"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Sprung II

Walking to the BART this morning with Zack, we coincidentally fell in behind this woman. I'd noticed her the day before working in the coffee shop -- not the one I mentioned in the blog, but one I noticed. She was tallish and willowy, with a slow long stride. Reminded me of this British woman that worked with Jeremy a couple years ago (fall 2002; an interesting time) who'd I'd been all into. Victoria. At the time Jeremy shut me down. "Bad Josh," he said when I asked if she had a boyfriend.

Anyway, it took me a while to remember that this is the girl I was being reminded of; all the while walking and talking behind her, feeling the vibe. She went to the BART also, and there was seemingly significant eye contact on the platform... but also good discussion with Zack and early morning blearyness so I wasn't about to make a move. Still, the vibe was there, sure as its ever been. Who knows what might have happened? I was legitimately attracted. How often do I piss and moan about how that never happens? Hope opportunity knocks again.

Thinking about that Victoria girl on a plane ride to Colorado -- where I blog from now on MfA retreat -- stirred up an interesting other memory. That little crush was all around the first anneversary of September 11th. Real tense time. I remember on the actual anneversary I was biking over the Queensboro bridge. It was a beautiful day, and there was this businessman walking toward me carrying a flag on a stick, just holding it up, smiling, kind of giving strength to people. That was one of the last times I remember being actively happy to see the flag in action. Strange confluence of springtime thoughts, but it's late and I'm dealing with a high altitude environment.

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Sprung

After three consecutive days of temperatures above 60 and no fog, rain or grey days, my tired cranky blood is starting to stir. Spring is in the air; good old Spring Awakening.

I find myself craining my head more often on my bicycle. I find myself delightfully preoccupied with the mystery of precisely what moves under a woman from Oklahoma's shirt at a bar, with the space defined between the lower cuffs of a backpack toting girl's khaki shorts at the coffee shop, with the swirl of hair, flash of teeth, curve, flex or sparkle. Whatever it is, I find myself noticing.

At the moment it's kind of maddening. I simply don't have the human resources to pursue anything resembling a conventional relationship, and it seems I lack the savvy to slide into an easy coupling. The rules of engagement are mysterious and unknown here in San Francisco. Frank confirms this; New York women are different. In the parlance of our times, I have no game.

That said, it feels good to feel. The buzz is back in a lot of ways, and I'm glad that my glands are all in order. I'd begun to worry a bit about the creeping must of an extremely overworked winter. Hopefully this spring and summer I can improve my physical condition, find more creative outlets, and maybe even make out a tad, weather permitting of course.

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Air War Opening Salvo

The Republicans are pissed about third-party groups influencing this election, and it ain't about moveon. Here's the opening volly from the Media Fund (aka George Soros). It's ok, but it's like Bush's ads, but without the punch. The shipping jobs overseas thing is the hardest hit, but it's not really driven home. Kerry's ads are harder hitting and better edited. Using Bush to beat Bush is a pretty good tactic as long as you're not taking something wildly out of context.

Update: the Log Cabin Republicans are speding a mil to air ads against Bush's hate amendment. It would seem that the right-wing consensus is unraveling, and not a minute too soon.

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Things Change

I'm fairly old-school on the daily kos, but I haven't been posting much since Dean went down in flames. I still read it though; Markos has an eye for news, and you get hot links to things which Paul Krugman picks up later on in the week. It's good and comforting to see old names, names I have come to trust, putting out rather high quality text. There are a lot of new faces, some of them interesting, some not. And the air is a bit different.

I don't write about things very much anymore... this will probably change some when I get into the work of crafting some vision stuff, but at the moment I'm still recovering from my Howard Dean hangover. I'm happier plugging databases and writing code than wrestling with the situation in prose at the moment. It's partly, I know, because there was a time when I was really convinced that my writing was making a difference -- which it was and is in whatever way it always has and will -- but much grandeur and possibility has subsided. Not that I'm discouraged; just smarting.

And writing is art for me. It's not something I can really force, or something I really feel comfortable wielding in a precise manner. I prefer to let fly with exuberance and passion, so this little era of low-energy and message control is doubly inhibiting.

On a different note, I've become quite a fan over the past three months of Stirling Newberry, who also writes on BOPnews and other places too. I once heckled him under an assumed name on the Clark Sphere back in a snarky partisan summer moment. Now I know better. Pay attention; he's got a line on the Naked Lunch of it all.

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