Resting.

Wonky weather. We had two weeks of 80 degree weather in March, a spell of normal chilly Bay Area weather, and this past week has just been gloriously pretty really nice. I think if I lived in a place that got hot weather, I could fall in love again. Literally, as in romantically, not metaphorically. As it is, I'm just not interested. Not worth the effort in this chilly, foggy, depressing city.

But ups and downs. The SF Int'l Film Festival ends today and I saw my last film on Monday, Three Step Dancing from Sardinia. I'm not sure I agree with the catalog description. I didn't view it so literally as a tradition/modernity struggle, but saw it more as a life cycle thing with childhood, youth (love), adult (marriage), and old age and death. I wish I had seen more non-Asian films, especially since the Asian American Film Festival in March features more Asian films than Asian American films anyway. But I gravitate towards them because I have a sense for them, and can read a description and have an idea if I'll like it or not. With films from the Middle East, Africa, and South America, there's a much higher chance of walking away thinking, "what the hell?". And with keeping an eye on money, there's a higher interest in seeing films that I walk away feeling good having seen it.

I saw Robot Stories on Tuesday at Opera Plaza, and I can highly recommend it even having seen it (as opposed to my previous demand that was just based on principle). It's a series of four short films, but they are really well done, well conceptualized, and nicely poignant, human stories. Yes, very poignant. Poignant. Poignant. Poignant. Poignant. Say it out loud with me: poignant, poignant, poignant, poignant, poignant. OK, you can stop.

My brother's birthday is next week. My family is not a gift giving family. We're mostly a phonecall/leave a message type of birthday family. I think I'm the most likely to go out and find something to send to my brothers, but that happens only sporadically and it's not something that has to get there on their birthdays. Give or take a month is fine, and usually there is no card or mention that it is a birthday gift. But I was good this year. Yesterday I went out and didn't procrastinate or equivocate, and got something from SFMoma. Got a box and packaging tape, and today I got See's, Ghirardeli, and Jelly Belly's to fill it out, and sent it with even some sort of chance that it will get there on Monday. No card, though, nor a happy birthday indicated.

It was a beautiful day out. While riding past the crowds going to the SBC Giants game, there was a guy handing out free Naked Juice drinks and he gave me four. Later I fell of my bike from a near standstill and scraped my knee. Couldn't get my foot out of the toe-clip fast enough. It's funny how whenever that happens you feel stupid and tell yourself it'll never happen again, and it does. But I was happy to scrape my knee, it reminded me of being a kid. When I was kid, I liked getting scraped up, falling from rocks, falling off a bike, playing frisbee or baseball, whatever. Nowadays, crashing is no fun, because going down on a road ride or mountain biking is likely to involve some degree of injury miles and miles from home, and damage to the bike. So it was nice to get just a little owwie that stung, bled, and hurt, but is really not a big deal.

Soon after I got home, UPS showed up with my new Mag unit for my bike trainer that finally busted last week. That was quick. He sent it yesterday, trusting me to send him a check - no order form, no shipping and handling, no receipt - and I will because I'm happy. And, oh yea, I'm honest. On the down side, my camera is out of commission again. It's not recharging. I'm thinking it might not be a battery issue, but something wrong with the camera or recharger.