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29 September 2006
It’s Michaelmas Day. Have you paid your rent?
Maybe things aren’t so
bad after all: I’m getting my haircut tomorrow.
But on the other hand, Bush has
now effectively been made emperor: if he himself can define and designate so-called enemy combatants (which category includes
all of you with American citizenship), torture them, and hold them in secret in indefinite detention as long as he wills,
we’ve lost our freedom. Our little experiment with the Constitution lasted but 219 years and a few weeks.
27 September 2006
I'm exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well (early morning awakening, again,
of course). Things are starting to slip through the cracks. But at least my hairdresser resurfaced. I'm beginning to look
like an elderly emo kid, and I'm going to start quoting Plath just to prove my melancholic bona fides.
25 September 2006
It’s fall. It was hot today.
I had a rocky day at work. Insomnia did not help. Delicious dinner tonight: salmon rillettes (with tarragon) and then grilled
duck with sautéed apples and potatoes.
I’ve been thinking: I’d
have a muse if he lived here. It was one of the L.A. guys with whom I went to the Yuba River on Sunday: smart, sexy, sweet,
funny, passionate (not in a sexual way that I’d know, but in the sense of having passions for certain things). He can
sing. He doesn’t overly pluck his eyebrows. He doesn’t consider attention to detail a waste of time. And the passionate
nature probably carries over into sex. I mean, have you ever had good sex with someone who wasn't also truly passionate about
something else?
The picture is of ripening Sauvignon
Blanc grapes I encountered in the Carneros district of Napa County two weeks ago. They were probably picked early last week.
The withered berries are afflicted with botrytis, but not, alas, the noble one, Botryotinia fuckeliana.
24 September 2006
It was a long weekend.
I still haven't heard from my hairdresser. Friday was non-stop: class, work, class, meeting, gym, and then a grand party.
Up early on Saturday for the farmers' market with my friends visiting from L.A., and then the long drive to the Yuba River.
The water was lower than before, but breathtakingly cold. We had a good time. Fall is in the air.
Farmers’ market report:
various squashes, various peppers, dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes, Pink Pearl apples, fresh barhi dates (yellow, crunchy,
and still on the stem), and some more clandestine bacon.
The Folsom Street Fair was fun,
if dirty.
20 September 2006
I suppose worse things could
happen to me besides missing an appointment with my hairdresser, but the Folsom Street Faire is this weekend, and I have a number of important social engagements at which I need to look my best if I am ever to meet
my future boyfriend. And to that end, I have scheduled a visit tomorrow to
the Emergency Liposuction Clinic. Good thing I bought butt-less leather chaps with an elastic waistband.
17 September 2006
I got a little clarity about
work on Friday. Not good news, but at least I know how things stand.
Farmers’ market report:
French butter pears, Gravenstein apples, duck sausages, dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes, and pale yellow lilies.
I went to Bar Tartine on Friday night with friends from New York. It was good, but not great. I loved the room. We had proscuitto with figs, fried
squash blossoms, a tomato and watermelon salad, a Maghrebi lamb stew, and grilled poussin, and then three great desserts:
Concord grape sorbet, blackberry sorbet, and plum sorbet; a malt crème caramel with candied corn kernels; and a poached nectarine
with basil ice cream.
After a long drive for a family
reunion on Saturday, I went to bed early. I finally got the blackout shade put back up (the roller mechanism suffered metal
fatigue a few weeks ago).
And then I had good time at El
Rio this evening, even though the crowd was very Castro. Pupusas afterward soaked up all the tequila, I hope.
14 September 2006
Just give me the sunshine.
I’m dog tired. Doggone
tired. I think I’ve been pushing myself too hard for the last month. I came home from a semi-upsetting day at work (more
medium-bad news), and, instead of going to the gym, I had a nice hot bath. I
take baths about once a year. And the fog is back.
And am I going to turn into the
middle-aged guy in a boring, bourgeois “profession” who "rebels" on the weekends, like a CPA or dentist who
rides a big Hog?
12 September 2006
No fog last night! Could it be that summer has finally arrived?
10 September 2006
It has been a long few days. I had several screening interviews on Friday,
and an unpleasant conversation. I skipped all my classes. I went Saturday to Bolinas (a village at the edge of the western world). Fortunately, I remembered the turnoff from Hwy. 1 (the Bolinas Border
Patrol removes the sign as soon as a new one is erected by the highway department). I cooked all day at a small
wedding there, and missed the phone call of my pen pal in P-Town, and now I don't have a cell phone. Or at least, I can't
get to my cell phone. It's locked in the glove compartment of my Golf; the latch broke off in my hand. Another reason not
to buy VWs.
Farmers' market report: beef, eggs, Indian Blood peaches (green and red fuzz on the outside, white
flesh with red streaks on the inside), O'Henry peaches, beans, assorted peppers, and sunflowers.
| The road to Bolinas |
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6 September 2006
A palindromic date and it’s
nearly the full moon. I am crazy-busy. Work, work, work. Missing deadlines. Skipping class, and so forth. Jeepers.
I'd have some lovely photos for you, but I seem to have
left at my parents'the apparatus that moves the photos from the camera to the computer. Alas.
4 September 2006
It was a long weekend. I had
to be by myself on Friday, so after the gym I snuck over to the Lower Haight and had a merguez sausage grilled for me at Rosamunde, took it next door to Toronado, and had a Bittburger to wash it down.
Farmers’ market report:
yet another flat of peaches, a bone-in 8-rib pork loin roast, dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes, Pink Pearl apples, green beans,
romaine lettuce, parsley, and some orange lilies.
My pirate obsession continues.
I enabled it (or assuaged it) by visiting San Francisco’s only independent pirate supply shop. And I rented “Pirates of the Caribbean” (how low can I sink?).
We had a nice visit, I cooked
a big dinner (spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce, and then a grilled pork roast, grilled romaine (with a shalloty dressing),
the green beans, and a pink apple sauce from the Pink Pearl apples; and then a peach jalousie (yes, I made the (rough) puff
pastry from scratch)), and we stayed until 9 p.m. tonight, missing all the traffic on the way back. I spent most of the day
wrestling with a 48,000-word article that I’m supposed to be editing. Is terroir really such an ineffable concept?
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