a thoughtful sort of day

there's such an interesting quality to the light here when it's a bright sunny day above the fog but on the ground we're immersed in the clouds. i took myself out to lunch (the craving was too powerful to be denied) and ended up driving around for a while, looking at the houses on my street and realizing that not only is this my town, but it's also my neighborhood. the houses on this street are wildly diverse, from 60s vintage tract-style homes to impressive custom jobs to ramshackle amateur jobs. the few newer buildings look out of place for now, but they'll weather and eventually blend in as everything does here. you can't keep anything looking new in Pacifica; the fog carries salt and pollutants and settles on every surface, eating away paint and metal and wood until everything takes on a consistent air of apparent neglect.

i fit right in here. there are several houses on the street i'd love to own, but there's one in particular that calls to me, possibly because it's painted red like the house i grew up in. it's about the same vintage, too, and if it weren't for the ravages of time and fog and neglect, it would still have the same bland characterlessness of those late-60s tract homes so many of us remember from childhood. it's a single story, but with a walk-out basement in the back, and it's clear no one has ever cared at all what the yard looks like. there's nothing, really, to recommend this house, except perhaps its potential. it could be cute, with a little help. the yard cries out for a garden and some trees. some paint and a little trim would do wonders for the facade. and it has a view, one almost as good as what i've got now. i bet the windows in the back are stock, and completely inadequate for optimal enjoyment of the landscape, and no one's ever bothered to do anything about that either.

or maybe what attracts me is the thought that it's the least attractive house on the street, and thus i might theoretically be able to afford it -- in a few years, contingent on my actually finding steady work. not that it's for sale now, nor is there any way for me to know whether it ever will be. but this isn't about reality. this is pure fantasy. which house could i afford? would that house be one i'd want? what could i do to make it mine, to lend it some of my personality while preserving what little it has of its own? i find the thought of buying a run-down little box like that more appealing than any of the impressive (and sometimes beautiful) custom houses on this street. i'm not quite sure where that comes from. does part of me not believe i belong in a nicer house, or am i really just so rugged an individualist that i feel inspired by the possibility of making a silk purse from a sow's ear? or do i just feel some sort of kinship with such an ugly duckling of a house, neglected, unpolished, and built for function, not for form?

smelly yellowish liquid is oozing down two entire walls in my bathroom now, and i'm beginning to suspect the curtain Shirley made. i think because it's so tall (it hangs from only a couple of inches below the ceiling) that it's forcing steam from the shower to escape through such a small opening that it's collecting along the ceiling and the tops of the walls, favoring the wall with the door and the fan as the best escape route for heat, leaving the moisture behind. i'll clean it up again, and tomorrow i'll try pulling the curtain all the way aside when i shower and see if that makes a difference.

i still haven't sanded the shelves, nor have i started to do actual work today. i'm not sure i'm going to be able to overcome my urge to finish reading The Nautical Chart, which i've been rationing carefully since i left Colorado because i don't want it to end. (although i have to admit i'm a little disappointed by the translation. this one had a different translator than the others and she isn't nearly as good a writer; her word choice is sometimes questionable and i suspect her Spanish must not be truly fluent.)

i absolutely adore Pérez-Reverte. i can't help, when i read his books, imagining them as a movie and casting the roles in my head; they just seem so perfectly suited for film adaptation. i wonder if he writes them that way intentionally? The Ninth Gate was based on his book The Club Dumas, but don't judge the book by the movie; while i liked it much better than most people seem to, it did stray quite a bit from the plot of the novel, especially near the end. either way, i do think Johnny Depp was an excellent choice for the protagonist, albeit a bit younger than the character as written. for The Nautical Chart, i think i'd have to cast Gabriel Byrne as Coy, the main character. i'm not sure who i'd cast as Tánger Soto; perhaps Cate Blanchett. for her, you need someone deceptively fragile-looking, and her freckles are described so often and so vividly that an unfreckled actress would be a hopeless disappointment.

of course, i also thought Jack Palance would make an outstanding Dark Knight, and so far no one has ever agreed with me on that.

bastards.

food update

tonight's dinner will be split pea soup with ham. mmmmmmm.

nothing else of any interest to report, except that i opened the curtain in the bathroom all the way before i went out, and when i came back a couple of hours later, the bathroom was completely dry -- but several small but very dark brown spots had appeared on the ceiling.

ewww.