It Begins. . . .

I went to my very dear friend and former JVC roommate Adam's wedding outside of Washington D.C. this weekend. Although weddings seem to be a pretty common occurrence for most of my friends (and all of my other old JVC roommates), this was actually the first wedding of a friend that I'd been to, and the first of anyone that I was at all close to. I am grateful for that.

I find it interesting that I have (I think unconsciously) surrounded myself with people who are totally not on the marriage fast-track; I can't help but suspect, however, that this is going to start to change. Am I about to find myself in a high stakes game of "Last (Single) Person Standing?" If that's the case, I think I have what it takes to go really far!

Despite rain that drove Adam and his fiance Kristi inside his parents' house for the actual ceremony, the wedding was beautiful, I think Adam and Kristi are going to be really happy, it was fabulous to see all my JVC roommates again (and laugh over all the ridiculous things that happened that year), and--in a classically Adam attempt to keep things real--we had barbecue pork ribs to go along with the china, crystal and white linen tablecloths.

Claire, Sara, Erin, Sarah, Jen and Adam--Casa Dorothy Day 2002-2003--at Adam's wedding


Adam and Kristi saying their vows.
Oakland's unofficial "husband school"--now taking applicants!

Weekend updates

Had a really fabulous, laid-back weekend. Here are some of the lessons I learned:

1) Don't order french fries at an ice cream parlor. Unless, that is, you're prepared to gnaw your arm off while you wait for them, while simultaneously silently cursing your friends who are plowing into their ice cream sundaes.

2) Root beer floats are really two receptacle projects. And if you don't have two glasses/bowls, you'd better have a glass and a tub. Otherwise, you're gonna wish you had an umbrella, some goggles, a raincoat and a lot of handiwipes.

3) Soccer is addicting.

4) There is such a thing as embracing the awkward too much. If you're talking about beer bottles and the cap/no cap discussion comes up, you've gone too far.

5) If you're not going to come prepared to do the gourmet picnic at Stern Grove, then you'd better end up sitting next to a guy named Nico who has french bread, cheese, truffles, vegan cookies and a lot of wine to share.

6) Bonus points if he immediately points out that he's straight and single and then picks up your friend.

7) When matching opening bands with headliners, it is important to put the mellower act first and build up to exciting dance music. Otherwise people use up all their energy and fall asleep during the main act.

8) The trick to making the girls' bathroom line go faster than the men's is apparently to have 8 women's stalls for every one men's stall.

9) Club waziema is closed on Sundays. But fortunately, Fly Bar was doing a $10 "all you can drink from the Full Sail keg" special so it all worked out OK.

10) $10 All you can drink does not, in fact, mean that you should try to drink a whole keg by yourself.

11) If you ignore lesson 10, you should make sure you don't let drunk guys you don't actually know make crank calls with your phone. For all you know, he might be telling people that he's your parole officer.

12) Drinking on a Sunday afternoon is only a good idea if you stop before Monday morning.

Short and Sweet

Just two words: Dirty McFlirty.

Chicano Park

On the suggestion of a friend, when I was in San Diego last weekend I visited Chicano Park. The park is located in Barrio Logan, a predominately Latino neighborhood in San Diego.



In the 1960's, I-5 was built straight through the heart of the neighborhood, and many residents were displaced. While many simply accepted the destruction of their neighborhood, some were willing to fight back. Over the course of a number of years, residents organized and fought to take back the land from the control of the Highway Patrol.



In 1970, after hundreds of residents occupied the area and used civil disobedience to stop bulldozers from tearing down even more of the nieghborhood, the land under the freeway was transformed into a park.



Chicano Park is now a symbol for how communities can save their cultures and their neighborhoods by standing together and fighting. If you want to know more about this awesome and inspirational story, go here.

Shenanigans at the "brewery"

The "brewery"

I think I may have met my match--someone who is as willing to push the envelope of awkward as I am. He might even be a little more willing, frankly. Let's recap what happens when three funny people--one of whom loves mediocrity and two who embrace awkwardness--get together and get drunk.

So Miranda's friend Darren came down from Sacramento to hang out with us on Friday afternoon. Now I've met Darren once before and my general impression was that he was a funny, fun guy. (He claims that I trash talked him during a game of Phase Ten, but I think that is highly unlikely--although not improbable--because I know for a fact that I wasn't actually playing Phase Ten that night.) But I had no idea how funny Darren was until Friday.

But here's the deal. I'm way too lazy--and it's now too far removed--to bother with an entire write up of the craziness that was two Friday's ago experience of the "brewery." If you want the long (and I do mean LONG) version of the night, check out Darren's blog account of it. (But take it with a grain of salt--I was not anywhere near as much the instigator, and he was not anywhere near as much the helpless victim who played along as he makes it seem. I promise. Oh. And I'm definitely not quirky.)

Here are the quick and dirty highlights of my night with Darren and Miranda:
--George (as always). As soon as he saw me, he made a beeline, pulled out his best (and by best I mean ridiculous) "smooth" manner, and when I commented on how I could see two of myself in his aviator glasses, he replied "you must be enjoying that very much."

(On a side note, when I recounted that moment to a friend the next day while waiting at a stop light, some middle-aged guy with his toddler turned around and said "wow. That's a dumb line. I would have said 'well I wish I could see two of you right now.'")

This is Darren's best impersonation of George's smoothness

--George asking me to invite my friends to his party because "they were hella cool." Get your own hella cool friends.

--George calling me "quirky." That's like the pot calling the kettle black, son. Actually it's not like that at all, because I'm not "quirky." And if I hadn't been holding a really good Belgian beer in my hand at that moment, I might have started a street fight with George right there to prove it.

--Darren lying to a homeless guy about how he and I were married and then causing a big fake scene while we waited for a table at some restaurant.

Good times at the "brewery." Good times.

Top 10 Marathon Moments

10) The guy wearing nothing but a speedo and a REALLY large sombrero while running the marathon.

9) Listening to this band of Marines' pretty good rendition of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love."

8) Having no qualms about drinking 4 margaritas and eating my body weight in Mexican food later in the day.

7) Getting to run on a freeway. (They had blocked it off especially for the race.)

6) Overhearing the guy next to me ask his friends: "When have you ever gotten to run on a freeway? At least, you know, when you were sober?"

5) Discovering that all the Team in Training people who went to San Diego raised more than $12 million dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

4) The group of running Elvises.

3) Josh in a purple tank top.

2) Never having to consume Powerade, Powerbars or Gu ever again. (I will be especially happy to never eat another Strawberry Cliffshot as long as I live--runny strawberry jam with salt in it is NASTY.)

1) Crossing the finish line with a smile on my face.

Would the Real Team Awesome Please Stand Up?

It was questionable whether I was going to make it off that plane without going postal on some hyped-up happy marathon runner. But I made it safely--and without further incident--to my hotel room, where I promptly barricaded the door to ward off any further interaction with Team Awesome.

Shortly thereafter, Becky arrived, looking traumatized. She had survived her flight from San Francisco with the Team as well. (*A word about Becky's team: while I've been putting up with Team Awesome, Becky's been dealing with the San Francisco equivalent, Team Sucks a Lot. They really do. It's mostly rich-bitch Marina girls who've cornered the market on being unfriendly. And at least one of them--we're pretty sure--has really botched-up butt implants. So while they're not quite as peppy, they're still pretty awful. Becky was grateful to have survived.) So we hugged and swore never to leave the other person alone with the Team again.

And then we devised a plan. We weren't going to let the Team drag us down. We weren't going to drown in a sea of pep without a fight. We would fight cheesy with . . .irony. We would reclaim Team Awesome.

And so we did. We took our Barney-purple Team in Training jerseys and we wrote TEAM AWESOME on the back. And then we wrote it on our arms. And then we made a pact: anytime a Team in Training person yelled "Go Team" at us during the race, we would respond with "TEAM AWESOME!!!" (Pronounced TEAM AWE-SOME!)


And then, as our coup d'etat, we convinced (and by convinced I really mean insisted) our friend Josh to wear my extra Team in Training jersey (which was too small on me, and thus WAY too small for him) while cheering us on. Not only did he wear it, but he ran the last four miles with Becky in it. Now that's a good friend, and a deserving member of the real Team Awesome. And so, Becky and Claire managed to avoid the pep, bring the irony, and overall have an awesome marathon experience. (What kind of awesome, you ask? Team Awesome!)

Team Awesome members Claire and Josh post-race. He carries off the jersey with aplomb, don't you think? I've been told he has quite the thing for purple!

Team Awesome Goes Bad-Ass.

Team Awesome does San Diego

So I ran this marathon on Sunday. But before I really get into it, here's a little back story on how this came to pass:

My friend Becky and I decided back in February that we would raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and train for this marathon with their program, Team in Training. At the time it seemed like a brilliant plan: raise money for a good cause and have a structured group setting to make sure you're doing all the training to get you ready to run 26.2 miles. There was, however, one thing that we could not have expected about Team in Training that made it kind of scary (and in my book akin to Chinese Water Torture):

The pep factor.

I've never met so many happy, peppy people in my life. Like abnormally happy and peppy. "Should-have-been-hired-to-work-at-Disneyland" kind of happy. "Got-kicked-off-the-cheerleading-squad-for-being-over-the-top" kind of peppy.

And let me just be clear. I do not do peppy. I was a cheerleader in high school, and I am very sure I used up an entire lifetime's worth of peppy cheer in those three and a half years. There is literally none left. I CANNOT handle peppy. Or cheesy. Or any type of "too sincere for its own good" sacharine sweetness. This is why I hate musicals, and a cappela groups and movement songs. And it is also why I HATE Team In Training.

So we show up for Team in Training and it's all chanting and cheering and clapping and "GOOOOOO TEAM!" all over the place. This is bad enough for me. But then they tell us that we're going to have to come up with a team name. I can feel myself starting to cringe as I look desperately for an exit from this cornball filled hell. After a brief flirtation with the name Team Outstanding (and I hope you don't think I'm kidding) we finally settle on Team Balance. I quietly retch in the corner. Privately, to Becky and to my other friends, I decide to refer to the crazies as Team Awesome. (This is, of course, ironic.)

Becky and I start going to the team workouts. I don't last long with this. Every time I go, I can feel the "Go Team" and "East Bay ROCKS" chanting, the Team Balance name, the super-excited, happy and energized people who just can't wait to bust out some jazz hands eating away at the core of my very cynical soul. This is not acceptable. I decide to train on my own. Because really, when given a choice between revolting peppiness and running 20 miles by myself--hell, given the choice between peppy and just about anything else--peppy is going to lose.

I stayed aloof and removed up to the day that we all flew down to San Diego. And then something terrible happened. I got trapped on a plane with Team Awesome. And they were in prime form. Most of them were wearing their Team gear, and as soon as the flight attendant had finished the flight safety speech, the chanting began. And then singing: "We are the Champions." "We Will Rock You." God knows what else because by then I was curled in the fetal position in my seat, rocking and covering my ears while screaming "I can't hear you, I can't hear you."

Ok that's a lie.

But the chanting and the singing is not.

So much adbsurdity, so little time

Ok, so I have about 4 things I need to blog about, but as a warm up to those, I thought I'd throw out this little gem of weirdness from my day:

I've been reikied.

I ran a marathon on Sunday. As could probably be expected, I am rather sore. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I have been walking like a Zombie for the last two days. (By which I mean that I can't bend my legs and so I have to kind of rock back and forth from leg to leg to propel myself forward.) And that whole no bending the leg thing has made stairs, hills and sitting not really so fun. I pretty much just groan and wince and grumble my way through it. That is, until this afternoon.

I was volunteering for a political campaign, and one of the other volunteers noticed my stiff gait and pained expression. He asked what was wrong, I explained and he asked me to show him where exactly my legs hurt.

I pointed to a spot on my hamstring where the pain seemed to be strongest. Suddenly he leaned behind me and placed his hands near--but not on--the spot I was pointing to. For a very long moment we stood like this--me bent backwards, pointing, him scrunched over, waving his hands over my leg. Everyone in the office turned to stare. One woman asked if everything was OK and seemed concerned that he was trying to accost me. I told her it was OK, although I'm sure I looked pretty freaked out.

Finally he stood up, smiled and told me to try walking now.

I did.

All the pain and stiffness was gone. My Bride of Frankenstein gait was no more.

I turned to him, incredulous and more than a little suspicious. "What did you do?" I demanded. "Wait--did you just reiki me?"

*Note: For those of you not new age-y enough to know what reiki is, it's the art of healing people by using and changing the energy field around their bodies. I have basically always assumed it was a load of hooey.

"Let's not worry about what it's called," my New Age hippy friend said. "I don't like to pigeon-hole my healing with labels.

"But if you're interested in learning how to do that yourself, I strongly suggest you take classes at the Berkeley Psychic Institute. It will help you get more in tune with your body's inherent healing power."

"OK, nutjob," I thought to myself. But then again, I guess you shouldn't knock it if it works. And here you have my first experience with being reikied.

When Electoral Politics Goes Bad

A friend of mine who is currently living abroad in what I have always considered to be a sane, rational and relatively progressive country called me today with some big news.

"Guess what?" she said. "We have a new political party."

Thinking this was the big news, I replied "Oh, hey that's great."

"Yeah, we get a new political party at least once a year."

So what then was the big news?

Her reply:"This political party is all about pedophilia."

Me: "WHAT??!?"

"Yeah, they want to drop the age of consent down from 16 to 12, they want to make it legal to have sex with animals, and they want to allow child porn with kids 12 and older as long as it's 'tasteful' and the kid consents to participate."

Me again: "WHAT?!!!?"

"Oh, and they also want to make train travel free for everyone in the country."