A Nearby Earthquake

A small earthquake occurred in Berkeley yesterday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The 2.0-magnitude quake happened at 10:37 a.m. and was centered near Panoramic Way, just southeast of Memorial Stadium on the University of California at Berkeley campus.

I can verify that report. The epicenter was only a mile away and I am up on the 8th floor. It was nowhere near the biggest jolt I have experienced; it wasn't even as moving as the one last month on the other side of the Bay. And nothing like a couple of big temblors in the middle of the night when I lived in L.A. in the early 80s.

I missed the Loma Prieta earthquake here in the Bay Area in 1989, I was living in L.A. at the time. I also missed the Northridge quake in L.A. in 1994, I was living in San Francisco then. Apparently the earth does not move when I am around, at least not big time moves.

Yes, over 400 earthquakes in California in the past week.

Walgreen Story

On the way into the pharmacy the other day I overheard a snippet of conversation between (actor #1) the gentleman with the red bucket, collecting for I know not what charity and (actor #2) the somewhat loud talking lady on crutches. As I passed them I observed the lady was missing one leg just below the knee; the conversation went like this:

"My son gets out of prison next week."

"Parole or release."

"Oh definitely parole to a halfway house in Oakland."

"How many years he do?"

"They gave him twenty but let him out in twelve, he should never have done a day."

"What for?"

"He got the man who did this to me." She pointed at her missing leg.

When I came out of the store, the lady was gone but as I passed the man he spoke to me:

"You heard the story bout her son."

"I did."

"Ain't true."

I stopped, knowing this would be worth the time.

"I knew her back when see lost that leg from too many infections."

"Needles?"

"Yup, and she ain't got no son either. Leastwise not one that gettin' out of prison; her only child died from the same crap that took her leg."

"Sad story."

"Well nobody makes you put that poison in your body."

"No I guess not."

I dropped five bucks in his red bucket for the story and headed to my car with my physician prescribed narcotics in the clean, white pharmacy bag with the tax receipt attached.

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Art: Decision Time by americanpsycho

Coming Home?

Home - 1. a house, apartment or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family or household.

             2. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.

In one sense I am coming home today, that would be the the sense expressed in the first definition above. If any place can be called my usual residence in the past several years, then the Berkeley apartment qualifies. Today after 112 days of remodeling, I am moving back in. Pictures to follow soon.

Domestic affections is another thing entirely. I don't really know if I simply no longer feel such emotions or just currently have no interest in that direction. Semi-nomadic feels comfortable and not at all foreign as I had anticipated. This gives me something to ponder as I place my minimalist domestic stuff in the renewed space high up in the low clouds of Berkeley.

Remember Coming Home (Fonda, Voight, Dern) one of the first two major films that took on the subject of the Vietnam War. They both came out in 1978, less than three years after the U.S. exit from Vietnam; the other film was The Deer Hunter (DeNiro, Walken, Streep). The picture below is the one most remember from Coming Home, Fonda and the crippled veteran she falls in love with Jon Voight. The picture at the top is of Fonda and Bruce Dern, her husband; the other factor in the film's equation. I much preferred The Deer Hunter but no one would have got the reference if I titled this post - Searching for Bambi? 


Nevermind, nothing to see here, move along.

And yes the apartment is nearly 100% new, so what am I bitchin' about?

A Disappointing Anniversary

I'm annoyed today. It will pass but today I am annoyed. You see it was a full year ago that I moved into the Berkeley co-op apartment with the truly spectacular view. True the decor left something to be desired but I have low expectations in those areas. There was much debate about remodeling, I was against it. My position was - you don't put money into the place until you are ready to sell. But my voice was advisory only, I did not have a vote.

Then in the late fall a decision was made to move ahead with a complete top-to-bottom remodel. I moved everything out and vacated the space on December 8th. The completion deadline was spoken of as being "the end of the year," now I have enough real estate experience to know that any date a contractor gives you should be multiplied by at least a factor of two. So I expected perhaps late January and would have been only mildly surprised by a February return date.

Well today is the one year anniversary of moving into the apartment and now over three months since I moved out and as you might guess I am not back in yet and expect it will minimally be another week or two even three before I do get back in and even then I expect there will be half a dozen pick-up items that won't be done and will take several more weeks or even months to finish.


Grumble. Mumble. Like a frustrated cheetah when the antelope gets away.

I'm annoyed today. It will pass.

Remodel and Renewal in the Void of Time

On December 8th I moved out of the Berkeley apartment and deconstruction began. I know it started then, I barely escaped with my backpack intact. By Dec. 11th there had been even more destruction. The kitchen was gone, the doorway to the sunroom was demolished, what passed for carpet was torn up and shipped out, all appliances were history, parts of the ceiling were down.


Then I left for points north with promises of work and reconstruction but I knew, as we all know, that lingering just into the foggy future was that Bermuda Triangle of the contractor universe, that which sucks up days and weeks of time in world where progress is measured in fanciful delays of material and elaborate excuses emanating from unseen third parties.


Now in early February, just a few short days ago, I witnessed with yea these two eyes of mine the first installation of new kitchen cabinets. There was new tile and new lighting in the bath. I viewed an order for new hardwood flooring complete with a "guaranteed" delivery date and I received governmental paperwork of asbestos ceiling detritus environmentally disposed of. Granite hath been ordered for counter-tops, delays are awaited on this item. The painting maestro is prepared to begin tomorrow with much debated but now imprimatured hues.


The new finish deadline is set at February 15th, I expect February is probably right.

Home or Something Like It

For about five years now I have refrained from using the word "home" to describe any of the places I have rested my head. I lived at 'Bill's Place' in Las Vegas ('06-'07) and then at 'the condo' ('08) also in Vegas. I literally was undomiciled for fourteen months ('09-'10) while traveling about the country and since March I have lived in the 'Berkeley apartment.' Ann Arbor ('00-'06) was probably that last time I recognized a place as home.

I am not actually adverse to finding a new home and certainly I have no problem calling the SF Bay region home, I lived here from '90 to '00 quite happily. I settle fairly easily into any place that can reasonably replicate a cave, but nothing has felt like home for awhile.

This comes up today because I have returned to the Bay area after fifty days in the Mt. Shasta/Weed/Lake Shastina environs of north-central California. I am not back in the Berkeley apartment yet, the slow pace of remodeling there still crawls forward. So I am in the City staying with yet another seemingly willing friend, I surmise I remain an entertaining interlude in the spare room.

In the next few days I will visit the apartment and assess the likelihood of re-occupancy in the relatively near future or thereabouts. But the search for 'home' continues.

What's In a Name?

Off and on for the last couple of month's I have written quite a bit about my new place -- The Apartment I called it. Most of the words I have written recently had to with the view. Now that summer is in full swing the the sun has reversed course heading back south towards the Golden Gate and the fogs of San Francisco are around most days. So my view gets lots of natural variation. Today I wish to muse about what I call this place in Berkeley. I really thought The Apartment worked just fine with no references to the Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine academy award winning film of the same name.

But last week, someone who really knows The Apartment referred to it as The View and that got me thinking. The Eyrie came immediately to mind but that was just way too precious, it led to Roost and Perch, Promotory and Massif which allowed Amy to wonder if caves ever came with views. I growled at that suggestion, briefly considered Grizzly Peak and put the whole idea aside until last night when I wrote this line in a story -- "he lived life with a glimpse and a glance."

Seems as if there must be some ocularly infused eponym that is just right, not too hot, not too cold. So I am open to suggestions, a prize for a winning linguistic turn.

Until then, I am signing off from The Apartment - the one with The View and this my 100th blog post of 2010.

Telegraph Avenue

I have lived in several university towns and spent a fair amount of time in many others: Ann Arbor, Madison, Cambridge, Austin, Westwood, Berkeley. While they all show the liberal influence of the ivy covered walls, they are all somewhat unique. Most influence neighborhoods they share, others dominate the entire city. And then there is the People's Republic of Berkeley.

Such a mixture of liberal/radical politics existing right alongside fantabulous contradictions. For a place of peace, freedom and social justice there are a lot of regulations. Mostly these are seen as "for the people" and against the establishment but rules are rules and are therefore necessarily anti-freedom. But politics and bureaucracy are not my topics today. Telegraph Avenue is.

Telegraph Ave. is less than 5 miles long. It runs from downtown Oakland north-north-east to the south entrance of the UC Berkeley campus at Sather Gate, which then spills directly into Sproul Plaza where "those" protests took place in the 60's. But when most of us hear Telegraph Avenue, we think of the last four blocks at the UCB end of Telegraph, where you can still buy beads, candles, radical bumper-stickers and incense. I live about five minutes from this stretch of Telegraph, so I know the restaurants and other necessary establishments there, yes olde friends I live within walking distance of Tienda Ho.

Early last week, I was up on Telegraph running errands, I hit the post office, grabbed a sandwich at Cafe Mattina and was looking for a place to make my seasonal lottery purchase. After casually keeping my eye out for a lottery sign, I realized that in the mecca of anti-establishmentarianism there was not going to be a retailer who would alienate the local clientele by trading in such a income discriminatory hidden tax. I think I must have been smiling even more broadly as I turned off Telegraph to head back to the apartment. I rounded the last corner stepping slightly around a well dressed young woman, who I noted was a bit out of place on the lingering hippy sidewalks of Telegraph when I heard her whisper;

"Date?"


There it was, in the heartland of free love, a Tuesday afternoon solicitation. I wish I had not simply strolled on. I would like to know more about prostitution on Telegraph Ave. Think I could have gotten five minutes of conversation for what? maybe twenty bucks?

The times they are achangin'.

May Day: Berkeley

May Day in Berkeley 2010 was a disappointment. Yes, there was the requisite amount of Arizona immigration bashing and leaflet handing out and random activist literature tables but this is the Worker's Day. Where were the socialists? Where were the downtrodden? The unions? The huddled masses were drinking mocha lattes.

The most prominent early morning promotion was for the "family friendly" May Day picnic and that was over in Dolores Park in San Francisco. This is not your parent's Berkeley. There is more concern these days about reversing the decades of traffic calming measures (that's blocked off neighborhood streets for those who have not experienced the radical traffic patterns of Berkeley). And lest we forget, we need to be ever watchful of asbestos ceilings and old lead paint.

Perhaps I was just having an olde leftie day and expected more from the former nexus of all things radical. Or maybe I was looking for the other meaning of May Day.

Earth Day

Forty years ago, the first Earth Day (1970) was small, peaceful, non-commercial and did I say small? I spent part of Earth Day #1 on the diag of the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor; today, I will send part of Earth Day #40 on Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus. What I remember most about that first ED (my how abbreviations have shifted meanings), what I remember was the number of teach-ins. Teach-Ins were a product of the Vietnam War protest era. Rather than sit-in or be-in or trash-in; faculty and others on campuses around the world would hold teach-ins to present in-depth points of view on issues that might not normally be part of the present day university curriculum.

Even back in 1970, wind and solar power were being pushed as alternatives to petro-chemical fuels before the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 or the Iranian Oil Crisis of 1979. Recycling was a novelty in 1970, the Boy Scouts picked up newspapers but that was about it. But like today there were resources, here are some I came across this morning.

Earth Day official website, where you can learn about the big rally this Sunday in Washington D.C. and see how far we have come both in saving and destroying the planet.

Earth Day as big business, an article from today's New York Times.

Earth Day Around the World Part I.

Teachable Earth Day moments from EducationWorld.com.

and one of two YouTube offerings for Earth Day 2010.

Insert hopeful inspiring phrase here.

Out My Window

Images from week one in the new apartment. Again I promise from this point on, only utterly spectacular shots or anything a visiting telephoto lens might capture.

The daylight shots really don't do the reality justice. The view of San Francisco is overwhelmingly distracting.

You can click on any of these for a truly spectacular view.
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photo credits: me

Conference Review

I'm not sure what to say about the 2010 Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference just ended. As the onsite coordinator I worked a lot more than I listened, which meant I missed many of the papers or heard them from "just outside the door." In addition, much of my interaction with presenters was from a practical point of view, dealing with last minute presentation requests, reasonable and otherwise. As with any group, there is always a prima donna or three and I tend to find them tedious. Within this group those demanding individuals also stand in stark contrast to the equanimity of the community as a whole, which makes them even more annoying to me.

My role as site coordinator also meant that I missed spending quality time with some olde friends and colleagues, which is generally seen my most as the high point of the conference. And a bit of a cold & fever also meant I was harboring my energy by sleeping rather than engaging in late night conversations.

I guess I haven't fully processed my own feelings to this year's conference. I do know that next year Jeff will be running the event in Portland and I am already planning to head up to Oregon, but as an conference participant only. No side duties, maybe not even a paper to present. I do know that I missed the play time this year. I won't do that again.

Oh, in response to several emails. Yes, those were the real titles of the conference presentations I posted over the past four days.. And yes, it is true that academics love to use colons in the titles for their projects, but really those were the papers. You can't judge quality nor content by the length of the labels and big words do not intelligence make.

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photo credit: friendsofirony.org

Saturday Conference Schedule

Saturday, March 20

Faculty Club UC Berkeley Campus

9:00 – 11:45 Perspectives on Ayahuasca Healing, Part 1 Chair: Evgenia Fotiou

9:00 – 9:15 Ayahuasca and the Construction of a Healing Tradition. Erik Davis

9:15 – 9:30 Ethnomedical Tourism in the Amazon: More than Drugs and Desperation? Francis Jervis

9:30 – 9:45 Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals. Evgenia Fotiou

9:45 – 10:00 Intimacy in the Healing Function of Ayahuasca Icaros. Susana Bustos

9:45 – 10:00 Q & A, Discussion

10:00 – 11:15 Part 2: Therapeutic Potential of Ayahuasca in a Global Environment

10:00 – 10:15 Healing With Plant Intelligence: A Report from Ayahuasca. Richard Doyle

10:15 – 10:30 Out of the Jungle and Onto the Couch: Integrating Ayahuasca into Psychoanalytic Treatment. Stephen Trichter

10:30 – 10:45 The Translation of Ayahuasca into a Depression and Anxiety Therapy. Brian Anderson

10:45 – 11:15 The Dynamics of Healing and Creativity during Ayahuasca Shamanic Journeys: Toward A Neuroscience – Human Sciences Model. Frank Echenhofer

11:15 – 11:30 Q & A, Discussion Discussants: Stephen Beyer & Frank Echenhofer

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 1:00 SAC Open Business Meeting

1:00 – 1:15 Break

1:15 – 3:00 Stories of Healing and Transformation Chair: Alison Easter

1:15 – 1:30 The Origins of Carlos Castaneda’s 'Anthropology': Evidence from Personal Letters and a Memoir. Robert Cripe

1:30 – 1:45 Modern-Day Sacred Initiation into the Ancient Western Mystery Tradition in the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Ron Bugaj

1:45 – 2:00 The Ancient Bard as Shaman. Robert Tindall

2:00 – 2:15 Break

2:15 – 2:30 Healing, Meaning, and Efficacy. Jong Hwan Park

2:30 – 2:45 The Experience of Healing in Sri Lanka: An Investigation Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Alison Easter

2:45 – 3:00 Q & A, Discussion

3:00 – 3:15 Break

3:15 – 6:00 Language, Healing, and Consciousness Chair: Matthew C. Bronson

3:15 – 3:30 From Shaman to Messiah – Take Two – Healing? Mira Z. Amiras

3:30 – 3:45 Time and the Evolution of Consciousness. Glenn Parry

3:45 – 4:00 “We Ain’t Got No Wildlife in Marin City”: The Use of Epistemological Story in Teaching Ecoliteracy. Tina R. Fields

4:00 – 4:15 Pulling the Plug on Grandma: Language and Framing in the Health Care Debates. Matthew C. Bronson

4:15 – 4:30 Q & A, Discussion

4:30 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 5:00 Dangerous Labels: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse by Shifting the Lexicon of Sexual Violence. Chimine Arfuso

5:00 – 5:15 The Language of Mental Health in America. Leslie Gray

5:15 – 5:30 Re-Languaging a Life. Tim Lavalli

5:30 – 5:45 From James to Jaynes, or, The Mind Turned Itself On(line). Roberto Gonzalez-Plaza

5:45 – 6:00 Q & A, Discussion. Discussant: Jeff MacDonald

6:00 – 7:15 Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 Enchantment – Employing Song to Shift Consciousness. Tina Fields (Experiential Workshop)

Friday Conference Schedule

Friday, March 19

Location: Faculty Club - UC Berkeley Campus

8:30 – 11:45 Models and Traditions of Healing Chair: Steven Glazier

8:30-8:45 The Gift of Life: Death as a Teacher. Rochelle Suri

8:45 – 9:00 They’re Baaack: Return of Life-After-Death Accounts in the Age of Neurobiology. Meg Jordan

9:00 – 9:15 Cultural Diversity as a Resource in Schizophrenia: An Example from Cross-Cultural Communal Psychiatry for the Mapuche People in Chile. Markus Wiencke

9:15 – 9:25 Q & A, Discussion

9:25 – 9:35 Break

9:35 – 9:50 The Effects of Sufi Healing Ripple Outward. Cheryl Ritenbaugh

9:50 – 10:05 Path of the Heart: Integrating the Wisdom of Classical Sufism into Modern Psychology. Rahima Schmall

10:05 – 10:20 Retrocausality and Real Life Miraculous Reality Shift Healing Stories. Cynthia Sue Larson

10:20 – 10:30 Q & A, Discussion

10:30 – 10:45 Break

10:45 – 11:00 A Health Event: A Journey through Illness, Treatment, and Recovery. M. Diane Hardgrave

11:00 – 11:15 CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) Going Mainstream. Claudia Weiner

11:15 – 11:30 ‘Cryptic Potency’: Divination and Healing in Trinidad. Stephen Glazier

11:30 – 11:45 Q & A, Discussion

11:45 – 1:00 Lunch (SAC Board Meeting)

1:00 – 3:45 Ecological Healing: How to Practice as if the Earth Mattered.

Leslie Gray (Experiential Workshop, $25/$15)

3:45 – 4:00 Break

4:00 – 5:00 Invited Keynote Address: Edith L.B. Turner Communitas and Merging with Another: What is Happening in Healing?

5:00 – 6:30 “So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World In Crisis” Book Launch, and SAC’s 30th Anniversary Party

6:30 – 7:30 Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 Experiential Workshop: Healing through the Heart: The Sufi Path of Love. Cheryl Ritenbaugh ($25/10)

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photo: jacket cover of new SAC published book

Thursday Conference Schedule

Thursday, March 18

Location: International House, 2299 Piedmont Avenue

9:30 – 11:30 Culturally Responsive Healing

9:30 – 9:45 Indigenous Ethics, Consciousness-Based Healing, and U.S. Health Care Reform. Lurleen Brinkman

9:45 – 10:00 Afro-Brazilian Religions and the Re-Configuring of Public Health in Brazil. Anna Pagano

10:00 – 10:15 Q & A, Discussion

10:30 – 10:45 Globalization and the Transmission of Mystical Philosophies and Practices into Eastern Europe. George Hristovitch

10:45 – 11:00 A New Architecture. Marc Goodwin

11:00 – 11:15 Aboriginal Theory of Mind and Western Cognitive Science Ross R. Maxwell

11:15 – 11:30 Q & A, Discussion

11:30 – 12:45 Lunch

12:45 – 2:45 Healing States

12:45 – 1:00 Neurofeedback-Enhanced Gamma Brainwaves from the Prefrontal Cortex and Associated Subjective Experiences. Beverly Rubik

1:00 – 1:15 Open-Ended Guided Visualization as a Tool for Emotional Healing and Expansion of Consciousness. Eva Ruland

1:15 – 1:30 Health and Well-Being – Cultivating States of Health in the Physical, Psychological, Spiritual Dimensions. Darlene Viggiano

1:30 – 1:45 Q & A, Discussion

1:45 – 2:00 Break

2:00 – 2:45 Mental Imagery as an Adaptive Healing Mechanism. Gail Kelly

2:15 – 2:30 The Antithetical Role of Fear in Healing from the Ayurvedic Perspective. David “Atibala” Thorp

2:30 – 2:45 Q & A, Discussion

2:45 – 3:00 Break

3:00 – 5:30 “Tuning-In”: Therapeutic Dimensions of Musical Improvisation. Andreas Georg Stascheit (CANCELED)

5:45 – 7:00 Dinner

7:00 – 9:30 Intent, Emotion and the Memory of Water. Beverly Rubik (Experiential Workshop, $25/ $15)

Conference Announcement

Beginning tomorrow and running through Sunday, I will be completely occupied with the annual Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness conference nearby on the UC Berkeley campus. I have been going to these events since the early 90s, but this year I will be a bit more involved. Besides presenting a paper, I am the nominal Site Coordinator, which means less hanging out with olde academic buddies and more managing the student volunteers to get people registered, coffee urns refilled and chairs moved.

Also it probably means, no new blogs until Sunday. I will do a review of the conference hi-lites and if you happen to be in the Bay Area here is a PDF link to the entire program, consider dropping by for a couple of sessions or workshops. Students with ID get a reduced rate every day and a special $5 all-day pass on Saturday.

Here is a particularly interesting panel for anyone locally tempted:

Saturday 3:15 – 6:00 Language, Healing, and Consciousness

- - - - - - -

3:15 – 3:30 From Shaman to Messiah – Take Two – Healing? Mira Z. Amiras

3:30 – 3:45 Time and the Evolution of Consciousness. Glenn Parry

3:45 – 4:00 “We Ain’t Got No Wildlife in Marin City”: The Use of Epistemological Story in Teaching Ecoliteracy. Tina R. Fields

4:00 – 4:15 Pulling the Plug on Grandma: Language and Framing in the Health Care Debates. Matthew C. Bronson

4:15 – 4:30 Q & A, Discussion

4:30 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 5:00 Dangerous Labels: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse by Shifting the Lexicon of Sexual Violence. Chimine Arfuso

5:00 – 5:15 The Language of Mental Health in America. Leslie Gray

5:15 – 5:30 Re-Languaging a Life. Tim Lavalli*

5:30 – 5:45 From James to Jaynes, or, The Mind Turned Itself On(line). Roberto Gonzalez-Plaza

5:45 – 6:00 Q & A, Discussion. Discussant: Jeff MacDonald

*guaranteed to be the only poker related content on the program

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art credit: Tina Fields

Berkeley, California

Rainy and chilly in the Bay Area today. I can't even see the Golden Gate through the pall of grey. As soon as the weather clears I will give you a shot of the view from my new apartment. Yes, it is official; tonight I sleep in Berkeley. I once again have a mailing address that actually bares some resemblance to where I rest my head.

First, item on the new nesting agenda is to get back into a regular routine for writing. While I have been productive during my Great Wandering, I have several projects that need immediate attention and having a solitary den to sleep and write in, tis always good for my productivity.

For those familiar with the East Bay and Berkeley in particular. I am now living on Dana Street, which is just a block west of Telegraph Ave. and five blocks south of the Berkeley campus. Strolling distance to a great library and many good ethnic restaurants. I already have hit one of the three farmer's markets in the area and plan to begin some neighborhood exploratory hikes as soon as the rain lets up.

For now, all my bags are unpacked and I'm ready to stay.

By the way, the picture at the top of the Golden Gate in the rain is really quite a shot, take a look at it bigger and clearer here.

The Day is at Hand

Well my year plus of un-domiciled existence will be ending this week. I booked the carpet cleaner for Thursday, which means I will have a new mailing address in Berkeley come Friday. The process of removing 25 years of books, art and papers from the apartment has been daunting but also very interesting. As Mira likes to say: we were always one envelope, one box, one more file folder away from finding another treasure. All 3500 books have been shipped to the dealer or donated to various worthy institutions. The dust of decades has been blown away and now the art has started on its next journey to find new homes with someone who will appreciate and treasure the many pictures, textiles, brass and well just too many forms of expression to measure.

It will probably take another couple of months for all of the art to find its way down the hall and out the door but enough space has been reclaimed for me to live in the apartment for now. Besides there are literally hundreds of pieces of art and no docent to tell me not to pick them up to take a closer look.

Sometime this spring or early summer we will begin remodeling the entire unit but that is phase three. We are nearly done with reclamation and removal (phase 1). Next comes occupancy (phase 2). Once I am in, I will give you a description of what this place is like and twill be clear why all the labor was worth it. Yes, besides helping out my good friend #3; I had an ulterior motive or two.

For now. Nearly to the next station, wonder who will be waiting on the platform. I will venture a guess they have no idea who is about to disembark. Please to meet you, won't you guess my name.

The Tome Exodus Begins

Tomorrow, at last, the first truck arrives in front of the Berkeley apartment. Two trucks in fact, one for donated books (41 boxes) and one for personal papers off to the museum (16 cartons). Then on Tuesday, two more trucks; one for furniture (14 large items) and one for the antiquarian books (20 more boxes), which means --- I can schedule the carpet cleaner and potentially, if the river don't rise, I will be sleeping in Berkeley come next weekend.

There is still the matter of all of the art to be evaluated and sent off to the appropriate collector, dealer or museum, but I can share space with art and come mid-week there will be enough space in the apartment for at least one large humanoid and twelve million dust mites.

Once I am in residence I will share some of the truly interesting facets of my latest domicile, but as of today I am officially closing the final calendar month of the longer-than-expected non-domiciled period I so casually entered early last year.

The next big life decision: will I be in one place long enough to once again co-habitat with a feline. It has been three and a half years since last I shared space with a furr-ball and I surely do miss the purrs.

A Job for a Divestor

Regular readers are by now familiar with my non-domiciled nature over the past year or so. Associated with that I have also been in phase two of my divestment period. When I left San Francisco in 2000, I basically gave away my stuff; keeping only a bed, a desk, a wok, clothes, a computer and two cats. I did have some other "stuff" stored or carted in never opened boxes and those have been the things I have been divesting in this latest wave of non-accumulation. I now officially declare myself to be a semi-professional divestor.

This makes my current project all the more interesting. In order to occupy the apartment in Berkeley (my next semi-permanent place) first there is the matter of 3000 books and several hundred pieces of museum quality art. Not to mention the papers, oh my the papers! The prior occupant, my good friend's father, was more than a collector. He and his wife were the driving force behind the Magnes Museum in Berkeley. Which means that the apartment is not simply full of books and art; but is filled to the brim with treasured items of historical significance, which he collected from around the world.

So to clear out my new space, the divestor has taken on a role in placing thousands of items in the hands of those would give them the places of respect and access they deserve. So with care and respect we still have to deal with the task of literally packing and moving thousands of items.

Yesterday was a significant day in that process. Twelve boxes of personal papers detailing years of work with the Magnes Museum and the collection were removed from the apartment and delivered into the hands of the archivist of the museum. Also yesterday, a book dealer, personal friend of the family and now friend of mine, went through the entire collection; we boxed up 20 cartons of literature for his collection and we have those ready for immediate cartage pick-up. Plus the remaining books are now ordered and cataloged and ready to box and donate. I begin that task tomorrow.

On the mundane side of the apartment prep list, we got 50% of the required plumbing work done, the cable company installed phone, internet and cable plus the car donation was completed. So I can now park in the garage at my new place and access the internet. Actually sleeping there will take another week or so but progress has been made and acknowledged by even the most pessimistic among us.