the following tuesday...

So I'm having a difficult time getting into the habit of this. The writing itself isn't the hard part...I think it's that I've gotten so used to writing physically that to type out my stream of consciousness seems somewhat disingenuous, as though there's something lost between the weight of the journal and paper versus the soft click of the keyboard. Plus I can sit on my porch and journal, while here i'm surrounded by steel grey carpeted cube walls, which do little to lend themselves towards reflection. I've still got the same music going though that I would have coming through the open windows at home. The Miles Davis Quintet, Winter In Europe 1967. Bag's Groove is up next. Bag's Groove is one of those albums that, from the first few notes, puts me somewhere far from wherever I might physically be and gets my mind out of it. It's the sort of music that i expect to hear coming out a window while i walk up the narrow staricases from the Embarcadero to Coit tower. Up through the little alleyway gardens and shadowed benches, little bamboo watercatchers and mossy tiles hidden in little corners that I never even knew existed. It's not the music for the top, looking out at the bay or the bridges, standing on top of the city. Nor is it the music for back down on Market or at the ferry building, too hectic and distracting and busy. Rather , it's the music for those little hidden spots, the quiet places you never knew existed and yet that some anonymous person in one of those windows with a cat in it tends to, reflects upon, and somehow has put a quiet energy into without ever knowing you'd share in it.



I switched albums once i started writing that. It's still as good as I ever thought it was. It's not Kind of Blue cool, not Birth of the Cool bop. Somewhere in between, eminently enjoyable.

No riding the bike last night - got shut down by the supposed wind we're having. Or not. I drove all the way to Blackstar Canyon to get a good climb in on the singlespeed after work. Parked about a mile from the gate like usual, since the likelihood of having your car broken into out there seems to be inversely proportional to its proximity to the gate. Got changed and all ready to ride, and was just heading out, when i ran into another rider who work at one of the local bike shops (and that I worked with at REI years ago). Seems the Firewatch people were turning riders around at the gate due to fire danger. The Forest Service ha issued a red flag warning, which doesn't technically shut down the forest, but they were turning people around all the same. After the fires we had last year I can see being concerned, but there's this overblown panic that goes around now when the slightest wind blows. Chino Hills was shut down due to fire danger, and the wind was barely even blowing out here. It seems that these fire-watchers are going off something other than common sense - if there was a wind warning earlier, but it's not blowing anymore, the fire danger has passed. To add insult to injury, they were still letting big construction trucks in for construction up the road. In their logic, bikes that have no possible way to start a fire can't go up, but large trucks heading to a construction site are ok. Sigh.