lee bialog

belated

2008-07-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Somebody bought me this (which is awesome!) - I assume for my birthday a few weeks ago, but it came from a 3rd party book vendor, and had no note. I think it might have been Emily, who thought it would come in the same shipment as the awesome dvd she sent me. But I could be wrong?

stranded in las vegas

2008-06-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

It was the most hilarious weekend in Las Vegas, and despite the fact that I generally hate Las Vegas and that nothing went according to plan, I had a good time and was totally content to have come for my friend's birthday.

We were pleased with ourselves to have booked a return flight for 1:30 pm on Sunday, unlike the last time I was here when we made the mistake of thinking an extra Sunday night in Las Vegas would be anything but the most painful and unpleasant idea ever.

And even more pleased with having arrived at the airport right on time, and checked luggage because my friend had received a bottle of illegal 7-year aged Havana Club purchased in the Cayman Islands for her birthday and I talked her out of abandoning it. And ecstatic that my friend had been given United Premiere Associate status by her boyfriend and expedited our check-in.

When our flight was delayed an hour, we thought no big deal, and flipped through magazines before boarding the plane. Upon boarding, they gave us vouchers for some kind of compensation for our inconvenience. This seemed extremely generous for an hour delay, and as my friend checked the compensation options on her blackberry, which included a $25 voucher or 3000 miles, they announced inspection of a mechanical issue.

The flight attendants entertained us by playing the guess our combined age game for a free drink, and promised us beverages (and potable water) would arrive soon. When they shut down the plane to reboot the computer system (a "control-alt-delete" for the plane), we laughed while sitting in the dark because opening the windows would have made the aircraft unbearably hot.

We still didn't mind when we de-planed and went to get my friend a burger. I had 12 messages on my mobile from United telling me of my changed flight status, and the last one said we would be taking off in 20 minutes. We stood in line at what looked like a good restaurant, but when it was taking forever, we decided to just get burger king (BK veggie...mmmmm). When we arrived back at the gate, they said we would have more information in 20 minutes. As we consumed our unnecessarily fast food, it was announced that our flight was canceled, that no other aircraft could be obtained, and that it was unlikely we could find any other flights out that day.

We left the gate, went back to the Premiere line (thankfully, not only was I with my hilarious friend rather than traveling alone, my friend also had Premiere status, and we did not have to wait in the horrible long line with the angry, angry other passengers), and waited while we were booked on the first available morning flight, which was just before noon. They put us up at the Hampton Inn, which was halfway decent, and we sat by the by now shaded pool in the blow-dryer wind and recounted everything hilarious that had happened until now. We went out to eat, and for a drink, and I came back exhausted past 1:00 and asked the hotel desk agent where I could get on the internet. She said they had nothing.

My friend had joked that the only thing that could go worse would be a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night. I failed to see the humor when it actually happened at 6:00 in the morning, when after 4 hours of sleep I couldn't get back to sleep and spent 45 minutes trying to teach myself to use my friend's blackberry and connect to my work e-mail (so that I could inform my department of my situation, and subject myself to endless ridicule), and every site worked except gmail and my work e-mail, even after I played with the browser and connection options. Finally, after realizing I would never fall back asleep, I went downstairs, prepared to leave the hotel in search of internet.

I went down to the front desk to ask where I should go for internet, and the guy says, "Down the hall and to the left." When I explain to him that his colleague last night told me there was no internet, he said last night was a bad night. I asked if I just put in my credit card. "No, it's free."
Ah, the cherry on top.

I will be so happy when I get the hell out of here. I am fighting off what might be a cold, or what might be just the Las Vegas. Despite our planning, the Las Vegas wanted us to stay through Sunday night, and there was nothing we could do about it.

City is way too small

2008-06-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

We were waiting in the will call line for City Arts and Lectures, my boyfriend of now two months telling me about the restaurant he's taking me to for my birthday next month but won't tell me the name of, and I'm asking whether I should dress up, and could I wear the dress I'm wearing, something stupid, and we're being obnoxiously affectionate, when I hear my name from behind me.

Right behind us in line is my ex-boyfriend, who I haven't seen since the day we broke up, and spoke up right then either because he just realized it was me when he recognized my loud voice talking about wearing my dress to a friend's holiday party, or because he didn't want to watch him put his hand on my hip anymore.

The poor guy looks really uncomfortable, and I default to overly enthusiastic -

"HI! How ARE you!" and introduce them, as they eye each other carefully. He's by himself, so I start to worry that he's attending this event by himself and seeing me on a date, which is beyond uncomfortable, so I ask,
"Are you...meeting anyone here?"
"Yeah, I'm meeting this girl who I've been...dating...for a while... We should have lunch sometime..."
"Definitely! ... Wow, it's so funny to run into you here."
"Yeah, awkward."
"Eh, it's not so bad."
"Uh, I'm going to go to the back of the line..."
"It's fiiiiiiine," I say, to which he smiles uncomfortably and again says,
"I'm going to go...back there..."

I tell my boyfriend I am really curious to see who my former boyfriend is dating, and try to glance back but can't get a look. I tell him I bet she's blonde, with big boobs, and laugh out loud.
He gets a look when we're sitting down and says she's pretty cute and blonde but not his type.

This is the sort of thing that always happens to me.

it was supposed to rain

2008-05-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

but instead it was 70 and sunny in Seattle, tacking on a perfect evening of walking along the water and back through bell town onto my already perfect 3-day weekend. I totally lead a charmed life.

o'hare-y situation (sorry, i couldn't help it)

2008-04-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

A week and a half of crashing industry/trade show parties, a blind date, going out after the Analytics summit, going out, Passover, going out, staying up way too late, and a business trip to Chicago (and a deep-dish and beer overdose), and I am tired out. So being stuck delayed at O'Hare isn't the worst thing in the world (though getting in at like 2 am probably will be) - I paid for internet and am getting a chance to catch up on stuff. And (after serious poaching) I even managed to grab an outlet to plug in!

It's a zoo here, with every flight delayed (because of some drizzle). But my friend who saw me online asked me what my flight number was, and proceeded to upgrade me to first class with his apparently abundant frequent flyer miles and said,"I've been stuck there

and it is always better to recline your seat and get dinner served to you on the plane with a glass of wine when you're done"

He's done this before, a couple years back - it's like the nicest thing ever, like having a wish you didn't know you had granted by the airplane genie.

birthday olympics

2008-04-13T11:20:00.001-07:00

The thing about costume parties is that regardless of the company, the costumes always set the tone of the night.

I attended a theme-party for my friend's birthday last night - she wanted us to dress as olympic athletes. I was a rhythmic gymnast. I planned to wear warm-ups all night (like the rhythmic gymnast getting ready for a performance), but it was uncharacteristically like 80 degrees at night. So I was that girl. I was powerless against the costume. Even with the reasonable subtext going in my head, I still posed for costume-appropriate photographs I hope will never surface.

The rest of the night spiraled out control accordingly - in the manner of being completely aware of the ridiculous situation but being powerless to stop it. The costumes just won.

We ended up at Steps of Rome at 2 am for pizza. After dinner I asked my friend if she wanted a candle and singing, or if it would embarrass her - she said she wouldn't mind a candle. I told the waiter it was my friend's birthday and could he put a candle in something. Of course! he says.

So apparently at Steps of Rome when it's a girl's birthday they finish singing happy birthday and the two waiters perform intense lapdances on the birthday girl. She took it like a champ - even we were blushing. When it was all over another friend at the table said, "yeah, didn't you know they did that here?"

But really, when you're in a leotard and sweats out in North Beach in the middle of the night, there's really no other reasonable expectation.

I love Seattle again

2008-04-03T23:46:00.001-07:00

I love Seattle when the sun comes out and the water out of the office windows sparkles, even though it's still freezing - there is actual visibility, and you can see the snow-covered mountains past the bright blue water, and it actually starts to make sense why people live there. That and the phenomenal coffee and amazing fish that I ate at all but one of my meals.

Now that I love my job, even when it's dysfunctional or ridiculous, going up to the Seattle office is so great! I ran from meeting to meeting to random meeting I booked to talk about things only vaguely implied indirectly in my job description, and loved every geeky minute. Last time I came up the New York girls were there, but this time I was solo, and the only female in the group besides the very quiet, married Chinese lady in QA and a new girl who had just started that day.

Two of the three single men in the group (both of whom have in the past made awkward advances towards me still short of needing to involve HR) continued their usual awkward but harmless overtures, which further lead me to believe that they must have a hard time meeting women outside of work.

The one who told me back at the Holiday party that he had been attracted to me since he took part in interviewing me for my position sent me the 6 pm non sequitur one-line e-mail asking me out that night:
Want to go for some wine and tapas in Capitol Hill?
Followed by a pasted excerpt from a CitySearch review for the place he proposed. I declined, saying that I already had plans with my SF coworker who was also in Seattle for the week (yay, thanks A!). It's a delicate balance, keeping things friendly enough so that working together is efficient, but not being too friendly because I wouldn't want to give him the impression that it would be anything but blatantly inappropriate for anything to happen between me and an almost-40 , divorced coworker and father of a 3-year-old, who I work with closely.

The other one, a never-married 35-year-old who constantly takes friendly touching to a barely-appropriate-for-the-workplace extreme, constantly came by my desk, poking my arm with his finger, poking his head over my shoulder, patting me on the shoulder barely in context. Since he does this with all of the girls in the group in their early-20s, I don't take this as seriously, but it is still constantly skirting the line where I think I should say something - but in that event, there goes the effective/efficient working relationship.

Today as I was leaving he insisted that I come say goodbye - so I go to his row and say goodbye from 10 feet away, with a bag on each arm as shields from his attempts to hug me.
"Oh, I see how it is," he said.
"What?" I say, with body language turning to walk away.
"Come on, give me a hug," he says, while walking towards me with his arms outstretched - made less awkward only by the fact that the others in his row had thankfully left.
"But we're at work - I don't hug anyone else at work."
He already has his arms around my shoulders, hugging me over my useless shields of laptop bag and handbag. I leave my arms at my sides. In the 9 modules of HR-mandated sexual harassment training, there was no module that would have helped with this scenario.

Other than avoiding incidents of borderline sexual harassment and not-yet-necessary confrontation thereof, I went to a Marines game with a few guys from work. And on the way I completely randomly ran into Cameron, who I knew back in San Jose! Wow - Seattle is so small. He briefly joined me and my coworkers, who included the inappropriate-touching guy, a newer developer who is super cool (recruited by his girlfriend at our company), my manager (who has deadpan humor down better than anyone I've ever met), and the new guy on the team who moved out from London, who is so fabulously charming, cute, impeccably dressed, witty and sweet that I had to make great efforts not to flirt with him excessively, because my manager was right there and that is just awkward (luckily Facebook tells me he is in a relationship. You Facebook naysayers clearly don't recognize the value of this).

After the game I went with the new developer to meet up with his friends at Linda's in Capitol Hill, and he and his friends were so much fun! We stayed out way too late and I barely squeezed in 5 hours of sleep, so I was miserable, tore-up-looking and overcaffeinated-bug-eyed all day. As I'm refilling my cup of coffee in the kitchen, the British guy comes over to the coffee machine.

"I got half-decaf this morning - what a mistake!" I said.
He starts to tell me something about how coffee is good for you, and I say, "Antioxidants!" because I totally read that article.
"But it's also good for your brain," he said.
"Oh, really?"
And he starts to launch into some unintelligible explanation of some scientific study about the brain and caffeine that I can't follow because I'm too busy being tired and trying not to flirt with him in the kitchen, until he can tell I look skeptical (confused) and am not following him.
"I'll send you the article," he says.

Five minutes later I get an e-mail from him, with a link to a BBC article in the subject line, and in the body:
"Just to show I wasn’t just making it up ;)."

The greatest part of the article is where it says "Other studies have shown that high levels of cholesterol in the blood can make this barrier "leaky"."

I respond, "I’m fairly certain my fatigue is due to staying up late and drinking, rather than a leaky protein layer."

He replies, "Sounds like you need to hang out with the British at the summit in San Francisco and build up your tolerance levels.. We’ll be sure to cure any future onset of fatigue."

Sounds like I'm in for a world of trouble.

reruns

2008-03-26T23:56:00.001-07:00

omg I love hulu.com.

Now when I am home alone spending my evening replying to work e-mail and feeling pathetic I can watch episode after episode of The Mary Tyler Moore show!

All without waiting for anything to download or planning my Netflix queue around comfort reruns.

2008-03-24T18:58:00.001-07:00

today elaine unwittingly convinced me to try not to be crazy.
not sure if that's what she was going for, per se.
but good thing.

taking the birds out

2008-03-23T02:58:00.000-07:00

8pm: Lying on the couch passed out watching episode after episode of 30 Rock on Netflix, debating the merits of going out. I was exhausted from a big night the night before (which included late-night food and cock-blocking this guy who clearly wanted to get in the pants of my friend who has a boyfriend), an early noon haircut appointment and a whole day with Roz in the sun (we went to the top of Buena Vista park - my favorite). I feel compelled to go out, among other reasons, because of this conversation:

5pm: (phone call with my mother while riding home on the 1)
"So what are you doing tonight?" my mother asks.
"I don't know, I'm thinking of maybe going to a Purim party, but I'm so exhausted," I say.
"I don't understand, why would you not go?"
"I'm exhausted, I've been out all day and I had a big night last night, and went out a lot this week."
"Uh, you can sleep tomorrow - why would you miss out on going out tonight?"
"Um, if I'm too tired I might not have that good of a time."
"Then have some coffee."
"I'm tired and I don't want to get the flu."
"Oh, you 'might get the flu.'" (mockingly)
"I'm serious! That's how I get the flu - I go out too much and don't take care of my body."
"I suppose. I just think if you have the opportunity to go out, you go out You can always rest later."
"But I've been out 5 nights this week - it's not the end of the world if I don't go out tonight."
"I guess. But you could meet people!"
"The party's at a loud club - I doubt I'm going to have a heart to heart with anyone or meet the love of my life."
"You never know."
"People don't meet the loves of their life at a loud club."
"You never know."
"I have a better chance of meeting the love of my life at the supermarket."
"Why the supermarket?"
"I don't know, anywhere."
"Ah, okay. Well you do what you want. It just sounds like fun."
This is my mother. Is it any wonder I am so restless?

9:30pm: I recover after ginger tea and decide to attend the party. It's a Purim costume party at Mighty, where I have only gone once, for my work's holiday party the year before last. My roommate isn't answering her phone, so I can't ask to go through her insane stash of costumes, and I have only one to choose from - my crazy Tippi Hedrin from the Birds costume from Halloween. I contemplate not wearing a costume at all, because attaching the ravens to myself is such a production, but that seems lame, and it's such a great costume, I might as well just go for it.

10:20pm: I call my friend to make sure she will be there before I arrive, so that I won't cab over and not know anyone. My friend says they are leaving really soon, so I start heading out to catch a cab, because she lives so close she'll definitely beat me.

10:45pm: I text my friend to see where she is. She responds, "We'll be there in 15." Ugh. Because of my amazing costume, every 5th stranger smiles at me, or approaches me with one of the following comments:
-that's such a great costume!
-are those real birds?
-aaaugh. those are scary.
-that's awesome. wait, what are you?
-omg are you Tippi Hedrin?

11pm: I run into a friend! Whew. Thanks for getting me out of the conversation with the hairy bare-chested man with a turban. What the hell was he supposed to be, anyway?

11:15pm: Watching belly dancers. My friend texts me to tell me she and her entourage have arrived, as a woman from the JCC with a clipboard has me sign the rights of my likeness away for photographs of me that have apparently been taken in the last half hour without my knowledge.

12am: I start talking to this costumeless guy who recently moved back from New York, who told me my costume was his favorite. I didn't know if he was flirting or if he was just being friendly because of the costume and killing time because his friends just left, until he starts touching my elbow.

drink 1: elbow touch, elbow touch, elbow touch.

drink 2: elbow touch, back touch, elbow touch, elbow grab, elbow hold, elbow touch, holding both elbows, waist grab, elbow touch, arm hold, back touch, elbow hold

drink 3: "You should give me your phone number so we can hang out." elbow hold, elbow touch, back touch, elbow touch.

1:30 am: The elbow-enamored gentleman departed, I am dancing hard with my friends to bad jungle/house/techno under a flashing strobe light. I feel like a tourist - this is so not my scene. I take the last of my birds off.

best of text messages

2008-03-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

the upgraded Verizon firmware on my phone now gives me only 80 messages of storage. before I delete all, the best of this month:

My college boyfriend, at like 1 am EST:
You know i have to wash my feet before bed cuz of you?

My friend Vincent, on the party theme:
K. Theyre picking me up at my place. It's king of later. The theme is kilts. If kilts doesnt work it has to be .crotchless. like a skirt.

My friend Natalie, before she sold her car:
Cool. I have a guy coming 2 look at the car and potentially take it tonight at like 11...stas and dima r going 2 help me and if it sells we're drinking w the $

good company

2008-03-16T03:28:00.000-07:00

Evidently, meeting gentlemen at the bars whose atmosphere I enjoy results in company that affords the following conversations:

"I think you're totally adorable."
"Aw, thank you."
"Are you into orgasms?"
"Excuse me?"
"Because I'm into giving you orgasms."
"I'm sorry?"
"I could totally give you the craziest orgasms. I could like, blow your mind."
"Um, I'm going to visit the ladies' room."

"You seem like you have a white-collar job."
"I totally do. Um, what do you do?"
"I'm a waiter at Little Star."
"Oh, that's cool."
"I'm totally into the fact that you have like a real job and I'm a rock and roller. I think we would work that way."
"You mean because I could buy you drinks and stuff?"
"I mean, that too, but that's not all of it."

"Um, excuse me, I was wondering."
"Yes?"
"Does wearing long earrings like, bother you? Because they're hitting your neck all the time?"
"No, not really, they're really light. You get used to it. They're fun."
"I want to see what you look like without them."
"Okay."
"You look cute with and without earrings. Do you live in the neighborhood?"
"Yeah, I live about a 15 min walk."
"We work at Whole Foods tomorrow. You should come by and like, buy some asparagus. It's only 39 cents a pound! That's all I've been living on all week!"

Additionally, was walked halfway home by a hairstylist from Marin who referred to me as "pretty girl," and is proud owner of 30 freaky tattoos, that all looked at me simultaneously, saying, "You look like you have a white-collar job."

klutz

2008-03-14T23:56:00.001-07:00

So I went with Lindsey to Shabbat services at Emanu-El, which I've probably meant to do since I moved to the City, but never actually have. Even before I moved here I had heard about the young adult after-Shabbat kegger, which I can't say was quite a kegger, but definitely a good place to meet people.

Services were really nice, and by nice I mean like being at an intimate Fleetwood Mac concert, if Fleetwood Mac sang in Hebrew. Wow. I didn't expect them to be that talented. It didn't quite feel like services without the melodies I know, and occasionally spacing out and wondering how many pages we had left, but it was very cool.

Afterwards we're downstairs eating cookies and drinking He-brew from the keg, talking to people, and who do I see but Mr. ADD - who I last saw when he asked for my number outside the bar, and I figured I had nothing to lose by telling him I preferred his friend. Yikes. I am so horrible. I felt kind of bad about that, but figured I should go over and say hello, clear the air. I mean he was a nice guy, just not someone I wanted to date. I go over and we make eye contact as I am on my way up. He frowns and says "hey," and begins turning away, so I look back at Lindsey bewildered. I guess we're not going to have that nice 3-min conversation after all. I couldn't blame the guy, but ouch.

As we're leaving, one of the guys we sat with at dinner asks us if we want to go swing dancing in SOMA, but we are exhausted from work, and me from daylight savings-induced insomnia. He asks if I like to dance, and I tell him about how I used to take dance when I was younger. He says, "Come on, you should come out tonight!"
"Oh, thanks, but I'm too tired."
"Really, you should come dancing, it would be fun," he says.
"Ha, sorry, I'm too sleepy."
"No, seriously, I would really like to take you out dancing sometime. Would you come out dancing with me sometime?"
This seemed to come totally out of left field, and it didn't occur to me that he so quickly transitioned from a friendly invite of all of my friends to asking me out. I looked at him to try it on for size. Just couldn't get past the beard. And we didn't quite click. I realize that I have paused too long and my friends tell me later that apparently the shocked look on my face was "a really bad look."
"I'm really not a good dancer," I say. Really, even if I were into this guy, a first date to go out dancing with someone I hardly know is super awkward.

He says he'll give me his business card, so that I can e-mail him. The business card is in glossy full-color, 1/3 of it taken up by a picture of him wearing a huge grin. The business card says he is a comedy magician, and voted best comedian by an SF Weekly reader's poll or something. I am so floored by this (I guess I'm so corporate-world-centric I assume that everyone else works nine to five, and are not magicians) and I laugh, spitting everywhere, so that he looks at me like he needs a towel. I apologize profusely.

As I am retelling this on the way out, and my friends are recalling how I made "a really bad face," this really sweet girl from Marin who had sat with us says she is shocked that I say I am awkward and clumsy. "You seem so graceful and elegant!" This was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a while, yet so oblivious of how my entire life is a series of missteps, wrong words and embarrassing clumsy moves.

the muni-halfway point night

2008-03-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

Met up with a friend at the halfway point between our apartments (muni-calibrated halfway, not geographical halfway, meaning a single bus) which we decided was Pacific Heights.

At the bar we are sipping mojitos and discussing the relatively few payoffs of being single and dating. In the course of conversation I incidentally say the word "sex," and when I do I see a guy and his friend overhear, perk up and look up, and check us out. Here it comes, I said, and expected a relatively bad pickup line from a sex-crazed twenty-something, but instead they went back up to the bar, and I just laughed.

Five minutes later they were back, and up come the two guys, with no better line than "What are your names?" Neither of them was good or bad looking, but the guy doing most of the talking was likely insane.

"This is my brother. Who do you think is older? Who do you think is better looking? What are your names, what do you do? Where are you from?" He talked 100 miles an hour and talked himself into twice as much trouble. They are finance guys originally from Marin, and the older brother is visiting from LA. Very Pac Heights.

We're not interested in either of them but the ADD-afflicted speed-talker is so crazy and amusing that I keep the conversation going (my friend clearly bored but not sure if she needs to suck it up because she thinks I might be interested in one or the other). They introduce us to a couple of their friends in passing. Eventually, we reached the first 10-second lull in conversation and Mr. ADD gets distracted by a friend, so my friend and I start our own conversation again and eventually go get another drink.

As we are ordering wine my friend establishes that I am not interested in either of these guys and am merely amused, but says, "Their friend with the beard is cute."

Twenty minutes later, we are drinking Cabarnet in the two empty seats at the other end of the bar, and who should show up but our ADD friend and his brother. It comes up in conversation that Mr. ADD's older brother is married with two children (though said nuptial commitment doesn't deter him from having eye-contact sex with myself and my friend). Mr. ADD is still at it, talking about how my nervous habit of opening and closing the button on my bag is distracting and implies that it reminds him of sex.

"Do you think my friend who looks like Fidel Castro is cute?" he asks. "He is very shy." I haven't gotten a look but I know the answer from my friend is affirmative. They waive him over, and he is in fact attractive, and engaging. And this is coming from a facial hair-hater. Mr. ADD asks him, gesturing at us, "Which one of them do you like better?" Fidel laughs quietly, shellshocked. Fidel says he has been working all day getting a movie out at Pixar and is calling it a night. Another friend we met across the room comes over, he says to save us from his crazy friends.

It takes about five minutes to establish that their friend (who is very nice) not only works in the same group at the 10,000 person company as my last boyfriend, but also works 10 feet away from his desk. This throws me into a mild state of shock. "Did you break up because he worked too much?" He asked. "Because he does work too much." Aaaah! This is way too small of a city. My friend is clearly over it, and I am fine to leave, so we exchange goodbyes before leaving the bar.

After we head out, Mr. ADD follows us outside and asks if he can give me a call. It occurs to me that this was going to happen, and rather than begin to explain that I don't think he is my type, what comes out of my mouth instead is, "I feel weird because I actually kind of liked your friend," referring to Fidel. He proceeds to try to give me his number, which I refuse to take, but hand him my business card. I suspect there will come a point in my career when I will have to change jobs because I have given out too many of my business cards to people I shouldn't give them to when it seems innocent enough.

At the next bar, my friend is telling me about being hit on by guys at our holiday party, and how she doesn't think she can wear heels and a dress at a work function anymore, because they clearly can't handle it. I say, "Did you see me at the holiday party? I was dressed super slutty. I was like this:" I discreetly (I think) squeeze my boobs together, and suddenly realize that while all patrons of the bar have had their backs to us, one casually looked backwards at a perfectly opportune time to see me squeeze my boobs together. He loses it laughing. I tell my friend, and we both lose it laughing, at which point he looks back again at us, laughing his ass off, and I say "I'm sorry," meaning, sorry about the potentially vulgar gesture in your general direction.

He comes over to us, laughing to the point of walking off-balance, and I explain that it was in the context of conversation. He says, "It's like when you hear the word penis and it's in the context of conversation, but all all you hear is the word penis." I say, "I'm sorry if I offended you by squeezing my boobs together in your general direction." My friend says this is the only time she will ever hear the phrase, "I'm sorry if I offended you by squeezing my boobs together in your general direction." Though I'm sure this is not the only time it has ever been said.

brilliant ideas

2008-02-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

Friday: Though no longer feeling sick, my voice is hoarse at the end of the summit, as I'm making my way to New York.
Great Idea: I should go to a party and yell all night, then get late-night pizza with Natalie and stay up until 4 in the morning!

Saturday: I am hoarse all day, but it starts to sound a lot better in the evening after dinner.
Great Idea: I should go out with a group to the neighborhood wine bar at midnight and get myself into heated politics and culture arguments, then go close out Southern Comfort down the street. And then we should all go back to Natalie's and yell about history and politics over more wine, and stay up until 6 in the morning!

So now my voice is really gone. Can't say I didn't ask for it.

i'm it.

2008-02-13T17:06:00.001-08:00

Shonelle tagged my blog. Ordinarily I would ignore the blog-equivalent of a chain letter but she is nice and this doesn't seem so bad. Hers, at least, was very entertaining.

Eight Things You May Not Know About Me:

1. Language - I have massive language issues, which I like to blame on the fact that at 4 years old my parents resisted my switch to English by insisting that they would not speak any English in the house and that I have to only speak Hebrew. As a result I maintained my fluency in Hebrew and am physically incapable of switching languages halfway through a conversation, and have trouble switching accents to say words that don't translate from English.

2. Friends - I have trouble making friends in languages other than English. I feel like a little kid when I speak Hebrew because I basically only speak it with relatives. I feel like a hopelessly awkward, inarticulate foreigner when I speak French (because that is how the French treat you when you have an accent).

3. Dancing - I was on a dance team that competed when I was 11, but I've still never felt like a good dancer when dancing anything unchoreographed. This is because I am hopelessly awkward and don't know what to do with my hands. I made it onto the dance team in high school when I was 15, but quit after 2 months because I didn't like having to be out there with the cheerleaders during football season.

4. Punk Rock - Instead of going to football games in High School, I went to bad local punk rock shows with my friends Emily, Avi, or Paul, et al. Me and Emily had a college radio show on KSCU when we were 17 - we started out playing abrasive punk rock and oi, but by the end of the year we were playing a whole lot of emo and indie rock.

5. Guilt - 40% of my actions are determined by guilt. I like to pretend guilt helps makes me a better person. It accounts for why I work hard, exercise, don't own a car, don't spend a lot of money on luxury goods, and do things I don't want to do.

6. Head to Mouth Filter - I never know when this might work, and it usually doesn't. I try to make up for this by feeling bad and apologizing profusely.

7. Argument Style - I make big, sweeping statements that I don't actually know if I believe, and then argue for them until I make up my mind what I actually think. I'm really open to rethinking my positions, so I can usually be outargued unless I've been researching something for months.

8. Alcohol - I never drank, I mean never, until shortly before I turned 20, during the rise of Charles Shaw. That year I studied abroad in France and fell in love with 2-3 euro bottles of Cotes du Rhone. Alcohol has helped me discover new hobbies I never knew I had, such as meeting new people, dancing, speaking foreign languages, and talking to boys.

I am tagging Elaine because she hasn't blogged since January. Plus, she doesn't have that guilt thing I have, and doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do.

2008-02-09T03:12:00.001-08:00

my entire life is just a series of awkward encounters and other disaster prevention. that's why I can't watch The (American) Office without feeling familiar, excruciating pain.
at least tonight was fun, at my favorite bars in the Mission, and a new love of a Taqueria.

how poorly run the ron paul campaign was

2008-02-06T00:17:00.000-08:00

I got a text message at 9:30 am, an hour after voting, that said:

Ron Paul: the only Republican 4 low taxes, less spending, gun rights, no amnesty, and no UN. RonPaul2008.com Paid for by Ron Paul 2008, PCC, 2 STOP reply STOP

The problems with this:
Text message advertising is dumbed-down, annoying and ineffective
Ron Paul's platform is not compelling in dumbed-down bullet points, and his base is not well-reached in this way
My area code is in the Bay Area - it's unlikely that most of those factors are what would motivate me to vote for Ron Paul
As a working person, this came an hour after I already cast my vote
I'm not sure where they got my phone number, but if it was from a list of likely voters, a text message like this actually makes me view him less favorably

2008-02-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

I tried to talk to her and come to the sort of agreement that people who need to coexist come to after an awkward exchange, where you put the harmless thing that happened aside, and even if you have to be the tiniest bit fake because you think you were in the right, it's what you have to do in order to continue to coexist. Because sticking it to the person gets you nowhere, and is just not worth it.

And we did. I apologized for my reaction and for what I said coming out the wrong way, and the little awkwardness that couldn't vanish right away was minimal. I know I have a lot to work on, and I Monday morning quarterback everything and overanalyze what I did wrong and how I should change. So I do what I can, I make amends and try to be better. She seemed to get where I was coming from. Even some mutual respect despite differences seemed to have been reached.

And then she added, "I was just taken aback, because you were so passionate, your eyes were all serious. I know politics and work shouldn't mix, and I just realized this is someone I shouldn't talk about politics with, from now on I should stick to the weather."

2008-02-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Ugh, sometimes I respond in the worst way possible to people with extreme personalities coming at me in an unorthodox way. It would seem like since I have an extreme personality that I would actually know how to handle this, but instead the worst things come out of my mouth.

"He's a Nazi."
"No he's not, that's total propaganda."
"But he took money from Nazis."
"He took money from everyone."
"And he doesn't believe health care is a right!"
"It's not that simple."
"Are you going to vote for him?"
"He's not going to win."
"Ew, you're going to vote for him?"
"Leave me alone, I know a lot more about this than you do..." (oops, where the hell did that come from) "Just kidding..."
"I'm not going to talk to you about this."
"I don't need to take shit for the fact that I think the government shouldn't be in the pocket of lobbyists."
"I'm not going to talk to you about this."
"I'm done talking."

It was all a joke but not a joke, and now I just feel awkward.

And of course now I'm mad at myself for not being able to act like it was a joke and calmly explain that I registered Republican to vote for Ron Paul in the primary to cast a vote against the war and for being fiscally responsible, because the country is on track to go bankrupt and then no one will have health care, social security, welfare or medicare.

But that I want Obama for president because he would take steps to reduce lobbyists' influence, and his health care plan has a more coherent understanding of how free markets actually work, and his voting record shows a more thoughtful, coherent, responsible leadership. And he could actually win. Plus, I drool over his speeches.

And I'm actually a really progressive moderate leaning towards extreme environmentalism, and not ideologically a libertarian at all, but I think package liberalism is really ignorant and dangerous, and a (impossible) Ron Paul presidency would mean cutting military spending and beginning to spend responsibly, and maybe even saving the dollar from catastrophic collapse, not the disappearance of all social services and public funding for education and parks.

This is why I didn't get into Speech and Debate in High School. I am like, the least articulate speaker ever when I'm on the defense.

los angeles

2008-02-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

Driving around with my old roommate in LA is unexpectedly refreshing. I guess I just needed to leave the City for a few days. Hiking up at Runyon Canyon with the cast of The Biggest Loser behind us on one of the clearest days of the year, I started to feel better about life.

shlamazel

2008-01-30T10:17:00.001-08:00

"Um, excuse me? Did you know you had something on the back of your jacket?"
"No...ewww. What is it? What color is it?"
Apparently it was the world's biggest cranberry juice stain on the back of my white coat. The bottle had cracked inside my handbag on the way to work, and the plastic bag I put it in apparently had a hole in it.
Awesome.
This sort of thing seems to happen to me more than other people.
The great wisdom of my ancestors indicates that I am a shlamazel. A schlemiel is the one who spills the soup; shlamazel is the one who gets spilled on. To be fair, I am a little bit of both, and beverage calamities seem to follow me wherever I go.

the replace a memory game

2008-01-25T00:54:00.001-08:00

The concept had existed before, but my friend had actually given it a title.
When your friends are deciding where to eat, you can play the replace a memory game - you go somewhere that makes you sad to think about because of memories you had there with someone who broke your heart, and you create a new memory with your friends.
Since we were already in the neighborhood, and had had a few drinks, I decided we should get burritos and replace a memory, while singing the theme song from the Mary Tyler Moore show.

wikipedia fun

2008-01-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

This unfortunately probably won't be around for much longer.
See Articles for Deletion.

Beerluck

Unreferenced article that appears to be completely non-notable. Quite possibly made up, and clearly unencyclopedic. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 20:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Delete as something made up one day. No sources of any kind to assert notability. DarkAudit (talk) 20:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete per WP:MADEUP. Only about 580 googlehits and most are either blogs or not in english .--Malevious Userpage •Talk Page• Contributions 20:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete. Very few hits on Google, nothing even close to a reliable source to establish notability. Doctorfluffy (talk) 21:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Do NOT delete. Etymological rules based on pre-existing usage would have preempted a vast majority of words now seen in common usage or idioms (i.e. Rule of Thumb) from entering the English language. While we must consider the negative influence of Recentism, as someone who has attended a beerluck, I can testify to their existence. --ashwin User:ashwinsodhi
- Comment Anecdotal evidence is not sufficient. Wikipedia requires reliable, verifiable sources independent of the subject. None of that is here, or appears to be forthcoming. DarkAudit (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete, nonsense. Nakon 22:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete There are reasons that it is not common practice for people to sample a wide variety of beers. Back in 1995, my friends and I had a "beers of the world" party with six six-packs of beers, and it's like drinking different liquors. Instead of Tubthumping, the result is everybody getting sick the next day. At best, this is a variation on BYOB. Mandsford (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC) BTW, What do you call a party where there are different varieties of cannabis? Mandsford (talk) 01:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

breakup software

2008-01-21T21:34:00.000-08:00

Breaking up is painful and messy enough. Your technology should make it easier to cope.
I submit the following ideas to cyberspace.

1. Facebook Breakup Application
Updates your page to indicate your relationship status as single or hides your relationship status altogether based on your preferences
Notifies your closest friends tactfully of the breakup through their news feed so that they can be sensitive without making you relive the experience by retelling the same story to all of your friends
Archives all photos tagged with both of your names together into a hidden folder that requires password to access when logged into your own account

2. Gmail breakup label
All threads from a sender can be selected and labeled breakup (or breakup followed by .any text i.e. breakup.jeffrey). When archived, all conversations are sent to hidden folder that is protected from user viewing or rereading them by password and mandatory survey that assesses the user's emotional vulnerability (check the box next to any of the following sad thoughts you have had today:).
Label preferences can be custom set to unprotect folder access within 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, one year or never, or to never be accessible between 9:00 pm and 7 am.

3. Gmail chat breakup mode
Contact can be selected as "ex" option under "Show in chat list." Options then appear for the length of time contact should be blocked (60 days, 90 days, 6 months, one year or never).
Editing contact preferences to unblock contact before the defined date requires user to complete mandatory survey that assesses the user's emotional vulnerability (check the box next to any of the following reasons for unblocking your ex:).
If user changes the same contact from "ex" to "auto" back to "ex" more than three times in a one-month period, contact will be automatically blocked for 60 days. To override, user must e-mail "breakup@gmail.com," which e-mails back a lecture about being strong, with links to inspirational articles about starting over, and a link labeled "are you sure you want to unblock this contact?" at the bottom.

4. Mobile WAP breakup application
Application prevents caller from dialing or smsing a selected phone number between 10 pm and 7 am.
Breathalyzer attachment prevents caller from dialing or smsing a selected phone number when blood alcohol content is over 0.1%.

2008-01-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

what an insufferably long, horrible week. the kind of week that makes possible things like alcohol, drugs, one-night stands and las vegas. i wish it would just end already.

a break, or whatever

2008-01-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

I'm fine.
I mean I'm always fine.
But ugh.

It sucks that I have to watch my roommate and her new boyfriend be insufferably adorable around the house. I mean nobody deserves it more than her, and I'm glad not to be home alone.
But ugh.

why is it always worse flying back from the east coast?

2008-01-03T01:48:00.000-08:00

I arrive at the airport just after 7:00 pm for an 8:10 departure. Having gotten through security, I began rearranging my suitcase and moving certain items into a duffel bag so that my overstuffed carry-on could actually be stuffed into the overhead bin. I am just about to check to see if JFK had free wifi and grab dinner when I discover that my laptop has reached a temperature of approximately 90 degrees, on failing to standby, because I had stuffed it hastily into its case when I got the call that my airport transportation had arrived downstairs, and forgot to shut down some files that were on the network. I spend over twenty minutes trying in every way to shut down Excel and Word so I could get my computer to standby or shut down.

By the time I finish, I realize I only have ten minutes until boarding. I try to visit the ladies’ room but see a dozen or so women in line, so I decide to delay and try to find the fastest food option so I won’t be stuck on a cross-continental flight with nothing to eat when they run out of meatless sandwiches for sale on board. When I am served my two slices of Famiglia pizza, they tell me they are out of boxes.

Now I am really late, so I check the gate on my printed boarding pass, the corner slowly soaking up pizza oil, and run towards gate 22. Apparently, gates 19-24 are a shuttle ride away, so I hurry out to 20 degrees for the shuttle without putting on my coat. I arrive at gate 22 to discover that my flight is no longer at gate 22, and I realize I am a complete idiot for not taking the time to check a screen. I ask an agent at one of the desks to call gate 5 and tell them I am on my way. By the time I am back at the main gates (all the while carrying dripping pizza on a paper plate, passing Famiglia pizza on my way like a confused idiot, now wearing my coat, dragging my unreasonably heavy carry-on) they are calling the final boarding call for my flight, and telling the ‘final passenger’ they must arrive now. I am running as hard as I possibly can, sweating under thick layers of wool and wheezing, just in time to hand the agent my pizza-oil-soaked boarding pass, which he scans. Whew.

Forty minutes later, we are still taxiing on the runway, and are informed that we have conflicted with international departure rush hour, and are 40^th in line to take off. I call eight of my friends to chat and reach none of them, but successfully add last names to every contact in my mobile phone contacts. We depart 90 min late.

lessons learned on trip:

2008-01-03T01:40:00.000-08:00

Black Cashmere scarf and white wool coat do not mix, resulting in sloppy, dusted-gray appearance despite all lint-rolling

If you are California native, turtleneck, wool sweater, wool coat and gloves are still inadequate on the Hudson among flurries in 20 degree weather. It is still cold enough to make you hallucinate

Reserving the Sheraton in Wehawken, NJ (a 10-min ferry ride to Manhattan) costs only 25% of the Starwood rewards points per night as the W New York in Midtown. It is about 6 times the size, and has a view of the river and Manhattan.

At a pool hall in between neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the waitress might not know what Stoli is. Or soda. Even though there are bottles of Gray Goose and Belvedere on display, and at most bars soda is a more standard mixer than seltzer

At a table with a lawyer, do not assume COPA- and COPPA-compliance are different pronunciations of the same online child protection act - they are actually two different acts, one against pornography and the other for privacy

Movie tickets at the AMC in Times Square cost $11.25. You would think this was crazy if you hadn’t been to the Kabuki in SF Japantown since it was acquired by Sundance ($3 Amenity fee? wtf.)

citling rivalry

2007-12-28T11:39:00.000-08:00

I think I was vaguely anti-New York after a lifelong fascination/crush on it because I had bad experiences the last two times I visited - in fall of 2000 because my boyfriend at the time sort of broke up with me while I was visiting him, and in fall of 2001 because when I visited I had nothing going in my life and hadn't gotten my first job yet, and was visiting friends who were mostly in transitional phases in their life and mildly unhappy, and I had no money and felt guilty even buying myself so much as an unnecessary cup of coffee.

On that trip, hanging out with an old friend who had gone to school in NYC, I got sick of her telling me New York was the place to be and worth making $27,000 a year in a crappy entry-level job and paying $1,000 a month for a closet in the village and buying designer clothes on credit to look the part, and that it was all worth it because she was in the place to be. I saw that kind of attitude a lot here. Probably worth noting that it seemed to be pronounced in out-of-staters who had moved to New York. But the uppityness and seemingly necessary financial irresponsibility really put me off.

I get protective of San Francisco, because I think it's such a spectacular city and it's the first city I've lived in where I feel like I belong. I get annoyed and overly defensive when people say California is fake and phony and not as friendly, because I've lived in LA, and usually the people complaining were buying into stereotypes that while sometimes true, were so obvious it felt redundant to bring it up and actually showed a lack of imagination - of course there are fake people in the bar scenes on Sunset or Hollywood Blvd. - what the hell did you expect? But does it mean the whole city is fake? Or does it mean they're blowing off the whole city based on a group of people that makes it a point to play into the stereotype in the first place?

Of course San Francisco has obnoxious hipsters, and annoying hippies, and fake former frat and sorority types, and uppity yuppy thirty- and forty-somethings with I-own-this-town entitlement. But I'm not going to hold it against it.

I've only been here since morning and I'm still jetlagged, but New York is growing on me, now that I could see mid-twenties real life here - I could cut it and make friends and make enough to survive and be myself here. And it's nice that getting around and recreating is more convenient. Happy to be here.

2007-12-19T23:45:00.001-08:00

I have this thing about myself that I like to pretend makes me a more interesting person or potentially a better writer. It's that I am sometimes so highly aware of words and references and the way they're used in culture that I am constantly finding things trite or insincere, and constantly trying to talk around them or avoid them or barely reference them so I can stay original or convincing or sincere or smart or whatever.
Maybe my saving grace is that I'm protectively accepting of my friends and other people I like when they use words or references or culture that are cliche, and I stick up for their intelligence, sincerity and originality against my own head.
If I were capable of applying half of this self-consciousness towards not saying things I shouldn't because they're inappropriate, or wrong for the situation or might hurt someone's feelings, I probably wouldn't always be getting mad at myself. Though I'd still get mad at myself because it is most likely this self-consciousness that makes it difficult right now to write anything of any real seriousness or length because everything seems stupid or trite or like something no one would care about and isn't even worth doing. So I leave off most projects shortly after I start them, which also makes me mad at myself, because it's one of the few somewhat achievable dreams I still have going, since I'm probably not going to be good at performing or public speaking in the even distant future, and I most likely don't have any usable skills that could be used to actually save the world or anything.
So what do you do if the way you are keeps you from doing things that you want to do, which are also supposed to be what you are? You could approach it as though it'll be even more you once you get over the limitations of the way you are - the real ideal you. Or you could do that whole accepting yourself and your limitations and being realistic and giving up thing. I like to think therapy comes somewhere in the middle, but my last experience with therapy didn't really go that well, since he passed away and I'm still doing the back-and-forth with my insurance company for reimbursement.
An old friend I used to have seemed to care about nothing more than meaningful relationships and love and close friendships, but was so difficult in constantly demanding certain behavior or reassurances that he couldn't help but push people away because it was too much work to be close to him, and almost impossible to love him because he was always expecting you to prove it before you even had a chance to feel it. Okay, I can think of more than one person that describes.
It's like girls who aren't stunning and seem to care about nothing more than being pretty and getting guys. It really makes you think. Not necessarily about what they're doing wrong, but about how sad it is that the one thing a person seems to want most might be impossible because of the way they are.
I'm not sure at what point you can identify that something about you is preventing you from being who you want to be, or whether that's reconcilable. I know that I don't really believe it will come together without me working at it, since I don't believe anything related to bettering onesself comes without working at it. But there is something to be said for being realistic and developing your strengths while accepting your weaknesses.

seattle adventures

2007-12-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

At the bakery this morning with the New York girls, while looking up at the breakfast sandwich offerings, I hear my name called from somewhere by a guy. He calls it a few times while I look around stupidly until I realize it's coming from the baking table behind the counter - it's the first friend I made in college, an English major I met at orientation. It doesn't make sense to me to see him here, since he's from LA.
In college he sort of tried to date me the first weekend of school and I freaked out. Then he and my roommate both joined the men's and women's rowing teams, respectively, and as a result of their co-ed parties had a very brief fling at one point out of boredom that neither of them was that into, around the time at which we drifted apart.
He tells me he's there training for the olympics for rowing, and asks how long I've been in Seattle. I tell him I'm just here for work and for the corporate office holiday party, and sort of feel like a jackass with my black turtleneck and white coat and laptop talking about coming up to headquarters for a party while he's baking by a hot oven and training for the olympics. It reminded me of when I used to think I'd spend my twenties pursuing my dream, until I realized that my dream wasn't really working in publishing or journalism or living in New York anymore than it was working in online advertising in San Francisco, and because of whatever emotional defect I'm still working through I'm not capable of or ready to write things of my own creating for publication, so I figured I might as well choose the latter since it's more fun.

For our Q4 team event we went to an indoor go-cart racing place in Redmond. I didn't expect to be very good at it, and was really just hoping to avoid injury and potentially have fun. Not surprising that I came in last place for lap times in each qualifying round. This placed me in 7th place out of 8 in the bottom tier of the final rounds, where winner was the first to finish. Somehow though, everyone kept crashing and I just kept going around them. I figured I was a lap behind everyone, but somehow I came in first (first of the worst) and received the same shiny trophy with a car on top as the winners of the two higher-tier rounds.
This was followed by a (sinfully) decadent feast at Blue Ginger in Bellevue, where we ate not only Korean barbecue but sashimi too, with both sake and beer. Ten kinds of fish eaten five different ways later, I am back at the hotel, resting up for the holiday party tomorrow.

not to let a bad morning be a bad day

2007-12-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

I wasn't even going to stay over.
BART almost never fails me, which is why I always take it to work from Noe, despite it being a 7-min walk further from the abysmally unreliable J.
The BART train I boarded this morning was right behind a train that had broken down, though they neglected to tell us for like 7 minutes while we stood on the packed train like a bunch of losers believing it was a normal delay. When they told us a technician was on the way I went above ground to get a cab and try to still make it to work without being too late, but of course there were no cabs anywhere. No answer from the boyfriend and no one else to call, and no one to take my money in exchange for transporting me, I took the 14, packed with people and crawling at walking-speed, trying to keep my balance and keep my laptop bag from falling off my shoulder while getting clocked from every direction by angry middle-aged women on crack, the smell of urine aboard unmistakable. I transfer to the 47 and get into work 35 minutes late - total commute time of 1 hour and 10 minutes instead of 30.
It's so stupid how stupid things like that can ruin my whole day, and my entire outlook on life. But in the morning when everyone's a zombie relying on electricity and hot water and traffic lights and transit to work, if something doesn't work it feels like all of civilization is a sham and nothing works and we don't even have control over our own lives. Guess I'm projecting.

2007-12-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

L: That's so weird that they would send you artisan cheeses as a gift.
A: I know, I wonder why.
C: I know why - my roommate works for them, and the girl who buys all their client gifts just quit, so all the reps are going crazy and passing the work around between them, because it's the holidays, and I bet it just got to somebody's turn who said "Artisan cheeses - that's a good idea for a gift."
L: And they're such random cheeses to select, too - sheep's milk, goat's milk and Camembert? Camembert is like the riskiest cheese to give as a gift.
A: I guess they didn't think of bread or crackers either.
L: You better put that Camembert away, that's going to start to smell.

dirty trick

2007-11-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

I woke up and looked at the clock.
It said 12:26 pm.
Is it the weekend? I wondered.
No, Thanksgiving weekend just ended, and I've only had...one work day.
No, it's Tuesday.

My body's played dirty tricks on me like this before. It usually involves me staying up a little bit too late, but still with enough time to get my minimum required 6 hours to function, and somehow I wake up 10 and a half hours later with no recollection of turning off my alarm. (Once in high school I woke up at noon, the exact moment of the end of my community college Shakespeare course in which I was supposed to give a presentation on one of Shakespeare's sonnets. I had to grovel to him to let me make it up, and he said I only could if someone else didn't show)
My boss, of course, had e-mailed me several times in my absence and knew I wasn't online, so I had to explain that my power went out and I was sleeping off a cold. He told me to lay off the booze, he doesn't want me to end up on an afterschool special. How embarrassing. I didn't even go out that night! And he totally hasn't done my annual performance review yet.

I guess I've paid the price of staying up until 1:30 watching videos on my laptop, and my featherbed and blackout curtain setup, and I'm going to have to start setting a few backup alarms. On the bright side, I think I might have slept off a cold that might have been coming on, because today I feel super.

2007-11-21T14:10:00.001-08:00

Igor: lee, your blog is SO out of date.

me: um, didn't i blog like 2 days ago?

Igor: 2 days!?!?

Igor: what do you think this is, print media?

Igor: that is like a century in the blogosphere

we are clearly not on the same page here

quarterlife

2007-11-20T01:25:00.001-08:00

I want it to be great. Because I love media that deals with the internet generation, and super-high-budget, well-produced web content is so rarely done and so edgy, and I crave free, portable, high-quality audio or video content (especially when I'm getting ready for bed and my apartment's silent since my roommate's sleeping).
It looks and feels like a good show. The characters seem interesting with their smoky, serious attractiveness and their subtle subculture outfits (though they're all so white - I thought this was problematic when I assumed it was set in LA but since the show is ostensibly set in Chicago, maybe the absence of any interracial interaction is normal?). Everyone's gloomy introspectiveness plays the same nostalgic My So-Called Life chords, and they deal with all the right issues.
Maybe the problem is inherent in the 8-minute episode. When you try to pack in that many short cuts and that much plot into that short of an episode, it's bound to feel like it's all a preview, the way watching MTV reality TV shorts cut to music can make you actually wonder whether you're seeing the real show, or just previews of it (until you realize the whole show is a preview for real life as conceived of and sold by MTV). Even though they're flirting with having almost serious conversations, you never catch anyone hanging out or talking before the scene starts - it's never implied that you're missing interactions or parts of conversations - it's as if you're expected to believe everything of any importance that's happening in these people's lives since the first 8-minute episode has all been on camera. And their conversations wrap up so fast and neat. It's hard enough to pull off full characters that feel genuine in an hour-long show.
It's like an episode of the Hills, only acted out by poorly-dressed college graduates who are supposed to be smart and creative, and occasionally say clever things they never bother following through.
Then there's the fact that you can't buy it - this supposedly timid, thoughtful girl doing a video blog and spilling all of her friends' darkest secrets. Real blog - yes. Video blog? If the girl thinks she's a writer, why would she carelessly talk to the camera and never write? Her roommate dates her next door neighbor and his roommate is in love with her and she's in love with him? And their roommate is a bartender taking community acting classes who thinks she's going to make it as an actress?
The real problem though, is in lines like, "I hate not knowing and waiting and finding it so hard to figure out what we're all supposed to be. But what's my choice anyway? I certainly wouldn't want to be anywhere other than where I am now." This is obnoxious not just in that life is what you're doing when you're making other plans cliche. It's the convenient summing up of issues facing twentysomethings without actually engaging with them. Do I need to be hit over the head with the fact that twentysomethings are in a life transition that can suck but can also be great? At least on My So-Called Life everyone was sad and nihilistic because adolescence is such a depressing trap there is no real way to go through neatly, but the twentysomethings on Quarterlife actually think their lives are going to make sense when they become magazine writers and actors and filmmakers and married and adults.

sweater search off

2007-11-20T00:29:00.000-08:00

Last Hanukkah I decided that I wanted a Hanukkah sweater. I love the Holiday season, but not just in that I wish I celebrated Christmas kind of way. While I do love Christmas parties and mistletoe and days off work and It's a Wonderful Life and Christmas decorations, I totally love Hanukkah, mostly because of how all out my parents and their friends went about it when I was growing up. Hanukkah combines all of my favorite holiday elements: fried food, candles, chocolate coins, whimsical spinning tops and like four dozen Hanukkah songs in Hebrew!
I do sometimes feel left out - I've never celebrated Christmas or had a Christmas tree, and the PC holiday equality didn't really kick in until I was 11 or so, so I still grew up with Christmas parties and tree ornaments as prizes in cereal boxes (do they do that anymore?). I don't really wish for any of it, but I also don't feel like I have to deprive myself of a holiday sweater - It never occurred to either of my grandmothers to knit me one when either of them knitted - probably because Hanukkah isn't really a big deal in Israel, or because they came of age before irony.
When I looked last year all I could find were dog sweaters, so I guess the selection is expanding, or getting easier to find, but still - it's not quite what I'm looking for. I want a really fun, knitted sweater with a dreidel or menorah on it, that's clearly for kids. Most of them are appropriately awful (and by that I mean awesome) but they're not quite the Hanuukkah sweater I always wished I had.

Sadly the closest I've seen to what I want only comes in Build a Bear size. I guess I'll keep looking. Search off?

blogger for one

2007-11-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, when a huge group of girls I know signed up to run a half-marathon, I of course declined to join the fun and sign up because:

a. I hate running
b. I hate waking up early on the weekend
c. I already work out, and even though I want to be in better shape, I'd really rather spend my free time getting better at physical activities that I enjoy and have a chance at getting good at

Some of the girls who signed up worked out even less than me (or didn't work out at all) - it seemed really painful to think about someone who doesn't even regularly work out training to run this kind of superhuman distance. But definitely admirable - I mean good for them if they're really going to take it seriously and train for this great cause.
One of these girls, whose blog I read fairly regularly out of bored curiosity, linked to a new blog she'd started to chart her marathon training progress.
My friend and I checked it every once in a while and found it a little bit funny, since her running blog just kept explaining why she wasn't running. Of course there were even some good reasons why she wasn't running, and nobody really judged her for it, except that it's a really popular half-marathon with a huge waiting list, so you'd think if you were not able to properly train for this really difficult feat you might just drop off and let another runner take your spot, and write off the registration costs as charity. Instead, the girls who didn't train ran the half-marathon anyway, and came in a little slower than a walking pace, and were subsequently resented for bragging about finishing the half by those who had trained hard and ran it in half the time while sustaining horrible, painful injuries.
I guess this girl must have seen that all of the hits on her statcounter were from a single location, because my friend was basically the only one reading her blog who she couldn't identify, so she must have figured out who it was. Of course, there is tons of friction between them from the past. When I randomly checked the final posting I lost it laughing - it was a personal letter to my friend that stopped just short of mentioning her name - it even mentioned the tech company she works at, which she must have seen in the logs. Only about an hour after I sent it to my friend and checked back again to have another laugh, I saw that it had been taken down, which could only mean that she checks her statcounter even more obsessively than I do. It's especially funny since my friend hadn't even seen this personal letter to her, which had been up for weeks, and the moment she read it it was taken down, as if the blogger had been waiting for weeks to do it.
While this is all totally catty gossip, gossip is never really interesting in and of itself - more a springboard for telling compelling stories and analyzing social and cultural patterns, and the psychological analysis of the lengths to which people will go. One day when early cyberspace is studied to examine its social internet behavior, this just might be one of many case studies on the psychological effects of interpersonal friction, female antagonism, and blogging for a perceived audience of one.

stats

2007-11-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

My friend told me when we were hanging out this week (at Trad'r Sam's in the Richmond, sipping from a gigantic cocktail in a Salad Bowl with cocktail umbrellas and straws) that he has so much free time at work, his friends can't post blog entries fast enough to keep him entertained, and he keeps up with every single Valleywag post.
That's impossible! I said. That's like 80 posts a day!
It got me wondering who, besides him and my few friends who comment, is still reading my blog, which hasn't really been getting much love from me.

I finally got around to getting the statcounter back up yesterday - it had become inactive when Blogger forced me to upgrade, and I wasn't able to figure out how to get it back up until they redid part of their UI, and then I just forgot for a while as my postings have dropped in frequency and quality. Obviously for personal blogs de-listed from the Blogger directory and as unpromoted as mine, the statcounter is mostly to satisfy my curiosity - because there's only a few dozen unique visits, and I can usually figure out who most of them are by their location.
I have to say I'm flattered with the results so far.

I'm sure most of these are friends reading from multiple computers, or who have me on their RSS reader and maybe can't be bothered to keep up, especially when I'm probably not working hard enough to deserve their regular readership, but I hadn't posted in a day so it couldn't all be RSS hits - anyway it's totally flattering that this many people are still reading my blog, when it could still really improve in quality.
It's like when I get comments on postings from friends of friends like Nato's roomie Joel and find out they're still reading my blog - that's so nice!
I've definitely sometimes given thought to taking down some of my old blog entries, like the more embarrassing or inappropriate ones or just the really stupid ones, but I figure so few people are reading this let alone digging through archives, and they're basically all in my social circle, and nothing in it is that bad. Also, even though this is really flawed logic, I feel like if someone is going to go to so much trouble to find my blog, they kind of deserve to see it. It's hard to imagine it happening, except in pre-dating due diligence background checks (what potential employer would really go to the trouble?), and really - I never had anything to hide, because it's no real secret what a huge nerd I am.

Elaine's uninentional Haiku

2007-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

I love sports because
they're so irrational - a
perfect kind of love

She adds:
"they're always there for you and you love them through all their imperfections"

how could I not love her?

2007-11-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

Another e-mail from my mom:

Your sister is depressed that she ate too much and now she believes that she is fat. Please talk to her.
Love,
Ima

2007-11-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

You know you're having a bad week when you feel emotional while watching an Israeli humor Anti-Smoking ad.

fall wedding

2007-11-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

I love weddings. They are so much fun - the great party, the dressing up, the drinks and dancing and usually good food, and if you're lucky your date wears a tux!
Besides the red-eye jet lag and my pathetically low tolerance for Boston's fall icy wind, it was a great time. I got to see Emily and go to Celtics opening night too. Boston sports are so fun because everybody boos and trashtalks the opponents so hard, and screams so loud when they score. It was really great to hang out with Emily, especially because we know each other so well I don't have to feel bad if I'm jetlagged, or out of my element, or being a jackass.
The wedding was a ton of fun. The bride and groom set the tone of the reception immediately by making a huge entrance to the ballroom for their first dance. You can't see it in this video, but they begin dancing a waltz (I think it was a waltz, my memory fails me after all of the Vodka Jon's really fun Russian friend had us drinking), and then the groom approaches the band to talk to them about the music, until they start playing Let's get it Started, kicking off a So You Think You Can Dance dance. They do things in wedding attire that have likely never been done.

Macy's gaff

2007-11-02T11:09:00.001-07:00

I’d been looking for the perfect pair of shoes to complete the outfit I’m wearing to a wedding this weekend, but without much luck. As a last-minute effort, I looked on Macys.com and saw a few cute pairs of shoes on sale, so I decided I’d swing by the Union Square Macy’s on the way home from work before my red-eye at night.

My feet are small for my height, but a little bit on the wide side, so most attractive shoes for women make my foot look like a sad overweight girl trying to squeeze into a tiny dress, and finding great shoes is no walk in the park. I had to have tried on 40 or 50 pairs and it was starting to get late, but miraculously this satin Alfani pump actually looked good on my foot– so I asked the saleswoman to bring me the left shoe and had a seat. And stood up and looked around. And sat down again. It probably took her 15 minutes to come back, but this was understandable since she was slammed.

I walk around the room in them and it feels like walking on an actual cloud, so I drop them in the box and walk to the counter to make the purchase. I feel bad about having wasted over an hour of getting ready time at Macys, but at least I found these great shoes, and I still had just enough time. My mother says a pair of Alfanis is always good to have around (not sure if that’s true if you’re under 40, but these were cute, and on sale). I’m ready to make the swiping motion with my credit card and am just waiting to see the total come up on the screen when one of the two sales girls behind the counter say “Ma’am? We can’t sell you these shoes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“These shoes are supposed to go back to the manufacturer.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“I don’t think anything, but the computer says they’re supposed to go back to the manufacturer. That’s why the price is coming back as $0.01. They don’t have a price in the system.”

“But I saw them on the website.”

“They might only be available on the online.”

“But they’re the only ones that fit me.”

“I’m sorry ma'am.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t sell me the shoes.”

“We’re not allowed to, ma’am. I’m sorry.” The two look at each other, then look at me dumbly, feigning some kind of sympathy.

So I turned around and walked out.

I guess I should have demanded to speak with the manager and refused to take no for an answer, but I was in such shock from the confusion over why a department store would refuse to sell me merchandise they had on the floor and that I intended to purchase for the marked price. It doesn’t make any sense! Plus, I had wasted a lot of time there, and if I was not going to be getting my shoes, I didn’t intend to waste any more time waiting for the manager to show up so I could make a scene, since I was already short on time to finish packing and shower. If anything, they as sales people should have recognized the ridiculousness of the situation and called their manager over to see if anything could be done. Who in their right mind walks away from a sale and turns an eager customer away like that?

I didn’t really feel like giving Macy’s my money at this point (probably ever – is that even too drastic?) – because there is nothing more frustrating than having someone waste your time and then deny you the right to buy something which you want, they have and they should want you to have. It seems like a total failure of capitalism – the store presents the goods for sale, I have the money, I want to obtain the goods, the store will not sell them to me. It’s all speculation, but I suspect this would never have happened at Nordstrom or Bloomingdales: stores where they pull every string to make it work, even when the transaction is a return.

2007-10-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

My mom's response to my e-mail containing pictures of my brother and I in our Halloween costumes:

"It was a very original costume. Next time if you want to be blond you should put makeup."

for one taste of them

2007-10-26T10:06:00.001-07:00

Since I apparently lead a charmed life, a spot opened up at the end of the day yesterday to go to Teatro ZinZanni with this ad network. Even though it was my only time to look for critical components of my Halloween costume before this weekend, and I was supposed to meet Elaine later, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to the decadent dinner theater and drinks on someone else's tab - I'd been wanting to go for a while, but didn't think I'd do it anytime soon. Plus, I asked Elaine if I should flake on her and she said, "Zinzanni is one of those things everyone should do and not pay for. Like Cirque de Soleil."
God, did we eat and drink. I thought it was a hundred times more impressive than the time I went to Supper Club on a publisher's tab - I've heard Supper Club is less impressive on weeknights, but I doubt the same can be said for ZinZanni. The circus tricks were much more impressive, and the food was better too.
I did make the mistake of sitting at the end of the table, most easily accessible by the cast when they come up in between acts to mess with you. Monsieur Verognier kept coming up to me and running his pointed index-finger thimble down my side to my waist, making my fork spin with the magnet in it, making the hairs on my arm stand up on end with it, giving me horrible chills with a giant vibrating monster hand on my head and making a small bird marionette dance on my table. The second time he came over, he concluded the mild harassment by sticking a folded-up note into my shirt, reading:
"Your lips
Are two rosepetAl rivers,
For one tAste of them,
I burn.
-V"

take your time

2007-10-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been going to SF MOMA a lot, and finally using that membership I got this time last year, mostly because I wanted to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit again, and show it to other people. I went again last night with my friend, but we mostly talked and caught up and had more fun talking to each other than looking at the exhibit. I thought that I'd see something new, or that it would be as exciting as it was the first and second times I saw it, but there's something about seeing an exhibit for the first time that's magic and can't be duplicated. Just like how going to the museum by yourself is a totally different experience, or going to museums with Maya when she was visiting was unlike with anyone else (because she's so meticulously attentive, so great to go to museums with).
When I saw the exhibit last week I was by myself, and there were a lot of people there, and everybody was so animated and having so much fun with it. There was a line at one point to look over a ledge, and these two girls were at the ledge laughing hysterically and saying "Aaaauhhhhh. Oh!" and at one point even "Ew!," and everybody in line is just dying to see what it is and wondering what the hell it could possibly be, and then as it became each person in line's turn and they saw how mundane the thing was, they'd start giggling hysterically, like they were realizing how great it was because of the anticipation preceding it. It was so fantastic!

workplace ambush

2007-09-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Web dev dude appears in my cube. We had talked at a drinks thing over a month ago, where I mentioned my boyfriend, staying over at my boyfriend's house, taking BART to work from my boyfriend's house, and my boyfriend at least a dozen times.
"Wow, I didn't know you ever made it to this side of the office."
"I came over here just to say hi to you."
Awkward.
S walks by and I engage him in accounting talk for a few minutes while he notices ominously hovering web dev dude and comes up with an excuse to vanish.
"You guys seem pretty busy."
"Yeah, I'm in a job transition."
Blah, blah, we talk about my internal transfer. Not sure why he would be coming over to my cube during the work day to talk to me a month after the last time we had an actual conversation, when he knows I have a boyfriend.
"So, what are you doing for lunch today?"
I go into some excuse based loosely on true facts about how I'm supposed to call some friend of a friend during my lunch hour.
"Okay, see you later," he says while walking away.
It feels rude that I blew him off and didn't suggest we do another time, because he might just be trying to be friends, and I would have made an effort with someone else, but I'm pretty sure I saw this scene in our sexual harassment training video, where module after module this woman leads the IT temp on until he's totally obsessed with her.
Not that that's realistic, but it would have been easier to say yes to a lunch invite if he was bringing friends, or if it was otherwise disguised it as something not totally inappropriate like trying to date your coworker who has a boyfriend.

when work is slow

2007-09-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Crazy things happen when work is so slow that I get through enough blogs to read Adfreak.
Going to have to add these to my wishlist:

2007-09-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

L: I want to be perfect.
E: peh, i want to be me
L: I don't. I want to be perfect. fake-me.
E: why- thats no fun
L: it would be fun if I were
E: i'd rather be exactly what i am and live in that, and find people who make me feel ok with it and who complement it
E: then i can stop worrying and just be
L: I'm working towards achieving ideal me.
E: hm
E: i gave up on that
E: its working out really well
L: because I think I'll never find anyone who complements needy-me
E: thats a lie
E: every pot has a lid
L: I wish I believed that
L: I think you can find a makeshift lid for every pot but you're always at a yard sale
L: um. nevermind

effortlessly fashionable

2007-08-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

Being into fashion never seemed to me like a great way to spend one's time. It's not directly correlated with looking good, it demands a lot of time and money to be into, and it's often totally arbitrary, and by that I mean not directly correlated with looking good, and sometimes even correlated with looking bad, yet fashionable.
Also, I think it's important to do things you excel at, and I've never excelled at reading fashion magazines or spending a lot of money.

But it seems like I'm still sort of expected to keep up appearances and stay moderately fashionable, because even before middle school mean fashionable girls learn to talk trash about girls that aren't fashionable, and even some of the nice, fashionable girls notice when you aren't, and might even talk to the mean ones in the bathroom about your unfashionability at an event. And what's so funny is how something that's supposed come down to subjective taste can turn into some universal discussion of how obviously wrong something is by being last season or a trend you shouldn't follow that says something about you. And the fear is the talk is never just about what you're wearing. It's like a license to trash talk you up and down as if looking good and appropriate and staying current are your only face values.

Even though I love dressing up, It's hard to get into when you actually have hips and waist and thighs, and fashion looks like this:

I'm sorry. I don't look good in maternity wear. You can argue that everyone looks good in these dresses, and I've seen girls successfully rock them, but the ones that are long enough to cover my legs just make me look like I tied a potato sack around my ribs (or am hiding baby weight), and the short ones make those of us who aren't leggy just look as stocky as a dodgeball.

I don't know about you, but I'm sitting this one out.

if you could see me now

2007-08-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

you'd see me in the absurdly nice Hotel 1000 in downtown Seattle, where instead of one very large bed, I have two queen-sized beds. What a waste. And a shame I'm only here one night, by myself, and due to a delayed flight can't enjoy the very large bathtub alongside a glass wall (designed so you can watch television in the bathtub!). I love the decadence that could only be conceived of by the hospitality industry.

coit tower is red

2007-08-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

I have no idea why. I just saw it on the way down to the laundry room.
I love my apartment. Even when it's too foggy to see the whole view.
I am exhausted beyond comprehension for no discernable reason. Almost everyone else I've talked to is too, which leads me to believe it's the entre-saison, even though it's only the beginning of August, and feels like November.
My life makes no sense to the point that everything feels like an absurdist joke. Not bad, just hilarious.
Last night Elaine invited me out to North Beach Lobster Shack, but when Natalie and I got there the benches were stacked on the tables and the woman said they were closing because no one had come in in the last hour. Which was surprising, because the place actually got very good reviews, and other restaurants in the area weren't empty either. I called Elaine asking her if she wanted to go somewhere else, but she said she and Mark had been looking forward to it all week! We asked them if they could stay open and they said yes, but they were no longer selling alcohol. But we could bring our own. So Elaine sends Mark to the liquor store, and he comes back with Tecate, so we're drinking our own Tecate on the side of our lobster rolls at an empty restaurant, which is funny for so many reasons I can't even begin. Elaine is like me, and finds everything even slightly unusual to be inanely hilarious, which is one of the best reasons why we get along.
On the way out Mark straggles in the doorway of the bar next door watching the Giants game and we caught Bond's record home run, which seems like it must be important.
Not that now is the time, because I'm too tired to be coherent right now, but I really want to start blogging frequently and in quality again, and not just blogging poorly when I've been out drinking and needing to take down the posts because they're that terrible.

layover land

2007-07-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

I am in Frankfurt at a sort-of-French-themed cafe. It is maybe the cutest cafe ever. There are tiny boxes of tea and chocolates, tiny Victorian furniture, a harp, a painting of cakes and tarts, and embroidered blue fabric wallpaper. I would take pictures but my camera is in my checked luggage and I doubt my Razr would really capture it. Also, I still haven't overcome my guilty American tourist awkwardness that I never shook off in a year in Europe. I ordered a slice of quiche and forgot that small pieces of ham go without saying, and ordered a water and forgot that glass bottled goes without saying (ahhh...Europe), so now I am drinking Perrier from a wine glass next to a plate of uneaten pieces of ham. It is Monday, so all of the museums are closed. I still have five hours to kill before my flight, so now I'm debating where and when to drink beer and eat dinner.
Though I have the itinerary from hell with 3 stopovers, it's still been mostly pleasant, besides being hit on by a TSA employee at SFO (it's hard to say no to a lunch date when the guy inviting you is holding you up at baggage inspection). Air Canada runs a tight ship, and on my flight from Toronto to London I was placed in seat 3A, which is a window seat in what would usually be first or business class - they were assigning coach passengers to extra seats in the front, which was kind of like winning a lottery I didn't know I entered. Heathrow was a zoo because of the thwarted bombings two days ago, extra fun with my Benadryl and jetlag hangover.
This middle-aged German man just asked me in German if (I presume) this was an iBook or a Powerbook, and I said Macbook. I think he told me he has a Powerbook at home, but I'm not certain.
It's so strange to be in Europe again, seeing yet another 14th century cathedral, wandering with a heavy backpack trying to decide which cafe to sit at, and tiptoeing around languages I don't understand. I never quite acclimated to being a tourist.

the summer of Lee

2007-06-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

I proclaim this to be the summer of Lee.
That is, this last year has been lovely but felt so unstable and in flux and on the way there but not there, and I thought I'd be somewhere that I'm still on the way to, and I never make time for the projects I say I want to work on and I never blog anymore and haven't revolutionized my industry, and how am I 24 in 3 weeks and I still haven't written a novel?
It must be delusions of grandeur, because I was sure by now I would be this accomplished superhero rather than this normal almost 24-year-old still getting it together. How long can you really get it together for?
My friend Elaine says my heart is always in the right place, but 10 steps ahead of my head, and that is how I end up overextending myself, getting stressed out and being hard on myself. Not untrue. Okay. Very true.
Last spring I turned my life around from broken elbow and unsatisfying social life to awesome in the matter of a month. Maybe it's something about summer.
Life is really good, even in addition to the whole living every 13-year-old girl's dream of riding public transportation to my job at an advertising agency in the City, attending numerous social events and dating someone great.
My new apartment makes me happy on a regular basis. I love walking up the hills to it, I love walking up the three flights of stairs with my legs burning and seeing the bridge and downtown and the bay at the top, and I love having space to stretch out. My roommate is super cool. She is five years older. I am lucky she picked me. I feel like I won the lottery.
I feel like I can't waste my situation in decadent relaxation, casual work, excessive drinking and idle chitchat. I need to earn and deserve it by working really hard, being inspiringly creative and intensely productive and generally become an amazing person. After my vacation, I guess. If nothing else, this is a great place to gorge myself with scenery and luxury and indulgent enjoyment. I could be really good at that.

Yes!

2007-06-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Would you expect anything less than this on my blog?

Blog revamp coming soon.

you didn't really think

2007-05-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

somehow it's midnight and I have a 9 am client call I'm not ready for and I went out way too late with coworkers thinking it was a good idea because it's 2007 and I think it's going to be the blogging generation I could sleep through unless I stay up drinking it all up now, anyway somehow I can't turn down a free drinks party hosted by a publisher at 7:30 pm when I've worked till 7:30 pm, a publisher who coincidentally acquired us and may or may not pass through FTC approval, and I stayed at work late doing media analytics pretending like I can write a novel and still succeed at business without really trying and do it all, I always hate people who can do it all but then I wonder if I can be one of those people despite being someone who makes it despite all odds because if I'm nothing else I am hard working.
so I didn't turn down a drink in the Mission with two friends from work, and one asked another if he liked boys which is something I could never do but she was right, and here I was thinking he was just east coast, and anyway, it's not even about knowing the right people in this industry, it's just about the right place. The right people can only help you get to the right place. How is it the internet boom of 2006 and no one told us - we've all been bracing for recession but maybe systems work differently now and you just have to bend your mind the right way or be left behind.
I am moving soon.
To a place with a view.
Where hopefully my boyfriend will actually visit me.
I keep thinking these big thoughts like I could finish that half-written novel or I could live in New York or Seattle or some other great American success City.
I want to start blogging regularly again, and finishing that half-written novel.
It's just so easy to let life eat you. Or think work is enough. Or anything else is.
And God knows my friends from work drink enough to keep themselves busy outside of work.
But I have to start living life like it has a time limit. Otherwise, that's just how people end up 40 without accomplishments that don't fit on their family tree or resume.
Because everyone knows love isn't enough, or that big love, or that perfect resume.

microserf?

2007-05-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

How is it that I went to bed and woke up a Microsoft employee?

And how long before my department gets sold again?

why I am canceling my united mileage plus visa card after I redeem my miles

2007-04-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

I am on hold trying to redeem my United miles for a trip to visit my relatives. This is the 7th time I've called. My average hold times have ranged from 30 to 50 minutes. I've reached new levels of stunned annoyance I had never thought possible. And it just keeps getting worse.

1. The Hold Music
It is a one-minute long muzak/classical piece that repeats over and over again. A portion of this piece is frequently used in television commercials. It's not so much the repetition of this song 50 to 70 times in a call that is the problem - it's the abrasive, deafening static that accompanies it. There is nothing quite like a horrible, screeching, static-filled, repetition of the same song that you can't turn on too low of a volume because the intermittent informational recording could be mistaken for the reservations agent to make you feel like an appreciated, loyal customer.

2. The Reservations Agents
I believe I am speaking to a woman in India. In fact, I believe every time I call I am speaking to the same woman in India, or maybe one of two women, because they have the exact same voice, but two different temperaments. One sounds mostly unsympathetic without being bitter, and actually tries hard to help me find a reservation that works, and says you're welcome when I say thank you. The other is totally apathetic, annoyed and embittered at my unreasonable requests to know of any return flight at all in the month of July. There may be other women, and I believe this only because each follows a slightly different process of asking me for the details of my account and reservation options - some asking for my mileage plus number first, some selecting a departing flight before searching for a return flight. They are all trained well to tell me they will be silent while searching for flight options, and to apologize for not being able to meet all of my travel needs.

3. The System
Maybe the problem is not the fact that the reservations agents are in India, or that they neglected to tell me it was possible to place a courtesy hold on a partial reservation until my 5th call, or that she (/they?) sounds annoyed at the horrible misfortune of having to assist a moronic American nimrod like myself in redeeming 75,000 miles.
Maybe it's the fact that researching travel options is impossible on the site (it shows an error message indicating that travel to that airport s not available at all for redemption of miles) and that upon finally reaching a reservation agent, they have no way of checking for any available dates, and instead have to check day by day through multiple airlines for any availability of any kind, and you could be on the phone for 20 minutes looking for return trips when there are none available for two months. Sometimes when I call their system is updating certain airlines, and so they cannot tell me what the availability is, and cannot tell me when it will complete updating. One agent says at midnight the system is updated, another tells me it constantly gets updated. Each time I call, even an hour later, completely different flight options are available. And so it's not hard to imagine why hold times can be over an hour.

I realize trying to book a transatlantic flight 2 months in advance during peak season means maybe I should anticipate some inconvenience. But it's taken me a long time to accumulate 75,000 miles - that was a lot of United flights and dollars spent on the United card. And when flights are $1600+ and I have the miles, it would be stupid of me not to try to use them if I can find anything that works. I've never heard of anyone having an experience like this with Continental. And it's not the Bangalorean ladies I blame either. Somewhere on this side of the Atlantic there are people whose job it is to make a tedious process less painful for the customers it is tasked with serving in order to keep them loyal - which is the whole point of frequent flyer programs. And somewhere, somebody's not doing their job.

so over the laundromat

2007-04-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

I loathe doing laundry so much that I put it off until the situation is abominable and it is the night before I go away for the weekend.
So I'm there by myself at Brainwash and there's a few dozen people there for spoken word night, which is not as great there as you might think, but getting a great turnout for Brainwash. I go about my business in the room where the machines are, and I notice this guy is getting awfully close to me at the change machines, but I figure it's just a coincidence. He smiles at me and I half-smile back and look busy. He looks like a decent guy, he's black and probably in his 20s, and when he whisper-mumbles something to me which turns out to be could I watch his laptop I said no problem. As I take my clothes out of the machine he asks me in the same half-coherent whisper-mumble how many times a week I go to the gym, and I look at him perplexed as if I can't tell he's hitting on me and say, usually three, and walk away as he says something presumably about my figure that I can't hear and ignore. He keeps trying to talk to me and asks where I'm from, and I say San Jose and look busy, and wonder when it would be appropriate to tell him I have a boyfriend, and he says "I'm glad you're here now with us in the West Bay," and he's hard to hear and very confusing (West bay?), so I figure I will avoid him, but he keeps somehow showing up near where I am.
I go over to the other table and sit and read my book Jon let me borrow about a microlending bank in Bangladesh while waiting for the dryer, and this other guy asks me what I'm reading, which reminds me of a bad come-on at this same laundromat that resulted in one very bad date, but he says, "Oh, that's by the guy who won the nobel prize, right?" and he seems like a nice enough person who actually was interested in the book and he is keeping that other guy from talking to me, he's probably in his late 30s with semi-gray hair and doesn't seem too creepy, but I don't really want to start a full-on conversation with him, especially not when he replies, "So are you going to Bangladesh to do the same thing?" and I try to cut it short, and it is at about this point that I notice he is folding an awful lot of washcloths, and at first I think he must be really into using washcloths in the shower until I see that he is folding like, 400 of these. At this point I figure it can't hurt to ask, "So what's with the towels?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Um, I'm curious."
"Well, you could guess."
"Do you run a giant car wash?"
"Ha ha, no."
"A homeless shelter?"
"No, but that's a good guess."
"Um, a massage parlor?"
"That's kind of in the same realm. You're close."
I'm really over this guessing game but by now I am pretty curious, and what could it possibly be? So I finally just ask him to tell me.
He says, "Did you read the article in SF Weekly last week?"
"No, I think I missed it."
"I'm part of a group just down a few blocks from here that does orgasmic meditation and massage, usually involving a male stroking the female on her genitals, and we use these towels because we practice safe sex. So we wash them after each use. Each one of these towels is going to touch a person."
Whoa.
Although it's going through my head that that's not meditation, it's foreplay, and a towel does not the safe sex make, and these women expose their genitals to towels he's just laying out on the semi-clean table at the laundromat, and it's creepy that he's going into so much detail about this, all I can do is nod, and say "interesting" and try to go back to reading.
"So this is my job," he says.
"You guys take turns?" (I'm not sure why in the hell I asked that)
"This is the job I wanted. I want to touch every person who comes to the center, so I get to touch all of these towels, which are going to be used."
Holy shit.
"I'm Chris. You don't have to tell me what your name is. It's nice to meet you."
Yikes.
"Do you like massage?"
I need out of this conversation.
"Sure...uh-huh."
He tells me they are running a course to teach back massages at the center, and that for only $25 I can have a free massage from one of the students.
"Cool."
He puts all of the little towels into a giant, not particularly hygienic-looking straw bag and tells me to enjoy the book, and to come by the center if I'd like a massage. I wish him luck (what else can you say?) and he leaves.
The mumbling guy comes up to me again.
On the other side of my cart I hear "You whwooo shmooo."
"I'm sorry?"
"You look smooth."
"I have a boyfriend," I say.
"I said, you looked spooked, what did he say to you?"
I feel like a jackass.
"He told me he did some crazy erotic massage with the towels."
"I heard that," he said, and took his clothes and left.
My next apartment is going to have laundry in the building, I swear.

they call this geekery.

2007-03-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

All of the sudden I wish I were nerdier.

HTML HEAD Sterling Silver Earrings
"While we cannot ensure that Google will properly index the contents of your brain, these earrings could help."

Also:

Circuit Board Drop Dangle Earrings
"All the style of a circuit board with none of the pesky lead poisoning!"

time-capsule

2007-03-06T00:42:00.000-08:00

Since I am still oddly "jetlagged" from going staying out dancing until 5 AM all weekend, I couldn't sleep and so I screwed around on the internet and googled myself (oh come on, you know you do it too, and should - regularly) and found all new stuff. Wonder if Google just tweaked their organic search algorithm. Anyway, among other lost items in the negligible time-capsule were my first letter to the editor to my community college newspaper when I was 17 (which had never been digitized as far as I knew) and this, which I can only assume is Melinda from the Daily Bruin's blog from when I was a senior in college. I had totally forgotten about that weirdo Iowan kid who somehow ended up on the hotel bed we were all sharing at the conference and went for it while I was trying to sleep by so-seductively rubbing my arm until I actually asked him to leave. Sometimes I don't miss college at all. I just wonder if she thought I was reading it then - I mean she did use my full name. And it was funny. I imagine she didn't expect I'd be reading it 2 years later.

After returning from Las Vegas

2007-03-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

My Coworker:

link

- Have you seen that?
OH MY GOD
the last thing i need is being scanned in the nude by a bunch of highschool drop outs
god i HATE TSA

poisson.

2007-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

Coming along at the last minute to lunch with a publisher, it occurred to me that Roy’s was really only exceptional for the fish. Jon had been trying to get me to eat fish for a while, and hand-fed me salmon and tuna nigiri over the weekend. Since I haven’t eaten meat in 10 years, I thought it might be interesting to try fish again, to maybe make me more versatile when I eat out or travel. The last week or so has dragged at work and made me crave oddly safe ways to make my life more exciting. So when I walked in I decided maybe this would be the right meal to order a real fish entrée.

A lobster potsticker, some ahi sashimi with caviar and a butterfish later (butterfish is so cool, it’s like it serves you as you eat it, like - would you like another bite? and another light layer gently peels down before you) I was experiencing fish-protein overload.

I was worried I might have a stomachache, but I really just feel kind of fuzzy, like there’s water in my ears or somehow otherwise part of my brain is submerged in water. I’ve heard about these protein highs, that people get when they eat meat after being vegetarian for a while.

So now it’s 3:00, I’m behind after a 2-hour lunch, sitting in my office chair feeling like I’m floating-

how charmed lives are finite

2007-02-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about looking for a new place to live for a while, not too seriously - I love my roommates and it's such a pain in the ass to move. But I realized while walking home on Sunday afternoon and seeing a plastic bag of excrement on my way home (the second such plastic bag this month!) that it would be nice to live in a neighborhood where the smell of urine isn't so common, because I do enjoy doing errands on foot, and I actually can afford it, and I work in the City now so I could live in a beautiful, enchanting neighborhood instead of the leather & urine district. I guess until now I've been secretly hoping someone would just ask me to move in and make it effortless, but it might be time I actually start looking.

Our friend came over last night. His live-in girlfriend (or rather, he's the live-in boyfriend, since she was there first) told him she couldn't do it anymore, and he stayed the night on our spare mattress on the floor. I told friends over a year ago that I saw this coming, so I'm almost surprised it lasted so long, but I'm not sure what either of them is going to do - because not only do they occupy the same stiflingly tiny San Francisco art scene, but neither of them works more than 3 days a week - when you share a room in a 4-bedroom and your rent is so low you can afford to rent a studio to paint in and still work only 3 days a week, any breakup is a full lifestyle change. So in a way, doing that I'm young and I don't have to have a full-time job or have a lot of money thing puts you a lot closer to a dependency like a 1950s marriage, even if you're not the one with the live-in boyfriend or girlfriend, because the breakup of anyone in the apartment could put the entire household in flux (which could be up to 8 people!) - and then it stops being about relationships and starts being about the money.

the tragedy!

2007-01-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

My roommate just called to tell me my bike's missing.
It was just last night we were riding back from the Mission and I said I wonder if it's finally time for a better bicycle. But my 1950s, $15 garage sale bicycle, fixed with 3 Saturdays of love at the bike kitchen, ridden many a Saturday afternoon to the park and many a Thursday night out drinking, which I ride to the gym because I don't want to walk down 9th street in the dark by myself, with its gears I can't quite figure out how to change, my stylin' faded rustcolored bicycle that I never had to worry about getting stolen - I wasn't ready to give up on it yet. Now it looks like it's been stolen. I swear I locked the patio when I left this morning. And our neighborhood really isn't that bad. I mean - I didn't think it was.
Sigh.

subtext

2006-12-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

On my second visit to Ruby Skye, which I called one of the clubbiest clubs in San Francisco and in which I only lasted 45 minutes the first time I went (to be fair, just after the Love Parade on the most techno-heavy weekend in the City), I was reminded of two things:
1. Regardless of how many drinks I have, I can't turn off my meticulously self-conscious analytical subtext about the music and dancing boys and dresswearing girls, and inevitably feel like what I'm doing is a form of domestic tourism and I am something like an imposter.
2. Even though I totally have a great time going out and dancing, one of my favorite activities at a very clubby dance club is to drink too much and vocalize some of my critical subtext in the form of raving lectures regarding such subjects as Gwen Stefani's image reflecting the decadent consumerism of a nation at war, and these raving lectures are not always appreciated per se by the other members of my party, who at best find them funny in that this-girl-is-crazy kind of way. (The girl in our party turns to her fiance and laughs, in good fun of course, "She's acting crazy!" which more than anything was redundantly stating the obvious, because that was the point, what else are you supposed to do to have a good time at a club when your own private narrative about the club that you can't turn off is so funny?)
She's a very sweet girl, and I'm past expecting most people to relate to me for being a nerd.
What's great is the girl adjacent to me at work likes me precisely because I'm such a nerd, and she thinks I'm just like her except for the fact that I'm a total doormat and she's not, so she's made it a point to teach me the ways of not being a pushover and gently trying to get what I want, which I tell her is probably impossible because of my pathological running self-conscious commentary, but I suppose is worth a shot.

I'm worried that I'm burning out in some way, from working too much too tediously at work during a crazy transitional period of undefined duration.
I crashed out halfway through National Novel Writing Month with about half a novel and the utter inability to write a single word without feeling that it is tedious, redundant, self-indulgent crap. And on Sunday, feeling like getting outdoors but not being able to get ahold of my usual hang-out buddies (on ski trips, moving, with misplaced cell phones out of town), I took a solo trip to some parks I usually have a great time at alone, but somehow it just felt like work to be out there in 40-degree weather by myself. Being as busy as I have been, I can't get over feeling guilty for spending my free time doing something not either productive or highly pleasurable, and I obviously need to get over it the old-fashioned way, by becoming absorbed with some pageturner trash novel in hardcover and blogging a lot until I can write again, at which point I can regularly scold myself for not spending my free time writing brilliant fiction while I'm not at work.

the russian hookup

2006-11-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

-Hello, E-?
-Hi!
-Hey, how've you been?
-Good, I've been good. How about you?
-Really good. Listen, I'm calling because - naturally I thought of you - my roommate had this minor eye surgery at SF General, and they didn't prescribe her any painkillers, and she's just dying. So I was wondering -
-Oh, you should get her some Vicoden.
-Yeah, do you know where I can get some drugs for her?
-I could make some calls - is it like a stinging pain, or a throbbing pain, or does it just hurt?

-Is it a stinging pain, a throbbing pain or -
-It just feels like they cut my eye open. Like when you have your wisdom teeth out and it hurts because they've cut you open.

-It just feels like they cut her open.
-Oh. Yeah, you should get some Vicoden or something they give you after oral surgery.
-Do you have any?
-I could make some calls.
-Could you? That'd be great.
-Sure, I'll call you right back.

The phone rings five minutes later.
-Hey.
-Hi.
-I made some calls to my Russian friend - and my friend, being Russian, has Russian drugs. So if your roommate is okay with taking Russian drugs...
-Are they...shady?
-No, they sell them over the counter in Russia. It's like Ketamine, but for humans, not animals.
I put E- on speaker as he explained the history of Ketamine.

An hour later, E- came over with an unmarked pharmacy bottle containing 8 small green pills. I offered him a glass of water, which he gladly accepted, sitting on our floor to roll a splif.
He looks at my roommate, lying back in her bed grimacing with ice over her eye.
-I'm going to put some cannabis in your tea.
-Okay.
Now she's losing interest in finishing complete sentences, but hopefully she feels a little bit better.

Acronot #2: bl-iatus

2006-11-07T17:03:00.000-08:00

This blog *should* be on hiatus for the month of November for nanowrimo. I can't make any promises though.

Virtually awesome

2006-10-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

Overheard in the kitchen:

"I can't believe I totally made out with a guy on second life."
"...what? hahahahaha."
"It totally sounds funny once you process it."
"I think it's funny pretty much the whole way through."
"You can make out on second life?"
"You can have sex in second life!"
"He wanted to go all the way!"
"You don't even know each other!" "We don't even know each other!"
"Yeah, he asked me to go to the bathhouse!"

"He just said 'click the orb' and I was like, ooh, what's that?"

"Can you get out of it?"
"Yeah, you can just hit escape."
"You can totally do so many funny things. If I played it I'd be like, 'come here, hug me.' escape. 'just kidding. okay, for real. hug me.' escape. 'now for real, hug me.'"
"You'd be an asshole!"
"ha hahahahaha."

"I was totally innocent, he was like, 'let me show you around' and I was like 'I don't even know what to expect!'"

"Afterwards he...held me and we watched the sunset...I can't go back online tonight, he's sent me two messages, he's totally going to jump me."

"Apparently, you can totally like purchase genitals for your second life character."
"Oh my god."
"Yeah. I bet there's a whole culture about it."
"I have two penises."
"ha ha!"
"I have one on my head."
"I'm a unicorn."

"I wanna be a floozy on second life."

"Yeah, they totally have prostitutes on second life."
"I should be a prostitute on second life."
"Oh my god, you totally should."
"That would be so easy!"
"All you have to do is click the orb"
"I could quit my day job"
"I think you'd probably have to learn to...talk, too."
(in monotone) "oh wow, give it to me, big boy."

"Whoa, what if you catch an std?"
"Like a virus?"

"if I were to actually like, be a prostitute on second life, I'd have to have sex, like, a LOT."
"heee heee hee hee hee hee"
"Otherwise it wouldn't be enough money. I'd have to be like a pimp, with a lot of people below me."

paradise and the City and such

2006-10-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be sad to leave Hawaii and come back to San Francisco, especially because Jon was leaving for a week the next day. Back in my apartment there was a vague post-vacation depression hangover in the air, provoked by my still having a cold and laryngitis almost a week later (and all during my trip), amplified by my bitterness at the experience of trying to catch a late-night taxi solo with my suitcase near Civic Center BART (ugh, should have gotten off at Powell). But I fought off low spirits by changing my employment information on LinkedIn and Facebook in preparation for my first day at my new job (so satisfying), and soon I'd never been happier to be back.
Maui was outstandingly relaxing and totally gorgeous and Jon was a ton of fun, but after an early morning earthquake we were in trapped mentality and instantly ready to come home the next day. We were in the comically remote Hana town (two restaurants and one general store total, a two-hour drive down the windiest highway imagineable). I just figured it happened all the time (er...volcanos just come with the geological volatility territory, right?) and rolled my eyes at Jon's attempts to connect to the internet to check for Tsunami warnings, until he finally connected and the papers said we should have run for higher ground. When they closed the roads, we thought we might be trapped in paradise (ha), so three hours later when they opened the roads any prospect of sightseeing went out the window and we booked it back to town (booked it as fast as one could book it down the windiest road ever, which under normal circumstances becomes one lane instead of two around snaking cliffs, and now had giant rocks fallen along one lane). It definitely cut things shorter, leaving even more room for slight regret that I'd let myself catch a cold that lasted all week and stole my normal voice away, and that I had in one way or another failed to take advantage of the situation and make things perfect.
Still, it was a really great trip - I got to swim in perfect water with awesome fish, read mediocre paperbacks with my knees in the waves, eat fruit and sorbet in divinely comfortable chairs, dig my toes into cottony red sand, and spend tons of time with my still-relatively-new boyfriend. While the restaurants were nothing to write home about, the guacamole at Maui Tacos was uncommonly good, and the Thai food was definitely up there. I was ready to go back and do some real work (I'd done so much screwing around at the end of my last job it felt like I'd forgotten how to do any real work).

All ready to go back to work except
why hasn't my voice come back yet?
why is it even worse than before, even though I'm feeling better?
My first day at work was great - everyone seems really cool, the commute is phenomenal (8 blocks!), the office is awesome, and I'm pretty excited about the work. I was even showered with corporate gifts (embroidered laptop bag and matching folder) and the promise of inconceivable publisher client perks (I heard a rumor involving massages and expensive concert tickets). Beyond the existential guilt crises I vaguely felt obligated to have (did I *sell out* to get this dream job? Is it *wrong* to have changed my plan to have a job in which I suffer in order to hold a job title that once seemed glamorous on television? Will I never be a *real writer* because I am on a career track that does not involve being paid to write?), I had the additional pressing concern that my raspy voice was in and out while introducing myself to various superiors. And oddly, the better I felt, the worse my voice got, which got me worrying it wasn't just a matter of one more day, and while my superiors might think it's cute now, in a few days they won't think it's very cute anymore that they hired a mute to talk to clients on the phone.
I went to Rainbow grocery and whispered my problem to a vitamin-aisle lady. An hour, 6 cold-related products, 7 unnecessary luxuries and much money later, I headed back home, generally loving San Francisco and life, because all of these lovely organic product are only 3 blocks from my home. It's not so bad, being back.

the horizontal billboard dance

2006-10-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

I was heading home from the Mission the other night when we saw a crowd of people at the 14/49 bus stop. There was dramatic borderline-circus music, and maybe 150 people standing above the BART stop watching a red billboard across the street, with two women harnessed from the roof dancing horizontally on the side of the billboard, merging themselves with the architecture. I had a chance to check it out while waiting for the bus (which conveniently arrived just as the show was over).
All I can say is I love San Francisco.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eve/213686783.html

out there in dorkosphere

2006-09-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

exciting upcomings:
1. after upcoming final day, complete tenure at current uninspiring, meaningless job
2. no longer have to commute daily to Palo Alto, which while I love the Caltrain segment of said commute, there have been 4 disasters in the last month that significantly delayed my journey and left all passengers trapped aboard, a first-ever Caltrain fare citation for the charge of "misuse of fare media," and the final leg of said commute being the worst free shuttle service in the galaxy because drivers are so unreliable and uninspired they will sometimes drive off with no passengers even as you are waving your hands wildly and running after said shuttle because the bullet train was 2 minutes late.
3. start brand new job I am lucky to have landed at awesome company in just over two weeks, meet new coworkers and work 8 blocks (albeit long, SOMA blocks) from my apartment
4. go to Hawaii with boyfriend for 5 days
5. have 4 weekdays off with zero responsibilities in between final days at current job and Hawaii trip to pursue current nerdy projects

reservations:
* I will miss lovely current coworkers, a number of whom have said sweet things about how they will miss me, and talking to current train friend, a married Irish man in his 40s with whom I talk historical politics and who lends me Nicholson Baker books about stalking and perverse sexual fantasies (!), as well as sparkling conversations with other train acquaintances
* I will fuck everything up because I am not as awesome as I talk and mean clients take my confidence down instantly
* I will fuck everything up and my boyfriend will tire of me and/or dislike me after spending 5 days with me
* I will fuck everything up by being generally shy in all areas of life and not be able to be myself because I am worried about fucking everything up

notice.

2006-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Almost as nervous as before an interview, I went into my boss's office to tell him I had received another job offer I couldn't pass up, and I would be taking it once two weeks were up. I chose my words carefully off a selection of HR websites to be as diplomatic as possible.
He probably couldn't have guessed how good the offer was with an industry-leading agency in the City, only 8 blocks from my apartment. Honestly, would anyone in their right mind turn down a more interesting job with a more prestigious company, more money, better benefits and no commute?
And luckily, enough time had passed so that I was over any spiteful impulse to say what did you expect after the way your partner treated me, because I am burning no bridges here.
The office is buzzing with rumors about my leaving, and I've been assigned very little to do so I'm still doing very little.
I couldn't tell if they were surprised or saw it coming, and I can't suppress a smile at the fact that even they might be surprised at how well I've done, when they look me up and down and I don't look as put-together as I should. When it came down to it I even surprised myself at how tough I can talk. I keep playing diplomat and smiling sweetly, half-beaming about my awesome new job, and life - is looking pretty good.

Palo Alto explorer

2006-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

I went to see the birthplace of Menlo Park on a walk during my lunch break the other day, from my work's new Palo Alto wasteland-area office. The city of Palo Alto was born near downtown, by my work's former office, when a passing Spanish explorer camped by the creek at a tree they called El Palo Alto. Spaniards soon decided against settling there and abandoned it for the Presidio. But Menlo Park was born in 1850 when Irish sea captain John Greer sailed into Palo Alto harbor, just a 5-minute walk from my work. He and his brother-in-law fell in love with the landscape and built homes and a gate that read "Menlo Park."
"The men named their new homes after their old, in Menlough on Lough Corib, County Galway, Ireland. No one knows whether they abbreviated the name to "Menlo" because the space on the arch precluded the longer version, because it was their way of Americanizing the name or because they just couldn't spell."
San Franciscan aristocrats began building vacation homes in the area, attracting then more aristocrats, who attracted more aristocrats who make up the present-day demographic of Palo Alto and Menlo Park. The area by the former harbor, past 101, remains the desolate and depressing home of soulless gray business parks, the Municipal golf course, the Palo Alto airport and the semi-restored wetlands.
I started walking past the airport. The sidewalk disappeared and left me to walk in the bike lane while cars crawled back from the bayside road. The marsh was surrounded with that yellow grass that grows everywhere in the South Bay in summer months. An egret and some seagulls were standing in the stagnant water. The sound of loud, small planes taking off was constant. It smelled of fennel, except when the wind blew a certain way smelling vaguely of sulfur, probably from the nearby recycling center. There were dull green reeds everywhere, the occasional green shrub. I followed the path past the abandoned harbor building, now surrounded with dirt and reeds grown over the carved wetlands. Around the bend was a duck pond, and a sign that read Duck Pond, where sad gray geese and ducks were dragging their feet, looking stupidly at this awful fountain that looked like an upside-down pyramid throwing slaps onto the surface of the gray-blue water. Everything had that gray, humid-looking color that parks in the South Bay suburbs have, which you have to be completely numb to in order to live there without becoming inordinately depressed. The benches along the trail where no one sat, the industrial towers in the distance by the bay, the electricity pylons and the rows of masts on the hill all colored by a clear film of dull, the kind that tells you you have to get out someday and do something big to keep from wasting away here.
I totally mythologize the Silicon Valley, its engineers and dreams and bright ideas. But it makes more sense than anything - this is how the Silicon Valley was born.

doesn't look like a day spent in bed

2006-08-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

At the advice of several people I used one of my sick days for a mental health day off work today, which was so great for my mental health, and helped remind me that life is in fact very good. Several people at work probably knew what was going on, and none of them could blame me. The weather was stunning, I ate Tartine take-out at Jon's house for breakfast and sat at ocean beach with my roommate. But now I have a total sunglass tan, and even under those dim office lights it's going to be hard to pretend I spent the day out sick...

really.

2006-08-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Avi Ehrlich to me:

AND while you're online and bored, this is really
funny and I just ordered $100 worth of free awesome
shit to display in my apt:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=54084

nerdosphere

2006-08-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

My coworker took me aside for coffee during 'lunch,' (which I almost never really take anymore).
"I was like you about 6 months ago," she said. "I was so stressed I couldn't sleep at night, I had nightmares about accounts, I stayed late, I worked so hard, I was always telling our bosses what I thought needed to be changed. Then I realized that I wasn't going to be rewarded for it, and it was just costing me my health. You have to learn to separate yourself from it and put your health first."
I knew she was right, but it's hard to tell someone with a relentless work ethic to toss it out the window, and it's not really possible in the midst of this total chaos insanity to blow things off.
"Oh, and you should ask for more money too," she said.
After months of bragging about my phenomenal job that leaves me free to pursue adventures after work, my foot has now been in my mouth for so long that I'm worried my face is going to stay that way. My job has been bursting at the seams of 9 to 6 and invading my life. It also seems to combine itself with all other anxiety associated with my personal life, since the stakes seem to be higher on everything since life started getting really good a few months ago while work has been getting worse and worse.
"You're so different from the Lee I knew 3 months ago," said our former Marketing Director (who just quit, coincidentally) on the train last Thursday.
"What do you mean?"
"You used to be like, 'Oh, I'm going to an art opening,' 'I'm going to a reading,' 'I'm going for a bike ride' and now you're so stressed you bring your work home." I told her I still believe what I've believed for three months because that's what they've been telling me, that these are temporary Startup growing pains and any day now it's going to change. But it's only been getting worse.
"Isn't it pretty ironic that you care so much about your job when you said you only wanted to work for a few years and then write your novel?" Igor said at the Oh No! Oh My! show at the Independent tonight, which totally made my week and saved my day.
Yeah, yeah.
See, it's all things I know. But the problem about trying to be open-minded and open to opportunities is that it puts a damper on stubbornly chasing whatever you think your dreams are or sticking to whatever you think is really important. It's not like I'm ready to quit my job, but something needs to change, definitely.
It took two drinks and two bands to make me shake the anxiety and dread of everything hanging over my head and all of the careless things I've been doing and regretting in all avenues of life as a result, but eventually F.U.N. kicked in under the shaking heads and movie projector lights. Made me realize I need to try harder to find it under the building mess of all this, and stop putting myself aside.

2006-08-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

My dad came home from work and came upstairs to see my brand new Macbook. He opened up Ha'aretz on the browser to 15 soldiers killed Wednesday in south Lebanon and said it was my cousin's paratrooper battalion. Apparently he sent my uncle a text message telling him he was okay.
It should have been obvious to me that his reserve would be stationed there by now. I guess it just didn't occur to me to ask.

quasi-sickday

2006-08-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

I didn’t realize why I was feeling so awful last night at the Google Dance, I just assumed it was the hard day at work or the hangover, or drinking on an empty stomach. I didn’t much feel like exchanging business cards, dancing, playing with remote-controlled robots or standing in front of a bluescreen and having my face projected onto a dancer’s body in a cartoon background. It hit me late last night that something was probably wrong with my body again. I took a number of herbal supplements my roommate recommended and went to bed. I got up and dressed to a T for my half-day appearance at the trade show, but an hour into work I realized I was going to have to see a doctor, and spent the next hour panicking about potential complications I’d read about on the internet and dealing with idiotic Palo Alto Medical Foundation bureaucracy while squatting on the office bathroom floor. It’s hilarious to work in an office where upper management is always gone and everyone else is so busy that no one realizes when you’ve been gone for 40 minutes, or that you’ve spent the last 15 minutes reading medical websites about hypothetical severe illnesses until you feel physically faint and your face is a shade of pale green. I finally got an appointment after cutting through bureaucracy that could almost rival Kaiser’s. I went back to the office and basically hung around just to see what my test results were and wait for my prescription to be filled. When I left the office at 3:00, there was no upper management to tell, so I was able to get away with saying I’d be “working the rest of the day from home,” when really I was moping around my parents’ house in Sunnyvale (the best place to be sick ever) and there’s no way I could have accomplished anything.

and another tradeshow week

2006-08-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

Funny, because I started this blog during my first tradeshow. Luckily this second one probably only means a few hours of floortime and several who's-who high techie parties. At the Ask.com party tonight (where out of sheer hunger I accidentally ate two kinds of meat in the form of hors d'oeuvres and luckily did not become violently ill, after all it has been over 8 years since I'd eaten meat of any kind) we drank on the open bar tab of the always-hopeful former AskJeeves (where's the butler at, after all?) and my empty stomach left me writing drunk text messages at the Gordon Beirsch about the highlight of the evening, when I watched my almost equally-drunk coworker schmoozing with the VP of Yahoo Search Marketing on the way to the Ask.com photo booth with our El Salvadorian coworker who was there on business. Ask.com knew their shit, and made strong drinks for the important, and weak watered-down shit for us nobodies. When the VP told her his drink was a monster, my coworker slurred, "let me try," and stuck her cocktail straw into Mr. VP of SEM's glass and took a slurp - fucking priceless. She kept blushing while telling it later, swearing that tomorrow he would be pulling their BUs accounts, but you had to admit it was pretty awesome of her to really take schmoozing to a head to head like that, and he's probably a cool enough guy to have been okay with it (let's hope).
On the drive back to the city with my North Beach-residing coworker, I played DJ via iPod (such Suburban trash, I know) and leader of raving, drunk conversation, screaming about how the lights in the distance in Colma knew something, and the downtown and Bay Bridge lights know something about what makes inspiration, because we keep paying San Francisco and coming back, and we can't get enough of it - this inspiration we drink till our eyes water and we fall asleep, dreaming techienerd dreams and imagining a life in creativity that is so, very tangible it is coded in a language so many can learn, and we keep coming back making the blocks that build the internet-country that begins to tie us back together again - Finally.

baloney

2006-08-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

Elaborate misunderstandings always begin to reveal themselves in disjointed events you fail to take note of.
Last week I went over to my friend Colleen's place for drinks, and she asks me, "So what's going on with you and Yoni?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You know, Yoni, who was at your party," she said. I only vaguely remember meeting a friend of a friend named Yoni at my birthday party, and definitely don't remember what he looks like, nor did we exchange more than two lines of dialogue.
I set the record straight: "I'm dating that guy Jon who was at my party, and we're going away for the weekend together. I hardly even remember meeting that guy Yoni."
"That's so funny, because according to (name of their mutual friend), you guys have been text messaging like crazy all week."
This is especially funny because not only do I not exchange phone numbers with this stranger, I also hate text messaging that doesn't go anywhere, and I like to keep my text messaging conversations to a maximum of two back and forths. I take out my cell phone and look at my most recent messages, just to make sure I didn't receive any messages from a mysterious new number that I didn't notice. Definitely nothing there.
Bizarre! We hypothesize that maybe he met a different girl at my party and confused my name with her's, or maybe there is a girl out there pretending she is me.
I think nothing of this episode until today, when I am talking on the phone with my mother. After about 20 minutes, she says, "Oh, I have a funny story." She proceeds to tell me that at a party she ran into a friend, who told her that one of her friends is the mother of my boyfriend. My mother is confused. The woman says her son's name is Yoni, and that he is a graduate student of some kind. My mother tells her she doesn't know about any Yoni, and only knows that I've been dating a guy who works for Google for over a month. Apparently, Yoni's mother is thrilled that he has been dating an Israeli girl in San Francisco for about a month, and upon repeating my name, word got back through the grapevine to my mother, because how many girls could there be in San Francisco with the same name as me? My mother tells her friend not to tell Yoni's poor mother that she said anything.
Now, one of two things is possible:
1. Yoni's mother and friends are giving him shit about not dating girls or not dating the right girls (he could be in sexual orientation denial or have bad taste in women, or still getting over a girl from months ago he should have gotten over) and he is telling them he's dating me because I'm a convenient scapegoat he can namedrop.
or
2. He is seriously delusional and thinks we're dating although I have never exchanged more than one line of dialogue with him and have not seen him once since I met him three weeks ago.
3. Some girl he met at the party is pretending to be me or using my name as an alias for whatever reason.
So long as it's not #2, I'm fascinated to be mixed up in such a weird (and creepy) situation. And seriously curious to get to the bottom of it.

acronot #1: F.U.N.

2006-08-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

After being out of San Francisco commission all weekend (with Jon in Mendocino: stunning, enchanting, sleepy, immensely calming), catching up with friends revealed that two of my friends were in complete romantic crisis. I'm not sure how it happened that I've become someone people go to for dating advice, or why anybody thinks I'm qualified to do so, but apparently I give effective advice, and after a few months of seriously trying to date I've learned something about crush e-mailing. Part of me feels weird rewriting and composing crush e-mails for my friends' crushes on behalf of my friends, but in a way it's remarkably similar to rewriting my friends' resumes and cover letters (which I'm tragically good at and secretly kind of like to do). I totally think dating should come with resumes now, so it's not a conflict of interest or anything. After my roommate had a mini-triumph this week (he calls my advice+storysessions Dating Club), I knew whatever I'm doing is working. Which is good for when I'm kicking myself for not being serious about writing or otherwise not being productive, because I think helping people is important. So I'll keep helping people in whatever way I can, one peptalk and crush e-mail rewrite at a time.

workplace conundrums

2006-07-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

I may be speaking too soon but it seems like work is starting to veer on the side of reasonable again, and I was back on the 6:06 train today. Which is a good thing because the crowd on the after-7:00 trains is pretty dejected.
I was feeling out that bleary-eyed crowd while waiting for the train and I saw this man smile at me, several inches shorter and easily pushing 40. We didn't exchange so much as a 2-second glance. When I got on the train, he sat directly behind me. Since I was on the super-long train that makes every stop after a totally frustrating day, I spent the better part of the train ride talking trash to others in my Verizon network and leaving grandiose voice mails for people I'd meant to catch up with.
At Millbrae, the man gets up and hands me his business card, very quietly mumbling something that resembles "dinner" and what I think was "from one commuter to another." At least, it was from one something to another, I thought it best not to ask. He was a director of development for some department at Stanford. I didn't notice until I took his business card out of my bag that on the back he'd written "Text me your name and phone number if you would like to have dinner some time!" I guess he had nothing to lose, but I was pretty surprised because it didn't seem like we had even a moment of connection. That's when I realized how lonely the 7:20 train is. When I used to ride the 5:06, it was hard to even get a guy to even look at me, let alone smile back, but on the 7:20 they'll go for any female who's merely present.
Anyway, I think it's time to get back to a work schedule that conforms more closely to my salary. At least the amount of trash talking via i.m. and in elevators with coworkers just to get through the day can't be good for my karma. And giving in to the urge to buy consumer products after an infuriating day can only be sustained for so long. Plus, yesterday, in a seriously low point of frustration and hunger, I went into the office kitchen and prepared one of those Instant Lunch things I used to eat as a kid, which my coworkers eat all the time. I don't eat much processed food, and most of that consists of veggie burgers or Trader Joe's frozen food, so I guess my body was extra-sensitive to that noxious poisonous crap - ugh, my body went into MSG-stupefied insatiated bloated shock. I don't know how people eat those things, especially out of those horrifyingly toxic styrofoam containers.
Guess I'm not cut out to work late.

after the rager

2006-07-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

After our F. Scott Fitzgeraldian party on Friday to celebrate my birthday among other things, there were 4 hours of cleanup and enough alcohol to easily throw another 80-guest party. I had my reservations about the risks involved in combining all of the disjointed acquaintances I have ( coworkers, computer nerds, designers, hipsters, freemasons, students, chemists, accountants) with the somewhat less disjointed acquaintances my roommates have (they all went to the same art school together), but there were enough people to keep things from getting awkward. It's great how into throwing parties my roommates are, especially Kelly, who's an awesome designer, and designed the party flyer in which I was transformed into cartoon via Adobe Illustrator. A hundred burgers and buns vaporized, cakes vanished, empty bottles accumulated and people said, 'you guys really know how to throw down.'
It's such a cool thing to have almost everyone you like in the entire Bay Area make an appearance within a few hours of each other, share the same space, even interact (if they're social enough).
Even though I now have nothing notable on my calendar for...ever now, there was no post-party letdown, partly because it's still my birthday-week-and-weekend-celebration-period, but mostly because things have been going so well, and there's been no shortage of quality people and great opportunities to recreate.

Jon, the resident Gmail expert I've been seeing, invited me out for birthday dinner last night to Bong Su, which was possibly the best Vietnamese I have ever had. And I mean great Vietnamese. He was worried when we first looked at the menu that there didn't seem to be a lot in the way of vegetariana, and I assured him that this is San Francisco, one of the best cities for vegetarians in the world, and I'd get by. I didn't even have to try either, because the waiter just picked out 3 courses for me and went back to the kitchen to have the chef alter the menu for me (the best vegetarian dishes in San Francisco are the ones that the waiter and chef collaborate to make up). I also love not having to make any decisions because I'm so tragically indecisive, so this was phenomenal. It was really nice of him to take me out for my birthday to such a great place, especially since the poor guy was so wrecked from an epic 50-mile bicycle ride that day that it appeared to cause him excruciating pain to even grip and maneuver utencils. When he dropped me off at 10:30 so he could crash out, my roommate looked at me with concern like, 'dinner didn't go so hot?' but I assured her it wasn't something I said. We concluded that we should go out, and just then I saw a text message from Avi that said he was in the city and down to meet up if I wasn't [sic: something disturbingly vulgar] and was free to hang out. He came over and we drank several half-empty (that's right) bottles of wine leftover from the rager, when my other roommate awoke from her post-sailing nap (she's so high class), and we recruited her too. I probably overdid the preparty given how hard I saw myself dancing, an unfortunately placed mirror revealed. I was also wearing these shoes that were a bit unusual, which turned out not to be as comfortable as I thought for walking 14 blocks to the Mission and dancing on for several hours, and as we were flagging down a cab Avi said that's what I get for wearing those gremlin shoes. For the record, I've gotten compliments on them too, Avi.

to me

2006-07-13T02:20:00.000-07:00

I started out my 23rd birthday the night before, just out with one of my roommates trying to have a fun time. We went out to the Mission to meet her friend's own birthday party, and for some reason we got talked into going clear across town with them to the Alpha bar, which I always say has such untapped potential - mostly because it's a great spot but there's never anyone there. The topper to get us to go was that they were allegedly filming a Budweiser commercial there - the two of us looked at each other intrigued by sheer curiosity. It ended up being starkly abandoned as usual, though (despite the halfway decent DJs always spinning live), and luckily I had called up my friend Igor, who resides in the neighborhood, to keep me company among all of the friends of friends I had zero relation to.
Worked way too many hours again today, frantically (to the tune of the buzzing of dear friends wishing me happy birthday on my mobile phone, in the background of coworkers bringing me cakes and flowers as I worked through lunch), we all keep saying the psychotic work schedule is temporary until the new people are trained and I can stop being held responsible for two people's jobs.
Got home at 7:30 and realized if I wanted to put anything remotely social together I would have to think of something. I made some calls and cooked myself dinner in an empty apartment.
Birthdays aren't a big deal, but they still make you feel like you're going to want to make remembering them not lonely.
I wanted to do something low-key, and it worked out perfectly - 2 out of 3 roommates (the 3rd was under the weather) plus Igor and a friend. We danced so hard to 60s soul in the back room at Delirium I felt like I was living something I'd been half putting off for a really long time.
It's hard to gleam insight from contentment, because you can't conclude much except that you've done a few things right and you should try not to allow them to change, but things have been getting good for a while now, better even, good enough to get down to projects, good enough to want to give back.

my first wedding

2006-07-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

It remains to be determined whether or not I am good at faking it when I'm out of my element. I've been told I'm good at visibly keeping my cool with gigantic crushes or when I'm nervous in social situations, but usually I kind of doubt it.
My friend Shonelle's wedding was the first wedding I'd been to without my family besides my friend Danielle's grandmother's wedding several years ago, and definitely the first friend-friend of mine to get married. Since the guest I RSVP'ed to bring turned out to be wishful thinking, I was kind of nervous about coming solo.
I didn't really know anyone who would be there, so I had to guess about everything, like gifts and how to dress and everything. I let myself get talked into wearing this big, fun dress by my mother and sister which I had a pretty good feeling would put the over in over-dress(ed). But since I adore dressing up, I had to take the opportunity.
I had to do my hair to go with the over-dressed, and of course I don't know what I'm doing since I missed out on that chapter of girl 101 and neglected to make up the credits in sorority 101 or anything like that. I spent a while just figuring out how a curling iron worked and I was running late, but my parents were like, "Don't come on time, they won't start till at least a half hour to an hour in, you'll just miss the welcome cocktail."
I showed up maybe 40 minutes late, and saw everyone hanging around (and I of course knew no one) so I dipped a carrot stick in dip and walked around. In the next room I saw Shonelle glamorous, beaming, stunning, and I tried to tell her so.
I very un-smoothly asked when things were getting started and her face dropped, confused.
Uh-oh, did I miss it?
Everything.
They started on the dot.
"That's okay! That's okay!" she said, because she's so sweet like that.
Boy did I feel like a jackass. I guess I shouldn't have trusted my parents on that one, after all they do operate on IST (Israeli Standard Time).
I saw a friend of Shonelle's who I'd met once at UCLA, and introduced myself (she'd of course forgotten me). I was feeling seriously stupid (and did I mention overdressed?) and I couldn't get conversation to pick up. I took down a glass of champagne and some cheese and crackers, took a deep breath and plunged head-on into a conversation, introducing myself to everyone.
I don't think people believe that I actually have social anxiety, because the way I cope with it is by all-out sending the opposite signals out and hoping for the best while consuming alcoholic beverages, if possible.
Luckily, this was a great strategy at a wedding where I didn't know anyone. Since there were so many couples and married 24-year-olds, I didn't want to just abandon ship with the single girls if conversation didn't take off. I was pretty persistent with the 5 single people I met, and by the time we were seated we were all like old acquaintances.
So I ended up having a fun time, sat at a table with some nice people and swapped stories, even might have made a couple of friends.
I'm starting to wonder how many times I have to have certain experiences before I can actually start to feel confident about my ability to be awesome in them and not be nervous. At least, in dating it doesn't appear to be possible yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting there in the business meeting scene and the wedding scene.

Spent the day Saturday with the engineer, walking and talking. We went to the Jazz festival, ate Burmese food, sat at the park and walked like a hundred miles. So fun!

sapporo in a brown bag

2006-06-30T21:22:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-27T01:09:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

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

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

2006-06-19T21:35:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-19T00:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-12T09:19:00.000-07:00

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.