Last Evening

December 31

Happy New Year's Eve! Soon it will be time to do resolutions, and look at last year's goals, and do the Tropism awards -- my favorite entries of the year!

But, for now, just a brief stop-in, a last entry for 2002. We're off to Santa Cruz in a few hours for partying, and I just wanted to wish everyone well before we go, and catch you up on my past couple of days, and post some more pictures...

Yesterday Heather and I had dinner with Nick, who's in town for a couple of days. It was a last-minute "Hey! Our time in the East Bay overlaps only briefly! What should we do?" sort of thing. We went to Spettro, this funky little eclectic restaurant in Oakland with a flying-skull logo, and Nick treated, because he is a good and generous reprint-selling man. Dinner was good, with chicken linguini and braised lamb shanks and mahi-mahi and other delicacies, mmm. The conversation was better than the food -- Nick's stories about those wacky, literary New York folks are priceless, and Heather always has plenty of bizarre work-related anecdotes. Nick gave us a gift, a copy of Before & After: Stories from New York, which includes his hilarious and affecting essay "Old Boilers and Old Men". Happiness abounds. And I envy his leather jacket, though it wouldn't look as good on me as it does on him. Actually, it wouldn't look good on me at all. Some people aren't meant to wear leather jackets, and I am among that number...

Here's a picture of Nick and I at the restaurant last night. Heather noticed the light/dark nature of the composition -- Nick, all in black, with a background of darkness, and me, in lighter clothes, with white behind me. But the secret heavy metal devil sign cares not for such distinctions, and rocks ever onward.

Otherwise, there's not much to say. I read a neat comic, Far West, about a Wild West populated by elves, ogres, etc. -- no humans, though. Pretty cool! Also read the first collection of Fables, a comic about fairy-tale creatures living secretly in New York (The Big Bad Wolf is a cop, Prince Charming is a womanizer, Jack is a petty crook, etc.). Interesting, worth reading. Nothing much else to say, so I'll leave you with this last picture, which Heather took of me sprawling. She likes it a lot.

Words written since February 1, 2002: 204,600

Words written since last entry:
None to speak of.

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