21 (if I let myself cheat)

I spent a few hours in Books Inc. with Andy just now and bought one heckov a lot of books for people (and I'd already ordered a few from Amazon).

While browsing, I stumbled upon "The Lump of Coal" by Lemony Snicket and read the whole thing cover to cover. It's about a lump of coal who wants to be an artist, either by doing abstract charcoal drawings or making lines on barbecued chicken. This search for miracles takes all of 1000 words, or about 20 fully illustrated pages to get through, but it is a book. It's also the kind of children's book my mom and I have been kicking around for a few months.

Take a look at this despondent little bastard brooding in a stocking. Isn't it great?



And yes, I heard most of the narration in Jude Law's voice.

Four to go

I started this year with a hope more than a goal. To read, on average, two books a month. I'd fallen off book reading since graduating and I've always loved books (Nate the Great, WHAT WHAT!) and didn't think it an unrealistic goal since I used to read 10-20 books a quarter when I was at UCLA.

Looking at the column on the left of this blog, you can see what I'm reading now, and books I've "recently read." By my count, starting with "Old Man and the Sea," (which I read in January) I've read 20 books so far in 2008. And despite what my current reading list says, I'm actually only reading three of those books - mostly done with "Tumble Home" (collection of short stories), a third through "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and just started but will tear through the collection of columns about reading a lot of books by Nick Hornby, "Shakespeare Wrote for Money."

That brings me to 23, one shy of my aspiration. With two weeks left of this year (which has really been a pretty cool year overall) I'm thinking I have to hit this mark. Perhaps another play, or a graphic novel. Andy does have "The Watchmen" sitting on his bookshelf.

Or maybe I'll remember something I read and didn't write down. That would be ideal, really. If only I could count all the magazines and news I've read as one big "What happened in 2008" tome. But alas, I think that would be cheating. And I already feel bad enough about counting "Maus" as two books.

A little too ironic

There is something so delicious about spending my lunch hour eating Orange Chicken at Panda Express while reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. The answer to the question of "What should I eat?" is probably not "the jewel of the Orient," but it's certainly the answer to the question of "what do I want to eat right now?" (Well not now, cause I just ate that, but two hours ago it was the answer.)

But I did just sign up for bi-weekly deliveries of fresh, locally grown organic fruits and veggies from FarmFreshToYou.com. So I've got that going for me starting on Tuesday.

Christmas Issue

The thing keeping Christmas from being really fantastic is two tendencies of mine that get in the way of gift receiving. The first is easily remedied by being poor: I buy stuff I want when I want it.

The second is a more far-reaching problem: I don't really talk about stuff I want. Now, it's no secret that I want a motorcycle and I need a new iPod, but we all know they're not cheap (if they were I wouldn't have been using a partially functional unit for the past 10 months), and other little things I like go largely unmentioned.

Now I've already heard tale of one present I may be getting and it's perfect because a) I don't talk about wanting it but to the observant I clearly do, and b) it's something I wouldn't have bought for myself.

But there are some things out there that I think I'd like but don't talk about for whatever reason. Like a set of DJ-style headphones. I don't want to be that guy on the bus with the overly elaborate headphones - especially if my iPod doesn't work - but a large part of me thinks I'd enjoy them. I saw a pair of Sony ones for like $30.

Of course I still need that golf bag and UCLA head covers for my new, awesome R7 clubs. They're just not stylish enough yet. But maybe the UCLA stuff would clash with the red and black bag. We'll never really know.

Sports Night Special Edition just came out on DVD. Everyone should want that.

There's also a new Tomb Raider game that could be fun (the last one was) and I'd like to read some magazines/publications such as the Paris Review, McSweeney's Quarterly, the Believer, Good, but don't cause they're kind of expensive and I'm kind of lazy.

And if I had that couch/bed from Ikea, I might just use it as my main couch and leave my futon down all the time cause I'm a fan of not reconfiguring my bed every morning and evening (again, lazy).

And why are navy blue slacks so hard to find? I feel like they'd go with everything (just like jeans do) yet no one seams to have them.

This kind of turned into a Seinfeld routine, but what is the deal with blue pants? And how do I tell my secret Santa at work to just buy me a bottle of booze or a good book?

November reigns

This morning looked like November for the first time all month. After weeks of gorgeous skies, bright mornings (still no blinds on the window of my new place) and warm weather, the clouds were back in San Francisco.

Not so much with the fog, but the high clouds that act as sunglasses for the entire city, dimming the lights a bit. This is November as you might expect it. At least, as you might expect it in the parts of California where it never snows.

The forecast has rain for the days before Thanksgiving, which is the same days that our Australian couch-surfer will be coming "home" before going back to his native land for the first time in over a year. I'm actually kind of bummed that he won't be around through Thursday, cause I'd like to send him back to his family after having a semi-traditional Thanksgiving meal with my semi-untraditional family.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by far (former fat kids know what I'm talking about) because it never lets you down. It's going to be a great meal. And even if the potatoes get ruined (1998) or you're not with your family (2007) or you spent the day before sitting in hours of traffic just to get to where the turkey would be (2004, 2005, 2006), there will still be turkey and good times.

Last year, while I was in Spain (I'm such a douche for that one), my mom made so many references to being "so thankful and blessed" via email that I assumed someone was pregnant or getting married and I just hadn't been told yet (check the comments she left on this blog from about a year ago-they're strangely upbeat, even for a woman who's pretty upbeat).

My family never did the "what am I thankful for" thing and we never say Grace, so the suddenness of being thankful for what he had struck me as odd. She started in on it again recently and I called her on it Sunday when we went to Pier 1 together.

I don't want to break a family member's news on my blog, but today I've been grinning all day and it really does seem that we do have "so much" to be thankful for. In the past year, I've been called overly optimistic and unbearably pessimistic by different people. I've also recently been called an English Dandy, but that couldn't be less the point. Despite the gray skies outside, and the fact that I just interviewed a girl to be my assistant who is more qualified for my job than I am, we do have so much to be thankful for. Life is good, times are exciting.

But, on second thought, I just saw that People magazine snubbed me again. Stupid Hugh Jackman.

Viva, Italia!

I live in a world where this exists. And that makes me happy. Happy as a giant stuffed pink bunny.

For some perspective on it all, check out the Google Map of it. Now I have to go back to Italy (which is where I was exactly one year ago). Though I still say I'll never go back to Florence. Four times in two weeks was enough

Damn you, zacdillon

So Derek made me want to get a Twitter account because of his recent blogging. I had resisted the site with little trouble since I find the service kind of annoying and self-indulgent (he said on one of his two blogs).

I click on the join button and type in the not-at-all-original-but-very-direct name I want to use for my account, which I wanted because, narcissisticly, I wanted it to match the blog domain you're reading right now. But Twitter tells me the domain is already in use so I can't have it.

Maybe some people would see this message and simply try another name. My old AIM name for example is likely available. I saw this message and immediately went to twitter.com/zacdillon to see what this guy was all about and what he was up to (that's kind of what Twitter exists for).

Not only does this so-called zacdillon have a blocked account to prevent us from seeing what he's up to (what's this guy doing that he wants to be so secretive, anyway?) but he's not even from this country. There's some British dude (chap?) from New South Wales using my name and taking over my blog-matching Twitter domain name.

However, you'll notice if you visit him to see his photo that he is from Newcastle, home of the bridge, the blue star, and the Brown Ale that everybody enjoys. I can't fault a guy who's from where awesome beer is from. Except Hitler. No beer is that good.

Autumn falls

The carpet in my living room is white to off-white.

In my front yard there are three birch trees, arranged in the traditional triangle that birch trees are always planted in. Their little spade-shaped leaves burst out of the white trunks in the spring seemingly over night and suddenly the front yard is more green than anything.

Last weekend I opened the front door to get the mail and walked back inside. In the few seconds that the screen door was open the breeze had blown in a brown leaf which stuck out on the carpet like only the first brown leaf of the fall on a white carpet can.

Fall is hear and I love it.

Money matters not

Washington Mutual (which is often cutely referred to as "WaMu") went under overnight and was bought up by JP Morgan Chase. I have a secondary checking account with WaMu so I consulted a story on Marketwatch to see what the deal was going to be with my funds.

There is a list of questions people might ask including, "I just wrote a check out. Will it clear?"and "What about my debit card?" Both are fine and basically nothing different will happen. One question stood out from the others by asking, "I already had an account with J.P. Morgan Chase and now my combined balances exceed the $100,000 FDIC insured limit. What do I do?"

... This, sadly, was not one of my concerns.

Anatomy of a scam

This 2 bed 2 bath was just posted on Craigslist. Let's take a look to see why it can't exist. Note the balcony entrance that doesn't exist, the "dark wood" cabinets and the distant view of downtown from near Van Ness.



Also, it was listed as $1200, which should have been a dead giveaway.

Note: Does this shape look like the Iberian Peninsula to anyone else?

Censorship and mass market video games

It's payday, so at lunch today I bought Rock Band 2 because it came out yesterday and I wanted it (see previous post about delayed-gratification Zac being dead).

I've obviously yet to play it at all, as I am sitting at my desk in my office, but aside from "Livin on a Prayer," "Go Your Own Way," songs by Dylan and Pearl Jam, I'm most looking forward to "You Oughta Know" by the young angry Canadian Alanis Morissette.

At one point, as you most likely know, Alanis asks in the song if her former lover is thinking of her during a specific activity he does with his new girlfriend. One thing I have to wonder is, what will Alanis, and those who are singing along with her in the game, wonder about her former lover in the video game that censors song lyrics? When will we, the singers, wonder if he thinks about her?

It's one of the absolute best lines in the song and really nails (heh) the source of the anger and hurt. In the digital, XBOX 360-version of Alanis, does she wonder if he's thinking of her while he "loves" his new girl? "Kiss her"?

"Hug" actually fits pretty well, but only in meter and rhyme and not so much in tone, meaning or fury. Cause really, would she care if Joey from "Full House" is hugging some chick and wonder if he's thinking of his little under-aged bitter songwriter ex-girlfriend?

For that matter, when the Chili Peppers release the entire "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" album next month, most "whats" will not give a damn? And most "whats" have a cold-what stare? I don't even want to think what happened to Kedis after his eyes popped out and before he dropped his jaw in "Apache Rose Peacock."

Like "Creep," these songs are "so very special" if you know the actual words that the artists used while crafting their, you know... art; and not the words that soccer moms are ok with their children singing along to.

The downside of public transit

Upside: Read a book, take a nap, see the city from the water (I love being on or in the water), avoid traffic, spare the air, don't have to change tires or oil as often, feel more urban and less suburban... etc.

Downside: When the Internet I work on breaks at 5:33 and it takes 20 minutes to fix I miss the 5:49 bus back to the ferry station and city leaving only the last bus of the night for me to catch in my attempts to get to my desired destination of pants shopping and home. The last bus leaves an hour after the bus I wanted, which makes for an extra long day.

I'm still not quite giving up though.

Euro Trashed

This is a little project I just started. It's roughly a third of all of my pictures from my trip that started almost exactly a year ago. I think it's pretty cool (the song definitely is).

Look for more installments soonish

Free-verse meetings

I'm a big lover of language. I think my course of studies in college (American Literature) and my profession (editor/journalist) are a dead give-away of that. Also my narcissistic obsession with things I've said and thought of, but that's neither here nor there.

The English language gets a bad rep a lot of times. What with its frustrating spelling and grammar rules, and the thing where any word can be any form of word. For example, just verbize some letters to have a new English word.

But language is great, and can be very poetic if you're willing to hear it. I just finished reading Bill Bryson's biography of Shakespeare (which was fascinating and incredibly entertaining), which combined with my discussion with Derek on the matter, has me ready to share with the world some of my poetry.

What I often do is, while in meetings at work (it actually started years ago in Ramona Silver's philosophy class), take notes as people talk. Most meeting attendees will do this, I'd imagine, but I don't do it to remember ideas or project dates (frankly, I rarely care) - I write down snippets, word-for-word, of what people say, usually as fast as I can keep up. Since people talk faster than I can move my hand, I end up missing some key words but the results of my selective editing are sometimes profound, often pretty and always fun.

I may one day publish a book of my collected poems, which I have tentatively titled "Meeting Poetry," (kind of a pun, and kind of direct) but I'm sure I'll think of something better after a career of not paying that much attention to what the bosses are saying. [edit: how about "Bored Room"?]

Here's two untitled poems from the summer I spent at Ascend Media (before I quit and went to Europe). I don't now know what the speaker's point was, but I've made them my own, and I know what they mean to me.

Early in the meeting
and then slow time

the strategy i have

how to fit that in?

what kind of cycle is he?

try to fit that all in

you're getting down
what kind of process

to stimultate and create
a limited commitment
tell them what I'm looking for

Later, in that same meeting
I’ve had success introducing myself
Even if its not that person
Sometimes I struggle
The attendees look
Pretty much everything

[Please note that I wanted readers to take away from this post the thought that I am kind of a bad employee and not that I'm super-creative. It's fun to do, you should try during your next meeting.]

Clap if you believe in ferries

So, more on my job. I mentioned briefly that after seven months of glorious unemployment and further racking-up of credit card bills, I finally found a job that appealed to me (and who also wanted me). I am a Web editor for a business-travel magazine in Sausalito. Sausalito is a small burg located 35 miles away from my current home, but only about 10 hopefully from my soon-to-be-living-in home.

I started in late June, and after two months of commuting 45 minutes in each direction, I decided to give mass transit a try. As a big proponent and lover of trains and metros, the idea greatly appealed to me, despite the numerous transfers and doubling of the time it takes to drive.

From the East Bay, I took BART to San Francisco's Embarcadero station (added benefit was that I rode with my sister, who lives across town from me and works in Union Square). I left Athena before her stop and walked from the station to the Ferry Building to sit in the queue for the Sausalito-bound ferry. I boarded the vessel and took the half-hour boat ride mostly in awe of the beauty that is the Bay. I also read some because really, you can only appreciate beauty for so long. From the ferry stop in Sausalito, I hopped a bus down the street to my office and sat down early for the first time all week.

After work (Fridays during the summer are half-days, so I left at a little before 1:00) my boss said that if I walk through the shipyard, I would hit the shoreline park and could follow it all the way to the ferry stop. The roughly 2-mile trek was on a gorgeous day and I submit to you the photos of my commute, taken with my new cellphone (which, in an aside, may actually be quite broken/faulty).

Some of the highlights not captured on film include: the hippies sitting in the grass by the water's edge; the poetic metaphor of a black dog and a white dog playing in the waves; the conversations overheard in German, Portuguese and accented English while waiting to hop on the ferry back to the city; and the recently wed gay couple who were wearing matching white linen suits and tuba rose leis, toasting with champagne on the ferry ride back to the city.

The Ferry Building, roughly 7:30 am. My boat would leave at 7:45.

Five minutes into the ride. Stern of the boat and one of my 8 co-commuters.


Random stone shop in the Sausalito shipyards.


Part of the shoreline.


This is the kind of thing you can't help but think the artist thinks is famous/renowned.


Random gazebo where perhaps the gay couple was married. But probably not.


White pants? Check. White sweater tied around his neck? Check. Aviators? Check. Unshaved? Check. Pink polo with collar popped? Check. Ladies and gentlemen, we've found "that guy."

A trip that never happened and a flight that was bound to eventually

When we were about 19 or 20, Nick and I were talking about going to London for a couple of months. Not really though, because we'd only really be there for a few weeks, but the trip would take a few months. The plan we worked out was to take a few weeks to drive across the U.S., stopping off in cool locations like Denver, Chicago, and New York. We'd then hop a steamer (or cruise, but it's just more fun and old-timey to say steamer) from New York to London and stay there for a few weeks seeing sights, visiting Paris and Scotland by train, developing accents, and listening to British girls speak with their accents.

At the end of our trip we'd fly back to New York and drive the Southern Route home. This was a prospect that made a then non-drinking Nick say he'd need to get "fall-down drunk." For you see, Nick has never flown before.

The trip never happened of course. The logistics of such a trip (and we looked into all of it), to say nothing of the expense, kept us from living out our dream and Nick from facing his fear.

It wasn't always a fear. He was the sixth kid of seven, a recipe for not a lot of long-distance family travel. I think it started to dawn on him in his late teens that he'd probably be afraid of flying and he just went with it. He would say there was nothing that would get him on a plane except a lot of alcohol. This morning he was proved wrong. Money, it seems, will do it too.

I took him to the airport on my way to work this morning so he could fly to Indiana for his work. He wasn't nervous at all at the prospect of flying, though he did ask me for any tips I could offer. I told him to not worry about noises cause planes are always loud, and he waved it off, clearly having realized he's not actually scared to fly.

Still, I felt like it was his first day of school and I want the little guy to have a good time. It's important to point out that, though I say "little guy," Nick is about a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than me.

I'm excited that this might open up the prospect of him flying other places, potentially with me. Though I imagine an airplane is going to be a very uncomfortable ride for a guy his size. I'm average height and I find planes tight. Good luck with the leg room buddy.

Double, double oil and trouble

I find myself not even looking at the price of gas anymore.

It's usually around $4.50 a gallon, give or take a few pennies, but the give or take variable just absolutely doesn't interest me at all.

Years ago, the difference between name-brand gas, like Chevron, and small independent gas stations, like the grope-happy White Tiger by my house, was about 7 cents.

Filling up my car would cost roughly $15, so the 70 cent difference in a full tank meant the difference between getting a fiver and some coin back from my Jackson, or getting four singles and a pocket full of change. That five dollar bill was worth going out of my way to White Tiger for.

Now I find that despite the exponential increase in gas prices, the difference between the little guys and the 76s of the world is the same small increment of about 7 cents. While I am a consummate supporter of underdogs, lost causes and independent organizations, I find myself, when lacking the time, uninterested in searching one out for cheaper petrol.

The 70 cent difference on a tank that now costs about 45-50 dollars on my credit card couldn't be more inconsequential to me. It's all fake money added on the heap I owe, which I pay off with electronic transfers from my bank account that is funded by direct deposit from my job (ps I got a job).

At no time do I or anyone else in the long chain of people involved in the financial aspect of filling my tank ever see cash or even a check, so what do I care if it's 70 cents more? It's just 70 more cents that I never would have seen anyway.

But then again... too few to mention

I have this affinity for the Roaring 20s (and to a lesser extent, the Depression-era 30s). The books of course, but also the idea of the parties (I'm sure it would have sucked if you didn't know Gatsby) the cars on dirt roads, the hustle-and-bustle of New York, the short haircuts on the ladies, the hats, the thrill of drinking illegal martinis, the flapper dresses, and mostly the men's suits.


I can't lie, I like wearing suits and I don't think I'm being arrogant when I say I look good in them. Everyone does, that's why men have been wearing suits for hundreds of years with only slight variations. Two buttons, three buttons, with a vest, with a bow tie, with a bright-colored T-shirt a-la Miami Vice - the alterations for seasons and eras are really only minor details.

What makes the 20s and 30s fashion distinct in my mind is that men wore suits all the time. Traditionally, if a party's dress code was "casual," it meant men would show up in a three-piece suit. If a man were going to a park for a picnic on a Sunday afternoon, he'd wear a suit. And he looked good doing it.

After watching "The Darjeeling Limited" yesterday I was struck by how casual the three stars looked as they trekked across India even though they were all wearing suits (the movie is also great for non sartorial reasons).

Aside from Barney Stinson urging people to "Suit Up," Mike has also been encouraging a heightened dress code lately. The man owns well over 50 ties and he looks good in all of them. So this morning I was thinking I would like to wear suits on occasions that don't call for them in the modern sense (weddings, funerals, church functions etc.). But the thing is I need to wear suits that look nice, but don't cost as much as my usual suits so I won't get sad and poor if some moron spills wine on me (cough... Parsa... cough).

Not four hours later, without looking, I found a linen suit, the kind I would feel great about wearing out to Jay's on West Egg some fictional Saturday night 80 years ago. The one problem was they didn't have pants for me, just the jacket. I now regret not buying the jacket and hunting down the pants later. I need a nice summer jacket anyway, as I outgrew the one I used to love. Not so much in size but in age bracket.

The pants eluded me today, but that’s no matter — to-morrow I will search harder, stretch out my arms farther... And one fine morning ——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Join the clubs

Sometimes I feel that I fail to grasp the significance of events in my own life.

I started golfing when I was 9. I was just going to walk around with my dad and uncle, but when my dad found out he had to pay the same amount if I walked or played, he jammed a club in my hand and after my first round hunted down some used my-sized clubs from the classified ads (the early 90s version of Craigslist).

I can legitimately say that I've been playing golf for most of my life, which means I should be a lot better than I am by now, and I don't mean this as an excuse, but I've never really had my own set of clubs.

For much of my four-year varsity high school career, I used my mom's old clubs (she never really took to the game and these also got their start in our family used from the classifieds). I was a short kid (and know I'm not really a tall man) so it made sense that I use a set of women's clubs. Or so my dad said. I didn't have a problem with it, except that my woods said "Lady Laser" on them and the high school boys I played with and against got a pretty big kick out of it (the richer schools were the worst. Several times our teams, mine being the Hayward area golf equivalent of "The Bad News Bears," almost came to blows over issues other than my clubs, but in my head it was mostly that).

I don't know, 10 years later, if the whole experience of swinging the Lady Lasers made me more resilient with a thicker skin or made me into a chubby ball of self-loathing. It didn't help that, often times, especially compared to the really good players, I hit the ball "like a girl."

I only recently told my family about what I now see as the humor of my using those clubs for competitive play. Mercifully, before the spring season of my senior year, I grew to average size (finally becoming taller than my then-idol, Muggsy Bogues) and inherited my dad's old clubs which, like Tom Hanks' only friend in "Castway," had Wilson written on them. These have been my clubs ever since my dad bought himself those new ones.

Some of my friends from the team asked me what happened to the lasers. My sister played with them today, if any of you are wondering.

After 15 years of swinging hand-me-down or ladies clubs, for my recent birthday I got a set of golf clubs. Well, in theory. My parents didn't know what kind I would want, so in an incredibly out-of-character move, they gave me cash and told me what I was allowed to buy with it (we never give cash in this family).

Two months later I still haven't gone to look for a set of clubs. Faced with the question of what I want, I'm quite stumped. It's never really occurred to me to think about it. Graphite or steel? Stiff or flexible? What kind of grip do I like? How should I know? The last time I swung a brand new club, it was somebody else's and they were just showing it to me. They liked it, and it seemed like it would hit a golf ball well enough, but really, how am I supposed to know the difference? I know what I don't like, but I'm almost certain that has a lot more to do with my skill level than my second-generation clubs.

My search isn't aided at all by the fact that I don't really like shopping. Looking for clubs seems a lot like trying things on and I get tired of that kind of thing real quick. I'm thinking about just buying my uncle's old ones from him. If only to keep my streak alive.

This whole thing might be a metaphor for my life. Or it might just mean that my sister is wrong and I'm not the favorite. It could even be both, but it's probably neither.

A Lucky Break

Saturday: 6:30 a.m. Dad and I are awake and loading the boat up to go fishing. It's to be my first time out on the Bay in about four years. We hitch it up to the truck and pull it out from alongside the house. Most visitors don't even notice the 18-foot Marlin sticking up behind the gate at what appears to be the end of the driveway. But from behind where my mom's car parks, after swinging the gate back, you can't help but see the big blue boat on the rusty trailer.

The sun's up but we can only assume that because the sky's cloudy, so it will be a good day to be on the water trying to catch halibut (pictured below).
I'm closing the gate as I hear Dad, from the end of the driveway say "Yup. Don't close it. We're done." My dad has a dramatic and absolute way of speaking sometimes. As if you've been in the middle of a conversation, he'll answer a question or make a statement that makes absolute sense in the context of that conversation. The one you weren't having.

Here, the conversation we weren't having was something like, "I heard a bit of a ca-chunk back there. What was that? Did the rusty trailer hitch on this 20-year-old boat just break finally?"

I walk over and we look at the damage. Right behind where the tow-ball comes out of the truck, the trailer hinged down to the ground. Not severed, but most definitely broken. I pick up the tongue as Dad C-clamps the tubing back together. We then help the boat retrace its steps cautiously back up the curb, into the driveway, and back along the side of the house.

The day has become about something else now. For years we've driven down the freeway or over railroad tracks, towing the boat in fear that the inevitable would happen. The trailer would crumble in a flurry of rusty flakes of metal, followed by a shower of sparks as it dragged on the asphalt, followed by hopefully not too much collateral damage. Saturday morning we only had the first step of the inevitable and had a perfect opportunity to prevent the latter two from ever happening.

8 a.m. we're heading to the scrap yard (always a weird kind of treat). We bought 45 inches of 3x3-inch square tubing. Dad wanted to replace the 1/16-inch metal with 1/4-inch, but since they didn't have that I convinced him that twice as strong (1/8-inch) would surely outlast a) the rest of the trailer, and b) sadly, the boat. Next was a trip to PepBoys for a trailer hitch, then a trip to Carrow's next door for strawberry pancakes, then back home to wait for about 10 a.m. when we could start making noise without feeling like douchey neighbors.

The next step, ironically, involved quite a few sparks. We grinded (or ground, if you prefer), sawed and hammered the old metal out of there. Then we welded, bolted and painted the new material in so it all looked surprisingly high-quality and original.

Sunday: 7 a.m. The boat was mostly already loaded from yesterday, so we just filled up the cooler with some food and sodas, tossed it in and pulled the boat out again. This time there was no scraping thud at the end of the driveway. We took the boat all the way to the marina and saw all the flags in the area taut in the incredibly strong winds. We hesitated for about half an hour before finally saying, who cares, this is three days of 6:30 alarm clocks in the making (Friday's story of us not going is decidedly less interesting), let's just get the thing wet already.

We caught no fish (pictured below, not me nor Dad, but some guy from Google images),

but Dad got a leopard shark nearly 3 feet long and a scary-looking seven-gill shark that was about 4.5 feet long (1.5 meters) with a mouth the size of a honeydew.

The wind stayed rough and we took a beating on the way back in, riding up and down waves like George Clooney at the end of "A Perfect Storm." The only thing close to a fish that I caught was in my glass of Coke Zero after I got home and took a shower. Right in the middle of the ice cubes, I could swear I saw a sardine head bobbing mockingly in the middle of my zero calorie refreshment. I knew I should have only put my usual three ice cubes in the glass.

Bounce House Redux

So I spent the last week (every day all day last week) delivering flowers for Mother's Day. Saturday was not only my sister's birthday, but it was apparently the birthday of dozens of kids around Hayward as well, judging by all the bounce houses I saw in people's front yards and driveways.

It was a gorgeous day for bouncing, and at about 3 in the afternoon I pull up to a house, number 169, and start walking to the door. Aside from the strangeness of a little boy about 6 years old answering the door and not having a) any parents home or b) any idea if Mariana lived there, the house was remarkable because of what was next door.

In the driveway adjacent to 169 was a truck with planks of wood making the bed deeper. Painted on the wood was a phone number and a logo. It was a bounce house delivery truck. Like Neo, I saw the source.

And I'll tell you my most common thought over the last week, which went unsaid because I'm polite. "I don't know. There's a card here, maybe you should just read that. If I had to guess, I'd say they were from one of your kids since it's you know, Mother's Day."

"Zac, wome [sic] that cut our flesh S. Plascencia"

After reading the famous novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez I decided to go back and reread what I often refer to as my favorite book, "The People of Paper" by Salvador Plascencia.

It's hard to describe what it's about since, like all post-modern art, it's really about itself, but the story deals with love, war, sadness and oppression - all of which is about the book in some way if you really wanted to think about it hard.

I first read the book as part of my contemporary American literature class, which ended up being probably the best class I ever took in my academic career. The professor, Katherine Hayles, who also served as my TA during section, is often referred to as one of the foremost literary critics of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. She has so much clout actually, that she was able to get Sal Plascencia to come to our class and discuss the first, and to date only, novel he's written.

Sal was a doctoral student at USC at the time (and likely still is) and was noticeably nervous speaking about his book not so much to the class, but with Dr Hayles (interesting trivia about her: she has a masters and PhD in English but also a masters in chemistry from Cal Tech).

So we asked Sal questions (the binary sections are just gibberish but there is something written under Baby Nostradamus' black circles) and he signed our books if we wanted. At the time I wished I hadn't cheeped out at the beginning of the semester and bought a used version but now I'm glad there's a little bit of wear and a UCLA stamp on the spine.

The book is out of print (a modified paperback version is available from Amazon but I've looked and never found one in stores) and like "House of Leaves" would be nearly impossible to turn into a movie. It's strange and flawed (the best ones always are) but there's something about it that is fun, rewarding and heartwarming/breaking. About halfway through my rereading of it I've passed my favorite section and can definitively say that it is in fact, my favorite book.

But you might not like it at all. Nineteen reviewers on Amazon have given it an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5, but McSweeney's fans tend to be pretentious and like things that you've never heard of just because you've never heard of it. They can be spotted by their expensive pants and constant insulting of anything mainstream. I like the Olive Garden and usually wear cheap jeans (though I've recently received a pair of GAP jeans and like them) so maybe there is a bit of crossover appeal with this one.

"Whooah, we're half way there"

There's something I'll never understand about the die-hard sports fans of the world. I enjoy sports, I enjoy going to sporting events and even talking about sporting events. And I'm not talking about the guy with the jersey or the girl with the big foam finger. They're cool with me and I get their excitement. But the guy at the Raiders' game wearing the Darth Vader suit or the skulls and spikes? Or the guy at the Sabercats' game with the green Mohawk and face paint? I really don't understand that.

Raiders fans have a bit of an excuse. Their families could be multi-generation fans. It's like racism: They grew up with it, and it's really all they know. But the San Jose Arena Football team was founded in 1995, which means that at some point in the past 13 years, this guy who is at least 40, made a conscious, if not entirely well-thought-out decision, to become a crazy fan of a new team playing a sport that is very exciting, but let's face it, not quite in the mainstream. I don't mean to sound elitist or snobby (despite the implication that, like racists, Raiders' fans are ignorant) but the Philadelphia Soul is owned by Jon Bon Jovi, making him by far the most famous name in the Arena Football League. The second most famous name is probably Richie Sambora, another of the team's co-owners and lead guitarist for Bon Jovi.

So this started because my dad had made some comments about how cool it would be to go to an arena game. The field is only 50 yards long (usually played at an ice hockey arena) and instead of out-of-bounds there is a padded wall. I looked into tickets and found a family pack of four that came with four hot dogs, four bags of chips, and four sodas. The seats were behind the end zone, 10 rows back so I dropped $60 and took along Adam and Jaedon because it's always cool to take 3-4 generations of a family on an outing (besides which, I had to buy seats in multiples of four).

Other than the exhilarating quick-paced gameplay, they do a lot to get fans into the game, and the things they do are all of a certain type. Let's say that there are a lot of things that would be really exciting and interesting if I was really drunk and they did several of them at the game.

Before the team comes out of the locker room fog billows out of the tunnel and a motorcycle revs its engine unseen somewhere. Suddenly some dude wearing a Sabercats shirt and a bandanna on his bald head rides a Harley out to the 25-yard line prompting Adam to lean over and ask, "Who the hell is that supposed to be?" I shrug and smile at the ridiculousness of it all as the team runs out to fireworks and applause. Now, drunk Zac would have loved the Harley, the no helmet wearing, the cheerleaders and the fireworks; sober Zac just liked the latter two.

The same AC/DC song plays every time the Cats kickoff (they scored 70 to the LA Avengers' 42 so it was very often that the intro to "TNT" played in the arena) which can get a little repetitive - but drunk Zac would have eaten it up (it is a great riff and it didn't actually get old until the last two times they played it because I was pretty tired). Though sober Zac understands and supports the decision to film from above a group of skinny blondes in green tank tops and show them on the big screen over and over throughout the night.

Maybe it's because my dad isn't a die-hard sports nut, or maybe, like Howard Stern said in his autobiographical movie when his station switched to country music, "I just don't get it. Explain it to me. And maybe it's 'cause I went to college, and I never drove a truck and had sex with my daddy's sister."

That said, at one point they came out with a slingshot and asked "Who likes T-shirts?" I definitely yelled that in fact, I did. And when the same guy that rode the motorcycle came out with a pneumatic shirt-launching gun my first thought was definitely, "That's how Maude Flanders died."

Jaedon, when the motorcycle dude rode onto the field with a cheerleader on the back, asked me, "Why is that girl riding with him?" She was getting a lift to the far end of the arena to hand out free pizzas to the people in row 24 of section 103 but at the time I didn't know that and told him the truth without hesitation, "Because chicks dig motorcycles."

I mention all the weird parts only because they were all so much fun. I don't want to sound like a snob because it was a great game, and very exciting to watch. I'd absolutely go back again (I'd gone once before years ago when I won tickets from channel 20) especially if I can rock the same deal we had last night.

Late in the third quarter, Jaedon told me that it's a good thing I don't live in LA anymore, because they were losing by a lot. I told him yeah, but told myself that it's a good thing because if I did still live there I wouldn't have bothered to come up to go to an Arena Football Game with my family. And if I was only up for a weekend I wouldn't take the time to go to a game in San Jose, which makes nights like last night the exact reason I'm back for good.

One awesome, please

Despite years of warnings from my mother, today I took some candy from a stranger.

I found myself in the mall, of all places, and as I was walking out an old mustachioed man whose job it is to replace the candy in those machines they have called out to me. "Hey buddy, can I borrow your hands for a second?" I walk over and he asks me to hold open a long plastic bag as he pours, from a box, multi-colored Smartie-esque candies that are the size of golf balls.

The box weighed about 5 pounds or so, so it takes about 30 seconds of careful pouring to get everything where it needs to be. As he's done he says thanks and I take a half a step away before he asks, "You want a couple?" I think to myself: "What am I, going to not take free candy?" I reach in and take out a pair as the old man tells me, "Thanks a lot. I don't care what they say, you're a good guy." This cracked me up to no end as I walked away and popped one of the balls in my mouth (that's what she said).

But before I left the mall, and before I scored candy and was told that all my detractors are wrong, I went into a store that sells board games, drinking games, chess sets, stickers, gags and magic, swords, and has a walk-in humidor. I don't know what it was called, but if anyone ever asks me, "Zac, I'm looking for the world's awesomest store because I'm running low on awesome. Do you know where I can find one?" I will tell that person, yes. It can be found on the bottom level of Newpark Mall, of all places.

Corollary to previous post

So I was planning on driving to my interview yesterday because I didn't want to mess with MUNI. Narges told me that, rather than trying to figure out the subway, I could get to AT&T Park (which is right next to where the job is) by just getting off BART at Powell and walking about a mile down 3rd Street. And since there was a huge protest in downtown to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, I took her sage advice and opted to avoid traffic by taking BART.

While I was in San Francisco my car was parked at the San Leandro BART station, and for the fifth time since I've owned the car, it was broken into. Saturns, apparently, are legendarily easy to get into, so I've taken precautions after the last time to ensure that I don't lose anything important.

The valuable contents of my car, in descending order of value, is as follows:
1 (one) grey UCLA sweatshirt - $25
1 (one) Mag flashlight - aprox $20
1 (one) iPod charger - aprox $15
1 (one) pair of sunglasses I bought at Kirkwood when I went cross-country skiing - $14
1 (one) $10-off coupon for a lift ticket at Sierra - $10
2 (two) Pez dispensers, one each of Darth Vader and Yoda, sans candy - $3
5 (five) quarter-dollars - $1.25
1 (one) "November Rain" cassette single - $3 in 1994, back when one could buy cassette singles

The intruder rustled through my center console and tossed all the old gas receipts and directions to friends' houses on the passenger seat. Two empty sunglass cases in the driver-side door were examined and left on the driver side floor, and the napkins in the glovebox were all askew.

The perp made off with a buck-25 in quarters and that's it (there's a whole thing behind how I know how many quarters were there, I'm not that obsessive compulsive).

Now I'm not saying the B&E is Narges' fault, though interestingly enough it's directly because of her that my car was burgled. If not for her I would have driven to the city, parked my car (for more than $1.25) and driven home without incident.

Of course, if there wasn't a protest, I wouldn't have been warned about the traffic. If there was no war in Iraq, there wouldn't have been a protest. If George W Bush hadn't been elected president in 2000, not only would there be no global warming and more Internets, we wouldn't have gone to war and my car wouldn't have been burgled, leaving one clear source to this chain of events:

The state of Florida owes me five quarters.

It's also possible to say that Juan Ponce de León discovered Florida, and he followed Columbus, who was sent by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, so:

The Kingdom of Spain owes me $1.25. Or if they prefer, they can send me .75 euro.

Indian math

I got a birthday card Monday from Cache Creek, my semi-local Indian casino. This card is more than a month early and it offers me double points when I use my player's card - something I had no plans of ever really using and only signed up for to get the initial free $20 of slot play.

Way to make me feel prematurely old, unwanted Native American birthday card.

Now my friend Sophie, who told me to write a post and recently had a big birthday herself, would tell me I'm being ridiculous because I'm only turning 25. But this birthday firmly places me in the mid twenties and lately, events are occurring that usually seem to happen to adults.

Between Jon fracturing his hip (75-year-old woman), my wanting to watch the John Adams miniseries (55-year-old white man), and my pulled ab muscle coupled with visits to the chiropractor (34-year-old former high school athlete who thinks he can still play like he's 18), there isn't much going on that makes me feel like a kid anymore.

I'm looking for a job, and just interviewed at a place yesterday that, I'm not going to lie, I really want to work for. Andy just got back from his travels around the world yesterday, which means I can't say I have friends out there still traveling, and I just took my grandma to the hospital to have her eye surgeried.

But there was one thing that happened at the end of the night Monday. I found a power ball (which you may refer to as a super ball or bouncy ball if you'd like) in the parking lot of the delightfully alliterative Porky's Pizza Palace. Nick and I bounced it off the floor and ceiling of his kitchen for about 15 minutes while eating pizza.

So clearly I'm not that old at all, am I, Native Americans?

"Hello Harley Burger?"

When I was in middle school, maybe high school, I would think to myself that when I came back to town from college, my first stop would be Harley's Burgers.

Located literally right around the corner from my parent's house, Harley's was a staple growing up. While working on the bathroom, redoing my room, or building the garage; we'd always head to Harley's for our quick food needs.

The old-fashioned-looking drive-up diner was owned and run by Harley and his wife, Kim, two wonderful old people who cooked up great burgers and delicious Chinese food. When you'd call to place an order Kim usually answered with the familiar refrain, "Hello Harley Burger?" After telling her what you'd like to order she'd half ask, half instruct you by saying, "OK, you come now."

When I'd walk up to get food she'd hand it to me and ask how my parents were. We'd chat briefly and as I walked away, back toward home, I'd always pop one of the crinkle-cut french fries in my mouth.

But I never went there on weekends home from college. About two years before I moved to L.A., Harley and Kim retired. They were going to spend some time with their daughter's family in Orange County and then drive around the country, visit China for a while and just generally enjoy having more than one day off a week (Sunday) for the first time in as long as I can remember.

They sold the restaurant to a young Asian couple and we gave them a shot. Within a month it was too different. The burgers were round now, not square; the chow mein less noodley somehow; and worst of all, the fries were straight cut.

We stopped going.

But lately I've been wondering. Is it still that bad? After all, the window still has the "Best Burgers in Town" paint displayed blatantly without any source or evidence (I would bet that Best Burgers about a mile away would take particular issue with that declaration). So I called up today for lunch. It was too rainy outside for me to make the sandwich I had been planning on and I've been wanting a quarter-pound hamburger with cheese no mayo no onion and a small fry which is what I told the old woman who answered the phone.

I walked up about four minutes later, said hello to a new old Asian woman and saw no sign of the young couple who shook my world years ago. After paying less than five dollars for my food I walked away holding a white paper bag, reached inside, and pulled out a crinkle-cut fry.

"Did you see where I put that other butterfly?"

There are some things that you can only expect to hear in a flower shop.

After three-and-a-half years I have completed the boomerang that started with my move home and am once again delivering flowers professionally. This is, after all, the busiest time of the year for them, and when my old shop calls for help I am there to help. Assuming I'm in the area and not busy.

So today I cut and cleaned flowers, changed the water, arranged roses in vases, ran arrangements out on delivery and answered phones just like old times. I even went by the grave site of L Young for his wife and dropped off a little arrangement for the vase. I have given this man flowers more often than I have given flowers to any living woman, including my mom (and I used to, and once again, work in a flower shop).

People may think that working in a flower shop is dainty work. To those people I say, think about it. Five gallons of water, plus 4 dozen roses still in bunches weighs about 50 pounds (20 kilos for the international readers). That's a lot of weight to heft around, up and down. Especially when you're dealing with dozens of dozens of roses and other flowers and their fillers including baby's breath and various greens.

Come on guys, go with something original. Don't just get roses.

For now, my hands smell like myrtle and eucalyptus and I get to go back in tomorrow at 6:30.

Happy Valentine's Day. Or, to quote the oft-quoted in my house episode of "30 Rock," "HAPPY VALEN-TIMES!"

One art please

Three guys stole four paintings that someone, somewhere would have paid $163 million for. The job was pulled in Zurich, which is actually not the capital of Switzerland, in a fantastically low-tech fashion consisting of literally grabbing them off the wall and throwing them in a white van. Thanks, NY Times.

The return of the travel sponge

How much do I love staying with Jared and CJ? Quite a bit, actually.

Having never lived with guys before it's a nice preview of what life would be like finally doing so. Nine-foot TV for watching Lost? Check. Saturday morning spent sleeping, playing Guitar Hero on same nine-foot TV and online poker? Check. A little more filth than I'd like? Check.

Getting off the 405 on Wilshire was incredibly familiar. I knew everything there was to see in LA, knew where I needed to go to get where I was going without thinking and knew it would take me a long time because it was 5 pm.

And while it's no secret that I'm a fan of jackets, not using the AC and enjoying scarf weather, it is nice to be back in my traditional uniform of flip flops, t-shirt and jeans. It's been warm and sunny, almost unbearably so given that it's February.

LA is also great for making me feel like I'm super popular. Trying to see everyone you know in three or four days gives the impression that you know a lot of people. And the people are some of my favorite people, and I'm glad to visit them often.

Hot Hot Heat

I have now seen Hot Hot Heat three times and "Talk to Me Dance With Me" will never not be a great song. Part of the reason I came down this weekend vs another was because that band was playing with Louis XIV (one of my favorites) and The Editors (one that I now know is a great live act) for about the cost of a half a tank of gas. I couldn't really think of anyone at home who would want to see them as much as I would but apparently, I know quite a few people that would want to go in LA.

The amazing show got out at midnight and I was astonished that we found parking a few miles away in Hollywood at 12:45 am on a Saturday. After getting hit on twice by two different guys in the span of 10 seconds (when I bought it three years ago, Kirsten did say that the jacket wasn't "that gay") and a drink we walked over to the 101 Cafe located in the Best Western Hollywood Hills.

The syrup smelled better than the pancakes tasted at 2 in the morning, but what are you going to do? It was still deliciously awesome and quintessentially LA somehow. Everyone in their button up shirts and blazers and designer jeans or else wearing short skirts and other club wear. Me in my Dave Matthews t-shirt, Christmas present jeans and worn out hemp Rainbows. Ah, LA, it was nice to be back.

Golden arches

When I was in Paris (I don't want to be one of those guys who does this a lot, but come on, how cool is it that I can start a sentence like that?) someone, probably from BF Australia or Canada, said if they lived in Paris they could see themselves not looking at the Eiffel Tower every day because they'd get used to it.

I say they were from the middle of nowhere because I grew up in the Bay Area, about 25 minutes from bridges, buildings and cable cars that are easily as recognizable, if not less romantic than the Eiffel Tower, and I must disagree.

Yesterday I had a job interview (for a job I think I may want) in San Rafael, which is about 7 miles north of the point where the Golden Gate Bridge hits land in Marin County. To get there from my current side of the Bay I take a different bridge but I do see the Golden Gate, just as I do whenever I drive through Berkeley on my way to Vallejo, Sacramento, Tahoe, Chico, Oregon or Canada.

Across the water from highway 80, behind Alcatraz, there is always the orange Japanese animation eyes of the Golden Gate. I look at it every time I pass by. I don't strain my neck to see it, but as I sit in the Maze traffic 100 feet from the water line I glance out my passenger window (when going south, generally home) just to acknowledge it.


It's a beautiful bridge that actually empties into a nice area for both directions, unlike so many other bridges that start or end in poverty, industry, salt flats or oil refineries.

So no, person I met from either Australia or Canada, I don't think I'd stop looking at the Eiffel Tower or any other widely known landmark I lived near. I don't get tired of my favorite shirt, food, or songs. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think familiarity necessarily makes something less remarkable.

A bookstore in California

I've just returned from Moe's in Berkeley where I spent more on books than an unemployed writer should spend. I bought one book I needed to get, another I went wanting to get, and two I had thought a lot about buying. As I said on the phone earlier this week, Delayed Gratification Zac is gone.

As I strolled past the 'F' section I noticed a hard-cover version of "Everything is Illuminated," a book I've always told myself I wanted to read but have never bought or borrowed. I slipped it off the shelf and flipped toward the copyrite page to see if it was a first printing, which it wasn't, then flipped toward the first blank page to see what price was etched into the top right corner in pencil. I would find out in a few moments that it was $10, but first I saw an inscription.

It read, in a sloppy yet still feminine handwriting that was half printing, half script:

A late fathers day gift

To Kevin from Linda
To the best dad in the
whole world - July 2002 -
Ben is so lucky to see your
face every day & to have
you as his dad

I couldn't imagine selling a book, especially a book that was a present and certainly not if there was an inscription.

In my head, Kevin and Linda had a baby boy in May or June of 2002. Her saying he was the best dad in the world was based more on assumption than a proven track record of fatherhood. She thought he was the best husband in the world and, of course, would make an excellent father.

He probably was, and I picture him, mid-thirties with tousled short hair, walking around his and Linda's hardwood floors in his pajama bottoms on a Sunday morning with seven-month-old Ben leaning on his shoulder as he watches the 49ers game across the room.

But something happened, Ben got sick or there was an accident. It was no one's fault but it's a painful memory. In late 2007 Kevin and Linda are moving, probably out of Berkeley, maybe back to her home town, when he recognizes the book as he's boxing up their shelves. He re-reads the inscription for the first time in more than five years and just about cries again.

He wants to get rid of it but doesn't want to throw away the story of a young man searching for his grandfather's past. He considers donating it to someone but he wants someone to want it. He takes it to the used book store and makes a little bit of cash, which he'll add to the annual donation he and Linda make to the foundation for curing the disease his son died from (I've decided it was an illness).

I will show that inscription to everyone I show my books to and ask them what they think. The book will sit on my small bookshelf that I usually reserve for my favorite, highest recommended, or rare books. After I read it.

A golden event

My dad turned 50 yesterday. To celebrate the occasion, my mom, sister and I, took him to dinner at Le Cheval, a French/Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Oakland to get some braised quail, bad service and terrific coconut snapper. After dinner, the four of us had tickets for Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blow Out at Yoshi's jazz club in Jack London Square.

Part of the blow out were John Mayall, the godfather of British blues and rock (Eric Clapton got his start in Mayall's band); Kenny Neal, a young kid (51) from Baton Rouge; Fingers Taylor, my favorite nickname of the night; and Lazy Lester, a tall old black guy with huge hands who must have been 70.

The venue is small, only about 120 seats, the music was great, and the drinks well made. The house band, the Blues Survivors, could jam with all the legends like they've known each other and been playing with each other for decades, which they probably have.

The late set started at 10 and went a half hour longer than the early show so that when we walked toward our car it was past midnight and the rain had stopped but left the deserted streets wet and shiny in the lights. There was no singing of "Happy Birthday," and no cake. The evening was far too classy for that.

Today I woke up to a call from the bounce-house guy, asking if we still wanted it if it started to rain. Of course we did, so he'd be by in the next few hours.

A few days ago I told my friend this weekend was my dad's birthday. She asked if we were having a party and I said no, he didn't want one. But we're still getting the bounce house, I told her. She didn't ask if I was serious, or what I meant by that. She knew. She just said, "The Dillons are a hoot."

When the bounce-house guy got here, we sent him around back and showed him where to set up. As the Monkey House was filling up with air, my mom ran in to call my dad out. At first, he thought it was ridiculous. He'd wanted to get one on Thanksgiving because it was my little cousin's birthday but didn't because she wasn't coming over until later in the day. Ever since then (apparently at least, I was in Europe so I don't really know further back than a month ago) he's been talking about it. "Saw another bounce house today. Looks like fun," he'd say randomly.

But as soon as the guy left and we got in it, he couldn't stop laughing.


We did choreographed flips, tried to not knock each other over, sweat a lot, laughed and bounced. It's how all 50th celebrations should be, and in two years, my mom's will no doubt be incredibly similar. In 25 years, I'll do some kind of futuristic version of today. Like rocket packs or moon boots that don't suck like those Moon Boots from the 70s.

The end of Time

All my life, or at least for the portion I am able to remember, I've loved calling POPCORN. I used to beg my parents to let me call after a blackout or earthquake so I could be the one to hear the exact time and set the clocks. My family referred to 767-2676 as "Time," and it was so familiar, the woman's voice so comforting. Good evening. (so polite) At the tone (ah the tone), Pacific Daylight Time (I always preferred hearing her say "daylight" over "standard") will be seven, thirty two, and forty seconds (ever notice it was in increments of 10 seconds?)... boop.

In an age of cell phones that have their clocks set automatically via satellite, lithium ion batteries that keep computer clocks artificially ticking forever, and Web sites such as www.time.gov brought to you by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there is, apparently, no need for a familiar woman's voice on the phone. I didn't call as often as I should have the past couple of years, but it was nice to know she was there, waiting to answer my one question accurately and promptly.

Now a different voice, though similar enough that it seems they tried to pull a fast one on us, rather curtly tells callers that "Effective September 19, 2007, the Time announcement information service has been discontinued. We apologize for any inconvenience."

But there are so many questions left unanswered by that answer. For years, I'd call to learn the time but that simple answer prompted so many more questions that the recording would never be able to provide on it's own. Who are you, voice of Time? How was your voice chosen? When did you record all those fragments of dialogue? How long did it take you to record all those numbers? Did you have any creative differences with the guys recording you? At what time of day did they decide to switch from "good morning," to "good afternoon," to "good evening," and then back to "good morning"? It would be strange to call at 12:55 and 10 seconds and hear "good morning." 1:00 am is still evening to everyone I know. And who is the they? Who funded this? Who is the we that is apologizing for my inconvenience?

This new message prompts even more disturbing questions. Does the fact that this never-ending loop ended somehow disprove the theory of time travel? Or prove that the universe is bound to end too? We thought it was a never-ending loop, but it was just such a big circuit we couldn't see that it had an end point.

It was only recently that I learned I've been living in a world without Time. I knew life was different while traveling, and often I would say that the day of the week didn't matter. The day Time was discontinued, I was in Berlin. But Berlin seems like another time, but was such a good time it's still timely. I thought things would return to normal when I got back, but time has been flying and dragging at the same time. I have so much time yet run out of time all the time. It will take some time to adjust to a world without Time.

The absolute worst part is that future generations will now never understand the scene from Full House where DJ, on her first day of junior high, alone at lunch and scared, takes her food into the phone booth, drops a quarter as if she were calling a friend but hears only a voice. They won't crack a teary smile or feel her pain and isolation because they will be hung up on trying to comprehend why some woman's voice would tell a caller the time of day twice in 20 seconds.

That voice was a friend. To DJ, to me, to people without watches but with access to a phone, and to scared preteens everywhere.

Good bye Time. I wish I had more of you, but I'll always remember the good times.

We ski UP hill

"After today, we'll be able to do half a biathlon."

That's the kind of thinking my mom regularly engages in. Or at least, the kind of thinking she regularly talks about. It's the ultimate "glass half full" way of looking at things and she's only ever half kidding (or half serious, depending on whether you think kidding is positive or negative).

It was 6:30 am and we were on the way to Kirkwood to try cross country skiing for the first time. It's something she's been talking about trying for years, and it's something I haven't ever done before. When it came up somehow, I egged her on until she committed to going late Saturday night.

"Are we really going to go, or are you just saying we're going to go?" I asked her. The ball was in her court (she was paying, after all) and after seeing my excitement for free winter sports her eyes got big and she got that wide grin she gets when she's about to doing something exciting.

Our lesson began at 10:30 with a man I would have guessed was 55 but who was actually 73. It seems that the fountain of youth is on two skinny planks of fiberglass.

The surprisingly old instructor remembered my name throughout the hour-and-a-half lesson and I fought hard to not fulfill his prediction that I would try and fly across the training course as fast as possible. Because I was youngish and didn't live up to his old-man expectations of being hyper-competitive and impatient, toward the end of the lesson when no one would volunteer to be the first to try stopping, he of course called on me and I of course fell on my face. Stopping is not as easy as starting, it turns out.

The meadow across the highway from the lodge was gorgeous and the 5k trail went by in a blink. Mom fell a few times, but only because I was harassing her about going faster. Turns out I am hyper-competitive and impatient.

On the way home, Mom said, "All we need to do now is learn how to shoot." Mom, I tell her, after years of shooting zombies, criminals, cops and digital ducks, I already can shoot. I am a biathlete now. Or at least, I'm curious about it.

Necessity of normalcy

My hair is never quite the same. Each day it does something a little different, presumably because, I suppose, it's one day longer. I have yet to lop any of it off since returning from over the pond in part (yes, a pun) because I keep getting told that I have nice curls, in part because I'm not ready to pay someone $20 to take them away from me, and in part because in a writers'-strike-beard kind of way, it helps keep me in that place I've been.

I have yet to take off the leather strap on my right wrist that Sophia didn't have to try hard to convince me to buy, even though I bought two at the same time. It's the one I put on and I have no immediate plans of ever taking it off.

There was talk of posting pictures here, and after a weekend in Sacramento visiting friends with my laptop, being asked to share stories and click through iPhoto, I realize I've never seen a lot of them. I remember taking pictures in general, if not always specifically, but looking through them is strangely foreign. I can see the people, places and events without trying but their photographs look like the caricatures of people sold on the Charles Bridge and outside the Uffizi Gallery. For pictures, they're ironically not very picture-perfect.

And so many of the things that are most vivid in my memory and that I most want to show people, I didn't take pictures of and so many of my favorite events of which I have scant photographic evidence would be boring to all the billions of people in the world but two or three. No one wants to see Jason at the Madrid airport triumphantly holding a plane ticket back to DC, and I don't need a picture to remember, but I know I have one. I've seen it recently and it isn't what I saw that day.

So I will happily share my photos with the world, but I have to see them first. And I'm not ready to replace my memories with photographs yet.