Information Blues.

Okay, I’m acknowledging another cycle of blog neglect. I thought the double essays on Shasta/Whistler really sucked, then my chaat waterskiing post was pretty wack which caused me to spiral into a period of introspection: if you don’t like what’s coming out, you pause to look inside.

I woke up this morning in the Mission and bought crude donuts for breakfast; I barted to work and made a pot of coffee that was so strong it had a mocha colored head. I grew so caffeinated I could feel it in my brain, a tension in the center that felt like a bent nerve, creating pressure. I floated through the day.

I was walking around the Lake at dusk wondering what I could write. It’s pretty obvious to me that I’m blocked, which I realize is one of my biggest fears: I’m afraid that one day I’ll be empty, blocked forever. I’ve made it one of my few goals to absorb life’s beauty and return it, to take the small details I see and patch them into something larger. In my best moments I feel I should be like a fountain, gushing life, but the spring is fickle and life isn’t exactly what I thought it would be.

I’ve been thinking about time, memory and context. I’ve heard it claimed that you reach a point some time in your twenties where your life’s too large and your memory fills, that you’ve experienced so much that you begin to drop more details. I don’t know if it’s exactly true, but I heard it and then I felt it. It felt profoundly adult, that I’d grown old enough to become truly confused; memory has become quicksand as the details sink.

I wonder if this is what makes adult life speed by: you’re over capacity and the edges are blurring. You’re seeing the same things every day and those same things are taking up space: life is a looping memory leak.

I find myself trying to dig in my heels, break out of the loop, to distinguish each day as new and different, special and worthy. But we’re swimming in data and can hold only little.

The ‘Town is going to the playoffs!

But it’s also pretty hahahahaha:

Another picture drew the comparisons of Martin Lawrence and Joey Fatone. It’s okay, keep on laughing!

We were sitting at the Aquatic Park watching waterskiing. I thought it would be wildly entertaining, I’d guessed we would finally see the enormous floating jump ramp get some action, but it sat idle the entire time with a lazy seagull napping on the lip.

Instead of jumping the waterskiiers focused on slalom. It was fascinating for a few moments, but maybe the course was too easy; nobody fell and only one dude fouled (he held up his hands in agony, let go of the rope and sailed off into the open water until he submerged.) They’d slice laterally, resisting the rope as long as they could until they were slingshotted forward. When the rope re-engaged their heads would whip back like a passenger in a fast car as they warped ahead, tugged on elastic.

It was windy in an aggravating way. It was the kind of wind that chaps your lips, dries your eyes and makes your inner ears cold. It was a rude wind that eagerly transported the scent of dying Fall algae, bacteria and heavy-metals. I hate the wind.

We were sitting on a brown 60’s steel sculpture, trying to hide from the wind while watching waterskiing, eating chaat from Vik’s: pakoras dunked in tamarind mint chutney, lentil dumplings wallowing in spiced yogurt, samosas by hand and chole by spork. Sometimes good Indian food feels like a fireworks show in your mouth, it’s supersaturated with flavor; seeds are popping in your teeth, green chutney is running down your chin, radiant orange curry is sliding down your throat to churn in your stomach.

We were sitting on a sculpture and chaat is exciting but it turns out waterskiing is pretty boring, so after gorging on fried fireworks we split.

I decided to get mano and start stomping around in the Word Press stylesheets, which I really don’t understand all that well but are generally intuitive… thus my site now looks different. Instead of a psychedelic sunset I have a windowsill full of curios.

I can’t tell if I like it or not.