Running on fumes - the funcrunch files

It's been a long but invigorating couple of days.


Yesterday I had a goodbye lunch with my friend and former co-worker Jack who after 28 years in the same Laurel Heights apartment is heading off to a well deserved retirement in Palm Springs. We had seen a baseball game last Friday night (I won tickets at a staff appreciation day raffle) but it was so cold that we ended up leaving early, so it was good to regroup for lunch in a warmer location. Jack regaled me and another colleague with tales of his MUNI fast pass collection (the only complete one in existence; he was on Evening Magazine with it a few years back). He will be missed. (Trivia: Jack and I were born in the same hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. Just not in the same decade. ;-) )

Yesterday evening I'd planned to attend Mike's Contemporary Bands workshop for Blue Bear at the Rockit Room, but it wasn't starting till 10:30. So boyziggy got a City Carshare as he had the night off and needed to haul home a heavy box anyway, and we had a tasty but too-filling Eritrean dinner at Sawa. Then we drove through Golden Gate Park, stopping at the Shakespeare Garden where we were married almost two years ago. (Though I prefer the photo we took there six months after the wedding to the ones we took yesterday; a scary-talking-to-himself-guy-on-a-bike rushed our visit this time around.) Then we shopped at Amoeba, where I dropped entirely too much money but I very rarely shop for albums anymore, and I really wanted the Talking Heads "brick" consisting of their entire studio catalog in dual disc format: CD on one side and DVD on the other. (The only other album/video I have in this format is Nellie McKay's Get Away from Me, which was a mandatory purchase as I attended the concert where it was filmed.) We capped off the evening, and our stomachs, with chocolate chai and steamed soymilk in the Haight-Ashbury area. (Not wise for my weight loss goals, but at least I got a small.)

Ziggy dropped me off back at the office where I finished up some work and surfed the web for awhile, then walked to the Rockit Room. I hadn't planned on watching the other bands but they were actually quite good; both the intermediate blues and beginning rock classes had good musicians and performed many numbers I could sing along to. Mike's band went on last and a half-hour late, as I expected. I cheered them on and took photos, which I'll let him decide whether or not to post, other than this pre-show shot which I liked so much I had to upload to Flickr.

It was after midnight by the time I got out of there and I didn't want to wait for the 1 bus alone, so walked to the 38 bus stop with Mike and took it to O'Farrell and Van Ness, then walked the rest of the way (over a mile, but Van Ness seemed well-lit and safe enough) rather than wait to transfer. According to Gmaps I got in a good 4.7 miles of walking yesterday. I didn't get home till afer 1, but stayed up to download the photos and very short video I took, and make Mike a CD and some prints.

So I didn't get to bed till after 2:30, and really didn't fall asleep for over an hour after that as some of that nasty recent depression had come up and started washing over me on the way home. My dreams, when they finally came, didn't help matters.

Still, I forced myself out of bed not long after 6 so that I could stick to my commitment to walk to work every day. I didn't have time for a full breakfast but wasn't hungry anyway. Unfortunately I had volunteered to shoot B roll for the UCSF School of Nursing Centennial today. The cold air kept me awake, but there was too much of it, coupled with smoke blowing from the barbecues and getting into our lungs and the camcorder lenses. We didn't even manage to get any food as it was gone by the time we finished filming. I wolfed down a thermos of couscous back at the office while downloading the footage, and managed to stay alert long enough to walk home. I had toyed with the idea of going back to the Rockit Room to see my jazz workshop teacher Jim Peterson, but realized I probably wouldn't get home till 10 and I still have to make something for lunch tomorrow. The moment I slack off from my diet and exercise program I'll be sliding rapidly back to square one, and I simply can't let that happen again.

Current Mood: exhausted