mark and cate came this weekend. it feels perfect in my heart to have them here and near.

my turn.

Friday: at the laundromat this kid was telling me that on Fillmore there’s this church that thinks John Coltrane was a gift from God and that the pastor is a madman on the drums and preaches “We don’t need eight white guys to tell us Mother Teresa was a saint." On Valencia today everybody thought it would be a good idea to build garden spaces on the street and so they sodded the pavement and built pirate ships. There was even a rock show on the lawn of the parking space on the street in front of the Mark Sanchez for supervisor campaign office which thrives pretty much by being indie rock. Supervisor of what? Today was my day off and it was good. I did laundry. I ate a mediocre burrito in the park with some guacamole I accidentally stole. Oops! I talked to Cate. I talked to Wendy. I talked to answering machines, talked to the fam. I watched Snow Angels. While I know I am not very good at being decisive, I am quite certain that the salted caramel ice cream at the Bi Rite creamery is my very favorite in the world.

Saturday: Dealt with a very close, very sweet and wonderful, very large and very upset family waiting for the death of great grandma, grandma, mom, and wife of sixty some odd years. What a day: good; exhausting.

Sunday: I went to St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church. I don’t quite know what happened today. I mean, I know what I saw, but this was just something else. His Eminence Archbishop Franzo Wayne King, D.D. and the kid in the Krunk Dog hoodie could sure sing. They sang, “Thank you God for John Coltrane and thank you for your son”- yes, in this order. They sang, by God they sang. They let a five year old play the drums. A toddler was handling the tamborine. I think I’ve found a home. This afternoon went down the coast to Half Moon Bay. Had some deep fried artichoke hearts at a distillery famous for its view and reputed for being haunted. It was pretty, but so is all the gold in the world. OK. Enough. I’m tired and blech from too much ice cream.

I told a Michael I would post pictures of my room. Here they are, some a little sideways because my computer is being squirrelly.

This old Chinese man on the bus always hands a child a candy when he gets off. Sometimes I wonder if he rides just for that reason.

There’s a woman who sleeps on my street. She’s probably ninety pounds and walks ninety degrees at the waist and I keep wondering if this will be the morning I find her dead.

Yesterday I saw a bus stop that was sodded (is that how you spell it? You know, with grass). I’ve been eating farr too many chocolate bars.

Work is good. Fufilling. Imagine that. Monday was my first real day. Began with a page, “Mr. So-and So had expired. Saw to cadavers in my first hour and somehow suddenly I wasn’t so anxious anymore. I spend my days with people who call me dear and tell me about how they met their husband in the war, married it would have been fifty seven years now if he hadn’t died, but I’m ok, I’m ok. People tell me things and I verge tears. People tell me things that make me laugh and either way the days fly by.

I am changing and it feels good. I am focusing on doing things like ripping sheets and braiding them to make a rag rug.

These are pictures from a little getaway I took the other weekend. Here we begin with the Golden Gate!

Entering wine country.

Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless time that has no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy- that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Prindle, who was so kind as to take and host me, and her friend Darrell who recently walked me through my first experience with crab.

Prindle's husband's family's place.

I totally love this house.

View out the window, believe it or not.

Cornelia Parker. Anti-Mass. Composed of a the charred black remains of a Southern Baptist church burnt down by whites.

So this weekend has been alright. Friday tried to go see Zizek, but the bookstore where he was speaking was so packed and his Slovenian accent was so thick, I couldn’t hear much other than the odd ‘capitalism’ or ‘liberalism,’ so instead I drank Red Stripe on the roof with my flatmates and called it a night. Saturday had to attend/help at this memorial service thing which though I grumbled about having to get out of bed, was really touching, and lunched with new colleague. That afternoon I meant to do so much, but two days before I managed to develop the largest most inconvenient blister I’ve ever had in my life, and so after dragging myself around Zara clubfoot, it hurt too much and so I gave up. I wanted to do so much that night, but my body refused to stay awake much past nine. I think the fact that this isn’t vacation and I can’t go home now is starting to get beneath my skin and my body is not happy about it. Saturday night I turned down several social opportunities and felt like a failure about it. Much as one tries, can’t make a housecat go out. Today I tried harder. Went to a monster Episcopal cathedral which was beautiful and all, but I think too much pomp and circumstance for little me. Went with a friend of a friend to Chinatown where I ate crab for the first time. It looked terrifying but didn’t taste too fishy. Also went to this chocolate festival thing where there was a swing band playing, which of course was nice. I know that sounds like a lot of stuff, it still doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like I could have tried harder. Though I have things to do and even some people to do them with, I wouldn’t yet say that I have really found a friend.

The Meat Market by George Hems