9 March 2003

It's Dan's birthday! Happy birthday to Dan.

Hah. Neil Gaiman goes to Sakura for sushi in the Cities, just like Timprov and Ceej and me. I don't know quite why this pleases me, but it does. I find it very strange that I have no idea where to go for sushi in my immediate suburban area. Up in Sausalito, sure, or over in Palo Alto. Or in St. Paul, for heaven's sake. But here, no. And I would like some Japanese food soon. Doesn't even have to be sushi. But I do not feel like driving over to P.A. or up to Marin. (St. Paul? In a heartbeat. Come on, you know that.) So I'll have to punt, I guess.

The three of us, Timprov and Ceej and me, took some of our college friends to Sakura once during college. Many of them had had no previous Japanese food. Everybody liked the gyoza, of course, because everybody likes gyoza. (Don't they?) But the next morning, when we had dropped Ceej at his apartment and Timprov was with his parents, Slacker and Curt and Twig decided that we were going to Fuddrucker's, because, Slack said rather ominously, "We went where you wanted before, and you're going where we want now." I'm still undecided as to whether Sakura is worth Fuddrucker's. I think so, though. Anyway, Curt was not nearly so enthusiastic a convert to Japanese food as he was to Chinese food, with which we created a monster. But that's all right. It's nice to have things that are guaranteed to make one's friends happy. (Of course, with Curt, that's a pretty long list. He's a happy guy, easy to please. We need a few friends like that to balance out the cranky, opinionated rest of us.)

So anyway, I took my second day off in a row yesterday. Not today! Enough of this. Time to do some short story stuff. Probably about Joukahainen. Yesterday what I did was read. I finished Dreamside, which was fine for a fantasy novel about dreams, and did not, in fact, feature Mary Mother of Christ in any form. (Or if it did, it was subtle and symbolic and I missed it.) I read David's copy of Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson. Which makes it sound a bit like a movie, but it was interesting just the same. And then I read Barry Hughart's The Story of the Stone, borrowed from Wendy and Daniel in an omnibus version with the other two books in its series. I'll probably get to the third one pretty soon. I've enjoyed them, and it'd be nice to be able to return the book when I see them next. And then I read this month's Analog, which was a bit sparse, because I don't read serials and I don't read F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre stories. I read one story from Francine Prose's Women and Children First and saved the rest for today.

Also I made plans for next weekend. Well, sort of. They're Simpsony plans, I think: "I'm going to swing my arms like this, and if you get hit, it's not my fault." I'm going to be at this place at this time, and if you show up and see me...yeah. It's just easier when I'm dealing with multiple people who don't live in the same household to say when and what my plans are, rather than going back and forth -- well, what time do you guys all want to be there? Where do you want to go? Is that okay with you? So. More social time, rah. Berkeley Saturday and here Sunday. If I left you off the list, I'm mortified and sorry; please do let me know.

Also I worried. Ohhhhh, did I worry. I am a championship worrier, is what, but I may have peaked yesterday. I made Mark laugh with my worry list, because it just kept going and going. Sometimes I think being an optimist is much more work than being a pessimist -- not just because you have to keep looking on the stinkin' bright side, but also because if you believe your and others' condition can be improved by your actions, you have to actually do so. And you have to ponder whether you're optimizing that, and that leads to worrying. So maybe this optimism thing was the wrong tack to take. (Probably not, though.)

Also we watched "Trading Spaces." And marveled at the horror. Look, you can make an ugly kitchen into a different ugly kitchen! With only two days and $1000! Isn't that amazing! We do keep up commentary: "What do you think of that blue?" "Not with that wood, maybe with the rest of the walls white." "I like that wood, though." "Oh yeah, me, too." "I'd take it." And the screeching people both amused and appalled us.

So. Mostly relaxing day yesterday, I guess, but I've already started picking at the Joukahainen story before I'm even done reading the Sunday paper. It's time. (I'm not sure why I have labeled it the Joukahainen story, though, because it's really more about Aino.) It's also time for lots of other things, but I'm not sure that the people responsible for those agree with me. Ah well. Have a good day anyway, and we'll attempt to be optimists without being worriers this week.

Yeah, right.