27 April 2007

No more trade school classes ever! Ever! Hurrah! I have been counting the months, then the weeks, and then the days ever since I started almost three long years ago.

I now have one more 20-page paper and three finals, and a big application to do in the next two weeks.

My apartment is a mess. I can’t wait to begin the Purge: old school books, old clothes, old shoes, old crap. You name it, it’s going to be Purged from my apartment. It’s almost time to start a new chapter.

I’m also trying to figure out vacation plans. New York and Montreal in May? It could be worse.

20 April 2007

Another rainy day in Paradise. Procrastination continues to wend its way through the House of Sloth here in Hayes Valley. One class ended yesterday, another ends in this morning. Only less than a week left of instruction, two twenty-page papers, and three finals, and I’ll be finished with trade school. Hurrah!

I was pleased to discover yesterday during class that the editor had slipped a billet doux into my casebook. It was a nice treat in an otherwise confounding discussion of contra proferentem.

On tap for the weekend: study hall!

15 April 2007

Did you remember to do your taxes? I have to file a 1040X. One of my several employers last year just sent me a W-2 form for the small amount of money they paid me. I forgot to include them in the return I filed two months ago. I’ve already received my refund.

Farmers’ market report: asparagus, pork stew meat, rapini, wild and domesticated arugula, spring onions, leeks, bronze lilies (for me), and a bunch of parti-colored ranunculus (for the editor). I turned the leeks and asparagus into a quiche on Saturday night. We’ll have the pork stew later in the week.

We went very briefly to a portentous art opening Saturday evening. It was mostly photographs (i.e., snapshots) of the self-styled bright young things. A quotation from the show’s catalogue will suffice to set the tone: “The artists of PHoto REALness will metamorphose the Gray Area Gallery using photos, video, projections, and installation in response to the themes of fame, glamour, youth, sexuality, and martyrdom.” We saw youth and sexuality but scant evidence of the other three modifiers. Unfortunately we missed this afternoon’s “rare opportunity to hear the artists . . . reveal their enigmatic process of their truly genius and unorthodox creations.” I shan’t say more. It’s too easy to criticize the excesses of someone else’s youth. We both felt that we had seen and lived all of this twenty years ago.

Following Fran Lebowitz’s advice, I took myself firmly in hand this afternoon. I actually sat down and wrote something for the paper that is now five months overdue. Criminey. I am only at 900 words, and I need to spew 2,100 more in the next day or so.

4 April 2007

The Chronicles of Clumsiness, Episode No. 1,478: I somehow managed to cut myself while shaving with an electric razor.

School continues apace. I am not somehow continuing at the same pace. Yesterday was an orgy of sloth. Today is catch-up day.  I know that it would be best to make a nice, long list of everything I have to do in the next few weeks, but I keep putting it off.

I think the editor and I are now officially “boyfriends.” Hurrah.

22 March 2007

Another long day at school. I think I have become inured to it again. But it’s not a good sign when you realize at 10 AM that you were supposed to read 110 pages of dense cases before class today. Oh well. In other school news, procrastination on the two big papers continues.

I’ve gone back to the gym, finally, after almost two weeks off. Lots of progress has been undone.

And we may be heading toward an interesting constitutional crisis if Bush does not back down.

2 March 2007

Trouble in Paradise. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I may have screwed this one up royally.

25 February 2007

Another long weekend. I spent most of it with the editor. We visited friends in Sonoma. Pouring rain and howling wind all night long, but dry enough today for a long walk past the dormant vineyards (and a covey of quail) to the redwood grove. It was a bit brisk, as the English say. Hot chocolate all around when we returned.

22 February 2007

Crazy busy. No time to breathe. I even lost two folders of semi-important school papers today, out of sheer absentmindedness, which is not like me. I’m going to bed early. Mercury retrograde, and all that.

Things with the editor are going well. We had a great dinner at Canteen last night (scallop ceviche, a salad with escarole and quince, swordfish with green olives and white beans, and poulet rouge, a pear tarte Tatin, and a lemon curd roll). It was heavenly.

School: well, I had not been there for a week, and I did not miss it one bit.

And we're already two days into it and I have not even decided on my Lenten Vows.

17 February 2007

Farmers’ market report: kiwis, a flatiron steak, baby torpedo onions, bok choi, blood oranges, parsley, and white and rose tulips.

I almost went to the beach, but thought better of the trek. I rode my bike to Dolores Park, instead, where half of San Francisco decided to sun itself. I met up with friends. We had delicious ice cream at the new Bi-Rite Creamery at 18th and Dolores.

I’ve been awake since about 4 a.m. I had a restless night (perhaps it’s the transition into joblessness). I started reading Edmund White’s autobiography, My Lives. It is very good, but I find it fatiguing to read a whole book whose every sentence has “I” or “me” as its subject or predicate.  You probably think that comment is a bit rich coming from someone who maintains a blog and doesn’t write one-tenth as well.

The sun is going down soon, which means it's time for the gym, a lot of studying, and not a little housekeeping.

15 February 2007

Burnt out again. Trying to do school and work is just too much. Tomorrow is my official last day at work. I think I will play hooky from school tomorrow so that I can go to work early.

The editor comes back from the snowy mountains in a few days. I can’t wait.

29 January 2007 11:08 p.m.

Is it really so hard to put away the clean laundry? It’s bad enough that I need to take it the wash ’n’ fold, but do I also need someone to put it away for me?

I am on call tomorrow morning in my biggest class. Wish me luck.

29 January 2007 8:12 a.m.

A pleasant enough weekend. A hyper-productive day on Friday.  No farmers’ market on Saturday because I had an all-day class. And then a lovely date (a night-time walk in North Beach) with the editor. I made us buckwheat pancakes in the morning.

I have decided that I am definitely quitting my job. I’m going to give my two weeks’ notice tomorrow.

26 January 2007

I went to bed last night and woke up this morning thinking about quitting my job. Maybe I should just cut back my hours. Working and school does not give me enough time to have much of a life. The money is nice, and I feel more appreciated and valued and valuable and useful because of work than I ever do at school. However, I’m trading my time and life energy for a little money and some feelings of appreciation. I probably can’t get the money elsewhere, but I could get the appreciation somewhere else. By Thursday night each week I am wiped out, and I still have one class and a day of work to get through on Fridays.

I’m looking forward to another date with the editor on Saturday.

21 January 2007

Busy with school and work and dating(!).

Farmers’ market report: grass-fed lamb, eggs, turnips with their greens, tat soi, Savoy cabbages, rapini, and radicchio di Treviso, and pale pink tulips.

I went for Thai BBQ with the editor, and then we had a slumber party. He accompanied me to a late visit to the farmers’ market.  We had to scramble for parking because of the forced-birth rally that was being held across the street. We held hands, to the consternation of the low-IQ family “values” folk in cowed attendance.

It was a lovely date. I’d write more about it, but I don’t want to jinx things with him.

I cooked dinner for a friend on Saturday (pasta al forno with fresh mozzarella, lamb meatballs, and black olives), and he helped me re-do my bedroom. This is nesting behavior. I also received a very funny drunk dial from Betty Butterfield’s two daughters, who seemed to be calling from their double-wide trailer somewhere in the South. I imagined them sitting on a broken-down couch on the porch, next to the fridge, with a litter of empty diet-Coke and Smirnoff bottles at their feet.

It hasn’t been as productive a weekend as I would have liked. I did make it to Chinatown today to buy a nice duckling, and I accidentally went into Gimme Shoes’ lost-our-lease sale on Grant Avenue, whereupon I bought the last pair of Moma brown lace-up shoes (No. 25802 in dark brown). I can’t really afford them, but the price ended up being nearly the same as the too-too trendy Campers I saw across the street. These will probably last as long as my previous pair of timeless brown lace-ups (the Aldens I bought in 1987). I am powerless over my compulsion to buy shoes.

17 January 2007

Another lovely date last night with the editor. The accordion element of the date was not bad (a Yankee playing Brazilian forró). We left early. I spent the night at his house, dear diary.

The trip to Brazil is shaping up. One more set of friends has to decide whether or not to go. And we need to find a place to stay. And I need to lose some weight and learn a foreign language.

11 January 2007

Long day of school. I think I have good classes this time around. Fifteen weeks and I’ll be in finals. I can’t wait.

Lovely date tonight with the editor. Smart. Funny. I sort of forgot that I don’t know him all that well even though I feel connected to him. No touching to report, which is good. He could be a keeper.

Tomorrow: school and work. The usual.

9 January 2007

I had a perfect nap today. I came home early from work, took the laundry to be washed & folded, and then lay down on the couch with a nice soft blanket over me. Woke up about an hour later.

A good workout at the gym (legs and biceps), and then a date with the young Englishman. We’ll see. Perhaps not a perfect match. Tall. Charming. Lovely boarding school accent. ADHD.

Tomorrow: a little business trip across the Bay, the gym, and reading my assignments for the first day of classes.

New Year’s Resolutions, in no particluar order:

• Pay off all credit card bills by February 1, 2008.
• Tidiness at home.
• Entertain more at home.
• Visit Rio in March.
• Learn more conversational Portuguese before I go.
• Meet the two bloggers I did not meet last year.
• A good final semester in school.
• Pass the Bar exam in July.
• Begin a long-term relationship (I was going to write, "Be open to a long-term relationship," but then I read the Little Minx and realized that I should have a more specific, measurable goal in this regard.)
• Progress at the gym.
• Maintain a good balance between work and life.
• Keep on cookin’.

7 January 2006

Farmers’ market report: Marin Sun grass-fed beef, navel oranges, blood oranges, white Malaysian guavas (back at last!), eggs, avocados, and lilies from the cutest vendor at the market (who was accompanied today by his mother and sister/cousin/girlfriend/novia).

I had no date with the Englishman on Friday. He had to cancel because of work. I hung out instead with friends. Various bars in the Castro, nothing memorable (as would be expected on a Friday night in the Disastro, but we had fun). After living here nearly 17 years, I finally entered Moby Dick’s.

I stuck close to home on Saturday—puttering, tidying, reading, and finding satisfaction in my chores. I go back to prison on Thursday, so I'm trying to take care of all those little things that I won't have time to attend to soon.

I took myself on a nice long walk on Sunday afternoon through North Beach. I may have ended up in an Asian antique store and I just may have spent money I do not have on a huge wooden carving that I will place over my bed. I made myself leave the store before I bought more stuff.  My plan to get pizza and then browse at City Lights books was foiled by a piece of wood taller and wider than myself. Oh well. No one batted an eye as I took it home on the subway.

I have some portion of Saturday unaccounted for – farmers’ market, gym, a long nap, reading, and then . . .? What did I do yesterday?

I also met another possible suitor today. An editor. Nearly my age. Perhaps a little too manic, but imaginative, and a good talker. Maybe too much of a handful. But it's good to have choices in this regard. Two dates with two different guys in the same week. My therapist will be so pleased (or alarmed).

3 January 2007

Running late for an appointment with the dentist. It will be the first time I’ve seen him since he got his assistant pregnant.  They’re not married.  Straight people.

Bad dreams last night about taking exams. I hope it doesn’t portend bad grades.

1 January 2007

Happy New Year, my darlings. A mere 749 days until Chimpy should be out of office.

It has been a long weekend. We saw “Woman of the Year” with K. Hepburn and S. Tracy at the Castro Theater after the gym.

Saturday was a quick trip to the Farmers’ Market, where I got delicious (as it turned out) grass-fed beef from Marin Sun Farms, rapini, escarole, German Butterball potatoes, bacon, a Savoy cabbage, Chantenay carrots, and some red ranuculous from the cutest vendor at the market. I spent the rest of the day trying to clean my apartment to make it ready for Sunday’s dinner.

I went out Saturday night with a friend from the beach. We went to his house, where I admired his chandelier collection and ate smuggled Italian salumi. We went to the Powerhouse, hobnobbed with the locals, and then, dear diary, I went home with him. I had my Certificate of Secondary Virginity revoked. I ended up not on the walk of shame the next morning, but the Muni ride of shame, with everyone else on the bus either going to church or to some service-industry job.

I cooked us a lovely little New Year’s Eve dinner: carrot soup with Moroccan spices; then a brasato al Barolo, braised winter greens, and a bacon and Gruyère potato gratin; and then apricot soufflés. We stayed in and had New Year’s here. A much better plan than last year, which I spent at a comedy club with two other couples, both of which broke up not long after.

Today, I talked to almost no one in person until the gym. And then it was a nice English lad. Keep your fingers crossed.