1. Breakfast at the neighborhood breakfast joint where we've never eaten even though it's literally across the street. I went for straight-forward bacon and eggs, but they have a fine array of Mexican-inflected items on the menu I want to try. It was really good. And it was right across the street. It's going to make me so fat.

2. Shopped for toilet paper and Cheerios. Then got my mom the first Midnighters book and The Lightning Thief for Mother's Day.

3. Hit up a coffee joint and worked on the series proposal I'm hoping to wrap up this week.

4. Happy-hour sushi. Including one-cent sake. Yum. Oof. Yum.

5. Beach.



6. Starship-motortrike.



7. Mississippi paddle-wheel traversing a bay in San Diego between two Polynesian resorts.

It's been a very nice, bum-around sort of weekend. Yesterday morning the weather was too perfect, so we strolled along the bay and out to the beach and had a relaxing breakfast at Seaside Cantina. Great place to watch waves and people.

Returned home after wading in the surf and caught a showing of Iron Man. I don't think I liked it quite as much as some people, but I really enjoyed Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance, and the suit was totally neat. Sometimes superhero movies turn into CGI cartoons in the last half hour, but there were enough shots of Tony Stark's face behind the helmet that I never felt I'd lost contact with the character and shifted into a different movie.

Stopped at the market on the way home from the movie for sandwich fixings, came home and quickly assembled a picnic, and then headed out to sit on the sand by the bay and munch. I even snuck a beer out there, which you're not supposed to do anymore on account of the hundreds of drunken knuckleheads who rioted last Labor Day. I quietly drank my beer and did not riot.

I've already gotten some feedback on the novel from very-first readers, who caught some stupid things I thought I could get away with, some dumb decisions I made with pacing, and various and sundry. Trying to fix some of that today.

Now, however, I am sleepy.

Starting a new book!

Just tippy-typing some notes so far, actually.

I'm at a very pleasant coffee joint in Pacific Beach. I like this neighborhood. It's far enough north from Garnet Ave. that it might not be full of bar-hopping knuckleheads at night. And I can see ocean when I look down the street. Definitely an area to check out when the current lease runs dry in a few months.

A swimmer got killed by a shark this morning at Solana Beach, my very favorite San Diego-area beach and the site of my Mystery Dream House. Apparently a lot of seals and sea lions have been beaching themselves in the area, which they do when there's a big predator out there.

More people die from coconuts falling on their heads than get killed by sharks, so it's not like I'm worried about getting eaten by a shark. Still kinda freaky, though.

It's been a gorgeous day for a walk. Sunny and clear, with a nice, crisp breeze. The bay and beach were quiet for a weekend afternoon, and there were a quesadilla and a Pacifico waiting at Rubio's.

But the best thing about the walk were the jellyfish! Alien creatures on the beach! I've been looking for them since we moved here, and finally they showed up! Jellyfish!





The rest:

Jellyfish - Mission Bay & Pacific Beach, April 2008

There are houses I like better, but this one has a more scalable cliff than the others, so I think I might steal it.



I'm not a huge fan of the architectural style (I favor the Craftsman), but the location is nice.



***

Just 500 words today. The ending is starting to take rough shape in my head. One thing's for certain: It will involve the kelp guys.

Not having had a good writing weekend, I desperately required a productive morning. It was reasonably productive, thanks to the mojo of my trusty "A T.Rex Named Sue" coffee mug.



I said the day that my new Threadless Loch Ness Impostor t-shirt arrived would be the happiest day of my life. It just arrived, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy.



Lastly, this octopus mosaic in Pacific Beach has been making me happy for months.



Anything making you happy?

I threw out the day's writing, not so much because it sucked (though it did) but because it pulled the narrative in directions I didn't want it to go.

So, that kinda sucked.

On the other hand, I had a great three-hour walk around the bay, down the beach, to the taco shop and grocery store, and back. So, that kinda rocked.

I'll take it. And I've got a fresh cup of coffee, so maybe I'll get some good words down yet. If not, well, I've still got happy sand between my toes.

Not liking the writing much this morning, but no complaints about the coffee joint.

"Ticket to Ride" by the Carpenters has to be one of the weirder covers. Still, I'd give a lot to be able to sing like Karen Carpenter.

Um.

Here's some Mad Max footage set to Motörhead. Because I am metal, totally.

***

Today I had a lobster burrito and a Negra Modelo with an ocean view, plus other pleasures. I lived like I was livin' in paradise.

***

The JLA Satellite blog finally got around to reviewing Justice League of America #124, the very first comic book I remember buying. It was on sale at the little grocery store at Lopez Lake, a regular destination for our family vacations, and maybe it was the spooky cover, but I was drawn to it like Batman to a mugger, and though I've drifted away and come back to comics many times in the intervening years, I've loved them ever since.

People in the comments to the blog post are dissing the co-writer of that issue, Elliot S! Maggin, but he wrote Last Son of Krypton, which remains one of my all-time favorite novels, and I will always love him for it.

I should get a new copy. Mine would fall apart if I touched it.

***

She really was an alto angel, though, Karen Carpenter.

I'm not yet clued into the rhythms of the seasons in San Diego, but the tourist season must have officially begun. The beaches this weekend were crowded, the paddlewheel boat was running across the bay, the trail was full of bikes and skaters and pedestrians, and Sea World is at this moment firing off artillery (just fireworks, but it sounds like we're being shelled).

For the first time in many years, I am not dreading summer. If it gets to be 115 degrees it'll be due to environmental collapse rather than business as usual.

Anyway, I think it's only supposed to be, like, 60 degrees tomorrow with fog.

Getting back on track with the book after several days away. I've been working at home instead of coffee joints, mostly in the interest of saving money, but made an exception today. I'm up at the E Street Café in Encinitas, which has nice, big tables, free WiFi, accessible electrical outlets (mainly because I brought my own extension cord), and a beach.



A few of the beach, with giant shelled ocean bugs:

Encinitas - March 20, 2008

DIE YOU FUCKING ANTS EVERY SQUIGGLY ONE OF YOU DIE DIE DIE DIIIIIIIIIIEE!!!!!!!!!

***

Other than that, though, it's been a rather excellent day. One of the best things about moving from Phoenix is now there's a whole entire city to discover. A whole city! With stuff in it! That I don't know what it is or where it's been put! Previous to coming here to live, my experience with San Diego was limited to a few family trips to Sea World or the zoo and a couple of Comic-Cons. But it's turning out to be so much more than Shamu and asphyxiation from too many Doom Patrol fans.

Today we had lunch (me with a pork chile Colorado and a Negra Modelo, Lisa with a lobster enchilada/fish taco combo) in University Heights, yet another nifty neighborhood full of neat coffee joints, restaurants, and cottages. Back in the early 1900's, the area was an ostrich farm, so there's lots of ostrich iconography all about. All the houses are built upon an ancient ostrich burial ground, and so on.



Afterwards we made the short drive to Midtown for snackage and work at Eclipse Chocolat, where I had a latte with super-special caramel made from sugar imported from the Hollow Earth.

I read the last 50 or so pages of my book, and though the last ten or so are rocky (major characters introduced and lots of exposition to get across), I encountered nothing fatal, so I just have to keep on writing.

The last couple of days have been good, too. Had burger and beers and ice cream shakes at Hodad's in Ocean Beach with the visiting Jackie and Chris, and then got to hang with Jackie more at Rebecca's. It's nice to be social. Even with Jackie.

I think I'm going to eat some wings now, washed down with hooligan beer.

Hope your Saturday's been good!

I woke up ridiculously early this morning and couldn't fall back asleep, so instead of staring at the ceiling, I brewed coffee and sat down to write. I could actually hear my neighbor in the adjoining apartment snoring. Either she was sleeping in her living room, or her snores go through at least two walls. Headphones on, Beatles Master Mix iTunes Playlist set to random, and she went away.

Having done a lot of writing in coffee joints, I've gotten used to working with auditory distractions around me. But yesterday we were walking along Pacific Beach and I spotted a guy typing away on the second floor of the condo in the photo below. At that height, with all those windows, he has an amazing view of the beach. On a clear day, he can see from Mexico to the cliffs of La Jolla, and out over the Pacific for mile after mile.

I wonder if I could work with a view like that. I sure wouldn't mind finding out.



My much more modest view:

Apparently the Sun went nova an hour ago and it hasn't even made CNN.

Every time I see one of these local moving company's vans, I have to ask, "But ... what if I don't want to move?"

Since a lot of the book I'm working on takes place on a beach, going to the beach now counts as research rather than just goofing off.

The beach in my book is kinda different from the beaches here, though. Nobody would kiteboard off the beach in my book. The currents would dash them against the rocks, just for starters. And then there's the sea monsters.

We haven't been getting slammed with the weather they're getting further up the coast. Some rain, some wind, but nothing apocalyptic. Maybe tonight.

A couple of blocks from the Starbucks I've been going to, down at the end of a little nondescript side street, is a tiny little park. I'm not even sure if it's officially a park. There's no sign, for one thing. It takes up maybe fifty square feet, just enough for a single bench and a paved ledge over the ocean.

Maybe there're places like this in LA, but I never found them. I wanted to. The LA coast has fewer cliffs, and they tend to be occupied by bazillion-dollar beach houses. There are plenty of houses like that here, but if you look, you can find modest little holes and nooks and parks between them.

From the bench at this little nameless park or whatever it is, you can look out across the ocean miles. You can see islands that I think are actually in Mexico. If you stand at the rail, you can see pelicans roosting on Bird Rock (which is where the neighborhood gets its name). You can be by yourself.

I like going down there and leaning over the rail, watching the waves roll over the rocks. I like closing my eyes and listening. It feels like a secret place, and it's one of my favorites.

Dear Life,

I enjoyed you very much today.

With sincere thanks,
Greg

PS. Kelp!