Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Back to the cool

Part of the joy of living in San Francisco is returning to the city from somewhere else, especially if it's summer and you've just been to a sweaty locale. New York's had worse heat waves, but it felt plenty hot 'n humid to me, especially last Friday when there was some kind of "ozone alert." I took that to mean the air pollution was particularly bad, a fact my eyes attested to. They got so red and swollen I had to take my contact lenses out for the duration. (Typically, I blamed myself: I'm still getting accustomed to the soft "extended wear"-type lenses. But on second thought, I think it was the bad air.) No wonder there are so many advertisements for spas, plastic surgeons and beauty treatments of various kinds -- the air is filthy, at least at times during the summer.

So coming back to San Francisco (I missed a local mini heat wave -- the only kind we ever have -- while on the east coast) and waking up to cool, sunny weather is fabulous. The yellow hills are like lemon cakes with a frosting of fog, and the garden is brilliant with flowers and greenery. Out my back window I can see the grapefruit rees in the neighbors' yards. It's so beautiful.

Today I have little to do but errands and chores. My next writing mini-project will be to put together a twenty page synopsis of my novel for the agent whose name I got from a fellow writer at Holden Village. Once that's done I can work on incorporating edits from Dina, whom I gave the latest version of the novel to just before leaving for New York. She's supposed to flag "redundancies" and anything else that jumps out at her. Then, finally, I can work on groundwork for my next book, which I've decided will be a modern-day exploration of alienation as lived in the softwear industry and in the paranoid canyons of the desert.

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