june 17

the apartment's pretty in this near twilight - wayne's outside on the couch, strummin and banging away, and chuck and cherie are nowhere to be found - off at a stephen j. gould lecture. i haven't actually seen them since last night. we all went up to redwood park for a bread and cheese dinner and weinhard's rootbeer, a six pack of which costs as much as a case of their beer.

we ended up at an empty parking lot that overlooks the city and the bay and san frisco on the other side. the sky was clear and the sunset was filling it with a gradient from orange to yellow to blue finer than anything you or i could ever produce. way out there were estuaries that i didn't know existed, close up you could see people milling around their houses below, then further it was cars on a main road, then further it was barges in the bay. the lights below were actually twinkling, and the longer i stayed the more lights were added to the terestrial cosmos. there were planes off to the south in a big knot in the sky, all going in different directions. the spot was nice - i'm a panorama man, and this was a full frontal shot of the city in it's evening dress. this was a spot where i could go every day and contemplate, not necessarily think, which is different. there are a lot of places like this, mostly up high with incredible big views that make thoughts and ideas smaller and senses larger, like you could sweep your hand across the place and feel warm lights and sharp glass, smell gutters and pastries and rich human pheromones. you could hear the roar of so many cars if you realized it was there. i got everyone else to stand on the low wooden railing with me and balance there. you could only do it for so long, cuz it's just so darned big in front of you, although i could have stood for hours and never fallen.

after acquiring seven bucks worth of icecream and chuck's friend nora, we went and watched hercules (the disney version, which cuts out the good stuff like hera's jealousy, according to wayne) on chuck's souped-up performa. once you've watched it for long enough you forget that it's 13". the resolution's great. i'd get a tv card for my puter if i didn't want to spend the money on other things, like maybe a snowboard.

so i've found mp3s. cutler introduced me to them back at swat while we were both living in the basement of mary lyons, played some songs that i hadn't heard in a while. i had to curl up in his papazan when i heard forever young. that room had a lot of great music, and i curled up in there alot and distracted them, or knocked a beachball around the room for hours and only broke one glass. a few days ago cherie told me that you can puts mp3s on a recordable cd, cuz that's the medium they come from originally.

another thing to buy: cd burner.

i've never actually made a cassette mix for anyone. i liked the precision of cds too much to give over to tapes. cd's were sleek and new, even tho tapes were cheaper. that era of music-listening passed me by. it's part of those early years when i didn't know much about music or listen to it with friends much, except in eighth grade when adrian and i were lying down in his field, listening to the radio, and the who's "we won't be fooled again" came on. the instrumental intro lasted forever, and i got lost in the sky and the stars and i've never found a version with that intro. probably doesn't exist.

on the walk home:
an orange geranium planted in a gutted parking meter.
i pictured flowers lining the whole street
and everyone parking for free.