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I'm out!
There's a break in our storms and I'm feeling human (and can control my cough) so I'm out at the nearest Peet's. I've decided, based on my personal history, that this is my 40 year cold (like a 100 year flood), and I can live with that. Especially since that would put the next occurrence when I am 104 and I have no intention of living that long. (I'm ignoring the obvious truth that 100 year storms don't fall on the exact year and that, due to age, an individuals natural rhythms, if they exist at all, change radically near the end... rather like a serial novel tends to get very excited near the conclusion, I'm thinking here of a novel by, I think Tolstoy, where in the final chapter or two he killed off nearly his whole cast.)Anyway, the sun is shining (periodically) I'm enjoying iced tea and an oatmeal, wheat germ, chocolate cookie I've never tried before (good, but not quite as good as I was hoping -- this isn't Tartine), and I'm writing. Which is not to say I haven't been writing the past three weeks, I have. But I haven't felt up to organizing and editing and deciding what to publish. It's been a bit like being drunk, but without the intoxication, or inspiration.
I'm keen to return to Candide and Vertigo and to start integrating my Books for Living notes, but first I want to say a few words about illness. After all, if life gives you illness the least you can do it think and write about it.
Unfortunately, this ties in really nicely with some ideas in Will Schalbe's Books for Living, so it's going to be tricky to bring these two conversations together in time. In a few words, the central idea of Schwalbe's book, and this comes from his fondness for Lin Yutang, is that there's a good deal to say in favor of being lazy -- of not rushing through life like a good Calvinist.
This is an easy sell for me since I've always believed people were in too much of a rush to get someplace for rather unexamined reasons. Still, I had a bunch of plans for this month. I was going to paint a wall in my apartment. I was going to convince my HOA to let me paint the remaining unpainted surfaces in our entry/hallway. I was going to go into training mode at the gym in preparation for the start of greening season in April. None of these things have happened because life gave me a seemingly endless series of heavy rain storms and then stuck me in my apartment feeling like shit and coughing in such a way that the inhabitants of Hans Castorp's Berghof would have been complaining to management. One of the reasons I'm out today is to get a better idea if I'm ready to return to the gym tomorrow (no).
As rarely as I'm sick, and as much as I hate being sick, I've always felt that illness was an effective way to "reboot" the system. (Fainting, can have a similar effect.) The first week I continued to do the exercises I usually do at home -- mostly stretching and core strengthening -- but eventually I embraced the "holiday-from-my-routine" aspect of being ill and today I did my exercises for the first time in at least a week. (It's pouring rain out the window right now.) And today I didn't feel any different doing my exercises and, I'm surprised to say, my back has been, if anything, better these past several weeks.
That doesn't mean I'm rethinking my exercise routine, but it does argue for taking a real holiday from that routine periodically. I've intended to do that, but found it very difficult to "lose ground" by not exercising for a week or two. Well, my cold took care of that. I'm pretty confident I will be recharged when I can finally resume my usual fitness routine and when I can get back to things like painting -- assuming it ever stops raining.
Neighborhood update
The cable car over-ride switch has finally been fixed, after about a month of delaying traffic on a major SF surface street.(I was wrong about the switch being fixed, it's still broken. The lights must have timed out just as the cable car was leaving the intersection.)
Construction is inching forward at the two buildings on my alley now doing extensive remodeling work. (But the alley is still filled with trucks so I still can't schedule my gravel delivery.) Construction has been complete in our lower level unit since December, but there's still no new tenant... no clue why not. Still haven't been able to schedule a painter to show up and do our little hallway job.
Salesforce Tower is still taking form on our skyline. It hasn't risen any higher, but it appears they are preparing the "base" for the cap that will push it to its full height in the next month or so. The sinking and tilting residential tower across the street is, last I heard, still sinking and tilting, but not that you would notice from the street. The resulting litigation is more noticeable at the moment.
The seed for the amazing burst of development that has transformed the China Basin/Mission Creek area was the baseball stadium (now AT&T Park) that was built by the Giants without public funding. (There were a number of referendums about the City contributing and the public consistently said, "Hell no.") The Giants brought in new ownership, built a great stadium and a great team, and it has just been announced that they finished paying off the stadium at the end of 2016. They are now in the process of developing the area to the south of McCovey Cove which will be transitioning from a periodically used parking lot (I've worked events there any number of times) to our latest new neighborhood with the usual combination of residential, retail, and some commercial development.
I have to stress this a little, the Oakland Athletics are wandering around the East Bay -- like an immature sea gull begging food from all the adult sea gulls -- trying to get someone to give them money for a new stadium. The Giants built their own stadium, which spurred so much development around the stadium as to make the neighborhood almost unrecognizable for people (like me) who worked there in the early '90s. Now the, previously deserted boondocks, area to the south is also booming and they are going to reap the rewards there with a new development they are also financing themselves. This is the way cities should work, self-funding improvement by adding value to previously marginal lots. Also, since this area is right on the bay, the new development has to anticipate and deal with the rise in sea level. (How effectively they are doing this is open to doubt, but at least it's being addressed.)
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