Top 10 list.

1. Little City Gardens. I've been crafting a whole essay on why I love this project, but probably the greatest endorsement was watching Rafael say, "That's ammmaaaaazing." And then asking to play the video again. Rafael doesn't think anything is amazing. He's incredibly irreverent.



2. An abalone our friend brought us last weekend. We shucked and froze the adductor muscle. Quote from the shucker video: "This is how I was taught, so this is how I do it." You tell 'em, brother!



3. The suckiness of Benicia. I used to be apathetic about how much Benicia sucks, but now it just makes me angry. Am I going through the stages of grief? My friend Marisol works for Valero, and knows that without Valero's contribution to the tax base, Benicia City Hall would be holding bakesales. There are so many people who never want Benicia to change, which essentially means that it will remain a bedroom community without local food sources, excessive transportation to outlying cities, bored kids who fuel the drug trade and other such suck factors.



4. Lake Berryessa is beautiful this time of year. Our triathlon team did a practice tri and looked friggin' hot in their spandex. This photo is funny just because it makes the lake look so ugly:



5. My parents sold their house in Benicia and are moving to Petaluma. My mom told my dad to start moving items over to their small apartment while she works seven days a week at the pizzeria. He moved over his CDs. We all know that it's because he doesn't think that he owns anything else.
   
   
6. My dad has discovered YouTube and looks up videos of old 7" records that some collector recorded and made into a video. All that appears on the screen is a rotating record while music plays. I picture him sitting at the computer and watching the record turn in circles, bobbing his head, laughing to himself. It occurs to me that my father could be considered a hipster, which I think means he's a consumer rather than creator of obscure cultural phenomena. It doesn't matter to me anymore that he doesn't ask how my day went. It used to tear me up inside.



7. I've been thinking about this book I want to write about Washington State. My dad and I talked about the sheer creepiness that David Lynch successfully captures in his Twin Peaks series. Strangeness. Rafael understands it. My mom is torn up because her Seattle family no longer keeps in contact. Neither does my Dad's family, but as he explains it: "No one keeps in contact because they think ... Who would want to keep in contact with me?" My mom doesn't understand this. She's from California.



8. I really want to see the Babies movie.



9. I'm a huge fan of Bikram yoga but only because it makes me suffer.



10. The Rumpus