Day of the Locusts

Most my days have been pretty tepid lately. No great windfalls or conquest, but no catastrophes or tragedies either. Today was a little different. Happily, still no catastrophe or cataclysm. But unaccustomed aggravations.

We've had lovely Santa Ana winds this week (they dwindled to a hair-tussle today but still I'll take 80s in January). Whenever there are Santa Ana winds I think of Joan Didion's essay from the 1960s. In it, she mentions the way the winds seems to put every one in a foul mood (not me!) and giving up a futile struggle over a phone bill with the phone company.

I first read that in junior high before I cared much about phone bills. Whenever I read it more recently, I reflected how lucky I was to live in a enlightened world of enlightened phone companies where I never had to contend with an indifferent quasi-governmental entity lethargically exploiting its monopoly. That was before I got a cell phone. So far, my two months with Verizon has given me a keen sense of that old feeling of exasperation and helplessness that Didion referred to. Yeah, I could fight their bullshit (a gratuitous $102 surcharge on my latest bill), but what's the point? They've got me in their 12-month contract already, and even if they didn't, I'm sure they'd find some way to fuck with my credit if I gave them too much trouble.

So, to quote Ms. Didion, "I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air."

Then there was this news: YouTube beginning to mute videos with copyrighted music. I was just talking to a friend at work about this "loophole" earlier this week. Go back to my post here and click on the first link and that's about all I need to add on this topic. I'm sure Justice is all about enforcing the third-party copyright claims.

The only comfort I could take in being confined to an office most the day on such a glorious day, out of sight even of a window, was that the surf was ankle-high:

Santa Anas with a Vengeance

The cold spell has been broken. This morning it was chilly and hazy. Shortly after noon, the winds kicked up here making the day warmer, sharper. This evening, a full moon or almost a full moon. I've turned down all the lights, thrown open all the windows, and enjoy a glass of wine on the balcony. In between gusts anyway.

Swamis

This afternoon:



A late holiday gift. I bet Black's was nice, too.

Holiday Review

As warm and beach-autumny as October and November were, December has been wintry. Snow, a lot of it, on the Santiago peaks early in the month. Frost encased my car the day after Christmas. Reminded me of the day after Christmas -- or was it New Year's? -- a few years ago when I took my grandparents to the Huntington Library in San Marino and the fountain out front was a frozen ice sculpture.

It has been a nearly perfect holiday. We accomplished everything we set out before the season started. I enjoyed the glass of wine by myself Christmas Eve watching A Christmas Story at my grandparents'. My best gifts: the Wii Fit or the Flip digital recorder.

We went to Disneyland the Sunday before Christmas. Fourth year in a row we've done so. First time, I believe, that we've done it on the Sunday before Christmas, which I always try to do because, from my experience working there, Sundays are always the least crowded days during the week during the busy seasons and I figure that Sunday will even be less crowded as more people will be preoccupied with their holiday errands. It turned out to be a beautiful chilly day and without straining, we did everything we wanted to do, and left before 9pm.

New Year's Eve, my brother made some delicious porterhouses. The $4 bottle of La Cava rosé I got from Trader Joe's triumphed over the bottle of Goat Scrotum Australian sparkling wine someone else brought. We had fun playing Rock Band. I drank a lot of champagne. I stayed up to midnight. I followed the advice of a doctor on the local afternoon news and did not get a hangover. Not even a headache (thanks in no small part, I'm sure, to avoiding the Goat Scrotum champagne).

I am sorry to see the holidays go. As of Friday (another day I ended up working that I was not originally supposed to), they were still piping the Christmas carols in at work, though they already sounded more melancholy. Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby certainly had an extra poignancy after this Christmas. Dead people singing Christmas carols. That's not the way I think of them before Christmas anyway.

Tomorrow, it's back to formal business attire at the office, and the secular year-around adult contemporary soundtrack, and the nagging sense that it's really not appropriate to be aimlessly socializing downstairs or ok to look at amazon.com for half-hours at a time if, for no other reason, than everyone else is doing it. It's back to work and to that ordinary, unmagical sense of quotidien routine.