Kind of Thinking
Monday. I passed by the corner on the bus this morning where the guy created the plaster (over wire and paper) statue, only to have it eventually torn down, and saw him sitting there again on his folding chair in front of five or six large green plastic bags in much the same pose and manner as I remember him when he was creating his statue in the first place, and I thought, shit, this guy's going to build another one, so I decided to keep an eye out when I returned home this evening and, if he were still there, get off the bus and ask him what he was about. He wasn't there. His chair and green plastic bags were gone. I'll check again tomorrow. The Phantom Street Sculptor. Pretty exciting stuff, for a morning commute in Oakland, don't you think?
Nothing much else for a Monday. I got a software program working today that I've been messing with now for more time than I want to admit. No complaints. Working with software is usually nice repetitive quiet time in a small air conditioned lab they maintain for us in our building. Just me and MRM, futzing with software and equipment. Not a bad gig if you at all like such things. I'm more tired of high tech now after all these years, but only so tired, and I still enjoy making something work. So little does, anymore.
What? “So little does, anymore?” A nice Zen software moment and you turn it into a whine?
Oh, stuff it. The day has gone well. The head aches, but just, and the mind seems relatively clear. I'm sitting here writing, after watching the News Hour on Public Television, and I'm thinking of moving some of this detritus around on my now nicely relieved of all those printers hollow door desktop. Nothing I will actually attempt, you understand, but it's nice to sit here and contemplate the project.
This weekend, walking under the freeway down the road toward the Grand Lake Theater, I wondered what those people were doing putting up a fence and erecting a wooden framework supported by a line of big fifty-five gallon barrels. Then, of course, I understood. They're setting up the Christmas tree lot they run there every year. How many weeks before Thanksgiving do they start selling Christmas trees? Do people even ask this question?
Still, Christmas trees three weeks before Thanksgiving, a small moment of epiphany as I walked lost in my own head along the sidewalk. Life swirls around you, eyes open or shut, whether you're paying attention or not. When's the last time I put up a Christmas tree? Back in Napa in the eighties? I remember going out with Ronn and Brenda and cutting a tree on one of our vineyards, celebrating with a bottle of the Louis Roederer Cristal Rosé.
That long ago? Embarrassing. Then again, when's the last time I threw a party? Again, probably in Napa. I threw a few parties in Napa. I went to a lot of parties in Napa. The same is true in San Francisco in the days of the old Rip Off Ranch. Killer parties. How about a small get together here? Some sushi from down the road (this is California, yes we really do such things), a couple of sakes, a couple of bottles of Champagne. Hmmm. Almost hallucinatory, this kind of thinking.
|
