Protesting The Man in Ole San Fran

There are a couple good Activism Sights one can see in San Fran. The University of California at Berkeley is the most famous, both for the spontaneous sit-ins to protest the lack of free speech on campus, and Reagan sending in the National Guard to oust people from the People's Park--when the University was already peacefully handling the issue. (Bast!)



And second, the San Francisco State University--where protests led to one of the first Black Studies programs.



I shall bring my peace flowers and sing Bob Dylan songs in a Joan Baez tone! (Hey, the one thing I never worry about when traveling is acting Touristy.)

(Or better yet, I'm gonna write a song based on the title on this blog post.)

My Life: In Curtains

School's starting... and how glad I am to be sitting on my ass writing posts about my curtains instead of shopping for expensive books and worrying about B's from Soroka.

*

Growing up, when I would visit my grandfather in Edmonton, I would always stay in the same room. I loved that house--I would love to live in it... if it wasn't in Edmonton. Anyway, when my grandfather passed away my mother sent me the room's accoutrements because she knew I loved them.

The primary object I loved was the curtains. The room had gigantic windows and these long blue and lavender flowered curtains, which were really sheets, so they let all the light through. I loved that. I love a light room, so I was very excited to inherit these totally old sheet-curtains. They cheer me up so much.

But I have trouble finding the stud in the right corner of the window, so they weren't hung securely, and when they finally fell my desk was in the way, and I was in school and All That, so they stayed unhung. Sort of. I have one anchoring screw in the middle to support the cheap rod, and I hung the entire curtain on that rod. Of course, it would be crooked. And when they changed the windows in our apt years ago they never painted the new (shittily done) wood frames. And then, at some point Nombly of course PEED on the bottom of the curtain, so I removed them and chopped off the bottoms and washed them. But I was so Schoolified that I only rehung one of the curtains (can't even remember why now--maybe cause it was lighter, for the broken rod).

So you can see here the poor one-sheet teetering curtain, with wood window frame. Sigh.

I managed to move around and clean up this corner enough to get my MA essay done. Notice how I did not photograph the top of the mono curtain so you can't see the crooked. (The chair I make no apologies for--the cover is for the cats to scratch. The yellow table held Haley's sleeping bed, and her favourite Reitman's bag which she liked to lick.)

This was the state of the desk after I cleaned up the rest of my room. I then lost the energy to clean up the desk area, so I've been desking at my bed for months. I think by this point, however, I had painted the wooden frame.

Today I finally pulled all the stuff out and rehung the curtain rod. I think it's secure now. It took me several long nails, the stud finder, my hammer, various screwdriver heads, and pliers. Then I dug out the other sheet, and put curtain hooks into them. You can see, however, that one of the curtains has been bleached more by the sun than the other... sitting here I feel like one of my eyes is more in focus than the other.

I hung up the framed drawing of the Swan theatre which used to hang in my grandfather's bedroom. I rehung the rice paper lamp which I love, and arranged all my writing books, and my current research. (My old compy is tucked in the corner--I still have files on there.)

A little fishy paper clip holder from my grandfather's desk. (Not sure who has the Hear all evil, speak all evil, see all evil monkey ruler.)

I laid out a carefully staged scene as though I was researching my book all day. There's my laptop with its cute gel cover, and notice my collection of Book Holding Apparatusi from my school days. (1) The plastic stand with my notebook; (2) the metal stand with Metallica; (3) the red heavy thingy that holds books open... (4) there's one more you can't see here, a small metal thingy. Don't laugh, I broke two book stands over those 2 degrees.

And as the moose in the Leon's ad used to say:
CURTAINNNNNS!

Here are the pictures from the room I used to stay in--they were all Chaucer related, presumably picked up when my grandfather took a trip to England--he taught Chaucer and Shakespeare. This is Canterbury.

Scenes from The Canterbury Tales. On the right is the Wife of Bath--one of my grandfather's favourite characters and he would love to recite her "Prologue."

The Wife of Bath talks about all her many husbands, but especially the last one, who was much younger than her. And he was always reading stories from a book about how inferior women were to men. One night they fought and he hit her, and she fell down on the floor and lay still as though dead, and he was upset and apologizing.

"O hast thou slain me, false thief!" she said. "And for my land hast thou murdered me? Ere I be dead, yet will I kiss thee." And he came near and kneeled down as though to kiss her, and she punched him. After that she made him give her his money and lands and burn the book, and they were happy ever after.

And I still have some other talismans about... my Alex Ross Wonder Woman...

the Writing Smurf Wai-Yant gave me...

the Terror who watched over my homework, and the little Lips Gorilla my stepmother gave me to get me through the end of my degree.

Imaginary Life on the West Coast

So my brother has finally found the perfect place to live in Vancouver. Check out this sweet listing:

"$725 / 1br - CAUTION - Slum alert (N. Surrey)If you want all the noise and don't mind other people hearing you do "everything", you don't care whether you have a fire, or you like the thumping by psychotic downstairs neighbors, rent this pigsty. Revolving door tenancy."

He'd better rush to grab that one.

My dad is always sending me places to live in Nanaimo. (My boss also, for some odd reason, thinks I should live in Nanaimo.) Anyway, he finally found me a nice place on my dream street: Buttertubs Drive. I would love to have BUTTERTUBS as my address. Buttertubs sounds like a lesser known member of Our Gang (The Little Rascalz).


Here's my sweet little home. I wonder if I can hire on whoever lives there now to do my gardening.

Conventiently located near Buttertubs Marsh, of course. As Virginia Thoreau said: A woman must have money and a marsh of her own if she is to write fiction.

Destination San Fran: Parrots and Detectives on Telegraph Hill

Alright, this time we have a San Fran Destination from the Step-mommy: The wild flock of parrots living in San Fran-- the so-called "parrots of Telegraph Hill."

I gather that Ferry Park at 5 PM would be the place to visit if we want to see them, but maybe we can ask a tourist kiosk and see what they advise.





Telegraph Hill has apparently been featured in these movies (among others).

After the Thin Man (1936)
Vertigo (1958)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Of primary interest is of course the Thin Man! Apparently they used the base of Coit Tower as the outside of Nick and Norah's home.

San Fran Day Trip Possibilities...

I'm not sure if I'll want to take any day-trips when in San Fran, but one must explore the possibility. One is:

Yosemite National Park.

Actually, I'm more interested in a nearby county where I might crash a train in my story. But Yosemite is presumably pretty--Ansel Adams thought so, and photographed it til the bears came home.

Yosemite Sam liked it enough to name himself after it.

If you go in the middle of the night, you might see a moonbow.
(I had no idea there was such thing as moonbows.)

On the other hand, we might have to add it to the List of Dangers--ten years ago a bunch of tourists were murdered by a serial killer.

Death by San Francisco

Well... last night I felt sleepy around 1 AM and was in bed and asleep by 2. So now it's 8:10 in the AM and I can't sleep! I feel sleepy, but the sleepatudes won't come. My usual remedy is a bowl of cereal and a book, but I'm substituting the book with internets for the moment.

I've started making a mental list of The Dangers of San Francisco. Here's how it starts, in no particular order...

1. Earthquakes of course. Here are the various fault lines in SF.

Here's Union Square at the time of the 1906 earthquake, and today.

2. Tigers: A guy was killed last year when a tiger escaped from her enclosure. Maybe we'll give the zoo a miss. (Okay, for sure we'll give the zoo a miss, cause I don't like zoos!)
3. Serial killers, of whom the Zodiac Killer is the most infamous.

...Contemplating gruesome deaths makes me sleepy. Gonna try to get some sleeps now.

Nothing Day

I had a fairly useless day today, but that's okay. I work full-time on my book these days, so if I come across a Wasted Day I chalk it up to "I was due for a weekend." I couldn't even bring myself to do groceries, which were needed.

Part I of Useless Day: The Bard

The only thing I did story-related was watch Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles' movie based on the history plays I'm working with), and I finished upoading the audio books I bought. While I already know the Henry V play quite well (except the parts Branagh cut), I don't know Richard II, Hen IV.1 and Hen IV.2 as well.

Last week I bought and read the "No Fear" version of Henry IV (both parts.) But next I need to read RichII and the Hens all the way through, and make notes; and I decided it would be more interesting if I bought audio versions of them. I used to love sitting in my teen bedroom listening to Shakes on LPs from the library. So... I uploaded those to the compy. That's Work isn't it?

I highly recommend the No Fear Shakespeare series. They're Shakespeare in modern English, but not *like, what's up dude* modern language... it still Sounds Formal, but it reads easily. I'm pretty comfy with Elizabethan English, but I still have to read a lot of footnotes to get the full meaning of the texts; they're usually more enjoyable on a second read when you've already studied the notes. But with No Fear you can do both at once, as little or much as you wish. By reading the modern English you by-pass the footnoting, but the original is on the opposite page so you can skip over and enjoy the poetry. These versions are available free at the Sparknotes site, though I bought mine. (I can get a lot of reading done at bus stops.)

Just look at this bit. The old French king (so perfectly played by Paul Scofield--I have a mad crush on him RIP) is discussing Henry's threats against France. (No one's posted it to youtube, but this is the scene just after where Brian Blessed gives the Dauphin a massive shaming.)

Here's the modern version:

"I think King Harry is strong, so the rest of you princes make sure to arm yourselves to meet him with strength. His ancestors got their first taste of blood in battle with us, and he is born of that warlike strain that haunted us on our home ground. Reflect on the battle of Crécy, where, to our everlasting shame, all our princes were taken prisoner by the Prince of Wales, he whom they called Edward the Black Prince."

Alright, so you understand what's being said. But now read it in Shakey-language:

"

	Think we King Harry strong,
	And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
105	The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,
	And he is bred out of that bloody strain
	That haunted us in our familiar paths.
	Witness our too-much-memorable shame
	When Cressy battle fatally was struck
110	And all our princes captived by the hand
	Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales..."

"...And all our princes captived by the hand of that black name..." I love that line. But maybe you need to see Scofield deliver it as though he can see a bloody battle field in front of him.

Part II of Useless Day: The Frivolous Part

Read a magazine, caught up on the news. Decided that any recipe called Pisto Manchengo deserves to be made (not that I made it.) Ate homemade cookies. Laundry. Cleaned up my room a bit. Played around on the compy cleaning up my blogs (mostly this one--scroll down to see my cute new avatar!) I changed some of the colours on my blogs because I'd always used the sucky blogger colours, and I took the time now to find better (in my op) html codes.

http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/
http://www.colorhunter.com/
http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

And now I'm wasting more time here, when I should be sleeping.

San Franvegan

I don't usually tag things in this blog, but I'm going to start marking out San Francisco related posts.

Here is my first possible trip: To a vegan sundae shop! And my step-mother is lactose-intolerant, so she should be similarly approving. (The starting point is one hotel possibility.)
Now that I cook all the time I'm less excited by veg restaurants, but at least finding veg alternatives shouldn't be too much of a problem wherever I am. Ahh the flaky west coast.

What I did with London was I marked out every place I wanted to go and then, with my HUGE and EXTREMELY DETAILED Michelin map (gotta get one of those) I grouped things together and created my own tours. That's how I ended up walking so much... I would look at the next location to visit, and would always think: The weather's so nice, why bother going underground?

And I will admit there was one more disincentive--I have a mild fear of loooong escalator rides, upwards. And in London the stations are really underground. Holy crap. At one station there was a sign on the stairs that said something like: "No really, don't take the stairs. You'll die."

The Nose Knows

I'm returning Mae's perfs to her this weekend, after having them for tooo long. It was a classic case of human beings not liking too much choice--deciding between over 30 scents at once was too complex for me. And smelly. My hands would get all smelly. I tried just wearing one at time, but then it's hard to compare over time, and I'd lose track of what I'd tried and what I'd thought.

What I needed was to smell a bunch in a row without getting smellyhands. It occured to me today to pull out a pair of hospital gloves, and using Kleenex so that little droplets wouldn't fly everywhere, I ran through all the scents one last time.

The Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab are the ones Mae likes the best. From these (and from all) my fave was Squirting Cucumber. If I had to choose a second, I'd say Ephemera.

From Arcana, if I chose one, it would be Grasshopper; and from Posset it would be Observatory. I thought I liked a second one from Posset, but the longer it sits on my wrist the weirder it smells.

...Next time I need a choice of, like, 3 at a time. But I guess I like the *grassy* smelling ones, or citrus-ee-ish. I don't care for the ones that smell like a box of chocolates, or the ones that smell like a health food store, or the ones that smell like Barbara Cartland.

(What I really need is a perf called
Cucumber Sandwich
from the Oscar Wilde Collection.
"This scent combines the thinnest slices of cucumber
with a heavier note of white bread,
brought together by fresh English butter.")

*

SQUIRTING CUCUMBER
Yikes! A spurt of wet, grassy greenness.

EPHEMERA
The scent of loss, love and the echo of time without end: sorrowful violet and chamomile with muguet, white geranium, calla lily and tea rose with a hint of autumn leaves.

Grasshopper: A sparkling pan-Asian blend of Indonesian ginger, Japanese yuzu fruit and Thai lemongrass, spiked with a hint of Indian black pepper.

Observatory: Specifically made to bring to mind the classical lines and purpose of The Cincinnati Observatory, this fragrance is pure Old World Charm improved to withstand the rigors of 21st century living. Perfect for business or pleasure, The Observatory will always feel like the right choice. Cool, dry, focusing and unisex, The Observatory just reeks of class.

galump

I need to clean off my desk. For the past month I've been using my bed as an office, while my desk goes unused. When I reorganized my room I dumped a bunch of papers there... I guess I could just dump them somewhere else. And my lamp needs to be moved, because the desk moved. And I need to find a spot for the old compy. And set up my stereo. And find a spot for my current research books.

I thought I was going to do this today, but nothing has happened so far.

The courage to fail on my own!

I always thought my lack of cheating (on exams, papers etc.) meant I was a prude or something. But apparently it means I am brave! and empathetic! and in the minority.

"Two studies of more than 400 students at Ohio State University found those who did not cheat scored highest in tests of courage and empathy. ... 'These people probably have stronger personalities and are less likely to give into temptation.'"

BBC article

Saaan Fraaan Cisskoh

Well the Step-mommy is in. Yippy! Now I must put together a budget. And see if my travel-hope comes crashing down about my ears.

I'm sleepy.

London and My Sentimental Old Age

I've decided that... I might like to take a trip to San Francisco next year. I'm setting my next book in LA or San Fran, so I'm thinking... maybe I should visit one of them once the book is underway.

This may all come to absolutely nothing--I wouldn't go until next year. I need time to save up the moneys. And maybe I won't be able to save up the moneys! But I'll start looking into it, see how much it would cost me, so I can figure out if it's an achievable goal. Then I'll look around for a travel buddy (the Fernando doesn't mind staying home to catsit--he's not about the globetrotting.) Maybe one of the parental units, or my bro, since they're all out west, and it doesn't cost any of us very much to fly.

My heroine is from LA, and the hero from SF, so I've got to decide which one to use for most of the story. In other words... I'm deciding to set my story in SF rather than LA simply because I'm more interested in visiting the former. I bet all the writers do it and then lie about it later. "Oh I simply had to place the story in Maui..."

On the Subject of Travel Partners:

I actually learned in London that I love traveling alone. I got up when I wanted, took as long as I wanted to plan my day, went exactly where I wanted to go, spent as little or as much time as I wanted at each place, spent as little or as much money as I wanted, took breaks when I was ready, pressed on through sore feet when I chose to... it was perfect. The one day I spent with Gilby going to Oxford was fun, but I missed a couple things I really wanted to see because I needed more time to figure out where they were, or I needed to double back when I realized my mistakes. But with someone waiting for me (I only bought the guide books once we got there) I felt too guilty to take all the time I needed etc. Gilby never ever complained, but... I couldn't help it. I worry too much about the other person having fun.

BUT... I doubt I would have stopped in at the Tolkien-CS Lewis pub and had a drink if I'd been alone. So I do have to thank him for that. :-) And we agreed that when you bring your friendship into a whole new country, it has reached a wholly new & exciting level. And I should add that while touring alone was fun, it was nice to have someone to watch Office episodes with at night. And it was like a high school sleepover when I would sit on the edge of the tub (clothed except for my poor sore feet, which I was soaking), and he would sit on the hallway floor, and we would have Heavy-Deep Conversation.

So if I travel with someone, I just need to carefully weigh out the Together Time versus the Alone Time.

...
...
...Now I'm feeling all sentimental, looking through my London scrapbook. Missing Gilby, and missing London. And missing travel. I hadn't traveled in a long time, and it painfully reminded me how much I love it. Unfortunately these things cost money-money-money, and I have chosen a low income life.

Clippings from the Powerpoint Scrapbook
(Clik on them if you want full powerpoint size!)

My trip to the East End to see where the Elephant Man lived.
This is Bedstead Square where he would walk around at night.

This is the exact building where he was put on display, when
Dr Treves first saw him. (It wasn't a saree shop at the time...)

The Oxford Route.

The Eagle and Child (or Bird and Baby) pub where
The Inklings met. It's no Chenoys but... it'll do.

Gilles is Gilby's other pseudonym.

"I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. "
(Dr Watson in A Study in Scarlet)

My Life: A Photo Montahj

I've been growing out my bangs... mostly because I've been too lazy to cut them. But maybe it's all the heavy metal I've been studying. Maybe I need to work on my devil horns too.

Fernando

Why are cats so cute when they sleep?
That spoon makes it look like he took a hit of heroine and passed out.

Haley just got up and moved down to the end of the bed
and fell asleep against Sherry's back.
She fronts like she's a hater, but truth will out.