Fucked-Up Hand veterans tell me that they have uttered the following bitter sentence hundreds, no, thousands of times: "My hand was almost all better, & then I did something careless & sent myself back to square one."

I am saying it once. Believe me, I am crying over this. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel... I thought, wow, maybe just a couple more weeks & then I'll be clipping my fingernails, washing large pots & opening jar lids with the best of them! Now? I'm back to doing NOTHING. I prevailed upon the long-suffering good sport Donna to de-install my show for me. She brought it home & schlepped all the photos up the stairs to my studio. Those things are heavy!

I got to read through the comment book from the show. So many people from the South! It's kind of amazing. I have more to say about that but it's gonna have to wait till my hand gets a bit better.

Meanwhile, thanks to Michele K-Tel for helping me past the annoyingly inescapable media hype about Conor Oberst: there's actually some good music behind all that, including a song or two I could really use right now.

I don't know who these people are, but they're brilliant: The Bay Area Leisure Foundation is giving out $500 Leisure Grants, which are exactly what they sound like... money to take a break! People in the Bay Area really need this. Apply, all you worker bees!

How nice, me in the SF Chronicle, again! Thanks Annie! I am so tired, though (part of the problem is too many movies, my own damn fault, we should all have such troubles) that it took me a few minutes of puzzlement before I understood the last sentence in the article.

I went for another physical therapy appointment yesterday. Fun & games with electricity! There was, like, voltage applied to my hand, weird gizmos & goo, nothing that I'd ever experienced before. Western medicine is really off the wall. I was wondering when they'd bust out the leeches. The PT seemed amused by my reaction to all of it; I guess most people just shut up & go along with everything, instead of asking a million anxious questions. My hand does seem to be feeling a bit better though. A bit. I still shouldn't really be typing this.

Film-watching is an excellent activity for ailing hands. Someone else tears the ticket for you (you'd be surprised how painful stub-tearing can be) & after that the hands just lie there in your lap, or on the armrests, doing nothing. (Maybe eating popcorn, which the left hand can handle on its own.) So this year I'm even more grateful than usual for the S.F. International Asian American Film Festival.

Last night was especially entertaining as a packed house adored, heckled & laughed at the infamous Frank Chin. Afterwards, I was trying to come up with the right word for him: Firebrand? Idealogue? Curmudgeon? I'm kind of a curmudgeon myself, or at least well on my way to being one. It definitely gives me pause to think I could easily end up being similar to Frank Chin in temperament (rant! rant!), while I could only aspire to being similar to him in accomplishment. Not that I want to pick as many fights & rack up as many enemies as he has, but it might not be so bad to be a Living Icon of Asian American Culture. On second thought, though, that could really drive a person crazy. Nevermind!

I was ready for it all to be a bunch of hype, but I finally got Van Lear Rose & I'm a believer. Though I wouldn't call this a rock-solid album entirely, there's some good shit on here. For one thing, "Portland Oregon" is everything it's cracked up to be.

You know, if you'd told me ten years ago that I would be this into country music, I woulda laughed in your face. But then I'd also never have believed that I would have not just one, but two solo shows in a row of nothing but photographs. Me taking pictures?! Then there're all the unbelievable political horrors, but I won't go there right now. Suffice to say, strange days indeed.

In other news, I went for my first physical therapy appointment today & am now sporting a spiffy, custom-made thumb splint. Also I am now expected to spend most of my waking hours engaged in various activities with ice & hot water. & I should definitely not be on here typing this.

Sam Chu Lin, who's actually from Mississippi originally, wrote me up in AsianWeek.

My hand continues to improve in miniscule increments.

Is it spring yet?