HELLO~!
MAIL UPDATE
I have just walked down to the nearest postbox, which is at the corner of San Pablo Ave. and something or another . . . 60th-something . . . and it was there I deposited two envelopes destined for two very different places: one going to Kate in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the other going to Logan in Dee-troit, Michigan. Shaina, sweet Shaina, I did not have time to get your letter to Idaho, but it’ll be waiting for you in New York in the next few days. Yeah? I think so anyway. You never can tell with these things. And Alayna: I had given your package to a dude at work to send. It was not sent. Such is life. I will either hand it to you or mail it myself. Shelby, expect mail in the next week. Yes!
Tombo, for shit’s sake dude, will you please give me your address in THAILAND so I can send you some mail? Unless you’re out on the street or something. In which case, I don’t know . . . you tell me what to do, pal. I’m over here ready to put pen to paper for you, you gorgeous son of a bitch!
On my way back from the postbox, I took a different route to get home. On the corner of something or another, right off Alcatraz, a wind blew down from the Oakland hills and sailed through the street I was on. I heard it before I felt it. Leaves were blowing all over the god damn place. And then, yes, it hit my face, and it was so warm . . . almost hot, even. It reminded me of the summer breezes at night in Austin all them fuckin years ago. You walk around in the middle of the night in Texas and it’s ninety degrees and here comes this blowdryer-ass wind on your cute little face. It is not altogether bad. But here in the Bay Area, where it is cold every night of the year, it felt especially good . . . a chocolate / peanut butter swirl of opposing forces.
QUOTH HERMAN MELVILLE:
To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
Exactly!
Lord knows I hate to get poetic about it, but it really did feel like this benevolent kiss sent down from space by the Almighty Himself. I felt very calm just then and I stood there letting it pass by me—stood there until the wind went cold again! I had been thirty-one years old for all of four hours. Was this Oakland’s birthday present to me?? I’m glad I was there to experience it. I just as easily could have been anywhere else, but there I was alone with it. Thanks, Oakland! Thanks, God!!!
STARSAILOR.CO UPDATE
For some time now, I have wanted to make subpages for this fine website. I already have like two or three of them halfway done. One is a list of Kurosawa movies and li’l paragraphs I wrote about them, another for all the STAR TREK movies (lol) because I watched all of them in chronological order last year and it was wild and stupid and I loved it, and finally I made one to document the funeral of KERMIT THE FROG. People ask me about the last one all the time. I really am going to get off my big huge stupid butt and finish this thing!!
Well anyway: The first two to go up are ones I have never mentioned before, which are THE STARSAILOR GUIDE TO OAKLAND (or some such equivalent) and THE STARSAILOR DETECTIVE AGENCY.
As for the guide: people are always asking me where to get their tires changed, or their car worked on, or their teeth cleaned, or the best bar to go when you need to be alone and cry, and on and on. All these years later, if nothing else, I know exactly where to go in Oakland to get anything done for as little money as possible. I know where all The Good Cheap Stuff is, and I’m going to tell you. H’okay?
As far as being a private investigator:
lol
Yeah. I mean, listen: I signed up for SONIC FIBER, which is a Bay Area thing, and apparently I get a home phone. (Sonic is going on my guide, by the way. They’re real cool.) And so, why not? I’m going to make myself available to solve mysteries. There will be a contact form and everything, and you can call my toll-free hotline and hire me. Or you can just call me if you’re lonely or suffering from suicidal ideation (really), and I’ll hang out with you over the phone. Point is, it’s time to take my being an unlicensed private investigator to the next level. There will be a dozen or so truly bizarre paragraphs explaining all of this in depth, but put simply: to hire me, all you gotta do is mail me a SILVER DOLLAR and a folder containing ALL THE PARTICULARS. That is my fee. After that, I’ll build a case and get right to work. Hell, I can’t fuckin sleep as it is . . . I may as well do something out there at night that’s worth a damn. H’okay?? I’m really stupid by the way. Or didn’t you know?
BIRTHDAY UPDATE
It is fuckin five ay-em over here in Oakland, California, and I reckon I should take this passion flower supplement and go the hell to sleep. I got THOSE DARLINS on and Dante is nappin on my lap. I’m hip about time but I just got to go. Laura and Joey are showing up early I think and we’re gonna play MARIO KART and hug each other. Round about whenever, sometime later that night, a bunch of people are going to show up and hang out with me around a fire in my backyard. I’m so excited I want to throw up. OK? Apparently Some People From The Internet whom I have never even met in the flesh are gonna show up. Isn’t that cute? I say this so much that it’s making me and everyone else sick, but once more: I know so many good and fine people who are loyal to me, and a good deal of them are coming to my fortified compound on the Oakland-Berkeley border tomorrow night. I gotta say: I love it. I love y’all. I’d die, actually die, for any of you gorgeous sons of bitches. Just say the word and I’ll railroad myself straight to the Other World so that you may live. I’m serious as a heart attack. OK well, anyway (lol): I’m excited to be around you. I’ll do my best to be worth being around.
SLEEP UPDATE
I have consumed a passion flower capsule. I have turned the heat down so as to truly enjoy bodily warmth beneath my comforter (see above). Yes, and I will lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal . . . and then I will wake up a few hours from now and deep-clean my apartment, and write some more letters. I go now to dream of another green world. Maybe I’ll see ya there. Maybe not!
Listen: I am so happy to know all of you. Thank you for letting me be in your lives too. I have not! forgotten! how lucky I am! to be there at all! I won’t let you down. Happy birthday to me, the idiot king of nothing, and your friend on the other side of this thing. Yes?
H’okay???
