The damnedest thing happened the other day: I was in line at Starr Market, buying my groceries on an average sunny weekday, when I noticed that the cashier in front of me was my former neighbor from back when I lived at The Pines. He was the unmarried, co-habiting, stay-at-home stoner who used to sit up all night in the carport outside my bedroom window with his girlfriend (or whatever you call her), screaming and swearing at her between swallows of Modelos and puffs on a Marb light, while she coldly and quietly repeated over and over: "You are the Devil. And I'm in Hell". I used to slam the window really hard to try and make a point after trying to sleep through this for hours on end...I should have gone out and said something menacing, but I never did. Anyway, there he was behind the counter, (finally got a job I guess) and he certainly recognized me; there was a moment of brief small talk. Then, looking and at AC's pregnant belly, he asked: "'that yours?"

Do you ever wish some days that the sky would turn ink black and dump cold rain over everything?

California is too comfortable; too boring, easy, soft, weak and complacent. We need some rain or wind or some sort of adversity for our atrophied spirits. There is only so much BBQ-ing on the back porch in the heat of yet one more sunny evening you can handle before all the paradise and perfection turns your head.

Winter is the only somewhat good time here...

But even that is bad because everyone huddles in their homes as if there was a blizzard and whine about the 'horrible' weather, pointing a shaky finger toward the thermometer: 52 degrees.

California has it's good points, I admit. I have loved it and I have hated it. There is a lot to see, a lot of history and culture, and many good people. But I don't belong here anymore. I am too far from home, and it's time to go.

I've had the eerie echoes of a song called 'Eden' drifting through my head ever since Pandora played it last night while I was working out at the Ranch. The internet station was set to play music by and similar to Delirium, a band I used to listen to all the time in college---an eclectic mix of chamber, choral and techno; weird, trance-like and filled with gloom and darkness. Feeling nostalgic, I had put it on as a background to the unwanted mechanicing for the night. Once again, I was back out there at the filthy shop, in the dark by myself, plugging away on the old car and wishing I didn't have to be there, wishing the car would just go away...

...after enough time turning wrenches in the heavy silence of the empty ranch and outbuildings with that ethereal music all around, I couldn't help feeling some of the old pangs of loneliness from the years before my AC and the New One. Emotions that that are tied up in work, silence, old cars and houses, and most of all, being alone. These days I have all but lost interest in working on cars anymore, and invariably, that kind of work seems to carry my back to old thoughts and feelings that are somewhat out of place in the life I am trying to live now. With my current job I can't escape it, at least not yet, but as Dylan says, "The times they are a changin".

Last night we watched MirrorMask, a very odd and cool film with a screenplay by Neil Gaiman. It was weird and creepy and wonderful. You should see it.

I've got a bug. A very serious fever. It's a bicycle bug, and I can't stop thinking about BICYCLES. I'm working on a fixie right now...the allure of the purity and simplicity of one fixed gear and no brakes...

Been trying to get a handle on creating Photoshop backgrounds...

At the independent coffee house last night we were sitting around talking about the image of a battered or distressed girl, especially if she is young and pretty, and how those sorts of images always have a peculiar and powerful affect on a person. And it doesn't matter whether you think the notion is perverse or not; it's simply, uncomfortably true...