Meltdown (and no, I'm not talking about the heatwave.)

I just had a minor meltdown at work. This has been a really shit week, so this should not have come as a big surprise. When your major projects for the week involve figuring out how to make absolutely no work look like $17,500 worth of work, and taking 11 people's conflicting feedback on a buzillion minute details of a potential website design and trying to create one cohesive position to tell the web designer (knowing full well that everyone is just going to keep complaining about the feedback of theirs you didn't take when they see the next round of website designs anyway) and you're not doing anything you feel even remotely good at, and you're definitely not doing anything you even remotely enjoy, meltdowns should probably be expected.

Mine went something like this:

"IhatethisjobIhatethisjobIhatethisjobIhatethisjobIhatethisjob." (This popped out completely involuntarily in the middle of a conversation with two of my co-workers about the aforementioned website. Pretty much apropos of nothing to them, but it's all very clearly connected for me.)

This prompted one co-worker to ask me what I'd rather be doing, and, chiming in, the other co-worker asked, "yeah Claire, what color is your parachute?" which I personally thought was pretty funny.

So yeah, I spent the rest of the afternoon fluctuating between annoyance and frustration.

And while I'm discussing things that annoy/frustrate/trigger meltdown-type drama in me, here's one I'd add to the list:

--The world of celebrity news. Celebrity gossip is bad enough, but when things like "Lindsay Lohan suffers from heat stroke" and "New Miss Universe faints at pageant" make the news, I want to scream. How is this newsworthy? Who cares? Seriously: WHO CARES? I can at least understand the entertainment value in covering the latest Lohan/Hilton cat fight or boyfriend swap, but I cannot even believe there is a whole world of journalists out there who are making their living on reporting that Jessica Simpson brushes her teeth every morning. Get some self-respect and get a real job reporting real news.

Whew. I think that's it for right now. No more melting. Unless I'm talking about heatwaves.

Post-traumatic pet disorder

As a favor to my friend Abby, I am pet-sitting her Beta fish, Alpha. When she initially asked me to watch the fish, I thought this sounded like a pretty easy gig--a pinch of food every other day. Even easier than watering plants and having to worry about them getting too much water or too little, or too much sun, or not enough. (I am not good with plants. She knows this. I suspect that's why she didn't ask me to take care of them.) But a pinch of food? Surely I could handle that without killing anything.

But when I went to pick up my water-loving roommate of the next week and half, I started to remember. Traumatic, horrible memories of dead fish--fish I had killed--as a child. (And I'm not talking your standard "cheapo fish from the carnival goes belly-up in the bowl a week later" kind of stories.) I started to worry that Abby would return to find that I had failed her in the one simple task she had charged me with: to keep her fish from croaking. I started to worry that I was unfit to watch this fish. History has pretty much already proven that.

How bad could it be, you ask? Let me tell you. When I was 9, I had a small tank of neon tetra fish on the nightstand in my bedroom. Now as a child, I was a fitful sleeper. One night, I woke in the wee hours of the morning to discover that the floor next to my bed was wet and my fish tank was missing. Upon turning on the light, I discovered that my flailing, sleeping arms had knocked the tank off the nightstand. To my horror, there, flopping on the floor--amidst the broken, jagged shards of my former fish tank--were my 8 neon tetras, their little mouths opening and closing in waterless gasps as their eyes started to bulge. One by one, they died on the floor. I screamed and screamed, horrified by the sight. (What can I say? I was a highly strung child.)

After that, my parents passed a rule that I could no longer keep fish in my room. As a consolation, however, my dad did superglue the tank back together, printed out some fish on neon paper and stuck them--on toothpicks--back into my tank. He said they would have to do until I learned how to lie still and sleep like a normal person.

Time passed. Eventually, my parents bought me a new fish, a goldfish named Fred. Now I know it's silly to become attached to fish, but I was attached to Fred. I'd had him for almost a year when Christmas rolled around, and I felt like he deserved a stocking and presents, just like our other pets had. (What can I say? We're a weird family.) For presents, I had bought him some new plants and tiny plastic castle to put in his bowl.

"Aren't you excited, Fred?" I asked, as I scooped him out of his bowl and put him in a cup so I could wash out his bowl and put in his new accessories. He wagged his little fish tail at me; I like to think that he was, in fact, excited about the plants and castle.

In my haste to get him back into his bowl, however, I didn't think to check the temperature of the water. I poured him back into the bowl, and watched, horrified, as he died on the spot--boiled alive in hot water. His little limp body drifted in and out of the strands of his new plants and finally collided with the side of his new castle.

I was a certified fish killer.

I feel like fish usually die in a sort of vague, "no one's really to blame" kind of way. But this was clearly my fault. And I took it pretty hard. I immediately started crying and proceeded to lock myself in the bathroom for more than a hour. Needless to say, it kind of put a damper on that year's Christmas festivities.

There were no more fish after that. It was too hard, too painful.

Until now.

Now, I live in fear that I will come home and find Alpha dead and floating in his bowl. I am terrified that I will trip and accidentally knock his bowl off my dining room table, where he is currently stationed. I worry that my neighbor's cat, who likes to come visit, will think Alpha could make a good after-dinner snack. I fret that sunlight streaming through my windows will bounce off a particularly reflective surface and create some sort of heat-seaking laser beam that kills him dead, like ants under a magnifying glass. I am sure I couldn't handle the trauma of killing off yet another fish.

I am counting the days until Abby comes back.

I just hope I still have a fish to give her when she gets here.

Flight Karma

I have bad flight karma. I always have. I don't know what I did to piss off a flight attendant or a pilot in a past life, but it must have been really bad, because there seems to be no end to my airline punishment. In fact, it's only gotten worse as I've gotten older.

It used to be that anytime I got on a plane, it was pretty much a guarantee that the screaming baby would be immediately next to me. Or if not that, then the snotty three year old who's just learning how to kick would be right behind me.

But in recent years it's gotten worse. Lost luggage, delayed flights, re-routing, cancellations. You name it, it's happened (frequently).

And because I am a former theatre major (and by definition, somewhat dramatic about everything) I always complain when these things happen. I complain so much, in fact, that I think people have stopped believing that my flight karma is as bad as I say it is.

Today, on my way back from a work trip to Los Angeles, I had the opportunity (three hours, in fact, but more on that in a moment) to reflect on my karma and count up exactly how often airline misfortune has befallen me in the past year. Here is my list:

--September 2005: On my way to my cousin's funeral. Delayed in Washington Dulles (the most boring airport EVER) for two hours. Completely missed the visitation and arrived at the funeral home in time to see the janitors cleaning up and locking up. (On the return trip there was another 2+ hour delay in Dulles--but this time I was stuck in what I'm very sure was a converted airplane hanger, complete with concrete floor and grease stains.)
--November 2005: The ever-harrowing trip home to Colorado, this time for Thanksgiving. Made it to Denver, only to be delayed by an hour and a half for the 15 minute flight to Colorado Springs. On Thanksgiving Day. (A side note: Colorado Springs is only about 55 minutes away from Denver. Another side note: being stuck in Denver International Airport--aka the airport from hell--will be an ongoing theme.)
--December 2005: Going to Chicago to visit friends. This trip was a doozy. My flight was actually canceled. They put me on another flight, which was an hour late getting to Oakland, and two hours late leaving. They were in such a rush to make up time because of the lateness that they didn't actually put our baggage on the plane, but put it on a later flight. This meant that we got to Chicago late, and then had to sit in the baggage claim area for another hour (because no one told us what had happened) while we waited for our luggage to appear. Oh, and I was flying into Midway the day after that plane had actually skidded off the runway and into the street. And of course, I was also an hour and a half delayed coming home.
--December 2005: Home for the holidays. Delayed in Denver going to Colorado Springs.
--December 2005: On my way to Boston for New Years. Delayed in Denver (at least two hours).
--January 2006: Coming home from Boston. New Year's Day. My flight was delayed by (and I kid you not) 6 hours. Maybe more. The only upside of this was that if my flight had left when it was supposed to I would have still been hungover (and maybe even drunk) from the previous night's debauchery. As it happened, I caught the delay before I left for the airport, and so was able to spend a few more hours watching the Project Runway marathon on Bravo. And then I went to the airport, and hung out there for a few more hours, while my flight continued to be delayed. And it's always fun figuring out how you're gonna get home from SFO in the wee hours of the morning after BART has stopped running. Good times all around.
--February 2006: L.A. for work. Absolutely nothing bad happened. (This is really just the gods playing with me, because. . . .)
--June 2006: San Diego for the marathon. Am trapped on a plane with a horrible group of marathon running wanna-be cheerleaders called Team Awesome. There is chanting and singing "We Are the Champions" involved.
--June 2006. Washington D.C. for a wedding. (See above note about how boring Dulles airport is.) There is torrential rain this weekend, causing most of D.C. and the surrounding areas to flood, stranding hundreds of people in the airport over night, and causing my flight to be more than 3 hours delayed. (But I will say I am grateful it took off at all.) This also got me back into Oakland at approximately 3 in the morning, forcing a very lovely and--I'm sure--tired boy to pick me up when he should have been sleeping. It also meant I was an incoherent zombie at work the next day. (Usually, I'm just incoherent.)

That brings us up to today. I had to go to Los Angeles again for work. I'd managed to get myself on an earlier flight home and I was feeling pretty good. We got on the plane, listened to the seat belt/safety speech, pulled away from the gate. And then we stopped. Why, you ask?

Wait for it. . . .

Wait for it. . . .

Because all the power went out at LAX and they had no radar or any other way to direct incoming and outgoing flights. Two and a half hours of sitting on a plane on the tarmac later, and they finally figured out how to turn the power back on. Here is an article in the LA Times that explains what happened.

My dad used to say: "If we can't get there by flying, then we're not going." Well sorry dad, but my new motto is: "If getting there involves flying, then count me out."

Note: This tally of bad flight experiences in the past year leaves out some of my best bad flight experiences, including but not limited to Heathrow airport losing my luggage (and 10,000 other people's) because their luggage sorting system broke down; the trip to Boston where bad weather forced us to circle until we nearly ran out of gas and were forced to land in Providence and take a bus back to Boston, and my 25th birthday, where I spent more than 5 hours getting drunk by myself in a bar at Denver International Airport, because of--you guessed it--a delayed flight.

Good times at the airport. Good times.

Yosemite--first the funny . . .

I went to Yosemite this past weekend. I've been putting off writing about it for my blog, because I was torn by quite the dilemma: should I highlight the funny and interesting bits, or talk about the profound and thoughtful moments?

But here's the beauty of the blog: I can do both. So here is version #1 of my weekend in Yosemite--with all that was funny and random and action-packed. Stay tuned for version #2. . .

My reasons for going to Yosemite were two: 1) get away from work and people and have a little time to sort some stuff out; and 2) climb Half-Dome. (More on this later.)

I spent Friday in Tuolumne Meadows (for those of you who are looking at that word and wondering how to pronounce it, I'm pretty sure it's something like Two-AH-loh-meh. I wasn't sure at first either). Tuolumne Meadows is the High Country of Yosemite, which means it looks a lot like home for me. In fact, it was probably a little too much like home, because it also came complete with tons of mosquitos in the woods and really intense sunlight. Meaning of course, that I spent the whole weekend covered in mosquito bites and completely sunburned. So now I have this awesome farmer tan that cuts right across my biceps (I'm secretly hoping it makes them look really jacked. Somehow I doubt it.) and these huge pink welts from where I couldn't stop scratching at the bites. Good times. But the meadows are beautiful, and have way less people than the valley.

Tuolumne Meadows

The valley. This leads me to day number 2, where my goal was to climb Half-Dome. Climbing Half-Dome, for those of you who don't know, involves a 17 mile round-trip hike, climbing some 4,000+ feet in elevation. And oh yeah, the last 900 feet or so aren't really hiking so much as they're pulling yourself up a nearly vertical granite rock face using some loosely anchored cables and an occasional plank of wood. You could call it a ladder of sorts, but I wouldn't. I'd call it scary.

Now you might be asking, what would possess someone to do this? Well, there's the bragging rights of being able to say you climbed Half-Dome. But for me, it was more about proving to myself that I could--I didn't really need to prove it to anyone else. You see, three years ago, my JVC roommates and I went to Yosemite, and several of them climbed Half-Dome. I did not. There was absolutely no way my out-of-shape ass was going to make it up that. I barely made it up Yosemite falls, which is equally steep and not nearly as long (or as scary). So I wanted to mark that I am much healthier than I was three years ago, and in much better shape.

And guess what? I am.

So here, quick style, are the highlights of Half-Dome:

--The loud Fresno hikers who apparently make the trek to the top of Half-Dome every year. This year they had Brie cheese, fried chicken and red wine (in little plastic wine glasses) to celebrate their ascent.

--The 10 Mennonite women (all wearing really ugly long-sleeved, ankle-length flowered dresses and white bonnets) who I ran into as they were hauling their way up the last bit to the top of Half-Dome.

--The San Jose girls who befriended me and got me up (and back down) the dome itself. Especially helpful was the girl who, when I stopped mid-way up and told her I thought I was going to throw up, informed me that that wasn't an option, because there were guys watching, and did I want them to think I was some little wussy girl?

--The two guys I hiked down with. I'll call them Big Talk and No Talk, because one wouldn't stop talking about how awesome he was, and the other--who had apparently pulled a groin muscle but didn't want to stop because of some guy-ego-competitive thing--never said a word. They were at least entertaining, and they made the end of the trip go faster.

--The twelve people who very helpfully informed that I was sunburned ("Yes, I know.") and then asked if I needed some sunscreen ("No, thanks, I've got some. But where were you yesterday when I could have used it?")

--And oh yeah, the view from the top: You could see all of Yosemite Valley and up and out the other side, as well the lush, green sprawl of the back country. It's convinced me that the next time I go to Yosemite, it'll be to get out of the valley, away from the tourists and back into the mountains.

View of Nevada Falls from the John Muir Trail

View of Half-Dome from Little Yosemite Valley


The next-to-last part of the Half-Dome ascent. This, ironically, is the not-so-steep part

The final ascent. Those little specks, by the way, are people. When I saw this, my inner mother screamed out that climbing this would rank as the stupidest thing I'd ever done. Of course, I did it anyway, but I at least thought twice about it.

Me and the view from the top.

The Occupational Hazards of Ironing

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am not, and will never be, a domestic goddess. The three weeks where dinner consisted of microwave popcorn 5 times and peanut butter and crackers 3 times was the first clue.

Then there's the fact where I have managed to kill nearly every plant I have owned in the last 4 years. Even with regular watering and trying to figure out the right amount of sun exposure, they all still died.

But here's the kicker:

When I went to iron clothes tonight--the first time I had attempted to iron in at least 4 months, I am sure--I managed to give myself what might be a first degree burn from scalding hot water dripping out of the bottom of the iron. While I really blame this more on a crappy iron than anything inherently deficient about my ironing skills, I do still think I should take it as a sign that Martha Stewart will not be calling to recruit me as her second-in-command anytime soon.

Yeah. I'm off to find some ice. And some microwave popcorn.

An Ode to T.O.O.

My good friends Carrie and Miranda believe in the concept of "The One," (aka TO) and have long held that they are TO (In a strictly platonic, good girl friend kind of way) for each other. In their infinite wisdom, they decided it was also important to have a back up to TO, someone they call "The Other One" (aka T.O.O). I am Miranda's T.O.O., and I suppose she is mine (although I'm also currently accepting applications for the TO slot, if you know anyone who's looking).

Here is why Miranda is my T.O.O:

The last two weeks have been really exhausting. There's been cross-country travel, delayed plane flights, late nights at work, a LOT of drinking, and having to say goodbye to two very good friends. Now don't get me wrong, it's been a lot of fun, but I'm a natural introvert and too much people time makes me a little bit dysfunctional. With so many good friends on their way out of town at least semi-permanently, however, I felt that I should put the introvert nature aside, and soldier on, trying to cram as much extroverted fun as possible into the months of June and July.

This past weekend, those plans included an Ethiopian dive bar on Saturday night and a day at Stern Grove (to listen to a New Orleans jazz band) on Sunday on top of playing tour guide for a good friend who was in town. While all of this sounded really fun when we planned it, after my stint as San Francisco tour guide on Saturday afternoon, the last thing I wanted to do was schlep back into the city, spend too much on food and beer and be sociable and entertaining. (And then do it again on Sunday afternoon.) I took a nap Saturday afternoon, hoping that would make me more inclined to be fun Saturday night. When I woke up feeling groggy and even less fun, I called Miranda, and prepared myself to tell her that my inner-old woman had surfaced and she was not up for going out. As it turned out, I had woken her up from a nap of her own, and she didn't really want to go out that night either. We made plans to skip the Ethiopian dive bar and just do Stern Grove the following afternoon.

The following morning rolls around. I am awakened by a phone call. Miranda. In my head, I'm hoping that she's calling to cancel on Stern Grove, because I really don't want to spend all day at a concert, and I don't want to deal with being cold, or having to do all the work of getting in and out of the city. I listen to the message: "Hey, so I was just wandering if maybe you'd be OK with not going to Stern Grove, and maybe we could just stay and get breakfast in the East Bay instead?"

This is why she is T.O.O. A friend gives you shit when you decide you're too tired to go out. T.O.O. doesn't give you shit, because she feels the same way too.

Oh, and one more reason Miranda's my T.O.O: We had planned on going out and grabbing food and beer to celebrate the 4th of July. What we did not plan on, however, was the number of bars and restaurants that felt like it was acceptable to close for the holiday. I mean, come on people! It's a HOLIDAY. That means that everyone's off, everyone's probably hungry and everyone can drink because they don't have to work. Wouldn't that seem like a good reason for bars and restaurants to be OPEN on the 4th of July?

Apparently not in Oakland.

So after 40 minutes of driving aimlessly from bar to bar, looking for one that was open, we found ourselves cruising down Grand Avenue. Our criteria: a bar with food. Even a restaurant that served beer would be OK. I was just about to give up on the mission as hopeless and head for the nearest Safeway to grab a 6 pack and some chicken wings, when Miranda screamed out: "Oh my gosh! Food! Beer! Food! Beer! Go there!"

Now, it's not just her joy at having accomplished our mission that makes her T.O.O. She hadn't just found the one restaurant in Oakland that was open on the freaking 4th of July. She had found the one that was serving 99 cent draft beers! Good work, T.O.O.

Boy, did I ever call that

Exactly one week after witnessing the first wedding of a good friend, one more friend has made the leap into (soon-to-be-married) life. Congratulations to Meaghz on her engagement!

I can't help but be a little in awe of all the mature life decisions happening around me: engagements, marriages, babies, grad school, new jobs, new cities. Very impressive examples--all of them--of people who know what they want and are going after it.

A sad day in the Bay Area

Had to say goodbye to two good friends last night. For those who don't already know this, some of my very favorite people are leaving the state to go to grad school and/or pursue long distance relationships up close and in the same place. I'm happy for all of them, and I think they're making great choices for their futures, but I still get to be sad.

Last night involved saying goodbye to Carrie, who's going to grad school in Boise, and Becky, who's going to grad school (take two!) in London.

As would only be proper for Carrie, her final send-off took place at the "Brewery," where we drank beer and ate pretzels with her mom and dad, before they drove off into the sunset in a big U-Haul truck. At least Carrie is leaving with a few little pieces of the Bay Area: 4 boxes of Drake's Beer (compliments of Bob Parrish) and a shirt that says "I Hella <3 Oakland." (That's my best attempt at drawing a heart on my blog by the way. Sorry if you suddenly got really confused.)

After a brief stop at my friend Orli's semi-regular Shabat dinner (AKA Awkward dinner--I have a bad tendency of dating people I meet at Orli's house and then have to regularly put up with the awkwardness of running into them after it invariably fizzles out) we went to Becky's going away party, held by her friend (and most fabulous boss ever) Helen.

If only all boss/supervisee relationships could be this good. . . .

Helen, doing her best impression of a Jewish mother (or my grandma) put out quite the spread (which she forced us to take home at the end of the night in little tupperware containers). And Helen, Josh and I were all officially adopted as each other's surrogate Beckys, so that we won't be lonely now that she's gone. Overall it was fun, but bittersweet. But I'm counting the days until I get to see both Becky and Carrie again. (Camping trip post-job in Idaho, baby! London--and Holland--here I come!)

Abby, Josh (with a mountain man Alaska beard to replace the purple tank top), Becky and Claire


Becky's trademark pose. If you were to go back through my blog, I guarantee you could find this post at least two, maybe three more times!

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."

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?