Bright blue

Sharp purple. Jasmine milk. A still-sunny sunset. Boys running. Teacher-student emptiness. Little bicycles with big wheels. A stone courthouse more stately than thought. Two good-looking girls. Boy, girl running. Wooded, shadows. The sun behind buildings.

Random thoughts on a Tamalpais day

The mountain circles in the distance very close, exposed, known, a burned-out expanse in the sun-hot day, a cleared, overexposed floating sensation, obscure by the very nature of the light, a two-tone filter over everything. Yellow and lighter than light blue.

The Bay mud, a sticky, clogging-feeling mess -- hair in a drain catcher, mucous in an exhausted, overworked, slightly asthmatic pair of lungs (like just having breathed in the air to power an overweight body's legs on a bicycle up an insanely steep trail through the woods) -- merges with the sensation of the mountain's sight.

The known. The unknown. "Not knowing is most intimate." It's always best not to know, to see everything with fresh eyes, moist-new to the world. Whatever.

Floating in a vapid, treasure-less space, pierced by the image of the fire from a .45mm handgun's thick-ass ammunition when fired. What is a day? A thought never to be known?

Sitting down

The day went slow and halting, but it, as days will do, went.

Sitting now in the sunshine, semi-full of rosemary-olive bread soaked in olive oil and a Gibraltar, the leaves of the large oak? overhead filtering a clean, glowing East Bay light.

People -- including a woman in big sunglasses and a purple bandana, Tom's shoes, a yoga mat-showing backpack locking up an old, red 10-speed bike with a cheap-a$@ lock of the same brand that failed to protect my Bianchi fixed-gear (I'm not a hipster!) from some thief who enjoyed slicing the lock and freeing it -- drift by on the sidewalk.

An ambulance passes and the toned-down Miles Davis-like jazz filtering overhead slowly melts the day.

Cup o' Noodles morning, languorous, gently-buffeted day

The day starts greyly and a little late. Roll out of bed in the cool East Bay air that swirls in our room, pass the piano keyboard that crowds my side of the queen-sized bed, which is a smidgen too small, along with the super-comfy comforter, for us.

Tired body opens the bedroom door, seeing grey morning light fill the room and the little cat, lonely sleeping on his bed, which is actually a sitting cushion rolled up.

It's island-in-the sky quiet; at 6am you'd expect more noise. The walls themselves, and the blinds, appear to be sleeping. 

Walk to the bus stop a hundred yards away over the not-busy-yet highway. Arrive at the bus stop, an empty "Cup of Noodles" cup rolls on the healthy sidewalk gently in the slight, steady dawn breeze. An Asian dude does calisthenics, including squats and holding his body against the bus pole. He's doing something that looks like a glorious stretch - folding over his toes into a forward fold and then twisting his chest to face upward along with one hand.

I sit on the narrow, painted-wood bus stop seat. The woman next to me on the miniature water lily-colored seat has some rhinestone-laced open-toed flats on. The rhinestones make up the middle of a flower. Her black-painted toenails have fireworks of colors painted on them, exploding.

Bright lights, big city

Xmas con amigos

Christmas was a whirlwind of family and friends, as it should be.

Some moments:

Food, grass-fed, amazingly fresh, local (from Bolinas, Calif.) beef, champagne, super-nice red wine, some serious vinyl blues, Bob Dylan, a little reggae, some out-of-this-world cheesy potatoes, and a subtle cherry-infused chocolate mousse-like dessert, overlooking the sexy city from Twin Peaks and friends known since single-digit age.

Hills near Fairfield, Calif.

Xmas Mass:

Sea walking

No bike, since it (another one!) was stolen, so stuck walking (and skateboarding) to and fro, everywhere. That creates an interesting situation in the squall, greyed-out SF Bay Area rainy season. Today, at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, I stood in line at the Blue Bottle there (chatting up the solo dude working the three-barrel espresso machine - the side line is actually longer than the main one, though it looks quicker) and out the window glass doors leading to the thin swath of path that allows Ferry-ers to overlook the Bay while they eat and enjoy the Ferry Building, sea gulls dove past, amplified by the grey rainy day, their bodies part of a magical, hyper-magnified effect, taking the afternoon into dimensionless space, swooped to and fro. A large barge, loaded with dull-colored shipping containers, moved slowly by in the mist-distance, Angel Island in the background.

Walked home (1-ish mile) in the pouring rain. Soaking in the grey, green, soaked hood on, the Peralta Avenue mid-street park - part of the Bay Trail - creating a nice sliver of green, solace path in the downpour. The greyed out skyline adding a water-heavy gravity to the act of walking.