A day in the life.

I'm totally cheating. This is a day in the life of the sun. And just to be an even bigger cheater, it's not starting at sunrise but sunset and then sunrise followed by midday, because that's the order I took the pictures in. (Click on the pics for larger versions.) I took these during the fires. This first picture was taken in Ocean Beach at sunset on October 21. We had out of town guests, Garrison Keilor and Hercules, and had taken them down to the pier to show off a west coast sunset (also we had hopes to hit up a geocache but it wasn't meant to be). When I took these we had just found out about the fires and the ash was just starting to accumulate in the air. At this point we had no idea how bad it was going to be and were just enjoying the way the smoke affects the sunset. It really does incredible things with the color and the light. What I think is cool about these pictures is that they were all taken at the same time, in the same place and yet the color is completely different because of the different angles the photos were taken at. Also, they look out of order because I didn't get the sun in the second one and for some reason it looks higher in the horizon in the third one than in the first one. I don't know what I was doing with the camera other than panicking that I was running out of batteries. It was mesmerizing though. I'm glad we decided to take the guys to that spot to watch the sunset, I'm not sure what it would have been like elsewhere in the county. That pier was just perfect. The fires were terrible but what a spectacle. This is so San Diego, right here. Half the county is on fire, let's go surfing! I'm joking (sort of), like I said at this point it had only just started and no one thought it would be anything like it was in 2004, lettalone worse. Lettalone is a word isn't it? My spell check is pitching a fit about it. Whatever. Spell check can suck it. After I shot these pictures we went and got the kids some McDonalds and headed back to the house for Munchkin Cthulhu and general not paying attention to the emergency situation at hand. I ended up getting eaten by Dread Cthulhu a couple times and went to bed only to be woken up by Red Todd Kidd a half hour later informing me that the fire thing was kinda important. I ignored him and went back to sleep. When I woke up the next morning the smoke was thick enough in the air that you could look directly at the sun, just like in 2004. After dropping off RTK at work I snapped this picture of the sunrise from the gas station right by my apartment (it was $3.01 for regular that day, I wish it would go back to that, I payed 3.11 the other day). Have you ever had the opportunity to look directly at the sun? It's absurdly strange. I find that I have a fundamental urge to shield my eyes even though there's no need. I've never seen a sunrise that looked so much like a sunset as that one, early in the morning the sky was purple instead of brown with ash and smoke, that came later. You wouldn't think the sun could look so small and insignificant as this but there it is. This one was taken at about 3pm on October 22, directly over my apartment. The sky was orange almost all day, about an hour after this you couldn't even see the sun anymore because the smoke was too thick. It was an entire day of otherworldly, dingy twilight like being in some steampunk novel with ash raining out of the sky for several days and starting to collect on anything that was still, like I imagine snow probably does. Postapocalyptic San Diego. So there you have it, a day in the life of a smoke filled sky.

Ru-Paul and Other Distractions. (Blogstalking week 4 AND 5)

I hate traffic, my filthy windshield, and sunrise. Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, let me tell you about what I love. What I love is things that are completely random. Like this weekend. This was a hella random weekend. Friday night I was out with Lucky. It was an entire night devoted to driving around to creepy places. Those creepy places included the most enormous cemetery ever to go completely unnoticed by everyone I've asked about it. This place is HUGE. I can't even begin to explain the extreme largeness. As a matter of fact it's actually two cemeteries that sort of run into each other and three mausoleums. One of the mausoleums is a three story building that at first we thought couldn't possibly be what it was, it was just too big. The other two are smaller two story deals though smaller is a completely relative term, they're still larger than most suburban apartment complexes in this area. The thing that's so crazy random about the place is that it's on two main roads and yet no one seems to know it's there. We also hit up an apartment building that Lucky says would be his top choice for locations to shoot a slasher flick in. I agree, the place is like a tiny Winchester mansion. The stairs alone are just bizarre (two sets right next to each other that never intersect and you can't see one from the other but they lead to the exact same spot) then you throw in exterior walls on the inside of the building, a rickety fire escape, all the blind corners (and by that I mean all the corners are blind corners, I bet it makes moving in and out a bitch) a great view of the city, and the fact that you never see any of the residents of the place and you've got yourself a movie. I wish I had thought to bring my camera but that's the theme of the weekend, randomness and me kicking myself for forgetting the camera. Saturday we went to the barber shop and they invited us to their anniversary shindig that night. Red Todd Kidd and I tried to find a sitter but couldn't so he bade me take up with Kaylee and go forth to this rockabilly show. So we did. Adventure ensued. First we went to the Tower Bar where this thing was taking place. They were playing the most campy and strange D-movies on the tv in the corner, almost everyone in the place was drinking tall boys of PBR, and the whole place looked like a casting call for West Side Story 2 (Which I'm sure would have the same basic plot as West Side Story except it'd be set in present day and the tension would be between hardcore rockabilly kids and apathetic emo hipsters fighting over who gets to be pretentious in the town's diviest dive bar. Then one pretty little cutting emo girl in horn rim glasses with no prescription and an outfit that probably cost $300 trying to get it to look like it came from a thrift store locks eyes with a vintage car driving, leather jacket wearing, James Dean wannabe who clearly spends most of his time on ebay looking for vintage pomade to rock in his pompadour and doomed romance blooms, I hate to spoil the ending for you but they both die, she slits her wrists with one of his vintage Elvis records then he puts her dead body in the car with him and drives off a cliff). Kaylee and I sat there, sat there, sat there, watched a reenactment of the Outsiders when a rumble broke out just near the door, sat there, sat there, sat there, got drinks spilled on us, sat there, sat there, and sat there. Since after all that sitting the band STILL hadn't gone on and it was damn near midnight, we took off. We had a mind to head to this piano bar Kaylee's been talking about but we never made it there. You see, we got caught up in a weird midnight traffic fiasco that was being caused by some random side street being blocked off. As we were stopped we heard an amplified voice ring out through the night, "Yes, hello everyone! I'm Ru-Paul Superstar of the world!" (or whatever the hell that catchphrase of his is) and we decided we had to find out if it was really him. So we parked around the corner and wandered back to discover some charity event drag show with Ru-Paul on stage in a wig he'd clearly gotten at Dolly Parton's last yard sale and more pink sequins than I thought existed this side of Key West. Spectacular. Truly. But we were hungry and our curiosity was sated so we left and stumbled on to a little 24 hour diner where we spent the next hour eating the most awesome sandwiches and talking to three complete strangers about porn among other things. After that I was drunk dialed by The Cowardly Lion who simply read me the definition of drunk dialing followed by the definition of a booty call. So we went over to his house and hung out with him and his wives for a little bit. Yes, I said wives, they've been watching too much Big Love over there. Sunday was for geocaching with the family which was pretty cool, actually. RTK's been on me to try it out for awhile so we got a GPS and went and did one. The kids loved it. I'd go into more detail but my fingers may fall off from all the typing. I'll blog some pics of that another day. Anyway, the three things I love (in case you don't get the pictures): October, my daughter trying to throw up the horns, and National City Municipal Code 11.68.050 which prohibits "cruising" and leads to those goofy signs all up and down Highland Avenue, it always cracks me up. Also you'll see my blogstalking week 5 assignment which requires I photograph a statue. I found this copse of angels quite by accident in the aforementioned giant cemetery when Lucky and I went back Sunday afternoon. Technically you're not supposed to photograph people's headstones but I cropped out the ones you could read. The statues stand out because the whole area they're in is plain as hell except this group of statues all crowded together like some sort of saint convention.

How do you get from there to here?

Across the asphalt, pools of it everywhere, dark as tar with the sheen of obsidian it reflected the light of the waning moon back at me menacingly, as a murderer might brandish a knife. It seemed unfathomable that other children would play in it, splash it at one another, and most disturbing of all leap right into the middle of a lake of that caustic substance. How could they jump in when they couldn’t see through it? How could they trust that it was only a few inches of water when in darkness it became something so much more? How come no one else knew, as I did, that at night they ceased to be simple puddles and became insidious dark water portals waiting roil over and consume the careless child who stepped in when no one was looking? I have no idea how I got here.

Chaos+Handbag=Aventure

Why the hell would anyone want to see what's in my bag? I'm just glad you caught me on a day when I didn't have a half eaten food product or something in it. As you can plainly see from the photo, I have chaos in my bag. I never know what's in it or what I've forgotten. I dumped all that crap on the floor, took a picture and then scooped it all back in. The only difference between what's in it at this moment and when I took the picture is that I realized my sunglasses were missing and put them back in the bag. That's right, I didn't take the opportunity to put away that pattern and/or the stitch markers. I didn't throw out those receipts. I didn't even throw away that trash that's clearly labeled, "trash" in the photo. That's because I don't care. It's also because the only surprises that I get on most days are what I do or do not find in that bag. It's like a jungle expedition but slightly more and less dangerous. The suspense of it! Will enough digging yield the hair tie I desperately need so I can roll down the car window without my hair whipping perilously in my face? Is there a lollipop to bribe the dreaded Lola Monster with so the trip to the laundromat will not bring her demise by throttling? Did I actually remember my wallet now that I have this cart full of groceries? Holy crap! That guy has the world's lamest vanity plate! Where's my camera? Adventure, my friends. Adventure. Edit 10:44am: I found a half eaten waffle in there. Figures.

This is me

In an attempt to actually blog once in awhile, like at least weekly. I joined up the knitty blogstalking ring (over there in the left side bar there's a button thingy for it). This week's assignment is "Who am I?". Personally, I find that a bit existential for: a) a blog post, b) a weekend (yes, I'm totally running late as usual), c) the very first blogstalking post but then again, I just used the word thingy, so who am I to judge? I actually spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to post and I really couldn't come up with anything clever. I thought about posting pictures of Imperial Beach where I grew up or some significant item I have lying around but just went around in circles. The one thing that kept coming up is a place I've never been inside of, that I have no tangible connection to. There's a salt works on a side street over by the bay that just fascinates me. I'm not sure what it is about the place that I find so appealing but I love to drive by it. I prefer it when the sky is a steely grey but this morning's minor rain didn't leave behind any real clouds. In any case, this is me: I love the way this place, though still in constant use, looks abandoned. I love the little stalactites of salt that hang down from every awning like Southern Californian icicles. The reflection in the water, the peeling paint, the rusting equipment. I just think it's beautiful. Or, at the very least, compelling. I don't know why it seems to sum me up but it does. I think I may have misunderstood the assignment...