My exciting life, this place
In a pen, there are a bunch of animals, and a big alligator and a baby. Walk around trying to avoid them, but the baby comes up to me and bites my hand.
In a theater, in a class. We’re waiting to start. I start talking to someone about Stranger in a Strange Land. They look at me-I don’t think they’ve heard of it.
Walking through a big field, there are animals everywhere. A big elk comes running towards us- we climb up a tree and it walks away. We come back down and there are rabbits running past us.
In bed, go to get up and the girl in the next bed gets up too and we start to kiss. Stop and go to the front room. There’s a bunch of kids there lined up and looking out the front window. One of the side windows is open and there’s a speaker playing music pointing out. A few people are outside listening.
Walking around 42nd and Harrison. They’re planting flowers and other stuff along the road. I walk down towards home acme talk to the Queen about Socialist reforms and give her a pamphlet. Walk back, and they’re organizing a really. Talk to a girl about the books.
In a shop, looking at tarot/flash cards. There’s a bunch of esoteric flash cards, and books. Look up one of the books on my phone.
Walking to the Chunnel entrance. It 29 miles across, and we’re planning to walk it. Get to the entrance building, have to go through a line and into a waiting room. Go outside, then into a line to go across-they won’t let us walk.
Walking up the street along the beach part of Laguna? Go into a store, then back along.
Onstage with a bunch of people. It’s mostly Talking Heads and such. Walk around to get my gear and talk to a few people. They’re talking about how some of them are rude and such. Walk over to the side stage- someone thinks I’m Bernard Sumner (from New Order) and calls me back to the stage. I walk over.
Walk up to a restaurant. Trump Jr. is the maitre d’. He’s talking about how his brother is a moron. Walk past him acme into the restaurant.
Working for Frank Zappa. Getting ready to leave on a tour. Packing up and fiddling around with paint. Scott is getting stuff into the truck.
Walking through downtown Long Beach, on my way home. Come to one of the parking lots and there are guys with huge blue plastic inflatable bats chasing each other and citizens and beating on them. Slide through by a fence and none of the them bother me. Get to Alamitos, and see Meg at a bookstore. It’s brightly painted with psychedelic swirls. Climb up to say hi, and realize that Brett is dead and hug her and cry. We slide down and there are a bunch of friends there at the corner-we’re going to go somewhere.
Looking at flying in a tiny plane that looks like a Mini. Walk over to it and it changes into a P51. Get in and start it up. Taxi over and it’s a regular road. Have to fly under a bunch of wires.
Visiting the Capitol, get into some sort of time shift and in another time line where Trump never happened. Walk around and talk to people. Get ready to go back to our own time.
Walk along a foreign street. Go into a room, there’s lots of pistachios and I sit down. I start eating, and there are weird huge ones. I ask the guy next to me if they’re good to eat by signs, and he doesn’t know. Hang out for a while and it’s morning, and everyone is leaving. Leave, walk along and up the stairs to a mosque, and I hurry back down the stairs.
In a big place, people are tossing/kicking around large balls made out of stretchy blown up plastic tubes. They run out of balls, and I look around in the debris for potential ones. Jump down to the floor and look for more.
Go out onto a frozen lake and walk around. It’s starting to thaw, and hurry back to the shore. Look out again and there are ducks walking around and looking through the ice. Go back out and it’s really starting to melt-breaking through. Try to get back to shore.
Get in bed with E, start licking her chest. She lets me and I continue.
A bunch of apes and bears and elk are chasing each other. Panic and climb up a tree with one of the apes to get away. Some girl joins me, then we climb down after they leave.
Doing some experiment. Putting a plastic sheet into an ice hole to see what happens. A bunch of people come over to help. It’s chaotic, and everyone is doing something, but not organized. I walk around telling people what to do. We finally get organized, and the pieces are coming together.
Here’s what I did on my vacation. It was a whirlwind, with an equal amount of fun and stress and good and bad.
| Friday, 12/17 | The start-we tried to get started on-time, but that didn’t happen. Never does. So, drove down to Ashland. Got to the hotel about 11, the room smelled like cigarettes, the smoke detector was gone and pulled out to the bare wires, and the bathroom floor was sticky. Erika went directly to the office, cancelled the res, and we left for another hotel. The guy said we wouldn’t find one, but the first one we went to had room, and we stayed there. It was pretty cool-old and stylish. |
| Saturday, 12/18 | So , we get up and have breakfast at the hotel, get on the road, and there’s an alert on the car that says “Fill reserve tank of diesel exhaust fluid in 998 miles or the car won’t start.” Ack. We called the owners, and they wanted to have us drop the car off at their dad’s in Grants Pass, and rent another one for the rest of the trip. We went to Medford, dilled around a bit trying to rent a car, finally went to a Napa and had a guy fill the reserve-used half of what we bought. (which lasted until we got to Lincoln City…) Finally got underway after 1, easy drive down to Berkeley-boring, though. Foggy. Had dinner at a diner, and Colin drove part of the way to Berkeley. He finally bailed after dark and fast and heavy traffic on the 80. He did ok, though…good practice for L.A. Got to the hotel, collapsed. |
| Sunday, 12/19 | Got up, missed in-hotel breakfast. Walked to Bette’s and had a very expensive and delicious brunch. Back home, drove across the bridge to Pier 39. Walked around a bit, had soup, then back to the room. Went to Zachary’s for dinner. Another delicious meal. Went to an adorable tiny Target store-it has everything you need and nothing else. |
| Monday, 12/20 | Got up, back to Bette’s for breakfast, except not the pancake souffle-bagel, and awesome cream cheese. On the road, stopped at Tracy to get gas and go to the Ghirardelli outlet. Onward-all the way to Pasadena. Erika drove a little, such a boring drive. Get to the hotel, the reservation was messed up, had to redo. Into the room, the Karen downstairs complained about the noise not 5 minutes after we got there. Erika bailed, we went to the Hilton. Hung out with Mom for a little, back to the room. Left Matt and Colin there. Everyone got to spend one night in the hotel. |
| Tuesday, 12/21 | Got coffee, got the car for Colin-he’s meeting a friend from Escondido. He set off, we ate and set off for Hollywood, walked around the Chinese and such, then drove to Long Beach. It was long, going through Beverly Hills and the 405 south. Went to Supermex for lunch-utterly delicious. So much better than the Mexican places here. Went to Polly’s for coffee and peanuts-chatted with the owner, Domenico’s to get salad dressing, then walked along the beach and got sand and shells. Drove home after messing around trying to get clothes. Remarkably easy drive. Stopped by mom’s, then to the Hat. Got the sandwiches, then a hassle with drinks. Colin came home-had a good day-he ate a whole pastrami sandwich. Didn’t like driving to Newport, but had fun visiting the VS’s at the malls there with his friend. |
| Wednesday,12/22 | Returned the rental, drove mom to the mountains to scope out where to scatter Dad’s ashes. We think the place was closed, but found a better place nearby…and I still think we didn’t get the exact place-no worries. Nice dinner of Monterey Sunday Supper. Ran to the Target to buy undies. |
| Thursday, 12/23 | Got ready to go, said bye to mom, visited Chinatown and Olvera Street, had lunch at Philippe’s, went to Little Tokyo. Colin was in his element. It was rainy. Had to drive back to mom’s to get Salem’s water bottle. Got expensive gas and left. Rainy, slow going, then dark and rainy. Got snacks, then more driving on the 10 in the dark, then the 62 in the dark. Rather unpleasant. Got to Yucca Valley, got food, visited, went to the place. Cute, tiny, in the middle of nowhere. Collapsed. |
| Friday, 12/24 | Had breakfast at a cafe-meh. Drove around some, went to Walmart, got my booster. Went to a pioneer town movie set. Had burgers for dinner-meh. |
| Saturday, 12/25 | Christmas Day-got up, exchanged presents, mellow. Matt got me Chartreuse. Ate dinner, back to the house. Drove Colin to Palm Springs and spent the night. It was windy. |
| Sunday, 12/26 | Got up early, dropped off Colin at the airport. Back to the hotel, slept a little. Drove back after a maps hiccup, packed, another cafe, bought coffee, said goodbye, drove to Solvang. Nice drive, surprisingly little traffic-went 10/210/5/126/101. Got to the hotel, ate at the restaurant, collapsed. |
| Monday, 12/27 | Up, drove to Solvang, got coffee and breakfast . Walked around, it was rainy. Looked at stuff, a couple of museums, the mission, an ostrich farm, a big sandwich for lunch. Pizza for dinner. |
| Tuesday, 12/28 | Packed up, got snacks, coffee, gas. Drove up the 101. Stopped at several missions-Erika got on a mission kick. Ended up in Gilroy, ate dinner, collapsed. |
| Wednesday,12/29 | Up, breakfast at the hotel, garlic shop and Salvation Army for swim clothes. Decided to go the 101 the whole way because of weather. Drove to SF, dropped off Erika at the mission in the Mission, drove to the Haight and looked at Janis Joplin’s house-pink. The Dead house is purple. Picked up Erika, drove down Divisadero to the Presidio and across the bridge. Rainy. Stopped for lunch at in ‘n out in Ukiah, drove all the way through to Eureka. Saw some big trees and elk. Rainy, dark, twisty. Got to a super cute hotel, snacks for dinner. Sat in the huge grotto-like hot tub/pool. Collapsed-my brain is mush after all that difficult driving. |
| Thursday, 12/30 | Up, breakfast at the cafe next door. Dilled around trying to find stuff. Got gas, then off-the 101 is a lovely drive, but less than fun after dark. Ate at a DQ. Visited the redwoods on a side drive-spectacular. Drove in the dark and wet to Lincoln City. Ate at a crappy fish place. Collapsed. This seems to be a pattern. Matt got a room of his own. |
| Friday, 12/31 | Up, breakfast at a nice cafe. Drove to the beach, walked around a bit. Got gas, on the road. A nice drive up the 18-a little snow on the side of the road was it. Stopped at the Korean market in Tigard. Home! Unpacked, did laundry. Lazed, got food. The house was hot, as the maintenance guys came during the week and turned on the heat. |
And that was that! Really no time to truly rest and relax. Enjoyable nonetheless. Glad to have Colin with us, if only for a week.
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Happy new year. Nothing changes on new year’s day. We’ll see how this year goes. The last couple have been challenging…but time marches onward, and you have to take things as they come. I have problems with accepting changing plans, so.
Wednesday afternoon (11/24) before Thanksgiving. Busy getting stuff done-made a lot of progress this sprint-the app is running front to back with no errors-missed out on one story, but I should make some progress on that on Monday if no one bothers me. Went to the doc Monday, got a scrip for high BP. Hopefully it will work with few side-effects and no fainting after workouts (my BP drops after working out…) Also the flu and shingles shots-I felt like shit yesterday. Erika got on me about not getting the Covid booster-not with flu and shingles too, thankyouverymuch. No Mr. Duck yet today. Listening to Glass, Eno on Spotify.
Sunday evening, in bed. Not much happening, pretty quiet for Thanksgiving. The usual, shop, run around yesterday, tidy today. I have a new to me burr grinder and a rice cooker. Worked out Friday and today after a little break. Lazy Thurs and Fri., worked a little, talked to mom, switched car insurance to USAA. BP is trending down. Watched the last episode of Picard.
Thursday afternoon (12/2), listening to the Mark Mothersbaugh interview. Not much else, worked out Tuesday, trying to keep everything tidy, doing laundry, working hard. Took Colin and Jasmine to get a Christmas tree last night and to Cost Plus and Menchie’s afterwards.
Monday noon. (12/6) Did a demo that I found about Friday. Went well. Pretty quiet, shopping, Salem to skate, Worked out both Friday and Sunday-a 5k yesterday. And…C got dumped by his GF. He’s devastated. I know this well. She moved out. So he’s coming with us to Cali. He spent the night Saturday. This is super hard for him. We’re supporting him through it-this is super tough. BP isn’t trending down-my diastolic is sub-80, but systolic still up around 150. Post-workout is super low, though…
And now it’s January (1/3) Totally bagged this. I’ll post another with the trip time line. The 2 weeks before were pretty quiet-busy working and getting ready for the trip. Colin came with us, we borrowed a larger car. Forget what else happened.
Links-good: Oral History of Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale: Oral History of Devo, Mutato Muzika, Show Us Your Junk-Mark Mothersbaugh, In The Studio With Mark Mothersbaugh, Mark Mothersbaugh’s Synth Collection; bad, ugly-not this time.
Page 23, sentence 5: “”Look, this was not in the job description,” I said to my uncle, scowling.” Walk to the Full Moon, The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF. “Reminded him in that way of some female army officers.” Termination Shock.