Back in Business

I never believed in astrology, that “Mercury in retrograde” or whatever it is, but I have to say last week it seemed as though the cosmos decided that I must be punished. You see, that’s why I don’t believe in astrology. If astrology was really all-knowing, it would know that I punish myself so much it hardly needs to get involved. So, either I made it happen myself, or the cosmos did, and in any case, last week sucked rocks.
Comcast wasn’t the least of it after all. How did that end up? They wouldn’t give me any more than a refund for the days I was out, which amounted to $11. “We don’t usually refund for inconvenience,” they said. Usually? They also said that they “usually” tag wires, and that the stealing-cable monkeys “usually” check billing status before shutting someone down. So I suggested that this wasn’t a “usual” situation. They said I couldn’t talk with a manager, but that they would make a note for a manager to call me within a couple of days. It’s been more than a couple of days, and I never heard from them. If I hadn’t had so many other shitty things happen to me, I would have by now contacted SJ Merc’s Action Line, 7 on Your Side, Lazarus at Large and everyone else.
You see, Monday morning, my work computer wouldn’t boot. The hard drive fried. Advice: When you get a error that says something about reinstalling a system kernel, just go back to bed. Especially if it’s the dawn of deadline for the biggest and busiest issue of the year.
The good news is that most everything was on the server, and I got to buy (well, my employer got to buy) a really nice computer with a gig of RAM.
The bad news was that most of the issue’s photos were still in Outlook, as were all my email addresses. Bad, bad. And they couldn’t be recovered. But I just sent out a mass email to everyone asking them to resend photos, and I got photos and was able to start reconstructing my contacts.
After a week of jumping around from computer to computer at the office, I finally got everyone back in order on Friday.
On top of that there was another shitty thing that happened, but I’m going to exercise a little restraint before mentioning it here. It will probably come out later as a little think piece about risk taking.
Understandably, I didn’t see much theater this week. I took in the Richard Tuttle retrospective at the SFMoMA, thanks to Z, who’s a member. Tuttle's wife, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge (love that name), is a poet who publishes almost exclusively with Kelsey St. Press, where I interned while studying poetry at State. If you aren’t familiar with KSP’s books, they are worth checking out, especially if you appreciate collabs between artists and writers. Anyway, though I didn’t appreciate all of Tuttle’s work, this bit of knowledge informed my connection of Tuttle’s quavering line on a vast field of white to Mei-Mei’s long lines, which often dictates that her books take a more rectangular orientation. Of the whole retrospective, I of course was more drawn to the presentation of his many books toward the end of the exhibit. I’m glad I didn’t skip out on Z and hide under my covers. Afterwards, Trev picked me up at West Portal and suggested margaritas at our fav El Toreador, where he promptly ordered a pitcher, and also suggested a 9:30 show of March of the Penguins. Hey, no matter how bad work gets, at least I don’t have to march across 70 miles of ice two or three times in the dead of winter.
But after hitting the Gilroy Garlic Festival with lil’ sis on Saturday, I could have used a dip in cold water. (But getting out of this insane SF fog was a blessing.) Practically a Bay Area native, and this is the first time I went to the fest. Loved it! Lately I’ve become addicted to the Food Network’s shows on cook-offs at festivals—as I say, nothing bad happens on the Food Network, except that someone loses the apple pie contest. Call it escapism. So yesterday, I saw in real life some Texan woman win the cook-off with her stuffed scallops. And watched the pyros at Gourmet Alley, where we tried excellent shrimp scampi. And, of course, garlic ice cream, which is really like eating plain soft serve and inhaling garlic at the same time. You smell it more than you taste it.
And today, as I caught up with Bloglines, I discovered I officially got a nickname over at Waterbones. At least, I’m pretty sure I did. And I like it, but, Waterbones, am I really?
Speaking of being named, I opened up the Pink Pages to find my note to Ms. Chonin smack dab in the middle of her column. Ugh. That seemed rather fun at the time I wrote it but now seems a little righteous. Well, anyone who knows me knows I have the luxury of writing “entertaining” (if I could call it that) pieces too, so.

Stealing Cable?

After four days without cable TV or Internet, I called Comcast for the fourth time. There's no longer an outage in your area, they said. We need to send someone out.
So they did. This morning. And what did he find? That Comcast turned off our service on purpose. Seems someone saw some loose cables near our PG&E box and thought we were stealing cable, so they turned off our service! Amazing! So, my first thought is: Do they really send out people to check your building for funky cables? And why don't they check their billing records before they turn you off? And, finally, why did three different Comcast phone support people not bother to check this when I called them?

Boo Comcast, part 2

I've been neglecting my friends here at Staged Readings, and just when I was going to get on the bandwagon, Comcast went down big time, like, 20 routers affected, and my area down, down, down. No cable TV, no Internet. So now I'm at Java Beach paying $3 for 20 mins and I have 6 mins left. This is where I would link to Radio Free Mike's photo of JB, but, I have 6 mins left.
And I was gonna start selling on eBay today, too!
And, I was writing about theatre for free, but now I'm paying to write about it.
So, more later, but catch the San Francisco Theater Festival on Sunday at Yerba Buena Gardens. I'll be there.

I Hate Deadlines

Before I left on my trip, I didn't schedule any theatregoing for the rest of the month, and now I'm trying to get back into it. But it's sorta like trying to enter a really busy traffic circle. And, Trevor just opened tonight, so I've lost my date and my car for the next two weeks. I wanted to see Thousandth Night, but the threat of a BART strike made me afraid to commit. But, I'm totally going to see it, because I really like Ron Campbell, and because Chloe Veltman quoted me (well, quoted him through an interview I conducted) in her SF Weekly review. Which makes the second time the magazine has been mentioned in the SF press this week. The first was Tuesday, in Rob's column again, referencing the script we "published." Within hours, someone was calling us wanting to know where she could buy the mag. Good, but I fear I'm running out of tricks.
The lack of a car also throws the Crucible's fest into question, because there's no way I'm BARTing that. But I hate missing that fest every year!
But, I think I've just gotta check out Lovesick: The Cat Allergy Musical on Sunday, and of course, I'll see Working for the Mouse on Saturday. And later, the Exit.
Did I say I hate deadlines? That would refer to work. Some people I work with hate deadlines, too, or they must because they keep missing them. But hell if I'm gonna work this evening--it'll only reinforce flakiness. Am I bad? I'll just refer you back to the employee meeting. I won't bother to link it.