08.26.02 - 1:21 p.m.

Oh my god I'm tired.
Can hardly keep the eyelids up.
If I close them for just a minute,
soft hum of air-conditioning,
clickety-clack of keys, low voices
murmuring about video cards and game speeds.
I can still smell D.'s shampoo. At first I didn't like it.

Time has slowed to a trickle.

I wish I could be nicer.

I have been so frustrated lately, with my life and my friendships and most of all myself. It is my responsibility to live an interesting life. No one will do it for me.

Well, there are sources of inspiration. Like Maria. We had dinner last night-- she's in San Francisco until Weds, when she leaves for a year of curating museums in Vietnam. She won a Luce Fellowship.

We ate at L'Ottavo, an excellent recommendation from D. Over lobster ravioli and canyon creek merlot, a discussion ensued: can you love an artist but hate his/her work? e.g. Jackson Pollock : horrible person, estimable painter. Presumably the converse is also possible.

But art is manifestation of personality. I went to MOMA on Sunday and saw the Yoko Ono exhibit, and I tell you, I was blown away by the love between John and Yoko. When he first met her at a gallery opening, he asked if he could follow the instructions for one of her instruction pieces, "Painting to Hammer a Nail In". She didn't want to let him but the gallery owner was like "hey, it's a famous rich guy, let him hammer the nail." So she said he could, for five shillings. Lennon said "ok, how bout I give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in?" and from there they never looked back. A year later, she made the piece below to celebrate when they first met.

Painting to Hammer a Nail In

Can you love Yoko Ono's work and not in some small way love Yoko Ono? Well, yes. But I am smitten with her ideas; conceptualism + humor = a trapdoor into my heart. I liked the chess sets with all white pieces. "Play It By Trust"

Friday was Josie's party : the smell of wet dog pervaded throughout. But Josie is a nice young lass. I always want to pat her on the head.

Saturday Elio and I made aluminum pipes to barter at Burning Man. They are shweeeeet. Running them through the lathe produced a beautiful finish-- they shimmer in the light, almost like holograms. I am not a pro at filing but the end result was good. We now have ten of these objets de smoke to trade for whatever strikes our fancy.

We also did some other shopping-- got a bike rack, 14.5 gallons of water, approximately 5000 strips of fruit leather, and baby wipes. Truly we are ready for desert survival. I am excited and curious to see what the playa will bring. D. was sending me tantalizing tidbits of camp descriptions-- 17th century bushido fighting techniques, a recreation of the odeon bar in SF, y mas, y mas.

XXX: vin diesel is a charmer, and by extension so is this movie. the extreme sports stunts are impeccably filmed-- the avalanche scene, in particular, is breathtaking. i am not a fan of schlock, but I think the salon review is dead-on in assessing this as a step above your typical action flick.

I want to be a critic, though they say no one ever erected a statue to a critic.

The scent of shampoo is causing me to have impure thoughts.