is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Gains and Losses, Not Only In The Belly Region.
Gains and Losses, Not Only In The Belly Region.
When I was in Amherst, one night as we were driving back from eating pizza, I was telling Tom about how in my Grandma�s old neighborhood there were always huge (ridiculously huge) holiday light displays, the typical thing where neighbors seem to be competing to see who can create the most kilowattish overthetopish yuletidey lights spectacle in Cuyahoga County. (However, Cuyahoga County is also home to a GE plant, and nothing beats their lights display.) Tom immediately knew what to do; I could tell that Irene and Jimmy were ambivalent. But I wanted it so I said let�s go. So he drove us to this huge crazy light show at a dentist�s house or something. It was astonishing. I thought I would see nothing that could beat it this year!
I was wrong. In Benicia, CA, there is a group home for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who every year put together a display that is truly stupendous. My mom and I drove by to see it one night, and then the next night we decided all spontaneously that we simply had not spent enough time looking at it. So we went back. I took a bunch of photos but I took them on regular old film, so you can�t see them yet. But man! That display is some kinda combination of beautiful and obscene (in its excess, not its content), such that you aren�t always sure which is which and where the dividing line is. And that in itself is an achievement, no?
Better to channel your tendency toward addiction into painstaking wrapping of trees with light-strings than into strategies for hiding your substance-abusive behavior. That�s what I always say! Merry Christmas!
Right now I�m staying at Jeff and Caroleen�s, in the loft up above Jeff�s office. It�s a cute little space you get to by walking through a door and then climbing up a ladder. It has a full bed and a bedside table and light, with outlets for plugging in your laptop and sidekick, should you need to do such things. Caroleen had Sheenykeeny reading and waiting for me.
That�s ChinChin under the tree, up there at the top of the page.
Right now I'm in the kitchen and Jeff is downstairs making new display cases for some shop in the Metreon, and he is using chemicals that are neurotoxins, so he has a gasmask on. Yes, he still looks cute. I just returned from a long walk and a number of semi-successful errands. Caroleen is on the radio right now, singing one of the songs from Taking Tiger Mountain. This morning I took BART to Evany�s house, then we walked to 24th and York to eat at Levon�s place. Then I walked to Page and Laguna, Amy�s salon, to get my haircut. Then I walked downtown and attempted to procure a few final gift items. It was crazy at the Powell Street area. And I got nothing done, because the stores either did not have what I went seeking, or there were too many people around to make it worth looking. Tomorrow I�ll go to a slightly less hectic neighborhood and attempt to wrap up this gift thing.
Last night Evany and I went to see The Family Stone at the Metreon. It was much better than I anticipated. It isn�t exactly the comedy you expect it to be, and it isn�t quite the holiday-season-themed drama you might be looking for, but it will make you laugh, and it will most certainly make you cry, and it will do so in a measured way, demonstrating that holidays are rough because they remind us of traditions, and traditions always remind us of the past as well as the future. And the past always reminds us of loss, especially as we age and lose more. But also with age we gain more, and I�m not talking about our belly weight, OK? I was impressed and moved by how a movie with a sad ending was also a movie with a hopeful ending. And since you just might go see the thing, that�s all I�ll say for now. Except that it is also one of those ensemble pieces full of interesting and flawed human characters whose storylines you want to follow.
After the movie we felt a bit emotionally drained and not ready to go home and go to bed, so we walked over to The W and had a drink at XYZ. We got a comfy couch and big round table all to ourselves. I had a Mojito and Evany had something called San Francisco Spring, which was very tasty, with grapefruit, peach and vodka, and a salted rim. It was odd that the rim was salted instead of sugared, but no one really complained. We looked over the proofs for HER NEW BOOK and I caught a few errors in name-spelling in her thank-you page. We discussed dating and holidays and gains and losses of many kinds. Then I went back to my li�l lofty and slept very well indeed.
5:17 p.m. - December 21, 2005
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