Changes, Part II August 31, 2010

Seeing as I have been really lax about blogging (because I’ve had lots of other things to do, which isn’t a bad thing by any means), I see fit to present you with a new list of changes.

Change #1 – New job.  I’ve been working at a legal non-profit in Buffalo for two months now, doing intakes with clients at risk of losing their housing or utilities and analyzing their financial situations in order to figure out which benefits they’re eligible to apply for.  As far as jobs go, I’m really enjoying it—it’s a wonderful feeling, never to dread going to work.  Coming from the call center situation, I really appreciate the little things, like a flexible 9-5 schedule, my own office, and being able to eat at my desk, use my cell phone, and use the bathroom whenever I want.  It’s nice to be doing something that actually makes use of my degree and my previous experience, and something that allows me to feel like what I’m doing is genuinely useful to other people.  My coworkers seem pretty cool although I haven’t gotten to know them very well yet, and my boss is an awesome lady who actually baked me cookies on my birthday(!)  The job itself is a nice mix of interacting with clients and doing analytical writing, which I also enjoy.  And it goes without saying that having a salary and benefits is pretty fantastic.  Sometimes I find myself comparing it to the non-profit I worked for in San Francisco during JVC, which is hard to do because they’re pretty different.  The organization in Buffalo basically does all direct services, while the organization in San Francisco focused more on high-impact litigation, with the notable exceptions of the two projects that had JVs.  The organization in San Francisco was composed of about 20 people, while the organization in Buffalo has about 50.  The offices in San Francisco were a lot fancier as well.  The one thing I really miss about the San Francisco non-profit is the people—there was a great atmosphere there when I first started working, and most of my coworkers would even meet up after work for happy hours on Fridays.  Everyone was very different but amazing in their own ways, and they all seemed to be friends in addition to coworkers.  I can’t speak for how it is now, with 75% of the original people laid off since then.  I imagine it’s a lot harder to foster that level of community here with 50 people than it was in San Francisco with 20, and it’s definitely an aspect I miss.

Change #2 – New apartment.  I’ve been living in the new place for a little over a month now, and on the whole I really really like it.  I’m in the attic this time instead of the basement, about 4 blocks from where I was living before, and I have a new roommate who just moved in last week.  I love that there’s a lot more light here, and I feel like I have more space as well.  We even have a fire escape I can call my balcony, and a backyard for me to plant with beautiful vegetables and flowers (once I manage to hack down all the weeds and find a rototiller).  I’ve been spending a lot of time fixing the place up.  I’m still in the process of making curtains and finding patio furniture.  Check out this spiffy floor plan I made in Google Docs!

Change #3 – I turned 24 on the 24th!  It’s nice to be an even-numbered age again.  Here is a picture of the first cookie cake I have ever baked:

Change #4 – New musical obsession!  This band is awesome and best of all, local.  Here is a terrible-quality video I took a couple weeks ago.  See if you can guess what song they’re covering before she starts singing:

And here is their website.

And, oh, so much else has happened, but there isn’t time to tell all of it tonight.  Now that I’ve taken the first step by posting the major things, maybe I’ll be less daunted by the prospect of writing posts in the future.  One can hope, anyway.  (I’m trying to focus more on my paper journal right now, but that might eventually transfer over here as well.)

Ending July 30, 2009

Disorientation was the weekend before last.  There were trees and grass and caterpillars and dragonflies and crickets and cicadas and mosquitoes and heat and sunshine, and for one weekend it felt like real summer.  I slept in a field under the stars both nights, and I went swimming and soaked in the sunlight and didn’t shower for three days.  It was wonderful.

As we were taking the 101 South back from Sonoma, we drove through a tunnel in a hill in Marin and caught sight of the Golden Gate Bridge perfectly framed by the arch at the tunnel’s end, and I was filled with this sudden surge of warmth for San Francisco.  My God, we live in an amazing city.  Until that moment, I don’t think the fact that I’m leaving had really hit me—I’d been looking forward to the being home part of things but hadn’t thought much about the leaving San Francisco part.  There’s a part of me that thinks I’m a total idiot for moving away from a city this great.  And naturally, it’s not just the city I’m going to miss, but JVC as well.  I’ve learned a lot this year from the people and places that have been a part of my life, and it’s going to be strange to be separated from the structure that taught me everything.

I wrote those two paragraphs over a week ago.  They were going to be part of something longer that just never came together…  I can’t sort out my thoughts anymore.  Somehow I hadn’t expected leaving to be such a process.  I just pictured us living like we had all year, right up until the day we all went home.  Silly, right?  The past week and a half has been a chaos of packing and hurried goodbyes and rushing to tie up loose ends at work and prepare for next year’s JVs.  As exciting as moving can be, transitions are always rough.  I feel like I’ve been dragging a load of worries around with me since Dis-O—and some of that is also the weight of goodbye.  It hurts, leaving people I’ve grown so close to this year; and it hurts leaving people I know I’m not going to get to say goodbye to (like some of my coworkers who were laid off in May).  I know my roommates and I will keep in touch, but I also know that it’s impossible to stay as close as we’ve become while living together.  Saying goodbye is sad, and there’s really no getting around that.  I just have to make friends with the sadness.  Sit with it and take it for what it is.  It’s not a bad thing—sadness at leaving means that what I’ve had here is something worth missing.

My walls and my drawers are empty.  I can see my desk for the first time in months.  Julie’s going home tomorrow—my first roommate to leave—and I’m sitting on the futon listening to the music I stole from her computer and thinking about how much I’m going to miss everyone.  It’s been a great year.  It’s had its ups and downs, like every year does, but looking back, I’m just grateful for the entire experience.

Three Concerts in Five Days June 25, 2009

My five-day concert streak started out last Thursday, when I went with my roommate Julie to see Third Eye Blind play in San Jose as part of their “Scion Music in the Park” series (think Thursday at the Square).  We took the Caltrain down after work and walked from there to the park, where we were met with the sight of… a lot of preteens.  I guess I can’t blame them; I mean, what else are you going to do when you can’t get into bars and you don’t want to be in the house with your parents?  They were playing “Never Let You Go” when we got there, and then they played “Motorcycle Drive By,” “Jumper” (with a long speech in the middle about how “We are all one” before they came back in with the guitar part), and “Semi-Charmed Life” as well as a few songs from their new album that nobody knew yet.  It was a pretty short set but it was fun anyway—although I have to admit that the post-midnight nineties music sing-along I had with the downstairs neighbors when we got back was probably more fun.

On Sunday, four of us trekked out to Golden Gate Park at 10:30 in the morning to make it there early for the “Alice@97.3 Summerthing” concert that started at noon.  We staked out a spot about 20 feet from the stage, spread out our blanket and waited, popping bubbles from the bubble machines.  It was a sunny 70 degrees out and I was kind of shocked that park weather could be so agreeable (it’s usually chilly there since it’s closer to the ocean).  The first act was a band called Parachute, and when they came out all I could think of to say was “Aww, they’re so little!”  Wikipedia claims that they graduated college the same year I did, but I don’t buy it—they looked about 19.  Sugar Ray played next.  He is pretty old now but it was kind of hilarious and a lot of fun—Teresa and I danced around on our blanket.  He also led us in a rousing chorus of “Don’t Stop Believing.”  When Matt Nathanson came on, Julie and I went up to the stage with the screaming teenagers—we ended up 2-3 rows away.  He didn’t play any of my favorites but he did play a bunch of songs that he said were about “getting naked with someone very close to you—or maybe someone you just met.  Maybe you just don’t want the commitment.”  (You have to hand it to him, he’s pretty good at writing songs about getting naked.)  Julie and I joke that we’re becoming groupies—we already went to see him in April and we might go again in July when he plays in San Jose.

So, in case you haven’t noticed, the concerts are getting progressively better.  The third one was Tuesday night, when I went to see Carbon Leaf play at The Independent.  They’ve been one of my favorite bands for about two years and this was my first time seeing them live.  I always stay late at work on Tuesday night for Clinic, so when I got there, the opener was already playing.  His name was Trevor Hall and he kind of reminded me of John Butler and Xavier Rudd: groovy and mellow and reggae-like.  I dug it.  When he finished I managed to get all the way up against the stage, so that when Carbon Leaf came on I was right under Barry Privett the whole time.  During “Another Man’s Woman,” he actually pointed right at me when he sang “Nothing rhymes with woman.”  I’ve never had a spot that good before. They played a lot of songs off Indian Summer and Love Loss Hope Repeat, as well as some songs off the new album and a couple from Echo Echo. At one point Barry announced that they were “going to do this Grand Ole Opry-style,” and they played “Block of Wood” and “Seven Brides for Seven Sinners” all around one microphone—that was pretty cool.  They played three encores at the end: an acoustic version of “Under the Wire,” followed by “Raise the Roof” and “Let Your Troubles Roll By.”  I was basically thrilled since the last two were two of my favorite songs.  After the show ended around 11:30 they stuck around to meet the crowd and sign autographs, and I asked for a hug instead.  So, in summary, Carbon Leaf + hugs + making it home without getting harassed once by random people on the street = a pretty amazing night.

My next show is Coldplay on July 13.  I don’t know how I’m going to survive 2½ weeks without concerts…

Real Stories Don’t Have A Point May 20, 2009

80-degree weekend:
spent most of Saturday
convincing myself to do laundry,
finally got it done around 4 p.m.
and decided
the beach was where I needed to be.
Walked to 16th and Mission
and noticed that at some point
over the past week, the bus shelter
had disappeared.
Homeless guy walked over,
asked how long I’d been standing there,
told me tomorrow
he was going to see the Mayor
about the budget cuts
and he might be on national TV
so he hoped he wouldn’t have a booger in his nose
in front of the whole country
and you could tell a true friend
because a true friend would tell you
if you had a booger in your nose
on national TV
and he wanted to start doing
“Bus Stop Stand-Up”
because people could use entertainment
and he liked talking to pretty girls
at bus stops.

My phone rang.

Took the 22 to the 5,
which took me all the way
to the ocean.
I stepped into the sand,
kicked off my shoes,
saw a skinny guy
in a green t-shirt
walking toward me
arms spread open
a beer can in one hand
and gave him a hug.
I stood in the surf
til my feet went numb,
then chased seagulls.

(let’s see how far we’ve come) April 14, 2009

Just like Counting Crows are the band by which I remember my Spain semester, Matchbox Twenty has become my band of JVC. I know what you’re thinking—What is this, 1996?—but I see no reason why nineties music should stay in the nineties. I’ve liked Matchbox Twenty for a long time, but this new kick actually began with Spirituality Night back in November or so—the one where we each played a song that was meaningful to us. Lorraine’s song was “Long Day” from Yourself or Someone Like You. As we listened I realized that I had never really heard the lyrics before.

“Reach down your hand in your pocket,
pull out some hope for me—
It’s been a long day,
always
ain’t that right.”

This song has sort of become my anthem of the year. There are many days when I blast it on my headphones on my way home from work and just give myself over to the music. I feel like it contains some important truth in it for me… like, yeah, there is a lot in the world that just plain sucks, and that’s not something you can just gloss over. Sometimes you have to embrace it for what it is—surrender yourself to the madness all around you, until someone comes along with a pocketful of hope for you again.

And there are days when all I see is the madness, every way I turn. People call me at work sobbing because they’re being evicted and have nowhere to go, because they have nothing to eat, because they’re convinced someone is after them and no one they talk to believes them and they have to jump through endless hoops to try to get help, if help is even out there at all. And I have to act as a messenger of the system that’s strangling them, trying to explain that we’re limited in the types of cases we can take because we have limited resources and funding. They yell at me, they cry, they hang up. They never really understand. I’m not sure I do either. There’s so much wrong with the world and there’s so little I can do about it, and nothing I do can possibly be good enough.

On my twenty-minute commute home from work, I pass an average of about three panhandlers a day. Over and over again, I’m faced with the impenetrable quandary of giving homeless people change. I often try to rush past them or pretend I don’t see them—taking the coward’s way out—because they make me feel guilty just by standing there. Then I start to get angry with them for making me feel guilty, which is followed by more guilt for feeling angry. Sometimes I give them change, and for a minute I feel marginally exonerated, having given someone a lousy dollar that might buy them a greaseburger at McDonald’s. Change, in the material sense, is not enough. (But what is enough?) And how do I decide who to give the change to? If I gave a dollar to every panhandler I saw, I wouldn’t have any money left. The line has to be drawn somewhere. But who am I to decide who should get my change and who shouldn’t? Who am I to try to assuage my guilt by giving people meager handouts, and conversely, who am I to cling so tightly to my privilege that I haven’t earned any more than they have earned their poverty? Who am I, that there should be any lines drawn between me and anyone else on this planet? I don’t have the answers for any of this, and I’m confronted with it every day. I have no idea what it’s like to be you. I have no idea what it’s like to sleep in doorways, to be denied access to indoor bathrooms, to be treated as if my very existence were an offense to society, to have acid poured on me while I’m sleeping, leaving scars that tear viciously across my skin… to be addicted to a substance stronger than caffeine. I’m insulated by my privilege, and the thinness of that barrier scares me sometimes, because we share the same humanity, underneath it all.

Not to make it warm and fuzzy, because it isn’t. People are not warm and fuzzy, and life certainly isn’t either. There’s no neat, simple way to tie this up. That’s why I deal with it by withdrawing—by retreating into the music surging through my headphones, trying to drown out thought. Even withdrawal is not a viable solution. The world doesn’t leave people alone; it will intrude on your solitude in any way it can. It will cat-call you on your way home, sometimes more aggressively than others. It will run up behind you as you fumble for your keys, walking alone at night. It will scream obscenities at you standing on street corners and on the bus. It will tell you what a piece of shit you are, that you’re a sex object, that you’re the oppressor, that you’re going to hell, that it could kick your fucking ass. The world does not leave people alone. The world is not friendly or hospitable much of the time, and the world will not let you love it the way that you want to.

There’s no real ending to this post, because there are no easy solutions. I’m no better and no worse for having written it. It’s just analysis. Just a few more paragraphs added to the digital din.

“And no, Lord, your hand won’t stop it,
just keep you trembling…”

The Great SF Pillow Fight of 2009 February 20, 2009

It’s been a crazy week. My mom, grandma, brother, and sister got in last Saturday and left for home Thursday morning, and I tried to spend as much of my free time with them as I could in between. It was nice to see them all, even though the weather decided to pour on us all weekend. Highlights of the trip included walking around China Town and stopping for lunch in a Chinese restaurant where we were the only non-Chinese people and everyone gathered around to laugh at us trying to use chopsticks; taking a bus tour of San Francisco, which allowed me to see some places that would have taken me much longer to find with public transportation; touring the Aquarium of the Bay; riding a cable car again (they really are awesome); introducing my family to my coworkers on Tuesday; and renting a car and driving through gorgeous green hills to Santa Rosa, where we went to the Charles Schulz Museum. There were a lot of things that we didn’t see, but all things considered I think it went very well, and I’m glad they got to come.

My favorite moment of the weekend came around 6:00 Saturday evening, when I took my sister to the public pillow fight in the plaza in front of the Ferry Building. All afternoon I saw people carrying pillows, on the streets and on Muni. While I was standing on Market waiting for the street car to take Laura and me to the Ferry Building and the other three back to their hotel, a van pulled up and they guy in front rolled down the window. “Hey, you know there’s a pillow fight going on?” —”Yeah, I’m heading down there.” —”Hop in the van!” —”Nah, it’s okay, I’m just going to take the trolley.” —”No, really! We’re not creepy, I swear! There’s a girl in here too!” She slid open the back door and waved. “I’m a girl! I’m a girl!” —”Sorry!” I said, looking back at my family. “I have to get them back…” Then the light turned green, and they said “Alright, cool, see you later” and drove off. In other circumstances, though, I totally would have gone along.

In the plaza there was a mob of hundreds of people and pillows thrashing about amidst a blizzard of feathers and stuffing. In the center people had surgical masks and bandannas over their faces to keep from breathing in the fallout. There was music bumping in the background, and people smoking weed (of course) and drinking on the sly, and some guys even set up a hookah on the sidewalk. Laura and I wandered along the perimeter until we snagged a renegade pillow and dove in just far enough to hit a few people. There was a guy dressed like a ninja who was pillowing people at a run so we couldn’t hit him back, and a guy with a “FREE HUGS” sign, and basically all sorts of people imaginable, most of them between 15 and 35. The whole thing was ridiculously awesome, and I’d really like to get the tradition started in Buffalo. It’s undoubtedly the best way to celebrate Valentine’s Day that I’ve seen yet.

http://www.pillowfight.info/ (Check out the video on this site!)

Overheard on the #9 Bus, 2/12/09 February 16, 2009

Man A: Do you think she would have noticed me if I wasn’t singing?
Man B: Well, she thought you were singing to her.
Man A: She was a pretty girl…. She had nice hair. (Pause.) She had nice teeth, too. (Pause.) I liked her braces.
(Long pause.) Do you think maybe she’ll come see me again?

As we passed the Orpheum Theatre:
Man C: I want to go see that show, Wicked.
Man D: One of those shows with the girls?
Man C: Well, there are girls in the show.
Man D: How are they?
Man C: Well, the show is about Oz. If they’re girls from Oz they must be cool. (Wistful pause.) I used to live in the Land of Oz.

The #9 is my favorite bus ever.

Creeps, Ruins, and Marin January 12, 2009

My first genuinely creepy encounter in the Mission: It was little before 12:30 on Friday night, and Julie, Courtney and I were walking back from BART. As we turned onto our street this guy approached us and started saying things like, “Hey, baby. Where you going? What’s your name? Come on baby, why won’t you tell me your name? ¿Hablas ingles?” I just kept walking, and Courtney said, “Could you leave us alone please?” —”No, now why would I do that? Why don’t you just tell me your name? …Leave you alone…” We only had a block to walk, and we got to the gate. Julie got it unlocked while he continued. “Are you disrespectin’ me? I can’t believe you’re disrespecting me.” We filed through the door. “I’m not trying to disrespect you,” Julie said, “we’re just tired. I’m sorry.” —”Sorry? What is that, sorry? I can’t believe you’re disrespecting me like this. I’m a gangster! I’m Norteño!” While he was saying this he stuck his arms inside the gate and tried to pull it back open as we were pulling it closed. We got it shut and he started kicking it; we closed the wooden door behind it and went up the stairs, and he walked away. Once upstairs, we talked it over and decided that he was clearly strung out on something, so hopefully he wouldn’t remember anything that happened, and therefore our odds of being attacked by a gang were slim. Julie and Courtney had been afraid he’d had a gun, but I hadn’t even thought of that. My mind was strangely blank throughout the whole experience, and after we were back in the apartment, I was just pissed off. None of us thought to call the police. It was definitely a reality check, though, and it made me wonder whether my general sense of safety in the city is a result of it actually being safe, or rather a result of my own obliviousness.

On Saturday, because it was in the sixties and I wanted to get out of the Mission, I decided to Indiana Jones it and go explore some ruins. Sutro baths, an “extravagant public bathhouse,”¹ opened in 1896. Once “the world’s largest indoor swimming pool establishment,”² the operation was closed for good due to financial difficulties in 1966, and it burned down soon after in a “suspicious fire.”³ The Golden Gate National Recreation Area bought the land in 1980, so now the ruins of the foundations are open to the public. It’s rare to find something abandoned that you’re actually encouraged to explore, without placards or tour guides or caution tape. I took the 22 to the 38, which took an hour that I spent listening to Coldplay. The 38 brought me to the north end of Ocean Beach, and when I got off the bus I had a conversation with a random old man who told me about rent issues in San Francisco and the trouble with consumer debt, with which I was of course very familiar. It was a very friendly random encounter, in contrast to that of the day before. After we parted ways I walked along the path up the hill to the Cliff House and then down a dirt path to the ruins by the beach. There were a lot of people there taking pictures, surfing, or wading in the surf. I walked along the edges of the foundation, took off my shoes and meandered down the beach a ways, ventured through an old tunnel in the rock, and then sat down on one of the crumbling walls to watch the sun sink beneath the horizon. The people gradually thinned out as it grew darker, and soon it was just me and a few couples smoking weed, watching the stars begin to appear in that huge dome of apricot-to-indigo- faded sky with the moon rising behind us.

“And I could write it down
or spread it all around,
Get lost and then get found
Or swallowed in the sea…

…Oh what good is it to live
With nothing left to give,
Forget but not forgive
Not loving all you see?

Are the streets you’re walking on
A thousand houses long?
Well that’s where I belong,
And you belong with me—
Not swallowed in the sea…

You belong with me,
Not swallowed in the sea.”

Saturday night we went to a party in Berkeley, and on Sunday Teresa, Courtney, Kareen, and I went with Rod to Sausalito and played around with some beautiful $200 handmade stained-glass kaleidoscopes in a craft shop before driving to the Marin headlands and taking pictures of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was beautiful but it also reaffirmed the fact that I cannot live in a mountainous area long-term because I would never leave my house thanks to motion sickness.

---

¹ http://www.sutrobaths.com/
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Baths
³ http://www.outsidelands.org/sutro_baths.php

Obligatory New Year’s Post January 9, 2009

I can’t think of anything to say about it that isn’t nauseatingly cliché. Mainly what this New Year’s means for me is that I have seven months left of JVC; so instead of resolutions, I’ve made a list of things I want to try to do before I’m done with my time in San Francisco. I made a list of goals before I left in August, but those were more general things I wanted to work on—these are very specific goals intended to help me get the most out of the months I have left here.

Things I Want To Do In San Francisco

• Go to at least three more shows, be they concerts, plays, or open mic nights. (I’m looking into Wicked right now.)
• Consciously make more time for silence every day.
• Learn a new skill. (This might be the most challenging thing on the list.)
• Hang out with coworkers outside of work at least once or twice more.
• Go puddle-jumping in a rainstorm.
• Get some people together to go to a hookah lounge.
• Make at least one new friend/contact.
• Take a few hours and just ride Muni around the city, taking it all in.
• Take pictures of the ruins of the Sutro Baths and the defenestration building at 6th and Howard.
• Run into the ocean and dive under the waves.
• Ride a cable car again. (Will likely happen when my family visits next month.)
• Make it to Yosemite and UC Davis.
• Learn to cook a new meal or two. (This shouldn’t be too bad; it just involves being somewhat creative on cooking nights.)
• Check out some scenic outlooks.
• Read three more books, not including teen fiction and graphic novels.
• Write one polished memoir, poem, or short story.
• Explore the rest of Golden Gate Park. Maybe bring lunch. Or a tent, since it will take a week.
• Spend a day taking pictures around the city.
• Go sit in a coffee shop by myself. (Oddly enough, I’ve never done that.)
• Take a bike out and ride around the city for a while, at least once, despite my fear of biking in traffic.
• See the inside of the Hyatt Regency.

Is there anything else you think should go on this list? I’m very open to suggestions.

Why You Should Come Visit Me: A Top Ten List December 3, 2008

(The long-awaited list to complement the “East vs. West” post from a couple months ago.)

10. Free peanut butter chocolate samples at Ghiradelli Square. Mmm… :)

9. The sourdough bread here is delicious, and you can get it practically anywhere. I first heard this tip from The Blur and now can vouch for it myself.

8. You can enjoy generally pleasant weather all year round. This past weekend it was in the seventies and sunny. In late November. Go figure.

7. If you mingle with the locals, you can pick up rad lingo like “dude,” “tight,” and “trippin’.”

6. Come walk through Haight-Ashbury and observe the wild Hippies in their natural habitat.

5. Drum circles and street parties. If you don’t know what a drum circle is, it’s basically when a few people start drumming in a group and then more people join in–people drumming, people playing whistles, guitars, harmonicas, and whatever other instruments they may have, people improvising by banging on bottles and pots with sticks, and people dancing like hippies or “hooping” or “devil-sticking”. Drum circles tend to form kind of randomly around the city (but primarily in parks). You really have to experience it to understand.

4.All the freakin’ crazy folks around. If you have ever been thought strange, San Francisco will make you feel so normal. People walk around in costumes here on an everyday basis. I once passed a man on the street pushing his cat in a baby stroller, with a boom box strapped to the top blaring music. This past weekend, a few strangers started barking at each other from across the street. These occurrences are not at all out of place.

3. There are free concerts and festivals here all the time–odds are, something cool will be going on when you come visit.

2. You can do all the touristy stuff that I’ve blogged bout so far! Walk or bike across the Golden Gate Bridge, see the sea lions at Pier 39, ride a cable car, stroll through China Town, check out the park and the beach, count the Obama signs, join a protest…

1. And of course, you get to hang out with me O:-)

~The End~

Hope you enjoyed my list; have a nice day and come again soon!