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She likes my journal !!

They have better beds on the A ward.

   
Berkeley parade

October 2nd, 2000

On A Monday. In Oakland.
A rumor came over the line from one of our offices that we had approached the largest company in our business with the idea of a merger. The rumor started in one of the union halls. Turned out to be false, just a little negotiating at the edges, sharing equipment, fixing prices, the usual day to day stuff every company in our business conducts with one another. This is good. "Merging" with a company as large as the one we're talking about is the same thing as being acquired. Adios half of the management and some of the redundant old farts, getting, one hopes, what is commonly termed "the package". Hi, ho. Another day, another week, another rumored reorg. Pass the bottle, mama, while there's still food on the table and the rent's been paid.

Quiet otherwise. Three people from my group went to class last week, another three this week including Berkeley parade our manager. Nothing like a week without a manager to get caught up. I did more work on our web page by the end of the morning than I've accomplished in three weeks. Nice. Feels good. Lunch with Ola and MSP at Son of Pho's, the afternoon bright, the colors sharp, the temperature perfect for someone who grew up in Seattle and thinks 70 degrees fahrenheit is the temperature on god's own thermostat. You know, the one in her living room, the doors opened onto a stone patio, a light breeze coming in off a primordial sea where fish long extinct nibble on one another throughout the long afternoons. Well, to put it succinctly, the weather was nice and the lunch was good. I'm not sure where the rest of it came from, but I can see that living room and sea. My analyst frowns and pushes his glasses back up on his nose with this forefinger when I start talking about extinct fish. He asks me questions about them - what kind, what color, what size - which makes me wonder at his own sanity.

I just fed Spider upstairs. Little cat, all alone for ten days. I wonder how that really works. I wonder what goes on in cat psyche land when the door is closed and nobody shows up anymore except this guy who comes in twice a day and ladles out food. I bounced a couple of fish thingies I found in a can in the living room off the carpet and Spider jumped after them, catching them in mid air - chomp, chomp - thanks a lot. Is this a sign he's handling it well? Am I really writing this? Cat mind, man mind, bouncing randomly about the room. On a Monday. In Oakland.

 
The photographs were taken at the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade weekend before last. The quotation is by the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki.


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