i've had a better than expected saturday. i returned a bunch of stuff at target and then met matte and ande for brunch. i had some amazing banana pancakes while sitting in the sun and did a little shopping on burlingame ave. i got a red and white striped (thin stripes) longsleeved shirt for running. it's got a little zippered pocket near the shoulder so that i can stash some money and my car key. i was going to go to a champagne tasting at k and l, but decided against it since i'm still coughing.

i headed over to trader joes and nordstrom rack instead. i am out of coffee and nearly out of soy milk. then, i went down to the sports basement and picked up a layer for running. i need more stuff for running since i'm hitting the pavement three times a week.

i'm going to start cooking soon. i decided to go to genghis's tonight. i will stay for a bit and then maybe hit a party with rebecca. i'm jealous that she went surfing today. it was beautiful outside today.

i think maybe i'll shower and sit for a bit before i start cooking. i haven't sat in a while and i think i should. it will probably make me feel better.

i just took the quirky alone quiz. my results:

How quirkyalone are you?
Your score was 96. Very quirkyalone:
Relatives may give you quizzical looks, and so may friends, but you know in your heart of hearts that you are following your inner voice. Though you may not be romancing a single person, you are romancing the world. Celebrate your freedom on National Quirkyalone Day, February 14th!

matte and ande sent me home with a nearly full 1.75L bottle of scotch when i saw them in january. i hadn't opened it until last night.

around 10.30, i poured myself a small glass of scotch. i'm not usually a scotch drinker. i thought it might help to quiet my mind and help me go to sleep. i had tried to nap earlier in the evening with no success.

i finished "living by zen" and thent ried to go to sleep. i dreamed last night about a friend and former colleague from urban. she and her husband had met at the school and recently moved to the east bay. i haven't seen them in a long while. in the dream she was pregnant. in the same dream, another former teacher from urban was having her second kid. to my knowledge, though, she wasn't married. i remember feeling surprised by the news in the dream.

*****

i was just telling souris that i feel a little unsettled lately. i'm not sure if it's cuz i've been sick and tired, or if it's something bigger. i fully acknowledge the value of sleep and rest. a dearth of either can make my life seem dismal, when there's really nothing wrong. however, i have this feeling that this trip isn't going to happen. it's completely unreasonable i know. i just have to think about it and plan it. both of these things may have to wait until boot camp is over.

souris suggested that i take a jee day: lay around in bed, read magazines, do nothing. she's probably right. i probably just need to sit in my bed and read. i think i'm going to go to kabuki hot springs tomorrow to use the baths. i used to go there a lot in the past. maybe i'll try osento in the mission. i could go today.

i left the office shortly after 4pm today. i don't really know what i accomplished. i got home within an hour, in spite of it being friday afternoon and the beginning of a long weekend for some. i may try to nap.

*****

souris sent me an email asking about plans for my ny trip. i did a quick search on museum calendars and found that andy goldworthy will have an exhibit at the met that opens on may 4, the day i leave. i may have to see it before i take off.

it doesn't really matter what i do there anymore, besides see people. i hope to meet up with sylvia and heg in addition to the team hp crew.

somehow i missed the info on prince at the fillmore until yesterday. of course, i did a CL search to see if anyone had tix to sell, cuz i think i'd actually throw down some $$$$ to see him. i found this creepy post:

Hello young ladies. Professional Prince fan looking for an excited lady to join me for the show. I am interested in having a good time before, during and after the show. Would you be interested? No money to be exchanged.

I would like to try and narrow my choice down over the next 24 hours. Please tell me what you would like to do for the ticket. I will provide you with confirmation that I am a valid ticket holder. To be considered please include a photo(s). I am a little wild and want someone who can match me, step for step.

GROSS

*****

i'm actually feeling better today, mentally, at least. i was having a minor freakout yesterday. i'm not sure why. i haven't felt that way in months, and i was worried that i was getting whatever it was i had last may, pre-herbs. i'm feeling more like myself today, luckily.

i made it through another week of bootcamp. today started off with too many pushups and situps. then, we did the run up 20th street to the park. it felt like i had a fever. my ears were popping, which is supposedly an indicator. i guess it could have been sweat in my ears, too.

after what felt like 1000 squats, we ran back to the gym, but didn't go the cesar chavez route. we ran down some dirt trails until we hit missouri and sierra. we ran the rest of the way on the pavement.

i lead us down the trail, as i was the only one, besides paul, who knew where it was. he was driving g's car ahead of us. as we ran back to the gym, clare asked if i paddled and hiked cuz i was good at calling out what was ahead. she was suprised when i said no and that i actually have no experience with team sports, generally. maybe it's from being a teacher or maybe it's just my nature to do that. it's automatic.

i'm looking forward to sleeping in this weekend. although i have monday off from work, we still have the workout.

i don't really have any solid plans this weekend. i'd like to surf, but i have a feeling that this was what got me sick last weekend. i don't want to be out there with a cough. it's a long weekend which also encompasses vday, and although i think it's a lame holiday, even when i'm with someone, it's been a long while since i have been alone for it. actually, after some thought, it's the first one in 10 years.

i got on the guest list for a party at a club tonight, but i don't think i'm up for going. i don't know that i could do a club tonight, so i don't know what i'm doing. maybe i'll rent a movie or read.

robyn and steve are getting married tomorrow. i'll be thinking of them.

*****

i think i'm going to nyc at the end of april/beginning of may for a conference. i'm looking forward to seeing souris, silvio, and the rest of the crew there. i wish i could stay there for more than just 5 days, but i think that's all i can do. it's better than nothing though.

it seems like every morning i write about how difficult it was to get up. today is no different. we did some wacko sprints around the neighborhood today. my body was not made for running. i have flat feet. i am not a fast runner. after some sprints around the block, we went into the ring to spar (body shots only) and do push ups. with our gloves on, we ran around the block again. i'm sure we looked like a freakshow parade. the last 20 minutes was spent on the bags with squats in between. no rests.

i'm still coughing up flegm. i actually woke up around 4.30 cuz i was coughing. i actually don't feel that bad, and i'm looking forward to yoga today. i'll stretch my calves and knees, which seem to be pretty tight lately.

i think today is going to be a long day. genghis invited me out to tosca tonight, but i don't know that i'll make it. drinking is probably not the best thing for me to do right now.

thank god tomorrow is friday.

*****

this morning, i went to get coffee and paul was waiting for his breakfast. we chatted for a bit. i'm not sure how i feel about him lately. i think i'm realizing that we're really not well suited for each other, at least right now. i'm not sure how i feel about that either.

*****

wook reminded me of something the other day. he said something like "haven't you learned anything from meditation? do, don't try." *sigh* yes. sometimes it can be just that simple. it's actually something that i generally believe and live by. however, it's good to be reminded of it.

*****

i just got an email regarding coachella tickets presale. looks like it will be a good show.

*****

work is starting to get irritating again, and i'm realizing that we are making the same mistakes over and over again. however, i'm glad that i'm not responding to the situation in the same way. maybe i am getting better.

so i just got back from dealing with my car. the oil change was fine, but they told me that i have a leak in my water pump (?) that's causing the coolant to leak and the light to flash. ok, sounds reasonable. they topped off the coolant with water and now the light isn't flashing.

i ask them where i can get this fixed, cuz i don't like to go to the dealer. it's annoying and i generally feel like i'm getting jipped. they suggest a place a few blocks away that might be able to deal with it now. perfect.

so i go the two blocks, wait about 20 min, and then get an assessment. yes, indeed my water pump is leaking, and in fact, it needs to be replaced. it's going to cost $450, roughly. excellent. i'm fairly certain that the dealer would charge me more than this. however, i'll probably call them tomorrow to see if someone can give me an estimate over the phone. i doubt this will be possible, but who knows.

i decided to get some fish for dinner, so i headed over to the safeway in search of halibut. i have had too much salmon lately, in spite of my liking it a lot. i hate having to cross the picket lines to get into safeway. i should really investigate what this is all about. i feel lame about just going in.

i didn't find any halibut. they had plenty of salmon, cod, swordfish, and catfish, but no halibut. i got bananas and two pints of haagen daaz chocolate sorbet and left. on the way to the car, i realized that i should have gotten more ginger as per mom's suggestion. so, instead of going back to safeway, i head back to potrero. i stop by the good life, get the ginger, but then get distracted by the cheese. i end up buying three varieties of cheese: smoked gouda, plain goat, and tallegio. oh, and of course i had to get a sourdough loaf. i'm not sure what came over me. i must be sick.

*****

i rode the muni downtown today, and it's always interesting to ride public transit. i find it painless and relatively convenient. when i got on the bus to market street, there were a couple of people sitting ahead of me. one was a heavy set african-american woman who was probably in her 40's and the other was a younger african-american man. they chatted as if they knew each other, but i wasn't sure that they knew each other before boarding the bus. it made me think about the people i choose to talk to, and if i consciously or subconsciously bias towards people, asians in particular.

i know some asian people who treat other asians better than they would non-asians. i sometimes find this really strange, and sometimes i get it. i guess it has to do with common experiences, but i don't think the experiences are dependent upon ethnicity. i've certainly been discriminated against due to my ethnicity. however, discrimination happens for different reasons. sometimes it's based on what you're wearing, where you live, gender, or just the people that you know. those have nothing to do with race. to empathize with people who have experienced similar things should not depend upon ethnicity. it shouldn't depend on anything, really. i totally went off on a tangent there.

on the way to market street, a man sat next to me. he caught my eye as he approached the bus. i think his head was shaved, as he was wearing a tight fitting, crocheted white hat. he was an african american man, probably in his fifties. he was well dressed in a light colored, button down, collared shirt with slacks of a similar hue. i could smell the cigar smoke on him as he sat next to me. he was missing a hand.

on the way back, another man sat a seat away from me. this guy looked as if he was probably my age. he started chatting with me about the water i was drinking.

"oh, that's what i forgot. water. my mother always told me to drink more water. she died not long ago of cancer.... so don't get cancer. that's why i'm stressed."

i tried to interject responses in between, but wasn't sure what to say. i just made sure to keep my eyes on him, to let him know i was paying attention. his eyes were bloodshot, though, so i'm not sure if he even noticed. later, he asked me for the time.

i just got back from the symphony this morning. i'm glad i went. unfortunately, kat missed the show, but at least nothing's wrong. i was worried that something happened to her.

sir neville marriner is fun to watch. he sort of danced on the podium at times while conducting the mendelssohn. i enjoyed the beethoven as well. there were three soloists: a violinist, a cellist, and a pianist. i love the cello. sometimes i wish i had learned to play it instead of the violin.

i watched the row of doublebassists today. a couple of them held their bow unlike the way i've seen most string musicians hold it. it was as if they were pulling the bow on the strings instead of pushing against them. interesting. it looked kind of uncomfortable actually. i wondered how they came to learn that method and thought that maybe the others had learned to play smaller string instruments which require the other hand position on the bow.

i'm still coughing up flegm. ick. i still feel weak.

i have to get my oil changed and check on that blinking light in the car.

i'm going to try to get some work done first, before i head out again. it's beautiful. i wish i was feeling better.

i got home just before 9 last night. i promptly ran a bath and sat in the unfortunately luke warm waters for about 20 min. i hoped that this would help me relax and settle my stomach. it sort of helped. i fell asleep with relative ease, but then woke up this morning still feeling out of it.

i dragged myself to bootcamp and told paul that i was not making excuses, but that i was sick. his response: "i'm sick every day." great.

we did a series of strange exercises that we held for a minute each. i was humbled today. i started with the one i thought would be easiest and wasn't able to do it. i did most of the other ones. i thought we wouldn't run, as i didn't see jeremy when i arrived. however, he showed up a few minutes later and after our static exercises, we ran to the ballpark and back. i'm starting to feel the concrete's effect on my knees.

when we returned to the gym, we did the static stuff again. this time, i was able to do the exercises i hadn't done the first time around and failed on some of the others. as we did the exercises on the floor, i noticed that i was the only one who was slowly accumulating a puddle of sweat in my area. i sweat a lot. i actually like to sweat. maybe there's something wrong with me.

i actually felt pretty good afterwards, and now i'm going to hop in the shower and get to davies. i'm meeting kat there, i hope. i have to call her. then, i'm hopefully going to work from home. i'm still coughing up some phlegm.

i just talked to both of my parents. they sound well. it's funny how i only talk to my dad about a few things. we talked about taxes and the stock price of my company. he said that i must be in a good mood since the stock is doing well. yeah, but i have to pay a lot of taxes this year. oh well.

it's beautiful outside today. i'm glad i'm working from home. maybe i'll have time to sit today, too.

an alternative to vday from flavorpill.

*****

What French girls know

Young girls in France learn early in life that happiness is not as important as passion.

By Debra Ollivier

Jan. 12, 2004 | "I've seen the way you behave with women. In that respect you are totally unreliable, but we could have an interesting life together." -- Pauline Potter, proposing to her future husband, Baron Philippe de Rothschild

My girlfriend Natalie is not classically pretty, but that's never been a problem. She has a little belly, but she flaunts it. She has a little bit of extra butt. She flaunts that too. She's had her share of romantic encounters, but she's still single, over 35, and has lots of baggage, including a 5-year-old from a previous marriage who's earned the nickname of Rasputin. In many respects Natalie is the perfect candidate for Rachel Greenwald's new book "Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School." She's perfect except for one thing: Natalie is French.

"I feel sorry for American women," she says over the phone. Natalie is in Paris; I'm in Los Angeles. We're talking on the phone about love, lust, girlhood, womanhood. Somehow we touch on Greenwald's new book, which exhorts women to use the same marketing techniques to find a mate as they would to, say, launch a new brand of tennis shoes. "You, the reader, are the 'product,'" Greenwald writes.

I hear Natalie sigh over 6,000 miles of fiber optic cable. "Only in America could you get away with this type of lunacy. There is so much pressure on American women to be happy. To sweep away all traces of loneliness, to forget who you are in your search for a lover or a spouse. In France young girls learn that happiness is elusive; we learn that happiness is less important than passion."

Natalie's comments remind me of a salient little metaphor: As girls we Americans sit in our field of daisies and pull off petals with, "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not." Meanwhile French girls sit in their meadows with their marguerites and pull off petals with: "He loves me a little. A lot. Passionately. Madly. Not at all." Why does the little French girl innately think in nuances and increasing levels of passion while we're mired in the black-and-white of total love or utter rejection?

According to Christophe, a French journalist with a seriously lush history of romance on both sides of the Atlantic: "Everything in your culture is defined like a contract, even the business of love. That's precisely the opposite in France. I've dated French women for months before I ever really knew who they were or what they wanted from me. After the first or second date, the American woman wants everything spelled out: 'Are we dating? Are you my boyfriend or just a friend?' A French woman doesn't do that. She doesn't give much away. She's comfortable letting things evolve naturally, but the ball's almost always in her court."

Natalie concurs with this assessment. "There is a culture in France of the 'non-dit,' the not-spoken. What you don't say in France is as important as what is said. There are boundaries in language that create tensions. Even sexual tensions. The simple act of saying "tu" or "vous" is a boundary that invites intimacy or precludes it. We learn that we have more power when we keep things to ourselves than when we give things away. We learn that the art of seduction is based on innuendo and silences."

Innuendo and silences? This sort of quiet, coded game of love is entirely baffling to us buffoonishly direct Anglos, and it's partly what's kept French women in the sexiness hall of fame for centuries. Never mind haute couture or racy lingerie. French women are a bundle of alluring contradictions that seem to perfectly coexist, like the unlikely mélange of sweet and sour. They're often annoyingly coy and darkly wanton. Many of them are not great beauties and yet are gorgeously compelling in the way they reconcile their imperfections.

They tend to be more concerned with experiencing pleasure than with being liked and far more passionate about having a life than making a living. (Multitasking does not rank high on their list of positive attributes in a woman.) Plus they all seem able to walk gracefully in high heels on cobblestones the size of grapefruits. Talk about poise.

This amalgam of qualities has given French femmes a singular sophistication that makes the dictates of Rachel Greenwald seem almost bizarrely childlike. In her classic "The French and Their Ways," Edith Wharton had already singled out this sophistication back in 1919. The French woman "is in nearly all respects, as different as possible from the average American woman," Wharton wrote. "Is it because she dresses better, or knows more about cooking, or is more 'coquettish,' or more 'feminine,' or more emotional, or more 'immoral'? The real reason is not nearly as flattering to our national vanity. It is simply that the French woman is more grown-up. [Wharton's italics.] Compared with the women of France the average American woman is still in kindergarten."

Excusez-moi: Did you say kindergarten? I suppose if Wharton were comparing French and American women over the long course of history, then we Americans would be the innocent toddlers. When I was a girl I used to marvel at French women in history books precisely for this reason. They led armies of querulous men. They were burned at stakes. They got their heads chopped off for being petulant little queens. They were sexy and bellicose and bare-breasted. Even the symbol of the French Republic, the fair-haired Marianne, stormed Paris with (if we take Delacroix's depiction of her as our reference) her impudent and perfectly pulpy breasts exposed. French girls grow up with this legacy of women who were utterly feminine and totally kick-ass; a legacy of bare breasts, revolutions, royal courts, sex, death, blood, guts and great hair. Meanwhile, my generation of American girls grew up with Betty Crocker, Girl Scouts and training bras -- and Julia Child was as French as it got. How unfair is that?

Perhaps American women are ahead of the French when it comes to liberation. "You Americans were grown-up feminists," Natalie says when I bring up Wharton's comments. "We took all of our cues from you. We were incredibly old-fashioned and repressed compared to American women when it came to feminism. But we never confused the power of feminism with the power of femininity, the power of the femme. Being a grown-up to a French woman means being complete, with or without a man, but still being in love with love."

Christophe looks at the question differently. "We're a grown-up culture. America is a super power but historically you're barely adolescent. We were dismissing the Church because of its corruption hundreds of years ago while you Anglos were naively embracing it. History has taught us that you can't rely on dogma or doctrine. Relationships burn brightly, then die. We have our passions, our human tragedies, our loves and our losses. We have a couple of centuries of living and dying over you Americans."

I suppose you have to call a historical spade a spade. We Americans are big, hormonally super-charged 13-year-olds raiding the fridge in quick-fix binges. The French are wizened denizens sipping Bordeaux and plumbing the depths of passion and pathos. To their credit the French, who can be exasperatingly pig-headed and irascible, do have a certain ripened maturity and an insatiable appetite for the harsh realities and curious lusts that characterize matters of the heart. This is partly why the myths of the French mistress and the Latin lover have endured over the centuries. It might also explain why the French are so iconoclastic, even quixotic, in their interpretations of love.

I'm reminded of this sexy, baffling quality about the French time and time again. Most recently, it was while watching the Claire Denis film "Friday Night": Two strangers meet in a car in a traffic jam. They
spend nearly the entire film in silence, end up in a hotel, make love rhapsodically, exchange a few words (barely) over pizza, make love again, then say goodbye. What just happened? Our leading lady -- who's not a great beauty but still lovely in an ordinary, je ne sais quoi way -- runs through the streets of Paris at night after her affair. All we know about her is that she's going to move in with her boyfriend. She's just left her mysterious lover in the hotel. Who is he? Will she see him again? Was it a one-night stand or the beginning of a long-term relationship? Our heroine runs down the street toward an unknown future, a liberating and strangely happy glow on her face. She doesn't seem to care. Clearly, Rachel Greenwald would not approve.

courtesy of salon.com

i think i'm coming down with something. i sort of felt it yesterday afternoon. i was starting to lose focus, and i thought it was just my being tired. i roamed around work, every building in fact, looking for something to satiate my sweet tooth. i found a snickerdoodle cookie, and it actually made me kind of sick.

i went to the gym for half an hour and mostly just stretched, hoping that the cookie would work it's way out of my system. didn't work. i headed to ceramics and stopped off to get ginger ale. that sort of helped.

i made it through ceramics. i threw three pieces, sort of reluctantly. i kept watching the clock, wondering when i should leave. it's annoying that bootcamp has this affect on me.

my throat doesn't hurt when i swallow, but i cough, and it's starting to be irritating.

i had no problem falling asleep. the alarm was abrupt, and it was difficult to get out of bed, but i made it there on time. we had a hard workout this morning, and paul was in a FINE mood. he tried to push my buttons by calling me a *chatterbox*, but then tried to be nice by asking me if i had been surfing lately. clearly, i'm there to work out, not chat. then he told all of us to leave our *hearts and emotions* at the door. ????

a light started to blink on my car. it's the engine temperature light, but the gage says it's normal. i'm not sure what the deal is. maybe the coolant is low. my oil change is overdue, so i should probably do it tomorrow. i'll take it in, this time.

i've been in kind of a strange mood the last couple of days. i hope that my funk isn't returning. i think i just need to spend less time with my friends who are currently in a funk. i know that sounds harsh, but its hard to be the *happy* one all the time. i think the combination of being tired, maybe sick, and the funkiness of those around me is starting to affect me. or, maybe it's that i just need to meditate more. i did get 10 min in today, which i appreciate.

willo's pics are up.

jane's are, too.

from the internal mailing list at work:

MVP SuperLift F-365JSW 2 ton hydraulic floor jack, jack stands, & wheel chocks - $10

A few years ago, I thought that it would be really cool to change my own oil in my car. And then I came to my senses, but by time that had happened I had already bought this set for around $40.

This is all in a somewhat heavy box that I don't feel like bringing to work but you can pick at up on a weeknight or a weekend at my home in Santa Clara.

[courtesy of mike]

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like "x" and "y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns", but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

"As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared. When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. "I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," the President said, adding: "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."

this morning's workout wasn't bad. we did some abs and push ups and then ran to the ballpark. we finished up with 15 min on the bags. surprisingly, i was towards the head of the pack today. i think the ab work woke me up a bit. also, claire and monica were absent, and they are usually fast runners. claire apparently did go down when the cabbie hit her the other day. she's sore, but ok. i'll be thinking of her. i wonder when she'll return.

paul had a shiner today. i didn't ask him about it.

i was in bed last night by 9.15. i read for a bit and then slept. i had strange dreams again. i was running late in my dream and the number 98 kept coming up. i'm not sure why. i was tired when i rose in spite of getting about 7.5 hours of sleep.

i ran into matt this morning on 20th. he invited me to have breakfast with him at just for you. i had gotten some coffee from there this morning and realized that the woman there wasn't very nice. i don't know that i'll return there.

i don't understand mean people. i guess they must be mean for a reason, but if someone is nice, why be mean in response?

my shoulders were achy this morning during the push ups. i guess surfing yesterday worked me more than i thought.

it's sunny today. it's really beautiful. maybe the rain is over for the season. i hope so.

apparently the grammys were last night. outkast won album of the year. that's great. i'm listening to them now. i think i prefer speakerboxx over the love below. i think it's the masochist in me, though.

last week, my violin teacher called me. i was totally surprised. he was at dinner with people, so i wasn't sure why he had decided to call me at that moment. apparently he was going through some personal drama (quelle surpise) that had prevented him from contacting me sooner. he said he wanted to take me to lunch so that he could explain it all in person. i suggested that we coordinate the next day. i haven't heard from him.

i haven't decided what to do about the violin. i haven't really played it much since the new year. i haven't had much time for it and it hasn't been a huge priority since i have had other things consuming my free time. i have to consider what to do about this. it's more difficult to coordinate now that he's moved to san jose.

i'd like to get to nyc in the spring. souris is talking about going surfing in brazil in august. that would be great. i'd love to go with her for her first time.

i went out to linda mar for a couple of hours. i caught a few waves. rebecca met me out there, and mel was supposed to meet us, but we must have missed each other. she was running a little late. she called me as she was leaving linda mar. she is still planning to go to nosara, cr, but doesn't think it's going to be for a month. i'll have to see if we can coordinate.

it was pretty crowded out there. mostly men. as i was paddling out, an older guy was riding a wave. as he paddled back in, i apologized and said that i hoped that i wasn't in his way. he thanked me for my courtesy and said that i wasn't in his way. later, he gave me a couple of tips. that's one of the things i like about surfing. there's sense of community, but i think the female surfers feel it more than the male ones.

when i got home, my landlord was doing some stuff outside. i had only just met him last week for the first time. he and his partner live in palm springs, but have one of the apartments in my building. he was chatty the first time i met him, and he was again, this time. he asked me how my sunday was, and i told him that i had just gotten back from surfing. his face turned into a smile and said, "i used to be a surfer in sydney, australia." i mentioned that i hope to get there in the next year or so. he offered to give me his son's email address. he sells real estate in sydney. he asked how long i would be in sydney and when i was planning to go. i told him that it was part of the 15 month trip i was planning in year and a half from now. another smile appeared on his face.

i wasn't sure what i wanted to do for the rest of sunday, but as i was driving home from the beach, it occurred to me that i should probably go to the moma. today was the last day of the arbus exhibit. rebecca went with me, eve though she had already seen it. the arbus was huge. i was going through visual overload. on the way to the arbus we saw a small furniture exhibit by a san francisco native, john dickinson. it was familiar to me, but i hadn't known his work by name. we also looked at the bearden exhibit, which was equally large and overwhelming. we finished off with supernova. there were a couple of disturbing pieces, such as a small figure of a naked man hiding under a woman's cardigan sweater. nonetheless, i agreed with rebecca, the supernova exhibit was my favorite.

both of us were incredibly tired. we dragged ourselves to thirsty bear around the corner and had some food. now, i'm home.

it's only 7pm, but it feels like it could be 11. i can't wait for daylight savings time.

it's monday tomorrow, all day. at least i have ceramics. however, i'll have to bolt home so that i can be in bed at a decent hour for tuesday morning. ugh.

the alarm rang and i was slow to rise. in spite of the 8+ hours of sleep i got last night, i'm still a bit tired. i stayed in last night to watch velvet goldmine. i enjoyed it, but found the story a bit weak. the twist was suddenly revealed within a few seconds, and i sort of missed it/didn't really believe it. notably, ewan macgregor ooked a lot like kurt cobain in this movie.

i started watching when we were kings again, but didn't finish. i was getting tired and wanted to read a bit before falling asleep. i got through a few more pages in living by zen. i'm reading about koans.

i just checked the linda mar surf report and it looks like it could be good today. the 8.10am report says that conditions are fair and the average is 4ft with 7ft set waves. it could be good.

my legs haven't been achy this weekend. my back and shoulders are. i wonder if surfing is going to make tomorrow's workout more difficult. i guess i can't think about that right now.

*****

last night, i caught up with souris's blog. her latest post is about how the world seems to get smaller as her network expands. i agree. i have been thinking a bit about communication methods, as well. i recently had a conversation with a person who thought that web-based communications were no good. he preferred the phone, face-to-face, and even voicemail over email and the like. i see his point. although email provides the affordance of asynchronous communication, which was one of the things that i mentioned as being helpful, so does voicemail. both methods provide records of the message and both can be reviewed again. the nuances provided by voicemail is the tone of voice and the pace of the speaker. these are important details that provide more information than the message itself. last night, velvet goldmine had a quote in it that speaks to this. it was something to the effect of "meaning is not in, it's in between".

*****

i was talking to a couple of friends at different times about bootcamp this week. expectedly, bootcamp has consumed much of my life as it has forced a shift in my schedule. both of them asked me when i thought i would be dating paul, the guy who is running the bootcamp again. i hadn't really thought of it. i told them that i wasn't really sure that i *wanted* to date him again. they both thought it was clear that he wanted to keep me in his life in some capacity. i don't know if that's true.

they also asked me if i liked him more or less now. i don't know. i definitely see that he's different from the ex that he loosely reminds me of. as i anticipated, they are different people. paul is definitely a good person at his core, which is not necessarily the case of my ex. it's clear, however, that they both have a deep-rooted source of pain and/or suffering that they are trying to overcome. paul has a better chance of overcoming it than my ex does. he's younger and i think more aware of himself than the ex. i hate to even compare people, but i'm not doing it in a bad way. i just realize that people share similarities. i don't think they are the same person.

i find it interesting that paul seems to be interested in my physical and spiritual life. however, i have a feeling he'd be this way with anyone. he's a teacher by nature. he likes to help people. i'm like that, too, so i get it. i know i'm not doing the bootcamp with the hope that he'll want to date me again after it's done. if i was doing it for that reason, it would be the wrong one.

i've already gained insight into myself during this first week. i've already written about the feeling i get encouraging the other people in the group. i'm also starting to realize that i may have a competitive streak in this realm. i've generally never been competitive except maybe in academics, but even that was half-hearted. being competitive in sports and other physical activities is new to me. i've never been very confident of my skills, which i think is largely the reason why i never liked team sports. i played on the tennis team my freshman year of high school, but didn't like the fact that my winning or losing affected the team. i also didn't like playing doubles, but maybe that was my partner. she was much more competitive than i was. she was also annoying, too.

*****

i guess it's time to get ready for the surf.