My dad, whose hearing, mediocre in its best times, has absolutely gone to pot.
1. My dad calls me on his cell phone. He has the speaker phone on in an effort to hear what I am saying. I have a fever of 100 degrees. My dad asks me a question. I start sneezing into the phone.
Dad: What?
Me: (continued uncontrolled sneezing)
Dad: I cannot hear you.
Me: (sigh)
2. My dad and I are going to a party. He points out he has put in his hearing aid for the occasion. I ask him a question, which he doesn't hear.
Dad: What?
Me: Is your hearing aid on?
Dad: I cannot hear you.
Me: It doesn't seem like your hearing aid is on.
Dad: My hearing aid is on.
Me: It doesn't seem to be working. Did you change the batteries in it?
Dad: What?
Me: Batteries. Batteries. Ba-tte-ries.
Dad: Yes, I just changed the batteries.
Me: Well, it doesn't seem to be working.
Dad: What?
Me: It is nooooooot wooooooooorking. You caaannnnnnnooooooooot heeeeeeear meeeeeee!
Dad: No, it is working. But I cannot understand you.
Me: Isn't that the definition of "not working"?
Dad: What?
Me: (rinse and repeat)
Dad: I can hear you are speaking. I just cannot make sense of the words. The hearing aid is working. The problem is that my brain is no longer working.
Me: (sad, so very sad)
12.22.2009
12.19.2009
Freecycle: Sometimes It Feels a Lot Like Christmas
So I have been a little shy to RECEIVE on Freecycle since the creepiness of last Spring, plus I am in super purging mode.
But then I went and banged my blender jar in the edge of my sink. And my beautiful blender jar, which has faithfully served me in so many capacities since EB gave it to me one Chanukah in the '90s... cracked and broke. Bummer.
And so I looked on-line. Total replacement blender? $60 plus the irritation of being unnecessary. Replacement jar? $30, half as irritating, but still filing under Bummer. Turned to Freecycle figuring, eh, what the heck. I posted my WANT. No bites.
Sighed. Waited a week.
I especially hate buying things in December, lest someone believe I am a willing participant in the consumeristic holiday shopping bullshit. So I figured on no blender until the new year. Bummer bummer bummer Fine fine fine. But in the meantime why not repost my hopes back on Freecycle just one more time.
And a woman replies,
Hey, I have a jar just sitting here because the blender shorted out a couple weeks back. Maybe it will somehow work?
And over the course of a few emails we come to find... we have the exact same blender. I go there. She comes to the door with the jar. Actually, her partner, their kid, their cousin, their grandma ALL come to the door to witness how totally random this exchange working out really is. And everyone is so very happy and the end result for me and mine? Hellllllla soup.
But then I went and banged my blender jar in the edge of my sink. And my beautiful blender jar, which has faithfully served me in so many capacities since EB gave it to me one Chanukah in the '90s... cracked and broke. Bummer.
And so I looked on-line. Total replacement blender? $60 plus the irritation of being unnecessary. Replacement jar? $30, half as irritating, but still filing under Bummer. Turned to Freecycle figuring, eh, what the heck. I posted my WANT. No bites.
Sighed. Waited a week.
I especially hate buying things in December, lest someone believe I am a willing participant in the consumeristic holiday shopping bullshit. So I figured on no blender until the new year. Bummer bummer bummer Fine fine fine. But in the meantime why not repost my hopes back on Freecycle just one more time.
And a woman replies,
Hey, I have a jar just sitting here because the blender shorted out a couple weeks back. Maybe it will somehow work?
And over the course of a few emails we come to find... we have the exact same blender. I go there. She comes to the door with the jar. Actually, her partner, their kid, their cousin, their grandma ALL come to the door to witness how totally random this exchange working out really is. And everyone is so very happy and the end result for me and mine? Hellllllla soup.
12.06.2009
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Seriously. But even as global climate change is making us cock our dim San Francisco heads like confused dogs, there are always a couple born-n-raised True San Francisans things you can count on.
Whatever the weather,
1. True San Franciscans will still call it 'going to the beach' when we take our asses to Ocean Beach and sit in our cars, cracking a window (maybe), but definitely reading the newspaper and sipping on hot beverages from the thermos, never once getting out of the car and
2. If Mitchell's (Ice Cream shop, not to be confused with the Mitchell Bros' O'Farrell Theater folks) is open, there is gonna be a line waitin' on ordering a scoop or several.
Yea, I'm sure the cropping up of the fashionista organic creamery set has stolen some thunder from Mitchell's, but you cannot keep a serious San Francisco institution down. More venerable than Bi-Rite's Creamery (I'm not hatin, I'm just sayin), Mitchell's has been doling out ice cream from behind what appears to be two feet of double paned bullet proof glass to every ice cream fanatic regardless of age, ethnicity, size, dress label, income, taste bud practically daily since 1953. I have witnessed the most roly-poly, church-clothes-donning, maniacal-grin-wearing 4 year old muffin-heads practically invite an early heart attack in their 10 a.m. sprint to get from minivan seat to the Mitchell's line. I'm just saying, one thing you can count on is that there is always a line at Mitchell's, and it is usually thick.
So I was headed home the other day, and, as I mentioned, this whole past week has been cooooooooold. I don't mean my own wimpy 'It's less than 68 degrees!' cold. I mean, I get that I got cold in Mali during the summer, I got cold in Vietnam when the temperature dipped to under 92% F. I regularly get cold in NYC summers - and not from the air conditioning. I get that I am a visionary in terms of what a person can get cold in... But here I mean 'Baby, I really can and in fact I'm gonna stay cuz it's cold outside' cold. I'm talkin' 'Whadarewe,eastcoasters?' cold. 46 degrees cold. 'Wearing a wool hat and fleece everything and puffy jacket and I'm still cold' cold. So cold that, heading home, I was smugly prepared to shake my fleece-engulfed head at the brave/fool-hardy Mitchell's devotees. And it was so cold that my jaw was too tightly scarf-swaddled to drop at the sight of no one at the open-doored Mitchell's.
Whaaaaaaaat? Don't get me wrong. It is cold enough to stand in front of Mitchell's and throw some milk, sugar, cream, salt, and perhaps a vanilla bean into the air and have it land your mouth as ice cream. That is not what I am saying.
I am saying that apparently people are off doing just that on some other sidewalks in San Francisco this particularly frigid week, because there was no line at Mitchell's. I feel vaguely uncomfortable. And it almost makes me want ice cream.
Whatever the weather,
1. True San Franciscans will still call it 'going to the beach' when we take our asses to Ocean Beach and sit in our cars, cracking a window (maybe), but definitely reading the newspaper and sipping on hot beverages from the thermos, never once getting out of the car and
2. If Mitchell's (Ice Cream shop, not to be confused with the Mitchell Bros' O'Farrell Theater folks) is open, there is gonna be a line waitin' on ordering a scoop or several.
Yea, I'm sure the cropping up of the fashionista organic creamery set has stolen some thunder from Mitchell's, but you cannot keep a serious San Francisco institution down. More venerable than Bi-Rite's Creamery (I'm not hatin, I'm just sayin), Mitchell's has been doling out ice cream from behind what appears to be two feet of double paned bullet proof glass to every ice cream fanatic regardless of age, ethnicity, size, dress label, income, taste bud practically daily since 1953. I have witnessed the most roly-poly, church-clothes-donning, maniacal-grin-wearing 4 year old muffin-heads practically invite an early heart attack in their 10 a.m. sprint to get from minivan seat to the Mitchell's line. I'm just saying, one thing you can count on is that there is always a line at Mitchell's, and it is usually thick.
So I was headed home the other day, and, as I mentioned, this whole past week has been cooooooooold. I don't mean my own wimpy 'It's less than 68 degrees!' cold. I mean, I get that I got cold in Mali during the summer, I got cold in Vietnam when the temperature dipped to under 92% F. I regularly get cold in NYC summers - and not from the air conditioning. I get that I am a visionary in terms of what a person can get cold in... But here I mean 'Baby, I really can and in fact I'm gonna stay cuz it's cold outside' cold. I'm talkin' 'Whadarewe,eastcoasters?' cold. 46 degrees cold. 'Wearing a wool hat and fleece everything and puffy jacket and I'm still cold' cold. So cold that, heading home, I was smugly prepared to shake my fleece-engulfed head at the brave/fool-hardy Mitchell's devotees. And it was so cold that my jaw was too tightly scarf-swaddled to drop at the sight of no one at the open-doored Mitchell's. Whaaaaaaaat? Don't get me wrong. It is cold enough to stand in front of Mitchell's and throw some milk, sugar, cream, salt, and perhaps a vanilla bean into the air and have it land your mouth as ice cream. That is not what I am saying.
I am saying that apparently people are off doing just that on some other sidewalks in San Francisco this particularly frigid week, because there was no line at Mitchell's. I feel vaguely uncomfortable. And it almost makes me want ice cream.
11.17.2009
I Am Being Misread!
By my on-line marketing logarithms, no less. How sad is that?! Or maybe it just wanted to watch me squirm?
Today the banner it put above my Gmail offered me:
How does it not realize that I abhor with equal amounts cut flowers and smarmy apolo-gifts? On the other hand, at least it is sufficiently savvy to realize I do like a discount. And what could be better than saving money on a heartfelt APOLOGY?! The gauche-loving part of me? Totally responding.
Today the banner it put above my Gmail offered me:
$29 I'm Sorry Flowers - Express Your Apology with Flowers
Order Now for Extra 15% Off
How does it not realize that I abhor with equal amounts cut flowers and smarmy apolo-gifts? On the other hand, at least it is sufficiently savvy to realize I do like a discount. And what could be better than saving money on a heartfelt APOLOGY?! The gauche-loving part of me? Totally responding.
11.02.2009
My Inner Child? Definitely No Honor’s Student at the Yoga Institute
There are two or three things I don’t understand in the world. There might be more. But they definitely include:
1. The continued consumer interest across decades in the Speedo (or, as Pamikins would say, the SpeedNo.) Despite my general admiration for all items cut from gold lamé, just talking about this sets off my goose bumps, and not the good kind.
2. Why yoga, in addition to apparently transforming the mind-body-spirit, also changes speech patterns, a trend especially evident in its instructors (see Date Two below).
3. How my lack of short term memory can result in my ability to revisit to things I have already established I don’t like and find out afresh whether they can count as a New Thing to Try.
Each month I like to do something new. But, like any unfortunate network series, I appeared last month to be in re-runs, thus making October "Let’s See if I Like Yoga (again)" Month.
This time I avoided all hot yoga, proving that I am at least slightly Pavlovian. Instead, I opted for a studio in Bernal. Let me just say for the record, they were great. Besides the very first woman I met at the front desk, who apparently did not take her Yoga Peaceful Pill, everyone was really so very nice, kind, unpretentious (despite their linguistic limitatings). There were no mirrors, no sound of sweat dripping like rain off an awning into 120 degreed heated carpeted rooms. The bolsters and straps and other unnecessary yoga industry crap? Smelled only slightly foul. The instructors smiled genuinely and soberly from their fleshy, squishy, bony, whatever bodies as they greeted you and introduced their inner children with names decidedly not borne of the Nevada Playa. Did I mention they were great? So the thing to remember is... it's not you, Bernal Yoga, it's me.
People talk to me about yoga the way homophobes talk to lesbians:
Sweetie, you just haven’t met the right class.
And so I signed up to go on first dates with different kinds of yoga classes, just to be sure that they were, indeed, the yogacentrics I suspected them to be. And here is what I found:
Date One: Restorative Yoga. I now understand this to be a fancy term for Napping. I see why people like it – it’s like kindergarten, but more appropriately timed, because 33 years Post-K, I am finally at the stage in my life when I am less interested in peering up the teacher’s skirt and more interested in sleeping... because I am just dog-tired. And in my desperation, I will totally pay to sleep with anything, even a pre-me slightly dampened, body-odor-scented blanket, it turns out. But ultimately, that says less about the yoga form than my weakness for a quicky wherever I can find it.
Date Two: Hatha Yoga. At least linguistically, this is perhaps the most evolved? rudimentary? form of yoga, a.k.a. Day No Wasted Words, a time of molding body and language to its essential parts. No Prepositions, Conjunctions, Pronouns, Articles/Determiners, Possessive Adjectives or Commas need apply for yoga instructor positions, resulting in echoes of the following "sentence":
... place left hand in-breath right knee out-breath slight pivot palms out palms rotate face in in-breath hmm-hmmm...
Response? Uh-uuuuuuuuuuuh (if you, like me, are a Wordy Words A Lot - the Playa name awaits patiently my arrival I am sure).
Date Three: Restorative Flow. Napping + Balancing = Napping for no one + Me falling frequently. Unless you count the Domino Effect (and my ability to mastermind several of them), this was decidedly not a flow in the more commonly held sense of the word; it was more like a skip... like in a record or a CD. Not that anyone knows what those are anymore. I am dating myself. No really, RF, it is me, not you.
Date Four: Pilates. Every time I try to talk about this one, I am re-informed by my many yogic-headed friends out there that YOGA studios do not have PILATES, and in my born-again virginal state I must’ve gotten confused. Thus I will henceforth refer to this as YOGATES. In this way, you all can feel more comfortable with me checking out what was so obviously "not pilates" at the yoga studio. Best date yet. I engaged many laughing muscles. Apparently a tranny form of yoga at best, or in the wrong bar at worst, Yogates and I could maybe just maybe get down, if it existed as an actual word. At least it made me laugh.
Date Five: Flow. No napping, just dominoing, and thus time to turn off this faucet and conclude to myself and my favorite yogacentrics out there that yoga? It is just not for me. It is not a lifestyle choice, it is just who I am.
So one or two things I understand. Those definitely include:
1. I am open to a less conventional set-up, if anyone can find me a Yogates Studio, I will reconsider my anti-stretching-class identity.
2. I will neither be the future manufacturer nor sporter of any bumper sticker stating: My inner child is an honor’s student at the Yoga Institute.
1. The continued consumer interest across decades in the Speedo (or, as Pamikins would say, the SpeedNo.) Despite my general admiration for all items cut from gold lamé, just talking about this sets off my goose bumps, and not the good kind.
2. Why yoga, in addition to apparently transforming the mind-body-spirit, also changes speech patterns, a trend especially evident in its instructors (see Date Two below).
3. How my lack of short term memory can result in my ability to revisit to things I have already established I don’t like and find out afresh whether they can count as a New Thing to Try.
Each month I like to do something new. But, like any unfortunate network series, I appeared last month to be in re-runs, thus making October "Let’s See if I Like Yoga (again)" Month.
This time I avoided all hot yoga, proving that I am at least slightly Pavlovian. Instead, I opted for a studio in Bernal. Let me just say for the record, they were great. Besides the very first woman I met at the front desk, who apparently did not take her Yoga Peaceful Pill, everyone was really so very nice, kind, unpretentious (despite their linguistic limitatings). There were no mirrors, no sound of sweat dripping like rain off an awning into 120 degreed heated carpeted rooms. The bolsters and straps and other unnecessary yoga industry crap? Smelled only slightly foul. The instructors smiled genuinely and soberly from their fleshy, squishy, bony, whatever bodies as they greeted you and introduced their inner children with names decidedly not borne of the Nevada Playa. Did I mention they were great? So the thing to remember is... it's not you, Bernal Yoga, it's me.
People talk to me about yoga the way homophobes talk to lesbians:
Sweetie, you just haven’t met the right class.
And so I signed up to go on first dates with different kinds of yoga classes, just to be sure that they were, indeed, the yogacentrics I suspected them to be. And here is what I found:
Date One: Restorative Yoga. I now understand this to be a fancy term for Napping. I see why people like it – it’s like kindergarten, but more appropriately timed, because 33 years Post-K, I am finally at the stage in my life when I am less interested in peering up the teacher’s skirt and more interested in sleeping... because I am just dog-tired. And in my desperation, I will totally pay to sleep with anything, even a pre-me slightly dampened, body-odor-scented blanket, it turns out. But ultimately, that says less about the yoga form than my weakness for a quicky wherever I can find it.
Date Two: Hatha Yoga. At least linguistically, this is perhaps the most evolved? rudimentary? form of yoga, a.k.a. Day No Wasted Words, a time of molding body and language to its essential parts. No Prepositions, Conjunctions, Pronouns, Articles/Determiners, Possessive Adjectives or Commas need apply for yoga instructor positions, resulting in echoes of the following "sentence":
... place left hand in-breath right knee out-breath slight pivot palms out palms rotate face in in-breath hmm-hmmm...
Response? Uh-uuuuuuuuuuuh (if you, like me, are a Wordy Words A Lot - the Playa name awaits patiently my arrival I am sure).
Date Three: Restorative Flow. Napping + Balancing = Napping for no one + Me falling frequently. Unless you count the Domino Effect (and my ability to mastermind several of them), this was decidedly not a flow in the more commonly held sense of the word; it was more like a skip... like in a record or a CD. Not that anyone knows what those are anymore. I am dating myself. No really, RF, it is me, not you.
Date Four: Pilates. Every time I try to talk about this one, I am re-informed by my many yogic-headed friends out there that YOGA studios do not have PILATES, and in my born-again virginal state I must’ve gotten confused. Thus I will henceforth refer to this as YOGATES. In this way, you all can feel more comfortable with me checking out what was so obviously "not pilates" at the yoga studio. Best date yet. I engaged many laughing muscles. Apparently a tranny form of yoga at best, or in the wrong bar at worst, Yogates and I could maybe just maybe get down, if it existed as an actual word. At least it made me laugh.
Date Five: Flow. No napping, just dominoing, and thus time to turn off this faucet and conclude to myself and my favorite yogacentrics out there that yoga? It is just not for me. It is not a lifestyle choice, it is just who I am.
So one or two things I understand. Those definitely include:
1. I am open to a less conventional set-up, if anyone can find me a Yogates Studio, I will reconsider my anti-stretching-class identity.
2. I will neither be the future manufacturer nor sporter of any bumper sticker stating: My inner child is an honor’s student at the Yoga Institute.
10.30.2009
True to form, my yearly theme starts in October
In keeping with my omnipresent ability to chug on forward, 2009 has already moved to 2010 in my mind. Which makes me almost half-way through the year! Yeay! My enthusiasm for being done with this year is tempered only by my intense level of fatigue. Working Title 2010: Year of Imbalance (not to be confused with In Balance, of course)... j'arrive.
For a lesson plan I was doing, I remade my Medicine Wheel. And it served its purpose in deflating me completely. Because My Medicine Wheel? Only not TOTALLY out of balance because I was basically nurturing none of the four areas -- Heart, Mind, Spirit, Body. And I do mean none. Zip. Zero. Everything that I need to do to be in my best place, I was not doing. Don't get to chill with the friends I adore nearly enough (meaning: at all), don't get to read or write on this blog, don't avoid bread and dairy like I should, haven't played soccer since September, don't get to be not working on the sunny days in order to soak up my Vitamin D... The list goes on. So the only one remotely getting attention was a spoke on my Heart area. And that was only because I made the hopeful leap (read: mistake) of putting The Boiler (a.k.a. The Turtle, Salty Dog, My Piece of Mat) on it.
So I come back from my camping trip to the very lovely but cold Hendy Woods and voilá, The Turtle pokes his emotional head out enough to call it quits. Why? He finds things to be out of balance between us -- i.e. he sees me as being more into it than he is. Which I think is true, but perhaps not in the way he perceives this. But then again, he must profoundly not be into it, because, as many of you know, I have spent a tremendous amount of time on the fence about the concept of a relationship and my very mixed feelings about him and me in particular. I only moved to calling him boyfriiiiiiiiiend this fall when things seemed solid enough to say to myself,
And more to the point, I have to now remake my stupid medicine wheel and notice how almost entirely absent the entire wheel's contents are now. And I have got to stop settling for the imbalance of putting myself out there and sticking with folks who either cannot or are not interested in giving back. As Animal says in The Muppet Movie:
So I am taking a vote. Preferences?
A. 2010: Year of Imbalance
B. 2010: Absence of Zen
C: 2010: Like a Pebble in My Shoe
D. 2010: _______________________
For a lesson plan I was doing, I remade my Medicine Wheel. And it served its purpose in deflating me completely. Because My Medicine Wheel? Only not TOTALLY out of balance because I was basically nurturing none of the four areas -- Heart, Mind, Spirit, Body. And I do mean none. Zip. Zero. Everything that I need to do to be in my best place, I was not doing. Don't get to chill with the friends I adore nearly enough (meaning: at all), don't get to read or write on this blog, don't avoid bread and dairy like I should, haven't played soccer since September, don't get to be not working on the sunny days in order to soak up my Vitamin D... The list goes on. So the only one remotely getting attention was a spoke on my Heart area. And that was only because I made the hopeful leap (read: mistake) of putting The Boiler (a.k.a. The Turtle, Salty Dog, My Piece of Mat) on it.
So I come back from my camping trip to the very lovely but cold Hendy Woods and voilá, The Turtle pokes his emotional head out enough to call it quits. Why? He finds things to be out of balance between us -- i.e. he sees me as being more into it than he is. Which I think is true, but perhaps not in the way he perceives this. But then again, he must profoundly not be into it, because, as many of you know, I have spent a tremendous amount of time on the fence about the concept of a relationship and my very mixed feelings about him and me in particular. I only moved to calling him boyfriiiiiiiiiend this fall when things seemed solid enough to say to myself,
Giiiiiiiiiiirl, you gotta either open it up and really attempt this or be done.[My Inner Jew Editor responds: Whatdja think, your patience, tranquility, positivity, and generosity alone were gonna make something like a relationship actually work out for YOU?! Ha!"]
And more to the point, I have to now remake my stupid medicine wheel and notice how almost entirely absent the entire wheel's contents are now. And I have got to stop settling for the imbalance of putting myself out there and sticking with folks who either cannot or are not interested in giving back. As Animal says in The Muppet Movie:
Irritated!
So I am taking a vote. Preferences?
A. 2010: Year of Imbalance
B. 2010: Absence of Zen
C: 2010: Like a Pebble in My Shoe
D. 2010: _______________________
10.28.2009
Sometimes OK Cupid is Not So OK...
I think OK Cupid is a little drunk on his own misguided power.
So I checked my datin' profile after many a month just to sweep out the cobwebs and found four messages that ALL started with references to Burning Man. I always read profiles before reading notes and found each profile alluded to wanting to find life partners with whom they could grow old at Burning Man. (I can imagine Burning Man rapidly aging me within a week, actually. But I digress.) Seems strange to receive so many Burner messages but I just figure that post B-M, the Burners are out to replenish themselves and fulfill their intentions and manifestations and all that. So I come to the last messenger's note. I notice that on his profile he has gone out of his way to write that he wonders why everyone OkCupid thinks he'd be a match with Burners since he has never been. Curious.
Then I read his message title: Burning Man
And the message:
Under his message is this little double-decker marshmallow-esque ice cube-ish icon with a little heart on its chest. Next to it is the italicized sentence:
And I wonder: Were OK Cupid and I in the same room?! Because in my profile, when prompted to disclose "the most private thing I am willing to admit here" I wrote:
Suitor #4 is right. That is hilarious.
So I checked my datin' profile after many a month just to sweep out the cobwebs and found four messages that ALL started with references to Burning Man. I always read profiles before reading notes and found each profile alluded to wanting to find life partners with whom they could grow old at Burning Man. (I can imagine Burning Man rapidly aging me within a week, actually. But I digress.) Seems strange to receive so many Burner messages but I just figure that post B-M, the Burners are out to replenish themselves and fulfill their intentions and manifestations and all that. So I come to the last messenger's note. I notice that on his profile he has gone out of his way to write that he wonders why everyone OkCupid thinks he'd be a match with Burners since he has never been. Curious.
Then I read his message title: Burning Man
And the message:
I said I'm confused about why OkC thinks I'd be a match for everyone who goes to Burning Man.
So, what does the new "Icebreaker" thing do? It matches me to you because you "like Burning Man". Hilarious.
Under his message is this little double-decker marshmallow-esque ice cube-ish icon with a little heart on its chest. Next to it is the italicized sentence:
I think you both like burning man.
And I wonder: Were OK Cupid and I in the same room?! Because in my profile, when prompted to disclose "the most private thing I am willing to admit here" I wrote:
I have a tic: when I hear the term Burning Man, my eyes roll... all by themselves. Strange.
Suitor #4 is right. That is hilarious.
10.25.2009
Valencia Street: The Oh My of the I-ron-y
It was mayhem on Valencia Street this afternoon well into the evening, with San Francisco showing its true colors of equal parts concern and self-absorbic irony.
Valencia Street off 19th was filming Trauma, apparently some new show that is based in San Francisco. I have no idea if it is a "reality" show, but if it is, I am gonna assume the episode's trauma involves a car running over a bicyclist, a boy getting stabbed on a MUNI without working surveillance cameras (no wait, that is seemingly weirdly prohibited north of Mission Street), or some BiRite Creamery eater cracked out on the toxic levels of sugar in their Salted Caramel ice cream starting a restaurant riot because some menu lacks sufficient vegan options...
Meanwhile, Valencia between 16th and 17th was also shut down for an actual trauma, in the form of a jumper the po-po were trying to talk down - apparently, they were still trying to around 9:20pm. True to form, at both locations were gawkers saying stupid inappropriate shit and taking cell phone pictures. And in both locations were people totally irritated that they couldn't get to their preferred happy hour drinking establishment/cafe in a timely manner. One-dress-stop-shopping Valencia Quarter, how nauseating.
Valencia Street off 19th was filming Trauma, apparently some new show that is based in San Francisco. I have no idea if it is a "reality" show, but if it is, I am gonna assume the episode's trauma involves a car running over a bicyclist, a boy getting stabbed on a MUNI without working surveillance cameras (no wait, that is seemingly weirdly prohibited north of Mission Street), or some BiRite Creamery eater cracked out on the toxic levels of sugar in their Salted Caramel ice cream starting a restaurant riot because some menu lacks sufficient vegan options...
Meanwhile, Valencia between 16th and 17th was also shut down for an actual trauma, in the form of a jumper the po-po were trying to talk down - apparently, they were still trying to around 9:20pm. True to form, at both locations were gawkers saying stupid inappropriate shit and taking cell phone pictures. And in both locations were people totally irritated that they couldn't get to their preferred happy hour drinking establishment/cafe in a timely manner. One-dress-stop-shopping Valencia Quarter, how nauseating.
10.12.2009
Student Quote of the Week
Another reason to miss teaching elementary school:
In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Kevin. Kevin has the disposition of an old man who might hang out in A Streetcar Named Desire but is trapped in a second grader who looks like a generalizable second grader would, whatever that means.
In the other corner we have Carlos. Carlos is Captain of Future Pro Wrestlers of America trapped in the body and mind of a second grader trapped in a size and shape more typical of a kindergartner, whatever that means. In keeping with his profession, Carlos interacts with other second graders by flying into them from out of nowhere and attempting to pin them to the ground. He is very kinesthetic. Some would call him spirited. Others might say he is very Lucha Libre. Carlos consistently talks in a WWF voice a la Hulk Hogan and does that creepy pulsing flex-curl-arm-pose in front of him like some retro Arnie Schwarzenegger to pop his ghost pecs while gnashing his teeth and shaking his head rapidly side to side. Raise your hand if you can visualize this. Hoganito only refers to himself in the third person. More specifically, as Thor. I refer to Thor as WWF.
Ding! Round One.
Kevin is brought to teacher, howling with the eye tears of only a second grader:
WWF growls back, gritted teeth:
Ding! Back to their corners. Let's all commend WWF on his superb use of the term emotions. Referee, wanna take it from here?
In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Kevin. Kevin has the disposition of an old man who might hang out in A Streetcar Named Desire but is trapped in a second grader who looks like a generalizable second grader would, whatever that means.
In the other corner we have Carlos. Carlos is Captain of Future Pro Wrestlers of America trapped in the body and mind of a second grader trapped in a size and shape more typical of a kindergartner, whatever that means. In keeping with his profession, Carlos interacts with other second graders by flying into them from out of nowhere and attempting to pin them to the ground. He is very kinesthetic. Some would call him spirited. Others might say he is very Lucha Libre. Carlos consistently talks in a WWF voice a la Hulk Hogan and does that creepy pulsing flex-curl-arm-pose in front of him like some retro Arnie Schwarzenegger to pop his ghost pecs while gnashing his teeth and shaking his head rapidly side to side. Raise your hand if you can visualize this. Hoganito only refers to himself in the third person. More specifically, as Thor. I refer to Thor as WWF.
Ding! Round One.
Kevin is brought to teacher, howling with the eye tears of only a second grader:
Miss, he (puffy second-grader accusatory finger point) punched me in my gut!
WWF growls back, gritted teeth:
He punched Thor in his emotions first!
Ding! Back to their corners. Let's all commend WWF on his superb use of the term emotions. Referee, wanna take it from here?
10.09.2009
Grrrrrrr.....
My school district is reportedly quite concerned with the GPA of our students and their subsequent graduation (or not) from our high schools (and more specifically, how these numbers reflect on our our district... but please don't get me started). They would probably be more concerned about this issue for middle and elementary schools, too, if not for the beauteous reality here known as social promotion. So what if someone has a 0.0 GPA in three years of 6th grade. Pass summer school following "8th grade" and we'll send them to high school. Nice. Anyways, one of the cornerstones of our district keeping on top of how folks are doing is the frequency of our grading cycle.
Which means that every six weeks I cry and mutter and drag myself through giving grades.
This past year, our district elected to force all of us to put our grading on-line. Which would be fantastic even for the paranoid and ludditic among us, I am sure, if they would just choose a program that had been tested, tried, and basically as bug-free as our current, more individual ways of doing it. Fundamentally speaking, a program that worked. Is that so much to ask? I am sure they made such a brilliant move into the not-quite-competent future to increase everyone's ability to see a student's progress-- the student, their parent/guardian, teachers, etc. Only a cynic would suggest this was done primarily to allow administrators to put their noses in my grade book whenever they want without ever actually setting foot in my classroom. (I get a nice little alert every time they peek. Sweet.)
So this grading term, I had to say good-bye to my tried and true grading program/system, refined over the last ten years, and say hello to a small form of purgatory known as the almost-working district system. Fortunately, I am a wary enough sort that before entering grades into the program, I recorded every single one of them on paper. Like... old system + new system = two systems full of time.
Having passed through our first grading period in this Brave New World, I, like Prince's advisors, have renamed this ritual. Formerly known as Grades, they shall now be known as Grrrrrrrrrr.
Why?
Because our grades were to be submitted through the program by 3pm on Friday.
On Thursday, at 8pm, I sat in bed, lap top as an electric blanket, inputting the last of the marks into the system that would hopefully add them up correctly and spit out a grade for the period in question.
I saved every three minutes or so because the program makes a habit of "de-recording" scores during certain times (though when those times will be is decidedly less certain). Around 11pm, I start getting pop-up messages alerting me to save my work, since the program is fixing to shut down momentarily for a "fifteen minute" upgrade. Highly convenient, that. This pop-up message came onto my screen approximately every ten seconds, resulting in a complete inability to save anything. Slightly even less convenient.
So I logged off. Took 20 minutes and one shower off. Tried to log on.
Error message.
Took another 30 minutes off. Tried to log on to the following message:
So let me just recap here. 1. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrs are due at 3pm on Friday. 2. The system will be down until 4pm on Friday.
That is just awesome.
And so I did what all responsible teachers would do. I wrote one nasty venting note to my Assistant Principal and went to sleep. 1:30am.
Later (5am) Friday morning I got up, tried to log on to nothing, sent snarky text messages to some dear ones, and figured I should go to work to 1. get chewed out for not getting grrrrrrrs in on time and 2. do the grrrrrrrrs the way I had previously done them, which of course would take me at least seven hours, since I had to re-add up and then bubble everything. Oh and 3. teach classes.
All of this reasoning left me standing at 6am in front of this MUNI bus stop sign:
And I admit it. It was not my finest hour. I was inspired to raise a finger in toast and yell the following at this particular campaign:
Ahem. Adjust tie. Smooth down hair. Board bus. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
Which means that every six weeks I cry and mutter and drag myself through giving grades.
This past year, our district elected to force all of us to put our grading on-line. Which would be fantastic even for the paranoid and ludditic among us, I am sure, if they would just choose a program that had been tested, tried, and basically as bug-free as our current, more individual ways of doing it. Fundamentally speaking, a program that worked. Is that so much to ask? I am sure they made such a brilliant move into the not-quite-competent future to increase everyone's ability to see a student's progress-- the student, their parent/guardian, teachers, etc. Only a cynic would suggest this was done primarily to allow administrators to put their noses in my grade book whenever they want without ever actually setting foot in my classroom. (I get a nice little alert every time they peek. Sweet.)
So this grading term, I had to say good-bye to my tried and true grading program/system, refined over the last ten years, and say hello to a small form of purgatory known as the almost-working district system. Fortunately, I am a wary enough sort that before entering grades into the program, I recorded every single one of them on paper. Like... old system + new system = two systems full of time.
Having passed through our first grading period in this Brave New World, I, like Prince's advisors, have renamed this ritual. Formerly known as Grades, they shall now be known as Grrrrrrrrrr.
Why?
Because our grades were to be submitted through the program by 3pm on Friday.
On Thursday, at 8pm, I sat in bed, lap top as an electric blanket, inputting the last of the marks into the system that would hopefully add them up correctly and spit out a grade for the period in question.
I saved every three minutes or so because the program makes a habit of "de-recording" scores during certain times (though when those times will be is decidedly less certain). Around 11pm, I start getting pop-up messages alerting me to save my work, since the program is fixing to shut down momentarily for a "fifteen minute" upgrade. Highly convenient, that. This pop-up message came onto my screen approximately every ten seconds, resulting in a complete inability to save anything. Slightly even less convenient.
So I logged off. Took 20 minutes and one shower off. Tried to log on.
Error message.
Took another 30 minutes off. Tried to log on to the following message:
Dear Program Member:
The Program is currently performing scheduled maintenance on your school's web site. Account logins and certain other activities are
unavailable during this period. Today's maintenance (9 Aug 2009) is
scheduled through 4:00pm PDT, but may complete sooner. Please check
back.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this upgrade.
Thanks.
The Program Team
So let me just recap here. 1. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrs are due at 3pm on Friday. 2. The system will be down until 4pm on Friday.
That is just awesome.
And so I did what all responsible teachers would do. I wrote one nasty venting note to my Assistant Principal and went to sleep. 1:30am.
Later (5am) Friday morning I got up, tried to log on to nothing, sent snarky text messages to some dear ones, and figured I should go to work to 1. get chewed out for not getting grrrrrrrs in on time and 2. do the grrrrrrrrs the way I had previously done them, which of course would take me at least seven hours, since I had to re-add up and then bubble everything. Oh and 3. teach classes.
All of this reasoning left me standing at 6am in front of this MUNI bus stop sign:
And I admit it. It was not my finest hour. I was inspired to raise a finger in toast and yell the following at this particular campaign:
Fuck you. Our bell doesn't currently fucking ring until 3:35pm. So fuck you, nimrods.
Ahem. Adjust tie. Smooth down hair. Board bus. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
9.17.2009
9,000 Signs That I Should Start Blogging Again
Here's three:
1. I can tell an insanity producing year when I see one, even if I am kinda slow.
2. Today I barked at my principal. Literally.
I was standing in front of the master schedule, trying to figure something out. In walks BB Lizardo (my attempt to call my principal by their initials has succeeded in making them only marginally more tolerable in my eyes). BB looks around in a quintessentially lizardo way, and licks hir lips nervously, as I am the only one there. And then faces me and states: Who let the dogs out?
Me: Arf. (Seriously)
BB Lizzy: (Smiles while eyes rivet to escape door)
Not enough to convince you this is going to be a weird year? Fine. Read on:
3. So I go to an organizing meeting. At which, despite the racing around of children, we are very organized. Weird in and of itself. And I get out to the world to find a voice mail from some guy whose name is ... let's say Pedro. And he launches into this whole thing in medio-spanglish about some health clinic near my work and can I call him back at whatever number blah blah blah. His number isn't in my phone and I cannot imagine who the guy is. Sure, his voice sounds vaguely familiar. I know like three guys named Pedro; some of whom I think more highly of than others, but I am still surprised any of them are leaving me messages with such familiar tones. So I call him back. He asks how I am - I reply quickly and ask him to basically get on to whatever he needs from me. We talk a while and maybe 15 minutes after we hang up it occurs to me that perhaps this? This is perhaps an ex-bf of mine... from probably four years ago max? For like a year or so? And I have to LOOK up his name to recall if his first name had been Pedro.
Can we say: Sarah knows how to MOVE ON.
Come on... now let's all say it together.
Arf.
1. I can tell an insanity producing year when I see one, even if I am kinda slow.
2. Today I barked at my principal. Literally.
I was standing in front of the master schedule, trying to figure something out. In walks BB Lizardo (my attempt to call my principal by their initials has succeeded in making them only marginally more tolerable in my eyes). BB looks around in a quintessentially lizardo way, and licks hir lips nervously, as I am the only one there. And then faces me and states: Who let the dogs out?
Me: Arf. (Seriously)
BB Lizzy: (Smiles while eyes rivet to escape door)
Not enough to convince you this is going to be a weird year? Fine. Read on:
3. So I go to an organizing meeting. At which, despite the racing around of children, we are very organized. Weird in and of itself. And I get out to the world to find a voice mail from some guy whose name is ... let's say Pedro. And he launches into this whole thing in medio-spanglish about some health clinic near my work and can I call him back at whatever number blah blah blah. His number isn't in my phone and I cannot imagine who the guy is. Sure, his voice sounds vaguely familiar. I know like three guys named Pedro; some of whom I think more highly of than others, but I am still surprised any of them are leaving me messages with such familiar tones. So I call him back. He asks how I am - I reply quickly and ask him to basically get on to whatever he needs from me. We talk a while and maybe 15 minutes after we hang up it occurs to me that perhaps this? This is perhaps an ex-bf of mine... from probably four years ago max? For like a year or so? And I have to LOOK up his name to recall if his first name had been Pedro.
Can we say: Sarah knows how to MOVE ON.
Come on... now let's all say it together.
Arf.
9.07.2009
Reason Number 3549 to Love and Fear San Francisco
As many of you know, it is a life goal of mine to keep the locally-owned and operated Balboa Theater running strong through the sheer frequency of my patronage. I will go see anything there. Even things I am totally disinterested in seeing.
Awesome. So that is the caveat.
I heard a rumor that on Sundays, one could see the film Julie and Julia there for free if you brought a cake with you. Seemed harmless enough. I baked brownies.
Yes, they had the same argument that you all just brought forth:
At 11:30pm last night I exited the theater to find this:
Yes, for those of you who cannot squint sufficiently to see anything on my absolutely terrible camera phone, it was tables filled with slices of cake and cake products. For everyone at the theater. Or on the street. Or wherever.
And we ate hella cake. Rum cake, mocha cake, lemon cake, indeterminable taste cake, velvet cake... I ate much more sugar than I normally should even eat at ... say... 1pm, much less at almost midnight.
And then I peeled myself away for home. But the staff pleaded:
And as I am a fan of being waste-free, I complied. I boarded the 31 MUNI at close to midnight with cake. Hella cake(s). And I learned something about San Francisco MUNI passengers as I walked up and down its aisles offering cake to everyone...
There are shocking amounts of people in San Francisco who are willing to take pre-cut, clearly homemade pieces of cake from an obviously sugar-cracked-out wild eyed grinning stranger who points and says,
And between the patrons of the Sunday Night 31 Balboa and the 22 Fillmore, now at close to 1am, I got off the bus for my home with Tupperware tucked under my arm, having moved all the cake into random strangers' gullets. Reason Number 3549 to Love and Fear San Francisco and our particular sense of what is reasonable to offer and receive.
Awesome. So that is the caveat.
I heard a rumor that on Sundays, one could see the film Julie and Julia there for free if you brought a cake with you. Seemed harmless enough. I baked brownies.
Yes, they had the same argument that you all just brought forth:
Do brownies qualify as cake?After some discussion, the staff consensus was:
They do.Phew. So they denuded me of my Tupperware of brownies and ushered me into the movie.
At 11:30pm last night I exited the theater to find this:
Yes, for those of you who cannot squint sufficiently to see anything on my absolutely terrible camera phone, it was tables filled with slices of cake and cake products. For everyone at the theater. Or on the street. Or wherever.
And we ate hella cake. Rum cake, mocha cake, lemon cake, indeterminable taste cake, velvet cake... I ate much more sugar than I normally should even eat at ... say... 1pm, much less at almost midnight.
And then I peeled myself away for home. But the staff pleaded:
Take as much cake as possible in your Tupperware. We do not want waste!
And as I am a fan of being waste-free, I complied. I boarded the 31 MUNI at close to midnight with cake. Hella cake(s). And I learned something about San Francisco MUNI passengers as I walked up and down its aisles offering cake to everyone...
There are shocking amounts of people in San Francisco who are willing to take pre-cut, clearly homemade pieces of cake from an obviously sugar-cracked-out wild eyed grinning stranger who points and says,
Ooooh, would you like some cake? How's about that one? I think it is rum-soaked... that one I believe is coconut-chocolate... Ooooooh, you are so welcome!
And between the patrons of the Sunday Night 31 Balboa and the 22 Fillmore, now at close to 1am, I got off the bus for my home with Tupperware tucked under my arm, having moved all the cake into random strangers' gullets. Reason Number 3549 to Love and Fear San Francisco and our particular sense of what is reasonable to offer and receive.
7.06.2009
Baby, We Were Born To Ruuuuuuuuuun....
Let’s imagine we were subjected to the ice-breaker If You really Knew Me, You’d Know…. If that happened, I would have to come up with something less obvious then the following: I have a tic. The tic? At the mere suggestion of jogging my face sets into the same expression people wear while jogging (and that ain't ecstasy, folx).
Let’s be real, we could be subjected to the diluted tepid-water breaker: Even Before You Knew My Name, You’d Know… and you would still already know the following: Even when looking to try something new that is bold enough to cover the whole summer, I should avoid signing up for any kind of multi-session fitness class, particularly one that revolves around running.
And so it will come as no surprise to you who even slightly know me that, in keeping with my both disturbed and disturbing need to try new things each month (and preferably sign up for things that I already know I am going to hate), I signed up for a “Running/ Fitness Camp” for teachers. It was a moment of pure madness, a.k.a. the last week of school. Five days. End of June. 6-8pm. Feel free to blame SFUSD for even suggesting it.
The company? Windswept Fitness. An apt name, since we met at the Polo Fields (which they might want to modernize into the name Summer Tundras) at 6pm. Not that we could see each other through the windy fog. Windswept Fitness? Terrible. An utter waste of time, talent, and money. They are high on my list of companies I do not recommend. It is possible I am just not their target audience, since everyone else played thrilled with the week. I mean, I got through, but it was far from pretty.
Because the experience really represented everything I don’t like:
* Groups filled with other teachers
* Organized sheep mentality
* Working out
* Sarcasm and lack of attention to detail
* Running
* Trainers who appear to know less about health or their audience than I do
* People who are constantly trying to sell you shit and
* Wasteful “gift bags” of lots of paper fliers, soft plastic bike water bottles and silly red t-shirts.
So I went the first day and positively despised it. Why go back? If you have that question, get in line behind every single person who knows me me even slightly and asked me that. My answer:
But I finally realized on Friday night at 8:15pm, when I was free of them the last time, that my answer to y'all is somewhat incomplete.
I always think of myself as having been a weak, nonathletic kid. I was teeny-tiny and possessed very few muscles. And I was deeply shy. I was always picked last for class “teams.” I'm not kidding. I was one of those picked-with-audible-sighs-because in-the-70s-no-one-could-be-left-out picks when I was little. I remember one time being so gravely embarrassed that I alone could not successfully swim between two points (that were not very far from each other) that I hid in shame after trying and failing that test that day. I must’ve been super-wee at that point.
Showing that everything happens for a reason, this week has caused to me to remember that my self-perception has a gap.
For a spell and once upon a time, back when I was even shorter than I am today (at least by second grade - for those of you who are quantifiers), I loved loved loved running.
And, over time, I became good at it. I came to be the fastest sprinter in my class. I was faster than all the girls. I was faster than all the boys. If there were any little intersex kids in our class, I was faster than them, too. I was even faster than the boy I had a friend-crush on: John Clay. And even though I was faster than he was, he still liked me back. It is possible he just saw me as one of the guys, but I was such an innocent in that way, I wouldn’t have consciously understood any of those dynamics. We were good friends and maybe in that funny second-grade way, we liked each other, too. But one thing I know. I was the fastest sprinter in the class. I was great at something, and, more importantly, I felt free.
At some point, a guy transferred into our class. That was probably fourth grade. He was from Japan. I wish I could remember his name. I want to say it was Tomiko, though I don’t know why. He was really fast. He was legendary. And I couldn't beat him, though we went neck and neck for a while. I heard he liked me. I didn't get the feeling that anyone ever would like me. My friends were all having moments of going steady. But not me. And he was nice enough and interesting and different. So I liked him and I liked racing him. Being the fickle fourth grader I was, I transferred my John Clay friend-crush to him. We were friends and friendly. He showed a lot of respect for me. I congratulated him when he beat me. It was all in fun. I felt so free. And then, one day, in front of the whole K-6 grade, I beat squarely beat him in a sprint.
He stopped talking to me. For the rest of the year.
I continued to beat his scores, but he refused speak to me. John Clay (who, in retrospect, was a wise person and a friend) explained that Tomiko was hurt because a girl had beat him. Still totally sheltered, I had no idea what he was going on about. I continued to beat Tomiko because I still loved running. I continued to try to talk to him because I still liked him. And he continued to avoid talking to me. Until fifth grade, which was my last year at that school.
We came back from the summer. We had an obstacle course tournament. I was picked for a team pretty close to the beginning because I could win races. Tomiko was picked by the other team. We raced. He won. I was congratulated for being the fastest girl. Some adult at that school, perhaps the PE teacher or someone, told me not to be disappointed; our bodies were changing and so boys would beat me from then on. I could remain the fastest girl perhaps, but it wasn't realistic to think I could be the fastest runner in the class.
Leaving the tournament, as I passed by an "alley" between two trailers that constituted school classrooms, Tomiko's hand reached out and nabbed me by the wrist. He pulled me into the walkway. I remember how his cheeks were flushed sunset red. I congratulated him and he held out his hand and congratulated me enthusiastically. He was very friendly, his eyes were bright and beaming, he was smiling so widely. He pulled my face into his face. I couldn't see around it. He kissed my cheek. He then ran off. I stood still, stunned. He was speaking to me again, and he was again the fastest runner. And Tomiko kept winning. Although I didn't mention the whole Tomiko alleyway thing, I remember being upset about the whole tournament thing enough that my mom found out about it and, trying to make me feel better, assured me that athletics were not important and it was o.k. that I wasn’t an athletic person. She wasn't either and neither was my dad. My best friend, Honor, then beat my time, became the fastest girl-runner in class. By the end of the year, she and Tomiko were "together."
I stopped sprinting. And went back to getting picked towards the bottom on the class teams for gym.
I didn’t go out of my way to run again until high school, when I tried out for Crew. I got up at 4:30 a.m. each morning to get out to Lake Merced and completed all the morning runs and practices for try-outs for a whole month. I remember it being really hard because I didn't think of myself as athletic. I was pretty sure every morning I wouldn't be able to do it. But I didn't want to come in last. I was still small and not very strong. I didn’t make the team, even as a coxswain. I eventually found out that my mom had, without my knowledge, asked the coach if he would just let me continue to practice with them, even if I never be in a meet. He refused, apparently. And that was that. I never willingly ran just to run again, until this past Monday.
So I guess signing up for that thing was helpful in a way. It reminded me we bury demons deep and that I don't have complete onset of Alzheimer's yet.
And just in case that wasn't enough trauma for one week: Just when I thought I had looked at and thus laid to rest some core feelings of childhood shame, my 94 year old neighbor stopped me in the hall to ask if I was going to the Gaybors' (my new neighbors) BBQ the following day. Now, I live in a building with 5 apartments, containing six people total. I replied, “Well, I didn't know they were having a BBQ tomorrow. They didn’t invite me.” She looked awkward a moment and then away completely. The good news is that it cleared up why they had never replied to my invitation to come see the SF Mime Troupe in Dolores Park with me that same day.
So it appears that whether I like to run or not is kind of immaterial, since a person cannot ultimately outrun the triggers that stop us from feeling free. So in addition to this being the Month of Organized Running, this is also my month of: Relive Every Aspect of Elementary School Self-Confidence-Depleting Left-outness at the same time. And I am here to tell you that no matter how stodgy, hard, and worldly a person has become, it still always hurts my feelings.
Come here, demons. I still got space at my table.
Let’s be real, we could be subjected to the diluted tepid-water breaker: Even Before You Knew My Name, You’d Know… and you would still already know the following: Even when looking to try something new that is bold enough to cover the whole summer, I should avoid signing up for any kind of multi-session fitness class, particularly one that revolves around running.
And so it will come as no surprise to you who even slightly know me that, in keeping with my both disturbed and disturbing need to try new things each month (and preferably sign up for things that I already know I am going to hate), I signed up for a “Running/ Fitness Camp” for teachers. It was a moment of pure madness, a.k.a. the last week of school. Five days. End of June. 6-8pm. Feel free to blame SFUSD for even suggesting it.
The company? Windswept Fitness. An apt name, since we met at the Polo Fields (which they might want to modernize into the name Summer Tundras) at 6pm. Not that we could see each other through the windy fog. Windswept Fitness? Terrible. An utter waste of time, talent, and money. They are high on my list of companies I do not recommend. It is possible I am just not their target audience, since everyone else played thrilled with the week. I mean, I got through, but it was far from pretty.
Because the experience really represented everything I don’t like:
* Groups filled with other teachers
* Organized sheep mentality
* Working out
* Sarcasm and lack of attention to detail
* Running
* Trainers who appear to know less about health or their audience than I do
* People who are constantly trying to sell you shit and
* Wasteful “gift bags” of lots of paper fliers, soft plastic bike water bottles and silly red t-shirts.
So I went the first day and positively despised it. Why go back? If you have that question, get in line behind every single person who knows me me even slightly and asked me that. My answer:
Well, I already paid for it, damn it. So I am going. And I want to see if I truly hate running as much as I think I do.
But I finally realized on Friday night at 8:15pm, when I was free of them the last time, that my answer to y'all is somewhat incomplete.
I always think of myself as having been a weak, nonathletic kid. I was teeny-tiny and possessed very few muscles. And I was deeply shy. I was always picked last for class “teams.” I'm not kidding. I was one of those picked-with-audible-sighs-because in-the-70s-no-one-could-be-left-out picks when I was little. I remember one time being so gravely embarrassed that I alone could not successfully swim between two points (that were not very far from each other) that I hid in shame after trying and failing that test that day. I must’ve been super-wee at that point.
Showing that everything happens for a reason, this week has caused to me to remember that my self-perception has a gap.
For a spell and once upon a time, back when I was even shorter than I am today (at least by second grade - for those of you who are quantifiers), I loved loved loved running.
And, over time, I became good at it. I came to be the fastest sprinter in my class. I was faster than all the girls. I was faster than all the boys. If there were any little intersex kids in our class, I was faster than them, too. I was even faster than the boy I had a friend-crush on: John Clay. And even though I was faster than he was, he still liked me back. It is possible he just saw me as one of the guys, but I was such an innocent in that way, I wouldn’t have consciously understood any of those dynamics. We were good friends and maybe in that funny second-grade way, we liked each other, too. But one thing I know. I was the fastest sprinter in the class. I was great at something, and, more importantly, I felt free.
At some point, a guy transferred into our class. That was probably fourth grade. He was from Japan. I wish I could remember his name. I want to say it was Tomiko, though I don’t know why. He was really fast. He was legendary. And I couldn't beat him, though we went neck and neck for a while. I heard he liked me. I didn't get the feeling that anyone ever would like me. My friends were all having moments of going steady. But not me. And he was nice enough and interesting and different. So I liked him and I liked racing him. Being the fickle fourth grader I was, I transferred my John Clay friend-crush to him. We were friends and friendly. He showed a lot of respect for me. I congratulated him when he beat me. It was all in fun. I felt so free. And then, one day, in front of the whole K-6 grade, I beat squarely beat him in a sprint.
He stopped talking to me. For the rest of the year.
I continued to beat his scores, but he refused speak to me. John Clay (who, in retrospect, was a wise person and a friend) explained that Tomiko was hurt because a girl had beat him. Still totally sheltered, I had no idea what he was going on about. I continued to beat Tomiko because I still loved running. I continued to try to talk to him because I still liked him. And he continued to avoid talking to me. Until fifth grade, which was my last year at that school.
We came back from the summer. We had an obstacle course tournament. I was picked for a team pretty close to the beginning because I could win races. Tomiko was picked by the other team. We raced. He won. I was congratulated for being the fastest girl. Some adult at that school, perhaps the PE teacher or someone, told me not to be disappointed; our bodies were changing and so boys would beat me from then on. I could remain the fastest girl perhaps, but it wasn't realistic to think I could be the fastest runner in the class.
Leaving the tournament, as I passed by an "alley" between two trailers that constituted school classrooms, Tomiko's hand reached out and nabbed me by the wrist. He pulled me into the walkway. I remember how his cheeks were flushed sunset red. I congratulated him and he held out his hand and congratulated me enthusiastically. He was very friendly, his eyes were bright and beaming, he was smiling so widely. He pulled my face into his face. I couldn't see around it. He kissed my cheek. He then ran off. I stood still, stunned. He was speaking to me again, and he was again the fastest runner. And Tomiko kept winning. Although I didn't mention the whole Tomiko alleyway thing, I remember being upset about the whole tournament thing enough that my mom found out about it and, trying to make me feel better, assured me that athletics were not important and it was o.k. that I wasn’t an athletic person. She wasn't either and neither was my dad. My best friend, Honor, then beat my time, became the fastest girl-runner in class. By the end of the year, she and Tomiko were "together."
I stopped sprinting. And went back to getting picked towards the bottom on the class teams for gym.
I didn’t go out of my way to run again until high school, when I tried out for Crew. I got up at 4:30 a.m. each morning to get out to Lake Merced and completed all the morning runs and practices for try-outs for a whole month. I remember it being really hard because I didn't think of myself as athletic. I was pretty sure every morning I wouldn't be able to do it. But I didn't want to come in last. I was still small and not very strong. I didn’t make the team, even as a coxswain. I eventually found out that my mom had, without my knowledge, asked the coach if he would just let me continue to practice with them, even if I never be in a meet. He refused, apparently. And that was that. I never willingly ran just to run again, until this past Monday.
So I guess signing up for that thing was helpful in a way. It reminded me we bury demons deep and that I don't have complete onset of Alzheimer's yet.
And just in case that wasn't enough trauma for one week: Just when I thought I had looked at and thus laid to rest some core feelings of childhood shame, my 94 year old neighbor stopped me in the hall to ask if I was going to the Gaybors' (my new neighbors) BBQ the following day. Now, I live in a building with 5 apartments, containing six people total. I replied, “Well, I didn't know they were having a BBQ tomorrow. They didn’t invite me.” She looked awkward a moment and then away completely. The good news is that it cleared up why they had never replied to my invitation to come see the SF Mime Troupe in Dolores Park with me that same day.
So it appears that whether I like to run or not is kind of immaterial, since a person cannot ultimately outrun the triggers that stop us from feeling free. So in addition to this being the Month of Organized Running, this is also my month of: Relive Every Aspect of Elementary School Self-Confidence-Depleting Left-outness at the same time. And I am here to tell you that no matter how stodgy, hard, and worldly a person has become, it still always hurts my feelings.
Come here, demons. I still got space at my table.
5.29.2009
Student Quote of the Day
Well... one of them anyways. There are so many.
Context: It is our private "graduation" for the seniors in our Environmental Education core group in our school. They've been together with the program for two years... which means at least six camping trips plus a mess of day hikes and helllllllla science lessons in there, among other things.
Quote: Before I met you, the biggest hike I'd ever taken was walking around the mall.
Nice. I would even say it is nicer than the student who appreciated me today in class by comparing me to an electrical socket. Well, maybe it is a toss up?
Context: It is our private "graduation" for the seniors in our Environmental Education core group in our school. They've been together with the program for two years... which means at least six camping trips plus a mess of day hikes and helllllllla science lessons in there, among other things.
Quote: Before I met you, the biggest hike I'd ever taken was walking around the mall.
Nice. I would even say it is nicer than the student who appreciated me today in class by comparing me to an electrical socket. Well, maybe it is a toss up?
5.24.2009
Freecycle: Sometimes Fun, Sometimes Scary, Always an Adventure
It started with his offer of headlamps. I raise my interested hand, he gives me a phone number, we talk, and he says he'll look around and then also uncovers all these sleeping pads and other stuff that could be useful to people who camp with hella kiddies.
I get his address. I get the car. I double park in his neighbor's driveway, just like his instructions suggest. Ring bell and wait. Meanwhile I am staring at the doors to two flats. One door open, the other one closed.
When no one comes, I holler helloooooooooo to the open door. Two women inside continue to sit, smoking, on their couch. One looks irritatedly at me and then turns away. They are apparently not the friendliest of neighbors, these flats.
I ring the bell twice more. Three minutes later, the door finally opens and this guy appears, carrying a slightly odd vibe. He gets a little agitated that I interacted with the downstairs women, and "Come in, come in"s me.
Now I gotta say, when I Freecycle, I bring stuff downstairs or throw it over the balcony, depending.
Not this fella. He tells me to follow him up, as the materials are in the back room. I walk in the entrance and he closes and triple bolts the doors behind me.
I am not pleased.
He ushers me to go in front of him up the stairs, and I reply, You go ahead, sir. But I want to make sure they don't come to tow the car, so I will just unlock this door again and leave it open for a moment.
To which he replies, I have a cat.
So I just unlock the door and leave it closed and follow him up. He talks wayyyyyyy too much - like nervous people talk. About how he is getting evicted and has to move, and where will he go? Babble babble babble. I keep my 6 million janitor-esque set of keys like brass knuckles in my hand. Notice the details in every room. Where is the kitchen. Do I see knives or open windows. What about the girls who are just below who have seen me. How loud my boots will be if I stamp hard on the ground. It is just so great to be trained to notice details like a girl in the United States. Awesome. So by this time, he gets to the room.
I stand in the hallway.
He: You can come in, ya know.
My Half Lie: No thanks. My friend is waiting for me to finish this because she lives two blocks from here and is supposed to meet me.
He is offering me all manner of helpful camping stuff, explaining shorty-story style the history of each item, but whatever he holds out, he holds out like food to a feral cat - just far enough to make them come forward. I am a just feral enough kitty, however, that I just put my hand out while staying in the hallway.
I always set an alarm on my phone for Freecycle and so my phone starts blowing up.
The other half of my lie: She is walking towards this address to meet me at the car. That must be her wondering where I am. I gotta call her back or go down - I am late. Thanks for the stuff.
And I bolt down the stairs to the outside world.
He follows me down, and when we get outside I turn to say:
I thank you for the things to help us out. That is cool. However, in the future, never bolt your door and ask a strange woman to come up to a back room. It is socially awkward and a bit scary, sir.
He looks embarrassed, but again, I never did see or get any signs of a cat.
Socially awkward? Opportunist? Answer unknown. Freecycle. Like all potential interactions between women and men in this country, it also has the potential to be called Fearcycle. Bummer.
I get his address. I get the car. I double park in his neighbor's driveway, just like his instructions suggest. Ring bell and wait. Meanwhile I am staring at the doors to two flats. One door open, the other one closed.
When no one comes, I holler helloooooooooo to the open door. Two women inside continue to sit, smoking, on their couch. One looks irritatedly at me and then turns away. They are apparently not the friendliest of neighbors, these flats.
I ring the bell twice more. Three minutes later, the door finally opens and this guy appears, carrying a slightly odd vibe. He gets a little agitated that I interacted with the downstairs women, and "Come in, come in"s me.
Now I gotta say, when I Freecycle, I bring stuff downstairs or throw it over the balcony, depending.
Not this fella. He tells me to follow him up, as the materials are in the back room. I walk in the entrance and he closes and triple bolts the doors behind me.
I am not pleased.
He ushers me to go in front of him up the stairs, and I reply, You go ahead, sir. But I want to make sure they don't come to tow the car, so I will just unlock this door again and leave it open for a moment.
To which he replies, I have a cat.
So I just unlock the door and leave it closed and follow him up. He talks wayyyyyyy too much - like nervous people talk. About how he is getting evicted and has to move, and where will he go? Babble babble babble. I keep my 6 million janitor-esque set of keys like brass knuckles in my hand. Notice the details in every room. Where is the kitchen. Do I see knives or open windows. What about the girls who are just below who have seen me. How loud my boots will be if I stamp hard on the ground. It is just so great to be trained to notice details like a girl in the United States. Awesome. So by this time, he gets to the room.
I stand in the hallway.
He: You can come in, ya know.
My Half Lie: No thanks. My friend is waiting for me to finish this because she lives two blocks from here and is supposed to meet me.
He is offering me all manner of helpful camping stuff, explaining shorty-story style the history of each item, but whatever he holds out, he holds out like food to a feral cat - just far enough to make them come forward. I am a just feral enough kitty, however, that I just put my hand out while staying in the hallway.
I always set an alarm on my phone for Freecycle and so my phone starts blowing up.
The other half of my lie: She is walking towards this address to meet me at the car. That must be her wondering where I am. I gotta call her back or go down - I am late. Thanks for the stuff.
And I bolt down the stairs to the outside world.
He follows me down, and when we get outside I turn to say:
I thank you for the things to help us out. That is cool. However, in the future, never bolt your door and ask a strange woman to come up to a back room. It is socially awkward and a bit scary, sir.
He looks embarrassed, but again, I never did see or get any signs of a cat.
Socially awkward? Opportunist? Answer unknown. Freecycle. Like all potential interactions between women and men in this country, it also has the potential to be called Fearcycle. Bummer.
5.17.2009
Students Have Your Cell Number?
Now, here's something you too can look forward to!
It is a Sunday. A ridiculously hot, beautiful Sunday in May. And I am not talking 'San Francisco' hot; I am talking so hot that you can go to the 'San Francisco beaches without a down jacket' kind of hot. And it is Sunday. Did I mention that? A blissfully hot, quiet, student-free Sunday in May. At the beach. With a book. Without students. 48 hours without students. And so I am blissfully enjoying reading a book on the beach awaiting the arrival of J-D and doggie when I receive the following text message. From a student. A senior. Whom we will call N:
My Inner Voice: Hmmm. Interesting.
My Text Voice: Yo dingbat you sent this to your teacher yo. Good to know, so you gonna be in my class tomorrow for sure to practice for thurs, eh?
As my text is sending, N texts me again:
Me: Busted.
Me: Liar:) see you mon
And then I return to sun and chapter six of my book. Because it is a Sunday. A blissfully hot, quiet, hopefully-back-to-student-free Sunday in May.
Let this be a warning to all texting teachers and their students.
It is a Sunday. A ridiculously hot, beautiful Sunday in May. And I am not talking 'San Francisco' hot; I am talking so hot that you can go to the 'San Francisco beaches without a down jacket' kind of hot. And it is Sunday. Did I mention that? A blissfully hot, quiet, student-free Sunday in May. At the beach. With a book. Without students. 48 hours without students. And so I am blissfully enjoying reading a book on the beach awaiting the arrival of J-D and doggie when I receive the following text message. From a student. A senior. Whom we will call N:
Yo loser want to hit up the beach tomorrow since like, its whatchamacallit [Senior Cut] day and im guessing you're not going to school?
My Inner Voice: Hmmm. Interesting.
My Text Voice: Yo dingbat you sent this to your teacher yo. Good to know, so you gonna be in my class tomorrow for sure to practice for thurs, eh?
As my text is sending, N texts me again:
Ummm ... Hey s----! Can u just totally ignore that text cause that was supposed to go to sam not sa--- ... Yah ... My bad. Forget that
Me: Busted.
Lol Im totally going to be there to practice for thurs. I have no idea what you mean by busted ..
Me: Liar:) see you mon
I'll see YOU tomorrow :P
And then I return to sun and chapter six of my book. Because it is a Sunday. A blissfully hot, quiet, hopefully-back-to-student-free Sunday in May.
Let this be a warning to all texting teachers and their students.
5.05.2009
We All Have Our Types
Some people are leg people.
Some are guitar player people.
Some appreciate kick ass cooks.
Some like crooked teeth.
Some swoon over accents or ease in multiple languages.
Some fawn over individualistic anarchist bike messengers who all dress the same.
Some magnetize with beer pong almost-champions who never give up.
It is good to know your type. And far be it from me to yuck another's yum.
Especially because me? I am coming to realize my type, at least when it comes to the Y chromosome:
Turns out, I'm a sucker for stuck men. More specifically, I melt for men with tools who are having a hard time moving forward. And even more specifically than that, men whose inability to get real has translated into throwing themselves into "home "improvement." Which I think makes me a 'men who bury their grief in mountains of unmoving lumber and sawdust covered in time-dust' person.
Show me a man who has suffered traumatizing familial and/or social loss and who has, in his inability to communicate about and/or deal with his grief, taken to dreaming up countless home-change projects and started to tear apart his house rather than ripping out his own guts, all to keep his mind occupied and his hands busy and his muscles too tired to think. Show me a man who can even get through the stage of wrenching apart his house's innards and maybe even buying the lumber and nails and unearthed the power circular saws from the basement only to get stuck, in the same way he is stuck in his grief, and thus leaves his unfinished business as is all over his house perhaps forever. Because, for a long time, that has been my people.
I say that since, as I write this, I realize that might be the old me. Because as I see this pattern, I find I am moving forward myself.
So now: Show me a man who faces change by rebuilding his home one slab and tile and dust mask donning at a time. With turtle-like velocity. But he's doing it. Because that is my people.
Unless he is a she. In which case, show me a woman with her condo in order, a file-don't-pile system in place and utilized, a woman who is barreling through the universe. And she's my girl.
It's good to know your type.
Some are guitar player people.
Some appreciate kick ass cooks.
Some like crooked teeth.
Some swoon over accents or ease in multiple languages.
Some fawn over individualistic anarchist bike messengers who all dress the same.
Some magnetize with beer pong almost-champions who never give up.
It is good to know your type. And far be it from me to yuck another's yum.
Especially because me? I am coming to realize my type, at least when it comes to the Y chromosome:
Turns out, I'm a sucker for stuck men. More specifically, I melt for men with tools who are having a hard time moving forward. And even more specifically than that, men whose inability to get real has translated into throwing themselves into "home "improvement." Which I think makes me a 'men who bury their grief in mountains of unmoving lumber and sawdust covered in time-dust' person.
Show me a man who has suffered traumatizing familial and/or social loss and who has, in his inability to communicate about and/or deal with his grief, taken to dreaming up countless home-change projects and started to tear apart his house rather than ripping out his own guts, all to keep his mind occupied and his hands busy and his muscles too tired to think. Show me a man who can even get through the stage of wrenching apart his house's innards and maybe even buying the lumber and nails and unearthed the power circular saws from the basement only to get stuck, in the same way he is stuck in his grief, and thus leaves his unfinished business as is all over his house perhaps forever. Because, for a long time, that has been my people.
I say that since, as I write this, I realize that might be the old me. Because as I see this pattern, I find I am moving forward myself.
So now: Show me a man who faces change by rebuilding his home one slab and tile and dust mask donning at a time. With turtle-like velocity. But he's doing it. Because that is my people.
Unless he is a she. In which case, show me a woman with her condo in order, a file-don't-pile system in place and utilized, a woman who is barreling through the universe. And she's my girl.
It's good to know your type.
4.30.2009
Swine Flu Doesn’t Help My Family’s Neuroses, Thank You
It started with my folks hitting me up on Thursday for a ride to the airport on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m.
Me: No problem.
Now, I have to interject here that my mom, if you don't recall, is quite paranoid. DSM-IV type paranoid. Not funny-ha-ha-oh-those-Jewish-stereotypes paranoid. And upcoming trips really increase her anxiety 10-fold. To the point that she is insufferable to be near within 48 hours of a flight, despite her propensity for packing one week before the flight (if she is actually going on the trip). To the point that she yells and waves at her empty windows from the street lest some ever-present-in-her-mind lurker (or cab driver, or neighbor, or shuttle driver, or passerby hidden behind a tree, or stalker) get the idea that her home will be vacant of her insanity for more than one minute. [See 2.21.07 post for a better idea.]
And so, as predicted, my mom, in her infinite ability to be paranoid, blew up my phone more than three times by Friday noontime to remind me of our agreement, proving that all the stars were still in their right places. By her 8:00 pm call I mentioned, in my increasingly fevered, sneezing, shivering, sleepy, delirious, my-classroom-floor-sure-feels-good-on-my cheek state:
I am not feeling super well, so just in case I sleep through my alarm tomorrow morning, will you call me at 6:50 a.m. to make fer shure that I am up? That would be so great.
(I returned my head to its happy spot on the floor, knowing that she would cease to call me the rest of Friday, and would instead call me 50 more times starting at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Perfect.) But instead, she replied:
Vhat?! You are sick? Oh my god, you have The Svine Flu. I am calling for a shuttle. Do NOT take us to the airport. Do NOT come near us. Goodbye! (Click)
Me: Aaaaaaaaaah, the mouse-pooped, shoes-stomped-on linoleum tile of my classroom feels so good!
And I didn't heard from them again, so I was left to presume that either Swine Flu travels through phone lines, as my mother suspects, or they got their wee selves to the airport without my mad driving skills.
When I relayed this story to my friend, she asked: You mean she was worried because you'd been to Mexico?
Me: Oh no, that won’t occur to them for at least another 48 hours, if ever. They just believe strongly in the Jewish community's genetic propensities to get Bubonic Fever-y type things. Ya know, Europe and all.
And I didn’t hear from her until Wednesday morning, when she called angling for a pick-up from the airport that night.
Me: Um, last we spoke you thought I had Swine Flu, remember? Aren’t you still worried about me contaminating you?
Mom: Well, if you had The Svine Flu, you’d be dead. And you sound better.
Me: So let me make sure I understand this. You thought I had a deadly disease, hung up on me, never called me back, and had no idea whether I was alive until now. And now you want a ride.
Mom: Oh, that? Oh, S----, it is JUST like you to bring that old thing up – such a little comment I made!
Me: Well, ya did hang up on me and all like I was Plague-y.
Mom: Well, it would just be like you to get The Svine Flu, you know.
(This coming from a woman who, when I came out to her for the seventh time, told me not to believe I was bisexual just because I had sympathy for all underdogs, including The Gays.)
Me: Hmmm.
I cannot imagine what her comment means inside her own head, so I moved on to picking their wee selves up and depositing them back in their home, So we could all rest easier.
Me: No problem.
Now, I have to interject here that my mom, if you don't recall, is quite paranoid. DSM-IV type paranoid. Not funny-ha-ha-oh-those-Jewish-stereotypes paranoid. And upcoming trips really increase her anxiety 10-fold. To the point that she is insufferable to be near within 48 hours of a flight, despite her propensity for packing one week before the flight (if she is actually going on the trip). To the point that she yells and waves at her empty windows from the street lest some ever-present-in-her-mind lurker (or cab driver, or neighbor, or shuttle driver, or passerby hidden behind a tree, or stalker) get the idea that her home will be vacant of her insanity for more than one minute. [See 2.21.07 post for a better idea.]
And so, as predicted, my mom, in her infinite ability to be paranoid, blew up my phone more than three times by Friday noontime to remind me of our agreement, proving that all the stars were still in their right places. By her 8:00 pm call I mentioned, in my increasingly fevered, sneezing, shivering, sleepy, delirious, my-classroom-floor-sure-feels-good-on-my cheek state:
I am not feeling super well, so just in case I sleep through my alarm tomorrow morning, will you call me at 6:50 a.m. to make fer shure that I am up? That would be so great.
(I returned my head to its happy spot on the floor, knowing that she would cease to call me the rest of Friday, and would instead call me 50 more times starting at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Perfect.) But instead, she replied:
Vhat?! You are sick? Oh my god, you have The Svine Flu. I am calling for a shuttle. Do NOT take us to the airport. Do NOT come near us. Goodbye! (Click)
Me: Aaaaaaaaaah, the mouse-pooped, shoes-stomped-on linoleum tile of my classroom feels so good!
And I didn't heard from them again, so I was left to presume that either Swine Flu travels through phone lines, as my mother suspects, or they got their wee selves to the airport without my mad driving skills.
When I relayed this story to my friend, she asked: You mean she was worried because you'd been to Mexico?
Me: Oh no, that won’t occur to them for at least another 48 hours, if ever. They just believe strongly in the Jewish community's genetic propensities to get Bubonic Fever-y type things. Ya know, Europe and all.
And I didn’t hear from her until Wednesday morning, when she called angling for a pick-up from the airport that night.
Me: Um, last we spoke you thought I had Swine Flu, remember? Aren’t you still worried about me contaminating you?
Mom: Well, if you had The Svine Flu, you’d be dead. And you sound better.
Me: So let me make sure I understand this. You thought I had a deadly disease, hung up on me, never called me back, and had no idea whether I was alive until now. And now you want a ride.
Mom: Oh, that? Oh, S----, it is JUST like you to bring that old thing up – such a little comment I made!
Me: Well, ya did hang up on me and all like I was Plague-y.
Mom: Well, it would just be like you to get The Svine Flu, you know.
(This coming from a woman who, when I came out to her for the seventh time, told me not to believe I was bisexual just because I had sympathy for all underdogs, including The Gays.)
Me: Hmmm.
I cannot imagine what her comment means inside her own head, so I moved on to picking their wee selves up and depositing them back in their home, So we could all rest easier.
4.29.2009
Smart-ish .... and Dumber
Somehow, the juxtaposition between two pieces of news struck me, and not because I was hit by a flying newspaper, and only perhaps because this is why I don't read the paper:
(1) The Associated Press reported today: "The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine." About f-bombing time (see below).
(2) The Supreme Court hearing and UPHOLDING the FCC v. Fox Network case about networks getting fined for the utterance of one prime-time "expletive," which some of these f$#%ing celebrities -- aka Scalia's
Really, federal courts have NOTHING better to do than split-vote along wing lines about one slipping f-bomb? But really, it isn't even that so much as what Scalia saying that the FCC is right to worry about this so that networks could be expected to continue to "give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children." To learn no expletives, just racist, heterocentric, ableist, sizeist, sexist stereotyping. Cool.
And yet even more but really, it isn't even that so much as this all goes back to the FCC's decision in 2006 that found "News Corp’s Fox TV network violated decency rules when singer Cher blurted out an expletive during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards broadcast and actress Nicole Richie used two expletives during the 2003 awards." Like THAT is what makes Fox News completely and utterly indecent and violating. Puh-leeze.
(1) The Associated Press reported today: "The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine." About f-bombing time (see below).
VERSUS
(2) The Supreme Court hearing and UPHOLDING the FCC v. Fox Network case about networks getting fined for the utterance of one prime-time "expletive," which some of these f$#%ing celebrities -- aka Scalia's
"foul-mouthed glitterati,"-- accidentally let slip during whatever live this-or-that they are doing.
Really, federal courts have NOTHING better to do than split-vote along wing lines about one slipping f-bomb? But really, it isn't even that so much as what Scalia saying that the FCC is right to worry about this so that networks could be expected to continue to "give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children." To learn no expletives, just racist, heterocentric, ableist, sizeist, sexist stereotyping. Cool.
And yet even more but really, it isn't even that so much as this all goes back to the FCC's decision in 2006 that found "News Corp’s Fox TV network violated decency rules when singer Cher blurted out an expletive during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards broadcast and actress Nicole Richie used two expletives during the 2003 awards." Like THAT is what makes Fox News completely and utterly indecent and violating. Puh-leeze.
3.19.2009
And An Era Ends
In the form of the Parkway Speakeasy Movie Theater in Oakland, lakeside. When I was ten, I transferred into a new junior high, where I met my lifelong friend and conspirator, MW. When people ask her how we became friends, she tells them that this crazy short new girl invited her to her birthday party. She wasn't sure about the girl, but she was polite so she went anyways. And found out that for my birthday we would go see Vertigo at the then-independent, locally run Bridge Theater. And MW knew we would be friends for life.
But The Bridge is now a Landmark, which is somehow getting as close to "independent" in the Bay Area as movie theater can be. For now, this Sunday, after twelve years of charging like $5 a head and then serving couch sitting people pizza and beer and popcorn (and eventually wine and salad and pasta and all sorts of stuff) while we watched the boys babble their weird rambling introductions to whatever happened to be playing that day, the Parkway Speakeasy will be closing its doors. It is a sad time for independent, community theater. They did open the El Cerrito one, which will continue to operate, but this still marks the end of an era for me. R.I.P.
2.25.2009
Just Imagine You Walked into Your Livingroom, and Your Table Was Gone
Ah Freecycle. So freewheelin, so strange.
It started with me manifesting. Ok, there, I admit it. I am sure this is all my fault. That and the existence of the word 'manifesting.'
I measured the space in my house for a side table I decided would be helpful to my organizational system. And then I thought about how to bring such a measurement of a table into my life.
Within 24 hours, there arrived an OFFER ad on good ol' Freecycle, the infestation of all manifestations. Someone in the Haight posted the offering of a side table in the EXACT dimensions I was looking for.
I asked. She accepted. We made a time.
I asked for a photo. She wrote a brief description. I asked for her number in case something came up. She wrote nothing. I asked if there was a driveway I could stop in. She wrote more nothing. I got a car. I got into the car, muttering the address to myself as I drove. As I drove, I quite possibly dyslexified the address. It is possible.
I got to the address. Well, what was hopefully the address. It was certainly a version of it.
I parked in the neighbors' driveway and pondered how many nanoseconds I could leave my vehicle unattended blocking a driveway before the Peace and Love residents of the upper Haight had my ass ticketed and towed. I locked the car to give myself time against AAA jimmying my locks.
I rang the bell.
No answer.
I rang the bell.
No answer.
I dawdled on the sidewalk.
The gate buzzed for a second. I took a last look at the car and ran back to the gate.
It buzzed. I shoved in the gate. The apartment door was locked. I knocked.
The door buzzed and I stumbled into the bottom of a two-story steep windy staircase. Greeeeeeat.
I hollered: HELLO?
Nothing.
UM HELLO?
A woman's voice: WHAAAAAAAAAT?
Me: HI, ER, I'M FROM FREECYCLE? I'M ---?
Her: ( )
Me: ER, OH, I THINK I TALKED TO A K----. IS A K---- HERE?
Her: YEA, SHE'S IN THE BACK. (Door slam, followed by silence.)
Me: Er, ok.
I climb the stairs to arrive at an entrance-y type of hallway. It has a couch in it, and next to the couch is a side table. The side table is about the size I'd imagined. The side table more or less looks like the very vague description its owner had offered in lieu of a photo. It is a very nice table. Just the sort of table a person such as myself might manifest. But the side table? It also had a bunch of stuff on it. Not Stuff to Freecycle seeming stuff, more like Stuff We Read and Do while sitting on the couch. Like mail and bills and stuff. Hmmm.
Me (back to yelling): ER, HELLO? HELLO? K----? (As I wander through the cricket-chirpingly-vacant apartment)
Silence.
Me (still yelling): ER, HELLO? ANYONE? IS THIS THE TABLE?
Silence.
Me (more yelling): OK, WELL I AM GOING TO TAKE Y'ALL'S TABLE NOW. I AM GOING TO PUT THE STUFF THAT'S ON IT ON THE COUCH. OK? COOL? HELLO? (Pause) OK, I AM LEAVING WITH YOUR TABLE NOW.
Silence.
Me (last yelling): OK, HERE I GO! WELL, THIS IS VERY STRANGE! GOOD NIGHT!
I then cuss audibly while nearly breaking my neck getting the table single-handedly down the stairs. Thankfully, the neighbors have yet to get DPT on my ass by the time I get to my car, and so away I drive with my nice little table that is hopefully not made of cocaine or anything else rapidly disintegrating or illegal.
I am a little scared to check my email, fearing K---- will email me to ask: Why didn't you show up at my place? And reiterate her address, which will have all the same numbers as where I was, but in a different order. Hmmm. Thoughts?
UPDATE #1:
My rather squawky conscience insisted that I write to K---- to ask if her table was gone. At midnight, she wrote be back:
Despite the clear passive aggressive sign-off of Ms. K, I experienced stomach churning and proceeded to spend the evening wrapped in a guilt quilt, reluctantly trying to figure out how to return the perfectly dimensioned side table to its rightful owners.
UPDATE #2:
K----- wrote again at 9 a.m:
Me: Phew.
It started with me manifesting. Ok, there, I admit it. I am sure this is all my fault. That and the existence of the word 'manifesting.'
I measured the space in my house for a side table I decided would be helpful to my organizational system. And then I thought about how to bring such a measurement of a table into my life.
Within 24 hours, there arrived an OFFER ad on good ol' Freecycle, the infestation of all manifestations. Someone in the Haight posted the offering of a side table in the EXACT dimensions I was looking for.
I asked. She accepted. We made a time.
I asked for a photo. She wrote a brief description. I asked for her number in case something came up. She wrote nothing. I asked if there was a driveway I could stop in. She wrote more nothing. I got a car. I got into the car, muttering the address to myself as I drove. As I drove, I quite possibly dyslexified the address. It is possible.
I got to the address. Well, what was hopefully the address. It was certainly a version of it.
I parked in the neighbors' driveway and pondered how many nanoseconds I could leave my vehicle unattended blocking a driveway before the Peace and Love residents of the upper Haight had my ass ticketed and towed. I locked the car to give myself time against AAA jimmying my locks.
I rang the bell.
No answer.
I rang the bell.
No answer.
I dawdled on the sidewalk.
The gate buzzed for a second. I took a last look at the car and ran back to the gate.
It buzzed. I shoved in the gate. The apartment door was locked. I knocked.
The door buzzed and I stumbled into the bottom of a two-story steep windy staircase. Greeeeeeat.
I hollered: HELLO?
Nothing.
UM HELLO?
A woman's voice: WHAAAAAAAAAT?
Me: HI, ER, I'M FROM FREECYCLE? I'M ---?
Her: ( )
Me: ER, OH, I THINK I TALKED TO A K----. IS A K---- HERE?
Her: YEA, SHE'S IN THE BACK. (Door slam, followed by silence.)
Me: Er, ok.
I climb the stairs to arrive at an entrance-y type of hallway. It has a couch in it, and next to the couch is a side table. The side table is about the size I'd imagined. The side table more or less looks like the very vague description its owner had offered in lieu of a photo. It is a very nice table. Just the sort of table a person such as myself might manifest. But the side table? It also had a bunch of stuff on it. Not Stuff to Freecycle seeming stuff, more like Stuff We Read and Do while sitting on the couch. Like mail and bills and stuff. Hmmm.
Me (back to yelling): ER, HELLO? HELLO? K----? (As I wander through the cricket-chirpingly-vacant apartment)
Silence.
Me (still yelling): ER, HELLO? ANYONE? IS THIS THE TABLE?
Silence.
Me (more yelling): OK, WELL I AM GOING TO TAKE Y'ALL'S TABLE NOW. I AM GOING TO PUT THE STUFF THAT'S ON IT ON THE COUCH. OK? COOL? HELLO? (Pause) OK, I AM LEAVING WITH YOUR TABLE NOW.
Silence.
Me (last yelling): OK, HERE I GO! WELL, THIS IS VERY STRANGE! GOOD NIGHT!
I then cuss audibly while nearly breaking my neck getting the table single-handedly down the stairs. Thankfully, the neighbors have yet to get DPT on my ass by the time I get to my car, and so away I drive with my nice little table that is hopefully not made of cocaine or anything else rapidly disintegrating or illegal.
I am a little scared to check my email, fearing K---- will email me to ask: Why didn't you show up at my place? And reiterate her address, which will have all the same numbers as where I was, but in a different order. Hmmm. Thoughts?
UPDATE #1:
My rather squawky conscience insisted that I write to K---- to ask if her table was gone. At midnight, she wrote be back:
Well you didn't stop by did you?! So of course it is there. Peace, k
Despite the clear passive aggressive sign-off of Ms. K, I experienced stomach churning and proceeded to spend the evening wrapped in a guilt quilt, reluctantly trying to figure out how to return the perfectly dimensioned side table to its rightful owners.
UPDATE #2:
K----- wrote again at 9 a.m:
Oh how strange. You must have been here when I stepped out somehow. Which is strange because I didn' step out. But I see that the stand is no longer here, so I guess you found the right place. :) k
Me: Phew.
2.15.2009
Some People? They Love Love.
It is possible I am not one of them. I prefer to call this "The Day After February's Friday the 13th." Now it doesn't roll off the tongue like "Valentine's Day" or anything, but really that is just long for V.D, which is so old fashioned, and so Mr. V.D. Valentino can just take back his day if it is all the same to him. While I am a sharer, some things just don't need to be shared. Like people whose feelings give you emotional whiplash. Like those chalky heart candies. I pulled one at D's that says: In a Fog.
WTF.
The Day After February's Friday the 13th turned out ridiculously fun despite. Got profoundly ass kicked in soccer, got the "gift" of silence from some of those who love me, got to clean some of my own dirty laundry, got to swoon over all manner of crush-worthy musicians busy unrequiting love after pulling a distinctly boy-stereotype-dismissive invite, got Rite Spotted and belted and bruised and also ear pierced by a Bette Boopesque voice... it just kept going.
But, as there is always good even in the not so much, I really want to thank CoCo for turning me on to my current favorite seasonal poem, which somehow reminds me of so much all at once:
LIFE STORY, by Tennessee Williams
WTF.
The Day After February's Friday the 13th turned out ridiculously fun despite. Got profoundly ass kicked in soccer, got the "gift" of silence from some of those who love me, got to clean some of my own dirty laundry, got to swoon over all manner of crush-worthy musicians busy unrequiting love after pulling a distinctly boy-stereotype-dismissive invite, got Rite Spotted and belted and bruised and also ear pierced by a Bette Boopesque voice... it just kept going.
But, as there is always good even in the not so much, I really want to thank CoCo for turning me on to my current favorite seasonal poem, which somehow reminds me of so much all at once:
LIFE STORY, by Tennessee Williams
After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do
sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.
You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course
there's some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with the mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all along,
and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?
Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in hotel rooms.
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