Science Fiction

I was listening to a show on the radio a while back about science fiction writing and apparently it is not a popular as it was back in, say, the 50's and one of the reasons they think this is the case is because we used to look forward to the future as a better place but now we are trying to put on the breaks because things are looking a little bleak with global warming and other things of that sort. Or, maybe it's because all that sci-fi stuff is already here. I remember how outlandish it was in the old Star Trek TV series when they would pull out their flip phones and talk to someone on the starship from some planet they were on. I took two trips this summer and they were true vacations. No computers, no email, no cell phones, no driving, and no news. Just life back to the basics. There was nothing to pull me out of my present state. Nothing to distract me from the task at hand. If I wanted to talk to someone I had to go find them and talk to their face. The old fashioned way. When I got home life seemed a little overwhelming and a little science fiction and I'm still having trouble figuring out what normal is. Society seems to be moving in one direction and I might be moving in another. Maybe it is, as my brother says, time to go build that bunker out in the woods.

Champs. Again.

My soccer team won the championship playoffs once again. The only problem with this photo is that I am not in it. I was in the air flying home from Athens.

Greased Turkey

I just got back from a cruise to Greece and Turkey with my grandmother, my aunt, and her husband. It was the most decadent experience I've ever had. I was papered like a baby. I didn't have to think for myself or clean up after myself. Just eat, crap, and see new things. And my eyes were wide open just like a baby's. Here is a photo of another cruise ship from our vessel and all the plates that went along with my soup.

Birch/Breach

Noir

Tonight I ate dinner and was thinking of getting ready for bed when I realized that I had forgotten to return a video. I put on my down jacket and walked up to Valencia Street. It was cold and windy and the weather was making me grouchy and I thought about going home and writing to my friend, Tony, in Brazil to tell him I'm moving there. It's one place I know is hot all the time. At Lost Weekend Video I told Ben, who works there, that my good friend, Gerald, had moved back to New York City today. Ben and Gerald used to shoot the shit and if Ben hadn't seen Gerald in a while he would ask me where Gerald had been and what he was up to. I left the video store and started walking home. There was a black man walking in front of me and he was walking at an oddly slow pace. I past him and he said, "Why does everyone in this town walk so much faster than I do?" So, he walked me all the way home and guess where his was from? Yes, Nigeria. And guess what he talked about the entire way to my apartment? Yes, how he can't believe how great the weather is here. "The best weather in the world," he kept saying.