I never thought I would be out of practice for writing. Or struggle to figure out what exactly to write about.
I was looking through my older entries - they're kind of all over the place. A lot of them have to do with traveling and just kind of any ol' randomass thought I happen to have. Some of them talk about a thing in a place. Some of them talk about just a place. Some of them talk about just a thing. But here I find myself struggling.
To be sure, there are some really cool things in the Peninsula and greater Bay Area that I've been trying to explore little by little, or some things that I've stumbled on. Like the fancy Taco Bell in Pacifica that opens onto the beach. A Taco Bell. On the beach.
Can you say heaven?
It's definitely something that sparks joy. Like many many people, my roommate was watching Marie Kondo's tidying up Netflix show (which was so incredibly wholesome and just overall feel good so long as you're not like... reading it as a personal attack on how much crap you have aha) and I... I can't tear myself away from the tv if something remotely interesting is on. So I ended up watching it too.
It was an interesting idea, that of "sparking joy" and the original Japanese phrase it came from. But as I was searching for something to write about, and then started to think about things in the bay area that I've found that bring about this small sort of joy, well, I think it's pretty easy to tell at what point I actually found something to write about.
Other things that have sparked joy recently in my life:
1. Finding the Georgian Street Food truck on Independence near the InNOut/McDonald's/behind Costco. Oh man. The food. So good. Meat skewer. Cooked over an open grill. Georgian soup dumpling. I had it cold so I imagine it was probably a lot better... but it was still really tasty. Definitely going back there. I have a date with a bread filled with cheese and an egg.
1.5 Eating a brisket sandwich on the beach. The brisket was delicious. The bbq ssauce was delicious. The sandwich bread was garlic bread which, if it were real garlic bread, I would only give like, a 4/10 but because it was my sandwich bread I give a 9/10. Even more excitingly, I only ate half the sandwich and was full.
2. Stumbling upon the S.S. Palo Alto. I picked a beach at random to eat on, and by random, I mean the closest beach. That beach ended up being Seacliff State Beach, and I think there was free parking on the street and you could walk down to the beach using nifty stairs. The toll booth was closed when I drove through. But then randomly, on the beach, at the end of the pier, I was like, "wait is that... a ship?" "Are those... treads?" "No wait that part is definitely bark but I'm pretty sure those are treads" "...that is a ship right and not just a rock. Is that also a rock?" I didn't think to check google until after I left, and then when I was trying to find of the name of the beach I stumbled upon the name of the ship and was like "ohhhhh."
I mean it was a Monday....
Actually the ship is really cool. Read more about it here: https://www.californiabeaches.com/ss-palo-alto-concrete-ship/ But it used to be an oil tanker and then an entertainment ship. And apparently is made of concrete. And apparently is the most famous concrete ship on the west coast. Also, appparently, it used to be signifcantly more ship-like and has sunk a fair bit due to storms and the waves. There's a really interesting gallery here: http://photos.santacruzsentinel.com/2017/01/24/cement-ship-through-the-years/#21
Guess that means I'll have to go back sometime soon before it sinks completely. Thankfully Aptos isn't too far and I've received word of another BBQ place I need to try.
