Friday night was more exciting than I required. Some fool killed themselves by jumping in front of a train up in the city so all the trains were an hour late. There's been a lot of that lately; I think this is the fourth time this year. I feel so sorry for the engineers who have to deal with it. Can you imagine seeing someone jump in front of your vehicle knowing you could not stop even if you tried? Can you imagine having to live with that image?

Eventually, John and I met up with the usual Friday night gang at the Duke of Edinburgh. It was an authentic pub in Cupertino of all places, and the beer was excellent. The food was good, too, which surprised me since I think even the English sometimes have problems doing good English food. I drank my pint of Red Hook bitter and yacked to everyone about Acapulco ("What did you do there?" "Nothing." "How can you call that a vacation!?"). I hope we go back to the DoE. I'm tired of the noisy pizza parlors and noisy microbreweries the gang normally favors, and I'm very fond of cozy pubs.

Saturday was the most dilatory day. I dinked around online a bit, tending to my web rings and chatting on ICQ with net friends who either do, used to do, or are going to do an online diary. John took off on some mysterious boy errand, so I had the house to myself. I promptly chucked all the beasts outdoors, closed the blinds, and turned up my music really loud so I could sing and dance to my heart's content.

After wearing myself out with an especially vigorous rendition of something too embarrassing to mention I staggered into the den to watch some tv and cool my funky booty off. I happened across Dirty Dancing. Being the only living American who had never seen it, I decided to watch it. Jennifer Grey was adorable. Patrick Swayze looked hunky, and danced well, and had the acting skills of a barn door. My gosh, he was bad. I watched the whole schmaltzy thing. Then I flipped to VH1 and watched an hour retrospective on Led Zeppelin. With visions of Patrick Swayze's wooden visage overlaid with skinny English rock stars wearing way bad hairstyles, I flipped to Animal Planet and watched a special on raising chihuahuas. I thought one of the chihuahuas looked an awful lot like John Bonham on a bender.

I had really, really weird dreams Saturday night. Tv is very bad for me.

Today was gorgeous, sunny and windy and gloriously warm despite the stiff breeze. I was in San Francisco on yet another fruitless search for a pair of plain, navy oxford shoes. After two hours I gave up on ever having a coordinated wardrobe again, and drove down to the ocean. I wandered barefoot along the water's edge. The surf was amazing. I could see breakers hundreds of yards out, dark translucent green under the curling, foamy caps. The wind tossed bridal veils of spray into the air as the water rushed to shore. I got wet up to my knees from misjudging the force of the waves several times. A couple of guys were trying to get their brightly colored kites in the air but the wind was too confused, and the kites wiped out again and again to their cries of mock anguish. I pondered ocean and water colors until my feet gradually got so cold I could barely feel them. I walked up to the top of the beach and buried my feet luxuriously in sun-baked sand. Sandpipers twittered along the foaming edge of the tide, dipping their bright yellow beaks into the swirling water to snatch up little crabs. I stood and watched the sunlight on the breakers for a long, long time.

Now dinner's over, and the beasts have all been tended to, so I have time to write. John's in the other room watching the Oscars and calling out who wins what. Earlier, I wandered in long enough to be embarrassed by Roger Ebert and Karen Duffy attempting to interview the stars as they arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Karen squealing like a stuck pig at every celebrity and Roger asking lame questions that no one quite knew how to answer. I can't watch awards shows, usually, because although I love seeing what everyone's wearing I can't take the endless yammering of actors thanking everyone who made their award possible.

And how about that: Shakespeare in Love, the only movie I've seen in a year, just won Best Picture. Can I pick 'em, or what?

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