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."

Bits 'n Pieces

1) Saw the following written in chalk in the stairwell leading to the 19th Street BART station on Friday: "Even our brotha Jesus got killed by the Po-pos." God I love Oakland.

2) If I ever have a band (unlikely, since I don't sing and can't play any instrument other than the piano and even then I only play classical music. And only for my mother) I've come up with the best band name ever. "Amy's Lamey Friends." That's gonna be my band's name. Actually, it's the underground secret name. It'll have some other name that most people know it by, but the really cool kids will know what it's really called. For everyone reading this who just went "what the hell is she talking about?" I apologize. It's an inside joke, and I hope to hell that the three people who get it will think it's really hillarious.

3) Went to the brewery on Friday afternoon. One friend accidentally peed on himself, one friend lost half of her beer because it was so windy (it literally blew out of the glass!), and I had a near run-in with George, which would have been awkward, and not in the fun way.

4) Tractor Pulls and Apricot Fiestas? Must be hanging out in the valley.

Perhaps justice isn't dead after all. Oh wait. Yes. Yes it is.

My faith in the criminal justice system, which was rapidly withering on the vine, has just had a small infusion of hope: a jury found Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling guilty of lying about the finances of Enron, thus leading to financial devastation for thousands of Enron employees when the company collapsed.

Admittedly, their attorney is going to appeal the ruling, and the odds are pretty good that even if they do go to prison, it won't be for long enough and it will probably be one of those white-collar prisons with tennis courts and yoga classes (a la Martha Stewart), despite the fact that they probably did more damage and wreaked more havoc than many people locked up in real prisons.

And since they are such good friends of the current administration, there's still the possibility that GW will step in and push for some crazy act of Congress (Terri Schiavo, anyone?) to get them off the hook. Or maybe, as is his usual strategy, he'll just bypass Congress and, you know, lawfullness, altogether to get them out of trouble. Maybe the CIA and the NSA can help out with that. Or maybe there's still time for them to figure out how to blame the Enron employees for this whole mess. When in doubt, blame it on the poor people. That always works. And heck, if in the process of helping out some old drinking buddies, we can all figure out how to undermine just a little bit more of the Constitution, then so much the better, right?

Is it still considered cynicism if it's founded in reality?

Bay to Breakers

Despite the fact that this is my 4th May in the Bay Area, this was the first year that I'd participated in--or even seen-the spectacle that is the Bay to Breakers.

For those of you who are un-initiated, the Bay to Breakers technically is a 12K race that goes from the East Side of San Francisco (the bay) to the West Side (the ocean, or breakers. )Considering that 50,000 people registered for it, I'd say that probably a good 100,000 people participated. Of that number, maybe 20,000 actually attempted to run a fast time. The rest, realizing that it's San Francisco and thus a) it's hilly, b) it's kind of cold and c) there are about 5 million free-spirited anarchists all looking to dance in the streets and just generally get in the way, decided to to dress up and walked/drank it. This is the spirit which which I approached the Bay to Breakers (dressed as a scared-of-water snorkeler complete with pool floaties), as well as my friends Helen and Becky (who dressed like 80's aerobics instructors).

Here are some pictures, but seriously, they don't even begin to do justice to the zany drunkness that is the Bay to Breakers. Naked men who shouldn't have been naked, one naked woman painted red and one belly dancing, people wearing nothing but plastic wrap, approximately 200 people all wearing orange, a super old snow white with her seven dwarfs, gold aliens with anal probes (that's how they explained it to me in line buying 40's at the convenience store, anyway), about 5 sets of Noah's arc (complete with animals), the cast of Gilligan's island, about a million pirates: yeah--they were all there.



The $2 Miller High Life 40--"For on the go," as it said on the label. Quite the deal.



Snow white and her 7 dwarves


Claire tries to drink beer out of her snorkel. It leaks all over her shoulder and her pool floatie and she realizes it won't work. Then 20 minutes later, she tries again.



A trojan horse and a lot of, um, Trojans.



Becky signs the naked guy



My favorite Bay to Breakers costumes of the day: the protesters. And what were they protesting? Yeah that's right. Running.


Becky, Claire and Helen post-race and pre-food

Soul Cleaning?

I know, I know. It's been almost a month since I wrote in my blog. Is it possible that nothing bizarre or funny has happened to me in almost a month?

Proabably not.

The real issue is laziness, crossed with busy-ness. But that's a cop-out: when there's awkwardness to embrace, I'd better damn well be embracing it. And then writing about it later.

So while I get on that task, here's a little tidbit to tide everyone over:

I've now seen this kind of strange van twice in the course of a week. What made it so strange, you ask? On the side of the van was a logo, advertising "Pro-One Janitorial Services."

But on the back? On the back, it said "Ready or not, here we come. GOD. Let go, and let GOD."

Um, what?

Fun Guns: The New "It" Accessory

Miranda's 27th birthday was Saturday, and in honor of her officially beginning her "late 20's," we decided to stalk her favorite author--Anne LaMott--throughout the North Bay.

Okay, maybe "stalk" is a strong word, but we did try to visit as many of the places Anne hangs out and talks about in her books as we could. This took us to some random places (e.g. the beach adjacent to San Quentin) and some very posh places (e.g. Tiburon and Sausalito) where we amused ourselves by drinking too many Bloody Marys, eating too much salt water taffy and making fun of a lot of yuppies. ("Jennifer? Robert? Is that YOU?")

Although the day was officially coined "The Anne LaMott Tour of the Bay Area" I prefer to call it "Fun Guns Around the Bay." See for yourself.

Yuppie Fun Guns

(complete with Bloody Mary and the open shirt collar with copious chest hair.)

Happy Fun GunsCharlie's Angels Fun Guns

Tired Fun Guns

Rally Fun Guns! (Notice how Matt is aiming for the bear)

Writers Who Can't Punctuate

This is a picture of the schedule at the Make-Out Room. Writer's With Drinks? Shameful, guys. Just shameful.

An addendum. . . .

Here's the text of the Craigslist "Missed Connection" I posted last night in an effort to find Zooty, the guy who got stuck in the doors of a BART train while trying to give me his number. I actully don't have any inclination to call him, but I thought it would make for a funny "Missed Connection" anyway. The big goal is to land on the Craigslist "Best of. . . " list. (Oh, and to give credit where credit is due: the text of this craigslist post was written by my friend Erin, who enjoys ridiculousness even more than I do.)

Did you get stuck in the door of a BART train last night? - w4m - 25

---

Reply to: pers-153081605@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-04-20, 7:16PM PDT


You: tall, lanky and bruised, answers to the name of Zooty. Me: sassy crossword lover on the Richmond BART line, coming from the A's game. We shared a magical ride, but the cruel forces of the BART doors kept your number from me. Please respond, and we can make beautiful crosswords together once more.

BART

I am a magnet for off-balanced, wacky people. I am also the person that the strange, random stuff always happens to. A case in point:

I'm coming home from the A's game last night. I get on the train, plop down into a seat, and immediately zone out as I wait for the train to pull away from the station. I barely glance up as a big, tall guy sits down next to me and pulls out the newspaper crossword puzzle. After several minutes of sitting and minding my own business, this guy--with no warning, and no introduction at all--shoves the crossword puzzle at me, sticks his pen in my hand and says: "Here. You work on it." And then, almost as an afterthought, he says: "Are you any good at crossword puzzles?"

Um, yes I am good at crossword puzzles, so I started working on the puzzle. After a few moments he leans over my shoulder and begins to comment on the clues that I've answered: "Epees! I totally should have known that one!" "Oh, a knit is a stretchy fabric--I wouldn't have guessed that." Next thing I know we're working on it together, and I'm giving him shit about his dumb suggestions for answers.

Then suddenly, he says: "So, in about a minute I'm going to give you my phone number." I don't know how to respond to this, so I just start laughing. But he continues. "I won't take your number though."

When I ask him why not, he says that hasn't really been working out for him lately, so he's decided not to ask for it anymore. When I tell him I'm used to being the one who asks for numbers, he asks if I had been planning on asking for his, and I tell him I hadn't really thought about it.

"Do you have a name?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says.

"And the name is . . . . ?"

He tells me his name is Zooty, just as we get to my stop (where he is transfering to the train on the other side of the platform). As he gets onto his train, he asks "So, can I give you my number?"

I tell him sure, and he starts to write it down on the newspaper, but the pen won't work. The BART bell rings, and the automated voice announces the train is departing. Suddenly the BART train doors close. ON HIM. After a moment they re-open, and then close again. Still, ON HIM. He is still trying to scribble out a number, caught as he is with only one arm and half his body atcually on the train.

People on the train are groaning and glaring and yelling at him to get on, already. People in the station are laughing and pointing. I am hiding my face in my hands in embarassment.

The train doors open one more time, and he darts out and hands me the paper, then jumps back on BART before the doors slide closed and the train starts moving. As I move to leave the station, the women in front of me ask: "Did he just give you his phone number?" Yes. "Did you just meet him?" Oh yes. "Wow that's quite a catch!" they say. A catch? I'm not so sure, but it sure made for a damn good story. Now it's just too bad I can't actually read the phone number.

"Sweetie. . . . "

So this guy that I've been e-mailing on Match.com (but who I've never met or even spoken to on the phone) calls me tonight and leaves a message in which he calls me "sweetie" not once but TWICE.

Now, I feel like I have spent my whole life honing a public persona that discourages the use of terms of endearment. I have worked hard at crafting a slightly prickly exterior that brokers no such inclination towards monikers like "honey" or "sweetie" or "darling." I have tried to make it clear with my public facade of cynicism and crabbiness that in choosing to venture into affectionate name-calling like this, you risk being skinned alive by me. How is it possible that this very critical aspect of my persona has not made it into my online profile and into my e-banter with this guy?

What on earth would have given him the impression that I was the kind of girl who would appreciate being called "sweetie?" All I can say is: he'd better not be planning on holding my hand or doing any cuddling, because that will be the final straw. I WILL smack down on it.

Dating as the fifth circle of hell?

A friend just sent me the link to a new dating site--IPod Dater. Apparently the deal is that if you join (for free), you can download videos of people explaining why you should want to date them, and then you can contact them. I'm sort of hoping it's a joke, but I don't think it is.

So after the demise of my last relationship attempt, I find myself (unwillingly) back on Match.com. I thought I canceled my stupid subscription, but I apparently didn't, so now I feel obligated to get something out of it until my subscription expires for real in May. My heart's not really in it, though.

The proof? I have gotten ridiculously picky about who I will contact on Match. This is the danger of anonymous online profiles--it's super easy to write people off based on little tiny details that annoy you. So with no further ado, my top 10 list of Match.com profile turn-offs--if you have any of these going on in your profile, you won't be hearing from me:

1) Bad grammar. Did you say nice instead of nicely? Good when you should have said well? You're off the list.
2) Bad spelling and punctuation. I understand that this is a relatively casual mode of communication we're talking about here, but bad spelling just makes you look dumb, and who wants to date someone who can't spell "schedule"?
3) Referencing how hard it is to meet people in your profile. It just makes you look sad and desperate. You're right: it is hard to meet people, but does anyone really want to be reminded of it? I didn't think so.
4) Inappropriate Match names. Examples: NiceBunsBaby and ShutTheFuckUpandKissMe. Seriously? I'm sure those names are reeling in the dates.
5) Anyone with half naked pictures of themselves in their profile, particularly if they're obviously flexing. You're probably a cocky bastard and everyone knows that really hot guys are always more trouble than they're worth.
6) Anyone old enough to be my dad. Or uncle. This, by the way, is the vast majority of men who contact me.
7) Anyone who has to say they are funny, smart or sarcastic in order to prove it. It's the primary rule of writing, people: Show, don't tell. If I can't tell you're funny, smart or sarcastic from the rest of your profile, you're probably not as funny, smart or sarcastic as you think.
8) Anyone who calls himself a "nice guy." This means you're either a jerk who's trying to front like you're a good guy, or you're really a nice guy, and women (at least this woman) generally assume that means you're a big, wimpy pushover.
9) Men who claim to be really, really busy with work. When you tell me that you work 100 hours a week, I wonder when, exactly, you were thinking you'd have time for a relationship or even a date. Perhaps the 100 hour work week is a sign that you're not really in a place in your life where you should be dating?
10) People who start their "About Me" section with the word well. As in, "Well. . . .I'm really funny, blah blah blah." There's no real reason for me to be annoyed by this. I just am.

So with all the guys that those pet peeves eliminate, I have managed to narrow down the Match.com world to approximately. . . . two people. And both of them live too far away for me to really consider dating anyway. Oh well. At least I still have Ipod Dater.

Oh yeah! Oh yeah! I'm gonna get your Grandma!

Last night, some friends and I ventured into the Starry Plough, a bar in Berkeley known for its Tuesday night open mic. We were going to support Miranda, who besides being awesome is also a singer/songwriter. Here were some of the highlights:

--"George," a snarly, radical feminist (and I suspect a lifelong chain smoker, judging by her voice) singing covers of bad 70's rock songs. George's voice has this. . . . scratchy, tone deaf quality that literally drives people from the room when she sings. When George gets on stage, everyone knows it's time for a bathroom/smoke/any other reason to leave the room that you could possibly come up with break.

--Andre the closet Russian. I had a whole conversation with this man. He seemed nice and friendly. Not even the slightest hint of an accent. And then he gets on stage, and suddenly he's dark and moody and oozing Dostoyevskian angst out of every word he utters (which suddenly is coated with this Russian accent) and then he's swaying and singing in Russian. I've heard of people adopting stage personas before, but this was kind of ridiculous.

--But the best moment of the night? Jerry. The only person over the age of 30 who performed in the open mic all night. It was the shadiest, creepiest, yuckiest and yet damn funniest performance I've seen in a long time. His best song was all about seducing old women in nursing homes. The chorus? "Oh yeah! Oh yeah! I'm gonna get your grandma!" I won't go into too much detail about the lyrics--you can check out Miranda and Carrie's blogs for more--but let's just say it was disturbing enough that when the MC got up after Jerry was done to announce the next performer, her first comment was "I never thought I'd say this, but now I'm kind of glad my grandma's dead."

Oh, and one more important thing. Don't forget that Father's Day is the day when Americans eat the most steak. It just might win you a free beer!

Miranda and Claire's Excellent Adventure

So this weekend my friend Miranda and I had ourselves quite an adventure. If you want all the details, you should really go to her blog (http://mediocrityisnotsobad.blogspot.com ) but the short version goes like this: somewhere between the struggle to save Miranda from homelessness, the field trip to check out Golden Gate Park's buffalo, some seriously inappropriate behavior at the DeYoung museum and my run-in with the rudest (and boldest) cab driver in the city, I found time to meet the man of my dreams. He is pictured below. I think we'll be very happy together, as long as I can get beyond that whole "he's encased in glass and is thousands of years older than me" thing. But true love has conquered bigger obstacles than that, I'm sure.

A LONG time coming. . . .

5 Years. That's how long it took to get justice for the 500 workers at the Claremont Resort and Spa. After 5 years of boycotting and picketing and delegating and leafleting and getting up in the managers' faces and just generally causing as much trouble for as many people as possible, the Claremont has finally given up and stopped fighting. They finally got the message that no matter how long they held out, the workers would last longer.

It's a crazy thing--the Claremont fight being over. It was my campaign for three years, and has still been going on this 4th year that I've been in Oakland. The Claremont--and being the organizer who was working on the Claremont--has literally defined my entire experience of living in California, has literally defined who I am and how I think about myself. It will be a little bit harder to make sense of California, and certainly to make sense of me, now that it's done. I imagine it must be how people felt when the Hundred Years War finally ended--when war has been the reality for so long, what do you even make of peace time? If you're not fighting, if you're not a soldier, then what are you?

I feel good about the Claremont, and the role I played there. I know that I am a little tiny piece of the reason that Claremont workers are getting huge raises and great health insurance. I'm a part of the reason housekeepers will have a pension for the first time in the history of the hotel. I'm a part of the reason that spa workers won't be treated like second class citizens--expendable and disposable.

But I'm also sad and a little angry. It's a wonderful victory, but there have been so many losses along the way. I think about workers who were fired. I think about workers who destroyed their bodies doing difficult work and had to quit. I think about workers who lost hope and left before they got to see this victory. I think about all the sacrifices people made along the way. I hope that they never have to do this again.

But mostly, I hope that they don't forget what they learned. I hope I don't forget what I learned. I hope we don't forget how to stand up, how to fight, how to get in people's faces and push for what we deserve. I hope we don't forget and get complacent. I hope we always remember how to last one day longer.

Check out the Oakland Tribune article for more information.

Claremont workers, organizers and clergy celebrate the formal addition of 100+ spa workers to the union. From left: Mario, Sonia, Pastor Jeff, Wei-Ling, Armando, Steve, Francisco, Alice, Keo, Marcos, Richard and Claire.

Connect Four as a Training Ground for Life

I just learned a valuable life lesson from the game Connect Four. You remember the game, right? You try to line up four red (or black) checkers in a row, while blocking your opponent from doing that same thing. As a kid, I used to be pretty good, but I definitely got schooled by my friend Dave when we played recently.

We were going best of 5. He'd already beat me twice and when it became clear that he was probably going to beat me again, he got frustrated. "What are you doing?" he said. "You can't just play defensively--you won't win. You have to be aggressive--go for what you want." I considered the advice. He was right. I'd been playing extremely defensively, strategizing on how to stop him without giving any consideration to how I was going to beat him. I started playing more aggressively. Too little too late, unfortunately, because he still beat me and we moved on to other activities.

I didn't give the game--or the advice--any more thought until this morning, when I found myself in a conversation about what's wrong with the Democratic Party and the Left in general. Here are my thoughts:

Because the Democrats do not apparently have the cojones to actually propose legislation that would advance the interests of those they supposedly represent, they are left with nothing to do but criticize the proposals of the Republicans. This way, they are buffered from the Republican spin factory and do not have to risk any backlash for unpopular proposals. But this blocking strategy also hasn't moved the Democratic Party platform forward at all. (This is assuming, of course, that there really is such a thing as the Democratic Party platform, and also assuming it actually looks any different from the Republican platform.) Likewise, all too often the Left is so busy defending against conservative attacks on the environment, on working people, and on everything else under the sun that there has been no attention paid to creating a strategy for moving our vision forward. Defensive tactics? Check. Proactive strategy? Um, what?

As I was discussing this, it occurred to me that Dave's advice on Connect Four still worked: you can't just play defensively, because you'll never win. At best, maybe you can stop them, and succeed in achieving a draw. But frankly, that's not much of an achievement. You still haven't gotten what you wanted, and the odds are good that all you've really managed to do is slow them down, not stop them after all.

"Be bold!" my old supervisor used to say, and it's what Dave was telling me too. You have to risk losing in order to win. You have to go after what you want, because your opponent sure as hell isn't going to give it to you. Yes, defense is important, but defense is about holding the line--standing still--when what you really need to be focused on is moving forward--toward your goal, and not just away from theirs.

It suddenly seems like very wise advice for how to live life--not just how to play some silly game (or even just how to run the Democratic party). It's advice I think I'll be taking to heart and trying to incorporate in everything I do.

Now, anyone for a game of Connect Four?

Oh right--THAT'S why I run!

This morning, my friends Becky and Helen and I got up super early (6:00 am on a Sunday? Come on!) to run the Emerald Nuts Sausalito to San Francisco 12K Race. While I could have done without the early start time, we had amazing weather and a fantastic view of San Francisco as we ran across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the city. We also all managed to survive the two major hills--and one of them was really nasty!

This is us right after the race, and right before a well deserved brunch complete with mimosas!

Home-lessness

I've been thinking about something my friend Erin said a while back. She was talking about Boston--where she's lived for almost 8 years now, since we started college. She told me that even though she's lived in Boston longer than she's ever lived anywhere else, it's never managed to feel like home.

I know what she means. Even though I really love the Bay Area, it doesn't feel like home either. I don't really feel like I belong here. But then, that's always been the problem. With the Bay Area, with Boston, even with Colorado. I suppose Colorado feels like home, but I don't belong there either. Colorado is the place I miss when I am not there--the blue skies, the dry air, the mountains, the "forests" made up of scrub oak and aspen trees. Colorado is the place where I feel most like I could be comfortable--but at the cost of sacrificing my political, hell-raising side.

I've never been really comfortable in San Francisco, in the Bay Area. I'm not political enough, not hipster enough, not enviro-vegan enough, and not hip-hop enough. And I'm not willing or able to become any of those things to better fit with everyone else.

So where does that leave me? Ungrounded. Rootless. Home-less. At least I'm in good company. Sometimes I feel like San Francisco is a city made up of nomads, of home-less wanderers--we're people who'll hang around for a while and then move on, all of us looking for that same elusive sense of home.

An Open Letter

To the passive-agressive boy who sent me the snarky e-mail this afternoon:

You, sir, have definitely chosen the wrong week to piss me off. There are no circumstances under which I wouldn't have been at least annoyed by your e-mail, but you've caught me in a moment when I am ready to be full-out enraged at just about anything about your gender, and now you will have to bear the full brunt of my anger.

It is too bad for you that I am not interested in you. It is also too bad for you that I already have plans to run a 12k race on Sunday morning. And yes, it is true that these two factors combined have made me unwilling to commit to making plans with you for later on Sunday. But my hesitancy does not give you the right to get petty. It doesn't give you the right to cop an attitude. You definitely do not know me well enough to cop attitude, and since we do not have any type of relationship (friends or otherwise) you do not have the right to presume to be pissed at me for not jumping at the opportunity to include you in my Sunday. (And trust me, you don't want to go there anyway, because in the mean, snarky attitude department I could kick your ass and probably make you cry, too.)

What all of this means, in case you hadn't figured it out, is that we will DEFINITELY NOT be hanging out on Sunday. In fact, I think it's safe to assume we will not be hanging out again ever. I guess you'll just have to take the passive-aggressive bullshit act somewhere else.

4th Street

This past weekend I had what is always an uncomfortable and slightly unsettling experience: I ventured into the rich-yuppie bastion that is Berkeley's 4th Street shopping district. The home of upscale boutiquies selling makeup, clothes, furniture and kitchenware, 4th Street is somewhere I rarely venture, partly because I can't afford anything and partly because rich yuppies make me nervous. But to be honest, there's another, bigger reason that I don't like going to 4th Street: it makes me see a little too clearly the disparity between rich and poor, and it makes me feel a little too sharply how vulnerable those who don't speak English are in our society.

You see, besides being a swanky, upscale shopping district, 4th Street is also where the Latino day laborers hang out, hoping to score a job for the day. They line the street leading into the shopping center, some slumped against telephone poles--hands jammed deep into pockets, some seated on curbs--faces cast into deep shadow by the brims of hats that have been scorched by the noon sun and battered by rain and wind and maybe even snow. They peer up anxiously--hopefully--as you drive by, hoping to make eye contact, hoping you'll stop, hoping you'll pick them. They break my heart.

I've been in the labor/worker justice world long enough to know a thing or two about day laborers. To have actually met and talked to a bunch of them. It's a raw deal: the work is often grueling manual labor. It's usually not regulated, so the pay is low. There's no guarantee that you'll even get to work at all. Often, day laborers are viewed as loiterers, as trash, as people who should stop lurking on the street and find real jobs. But really, they're just people hoping to pay the bills and make ends meet for their families. They're just people who took their skills and experiences from their own countries and brought them here, to give to us. To make lives for themselves, and maybe, hopefully, a better future. I wonder how many of them find that better future after all.

The best "dysfunctional break-up" song ever

So I've moved on to the Anti-Love CD that my friend Erin made. I think the genius of the mix is kind of lost on me today: I'm not really in the mood for hating on love. That said, however, I did just finish listening to what might be the most hillarious and brilliant song about a break-up ever, so I thought I'd share the lyrics. The song is called "No Children," by the Mountain Goats (which, despite the deceptively plural title, is actually only one guy.) Here are the lyrics:

I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us. I hope we come up with a fail-safe plot to piss off the dumb few who forgave us. I hope the fences we mended, fall down beneath their own weight, and I hope we hang on past the last exit, I hope it's already too late.

And I hope the junk yard a few blocks from here someday burns down. And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away and I never come back to this town again.

In my life, I hope I lie, and tell everyone you were a good wife, and I hope you die, I hope we both die.

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow, I hope it bleeds all day long. Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises, but we're pretty sure they're all wrong. I hope it stays dark forever, I hope the worst isn't over. And I hope you blink before I do, and I hope I never get sober.

And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can't find one good thing to say, and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way!

I am drowning. There is no sign of land. You are coming down with me--hand in unloveable hand. And I hope you die. I hope we both die.

But to really appreciate how funny it is, you have to imagine these lyrics being set to a kind of twangy, upbeat guitar with maybe a little harmonica. Or, even better, you could just listen to the song.

Vocabulary Expansion

I have a subscription to "Word of the Day," and below are two of the latest words that I've been sent. These are real words, I swear. I can't help but think that Word of the Day is either scraping the bottom of the barrel for words, or it's been taken over by a pseudo-intellectual snotty-pants whose only method for impressing women is by using words they don't understand.

Ululate: to howl, as a wolf or a dog; to wail; as "ululating jackals"

I can appreciate wanting to mix up your word choice, but seriously, who is ever going to use the phrase "ululating jackals?"

Crapulous: suffering the effects of, or derived from gross intemperance (e.g. binge drinking); as "a crapulous stomach"

I may never use the word ululate, but crapulous is becoming the new favorite word of my vocabulary. CRAPULOUS! How can you not want to say that?

Musical choices

Listening to: the "Broken Love" mix CD that my friend Erin created as part of a set of Love CDs a couple years ago. It seems fitting today. Later I'll move on to the Anti-Love CD, but I think I need to work up to that. For right now, I'm pretty content just to listen to the Dresden Doll's "The Jeep Song," Cake's "I Will Survive" and Bob Hillman's "Greenland" on repeat. If you haven't heard these songs (and the odds are pretty good that you wouldn't have heard the first or the last) you should look them up and take a listen. A nice combination of funny, angry, sad, smart and ironic. Perfect.

Seriously, here are sample lyrics: "Everywhere I look I see your '96 Jeep Cherokee. . . .With every jeep I see, my broken heart still skips a beat. I guess it's just my stupid luck that all of Boston drives the same black fucking truck." And: "No more waiting till your icecream melts in the high desert heat of Texas. I've got an imitation seal skin coat and a one way ticket to Greenland. I'm going to live on the world's largest island where the icecap is 7 kilometers thick. You're twice as cold (twice as cold, twice as cold) as Greenland." God, to be a songwriter like that.

Words that I'm loving lately

As a writer, I just generally love words--how they sound, what they mean, the images they evoke. But there are some words that just resonate. Words you love using--you like what they convey, you like the way the feel in your mouth, you like that they make you seem smart. Whatever. Here are my top 5 words for the week:

1) Snarky
2) Alacrity
3) Volatile
4) Ephemeral
5) Wonky

What's the pattern here? Apparently I like words that end in -y and-al sounds? A challenge: try to use all five of these in the course of everyday conversation today.

Other words worth adding to the list?

Party Highlights

Top 5 highlights of my very belated housewarming party on Saturday:

5) Crazy, over-the-top, obvious matchmaking of my co-workers.

4) The fact that the crazy, over-the-top, obvious matchmaking seems to have been successful. (See the couple on the left in above picture)

3) My former co-workers talking shit to my new co-workers over who was better at throwing down. (By the way, there's no contest here--my old co-workers could drink a bunch of alcohoic sailors under a table.)



2) Stopping flip cup before we started using hard alcohol.



1) George. That's right--the kid I met at the "brewery" last Friday. (See blog entry.) On a whim, I invited him, and he came and stayed the WHOLE 8 HOURS. I always say it's good to have a little bit of shady randomness at a party, and George definitely supplied it. Was there anyone at the party who didn't meet George?

And a special shout out to Marcos for the most effective (even if unintentional) cockblock I've witnessed in a LONG time.

Pushing

It occurs to me that it’s been almost a whole year since I left my job as a union organizer. It’s hard to believe that a whole year has gone by, especially when on an almost daily basis, I find myself still struggling to un-do all the brainwashing that went into turning me into the crazily intense, single-minded organizing fiend that I was for so long. Hell, just recognizing it as brainwashing has taken nearly this whole year.

But while I’m sure that the brainwashing (or—as I prefer to think of it—training) made me a kick-ass organizer, I’m worried that it’s not really helping me so much in my real life. Here’s the best example I can come up with:

Pushing. In the world of union organizing, there is no such thing as being too pushy. If a worker doesn’t call you back, you call again. And again. And then you show up at their house. And you keep showing up until they’re home and they’re willing to talk. And if they’re never willing to talk, you talk to their co-workers and their friends and their family to organize them into pushing said worker to talk to you.

Try for a moment, if you will, to imagine using this strategy in other areas of your life. The guy you went on a great first date with hasn’t called you back? Just call again, and again, and then show up and talk to his roommate about how to get him to call you. Yeah. Doesn’t seem like such a good plan suddenly. I think that would officially get you categorized as a stalker, and you’d better be prepared for the restraining order to show up in the mail.

Once, early on in my time at the union, I expressed concern that I would be so pushy with someone that I would push them away. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that no one was ever lost by pushing too hard. If you lost someone by pushing, then you never really had them to begin with. Now, this logic seems pulled straight out of Orwell’s 1984: it’s impossible to push someone away by being too persistent. And 2+2=5.

The crazy thing, though, is that this “be pushy” logic worked in the world of the union. Being persistent and pushy and in people’s faces definitely gained me (and my co-workers) far more than it ever lost us. But in my real life? I’m not so sure. I’m constantly having to battle my (now) natural impulse to push, and honestly, I’m not sure that I’ve always done a good job of regulating it. I can’t help but wonder (and worry) about what good things in my life I’ve lost—or am at risk of losing—because I don’t know when to stop pushing and just let things be.

A Case in Point of Excessive West Coast Friendliness

Yesterday, my friend Miranda and I (www.mediocrityisnotsobad.blogspot.com) were standing in line at the Parkway Theatre to buy tickets to watch the Oscars there next Sunday. It was cold. It was rainy. There were A LOT of people in the line in front of us.

As we stood there waiting for them to start selling tickets, a man walked around the corner and started shaking people's hands. I didn't think much of it until he reached us.

"Hi," he said, extending his hand out to me. "I'm Connie. I'm up at the front of the line, waiting to buy tickets, and I thought since we're all going to be watching the Oscars together next weekend, I'd come by and introduce myself. That way when you see me next week, we'll already know each other and we can all be friends."

There was a time when I would have assumed that anyone who would just start up a conversation with me in a line must be a) crazy; b) trying to scam me; or c) trying to pick me up. This guy, while probably a little bit off, was none of the above. As far as I can tell, he was just. . . .friendly. Which for me just makes the whole thing stranger.

Anyway, we chatted about the tuxedo he was going to sport and the party dresses and tiaras that Miranda and I are considering wearing, and then he continued to make his way through the line. Miranda and I started giggling, knowing that this is what makes California so great. (Or so weird, depending on your perspective.)

But I have to say, I am excited that when I show up at the Parkway next Sunday, I will have one friend already waiting for me there. Connie, I'll be looking for ya!

Weird things that happened to me today

1) As I was riding BART this afternoon, I noticed some graffiti on the side of a building that said "JESUS SAVES YOU FROM HELL." I kid you not.

2) I went to hang out a brewery this evening. And by brewery, I really mean large open parking lot adjacent to the back of a warehouse that can only be accessed by walking through the Walmart/Home Depot parking lot and squeezing around a chain link fence and jockeying yor way through the crowd of big, burly Teamsters.

3) At said "brewery", my friend Miranda and I managed to meet the only three militant members of the teacher's union, oh, probably in the world. We had to toast unions at least 7 times. And we were only talking for about a half an hour. It was so random and weird though. This is what happens when you move away from the East Coast and and they finally manage to break through your reserve: you become one of those chatty people who talks to everyone. I have become that person. One little comment about stocking up on tokens for beer and suddenly you're Andrew and George and Don's best friends and you're making plans to hang out in San Lorenzo (which, for those of you who didn't know--and I imagine that would be all of you--is on the 880 corridor in between San Leandro and Hayward. Apparently half of it got annexed away by San Leandro back in the day, but it still has two elementary schools of its own, dammit!)

T.O.

I've been thinking about the concept of "The One" lately. (AKA "T.O.") I have friends who talk about finding "The One"--"Well, I guess he just wasn't 'The One' after all." "When it's the right time, I know I'll meet 'The One.'"

I'm not sure that I buy it. It just seems like an awful lot of pressure to put on any one person, on any one relationship.

And is it even a reasonable expectation? To me, "T.O." seems to imply completion, the person who makes you whole, the relationship that gives you everything you need. Like in Jerry Maguire: "You complete me." It's a nice sentiment, if you're into that kind of thing. A nice sentiment, but is it even possible for it to exist as a reality? Can one person really give you everything you need? I doubt it. Even if it were possible, would it be healthy? I think not.

A chicken and egg conundrum: did people start writing books and making movies about finding "T.O." because they'd seen that it really could happen in real life, or did people start looking for "T.O." in real life because they saw it some damn movie? Movie love is not real love, and I have a deep, sinking suspicion that the movie industry (with a little help from those bodice-ripper romance novels) is largely responsible for people's unreasonable expectations about what love means and what it will look like.

I think the odds are good that you will not fall in love with a person who regularly says things like "You complete me." I think the odds are good that they will not, in fact, complete you either. And I'd say the odds are fantastic that they won't like the movies you like, or the hobbies you like or the foods you like, and that unless you just want to give up on film noir and Thai food forever, you're gonna have to find someone else to enjoy those things with.

But for all you hopeless (or is it hopeful?) romantics out there who are actively searching for your "T.O."--take heart. This blog, after all, is being written by a woman who, if she gets married, is seriously considering having her husband live somewhere else. Like in a house of his own across the street. So what the hell do I know about love and "The One" anyway?

And Part Four. . .

Love makes you do crazy things. Things you never thought you would have done, much less wanted to do.

You think you have your life all figured out--you know what you want, you know where you're going, and then love derails it all. Love changes your mind, and changes you.

It's not always big things that change, but the total effect is the same.

I have been observing this phenomenon with my friends for years: As a single woman, Laura* filled up her weekends with carefully worked out plans and activities. As part of a couple, she's suddenly really into just hanging out. As a single woman, Nicole* was crystal clear that after graduation from college, she was moving back to California and going to law school. She HATED the East Coast. One year into a relationship, however, and all her law school applications were for schools in Pennsylvania, where her boyfriend had found a job. As a single man, John* worked on living wage and other economic justice politices. As a married man, he finds himself in business school and preparing to move to India with his wife.

As a single person, I have always secretly condemned these changes of plan, these changes of preference. From the outside, it looked like selling out: changing what you want and who you are for some guy (or some girl). But the more I think about it, the more I think this analysis is wrong.

One of the best things I've ever read about love comes from Julian Barnes' brilliant novel The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. He says that love is what keeps "the history of the world from becoming self-important." Love takes your best laid plans and messes them up. Love takes your brilliant strategies and throws in the wrench. Love thumbs its nose at history, and says "so much for what you wanted to happen--here's what you're getting!"

Maybe the better analysis would be to say that love is the x factor, the unknown variable that's going to come in and change the equation. Maybe love is the thing that opens you up to possibilities that you never would have considered for yourself otherwise. Maybe the changes that love effects aren't actually selling out, but rather growing up.

*Note: names have been changed to protect the guilty. :-)

I Lied

I know I said there would be no ranting this week in honor of Valentine's Day, but this was too ridiculous to pass up.

The headline on Yahoo News today?

"Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter."

Can we impeach him for this?

The giddy e-mail face

Maybe a month or so ago, I was going to write a blog post about something I'll refer to as the "giddy e-mail face." For those of you who are not immediately familiar with it, this is the face that involuntarily and uncontrollably seizes your face--generally making you break out into what should, by all rights, be a face-cracking smile--when you receive an e-mail from that certain someone.

This is a mis-leading name, however, because in my experience the face does not just appear as a result of e-mail. Voicemails, IMs ,text messages and talking on the phone are also not safe from this exceedingly visible and often embrassing reaction to another person. Hell, I've seen friends carry out whole, in-person conversations with their object of affection with the giddy face firmly intact. Someone even had the nerve to accuse me of doing just that. They were, of course, mistaken.

I have had a lot of recent experience with the giddy face. It seems that suddenly everyone I know has a crush, or is dating someone, or is in love and so the giddy face is now everywhere. Whole conversations have been devoted to the cute things they said or did that prompted the face. Even more conversations have been devoted to bafflement about having this reaction at all.

I have definitely been in the latter camp of conversations. I had always assumed that I was way too cynical and too guarded and too jaded ever to be afflicted with something as goofily, grossly cute as the giddy face. The last time I experienced the giddy face, I'm pretty sure, was when as a freshman in high school, the student body president/captain of the soccer team talked to me one day in the cafeteria.

And yet it has suddenly returned, publicly embarassing me and causing my friends to stare at me and say things like "I don't think I've ever seen you like this. It's kind of. . . weird." Yeah, it is kind of weird. I'm not really sure that I like it.

But then again, maybe it's good to know you're capable of that level of feeling, that level of excitement, that level of hope. Maybe it's good that my ability to believe in romance and love didn't die in 9th grade with a soccer player named Ryan Sullivan. Maybe.

L'amour: la troisieme partie

I'm a little tired today, and I'm not sure that I'm up for a big reflection on the philosophical aspects of love. So instead, we get a Top 5 List. Easy, straightforward, and in no particular order.

Top 5 Love Songs that Don't Use The Word Love

1) "El Scorcho" by Weezer
2) "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie
3) "Sorry Signs on Cash Machines" by Mason Jennings
4) "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service
5) "I Only Have Eyes For You" the Flamingoes

Thoughts on like and love: Parte dos

True Love

Two years ago, at Christmas-time, my grandfather—who has always seemed to be a frail, bird-like, fragile little man, and who had become increasingly detached and remote and uncomprehending of late—collapsed and was taken to the ICU. The doctors weren’t holding out much hope for his recovery—they were very clear with us that it was just a matter of time.

Still, for several weeks, he lay in a hospital bed, seemingly unconscious, not opening his eyes or in any way acknowledging that he could see or hear what was going on around him. Scores of tubes and monitors and wires were hooked into him: a respirator to help him breathe, feeding tubes, heart monitor, something to monitor his blood sugar level, who knows what else. His breathing—even with the respirator—was labored and ragged; an unmistakable noise—like that of a rattlesnake’s tail or a child’s toy—escaped from this throat with every breath: the death rattle.

Christmas that year was my grandparents’ 55th anniversary. We spent it sitting in the ICU. For days, my grandmother had simply refused to leave the hospital at all—“I want to be there when he wakes up,” she’d say. Over and over, she would go to his side, pat his hand and stroke the side of his face and say, “Harry? Harry, it’s me, Nan. Harry? Wake up Harry. I miss you so much. You look so handsome. You’re so handsome.”

It became a kind of crooning lullaby that she sang, as if to comfort him, and perhaps herself. She looked at him with the fresh naïve hope of a young child, sitting on Santa’s knee, certain that he is real and that whatever is asked for would be received: if she asked often enough and she believed deeply enough, perhaps soon he would wake up and they would go back to normal.

It took the three of us to convince her to leave his side, even for a moment. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, would just sit there, patting his hand, and stroking back the thin, stringy strands of his still perfectly black hair, telling him how handsome he looked.

Thoughts on like and love: Part I

I find myself thinking about love (and its predecessor like) a lot these days. Maybe it's because Valentine's Day is around the corner and it's hard to avoid bombardment by images of "true love." Maybe it's because many of my single (or recent formerly single) girlfriends seem to be finding like and love of their own. Or maybe that's just where my head is.

There are, I believe, 7 days until Valentine's Day. And in honor of that, I'm committing those 7 days to blogs about love, like and relationships. No crabby rants about George Bush. No funny stories about children pooping (unless they did it for love). In keeping with the spirit of the day, I'm even going to try to refrain from ranting about love, like and relationships. Happy blogs, people. Or at least reflective blogs.

So with no further ado:

I have been on what feels like a million dates in the last three years. (It’s probably closer to fifty.) Some of those guys I’ve really liked; some were just alright. One or two I would be happy never to see again. Generally, I was glad when they called and happy to get e-mails from them. Generally, I had a good time when we went out. Generally, everything about those dates and those relationships was. . . . fine.

Fine. It’s a word that in my book ranks right up there with ‘nice’ as one of those neutral, positive-sounding words you use to describe something that frankly, you really don’t like that much but you can’t find any good reason to dislike it. And so you say that it seemed. . . . nice. They were really. . . nice. If all I can think to say is that you are ‘nice,’ that’s pretty much the kiss of death. You might as well be horrible or repulsive or obnoxious. At least then you’d be interesting.

Somewhere in all this dating, I had forgotten that there could be something other than ‘fine.’ Or maybe I’d just given up hope in finding something more than fine. In college, there were people I was excited about—people who made my stomach drop and my head spin. People who could reduce me to a giddy, goofy, inarticulate mess and whose every e-mail and phone call left me with an embarrassingly uncontrollable face-splitting smile that wouldn’t be wiped away, no matter how hard I tried to contain it.

But three years of blah dates had left me numb. I had gotten used to my bland dating diet of 'nice' guys and 'fine' dates. It's only just recently that I've realized how terrible--and unfulfilling--'fine' really is. 'Fine' is all too often what we put up with, what we settle for. But I'm finally realizing that holding out for someone that you're really excited about just might be worth it after all.

Romance on the Bay Bridge

I got proposed to while paying my toll to get on the Bay Bridge last week.

As I reached out to hand the tollbooth guy my money, he said "Oh, you are so beautiful! Are you married?"

A little taken aback, I replied, "Um, no."

"Well, you must at least have a boyfriend."

"Um, yes. Yes I do," I said.

(NOTE: This is a bold-faced lie. I have finally learned, after many years of awkward encounters, that when weird strangers are hitting on you, the correct answer to this question is always yes, regardless of the truth.)

"Well is he going to marry you?" the tollbooth guy asked. "Because I would marry you, and buy you a house and you would live very comfortably. You just remember, if he won't marry you, you always have me."

"Thank you," I said. "That's very nice. Can I have my change, please?"

And then, proposal and change in hand, I was on my way.

I Hate George Bush

In case there was any confusion on the part of people who have been reading my blog, let me just say it one more time: I HATE George Bush.

I hate him for creating a budget that creates the LARGEST deficit in our history, that cuts spending to education, medicare and other social services while increasing military spending and hanging on to his stupid tax cut. (Because of course it's totally worth selling out underpaid teachers, struggling public school kids and my aging grandparents for an extra $20 a month in my paycheck. I'll have to make sure to go out to dinner to celebrate. Plus, then I'll be doing my patriotic part to support the economy.)

It's like George Bush and his administration are trying to give one really big "fuck you" to everyone in the middle and lower classes and anyone who has bought into the idea of the importance/necessity of a social safety net.

I mean, come on! It's EDUCATION. It's the freaking future of our country. Although, if recent trends are any indication, it'll probably just be rich people who run the country anyway, and they probably all went to private school, so that works out OK. And really, if you're going to cut spending on education, what better place to put funds than into the military? Because, after all, if kids aren't going to be able to count on a good education to help them get a job, then at least they know they can always enlist. And, you know, hopefully not die.

Admittedly, it's not like he's the only president who does crappy stuff like this. Has there ever been a time when a president said "Hey! I think we should reduce our military and defense spending so we can focus on better education and health services for everyone?" Is it just that the Bush Administration has been such a long and horrifyingly anti-populist nightmare that I can't even fathom that other presidents actually cared about people, or are they all--to varying degrees--about this bad?

Makes Me Question Why People Have Kids

This is how my co-worker, Brooke, spent her night last night:

We were running a training for a group of workers, and several of the participants had brought their kids. Being the helpful person that she is, Brooke offered to babysit the kids while the training was going on.

According to Brooke, the three kids were--to quote--"devil children": out of control, screaming, running around. Typical 4 year old boys.

At one point in the night, Brooke says that she left the boys to walk into the next room to get some water for one of them. When she came back not two minutes later, she found a surprise waiting for her on the floor: a log of poop. While all of them denied responsibility, clearly someone waited for her to leave, dropped his pants and pooped on the floor.

I can't say I'm sorry I missed that.

When Political Propaganda Goes BAD

As annoyed as I get with the Republican spin factory framing Democrats as a bunch of fetus-killing, tree-hugging peaceniks looking for government handouts, suddenly their propaganda is looking pretty reasonable.

Let's compare it to what I found on the windshield of my car (and every other car on the street) this morning:

The campaign magazine for Lyndon LaRouche. Now, for you politically in-the-know types, you're already rolling your eyes and groaning, because you know that LaRouche--who has campaigned in every presidential campaign since 1980-- and his minions are NUTS. But for those of you who need more convincing, here is what was on the cover of his campaign magazine.

"Keep Fascist Alito Off the Supreme Court."--This isn't so bad, because frankly I said the same thing about Alito just yesterday.

"Cheney's 'Schmittlerian' Drive for Dictatorship"--complete with a photo of Dick Cheney superimposed next to Adolph Hitler. Lovely.

But my personal favorite (because of its complete ridiculousness and lack of relevance to anything else on the cover)?

The headline that says "CHILDREN OF SATAN IV."

Now THAT'S propaganda.

What is the World Coming To?

So I go to check my e-mail this morning and am greeted by this headline on AOL:

"Heroin Hidden Inside Puppies."

Puppies? Seriously?

Top Ten Things I'm Angry About This Week

10) James Frey shopping his book A Million Little Pieces--with its cliched plot and one-dimensional, stereotypical characters--as a memoir after it failed to get published as a novel because it had a cliched plot and one-dimensional stereotypical characters. Don't pass off crap fiction as the truth with the hopes that that will make it worth reading. It won't.

9) Cindy Sheehan getting arrested for attending the State of the Union while wearing a t-shirt protesting the casualties of the war.

8) Because I am angry about these things, at least one person will accuse me of having PMS . I don't.

7) That a-hole George W. announcing in his State of the Union Address that the U.S. is "addicted to oil" and "that the best way to break that addiction is through technology" as if he came up with the idea himself. Guess what? People who actually give a shit about the economy and the environment have been saying that for years.

6) The defense attorneys for Ken Lay and those Enron crooks having the nerve to claim that there was no "evil doing" on the part of their clients. Like hell there wasn't.

5) George W. (Yes, he gets two mentions because I'm really that angry) touting the wonders of a national health-care plan that will do absolutely nothing to increase access to health care for the 46 million people who are uninsured (up from 40 million when he became president) and will most likely create a disincentive for people to seek preventive care before their health problems spiral out of control.

4) Samuel Alito is confirmed as the latest Supreme Court Justice--say goodbye to workers' rights, women's reproductive rights, and anything resembling civil liberties.

3) What passes for good immigration "reform" these days is legislation that makes it a felony for you to be in this country (and makes it a felony for anyone else to assist you) unless some company has decided to host you as a "guest worker," by which I mean that they plan to manipulate you, exploit you, and then turn you over to the feds if you try to do anything about it.

2) And did I mention they also want to build a wall to keep out the flood of "illegals?" Yeah, a really big wall with barbed wire and armed guards and probably lots of dogs.

1) More than anything, however, I am angry that on a daily basis, nothing I'm doing is making any of these other things any better.

A Pre-Valentine's Day Rant

I have a confession to make.

I love Valentine's Day. I love it. It is my favorite holiday of the year, surpassed only by Patriot's Day (better known as Marathon Monday), and that's only if I'm gonna be in Boston AND I'll get to pass out Gatorade.

I have been an unabashed lover of Valentine's Day for as long as I can remember--back since the days of doily hearts and foil stickers and tissue-paper covered shoeboxes filled with your classmates' Kermit the Frog Valentines Cards. As I've gotten older--and my Valentines cards have gotten a little more sophisticated--my love for the holiday has only grown.

I recognize that this puts me in a very small minority. People HATE Valentine's Day. Couples stress out about the pressure of making it romantic and complain about how it creates artificial expectations. Singles use it as an opportunity to binge eat, dress like a slob, drink too much and behave like bitter, mopey, angry people. Valentine's Day--it seems--brings out the curmudgeon in just about everyone.

I will admit, this year I almost caved. Being the sole champion of a holiday nearly everyone hates is discouraging. And for one week, I seriously considered putting down the gauntlet, putting on the Ani DiFranco and throwing myself a one-woman pity party while drowning my single woman sorrows in a tub of Rocky Road.

Here's the thing, though. I will not allow the horrible people writing Halmark cards and producing women's magazines to ruin my Valentine's Day. Just because they proclaim that Valentine's Day is all about hearts and flowers and romance and finding "the one" does not actually make it so. There IS a difference between how something is framed and what it actually can be.

My point is that there is a grain of goodness (I would even say greatness) to Valentine's Day. You just have to tap into it. That's true of a lot of things. Take Thanksgiving. I don't happen to think that celebrating genocide and manifest destiny makes for a very good holiday, but I'll take that whole bit about thinking about what I should be grateful for. It's the same with Valentine's Day.

I have wonderful friends. I have a great family. I love them all very much. So as Valentine's Day rolls around, you'd better believe I'll be celebrating that love--and I'll be letting them know. Don't sell love short just because it doesn't come wrapped in a box of chocolates or a bouquet of roses or an expensive candlelight dinner with your soul mate. Love is still love--it always will be--and we should honor and cherish it in all its forms.

A million tiny pieces

The state of California executed Clarence Ray Allen at midnight last night. At midnight--the cusp between the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birthday and Allen's own 76th birthday--the state of California made an irreversible decision about the value of his life, about the possibility of redemption, about the righteousness of vengeance.

Last night, at the vigil marking his execution, I witnessed and mourned the death of one more tiny piece of our country's collective humanity. Humanity: the shapeless, intangible thing that distinguishes us from animals. Our soul, our spirit, our distinct light. I have always thought of humanity as essentially our ability to relate to one another, to empathize, to see ourselves in others and others in ourselves.

I had assumed that our humanity was a given. A definite, permanent state. Now I am not so sure. Can it be lost? Can it erode? Can it be chipped away by the everyday wear and tear of moral decisions? Perhaps humanity is a more fragile state than I had thought. How many tiny pieces of humanity can we lose before we've lost its basic essence? Before all we're left with are pieces that add up to nothing?

People will argue that Clarence Ray Allen was a murderer. They will argue that he put no value on the lives he took. They will argue that he long ago lost his humanity. They will use this as a justification for why he should have been executed. It seems to me, though, that the discussion should not really be about him. It is about the rest of us, and how many more pieces of our humanity we are willing to sacrifice in the name of "justice" or "moral authority" or "vengeance" or whatever other euphemism we choose to use. I just pray that we never lose too many.

Blue

Do you remember how everything always seemed. . . more when you were a kid? Bigger, longer or just better? Maybe it was just an issue of scale--we were small and the world was big. I prefer to think it was an issue of wonder--we were in awe and the world was amazing. And somewhere over the years, we lost that sense of awe. The world shrunk, and things weren't quite as amazing.

One of my earliest memories is of being convinced that the sky in Colorado was bluer than anywhere else I'd ever been, bluer than anywhere else in the world. It was the kind of blue that was more than just a color; it was a blue that soaked into your soul and shook you alive. The sky everywhere else seemed dim and drab and lifeless in comparison.

For years, as I've moved around the country, I have romanticized that sky. But everytime I go home, I prepare myself for that inevitable shock of discovering that this too--like everything else from my childhood--is not as grand as I remember.



Here's the funny thing, though: I've never been disappointed. I walk off a plane, and the Colorado sky is still the color of my memories, of my daydreams. If anything it's brighter and bolder, making my memories look like pale pastel watercolor versions of a technicolor reality.



I don't ever know quite what to make of this fact. For now I accept it as a gift, perhaps a little cautiously, fearing that someday it will get taken away. It's a gift of more than just a sky color, however: it is a little piece of my childish wonder, reminding me that the world is, in fact, as amazing as I once thought.

My Christmas Miracle

So just before Christmas--when most of my friends had already taken off for their respective holiday plans--I went to the movies by myself. It was a beautiful, well-made movie and I was absorbed with thinking it over as I made my way out of the theatre and back to my car.

Needing to pick up a few last things before I too left for the holidays, I drove to the drugstore, where I suddenly realized that I no longer had my wallet. After tearing apart my car, I realized that I must have lost it at the movies. I went back to the theatre, and with the help of an usher, scoured the theatre, with no luck. My wallet was gone.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been annoying, but I was supposed to be getting on a plane the next day, and now I had no money, no ID, and no credit cards, and no immediate way to get any of those things. This was far more than annoying: it was horrible. I had no idea what to do, and thinking about it was stressing me out to the point that I thought I was going to cry.

Upset and unsure what to do next, I drove home. As I fumbled for my door key, I looked down. What was that under my doormat? I bent down, pulled back the mat, and there lay my wallet, with everything--license, cash, credit cards--all still in it. No note--no nothing--to explain who had put it there. I chalk it up to a Christmas miracle (surely engineered by my homeboy Saint Anthony) meant to remind me how many good, honest, and lovely people are out there.

30 More Seconds

To my mom, in honor of the Winter Solstice.

Every Tuesday, for seven years, my mother dropped me off and waited while I went to my piano lesson. Every so often she would come in to listen, but mostly, she just sat in the car. I often wondered why she didn’t try to run errands, why she rarely brought the Southern Living or Grisham novel she happened to be reading, why she didn’t bring work to do in the car. She just waited. She never seemed to mind.

Weeks and months slipped by, seasons faded one into the next and rolled into years as every week she waited in the car. There was a certain cyclical rhythm to it, as steady and certain as my piano teacher’s metronome. Week after week, as I worked my way through the intricacies of Bach Inventions and Chopin Nocturnes, the hour from 6 to 7 pm belonged only to my mother. No distractions, no demands. Just my mother and the world, slowly and subtly shifting around her. Waiting in the car, she was the axis around which a changing world spun: a constant witness to the slow slide of light into darkness as winter’s sleepy death approached, a constant witness that inevitably, miraculously, the light of spring would once again awaken and steal surreptitiously back into the world before exploding in the full-blown dazzling warmth of the summer sun. For years this unfolded around her, this slow dance of seasons and light, as she sat waiting in the car.

One day, in the brutal, slushy cold of February, when the days seem the greyest, I asked my mom what she thought about while she waited. “Did you know,” she said, “that there were 30 seconds more light today than there were yesterday?” I just sat and looked at her, dumbfounded. That was what she thought about? “And,” she continued, “there will be 30 more seconds tomorrow, too.”

In the hours and hours that she spent waiting for me while I plowed my way through tedious scales and chords, she was pondering the rotation of the sun and the earth and the inevitable creeping forward of one season into another? I don’t know what I thought she was going to say. Looking back, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me. Never one to shirk responsibility, my mother worked long hours and brought more work home at the end of the day. She made sure dinner was on the table, the bathroom was clean, the dogs were fed and the permission slip was signed. She even did her best to get me to practice the piano. A swirl of never-ending deadlines and demands dogged her every moment—except for the one hour a week when all of it melted away, usurped by the play of shadows and light as they shifted and slid across the mountain landscape right before her eyes.

In the bleak, dreary darkness of a February winter, my mother’s comment bore witness to a faith—as old as humanity—that the sun would return, that winter’s gloom would yet again succumb to the sweet, still freshness of spring, to the bright, bold vibrancy of summer. My mother knew this, for she had seen it and pondered it—one hour a week—for years. And like a plant whose leaves open and close with the rising and setting of the sun, she was preparing herself to break out of the confines of winter’s darkness and into the light—to open, to stretch, to grow and to live.

Today is the winter solstice. It will be darker—longer—today than any other day of the year. Like my mother, I will welcome it, knowing that tomorrow will bring 30 seconds more daylight, and the promise of new beginnings.