so, what's the plan with Yvonne?

Do they know how much they're cutting out yet? Is he looking at an ostomy? Is he getting lo-dose chemo?

In my trivial world, Here I am in Socorro, and though NM Tech doesn't have wife-eye, they do have a nice library (been here before, 10 years ago) with lots of nice public terminals and late hours, so I could be here for hours.

But I'm fucking tired.

Did laundry, which is always nice. Staying at the Payless Inn, which a decade ago and a couple of owners and name changes ago was the Vagabond Inn. Why is that significant? because it was where Caroline and I stayed for a whole miserable month in August 1994 after we got evicted from the house we had been renting and were waiting for our mortgage to be approved for the house in Magdalena. We had a dog ($10 extra a night pet fee). It was the rainiest summer in Socorro in 10 years. It was not a happy time. Glen dubbed it "the Vagabondage." At least they had the pool in operation then (not so now in these hardscrabble times).

In a moment of weakness I once again answered a call from Winston. I will never be free from him.

I have many more rants, but like I said, I'm tired. Tomorrow I'm doing the Quebradas Back Country Byway . The new (used) mountain bike seems to ride okay, though it's a bit small (it's a 17" frame when I should be on an 18" frame). But I really really miss my old (stolen) mountain bike. Thanks alot Winston and asshole-filled Frisco!

just when i decide to give up

on this thing, somebody (other than me) posts.

Here I am in Belen (you remember Belen, don't you Scott?) New Mexico. Belen is another NM small town on I-25 (the "nucular highway") that, though larger than T or C, is in many ways even sadder. God Bless evil McDonalds (where I am right now), they've got freakin' wifi! When I get to Socorro later today, I'm counting on NM Tech to have wifi. NM Tech (official name: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) is the main reason that Socorro is less sad than the other dusty small towns that dot the Valley here. NM Tech is kind of the MIT of New Mexico, plus it's the home of the National Radio Astronomy Organization (yeah, I know, this is all gobeldy-gook to you guys). Anyway, I'm here to kill more vacation days and do some mountain biking around Socorro and get away from the fucking fog. In did Amtrak again, and got into Albuquerque around noon yesterday. But I was only able to do 32 miles, stopping in Belen, cuz I was feeling like shit. I've done this enough now (3 times) to know that the change in altitude from sea level to 5000 ft kicks my but the first day I'm here. I checked into the Super 8 and slept 15 hours. I feel a lot better today.

The trip here was pretty wild. My train was scheduled to leave the Emeryville station at 7:40 am Sunday morning, and I figured I would take BART over to the east bay at 6am, then walk from the Ashby (Berkeley) BART station to the Amtrak station, which takes about 40 minutes, and arrive with a few minutes to spare (which is what I did last time). My assumptions, however, fucked up the plan: BART doesn't open until 8 am on Sundays! What kind of major city public transportation system opens at 6am on Saturday but 8am on Sunday? I didn't call Winston to drive me over, because I'm trying to break up with his negative ass at the moment. So I got to the Amtrak station 2 hours late, just in time for the NEXT train to Bakersfield (there's no direct train to LA, where the Southwest Chief boards and departs for Chicago (and points in between, including Albuquerque). The usual plan is that I get on a connecting bus at Bakersfield that takes me to Union Station in LA, where there is a 2 hour layover until the Southwest Chief boards. I had already lost that 2 hours, so I was fully expecting to spend the night in LA and get the NEXT chief leaving at 6:45am Monday (Union Station is right next to LA Chinatown, so at least I was looking forward to a good meal). But as I was boarding the bus at Bakersfield, the ticket agent tells me to go to the ticket counter and tell them to call a cab to take me to Victorville so I could catch up with the Southwest Chief. WHAAA?! So indeed, the agent calls a cab (no expense to me) to take me and 2 other folks trying to get to Albuquerque to Victorville (or "Ville" as they call it down there); apparently they do this all the time! So I took this crazy 150 mile cab ride across the Mojave desert to another crappy dusty small town where the cabby "babysat" us until the train showed up at around 10 pm (the train station is 'Ville is dinky and shuts down at 5pm, so basically we just sat in the parking lot for 2 hours). We stopped in the town of Mojave for dinner at this weird little mom and pop diner. The walls were decorated with photos of various celebrities from Judy Garland to Alfalfa of "Our Gang" fame. There were two autographed celeb photos near the entrance: one of a young Tom Cruise, which I cvan understand, since "Top Gun" was filmed in and around Mojave; and one of Adam Sandler, and why Adam Sandler was in Mojave, I have no idea. There was also a rather well done fantasy drawing of Elvis, Humphry Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean all lounging in and about a circa-mid-50's convertible cadillac. A freaking masterpiece!

At any rate, the Chief finally showed up and so I ended up not losing time on my itinerary after all. Kudos to Amtrak for blowing all that money on cab fare so I could take a fancy short cut! And the trip through the desert was like a stroll down memory lane, because that was the same route I used to drive (usually) when going from T or C to San Francisco way back when!

So the lesson here is: in the future, if I'm catching the 7:40 train out of Emeryville, just sleep over at the BFC.


Well, I've been lingering here too long, gotta get on the road.

where mutch?

breakfast with the homeless-- Haight Street McDonalds. As Golden Gate Park begins right across the street, Haight Street Mickey D's is kinda the breakfast buffet for the homeless kids living in the park. And grizzly insane older shopping cart-type homeless guys. In fact it is rare that there isn't a shopping cart groaning under a load of aluminum cans parked out in front of PlayLand when I come by in the morning. Sometimes I can't even chain my bike up to the customary place because there is a mobile can collection vehicle blocking the way. Today there is a particularly large phalanx of punk kids panhandling by the entrance. Sometimes I give 'em a coupla quarters, sometimes I don't. Right now there's a particularly grimey guy a few tables away muttering something about Bank of America. This place is fascinating. And it has wifi, which is mainly why I'm a devotee. This morning I'm killing time before my 9:30 class (archaeology) over at good old city college.

flaccid lymph tissue.

Tonsils and adenoids are germ filters catching incoming crap from the nostrils (adenoids) and mouth (tonsils) when kids are infants and need extra protection, but once they're rugrat age, these nodes are pretty superfluous and in fact are easily infected because of their nooks and crannies. So there's little downside to taking them out, but not much upside either, except possibly fewer sore throats and maybe easier breathing (if they're HUGE, as you mentioned).

What's up with me? Didn't get to model for the new hotties calendar today, because, although I showed up, the artiste was running so far behind, that I had to leave to attend a clinic meeting that I had agreed to attend, which went long. By the time I was done, it was going on 6 pm, and I had had almost no sleep and had to work a graveyard shift after coming off a graveyard shift the night before. I just wanted to go home and sleep. I called up the calendar organizer and asked if I could be excused. She said okay, and I went home. So you see, it's always something.

a collective?

honor system?

wow.

H is getting her tonsils and adenoids out. We got a referral to Children's, and when they got the xrays back they said they're huge, and gotta come out. Hopefully this will reduce the many many earaches and sicknesses. The operation is in a week.

Since it has severely impacted her hearing, then it is possible it could also be affecting her speech, but that may or may not be a side benefit.

Out of curiosity, what exactly do the tonsils and adenoids do for us? or what did they do? Do we know?

well, the graveyard shifts

are killing me surely enough.
It's tee shirt week at bfc! As the tee shirt tsarina on funding com, I was responsible for getting new clinic tee shirts printed up, sorta as a fundraiser and sorta just as a morale booster. It ended up being a big order, with everything from zip hoodies (both women's and men's styles), spaghetti tanks, baby doll tees, you name it (we polled clinic members a few months ago to see what stuff they'd like). And we're only selling them to clinic members. They're selling very briskly, and because we're a collective, we're using the honor system, where you just get what you want out of the bins and put your payment in a donation envelope into the donations box we keep at the front desk. Our accounting on this project is pretty non-existent, but I'm just glad people like the darn things.

glad you're not dying...

... or at least not dying any more quickly than the rest of us. :)

am looking forward to your appearance in next year's calendar.