Menlo Park, Oakland B-Ball

BART-ed to Menlo Park for a sister's Birthday Saturday hang. Cold, rainy, and downtown Menlo provided the homely-less atmosphere of some drafty drawing room in a long-forgotten western European castle. There were some nice 20' by 10' wool/silk rugs for $9,000, though, and some cold, institutional bagel places and one coffeeshop sporting handwritten signs. A peak inside didn't lend confidence to the quality of the food, however. Sister is going to Stanford, which is just a short bike ride from Menlo Park. And Stanford's dweeby character comes through very clear in its smattering of biking Saturday Stanfordites, the computer meetings spied while passing by its maze of buildings, in its business motifs and stone Spanish? center-of-campus architecture. Its tower, where Condoleezza Rice hides out apparently, is ominous; a long, thick largely-windowless structure. Riding by, it's easy to feel a cold, Condy-eyed world, cruise missiles, clean, monarchical furniture, and dull-domed, officious, chardonnay evenings.

Stanford Tower, ominous as hell.

The day passed quickly. Sister was crashing and burning as happens when you sleep too much and let down during a high-pressure PhD first semester, which includes a lot of journal clubs and unclocked labwork. We sat through People magazine-accompanied pedicures and doze-inducing hot-rock initiated leg and foot massages, a few hours after a rough-country, suburban, comfort food brunch?.

Pedicures are real, people.

So, left a little early with her lounging on a blanket-crumpled couch, her black-and-white outlaw quiet cat hovering around, some Hulu-plus shows like Parks and Rec and others navigated via an X-Box controller and a grunting, first-of-the-season furnace blowing some comforting toasty air into the book-lined, blind-drawn apartment. Stepped out into a drizzling, cold, miserable evening to bike to Caltrain down the street. A night to be doing what my sister was doing, not commuting on the institutional, plastic-heavy Caltrain, whose interior bright lights somehow made the drizzling dark outside that much more forlorn.

Pre-boarding, stocked up on some orange juice and cheese crackers from the 7-11 just near the station entrance. And some layers Trident. Hmmm.?

The building in the center of the photo is the Oakland Y. Below that expanse of noticeable windows is the gym. Walking by you can hear the games. Hoorah.

Played the fourth game of the Oakland YMCA fall men’s basketball game today. Our team is mostly white (besides one Mexico City-ite) and lacks aggression most of all. We’re good, but turn the ball over a lot. We won – we’re 2-2, now. It’s a tough league. Last week some guys on the other team dunked on us. Not appreciated. Getting older, and slower, is tough. I used to be one of the best players on the court. Now, you see the past ability and flashes of inbred-skill, but mostly, I assume, it’s just a sad flow of images. Maybe getting in good basketball shape, after healing this janky, twisted right ankle completely, will get things on the right track. ….

Reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen finally. Good. Appreciated the Don't Look Back reference, a moment in the documentary where Dylan not only punked Donovan, but distinctly gave the small crowded room, and us, the difference between skill and genius. Freedom: "The breathtaking nakedness of Dylan's competitiveness! Her feeling was: Let's face it, victory is sweet."

Dylan, to a train-chugging, softer-then-louder-then-softer guitar:

You must leave now, take what you need you think will last. But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast. He understands your orphan with his gun, crying like a fire in the sun. Look out, the Saints are coming through, and it's all over now, Baby Blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense. Take what you have gathered from coincidence. The vagabond is rapping at your door. He's standing in the clothes that you once wore. Strike another match, go start anew, and it's all over now Baby Blue.

DAMN. That swirling Dylan, asshole-magic.