Category: City by the Bay

Back home in San Francisco now after almost 3 weeks away. I’ve got a giant mountain of catching up to do, hundreds of emails, a project for the San Francisco Film Society, more podcasting and writing and gearing up for book #2. Plus, life is changing in radical ways, most of which I can’t address right now.

I feel horrible, listless, sad, tired all the time. Though I know some things just need to be worked through rather than around, I don’t care. I’m being a brat. I just want it to be different right now. Which is the one thing it can’t be.

Yes, that’s Suzan and I on a Mundane Journey.

If only to have the cred to clean wetsuits of the guys who can do this only a few scattered miles south of San Francisco. Holy good lord (via Jeff Chang).

The San Francisco Local Merchants Alliance, an organization I support and have done some work for, has a nice write up in SFGate.

So hey, I’m done with my book tour. Like done done. Bookmark Now and I have parted company. We had a great run but now it’s time for both of us to move on. We’re going stay friends. We think.

Since I’ve been working the last 6 months almost nonstop, flying across the country a dozen times and eating way way too many egg mitts in waiting lounges, I’m going to take the month of December off. Any work that happens will be fit in between reading, movie viewings, trips to the gym, long walks and longer baths. It’ll be blissful. By January, I may be ready to start the proposal for another book. I promise nothing

However, since I’m a workaholic freak, I need to structure my relaxation time. Which is pathetic. But otherwise,, I’ll simply obsess about what I should be doing, even though I shouldn’t be doing anything, feel lousy about not doing it, even though “it” is nothing and make myself and everyone around me miserable.

Below is an ambitious, insane list of what I’d like to do before 2006 shows up for checkers and milk. I’ll slot each item in where I can, like tomorrow I’m buying a vaccuum.

1. Create personal budget for 2006

2. Record more episodes of Your Ten Minute World, my awesome podcast

3. Buy vaccuum cleaner

4. Try NIA or hip hop dance class at the JCC

5. Spend a day reading 9 inch pile of magazines I neglected this week.

6. Spend a day seeing 3 or more movies.

7. Spend an entire day reading one book.

8. Revisit geocaching

9. Take the giving of holiday gifts seriously this year instead of buying everyone I love a book from Amazon 3 days before Christmas.

10. Visit a place in Northern California I’ve never been to before

11. Write fan letter to Dailysonic

12. Write thank you notes to everyone who supported me during my book tour

13. Clean car

14. Empty old filing cabinet

15. Sell old computers on Ebay

16. Sell old CDs after buying a few large CD binders

17. Sell out

18. Sleep late (I suck at this)

19. Return 6 months of email buildup

20. Clean computers (files and casings)

21. Be.

What does your December look like?

Now I know this street corner very well. It’s only a few blocks from my house and I’ve caught the train and had brunch their several hundred times. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen this happen, although I’d pay good money for a repeat performance (via Torrez).

So my friend Roman does this thing called “Epic Walks” where he’ll walk with a friend or loved one for several hours and enjoy each other’s company. ‘Course he lives in Chicago where the steepest hill is a speed bump, not here in San Francisco where hills as much a landmark as the Golden Gate Bridge.

On Saturday, I hadn’t been to gym but I also wanted to go to the movies. Suzan had errands to run so she dropped me off at Stonestown Mall where I caught an early screening of Junebug (lovely, sweet litte film) and walked home.

I shouldn’t have worn brand new shoes. 10-12 blocks in my angles were already starting to tingle. So I slowed down, started up, skipped dawdled and tried to focus on what a beautiful summer afternoon it was in San Francisco rather than how much cardio benefit I was getting.

The whole walk took about 90 minutes not including lunch. If I focused on number of blocks left, I got discouraged so I tried to concentrate either on my immediate surroundings or let my thoughts wonder. And keep my feet moving.

When I was 14, my mother and brother and I climbed a 3,000 foot mountain in Switzerland without knowing it. We just kept following paths this way and that. The elevation was gentle enough that it didn’t strain you. We got to the top without realizing it because we didn’t look up or ever stop and think “I wonder how far we’ve come.” Our minds were elsewhere.

I believe I can walk a helluva long way if I’m not in a hurry and my focus is on the steps rather than the finish line. But when you’re done and you look at how far you’ve walked and yes, you’re feet probably hurt and you wonder where the afternoon went, you can say “I did that? Man, that’s pretty damn cool,” and you’ll remember it for a long time.