ahhhhhhh...

a second day of grey drizzle in san francisco yesterday so i packed up the beautiful boxer i'm watching, locked my buddy's house up, and caravanned back out to wine-land for some love and sunshine. i just couldn't stay away on my sweetheart's day off. i'm such a whipped, romantic, little freak that way. :) and with another dog in the squad, inga (my rottweiler) is so jealous! ha! i'll be attempting The Almighty Jog this morning with both of them in tow. we'll see how it goes. it will at least present an opportunity for some laughs, i'm sure. and tangled leashes. i always feel sorry for professional dog-walkers. no matter how much a person might love dogs, it seems like a pretty stressful gig. super duper stressful. i would be a neurotic mess.

but tonight i head back to the city and won't return until wednesday. i've made a few plans that include museums and art-making and long walks up and down the long, tall streets. my waking rituals of coffee and scribbling in my notebook and jogging have been undisturbed by my changes in location recently and i am on the upswing- feeling excited by life and am flooded with lovely ideas daily. my sketch book (pages and pages of lists, really) is getting fat with reminders. yesterday while driving, a few golden lines of poetry floated in to my brain and i didn't want to lose them so i actually flipped open my notebook on my lap and scrawled them out, huge and childlike, without looking so i could keep my eyes on the road. i haven't done that in years! i know it sounds a bit dangerous but what's art without a little risk? :)

the sun is out, bright and good, and two dogs are sleeping peacefully at my feet being good little girls. i have a big mug of hazelnut coffee and a wide-open day in front of me. just as quick as a rainy day found me, a sunny one followed. i am happy and alert and in love and so so so thankful for the life (and lives) around me.

and then a strange and grey afternoon...

on second thought, maybe beginning the day with "Satan Says" was a bad idea. my thinking has been, off and on, fairly morbid and sad all day. and the grey drizzle that persisted here in san francisco didn't help. i did manage to get out for awhile in spite of the weather but then proceeded to get my self lost looking for a gallery i've been hearing about but have never been to and then wasted a 1/2 hour looking for parking once i finally figured out where it was. once inside, i felt pretty happy but, i must say, all in all it's been a pretty rough day. having no plan and no one to talk to is pretty much the definition of a bad day for me. and if one has to be alone, it is much better to be alone inside your own home. i miss my sweetie like crazy. after 4 years together, sleeping in the same bed, drinking coffee in the morning and all that goodness, it has become hard to spend a night away from him. see! look what the rain and sharon olds have done to me! arg! or could it just be the wage of love? ha! i am a sappy romantic, after all, and he is my favorite person in the whole world anyway.

a new and different morning...

awake and quiet in san francisco. the fog has yet to lift. i am on my second large cup of cafe-acquired coffee and have decided that the best thing for me to do is to bypass having a plan for the day.

yesterday before i left my little home, my copy of sharon olds' 'Satan Says' showed up in the mail and i began reading it instantly. it is one of three books i brought along for my little stay in the city and i began my morning with it and such a lovely angered spark of honesty and courage and inappropriate vocabulary surges as a result. i love her work. every single poem i've read. i will read it all and then i will read it again and again and again. also in tow- rebecca loudon's 'Radish King' (buy it!) and my little murder mystery 'Quiet as a Nun' which i will probably finish tonight. lucky for little me there is a slew of used book-stores here and oddities shops and art galleries and all sorts of things that make my heart cry out in sheer ecstatic thankfulness.

san francisco is my favorite city. it is beautiful and jam packed with history and culture and every corner is mysterious and interesting and worth the walk. this is why my plan for today is to have no plan- save practicing the new mantra. it is the only rule. no more, no less. besides, it's raining right now and until the sky clears and goes blue, i am content to sit inside and redact book pages and make poems while i house sit.