g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

« ? Blogging Brians # »





Book Plug:

Buy it and I get
money. I think.
BSD Mall




 10/6/2003 -  10/8/2003
 9/29/2003 -  10/5/2003
 9/22/2003 -  9/28/2003
 9/15/2003 -  9/21/2003
  9/8/2003 -  9/14/2003
  9/1/2003 -   9/7/2003
 8/25/2003 -  8/31/2003
 8/18/2003 -  8/24/2003
 8/11/2003 -  8/17/2003
  8/4/2003 -  8/10/2003
 7/28/2003 -   8/3/2003
 7/21/2003 -  7/27/2003
 7/14/2003 -  7/20/2003
  7/7/2003 -  7/13/2003
 6/30/2003 -   7/6/2003
 6/23/2003 -  6/29/2003
 6/16/2003 -  6/22/2003
  6/9/2003 -  6/15/2003
  6/2/2003 -   6/8/2003
 5/26/2003 -   6/1/2003
 5/19/2003 -  5/25/2003
 5/12/2003 -  5/18/2003
  5/5/2003 -  5/11/2003
 4/28/2003 -   5/4/2003
 4/21/2003 -  4/27/2003
 4/14/2003 -  4/20/2003
  4/7/2003 -  4/13/2003
 3/31/2003 -   4/6/2003
 3/24/2003 -  3/30/2003
 3/17/2003 -  3/23/2003
 3/10/2003 -  3/16/2003
  3/3/2003 -   3/9/2003
 2/24/2003 -   3/2/2003
 2/17/2003 -  2/23/2003
 2/10/2003 -  2/16/2003
  2/3/2003 -   2/9/2003
 1/27/2003 -   2/2/2003
 1/20/2003 -  1/26/2003
 1/13/2003 -  1/19/2003
  1/6/2003 -  1/12/2003
12/30/2002 -   1/5/2003
12/23/2002 - 12/29/2002
12/16/2002 - 12/22/2002
 12/9/2002 - 12/15/2002
 12/2/2002 -  12/8/2002
11/25/2002 -  12/1/2002
11/18/2002 - 11/24/2002
11/11/2002 - 11/17/2002
 11/4/2002 - 11/10/2002
10/28/2002 -  11/3/2002
10/21/2002 - 10/27/2002
10/14/2002 - 10/20/2002
 10/7/2002 - 10/13/2002
 9/30/2002 -  10/6/2002
 9/23/2002 -  9/29/2002
 9/16/2002 -  9/22/2002
  9/9/2002 -  9/15/2002
  9/2/2002 -   9/8/2002
 8/26/2002 -   9/1/2002
 8/19/2002 -  8/25/2002
 8/12/2002 -  8/18/2002
  8/5/2002 -  8/11/2002
 7/29/2002 -   8/4/2002
 7/22/2002 -  7/28/2002
 7/15/2002 -  7/21/2002
  7/8/2002 -  7/14/2002
  7/1/2002 -   7/7/2002
 6/24/2002 -  6/30/2002
 6/17/2002 -  6/23/2002
 6/10/2002 -  6/16/2002
  6/3/2002 -   6/9/2002
 5/27/2002 -   6/2/2002
 5/20/2002 -  5/26/2002
 5/13/2002 -  5/19/2002
  5/6/2002 -  5/12/2002
 4/29/2002 -   5/5/2002
 4/22/2002 -  4/28/2002
 4/15/2002 -  4/21/2002
  4/8/2002 -  4/14/2002
  4/1/2002 -   4/7/2002
 3/25/2002 -  3/31/2002
 3/18/2002 -  3/24/2002
 3/11/2002 -  3/17/2002
  3/4/2002 -  3/10/2002
 2/25/2002 -   3/3/2002
 2/18/2002 -  2/24/2002
 2/11/2002 -  2/17/2002
  2/4/2002 -  2/10/2002
 1/28/2002 -   2/3/2002
 1/21/2002 -  1/27/2002
 1/14/2002 -  1/20/2002
  1/7/2002 -  1/13/2002
12/31/2001 -   1/6/2002
12/24/2001 - 12/30/2001
12/17/2001 - 12/23/2001
Sunday, November 10, 2002
18:49 - Daily California Affirmation, with Stuart Smalley

(top) link
It's rapidly getting so that Sunday is the spiritual center of my week-- not in any kind of go-to-a-building-and-kneel sense, but in a sort of mutant Thoreau sense.

Sundays, you see, I get to wake up extremely late, like after noon (usually because I've been up till at least 5:00 in the morning working on something). I have a leisurely lunch, catch up on pending e-mail backlogs, and either work on whatever parts of the site or book or whatever still need working on since last night, or revel in the fact that there's nothing more of such work to do right now. And then I strap on my iPod, pull on some shoes, and head up into the hilltop neighborhoods of South San Jose for a nice long soundtracked sunset walk. I find a nice place to enjoy the view and the weather, I sit there for a while watching the clouds with some appropriate music alongside, thinking appropriately expansive Whitman-esque thoughts, and then I head home. Then I laugh myself hoarse at Adult Swim for the rest of the night.

I should point out, by the way, that the iPod has a very bizarre sense of humor sometimes. With well over a thousand songs in its library, and the random-play setting turned on, the oeuvre with which it serenades me as I march up the hills is usually very diverse, and often oddly fitting. Yet it seems to zero in, with irritating frequency, on "Sit On My Face", by Monty Python. Sometimes it pulls it up at the most inopportune times. I don't know what it's trying to prove, but it's got me peeking over my shoulder now on occasion, looking for the hidden cameras.

The fact that when I left the house, the first song it played was "Shaking the Tree" from the Peter Gabriel studio album that it's on, and the very last song that it started playing two hours later as I came within view of the house again was "Shaking the Tree" from the Secret World Live tour album, didn't do much to allay my paranoia.

Anyway, tonight I took advantage of the fact that the rain had cleared from our neighborhood for a while to head to the highest point I could find in the general area and watch the clouds break across the valley. I made my way to the top of Silver Creek Valley Road, which winds its way through gated communities and posh country clubs to a narrow hilltop pass beyond which no houses have yet been built; the road on that side winds down into the Hellyer valley where there are some dot-com business parks, but the steep canyon and hillside in between is as yet uninhabited (though lined with manicured trees and polished stonework medians). At the crown of the pass, I scrambled up the hill from the sidewalk to the knob right above, and found myself at the end of a ridgetop with an exquisite view of the southern end of Silicon Valley. I found a relatively dry patch of ground and sat down.

One of the nice things about living in a place without any bugs, by the way, is that I can go up to a grassy hillside and sit down and stare across the valley as the sun goes down. It's something I take for granted until I go elsewhere in the country, where such a pastime would be suicide, a selfless sacrifice to the clouds of pests which seem to inhabit every other place I've been to. There just don't seem to be any here.

Actually, I lie. There was one mosquito-- a very inexplicable one. It hovered about two feet above my head for about ten unbroken minutes, wavering from side to side. Picture this: I'm sitting with my back to the hilltop, and there's a gentle breeze coming from behind me and rolling out away from me down the hill. This mosquito seemed to be trying to fly back over the hill, but perhaps it was just a wuss-- it couldn't make any headway against the breeze. I couldn't figure it out. But if all mosquitoes acted like this, I'd have nothing against them at all.

At any rate-- there I was, at the bald peak of a hill about a thousand feet up, gazing out across the Valley to the Santa Cruz Mountains on the other side. I was facing westward, right toward the setting sun. But in between myself and the sun was a huge, dark bank of cloud-- it was clearly dumping rain on the valley floor below me, but I was far off to the side and above it, and I could see its upper contours as well as its lower draperies of moisture. The entire bank was moving slowly southward, toward my left. Its upper edge sloped downward to the right. As the clouds moved left, the sun sunk lower; it never actually came out from behind the cloud bank, but rather followed the moving contour of the clouds as the upper edge sank lower and lower, fading southward. And because of the wisps of high moisture that made up the only cloud presence against the blue that domed the rest of the sky, the sun was creating a deep orange flood across the western sky-- which backlit the slow, trundling cloud bank with edgework of orange and pink. Far from the indeterminate haze of a Midwestern horizon, where you can't really tell whether there are clouds in the distance or not against the milky white sky, these clouds were all razor-sharp against the blue, with clear and detailed texture that looked near enough to reach out and grab hold of. Every few minutes, a jet emanated from the cloud bank, slowly descending, bound for the San Jose airport. Orange and gold light glinted off its wings as it crossed my plane of vision.

And me without my camera.

I sat there for almost an hour. The music that came on my iPod as I watched the clouds' edges burst into orange flame was the final "Farewell to Neverland" score track from Hook, a long orchestral piece that fit the scene better than anything else I could have dialed up, except possibly Beethoven's 6th. The recurring theme played a few times, the way I'd remembered playing it in Band back in high school. The light began to fade; the sun, though I couldn't see its position exactly, was surely below the immovable cloud horizon by now. And the music rose to the unmistakable John Williams Fantasy Finale-- grand, royal chord progressions, the kind that can go with no possible visual but a sunset like the one I was now watching, and the words THE END. A couple of birds fluttered by as the chords faded and the track ended. I waited a couple of seconds, taking a deep breath, letting it all sink in, serene and happy as I've ever been on one of these Sunday walks, as relaxed as I've ever been sitting on a grassy hillside with nothing to do but watch birds and--

SIT ON MY FACE, AND TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME!


Aaauuuuugh! <jabjabjabnextnextnext>

I swear. I love my iPod, but some days it can be such a butthole.

Back to Top


© Brian Tiemann