Just spent the weekend in Sebastopol, where we opened Code Red. It went incredibly well... and by "incredibly" I mean "I just about can't believe it," since we had 10 actors (half with no theater experience) who had to commute from all over the North Bay to a tiny number of rehearsals. But I have prior experience with some of these guys & have seen them pull together more improbable things. Next weekend we're in Marin, where I hope I can cajole some of my Bay Area friends into attending.

We managed to sell out a tiny 45-seat space for two nights, which is especially impressive considering that it smelled like sewage. The first night, about 45 minutes before curtain, the actors hanging out in the lobby started to notice a severe crap-like odor. After smelling each other's feet we figured something bad must have happened in one of the bathrooms... fortunately it didn't penetrate into the performance space, but yikes. Well, the next night there was still stinky air, but it was all over town so we didn't feel so bad. Apparently there was some serious fertilizing action going on in the fields nearby, and the breeze had wafted it over our building before it really hit everyone else.

After both shows I got to melt in a hot tub, something I only did once before (I'm not from California, okay) & which I really, really needed after a week of office work and commuting and no sleep.

The hot tub on the second night was at a splendiferous little country house which also featured a bunch of goats, a big starry sky, and a 5-year-old diva, Raven, who has a great future as either an actor or a con artist. Raven had us all go into a room one by one to get our fortunes told. Inside was a spooky little tableau of dolls, a purple crystal ball, and a pile of pennies. After I picked a penny (and was told with a pitying stare, "Oh, you want that one? Okay, if you say so..."; I believed she was trying to psych me out, and told her so), I got the following fortune, told, oddly, in the past tense: A butterfly ate my nose; a fish ate my lips; a cheetah ate my head; and a big snake ate my body. I objected that a cheetah is bigger than a snake, so why'd it only go for the head? "Don't be silly—they're all working together!" That was that. At least I got to keep the penny. Later, the grown-ups compared notes and found out that all the girls had gotten happy fortunes, while the boys had all been devoured by beasts.

Haggai Matar and five other Israeli teenagers are being court-martialed for their draft resistance. I saw Matar speak at a Brooklyn church last year; he is sharp as a tack, passionate and articulate, and also practical—when someone asked why he was doing a speaking tour of the US, he answered that he didn't think activism within his country could have any impact unless Americans used their influence. After his talk, he was confronted by a half-dozen self-appointed defenders of Israel who spoke more viciously than I've ever personally seen anyone speak to a stranger before; he kept his cool and simply responded with information that might, in a million years, change their minds. More links on this story and related matters via Ampersand.

My old friend Melissa is doing a lot of writing online, sort of a catalog of minutely observed interpersonal hassles, involving small-town crooks, Nigerian E-mail scams ("Money is trouble, Dennis Boga. It won't extend your life a minute"), and bad vibes among security staff. Catch it before her burst of energy wears off at The Golden Rule [October 2004: oh well, the site no longer exists]. I'm happy to say I'm the one who turned her on to Wallace Shawn.

And a friend of a friend, Nancy, is also doing a lot of slightly more cheerful writing online, at Hello, Failure. My favorite bits so far are about phantom smells and the marketing of bad candy bars ("Focus group participant: 'This tastes like ASS!'").

My irregular secretary job turned into a full-time temp thing, and soon it will be a part-time permanent thing. I will be an administrative assistant for the near future. For the privilege of job security and health insurance, soon I'll attend an orientation to learn the philosophy of the company, get my own stapler and phone instructions, and possibly pee in a cup.

The battered old computer I inherited from the previous tenant of this desk has provided some entertainment as I go around deleting incredibly old stuff, snooping in the "Favorites" list, changing my screen colors, etc. (I didn't have a whole lot to do yesterday.) I also have a small window that looks out onto some hills, a wall crying out for decoration, a bunch of keys to nowhere, a big plant that seems to have survived okay even though no one's been in this room for months, and a little bookshelf with leftover copies of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and Majipoor Chronicles.

Before you start communicating, become familiar with the features of Outlook. The following illustration the Inbox view [sic]. .... Of course an important part of being organized is keeping track of things to do. - Microsoft Outlook tutorial

To get to work I take a quiet, relatively uncrowded bus, the 1 California. A shaggy madman was at the bus stop the other day; the driver saw him and bounced up to block the door.

"Oh, no, no, no."

"What? I have some change..."

"You're not getting on this bus. I had a problem with you before."

"You didn't have a problem with me. I had a problem with Alioto."

"You're not getting on. Forget it."

(Seeing another bus go by in front of us and pointing at it) "Hey, is that your wife? (Screaming at the invisible other bus driver) IS THIS YOUR HUSBAND HERE? YOU SUCK!"

It's summer, so San Francisco is full of chilly wind and fog. But unlike my old town, where if you went a little way out of town you'd be in Jersey City or Long Island, here if you go a little way out of town you're usually somewhere great.

Last weekend, I spent a day in Santa Rosa at the Health and Harmony Festival, a somewhat New Agey but very entertaining outdoor schmoozarama. Outdoors, there's lots of jewelry, lots of tie-dyes, crystals, cheap massage samples (which I never got around to), yoga classes (which I did), and promotions for solar energy companies (my friend works at this one). My folks had a promotional table right next to the Scientologists—the latter apparently didn't do too well. On the food row, you could get vegetarian food, or you could get "Alligator on a Stick." Indoors, there are lots of free samples of fruit and soy drinks and iced tea and peanut butter, and a big "health expo" building where there were two booths for electronic chiropractic exams ... next to a booth for hyperbaric oxygen therapy ... next to "sexual enhancement gel" ... next to the Rosicrucians ... next to a mobiles-and-windchimes shop called Swirly Things. I bought a copper wire head massager due to the vendor's very effective sales approach: she sort of pulled me off the street and plunked the thing onto my skull, where it felt pretty damn good. I got a quick henna design on my foot. I soaked up some sun. It was all just a warm-up for the Michelle Shocked concert, which I won't try to describe... just understand that I was looking forward to that in kind of the way some people would look forward to seeing the Pope, and I was right.

The next day I ended up in Berkeley, again among a crowd of pleasant weirdos in a park, and Patti Smith and her band showed up and played some good music. I soaked up some sun again. A good time was had by all, although Daphne seemed to be irritated that Patti is no longer the same as when she was in high school.

Tuesday, a friendly Oaklander drove me a little bit south of the city to San Bruno Mountain. No soaking up sun here; clouds were streaming all around, wind in our faces, our ears just about fell off. But it was pretty beautiful—chaparral, wildflowers, eucalyptus (I know, it's not supposed to be here)—strange radio towers floating out of the mist at the top, and a few buildings peeking through a little window of light way below.

I guess I could think of some things to complain about, but I won't...

Probably I'm the last one in California to discover it, but this little Humboldt County newspaper, the Arcata Eye, has the best police log column ever. Sample:

11:48 p.m. A party hostess expressed dismay that her guests had begun punching each other, and her too - on the nose.

11:58 p.m. A Shirley Boulevard home was repeatedly besplattered with liquid baby chick constituents.

12:51 a.m. Drunk, jailed.

2:06 a.m. Drunk, jailed.

2:15 a.m. Drunk, jailed.

7:18 a.m. Two men discovered the enchanted grotto between a defunct art deco movie theater and an auto repair business, and police soon discovered them.

8:24 a.m. No, you don't just set up your garage sale on someone else's downtown property and hope for spillover dollars from Farmers' Market customers.

4:53 p.m. A bottle of the vintner's art was winenapped from an I Street cooperative supermarket, to be furtively savored elsewhere.

7:55 p.m. A bloody syringe was spotted on Baldwin Avenue, and a woman didn't want to pick it up. But it turned out to be a pen with red ink, which an officer returned to its owner.

Stars and Stripes on Castro Street. Sorry I missed it. This Sunday oughta be GOOD.

As you know, very bad things are still happening in our armed forces' new home, and we had to change our minds about the "democracy" thing.

Fortunately, the Secretary of "Defense" has a new idea to help make the world a more peaceful place at some point in the future.

Well, not a totally new idea.

I can't think of a rude enough word to write here...