Drunken Owls and Other Delights

On the non-Day-Job front, we spent most of today up in Petaluma, visiting the in-laws. A and I were getting rid of a smallish freezer (about the size of one of those dorm fridges you're not supposed to have in a dorm) that we figured they'd like to have so we made a day of it by visiting to drop it off and then go out to brunch. Said brunch was QUITE tasty at a family restaurant that looked to be quite the destination for the post-church crowd on Sundays. I ended up getting the chorizo hash which was extremely filling and very generous.

But that's not all! I had another reason to be up there, and that was to sell off three of the acoustic guitars I've had for the last several years that have been gathering more dust than play. [These are the guitars that were in front of the window at our old place, and when the cats saw birds out said window they would get all excited and their tails would hit the guitar necks, letting out an amusing twang.] I got about what I'd expected from the exchange, and this is a REALLY good guitar store that would fix them up and sell them off relatively quick. 

All in all it was a very nice and warm day, and the traffic was surprisingly not at all stressful. I was worried I'd be a bit exhausted but so far I'm not doing too bad. [That's another story entirely...I've been feeling exhausted for the last few weeks, most likely due to Work Stuff, to the point where maybe I should see a doctor. It's probably nothing, but it wouldn't hurt considering I'm getting old and not running on all cylinders like I used to.]

Anyhoo...I have a few days off this week, so I'm going to spend those days enjoying myself and getting things done.

Nothing like finishing a major project to make one realize just how many things have been put on the backburner to get it done. I commented on this on my Welcome to Bridgetown post yesterday; in short, now that I have all this free time and extra brain space, I can now focus on things that I'd put aside over the last few years.

Like my guitar playing. Sure, I've been picking up my guitars and noodling around on them every other day or so, especially if I want to play along with a tune or two, but I've been doing the bare minimum with it. I realized I was still playing the same bass lines, the same chord changes, the same riffs. And I was kind of getting bored with it. Say it ain't so!! So I went ahead and did something crazy: I shifted one of my acoustics to a DADGAD tuning. I've been wanting to learn how to play in that tuning for years, I just never had the time. [As I'd mentioned in the blog, I did it for two reasons: to learn that tuning, and also to make sure I picked up that guitar more often than I've been doing. Nothing as embarrassing as having to wipe dust off a guitar.]

What I didn't mention is that I've been continuing with the avoidance of social media. I admit part of it is due to not wanting to feel the heartbreak of watching my country's government fuck itself up for no reason other than for sheer selfishness and pettiness (I've realized that part of my anger towards the Fuckwit's administration is just that; we're going down a road we do not need to go down, and it's just wasting everybody's time and money). Again: I'm not choosing ignorance, far from it. I'm just choosing a healthier way to process it all.

Still: nothing like backing away from Twitter to make one realize just how much time is actually wasted on it. For every itch to pop back on, I exchange it with opening something else: a project or a journal entry that I'm avoiding. And when I do pop back on, I'm only on for a few moments before I close it back down for another few hours. Today, in among working at the Day Job, I've written an entry in my journal, wrote a blog entry for Walk in Silence (which I should have done last night), and wrote this LJ entry as well. And it's still just before noon. And I'm cool with that.

[For those of you wondering, Does Jon actually WORK during Day Job hours? Heh. Yes, I do. I sneak these blog entries in during slow times in five-minute blocks or so. And I type 70 wpm, so I can zip out lengthy entries pretty quick.]

So what else do I have planned, now that I have more time? Well, there's the artwork, of course. Between drawing for fun and creating book cover mockups, that should keep me entertained for a while. I'm woefully out of practice in that area. I do love making art as I find it very calming, not to mention quite enjoyable in general.

Anything else? Well, who knows. I don't have much on the docket right now, but I'm keeping my options open.

Today's excitement included quite a lot more walking, a lot of impulse purchases, really tasty brunch, and even tastier ice cream. And it's not even 4pm yet!

Started out by walking up to Q Restaurant, our favorite local place at the other end of Clement, and had brunch. I ordered the black bean cake benedict (sort of like a crab cake only made with black beans and other small veggie bits in it, topped with eggs benedict and a few slices of avocado), which was heavenly and quite messy. And of course as always, we timed it so we got there about 20 minutes before the lunch crowd came in.

From there we walked to the end of Clement and caught the 33 Stanyan, which took us down to the Mission. Our main idea was to go to Borderlands Books, but since we were a bit early, we of course stopped at Imagiknit on 18th Street, where Emm picked up more yarn to play with (including some Malabrigo that had a wonderful dark blue (color name "Paris Night") that she'll use to make a scarf for me).

Heading east down 18th we were tempted by Bi-Rite ice cream, but given our fattening brunch, we figured we could wait a bit, so onwards to Borderlands Books! We picked up the latest seanan_mcguire book One Salt Sea, aberwyn's second Nola O'Grady book, and all three of burger_eater's Twenty Palaces novels (OSS and 20P book 3 were both nicely displayed up front, I should add), among other things. I like to make sure I support my LJ writer peeps! :)

(I should add that the Mission District is definitely becoming more and more of a Hipster Haven, at least on the strip of Valencia we were on. Lots of cafés, galleries and boutique stores opening up down that way.)

So on the way back we deemed it time for Bi-Rite ice cream! Thus:



Malted vanilla ice cream with crunchy caramel bits in it...and a scoop of cinnamon ice cream underneath. VERY tasty.

After that, we'd decided to head back and jumped on the 33 Stanyan back to the Richmond...

...and ended up jumping off in the Haight again, where we found this and brought it home:



...an Ami Spruce Burgundy guitar from Art & Lutherie guitars out of Canada, and emmalyon's birthday present! She'd seen one just like this up in Brattleboro when we were there in July, and found one at the guitar store in the Haight.


And finally we hopped back on the 33 back to our neighborhood, walked down Clement, got yet another coffee, and headed back home. So yes, lots of walking and eating and spending. I think we're good with the musical instruments now (note to self: hide any pictures of accordions from Emm, she seems to have a thing for them too). Expect some recordings in the future. :)