Kickball

I'm going to join a kickball league.  Everyone makes it sound really fun.

I hate Marin

I fucking hate it.  I've been talking to people about this a lot recently.  Like about 50% of my angst about living out here is based on the fact that I spend all my damn time in Marin.

It's everything I tried to leave behind.  I moved west on this grand urban adventure, only to find a job in fucking Marin?!  Land of families and strip malls and chain restaurants and creepy old men who have enough of a California mentality to not realize they are too old for a 25 year old.  I've been to three different Starbucks this morning because in the first two I encountered middle-aged men being all creepy at me.  One tried to strike up a convo, the other is that stalker dude checking me out.

I mean, I admit it; when I was nineteen I'd stare dudes down and try to make eye contact or whatever.  But I have long since realized that is creepy as fuck and I was too old to be doing that then.  BUT IF YOU ARE OVER 50?!  You should not be making eyes at me.  You should know that.  Damn these idiots.

And if it's not creepy older dudes, it's moms with kids.  These are not my people, this is not my generation, these are not my peers.  I hate it up here.  I feel like a fucking towny-kid in a town I didn't grow up in.  Like what the fuck am I doing here as a grown ass woman without a family?

AND OH MY GOD STARBUCKS.  DON'T ASSUME THAT I WANT REDUCED-FAT CREAM CHEESE.  FUCK YOU DIET OBSESSED MILL VALLEY MOMS MAKING THAT THE NORM.

Also, I used to go to go hang out in Starbucks all day when I was in high school.  And here I am doing that again.  How can I move on and enjoy my adult life, if I'm in the exact place I always was, just 2,000 miles away from everyone I love?  What the fuck was the point of this move if nothing fucking changed? Except my rent is ridiculous and I have no friends.  Where is that urban lifestyle I craved?  Why do I drive all the time?  WHY DO I DRIVE ALL THE TIME.  I HATE HAVING A FUCKING CAR.

NOTHING HAS WORKED OUT THE WAY I WANT.  NOT MY JOB.  NOT MY APARTMENT. NOT MY BOYFRIEND. NOT MY THEATRE CAREER. NOT MY LIFESTYLE.

No Strings Attached

The Plain White T's "Rhythm of Love" was the closing theme from the movie No Strings Attached?!  If there isn't some cosmic force pulling strings together around me than I don't know what's going on.

I LOVED this song when I first came out.  LOVED it.  Played it all the time on Toph's guitar in Fall 2010.  Consequently, I refused to see No Strings Attached or the Mila Kunis/Justin Timberlake version of that movie (until this morning) because I was too busy living that story line with Topher.  And now I find out that the like theme song of that semester is also the theme song to the theme movie of that semester?

Things make so much and so little sense some times.

Weekend Update: Bernal Heights

Sometime in March, several things happened at once:  Fat Bitch broke my shit, Skinny Bitch sent one too many emails, and both told me to stop singing, among other encounters. I needed to move out.  So before the whirlwind of apartment hunting, moving, parents visiting, and opening a show happened, I went on one last adventure.  For no other reason than I'd never heard of it and my guidebook said there'd be lots of dogs, I went to Bernal Heights.

To get to it, I walked through the more grungy, less-trendy parts of the mission.  Spanish, government housing, and thugs dominated the streets.  Gotta love the murals in SF though, this is Cesar Chavez Elementary.  That is Cesar Chavez.

View from Bernal Heights Park.  It's in the South Eastern Part of the city.  I think that's the view of downtown.  I couldn't even see Golden Gate Park from here.  The city is SO much bigger than I realize.

The park is this big patch of green on top of a hill.  Dogs everywhere.

Someone had taken the time to arrange these rocks in a huge path, or sculpture or something.  Point is, I spent five-minutes walking around in circles.

View from above (and upside down), I think (from L to R) it's a tree, a headless duck/swan, and a heart.

Only in SF.

Fantastic (and huge) coffee shop in Bernal Heights.  It was clearly a converted house with seating in the backyard.

Said coffee house.

I believe this is on "Virginia Street", Bernal Heights had this quaint small-towny feel, with a main street and everything.  My guide-book described it as "never a wealthy neighborhood", but it looked great to me.

Love Bomb.  I love graffiti. 

Another elementary school mural, this school's up by Bernal Heights.  The mural on the left is called something like "Family" and has interracial, hippie Adam and Eve types on it.

YES THAT IS THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE ON THE A MURAL ON THE FRONT OF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. HAHAHA.  Sometimes I love this city.

Weekend Update: Marina

The next weekend was spent cavorting around Fort Mason/Marina/Cow Hollow.  The Marina made me wonder why I decided that I valued happiness, friendship, and "doing-what-I-loved" over money.  I mean, money can buy happiness, right?  It was the cleanest place I've been in the city right.  Actually, it was like uncomfortably clean.  In retrospect, think the Lower Haight is more my kind of neighborhood.

Fort Mason.  Notice the characteristic smudge in the center of my camera.  This is the weekend after I submerged my camera in an inch of water after my water bottle leaked all over the base of my backpack.  Fun fact: if that ever happens to you, leave it in a bowl of rice for a week.

Some Senator "orating" in a fantastic park between Fort Mason and the Marina.  I think it looks more like he's looking at his hand going "Holy shit, what's on my hand?!  Is that pigeon poop?!"

Pictures of Boats for my parents.  And Andy.

This is a sculpture that I think is called a "Wave Organ".  You put your ear by these tubes (see below) and listen to the sound of the tides.

Apparently it's best at High Tide, at Low Tide is sounds like the "gurgling of a toilet" as my guidebook put it.  I think that was an accurate description.

As you probably read on facebook, I saw a wedding at the Palace of Fine arts as I was exploring.  I'll be real, I got teary eyed.  It reminded me of that time that Nate and I saw someone propose in a park in Richmond.  He came up to us afterwards and was just shaking he was so happy; he asked us to take a picture.  It was one of the best moments of my life.

Anyway, after I got home I started looking up pricing and how to schedule a wedding here.  Apparently it's not the best place because of SF's temperamental weather, but seriously, what kind of moron has outdoor, "June Wedding" in SF.  I've only been here for a couple months, and even I know the phrase "June Gloom". (And am dreading it). 

Palace of Fine Arts.  SO getting married here if I'm still in SF.  Needless to say, I make plans years in advance.  I started going to college fairs when I was 13, only makes sense I'd start planning my wedding early too, right?

That reminds me, I had this dream the other night about getting married.  And for some reason I was like "Oh marriage, it's NBD, we'll just go to the Justice of the Peace and not tell anyone about it.  Like, it's just another thing on my to-do list."  I woke up feeling quite tragic.

Weekend Update: North Beach

If February was the longest month ever (and it was), March and April were the shortest.  This is gonna be the first in a series of post covering my backlogged adventures from the past two months.

I had a dance class down in Jackson Square, which I guess is part of North Beach, so I took out my trusty guidebook to explore the neighborhood for the day.  North Beach: Italians live there, right?

Before I even left my neighborhood (before I even got to the busstop even), I found this:

A destroyed VHS of "A Goofy Movie"  as my neighbors, my tumblr followers, and my roommates probably all know, one of my biggest guilty pleasures of all time is blasting the Powerline Hip-Hop Ballad "Eye to Eye" from the soundtrack.  In fifth grade, my best friend Jessica and I used to dance around to this and the Power Rangers sound track ad nauseum.

When I got to North Beach the weather was AWESOME it was warm and sunny and I walked around pretending I cared about the Beat Poets who used to hang out there.

This for example is a very famous bookstore full of pictures of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg.  Not that that means very much to me.  But they did have a whole lot of Vonnegut, which I decided would be my next literary exploration.

And Vesuvio is a bar that Jack Kerouac liked to hang out in.  The alley in front of it is named after him now.  Again, that didn't mean too much to me, I found On the Road very hard to read.

So San Francisco is funny in that the neighborhoods are very distinct and very close.  One minute you are walking down the main street of the very Italian North Beach, and a block over is the heart of Chinatown.  At one point the roads actually converge and this Chinese Instrumental Music group was playing on the corner.

They were underneath this building.  I think that's a mural of jazz musician Benny Goodman, the epitome of Chinese culture, as I'm sure you know.

Everyone kept walking around with gelato.  So I did to.

Later that night I met a friend in Lower Pac Heights for a night of drinking, which I hadn't indulged in for a very long time.  When I woke up in the morning I remembered why:  I had a hangover, had lost my keys (by leaving them in the pocket of my sweater), was chastised by my drinking buddy for flirting with a kid my own age, and had a series of texts trying to explain away the "goodnight kiss" he tried to steal.  A couple days later I had a beer on my doorstep and ended up angry and circuitous.  Needless to say I'm on another sober kick.

The next day I drove to Santa Cruz for an audition (I did not hear back). I did get some sunshine and bathing suit time, however.  It wasn't enough.  I miss heat.

 Santa Cruz is like Virginia Beach: dirty and desperate.  Trying to be this cool beach town, but somehow missing the mark.

I think I'm being stalked

I made the point of going to a different Starbucks today and the creepy, older dude that always makes eyses at me in the Starbucks near work, is sitting on the across the room from me.  I mean, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!

I even (quite accidentally) took a crazy circuitous route to get here.

Guys, I don't like this.

(Twenty-five is just about the perfect age for the onset of schizophrenia, mind you).

Studio View

Much awaited pics of the new apartment.  Let me start off by saying that I bought an apartment that was straight up too big for me.  I mean, other people might not think so, but I constantly walk into apartments and go "Oh my god, this place is huge, why do you need this much room?!"  So I toyed around with it for awhile, feeling like I'd never find a way to make it cozy enough for one person.  Finally, I decided to pull the bed out of the bedroom and treat the place like a studio until Abigail gets here.  The only problem with living studio style, is that I am occasionally scared shitless when I hear someone walking in the hallway and find myself thinking "There is only one door between them and my soon-to-be-slumbering body".  How I survived living alone that one semester of college, I don't know.

Anyway, here's the tour:

Let's start at the beginning shall we?  Front door.  With a hand-made dream catcher that nobody has put a fucking hand on or tried to rip down because it is MINE.

Oh Welcome Mat, you're so welcoming.   

My entrance hallway.  A shrine-in-the-making to mine and Abigail's artistic endeavors.  Check out the Green Leafe mugs over-looking the dining area.

Veer into the kitchen.  Notice the WM-themed wall (do they make WM clocks?  Hand towels?  I will do that.  Shamelessly. I will be that person.), and the abundant amount of personality on the fridge.

The dining nook, currently set-up as the living room.  Though without the couch or natural light,  it's currently just decorative.  Even after closing off the bedroom I have extra room.

Bike Nook!  Designed with bikes in mind.

Finally, the bedroom area.  I've started making my bed every morning.  It's weird.  Yes, it's still an air bed.

I like the black and white posters in the bedroom because the quilt is so loud that the room doesn't need anymore color.  Also, check out the Christmas lights mirrored in the Bay Bridge Poster.  BEAST.

Close up of my armchair.  It matches nothing in the apartment right now, but I love it.  Most of my time in the apartment is spent sitting in it with my feet propped on the window sill. (Like, for example, right now).

And here's the closet.  Some might call it the "bedroom", but as you can see the bedroom is out in the main part of the apartment.  

Once Abigail gets here we'll rearrange the apartment, but for now I like the studio set-up.  Honestly, it still feels a little big.  I've been out of the apartment a lot recently; ergo, it's super tidy, which is hella unnerving for me.  There is this big 5' X 9' stretch of floor in front of the bike (purposefully left clear for easy access, mind you) but I always look at it and think "Why is there nothing here, there needs to be something here.  I mean, even dirty clothes or something."  Part of me wants to pull the coffee table over to the window-side of the bed as well because that feels empty, too.  But then the dining nook would be empty!  And this is why I have about 8 different lay-outs of this apartment my mind, and can't wait for Abigail to get here.  Honestly I think it feels so empty because it IS empty.  

While I like the ease of living alone, I don't actually like living alone.  I like noise and life and energy and easy access to companionship.  I'm very lazy like that.  That being said, I LOVE coming home to this apartment.  I didn't realize how much living at my last place was weighing on me.  How tense I was every time I walked up to my stoop.  It's nice to open the door and feel cozy and welcomed, in place, even if you're totally alone.  It's nice to live somewhere that you care for and have pride in.  

My last apartment was so empty, and white, and unloved.  It was dismal living there.  I can't believe I stayed as long as I did. I can't believe I didn't start looking for new places after the first hellish couple of days.  I suppose there was a reason for that, but I won't try to understand it yet.

Titanic

Oh man.  I love crying.  I really do.  It feels great.

After work today, I drove straight to the movie theater for the 6:45 showing of the Titanic re-release.  I cried for a solid hour at least.  It took every fiber of my being to refrain from audibly weeping.  And I feel AWESOME.  Like all I want to do right now is go back and watch it again.

People may knock Titanic for being cheesy or whatever it is that they hate about it, and you know what?  Fine.  But I love it.

I went to see it the first time on, like, maybe the day it opened.  Just me and my dad.  We’ve never done a lot of stuff together, so that always made it cool. 

It was probably the first movie that I ever cried watching (empathy never exactly came naturally).  I don’t think I cried when Jack dies, but when the old couple holds each other as their bedroom is slowly flooded, and when the mother tucks her children in and tells them a story.  Those always gets me.

And then it became such a big part of the culture of that school year.  My Heart Will Go On was like my 5^th grade theme song:  everyone wanted to sing it for the talent show (to the point that no one was allowed to sing it), we learned the tune on our recorders in music class, and I serenaded my shower walls with it endlessly.

Leonardo DiCaprio was one of my first real, grown-up crushes.  I read biographies of him, collected magazines, watched all of his movies, and caught every episode of Growing Pains he’d ever been in.  I fantasized about meeting boys with his floppy haircut.  To this day, he remains one of my favorite actors.  Watching him on screen makes me want to move to L.A. and make amazing films.  Only him and Hilary Swank have that effect on me.

 

And I can’t help but wonder how much my obsession with having red, curly hair (a desire I can remember having as far back as 6^th grade) is a direct result of Rose’s auburn tresses.

Watching it this time through, I caught more than I ever had before.  Mostly in the form of romance and sexual references.  For a movie I love so much, I honestly haven’t watched it that many times (it is 3 hours long).  This might have been like the first time I’ve watched it all the way through since I was like 13. 

When they are in the car, and Rose says, “Jack, you’re trembling.”  He suddenly looked so much younger than her.  And that line, just wow.  I can’t explain it, but that line just really humanizes him for a moment.  Makes that moment seems so much more real.  The movie is cheesy at points, it is corny.  And man, that line is hella cheesy, but it just hit home with me.  It resonated.  It struck a chord.  It was poignant.

I've had trouble stomaching sappy romances since December.  The last Sarah Dessen novel I read was downright unbearable. An understandable and often welcome side-effect of a break-up is that I tend to become romantically dormant for a significant amount of time afterwards.  That emotional side of it all becomes incredibly  hard to take.  And I'll admit I didn't get as swept up in Jack and Rose as I wanted, but I keep picturing that moment when Rose has just jumped back onto the ship and Jack, flooded with relief and fear, is kissing her and saying "You're so stupid.  Why'd you do that, huh? You're so stupid, Rose."  Like, Oh. My. God.    About to cry again.

Anyway, seeing it tonight was everything I wanted it to be.  And I’m glad I spent that $20 bucks.  I feel awesome.  Just awesome.

Break a Leg.

My big Kaiser callback is tomorrow, and even now, at 6:15 the night before my throat is in my chest.  Have I mentioned that I want this job so bad.  Because I do.  SO BAD. 


 I have to get on the bus at 6:11 in the morning to get to the audition by 7:00 (which I stubbornly insist on doing, something about public transport is calming).


There are potentially two rounds of cuts.  TWO ROUNDS OF CUTS THAT I HAVE TO GET THROUGH.


And if I DO by some miracle survive the whole day, then there's STILL the interview process I have to get through.


Ugh, I feel sick.


And I've received SO MANY "Good lucks".  GOOD LUCK!  For a callback.


I'm doomed.


I'm hella superstitious about the whole saying "Break a leg" thing.  Good luck is bad luck.

I'm gonna have trouble sleeping tonight.

Don't Even Start

I tell my boss, I have to be out of work on Monday because of a callback for that Kaiser job.  She sends me a passive aggressive email warning me to "please remember that your team, your students, and Bright Horizons are counting on the commitment you made in August to complete the school year."

And I send her an equally passive aggressive email saying that "I am somewhat hurt that you seem to think that I would act so irresponsibly and in such contrast to my students' best interests."

Don't try to pull that shit on me.  I know for a fact that you have high teacher turnover because of shit like this.  I have no reservations about finding another job in earnest.  I am over-qualified, understimulated, and underpaid.

In Search of a Coffee Shop

Ridiculously good-looking

If the Velo Rouge was a man, it would be incredibly handsome, obnoxiously popular (like can't find time to hang out with you popular), have a weird taste in food (snap peas, corn, and strawberries on a salad?), and a mediocre cook.

It would be the kind of man that you meet and are instantly attracted to.  You want to like him because he is so good looking.  But after a few seriously hit-or-miss get togethers where you just have a bad time or you can't break through his cloud of buddies, you decide that you are better off friends.  And very casual friends you stay.  An occasional coffee, sometimes you'll grab brunch, but generally you keep your distance.  It didn't work out, that's okay.

Obnoxiously popular

Eventually you move away and start looking around for a new coffee shop, one that actually fits.  As you scour the internet, check out new places, grab coffee, you find you just aren't satisfied with any of these new places.  And each day, you find yourself back again at the Velo Rouge with a new excuse: "It has free, unlimited internet",  "I just want a bagel and some coffee", "I just feel cozy and comfortable there."  Each day you vow to find "the right one" tomorrow.

Somewhere along the line, you have fallen for this attractive, obnoxiously popular coffee shop that you swore you hated just a couple months ago.  

In short, I think I'm in 'When Harry Met Sally' love with this coffee shop.  And not sure how I feel about it.

Thank God We Don't Have Mice

Yesterday I sent this (slightly clingy) text to Abigail:

"I have dreams of such domestic bliss for when you get here.  Like I wake up early and make pancakes that we eat at the coffee table while reading.  Or I come home to a house full of music and the smell of milky way muffins and you in an apron.  Clearly it's been a long time since I had a roommate I liked and I've forgotten what it's actually like, haha."

And she responded with:

"The picture you paint sounds like bliss.  Add a high paying job for me, and I'd never want to leave.  :) Do you have mice in San Francisco?  I found a dead mouse in one of our traps.  It was slightly scarring.  Building the courage to pick it up and take it to the trash was challenging and involved hysterical laughter, many apologies to the dead mouse, many exclamations about just how dead it was, a plastic bag, and a shish-kabob skewer.  It was an ordeal.  You'll take care of the mice, I hope."

I laughed out loud in the dressing room.  I'm so excited for this.