Searching for a bright today

In lieu of me being grumpy and whining/venting, I give you a happy dog:

this photo shows where my head's at these days, I think. Plus I think it's pretty. A lot of research, though I've taken a break to finish off Joe Abercrombie's second novel in his fantasy trilogy (Before They Are Hanged, I think it is called - fun, but jesus, can you make any more unlikable characters? It's like he has a hangup for writing characters that can't stop sneering at one another.)

Went down to SB to my old job to talk to friends who still work there. Was fun, tried to leave before I wore out my welcome. I miss my job. I just don't miss...big parts of it. I'm still terrified of getting a new job somehow.

My buddy kn1ghtshade did a memorial to Frank Franzetta tonight - a 'Drink & Draw' featuring my friend Erin dressed as Barbarella and a bunch of indie comics people doing life sketches. It was so cool. The angsty West Virginia redneck kid I used to be would be blown away by the kind of life I lead, I think sometimes. Pretty sure that's a good thing, too.

Reading up on Malaysian counterterrorism units, I came across the Senoi Praaq, a military unit started during the Malayan Emergency to fight the Maoist insurgency in the country.

They were a group of natives called the Orang Asli ("original people" in Malay), who suffered great indignities just before and during the colonialism period, yet were recruited when the Maoist guerrillas would blend into the jungle. They were set loose to hunt down the insurgents, given whatever weapon they felt most appropriate. Most chose blowguns with poison-tipped darts. There they would stalk the (largely ethnic Chinese) Maoists through the jungles using blowguns, knives, and stake-filled traps, often taking days to set up their targets.

Decades later, they still exist as an elite unit of the Royal Malaysian Police.

Sometimes I think every piece of art that's ever existed is just a cry for help that missed its mark.

Ever had one of those times where you're talking with a friend of a friend at a bar, but you're rambling and you don't remember why you started talking about a certain thing but you still feel the need to keep going?

Yeah. That was tonight. The guy at the bar, a friend of a friend, begged off the moment I got to a pause in my story. And I have no idea why I kept talking. Halfway through I realized it, but I couldn't figure out why I kept talking.

Oh well. Bars are funny places.

http://hood.theory.org/ has a neat program that culls craigslist programs for areas that claim to be part of one neighborhood or another. The result shows interesting places where gentrification and cultures mash together, where names and neighborhood identities are in flux, right there in a wash of Seurat pointilism.

Look at my old 'hood, the Western Addition - currently a no-mans-land, kinda USF, kinda good old Western, maybe NoPa, maybe whatever. The Tenderloin's now just...well, whatever it is people think it might be. The Castro and Noe Valley are busy gobbling up the Mission, and no one's entirely sure where the Inner Richmond ends and the Outer Richmond ends. It's a collective hunch.

SF Realtors are busy trying to find fun new names for neighborhoods, locals have done their best to stake out their claim on Google Maps...

Don't mind me, I'm just blocks away from Hipster Valencia, trying to find the Creme Brulee cart, or the Sexy Soup Cart, or whatever food cart culture can spring up before the police quickly shut it down.

This evening before 12 AM we think someone tried to break into the place. Considering the place is behind a house, the door fronts to a garden and rests over a garage, the whole thing was a bit weird. No idea what actually happened -- big rumble down by the front door and I immediately started shouting (for some reason I was thinking of bears, how you shout loudly and startle them and they run off.)

Front door area was a bit messed up, our skull & crossbones doormat was flipped around. I didn't see anyone.

Felt ridiculous prowling a dark garden with Twinkie pyjamas and a Big Ass Fucking Sword. But only after a few moments. Want to get a big mag lite, going to get it today at some point. Got to talk to the landlords -- sometimes they drink and they're a bit older and might've gotten confused. Or something. Couldn't sleep later that night, now at work tired as hell, and there just isn't enough coffee in the world. Stressy day at work, amazed at the utter lack of news about the iranian protests from official outlets.

Life is weird sometimes.

...several things, really. A big post on my trip to Malaysia, a big post on why, various and sundry other smaller posts - like one on my impressions of Paul Tremblay's The Little Sleep along with some perspectives on noir in general.

During my vacation I also had time to sit and think about why I don't write - why I don't post in my LJ even though I still have a lot to say (it's largely complicated) why I don't write as much - (also complicated), and how that is tied to work (dead simple.)

My big desires on getting home is to have a place to write, just to write. I think part of that will involve finding a lightweight and inexpensive laptop with an internet connection and not much else. No more writing on my work laptop, for example. I need to find a way to deal with my job without having it take over my life, too - as a manager, that might be difficult. Or at least interesting.

Also sick. Dragging myself kicking and screaming to a doctor. (I'm not fond of them.) It wasn't exactly fun to be sick for the entire holiday, but because of swine flu fears in Malaysia, I couldn't take my American ass to see a doctor about ear/nose/throat crap without a big fear of being quarantined.

I went to a gallery yesterday.
And dreamed of an alternate reality --
Where all I did was paint and paint the same picture
Of a person at an empty gallery
Alone, in wide, white spaces
Never quite understanding the artist's intent.

In my dream I paint and paint the same picture
but never attain my ultimate goal
Only to stop when I finally succeeded --
It will be my failures that will be celebrated.

http://winter-is-coming.blogspot.com/2009/05/first-cast-member-and-director.html

If this is true... Peter Dinklage as Tyrion? Holyfuckyeah.