Eggs, Leather, Prayer, Ghosts

June 2

4:50 p.m.

Hello! Happy Saturday! Heather and I are currently roasting at Pergolesi, our laptops plugged into the coffee shop's outlets, perking up periodically at the ghost of a breeze coming through the window.

I'm still running a day behind, so here's yesterday:

After my morning of writing, Heather and I got some good breakfast at Mama's (it's no Zachary's, but it's still yummily quite good). Then we went into the city to visit Stormy Leather. So many fun fun (expensive expensive) things! Much over which to drool. Heather and I have such wonderfully convergent tastes...

We got some lunch, then went back to Oakland for a few hours-- she read Tiptree, I dozed and read and thought about fiction. I spent much of the day quite preoccupied with my Little Gods story, actually, figuring out some things, mulling over some others. It's difficult for me to write a supernatural story that so closely concerns death, especially this kind of story, which deals in part with trying to get a dead loved one brought back to life. I believe death is irrevocable-- there are no resurrections, no rebirths, no afterlife. Because I believe that, none of those options are viable solutions to my character's plight. I think I've figured out how to write the story in a way that's true to my beliefs and to the story's internal logic, though. So that's good.

Then we went back to the City (I am BART-Boy of late). We met Holly (Heather's super-cool sister, recently returned from Bali) and Justin (Holly's loverboy, a very nice hip hacker house-music type). We wandered around the Tenderloin for a while (ah, the crunch of used syringes under our shoes!) looking for a good Thai restaurant, and found one. Thai iced tea, mmm. I had a dish the name of which I cannot, actually, remember-- rice and chicken and Chinese sausage and a fried egg. Quite much delicious. Holly dispensed gifts from her travels, including a prayer scarf for me. She says that it's meant for storytellers, and that when I wear it ideas will fill my mind and words will pour from my fingers. I looked at Heather and said "So how will I be able to tell the difference?" Hee.

Then we went to New Hack City, Justin's co-op. He spun music (including a track that featured a sample from Ghost in the Shell), Holly and Heather danced (interesting bits of them and their clothing glowing in the blacklight). I, admittedly, thought mostly about my story. I was living very much elsewhere in my head, but I had a nice time. Heather and I, being old and lame, went back to Oakland around 11:30.

But we aren't so old and lame that we went to sleep right away...