Tuesday, July 26, 2011

7/26/2011 - in comes my way out. . .

I think I'm about to trade in this blog for a different creative endeavor.  I'm not sure if it's been apparent, though it certainly has been to me, but I have not been able to give this blog my fullest attention, nor have I wanted to.  I've wanted to take a break, or just quit altogether, but I didn't know how to do so without guilt.

Then in comes my way out--music arrangement.  I somehow got the idea in my head that if I put my mind to it, I can arrange a song for my a cappella group.  Not even so much that I want them to sing it (though that would be ideal), but to prove to myself that I can.  I have listened to pop a cappella music for years, and now I've sung in a group for a few months.  I have a fledgling understanding of music theory, just enough, I hope, to get by, but most importantly, above all else, I have found myself with this hunger to do this.  Where this hunger came from, I do not know, but with every day that passes, I become more convinced that I want to do this.  I have to.

Soon, but not sure when yet, I will take a hiatus from writing.  I don't feel as bad about it as I would if, say, I just blew this off to play God of War III, my new favorite Playstation game, after work.  Best case scenario--I come back after a couple of weeks with a piece of beautifully arranged music and a renewed fervor to write. 

Worst--I come back after a couple of weeks.

Monday, July 25, 2011

7/25/2011 - universal human experience. . .

PostSecret is a website where people can send anonymous postcards with their secrets written on them for publication.  Often, the secrets are funny; some are sad.  Always, though, they remind me of how complicated we all are.  Yet as different as we all may seem to each other, there is also a commonality between us, a sort of universal human experience as we move through phases and moments of life.  

PostSecret can also be eerily specific.  For example, years ago in high school, I had a friend named Grace.  She and I were close, but because I never came out to her, I always felt that wall of deception between us; I never could tell her why I didn't have a girlfriend and why I was not interesting in finding one (and she certainly asked).  Somewhere inside, I had the vague notion that she was interested in me, that if I took some initiative, we could have dated, gone steady, became boyfriend and girlfriend, or whatever it is that teenagers call it these days.

When junior prom season came around, she asked if I would like to go with her.  Play coy, she did not, and accept graciously, I could not.  I flat out told her no, that I "don't do dances."  In part, this was true, as I was one of those boys who stood awkwardly against a wall during the fast songs, and then swayed awkwardly in front of a girl during slow ones.  I had no interest in participating in this awkwardness with a girl who had the possibility of a romantic notion toward me.

So that was that. 

Months later, Grace was looking through my wallet where I kept pictures of people (you know, those little wallet-sized photos, the ones where friends would write sweet little notes on the back, "K.I.T." and all that), and what did she stumble upon but a big group picture with the words, "Moreau Catholic High School, Junior Prom 1997" emblazoned on the bottom corner like an incriminating fingerprint.  And there I was, kneeling in my all-white tuxedo with tails (I know) with a girl standing behind me, her hand on my shoulder.

Oh, did I mention that I went to another school's junior prom?  Yea, I forgot to tell Grace that as well.  I only went because I had friends who went to that school, and I wanted the excuse to see them.  Grace, as expected, did not accept this rationale, but instead treated it as evidence that I blatantly lied to her (which, really, I did) about not doing school dances.  She did not speak to me for months, and even after that, she only did so to bring up how I dance-cheated on her, and what a jerk I was, and so on and on.

We, of course, got over that and patched things up.  Now, we have become those friends who enjoy seeing each other when we do, which is once or twice a year, often less, but don't otherwise make an effort to keep in touch (or K.I.T., as it were).

A few years ago, I saw the following "secret" and subsequent response on PostSecret:

(Click to enlarge)

I took a picture of that screen and sent it to Grace, who swears that neither the postcard nor the response came from her.  I believe her, I guess, but how many Austins could there be who have jilted a girl during high school prom season? 

Well, at least two, apparently.

This morning, I checked PostSecret for its weekly update of postcards, and came across this one


and wondered if it was a sign.  Lately, I have not felt the confidence I once did that I can, and will, fulfill my goal of a year.  This blog has felt more like a burden than a privilege, more a yoke than a path to creativity.

At the very least, it seems I am not alone.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

7/24/2011 - movie adaptation of some superhero. . .

Because I live with and love a man who read comic books as a kid and still somehow maintains an impressive database of knowledge on the various comic universes (yet he struggles with remembering my exact birthday), not a single movie adaptation of some superhero or another goes by without us sitting in the audience.

Generally, I find them tedious, a perfunctory take on the tried and true "hero's journey" template, where the hero is called to adventure, goes through a series of trials before emerging triumphant against his (or her) greatest enemy and then using all that was learned during this journey to make a critical last decision, often resulting in some sort of sacrifice.

Captain America was no different, and outside of a 15-second scene where a once short and skinny Chris Evans emerges from some laboratory chamber shirtless and with newfound height and muscles, I was bored and more interested in finding a way to integrate the whole experience into this blog somehow.  (And here it is.)

For those who have been spared the details of Captain America, a brief recap: A little guy with a myriad of health issues and who often finds himself getting his ass kicked in alleyways wants to enlist in the military to kill some bad guys in World War II.  After participating in a government experiment that turned him from a David into a Goliath (if Goliath was tanned, waxed, and modeled part-time), he did just that.

Captain America was originally released as propaganda during this exact time period, boosting the morale of the country during an otherwise dark time of the world.  Captain America, along with his alter ego Steve Rogers, gave America someone to cheer for, someone unequivocally good, stalwart and righteous, who emerged a winner--a runt with the heart of a fighter.  Much like America, then, a relatively new country but stood as a pillar in the war.

I don't think anyone would question the role that America played during World War II.  I don't think anyone would dismiss the struggles of the underdog, especially in light of recent tragedies due to bullying.  I thought this movie stood alongside a great opportunity to address these issues: bullying on a mass scale, good and evil in their purest and most unquestionable forms, and what it means to fight and fight back.

But in the end, it was just an action movie, another prequel in a series of prequels in anticipation of next year's Avengers, the veritable casserole of a movie where Marvel superheroes all come together to ward off Earth's impending doom.  Or something.  What a shame, though, because Captain America reminded me of a time when war was viewed as necessary, a tragic but essential component to freedom, when soldiers who risked their lives in war were welcomed home like the heroes they were.  Captain America was about bullying, interpersonal and international, and the need for us to address this problem with the attention it requires.

So in the end, I guess I got more out of the movie than just a display of Chris Evans' body; I didn't feel like I spent two hours of my life with absolutely nothing to show for it.  But still, I thought it could have been so much more.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

7/23/2011 - wish fulfillment. . .

I never bought into "The Secret," that pseudo-spiritual, but mostly pseudo, "movement" built on the belief that positive energy begets positive outcomes, mostly of the financial sort.  I firmly believe in positivity and how people are attracted, whether knowingly or not, to someone who exudes a sense of confidence and good.  In theory, this blog was built on that principle.

However, I don't believe that if I told the universe that I am ready for a life of wealth and power, it will come to me without hard work.  Conversely, I don't believe that I do not live a life of wealth and power simply because I did not phrase it in a way that the universe understands, or because I did not think positively enough.

But lately, it seems that whatever I ask for, even if I don't actually ask, I have been given freely (by the universe?) and without much of my effort.  This morning, I received an e-mail from the music director of Rapid Transit A Cappella, giving a high-level guideline on how to arrange music for the group.  I am obsessed with the idea that I want to sing a showtune with them, but it seems difficult to implement this if I can't arrange the music myself.  A difficult task, for sure, but not impossible, I don't think, as I should have enough of a grasp on music theory to be able to muddle through.  And right when I got to thinking that I just don't know how to begin, I get this e-mail to hold my hand.

In my job search, I've hit up against a wall, and right when I told Sam that a headhunter might come in handy if only I knew where to find one, I randomly met a woman at the gym a couple of days ago who hunts heads in San Francisco.

And yesterday, I walked to Union Square on my lunch break to buy the third and final installment of God of War for the Playstation 3.  I decided that I would not pay more than $20 for the game, which is now over a year old, a reasonable parameter with all the used copies of it floating around.  Of course, when I got to GameStop, the used version was $26.  Fortunately, I have no self-discipline, so I took it up to the register anyway, fully prepared to break my resolution by $6.  Without any prompting, the cashier asked if I would like a new copy instead since they were on sale for $14.99.

What else can I ask for before my streak of wish fulfillment comes to an end?

Friday, July 22, 2011

7/22/2011 - as if. . .

I finished reading Marisa Silver's The God of War this evening, and I believe this makes three books I've completed this year.  Three, which is a long way off from the seven I should have finished by now if I want to be on target for reading one book a month this year, but three nonetheless.

Some of my favorite books, the ones that remind me of how amazing the ability to read can be, have made me feel something.  I remember as I came to the end of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, a retelling of the Arthurian legend through the perspectives of Morgana and Guinevere, I had to read while crying.  I was devastated for a week afterwards.  Even having prior knowledge that Arthur dies in the end (that wasn't a spoiler, was it?) did not prepare me for the beauty of her words and the emotional blow of the scene. 

Good books also remind me that language can be beautiful, not only in its sound, but its imagery.  I've probably read Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams a handful of times, and each time, I want to read it out loud, because the meter of the words he uses hums along like a familiar folk song, while at the same time painting thorough and authentic vignettes of life and the human experience of it.

Some of the worst books, however, made me realize how much time I lost in finishing them, if I even reach the end at all.  How many times now have I tried to wade through Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, only to be left confused and pitying myself for not understanding what the hell was going on?  Six?  Yet for all the praise it has received from friends and critics alike, I failed to see it.  I wondered if the death sentence he received in Iran for this book was simply because the Ayatollah had wasted however many weeks and months of his life trying to finish this convoluted and overwhelming mess, bored himself to death, and now simply needed somebody to pay for what had happened. 

And then, there are books like The God of War.  By all expectations, I should have loved it.  A coming-of-age story about a boy growing up in the mostly abandoned desert towns of Southern California, it hit upon themes that I hold dear: the swirling definitions of love, the development of an identity apart from one's family, the need to feel connected to the world.  Yet I could not surrender to Silver's prose because of one thing: her use of the phrase "as if."

In just about every page (and I mean that literally), she uses "as if" to indicate comparison or metaphor ("as if the sun had leached the heaviness of living right out of them," or "as if they were in a toy store sweepstakes," or "as if trying to shake away water," all from the second chapter alone).  Really, to make sure I wasn't exaggerating, I checked 10 pages, just opened the book randomly and skimmed through the page, and on eight out of the ten, these little "as if"s sat there, like potholes on an otherwise freshly paved street.  Silver telegraphs her metaphors so clearly that I could barely pay attention to what was happening; I could only anticipate the next occurence of an "as if;" they begged me to see them, to recognize their brilliance, their intention, their purpose. 

And the emotions of the story, the spirits of the characters, were buried underneath them.

I didn't hate the book, but I couldn't love it either.  I did, however, learn something very important, something that I always knew, but this book proved decisively: good ideas and good writing must go together.  To have one but lack the other is to squander the virtues of the former.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

7/21/2011 - my musician within. . .

As hard as this might be to believe, I only reluctantly agreed to participate in our company-wide, staff appreciation American Idol karaoke event next week, largely because a co-worker lured me into it with flattering words.  She and I had sung "Endless Love" together last year at a marketing team talent show, and in her pitch to persuade me to join her American Idol team, she said that she could not imagine singing without me.

How could I turn that down?

She immediately went to work and poured through the 75-page list of available songs and settled on "Our Day Will Come," by Ruby and the Romantics, a lilting 60s R&B ditty that has a sound of summertime and sunsets.

And because each team must have at least three members, she recruited my boss and another co-worker, all women, and unofficially turned us into 'Austin and the Romantics.'

We 'rehearsed' for the first time yesterday afternoon.  Just when I thought to write my workdays off as indistinguishable from one to the next, I found myself sitting in a conference room, singing with my boss.

The song is structurally simple, easily broken up into four distinct stanzas so each of us can have our moment in the sun.  At the end of it, we come together and all repeat the last stanza, along with three "our day will come"s before the music fades, hopefully to passionate applause.  I then got the idea to see if all my years as a spectator of a cappella groups, as well as my four active months of participation in one, have taught me anything; I decided to arrange a simple four-part harmony for the last three measures so we could really end the song with aplomb.

This work amounted to arranging harmony for four notes, likely a minute effort for even a fledgling arranger.  It took me one hour.  I have always said that I was a bona fide musician trapped in a non-musician's body, and though I have felt it stir lately, never had I felt that musician part of me want to burst out of my head so badly as I tested chord after chord for consonance.

I unveiled my creation to the group this morning with a host of caveats: this was my first time; I was not sure how it would sound with actual voices; we can scrap the idea if it sounds disastrous.  My boss, ever the philosopher, said, "I guess it's kind of like cooking.  You know what needs to go together, you might even have a recipe, but you have to taste the end product to really know how successful you are."

And with that, we dove in.  With my little iPad keyboard to tap out the notes, we learned our lines of harmony, running them a few times for each of us to imprint our parts into our bodies.  Before we put it all together, I took a deep breath.  This was a defining moment.  Not really, I knew that, but kind of, as if a beautiful sound could free my musician within, could give it a bridge to cross over into the real world.  A cacophonous one would scare it back into hiding, right when I felt like it was ready to come out and be someone.

"OK, that was pretty tasty," my boss said with a smile after we cut off the last chord.  She looked right at me and nodded vigorously, confirming her assessment and mine as well.  "I want to hear it again!"

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

7/20/2011 - the mountain to the climber. . .

Sam and I used to live on Nob Hill, a few blocks north of Union Square.  The location was convenient for the both of us.  He had easy access to the freeway as he worked in the East Bay at the time, and my office was eight blocks away in the Financial District.  If I didn't eat breakfast at home, I could reasonably crawl out of bed, get cleaned up and dressed, and walk to work in about the same amount of time it would take for the sleep lines on my face to fade.  Sometimes less.

Coming home, though, would be a different matter.  The eight blocks I could practically roll down in the morning became a vigorous climb in the afternoon, culminating in three steep uphill blocks.  When Sam and I first started dating and I would meet him at this very apartment after work, I often would loiter for a few minutes outside of his building, just so I could cool off and not walk into his house as a sweaty, winded mess.

I know that some people commute by train for an hour in order to get into the City.  A friend has to take a bus, then a train, and walk 15 minutes to get to work.  My sister, who started her new job on Monday, has to drive over half an hour, and there I was, complaining about a 10 or 15 minute walk home.  But my laziness knows no bounds, so when Sam and I started househunting, we had one strict dealbreaker: location.

Of course, location of a property is one of the key factors in its value, but I interpreted that word for myself as simply flat topography so I could bike home.  And in a neighborhood where I won't get mugged on my way.  So we ended up in SoMa. 

And it has been great, if only for its location.  I leave my office in the afternoons now and am guaranteed to be home within 15 minutes after an easy bike ride.  I barely even break a sweat on most days.  The "commute" back up California Street to our Nob Hill apartment seems so much longer ago than just one year, and I do not miss it at all.

However, it occurred to me yesterday, as Sam and I walked behind Grr on the side of Bernal Hill, that I have not escaped the incline at all, merely traded California Street for a dirt-and-rock trail.  Every day for more days than I can remember now, we have taken Grr to Bernal after work and walked with him on its rolling paths across from the skyline of the City.  

When I told Sam of this realization, he said, "At least we have a choice in the matter now."

But not really.  If you could see how excited Grr is to see us in the afternoons, when the prospect of a park looms near, you would know, then, that there never was a choice in the matter.  And though I have days where I wish I could just go home and sit on the couch, go home and waste time on the internet, go home and play the piano, or just simply go home, which is probably the most tempting option of them all, I think these park trips have been really good for all of us.  Physically, for sure, but also, Sam and I talk more.  Without all the distractions that we have provided for ourselves at home, we really have no other form of entertainment but each other on these mile-long walks.  Just us, the hill, and every step we take together before we return to the car.

Yesterday, I found myself quite a few paces behind them as we climbed the steepest slope of Bernal.  I had a headache and felt lethargic, so I just trudged along aimlessly, wandering in my head from thought to thought.  When I looked up, I saw Grr zig-zagging from plant to plant, gopher hole to gopher hole, and Sam right behind him, throwing rocks and pine cones to grab Grr's attention.  And me, several feet below them, with them, but not really, yet I felt closer to them than ever.  I was reminded of what Khalil Gibran had written about friendship: "When you part from your friend, you grieve not; for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

7/19/2011 - almost poetic. . .

This morning, my co-workers and I took our boss out to a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee in honor of her birthday.  Though we successfully avoided talking very much about work, my boss did say the following about her 11-year tenure with the company.  It was quite enlightening, and almost poetic; I've been thinking about it all day:

I never thought that I would still be here.  When I was 23, I thought I'd stay around for a few years, then move on to a different job, one with more writing because I wanted to be a writer.  Journalism even, maybe.  But then I watched all of my friends get laid off in the dot-com bust, all while I felt more and more secure here.  My job was easy enough.  I got to travel, practice yoga, do things I was passionate about, and finally just realized that I didn't need work to define my life.  I should define my life.

Monday, July 18, 2011

7/18/2011 - so good. . .

Yesterday morning, I let myself sleep in as a 'reward' for my a cappella debut with Rapid Transit the night before in what was, hopefully, a pretty successful concert.  Sam filmed some footage that he wanted me to watch, but I just couldn't.  At least in my memory, I can pretend that it was perfect, I was on key, and I stood up there with confidence and panache.  I thought it best if I sat in a safe and secluded room when I go to watch (and listen to) the actual version of events.

So I sat at the kitchen counter and had breakfast, read through my various news sites and blogs, responded to some e-mails, and woke up.  Then Sam cleaned the house and swept up enough dog hair from the floor to make at least one more Grr out of it, possibly even two, while I played the piano, found sheet music for Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts," and accompanied myself while singing it, dying a little on the inside--I find the lyrics clunky ("You're gonna catch a cold / from the ice inside your soul". . .) at best, but the melody is catchy.

Then we took Grr out to our little walking trail up in Bernal Heights, came across a three-legged dog who had been hit by a car as a puppy.  I wondered if he knew that his life was that much harder than the lives of other dogs, or if he was just as happy traversing over the slopes and dunes of Bernal with his three legs as Grr is with his four.  Do dogs have the cognitive ability (curse?) to compare themselves to others?

By the time we got home and had lunch, it was well into the afternoon, and though I felt like the day had gotten away from me, I looked around--the pup was exhausted, the house cleaned, and I had played the piano for about an hour altogether.  That's something, right? 

After lunch, I sat down and finished playing through the second installment of God of War, in which players assume the character of Kratos, betrayed by the Greek gods of Olympus and now on a rampage to kill Zeus himself.  I rarely ever finish video games.  Most of the time, I either get bored or the difficulties of the game become insurmountable.  But God of War, with its (relative) sophisticated storyline, easy-to-grasp controls, and a main character drawn to resemble any one of the muscle-bound soldiers of 300, never lost my interest.

Evening then rolled through, and we took Grr around the block in our neighborhood.  Though he is still convinced that trash cans will suddenly up and chase him down, and he keeps a wary eye on plastic bags that float in the wind, his confidence has improved significantly from a few months ago, when he could barely make it out of the front door without tucking his tail between his legs and trembling against a wall.

To round out our day, Sam and I watched Insidious, a haunted-house story with possibly the best sound engineering I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a horror movie.  Even the silence, when compared to the piercing shrieks of violins that made me jump several times, felt equally terrifying, filled with impending dread.  At the end of the movie, I was exhausted from the prolonged stress the movie induced, yet I had some trouble falling and staying asleep afterwards. 

Throughout yesterday, I semi-consciously (or semi-subconsciously, depending on how you look at it) decided not to write.  No reason or justification; I just could not imagine stopping at any point in the day, holing up in the closet, and writing.  So I let each hour pass, watched the light change from bright to dim, filled my day with activity, either purposeful or mindless, and did not once burden myself with this responsibility.

And it felt so good.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

7/16/2011 - waiting for the moment. . .

In high school, I ran cross-country for three years.  I was an alright runner, a sometimes-contributor to the team by placing in the top five, but I never excelled or anything.  I mean, I certainly did better than if I were to have tried out for any other sport (one that, for example, required equipment and some modicum of coordination), but my performance was spotty at best.  Every race was a great unknown: will today be a day where I could run forever, or one where every step feels hindered by anchors to my feet?  And because of this uncertainty, I filled every race day with anxiety and nerves.

I would be alright if I didn't think about it.  I could go through my school day about as normally as I ever would, but as soon I thought about it, as soon as the thought hit me that I would have to run two-and-some-odd miles as fast as possible in just a few hours, I would literally feel my heart take an extra beat and I would have to catch my breath.  Not that there was ever any pressure to place or surpass a record of any kind; the anxiety was completely self-induced.

Much like now, where I mostly went about my day as usual--eating my breakfast, taking the dog out, working on this blog.  But as soon as I remembered that in 10 hours, in 8 hours, in 6 1/2, I would be standing in front of a (hopefully packed) restaurant with my a cappella group.  Singing.  And again, just like it did in high school, my heart would flutter, I'd feel my stomach drop, and I'd have to take a deep breath to remind myself that I want this, had wanted it ever since I sat on the concrete in front of Sather Gate in UC Berkeley 13 years ago and watched the Men's Octet perform a kind of music I had admittedly never heard before.

It helps, too, to remember my 15-year-old self on race day, waiting for the moment, changed into my running singlet and shorts, standing at the starting line.  Every time, no matter how many races I had done, I always felt the same: clammy, uncertain, and wishing that I had not signed on for this at all.  But then when I heard the gun go off, and I found myself almost carried by the momentum of all the other runners around me, I would discover that my legs did work, that I had it in me to run the race, that often, even enough to have some fun.

Friday, July 15, 2011

7/15/2011 - my first performance. . .

I took a couple of hours off from work this afternoon in order to come home and run through some music for my first performance with Rapid Transit A Cappella tomorrow night in Oakland. 

I had a dream a few nights ago where I had procrastinated in buying the black shirt I would need in order to complete my Rapid Transit concert ensemble, and I raided my closet, my dad's closet, even my grandfather's, in search of a suitable shirt.  One was a dark blue, one had glittery stripes on it, and another I could barely fit my head through.  All the while, I began panicking because I had intended to spend the hours leading up to the concert by rehearsing through the line-up of songs, and with each shirt discarded for whatever reason, I watched my opportunity to do so dissolve.

But now, with a quick run to Ross for a black shirt that suitably fits the dress code and an hour or so of practice at home, I think I am about as ready as I hope to be.  Over dinner, I told Sam that I was immeasurably nervous.  He, in his own tangential way, tried to offer solace and replied, "But this is your first concert where you're actually singing in the group, not just sitting in the audience.  I can't wait!"

After how many years, now, have I watched a cappella groups perform and wished I was up there with them?  10?  I can't wait, either.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

7/14/2011 - to Ti Couz. . .

I learned today, rather unceremoniously, that Ti Couz, a local crèpe restaurant in the Mission District, has closed for good.  "All boarded up," Sam texted after finding out for himself this afternoon, the result of a  foiled lunch meeting there.

It is no secret that San Francisco's restaurants come and go much like the nightly blanket of fog that creeps in at sundown and (sometimes) disappearing by noon.  I can't even count or remember how many restaurants I have been to and loved that have since shuttered their doors and completely disappeared from the collective memory.

But Ti Couz was different.

If ever there was a restaurant that played a role in my "formative years," that I have used as a lamppost to guide my way into the City, it would be Ti Couz.  Back when the City was still 'San Francisco' to me, and I regularly lost my way trying to navigate its maze of one-ways and non-gridded streets, a friend from UC Davis brought me to Ti Couz one otherwise nondescript Saturday night, me and about 12 of her friends, none of whom I knew prior to this dinner. 

I'm sure I've said it here before: I don't do so well in large crowds of strangers, however friendly and welcoming they may be.  I don't dislike it so much because I am shy, or that I have no interest in it; mostly, I find it very tiring--so much effort in getting acquainted but never enough acquaintance. 

I approached the evening with some hesitation, and I would have gotten out of it if only I could find a reason compelling enough to use.  Evelyn and I were the last to arrive, and there we stood, in a crowd of 10 other people on the sidewalk with various other crowds of varying sizes waiting to be seated.  Across the street, people lined up for a concert or movie or something at the Roxie Theater, cyclists sped along the road alongside traffic, and an eclectic parade of homeless, hipsters (is that word still kosher to use?), and homosexuals passed us by, no doubt on their way to other restaurants, to stand on the sidewalk in front of them and wait for their own table.

Davis, with its sleepy downtown and empty restaurant tables aplenty, this was not.

By the time we sat down 45 minutes later, I felt like I had known these people all of my life, though now I can no longer recall a single person's face or name.  I don't know if it was because they all were exceedingly friendly or if somehow I caught the buzz of excitement that seemed to permeate Valencia and 16th Streets and even the air itself, but I barely felt any of my usual fatigue after meeting new people.  I remember thinking, "Is this what City life is like, freedom and friendship over great food?"

Evelyn encouraged me to order a "citron pressé," essentially a build-your-own lemonade, starting with a glass of ice, a carafe of water, simple syrup, and lemon juice, all separated and waiting to be turned into an actual beverage. I couldn't believe how cool it was, really.  This was a highlight of my night, and when I think about Ti Couz, I never fail to remember this drink.

Well, that and sitting in this restaurant that threatened to explode from noise, drinking my lemonade citron pressé and enjoying the most delicious crèpe with the most delicious mushroom sauce I had ever tasted.  And the whole experience just screamed 'San Francisco!' to me, from standing outside waiting for a table, to being led past the kitchen and to our table in what felt, to my limited international knowledge, like a real slice of Europe.  And the crowd!  How much more of an urbanite could I be, having dinner on a Saturday night in a bustling restaurant with people I barely knew, would likely never see again, yet whose company I reveled in, and seemingly, they in mine?

It all felt like a secret that Evelyn whispered into my ear that subsequently changed my entire perception of San Francisco.  I mean, sure, I could find my way to Union Square, Fisherman's Wharf, and could probably even make it to the Castro, but really, who couldn't?  This restaurant?  With these people?  And with a citron pressé?  Not so likely. 

And now it's gone, and I never even saw it coming (even though I learned it actually happened a couple of months ago, thanks to a quick Google search), never had a chance to go back one last time.  And though I always held it in a special place in my heart, took out-of-towners there and regaled them with this story of "my first San Francisco experience," I never realized how much I could love a restaurant until I got Sam's text and realized just how fond my memories were.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

7/12/2011 - poor bed etiquette. . .

Likely not his biggest, but one of the most vocal complaints Sam has had about me is that I hog the bed.  Some time between tucking in securely on "my side" and waking up the next morning, I apparently thrash about and trespass repeatedly beyond the 'armistice line.'  Sometimes, I remember doing so, but often not.  I do, however, vaguely recall a few occasions where I've hit him in the face, so I guess he has a right to complain.

Lately, though, I'm the one complaining about poor bed etiquette, and my ire is directed toward the third member of our little family: our oversized and oversensitive pup who sleeps perpendicular to our parallel bodies.  Not content with being allowed in the bed at all, a privilege granted to him only a few months ago, he finds it necessary to lay flat with all four of his legs fully extended so that he somehow makes contact with both of our bodies.

But the problem I have with Grr's sleeping habits only begins with the space he demands.  I would not find him nearly as intrusive if he would only budge when I move.  Instead, I am locked into the same position for as long as he has his head resting against my leg.  Should I decide to turn over, or move a leg, I risk the wrath of his vicious-sounding growl and a couple of high-pitched barks.  He would get up, circle the same, warm spot he just left, and throw himself back down on the bed in a huff, head back against my leg, stretched out as if neither Sam nor I exist.

Even the most comfortable position becomes a prison if you can not leave it without consequence.

I got the idea the other day to buy Grr a little doggy bed and just set it on the bedroom floor next to us.  Lord knows we cannot make him sleep in it (a lesson learned from the crating fiasco we experienced when we first brought him home) or prevent him from coming into our bed with us, so I thought the best way to go about this is to let him decide that the doggy bed will be more comfortable (for all of us, actually), where he won't be awakened by us moving and can stretch out as far as his limbs will go.

Last night, I nonchalantly threw his bed at the foot of ours, which he had eagerly already jumped into.  I sat next to him, rubbed his head and kissed him on the chin like I do every night, and laid down.  And waited.  He looked at the bed then went back to chewing on his bone with no more movement than that.

Halfway through the night, I felt him stand up, stretch, and slink off of our bed, then plop himself down on his own.  I stretched out a little, testing the freedom I now had to move about in any which way I wanted.  Admittedly, it felt pretty great. 

As I drifted off in my new, more liberated position, I had a thought: what if he stops sleeping with us altogether?  He already no longer likes it when I pick him up, and where he used to give me little kisses when I got close to his face, he now turns away and pretends that I had never approached him at all.  Was I ready to let him sleep on his own and, in essence, grow up from the puppy I still think of him as and into a headstrong adult with wishes of his own?  The inevitable answer, that it wasn't really up to me, made me just a bit sad right before I fell back asleep. 

I woke up after completely missing my alarm by about two hours, and there he was, back on our bed and curled up in a ball by my ankle.  When I reached over to grab my glasses, I accidentally nudged him in the tail gently with my foot.  He growled and huffed like I had just irreparably insulted him, and I surprised myself with how glad I was to hear it.

Monday, July 11, 2011

7/11/2011 - free Slurpees. . .

Today is July 11th, and convenience store giant 7-Eleven seized this opportunity to give out free Slurpees to its customers, and prior to this afternoon, I had not had a Slurpee in probably over 15 or 20 years.

Before my parents moved to the house they currently own, we lived within two blocks from a 7-Eleven.  However, because it sat on the opposite side of a very busy street, I was never allowed to go there by myself, so every few weeks, my mom would allot me about $5 and send me to 7-Eleven with my grandfather, who lived with us for as long as I can remember (as most Chinese grandparents do).  He would buy his weekly allocation of lottery tickets, and I would scour the shelves, assessing all the possible permutations of snacks and candy my $5 would afford me.  Sometimes, this would include a brownie, a box of Nerds, or even a package of CornNuts if I wanted to diversify from sugar.  Often, I'd get a package of giant, chewy Sweetarts that I would have to smash against a tabletop to break the four oversized tablets into bite-sized shards. 

But always, I'd get a Slurpee.

Back then, the 7-Eleven only had two flavors: Coke and cherry.  Now, as I discovered this afternoon, the 7-Eleven downtown on Sutter and Kearny offers six flavors, two of which are sugarless and one was called "Alienade."  From my childhood, these were not.

Back then, the Slurpee was either red or black and sugar-filled or sugar-filled.  It would almost make my throat close up from the sweetness, and it would stain my tongue red for the rest of the afternoon.  On the brief walk home, my grandfather would carry the paper bag containing my spoils while I held my cherry-flavored Slurpee in one hand, his hand in the other.  He would never say much, and I was just as happy to be slurping along and preparing for my inevitable sugar high and subsequent crash.  But his hand. . . I remember running my fingers along his knuckles and feeling his skin glide loosely against the bones underneath. 

I have not thought of my grandfather in a long time with such specificity.  He died when I was 25, shortly after I had moved back from Sacramento and in with my parents again.  Though memories of him dart quickly through my thoughts from time to time, they are usually nothing more than abstract and hazy images, aged like faded Polaroids from a time long gone.

That, unfortunately, is mostly how my grandfather is to me, a figure whom I had loved and who had loved me but now only exists in periodic flashes.  I blame myself a bit; like exercise, I imagine if I had tried harder and consistently practiced at the thought of him, those thoughts would all come easier now. 

But from the very first sip of my Slurpee this afternoon, I remembered exactly how it used to taste, supremely sweet with a faint tingling of fizz, just like how it tasted today, and I remembered those walks from the 7-Eleven back to the house with my grandfather to a surprising degree of clarity.  And because I felt awkward walking in and leaving with a free Slurpee and nothing else, I found a bag of giant, chewy Sweetarts, just like the kind from years ago, and I trust that the four tabs, still intact in their gigantism, will crumble to pieces when I smash it against a table, will be just as chewy. 

I was 10 all over again.

I walked back to my office with my Slurpee in one hand, my other in my pocket, fidgeting with the plastic Sweetarts wrapper and trying my best to recall all the details of that walk from the 7-Eleven on Alvarado-Niles and into our home on Derby Court, how my eyes would never adjust quickly enough from the bright sunlight of the afternoon to a shaded living room, and my grandfather--the look of him, the love, his hand and mine and a sugar-filled afternoon.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

7/10/2011 - Sundays. . .

Another Sunday, another trip out to Fort Funston, Chipotle Burrito Bowls for lunch, and a nice clean pup after a warm shower.

Where I used to see Sundays as the harbinger of the work week, dread them more than Mondays themselves, I now look forward to and can't imagine doing anything else other than the things we did today, which were the same things we did last Sunday, and likely the Sunday before that.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

7/9/2011 - a bedroom version of The Sound of Music. . .

Sam and Grr tend to wake up before I do, and on weekdays, Sam runs off to the gym and Grr lays quietly at my feet until I get out of bed.  On weekends, though, without the necessity to get up, they both just lounge in bed and goof off until I inevitably can no longer sleep, and we all make our way downstairs.

Grr has developed a rather unhealthy obsession with our dirty clothes, so this morning, he grabbed a pair of underwear from a pile in the closet and brought it back to bed.  Sam thought it would be funny to put it over his head and stage a bedroom version of The Sound of Music with our dog starring as Fraulein Grr:


And it might have been riotously hilarious had Grr not flown into a frenzy trying to pull it off of his head, squarely punching me in the eye with his paw while doing so.  It took all of a millisecond for the pain to go from my eye to my mouth: "OW! FFFUUUUCCCKKK!"  I hid my face in a pillow and started wondering if I went blind, and how an eye patch would totally not go with the new shoes I just bought the other day.

When the pain subsided, or at least dialed down a notch, I noticed that all was quiet.  Sam said not a word, and Grr was no longer thrashing about.  I peeked out with my maimed eye and saw him looking at me, habit still on his head.  I had scared him.

A minute later, he nestled his face into the crook of my arm, licking it every few seconds with a tentative tongue.  He knew I was mad and was trying to make nice.  "No, pup, you're mean!" I retorted, and pulled away from him.  More silence and stillness.  Another minute later, he gently tapped me in the back with his paw, then another, then he pushed his head against my shoulder.

Maybe I anthropomorphize him a bit sometimes, but I really couldn't stay mad at him.  It was an accident after all, and his little nudges reminded me of myself as a kid, testing the waters with my parents after the many episodes of trouble I found myself in.  So I kissed his little chin, rubbed his ears, and he went right back to squirreling himself all over the bed as if nothing had happened, narrowly missing me in the face with his feet.

Guess he really is my boy after all. . .

Friday, July 8, 2011

7/8/2011 - shoes. . .

There are some things in life that I never purchase for myself.  For example, ever since I met Sam, I have not had to buy a single bottle of hair products, as Sam has an endless supply of shampoos, conditioners, and styling gels at the ready.  I also don't remember the last time I actually went out and purchased a pen or pencil.  Just one of those perks of working in a corporate office, I guess.

I also rarely, if ever, purchase my own shoes.  I have reached a point in my life where my parents no longer know what to buy me for Christmases and birthdays, and though I always tell them that I don't want anything (and don't even know what I would want anyway), they tend to default to shoe purchases for one reason or another.  Hardly an exciting gift, but out of the last four pairs of shoes they bought me, three are still with me and worn on a regular basis.

The fourth one, though, a pair of black Hush Puppies I wear to work every day, had to be put out of their misery.  The bottoms had worn thin, and the insole had come unglued from the shoe itself, two flaws I could have tolerated were it not for the third: the once black tone of the leather had turned gray in patches, as if the color had been scuffed off by a scouring pad.  I caught myself hiding my feet under my desk when my boss came to talk to me the other day, and I knew I had to do something, and since my birthday had just passed and Christmas is still five months away, I had to do the unthinkable: go shoe shopping.

I met up with Sam a few days ago during lunch while he was working in Union Square, and we walked over to the DSW store (which I always thought stood for "Discount Shoe Warehouse," but the 'D,' it turns out, stands for "Designer," which then, after too much recent exposure to shoe-snobbery on Sex and the City, begs the question: why would anyone looking for designer shoes go to a store with the word "warehouse" in it?).  Down the stairs hidden behind a non-descript doorway tucked to the far left of the store sat the clearance section; shoe snob I am not, and while Carrie may routinely buy $400 shoes, I budgeted a fraction of that amount for my off-brand ones.

And, without much ado, after trying on the second pair I saw with a $35 price tag and a 40% markdown, I walked out with a brand new pair of black dress shoes, much like the ones I took off and threw away shortly after leaving the store.  And as I walked back to my office, feet clad in brand new footwear, I stopped at an intersection and looked down.  There they were, black and shiny, twinkling in the sun like two stars in their heaven.  In a strange way, I was proud of them, the first pair of shoes I've purchased on my own in a long time.  So shiny.  And I felt shiny in them, important and debonair.  I have never wanted people to look at my feet more.  I may have even strutted more confidently, held my head up higher because of them. 

Sometimes, the clothes do not make the man; George Michael was right.  Sometimes, it's the shoes.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

7/7/2011 - fall back to tradition. . .

Sam and I are in great danger of overdosing on Sex and the City.  It all started when we would catch a random rerun here or there on E!, which led to my offhand comment that the editing for TV has completely ruined the show.  In what was likely also an offhand comment, Sam expressed muted and passing interest in watching the unneutered version, and I seized upon his momentary lapse of judgement.  Two weeks later, we have left seasons one and two in our collective dust and are quickly plowing through the third, in spite of his (muted and passing) protestations.

In one of the (four) episodes we watched last night, Miranda revealed her age to be 34.  I told Sam that in three years, I will be Miranda's show-age.  "Weird," I said.  "I used to think they were so much older."  He replied in a huff, "Well, thank you, sweetheart," overemphasizing the last two words in the way he does when wants to feign annoyance.

Or maybe he wasn't feigning.  Today is, after all, his birthday.  For some portion of this day, before the passage of one particular minute of one particular hour, he is 39.  After, he will inextricably turn 40.

I know that there is some cosmic and intangible significance to turning 40, but I couldn't describe it any better than just that, and Sam has yet to show any awareness of (or desire for) this significance.

I wanted to throw him this big party or make a hullabaloo over the occasion, but I just don't have the creativity or know-how to pull it off, and he's not really a hullabaloo kind of guy.  We are two pretty introverted people who keep mostly to ourselves, so a surprise party would likely have two attendees: me and Grr, which is hardly a party, and even less so a surprise (unless Grr behaves like a good pup, which would lately be quite the surprise).  So instead, we fall back to tradition: a nice and quiet dinner out.

We have done this every year for his birthday for the last five years.  He was 35 when we met.  That little statistic came to me this morning at the gym, followed quickly by its corollary: I was 26.  I shudder a bit to think of who I was when I was that age, lost and confused (more so than I am now, anyway) and unsure of what I wanted from love.  I look at myself now, glad that I at least have that last part mostly sorted out, and I barely resemble the person I was back then.

On the flip side, I can still see every trace of the Sam I met five years ago, the man I sat next to at Brick, an up-and-coming restaurant in the forever-on-the-verge Tenderloin neighborhood.  We had just met a few weeks ago, yet there we were, celebrating his 35th birthday, and me with awe in my eyes wondering what I did to capture the attention of someone who could make me laugh in a way that I had to find myself afterwards.

I wished then that I had I known him all of my life, and all of his as well.  I still do, but I'll take what I can get, and I'm certainly not complaining.  35 was, after all, just the beginning.  40 is just getting good.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

7/6/2011 - the heat wave is moving out. . .

One year after buying our loft and moving in, I have made my peace with its various imperfections.  I mean, I told myself that I never expected it to be perfect, but on hindsight, I must have had some degree of expectation, especially of something that came with a multi-thousand dollar, multi-decade debt.

After a few months of disappointment and something akin to buyer's remorse due to these imperfections, I woke from my stupor and recognized how I was letting a few flaws ruin what was (and is) an otherwise terrific home.  In doing so, the noise from our upstairs neighbor dramatically decreased (or at least my awareness of it), and I barely give the busy street below our window much thought anymore.  And after my bike was stolen from our secured garage, I have accepted it to be a hazard of living in an urban city and simply bought another one and keep it in the house.

I can't imagine living anywhere else, and I am proud of the home that Sam and I have made together.  And in the spirit of my living gratefully for the year, I try not dwell on the small stuff.  However, for argument's sake, if I had to think of one thing I'd change, it would be the temperature inside.

A selling point that the agent hammered into us repeatedly was the radiant heating mechanism under our floorboards.  And I'm sure it will work spectacularly when we go to use it, but I could not say for sure since we have never had to fire it up.  Our unit magically maintains a temperature about five or 10 degrees warmer than the weather outside, and given San Francisco's recent (and relative) heat wave for the last few days, our house has become something of a dry sauna in the late afternoons and evenings.

And this hits a particularly sensitive nerve with me because I have already lived, and hated living, in two dry saunas within the last decade.  My first solitary apartment in college had huge west-facing windows.  When I stayed in Davis for summer school one year, I never wanted to come home because I couldn't even sit still, much less study, without breaking into a sweat.  I have never spent more time at libraries or coffee shops before or since.

Similarly, my hovel of an apartment in Oakland a few years ago was a 300-square foot oven that also faced the setting sun (I don't easily learn my lessons, apparently), but I could open the front door for a cross-breeze when necessary.  Winter in this apartment, however, was a different story, one with drafty walls and a broken heater.  That year, the Bay Area experienced one of the coldest winters in the history of cold, and I resorted to taking long, scalding showers and sleeping in a sweatshirt under three layers of blankets.

But I could tolerate it all because I was a poor, young renter.  Now, I am still poor but arguably an adult, and I can no longer hop from apartment to apartment whenever the urge compels me, not with this noose-shaped mortgage around my neck.  After three days of (again, relative) heat in the City, I couldn't help but appeal to the universe: Is it so much to ask that I have a comfortable, climate-controlled house to come home to?

This morning, as I coasted my bike out of our building and up 11th Street toward Market, I saw the first sign that the universe had indeed heard my plea.  Floating just above the Bank of America clock tower in front of me were ghostly apparitions of fog.  I could feel a moist, snappy chill in the air, and as I rounded onto Folsom downtown-bound, I saw swaths of mist tumbling gently over the buildings to my left.  In other words, the heat wave is moving out.

I may not have air-conditioning in my house, but San Francisco had turned on its own, and though the day is beautiful out right now, warm and a good reminder that it is, after all, summer in California, I will likely have a pleasantly-temperatured house waiting for me this evening when the fog inevitably rolls back over Twin Peaks and onto the City below.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

7/5/2011 - sing. . .

I like to sing.  This bit of confession should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever spent more than 10 minutes with me in a car.  I find it impossible within my mortal capacity to resist the urge to belt along with whatever I hear on the radio, even if I can't stand the song itself.  On the drive back from Vegas to San Francisco, my mom would later tell Sam that I sang the whole nine-plus hours home, and she did not exaggerate.

I sing along when I put music on at home, in the shower to whatever I have looping in my head, on my bike as I make my way to work on most mornings.  Last year, I even sang at work, when I somehow got lassoed into singing a duet with Paula, my department's administrative assistant, during an 'all-team' meeting.  "Endless Love," and I even let her be Diana Ross.

And of course, by "somehow lassoed," I really mean I volunteered when the VP of Marketing said she would like to put a little bit more entertainment into the meeting. 

The song went OK.  I know I've sung better, and I'm fairly certain I went a little 'pitchy' at parts, but I stayed in tune enough to get rousing applause afterwards and an excited Paula who couldn't stop talking about it for the next week.

This morning when I opened my Outlook, the first e-mail I saw had the following headline:


Paula, upon seeing me, immediately rushed over to my cubicle and said that she could not wait to sing with "her Lionel Richie" again.  She already looked over the HR-approved list of karaoke songs (which inexplicably includes "Baby Got Back" and "Like a Virgin") and compiled a list of 20 songs she thought we could do together with a few numbers she could think of doing with no other person but me.

It's good to be wanted.

Monday, July 4, 2011

7/4/2011 - why America is great. . .

CNNMoney released a list of the 100 greatest things about America, and while the merits of this list are definitely debatable, #82 caught my attention: "Blogging - We're all writers now.  Uh oh. . ."

Though I wouldn't think to put 'blogging' as one of America's best-loved features, I haven't actually thought too much about what I would put on this list.

If I were more politically savvy or had a better sense of history, I could probably come up with a whole thesis on why America is great and why I love living here, from the birth of this country to the incredible odds we've overcome.  All that patriotic stuff I vaguely remember from junior high social studies classes--one nation under God; out of many, one; and various other things that are meant to remind us that we live in a prosperous and thriving nation, that diversity makes us so.

But I am politically selective in what I care about, and so am I with my memory of American history.  So if I were to sit here and go on about the greatness of America because of the nature of our politics or the wonders of our economy or some other facet that relied on actual knowledge, this post would sound like a casserole of Wikipedia entries ('out of many, one' indeed) at best, a high school term paper written the night before its due date at worst.

What would go on this list, then, if I don't have politics and history to expound upon?  I can't convincingly argue the beauty of democracy, nor the merits of capitalism, though I recognize the importance of their respective places in our country.  I vote, though admittedly not on every issue or position listed on ballots.  I am not certain I can tell you who all signed the Constitution, or the names of more than a handful of presidents, and I certainly couldn't go into any better than passing detail on a description of the Civil War.

But when I think of myself, a gay Asian man living in one of the most progressive cities in America, I recognize that I probably have little to nothing in common with the majority of the country save two things: my lack of knowledge on America itself, and that I can still think of myself proudly as nothing but an American.

So my list would be short, just one little item, that I am happy to be an American.  A bad one, maybe, but nevertheless, one, and I wouldn't want to be anything or anywhere else.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

7/3/2011 - passion for liquor. . .

With Grr at home on quarantine, Sam and I have suddenly found ourselves with more time on our hands than we know what to do with.  Where we used to come home from work and then head straight to the doggy trails after a quick costume change, Friday afternoon, I played God of War for an hour before heating up some leftover pizza for dinner.  Where our weekend mornings were once occupied by beachside walks, I spent yesterday singing and writing and he on the couch, watching Rifleman reruns.

Not that I want Grr to stay sick, of course, but I will regretfully admit that I have enjoyed this unexpected bout of leisure we've found.

So, without the need to take Grr out (doctor's orders, after all), what better way would we have to spend a beautiful summer day than to drive out to Alameda and hole ourselves up in a hangar while drinking vodka at the source of its creation?

Though I don't drink and find the taste of vodka to be exactly what I would expect (the juice of fermented potatoes), the distillation process, at least at St. George's Spirits, was fascinating and full of love.  They personified the oft-used phrase, 'hand crafted,' and exuded an infectious passion for liquor.  After a comprehensive tasting that allowed Sam to tour through the various flavors of the distillery (including a chipotle vodka that smelled like a garden patch but apparently felt like acid going down), we took a physical tour of the plant, walking by the various machines used to ferment the ingredients, distill the alcohol, infuse the flavors.



Though the experience did not make a drinker out of me, I did leave the building with a greater appreciation for the spirit.  And Sam walked out with two bottles of vodka and whiskey, one of which he promptly opened in the parking lot and did a quick taste test for quality.

Not the worst Saturday afternoon for either of us.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

7/2/2011 - mother-of-the-year. . .

You know how people say that no matter how valiantly you fight it, inevitably, you will become your parents?  Going on this logic, then, I always thought that I would inherently be a good dad, if only because of how well my parents took care of me.

My mom especially would break out her mother-of-the-year performances when I got sick, which happened often enough.  From the initial onset of symptoms, it would be like I had somehow been transported to a virtual one-patient ICU.  Hourly, my mom would feel my forehead for a fever, take my temperature for confirmation, bring me glasses of water and homemade chicken broth.  Even at night, she would come to my room with cups of both and a roll of saltine crackers.

In fact, to this day, when I come down with a fever, I still sometimes smell the phantom wafts of chicken broth in the air, wake up halfway to the morning and wonder where my crackers are hiding.

But it turns out that I did not inherit this streak of parental care.  Grr is sick.  It started with a little bit of sniffling in the mornings, but has since developed into a mild case of an upper respiratory infection.  And of course, upon hearing this diagnosis, I immediately thought of Sookie, the first pet Sam and I had adopted.

And yet I balked when Sam initially suggested that we take Grr to see the vet, like I didn't want to admit that he could be as sick as to warrant medical intervention.  It didn't help that while Grr was sneezing and uncomfortable in the night, I (mostly) slept right through it while Sam sat up to rub his ears and whisper things to him.  Sam drove him to the vet yesterday morning while I sat in my cubicle at work, not even considering the possibility that Grr might need a vet.  Sam is, in fact, downstairs right now, periodically wiping Grr's nose while I sit in the closet, practicing songs for my upcoming a cappella concert and finishing this blog entry.

So I am not my parents, and not as good of one as I expected myself to be.  What do I do, then, when I can't find in me the loving qualities that are needed to care for an ailing pet?

Love someone else who can.

Friday, July 1, 2011

7/1/2011 - all I've got. . .

I woke up this morning feeling angry at the world.  It happens from time to time; sometimes, I know why, often I don't.  Today's situation falls somewhere in the middle.

I know that it didn't help when I woke up hungry, stumbled down the stairs, poured my cereal, and opened the refrigerator to discover that we ran out of milk.  I know that I can attribute the shift in my mood to a bad night of sleep, as Grr has a cold and could not get comfortable, as well as the string of (mostly work-related) bad days this week.  I could also blame it on the abundance of moments throughout those days that have been neither bad nor good.  Just abundant.

But whatever I choose as my scapegoat, none of those reasons are fitting fodder for a blog called "One Grateful Year."

And right when I thought I would have yet another day of writer's block, Sam sent me a text message midway through the afternoon, saying that he was near a Safeway and wanted to know what we are doing for dinner.  "What do we have at home?" I asked.

"Two big slices of pizza and Klondike bars," he replied.

And I remembered how excited he was when I impulsively bought them a couple of days ago, so excited, in fact, that he immediately broke out into song when I got back into the car with them:

"What would you do-hoo-hoo / for a Klondike. . . you know, a lesbian from Alaska?"

I'm juvenile; I won't deny it.  I should probably be at least somewhat disappointed in myself for finding this so funny, at the time and now.  But really, some days, this is all I've got.