Kommute Archives for March, 2001
Archival Kwality Kommute Entries. Read through these to catch up, or waste time, or whatever!
It's a whole new century thing. Hypermegaultramodern. Proto-Pomo. Millennial Wonders!
It's been a busy month, in like a lion, out like a lamb...
Read up, enjoy! Dilute! Dilute!

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Thursday, 03-29-01
<morning> I didn't work quite as late last night. I've been feeling really sickly and I think the late nights are contributing. Stress, lack of sleep, too much caffeine, all that good stuff. I'm kind of short tempered today, but I managed to have a nice enough kommute. I walked to FLYSTOP and waited a bit there for the bus, and this entertaining guy carrying some take-out breakfast came up and started talking to me about my hair and that kind of branched off in to how he was just an "Old Hippy" and he prattled on in this very good-natured kind of semi-crazy way about all manner of things until the bus came. He was so totally contented and happy about having this nice big breakfast to take to his wife, I was really entertained by him. He sat near me when we got on to Muni, and kept on talking, saying "Hoo-wee, this breakfast is going to save my 28 year marriage! She's expectin' Mc Donald's and here I come with this breakfast! Hoo-wee!" and then we got stuck in traffic because of an accident, it was a funky old beater car and a mercedes, and the happy guy started whooping it up saying "It's a beat-up ol' HOOPTY Car hit a Mercedes! Ain't it always like that?! Never a Mercedes hittin' a HOOPTY car, naw naw. Hawhaw!" - That is my zen for the day. On the 50, there was a strange old homeless woman sitting near the front of the bus and for some reason, when we got up to the Toll Plaza, the driver called the Bridge police and had them come escort her away. She was hollering and unhappy, but I have no idea what went down. Hmm.

Wednesday, 03-28-01
<morning> I was at work until 1:30 a.m. last night. Or should I say THIS MORNING. Ahem. Anyhow, with that in mind, I came in late this morning. Everyone is being fairly understanding about that. The commute went fairly smoothly today, it was super foggy and grey in San Francisco, but balmy and hot once I got to San Rafael. I just can't win. I need to remember to drink tea today to try to soothe my sore throat. Wow, for some reason, when I went to type 'sore throat', I typed 'short skirt' instead. 3 times in a row! Wow! I'm losing my mind. Here's a funny article about Americans living to work rather than working to live.

Tuesday, 03-27-01
<morning> I stayed pretty late at work last night, 10:00 p.m. or so, so I figure that I earned the right to come in 30 minutes late. Uhrrrr. Somehow, my employers disagree with my system. I woke up a little late, which was a glorious thing. I was having all these really lame HTML dreams about divs and alignment and navbars... Not a good sign. I got out the door just before 9, got my coffee and hopped on a bus almost immediately, which was a relief after yesterday's Muni fiasco. A guy got on a few stops past MEATSTOP and started whooping and laughing as he struggled to remain standing, and he exclaimed "Whoo-wee! Who needs a roller coaster when we got Muni, huh?" and everyone cracked up. My 15 minutes at HAMSTOP were not terribly exciting, just kind of sunny and stuff. It's a pretty nice day, sunny and clear but I'm feeling kind of stuffed up and crummy, so it just feels kind of oppressive. I sort of spaced out for most of the rest of the kommute, sort of lost in my thoughts. I have come to learn that the protesters I saw yesterday were headed north to San Quentin, to protest the execution of Robert Lee Massie. I find it really truly sad that we, as a nation, still impose the death penalty. It's so barbaric, it solves nothing. I don't know why that comes as any sort of surprise, considering the fact that humanity as a whole is essentially coarse and barbaric, but sometimes I forget. I hopped on to a third bus in San Rafael and this strange old woman said something to me, which sounded like "Young lady, You had a trim" so I said "Pardon?" and she repeated herself, "Young lady, you have a twin. Her name is Rhonda Beaumont and she's a captain in the Salvation Army, so she doesn't quite have your hair, but she definitely has your face." I smiled, and she added "You even have her smile!" Very weird.

Monday, 03-26-01
<morning> Late late. I waited 45 minutes for Muni this morning after getting out the door kind of late. Screwed my morning up but good! I spent more than my share of time at MEATSTOP, and this nutty old woman wandered up with a newspaper asking whether or not i'd watched the academy awards, and I said yeah, I watched a little bit of it, saw the part with Julia Roberts flipping out. She went on to say "Ooh, my little Russell won" and kissed the newspaper photo of him. Um. Then she went on to say something about a medal he was wearing, and went off about his father or grandfather being a cinematographer in the invasion of normandy and how people who put themselves on the front lines like that are a little crazy, and ultimately heroic. She had very few teeth in her head, and was a little freaky besides. Eventually 3 buses came in rapid succession, after I was already considerably late. pff. Muni. I had a good weekend at least. Decompressed nicely. Now i'm recompressing. While I was at HAMSTOP, a Muni bus pulled up, and I was kind of hiding from the sun behind the shelter, and I glanced over to see the driver winking and gesturing at me, his body language asking whether or not I was getting on, and I said "Oh, nah, no..." and then, when he was pulling away, he did a little flirtatious wave thing. Pshaw! In Sausalito, a bunch of protesters were crowded around the bus stop wearing sandwich boards. The only one I managed to read said "KILLING IS WRONG!" - I guess I can get behind that, but I'm sure I'd need to know the context.

Friday, 03-23-01
<morning> Well, I worked until 11:30 p.m. last night, got home after Midnight, and couldn't sleep very well, so I'm a little discombobulated this morning. I was wearing earplugs, so it took a little bit longer for the noise on KUSF to stir me up and out of bed. I got out the door kind of late, and opted for the joyous coffee route, and spent a little while hanging around MEATSTOP, where the first thing I saw was a guy wearing a blazer and a freakin' ascot. It was only about 5 minutes before I decided to give up and walk up towards the next stop. I have just now decided that this secondary stop shall be known as FLYSTOP because it's in front of a bar called Fly. You see my logic, it is impeccable! Ah ah ah! Kommute readers keep suggesting that I create a Kommute glossary, and you know what? I really should. And I think that I will. Anyhow, I was wandering towards FLYSTOP, taking photos and peering around behind me to check if the bus was coming when I noticed another kommuter, Tracy, walking towards me. She caught up to me and said "Hi!" in this totally cheerful friendly voice, "We're both late! Later than usual today! Haha!" and she passed me up as I stopped to wait for the bus. Muni was crowded, so I stood, even though sweet little old chinese ladies kept offering me seats. It's a jacket-wearing kind of day. I had enough foresight to wear mine this morning. My time at HAMSTOP was very brief, and when the 50 rolled up, it was pretty full. No window seat for me! No bridge photo for you. I did get to listen in on a teenage couple discussing body piercing and tattoos, that was really funny.

Thursday, 03-22-01
<morning> So I totally forgot to call in for Jury Duty on Tuesday night because everything was so hectic and busy at work, and I only remembered to call in at 5:56 a.m. yesterday. Sure enough, my group number was called in for doody. It was a really inconvenient day to be out of the office, but it was too late to do anything about it. I haven't had a more pointless day in a long time, all I did was sit and read and people watch. Afterwards though, I had Muni adventures, hanging out watching teenagers pass vodka around. I wandered through the Mission on foot for a while, and then I jumped on another bus. At one point my hand brushed another passenger's hand, so I politely said "I'm sorry" and he said "Sorry? It's alright, you can rub my hand if you want to!" which made me smile. The weather yesterday was kind of weird and indecisive. It's the same today, kind of cloudy and grey, cool but not really chilly, and the weather report made it sound like it would be getting much warmer later on, so I went out without a jacket and promptly froze my butt waiting around at HAMSTOP. That'll teach me to think! The skies were grey and almost looked to be threatening rain until well past Sausalito, when the sun started to break through the clouds, leaving dappled calico patches of light and dark all over Mt. Tamalpais. All of those freaky Dr. Seuss pointy purple flowers are blooming like crazy. It's as if they were waiting for spring to officially begin before letting loose with the blooms. I still don't know the actual name of those flowers.

Tuesday, 03-20-01 --- Vernal Equinox
<morning> Today's kommute was lengthy and strange. I got out the door a little past the appointed hour, which caused me to miss the usual bus, and bless my little heart, I was actually stressing out and feeling guilty about coming in 30 minutes late! Whatever! The weather is insane. It's summer. I went to the café and got a large coffee, as usual, even though it's so warm out. Duh. So I went to MEATSTOP and waited with a clump of unfamiliar commuters for a while. A bus came along but it was clogged like an artery, except with people rather than cholesterol - I saw a second bus a ways off, and opted to wait for that one. This woman I used to see all the time on my old kommute walked up to me and smiled at me with this goofy friendly smile and muttered "Jesuslovesyou." I think she's a little, uh, special, so I just smiled and said "Thank you" as politely as possible. After a few moments of regarding me closely, she spoke again, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal savior?" All I could say was "Ummmmm..." and she coaxed me, asking "A long time ago?" and I sort of smiled thinly at her, and she eyed me for a moment and said, very slowly, "Jesus loves you." and I said "Thanks." and kind of moved away. She was getting a little spooky and aggressive. When I got on to the bus, the rag lady was sitting in the front seat, swathed in layer upon layer of fabric, with every inch of flesh covered, leaving only her sunglasses peering out, like one of the sand people from Star Wars. Nerdy reference! Woo! There was a lot of traffic in San Rafael, which made me miss my transfer, which gets me to work a bit earlier, but I walked it - It's a lot farther than I had guesstimated, and aside from all the sunshine and heat and stuff, it was kind of a cool walk. There are some interesting things between the bus depot and my office. Cool, mang.

Saturday, yes that's right, Saturday, 03-17-01
<morning> Kind of wasting time at work right now. Got a lot of work to do, but I can't start on it yet, so I'm here in the office, working on Milkycat. Some of my fotokamera got used on micromusic and i've been gawking at that for a little while. Meditated on the word " nubbin" for a while. I now own a beautiful cool kite and I would love to be out playing with it right now, but instead I am in front of my computer in a dark office and fun fun stuff is waiting to be done in San Francisco. Hi. Bored. Well okay, here's a funny little update on that whole bomb thing yesterday. Feh.

Friday, 03-16-01
<morning> Yesterday was busy and hectic and for not updating the kommute I apologize. I was also under the impression that I would be getting a root canal yesterday, and spent many hours consternating about that and stressing out but it wasn't the actual root canal they wanted me for, it was the consultation so that they could determine that I needed gnarly icky treatment> for my evil bad dental ways. Damn them for not explaining that! I spent hours worrying needlessly. So the real actual evil dental appointment is on the 30th. Send your sympathy cards and gifts then. I'm such a big whiny baby. So it's an astonishingly clear, beautiful day today. Sunny and stuff. I decided to walk instead of taking Muni part of the way, to treat myself to some different scenery. I didn't take any MEAT/HAMSTOP photos, just didn't feel like it. I spent a lot of time reading instead of being a camera-totin' creep. Ohyeah, speaking of cameras and photography and all that, check out a gallery of my stuff on hifiart.com - Wowie! And another one! In the news, what's with all the bombs?

Wednesday, 03-14-01 happy birthday pippilina!!! and also pi
<morning> It wasn't easy getting up today. I'm going to have a long workday today, and knowing that made it a little more of a struggle. I was surprised that my neighborhood was blanketed by a pretty thick layer of fog when I stepped out the door. I went to the cafe, and I got my tasty coffee and as I was leaving, I turned around to see 10 random people sort of staring pointedly at me. It was kind of freaky. When I got over to MEATSTOP, I kind of hesitated about taking my camera out, and then I saw all these great voyeuristic opportunities, I grabbed my camera and snapped off a few photos and then this woman I see all the time on my kommute asked "Are you an artist?" pause. blush. "Yeah, I am. I'm an artist." She fixed me with this really intimidating, bemused stare and said "I expect that you are an artist. I always see you with your camera, just snaaaping awaaay..." in this thick Jamaican accent. She locked her eyes on me for the rest of the wait, and I felt kind of like I was in trouble, there was a definite tone of admonition in her voice. So I tucked my camera away for a while. I'm definitely getting noticed more and more these days. Gots to be extra careful. The sun came out after a little while at HAMSTOP and I read my horoscope. It said something about "riding the raw ragged edge of your yearning without letting it flip over into manic obsession" Um. Ok! One of my cow orkers just said, loudly, "You know what sucks worse than having a tooth ripped out of your head? Having a Poison song stuck in your head: Everrrrry Rooose has it's thorn..." Heh.

Tuesday, 03-13-01
<morning> I'm trying to deal with issues on Milkycat. I'm having bad FTP juju. But I persevere because the kommute must go on. Last night's homeward kommute was astonishing. It was about 2 and a half hours. GASP. I've been having bad transit luck lately. Work is busy and I'm busy and stuff. I slept a lot last night. I woke up somewhat slowly, listened to the radio for a while before I actually got up. I almost got out the door late, but I got out in time. I almost skipped the cafe but then I realized that I didn't have change for the bus, so I doubled back when I was about halfway across the street. Duh duh duh. It's another beautiful day, ripe for kite flyin'. I had weird dreams last night about those Swift Leslie Motor Homes. I think that's probably a warning sign of something. I learned that Tourette's Guy has a name, a job and a title! He was wearing a name tag that proclaimed that he was a Visionary at a really cool music store here in San Rafael. I'm listening to Kid 606, woo! It's making me all jumpy. Got a lot to do, better get on it.

Monday, 03-12-01
<morning> First of all, Milkycat is all munched up, so I won't be posting any photos today. Not because I don't love you or anything, it's just that I need to do some maintenance type stuff. Another amazing weekend - This one was fulla Kite Buying (but not kite flying, yet), Edu-tainment and micromusic. It ruled. I had a haircut, as well. It's good. It was finally sunny, and it's still sunny today! I woke up with ease even though my clock radio was stuck between stations all crackly and postmodern. I got out the door and didn't go in to the cafe, because I am such a rugged individualist. And because I had a can of japanese coffee. It's good! Really! Trust me! The whole kommute this morning consisted of me reading comic books and not really paying any special attention to anything around me. At one point a woman got on to the bus I was on and she was crying and wiping at her tears, and asked whether the bus stopped at some particular location, and seemed really fragile. It's time for meetings and craziness! Getting some hideous dental work later on.

Friday, 03-09-01
<morning> I woke up with relative ease today, knowing that it's Friday. I had to buy coffee to get change for the bus ($3 is an awkward sum, i've found - though the fare is actually $2.95) and I always tip well when I make the barista handle my yuppie food stamps for a measly little $1.25 coffee. Witness the Class Struggle that is my morning coffee ritual! I headed out to MEATSTOP, and I noticed that a whole new crop of graffiti had sprung up in the immediate vicinity, so I wandered around taking photos of that. It's a nice day, and I'm in pretty good spirits. My tooth is aching less today. I took a lot of graffiti photos this morning, but almost no HAMSTOP shots. When the bus eventually came along, it was obscenely crowded, and I had to sit next to some creepy yuppie girl until well past Sausalito. I spent my time reading the Fake issue of Bunnyhop, and it was making me laugh out loud which seemed to alarm the girl I sat next to. There was a cute and friendly little indie chick sitting near me, and she was rummaging through her bag, and eventually she pulled out a little plastic spoon. She got up and handed it to a guy sitting behind me, saying "Well, here, you'll have to wash it, but here's a spoon. I don't know why I have a spoon, but there you go." Odd! I learned more about the gregarious old woman today - She's a photographer, and talks about God a lot, but only while laughing. She's got a gallery show coming up, she was talking to this Norwegian guy who was schlepping a giant box, which I later learned contained gourmet teas and coffees. He gave her a book of discount bus passes which is worth about 50 bucks and she offered him one of her photographs. The Norwegian pointed out some big antenna on the hills near San Rafael, and he said "There used to be a Nike Missile silo there, you know? It's empty now, though." and the woman replied "Well, at least that's a small sign of progress." Check out this lame webpage about downtown San Rafael, where I work!

Thursday, 03-08-01
<morning> I woke up verrry reluctantly today, and it was a big dumb struggle to convince myself that it was worth getting out of my very comfortable bed to come to work on time. But I did. I spent a few frantic moments scouring my room looking for my watch but I had to give up and leave without it. I don't really rely on my watch, it's primarily a prop. I look at my wrist pointedly every few moments out of habit. I caught myself doing this, glancing down and seeing only skin and bracelets. Stupid! I had to get coffee today. I am starting to wonder if i'll ever be able to function reasonably without caffeine. I had Muni luck, an uncrowded bus pulled up just after I got to MEATSTOP. It was kind of cold and windy and grey and weird at HAMSTOP, and I was huddling in the bus shelter reading my comic book when a bunch of teenage homeboy types crowded in there with me and started freestyle rapping and talking about tagging and girls and all that other good teenage homeboy stuff, and all I could think was that I really really wanted to take their photo, but that they were too intimidating for me to even try it. One of the kids wrote his tag in the dust and filth on the side of the bus before jumping on. I asked Tourette's Guy if the bus was late, and he launched in to this amusing tirade about commuting and late buses which ended with him saying "You know, I could complain, but I don't dare, because it could be so much worse, we could have to commute on MUNI! haw haw haw!" He's a weird one, but in a harmless, amusing, friendly way. I sat way in the back, and noticed after sitting down that I was sitting across from the guy I ran in to at the cellspace thing, and again I felt too awkward to try talking to him or anything. Silly me. I'm kind of distracted by this insane toothache. Sorry.

Wednesday, 03-07-01
<morning> Everyone should be listening to I Am Spoonbender. Because I said so, that's why. On a quasi-Spoonbender bent, I found this on their site. I woke up without much effort, and kind of stumbled through the whole process of getting ready and out the door. I decided to get coffee today, but the whole cafe experience was just kind of dry and perfunctory. There was a whole big mess of new graffiti around MEATSTOP, but I barely had time to do much photograffiti around there because Muni came along almost right away. On that subject, here's another article about Bus Shelter Vandalism. I spent a long time at HAMSTOP sitting in the balmy warm sunshine, soaking it up. It was nice. Tourette's Guy was there, reading the SF Weekly, which prompted me to go grab the latest ish and read a little. When the bus came along, he wound up boarding before me and he took my usual seat, damnit! I wound up sitting on the left-hand side, which totally throws me off. He is now my nemesis. There was a guy drawing in a sketchbook, he was using a french curve and a bunch of those little plastic templates for drawing floorplans. I peeked at his drawing, and it was of a cocktail glass with two stirrers set up in such a way that it was kind of a skull-and-crossbones thing. Huh. And now i'm at work and i've been pretty productive so far.

Tuesday, 03-06-01
<morning> Sometimes I regret the fact that my cow orkers know about the kommute, but eh, whadayagonnado. It's not raining right now, which is a welcome change. I'm starting to feel a little soggy. Growing gills. Waking up wasn't terribly difficult. I really liked the song that was playing when my alarm clicked on, so I hung around listening to it a while before jumping out of bed. I skipped the coffee purchasing portion of my morning routine again today, and I have to say it makes a major difference. I needs my morning coffee. Muni came right away, and I got to spend a while watching a couple of kids beat up on each other kind of lamely. One of the kids had a bunch of those little string-snappy firecracker things, and he kept snapping them around the other kid's head - that was amusing. The woman who gave me a lecture all about privacy and morals showed up after a while and glared at me in this very "I've got my eye on you", knowing kind of way. Whatever, lady. I like coming in a little earlier, because all the kids are heading to school at that hour, and I get to get some serious work done right away when I come in. I like my solitude. The 50 was really crowded, and there was a new driver, a nice guy. I spent most of the ride reading Bunnyhop Magazine. And in other news: Bummer, dude.

Monday, 03-05-01
<morning> I got in to work considerably earlier than usual, even though I got up a little later than usual. Weird! I was awakened super obscenely early at 5 am, but I went back to sleep pretty easily. I wound up having a very strange dream that I got up while it was still dark and went heading out to work, except I lived in Los Angeles, in the hills, and I was thinking that since it was so early, I would check out this huge 24-hour bookstore i'd heard about and maybe get some donuts. I went in to the place thinking it would be so cool, but inside it basically looked like a Blockbuster Video store. I was going to head out the back door when a strange, very large woman with a strange large child plopped down on a little stool in front of me and she started violently combing the baby's hair, which was thick and dark and tangled. She was telling me to pay attention to external influences, to not be entirely internalized about everything. Then she pulled some giant scissors out of her purse and started kind of sawing away at the child's hair, dropping chunks of hair all over the place. I was a little bit perturbed by this, and started looking for a way to get away from her. I managed to slip away after she got distracted by something, and then there was this whole weird thing about these cartoony robots which somehow fed on fungus spores, and one of them sang this weird little song when it was around dirty dishes that went something like "Yeasty Cheese! Yes! Please! Feed to me the YEASTY CHEESE!". I woke up and started scrawling this all down in my journal because it was so weird. I didn't take many photographs today, nor did I head in to the cafe for my morning cuppa since I was running kind of late. I actually slept on the bus, which is a novelty for me. It's blustery out, but the rain has stopped for the time being.

Friday, 03-02-01
<morning> First thing in the morning, you know what I love? Meetings. Boy howdy. It's sort of raining today, and I wore giant boots. Giant boots for kicking Giant Butt. Not really. Apparently I express too much levity and attitude. Who knew! I thought my irreverent attitude was one of my best features. Anyhow, I woke up. I took buses. I took some photos on the buses. It rained. It stopped raining. I read comic books and thought about things. Here's a really cool article from SFGate about DAVe. Incidentally, I need to cheer the hell up.

Thursday, 03-01-01
<morning> Now it's MARCH. Time goes MARCHING on. And on, anon. It's a very busy day, i'm updating the kommute ever so late as a result. I woke up before my alarm went off today, and I felt a little bit superior, but mostly I felt sleepy. The rest of this month is likely to be insanely busy, and will probably result in the kommute getting updated much later, or with less frequency. Damn the fates! So, it's another sunshiney day. More kites, please. I took a lot of photos last night of weird graffiti on Geary blvd. As I was wandering down the street, I saw a bunch of kids wearing bright yello frilly pants and kung-fu shirts hanging around on the sidewalk, and as I passed them, I noticed these two huge fu-dog heads, the ones that the dancers get inside for chinese new year parades. I was carefully photographing the heads when a woman noticed me and said "You should stick around, they're going to perform!" - Later, wandering the streets, I started to notice a lot of people with what looked like huge painful black bruises on their foreheads, and I was very concerned. After I saw about 10 people with the bruiseheads, I figured it out, they were catholics and it was Ash Wednesday. Nutty Catholics! Today wasn't terrible or difficult. I was in a very good mood, smiling at people, loving everything. Kind of a nice change from the usual misanthropic demeanor I tend to exhibit. This is the dawning of the age of aquariums!

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