sapporo in a brown bag

It's been such an absurdly, psychotically, unreasonably crazy and stressful week at work (supposedly only until next Monday's newbies get adequately trained to pitch in) that by 5:40 PM (when the majority of the office was long gone - further evidence of the inequity of the distribution of labor within the company) my brain had seriously crashed out (also due to staying up just slightly too late talking to this engineer, a guy who outdoes me in both my follow-through and internet background checking skills by miles, and comes close to meeting my cynicism - very impressive).
I left the office 20 minutes before a train was coming and wandered workstress-drugged aimlessly, realizing I should call Avi back because since I loathe excessive text messaging I've got to return a phone call now and then to keep up with great people. While telling Avi about my week and trying not to go into arduous detail, I realized I wanted a drink to bring on the train (you're allowed to do that on the Caltrain, you know). But where to find a to-go beverage on the yuppiest stretch of Peninsula south of Burlingame, downtown's own University Avenue?
"Are you by a computer, Avi?"
"Yeah."
"Could you look up where there's a liquor store around here?"
"I'm so proud of you, Lee."
Apparently there's a 7-11 right on Lytton, a stretch I've never found reason to explore. Their selection wasn't spectacular but one can never go wrong with a solid steel can of Japanese beer. I can't decide what I think about drinking alone, let alone drinking alone in public, but it did feel like an appropriate way to kick off the weekend, a would-be 4-day weekend were my job not at a startup (that's right, I am actually expected to show up to work on Monday or take a personal holiday).
I got a couple of bewildered glances when I looked up from my Houellebecq novel, mostly subtle grins. I felt kind of like a middle-aged man listening to Nick Drake on headphones and drinking beer alone on the most archaic form of public transportation, but it did leave me feeling very pleased by the time I passed the thick nude clouds layed out onto the hills of South San Francisco.

a miraculous cure

Taking my roommate's advice, I e-mailed the librarian on Friday telling him I still had his movie and wanted to swap back, and asked if he wanted to meet up at Tartine for breakfast.
When I hadn't even heard back by Sunday, I knew he was opting to ignore it, which as we know means he is so dumb because even if you don't like me, it's really hard to turn down breakfast at Tartine (especially potentially free breakfast at Tartine), even harder than it is to have Almodovar's Talk To Her in your apartment for over a month and not have watched it yet. Anybody with a remote sense of politeness would have at least e-mailed back a thanks I'm busy. The guy must have a lack of follow-through of almost clinical proportions. In any case, today I saw him and handed him back The Apartment, and he told me he started watching Talk To Her last night and was almost done (exceptional evidence of lack of follow-through handicap). He sat next to me and we talked all the way back to the city, and neither of us mentioned the fact that I'd so nicely invited him to breakfast.
I don't know what it is about guys who feel like they have to act like seriously flaky assholes in order to not lead you on when they're not interested - especially when he was the one who approached me and asked me out in the first place. Honestly, I wouldn't have pushed things any further than that harmless breakfast invite. But after semi-putting myself out there I think I am finally cured of this crush.
I better as hell get my movie back though.

Sidenote: and guess who never called this weekend? Guess we can prune that guy out of my phone as well...

city promises kept

It's been foggy in the evenings for the last few days, and the city looks even more like a dreamland while doing its best to keep up the spontaneity. And there is big payoff to anyone who sticks around town.
On Friday night while hanging out with Igor in his neighborhood, we stopped between bars at the Plough and the Stars near the beginning of Clement, since I know they sometimes have great bands playing. It looked abandoned, but at a closer look it was actually full and cozy inside, and when we entered this spectacular jazz band was tuning up. They had a standing base, a fiddle, a mandolin and this amazing guitar I would describe if I knew the names of guitars, but let's just say it was phenomenal, and we just happened upon it, and stayed through their whole set.
On Saturday I went down to the Mission with one of my roommates and she egged me on to talk to boys. But it was she who got picked up on by a very pretty boy, and I obliged to be versatile by talking to his friends. They convinced us to come along to Beauty Bar, which I was happy to do. Pretty Boy was still chatting up my roommate pretty intensely, who was in turn pretty into it, and I was talking to his friend, this hilarious Pure Mathematician. My roommate leaves for a total of two minutes, and I see Pretty Boy immediately planting seeds in the direction of some provocative looking blondies. Uh-oh, guess he gets around. She rolls her eyes, again not all that optimistic about what's out there in singleland and it's hard for me to find any evidence to the contrary.
The bar closes soon afterwards, and we're waiting for the 14 Owl, but decide to take a Taqueria Cancun pitstop. It takes over 20 minutes to get our burritos, but well worth the wait. When we sit down, we see Pretty Boy outside the window, walking down the street with (get this:) three blondes (How would it play out?). We laugh, and soon a guy asks if all of his friends could sit with us. We say okay, and they are friendly, after a minute it becomes clear that they all work at Google, so I immediately start making jokes and talking shop. I guess my roommate didn't feel like she could relate, but I was totally into it, being acquainted with Google culture and all, plus working in the field. I guess they thought we were great, and invited us to a party several blocks away. When San Francisco throws you spontaneity, it's best to go with it. At the party, we sat on the roof looking at the blurry-white city and drinking Gray Goose, which I admitted I had never had (since I'm pretty new to trying to be classy), and had a great time until we left at 4:00.

I decided to check out the Gay Pride parade today, since I've never been (last year I had pneumonia). I rode my bike down halfway in. What struck me is that despite the unrelated corporate sponsors and gaudy sexuality, the parade really did get across what I think was the message, which is that everybody deserves to be able to find whatever kind of love does it for them, and in San Francisco people should do what they can to make that possible. The parade was also the first parade where I actually thought the presence of unrelated corporate sponsors was excellent, because catering companies and bike tour companies joined churches and nonprofits to go out of their way and reach out to communities that still sometimes have a hard time as consumers. That's caring about customers, I think. I'm not too liberal to be all for business and advertising when it actually cares about consumers.

After the parade I took an epic bike ride through Chinatown and North Beach all the way to Crissy field and back. The air was cool and hot, the clouds were dispersed and fast, and it was generally, completely amazing.

trying to be awesome.

The architect called me on Tuesday, after some phone tagging over a few days. He asked what I was doing that night, and I said I was going to a friend's DJ gig (though 'friend' isn't as accurate as guy-I've-been-throwing-myself-at).
He said, "Maybe we could meet up sometime later this week or on the weekend."
"Yeah."
"So yeah, hit me up later this week."
I came home and told my roommate I thought this was totally weird and overly casual and dismissive, and who says "hit me up" anyway? But she has this cool super-modern attitude of gender equality which I'm really into, and she didn't think it was weird at all, and said I should call him. Yeah, maybe. She also thought I should ask the librarian out for breakfast, I guess we'll see how that goes.
I think maybe too much advice from my mother, too much trash-talking with female friends or too much Sex and the City has made me feel like I'm supposed to be constantly outraged at male behavior when it's not that outrageous - things like not being walked to a cab stop or only getting a call a week later. I'm starting to think it's actually probably remarkably normal for the first couple of dates, but I don't have enough experience to really say. I'm not actually offended by that sort of thing, I think I just feel like I'm supposed to be. It's far more important to me to date a guy who respects me enough intellectually to have interesting conversations with than that he be a gentleman, and I'm actually starting to rightly be a little bit wary of anyone who's too smooth of a gentleman and doesn't have much else going for them. And according to some of my male friends, dating in San Francisco is a lot more 50-50 as far as what girls do, so it's probably time that I completely shake off my mother's early 70s sensibility and actually taking some subtle initiative.
So after the trainwreck of a date on Wednesday with the Craigslist Missed Connection, I started to want to hang out with the architect sooner rather than later, because we actually did click, and it would be so refreshing to go on a date with someone who's fun and actually interesting to talk to.
I called him up last night when he was out with a friend, and met up to join them for a drink. After talking for a while, the first friend got up for a game of pool and a second friend showed up. Both seemed like pretty quality people, no freaky red flag stuff, though they still didn't give me any clue as to how old this guy is, which I think is probably between 28 and 33, but it could really actually be anything and I guess it's past the point where it's going to come up in conversation without me asking. I'm still not sure if I can handle dating guys in their mid-30s, or older (!!), I know that's pretty arbitrary but it still seems crazy.
After a drink the two of us ate some seriously delicious Thai food and continued to have a pretty great time. When we left the place it was almost 11, and he asked if I was going home or what. I said I didn't know, not knowing if he was going home to rest up for work or going to invite me somewhere else. He said he was headed home and I could walk him, but I said I'd just hop on the bus. He asked if I was around on the weekend, and then said he would call me and kissed me before taking off.
I was feeling pretty awesome for pulling off this casual thing so far without obsessing about where we stand or what's going on, and I'm wondering how long I can continue to do so.

History of bad dates Part II

It was possibly the worst date in all of San Francisco on this hot first day of summer. My Missed Connection was clearly never meant to be unmissed by Craigslist. I gave it an honest shot, but maybe dating meets technology is not for me.
I waited outside Valencia Pizza and Pasta 5 minutes before our 7:45 meeting time because the bus was early. 8 minutes late, I get a text message: On da bus. see you soon. I try not to judge the use of 'da by boys from the Midwest, because it seems like things are just different out there.
He gets there at almost 8:00. He doesn't apologize for being late. He is wearing jeans with some seriously risque fashion holes in them, and a shirt all the way unbuttoned to show some baby chest hair. You can tell he's been sweating, and his wet hairline is sticking to his head (it does so all evening). I try not to be shallow. I don't think I'm shallow, but how is it possible that a guy can look so attractive when he's just doing his laundry, and so unattractive when he's dressed for a date? We wait for another 10 minutes for a table in the most sweltering restaurant in the entire Mission. His phone rings, and he answers it and talks for a couple of minutes because it's long-distance.
When we finally sit down, he says, "You look really pretty tonight, thanks for coming out with me." I smile, and decide to try to be positive about it. We have very little to talk about, and I drink my glass of red wine down on an empty stomach. We make uninteresting smalltalk, until finally he starts telling me about a friend he has on a farm in Marin.
"They used be all about the partying, but now they don't really do that anymore, they're more just into nature. Which is cool and all, but you know, it's not the same."
"And that's a problem?"
"I mean it's really all about the partying."
I tell him I'm really not into the 60s or drug culture, and that I think any ideas or potential that they had was diluted by decadent drug use where nothing is accomplished.
He says, "I mean, when you do that, you're not really affecting others, but you are making a difference."
"?"
"You're affecting yourself."
"And gorging yourself in decadent drug use is going to make you a better person?"
"Not a better person, but you know, it changes you. I kind of want to get back to a point where partying is like a way of life."
I can't believe I am on a date with this person, and I can't wait to leave.
It's only 9:15 when we pay the check, or rather he insists on paying, even though I've already plopped down cash in front of him: "I'm taking you out."
I am seriously crashing out from drinking red wine on no food after waiting in the hot sun. We have nothing to say, it's awkward and I'm looking down wondering how long I have to hang out in order to be polite.
"Are you watching me seriously space out?" I say.
"No, actually I'm kind of admiring your looks." I smile while looking down. I feel like a bad person. I'm seriously not into this.
He asks where we should go, and I say I can't do any more alcohol. He says coffee, I say okay because it'd be rude to go home.
We have a cup of coffee, and he tells me about his job working in sales for UPS. I would seriously rather be anywhere else in the universe, and at 9:50 I finally decide that I could probably go home without being totally rude.
"Where to now?"
"Actually, I should go home."
"Okay, fair enough."
He walks me to my bus stop on Mission, and is putting his arm around me. I don't know what to do, and it's on the tip of my tongue to say "I don't think this is going to work out," which I decide to myself I will say if he tries to kiss me.
I walk on the other side of obstacles to avoid his arm, but it's back.
I just miss a 14, so I have to wait around. He puts his arm around me. I want to be honest and cut the bullshit, but I don't know if he'll feel obligated to keep waiting with me, it seems rude, I don't know what to do. We are quiet for like 5 minutes, where is the fucking 14? All the while he has his arm around me and is rubbing my arm, and I'm looking down and don't know what to do. What is protocol for this situation? When I see the bus coming, he hugs me and says thanks for coming out with him, then kisses me on the forehead. I hope this is all, but then he closed-mouth kisses me on the lips before I board the bus. My skin is still crawling.
I guess if he calls I'll have to make up something about a new exclusive relationship or something, because he doesn't seem like the type to get the hint if I just don't call him back.

It seriously makes me rethink every okay date I've ever been on, because when I only kind of click with a guy, I don't realize that it's apparently possible to completely not click with him, and for him to still have no idea and think it's going great.

Brainwash, Don Delillo and all that - m4w - 26 (SOMA / south beach)

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Reply to:
Date: 2006-06-19, 7:39AM PDT


Lee, I thought you were pretty and fun to talk to, and I'm ashamed i couldn't ask for you number.

that's what Missed Connections is for I guess. Hope you find me

no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests




(I got in the habit of checking out Missed Connections on Craigslist once in a while after my coworker Natee raved about it.
I usually search a few places I frequent like Caltrain, Brainwash or Trader Joe's - I never actually expect it to be for me, but I figure it will always be hilarious. )

how I'm a fraud

Out of nowhere, after a couple of weeks, my librarian crush was back at the station waiting for the 6 o'clock train. I tried to act like I hadn't noticed the profound monotony of his absense, but when I sat by him my knees were shaking like an 8-year-old girl. I planted them firmly on the ground and kept trying to talk like I was so cool. I'm such a fraud.
Towards the end of the ride he tells me he's DJing again tomorrow, and I try to act moderately surprised even though I totally remembered from last month's e-mail that he does it the third Tuesday of the month, because I am a creepy stalker.
"That sounds cool. I think I'll ride my bike down to that."
"You should."
I'm going to have to drink so heavily to not be too nervous around him and his friends in a non-Caltrain setting for the first time.


In other news, on the day of her final wedding headcount, Shonelle writes:
Your flying solo actually helps a LOT with seating arrangements. :)
This is too funny.

commitment to the lack thereof

We were eating breakfast at Tartine when I got a call from the Berkeley grad student freemason who had been out of town for a few weeks. Actually calling me, which is an occurance so rare I can count the times on one hand. My roommate says he's into me and terrified because he recently got out of a 7-year relationship. He took the bus in for the North Beach festival, Malaysian food, a walk and burritos. The problem with him is we'll be having a great time, and then he feels awkward and overcompensates by telling me in great detail about some aspect of upper-class, east coast prep school racquet club esoterica to alienate me and everyone else. It's hard to get him to have a good time or have an interesting conversation with him without the conversation eventually steering to this unless he's had something to drink, which is unfortunate because I'm honestly just not interested in Ivy League, aristocratic, letter-of-introduction private-club obscurantism. I guess I'll just have to tell him, but the way things have been going, I probably won't hear from him until he comes back from the next conference or two, in a few weeks.
In the meantime, I got a message from the architect that day (a week and a day after our date), and so far have just played phone tag. My innate serial monogamy made me feel vaguely slutty thinking about when I would call him while hanging out with another guy, but all I can conclude is that I can't possibly feel bad, since none of these guys actually want to be even remotely committed to me. It's still going to take some training on my part to be so aloof.
I did tell Shonelle I'd be coming solo to her wedding. What a commitment to being single. Hope it won't be too awkward since I won't know anyone there except the bride and groom.

When we came back to my place last night my roommate said, "Want to go to a party in a mansion?"Apparently her friend from school was housesitting for a professor in the Berkeley hills and obtained permission to have a rager. Impossible to turn down an offer like that, I threw some Sake and some sparkling red wine into my bag and we hopped on Civic Center BART. The party was small and fun, the house was big and stunning with an incredible view. I spent the night in the east bay, and getting back by slow Sunday BART schedule ate up a big chunk of today.

To take advantage of the last bit of weekend and sun, I went with my other roommate on an epic bike ride down the Embarcadero over to Fort Mason Center. Totally made my day.
Then, the four of us housemates had laundry night at Brainwash, where I discovered that Sunday night is unofficial semiattractive single man laundry night. My roommate and I were staring at a devastatingly attractive guy with a giant cast on his hand. I was reading Don DeLillo's Underworld, still having trouble getting through the 60-page baseball game at the beginning. After a little while, the four of us are sitting around while he is loading the machine by the table where we are sitting, and he asks me what I'm reading. I tell him a bit about it, and then ask him how he hurt his hand. I tried to talk to him about my recently broken elbow, and bike riding, but the conversation never took off. After I reloaded the dryer, he tried talking to me again.
"Yeah, I tried reading this other book by him but I coudn't get into it. White Noise, I think," he said.
"You didn't like White Noise? It was great, just lost speed at the end."
"No, I started reading it, and the beginning was funny, but then I wasn't into it. Reminded me of people I know." (?)
"Oh..."
My roommates are all watching him, it's all slightly awkward.
"I read books I get at garage sales. I've found a few good ones."
"."
"."
"Example?"
He gives me a few, including Hesse's Steppenwolf, and then there's nothing to say again.
Awkward.
Finally, he's leaving, and I say it's nice to meet him, he says so too and says Ciao.
"That was weird," I say to my roommate.
"Was he hitting on you?"
"Yeah, I guess so. But there was nothing to say, we just didn't click."
"He was hot. I mean hot!" she says, while shaking her wrist. I nod emphatically, and as we do this, she sees him looking in from outside the window, seeing her make this gesture, clearly about him, and me nodding away. He most likely could tell we were talking about him, which was funny.

punks in the Miata, among other things

There was nothing much doing on a Friday night, we were hanging out drinking red wine in the kitchen, and then the doorbell rang. It was just my roommate's sister dropping something off, but when he opened the door he saw the sight on 10th street - there were 8 cop cars on the street and 10 guys lined up cuffed in front of the auto shop. We all went into my room to watch it unfold. Looked like a drug bust of some kind - all 10 of them looked like suburban coke guys or something. We watched the cops waste city tax dollars talking, walking in circles and doing the occasional questioning with a notepad. This went on for almost an hour, and had probably been going on for a long time before then.
After like half an hour, we saw two punked out guys stand beside them. We were joking around, laughing about how we'd get to watch them talk trash to the cops. But then, they got into this blue Miata parked in front of the row of arrested men. We lost it laughing. They clumsily maneuvered around the cop cars as the cops finally loaded the guys one by one into a few of the 8 cop cars.

the semi-promotion

At work today they told me I've been promoted to Account Manager. This is supposed to be a great honor (though two of our Account Managers have quit already, and one semi-quit and is being semi-promoted). Whether or not it is a good thing remains to be determined, but I will be the go-to person for a lot of my clients and will spend more time on the phone and writing e-mails, and less time pushing buttons and taking orders. There is also a pay raise of some kind, but I haven't seen the number. So I guess it's pretty cool.

My back has been beyond fucked up since yesterday and my ability to process anything is virtually nonexistent when all I can think about is how it hurts. And there's no one around that can help me. Really makes a good case for having a boyfriend.

when they called it the mile-high city I thought it was a vulgar airplane joke, but apparently that is in fact its nickname

Business trips are awesome, but waking up at 6:00 AM Denver time to catch the flight back has left me feeling like my brain has been gutted, stretched, crumpled back up and stuffed back in through my nostrils. And I'm incapable of napping.
Luckily my United hookup went through on the flight back. Business Class is so cool! When you walk into the plane you realize that you have to go left instead of right! The flight crew treats you like you'll never get your money's worth, but they're willing to try to help you get close to it. They keep bringing you beverages every half hour and asking if you'd like anything else. Plus, the seats are super soft and comfy, and everyone's over 40 and jaded from becoming so accustomed to luxury as I don't believe I will ever be.
[6.19.06: don't I feel petty now:
http://www.rym.com/rlog/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?Using=Default%2ehtm]
My boss was more than slightly bitter about my upgrade, since they stuck him at the back of the plane. He kind of insinuated that I must have been a flirt to have been hooked up like that. I was hoping he would just laud my networking skills, but you know, I guess that's life.
Of the 21 hours we spent in Denver, 5 were spent in transit and 7 with the clients, so my limited exposure to the city suggested to me that it looks exactly like an exclusively caucasian San Jose, but with taller mountains and more interesting clouds, an amusement park downtown, this stadium that looks like a 60s era fantasy spaceship, and an airport with a row of white tents that look like funny disneyland-foam mountains when you drive up. The clouds were so great there - like these bulbous ripples over the mountains that filter through these majestic rays of light.
Other highlights included when the Budget Rental Car woman said "Oh, you're staying in Greenwood Village? Great restaurants. Like Maggiano's and P.F. Chang's." Wow, I'm so glad I flew all the way to Colorado to eat at mediocre national franchise chain restaurants owned by Jack In the Box and other dubious corporations.
After I totally kicked ass at the 4-hour presentation meeting (okay, I'm being generous here, but I didn't choke) we ate at P.F. Chang's (woo) with the clients, several of whom were stunningly attractive males in their late 20s, and I unintentionally got just drunk enough to be flirting with potential public embarrassment, as well as with the new clients. Back at the hotel my engaged coworker told me she caught herself flirting too, so I didn't feel so stupid.

It occurred to me recently that I still don't have a date for my friend Shonelle's wedding in 2 weeks. I RSVP'd for 2, which I guess was wishful thinking, especially considering that I'm not even really dating anyone (among other busts, the architect may never call me and the librarian disappeared ever since Stanford went on final exams schedule). Plus, it's on 4th of July weekend, when everyone will be out of town. I'll probably end up coming solo, but I won't really know anyone there and really would like to bring a partner in crime. My mother thinks I should just take the tallest boy I can find to go with the heels - her words being, "It'll be too loud to hear each other anyway, so you should just bring someone who looks good and have a good time." Sometimes I don't even understand how we share any of the same gene pool, when the only similarities we seem to share are neuroses, hypochondria and nerves.

like a c-list celebrity

Had a gorgeous day yesterday at Jeremy's birthday barbecue in sunny Almaden. At the party, I met back up with one of his friends, who evidently has so many frequent flyer miles that last year he flew 10 of his closest friends to Australia. I told him about my business trip, and he very nicely offered to upgrade my ticket to business class. He was apparently only able to do so for the return flight.
He wrote:
I was able to get the return flight upgraded, but not the outbound. I guess you'll have to sit with the vermin on that one. Explaining it to your coworkers is the fun part. I suggest the implication of a secret admirer. Have fun on your trip!
It's going to be a ton of fun to explain to my travel companion higher-ups why I will be flying a notch above them on the air travel food chain. Yes!

Jeremy had a copy of the SF Chronicle magazine from last month which I'd been trying to get ahold of, the reason being that it's my first published fiction piece in a major publication.
Back when we were dating, my ex and I were both looking for apartments on Craigslist. He was getting resentful because I was getting more responses to my e-mails than he was. I said it was because everyone wants to live with a girl who loves to cook and clean, and nobody wants to live with a boy who describes himself as an Artist and a Musician. He finally decided that he was going to start sending out the exact e-mail I was sending, to make himself sound like a fun gay guy. I helped him tweak a few of the sentences. The next apartment he went to see turned out to be that of the Craigslist project photographer. The Chronicle picked his photo for the story centerpiece, and reprinted an edited version of the e-mail. They did keep the best part, about how he likes to "make the kitchen and bathroom sparkle." Didn't get either of us a Craigslist apartment though...

Woke up at 4:00 in the morning scratching violently. Looks like our occasional visitors the mosquitoes are back. Now they're even bigger mutants than usual, probably from hanging around the alleged meth labs of our neighbors. Usually I wake up and slather myself with this Burt's Bees lemon-flavored insect repellent and fall back asleep, but I woke up again at 5:30 with my eye swollen shut - I guess I didn't cover all of the conceivable area. At work this morning my boss looked nervously at my freakish face and said, "What happened to your eye?" He seemed mostly concerned that I would look this freakish tomorrow for our big meeting. When I get back to my apartment I just might have to break out some citronella or introduce myself to our drugged out neighbors to see if I can figure out where the infestation is coming from.

dancing so hard

I actually just danced so hard I got my own gum stuck in my hair.
The lock was unsalvageable.

on the inherent complete mystery of dating

I met up with the architect at the Red Room.
I ended up walking there from my apartment, because the bus was clearly not coming and it was a nice night, and Hyde St isn't really that sketchy in the early evening with a lot of people out. Enough excuses, it wasn't the best idea to walk through the TL alone in a skirt at night but anyway it was fine.
I was slightly nervous because I had only met him once, at a dark bar while drinking the strongest Manhattan ever made, and because I have humiliatingly little dating experience.
He was far more attractive than I remembered, I mean super cute, and I was having a great time talking to him. After a drink we walked to another bar, which was relatively empty and only emptied further. He didn't have to test his boundaries for too long before his arm was around me and he was holding the palm of my hand to look at my ring. He went in to kiss me just after we both exchanged stories about our broken bones in the months of March and April, completely out of context, which is of course fine by me.
Soon afterwards he asks if I've been to the Starlight room, and I say no, though I always see it from Union Square, with its Las Vegas circa 1978 animated lights at the top of a skyscraper. He says he's into the view. $10 apiece later we are inside and are in the minority of the non-tourist population that is not super shady, even though that in itself is debatable since we spent the vast majority of the time making out at the windowsill and speaking occasionally. Conversation grew increasingly superficial, because it's always hard to get to know someone once you're already intensely making out in a lounge that's exotic in a Hearst estate kind of way. When it emptied out he said we should probably vacate too.
We walk 3 blocks back up to his place, and he asks if I want to get a cab or come up to his place for water or beer. I say I'll come up for a little while. I'm pretty sure I broke a dating rule or something by now but I was curious to see the residence of the guy whose name, age and phone number I don't know (the latter because his new cell phone is mysteriously restricted and he can't figure out why). I drink cold Crystal Geyser out of a glass and look at his fairly stunning televisionless apartment. I have no idea if he wants me to be there or not. We start making out on the couch, he's very sweet, he takes his time before it gets to the point where I say, "I should stop you." "Okay." He pulls me in under his arm and we talk for a little while. He tells me he had fun hanging out wiht me tonight. I can't tell if he's bored, while telling me about his trip to China.
When he yawns I say I should probably let him get some sleep. Realizing I have no way to contact him, he writes down his phone number on a piece of transparent drafting paper. The craziest part - he writes his first name and last initial! What was that about? Was he afraid I'd perform an internet background check and find something? And it's a V, no less. What the hell does V stand for?
He asks if he should walk me down to a cab and I say, "You don't have to," so he doesn't. He kisses me and flashes a killer smile.
I take a cab home and knock on my roommate's door because I have to debrief with someone, and he had also helped me prep. I have zero idea if he has any interest whatsoever in doing anything but try to sleep with me. And it's not anything he said or did - that's just the thing about dating.
So my roommate is kind of baffled too at this point, since neither of us know anything about dating, and I realize that it must be hard to be an attractive guy with a good personality and a decent job in San Francisco, because where do the options end, and doesn't it just get boring and turn into a game of how quickly and frequently one can have sex with strangers?
I could go on a thousand first dates with strangers and never learn anything more than I know now about reading signs or signals or anything. All I know is in the supposed adult dating world things seem like to work inversely - first you hang out and see if you have physical chemistry and then you get to know each other better.
God, do I have a lot to learn.

the lazy T9

So I get this text message from the guy I went to the Giants game with almost a month ago, and went out of town on business. Since he got back, he's been IMing me and sending me text messages telling me to call him, but never actually calling me. Like he needs me to chase him or something to put in any effort himself. It's gotten beyond tedious. This one was priceless though:
Hey. I know you foot like texts but he you are up gimme a call. He not sorry to wake you.
The guy was too lazy-texting on T9 to hit 0 and change the auto-selected word or to proofread. I feel like a bitch ignoring it, but would you return a text message like that, which wasn't even looked over before being sent? Almost makes you think he's too busy sending texts to girls all over town to look at what he's writing.

The other day I hung out with the guy I had drinks with last week. We made food and hung out talking for a few hours before I hopped the bus back. It was fun, there was some flirtation on his part, nothing over the line. I started to feel bad, because this guy was maybe investing time and effort into being a gentleman, and I was kind of ambivalent about him, especially since he's moving away in a couple of months. So when he asked me to hang out again this week I felt bad and kind of blew him off to a possible later in the week. It's really funny how I excuse my flaky bitchy tease behavior with alleged good intentions, but I guess that's dating (?).

Today I found out that I'm going on a business trip to Colorado next week, and even staying the night! Luckily I'm so excited about my first business trip that I don't even care that we'll probably be in a lonely suburb in Detroit chatting up an eTailer.

I got a call from the architect I met on Friday night, but told him to call me back because I was on a loud train and he was en route to a Giants game. At least, I can only assume it was him since he was the only stranger I was expecting a call from whose name I didn't quite remember. I seriously have to get better with names!

quantum forces vs. San Francisco

I'm hanging out with Igor at Medjool, and we're supposed to meet up with some coworkers of his or something before heading over to Tartine for the flower-themed art opening. It's packed with blazerwearing Marina expatriates, and we can't find anyone and aren't sure we want to. We decide to get a drink, and just as we're within shouting range of the bartender, my purse strap breaks - that's right, that purse you bought at the sales at the H&M in France when you were studying abroad for 2 euros apparently wasn't cut out for two years of use and has hand-picked this as its moment to die. I am in the process of ordering my drink and the purse falls onto the floor along with its contents. "Myntz" are rolling out of the tin, Japanese plastic wallet hits drink puddles on wooden deck, pens are rolling. I am on the floor picking things up and miss my chance to buy Igor one of the 46 drinks I owe him by now. ("Uh, I'll get this one.") I place my plastic cup of Cabarnet Sauvignon on the counter because I still can't find my mobile phone. People are shining their handheld devices under the bar counter, a minute later it is found way beneath. I stand up quickly to ask the waitress to retrieve it for me, at which point I knock over the Cab. It is everywhere, over my black skirt, my beige polka-dot sweater, my white jacket, Igor's entire nearly wine-proof-colored wardrobe.
It is 10:15 PM.
It is too funny and crazy to even be upset.
Igor is a sport.
I am unsure what to do.
The line for the women's restroom is 15 long.
I start to descend stairs hoping my experience with renovated youth hostels will help me navigate to a floor restroom. No such luck - this hostel actually has in-room bathrooms. I walk into a room labeled "Laundry" hoping for a sink. All I find is machines and a fridge. I pour blue Kirkland-brand liquid detergent all over the stains in an absentminded half-panic. My hands are now slightly soapy, and I am trying to find my way to the downstairs bathroom.
The door opens - it's a guy with a wine stain on the shoulder of his t-shirt. He asks if I know where there is a sink.
I preempt an apology in case he was caught in the crossfire of my natural disaster, but he says this was a Merlot spilled on him by a bartender, who made it up to him with a free beer. We both get lost in the downstairs labyrinth and give up on the whole thing, climbing the stairs back to the upper deck.
If this were television we would have become friends or lovers. Since this was real life we didn't even notice what the other looked like and never spoke again.
I met back up with Igor and we cut our losses and left for Tartine. This turned out to be an excellent decision.
As soon as we arrived I saw at least 6 estranged college classmates and about a dozen friends, drank free wine, listened to great music, washed detergent out of my clothes and had a fantastic evening. Several of these old friends from college were from out of town, including a girl from my freshman dorm who just finished school at Vidal Sassoon and is moving up here from LA in a month - my haircut hookup is here!
I got to talk to my former freshman orientation counselor, who I've always thought was completely brilliant and interesting. (Also gave him this blog URL - the pressure!)
Lin made my night at least 6 times from behind the wine bar, and I had a generally great night.
When they shut down, my night was made again by the fact that the soft, dewy fog wasn't cold at all, seeing as how both of my sweaters were still lightly stained with wine and completely soaking wet. San Francisco takes care of me.
I then joined my roommate and his friends and went down to the Uptown for the strongest drink of my life, where I somehow found myself in a conversation that led to the handing out of my phone number to an architect whose name I don't remember. I don't know how these things happen to me. The funny thing is of all of the phone numbers I handed out tonight to people I'd really love to hang out with, I bet this stranger is the only one I'll hear from.

on not caring.

While watching the movie the librarian lent me, it occurred to me that the film (which was excellent, by the way) was all about a guy who's obsessed with the girl who operates the elevator in this office building, while she in turn is having an affair with his married boss in his apartment, and I wondered if he was trying to tell me something. But what? He is the guy on my commute who I'm obsessed with, who asked me on a lunch date and canceled and never rescheduled, and now I sit by him and talk to him several times a week during our commute and we just swapped DVDs. When I told my roommate the story, he said, "That's stupid, why didn't he just ask to watch the movie together?"
"Because he's not into me."
"Oh." (look of uneasy sympathy)
"It's okay, I don't think it's actually going to happen."
I've always thought my first impression needed work, because people tend to like me better once they get to know me. This must be the only case in documented history of my life that a guy seems into me before he talks to me and gets over it as he gets to know me.
This morning he sat with me and for the first time there was zero even imaginable flirtation, granted he said he was feeling sick and would leave work right after his meeting. Don't worry, I'm over it. Let's just hope I get my movie back soon.

Last night my roommate's Freemason buddies came over, including the Berkeley grad student who is trying to have a tacit arrangement with me where he acts like he's my boyfriend when he sees me and then doesn't call me ever. We ended up drinking tea at the Fairmont, which is apparently just the way they roll. When the check came I actually laughed out loud - a cup of tea was seriously like $5! I don't know if it was my not-boyfriend's behavior or the fact that their conversation was so intense and cryptic that I didn't know what they were talking about for 20 minutes at a time, but I needed out fast and turned super cranky when they were taking their time bringing me home. I thought I was intense. It's nice to know that there are always people in the world that are crazier and more intense than you are, and entire secret societies to accommodate these people.

The other night I met up with a friend of a friend for a drink in SOMA - He said he'd be in the neighborhood because he was riding the Caltrain while his car was in the shop. I'm not sure if it was datelike - I guess it was borderline. Actually he insisted on paying, but who knows what that means. This is the first time in my life that dates and quasidates seem to be falling into my lap, and definitely the first time in my life that there's been so much ambivalence. He was pretty cool, and I wasn't attracted to him per se but I wasn't unattracted to him either - like I could have been, and if he'd tried to kiss me I would have probably rolled with it. We had a great time and hung out for a few hours. Then he said he would walk me home the 12 blocks, but I said I'd rather take the bus than walk through the sketchy part of SOMA. I don't know if he took this as rejection. He's moving across the country for lawschool in the fall, not that I'm out to necessarily get in a relationship and not that he's asking, and not that I know if I'd be into it with this guy. On the bus he said we should hang out this weekend, and I said sure, and I told him I was busy Friday night and part of Saturday, which again, he could have taken as rejection or not. I might have been rejecting him, but I'm not sure. I'm not into him enough to try to make it happen but I'm not against it - when did I become so damn ambivalent?
It feels like ambivalence is the official dating disposition of the decade. Whenever I'm really excited about a guy it never gets off the ground (most likely because I am too intense for them).
I'm getting some attention from guys, and actually having fun dating around, but I'm somehow surprised that everyone seems to want to be in weirdly casual, sporadic, noncommittal, text messaging and not calling, dating-around thing. This shows you how new I am to dating - I'm sure that I'm just a million years late realizing that this is what dating is, and I've just consumed too much media and maintained some delusion that people should actually be really excited about dating each other and want to do it with that person only, and as a consequence I've only been in a couple of intense relationships and almost never dated.