Blog-azic

I think my eyes are starting to adjust to the Bay's expanse because when I look East to the Milpitas hills, on the drive back to San Jose, I can see what looked like one flat, two dimensional range suddenly has depth: a low ridge in the front, then a long space behind, followed by the high barren hills rising into the sky, merging with a purple cloud, bending south and west, finally becoming a glowing, molten sunset over Palo Alto. I hit the streets downtown in San Jose looking for food and found a burrito. San Jose might seem posh, overly hip, expensive on first glance, but there are cracks in the pavement - so to speak - where grunge, dirt life, alternative mindsets, independent thought   pokes through. Forget the phrase "a diamond in the rough." Flip it if you like (a rough in the diamond), or abandon it altogether for something more real: a dandelion in the concrete. So, I found myself at an art collective and performance space (and bike co-op) o...

I asked Kate about the leaves - if they are really just turning now - in the car after she picked me up from my hotel, and she smiled and nodded. "These deciduous trees aren't native," she said, and I realized my whole view on the Bay - probably even life itself - was colored by Eastern winters. She swooped down after work to ferry me across the Bay into San Mateo, and then north into San Francisco and the Mission District, where I ate a half chicken with roasted vegetables and chocolate cake. Rob drank wine and coffee even though he was not quite over a bout of flu. Kate ate half her empanada and then rubbed her belly and looked uncomfortable, and she probably was, being near eight months pregnant. Back in the car, when Kate pulled up to the hotel, I gave her the Mother Goose book hoping that their child might find some joy in it. Maybe it's the book, or subconscious desire, or a biological clock, I've been dreaming about children and parenting thi...

Riding the BART to Berkeley for the experience of it, enrapt by the heavenly haw of the train, cloying inebriation. The low tenor, rubber squeals near Oakland are horrendous, almost painful, and I'd plug my ears except for the futility of it - something I think the locals understand since they stare blankly ahead through it all, unmoved and unmoving. The incorporeal soprano consumes me, vibrates my head, scrambles my thoughts. It's ecstatic, histamine glory, a hot shower release. I swear to God, it's a magic sound.  I walked the wide avenue in Berkeley wide eyed, like a freshman on campus, dodged into a book store, and searched through the comic books. There was an old man in a chair clutching a large book, nodding, asleep. No one seemed to mind. I perused for a bit and finally settled an a trio of Wonder Woman comics and a book of nursery rhymes, black and white checkered, 'The Real Mother Goose', which I used to read out of it as a child. I loved the way tho...

I return to the wonder bowl of the West, the Bay, with its invisible topology that boggles my mind - I have a hard time judging distances here - for the second and final visit to Silicon Valley, where I'm struggling against long odds to diagnose a WiFi problem.  In San Jose as I leave the airport, it is raining. On the cab ride to Fremont, I'm looking at those desolate hills southeast of the Bay in Milpitas County, and I detect a hue of green where, one month back, there was only thirsty brown. It would seem that the country, the flora, is awake, brimming with the prospect of spring, so juxtaposed against my memories of long, dry summer days. It must happen every year: arid summer days that shrivel, desiccate, turn to paper and flake away to reveal Autumn, moon cool nights and December, electric winter. (I hope the people here have enough sense to use LED bulbs in their faux icicle holiday lights. Humbug.) The bright, young green of the grass - the green of hope not envy -...

At Atlantic Beach, we walked into a sunset of vermilion red rays lighting up the sooty cloud bottoms - the last tendrils of sunshine reaching up from beyond the grave, with a spirit that seemed to refuse death. Eventually, though, there was purple dusk, deep blue water, and a hint of pure, new-bent, moonlight, before the final, cold darkness as we found our way back to the boardwalk. We ate burritos in Beaufort at a hip joint and threw away a couple quarters in an old arcade machine. Seems like we died no sooner than we started. Is that a metaphor for something else? At the Gloucester House, looking over Sleepy Creek, Down East in North Carolina, we ate farm fresh eggs. The yolks burst force fierce, tiger orange, creamy rich and running, pouncing, perfectly cooked with toasted whole wheat bread to sop it up and thick orange juice, full of pulp, to wash it down. We were all northern transplants in that kitchen - except the dog - and we jawed on about this and that: the husband...

It seemed that the dry, desiccation of San Francisco followed me home. I flew through September on caked clay wings, ran on baked mud feet, with cool dew nights and pleasant, yellow days to soothe me, even as I worried about my thirsty gardens. I hunted paw paws on my birthday - a tradition and a gift to myself - where I saw a little school of fish circling round a shrinking pool of water, that hot, dry air threatening them with death. I planted a couple trees in the yard, a brown beauty magnolia and a rising sun red bud, struggling through the cemented clay and fill dirt, which were beset with river gravel and stone. At other times, Susan and I spun up tunes on our old piano, which we purchased from a thrift store as a joint birthday present. Finally, as September waned and Autumn's first moon waxed, my father came to visit ahead of a mass of hot, humid air. Both came from the south. The tropical storm (Nate) tracked up through the Gulf and Louisiana. My father, Jim, came from Am...

I was becoming a wizard at fried bread, white rolls cut in two, fried in hot butter then topped with sharp cheddar and an egg. It was a Zen karma gift to my wife and hosts: many mornings of happy bellies to you. This day was bright and sunny. The fog was absent for the second day in a row, and we took advantage of the weather to climb up to the top of Bernal Heights Park where Rob, Kate, and Marley, the black wispy dog, were walking. They gave us a bird's eye tour of the city, everything that could be seen, which was north to the bay, east to Oakland, and west just to Twin Peaks. We made plans to visit the wave organ just east of the Presidio on a narrow jetty of land stretching into the Bay. Our driver wound through the streets until we reached the Marina District where we abruptly jumped out of the cab and walked down Chestnut street in search of food. When we settled, I ordered a big plate of Thai rice along with a glass of purple wine. The walk to the wave organ was ex...