fall (Adam and Eve's misadventures in Eden) keeps people from being able to modify the laws that God has set.

My immediate question: "does that mean before The Fall that Adam and Eve were able to modify the laws?" i.e. as Mary summarized, "that they were equal with God?" Exactly. It was a question she hadn't yet considered.

I'm glad to have given her some thought provoking questions.

With the Earthquake devoured, people started to leave from the table. Said bye to Jake (didn't get his email address), bye to Mary (did get hers)

Bye to the matriarch and patriarch of the table (as introduced to me by Mary, much to the chagrin of the mom) and thanked them for having me join them, etc.

Several byes hollered a half block away once I got outside and the original carolers saw me as they got into their van.

- - - -

Now. Where the fuck am I?

I finally found Ghiradelli on the map. Fortunately I knew it was close to the bay, so I just looked along that edge. I had basically gone 180 degrees around the circumfrence of the city. I could either retrace my trek and stay on quite small inclines, or bust up this steeep ass hill right here and go straight back toward downtown.

Up the hill.

After a few particularly steep hills, I recognized I was at Hyde and Lombard, right at the top of the proclaimed curviest street ever. No way am I going down that (and waste all my potential energy after climbing this hill)..., as I went past the street.

Then, what am I saying? this is my only chance to *skate* down Lombard on a wet rainy night! so I went back to skate down.

Oh shit this is steep. And slick. The road is paved with slick red bricks. Slick.

I can almost say I only fell once while going down the hill. It was more like I fell once or twice at every curve on the hill. I was basically sliding like Bambi on ice, on my kneepads and wristpads for most of the time. If I went down forward, I could see where I was going, but my kneepads would slide down my leg, revealing skin for the bricks to chew on. If I slid backwards, the knees would be fine, but I couldn't see where I was going.

So much fun!!!!

Exhilirated at the bottom. I just slid down Lombard!!!!! "Whoohooooooo!!" into the night sky.

Then I tried to skate *up* Lombard, but no. Too slick. Totally fruitless. So I stepped up the steps on the left hand side of the street going up.

Made it basically to Wende's apartment, kinda twisting my knees trying to slow down enough going down the hills, then realized her keys would be with her at her work.

I repeated my path to her work, and it seemed more dangerous this time, and I can't really say why. Was I just tired? Same streets, right? Same amount of traffic, right? hmmmm.

Got to her work, chilled outside a while, then she saw me and let me in while they closed down all the registers and computers.

Walked (skated) Wende home and while crossing the large city-sponsored lighted Christmas Tree, some cat was all, "you can't skate up here (on this plaza thing)" So I was all, "I'm walking her home. Can I walk like this?" and made like I was walking in my skates instead of rolling. He allowed me to come across, just asked that I go straight across and not fool around there. No problem.

Got home and Wende made us some dinner of tomato, avacado, tortilla chips, cheese. So awesome!!!! So thankful.

What a totally fantastic night!