I really think my black mood today has a lot to do with not having been able to get out of the house for a really long time. I've been trying to get rid of a headcold for a week, and before that James was sick with it, and a lot of classes and social obligations have conspired to keep me locked up in the evenings for a couple of weeks. The result is that I feel really caged in.

I can't go out tonight because I have class until 9pm, and then a bunch of other things to get done, but I SWEAR that next week will be different.
9/28/2000 02:30:16 PM

So, I have to ask this - does anyone (except Ilen) actually LIKE working for a living?

Let me know by dropping me an email, would ya? I'm just frightfully bored today, and it's my own lazy fault.

On the other hand, I am NOT going to go into a long diatribe about the unjustice of the real world (TM). I'm trying to get out of the habit of venting spleen about things that don't warrant it.
9/28/2000 01:08:09 PM

Saturday, September 23, 2000

See our neighborhood rotating turkey! (Just another bizarre feature of our exciting locale, and - unlike the Folsom Street Fair, which is tomorrow - this one's here year round!)
9/23/2000 08:50:43 PM

Today James and I discovered what happens when you heat a pyrex measuring cup full of butter on a gas stove burner. Not having been that sort of adolescent, I've never seen a glass object violently explode, or seen flames shoot so high as when a 1/3 a cup of butter is dumped directly over a gas burner.

You learn something every day, I guess. In our defense, I've melted butter over a burner in the things before and they've never exploded...

...luckily there were no casualties.
9/23/2000 08:44:59 PM

Friday, September 22, 2000

How I wish this were up and running: http://www.sfcarshare.org/index.htm
9/22/2000 10:40:38 AM

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Interested, even a little, in the history of supermarkets? Go here. It's another site by the author of planetsoma. His history and photo collection is fascinating.

He covers Safeway really extensively, as well as A&P (where I haven't shopped since I was little and living in Vienna), and Kroger's (there's still one in Harrisonburg, VA, where I went to college,and apparently everywhere else, now that I've had a chance to look at their website).

Now, if he'd only do Giant, which is Washington DC's only fighting chance against the Safeway empire (there's irrelevant dramatization for you).
9/19/2000 02:23:38 PM

Well, I was wrong about the headcold, which is still threatening. I'm still trying to fight it off. I can't help but feel that if I could sleep properly (San Francisco houses were not made to handle temperatures of over 95 degrees, my downstairs meighbors are really, really loud, and my cat is occasionally troublesome at night, now that she's comfortable) I might have more success.

It emerged in a class I am taking that despite how much I think I have changed in the last 12 years, my Myers-Briggs temperament (INFJ) has remained the same. I'm actually quite relieved, since I have been feeling lately as if there is no real connection between myself in 1990 and myself now.

I don't put TOO MUCH store in these kinds of tests, but the MBTI description I was handed last week does fit me pretty closely. (And those of you who kow me won't be surprised to know that I'm a freak: approximately 1% of the population tests INFJ...)

(and yes, I know that a lot of people are really skeptical about the validity of MBTI, but it seems useful to me.)
9/19/2000 12:36:05 PM

Friday, September 15, 2000

Re: My September 13 post about Yin Chiao and the oncoming headcold? Well, I think, maybe, perhaps, it has worked.
9/15/2000 10:32:48 AM

Thursday, September 14, 2000

Have a look at PlanetSoma, which has a really fascinating history of what used to be in my neighborhood. (Mom, Dad, if you read this, don't take the virtual tour of the bars or baths. You won't like it. Trust me. I, on the other hand, am just interested in what was here, and the rest of you can read whatever you like. I don't care if you're offended.)

Oh, and another thing? Be warned. The writer is an old school San Franciscan and he's really bitter, with reason. As a recent transplant I'm not sure I'd want to meet him in a dark alley - even if I HAVEN'T been to Julie's Supper Club.
9/14/2000 04:58:05 PM

hee: http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/apa/386611.html

(from james)
9/14/2000 03:08:36 PM

On the other hand, this, from the Duke2000 campaign, amuses me.
9/14/2000 01:05:29 PM

Okay, so it is Thursday. And the day is really long. I'm not capable of complaining about it full blast, because on the whole my lot could be MUCH WORSE, but I really, really wish it was Friday at 5 p.m.
9/14/2000 01:03:39 PM

Wednesday, September 13, 2000

So, at the advice of Stan at Palindrome, the coffee place around the corner from me, and of David Bowie (online journal -- go to the archives and look for January 1, 1999, but unless you are a devotee with bowienet account, I'm sure they've locked access) I'm trying to head off James, Ben, and Wanda's headcold with a chinese medicine called Yin Chiao. I am NOT taking Mr. Bowie's recommended dosage of 10 tablets to start with. I'm sticking to the box directions, which say 2-4 tablets 2 times a day.

I'll let you know if it works.
9/13/2000 03:58:12 PM

Essay about Apoptygma Berserk, a band I used to really like, who cancelled their show in DC this week. I'm not seeing them here (with VNV Nation) in San Francisco because I couldn't afford to pay $30 a ticket. Obviously other people could, however, since they're sold out. Looking at their behavior, I can't say I'm sorry to be missing the show.
9/13/2000 09:09:37 AM

Monday, September 11, 2000

Survived a fierce Monday. May survive a fiendish Tuesday. I'm not making bets after that, since I have about four meetings to coordinate, all of which may happen in the last week of September (or the first of October), and I haven't been able to work on any of them yet. *sigh*

In less....work related news, I've started a reading journal, as I really do spend MOST of my free time reading (well, and tweaking various web pages), and I ought to remember to THINK about things I'm reading. Nothing profound, yet, however, so don't feel compelled to go and look.
9/11/2000 09:40:13 PM

Friday, September 08, 2000

The kitty has emerged from the dusty depths of our spare bedroom. So we have - like - pictures of her in daylight 'n' stuff:

9/8/2000 08:05:04 PM

Has anyone besides me noticed the Arts Commission's new kiosk poster campaign (they may not be new, but I think I would have noticed them before this)? The images are historical markers combining reproductions of old articles and images to remind passers-by that San Francisco - a great city - is also the site of oppression and human rights violations. The poster that sticks in my head reprints a story from the San Francisco Chronicle on May 21, 1942: "S.F. CLEAR OF ALL BUT 6 SICK JAPS."

Perhaps I should be more jaded. The project's message is not new, but novelty is not always the most important thing. I find the posters very jarring -- and effective.
9/8/2000 04:31:03 PM

bizarre "anarchic hand" news story posted to psychoburbia . . .
9/8/2000 12:09:39 PM

Thursday, September 07, 2000

Buzz 9, a new restaurant on the site of our much lamented Chathouse (pic stolen from James), opened a couple of weeks ago. I feel malicious on the subject of their muffins (which were cold, and bought from Costco when we stopped by one work morning last week), but the coffee was not bad, and when we had a proper breakfast, it was quite edible. Their dinner menu has an $18 filet mignon on it, which - if I'm ever going to have spare cash again - I might just try out. I'll keep you posted.
9/7/2000 04:40:53 PM

The area around Civic Center BART (why aren't neighborhoods next to city hall ever really good in major cities?) has been populated by new, unsettling homeless people lately (rather than the regulars, who I already know):

On Tuesday, I was waiting for the light to turn green at 8th and Mission, and a woman with strangly blond hair, decent enough clothes, and a cup of starbucks coffee stopped and said something to me in a strangled voice. I asked her what she had said - because I hadn't heard her - and she repeated, a little defiantly, "I SAID I've learned you can't hang around with anyone but white people in this town." I couldn't find any prudent way to answer her, but she seemed to expect me to say something, so I replied as blandly as possible, "I'm sorry to hear that." "Well, THAT'S what I've learned," she said, making her way across the dirty street to catch the Mission bus. I followed her to continue down 8th, trying to look as non-judgmental as possible.

Yesterday, as I approached the same corner of Mission, I noticed a man in a navy t-shirt and baseball cap yelling loudly at two people who were just around the corner out of sight. He said something about going 6 blocks up the street (toward Market), among other things. As I went by I glanced at the people. One was a sullen-looking bearded man in a blue plaid flannel shirt and grimy jeans. The other was a ginger-haired woman wearing a navy blue long wool winter coat. As I walked by she was sobbing, yelling at the man - "You thought you were going to get something out of him! If you weren't so . . ." Her feet were bare against the concrete. I almost asked her what size shoes she wore, but thought better of it.

As I headed down toward Howard, I noticed that 3-4 people with shopping carts and tarps were gathering from various directions to set up their mobile shanty town across from the St. Anthony Foundation's Marian Residence for Women. 6 or 8 people are camped out at that corner almost every night, lately, ready to move as soon as the police decide to hassle them.
9/7/2000 04:01:21 PM

library hotel
9/7/2000 12:07:42 PM

Wednesday, September 06, 2000

I'm sure this site is old news to you, but I was delighted by it - it's a testament to hate generator! (Okay, yes, it's juvenile, but I liked it.)
9/6/2000 03:20:56 PM

Tuesday, September 05, 2000

I'd somehow managed not to know - even though I've been in San Francisco for 2 years - that if you go to the end of Clement and walk through a little park and just beyond a public golf course, you end up on a gorgeous coastal trail full of breathtaking views of the Bay.

So James and I discovered some of this walk yesterday - we started out at "Lands End" and walked to Ocean Beach, stopping to look at the ruins of the Sutro Baths. It really felt like we were on vacation again, for a little while, and we made a resolution to remember that we can take a walk along the coast even when we have no money at all.

Also experienced my...fourth small earthquake at about 1:30 am Sunday morning. It lasted just long enough for me to wonder whether I was going to be crushed by my bookshelf (all the beds in the house have tall bookshelfs in bad positions - have resolved to try do something about that this weekend, though french doors and tall windows make safe, aesthetic positions rather difficult). The quake was otherwise insignificant to us, although it apparently did a lot of damage in Napa.

(You might correctly point out that I should be bolting the shelves into the wall, but I'm not sure about the positions of the studs in turn of the century buildings. I'd rather just move the shelves.)

9/5/2000 11:39:05 AM

Friday, September 01, 2000

Answer to random question of the day: Where does the term "scot-free" come from, anyway?

I was happy to discover that it doesn't relate to the highland clearances
9/1/2000 10:55:38 AM