5.08.2026 - Weekly Digest
M 5.04
What business does a canyon have running through the heart of this place like a vein, like an artery, like a seam, like a clumsy suture. I don't know when I started calling my friend Numbers but it stuck. She needs to plan hikes like this, what with the four year old and the one year old and the important grownup job, and she needs to put them on Google calendars so nobody drops a stitch. We cover a lot of ground, up a lot of hills and staircases, taking in the views. Not such a bad little city you have here, be a shame if something happened to it. All of that, she points to a ridge, we built all of that, and down there where that dilapidated church is, we're putting in a row of affordable housing and the neighbors are already whining about how it's going to block, what, their view of the street? These NIMBY MFs out here, same as everywhere, everyone is all civic minded and claims to understand and appreciate class struggles until you ask them to chip in or change their own habits or do anything god forbid that forces them to confront reality. Reality's a bitch. We summit somewhere over here by some Cretaceous rocks along one side of the street and we are full on urban hikers now and you really could live off the grid in the middle of all this civilization and no one would notice until they did and then they'd call the cops.
T 5.05
I got this awesome wall map from a guy who makes maps, he's local, you see the folded ones on the counters at all the bookstores, so I looked him up online and he's over there in Inner Richmond and I asked him if he had one like the ones they sell at the bookstores only not all folded up so I can display it flat on my wall, I like to have maps on my walls wherever I live so when I wake up I can remember where I am. It's an old joke but it still checks out. He says yeah no problem I'll drop it off for you, even, and I'm like okay but I don't mind I'm still new here and I like exploring and walking around and I really like the Richmond I got stranded there with no food during a blackout and strangers gave me bagels. No problem tell me where you live he says and he's a map maker mind you so I figure no big deal and then he says oh I checked out Street View online and it looks like there's a gate so I'm not sure I can bring the map unless I know where to put it and I say no there's not a gate it's just a short staircase and our door is on the left and he says okay I'm not sure where the building is though and I say it's literally on one of the most famous streets and it's not at all hard to find but anyway let me know I can still come get it from you and he says oh you know my mother went to school over there so no problem. A few days later I get an email that he shoved the map through the bars in the neighbor's gate and he's sorry if it got bent up or anything but he didn't know what else to do.
Thankfully it looks great in here:
W 5.06
I've been watching these old X-Files reruns all the way through when I have grunt work to do and I realize I hadn't really seen that much of the show. Once when I was bedridden with pharmaceutically induced depression in Chicago I skipped through the whole series just to watch the alien-themed episodes but now that I'm watching each one I see how it all ties together, it's like a conspiracy man, like even the vampire episode with Owen Wilson and all the other one off stories tie into it, dude, and there are lots of guest stars and Duchovny is great and actually pretty funny but Gillian Anderson is just exquisite and for the first time ever I looked her up and she was born in Chicago and raised in Grand Rapids, apparently, so I missed my chance to know her in the Old Days and then I'm at Booksmith and there's a book of erotic essays written by women that she curated with her photo on the jacket and I'm thinking maybe there's a chance, right, maybe I can be the Mully to her Sculder or however that works in real life, I'm thinking later when I'm watching an episode about how she has an alien hybrid daughter and she's sad about that so I want to comfort her and then here comes this giant Democrat, this creature with a thirty inch long neck who eats eucalyptus leaves right off the trees in Golden Gate Park and he wants to tell me about this miracle drug that cures anxiety and leukemia and athlete's foot and this is what I get for not paying to have the ads turned off.
Th 5.07
Purchased an innocuous pothos plant from the local hardware on Haight a couple months ago. Had about six leaves on it in those days, just a wee fella. Set it on my desk facing West. Since then it's demonstrated Explosive Growth Potential (EGP). This morning I counted 27 leaves and quite a few buds threatening to break off and do their own thing. Clearly it's outgrown the little pot I stuck it in so I went back to the hardware store for a properly sized graphite pot to give it the space it needs to expand and explore its identity. I was telling this to the hardware store clerk guy and he seemed legitimately impressed, gave me some advice about paying attention to the root structure or something, and it ended with me telling him I feel like this plant deserves a name at this point. Pothos would be fine but that's like calling a cat Cat. Pretty sure it's a Greek deity but looking it up would violate my commitment to bullshitting through these things and he could be the god of stomach ulcers for all I know.
So, taking suggestions. What's this aggressive monster's name?
