overheard on 22nd Street

"She was, like, making out with everyone... which is, you know, awesome." (I got the feeling that he didn't really think it was "awesome" exactly.)

quote of the day

From the SVBC bulletin:
"I relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again."
-Michelle Pfeiffer

ViaVelo

This made me smile.

Bronte Sisters Power Dolls

Thanks, K.

Romeo and Juliet

Last night, Julie and I went to the ballet. I have season tickets and have enjoyed Swan Lake, The Little Mermaid (my favorite -- I love her fishy movements) and, last night, Romeo and Juliet. We started the evening with a light meal at Samovar at the adorable corner of Page and Laguna. (I love the tea-food pairing.) After the show, we had a lovely dessert at Beretta, which (take note!) serves food until 1 am every night of the week.

But back to Romeo and Juliet...my friend Julie, a trained ballerina (Julliard, no less), said she had seen duets she'd liked better, but never duets with more passion expressed through them. I was sucked in when they danced, completely believing their love affair without words expressing it. I love visiting real estate open homes because you get a peak into people's lives. I will look in windows and watch their residents' private lives if given the opportunity. These duets felt like something real, like we were watching a private expression of how the two felt about each other. The dancers were really good actors.

Well, no, apparently not.

After the final bow, someone handed Davit Karapetyan (Romeo, from Yerevan, Armenia) a microphone. He thanked the audience, the orchestra, the cast, and then he proceeded to get down on one knee and propose marriage to Vanessa Zahorian (Juliet, from Allentown, PA). She nodded yes, and he placed a ring on her finger. (I, for one, was losing my body's moisture quickly through my eyes.) It was without a doubt the most authentically romantic thing I have ever seen in my life.

Urban Homesteading

"'Alcohol is often the gateway to urban homesteading.'" I don't know about brewing cider (I prefer red wine) or making your own linen underwear. I am grateful for a community garden plot. But I'm just dying for a backyard of my own to grow food and chickens.
NYT: That Big Farm Called San Francisco

sleep improves athletic performance too

NYT: To Improve Fitness, Try Sleep

one of my favorite quotes

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, either way you are right."
-Henry Ford

what's in your head

I no longer blog about anger management bc I'm no longer in a relationship with a person with anger management issues. But, that doesn't mean the ideas aren't still in my heart. K keeps me posted on interesting things that happen on her social workout blog. This week, it's Brad Robert's inspirational words about getting in shape with yoga, and, more interesting to me, how some other forms of exercise made him feel: "I kickboxed for a while, because it was fun to hit things. But, first of all, I smashed my foot. And then I noticed that, rather than being cathartic, kick boxing just made me more angry. I'd be walking down the street, and I'd see some guy, and I'd start thinking what would I do do to take him down. I'd be imagining: "MY ELBOW. YOUR NECK. I COULD KILL YOU!" I don't need that going on in my head."

One thing I think a lot about is what I want in my head. You get these things from the people you spend time with, the things you do, and your physical environment. For example, I don't think it's dis-loyal or bad in any way to avoid investing in people who are overly critical, negative or superficial. After all, it's my head, and I get to choose what to put in it. So, Roberts observations transcend anger management -- they're also about consciousness. You are what you do. (And, conversely, do what you are... do be do be do.)

I've been reading The Secret, which is just the same message again. Last night, I read the chapter on Health. It told stories of people curing cancer with funny movies. I've been under the weather lately; so, watching more TV than usual. I stream, and I ran out of shows to watch. This eventually resulted in the same outcome as if I had TV reception: crime television. I started watching CSI. Ugh. Those people are unhappy. They're solving crimes (where people are horrible to each other by definition). And the cinematography is dark. Yeah, here on my blog, I now state my commitment to fixing this problem.

The MAPP

A couple weekends ago, I had the magnificent joy to attend the MAPP, the Mission Arts & Performance Project, a bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, intercultural community arts event that takes place in the South-East neighborhood of the Mission District. It's my second favorite thing that happens in San Francisco all year round (first is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass). I'm not going to review our entire evening (fulled with Secret Gardens, soulful music, dancing, poetry about politics...), I'm just going to show you this photo I took of some of Carl Pisaturo incredibly cool robotic sculptures. Always a hit!

Silicon Valley Commuter

I snapped this guy waiting with me for the VTA Light Rail because he wore typical work clothes on his 10-speed. His helmet and backpack are funky, but he's more dressed up than your average commuter nerd in the Valley. Maybe he's in management?

Either way, he's got the best possible commute. No matter what happens at work, you can always count on your bike to make you smile at the end of the day.

[Brian Smith] Berkeley Celtic music Comice

My pal Brian, the editor of another blog I sometimes contribute to, sent me this photo he snapped in Berkeley. Presumably, they're on their way to a Celtic Music Festival.

The title is Brian's. I looked up Comice:
Co·mice /kəˈmis/ (noun) a large, juicy variety of pear.
Yeah, the girl's cute, and so are you, Brian.

Break-up Reasons Provided

Wanna break up but can't explain why? Here are a list of possible reasons from which you can choose... compiled from life experience, friends' experiences and bad television.

Check all that apply:
• It’s not you, it’s me. I’m all messed up right now.
• It’s not me, it’s you. I just don’t like you that much.
• I’m just not feeling it.
• I’m still in love with my ex(es).
• I want to be with someone who (doesn't) smoke(s) pot.
• I want to be with someone with whom I have more in common culturally (i.e. shoots guns, smokes, is into material possessions, loves to shop, has experience in the sex industry (circle as appropriate or add item(s) here ___________________________________________).
• It was moving too fast. I got scared.
• I never want to get married and have a family (with you).
• I’m just not that into you.
• You did X (i.e. took your ex-boyfriends call when he rang….describe in detail here _______________________________________), and it really pissed me off.
• I can’t stand the way you X (i.e., I can’t stand the smell of your hand lotion…describe in detail here _________________________________________________)
• You’re too good for me. You’ll leave me when you realize that, and I can’t handle the stress of waiting for that to happen.
• I don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone right now.
• I want to be with someone who has a less interesting life (i.e., worse job, fewer or no friends or hobbies) so that they are available to hang out with me all the time.
• I met someone else.

Dear Readers: Did I miss something? Please add it in the comments below.

how to be happy (vs. money)

NYT: "If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year."

Thanks, Cheryl.

Why we need to dream

Sleep is my religion, and I'm always looking for more evidence to support this belief system.

Why We Need to Dream

Cute

Hyperbole: Cake vs. Pie

LA Journal, part 1... I hope....

My plane left at 8:45, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable hour when I booked the ticket. I arrived in LA at 10, Santa Monica by 11. On the bus from LAX I met a couple foreign boys studying business in Malibu who kindly gave me directions. They also observed that hamburgers are available on every street corner in the US.
What did you expect? I asked.
Steak, maybe, he replied.
The Pole told me of his obsession with Taco Bell, to which I shook my head. Why not try to get real Mexican food? He wasn’t convinced.
He also talked about Bay Watch, but the German instructed him never to talk to women about that show. (He said they’d seen it being filmed. It was a highlight.)

Without knowing where I wanted to go, they instructed me on where to get off the bus. I had to trek back a few blocks to the Santa Monica Pier where I planned to rent a bike. It was a fun detour since I got pulled into a market research study about chocolate covered almonds on the way. It began with a few simple questions about my eating habits. It’s always fun to be asked questions I know the answer to like that. Then I was instructed to taste 2 different kinds of almonds and rank my preference based on appearance and flavor, and describe why. Finally, for an additional $5 (the first part earned me a Starbucks card), I did an oral interview about my perception of different brands of almonds. Almonds aren’t that much different than buses; it was almost like work!

So, I rented a turquoise lady’s beach cruiser, and my bag was terribly heavy still despite all plans to pack light. I asked for “a bike, a helmet, a basket and a lock.” And the guy said “so, the works, hu?” With the map, he gave me directions along the beach bike path, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had no plans to bike along it but that I was going straight into the city.

By now it was after noon, and I wanted lunch. Under the direction of Yelp, I had selected an Bay Cities Italian Deli and Bakery which Yelp called “an institution”. It was more like an Italian deli and grocery shop with beautiful assortments of capers, sea salt, lemons in jars, peppers in jars, cookies, etc. I got out of there with “The Godmother” sandwich, a little Greek salad, and a box of mini cantalones. The place was mobbed, and procuring lunch took about an hour.
Overheard: now I know why this place is only for special occasions.
I ate at a table in the parking lot with sun-hat and –glasses. A mother and daughter (about 12), also celebrating something, joined me; I eyed the daughter’s meatball sandwich.

From there, I biked up Broadway, the closest adjacent street with a bike lane, to the Santa Monica Art Museum and the Bergamot Station which is filled with art galleries. The one exhibit that I found really interesting was in the far corner and involved acrylic cubes that formed 3D shapes such as a monkey and human scull, male and female human bodies with the internal organs, and a number of trees. If you looked at them from the side all you saw was clear acrylic.

Walking into one gallery, I greeted the person behind the desk as usual. He replied “Why are you so happy?” – I didn’t know I was “so happy” but I’ll take it. He spoke slowly and took a long time to get the point. I asked if the paintings were, more or less, done from photographs (most were of lovely blond young girls in surreal settings). And somehow we got into an impassioned (for him) conversation about artists over-pricing their art. Eventually, I pretended to get a phone call (something I almost never do) and snuck away to the restroom.

The Museum showed a movie of Jerusalem: the devout Jews blocking off the roadways to their neighborhoods for the Sabbath presenting a separation between two ways of life and thought in Israel.

Looking at art is exhausting, but I lasted as long as I could. I went from there to the Co-Opportunity Grocery Store, possibly LA’s only hippy-dippy co-op grocery store (?). I got some wine for Linda and Roger, Carolyn’s parents, who had kindly agreed to host me.

Classy Nails, found through yelp, was my next destination, and spending a hour getting pampered and having my nails tended was just what the doctor ordered. It wasn’t easy to find a color that matched the red of my dress for all of their 15+ available shades of red, but I think I did OK.

Then back to the beach to return the bike before meeting Rachel for dinner.

…

My first night here, I pulled off the shelf a book called “getting the love you want” a guide for couples. Saturday morning, Roger was trying to leave for Idaho and missing his book, it turned out the same one. (He called it a “convergence” that of all the books on their shelves, that’s the one I selected to read before sleep.) As a consolation prize, he suggested I look at “Lives in Progress” (Robert W. White).

More to follow… hopefully….

This is adorable.

young me now me

Thanks, L.

my HS classmate, Reuben Margolin

Totally Rad.

What do I remember about Reuben? Nice and smart (which didn't happen together that often at BHS), he gave people (me) the benefit of the doubt... and was totally cute. He was a leader in the unicycle club.

thoughts on growing up in Berkeley

Sometimes being me is a little lonely. For example, someone on my chat list had a string on nonsense words as their status update ("I wanna pop pop pop. I wanna shasta"). I asked about it. He replied "Don't you remember the commercial from when we were kids?"

My reply? "I wasn't allowed to watch television."

Yeah, I wanna deeply connect with other people. And that's challenging because I grew up in the People's Republic of Berkeley. I learned last week that NBC launched a tv series called Parenthood which is supposed to take place in Berkeley but actually appears nothing like it.

At least my plight is getting some attention. Facebook has been a wonderful opportunity to stay connected with friends from my youth. My little sister and I often observe how easy it is talk to each other compared with a lot of other people in the world. My childhood friends understand things, without explanation, I can never assume that others do. Ages ago, I joined the facebook group Your Mom is So Berkeley where we share one-liners. A NYT article reminded of to check it today: I laughed, I cried, I felt I wasn't alone any more.