notes from the week

Pho on Castro Street with new friend, JF, whom I met at a conference in August. She directs the LGBT youth group I participated in when I was a youth. It wasn't like we were new friends at all, she was so welcoming. "'Cause we're both metal monkeys, remember?" Something about the coincidence of our zodiacal signs and our materials. I was worried that she might be more hippie than me (she has an "altar" and "a spiritual practice," but didn't follow up so I don't know what she meant), or just different (she mocked me for using the word "euphemism" and said things were "tight") but in the end we could give and take about our silent meditation retreat experiences, short hair, girlfriends who lived far away. "Skype is my best friend." Nice and easy. I liked the way JF did things. She handled noodle soup. She looked pretty sharp in a tweed blazer with wide lapels and a crewcut, and seemed comfortable in her identity. I asked about pronouns; JF raised an eyebrow and said, "He, she, or they. Anything but 'it'." I have few gender non-conforming friends out here, especially down on the mid-peninsula. Hope we'll see more of each other soon.

Very last showing in Bay Area of Avatar in IMAX 3D with B preceded by diner meal where each of us polished off discuses of turkey breast and B berated me for leaving some fries uneaten. Gulped and rushed to theater only to find ourselves two of only a few dozen patrons in a giant room, and the only two attempting to take cell phone photographs of ourselves wearing 3D glasses in the near-dark. B drawn like sailor to siren song of Junior Mints. Before movie started, B looked me up and down and said, "Wow, the 3D is so convincing!" After movie started, B made grasping motions at Jake Sully's 3D chest hair. At pivotal moments we braided our hair together and stage-whispered "THEY HAVE SEX WITH THEIR HORSES!!" Also, if that shit was so close to that huge planet it would have been absorbed and burned up in its atmosphere, and damn, are they mammals? Because thanks for the mammaries, James Cameron!!!

Friday rainy lunch with L at a favored sushi spot. "Why should I pay three times as much for sushi that tastes about the same?" she said. Leapt over puddles in wool biz cas pants on the walk back to the car. Then 5:30 p.m. insta-meeting in VIP's office. "You know that part of the Godfather?" He was talking about the scene where the gangsters "go to the mattresses" (which apparently means let's work really hard and NOT let's all kill each other) but I made a comment that might solidify my legacy at Law Firm as the associate who believed unbilled waking hours would be punished with interoffice delivery of severed horse heads. "You should be here 24-7 minus sleep." This is a pep-talk? Nervous twitters, moment of silence for carpal tunnels.

Santa Cruz, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Fall Creek Unit with R, OZ, D, B, O, N, C. Bagels, pastries, coffee, and skim of Palo Alto Daily News first: Measure A would increase per-parcel schools tax by $534, vote by mail. Perfect in sunny valley, chilly in shaded mountains. D wore an orange hiking layer, then a black hiking layer, then an orange hiking layer. "I was going to wear my orange vest too, but that just seemed like too much." Turned around twice driving to the trailhead; turned around once getting lost on the trail. What was supposed to be seven miles turned out to be eleven, but even exhausted spirits ran high. OZ asked if I knew who Toby Gerhart was and seemed satisfied by my half-hearted guesstimate. O, who wore a sun hat, pulled a spruce brush from the ground and pretended it was a mustache. We passed rusted, crumbling remnants of a limestone quarry and barrel mill. Took trompe l'oeil photos of N pretending 6" banana slug was a tongue. C talked about a job giving hundreds of mice cancer and then trying to cure them. The trees, mix of redwoods and various conifers, were so tall and thin that one felt like humans on Pandora, or hobbits in Fangorn Forest, etc. Fall Creek was loud, clear, and full. We passed only a handful of people, including one lone smiling sociopath in flip flops. It took more than three hours to walk to the midpoint, a mid-sized redwood marked by a placard reading "Big Ben Tree." We focused our frustrations with the conditions of the hike on the tree and teased it like a bespectacled schoolboy. Mediocre, we called it, Mid-height, Unimpressive. N slammed open the chocolate orange on its burnt bark. D shared tuna fish with capers. I shared Pocky. We walked back at a clip playing the song game with the words "white," "name," "river," "car," and "discostick." B told me about the problems with Teach for America. Plans to hunt down balut vendors in the East or South Bay were made. We took a group photo under a tree by balancing a camera on the trunk of a sea foam Corolla and then piled into cars and drove away. R called for a pit stop at a place called - she squinted - "Coffee Eat." We're older, our eyes are going, it was "Coffee Cat." I bought a box of Samoas from a shivering Girl Scout outside Safeway and R read the ingredients. "I don't eat transfats. Or high fructose corn syrup. You see? Partially hydrogenated canola oil." O and I ate five cookies, then I left the box of transfats at the bottom of a trashcan. I drove back with the sun in my eyes and mysterious South Bay reservoirs revealing themselves to the right and R talking about the reprehensible romancing habits of a half-blind boy she knew. I intended to go to a housewarming at night but could not find the willpower to change out of my pajamas. Instead I watched Internet television and layered out of tune vocal tracks for a new saccharine song.

At bedtime, couldn't sleep, rolled from back to side to stomach, stripped jacket, stripped pants, redonned both, drank water, applied chapstick, peed, turned on fan, took pills, pounded a pillow, squeezed out a few frustrated tears, crawled under bed and held Boo's head for companionship, played Don El Don but all the words that came to me were related to this litigation I've been betrothed to for six weeks. Insomnia is so lonely. Long after daylight savings I thumbed a frantic text to S, and then passed out. All I did on Sunday was resolve the fallout from the frantic text, stare at photos of S, debate the virtues versus shortcomings of futons with S, buy running shoes, run, and work.