in the city

Me and Chula wrote for a while in the @tlas cafe - a nice atmosphere but sometimes freezingcold with the door open.

I have never been anywhere with her in SF where she didn't enthusiastically run into at least one person she knows... I like this and it makes me snort a little bit for some reason... That's how I felt in Aust1n.... like, chameleon-like, being every single person in the movie "Slacker" in turn.

I finished what was maybe my 3rd runthrough of the Z.M. poems; there are a few that I need to look up slightly odd words in some big dictionaries. Or maybe some googling. For instance does flores "enrarecidas" mean more like, "rarified", or "endangered like an endangered species"? I'm going with rarified. But rarified like, flowers made of mist or some vague imaginary substance? (I think so) but maybe sort of flowers that are decaying or falling apart? Sometimes I'm just not sure how a phrase is used, maybe it's idiomatic (and there ARE no good idiom dictionaries - which is where googling comes in handy.)

I'm very close to done! Though I can see there are some differences in the old version I started with from this poet and the new version she just sent me - arrrrgh! So I must fix that. And there are problems in the french version that I must point out as diplomatically as possible.

I finished Suzette Haden Elgin's book "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defence". The version I have looks like the original hardback edition and bits of it seem dated. But mostly it was incredibly clear and helpful. Clearly, when I'm being heinous, I'm being a "Distracter" as my method of verbal hostility or evasion. It comforted me to think of several examples lately of my NOT doing that and instead being a reasonably good listener and abstracter... The "self-defence" part of the book I definitely need as in confrontations I tend to fold immediately and irritatingly, or else just go away, or sort of pretend that I don't notice someone's being horrid and mean. I have been trying to figure out some reasonable thing to say when I feel attacked on the order of, "It's not okay to say that kind of thing to me or talk to me that way" or "I'm not going to accept you talking to me that way" or something, but neither of those answers seemed useful, good, productive, or hostility-defusing. The Gentle Art book gives specific strategies that seem way more likely to be helpful.

We had dinner from some fantastic bbq place - possibly the best bbq chicken i've ever had. I tend to hate dissecting animal bits; I don't want to know that something has bones, or skin... But this chicken was so worth it. I can't remember the name or location but something like "brotherinlaw's"? Then watched some short cartoons by the dude that drew G3rtie the Dinosaur.

Comments

It's Brother-In-Law's Bar-B-Que on Divis.

Other BBQ shacks that make me tingly:

Chef Edwards' BBQ, in Oakland

Big Nate's BBQ on Folsom -- nice having a former NBA Hall-of-Famer ring you up and serve you ribs and chicken.

[Prentiss Riddle]

So is California BBQ rooted in any particular BBQ culture from east of the Rockies, or is it kind of a melange?

I only know Texas barbecue, but I'm told that Kansas City, Memphis and a bunch of other places have their own very distinct traditions.

And then there's Mexican food. My experiences in California bear out the rule that you should never eat Mexican food in a state that doesn't have an X or a Z in the name. :-)