This is my brain on ship week

Our daily lives consist of work and human connection. Even when we're not doing one of those two things, we're trying to do them or thinking about them or worrying about them or feeling pleased about them.

During the day, I work and I communicate. Reading, typing, talking, fixing, disseminating, running into old friends in the street, assessing strangers from behind sunglasses. When my brain kicks into overdrive at bedtime, I'm either going over work in my head or anticipating it, or I'm thinking about my relationships and where they are and where they're going, including the ones that don't exist yet. Sometimes it all melds into an impossibly tangled panorama called dreams.

My dreams are often long, colorful, shot in widescreen format, full of people I haven't seen in years or never knew very well. Childhood friends whose real faces I'm not sure I could pick out of a lineup. Or entire work days, totally banal and so realistic that I feel like I haven't slept when it's time to get up and start all over. Nightmares are always anticipation, too—nothing bad ever happens, but I know with complete clarity that it will. It's just a matter of waiting.

When I run, I tell myself I need to stay healthy because of the energy my life requires, because I have to be able to take care of friends and family and children, of everything on my desk and in my house. Also because of how lucky I am that my body has the strength to run in the first place. Don't fool yourself, exercise is work. It's also meditation, but meditation is work.

When I take photographs, it's a matter of capturing that moment so I can share it. Also for the pleasure of preserving it, because otherwise it's only ether. Then I wind the film and stop at the photo place on the way to the office, get it developed and pay for the prints and scan them, post them and comment on them and show them to people who care because the images came from me, or are of them, often both.

When a flight is about to take off, I hope it won't crash in a big fiery ball, because I have so much left to do and so many people to know better.

It's not that I mind either of these two reasons for operating. I actually love most of it, most of the time—feeling useful and productive, feeling connected. But it's also essential to remind myself that not every moment and action has to be in service of something or someone, including myself.

It's all very well to take a picture or record a word for its greater utility, but sometimes it's best just to sit on the couch and not worry about it. It doesn't all have to get done, and sometimes the meaning gets lost in the doing. Sometimes empty is best.

Californians: Please vote NO on 98

If Proposition 98 passes in California tomorrow—which it's expected to, because homeownership advocates across the state outnumber cash-strapped San Francisco renters—all forms of rent control in our city will become obsolete. Landlords will be able to raise rents as much as they want for new tenants.

I can only speak for myself, but it means I'd never be able to afford to move from my current place. I imagine many other young professionals are in the same boat.

It's already hard enough to pay for our lives here. Let's not be part of letting it become impossible. Please vote against Prop 98 on June 3.

* * * The BCB says NO to 98 * * *

To the wedding

200 Brazilians + 50 Jews + a rabble of rabbis + infinite goodwill = a transcendent celebration.

The sun was shining on High Meadow when I arrived late Friday afternoon, and it never stopped. I don't think I've ever been part of a happier group. We all gathered, an extended family, to give Josh and Vanessa the joyful, raucous launch into marriage that they deserve. Each of them inspires remarkable loyalty and love in their relationships, and I expect they'll be an unstoppable force together.

Along with feeling lucky to be part of their village, I got to catch up with my own (there's a lot of overlap). Parents and grandparents, brother, cousins, childhood friends. There's nothing quite like spending time with people who've watched you grow up, even as they're growing up themselves. They help me appreciate familiarity in tandem with constant change, and they're a powerful reminder of how kind people can be to each other.

We stayed in the same rambling house where Avi and his band of brothers have been gathering for years, down the path from the wooden building where he and Josh first apprenticed as carpenters, down the road from the farm where Josh's parents met. The place came full circle, along with the rest of us.

I put some pictures over here. I might post a photo essay about the wedding sometime, but more likely I'll just let the faces speak for themselves.

Skedaddle

The parade of summer weddings is beginning, and I need to go watch the magic happen. While I'm traveling and eating and dancing and dancing and eating and probably sitting down with my family for another nice meal before I get back on the plane, please enjoy these pictures of (see the theme here?) flowers and food.

Have a great weekend.

Breakerdancing

Today's news: 12K is my new favorite distance, especially when it means running next to a trio of butterfly nymphs, a fleet of Elvises, and more Vikings than you can throw a tortilla at.

Yes, Bay to Breakers is all they say and more. I'm a fan.

Favorite sightings, other than eight naked people (shouldn't there be more?), included a woman dressed as a pair of scissors with a guy in a T-shirt that said, "Don't run with scissors"; a dude in a banana suit with a lady dressed as Carmen Miranda (her banana-laden hat somehow stayed on); the biggest afro ever; and two pairs of Juno & Bleekers in maroon shorts and yellow headbands. I wish I'd seen the Storm Troopers, but they must have come by later.

The extreme Jesus freaks were out in full effect also, just in case the drunken, giddy masses needed to be reminded of their multitude of sins. It would have been more disturbing if most everyone hadn't seemed to find the condemnation hilarious, but it was still pretty disturbing.

If I ever decide to try and win this race, remind me to become Kenyan. But I think I might need to take pictures of it next year instead.

Seasons? Yes, we have those.

What's the weather like out there?
"It's hot! Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest thing is my shorts, I could cook things in 'em. Do a little crotch-pot cooking."
Well, tell me what it feels like.
"Fool, it's hot! I told you, damn! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! It's so damn hot, I saw those little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?"
What do you think it's going to be like tonight?
"It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/13/BAM110LIGD.DTL&tsp=1
http://www.wunderground.com/US/CA/San_Francisco.html

What's that other thing we have? Oh, right: global warming.

Fake meat products

Sometimes scary, sometimes delicious. Always an exciting surprise.

Yeah, what he said.

Yesterday on Slate, a guy named Taylor Clark posted one of the best articles I've read in a long time about being a vegetarian. Check it out.

I agree with almost everything in there, except the part about bacon. It must be because I've never eaten the stuff, but bacon has always smelled gross to me, even when I was a carnivore. It makes me feel the same way olives do—disgusted and slightly envious, because people who love bacon and olives looooooooove bacon and olives. But those foods just aren't my thing.

What I mean is, pass the extra-sharp cheddar and the cherry tomatoes and the crusty baguette. Thanks.

In other news, John Updike took 1,800 extra words in the New Yorker to say almost exactly the same thing about Andy Greer's new novel that I did in this month's issue of San Francisco. So he may be way more famous and whatever, but I said it a week earlier. And faster. Ha!

Photographiness

I've been spending unfortunate amounts of time on Flickr lately, but there's an upside: It motivated me to scan a bunch of portraits I've taken over the last, say, nine years. Here you go.

There was also a barbecue in Martinez the other day.

And . . . the boys of Canteen generously brought back a Lomo fisheye camera from their trip to Barcelona last year. It's a cool little thing, feels like a toy and has all kinds of features that let me take crazy pictures like these.

Third half

I've been meaning to post about the Santa Cruz Half Marathon, even though it's already an ancient, sweaty memory.

Highlights include the beautiful ocean views, the friendly crowd, and the fact that I managed to finish without dying. Lowlights include the heat, losing my sweet new running cap, the amount of horse crap on the trail, and the fact that I was too busy trying not to die to appreciate the beautiful ocean views.

The first eight miles felt great, then I realized my legs were about to stop working if I didn't slow down. So I missed my goal of beating my time from last summer's San Francisco Marathon, but I did do better than my first try at the Nike Women's Marathon.

Bib: 965
Age: 29
City: SF
Place: 876 out of 1558
Finish: 2:11:36.2
Pace: 10:03
Soundtrack: Big Soul, Jurassic 5, Ministry of Sound, Mary J. Blige, The Roots, Automatic Duo, Damian Marley, OK Go, Mos Def, MC Solaar, Madonna, Amy Winehouse, Lady Sovereign, Lauryn Hill, Moby, Moloko, Outkast, Edwin Starr, Blackalicious, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Something to read, something to watch

Read: More about the April 9 poetry and judgment fest known as the Literary Death Match, Episode 8.

Watch: A remarkable talk by a brain scientist about what she discovered during her own stroke. I was thisclose to studying neuroscience, so the technical parts fascinated me, but her insights about how our brains and bodies translate the world are even better. (Warning: 20 minutes long and there's a real human brain onstage. But: totally worth your time.)

Grandes dames

Last Friday, I saw the documentary Young at Heart for two reasons: It takes place in my hometown, Northampton. And it stars a group of elderly rock 'n' rollers known as the Young at Heart Chorus, whose annual performances were one of the highlights of my childhood.

It's a magical movie, and not just because of all the long shots of the same Main Street I spent 16 years wandering up and down, or the scenes at the hospital where I was born (half a block from the house on North Elm Street where my family lived for six years).

The members of the chorus—ages 70ish to 90ish—are by turns insightful, hilarious, and inspirational. There's nothing like watching a 92-year-old lady flirt with the cameraman, then learn the words to "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" It changed my perspective on what talent means, and reinforced my belief in the power of performance to sustain energy and spirit.

Like my own Savta says, you have to keep growing new dendrites to keep your mind alive. She came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and all 88 years of her are vibrant. During her short stay, we went to an Annie Leibovitz exhibit, lunched in an outdoor garden, drove to the beach, watched a movie, and met friends for dinner.

Savta is beginning, much to her frustration, to have some medical problems. But she handles them gracefully and has no intention of letting them slow her down: She and a friend have booked tickets this fall to see the fjords, complete with Elderhostels. I hope the Norwegians can keep up.

On the other end of the spectrum, my Grandma Rosa is in the hospital in England right now with pneumonia. She lived in her own home for nearly 90 years, and until recently spent her days almost unassisted. Alzheimer's is taking its toll, though, and we finally have to admit she's older than she ever let us realize. She's in my thoughts all the time.

I understand and appreciate how unusual my grandmas are, and how lucky I am to still have them around. They're the original Young at Hearts—if their amazing genes hold out, I expect to live just about forever.

And I can promise you we'll all go down singing.

Judgment day

Last Wednesday afternoon, the Olympic torch passed through San Francisco on its way to undisclosed locations in other countries. Downtown was intense—thousands of people, with the crowd divided about equally between enthusiastic support and boiling anger about the event and its significance for China and Tibet.

The mayor kept changing the torch route while it was being run, so nobody had any idea what was happening. Every so often, a huge wave of people would start sprinting toward the part of town where they thought (or heard third-hand via cell) the torch would go next. It basically turned into a giant, frenetic game of Red Rover.

To give you a sense of the scene, there are photos over at the Business Casual Shutterbug.

That night, I was part of a three-judge panel at the latest installment of Opium Magazine's Literary Death Match. Jane Ganahl (literary merit), Alan Black (intangibles), and I (performance) sat on a big squishy couch and rained down opinions on the poetry of four excellent readers.

Yes, all four were good. That must be some kind of record—most poetry readings are at least 50% excruciating. But these guys made the magic happen. I felt like I needed a gimmick, so I talked about the writers like they were bands: a passionate punkster, an angsty/intellectual indie rocker, a folkie, and a seasoned crooner whose spectacular eyebrows sang backup.

After a couple of elimination rounds, the two finalists played a spirited championship round of "Poet or Madman?" If that sounds easy, try putting snapshots of Shel Silverstein and Charles Manson side by side sometime. Then pick out who looks more literary and who looks more like Mr. T.

Six-word memoir

It could have gone either way.

(There are more here by other people.)

Foiled, with a chance for redemption

I got up at 6:15 this morning to run. It's my usual time, but I didn't sleep that well and felt sluggish. But there's a half-marathon this weekend, so I rallied myself into some clothes. NPR said, "It's colder than you think out there," so I added a scarf and hat. The air did wake me up, at least.

Got to the gym in the wind and near-dark to discover it was locked. Weird. No sign or anything. Annoying, but it was too cold to run outside, so I went home again. Called the gym around 7 to see if they're closed this week for cleaning or another legit reason, and the front-desk guy answered. "Yeah, I was just late. We're open now."

An hour late to open your business during workout rush hour? Time to invest in some kind of newfangled alarm clock. I like my grubby little neighborhood gym, but still.

Too awake to go back to bed, I decided to fix my bathroom doorknob. The screw was loose and it seemed like tightening it would work, except it didn't. I tried a few different screwdrivers for a while, then gave up. Tossed it in my bag to take to the hardware store.

Getting off the train, I remembered I had a coupon for a free yogurt/granola cup at Jamba Juice. Maybe that's my reward for getting up early for nothing. But they must have handed out those coupons pretty liberally, because the line stretched out the door and along a full city block. Free stuff is great, but that's not worth it. I have yogurts at work.

In fact, I just had one, because I'm waiting for the second round of May bluelines to arrive. Our production office in Chicago usually posts the PDF before we get here, but two of the files we transferred late last night got lost somewhere in the server ether.

Oh yeah, and there are fruit flies invading my kitchen. Just a handful, but it's still not cool to relive 7th-grade bio class in my nice clean apartment. This guy in Kentucky says to capture them using a paper funnel and cider vinegar, so we'll see if that works.

On the upside, I have hot tea to drink and the hardware story was open early. If Safeway has cider vinegar in stock during my lunch hour, it might turn out to be a decent day.

JetBlue vs. Virgin America

Round 1: Virgin America
SFO to JFK
Duration: 4h35
Pro: Actual tasty meals served on-board. Never underestimate this perk when you're stuck in a carnivorous airport at dinnertime. After security, there was—for real—no vegetarian food I could take to go from anywhere. Except yogurt and Fig Newtons. Trust me, more than three Fig Newtons aren't an experience you want to have. 5 points
Pro/Con: Domestic VA flights use the international terminal. It's shinier (+1), the accents are cooler (+1), and it's easier to reach from BART (+1), but the security line is epic and moves much more slowly (-1). 2 points
Con: Same little back-of-the-seat-in-front-of-you TVs as JetBlue, but with fewer channels, and they kept pixelating and cutting out. In the lame media player, the jazz playlist wouldn't just keep rolling—I had to hit the play button for each song. This is why Steve made iPods. -2 points
Pro: But you could order food and drinks through the screen and pay at your seat with credit. No carts blocking the aisles to wake you up and offer you peanuts you don't want. 1 point
Pro/Con: More leg room than Delta, American, etc., but not as much as JetBlue. 0 points
Customer Service: Nondescript. I heard a horror story from a coworker about their rude phone service, though, so I'm docking them in solidarity. -1 point
Total: 5 points

Round 2: JetBlue
JFK to SFO
Duration: 6h45
Con: We took off late, but only 20 minutes, and strong headwinds traveling westward aren't the airline's fault. 0 points
Pro: So. much. legroom. And there was nobody in the middle seat. 2 points
Con: The snacks are free and better than peanuts, but they're no caprese sandwich with an orzo salad that I can order through my TV screen. -1 point
Pro: Hundreds of working channels, including one that shows nothing but reruns of America's Next Top Model. (Yeah, what of it? I read for a living.) Last time, I found a Pop-Up Video marathon. 5 points
Customer Service: Tied with Southwest for friendliest ever, but JetBlue gets the top spot because the attendants aren't cloying and don't wear ugly shorts. 1 point
Total: 8 points

JetBlue wins!

But VA is a fine alternative, since they also fly direct cross-country and the tickets are super cheap. It's fair to say that both these airlines kick the collective ass of all the huge conglomerates and their overpriced, squished, three-stop flights to the East Coast.

Builders and shakers

The winner of this year's Pritzker Prize, Jean Nouvel, is the architect behind one of my favorite buildings in Paris, l'Institut du Monde Arabe. It has gorgeous clean angles and delicate details, and I spent hours wandering around it and drinking delicious mint tea in its Café Littéraire in 2004. Had no idea who designed it until the NYT told me today.

The institute isn't the easiest place to photograph, but I tried a few times. Will scan and post those when I get back next week from a brief and slightly insane trip.

Off to the airport!

Commute

Most mornings, I'd rather run. It wakes me up and gives me the sense that I've done something important for my body before I spend 8 or 9 hours working with my brain. But in terms of just getting from one place to another place when driving doesn't make sense, walking is it.

It's about 3.5 miles from home to my office. It's beautiful walking weather today, sunny and cool, so when I got to the subway station I just kept going.

I didn't realize there's a pretty big farmers' market at Civic Center. Don't know if it's every day or just Wednesdays, but they had all the same stands as the Noe Valley and Grand Lake markets. Funny to see the scene I associate with young yuppie families and organic foodies transplanted to a grimy spot downtown.

Between Franklin and Fourth, Market Street smells like waffles and pot. After that, it smells like buses and retail.

When people ask what music I listen to, my standard answers are blues, jazz, hip-hop, some rock and electronica, etc. But I think it's time to officially declare myself a fan of angsty/intellectual guy folk/rock (AIGFR). That's what I felt like hearing this morning, and it turns out my iPod is overflowing with it: Mason Jennings, Bon Iver, John Vanderslice, Jack Johnson, Hudson Bell, M. Ward, Mike Doughty, Iron & Wine, Red House Painters. Maybe the acronym will catch on.

The only downside is that it's really hard to go inside and sit down after being out in the world like that. Maybe the sheer volume of work on my desk will help somehow.

Magic hour

I was in a nearly empty bar with my empty wallet, in August heat somewhere in the South. I knew it wasn't the best idea to leave it sitting out for a while, but there was nobody else within 10 seats and I'd been watching it the whole time. The fraying leather case was still there, but everything inside had disappeared. Was I being filmed? Was Uri Geller a fan of happy hour?

Must have been some sleight of hand, and now there was nothing I could do. I began running through the list in my head: driver's license, credit card, Safeway card, REI card, Social Security card (why was I carrying that?), a card for the movie place near my house. But not my debit card.

Hey! I started a tab, so it's behind the bar. Sweet. One less call to make before I wake up.

That's what happens when you read this and this right before bed.

André the giant has a dictatorship

I added a few more Mission snapshots over on Flickr,
plus some portraits from our St. Patrick's hijinks.

In non-photographic news, I'm almost done decorating my apartment. Hooray!