Finding Neutral

Missed Shift

2006-04-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Well, something happened, and I don't know what, the days slipped by without any entries about anything. I think the job and my feelings about it started becoming less important and the whole thing of getting laid off kind of diminished as I started riding around and finding out what it's like to be free again. In between storms we had some fantastic weather in the last months of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, nice enough to get some sunburn relaxing on the beach. The ocean had reshaped the beaches along the San Mateo County coastline with ferocity, depositing huge piles of driftwood, virtual forests in some places. The surf was huge and scary at my favorite spot, the beach steep with at least a ten foot drop at a thirty degree angle between the high and dry and where the waves broke.
In February I started visiting California's historic Missions, beginning with the Mission in San Juan Bautista, made famous by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo with Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. It was a good ride, but I cut it short, I didn't want to be away from my Sweetheart on Valentine's Day. A few days later me and The Missus went over to Mission Dolores here in SF, then rode up to Missions San Rafael and Solano (in Sonoma) and had some sandwiches in the sunny Sonoma Plaza.

The next week I rode solo to Carmel and caught the tail end of the California Bicycle Tour before I visited the Mission there. I took the Carmel Valley Road through the Santa Lucia mountains to Mission Soledad and then 101 down to King City and turned onto a County rode that leads to Fort Hunter Liggett, an active Army Base in the broad, park like San Antonio Valley, filled with large old trees, looking very much like an oak orchard. I stayed at The Hacienda, William Randolph Hearst's hunting lodge, a mission style structure designed by Julia Morgan, an incredible location with magnificent solitude, even though it's on this Army base. Mission San Antonio de Padua is just a mile away, carefully preserved and beautifully restored. The next day I made my way back to 101 and continued down to Mission San Miguel Arcangel which has been severely damaged by earthquake, then back home to Frisco in one shot.

March was one of the worst months I ever had in my entire life. Constant rain just wet my brain, I was a near meltdown, rain is my kryptonite, I lost all my strength and purpose. There was one nice weekend when Mrs. Neutral and I went for a ride with about thirty bikes, to the University of Santa Clara pulling up in front of the Mission there just as Mass was letting out!
Then we went over the hill to Mission Santa Cruz, a stop for lunch, then up the Coast to Pescadero and a coffee at Duarte's then fought the wind back all the way back to the City.

April is promising to be as wet as March, houses slipping down hills, cars tumbling off roads giving way under torrents of water and super saturated soil. We took the car down to the Carrizo Plain this weekend and found out that if you get away from the Bay Area, the weather's a lot nicer, beautiful, sunny and bright, the hills and valleys so vibrant and green against the blue sky and puffy clouds that my eyes hurt from looking at them, more on that later.

Guilty !

2005-11-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

You never know what's gonna happen, how things are gonna turn out, what's gonna affect ya. One morning last month I was walking down the street, maybe I was wandering, and a guy starts walkin' up to me, his face is full of recognition of me, and a little familiar, but from where I don't know. He introduces himself and knows my name and reminds me: we were on jury duty together 3 years ago, he got kicked off, I went on to the deliberations and ultimately to delivering the verdict.

The case was a messy one, not a lot of physical evidence putting the guy at the scene, the cops actually tricked the guy into admitting he wished he wouldn't have been there that night. Four guys went out looking to jack somebody up for some party money, the first guy they beat with a .22 rifle that had the stock and barrel and feed tube sawed off, broke his jaw, ripped his ear, the second guy they ran down, took his wallet and somehow shot him three times, twice in the back, once in the head while he was on the ground.

It was a real 'when worlds collide' kind of night for all those guys. Four street dudes, partners, hangin' out, away from the project killing time, chillin', smokin' and doin' blow and looking for some money to party. The other guy was here from Maine for a friend's 30th birthday party, he was a waiter/actor/filmmaker walkin' back to his software account exec friend's Russian Hill apartment after a night in a chi chi restaurant and some hip bars with all their cool friends. Pop! Pop! Pop! The End.

It was a long trial, took almost four months out of my life, I missed a whole iteration of the project I was working on, but there was one guy that was gonna miss the rest of his life, and two more were gonna spend theirs in jail. The night after we delivered the verdict, one of the witnesses, a street person that the killer beat up one day, saw me on the street, wanted some cash, then recognized me from the trial, but had me confused with one of her johns. I ran down the street and through a BART station while she chased after me, yelling, I thought some of her street pals were behind her. I keep waiting for one of the killers' friends to walk up to me on the street, but instead it was one of the jury people.

When I got back to my desk that morning after seeing that jury guy, I looked at the calendar: it was October 28th, 3 years to the day since I reported for jury duty. Another time, another gear, another wheel, another circle, another reckoning.

Fin de Siecle

2005-11-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

Friday night I went to a friend's retirement party, she's leaving her job and the City for a new life somewhere else. I mention it because when I first moved here we were roommates, she was renting a beautiful Victorian in the Haight, and I rented a room there, along with a bunch of other long haired freaky type people. She was responsible for the place, and the only one with a job.

I was year out of the USMC, not yet two years back in the USA, having lived that time in Orange County, so San Francisco was a new life for me. I liked being in a City again, the house and people were very cool, I moved right into a situation that had been going on for a few years and there were lots of people and spin offs that I became part of just because I was a roommate.

But the bloom was off the Haight in 1971, and while it still hadn't become what it would, it wasn't once what it had been, but it was another beginning for me, and in a sense now that part is coming to an end. I managed to get together with her and a few more roommates again on Saturday in Chinatown for what will probably be the last time we'll be able to get together.

So she's leaving the City at the time my job is ending, I'm reaching for some kind of meaning here. There's lots of cycles in time, in a life, and I feel this must be one of them. A few years ago I became intrigued with the Mayan calendar, there are many cycles to it, each a part of another cycle, gears turning gears, wheels spinning within wheels. I gotta believe that somewhere in the spin there's a still place, where I can find neutral.

I have a very real physical sense of fin de siecle right now, lots of circles closing, completion, resolution, balance, harmony and reckoning.

The 36th Day

2005-11-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you have to speed up, slow down, take a curve, top a hill, make a stop, change gears, move in and out of traffic, but sooner or later you have to find neutral. Sometimes you forget what gear you're in, or you shift up instead of down, but you gotta find neutral, roll to a stop, put your boots down on the ground and let your motor idle and figure out your next move.

On September 30th I had some kind of precognition, just minutes before I found out, so it wasn't a surprise, but it still hits like all the cliches, a Mack truck, a ton of bricks, a 2 ton anvil, like Bill Romanowski ... gettin' told your position is being eliminated, a 'euphemism' for laid off, what a chicken shit way to say 'you're fired'.

It's a physical thing, a body check, a kick in the ribs, you're sick, in shock, it's a tectonic plate shift to your ground of being, a huge movement in your center, you're not the same person anymore. Nothing's the same, you experience a whole color wheel of emotions, elation, fear, guilt, anger, shame. People feel sorry, they feel survivor guilt, it coulda been them, maybe they're next, they ask if you're 'ok', can they do something, they wonder if you'll freak out.

You have 90 days to figure out what to do, which is kind of humane treatment, you'll get paid, you're not going to get any real responsibilities, a deadline would be silly, nobody expects you to do much, it doesn't really matter if you show up. Pretty soon nobody knows what to say anymore, but you gotta keep going, it's a wild ride but sooner or later you gotta disengage, you gotta find neutral, roll to a stop, put your boots down on the ground and let your motor idle and figure out your next move.