Ugh, I'm going to be a pedestrian for two weeks! My car is in the shop getting a necessary post-accident makeover; so, for two whole weeks, I'll be using the dreaded San Francisco public transport system, MUNI. I've had plenty of experience with public transport in my life; after all, my parents have not owned a car in my lifetime. Nor could I afford a car of my own when I lived in Philly.

You'd think all this experience with public transport would inure me to the idea of using MUNI for two weeks now .On the contrary: I have memories of going grocery shopping with my parents on the No 12 bus to downtown South Shields. We'd get on the bus, whose ceilings would be about a foot too low for my height, and, stooping low, I'd shuffle to the back of the bus, followed by my parents, who were short enough to be my children! After an hour trailing disconsolately behind them through Hintons Supermarket, the whole trip would repeat in reverse, except this time I'd be manhandling about four heavy plastic bags full of shopping. I hated it!

And then several years of taking the D bus in Philadelphia, from Center City to the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, where I had an office on 39th and Walnut. It was inevitably twenty minutes late, which meant waiting on the street corner in either (pick the season) sweltering humidity or ankle deep slush. Once on board, there'd always be both a cold-ridden sneezer sitting behind me, and a talkative wino in the seat in front, telling me about his experiences making movies with John Wayne. No wonder I eventually gave up on public transport in Philly, and became the daemon mountain biker!

This has not been a good week for the technology in my life. Not only the car, but a couple of days ago, my laptop entirely quit on me. So I was not in a good mood yesterday evening, when I surrendered my jeep at the auto body shop. It was five-thirty, and I'd decided to take it over to the shop in Pacific Heights, and then run home. At least the weather was beautiful - warm, clear, fresh - as it had been all week. As I ran down Van Ness Avenue towards the Bay, my bad mood began to evaporate. I rounded the Maritime Museum, ran past Ghiaradelli Square, into Fisherman's Wharf, along the fishing pier and back, then round the Embarcadero to home, feeling, finally, young, light-hearted and virile, with the sun shining on my back.

My workouts have been great too, of late. I seem to have finally found a way to break through the fatigue that used to bedevil me at the gym. I've often listened with envy to people, like my friend Brett, who say that when they work out, they feel invigorated afterwards. I've always been used to feeling pretty much destroyed afterwards! But, I've found that if I ignore my fatigue, and just push myself, the fatigue disappears, and I end the work out feeling hypercharged! It probably helps that I've also taken to knocking back a cup of Peets coffee before my workout (if you've ever had Peets coffee, you know how strong it is!)

When I work out, I also take with me a large bottle of drinking water, to which I've added a little cytomax powder, in order to make a light, lemon carbohydrate drink. People always ask me what's in the bottle, since it looks very much like ... well ... as if I'm recycling the coffee that's just passed right in one end and out the other!

I was in such a funk yesterday. I still have nothing at all to do at work: the project on which I'm due to work keeps getting delayed. I'm feeling totally unfulfilled with my job. I've had an email or two from people who've had no sympathy for my position, saying that they'd die to have a cushy job like mine, where they get paid well for doing nothing! Well, I'm only speaking for my own motivations: I need to be challenged by what I do, and it ain't happening here. But it's more than just the job - it's my whole career I'm questioning. I've finally started the process of figuring out where to go, though, since yesterday I had my first appointment with the career counsellor. Before the meeting, I quickly threw together a sort of summary of my career, along with some goals and motivations. It's a first step of what I expect to be a process that will take many months. And who knows where I'll end up.

At least things are going well with Jed. The other day, he drove up to San Francisco, and we walked to North Beach for dinner. We sat outside in the warm evening, a joy that you can rarely experience in San Francisco, where the evenings are cold probably 350 days of the year. Aftewards, we walked slowly home along the beautiful residential streets perched perilously on the edge of Telegraph Hill. On the top of the hill, from the plaza in front of Coit Tower, the whole city twinkled beneath us, and the far horizon was still tinged with a crimson glow from the sunset. It was a magical evening, and it was great to be with someone special on a night like that.

Later, we had a funny conversation about our perceptions of each other. We're really quite similar in fundamental ways, but I told him that I thought he was more of a serious person than me, and I also said that I thought I probably came across to him as somewhat light-hearted. At which point he burst into incredulous laughter :)