Gotta love on-line "dating"

Especially when you open your inbox to find:

Sleazy-D is checking you out right now!

Um, really? Thanks for letting me know that. I will get right on it.

You Know It's Time to Change your Dating Profile When...

You receive this greeting in your in-box from a potential suitor:

Cowboy looking for saddlemate
For Riesling cattle and selling guns to indigenous people.
long trail rides and campfire smoked beets.
Email me.

And don't get me wrong.... I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE beets. I am just sayin'.

When Foodies, Shootings, and Quotations Mix....

Some people sound like supreme a-holes. From this article focusing on the murders that continue to take place on and around Mission, but one example:

“It’s kind of scary, but kind of fun,” says Dana Humphrey, 28, as she sat eating at Gracias Madre, a vegan restaurant where the tacos aren’t cheap. Her friend Alexis Papeshi, 28, who lives in the Marina, agrees. “It has some cachet,” she says. ’Oh we are in the Mission, we are so cool.’”

Tacos aren't cheap is an understatement at Gracias Madre. That is one of many ABSURDLY expensive restaurants elbowing into the Mission, along with their a-political, self-focused set of fools-for-clientel. I'd Gracias, Madres if the gap between conspicuous consumption and three-job working class folks were more like a puddle.

Inverta-a-Year, The Saga Continues

Another sign of this year being way wrong? I arrived at Zeitgeist to be greeted by a door dude with a smile who called me by my name, complimented my necklace, and acted equally gracious on my way out. Every single person working there was ridiculously friendly, actually. It make me definitely not want to drink.

Charital Drinking + Public Schools = Weirdly Unsurprising

Just in case you were not under the impression that shit's all kinds of desperate in the world of public education, you might want to come out from under that rock. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the donors turn out to be my colleagues:

Join Drink Good – DO GOOD for an evening of donations and libations!
One World, One Glass: Part Two Wednesday, April 27, 5pm – 9pm

Proceeds benefit the San Francisco Education Fund in support of San Francisco public schools. Unique alcohols from three regions of the world are represented at three different San Francisco bars. No matter which one you attend, you enjoy unlimited tastings as well as savory ethnic snacks. You can even keep your souvenir glass.

Translation: Drink like a fish while celebrating globalization and hors d'oeuvring on the cultures of public school children, and, if you can still stand, drag home your shot glass so you can remind yourself the next day in whose good name you blacked out -- Public Education.

Bringing the Term "Got Wood?" to a Whole New Level

You know shit's fucked up when you find yourself writing the following work email:

From: SB
Date: Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 2:57 PM
Subject: 9 "missing" (well, pilfered) Condom Demonstrators, worth $100ish dollars

Dear Staff,

I would like your help.

Last Wednesday, while I was on a Fieldtrip to Youth Advocacy Day, a Sexuality Educator from the community dropped off in the front office a box containing 20 condom demonstrators (basically wooden educational dildos) for our Peer Educators'sexuality group to borrow for their workshops.

I was not able to pick up the box until the next day (because we were gone!), and when I returned I found the very OPEN box in the main office and noticed the wooden condom demonstrators, though at that time I did not count how many were in the box. I simply brought the box to [the utility] room for Committee Day.

The students in the Sexuality Group began to make their materials for the Health Tabling Day. They also did not count the condom demonstrators at that time.

Then, we hid the box of materials underneath another box of our materials in our usual location in the Green Room.

That was last Thursday.

Today, our Guest Sexuality Facilitator and the students retrieved the box from its place to find only 11 condom demonstrators in the box.

So, between the main office and the use of the Green Room last--> this week, 9 condom demonstrators were taken from the box. As they were not ours, we are in the position of owing approximately $100/ 9 new demonstrators, to this community guest.

If you have ANY information or happen to know who thought that these were there for the taking, please bring them back or let us know what you know.

I would be so grateful,

So now the question becomes:

How inappropriate would it be to hold a fundraiser bake sale called "Shove This Up Your Cake Hole?"

I invite your opinions.

Since Dolores = Sorrows

I was particularly pleased to see the following stencil sprayed out on the walk along Dolores Park, although I am still one-eye-opened to finding #45. You go ahead and school that Dolores and her poetry making ways.

Inverta-Year, More Evidence

Check out the San Francisco weather. First, it was raining fire and brimstone hail globs in March. Very un-March-like. Then, it became desert hot for over a week. Equally un-March-like. Now, June wind; quite un-April-like. Yesterday, it was so windy that I thought my balcony was going to break off. The palm trees went sideways. Squawking parrots torpedoed by like green frisbees. The sand dunes crossed the Great Highway. So windy that the only thing not moving in all of Ocean Beach's vicinity...


... Gold Gate Park's Phallic Windmill Boys-in-Bushes Beacon.

Inverta-Year, Continued, Yoga-Style

As my dear readers may recall, one of the clues to this year's theme was my unprecedentedly earnest and complete LOVE for a yoga class I attended. However, when I explained my sudden openness to yoga to people in my life, they showed skepticism. Why? The yoga happened to be free. It happened to take place in a noisy, public area with 80s music on and people yelling at their children in the background. My mat was precariously wedged between a giant iron pillar and a rope "wall" to keep me from falling off this balcony on to the next floor. There were no mirrors anywhere. The teacher talked in complete sentences using grammatical structures Strunk and White would applaud. She downward dogged the shit out of us analytic learners. The class is taught by a different instructor in a different style every week so I'll never have any idea what I am getting myself into. So what if all those things might make it the ideal yoga class for someone like me regardless of the year's thematics?!

It might still be true that this is my inverta-year.

Even though I did return last week to the "same" class to be delighted by the new instructor. She was somewhat gruff and angry. She wore jeggings. She started us with our eyes closed. I woke up 65 minutes later, in time for the cool down. Clearly she was perfect for me.

Again, I know this is not convincing you, but might still be true that this is my inverta-year. Let's just try it out people.

You Too Could Live on Solid Rock in SF Bay...

... for a cool $22 million.

Hey, earthquakes are no joke, and solid rock is the best. Anyone?

2011: Year of Inversion (er... Inversion Year?)

Yes, the theme of the year has at last become clear. How do I know?

1. II, even inverted, still equals two in Roman numerals. So 20II makes a full circle in a backwards, twisty kinda way.

2. I, on my own volition and quite alone, willingly went to a yoga class on Sunday and
I
LOVED
it.

3. After that same yoga class, I felt a deep and unshakable
PEACE.

For the
REST
of the day.

3. Generally the theme for my year becomes apparent the previous November, by which time I have usually had it with that year and, like the precocious little sister I am, have moved on to the next one! But this year? It's MARCH, and barely still, and I just today finally came up with this year's theme. Inversely S-L-O-W.

4. I saw a sneak peek of Rubber this evening. In a nutshell, RUBBER made me TIRED. As people left the film, a fellow grabbed and interviewed us. Neighboring female to interviewer:

I loved it. I welcome how they brought surrealism back to American film making.

Well, I must have put extra liquid surrealism in my eyes recently because you could hear them shifting sideways to spy on the entire audience as they laughed without me many many times. Puzzling. It was so puzzling I had to three times squash a tipping-point urge stand up and yell,

People, there is a FUCKING WAR going on in Afghanistan. What the hell are you doing here laughing?

Oh wait, that is not an inverse of anything - that's just an example of normal for me (good luck finding my internal control group for that study, people).
Me to interviewer:

Can a person be sure they have seen their worst movie of the year and have it only be March?

Today I Laughed Out Loud

At Facebook, no less.

At this event: April 4 - We Are One (and your money's funny - I would like to add) Rally outside the Federal Reserve Building. 4:20pm in San Francisco. April 4th. The anniversary of Dr. King Jr.'s assassination. And a NATIONAL Day of Action pushing back for educational equity, pushing against budget values and the scapegoating of unions and public schools and anyone doing anything of worth, it appears. It is hopefully a big day.

And more specifically at a poster's response, "Can't make it, have yoga."

Funny. You cannot see me, but I am pointing at the tear streaming down my face.

Leaving Behind the Captain and Tenille

Well, it is once again time to retire the Slow Cooker's apron on to a No Cooker peg deep in the back of the closet and go back to eating cereal. Or perhaps just love.


Just to be extra safe, I should probably find some Courtney Love version of Do That to Me One More Time (or en espanol!) as a ring tone and add it to the No Cooker's caller ID entry. I am hopeful that renaming him Heart Break (This is So Not Worth It was a bit wordy, even for me) and updating his caller ID photo to the completely unattractive one will suffice. But perhaps I would be best served if I could successfully associate this whole made-for-TV mini-series with DC2's Portland sidewalk?