This shot of the Golden Gate Bridge is being shown right side up. I was just bending backwards about as much as my back would allow when I took this photo. Do you feel the vertigo I started to feel?

Oh - and hello, pretty blue sky as seen from the top of Coit Tower. I love the way the shadow curves.

I don’t know how many people consider this drain worth photographing, but my friend and I did. There’s a waterfall/fountain in Levi Strauss square in San Francisco and this is where the water disappears… just like that. I appreciate how the camera caught the little splashes of water inside. I have several versions of this shot because that’s how I roll.

While I was in San Francisco, my friend Aaron recommended Christopher Hitchens’ “The Portable Atheist” to me while we were shopping in City Lights Books. I didn’t buy it there (more stuff to lug back) but I did get it when I got home and started reading it this morning since I finished up Michael Chabon’s “Maps and Legends” last night.

In Hitchens’ intro, there was a passage that resonated with me:

…the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we are not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea! … [It] constitutes a radical attack on the very concept of human self-respect. It does so by suggesting that one could not do a right action or avoid a wrong one, except for the hope of a divine reward or the fear of divine retribution. Many of us, even the less unselfish, might hope to do better than that on our own. When I give blood, for example (something that several religions forbid), I do not lose a pint, but someone else gains one. There is something about this that appeals to me, and I derive other satisfactions as well from being of assistance to a fellow creature. Furthermore, I have a very rare blood type and I hope very much that when I am in need of a transfusion, someone else will have thought and acted in precisely the same way that I have. Indeed, I can almost count on it. Nobody had to teach me any of this, let alone reinforce the teaching with sinister fairy tales about appearances by the Archangel Gabriel. The so-called Golden Rule is innate within us, or is innate except in the sociopaths who do not care about others, and the psychopaths who take pleasure from cruelty.

Yuh-huh. Every time I donate blood, it’s not because I fear divine retribution. It’s because it’s something I can do that will help someone; it’s just considerate (like holding open a door for someone with a stroller, actually leaving a penny in the “give a penny/take a penny” cup, seeing that someone dropped their wallet/keys/money and returning it to him/her, allowing someone to switch lanes during crappy traffic, etc.). From there, it turns into a bad movie starring Haley Joel Osmont, Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey.

Now, in the realm of things that don’t inspire my faith in humanity: automotive body damage.

While I was pulling away from the train station this evening, I heard a THUNK on the side of my car. I pulled over, got out, and took a look - little dent, little scratch… and a softball on the ground nearby. There’s a baseball field somewhat close by, but the field, diamonds, bleachers, etc. are all on the entire opposite side of where the train station is. But there was a little boy just throwing a ball around and he decided it would be fun to throw it TOWARDS the train station where there’s a fun wooden building. SILLY ME, letting my car get in the way of his ball-tossing. Silly commuters, all of us getting off of the train - it could’ve been any one of us. The kid saw me get out of the car, mumbled, “Sorry” and went back to playing. I inspected and rubbed away the dust with my finger, and shot him The Eye. This elicited an annoyed, “Sorry!” (if I’d been closer, I’m sure he would’ve been muttering something like, “Geez, lady” under his breath. That was the tone).

I replied, “Be careful. You don’t want to break someone’s window or put a big dent in someone’s car. It can be really expensive to fix.”

“Sorry.” (back to tossing the ball)

The woman sitting near him (mother? coach?) just looked at me, took a drag of her cigarette, and went back to watching the kids playing on the field across the way. Ugh. I did the “I’m disgusted” head shake, got back into my car, and drove off.

I got home, checked it out closely, cleaned it off, and will do the touch-up paint thing early next week. The next few days are going to be drizzly leading up to a “rain event” on Sunday. Rock.

There was going to be an Elton John song posted here, but that will wait for another day.

I don’t even know how much time I’ll have to write in the next week. Seriously.

Today I drove my friend to the airport in the morning so he could catch his flight to San Francisco, and I will be flying out there to hang out with him next Wednesday. The seven days between now and then will be both interminable and far too short.

For example, I’ll be working every single day, including the weekend. That’s when I’ll be working the New York ComicCon to represent my company’s Shakespeare: The Manga Edition series. It should be pretty cool (if providing a little bit of geek overload - which I might even enjoy a bit if I didn’t get scared by people who are crazy hardcore about [insert comic book/graphic novel/manga/TV/movie series here] ) and the days should fly by since it will be busy.

Neil Gaiman is doing an appearance and signing sometime during the convention, but one part is a $500-a-ticket fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the other (reading - $20 a ticket) is most likely going to have lines spilling out the door if it doesn’t sell out. Since I’m working Saturday and Sunday, Friday is my only free night this week (and I’d like to see my other friends before I disappear for about two weeks), I won’t be attending, as much as I enjoy Mr. Gaiman - and I do.

All that coolness doesn’t change the fact that I will have spent all the hours between noon and 8 pm (you know, hours when I could be taking care of things like laundry and shopping and packing) standing in a noisy convention center.

It just puts a lot more pressure on me to get things done in the evenings. My usual evening routine is to get home from work around 6/7pm, change into running clothes, run for 30-45 minutes or so, shower, eat, check email/RSS feeds, and then read or watch a movie until I fall asleep. Tonight, I was unable to adhere to that routine; I got home at 6:30, checked email quickly and then ran out to stores to get vitals like sunglasses, shorts, a couple of tank tops and such. I got home at 9:00 and ate some dinner (leftover spinach and a piece of toast - PATHETIC) then tackled email, checking tracking on some stuff I ordered for said trip (durable rock climbing pants since Old Navy cargo pants won’t cut it), put away purchases, did some cleaning… and now it’s 11:00. Where does the time go?

Somewhere I can’t see. And the reasons for my blindness may vary.

But I’m glad to know that the title of a mix CD I made provided the possible title for a story my friend is writing, that I am basically guaranteed to have non-stop fun during my vacation which makes everything coming up to it worthwhile, that the stress I’ll be feeling at work will be productive stress because I’ll be getting lots of things done, and that I’m going to go rock-climbing tomorrow and it will feel good.

While driving back from doing some shopping with my friend Theresa (Nordstrom’s and Sephora - a girl’s gotta treat herself sometimes. I behaved myself and got some Sephora brand eyeshadow as well as my free birthday gift since I am part of their “insider’s” club thingie) we were listening to the oldies station.

Radio these days plays nothing I want to hear, so I’m all about NPR, the oldies station and my iPod. With those three, I’m guaranteed to have something interesting to listen to ALL the time.

The song that was just beginning to play was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We both let out a sort of squeak which apparently meant (in our personal friend language) that we were going to be singing along, ‘Wayne’s World’ style.

And we did. Boy, did we. I know it’s nothing new, but it’s been quite a while since that was the hotness (if ever it really was) and we still know all the words - like, really. We were not approximating sounds. I was impressed with us - all girlie shopping and then all spazzy like that. These are the moments that make life worth living.

Now, I must away to bed. I have to be in the office early tomorrow morning and I need to go running before that, so the only way to accomplish that is to get up at least 45 minutes earlier than usual. It’s not going to be fun.

Then again, I’m going to have plenty of fun later this month when I go out to California for Coachella and spend some time “up north” in San Francisco. More on that later…