30 January 2005

9:45 AM: Farmers’ market report: fresh, hand-made corn tortillas, kale, carrots, beef, eggs, dates, blood oranges. Nice article about the market and the Ferry Building in February’s Gourmet. We’ve started parking on the street again now that our usual garage at 75 Howard St has raised its fee 33%.

Agenda for today:

• Fix the terlet. The handle broke inside the tank last week and I’ve had to use a rusty coat hanger to reach inside every time I need to flush it. Gracious living here in Hayes Valley.
• Dimmer switch for the bathroom to make the light gay-safe. I put in a halogen floodlight, but it’s too darn bright for someone my age.
• Studying: tax, crim, contracts, moot court
• Take the car to the touchless car wash (then find a new parking space)
• The gym: shoulders
• Staff holiday party

A minor episode of touching to report. 22, latin, found at the gym. Unfortunately, since the showers were closed there, I didn’t realize that he was just chubby (rather than burly) until we got home. I made do. We couldn’t go to his place because he still lives with mom & pop. When he asked how old I was, I said, “barely in my 30s,” which is technically true, dear readers,  though not unintentionally misleading.

27 January 2005

Yesterday, as I was changing at the gym, a guy asked the nearly naked me if he could borrow a pen. He took it back to his locker, got out a scrap of paper, wrote something down, and then returned the pen to me along with the scrap of paper, which now bore his phone number. Clever boy.

1/24/05

Swamped with school work. Mustn't grumble. I need to be looking for a job, filing my taxes, applying for financial aid, renewing my passport, reading 350 pp (for moot court) by Thursday, keeping up with the rest of my reading, and finishing a project for work on which the client moved up the deadline by a week. 

I worked two shifts at the restaurant (sole with a Champagne butter sauce Friday night and then spit-roasted pork with black truffles Saturday night).

Needless to say, there is no touching to report.

Farmers' market report: pork, escarole, blood oranges, eggs, rapini. It's winter.

Oh, I finally got called in at school today. First time all year. And in both classes. I had to admit at one point that I had no clue about the answer, which did not go over very well. Thank god for blind grading.

20 January 2005

On the last inauguration day, someone papered over all the street signs on Bush St. in San Francisco with signs that said “Puppet” in the exact font and size as the originals. It went on for blocks. 

Helicopters are circling my neighborhood as I write this, which means that there must be a protest march close by.

19 January 2005

So, no WMD in Iraq before we invaded. Nothing. As I said then, Iraq was no more threat to the United States than Canada. After all, Canada is armed, we have an undefended border thousands of miles long, and we provide them fresh grievances every week.

Welcome back, Ryan!

18 January 2005

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be able to do one-handed push-ups by my birthday. To that end, I benched pressed 185 lbs/84 kg today. That's 30 lbs more than I weigh. I used to do four nice sets with that weight; now I can only manage one and a half.  Eccl. 1:2

15 January 2005

A new low inside my apartment this morning: 55F/13C. As they say in San Diego, that’s bitterly cold.

Farmers’ market report: pork, erbette chard, blood oranges, duck sausage, and half a Pullman loaf.

I’m cooking at the restaurant again tonight.

12 January 2005

It’s bad enough when you find a large, ugly hair growing out of your ear (how long has it been there?), but you feel old when you see that it’s a large, ugly, gray hair.

I cooked at the restaurant again last night. Grilled quail with a Marsala sauce. A little of that goes a long way.

I spent a very interesting morning at the public hearing down at the Court of Appeals on proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It was a good way to get back into the legal world, and a reminder that there is a future after the dreariness and drudgery of trade school. I wasn’t totally lost, since I knew the rules from school, and I knew the subject of the amendments — electronic discovery—from my old job.

I got my grades today, which are the worst I’ve ever received in my life, but I’m still cheerful, as they weren’t totally horrible, and I managed to stay in the top half of my class. How the mighty have diminished their expectations. I got my best grade in the class I was sure I would nearly fail.

I had a nice dinner at Zuni courtesy of the Federal Judicial System (no names, and it wasn’t a date). Chicken livers and bacon on large, thin toasts spread with onion marmalade; fideus (thin noodles in a shellfish broth) cooked in the wood oven with shrimp, clams, and sausage; and spankingly good beignets with an apricot-mandarin sauce.  My favorite handsome bartender wasn’t there. Rats.

A. and I discussed my dating phobia. His suggestion is that (1) I not be so immediately dismissive of potential suitors and (2) I be a little less standoffish so that the mild-mannered chaps have a chance with me (instead of the pushy bullies who usually approach me).

It’s 11 and I only have 38 pages on taxation to read before bed.

11 January 2005

Today marks the official end of the procrastination season. I got back yesterday afternoon and bought $265 worth of books for next semester. I also had a depressive episode and got drenched riding my bike home from the gym.

On the agenda for the next few days:

• Two shifts at the restaurant (I hope I still remember how to cook)
• Finding my chef’s jackets, which are probably buried in the bottom of the closet somewhere
• Shaving off my beard
• Therapy (much needed)
• Haircut!
• Re-doing my résumé to apply for public interest/public service jobs
• Figuring out which public service organizations I want to apply to
• Researching regular employers for a summer job
• Trying not to frrrreak out when I get my grades from last semester and have another depressive episode
• Reading background material so that I'll be prepared to attend the Civil Rules Committee hearing tomorrow down at the 9th Circuit
• Meeting with the wine & cheese society people about becoming the treasurer
• Paying the bills that accumulated during my vacation
• Carefully drying out said bills (they got soaked in the mailbox and are starting to resemble papier mâché)
• Change my gym membership so that I can keep going to the outpost in the ghetto
• Buy Two Years before the Mast for my San Diego host and mail it to him
• Finishing a little project at my old job that I should have completed before Christmas
• Signing up for Westlaw and Lexis trainings