Christmas Eve 1 (or HS Homecoming)

"They do Christmas Eve Different here, dad."

That's what I overheard Alex say while we were making our Christmas phone calls home to family in the states. More accustomed to a sit down dinner with your nearest and dearest, a church service before or after, the parade of musicians and nativity themed floats primarily starring children takes the traveler by surprise.

I call the second photo Joseph's beard.

Layover

My love affair with Oaxaca resumed in December when we got to escape the global-warming-ozone-layer-depletion-fire-the-engines cold of the bay area. Perhaps my memory is glossing over a freeze from last year, but I have no memory of so many 40 degree mornings.

I am starting this series of photos, however, with one of the last I took on our trip. On our way back from the beach, we had a 6 hour layover in Oaxaca City. While I went across the street to look at dresses, Alex guarded our bags on the steps of Santo Domingo. With beach relaxation still in his heart, he laid out in endearing fashion keeping our luggage safe and his feet up.

Well you know his birthday's just around the corner now

Don't do it! Do noooooot do it. Do not write about the "crisp autumn air" or pumpkin cookies or spiced lattes or scarves and tights. Do not - do you hear me? - do not use the word "cozy" or "snuggle". If I read one more lady blog about your "Fall Favorite Things" I'm going to have to go all hood rat on you.

When I read through blogs today I felt like I was trapped in an acid trip designed by Oprah and Martha Stewart. I could smell the lavender linen spray everywhere. When I finally closed my computer, I got up and fluffed a pillow before arranging my books by the color of their spines. Thank god I snapped out of it before I started laying them down horizontally and placing sea anemone shaped tchotchkes on top.

I know it's fall, but please ladies. We've already got the Home & Garden/Food Network All-Stars shoving fake fall leaves in our faces and on our cupcakes. Let us make it through this fall season without too many trips to Michael's. If I throw up in my mouth anymore today I might remove the remnants of tooth enamel that survived the first 50 little pukes.

You know this means gingerbread lattes and red turtlenecks form the Gap are just around the bend. Oh Easter Bunny, where are you when we need you?

My Mondays are different from your Mondays

So on my Mondays, I work straight from 9:00 to 3:55 with no break. I teach one 100 minute block followed by a 10 minute break to start my morning off. That break is used to mop up the remains of the last class and set up for the next. If I am lucky, I can manage to shove half of one of those heart shaped oat cake things in my mouth before some kid is standing in front of me asking me something like, "Did you get drunk this weekend?" or, a new favorite of some of your country's future, "What clubs do you go to?"

Then I have "lunch". This is a 30 minute piece of my day that happens like this:
"Alright everyone, pack your bags, push your chairs in and show me your planners on your way out the door!" I am trying to smile more, so while I say this, I look like I have some kind of hidden orthodontics in my mouth that make me make this face that shows my teeth - kind of the way a horse might look when people say it is smiling, but everyone knows it's not, really, because it is a horse and not a person. Then I look up and there are 10 minutes before my advisory period. Then maybe - mmmmmmaybe - I eat a yogurt too fast and my stomach feels funny for awhile. My last class is a poor man's version of the first two because I can't remember what I said to which class. My jokes are getting all mixed up and my horse smile looks weird, a little lopsided, like the horse is very very tired, which I am.

Finally everyone goes away and I am left with lots of work to do. People keep coming in and "need" to talk to me. I really "need" some whiskey and a double IPA. I really "need" you to just let me have 42 seconds to myself on my no food no pee days.

And then, when we were driving away to go see some friends who have normal lives and can go out on week nights without accepting zombie-like lives the morning after, there were goats. This lady who did a tarot reading for me, she gave me a card to take home and it had a a goat on it. She said it was playful and that I should try to have more fun in my life. She also said I should sleep around a bit. I said okay.

So there were goats at the bottom of the hill from work. In the city. Near Candlestick. I think they were working.

Today, today!

Thank goodness for red lights. He looked away when he saw me with the camera.

There's more of that red stuff over to the left, but you can't see it. Go to 6th between Folsom and Mission to take in the whole mural. It's so cool. You've got all that geometry happening to the left and right, and then an explosion of grafitti in the middle. It's all grafitti, I know, but the style in the middle of the piece is more traditional.

I hope no one does anything to it. Our stupid kids who call themselves taggers who only scribble on notebook paper and the back windows of MUNI if they're brave enough like to show how down they are by writing "Toy" across pieces that they deem inferior - not art, not grafitti, not good. Silly little teenaged minds. Lots of fronts. Who they really are, no one knows yet. I hope they don't destroy this piece.

Good day in the city today. I saw a bunch of Miro pieces I'd never seen before in a place I'd never been when, really, I was only in town to look for boots. The ceiling was made of gross old squares of who knows what; some were stained. I felt sorry for the paintings. But I was happy to see the work. Alex called while I was at the gallery. He has a backyard now.

It was warm and hardly windy, even downtown. Thank you sweet jeebus.

Better Half, take 2

I don't look twice at message tees. This guy brought his to attention after I moved off of his stoop so he could pass on by. Hello, here's my tee shirt. You know he almost got into it with some guy down on the Embarcadero over it. Walking along, "minding my own business with a friend of mine", he was approached by some other guy who asks him what he means by that shirt. Shirt guy says nothing. He doesn't mean a damn thing by it. It's just a shirt. But what do you mean by it? Are you trying to insult me? The man doing the asking was black and referring to the ugly and archaic insult relating black people to monkeys. Shirt guy's friend stepped in and cooled the situation down and everyone went on their own way.

Shirt guy was still frustrated and even a little bit angry about the whole mess, though.
"My wife is darker than that man was. I married an African-American woman ten years ago. Best thing to ever happen to me. Best thing. Too bad I didn't meet her sooner, when I was twenty."
"Maybe you wouldn't have been ready for her when you were twenty."
"I was in Vietnam when I was twenty. But you don't know what that was like."
"I'm glad I don't know what that was like."
"It's better you don't know what that was like."

We said those last two things at almost the same time.

The bottom of his mustache was yellow, from the smoking I'm guessing. I thought that was kind of cool. Not the smoking, just the record of it. Dandruff all over the shoulders of his brown beautiful monkey tee shirt. He kept telling me I'd break my camera taking a picture of him. Then we said goodbye and me and my friend got called in for a table for brunch and I forgot to order the beignets which is the only reason I wanted to go there in the first place.

What the pony?

Rush hour not so fast

Battery, north of Market, doing the recycle.
Up, up, up!

He went thataway!

Sky Trail, from Battery Street

Commute

In traffic, going east. Casual carpool.

Holidays

The #49, 10/31. North Beach - a non-violent gathering. Happy Halloweenie.

Racing

Baker & McAllister - a day at the races. Pt. Reyes Station - Sir Francis Drake, Retired.