Life outside my window

So...what DO you think?

2010-07-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

I am usually just self-absorbed enough not to care what other people think. At least, in most areas of life that is how I feel. I have to care what my boss thinks - she pays my salary. I need to be wary of what the TSA dudes at the airport think if I want to make my flight on time and without a cavity search. I care what my sisters think because they are (usually) the least crazy of all my insane family members.

And I care what you think. If you exist. By 'you', I mean anybody who may actually be reading my sporadic postings.

When I first started this blog last year, it seemed like lots of people were commenting on what I wrote and I loved it, good or bad. I hit a dry patch at the end of the year when I was finally employed again and working like mad to get my life back on track, but I have been pretty good lately about posting at least a few times a month. The comments section, however, is a complete wasteland.

Did everyone lose interest? Am I just so ridiculous that you can't even be bothered to tell me what a waste of time it is for you to read what I write? Or am I (haha) such a brilliant writer that you feel anything you say wouldn't even come close to expressing how you feel about my stuff.

Do tell. Please. My inquiring mind would like to know what you think.

Defective girl?

2010-07-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

A good (male) friend of mine recently observed that I am not like most women. This has been mentioned many times throughout my life, so it didn’t really make much of an impact. I have always taken it as a compliment because for most of my life, I didn’t actually LIKE the female half of the species. I liked being a girl and I love being a woman, but I have never really understood other ovary endowed people.

More and more often, however, I have started to wonder exactly what it is people mean when they tell me I am not like other women. Am I unfeminine? What does that even mean? Do I act like I have a pair of gonads hidden under my pinstriped skirt? Do I lack the requisite ability to play head games? Perhaps I am not enough of a social butterfly. Maybe my pout isn’t sexy enough.

I have to admit, the concept of femininity is probably lost on me. The first things to pop into my head are pink and ruffles – ugh. I have never really been a fan of the color pink. It brings to mind sticky super sweet candies and vapid anorexic blonds shedding angora everywhere. And ruffles – oh man, don’t get me started. I think ruffles were designed as a survival of the fittest test for girls. Whoever isn’t suffocated by them lives to play with their Barbies another day.

So what does it really mean to be feminine? Is it only pastel and ruffly things? What does that mean for someone like me who is more attracted to simple lines and graphic colors? I think Audrey Hepburn was one of the most feminine women in the world, yet when you look at what she wore, you would see there was rarely a ruffle or pink anything in sight. Even Givenchy designed beautiful but simple clothes for her. Watch the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s sometime – she owned the idea of the little black cocktail dress.

What about the gonad thing? Basic biology will tell you that gonads are just ovaries that fell out and made a boy. Well, maybe it isn’t quite that simple. But you get the idea. Mine are still in place as far as I can tell. But I will admit to being the type of woman who isn’t afraid to play with the boys. I like to stand up for myself and know that I can hold my own, even when I am the only woman in a room full of competitive, testosterone laden males. I like that the life I have built for myself is one that is solid and simple and all MINE. I don’t mind sharing it with people that I love and respect, but I don’t need them to do anything for me. I will admit to one area where a nice strong male is a help – I hate not being able to get the lid off a kosher pickle jar. My hands are too small to get a good grip and it is highly annoying.

As for head games, I was truly traumatized by those nasty things when I was a child. Maybe it was just the inevitable inbred cliquishness that occurs while growing up in a very small town, but the girls I was raised with were downright MEAN. Cruella de Ville could take lessons from them. These harpies could befriend you one minute and then publicly humiliate you the next. Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t always the victim. I did learn how to avoid the banshee coalition and sometimes even manage to get a little revenge. What the mean girls did for me was give me the ability to cut through the bullshit of every day life and just say what I mean or don’t say anything at all. If that is a non-girly trait, then hooray.

Most of the women I know like to get together for girls’ night type things. They want to go out and be around and among people. They are social. I am different. I wouldn’t say that I am anti-social, it is more that I sort of hang back. I like people. I like to be around people. I just don’t always want to interact with them. I am perfectly happy and comfortable being at a party in the corner with a nice drink, watching the action unfold before me. It is like being on the set of a Mexican novella, minus the cameras, copious tears (hopefully) and hysterical women screaming ‘porque?!’ at the top of their lungs. Well, usually none of that happens.

As for adult women with pouty lips being sexy, I have to disagree. When I was a child, my mother warned me that if I pouted too much a rooster would sit on my lip and peck on my nose. Logic would dictate that cannot possibly happen, but why tempt fate?

I guess after all of this reflection I have to agree that I am not like other women. Or what I THINK other women are like. The truth is, I don’t really know what they are like – everything I have mentioned could be seen as unflattering stereotypes. I don’t like being stereotyped, so where do I get off doing this to a faceless group of people I admittedly don’t know?

Throughout most of my life, I have always identified more with the male half of humanity. It started in first grade when I played Superman every day at recess with Galen Lang and hasn’t stopped since. I love everything about them (the toilet seat issue can be annoying at 2am when I am half awake and in danger of falling in) and they seem infinitely easier to decode. Men can be messy, too preoccupied with the latest gadget or car, stinky farters, and chew like cows with a major wad of cud. They can also be straight shooters when it comes to what they think – I WANT to know if my butt looks too big in those jeans. I like that with most of my guy friends, what I see really is what I get. I don’t want to sit around talking about how I feel all the time and neither do they. Men are somehow less complicated than women. Not boring, just not aggravating.

However. Yet even so. BUT. The older I get, the more I meet women that I truly like and admire. They are real people – not just a gender, bra size, or shade of toenail polish. These are women of varying levels of education who think about things beyond that cute pair of shoes in the window at Paolo’s. They have opinions on culture, food, politics as well as the best manufacturer of luxury lingerie, what type of jeans looks best with their figure, and whose salon provides a better mani/pedi. These women are well rounded in more ways than one and they are INTERESTING. I actually want to talk with them. I want to go out with them on a girls’ night and I know I will have fun, that I will have something to contribute.

So what is the difference between these women and the demon girls I grew up with? The obvious answer is time – they have had time to experience the world and become strong enough to escape the pack, to become themselves. But I also believe that I myself have changed. I have a serious Peter Pan complex – I don’t really want to grow up because I have always thought that adults lose the ability to just enjoy life. They spend too much time worrying about mortgages, car payments, 401Ks, etc. It is as if they feel that they are somehow failures if they take an afternoon to act like a child – even jumping on the bed is a foreign concept. Maybe in my quest to keep my Calvin & Hobbes lifestyle, in my refusal to grow up, I have continued to act more like a 14 year old boy rather than a woman. But perhaps my ability to connect with other women and form true friendships with them means I am finally maturing myself.

I still feel that the idea that I am not like other women is a compliment. I like to be myself – the truth is that I have never really identified myself as a gender. I am a person. I happen to have mammary glands and a happy hoohoo, and maybe you don’t, but so what? Is being a woman something that is so easily quantified by clothing choices, social activities, and blatant sex appeal? Man, I really hope not. I am enjoying the idea that just like in the Army, I can be all I can be without having to conform to odd ideas that I have never understood. My fingers (and toes) are crossed in the superstitious hope that I have figured this whole girl thing out – finally.

I don't get it...but I hope someday I will

2010-07-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

While I was typing up this post, I wasn’t completely sure I would post it. It is very different from what I usually blog about. Rather than being amusing, it is more my musing on something that has been churning in the background of my brain, taking up space. I guess I hope that if I lay it all out in an organized fashion, I can let it go and let something else take up residence. Let’s call it a little experiment and go from there.

All my life, I have been fed the standard party line of how humans are the top of the food chain. We are the best this planet has to offer, we are in control, all the world bows down to us. Hmm. I’m not so sure I agree..

I think it is definitely true that humanity has a huge impact on its surroundings, but does that make us the ultimate organism on this planet? Just because we make a big mess and don’t clean up after ourselves doesn’t mean we rule the world, the same way a messy kid doesn’t rule the house for not picking up toys. In my experience, that same kid usually gets some grief from a higher being, namely the parents.

So if we are the top of the food chain, then who disciplines us for being naughty? God? The Master/Mistress of the Universe? The watchful aliens hiding out on the other side of the Milky Way? I haven’t seen evidence to suggest any sort of beings exist, let alone that they are a) interested in us, b) care what we do and c) have any plans to stop us from being complete morons.

That’s the problem when you are at the very tippy top – there is nothing or no one to help keep you in balance.

My basic understanding of worldly physiology is that our planet is composed of ecosystems. Within those ecosystems, everything has a place. It has a function, a purpose. A point. Not being fluent in the languages of flora and fauna (and therefore admittedly potentially mistaken), I assume that these ecosystem members don’t spend a lot of time searching for deeper meanings or higher powers or plotting to take over their domains. They just grow, reproduce, and die in an unending cycle that I find beautiful.

What, no tv? No music, gourmet food or talk radio? What kind of life is that? It is a simple one with no personal or social confusion that leads to all the crap that humanity dumps on itself and everything else on this planet.

But what about all the wonderful things that humanity has created over the millennia? What about all the distinct cultures, the languages, literature and art? No other organisms on this planet can do what we do – that must mean we are something pretty spectacular.

I agree. I think humanity IS a pretty wonderful thing – when we live humanely. We don’t seem to be able to do that very often. All those distinct cultures? Well they often lead to an ‘us or them’ mentality. They are exclusionary by nature. Language? There is no quicker way to wound another person than by lashing out verbally. Sometimes the mental scars go much deeper and last much longer than physical scars. Well what about literature and art? Sure, these can be wonderful things. They can also incite disgust, hatred, and intolerance in people. Religion – another human creation – uses literature and art to promote messages of redemption, but also (and more often) damnation.

I think the most wonderful and insanely terrifying aspect of humanity is its capacity to think abstractly. This ability is what truly sets us apart from any other living thing on our little planet. It is also what leads us to our greatest downfalls. Who ever decided that gold had value? Why is it more valuable than a clamshell? Somewhere, a long time ago, someone decided it was beautiful (and what is beauty if not an abstract idea) and therefore had value. Someone else decided there must be a deeper meaning to our existence and tried to explain the unexplainable and poof! Unseen religious beings spring into existence. Ideas of social organization are abstract – our country is itself just a big experiment in what humanity should be able to expect out of life. And look what we have done in the name of our number one abstract ideal – democracy must be spread everywhere, like it or not.

Ok, so what exactly is my problem? Why am I so down on people and what they do? Why am I ruining everyone’s day by being so damn depressing? The truth is, I’m not sure I can tell you that. I feel as though I have been living under a Charlie Brown rain cloud that follows me around, dripping one slow steady drop of harsh reality at a time. I guess I look around me and see how in my own relatively wealthy city there are thousands of homeless people on the streets, thousands of unemployed, too many people going hungry. And then there is the social intolerance – who really cares who marries who? Is your idea of marriage really so narrow that you can’t accept how other people find happiness? If my city, a supposed beacon of social reform and tolerance can’t get it right, then how can anyone else?

In my lifetime, I have watched news reporting become less and less informative and more gossipy. And as everyone knows, gossip is only good when it is about someone else’s tragedy. This means that just following the news tunes me in to how messed up this whole planet is, all due to humanity.

I don’t think of myself as a depressive person. I am by no means a bouncy cheerleader, but I like to think I am able to keep a clear head about most things. But it becomes a difficult grind when I begin to feel inundated by all the truly rotten things taking place every damn day. Why is Haiti still a big pile of rubble? Why did 28 American soldiers die in 24 hours in Afghanistan? Why is BP still polluting the Gulf? Why is France, a so-called democracy, trying to ban the burqa? I can understand making it illegal to force a woman to wear one, but what if she herself, in her devout way, really believes that she SHOULD wear one? Have any of those enlightened men thought of that?

I think you get my point – we, humanity, are pretty F’d up. We do horrible things. And no amount of self-congratulatory speeches about all the truly wonderful things we are capable of doing can really counter balance that. So now what – should I just roll over and curl up like an old dead bug, legs stuck up in the air, ready to crumble to dust at the slightest breeze?

I don’t think so. Because, as sappy as this sounds, there is one last truly unique aspect of humanity that no other organism appears to have. Hope. The one thing released from Pandora’s box that can be more powerful than any of the harshest ills this planet suffers from. Everyday I have a little hope. I hope the sun will shine and burn off the fog – I need the vitamin D. I hope my day at work won’t be either too boring or too hectic, but just right, Goldilocks. I hope that my loved ones will be ok. I hope my city will stop running around like a headless chicken and start setting an example of how utopia could be. I hope the citizens of my country will stop pointing fingers AT politicians and start working WITH them to take our overweight, slothful, brain dead, couch potato republic into a brighter era. I hope those same politicians will pull their collective head out of their ass and start showing the world a better side of our country. I hope people on this planet can someday, somehow find a way to maintain individuality without destroying each other to prove superiority. And, most of all, I hope that we can stop taking our planet for granted. I really don’t want to be responsible for the end of the world, thank you very much.

Too gooey mushy slobbery sappy for you? Yeah, me too. But true, none the less. Thanks for letting me vent.

Lemonade, kosher dogs, and a little muzak

2010-06-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you guys noticed, but last Saturday was a beautiful day. Gorgeous. Big blue skies and sunshine like you wouldn’t believe. After a solid week of cold, rainy, foggy weather, the kind that makes me sleepy for days on end, the sun had finally fought its way through and the city was warming up. It is almost a cliché for the arrival of summer – birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and people are opening windows to let in fresh air. Well, at least the kind of fresh air you find in a city.

My sister gives me the head’s up that the Union Street fair was happening that day and her two youngest kids would be having their annual ‘start of summer’ lemonade stand. I have been invited to hang out, eat hotdogs and chocolate chip cookies, drink lemonade made from scratch, and watch two of the cutest kids on the planet part nice San Franciscans from their money. Don’t get me wrong – these kids aren’t money grubbing mercenaries. A cup of ice cold, fresh lemonade is only $0.25. It is just that most of the time their customers are so impressed with two young hard working super cute children that they practically throw $5 and $10 bills at them. My nephew even made the cookie dough all by himself this year.

I stuff my feet into my favorite Havaianas, (the ones with the Brazil flag on the strap) grab some money, ID, my phone, and my ipod and head out. About half way down the stairs, I run back up and inside my apartment and open all the windows. It will probably be freezing in my apartment by the time I get home, but what the hell. Sunny fresh air has been in short supply here lately. I need to get it while I can.

When I get down my three flights of stairs to the street, I push the earbuds to my ipod into my ears and hit play. The perfect song comes on: San Francisco Bay Blues sung by Eric Clapton. So what if he can’t play and sing at the same time. I am listening to him, not looking at him. The music has a perfect beat to walk to and the song is about one of my favorite cities. This is a good omen.

I walk up Fell Street one block and stop on the corner at Fillmore Street. There really isn’t any truly direct way to get to the house where the kids are set up; it is a matter of preference. I will be munching on chocolate chip cookies and drinking sugary lemonade all afternoon. Do I want to attempt to burn a bunch of calories in advance? It seems sort of like going to confession before doing anything wrong – backwards. As I stand on the corner looking up Fell Street trying to remember how many hills I have to go up before I can go down again, and down Fillmore Street thinking about all the cool shops to look at on the way, the #22 Fillmore bus stops next to me. I could be really lazy and take it and get there on time or I could walk and get there when I get there.

As I stand there thinking too much, the decision is made for me. The bus driver slams the doors shut and blows through a yellow light, roaring away from me. Ok, no bus. I look up Fell Street again. The hills would be great exercise because they are very tall - very tall.

Tip #1 – How to walk up hills in San Francisco:

*Don’t speed walk. You will get half way up the hill and pass out from lack of oxygen, then roll back down and end up where you started.

*Don’t look all the way up to the top of the hill while you are walking. It is too intimidating and will stop you in your tracks before you even get started. Just look about 8-10 feet in front of you as you steadily walk up the hill.

*Don’t lean forward so far that your nose is about 4 inches away from the pavement. Not only does it look really weird, but also it throws off your balance. The odds of you falling forward and breaking your nose increase greatly when doing this.

Ok, let’s skip Fell Street. I will get my exercise on Fillmore instead. D’ya Mak’er covered by Sheryl Crow comes on. I am not a big fan of covers, especially not when the song was originally done perfectly by Led Zeppelin, but there is something about Sheryl Crow’s voice that is so perfect for this song. As I wait for the light to change so I can cross the street without becoming a red smear on the pavement, it is hard not to sing along with her. Of course, since no one else can hear what is playing in my headphones, it would just be me singing it. Badly. I will try not to torture my fellow citizens today.

As the light changes, I rock my way across the street and continue on under the fresh green leaves that all the trees on the next block have sprouted. They have that lovely pale yellow-green color that is so bright against the dark branches. I have no idea what kind of trees they are, but I love the contrasts. Life is good.

Ouch, gotta turn down the volume. The trumpet played by Maynard Ferguson in The Fox Hunt is loud in my left ear. I love this piece, but I can feel my heart rate increasing dramatically trying to keep up with the song. How the hell can that guy create that many notes so fast? Maybe I am not even hearing all of them. I mean, it must be possible that my brain can’t even keep up with Maynard Ferguson’s brilliance. Didn’t one of the Holy Roman Emperor’s esteemed advisors say something about the ear only being able to hear a certain number of notes in the movie Amadeus? I laughed when I heard that while watching the movie, but maybe the guy had a point.

Ok Maynard, I love your music but you are about to give me a heart attack. Next song, please. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You). James Taylor is a little corny but today, I love this song. I have hit the drug rehab half-way house on Grove Street. It is located in this immense San Francisco style mansion with lots of wrought iron and the original carved mahogany doors. I bet whoever the tycoon was that built it a hundred odd years ago never thought it would one day be filled with people he never would have associated with let alone invite into his house. I love the dichotomy of it: exclusivity and privilege transformed into charity and a fresh start.

Another corny song, Sea of Love. This gets stuck in my head sometimes. I think I will skip it today, as much as I love it. Put Your Records On. I absolutely adore this song. I can feel the stupid smile on my face as I crank up the volume as high as my ears can take it.

Girl, put your records on, tell me your favorite song

You go ahead, let your hair down

Sapphire and faded jeans

I hope you get your dreams

Just go ahead, let your hair down

You’re gonna find yourself someway, somehow

I love the way Corinne Bailey Rae cracks her voice like a yodeler when she hits the higher notes.

I check the time – oh boy, I am really moving slow. All the cookies will be sold by the time I get there. I am being a bad, slow poke auntie today. Where is my rocket booster backpack when I need it?

It is my lucky day – two Corinne Bailey Rae songs in a row! Breathless always makes me think about one very specific person. I could listen to this song all day long.

A loud cracking noise is coming from somewhere around me. For the next few blocks, things sometimes get a little dicey on this stretch of Fillmore. The McDonalds at Golden Gate always seems to have great big shiny black cars with lots of drug dealer types in the parking lot. Everyone has some sort of bass-heavy music thumping out of the speakers. The sound rolls out of the cars’ open windows and interferes with the last bit of Breathless. Dammit. Oh well, I will listen to it again later. I hear the cracking noise again and it is making me nervous.

Gitana by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs comes on. I hurry up and walk past the McDonalds, half afraid my sundress will get blown off by the noisy speakers like something out of a bad movie. On the benches in front of the little tiny park next to the McDonalds several old men sit in the sun, soaking up the heat and trying to warm their bones as they watch life go by. I say hello to them as I zoom past – they are all accomplished flirts and I could get stuck there for a good long while if I slow down. Every girl likes flirting but I have goodies and children waiting for me. Gotta keep my priorities straight.

Crack! That one was right next to me. What the heck is that noise? I look over into the park and see two men balancing a board between them on a bench. One of them lifts his arm up really high and smacks a black domino down on the board as hard as he can. Crack! Ha, so that is what the noise is. I wonder if you win by making the most noise? Having the most dramatic smack down? Exactly what is involved in a game of dominoes?

America, West Side Story soundtrack. This couldn’t have come on in a more perfect part of the neighborhood. These few blocks are like a mini U.N. for immigrants from all over the world. I don’t know if they agree that everything’s good in America, everything’s fine in America, but I love the accidentally perfect timing of it.

Who is playing at Yoshi’s tonight? The sun is shining so brightly, I can’t read the neon text running across the reader board. Skylark, k.d. lang. I love this city – only in San Francisco are you going to find a brand new, extremely expensive building full of high-priced condos with no parking built into a lower middle-class neighborhood that is also the historic Jazz district. Said building also happens to have Yoshi’s, a very high end Japanese restaurant that justifies its location and prices by bringing in some of the best Jazz performers out there. The circular logic is interesting.

Bill Cosby, A Nut In Every Car. If I had taken the bus, this would have been perfect. Instead, how about a little Velvet Underground? I’m Sticking With You suits me just fine.

I hate trying to get across Geary Street. Walking past the bus shelters in the middle of it all is even worse. All the busy, crazy, pissed off people pushing and shoving to get onto the bus always makes me worry that someone is going to end up in the middle of the street squashed flat one of these days. Yeehaw, hooray for the Squirrel Nut Zippers. The weirdness of Trou Macacq clears my mind of the bad Geary Street thoughts and lets me get on with the process of window shopping.

At Sutter Street, I come to a screeching halt. The most beautifully sexy red shoes are in the window of Paolo’s Shoes. I can feel myself beginning to drool. I am vaguely aware of the fact that The Kinks singing A Well Respected Man has started to play in my ear, a groovy song that I totally love but I am too busy trying to guess how much it would cost me to buy those shoes. I covet them in the most greedy little way possible. My brain screams STOP! as my hand reaches for the door handle. Don’t do it! Those shoes probably cost more than my rent. As much as I like eating ramen noodles, that is a choice, not a lifestyle. If I buy those shoes, I will be lucky to live on the corner in a cardboard box eating raw ramen noodles. In my lovely new red shoes. Ok, that picture is scary enough to break the Svengali spell of the shoes. Time to move on while I still can.

Clap For The Wolfman …”he’s gonna rate your records high…” uh oh. Did I sing that out loud? Oops, sorry people. I’m really not crazy, I just love this song. I know my singing is bad but is it really necessary for you to let your poodle attack me? Time to boogie faster down the street.

Ok, I have hit California Street. Things are going to slow down even more from here. Time for the some hill climbing. Maybe I should have taken the bus after all. Knowing the sales skills and cuteness levels of my sister’s children, there is a very good chance everything will be gone by the time I get there. That is a sad thought. Fiesta, by Dave Grusin. This is a cute little song that is over too soon, but I love it. See? It is over already. Too bad – it always makes me think of Ferdinand the Bull dancing the tarantella with my niece Rachel.

You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth. Uh oh, here comes the original Mr. Pirate Shirt. Eat your heart out, Seinfeld. Meatloaf had this look down and done long before you ever did.

Ugh. I am just not up for anthem rock today. Sorry Meatloaf, time for you to go. I have always wondered if he liked the ketchup sauce that too many bad cooks smear all over meatloaf. I hope not. Maybe if he did, he could have made it part of his act. There’s a scary thought.

Here we go, this is much better – El Matador. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs’ huge kettle drums and referee whistles make a hip swinging beat that is great. The music makes me forget my own rules about not hauling ass up hills in San Francisco. Oh well. If I pass out from lack of oxygen, I will do it with a smile on my face.

Clay Street, almost to the top of the hill. The shuffle on my ipod is acting odd. Two LFC songs in a row? Hoy Llore Cancion is a great song, but I am not in the mood to listen to a song about a sad song. Wow, I was able to make a sentence with the word ‘song’ in it three times. That’s talent, baby. It is too beautiful outside and I am a woman on a mission – I can’t let a sad song slow me down.

American Music? Yes, I think I do like American music, thanks for asking me. The Violent Femmes are the perfect soundtrack to get me up to Broadway Street so I can stop and take a look at the best view in a city full of them.

I stand in the middle of Fillmore Street at Broadway gawking like a tourist at the view that is spread out below. As I look down the steep street, I see all the white sailboats skimming across the waves in the bay with the Golden Gate Bridge off to my left holding back an immense bank of fog. It is as if the bridge is doing whatever it can to let all the scurrying little people enjoy the sunshine just a little bit longer. Alcatraz squats on its rock off to my right and I can see a tiny ferry fully of people either coming from or going to the rusty old prison.

Nino Diamante begins to play in my headphones, a strange song for Los Fabulosos Cadillacs to perform. There is no cool funkiness or screaming in Spanish in this song, just a smooth jazziness that is perfect while I stand there watching the bay.

A horn honks very loudly and I hear a guy yell at me to get out of the road, stupid. Oh yeah, I am standing in the middle of the street, aren’t I? Yep, I sure am. I wave my hand in apology and scoot across to the other side of Fillmore Street and start down the hill. FYI, steep hills like this are great for any chubby chunk you might be carrying around in your trunk.

Tip#2 – How to walk down hills in San Francisco:

*Lean back. Unlike going up a hill where if you lean forward and then trip you will land on your face and probably break your nose, you do want to lean back just a bit when walking down a steep hill. This changes your balance so you don’t have that urge to just fall forward and roll your way down the hill.

*Depending on the kind of shoes you are wearing, you might want to shuffle your feet a little. Slippery-bottomed shoes are not a good idea, but if you have them on, try not to pick up your feet too much.

*Many steep streets have little built in steps or areas of deeply ridged sidewalks. USE THEM. They aren’t just a design aesthetic created by a manic and slightly drunk city planner, they can actually help, especially with the slippery shoes problem.

*Go slow. Take your time; you will eventually get there. Remember that gravity is your friend, but would it love to watch you roll down the hill and splash into the bay, too.

Tricky starts singing Children’s Story, which has a surprisingly upbeat sound for such a sad song. As I listen to the story about a boy who starts robbing old people to make some easy cash, the heavy bass beat has me snapping my fingers in time with it. Time to start zigzagging my way over to Broderick Street. At Vallejo, I turn left and boogie my way past some of the Pacific Heights mansions.

I walk up Vallejo a few blocks until I get to Pierce. Ugh, another giant hill going up. Ok, don’t forget the rules and just start climbing. Blondie begins rapping about a man from Mars who eats up cars and people in bars and then wait – now he only eats guitars, isn’t that nice of him? Only Debbie Harry could get away with being a skinny blond girl rapping about something that doesn’t have a single gun or cop killing in it or say the word booty even once. I love it.

Ok, I made it. I am at the top of the hill. I am earning that damn lemonade and chocolate chip cookie, that is for sure. And I am getting hungry for hot dogs. Good thing I am almost there. Massive Attack singing Karmacoma comes up next. “You say you want to be with me, I’ve nothing to give..” I turn off Vallejo onto Scott for a block. It is relatively flat here and my knees thank me for it. Almost there.

Uh oh, Ruby Baby is playing. Gotta change it fast or otherwise I will have Donald Fagan singing, “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby Baby” stuck in my head until it causes some serious brain damage.

More Massive Attack, this time Any Love. Perfect, this is a nice happy song about a guy going out at night to pick up a chicks. Any chick. Please, chick, let me pick you up. Please?

AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Somebody save me, I think I am bleeding from my ears. Taking Over Me is torturing my poor body the same way a high pitched-whistle will turn nice friendly dogs into slobbering man-eaters. Evanescence-girl (whatever her name is) has the kind of whiny, nasally voice that makes me want to poke an ice pick through my ear drums just to end the misery. That girl never has a nice thing to say about life. I think I have just enough strength left push the skip button on my ipod.

Praise be to the music gods, the Black Eyed Peas singing about ba-bumping in nightclubs comes to my rescue. I will survive after all.

Finally, Broderick Street! Nice cold glass of lemonade, here I come. As I walk toward the busy lemonade stand, another Led Zeppelin song comes on. Fool in the Rain, covered by Maná. Which, oddly enough, seems to be appropriate. Just as I reach the table, I discover everything is sold out. Not a drop of lemonade or a single cookie to be found. Maybe I should have taken the bus after all – I feel so deprived. My sister consoles me with the offer of a delicious Hebrew National hot dog, which almost makes me drool, I am that hungry. Nothing like processed kosher mystery meat to rid you of temporary depression, right?

In the end, the kids raked in lots of dough to be saved in their respective piggy banks (Avram’s is an old cigar box, Rachel’s money will probably be stashed in one of her bazillion purses) for whatever goodies they are dreaming of lately. Maybe it will be spent on lots of salt water taffy from the best candy store in the universe when they go up to Oregon later this summer. Or maybe new comic books, hair clips, Buzz Lightyear blinky shoes (Rachel’s favorite this year), and video games. The possibilities are endless when you are little and don’t have to pay income taxes.

As for me, I am chilling with a bun-wrapped hotdog in each hand, trying not to drip mustard all over myself as I pig out. Absolutely wunderbar.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T - A little goes a long way when a homicidal maniac is behind the wheel

2010-06-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

I live in a crazy busy city. At any given moment, any day of the week, something is happening somewhere. People are moving around from place to place, all lost in their own little worlds until they crash into each other. There is a lot of traffic from cars, trucks, buses, trolleys, trams, pedestrians, and - more and more often - bicycles. All of this can make it an interesting and potentially hair-raising process to get from point A to B.

In 2008, this city passed a law requiring police officers to pull over and ticket any drivers caught talking or texting (the ultimate in brainless stupidity) while operating a vehicle. To me, that law should be unnecessary, but that is because I am a big believer in common sense. Duh, if you are too distracted to pay attention to the red light and not run over the pedestrian who has right of way in the cross walk (that was me walking there, thank you very much), then you should pay the fine for being a moron. People who drive cars can be very stupid, it is a fact.

Bicyclists these days seem to be the yuppie version of the Hell's Angels, in an eco-friendly way, of course. They travel in packs, have their own codes of ethics that are incomprehensible to anyone not in their group, and seem to have a complete lack of regard for anyone not riding around on two self propelled wheels. They can come across as complete jerks and can be as dangerous as automobiles when it comes to their ability to hurt people.

Pedestrians don't get off either - I myself have been very guilty of standing in the crosswalk waiting for the light to turn green, effectively blocking a driver from making a legal right hand turn on a red light. All the lovely people walking down - or in - the street are just as guilty of contracting the asshole flu as anyone else.

I love cars in general. I think they can be beautiful pieces of engineering, design, style, speed, and sometimes are like looking at sex personified. The right car can be an absolute thrill to drive, but they are also expensive and can kill on so many levels.

Bicycles are fun. I love the feeling of freedom I get when I slow poke pedal my way down a quiet street on a sunny day. I paid a high price learning to ride my bike as a small child - I lost the bottom row of my baby teeth all in one painful crash into a telephone pole because I tried not to run over the neighbor's dumb cat who had a hairball in place of a brain. Riding a bicycle is an immense feeling of accomplishment that a clumsy person like me doesn't get very often.

Going for a walk down any street in San Francisco is always a visual treat, even in the dirtiest and poorest places in town. There is never a lack of architecture to ogle and all the mini-dramas taking place all around are better than any reality tv show could dream of filming. It also exposes pedestrians to potential crimes, filthy streets (so bad if you dropped a $20 on the ground you would think twice about picking it up), and lots of smog/pollution/exhaust.

The problem is this - not only do I live in a weird busy city where odd things happen every second, I also live in the world's most opinionated place. There truly cannot be any other metropolis on the planet where perfect strangers constantly bombard you with their idea of how to live. This applies to everything from how to live your private life to bagging your groceries and driving/biking/walking. People driving cars have opinions about bicyclists and pedestrians, bicyclists have opinions about cars and pedestrians, and pedestrians just hate anyone with wheels, including mother's with strollers who are moving too slowly. These issues create a sort of social powder keg that is always on the verge of exploding.

Like most things in life, my problem with cars and bikes are the people who operate them. As with 99.999999999% of everything that is wrong on this planet, humanity is to blame. I have seen perfectly rational, caring people turn into raging homicidal maniacs behind the wheel of a car and those same people become stupid, anti-social, rule breaking idiots as soon as they get their butts planted on a bicycle seat. Why is that? Normally pleasant, law abiding citizens suddenly become foul mouthed Rambos when they go for a nice walk to their local cafe for a cup of soy-only, free range not cage fed hormone-less loved to death shot of joe. What is it about traffic that sets people off?

This week, that question became a more immediate, potentially deadly one. Some psychotic loco (redundant, I know) in a blue Nissan Rogue who appears to be from Berkeley but hasn't been arrested for some reason went on the rampage on Wednesday night and mowed down four bicyclists. If the guy really is from Berkeley, why did he come all the way across the Bay to San Francisco to run people over? There are just as many annoying bicyclists in his town to pick on - why travel for his kind of sicko fun?

I understand the urge to just lash out at someone who is in your way, making it difficult to get where you need to go. One reason I don't enjoy driving in cities is that someone is ALWAYS in your way and it is frustrating. I get why bicyclists run lights, hop up on sidewalks, and weave in and out of traffic - they do it because they can and it means they get where they are going faster. As a pedestrian, I am totally guilty of weaving in and out of people, zooming along. I can't stand having someone walking right in front of me. I understand, I get it, roger that over and out.

What I don't understand are drivers who endanger other people with their vehicles in their frustration or complete obliviousness to the world around them. I don't get bicyclists who zoom up on people and scream obscenities when the lady with a stroller and two meandering children can't get out of his way fast enough. Pedestrians who walk against lights or insist on crossing busy streets where there is no crosswalk leave me dumbfounded.

I don't know the man (the driver was described as a white male - a very comprehensive, helpful description, obviously) who ran over those bicyclists. I don't know what his beef was. I do know that he wove in and out of traffic, often zooming along on the wrong side of the street, and he put three people in the hospital, one in critical condition. I don't know anything about this guy but it doesn't matter. What he did was wrong. Who cares why?

There has been a lot of chatter in the last few days about the possible motivation behind this driver, but to me there isn't an acceptable one. I don't care if the driver had a bad day for any number of reasons. So what if a bicyclist cut him off earlier. Who gives a flying fudge what made this guy try to hurt other people? There is no explanation in the world that can excuse or explain what he did. What won't surprise me about this will be that in the end we learn he was a nice man with or without a family, who was quiet or not, who was friendly to his neighbors or kept to himself. He will be an average person just like you and me.

How can a guy who at the very least wanted to seriously hurt some people and maybe even wanted to kill someone be like you or me? Because I believe that all of us have been guilty of the urge to just lash out at whoever or whatever is pushing our last button at any given moment. The only difference between him and us is that he acted. He hit the accelerator and zoomed up that street and did what he wanted. I wonder if he felt good after it was over. I am afraid he felt great when it was happening.

I am not a hearts and flowers kind of person. I don't preach peace and love and unicorns to anyone. My only mantra in life is respect, something I am guilty of NOT always giving to people. This whole weird thing with the mad as a hatter driver taking out the bicyclists really got to me because I believe that respect is at the heart of the whole incident. I believe that every one of us has been guilty at some point of breaking a rule that allows us as a society to bump along together. It may have been a traffic rule or simply a customary rule of politeness, but we have done it. And we have all been the (un)lucky recipients of that same lack of respect. After a while, it gets to you. Suddenly, you are the raving lunatic foaming at the mouth and targeting people with your wrath.

Perhaps this crazy, wonderful city earns part of the blame. It is always rushing along and we are sucked into the tidal wave along with everyone else. Except, of course, that tidal wave is made up of us - all of us ordinary, busy, potential homicidal maniacs. Maybe biting our tongues and practicing the trite but true mantras of do unto others and if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all could help bring some social peace for a while, making it safe for everyone to travel on their way in their own fashion. A sappy thought, I know, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Luck be a lady? No thanks - how about luck be a sexy guy who wins me MONEY!

2010-04-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

I am not a gambler. I know exactly what I can buy with the money in my pocket. And I can dream about all the things I would do if I won the lottery or won big in any number of casinos. But I rarely can get past the idea of losing – that isn’t fun to me. Most of the time, I opt to hang on to what I have and watch someone else lose their money to the odds.

This spring, a friend talked me into kicking in my $10 for a suicide pool during March Madness. With a little help from my younger sister, I managed to pick enough winning teams to tie with one other person and split the final pot. My $10 bet earned me $150 – not bad.

This weekend, I am going to the Kentucky Derby. The same friend who got me into the NCAA pool invited me to attend the race with his family – I am suspicious that he is hoping to get his money back or is determined to turn me into a gambling addict, but maybe he is just trying to make my life a little more interesting. I know I will have a great time and plan on using my March Madness winnings to bet on the ponies, so it isn’t like I am really investing anything. The problem is I have no idea how to bet on a horse.

How does anyone pick a horse to win a race? I have scoped out some sites on the web and tried to understand odds and how they are determined, but I am more confused than ever. I mean, think about it. How does anyone bet on an animal that has surely been trained and has a jockey trying to control it, but in the end is a thinking, feeling life form that could just decide to do whatever it wants? I might as well bet on racing cockroaches.

I have asked a few people for tips on picking horses and have heard some interesting things. Pick a horse with intelligent eyes. Choose one that is frisky. How about opting for the prettiest one? Or the one with the cutest jockey, best racing silk colors, or silliest name? Apparently, despite the numerous websites figuring odds for each Derby entry, choosing whom to bet on is as arbitrary as throwing darts at a list of names. Essentially, not very specific or helpful.

Another interesting tidbit (which I may have heard entirely wrong or else warped the information all out of sense in my crazy brain) is that all the horses entered into the Derby are 3 year old animals without a lot of racing experience. I am really hoping that is wrong because if so, how the heck can anyone lay odds on an animal that is essentially a teenager and then wager money? Are people crazy? Don’t these people know that teenagers are fascinating, fun, and completely unpredictable? And these particular teenagers can get away with biting, kicking, and bucking you off into the mud because how exactly do you ground a horse? Take away its car keys and allowance? HA!

As yet, I have no idea who I will bet on. The good thing is, I don’t have to make up my mind until a little while before the race, so I will have plenty of time to become even more confused by the decision making tactics of other race-goers. I am hoping that a little of my NCAA beginner’s luck will carry over to the Derby, but the truth is my sports fanatic younger sister obsessively watched college sports when we were growing up and some of her insane factual knowledge appears to have penetrated my skull. And a good college program tends to last for years and can become predictable and an easy pick to bet on. Unlike frisky teenage horses with fur, sharp teeth and hooves who could just decide to do their own thing that day.

I am supposed to go to a bourbon tasting in Louisville on Thursday, so maybe some well-aged alcohol will help. I don’t anticipate it helping me make a good decision. I just hope it will help me make any decision at all. And maybe keep me from building pipe-dreams about what I could do with a lot of money I haven’t won yet.

Anyone for a bedtime story?

2010-04-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

I like to entertain my closest family and friends. Usually, this happens just by opening my mouth and telling them whatever idiotic thing I have been thinking about lately. (Sometimes they laugh and inch away from me, worried about my insanity level that day). These are the people who know me best and are least likely to be offended by what I say or do, offense being something I seem to be able to inspire in the rest of the world a little too easily.

I have what could politely be called an irreverent sense of humor – to me most things in life have an ironic side and should be laughed at. (This of course does not apply to anything that causes only suffering, of which tragedies there are far too many to list here.) Often, what makes me laugh is something I sort of glimpsed or overheard a snatch of while on the bus, walking down the street, spacing out on a park bench, or whatever and then my crazy little pea brain made up its own story, randomly filling in the blanks. Just like the Mad Libs I used to play with my sisters on long car rides in my parents’ horrible mustard yellow Ford Pinto.

The usual response I get when I tell my friends and family some of my crazy ideas is that I should write them down. Why would I do that? Writing things down fixes them in a permanent state and my brain functions in a more fluid way. It also provides a lot of concrete proof that I am a little kookoo and might benefit from some mind altering medication. I also have a serious problem with fleshing ideas out – I can usually come up with the initial premise, but the details are beyond me. If I tried to write them down, it would just be a list of things, what-ifs, thoughts that go nowhere.

However, I do sometimes like a challenge. I am up trying to note down my favorite loco thoughts and see what happens. The attic in my noggin is getting a little full and perhaps if I write them down, I can let them go and make room for new thoughts. So please enjoy the craziness with one caveat – take everything with a ginormous grain of salt. I mean no disrespect to anyone, any belief system, any gender, orientation, identity of self, etc, etc.

“In the beginning…Irreverent Bible Stories for Lapsed Catholics”

**WARNING** Any devout Christians are likely to want to burn me at the stake after this, including some of my own family members…I am seriously not joking. I just want to make it clear that these ideas are not meant to insult anyone or debase any faith they may have. For the few of you who have heard these ideas before and found them hilarious, I hope you enjoy them again.

*What if Jesus was a vampire? No seriously, I am not the only person in the world to think of this. I mean, if you are not a believer in God, don’t see Jesus as the Messiah, and think it is extremely odd for an institution to condone and promote transubstantiation (the magical turning of bread and wine into flesh and blood), how else do you explain the miracle of Christ? The rite of communion is all about ingesting the flesh and blood of a human being – surely this is cannibalism at the very least but there is definitely a vampire connection there too. Jesus was a man who was dead and yet rose again, not-dead (undead)? Vampire lore is also full of all kinds of interesting items that can be attributed to Jesus – the ability to walk on water is one. What if instead of walking on water, he was just floating above it? At the marriage celebration in Cana, he supposedly turned water into wine. Vampires are famous for being able to hypnotize prey – what if all he did was plant the suggestion in the guests’ minds that the water had become wine and they all believed it? I could go on, but I think you get my point. I think it is outrageously funny to contemplate the idea that a religious figure who supposedly preached peace but inspired so much bloodshed is actually a blood drinker himself.

*Peter, Peter, woman hater. To me, Peter is the biggest misogynist in the last 2000 years. He helped turn the only other important female character (Mary Magdalene) in the New Testament (Mary, Jesus’ mother being the first) into an anathema, a social pariah, a whore. The man obviously had a vagina problem – why else would he help create an institution that has completely denigrated women? Wouldn’t it be funny, though, if every night when holy man St. Peter went home, he had a few dominatrix women waiting for him? What if the rock of the church was spanked like a little boy by his mommy every night before bed and he LIKED it? I laugh just thinking about it.

*Judas Iscariot – poster child for a broken heart. Sometimes, I can’t understand why Christianity is so against homosexuality. I mean, why does anyone care so much about how another person finds happiness in a relationship? Why is there only one missionary-style road to happiness? One day in a flash of truly inspired depravity, the answer came to me. Christians hate Judas Iscariot as much as they hate homosexuals, right? I mean, Judas IS the man who betrayed Jesus to the Romans, which led to his scourging, painful trudge through the streets of Jerusalem, and finally the agonizing execution by crucifixion. I mean, who WOULDN’T hate such a rat? So where am I going with this? Well, what if the true story is that Judas was a gay man who was madly in love with Jesus and actually had a romantic relationship with him? And then, Jesus dumped him? And Judas felt immense anger and shame when his heart was broken? I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt that way when told by the object of their desire that they ‘just don’t think of you that way anymore”. I have experienced it myself and can easily understand why in a moment of pure anger Judas would want to make Jesus’ life a little uncomfortable, to teach him a lesson. I have always thought Judas was a tragic figure who regretted what he had done – he hung himself eventually, committing suicide, yet another strike against him. The guy just could not win for losing. The true history behind Christianity’s obsession with the evils of homosexuality has just been revealed by a love affair between Jesus and Judas.

*Dona Maria, Holy Mary Mother of God – the poor preggers girl. Seriously, think about it. Some teenage girl has a glowing alien/angel stalking her, telling her crazy things like she is destined to become the mother of God. God?!? How is that logically even possible? It hurts my head thinking about it. The Thing from Outer Space finally talks her into having the kid, she becomes pregnant (the Bible skips a few details when explaining exactly how THAT happened. But Mom, Dad, it was only one time…) and suddenly for social reasons she needs a husband. So she marries the most famous cuckold in history, Joseph, who by all accounts was a good husband and father, one bright star in this story. From now on, Mary’s life is not her own, if it ever was. She has to give birth in a barn with a bunch of animals and strangers from afar looking on as she is sweating and screaming her way through contractions and delivery. She has to raise this uber-holy child, not having any resources for something like this. I imagine it would be like trying to raise a genius but not being able to read, write, or do basic math yourself – where do you even begin? Then her crazy kid decides to start his own hippy commune, preaching revolution and a serious lack of respect for established authority, an early pre-cursor to the Summer of Love. Eventually, this kid, this man, who changed whatever course her life might have taken, has the gall to get arrested and die a messy, public death, all the while praising God and saying ‘thy will be done.’ What about HER will? This person who was carried in her body, who she cared for and raised to manhood didn’t consider her at all when he ran off to foment revolution. I bet deep inside, Mary wanted nothing more than to just be left alone, in a nice little cottage somewhere with her cats and a rose garden. That’s how I picture her now – a plump little lady with dyed, permed hair wearing a too-small sweatshirt covered in kittens and living in a house with plastic covers on the furniture and velvet paintings of Elvis on the walls, smoking cigarettes like a chimney. When you visit her, she gives you stale store-brand Oreo wannabe cookies and Kool-aid lemonade. It makes me laugh a naughty, disrespectful laugh to think she could have been so normal.

Ok, if you are still reading this blog and want more, the rest is pretty benign in comparison. Boring, even. I promise to try to make you laugh..

*What if you were some drugged out asshole wandering the streets of a bad neighborhood one night and saw a beautiful woman inexplicably sitting in a convertible at a stop light? And what if you jumped into her convertible, stuck a knife to her throat, and told her to drive off, all the while salivating over what you were going to do to her before you stole her jewelry and car and left her for dead? And what if the woman just laughed at you, grabbed you and pulled you in close for a kiss – but wait, she is actually biting your neck and sucking all the blood out of you, down to your toes? And what if she tossed your pathetic, dead body out of the car and drove off licking her lips? That would really suck, right? Get it – suck? I crack myself up. So then the beautiful woman drives back to her high class condo, racing the rising sun, completely satisfied with her midnight snack. Yum. Better than a glass of warm milk to help you sleep.

*One day I was walking down Market Street, enjoying the mixture of sunshine and San Francisco weirdos and listening to Marilyn Manson scream in my ear, “I don’t care if you don’t want me, ‘cause I’m yours, yours, yours, anyhow..” About ten feet in front of me, a cab pulled up in front of the Regis Hotel and just as the passenger opened the door, a bike messenger came zooming down the sidewalk, swerving around pedestrians, and got nailed by the cab door. The messenger, a girl, went flying then skidding down the sidewalk until she finally slid to a stop. She must have been one giant body-sized mass of bruises and road rash – I cringe just thinking about it now. Yowza. So I turned off my headphones and ran over to her with my cell phone out, ready to call 911 because I was positive this chick was seriously hurt, if not actually semi-burnt toast. The guy who hit her with the door got to her first and was talking to her. The girl sat up, took off her helmet, and it was a total sexy-librarian moment. With her helmet on and wearing the usual messenger gear of trashed Carhart jeans, black concert t-shirt and a big bag, she had a total tomboy appearance. But the moment that helmet came off and all this pretty blond hair came tumbling down, it was a totally different story. I am an appreciator of beauty everywhere and even though I was very frightened that this girl was seriously hurt, I admit to staring in awe – she was honestly a very beautiful woman. I noticed that the cab door guy was staring too, but who could blame him? It only took a few seconds to figure out that not only was the girl really ok, but that I wasn’t needed and I could boogie on down Market Street. So I did, listening to the rest of Marilyn Manson’s “I Put A Spell On You”. The song started me thinking – this is a classic stalker ballad. And what happened between those two people had the makings of a perfect stalker story. What if Ms. Messenger decides it was fate that she was nailed by Mr. Cab Door at that very moment? She would be foolish to try and thwart fate and she ain’t no dummy. Mr. Cab Door is a very polite man who truly felt sorry for nailing her, even though she shouldn’t have been riding her bike on the sidewalk. As a way to feel better about it, he gives her his business card and tells her to contact him if she needs anything at all, then continues on his way into the Regis. For him, it is over, although he does enjoy thinking about how beautiful she was. For Ms. Messenger, though, a completely different concept was received. He told her to contact him. He gave her the means to do it. Fate, again, is telling her he is THE ONE. You can probably fill in the blanks – think Single White Female. Although, who knows – maybe they could have a happy ending. After an appropriate amount of bloodshed, creepy behavior, and any other Hollywood-isms you want to throw in, of course.

Is anyone still awake? I hope I haven’t insulted you / bored you to tears / convinced you I need to be legally committed to the nuthouse. I could give you more, but this blog is already getting too long as it is. If you are interested in telling me what you think, I believe this site allows you to comment. I would love it if you did. Ciao

Ok drama queen, enough already. Would you please get over yourself?

2010-04-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can’t stand yourself? I don’t really mean the whole self-loathing jump off a bridge to escape the insanity kind. Just the relatively minor thing where absolutely nothing makes you happy for no explicable reason. Breathing is somehow an insult to your ego. Anyone who says hello or smiles at you has earned your undying hatred for ever and ever, amen. And God forbid anyone wish you a good day. I mean really, who do they think they are?

I am in the middle of one of those days today and I just can’t figure out why. I have reviewed the mental ‘what is your problem this time Lisa’ checklist and come up with nothing. Nada. Nichts. PMS – nope. Not enough/too much sleep – nope again. Hungry – just ate, didn’t help. Chocolate deprivation – had some primo stuff, still bitchy.

So what exactly is bugging me? Well, I am afraid that one of my very bestest friends in the world just might possibly be pissed off at me. Or else she is making a joke and I am way too dense to figure it out. Overly literal person that I am, I miss a lot of things like that. Have I bothered to ask her? Nope – I am busy playing chicken. But is that enough to freak me out to this extent? Hmmm, I don’t think so.

Boyfriend issues? Always. That is status quo, so no dice there. I am a firm believer that the more you love someone, the more issues you have. When the issues stop, THEN I will begin freaking out.

How’s the family? As crazy and in need of serious medication, counseling, and intervention (not necessarily in that order) as ever.

Money? Well, duh. I mean, even guys making billions of dollars every year never seem to have enough. Why should I be content with my few thousands? Nope, I don’t think that is my beef.

What about the job? Well, it is the most excruciatingly boring thing I have ever been paid to do, but it definitely beats the alternative, which I experienced first hand in Technicolor misery last summer. No, the job is definitely not a problem.

Maybe I am going about this all wrong. Perhaps, instead of obsessing about whatever it is that is making me so damn unhappy, I should think happy thoughts instead. That is easy, I can think of many: I am madly in love with my new sofa. I am going to the Kentucky Derby in a few weeks to bet on horses, two things I have never done before in a place I have never been to. Spring is here in all its rainy glory and I am surrounded by happy little plants waking up from their semi-hibernation – that always makes me smile. I got my favorite pair of boots resoled and they are like new – fabulous.

Ok, it is several hours later and I have spent a chunk of time meditating on my happy thoughts and all I feel is boredom. And irritation. Still. Ugh.

So what am I supposed to do with myself? If anyone else was going through this, I would say they needed to just chill out. We all have bad days, cut yourself some slack, blah, blah, BLAH. It isn’t anyone else going through this, it is ME. And I am stuck with me in my head, continually re-pissing myself off in a vicious cycle. Does anyone have an ice pick I can borrow for a homemade lobotomy? I will have to thank you in advance because I suspect that while I will probably be in a better mood afterwards, I will also be a drooling, non-communicative mess. Excuse me while I accidentally slobber on your shoes – it isn’t intentional.

I have no idea what my problem is and I guess it doesn’t matter. In general, I try to hide my high maintenance nature from the world and I think I am having a Mt. St. Helens moment – too much unexpressed drama is building up. I just hope I get home before my top blows off. Heehee. No, not my shirt, although that could be funny I guess.

So what is this whole silly blog posting about? It mainly consists of me complaining about being a dissatisfied whiner. Obviously, a fascinating topic. I am still irritated, but I think I have come to accept that I am just going to be that way today. I just need to finish out my work day, go home, watch some mind-numbing tv, go to bed, and start all over tomorrow.

Why does that plan irritate me so? Who knows. Not me, that’s for sure.

So is this actually friendship or just abuse?

2010-04-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

I am coming to understand that I am sometimes an idiot when it comes to friends. In general, I think of myself as a very difficult person to be a friend to: I am moody, opinionated, and prefer to be by myself most of the time. Because of this, I try very hard to also be completely loyal and willing to listen to whatever it is that needs to be said no matter how boring, ridiculous, crass, or pee-my-pants-laughing funny it may be (that last one has been in short supply lately). I feel guilty that no matter how much I may adore my friends, sometimes I don't actually want to see or talk to them very much. That is when all the trouble starts - guilt is terrible thing that makes me do things I later regret and then feel more guilt over later. Unless it is eating lots of chocolate. But that is another story.

I always tell my friends they can speak to me about whatever it is they want, whenever they want and I really, honestly mean that. Most of my friends are true friends - they put up with my crazy anti-social behavior and will listen to what I have to say as much as I try to do the same for them. I am learning, however, that there is a difference between friends who talk to me about all the things going in their lives and the ones who only tell me about the bad things. I don't know why I have been so slow to figure this out. Maybe it is because I myself will drop off everyone's radar from time to time, so it is taking me forever to realize that a few people do the same to me when their lives are good, then only look me up when disaster has struck again.

For example, one person that I have considered a friend for almost two years now is having a difficult time in life. He recently lost his girlfriend and his job and is suing his former employer over something (he told me why but it didn't make any sense). As he was telling me all of this, I started thinking about all the conversations I have had with him over the last year or so and they have only occurred when his life is falling down around him. If that is true, then why am I still friends with this guy? I guess the answer to that is when I first met him, he seemed on top of things. And even though very quickly he started having issues, it took me a while to figure out that his life is one big issue and that forever after that is all I would see about his life. As I look back on my conversations with this guy, I realized that all the signs were there and I only have myself to blame for spending time listening to this person.

I think I will call this guy Niemann, just to make it easier for you guys to follow along - believe me, it is kooky so you will have a hard enough time. The first time I met Niemann in person, I remember thinking that he didn't look as annoying as I knew he could be - warning sign number one that I was oblivious to. He was coming to the account I worked on and had been emailing me for weeks asking the same questions over and over and generally making me loco. When he finally showed up, he wouldn't even make eye contact when talking to me, something that really drives me crazy. I start freaking out that I have grown a big wart on my nose or have something stuck to my teeth and it is so hideously ugly people can't stand to look at me. And when I say he wouldn't make eye contact, I should say he wouldn't actually look at me at all - he wasn't even staring at my boobs. He was just sort of focused on his own shoes.

After getting past day one, Niemann didn't seem so bad. I thought he was just a little shy, which I understand. Just because I have a big mouth and will talk to anyone doesn't mean that I am not quivering with fear on the inside - I am terribly shy but I force myself to get past it so I can function in life. I made a point to say hello to Niemann if I saw him and ask how he was getting on with his new team and eventually he started talking to me more easily, which was good. We were working in an unusual situation with a very small group of people and it was essential that we could all get along.

After about a week or so, Niemann and I had lunch together, not an uncommon thing in our group. He started opening up to me more about himself - talking about work and asking me for background on the team. Over the next week, he started talking to me more and telling me how difficult he found working with this team and for this company to be. I didn't mind listening to what he had to say and maybe I thought that by saying how he felt out loud, it would help him - it works for me sometimes. The gist of what Niemann had to say was that he was very unsatisfied with his job and that it wasn't what he thought it would be when he began working with us. I told him that he only has one life and if he isn't happy with what is going on right now, then he should do something to change it - he should actively go after what he wants.

A few days later I was out with some friends after work and my cell phone started freaking out. Niemann had emailed a text message to my phone that was so long, it came as 12 chunks of data. At first, I thought it was a joke and that he was just messing around with my phone. But as I read the pieces of the message, I started really worrying that he meant every word he wrote. Basically, Niemann decided to take me at my word and go for what he really wanted in life, which somehow had become me. I guess he thought that I was flirting with him or sending him a coded come-hither message when I told him to go after what he wants. I thought I was just talking to him. Silly me. His message basically said he was totally gaga over me and was too afraid to tell me in person so he was texting me. Have you ever heard of anything more romantic? Me either.

It was hard not to let that unasked for text message ruin my evening, but I couldn't help quietly freaking out about it instead of paying attention to my friends. I knew that I was going to have to deal with it somehow, but I had no clue what to say. I should have been flattered that he was interested in me, but for some reason all I felt was angst. I don't think that was exactly the feeling he was trying to inspire in me.

I am not the most aware individual when it comes to my personal life. I am always the last one to know when a guy is interested in me. It never occurs to me that a man I have been hanging out with might be looking for more than friendship and when he finally gets my attention, I am so surprised that I don't always handle it well. It takes a very patient guy to put up with that. I wouldn't call Niemann a patient guy - more of the adult temper tantrum sort.

The next day, I still hadn't decided what to do about the issue - I knew for certain that I was definitely not interested in this guy for a variety of reasons, but how was I supposed to tell him that and still be able to work with him? I felt guilty that I had somehow led him into thinking I was open for a relationship beyond that of just a usual workplace friendship. Eventually, the whole issue of how to address the problem was taken out of my hands - Niemann called me and like a dork, I answered the phone. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? This had to be dealt with at some time so why not get it over with as soon as possible?

Right from the start Niemann was not a happy man. I guess he had spent the whole night essentially sleepless waiting for me to respond. That made me feel awful. I should have at least said I would talk to him about it the next day rather than not saying anything at all. When he heard that I was completely caught off guard and didn't feel the same way about him, he hung up on me. Ok, I thought. That wasn't good but it wasn't horrible either. Now I just have to see what happens on Monday. Silly Lisa, easy outs are for kids. About 5 minutes later, Niemann called me back and then the fun really started. I don't think I said more than 10 words in the whole hour or so that he ranted in my ear. Looking back on it now, I can't really understand why I tolerated that behavior. I mean, I didn't ASK him to decide he was lusting after me. I didn't tell him to please, please choose me to be the ever so grateful recipient of his affection. The only thing I can think of is that I felt guilty that he had poured his heart out in a text message to me and I rejected him. It takes real guts to spew your feelings out in an electronically sent love note to a person who you work with that has never encouraged you romantically.

About half way through the call, I realized that Niemann wasn't ranting at me about me anymore. He was just ranting about life in general. In his view, his life was a big mess and I was just the latest thing to go wrong. Looking back on it now, I realized THAT is where I made my big mistake. I stopped feeling bad that I didn't want to jump into the sack with him and instead started feeling sympathetic that his life was so messed up. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to. I can be a good listener, so that's what I did. I listened. And listened. By the end of it, my ear was numb and my cell battery was dying, so I was given a reprieve. What I didn't know at the time is that the conversation was an example of how my friendship with Niemann would be going forward - painful and energy sapping.

It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be going back into the office and working with Niemann, mostly because he was in the process of pissing off everyone on the team and would eventually be moved to another account. When he did have time to talk to me, it was to complain about how he was being targeted and all the BS was career maneuvering being done by unscrupulous people. As naive as I can be about my personal life, I am completely aware of office politics and did not have the same impression about what was going on. However, I still felt bad for Niemann because he was just so AWKWARD. And I think I was also just so happy he wasn't chasing after me or making my life difficult at work. Another lady love had entered the picture.

Niemann doesn't live in San Francisco. Lots of the people I work with don't live here. Instead, they fly all over the place, going wherever the job takes them, living their lives mostly in hotels instead of the homes they pay mortgages on. Niemann had a favorite hotel in SF, like most of these vagabond co-workers do, and one thing he particularly loved about it was the wine bar. And one very lovely waitress who worked at the wine bar. One day, Niemann walked into the office and he seemed different - lighter or brighter or something. I commented that he seemed to be having a good day and he proceeded to tell me all about this waitress that he was in love with. He had spent every night over the last week or so sitting at the wine bar talking to her and she was perfect. Wonderful. Magnificent. And, she was going out on a date with him that night. Cool, I thought. I am happy that he is finding something good in life. For some dumb reason, I never questioned at the time that he could go from being (supposedly) madly in love with me to madly in love with another woman all in about two weeks. Or maybe I was just relieved to know I was off the hot seat. Sometimes, I am a complete chicken. Cluck cluck.

After telling me all about his new love, I didn't really talk to Niemann for about a month. I saw him at work and we would make office chitchat, but nothing beyond that. Ours was a busy office with plenty of work to do and time could just fly by. One day, Niemann stopped by my desk and mentioned that we hadn't really talked in a long time and invited me out for a coffee. We hadn't even made it to the elevator before he started ranting about his girlfriend and how it was all going to hell. She was too clingy, she wanted too much from him, and she never seemed to want to listen to him when he needed to talk. It seems this woman expected him to talk to her on days when he wasn't in San Francisco. She actually expected him to talk to her almost every day, even if it was just a quick 15 minute phone call. Can you believe the nerve of her? And if it was a short call, she would complain that he never listened to what was going on in her life. He just wanted to talk about himself and his boring job.

I was stuck in the elevator listening to Niemann literally ranting about this woman and all I could think of was escape. Except, I could see he was upset - really upset. And it is hard for me to ignore that. I feel like I just kicked a puppy and then laughed as it cried when I try to ignore someone who just needs to get a bad day off their chest. Yes, I am an idiot and I bring all this pain and suffering on myself.

It took 45 minutes to get the stupid cup of coffee. The rant about his girlfriend turned into a rant about his job and how much he hated it in our office. I suggested that he try to move into another department or that maybe his girlfriend had an actual point - it is hard to have a relationship with someone you don't talk to or who you feel doesn't listen to you. It all rolled off his back like water off a duck. I don't think it even penetrated his ear drums - he literally could not hear me talking. I finally just stood up and started walking out the door of the coffee shop and he followed me, talking non-stop all the way. I felt like he was sucking all the oxygen out of my immediate area and I was going to suffocate. I had to wonder if he would even notice if I turned blue and dropped dead or if he would just continue yakking at my corpse.

I think it comes as no surprise that Niemann didn't last very long in our office. He was clearly not happy there and the management of our team was more than willing to move him off elsewhere in the company. On his last day in our office, Niemann stopped by my desk to thank me for being such a good friend to him and said that he hoped we would stay in contact. He really appreciated and understood that I had put up with a lot from him and he wanted me to know it hadn't gone unnoticed. I had been sort of avoiding him since the whole ranting in the coffee shop thing and I was totally surprised to hear him acknowledge that he spent most of his conversation time with me freaking out. It was nice to know that I am not a complete idiot and that he wasn't as self absorbed as he seemed.

Except of course, I was totally wrong. Niemann does have the capacity to care about other people, but he is so wrapped up in himself and is so hyper-critical of other people that he can't maintain true interest in anyone else for very long. Every little thing in the world that comes into his orbit is sucked in and turned into either a reflection of his ego or an attack on it. Take our 'friendship' for example. After he left the account, I would hear from Niemann every once in a while, usually when he had alienated everyone around him and I was the only person left. He would always ask me how I was doing, but it was only a formality. He would barely let me begin to tell him anything before he would start in on the saga of his life. And none of it was good. He would begin dating another woman who was always 'the one', but then as soon as she started really getting comfortable with the relationship, he would have 101 reasons why it was all wrong and then he would end it. He always seemed to be working with idiots who didn't appreciate him and was moved around a lot within the company. It was getting to the point where I was deliberately ignoring his calls - I just didn't have the energy to listen to him tell me the same things over and over. The only new details were names and places.

Right around Christmas 2009, Niemann called me up and it was the same story: he was under appreciated at work and his latest girlfriend was driving him crazy. She had told him repeatedly that she loved him and wanted him to tell her if he could ever feel the same. A reasonable request, in my opinion. Every girl needs to know if she should just cut her losses or keep on keepin' on. Niemann said he was going to end it with her, but he felt like he should wait until after the holidays because he didn't want to ruin them for her. I don't really have an opinion about that. Is it better to let someone enjoy their holidays but find out later their other half was plotting the end of the relationship? Or should a clean break be made as soon as possible so everyone can move on? That one is a flip of a coin, I think.

About a week after New Year's Eve, Niemann called me again, sobbing his little heart out. It seems that his unwanted girlfriend had dumped him. In the time I had known him, this had never happened. Niemann had always called all the shots and did all the wooing and dumping. I was actually seriously concerned about the damage to his ego - I wasn't sure it could stand it. I also was laughing my ass off because it had only been a few weeks ago that he was seriously talking about leaving HER. So what was the problem? I guess as soon as she dumped him, Niemann decided that he really was in love with her and now his heart was well and truly broken. Shattered into teeny tiny irreparable pieces that not even gorilla glue could fix.

Am I a mean friend for laughing at his pain? Probably. I am a bit of a slow one when it comes to things other people seem to instinctively know about life and I was gradually realizing that whatever my relationship was with Niemann, it wasn't a friendship. So that meant I could be guiltlessly mean and get some of my own back. I did feel bad that he was upset, but Niemann was ALWAYS upset. I had become numb to the whole drama of it - his life was like a Mexican soap opera except without all the big hair and women with long nails screaming Nada! at the top of their lungs and crying all the time.

Instead of just telling Niemann that I couldn't talk right then and that we would catch up later (I knew it would be at least a month before I heard from him again), I did something I try never to do with crazy people - I told him what I really thought about the situation. I laid it out the way I saw it: Niemann charmed the dickens out of yet another lady (as a salesy dude, he could be very smooth when he wanted to be), romanced her for a while until she started actually believing the persona he projected, then turned into the wicked warlock of the west when she had the nerve to plan things out long term. But, he sobbed into my poor ear, I LOVED her! No, you didn't. That only happened when she went off script and dumped your tuchas in the gutter. Needless to say, Nieman was very shocked. I had only ever listened to him before. I had never, ever told him what I thought. It was amazing how fast those tears dried up and he started telling me how much I had hurt him and that he thought I was his friend and how could I treat him this way? Oh boo hoo, I thought. I accidentally ( or was it?) laughed at that and he was so mad, he hung up on me. Uh oh - was this the end of our beautiful relationship?

A year ago, even six months ago, treating him like that would have made me feel horribly guilty because I did consider him a friend. Other people (much wiser than me) had pointed out that he never seemed to be around when I needed a friend and only ever called when his life was completely a mess. Maybe it fed my ego in some way to have someone talk to me when his life was so down. I'm not like that - the worse my life gets, the less I talk about it. Or maybe (even worse) I felt somehow better about my life when he would call and I would hear how horrible his was. I hope that isn't true. I want to believe I truly do care about people outside myself.

After my lack of appropriate response to his agony, I really didn't think I would hear from Niemann again. It was a big surprise, then, when about six weeks later he called to 'catch up'. It was like the last conversation had never happened - he didn't mention his latest ex-girlfriend and I didn't ask. He actually even listened to me for about 5 minutes when I told him what was new in my life. Then, the drama started again. Niemann was getting laid off and he was furious with the company. Ok, that is a normal reaction. I was laid off last year and while I wasn't furious with the business decision, I was pretty damn angry that it happened at all. The difference between Niemann and me was that I KNEW that mine was only a business decision while I was fairly certain that with him, it was a way for the company to finally, legitimately get a difficult non-productive employee off the books. Give him a severance package and say auf wiedersehen.

Niemann's angst wasn't only that he was getting laid off. He was also upset with the company for perceived slights during his time there and had decided to sue over it. More drama to tell me all about. What he didn't know, though, is that I had reached my breaking point. I did it pretty quietly, but it still happened. I literally wanted to scream into the phone that he just needed to shut up. Just SHUT UP! That would have been fun and made me feel better for a time, but just like ice cream and sexy shoes, I had this stupid idea that I needed to deny myself the pleasure. Instead, I lied and told him I had a meeting to go to and I would get back to him later. Which I haven't done. Because in a past life, I was a cowering, belly groveling organism who hated to tell people they aren't wanted around. And I really don't want Niemann around because whatever else our relationship is, it sure isn't a friendship.

Niemann has called and texted a few times and I have either ignored the phone or texted him back to say I couldn't talk then. In my chickenhearted way, I know I am hoping he will just fade away and forget all about me. It bothers me that I made such a poor choice of a friend. Did I really believe that he just had a tough life and needed a loyal friend? Was it all a big ego trip for me? I honestly can't say for sure and that upsets me more than anything else. I do hope that the simple fact I am even asking myself these questions means that I really was just a ninny who was waiting for the good side of Niemann to show up more often than the bad side and that I did try in my own way to be a good friend. I think in this instance being an oblivious idiot with a hopeful heart is humiliating, but better than being Niemann.

When I turn 50, I want to party like its 1985 too

2010-03-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

This last weekend I had the honor of attending a 50th birthday party for the woman who was my boss for an entire 3 1/2 months. This woman was the best boss I have ever had, and not only because we worked together for such a short time. Julie is just one of those people - intelligent, kind, curious about life, ambitious but not overly driven, and - most importantly - FUN. I knew any party she threw would be a blast.

In a few months, I will officially be closer to 40 than 30, which is just fine with me. Who cares about some silly little number of years I have spent taking up space on this planet? Age really is a state of mind, a concept that for me is validated every time I ride public transportation and see the infantile behavior that both MUNI operators and passengers exhibit. When I was invited to Julie's 50th birthday party, I was excited to go because I knew that it would be a celebration of her life so far, not a desperate attempt to convince everyone that 50 is the new 30. And THEN I found out that the party had a theme. And THEN I found out what it was - an 80s costume party. Gag me with a spoon.

My date to this party was my wonderful friend Mary. Mary is one of the few women on this planet that I can truly be a friend to and feel that friendship returned. If I don't speak to her for 3 weeks, she doesn't automatically think I am mad at her, that I hate her, and thus talk to everyone else behind my back about imagined insults. She is a straight shooter - she tells me exactly what she thinks in a way that doesn't make me feel attacked. I never feel like I am in some obscure competition with her over things that don't matter. Most importantly, when I hang out with Mary, I always truly enjoy myself. So if there was any chance of me having fun at this (now) ludicrous party, it was all going to be because of Dona Maria.

I love dressing up for almost anything except funerals and dates, which can sometimes feel like the same thing. The idea of going to a costume party always makes me happy, depending on what the theme is. The only things coming to mind about the 80s were how much I hated it when Billy Carney would call me Lysol (get it? Lisa/Lysol? He was truly a clever kid), how much I would laugh when Mr. Piatz threw erasers at kids sleeping in his math class, and how truly awful the fashion was. If you could even call it fashion. It was more like every bad idea regarding a person's appearance was crammed into 10 long years of visual ouch-ness. Mary, being Mary and generally much more positive about these sorts of things, seemed thrilled.

Ok, so if I was going to attend a party celebrating a friend's birthday with another good friend as my date, I was either going to have to adjust my attitude or just stay home. I don't try to be a party pooper, it just comes naturally sometimes. Mary's suggestion that we dress up as Milli Vanilli helped immensely. Unfortunately, I am not a talented lip syncher. I'm not a talented singer, either, but that would not be necessary for obvious reasons. And even though you can find all kinds of truly wonderful and bizarre things in San Francisco any day of the week, long dredlock wigs would be a challenge. Besides, I enjoy looking like a girl, not some hairy wannabe popstar.

By Friday afternoon, I was tired and grumpy and in no mood to try to find 80s togs to wear that wouldn't completely gross me out, but I had agreed to go shopping with Mary. We took a stinky, crammed bus up to Haight/Ashbury where all the best vintage stores are and started browsing our way up the street. I could tell you all sorts of interesting things that I saw and heard while in the Haight that night, but that would totally take me off on a tangent. Maybe another time.

One thing I will tell you is that for some reason, the 80s are now retro. I personally don't think I have lived long enough to have my childhood be labeled as retro, but obviously some fashionista does. ALL the trendy little shops along Haight Street had lots of 80s knock-offs, 80s inspired, and 80s refrence items in their windows. It was kind of creepy.

Eventually, we went into a store I usually associate with vintage Summer of Love and Disco clothes. Held Over is pretty famous for having the best quality vintage items from the 60s and 70s. I was skeptical that we would find anything newer than 1978, but boy was I wrong. They not only had several racks of honest to god real 1980s clothing, but they had it sorted out by the type of person who would have worn it - valley girl, preppy, long prom dresses, short prom dresses, rompers, beaded dresses that Angela Lansbury would have proudly worn on Murder, She Wrote. They even had Little House on the Prarie dresses - anyone feel like channeling Laura Ingalls Wilder? The best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) was a pair of parachute pants - I had deliberately forgotten how truly awful those things were.

As we started flipping through racks looking for things to try on, I was totally unprepared for the memories that came flooding back. That sounds really cliched, but seriously, that is what happened. Every single thing I saw reminded me of someone I knew, something I saw, something I wanted to own, to be, to look like when I was a kid verging on teenage-dom. I could not stop laughing at how horrible the fabrics were (everything seemed to be made from some flammable fake material), how crazy the colors were, and how truly unflattering some of the shapes were. One completely unflattering dress Mary tried on was classic valley girl with triangle shaped buttons running asymmetrically up the side (think civil war uniform). When she stepped out of the dressing room, the white bib front looked like a cloth diaper she had thrown on before she started burping babies. Yuck doesn't even begin to cover it.

I tried on a few dresses, but the one I chose is something that if I am truly honest, I would have loved when I was 14. It was classic 80s punky-rocker chick, very Madonna and Cyndi Lauper-ish. It was also hideously ugly, but who cares - I was too busy channeling my inner teenager. Wearing a really ugly dress in public was something that I loved when I was a rebellious teen. Half a life later, I was doing it again.

Mary and I spent hours flipping through racks, laughing at truly bad items, making fun of absolutely everything, and having a total blast getting all the details of our costumes just right. It wasn't such a bad way to spend a Friday night.

The next night was Julie's party. Mary went to a salon to get her hair as big as possible and then came over to my apartment to get dressed. I was bowled over by the poodle on her head - the hairdresser had crimped her hair all over, then used half a can of hairspray on it and put a little ponytail on top in a scrunchie. She even had her bangs up in a 'rooster'. Classic 80s all the way. Getting ready was just like highschool - we were sharing makeup, fashion ideas, stuff, and laughing our asses off as we got ready to go out for the night.

The party was at the Log Cabin in the Presidio, always a fun place to be. When we walked in, I was shocked and very embarrassed - hardly ANYONE dressed up. We just stood in the doorway wondering if we had somehow crashed a completely different party. It wouldn't be the first time in my life that I had misinterpreted something and gone completely overboard in the wrong direction in as public a way as possible. That feeling of awkwardness coming over me was unfortunately one of the most memorable parts of my life in the 80s. I felt like a cliche - the girl trying so hard to fit in who is clearly not one of the group. Ugh doesn't even begin to cover it.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and hugged me really hard, screaming 'oh my god you look great' in my ear. It was Julie, and she was totally glammed out as Joan Jett - this woman was clearly setting the tone for her own party. She was obviously thrilled that Mary and I had gone all out with our costumes and made me spin around a few times so she could get a good look at all the details. I really had it goin' on - spiky hair with a big hot pink bow, bright makeup, Cyndi Lauper dress, lace gloves, loads of jewelry including huge white earrings and a rosary (I know, I will go to hell some day for using my first communion rosary like that. Add it to the list of all the other things sending me to hell), hot pink cut off lace tights, Doc Martens. Mary was totally fabulous with her short dress, pink lace tights, high-heeled black booties, and really big hair.

It was obvious that Julie was thrilled we had really gone all out for her party, which helped that panicky, oh god I am such a dork AGAIN feeling start to go away. Life became even better when she pointed out the open bar. One of the best parts of being an adult - I don't have to pay an obliging grownup to buy me something alcoholic and then hide it in the way too obvious brown paper bag. The years of consuming 40s of Old English, St. Pauli's, or even Bartles and James are long over. After we got drinks and started talking to other people, it became pretty clear that Mary and I were part of the small cool kid club at the party.

I have never in my life been one of the cool kids. Even as an adult I have to work extra hard to fit in. Part of the problem is that I don't understand why some people are cool and others are not. The rest of the problem is that in general, I just don't care. That doesn't mean that there haven't been times when I wanted to be part of the in crowd, just like nerdy Brian in the Breakfast Club asking if the cool kids stuck in detention with him will ignore him on Monday morning. I am still enough of a dork/nerd/geek to want to be part of the popular kids group now and then and Saturday night I was one of the coolest people at the party. All because Mary and I took the idea of an 80s costume party as literally as possible and channelled our inner Molly Ringwalds instead of poor dorky Brian.

The party was great. It was obvious that Julie is a much loved and respected woman for so many reasons. She also set the tone by going flat out in enjoying herself, even going so far as to take part in a skit of several of her favorite songs. In one part, she was dressed up like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz - I would love to know the backstory on that one.

The music was fabulous. Think of an 80s artist who had at least one song with a dance beat and you would have heard it that night. For all my kvetching about how awful the 80s were for fashion, when it came to music, that decade was as good as any other. I had forgotten how many truly great bands thrived in the 80s and I knew the words to every single song played. And I sang my little atonal heart out, not that anyone could hear. They were all singing too.

I also danced my tuchas off. Most of my friends these days would agree when I say I am not a dancer. The truth is, I don't usually boogie down with them unless they drag me out onto a dance floor. I don't really know why that is. If you had asked me last week, I would have said it is because I am such a complete klutz that I am afraid of hurting innocent bystanders or embarrassing myself with a clumsy, maiming dance move. But when I was out on the dance floor at this party shaking my thing and hopping around like a demented pre-mosh pit pogo stick, I remembered how much I had really, truly LOVED dancing when I was a teenager. I have so many great memories of dancing with my best friend Mike Reinsch (I mostly sort of orbited around him while he was doing his own thing) or watching Candi Baldwin recreating every Madonna video step for step at school dances. Even the jocks were fun to watch - they all danced by jerking their heads around, like demented chickens who were always on the off beat. By the end of the night, I was tired, sweaty, and extremely happy.

It is interesting how memory can play tricks on you if enough time goes by. My perspective on the 80s was always tied up in how bad everyone looked - and it is true that there was a lot of really awful fashion. But no era is ever exemplified by just one thing, and that is definitely true of the decade where I spent most of my childhood. This party not only gave me an opportunity to help a really awesome woman celebrate how happy she was to be turning 50. It also in a cliched, sappy, Hollywood way gave me back some things I had forgotten along the way in life. I really did love The A-Team, I was kookoo for Cocoa Puffs and Count Chocula cereal, I wore my knee-high rainbow striped gym socks with pride, and I always had a spare can of AquaNet in my bag so I could maintain my big hair. I knew all the lyrics to every Madonna song, had watched Goonies, Ghostbusters, and Raiders of the Lost Ark hundreds of times, and had the predictable crush on Rob Lowe. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I heard a rumor that a bar in my neighborhood hosts an 80s night on the weekends. I can't wait to get my gear on and go.

2 Super Hot Chicks

Kissing Michael Jackson

Gotta love the bow

The infamous poodle

Believe it or not, sometimes even a blabber mouth has nothing to say

2010-02-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention by several people that I have not posted anything new in many months. I hadn't realized how much time had gone by. I also hadn't realized that anyone would notice. I mean, let's face it - the only people reading this thing are those who already know and love me (For which I am extremely appreciative. Thanks, guys).

So, why haven't I posted anything in months? Good question. Everyone who knows me is also fully aware that I usually have opinions about most things and I am not shy about expressing them. I come from a long line of talkative, opinionated people, and blabbing is in the genes. My father, a first-class yakker in his own right, actually had the nerve to tell his children they had used all their words for the day when we were growing up. If all of this is true, why haven't I been logging my thoughts down for posterity?

The whole premise of this blog is to share with a (mostly) disinterested world the crazy things happening outside my window. When I was gainfully UNemployed this summer, I had plenty of time to watch all the shenanigans taking place in my neighborhood, things I never saw when I was a 9-5er. When I finally rejoined the working world, all those soap opera stories continued, but I wasn't there to watch them. But is that really the reason I stopped blogging?

I think I have a pretty good imagination. Some of my ideas might seem like pure lunacy to the general public, but I like to think of myself as a no-holds-barred imaginist (Yes, that is a made up word. My first of the day!). I usually have several ideas for a tale of some sort running around my brain and when they have percolated long enough, I write them down. Some are good, some are horrible, but in general they seem to flow pretty easily. If that is true, why am I not posting those on my blog?

Here is what I am afraid is true about me and this blog: that I have become one of those people who only has something public to say when the world seems horrible. Maybe the reason why I had so many ideas to blog about during the summer was because I really needed a creative outlet for all the angst I was feeling while looking for employment. Looking back on the summer of 2009, I can truly say it was one of the most difficult times of my life. I literally slaved away trying to convince somebody, ANYBODY to hire me to do a decent job at a decent wage. I have never in my life expended so much energy for so little return and looking back, I am aware how much that was beginning to eat me up from the inside out. So, maybe that is why blogging was so easy last summer and feels so much like work now.

Ok, psychoanalysis time is over - thank goodness. Is everyone still awake or have I bored you all to sleep?

I am going to do my best to keep blogging. It isn't just my neighborhood that is outside my silly little window, it is the whole freaking world with all the fantastic things that happen in it. I don't consider myself much of a writer, but I know that I do have some ideas that entertain my friends now and then. And life is good and getting better every day. It's time to start posting and see what happens.

Maybe I will finally remember to take a picture of the headless, naked manniquins with tassels on their nipples and stars on their, um, private bits that appear in random places on Market Street. If I do, I promise to post it. If I forget, well, use your own imagination for a change and stop relying so much on mine.

Note to self - if you aren't an exhibitionist, don't leave your underwear lying around

2009-08-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

I live in a small building that has its own laundry room, but there are only two washers and dryers apiece. About 25 people live here and we all try to get along and be responsible about not hogging the machines, but there is this one chick who doesn't get it. I don't know her name and I don't want to on the off chance that some sleepless night when I can't find a way to distract my brain long enough to trick it into falling asleep, I decide to get out my home made voodoo kit and work some jiggy magic on her. Actually, I don't own any such kit but if I am bored enough, I am sure I could create one. It is just better not to go there.

This building has very few, but very simple rules: no loud parties during the week, no loud parties running past 11pm on weekends, don't let people you don't know into the building, remove your laundry within 10-15 minutes of the machine finishing and only do laundry between the hours of 8am and 8pm. There are a few apartments with windows overlooking the courtyard leading to the laundry room and the people living in them can hear the machines when they are running. One of the washers seems to be trying to eject the drum at extremely high speeds in an effort to express just how much it hates the puny humans that abuse it.

So, this particular woman has the bad habit of starting her laundry at 6.30 am during the week, and putting the wet laundry into the dryers before she leaves for work. She is some highly strung workaholic who often doesn't seem to come home until late in the evening. Which means that not only is she starting up noisy (potentially murderous) machines very early in the morning, but she is leaving her clothes in the dryer for at least an entire day. Not only is this downright inconsiderate of everyone else living in the building, but it is causing some problems in an otherwise friendly building.

Here is the problem - not only is the noise a factor, but there is also the issue of what to do when you just need to use both dryers. Do you pull her laundry out of the dryer and put yours in? Not only is it just weird to touch someone else's clothing in general, but you are also dealing with more intimate things, like her underwear. I won't go into detail, but she wears some interesting stuff. It is all very cute and probably too expensive to just be thrown into a dryer - no grandma panties here, boys. Maybe some of the guys in the building don't mind handling her undies for various reasons, but I do not. Not only do I get irritated by the fact that I am put in that position, but there is also the unrational fear of getting caught. What if she walks in while I am piling her things on the folding table? I shouldn't have to worry about that as she is clearly in the wrong and I am not what you would ever call a timid person, but I have good reason for fearing the wrath of the naughty underwear lady. (I love that word 'naughty'. No matter how it is used, it always sounds like so much fun.)

A few weeks ago, one of the gentlemen living in my building had finally had enough of this lady and her laundry shenanigans. I came home to find a very interesting bra hanging from my doorknob that did not belong to me. It had a label attached to it stating who it belonged to and how long it had been sitting in the dryer taking up space. The whole building had been draped in her laundry, most of it her underwear. Needless to say, the lady was not happy. She complained to the live-in building manager who just the day before had been informed that he no longer held that title, so he had a happy time telling her he couldn't do anything to help her. He is my neighbor and came right over afterwards to tell me all about it and was laughing like a loon about the whole thing. She essentially just stomped back down to her apartment, slammed the door, and behaved herself laundrywise for the next few weeks.

Today seemed like it was going to be a pretty nice day. The fog that had been hanging so low over the city and numbing everyone's brain had lifted and it actually seemed like we might get a summer day. Some really weird trees on the street outside my window that have these bright orange, poofy flowers on them were beginning to bloom and the color was fabulous. Neighborhood kids were outside traveling in packs up and down the street, happy to get at least one sunny day during their summer vaction. I went out and ran some errands, picked up some Fritz's fries for lunch (with balsamic vinegar ketchup and pesto mayo - don't knock it 'til you've tried it), and eventually headed back home.

I could hear the male hyenas laughing before I even opened the door to the building. The whole lobby was decorated with underwear. It was hanging from the newel post of the staircase, taped with packing tape to the light fixtures, and every one of the mailboxes had something attached to it. I could see why no one had complained about this woman for a while - there was enough underwear scattered around to suggest she just hadn't been doing her laundry for a few weeks. I will say one thing for working all the time - it seems to provide you with a huge budget for fancy lingerie.

More underwear was hanging from the railing of the staircase and I was a bit skeeved out about using it for balance as I climbed up to my apartment. Yes, ok, fine, they had all been washed and dried (obviously), but still. Eeeew. The guys in my building might be overjoyed to play with her thongs but I most definitely am not. Three of my fellow tenants were sitting on the top step drinking beer and laughing about their latest panty raid and looking very pleased with themselves. I said hello, agreed it was all very funny, and left them with the suggestion that no one take any souvenirs because that would be theft rather than just a practical joke. My apartment was nice and quiet and I was happy to be in it ignoring my juvenile neighbors.

At about 7pm, the banshee came home. I don't know what else to call her - she was certainly shrieking like one and was threatening death to anyone who had a hand in the great underwear escapade. She ran up and down the hallways banging on doors demanding that whomever had touched her property come out so she could kick their ...um....behinds. Of course, it sounded much more serious than that, but I am trying to keep this at least PG rated. I opened my door to her banging and almost shut it again immediately, just to defend myself from the finger she started poking in my face. Her face was bright red and her voice had risen to such a high pitch it was almost squeaky and made my ears hurt. I couldn't even completely understand what she was saying because she was so angry she had become incoherent. And that annoying finger was less than an inch from my eyeball and made me happy I was up to date on my tetanus shot. And that I had two eyeballs in case I lost one. If something went wrong, maybe I would look as cute as Darryl Hannah did wearing her eyepatch in Kill Bill 2. I did not like her finger.

I really don't like conflict. I don't like public displays of anger. In fact, I just don't like anger. I do get angry now and then but usually I just get irritated for 20 minutes or so and then try to let it all go. Being angry just seems to take up so much energy and nothing good ever comes from it. Angry, screaming people really turn me off, too. This out of control angry banshee blasting me with the most amazingly dirty language really was too much. Up to that point, I had nothing personal against this woman. Yes, she was annoying. Yes, she stressed me out when it came to laundry, but there are far worse things in the world. Most of the time I just ignored her and the world kept turning just fine. But for her to start abusing me verbally in my own doorway was about all I could take. I think I just stood there staring at her looking like an intellectually challenged tree stump, but really I was trying to stop myself from doing a Bruce Lee on her and grabbing that annoying finger, bending it backwards as far as I could to see if I could change the pitch of her scream, and then slamming my apartment door in her face. Those doors are heavy - when they slam, the whole block can hear them. Not only do I hate anger, I really hate physical violence and feel both extremely offended and doubly attacked when someone actually pushes me to the point of wanting to hurt them.

By this time, everyone in the building who was home was standing on the landing outside my apartment door watching what was taking place. I saw the three geniuses who'd had the braniac idea to decorate the building with her underwear standing behind her. I looked at them and said, "Well? Are you going to tell her or should I?" I didn't think the banshee could actually hear me over all the noise she was making but I guess I was wrong. She stopped in mid-shriek and turned around to see who I was talking to.

I will give these guys some credit - they absolutely did not expect the banshee to go off the deep end like that. I don't believe any of them were being malicious, they were just really tired of her completely inconsiderate behavior and took their revenge a little too far. And they did own up to what they had done, but unfortunately, they didn't seem at all sorry. Not by a long shot. The banshee started up again, verbally abusing the three stooges who started yelling back about how she was a selfish, annoying, bad neighbor (oooooh, that last insult was LOW) that the whole building hated and they just had the guts to do something about it. It was starting to sound like the Pogues song "Fairytale of New York" but without the love or singing police officers at the end.

I could hear heavy footsteps and squawking radios coming up the stairwell and saw what seemed like an entire platoon of San Francisco's finest pushing through the crowd of my neighbors - someone had called the police. The question was who and what would happen? As the officers separated the banshee from the stooges and started collecting stories, one of the women in my building started picking up the underwear lying around and putting it into a paper bag she had brought up. In my opinion, she was just trying to be nice to the banshee with the potty mouth. Unfortunately for her, the banshee didn't agree and actually flew at her. I am not joking, I don't think her feet were touching the ground. She grabbed a handful of the nice neighbor's hair and gave it a good yank before the police pulled her off, pushed her face down onto the carpet and handcuffed her. Several people clapped; I was still making like a tree stump and staying quiet.

The three stooges started yelling at the banshee again and she returned fire, accusing them of being perverts and demanding DNA tests be done on her underwear to test for fluids. Gross! I finally unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and asked her if she suspected them of messing with her undies, why did she attack me? She just looked at me like I was an idiot and said I was the only person who opened the door and she had to yell at someone. That infallible logic stumped me (heehee 'stumped', get it?) and I went back to my previous state of total silence. The stooges started yelling at her all over again, this time on my behalf. I wanted everyone to just be quiet but I also felt that they should stick up for me because they caused the whole mess. The least intelligent of the three decided to contribute a voluntary DNA sample by spitting on the banshee, which ended up with him also lying on the floor in handcuffs. The score was now 1-1, but with no one else on the banshee's team she would probably lose unless she was let out of the penalty box soon. However, she did have the secret weapon of her incredibly inflammatory vocabulary and since no one had gagged her, she continued to verbally abuse the other two.

Over the next hour, the police tried to get statements from everyone standing around, including me. It was slow going though because the banshee and the stooges were all hopped up on caffeine or Energizer batteries or something and were definitely going strong. When the banshee wasn't screaming about the perverts spewing who knows what on her underwear, she was complaining about her dust allergies and how much the carpet stinks. I will agree with the smelly carpet statement - I wouldn't want to be face down on it anytime soon. The stooges were making equally insulting statements about how there was no way they could ever spew anything on her underwear because just the thought of it made any spew-producing equipment non-functional. That is an extremely edited version of what the stooges acutally said, by the way.

Eventually, the police finished with the statement gathering, collected all the incident causing underwear as evidence, and put the two handcuffed neighbors in separate cruisers to be taken down and booked, Dan-o. During the whole drama, one of the officers had stood toward the back of the crowd looking a bit bored. He was older - maybe around 50 or so - and had said very little throughout the whole thing. As everyone was starting to wander off to their own apartments, I asked him what he thought about the whole mess. He said that as far as he was concerned, this was exactly the type of call he would prefer to be sent out on - no one was actually hurt, no weapons were involved, and even though 2 people had been arrested, most likely no DA would take it to trial. These two would just spend the night in jail to cool off and hopefully regain their senses. His opinion gave the whole thing a different perspective, one I could appreciate.

Was any of this actually worth it? Three guys in my building played a joke on a woman who didn't seem to care that she was acting like a bad neighbor. In a small building with all of us literally living right on top of each other, it is very important that we all try to be understanding and accomodating. I believe that philosophy goes both ways - she should have extended that consideration to her neighbors, but her neighbors never did anything to try and find a positive way to change the situation. I don't know if anyone ever spoke to this woman about how her behavior was annoying everyone in the building - I know I never did.

What those guys did was funny, but it was also humiliating and I think that is what set her off in the end. If someone took my underwear and displayed it for everyone to see I would be upset too. Think about it - now everyone who looks at you can imagine what you are wearing under your clothing. The most personal part of your wardrobe has been spread out all over the building. Unauthorized people have been TOUCHING these pieces of clothing. Yeah, I can see why she was angry. I think she was totally out of control, but I can understand why. I can also understand why the guys did it in the first place - if someone leaves belongings unattended in a public place and inconveniences other people, then those belongings could arguably be considered fair game.

In the end, I believe nothing good came from this whole debacle. The two jailbirds will be released in the morning with their own sides of the story to tell all their friends. The property owners will most likely have to get involved, and that usually isn't a good thing. Previously content people in the building will now be living with the idea that if they do something their neighbors don't like, someone could go vigilante on them. Saddle up posse, you have all been deputized. Let's go nail some varmints. A huge, ugly drama exploded out of a fight over laundry. Totally childish, completely ridiculous.

I have to be honest, though. The inital joke WAS funny. One drawback to living in a small building is that it sort of functions like a college dorm at times and otherwise mature adults can end up acting like irresponsible students. And panty raids are an old college tradition, right? Think of Belushi in Animal House.

I am trying to take something positive away from all of this: the banshee didn't manage to poke out one of my eyes, my ears have finally stopped ringing from her screaming, and it wasn't my underwear draped all over the building. Sometimes, it is the little things in life that make it sweet.

Is it still singing if it isn't actually musical?

2009-07-18T18:20:00.000-07:00

I live in a small apartment building and I have learned that sound carries pretty well in it. I don't know if it is due to old construction or maybe the stair wells are just effective conductors of sound, or perhaps it is just because everyone who lives here was either a rhino or an elephant in a former life, but it is rarely quiet here. A few months ago, a new woman moved into the building. She doesn't live directly under me, but rather her apartment is diagonally below mine if that makes any sense. She seems to be a nice enough person - when I do bump into her she is always friendly and polite and kind of quiet. When she is in her apartment, however, it is a totally different story. She watches t.v., listens to the radio, and talks on her phone all at full volume. She often has noisy friends over and they clomp up and down the stairs and cackle like crazy people in the hallways, having fun and annoying everyone else.

She also sings. At least, I guess you can call it singing. It isn't as though it is particularly musical but it also isn't quite like a dog howling. If there is some in-between point, then that is what I would call it. Some hybrid like 'showling' or 'hinging.' Whatever it is, it is very loud. And, for some reason, it is usually the same song over and over.

I admit to singing in the shower a few times a week and I definitely like to boogie down with some tunes on my stereo in my apartment. I have even embarassed myself by losing control and singing along with my ipod on the street. I certainly don't have a professional voice but as far as I can tell, I can at least carry a tune and sing on key. At least, I think so. No one has complained, anyway.

So that brings up my actual question - if the noise being made is just noise with nothing musical about it, is it really singing or just caterwauling? And if it really is just noise, should I say anything? I mean, my neighbor downstairs really seems to enjoy her singing so who am I to tell her that it makes me want to go spontaneously deaf at times? Which is the greater act of rudeness - her intrusion on the sanctuary of my aparment or my honest opinion of her lack of skill?

In reality, I know that I could never in a million years actually hurt someone's feelings that way. I may think the nasty thoughts and resent the need for earplugs, but when it comes to a choice of a little quiet or making someone feel bad about enjoying herself in such a harmless way, the decision is an easy one - I will just suck it up, put in my earbuds, and turn up the volume on my ipod. It isn't because I am a saint or anything. It is because I believe in what comes around, goes around, and that includes bad behavior.

Her loud parties are another story - with those, she has two choices: either invite me in for a drink or listen to me complain. I have a big vocabulary and can whine for hours if I feel it is necessary.

Keystone cops and firemen - a free show out my window

2009-07-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

This morning was an unusually noisy one. I live on a busy street that every fire truck in the city seems to use to get from one side of town to the other, so traffic is always pretty loud. For the most part, I am pretty used to it and have learned to go into a pseudo coma in order to get a good night's sleep. At about 5am this morning, however, the fire trucks didn't just go speeding up the street as per usual. Instead, they stopped right in front of my building and for some reason, kept blasting the siren even though they had clearly reached their destination. Even I can't sleep through screeching sirens right under my window.

At first when I woke up, I thought maybe the crazy new alarm system in my building had gone off and the fire department had shown up in response. The system seems to go off if you just think about mentioning the word fire. It is full of bugs that the property owners are trying to work out and all of us in the building have just learned to ignore it. I stuck my head out into the hallway to see what was going on as did several of my neighbors. People in my building wear interesting things to sleep in, by the way. Who knew they made Curious George pajamas that fit adult men?

Eventually after a very sleepy, confused conversation, we all decided that it wasn't our building on fire and the property manager should turn off the stupid alarm, go talk to the firemen and tell them to go away so we could all try to go back to sleep for a while. I watched the manager turn off the alarm but was a little concerned to notice that I could still hear it ringing. Maybe I was developing tintinnitis from the stupid thing? Imagine that - at 35 years old I will spend the rest of my life dealing with ringing ears and hearing loss and screaming 'what?' at people. I followed the manager downstairs so he could talk to the firemen and I could ask them to turn off their stupid siren. When we got outside, I realized that while it was no secret that I am a little crazy, I wasn't imagining things or hallucinating and the ringing was actually coming from an apartment building across the street that really WAS on fire and the sirens were from police cars and an ambulance that were trying to get through the beginnings of rush hour traffic.

Burning buildings are stinky. They reek worse than poopy diapers. The smoke is a nasty black color and because this morning was very foggy, it just hung very low over the street and didn't dissipate. When I opened the front door of the building to see what was happening, my eyes started to sting and there was a nasty chemical taste in my mouth. They say curiosity killed the cat but what about noxious burning buildings killing the neighbors?

I went back up to the sanctuary of my apartment, had a healthy breakfast of chocolate chip cookies and tea, and started watching the show out my window. The buildings on my street are built in the typical San Francisco style: maybe a 6-12 gap exists between buildings, but most are built flush to each other. This means that if one building is on fire, the rest could quickly go up in flames as well. I am sure there are all sorts of building codes that require special materials to be incorporated into the walls to help create firebreaks, but who wants to trust in that? In very short order, all the buildings on that side of the street for my block had been evacuated. I was interested to see that it wasn't just people in my building that sleep in some very interesting things - it seems my whole block is much more creative when it comes to pajamas than I am.

By this time, my street was in chaos. Some police cars had finally blocked off the intersection and were trying to clear up the traffic jam by redirecting drivers to some of the smaller side streets. A few helicopters were buzzing around overhead and now that the buildings were evacuated, the firemen were preparing to go in and save the day.

I can't imagine what kind of nerve it takes to want to be the person that runs into burning buildings as a career choice. I know that firemen wear all kinds of high-tech, protective gear and have a lot of training, but it doesn't change the fact that they are still running into highly dangerous situations on purpose. I have a lot of respect for firemen in general and until this morning, thought the San Francisco fire department was pretty good as well. I still have respect for them for the most part, but what I saw this morning scared me a little bit.

I live on a steeply slanted street which, understandably, makes it difficult to park all of the firetrucks and emergency vehicles needed to rescue people and put out a fire. There are also a lot of leafy trees and power lines. While I was watching some of the firemen put on lots of gear and head into the apartment building, another crew was taking down some tall ladders and trying to lean them up against the side of the apartment building. The first thing that happened was one of the ladders became entangled in some overhead power lines. The two guys holding it started yanking on it and sure enough (big surprise) they snapped a line and pulled it down. Everyone standing in the street started yelling and running away from it and the guys holding the ladder dropped it with a big crash, but nothing happened. Maybe the power had been turned off because of the fire? Or it was actually a telephone line instead of a power line? Who knows.

Eventually, the ladder dudes tried to lean it up against the side of the building again. Hooray, success. Except that due to the steep slant of the street, the ladder kept leaning towards the down side of the hill and falling over. Obviously, this ladder wasn't going to be usable or safe unless they could level it out. One of the men stood there holding up the ladder while the other bent over and started scanning the ground. I think he was looking for something to use as a shim or a wedge, but for all I know he was looking for a dropped contact lens.

While all of this is going on, about 100 people from the various apartment buildings were standing around in their pajamas with their little apartment dogs and cats trying to figure out what was going on. It looked like a few of them went off to one of the local cafes and brought back coffee and donuts for their neighbors, which probably helped them deal with the cold foggy air. I could see a few guys with cameras taking photographs - maybe they were here for the newspaper?

Suddenly, one of the ladder trucks woke up, swiveled around to face the apartment building and started extending. It was kind of like watching one of the Autobots come to life - where was Shia LeBeouf hiding? I checked on the duo trying to balance out their little ladder and noticed that even though it was still crooked, one of them was climbing up it with an axe in his hand. The odd thing was, even though I could see smoke coming out of one of the chimney stacks on the roof, there didn't seem to be any other sign of a fire. This guy's ladder didn't reach up to the roof and I couldn't imagine that he would use an axe to break open a window, so where was he going? And what kind of silly person would climb up an obviously unstable ladder? The ladder on the truck finally reached the roof and two firemen crawled up it to start hacking away at the chimney stack. Yippee, progress at last!

Things were pretty quiet and uninteresting for a while, when all of a sudden a bunch of the cops standing around suddenly started running over to the middle of the street and jumped into a dogpile. I didn't think it was a spontaneous game of street football, but nothing exciting had been happening for a while so maybe they were all bored? Eventually, I could see two police officers lead a man in handcuffs over to the curb and sit him down. After everything had calmed down and all the emergency personnel and firemen had left, I eventually learned that the man lived in the building on fire and had left his dog home while he went out for an early morning run and some breakfast. He was worried about his pet and was trying to get inside to save it. I could understand why the man shouldn't be allowed to run into a burning building, but was it really necessary for so many cops to jump him? There must have been about 10 of them in the dogpile. I appreciate the need to save people from themselves as well as make sure some psycho isn't attacking any of the firemen or EMTs, but maybe that was a little bit of overkill. Just a smidge.

After about three hours, all of the action seemed to be over. The nasty smelling dark cloud of smoke still hung in the air, trapped under the cold gray layer of fog covering the city. People in the street finally began returning to their buildings, probably to get ready for more mundane things like their day jobs. I noticed that the dynamic duo with the wonky ladder seemed to have survived their Keystone Kops routine. I wondered who had given them that particular task as it seemed to add absolutely nothing to the overall process of fighting the fire. Maybe that was the whole point - their chief gave them a (relatively) benign task to keep them out of the way. Granted, they did take down either a power or telephone line, but in general didn't seem to add anything to the list of damages caused by the fire.

It took about another hour for all of the equipment to be loaded back onto the firetrucks and for the police to get traffic flowing normally on the street again, but now everything is pretty much back to normal. A light breeze has started blowing and the fog is slowly starting to break up, so hopefully the noxious smoke will disappear soon too. The sun is starting to shine through it all and it looks like it might even be a warm summer day afterall. A utility truck has just parked itself on the corner to repair the downed wire, so I imagine there might be another minor bottleneck in traffic on the street for a while, but nothing like it was earlier. Everything is quiet again - at least as quiet as it ever is here - and I am starting to feel a bit sleepy. It is time for a catnap before anything else happens.

I live in a grown up dorm. Panty raid anyone?

2009-07-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

I have realized in the last few months that the building I live in is completely different than I had realized. I live on a fairly busy street so there is always the sound of traffic, but the building itself always seemed pretty quiet. However, in the last three years that I have lived in it, I don't think I have ever spent that much time in it. Between a hectic schedule for work, school, friends, and family, my apartment was basically a place where I came home to sleep and sometimes veg out in on a Sunday. I live in a small building that is generally made up of working professionals who are friendly but for the most part keep to themselves. There are a few distinctive personalities that stand out - one guy seems to set his apartment on fire every six months or so while cooking bacon and another only does laundry every two months and everyone ends up with his cat's hair all over their clothes after he has hogged the machines all day. But in general, it is a pretty peaceful place.

Lately, though, I feel like I am living in a college dormatory inhabited buy thirty-something adults trying to recreate the feel of Animal House. It starts at about 6:30am - several people in the building own dogs and they all seem to slam their doors at the same time as they go out for the usual morning walk. I don't know if this is a new phenomena or if I just never noticed it before because when I was employed I was in the shower right about then, singing my fool head off and probably annoying everyone else. The dogs all run up and down the hallways, then up and down the stairs, getting scolded by their owners. I don't think Rip Van Winkle could have slept through that; I know I can't.

The dogs seem to act as some sort of alarm clock because soon enough, it seems like the whole building is awake and in the shower. I live in an older building that has central ventilation shafts. All of the bathrooms and kitchens have windows that open onto the shafts so it is possible to hear all kinds of things from other apartments. I am not the only shower-singing talent in the building, although 'talent' may be an optimistic description for any of us, including me. One woman seems to have a secret desire to be the next Maria Callas and sings what could generously called off-key operatic arias, but to me sound like one of those whistles that kids put water in to make it sound like birdsong.

Eventually, all the traditionally gainfully employed people in the building troop off to their respective desks. Hooray, now it will be nice and quiet again, right? Nope, sorry, not even close. As soon as those doors shut, all the poor little apartment dogs suffering from separation anxiety start barking, howling, and scratching at the door. If I were to take a walk on any floor in this building, I would hear at least one dog begging for their owner to come home. It is both heartbreaking and aggravating to hear these little guys. They can keep it up for hours, which can't be good for their health or my sanity. How can they just bark and howl like that for so long? One of these days, all of those little dogs will rebel, put their owners on leashes, lock them up somwhere boring with nothing to do all day and show us all who is really in charge.

Throughout the day, a variety of noisy things go on. The building manager vaccums all the public spaces, maintenence guys come and go banging mysteriously on various pipes and walls, and an unending parade of people seems to troop in and out. These people are kind of odd - who are they here to see? I mean, it seemed like everyone in the building except me left earlier to go to whatever form of employment they keep, and yet, these visitors are here. And they are noisy, too. They all seem to run up and down the stairs, giggling like drunk sorority sisters, and always, always slam the door to whatever apartment they finally go into. At first I thought maybe we had a few vacant apartments to rent and all of these people were potential new neighbors. That in itself was a little worrying, because who wants to live with perpetually drunk people who giggle like twenty-something girls?

Another outrageously loud noise that I often hear are the doorbells. For some reason, every one of the apartments in this building has its own doorbell. This is odd because it is a gated building and the only way for a visitor to gain entrance is for someone to buzz them in. So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that someone will soon come knocking on your door after you have buzzed them in, right? And these aren't just any old doorbells, these are full on buzzers. If you hold it long enough, it actually sounds like some sort of crazy laser wielded by one of James Bond's archenemies that is about to emasculate him. I guess my apartment used to be where the property manager lived before he moved next door and for some reason no one in the building seems to know that. I can't imagine how many people must have thought he just ignored all of them when I was at work all day because now that I am home a lot, it seems like every one of them buzzes my door to complain to him about something several times a week. They are all completely surprised to find out that not only does he not live in #17, but that I have lived in that apartment for over three years. I used to feel awful every time my adorable but mischief making nephew would have a fit of temporary insanity and run around buzzing everyone's apartments simply because he liked the noise, but now I just wish he would come back over and do it to them again. Petty, yes. Satisfying? Oh yeah.

Besides giggling like silly schoolgirls, everyone who comes and goes in the building seems to like pranking each other. I heard one guy screaming in the stairwell about a week ago and thought maybe a murder was being committed. When I stuck my head out over the stairway railing to see if I should call 911 or just ignore everything, I saw three guys about my age laughing like idiots while another guy seemed to be trying to pull the back of his underwear off his head. I guess his good buddies thought it would be funny to give him a colossal sized wedgie and as an added bonus, make him scream like a little girl. Heehee, that one actually got a laugh out of me too. Sucks to be you, buddy.

Just the other day, I came home to find some woman's panties hung on my doorknob. At first I thought that maybe one of my neighbors believe I had accidentally left them in the laundry room and was trying to return them. They were very cute, but definitely not mine. Then I looked down the hallway and realized that every door had either panties or a bra hanging from the knob. There were notes attached to them that warned the owner (she lives in #9 according to the notes) to stop putting her laundry in the dryer on her way to work and then leaving it there all day until she came home. I was a little grossed out that some woman's panties were hanging from my door, but if they had been found in the dryer, then odds were they at least were clean. I carried them down to her apartment and hung them on her door. I could see that a few other people had been there because there was a whole collection of underwear in front of her apartment. I don't know who the laundry vigilante was that decided to hang this woman's underwear all over the building, but I think it was an interesting way to make a point.

As I type this blog, the stupid fire alarm in the building is going off again, making my ears ring. The building owners had a new system installed recently and the thing is so sensitive, it will go off if you just mention the word fire. Last Saturday night one of my neighbors had a party and the alarm started going off every time one of his guests buzzed the gate. Between the drunk people smoking and drinking in the hallway, the loud music, and the psychopathic fire alarm, I really felt like I was living in good old Bean Hall at the University of Oregon. At first, everyone would pay attention and try to determine if there really was a fire and should leave the building. Now, we all try our best to ignore it - stupid and dangerous, I know. I am getting a little concerned because I have a phone interview for a job I am trying my best to get and it starts in 30 minutes. Hopefully, the building really isn't on fire and alarm will have stopped by then. I'm still in my pj's and I don't want to stand on the street in them and try to give a good interview at the same time.

For all that I have been kvetching about how noisy my building is, I still love living in it. A lot of what goes on is pretty funny and it definitely isn't boring. Even though none of my neighbors and I are what you would call best pals, we do try to be concious of each other and how sound carries throughout the building. Except for the occasional loud party on a weekend, no one is outrageously noisy at night. And if someone who is tired of you hogging the dryer hangs your underwear on everyone's door, well, just remember that you abandoned the poor things for the entire day and it has now become communal property. Just be glad it wasn't held for ransom or sold on ebay.

What is it about marriage?

2009-07-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have those times in life where you get mildly paranoid and you feel targeted for one reason or another? Or those weeks when it seems like the same subject is coming up over and over? You know what I mean - it feels like suddenly everyone wants to know why you are thinking about dying your hair blue and perfect strangers are freely offering their opinions but you hadn't even told anyone yet. Or the whole world is talking about how much they love Fritos/Paula Abdul's new haircut/sending tourists to the moon. Over the last few weeks, that has been happening to me and it is making me crazy.

My subject of paranoia lately has been marriage. I live in California, the one state in this country where you would think no one would care who married who and how they went about it. And yet, somehow, marriage has restrictions here. So, understandably, a lot of people talk about it publicly and it is difficult to spend time with anyone without the subject coming up. But I have also come across the subject in a more personal way a little too often lately and I am starting to feel persecuted.

How many of us have crystal clear memories from childhood? What is the earliest thing you remember about yourself and how young were you? I have always know three very specific things about myself for as long as I can remember: my favorite color is green, I don't want to be a parent and I don't want to marry anyone. I am sure if I sat down with some sort of psychologist and discussed my childhood and my adamant self-knowledge on children and marriage, theories could be put forth on these subjects and many of them may even be true. Personally, I am not interested in WHY I know these things about myself so certainly. I am much more interested in living my life in a way that makes me happy and I have always known that either of those two states in life would not only make me miserable, it would also ruin other people's lives. I don't believe talking to anyone about why I love the color green so much is interesting or enlightening, so let's just skip that one.

So, back to the feeling of persecution. That is a very strong, almost medieval sounding word but at times it does reflect how I feel, along with mildly guilty, frustrated, and extremely happy to be so self-aware. Last week, a man who lives in my neighborhood that I always say hello to when I see him on the street asked why he hadn't seen my husband around in a while. I was in a hurry to get somewhere, but that question brought me to a screeching halt because it was so odd. I asked what he was talking about and he said he used to see me walking with my husband once in a while but lately I am always alone. It never occurred to me that maybe he was talking about a boyfriend or a friend that he had mistaken for a husband; I was totally confused. He started describing the man and I finally realized he was talking about a friend of mine who used to live in San Francisco and about ten months ago moved away. We would occasionally hang out and must have run into this guy a few times on our way to some other place. It was strange to me that he assumed that we were married to each other. I quickly explained the situation to the man, who then proceeded to tell me that while I was a nice young lady, I should get a move on and get married and start having babies soon. Wow, ok, now I am feeling a little targeted by this guy.

I am very used to well-meaning people who think they are giving me helpful advice commenting on my personal life, but this was the first time it had come from someone who was practically a stranger. Fortunately, I really did have somewhere I needed to go and I was able to just thank him for his concern and boogie on down the street, but the whole conversation was really odd. It came completely out of the blue and I wasn't sure if I should just chalk it up to another odd experience in my neighborhood or if I should actually feel a little insulted. I know he meant well and was just offering advice (unsolicited or not) based on his own beliefs about how to live a good life, but he doesn't really know me at all and where does he get off commenting on my personal life like that?

A few days later, a woman I used to be good with friends eons ago when we were both in college found me on Facebook. I have had a Facebook account for a couple of years, but I never really kept up with it. In my recently unemployed state, I decided I might as well finally fill out my profile and update things a little and suddenly, all kinds of people are contacting me on it, including this woman. I had mixed feelings about talking to her because of a conversation we had when she got married that totally offended me, but I decided that enough time had gone by and I should just forget about it and let it go. It was time to free myself of old baggage that I had completely forgotten about anyway. I replied to her and asked how she was doing. Her response was to tell me all about her husband and kids and how well they were doing, which made me very happy to know. Then she asked me if I was married and if I wasn't, then why? Did I have any kids? Why not? I think asking if I am married and/or have children are both reasonable, normal questions. Asking why I have done neither seems a little nosy to me. Especially when she offered to set me up with some nice men she knew who were ready to settle down and get married. Time to duck and cover and in the immortal words of Graham Chapman in Monty Python's Holy Grail, RUN AWAY!

Again, I find myself asking why a person I barely know anymore gets off commenting on my personal life this way. A few other similar situations have occurred recently, all following about the same line of conversation: Why aren't you married? Don't you want to have children? What do you mean you don't think marriage is necessary? Somewhere along the way, marriage has become the new conversational hot button that is guaranteed to take normally rational people and turn them into insanely opinionated and potentially offensive monsters. So, what IS it about marriage?

Intellectually, I can understand a lot of the attractions for marriage. Hopefully, two people have found each other that want to spend the rest of their lives together. Marriage is a way to show each other and the world that these two people are committed to each other in a way that can't be guaranteed by any other sort of relationship. They are emotionally and financially bound to each other which can provide a lot of trust and security. The way most benefit structures work, married couples are also more likely to be able to share health insurance and in the case of a death, property division is much easier. Ok, I respect that, but I still don't understand why it is necessary. I mean, people grow and change and so do their lives. Why go through a religious and/or legal ceremony to prove something you already know about each other? Also, I believe that often these days people marry knowing that if it doesn't work out, they can always obtain a divorce. To me, that is backwards. Then, there are the people who are not allowed to marry because of all sorts of tangled up emotions, convictions, and inside the box thinking. Because I can understand on an intellectual level why people marry in the first place, I can also understand why EVERYONE would want to marry. Except me.

Personally, I would really like to find someone to spend the rest of my life with. I want to have that connection with a person that I don't have with anyone else on the entire planet. I want that same level of trust, security, inside jokes, shared experiences, stories, triumphs, disasters, and goals. I want to know that the way I love this person is so totally unique and necessary to my life, I cannot in a million years imagine myself ever stopping. And I want someone to feel that way about me in return. What I DON'T want is to feel that in order to have all of those things, I have to marry to get them. To me, that is putting a conditional chain around something that should just be allowed to exist.

I know that I am sensitive and paranoid about this subject, especially with the current politics on the question of marriage in this country. I do feel guilty that I totally reject for myself something that is denied to other people who want it so badly simply because our country is suffering from a lapse in understanding basic human rights. And I know that I have unintentionally hurt people who cared for me because I do not want to live life their way. But I also believe that good hearted people are sometimes nosy and insensitive and that closing themselves off to non-traditional ways of life can turn them into unkind pests who talk too much.

So, I am left with my original question - do any of you ever feel like the whole world is targeting you on a particular subject you would rather ignore or is this my personal brand of craziness?

Who knew job hunting can ruin your credit?

2009-07-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

I confess it, I am a rabid job hunter. I work for an employment agency that is diligently searching for a new position for me, but it is impossible for me to just sit around waiting for my future to be decided. I start getting all twitchy (ok, more twitchy than usual) and the free time to think too much is bad for my health. I have interviewed and registered with several other agencies in the city and I also surf all the usual job sites religiously. I have learned that I am not the biggest kook out there, which is a little disturbing when I think about it. I am a pretty odd duck. The scariest and most infuriating things I have come across are the scams. Some of these are doozies and could potentially do some real harm to an unsuspecting, well-meaning person who just needs a job or some extra cash. A friend of mine suggested I post some of them so here you go:

The Administrative Assistant Scam:

This one usually involves someone posting an advertisement for an administrative assistant with few details and a request for people to submit resumes for consideration. After a few days, you will get an email detailing one of a few different scenarios:

a) I am an executive living in an international country who sells items on the internet. I don't want to open a bank account in the U.S. because of the taxes I will have to pay, so I need a representative who can receive checks or money orders on my behalf, cash them in a personal checking account, and forward the funds to a third party through Western Union. For your trustworthiness and help you will be paid a percentage of the total amount of each check or money order up to $500 per week.

b) I am an international businessman/woman who solicits donations for various orphanages and I need representatives in the different countries to collect the checks/money orders, cash them in a personal checking account, purchase toys for the children and send them to the orphanages. To reward you for your diligence and honesty, you will be paid a flat rate of $200 per transaction not to exceed $2500 per month.

Not bad, huh? You will also be requested to send the following information:

Full Names:

Full Contact Address:

City:

State:

Zipcode:

Phone Number:

Occupation (if any):

Sex:

Marital Status:

Age:

I can't quite understand why my gender, marital status, and age can possibly be of interest to someone who is foolish enough to trust a perfect stranger with money and how either of these situations in any way constitute an administrative assistant position. Also, why can't customers just wire money directly to the seller through Western Union? People send money this way all over the world every day. Here is my take on these 'jobs' - I think it is all a scam. I think that these people are creating fake checks and money orders, sending them to unsuspecting people who just want to earn some extra cash or like me, are just looking for an honest job. These poor people cash a bad check or money order, withdraw the cash immediately (minus their fee of course), and either forward the money to the third party or buy whatever items were requested, etc. I would then imagine that a few days later the bank discovers that the check or money order was a fake and have no way to recover the funds except to take them from the person who cashed the check in the first place, which would be me or whomever else was innocent enough to get involved in this.

In an effort to find out if this was just another crazy idea from my suspicious mind or if I was on to something, I did a little research on the internet and also spoke to someone from my bank and discovered some surprising things. I learned that MoneyGram is currently dealing with an epidemic of forged money orders. The money orders look exactly like the real thing - they have all the right strings of identification numbers in all the right places, the logos are perfect, and even the security seal looks accurate. Basically, the only way for the average person to tell if a money order is real or fake is to call MoneyGram, read them the numbers on the order, and have them verify that someone actually paid cash for it.

As for the forged checks, I contacted someone in the fraud department for my bank and asked what my recourse would be if I unknowingly cashed a fake check. The bank said there wasn't a lot that could be done unless I could prove who did it. Yes, I may have an email address or a name but who is to say that isn't all fake information? The bank would do whatever was necessary to recover the funds, meaning it would take the money from me because I was the person who cashed it. If I try to prevent the bank from recovering the money or if that recovery of funds put my account into overdraft and I did not cover it, they could close my account and report me to the FBI as a suspected check forger. The bank would put me into check systems, the national credit reporting system that banks use to determine if you regularly overdraw and then abandon accounts, which would also post negatively on my credit report. So basically, I could potentially ruin my credit, lose my bank account, and be investigated by the FBI as some sort of check forging fiend. Who knew job hunting could be so dangerous to my reputation and credit?

The Secret Shopper Scam:

This scam is pretty tricky because I actually know people who really do earn extra cash as secret shoppers. Basically, a business will hire a company to send out people to their stores, restaurants, etc. to act as 'difficult' customers and test the level of customer service they receive. It is a legitimate resource for many businesses and can provide valuable feedback. The secret shopper is given money to purchase items and eat in restaurants as well as a few hundred dollars per session for the work they do. A good secret shopper can do this a few times a month and earn some nice cash, eat out, and keep a lot of what is bought. A pretty nice setup, if you ask me.

I recently came across an ad for secret shoppers and was very excited - I have always wanted to try this out because it seemed like fun. So I sent an email to the contact address listed in the job posting and then forgot about it. A few weeks later, I received an email asking if I was still interested in the secret shopper position and if so, to send my yahoo online chat name so I could have a real-time conversation with one of the managers. I willingly sent my username and a few minutes later, got a ping requesting a conversation. Boy, did this turn out to be an interesting chat! I won't mention names, I will just call this guy Bob. Bob started out by calling me "Ma". At first, I thought he had confused me with someone else and asked him if he meant to speak to me or someone else. Bob said he was trying to be respectful and since he thought the name Lisa was female, it would have been rude to call me "sir." By this, I came to understand that he meant to call me "ma'am". Ok, a little odd but friendly enough.

I won't bore everyone with a detailed replay of the entire conversation, I'll just give you the juicy bits. After the end of a slightly confusing and rambling conversation where I guess I asked too many questions, Bob told me he felt sorry for my husband because I was obviously difficult to deal with. Now, I will be the first to admit that I can be opinionated and headstrong at times and understandably, that can give even the most patient person a headache. But I really don't understand why asking questions is a bad thing, especially for an employer. When I was hiring people and then managing them, I WANTED people to ask me questions. I never wanted an employee to just wander off and waste time performing a task incorrectly because of a lack of understanding. I would rather take a little extra time and find a better way to explain what I needed done, confirm that everyone was on the same page, and then feel confident that the task(s) would be done correctly the first time. So who is this unprofessional guy commenting on my marital status and the life of my poor (non-existent) husband?

After basically ignoring his comments about my personal life and trying to direct the conversation back to the secret shopper position, I was slightly irritated to find out that it had been filled and he had no need for any more secret shoppers. By this point, I was starting to wonder if maybe Bob had a few screws loose. I asked if this online chat was an interview for employment and if not, then I said that I needed to get back to job hunting and to please have a nice day. Bob said that he had a different position available for me and that he was emailing me a document to read. I was now starting to read all sorts of alternative meanings into the word 'position' and was wondering if I was going to find some sort of adult content in my inbox that would demolish my laptop with some super-virus if I opened it.

Needless to say, I opened the email. No naked people were pictured anywhere inflagrante, no laptop eating viruses attacked my computer, no FBI came banging on my door for committing some sort of cyber crime that I don't even know about. So far, so good, until I read the content. Essentially, I was being asked to set up a home office with a computer, color laser printer, and DHL, UPS, or FedEx account and I would miraculously become their new payroll accountant who would issue paychecks to various employees around the U.S.

I know that I am a very capable person and I can do just about anything I set my mind to, but I can't even begin to imagine what sort of skills and education go into being a payroll accountant. Every accountant I know has gone to school and taken numerous additional classes in order to be employed as one. I think they might even require a license of some sort. Also, don't most companies outsource their payroll to firms who specialize in it? And don't most employees prefer to have their paychecks electronically deposited into personal accounts these days? The whole thing seemed suspect to me - I was being asked to print out payroll checks on my home printer by a guy who had no problem labeling me a fishwife.

I asked Bob to be a little more specific with the details - I wanted to be sure I completely understood what he was asking me to do. By this point, I was definitely not considering him a viable employer, it was more that I was just very curious about this whole surreal setup. Uh oh, I had asked another question. Oops, sorry Bob, I know how you hate that.

In the end, I didn't really get many more details, but I was able to confirm my opinion that Bob was running some sort of scam. Maybe he really did employ secret shoppers in a legal fashion, but the whole payroll check printing setup was definitely not kosher. When I asked him if he would send me the blank checks to print out, he said I could just purchase good quality paper at the local Kinko's and with the right software (which he would send me), I could print out the checks that way. What about watermarks? Security seals? Account numbers? All the other little gadgets that are used to create legitimate checks? No answer.

The conversation limped along a little bit longer as I tried to confirm that I truly understood what he was asking of me, then I told him I didn't think I could work for him. I explained my concerns about the legitimacy of what I would be doing on his behalf and told him a little about some of the scams I had come across in my search for employment. Bob took the opportunity to lecture me on how overly suspicious I was and how that was unhealthy for my aura and my emotional life. He felt that if I would let go of all my negative concerns and just go with the opportunity he was presenting to me, I would be a much happier person. I thanked him for his (unsolicited) advice and mentioned that there was always the possibility he was correct about me, a perfect stranger, but that I was more concerned about becoming a much poorer person behind bars. There wasn't really anything left to discuss so I wished him a good day ( I didn't think wishing him luck was a good idea) and blocked him from my chat list.

After thinking about it for a while, I have to wonder if perhaps Bob was running something that was actually part of a bigger, more complex scam. If I printed out those checks, would they actually be sent to someone who was being scammed in the Administrative Assistant scam I outlined earlier? That would mean that something I did actually hurt another person, a stranger just trying to make a little money.

I have come across a few other suspicious things in my search for a job, but those two are the most potentially harmful ones I have seen. In a way, they have helped me put this whole job search thing into a different perspective - yes, I must have a job, but no, I will not do something I am even remotely suspicious about just to get off unemployment. Living on the dole for a few months, no matter how much it puts my life into total limbo, is infinitely better than going down a darker path that can have serious repercussions for strangers who might not be as suspicious minded as I am. I do not see myself as better than anyone else, but I try very hard not to be worse, either.

Happy July 4....celebrate at will!

2009-07-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Today is July 4, 2009. This morning when I woke up, I wallowed in bed for a while trying to decide how I felt about that. I spent some time attempting to determine what this major national holiday means to me. I mean, by rights and history, it should be THE national holiday for this country, bigger than Christmas. Is that even possible? Christmas seems to start earlier every year, before Halloween sometimes, and lasts at least until the new year begins. July 4 is just, well, July 4.

I know my basic history for July 4 and the Declaration of Independence, as do most people who live in the U.S. Intellectually, I understand the importance of it and the fantastically big set of cojones that a small group of priveleged thinkers must have had to think that not only could they publish such a defiant document taking on one of the biggest superpowers of their day, but that they could convice the average Joes living among them to support it and die for it. It has become the basis for the idea of what constitutes the "American Way" - bearding tyranny in its den, suceeding against all odds, bringing home the gold medal, and we all live happily every after in patriotic splendor.

So if I understand it and appreciate the true significance of what it meant at the time and how it has informed and created the nation I live in today, why do I feel so blah about this holiday? Am I unpatriotic? Do I not love my country? Well what does it mean to be patriotic? I can say unequivocally that if we are allowing Bush Jr. to define patriotism, then I am most definitely NOT a patriot. Dictionary.com has three definitions for the word patriot:

pa⋅tri⋅ot

[pey-tree-uht, -ot or, especially Brit., pa-tree-uht] Show IPA

–noun

1.	a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.

2.	a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.

3.	(initial capital letter) Military. a U.S. Army antiaircraft missile with a range of 37 mi. (60 km) and a 200-lb. (90 kg) warhead, launched from a tracked vehicle with radar and computer guidance and fire control.

I do love my country and support the ideals it was founded on but I don't consider myself devoted - that word just rings hollow to my ear. I do believe that people need to be wary of interference by our federal government but I also don't see myself as some sort of Xena Warrior Princess fighting off evil politicians. The last time I checked, I was not any sort of military antiaircraft missile. So, am I a patriot and if so, why am I not out waving a flag and singing the national anthem on the street corner? Does anyone else wonder about these things or is this a solo form of dementia?

Eventually (obviously), I did get myself out of bed after having a fairly long, rambling, internal debate with myself. The gist of it is that I spent a lot of time thinking about how I have celebrated July 4 throughout my life and what the day has meant to me. As a child, it was often a time when my family would get together for a picnic or a barbecue and celebrate various birthdays that landed near the holiday. At that time, it was still possible for families to buy and set off any number of fireworks and the potential danger of it was always thrilling to me. I loved the sulpher smell and when I closed my eyes, I could still see the brightly colored flashes of lights behind my eyelids. If we were at the beach that year, my family including my parents, sisters, aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents would pack up half of the house and drive down the coast to a little town that put on a huge display of fireworks. We would all drink hot chocolate and occaisionally my uncle would allow me to have a sip of his with the drop amoretto in it. Yum. It was all very fun, but I never remember thinking about what it meant, about why we were celebrating that holiday on that date, why that holiday is so important to the people who live in this country. I think children can be forgiven for just enjoying the moment during their long break from school; it is part of the joy of summer.

As young adult, July 4 celebrations did change a bit. For the most part, I did still spend them with some part of my family, but the large gatherings of relatives pretty much stopped when all the kids grew up and flew the coop. Most often, I would meet with friends for some sort of barbecue and drunken beerfest, then we would all head down to the river to meet up with my sister and watch the fireworks. Some years I would go home to the little town I grew up in and along with everyone else, head over to the tiny highschool to watch the volunteer fire department set off the fireworks on the baseball diamond. If I sat up in the bleachers, I could often see the fireworks displays from some of the other small towns around the area. If we were lucky, it would be a nice, balmy evening and the sky would be a perfect velvety black backdrop. I do not ever remember thinking about what July 4 means and why we were all there celebrating it by shooting off mini-missiles while the community band played Sousa marches.

Nowadays, I live in a city that is known for foggy summers. This last week was a rare, beautifully clear, warm week but of course today it is overcast and the weatherman with his crystal ball is forcasting fog this evening. I will spend the day with my family, enjoying playing with my nieces and nephew, eating good food, and gossiping about the same old things we as always do. This is how it always goes when my family gets together, whether it is a Saturday night or a major holiday. I know that even though we will wish each other a happy July 4, none of us will really discuss what any of that means. We won't tell the story of what happened so long ago on that original July 4 or what has happened throughout our country's history since then. While the city will shoot off fireworks, we won't be able to see them under the heavy bank of fog. Rather, the day will be nice and lazy and we will all be happy this evening when we finally wander home to our beds.

So, at the end of this long internal conversation, I came back to my original question - am I a patriot and do I give the July 4 holiday the respect it deserves? I think I am and I do. Why did thirteen colonies originally go against their ruling superpower? To have the right of self-determination and equality. Yes, there were all sorts of other political and economic issues, but basically that is the gist of the Declaration of Independence. I think part of the legacy of that document is that while we need government to manage things and represent us on local and international levels and while we need laws to protect us from the idiocy humans are capable of, we are all encouraged and expected to live our own lives in our own fashion. This should be applied to everything from what political parties we identify with and who we vote for and how we treat our neighbors all the way down to how we spend our free time and which holidays we choose to celebrate and how we go about that. I will never be a flag waving person shouting out the glory of my country, but I do believe in the essential ideals that began this great experiment and in my own way I celebrate that by gathering with my family, reconnecting with friends, and enjoying a day that has been set aside specifically to remind us where we come from.