out there in dorkosphere

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

a miraculous cure

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

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

city promises kept

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

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

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

trying to be awesome.

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

History of bad dates Part II

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

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