Tomorrow I turn 30.

30!

Thirty.

The big three-oh.

Eh. It freaked me out a few weeks ago, but I've made my peace with the ever-descending scythe of time at this point.

We went down to Santa Cruz for the weekend to visit Scott and Lynne. A few successive rainstorms rolled in, so it was an interesting experience. We went over to West Cliff drive and watched the insane waves. There was only one surfer brave enough to ride them, and one windsurfer who was whipping along at incredible speeds. Spray was blasting up the rocks and onto the sidewalk and road regularly. Pretty awesome. Heather and I agreed that, when we have a few million bucks to spare, we'll buy a house over on West Cliff and live there until we fall into the sea.

The best meal we had was Saturday night at Hula's Island Grill and Tiki Bar. Scott had just returned from a week in Maui, but he wasn't sick of Hawai'ian food, fortunately. We drank yummy zombies and then we ate. It's not a straight-up Hawai'ian place, more Pacific Rim Fusion, but when I ordered a pork plate I was still basically expecting Kalua pig. Oh, no. I got this incredible, sweet, smoky, glorious plate of pulled pork. And I had a side of wasabi mashed potatoes, because that's just how I roll. All of it was soooo good.

We also played Scrabble and cards, drank roughly three million bottles of wine and homebrewed beer, watched cooking shows, talked shit, played a dirty acronym game, shopped (I got a couple of nice used books, including the complete short stories of Dorothy Sayers), ate scrambagels for breakfast, and generally enjoyed the Santa Cruz vibe. Bizarrely enough, I didn't go to Pergolesi even once! If the weather had been nicer we probably would have wound up there, playing cards on the deck, but we stayed in a lot to avoid the pummeling rain.

Back here in Oakland -- AKA "reality" -- it's gray but not as rainy. Work is busy but not too bad; I think we'll finish the issue this week without undue strain. I won't get my day off -- a serious bummer, in my birthday week! -- but I'll take two days off next week to compensate, which is something of a salve. Heather and I went up to Berkeley tonight and picked up our Xmas chapbook, The Christmas Mummy, and it's so cute! Life is good, etc.