sunday, sunny

Sun sliding below the horizon, burning intensely. Full moon last night. I was hardly outside today, even though it has been a beauty. I went down to the garage in the afternoon to dump some garbage and branches I cut off the peach tree in the bins and to try to get my shoes to work with the new pedals on my bike. It seems to be impossible. I'll call the nice people at the bikeshop tomorrow and see if there's anything to be done about that.

Last night I went to David K's 50th birthday pig roast. I hadn't seen him in more than a year, and the last two times I saw him were by chance. One Saturday night Dean and I were on the Ashby BART platform, coming back to my place after a symphony concert, and David was carrying his bike up the stairs. I looked at him and thought, "That guy looks a lot like David." Then I found myself saying "David!" A month ot two later he responded to one of my craigslist postings and came over to buy my dresser. That was the night before I moved in with Dean. It seems like a long time ago.

I had to leave David's around 7 because Allan had invited Merrill and me for dinner at his house, and I had gotten the day mixed up (thought it was on Friday) and since David's party started so early it seemed easiest just to do both. I figured that it might be good to have to leave, since I don't know many of David's friends. But, of course, I ended up feeling like it was too bad I had to go. I spent a fair amount of time talking to a woman named Natalie, who knows David from back when she worked at Vicolo and now lives in LA. I also chatted briefly with Emily, Bill D, and David C, who came with Felix. And I went on and on about living in the Bayview to a nice couple with a small girl. I know the man is called Max but I can't remember his wife's name. 

So anyway, today I didn't feel like going anywhere. I baked some oatmeal biscuits for breakfast (I'm guessing), and now I am thinking about warming up the soup (and spicing it up -- it tasted bland yesterday when I tried a spoonful). I am supposed to sprinkle dill on it but I don't have any dill, and I don't feel like going out and finding it.

old photos

P bought a photo scanner. She sent this one of me from 198?. It was taken by Kevin one day when P and I were visiting from Brooklyn and Robert took us to Chronkite Beach. I found the Carleton sweatshirt under a tree in the arboretum -- I think I was walking at night with Tom but I could be making that up. I wore it for years and years, until the sleeves disintegrated.

Anyway, seeing myself so young is startling -- it makes me aware of my current age for a moment or two. I am not 23! I am sure that when this photo was taken I believed I would find someone and someone would find me, perhaps by the time I was in my late 20s, which seemed like a long way into the future. I did find someone in my mid-20s, of course. But I lost him in my mid-30s, and I haven't found anyone else.

But you know what? I don't think it matters, really. Alone, I feel a lot of things more keenly -- fear, satisfaction, anticipation. I know that I am responsible for making (or not making) decisions. For making my life.This involves strength, and acknowledgment of weakness. It requires me to rely on neighbors and friends, and strangers, even, in a way I would not otherwise do. I am OK with it, at least for today.

Watching Deep Blue Sea last night I thought about Terence Davies making movies about a woman who loves someone she can't count on, someone from whom she is expecting too much. It is something you don't see very often in the movies, not since the golden age of melodrama. And it is difficult for me to see it now but worth the effort.

I watched the president's speech. It wasn't bad. I don't feel euphoric but I am not giving up hope.

losing and finding

I have been reading about too many armed robberies in the Bayview police report, and so I started keeping my license and debit card separate from my other cards, so that if I had to give up my wallet I wouldn't need to replace so many pieces of credit and ID.

Anyway, after I finished weeding and picking up trash at Candlestick, I took the bag N found in my bushes to the police station. I talked on a phone to an Irish officer of indeterminate age who was sitting at a desk on the other side of a pane of glass. I could not show the Irishman my license because I had forgotten to transfer it to the coat I had been wearing until I got too warm and took it off. Oops, I was driving sans license. I did not share this with the officer. I filled out a form and he gave me a case number, then came out into the lobby to take the bag and shake my hand.

After our handshake I drove home and put the license and my debit card in my back pocket, so that I could drive over to Blaze with a clear conscience. I saw the insert heater that might fit into my fireplace but I did not see Ivan, because he wasn't working yesterday. When I asked Earl, who was working, for pricing information, he said I should wait and talk to Ivan, because Ivan might be planning to give me a deal. I said I hoped he was planning on it.

Then I walked from Heron's Head to India Basin and back, and on the way back I realized that I had lost my license and debit card. I had been taking pictures with my phone, and pretty quickly had gotten tired of putting it in the pocket of my jacket and making sure it didn't fall out. I started putting it in my back pocket and pulling it out, and at first I was careful to make sure I didn't dislodge the cards but as I got more interested in taking pictures . . . well, anyway, I had to retrace my steps. I found the debit card first, and that was a relief. I found the license face up at the end of the paved trail. I thought about the really frightening part of being robbed and how I was trying to make it less frightening by moving things from place to place but not really succeeding. I also thought about the mugging in Bogota and wondered if the trauma wore off so quickly because I left Bogota a couple of days after it happened or if I would get over it here, too. I don't know.

jacqueline doesn't live here anymore

She lives in Seattle now. We drove up in two days -- the first day sunny and cold, the second day cold and overcast and snowblown. The cats were mostly quiet on the back seat, which was a relief. We worried occasionally about them, unnecessarily. She was sleepless, thanks partly to the cats (who yowled their way through the last night in Berkeley) and partly to her own anxiety about the changes she is making. I tried to be practical and reassuring.

kale and schumann

This morning the sky was dappled with bits of blue but now all I see are smudgy banks of cloud, piled high. I took the bus to Bernal and rode my newly tuned bike back home. In between I went to the Alemany farmers market -- for the first time since I moved here. I kept thinking I might go but it never seemed absolutely necessary, until this weekend. I have not gotten a CSA delivery in almost 4 weeks and I needed kale and carrots and fennel and scallions for the salad I'm taking to J's party tomorrow.

It is cold in the house. I have the space heater on and am wearing the fleece slippers Dean gave me last xmas. I don't know how many thousands of dollars I will end up spending on this place but it will eventually be warm(er) and water tight, and maybe I will redo the kitchen and get rid of the rodents. In the meantime, I have sweaters and blankets and tarps to keep warmth in and water out.

I am listening to Schumann piano trios on my geneva sound box, which was a splurge, considering all the money I'm pouring into the house. But I am very happy that I can play my CDs again, after almost a year.

critters

On New Years night I heard the mice (or the rats?) squeaking again, through the fan in the bathroom. Yesterday I got six old-fashioned spring traps, but I haven't set them up yet. I was coming home on the T, reading the health care paper, when someone touched my shoulder. I looked up and was very happy to see Alka. We chatted about raccoons and her father rolling down Mount Tam and my windows, and we exchanged phone numbers. We were parting ways in front of my house when I noticed a raccoon at the top of my brick stairs. It looked large and unfriendly. We tried moving out of its sight but it merely hunkered down (probably could hear our voices). So I went with her to her house and met her father, who is visiting from Canada, and he insisted that I eat. He'd made three dishes -- a dal, a cauliflower and pea curry, and something with lentils and potatoes. Brad came downstairs in a terrycloth robe. The two little dogs (Ubu and Jemmy) got used to my smell. We all had a nice chat about movies and politics. Alka walked me back across the street with a flashlight, just in case, but the raccoon was gone.

alone

Now that the holidays have passed and we are in a new year I am going to embrace being alone. I have started, finally, to give up the sadness and the disappointment. There is no one to love in the way I wanted to love someone. I can't help that. I have to face up to the fact that I tried to make it happen and my judgment was poor, because I wanted it so much.

I can't shake off all fear, of course! But I can try to embrace that, too. Nothing is perfectly safe, after all. I was thinking about safety after I saw Argo. I had gotten caught up in the suspense, which is easy to do when you are watching a movie alone. But I was thinking about that time, the late 1970s, and how unsafe the world seemed, even though I was barely in it, what with being introverted and frightened of change. Wanting to feel safe is a powerful motivating factor, not always in a good way. You can decide, to some extent, whether to extend yourself in order to feel safe and help others feel the same way.

Anyway, I was walking by myself on Mission St. I had gotten off BART at 24th St. even though I meant to go to Glen Park. I was going to walk in Glen Canyon for a bit before I went home. I didn't realize my mistake when I was halfway up the stairs -- there weren't enough steps for Glen Park. I didn't want to go back down to the platform, so I kept moving, through the gate, up the stairs to the street. I was still under the influence -- I looked at everyone with unwarranted suspicion and felt them looking at me and sizing me up. By the time I got to Chenery the movie was beginning to lose its grip. I relaxed, felt grateful for my coat in the late afternoon chill, admired the angle of the sun, walked briskly along the narrow sidewalk. I got on the 44 bus feeling very fond of the other passengers -- I often feel that way when I am alone among strangers.