Languid Thoughts and Doings

Sunday, August 19, 2012—Long Beach, California

Hot apartment, still (as in both continuing and no movement, of the air). 1:27 AM, lying on sweaty sheets, listening to the Grateful Dead, Dick’s Picks Volume 8 (live in Binghamton, sometime in 1970—I forget the exact date). I’ve been reading Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, by Peter Marshal. Though I’ve never read it before, at times I feel like I have—many of the threads of thought it discusses are very similar to what I’ve been thinking for a long time. Other than a bit of Emma Goldman, I’ve never read any anarchists thinkers. It’s interesting how I came to such similar conclusions on my own, thru my own hard experience. Back to the Dead. I’ve been listening to a lot of them lately, been reading too Dennis Mcnally’s biography of them, A Long Strange Trip. Rediscovering something special in my life I’d lost touch with. I’d love to go to a Dead show right now … but the long strange trip has fragmented, hasn’t it?


The following afternoon. Early this morning I felt the compulsion to write, but one paragraph in I suddenly became really tired and crashed. I can’t really pick back up on the sweaty languid mood I had going then, though I am feeling a similarly ambivalent. Realizing that I’ve been working too hard for a long time. I want more nights of lounging around listening to music. I’ve neglected myself in recent years. I don’t want to work my way thru life anymore—I want to do something more like dance my way thru it. I define work as doing that which does not fulfill you (in other words, if you enjoy it it can’t possibly be work, though it might involve a great deal of effort). Given that definition, nobody should ever base their life around work—it should be something to be banished from your life. There, I figured it out, said it—now I’m done working forever!

Speaking of not working (writing), I got the new prototype of Edgewater in the mail yesterday. The book has turned out great. The painting looks like its painted right on the cover, which is what I was hoping for. I like the white paper we’ve chosen for the cover; it’s like a snowy version of the old Black Sparrow Press covers. Eric printed the insides on white paper, just because that was what he had, but I think it looks so good with the white cover that I’m going to stick with it instead of the natural colored paper I’d planned on using. I also like that I got rid of the bullshit blurbs on the back (I replaced them with an email to a friend concerning the book). All and all, I couldn’t be happier with it. All we have to do is do a few minor tweaks and print it up. It should be officially released early next month, only a week of two later than originally planned before all the cover issues arose.

Feeling again the urge to paint; I haven’t touch a brush since I finished the cover painting for Edgewater. I have some interesting ideas abound combining abstract images with text. Images of passages from Thoreau (why his work I’m not sure) partially extant thru structures of color, waving, bleeding, chipped—the equivalent of archaeological site in paint: inscription partially worn away, fragmented by time replaced by these emerging colors. I’m not sure if I’m explain this well, but the images are pretty strong in my head, stronger than painting ideas have been in a long time.


Odds and ends. Still not writing much. I’ve got a good opening to the new Backwaters book, but at the moment am lacking the inspiration to continue it—still too burnt out on that series. I also feel like the next move with it is still jelling in my head. My first day back at school starts tomorrow. Not looking forward to it. Not dreading it either. I’ve arrange to buy Greg’s Seagull acoustic guitar from him (how I’m going to get it here from Santa Cruz I’m not sure). I’m really looking forward to playing again—it’s been many years. Though I’m not writing much, I do feel creative at the moment. I think this means I’m in a good place to start relearning the guitar. There must be a reason I’ve decided to pick it up again now … Still working on my Greek, though I’ve lost a little of the intensity lately, mainly, I think, because my apartment has been so hot I can’t concentrate. Missing Greece too. Though I know it was the right decision, I can’t help feeling that I really missed out on something by not going again this summer. Gavdos sunlight calling me from the other side of the world ...

A Little Fatigue and Boredom / Margo Dreams

Wednesday, August 15-18 , 2012—Long Beach

Tired. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I’ve been getting up earlier because it’s been so hot in my apartment. I’ve also been doing a fair amount of “mind work,” which always wears me out. I’m dealing with a bit of eye strain as well—too much computer work, too much reading. Because of this I should probably be trying to get some sleep (it’s 12:17 AM), but I’m feeling restless, like I should be writing something. What I should be writing about, though, I’m not sure. Lately I’ve been feeling a little lazy in regards to this diary. There are lots of big ideas rolling around in my head, but they’re not jelling into anything overly coherent. I get the feeling that if I were to try and put them down “on paper” (says the computer addict) that I might be able to make more sense of them. But that just seems like so much work, much more than I can bring myself to take on. Maybe, though, I’m not being lazy. Maybe the reason I’m not pushing myself is that I know that certain things aren’t yet ready to come out. In fact, that’s probably the most likely scenario: when I don’t want to do something there’s usually a good reason for it, whether I’m consciously picking up on it or not …

Feeling restless about more than just writing these days. My routine is starting to bore me. Having to go back to teaching next week isn’t thrilling me either: that routine interests me even less. I’m beginning to realize that I’m thru with teaching anthropology (though it’s not quite thru with me). The years I’ve been teaching have taught me a great deal; they’ve helped me to understand where my writing needed to go after my Heaping Stones/Edgewater break thru. Partially because of my teaching in the social sciences I’ve figured out that my writing needed to begin looking outward. More specifically, teaching helped me get from the previously- mentioned books, which were about me (in the broad emotional sense) to the Backwaters books, which are more about community. But I’ve made that journey and I know it’s time for me to do something else. It’s time to put my new books out and make my way thru them—teaching has gone from a learning experience to one that is becoming increasingly confining, boring.


On another topic, I’ve been thinking about relationships lately, about me maybe again being involved in one. This is a very interesting development. For years I have not allowed myself to get remotely close to anyone: the last time I fell in love—one of only two times in my life this has happened—I was so badly wounded that it’s taken me nearly a decade to … I don’t know, I was going to say “recover,” but that’s not the right word. What’s really happened is that it’s taken me all this time to understand what happened, why it happened, and to integrate what it means into my life (I’ve probably made an overstatement—I do not yet fully understand what went down and probably never will, but I’ve made huge strides in this area). What happened to me with, I’ll call her Margo, completely short-circuited my life and I’ve been rewiring it ever sense. Or to be both more melodramatic and trite (but at least as accurate), there was my life before Margo and my life after her—and they are not quite the same life. My problem is that what happened between Margo and me was so profound (for me), was so powerful that I don’t think I could settle for less than that intensity of feeling again. The question is then can I be moved like that (or in a different way that’s just as absorbing) in a healthy relationship. Recently I’ve begun to ask this question, which could be a good sign …

Speaking of Margo, for ten years now she’s been haunting my dreams (I may have mentioned this in some earlier diary entry). The early dreams were horrid and always pretty much the same. The scene and backing cast would change, but in all of then she was incredibly popular—everyone loved her, despite the fact that she was obviously a completely self-absorbed user, which drove me crazy because no one but me could seem to seem what she was really like—and I was so in love with her that I was desperately trying anything to be with or at least near her. There was usually another guy or guys she preferred, which was something she’d make brutally obvious in my presence. She wouldn’t quite ever let me go free, though—she showed just enough interest in me to keep me around, to keep me thinking there was hope; I sensed she enjoyed being so worshiped. Often in the dreams she’d be sitting on my lap or lying with me in a bed. She’d let me kiss her in and sometimes do a lot more, but she almost always was indifferent to my touches. Or worse she acted like she was doing me the greatest of favors. I woke up from these dreams feeling angry, bitter, broken ... like a complete loser …

Over the last few years, though, my Margo dreams have become less frequent and there’s been a huge change in their tone—mainly because I’m viewing her differently. In these dreams she’s usually as self-involved and before, and sometimes she’s with other men, but I don’t hate her like I do in the earlier dreams. This is because I don’t need her. In these dreams I’ve learned to accept her behavior as that of someone who is deeply frightened and insecure. Since I don’t need her anymore she can’t hurt me. Without this pain of need I’m finding myself seeing a beauty in her cruelty, an understanding that comes thru empathy—I know she’s been deeply hurt in her life as I have and that she’s simply trying to deal with this pain: by trying to control the men in her life as a form of protection. In these dreams, despite our past, I have warm feelings for her and consider her my friend. I’ve also accepted that she doesn’t, can’t love me because of who she is and who I am. I’ve woken up from these kinds of dreams feeling good about things, about my past. The self-loathing that came out of the earlier Margo dreams is nearly gone.

Last night, though, I had a Margo dream that was at least partially a throwback to the earlier ones. I don’t remember the exact scene, but we were in a house. I think there was a party of some sort going on. I was back to needing her (though not as much as in past dreams). I don’t know if she’s with me in this dream, but she’s at least implied that we're together. But she keeps going into this bedroom where she is being fucked by this huge black guy who looks a bit like the actor who stared in The Green Mile. And when I say “fucked” that’s what I mean—she just being bent over by this guy and rammed, while he says abusive things to her and she gets off on it. In between being fucked by this guy she's in the living room sitting on my lap, kissing me, with cold indifferent lips. In this dream I’m feeling something close to the desperation and hate I felt in the old Margo dreams. I woke up feeling deeply hurt, by this dream Margo and myself—I thought I was past such self-tortures.

What interests me is why I went back to this type of Margo dream. Perhaps I just needed to clean out the attic, so to speak—perhaps there’s still some pain lurking around hidden places inside me that I need to flush out. As I’ve said, I’ve recently been considering the possibility of a new relationship and maybe I’m just trying to get everything in order so that can happen. I’m leaning towards this explanation, mainly because the aftermath of this dream was minimal, compared to the past. Back then after a bad Margo dream I’d feel like shit for hours, sometimes all day. Within an hour or so after waking up today, though, I was no longer in pain and could examine the dream analytically. For whatever reason this dream cropped up, largely because of my reation to it, I don’t think it has much to do with backsliding—I think it’s mostly about something new. Another reason I think I’m in someplace different is Margo’s persona has changed. In the other dreams she’d never have allowed herself to be sexually used as she was in this dream (or maybe she was using the guy in some convoluted way?). I’m not sure what this means, but it’s interesting.

Stupid Hot and Other Stuff

Sunday, August 12, 2012—Long Beach, CA

Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Stupid hot. Angry hot. Several days in a row of blazing heat with at least that many on the horizon. As usual when it gets like this my apartment becomes all but unbearable (people are always commenting on what a great rent I have, but they don’t seem to understand that I get what I pay for—a uncomfortable crumbling one-bedroom place in a ugly, worsening neighborhood that turns into a furnace at least a couple months of the year and has no heat when winter comes around). What’s bumming me out is that I have a lot I need to be doing now—prepping for, school, BSP stuff etc.—and it’s too hot in here for me to think. I think I’m going to head over to the Downtown Branch of the LB Public Library next week and try and get some work done in its air-conditioned environs. The situation in Chez Rob is ridiculous …

The weather is seeming even worse than it is when I compare it to last weekend, when I went up to my cousin’s wedding in the Lompoc area, which was much cooler than it is down here, especially at night (we even got rained on a little bit on Saturday morning, which is really unusual for August in these parts). Speaking of that trip, I enjoyed it. The wedding was one of the nicest I’ve ever been to (no phony religious crap or tedious traditions to be found). I was a little depressed for a day or so after it, though. My life feels so stuck these days: I feel like I’m more than ready to move onto to something else and I can’t quite put things together enough to make it happen. Watching E— and L— get married, watching them so happily moving into the next phase of their lives, got me really thinking about where I’m at at the moment, which is a significantly different place than I want to be.

Like I just said, this bummed me out for a few days, but I’m feeling better now. Things aren’t quite right with me, but when I look at the big picture I know I’m making the right moves, or mostly right moves at least. My days of making stupid decisions are over. The question is now how much can I recover from my previous wrong moves, my formally faulty vision. I think I still can make some big strides; the game's far from over and I can see a lot of interesting times for me on the horizon.


Since I’ve been back I’ve mostly been fighting the heat and trying to get some prep work done for school (I have my first faculty meeting next week). Greg’s been in town the last few days, though, so I’ve been hanging out with him a bunch and getting less done. Besides that I’ve mostly been reading and doing a bit of writing (on the latest Backwaters book, not in the diary obviously). Eric and I also seem to have finally gotten Edgewater ready for printing. We’re looking at paper samples and we should be able to let that rip by the end of next week. Hopefully it will be officially out by the end of this month.


Getting a little worried that gluten might not be what’s causing my health issues. I did an experiment at the wedding last weekend and ate quite a bit of gluten and had no reaction. Since I’ve been back, though, and gluten free my bloating has returned in a pretty big way. I’m very confused by all this.


Realizing that I’m a little weird as far as diarists go. Most diarists seem to be obsessive about their diaries. I’m not. I do it because I enjoy it and learn from it, because informal writing like this helps me as a writer (it keeps my chops up, if nothing else), and because other people seem to find it interesting. But I don’t stress when I’m not writing. Maybe it’s because this is an internet diary and my options as to what I’m comfortable doing are limited; maybe the aspects of my life that I might be obsessive about are the ones I feel the need to eliminate in this endeavor. I do wish I had more time to write here, though. I feel like I lose the deeper threads when I’m away from this diary too long. Once I’m back at work and trapped on the backside of Orange County with time to kill and work to bitch about I’m sure my focus will return.


Keeping up my Greek studies. I’ve hit a point where the learning curve has gotten a little steep, but I’m chugging along—slowly. It’s really hard studying a language when you’re completely divorced from its day-to-day use. None of the schools around here even teach Modern Greek. My goal is to learn as much about the structure of the language, its grammar as I can and build on that once I’m around Greek speakers again—vocabulary and pronunciation can come later.

Laying Back, Paul Bowles' Travels, a Dream

Monday, July 30, 2012—Long Beach, CA

Feeling a little out of it. I’ve been battling an on-again off-again sinus infection this whole summer and lately it’s been acting up (it can take forever to get rid of those things, sometimes many months). I also have a minor muscle pull under my left shoulder blade, which is just painful enough to be annoying. Other than these issues things are going OK. It’s a bit slow around here: I’ve been doing little besides working out, doing some light school prep, and reading. I’ve also been writing a bit, experimenting with an essay about my days in Hawai’i. I’m very much feeling my thru it, am not sure where it’s going. As I’d mentioned, I’d been playing around with ideas for a novel set in Hawai’i that ultimately didn’t work and in a sense they haves morphed into this essay. Hopefully I’m now on the right track with it.

Like I just said, I’ve been reading a lot. I read a lot of novels in the first half of the summer, but since I’ve been back from up north, it’s been mostly non-fiction, political and economic stuff, history, travel writing. I’ve burned thru a couple of Noam Chomsky books and in the middle of a third one. I’m also reading a history on Vasco de Gama’s Indian voyages well as essays by Orwell and a collection of Paul Bowels travel pieces. The Chomsky stuff I’ve been reading mainly for his perspectives and the massive amounts of information he provides (he’s a pretty lousy writer). With the Orwell’s stuff, though, I’ve been studying his technique. He’s nearly in a class of his own as an essayist. Even in his lesser works the writing and the thought shaping it is always razor sharp; he never wastes a word or goes on any tangent he doesn’t eventually drive right pack to the heart of the piece. I’m perhaps finding the Bowels’ book the most interesting, though. As a novelist he’s very frustrating. His novels start off so promising, but every one I’ve tried to read begins to let me down about halfway thru; it’s as if he’s become bored with his own creation and doesn’t quite have the energy (or the vision, which is partially born from this kind of energy) to see things thru. His travel writing, though, thus far really shines.

The book is simply called Travels and collects a lot of his travel pieces from 1950-1993. Some of the work has appeared in his books, but a lot of it is stuff that was published in magazines and newspapers and has never before been collected. It’s obvious that he’s toned down his style a bit at times for more mainstream audiences (the icy detachment of the narrator of The Sheltering Sky and Let it Come Down would no doubt freak out the readers of magazines such as Holiday), but his voice still comes thru. It’s a voice suited for this kind of writing too. With his novels Bowles always seems burdened by his plots, by having to tell a story—for him, you get the feeling, that the landscape, the climate, the people going about their daily lives is enough. Travel writing allows him to concentrate on just those things and he brings them to life marvelously. So far my favorite pieces have been set in his beloved North Africa and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). There are some that take place in Europe too that are interesting. When I’m done with this book I think I’m going to check out the rest of his non-fiction, including the travels books some of the pieces in Travels came from. He also published a dairy from his time in Tangier I want to track down.


I went to the Lakewood Mall today in search of a shirt to where to a wedding I’m going to in Santa Barbara this weekend (I came home empty handed). Going to malls has become a very weird experience for me. I simply don’t go to places like that very often. I don’t buy things in general. I don’t even watch TV much, which means I don’t see the commercials most Americans allow themselves to be bombarded with. Today I began realizing how disconnected I’ve become from the American capitalist enterprise—I truly don’t understand the mindset of the people who hang out in malls regularly. Nor do I really get why anyone would want to spend their lives selling and making most of the stuff sold in them. People shop, I think, because they’ve largely lost the ability to create their own lives, their own value systems. So they try and buy those things one step removed. It of course doesn’t work. And when it doesn’t they feel bad, which provides the impetus to go off on another buying spree to try and solve that problem (which is really of course just an expression of the first problem). And so on and so on … I’ve reached the point where, except for stuff like food, I hate to buy anything, not because I’m cheap, or even because I usually don’t have that much money, but because I know whatever it is will likely become more baggage in my life, something I have to wash or dust or do an oil change on. Stuff, in other words, equals work. I’m amazed that more people don’t see this. Freedom is a light backpack and a (relatively) full bank account.


I’ve been having lots of weird/bad dreams lately. Most of them are gone soon after I wake up (I mean within seconds) and all I’ve got left of them are the uptight or outright bad feelings they’ve brought out in me. I do remember bits and piece of one of these dreams, though. One which loosely ties into my previous discussion of shopping malls. I can’t recall exactly what was going on, but I was at a beach somewhere and I remember that everything you might to have at the beach had to be bought from vending machines that lined the cliffs above the sand—sunscreen, towels, and even surfboards had to be purchasest like this—you weren’t allowed to bring your own from home. I think there was even someone you had to pay a toll to for each wave you road. It was all just a handful of steps away from ultimate capitalist landscape where there’s a surcharge for breathing …

Weird James Joyce Dream

Friday, July 20, 2012—Long Beach, CA

I had a really weird and (I think) interesting dream last night.

I was in Ireland, lying on the ground outdoors on a mild sunny day. I was reading a large book (physically large—like a coffee-table book) of poetry by James Joyce. The poems weren’t anything he’d written in real life, though—they existed only in my dream. The poems were printed on pictures of the Irish country side. As I was reading I noticed that the photo behind a poem was the exact scene that was before me—a kind of living Impressionist mountain scape, featuring lots of greens of course, but also browns, purples, and whites, under a pale blue sky. As I realize what I’m looking at my sister and I begin holding hands, while getting into to beauty of the poem, the picture, and it’s “real life” counterpart (I’m not sure if my sister was there the whole time or if she just appeared at this point in the dream). At about this point I begin to cry, tears of beauty. But a part of me is faking it; I’m putting on some sort of show, for my sister, for myself, and for others I feel are there somewhere but  where I cannot now recall.

The scene switched after this. I’m watching TV, back in the U.S., I assume. I’m watching the Charlie Rose Show, except that it’s the late 1970s and Rose has long hair (though he’s not looking all that much younger than he does today). He’s interviewing James Joyce, who in my dream universe is still alive at this late date and doesn’t look any older than his early sixties. He also doesn’t quite look like he does in the photo’s I’ve seen of him—he looks like a cross between James Joyce and Tom Waits. Rose is asking him questions about the book of poetry I’d been reading in Ireland. I’m not really hearing the questions or the answers, though (or maybe I just don’t remember them). I do notice, though that Joyce doesn’t really have a septum, that he essentially has one big nostril, which I find really fascinating and only a little gross. Joyce’s movements are very Tom Waits, very stylized semi-phony American hipster. His voice is a bit Wait’s-like too. He’s wearing one of those old-fashioned English bicycle hats, where the brim is short and connected to the top-part of the hat by a snap.

Later that morning I wake up with opening lines for a poem, a big epic poem, rolling around in my head. The poem has nothing to do with the Joyce poems, except that in my groggy state I see Joyce’s dream work having showed me the way back into my poetry, which I’ve lost touch with since 2009. Here are the lines (I think, I’m not sure what I woke up with and what might have morphed in the several hours since I got out of bed):


We have broken the seal completely

Whirl whirl          Californie whirlie whirl

and of course the cattlemen of Stockton

              understand the lumber ships in San Pedro and stacked

up across the horizon

touching Japan (Terminal Island)—

into pink dusk

summer palms


And that’s all I’ve got. I don’t think it’s particularly good. Nor do I know what if anything to do with it. But the way I arrived at it is pretty cool. Worth documenting, I think, if nothing else …

Rain, Relaxation, and Jean Rhys

Friday, July 13, 2012—Long Beach, CA

Rain! Since yesterday we’ve been experiencing a strange tropical depression, which has brought overcast skies, humid heat, and again, rain. This is so strange for Southern California. We can go a decade without summer rain and to have multiple days of it like this is even more odd. While this little intrusion of weather has been interesting, I would like my traditional dry Mediterranean-climate back, please—I don’t like humidity and the last couple days have been like a bad weather patch in Hawai’i. Welcome to Global Warming or just more traditional weirdness? Hard to say, of course …

Not too much going on besides the weather. I’ve been working out a lot—running, bike riding, and lifting weights—and I hit a little wall this afternoon: after going for a run early this afternoon and then eating a late lunch I just kind of collapsed while listening to the Angels game (they’re beating the Yankees 4-2 at the moment), slept hard for an hour or so, and then just vegged out in bed listening to the game, until I decided to write a bit here. The plan for the rest of the evening is to stay in bed, while writing a bit more, studying some Greek, and doing some reading. Every once in a while I get like this—I just need a day (or in this case half a day) where I take it easy. Sometimes I forget how active I am, both physically and mentally—and I’ve finally learned to accept when I need a break. I wish I could get to the point, though, where I plan them into my schedule. As of now I push forward until I drop. It would be healthier if I rested up before that happened …


Speaking of reading … I’m hitting a stretch where I’m stumbling upon some very interesting books. I’ve shelved my Proust redo for the moment (though I do plan on getting back to it) and since before my trip have been tearing thru Jean Rhys novels. Reading her has been a bit of a revelation for me. Her books are so good, so far ahead of her time. She has this simple pared-down style that is paired with an almost post-modern minimalism in regards to plot, which allows the complex emotions and thoughts of her protagonist to flow thru unimpeded. She really has only one story to tell, which she comes at from different angles in each novel. All her tales concern the plight of women who find themselves in the world without means yet strive to live lifes that will give them more than just being someone’s wife, someone’s baby-producing machine. Her characters long for beauty and ask little more than a small amount of fuel to keep their flame up hope alive. But they are trapped in a world where they are dependent on men, mainly for money, mostly because the other woman is the only role society will allow them beyond wifedom; they long to escape being property, but soon find themselves becoming simply a different type of possession. Dark stuff. Claustrophobic. Tense. But beautiful in its execution. Powerful feminist art in everything but name. It’s pretty rare these days that I find a writer who really has something to teach me about writing. But I’m learning a lot from Rhys, a whole lot …

Other reading notes. Still plowing thru a so-so history of the Greek war of independence. Ready to take a break from Jean Rhys and have Dawn Powell’s novel The Wicked Pavilion in the on-deck circle. I’ve never read her before, but I’ve heard so many good things about her stuff that I’m excited and am hopeful that I’ll have found another writer this summer who really works for me.

Sacramento and Other Evaluations

Wednesday, July 11, 2012—Long Beach, CA

I’ve been back in So Cal for a few days now and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Whatever problems I have with the more northerly regions of this state, at least (in most areas) they’re less crowded. As soon as I got off the plane in Long Beach I started to feel a bit hemmed in. Since then I can’t stop noticing the traffic, the dirt, the … pointless busyness everyone seems to be engaged in. More than ever I want out of this place; I simply don’t belong here anymore. I want someplace quieter, slower, more human. Back to my Grecian dreams. The key for me, I’m realizing more than ever, is to build up Burning Shore Press, to have an income that doesn’t come from whatever local economy I find myself in—because I simply can’t make a living most of the places that attract me. Big ideas rolling around in my head. I can see me soon breaking with much of my current life. Big angry realizations about capitalism, about my phony cowardly country. Too big to discuss now—I want them to roll around in my head a bit more …

Contemplating my little trip north. I said some fairly disparaging things about Santa Cruz in the previous entry. Overall, though, I like the place—it’s quiet (in comparison to Southern California) and there are definitely some nice people there. I was feeling pretty uptight there, though. This had a lot more to do with what was going on with the friend I was there to visit. His marriage is going down in an extremely ugly way and being a part of the shambles that is his life at the moment was very stressful and not all that much fun. Still, it was great to see him. I just wish I could do more to help him. But he’s the only one who can work out his problems—any attempt I could make in this area would either be ineffectual or put me in a situation in which I have no place. Later I can be there for him. Right now moral support is pretty much all I can offer.

The Sacramento part of my trip was a very different story, in that I was really able to relax there (I’m so glad I decided to go to Sacramento after Santa Cruz instead of the other way around). Sacramento is a pretty non-descript place in many ways. That, though, is its strength; it’s just a pleasant place with plenty to do (if you know where to look) that doesn’t ask much of a person. In other words, it’s not like Southern California or San Francisco, whose infrastructure and accompanying social dynamics demand the world as soon as you leave the house (and sometimes while you’re still in it!). It was also of course great seeing Steve, my old comrade in arms. We’ve been friends for over thirty years and we still find ways to connect that I don’t happen with me and other people. What makes seeing him so interesting for me is that though we share a ton of history neither of us are ever trapped by that past—we’re both always using it as a springboard into new things. Over the last few years are relationship has been especially interesting to me in that we both seems to be going thru a period where we’re intensely evaluating the past, our past, the history of , well, kind of everything, to see what can stand up to the scrutiny of the wisdom we’ve somehow managed to wrench from our time on this planet. We both seem to be retrenching ourselves, in the personal aspects of our lives, as well as socially, politically, etc. For a decade or so there we seemed to have really diverged. Now, though, we appear to be arriving in similar places, in some respects from radically different angles. I’m not yet sure what any of this means, but it certainly is fascinating. It’s going to be interesting to see where we’re both are ten years from now.

As far as what we actually did in Sacramento goes, it was a nice mix. We hung out in some good pubs (this trip was interesting in that it was the first time I’d had anything to drink since February), went to a nice bookstore, watched some good films/TV, went on a hike in Big Trees State Park (in the Sierra Nevada foothills), and went to the Crocker art museum, which was having a show by Mel Ramos, an artist I’d never dealt with before (the museum also has a nice regular collection, dominated by regional artists). It was a good leisurely time—the perfect antidote to my Santa Cruz stress …


Other notes:

Still pushing my way into the gluten-free world, figuring out what I can and can’t eat. Still feeling good, though my stomach problems are lagging behind the rest of my body in this department. Yesterday I accidental ate some peanut butter that contained a soy base (which contained wheat) and my stomach bloated out like a famine victim. Unpleasant, but good in that it showed me that my stomach problems almost surely have their base in an overall gluten issue, which means that I’m now doing what I need to do to solve the problem.

Back on the wagon after coming home. Drinking as an occasional social activity works for me, but that’s about it; I have no desire to drink to drink. Since I’ve quit I’m noticing how much certain people around me drink. I’m glad I’m off that path. At this point in my life it can lead nowhere good …

Another thing keeping me from drinking is that I can’t drink most beer because it’s loaded with gluten. While in Santa Cruz I tried some sorghum beer. It wasn’t bad. A bit light. Missing something as far as it’s taste goes. It’s not a bad option, but I don’t see myself putting in too much effort to track the stuff down.