we eat fire.

Tonight we went out to SF yuppie-central, the Marina district, to catch some dinner with a friend at Isa, a restaurant we hadn't been to before, but we were in the mood for something different so we braved the area. The food was great, and we talked and ate and talked and ate some more, drank some good wine, skipped desert, thanked the chef, and headed out the door. Even though the clientele, and the entire neighborhood for that matter, weren't our usual collective cups of tea, I had a wonderful time and plan a return trip soon.

After dinner we went for our usual Friday night drink at our favorite local bar, which just happened to be geographically on the opposite end of San Francisco, so I drove all the way down Fillmore, up and over the hills dodging taxies and drunk kids and general packed city madness, crossed Market and all the way down Dolores until we decided that looking for parking was too much of a pain, and, besides, all the good food put Mr. Sleepy into our heads. So I turned around and hit the freeway and the bridge over the bay back home. It seemed funny to traverse the entire length of a city on surface streets only to turn around, but the drive was strangely compelling and actually just what I needed at the moment.

Earlier this afternoon I hit the southern suburbs to pickup the turntable I *finally* got around to purchasing. You see, my old turntable was one I had been borrowing from a friend's brother since I was 16 years old, and now nine years later he's decided he wanted it back. It's OK though, the thing played records too fast and I had given up on itlong ago, so I unhooked it and started to watch my records collect dust. I met the seller at a hotdog stand/restaurant where she was hanging out with friends all morning, chatting and smoking cheap cigarettes. She wore mostly leather and her skin was an orange color from too much sun and tanning salon exposure, and her hair would have made a 80's metal band jealous. She pulled the turntable out of her grey blazer and I gently put it in the back of my work truck, giddy with excitement at being able to listen to records again. The best part is, the turntable (a Technics SL-1700, the home version of the famous DJ version the SL-1200), was manufactured the same year I was born. How appropriate.

When I finally got home from work I annoyed Miss Rodeo America by repeatedly playing my Christopher Cross LP while I made attempts to calibrate the thing. I finally got it working, although I'm sure it's not at its optimal performance level, and have been enjoying the crackle of of the needle as it drops on the vinyl.

See you at the bakery tomorrow.

Day 12, Feeling Good: So it's my twelfth day in a row working, and I'm still pretty happy about the way things are going. What's to complain about when the weather's nice outside, the food is good, the beer is cold, and there are only fun things coming this weekend? Nothing, that's right.

So I tracked down the new Springsteen record, and I have to say that I like it a whole bunch. Some of it is slightly cheese-packed (I blame the producer), but all these reports about it being all about September 11th are a bit overdramatic. It's not a somber record, not by far, but a celebration of all things people hold dear. Oh, and the E Street Band sound great, it's good to hear the familiar sax/organ/keyboard stuff again, it gives the songs the life that had been missing from the last few records. Things sound real again, and I'm tempted to say it's his best album since Born In The USA. I'm on my fourth listen, and I can't wait for the fifth.

Nothing left to say, so you can read about the toughest three-year old in the world. She kicked a cop in the groin and tried to bust out of a police car by kicking the doors and didn't get arrested, how many people can say that?

I know it sounds silly, but working the new brainless job over the weekend somehow jump started a little happy corner of my brain, and I've been smiling ever since. I've been better at my "real" job, I play with the cat more, and I smile at Miss Rodeo America pretty much constantly. I'm feeling more inclined to go out and just *do* something, so we went over the San Frandisco last night and got a some Pabst at the bar with all animals looking down on us. We sat there, admiring the hypnotic Miller High Life light show and just feeling glad to pretty much be alive and in such a beautiful place as around the SF Bay in the summer.

Damn, I sound like I'm getting all soft or something.

petaluma, calif.

Baked Goods Heaven: Yesterday was a very long and very involved day full of stories of travel and friends and beer and yes, baked goods. The new job started out pretty well, I picked up basically everything I needed to know in a couple hours, and spent the rest of the afternoon peddling cakes and scones to the yuppies coming down from the hills. I chased a guy around a corner who forgot his purchase on the counter, learned the bathroom code for the building, and found out which merchants would hook you up and which ones to avoid. All in all it was quite a productive day, and I walked home holding a couple bags of bread and treats for our houseguests. I start day two in about an hour, so we'll see how long I go before this enjoyment turns into a rotting hatred of all mankind.