You are a stone

The Return of the Wine Night

2010-08-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'll be honest. Wine Night never really left. Mark this the official return of the blogging wine night if you must.

I literally don't know what I'd do without wine. Case in point: tonight I opened a bottle of chilled rosé while watching Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and then finished the bottle while drunk-cleaning my entire house.

Notes? One, I adore Wes Anderson in a major way. The way I adore my favorite authors and my favorite bands. I could watch his movies on repeat pretty much for the rest of my life. With the exception perhaps of Mr. Fox. I didn't dislike it; rather, for an animated film, I rather enjoyed it. The repetitive tropes of Anderson's former films are present here, along with his usual detached dialogue and penchant for slow, pensive classic rock songs. Put live action characters in there and I'm sold. And as far as CGI/stop-motion characters go, these are pretty awesome. You end up getting the aesthetic feel of Anderson's films translated into a cartoon world, and it totally works. I just don't dig the animatronic thing.

Sidebar. I just drunk-cleaned my house. Put up a dry-erase board with tasks and shit. My new raise means I can pay bills on time and in full, which is an entirely amazing feeling. Work is challenging me and forcing me to learn new things. I'm making it to the gym at least once a week. Life. Is. Good.

Fin.

Si Se Puede

2010-07-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

Where the fuck is the tipping point, people? How many people can get laid off and denied unemployment extensions, or refused health care for pre-existing conditions, or slave away underpaid for some bullshit corporation who fucks the little guy just for fun before we all decide that it's simply not worth the level of complacency we've all become accustomed to?

How many billions of gallons of oil need to pour onto endangered dolphins and mermaids in the Gulf before we assemble a lynching mob for the assholes responsible?

You know why sixteen year old kids from Richmond are throwing themselves in front of BART trains? Yeah. You fucking do.

They have a century of the same old shit to look forward to. Sure, the economy might pick itself up and dust itself off in the next decade. And then we'll all fucking shit our pants with self entitled American manifest destiny, and start the chess timer ticking again until the next cluster fuck. Because until we all realize that the reason we're in this shit storm in the first place is because we consistently allow industrial complexes to run this country, we'll just continue to live hand to mouth. And don't get me wrong - overpaying for pre-packaged over-processed food just so we don't have to leave the couch during Prime Time to cook dinner? Yeah, that's what I mean when I say fucking hand to mouth.

Whatever, I digress. I'm not about to move to some commune where they really get into socialism at it's core and trade goats for communist literature or some shit. I just want to drink my wine and smoke my cigarettes, get a yearly check-up and pay most of my bills. I just want people with billions of dollars to throw me a fucking cool five million so I can hang out at their parties and puke in their yards. And wear fleeces.

Is it too much to ask to be loaded so I can fuck these assholes from the inside out? Can the normal consumer wage a war against those in power consisting of insurgents at the inside of the top levels of industry in the US? I would get behind that shit. I would set those motherfuckers up with a 10% tithe of my earnings. I would enlist! Hoo-ra!

I'm actually not super bitter. I have a pretty sweet life right now. But it's boring to make ends meet, so I have to direct that somewhere. It's between this and fantasies about the zombie apocalypse. Meh, they both end the same.

On Turning 30

2010-05-25T00:38:00.000-07:00

You know what? Who fucking cares. What's important is that I can pick some shit to play on my iPod and it makes me sing to the empty streets and dance in my kitchen. What makes sense is that someone can tell me to meet them at El Rio in an hour and I can make it there to enjoy the first night that feels like summer in a long time. What makes sense is that I need to do what's right for me - only me. I don't need to continue to take care of people who don't know what the fuck they have in front of them. This city is amazing. The people I know are amazing. I am amazing. You're either in or you're out. And I'm not even trying to quote Heidi Klum.

What matters is that I'm living the life that I wanted to live when I thought about thirty at sixteen. What matters is that I've found myself in the streets of Oakland, of the Panhandle, of the Mission. And as Okkervil River says, "If you don't love me, I'm sorry." And I truly am. Because people come and go - and the ones that go don't matter in the long run.

You know, you get past my thick skin and you should know it's an achievement. You should know I shut almost everyone else out - and you should feel like you've won the lottery. And you should handle my squishy insides with care. People don't - and what I've learned is to not harden the outer shell. I've learned to enjoy the feeling of falling as I let them in, and to allow more people in.

So take me I'm yours, morning starship.

Platitudes

2009-11-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

In a stupor of head cold and marijuana, I discovered something last night. And yes, I realize this isn't the finest endorsement. Don't care.

I'm terrified of being made less of. Of someone lowering my worth. I realized that my standards are high - and that I've constantly been avoiding people because I feel they won't make me a better person. I think this is flawed - flawed like all things empirical. It doesn't allow for granularity, for the gradient between black and white, this predilection towards perfection.

The Briana from a few years ago would scream "settling". But this is why 30 is better than 20. Wisdom comes with age, etc.

I drink more Jameson than I ever did before. Suck on that, teenagers.

A Passage Filled With Silence

2009-10-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you think someone enters your life to serve as a catalyst for something specific - something that you've been looking for. But instead, they act as mirror, reflecting yourself back at you in all it's morning glory. They act as a way to compare the past, and to illustrate how far you've come from the tropes you have yet to shed, despite the fact that they hang loose and translucent around your arms. And it comes round to bite you that what you've been looking for (and, of course, what you've found) is not at all what you need.

It would be so easy to ignore the red flags popping up like roses, thorns exposed. People do it all the time, right? They fall into old patterns and settle for right-now instead of forging ahead. Life is hard, let's just make it easy.

But I can't settle. Not when there are so many cities to explore, not when my life is laid out in front of me like so many empty highway horizons.

What's the difference between "being humble" and "having humility"?

2009-10-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's nice to take a day to wander around alone. It's even nicer if it just happens to be the day that a free concert has descended upon Golden Gate Park.

I spent the first few hours of the day feeling neglected because all the people who had mentioned Hardly Strictly were bailing on me. It wasn't until I was crossing the bike path in the panhandle that I realized that it was actually a really fucking awesome thing that I was cruising solo for the day.

I don't think I've had an evening or an afternoon to myself since maybe even before my return from New York. One candle, two ends and whatnot. It's nice to woolgather and be introspective when surrounded by thousands of people.

And BTW? What's up with the Mission being the new home for Marina douchebags who know nothing about this city? I've decided that the Panhandle is my fucking hood. For a while. Sure, it's a bit mid-90's gentrification meets Haight Street hobo-chic. But what the fuck, man. Don't hate on that shit. It's better than slumming it yuppies hanging at 16th and Mission or 6th and Brannan. Recession my ass, dickbags. Go tell your dad to stop running that Ponzi scheme.

Sometimes it's nice to just take a minute and reflect on shit. Preferably while staring out of a muni bus while the sun glints off of the windows of the passing houses. And sometimes it's nice to realize that you maybe just want to settle into someone else's shoulder for a few minutes. And it's ALWAYS nice to realize that the desire to do the above is just as satisfying as actually doing them. Wistfulness can be the language of poets.

Long story short - rediscovering your inner hermit can be super fulfilling. Recharge the batteries and all those other cheesy metaphors. Go do it now, gentle readers.

Disturbingly Content

2009-08-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

I'm actually concerned that one day the idea of a whiskey (neat) and a cigarette smoked inside with all the windows open will be unappealing. Which is to say that I am therefore not ready to admit that I'm not over the dull, fuzzy high of alcohol and weed and my drunken meanderings through my own thoughts.

Do sober people have this degree of introspection? Because if not then I want none of it. If sobriety and responsibility means becoming a complete snooze of a person who happens to be married with kids, then I want no part of it.

But why else do I listen to music where men sing softly about loves lost? Aren't we all just looking for kindred spirits?

I have to say I'm completely, disturbingly content right now. I am, and at the same time, I'm absolutely restless. Because what does it all mean, the day in and the day out of drunken encounters? Is the fact that I think I'll drink too much until I find the right dude to help me see the good in sober, quotidian existence a bad thing?

And who is going to appreciate my obsessive compulsion with grammar and punctuation? The tiny details that no on else beside me can see - is noticing these things intimacy?

This Might Be An Exit

2009-06-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what it is about drunken walks through the mission that promps me to write in this thing. But, the phenomenon presents itself nonetheless. Firstly, I love drunk walking home when my ipod shuffle is behaving itself - which it was tonight. And secondly, I feel as if I might be finally reclaiming the Briana that used to walk home drunk from god knows where to my old place in Santa Cruz. I feel like that Briana was fearless in the most important of ways - she had learned from experience and just tooled around campus and downtown like she owned it. She was into the bottom of the glass looking like a long, sobering walk home.

This Briana, this older and wiser woman has forgotten the ways of back then and has replaced them with a whole new set of vices. And the poetry of everyday life has somehow disappeared, and it's been hard to slow down and try to understand why.

So, in a drunken nutshell, this explains my inability to post regularly, if at all. But I sort of feel as if that tide is again changing.

New Year's Day 2009

2009-01-01T14:00:00.001-08:00

Everyone should go out and give a listen to Bon Iver. Because me and PBS say so.

http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/wolves2.mov

NYE 2009

2008-12-31T20:40:00.000-08:00

Well, for one, I resolve to not drunk blog on Christmas Eve anymore. I thought about taking the last post down, but decided against it since the thoughts were there and valid and real. I could correct the typos, since I only very fuzzily recall writing the last few paragraphs. We'll see if I get to it, eh?

To recap when more sober and clearly with better perspective, I suppose I am not dealing well with the upcoming transitions that the people I care about in my life are going through right now. It's not so much that I feel as if I'm missing the boat as I feel that the boat is leaving with me on it way before I'm ready.

However, I hereby vow to be kind and graceful when I need to this year. When so much is up in the air with my own future, I know that regardless of what lies ahead for my loved ones, they will need to lean on me - and I on them. I only hope that I am able to support when called upon and have those to call upon when I am in need.

Perhaps I should explain, as modestly as possible, the feeling that overtakes me when I think about those I've spent time with growing up taking on the lives of our mothers and fathers. Marriage, children, mortgages, corporate jobs - I suppose it makes me yearn for bare feet and freshly cut grass, for endless summer nights and long winter days spent inside in front of the television. For running buddies.

As soon as another one of my loved ones decides to tackle the task of growing up and settling down, it means one less compadre for me. And while I wish them all well and wish to keep up with their lives, there becomes evident a great divide between those who have and those who have not yet begun the process. Another creak sounds as the water of a lake settles into its glassy surface of ice for winter.

I am not equipped to handle these transitions. How do I talk someone through the fears of having their first child? How do I council someone who is making preparations for their wedding? And why does it seem as if everything in my life is prioritized just under these momentous events? And why do I as yet have no real desire for settling down?

I guess I can only promise to handle all the snags I know are down the line with as much honesty and tact as possible. I'm rolling up my sleeves, 2009. And I'm ready to get to work.

Happy New Year's!

Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire

2008-12-25T00:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve, 2008. Amazing!

I guess I just never really thought that it would be Christmas this way. I read about the impending depression in the SF Chronicle while sipping my tea (yes, I've given up coffee) and am making homemade gifts since I'm unemployed. I think it's interesting to note that the depression (and, yes, I'm making it a point to call it that 6 months earlier than the standard news outlets) has yet to hit the rest of my family in quite the same way as it has me. Granted, I'm the only one without a job. But at least my cousin and my parents are privy to what is happening in the world around them. I'm terrified for my sister and brother-in-law. No one has let them know that they are not in England in 2007 anymore. They're smart enough. They'll adapt.

More to the point. Marriage. Settling down. Babies. There has been a lot of this as of late. And I'm not quite sure how to deal with it. On the one hand, I'm perfectly capable of celebrating all of the above with perfect social tact. On the other, however, I'm shaking in my boots. And I'm struggling to understand where my non-stereotypical ass falls into the standard early 30's life crisis bullshit. Because I don't want to settle down right now. And I don't hear my maternal clock ticking or whatever the fuck it is.

But I do note that my sister and my mother and my married friends all asking the same questions. "Who are you dating?" (No one.) "What are you doing with your life?" (Nothing, yet.) "Let's talk about your relationships!" (No, thanks.)

And I w0nder, my friends. Will I be subject to these questions from now until the fateful day when I announce my wedding? Will all of my settled acquaintances continue to ask when I'll be catching up to them?

If so, I don't know if I can handle it. How sad does it sound to say that I'm existing happily by a pretty awesome thread of independence, but that this is being challenged by the very women who make me who I am today? What is it about married women than turns them into bad friends who ask too many loaded questions? Do I really have to look forward to endless inquiries about my love life for the next 10+ years while I attend baby showers and weddings? Fucking kill me now.

But I am getting all too bah-humbug for Christmas Eve. I'm going to be an Auntie in 9 months and perhaps I'll actually have a job to match the title. I love my family and I pretty much can't complain about my life. So let's see if I can rise above and bullshit my way through the next decade.

Merry Christmas, people. Feliz Navidad. And whatnot.

I'm back - I think.

2008-12-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

Oh, blog, it's been so long. And if I have any foreshadowing into my immediate future, I think I'll be back more frequently than I have been in the last few months.

I admit, I was pretty much comatose from working a shitty job and pretending it didn't bother me. It might have even been the "I can totally rock a douchey marketing job and schmooze with asshole fuckwads all day" that sapped the remains of my inspiration.

Ugh.

I'm back. It was a bad time. And as stressed as I am about not having an income or health insurance for the indeterminate future, I've never felt as alive as I do now.

Right now? Everything I do in a day is for me. I place tasks on a list of priorities and they are all about my own personal development. Modest Mouse never hit it so cleanly as when they sang, in cracking vibratto, "Gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job."

I think I was designed to not work. I hate to sound bourgeoisie, but I have the means and education to rock being unemployed and artsy for a year. So fuck going to the same bullshit job everyday and holding meetings where you are too involved in some petty office procedural dispute everyday. Yes, it's nice that there is order there. Yes, it's interesting to think about how things work within a group of disparate individuals all cooped up in a jungle of grey walls all day. Yes, benefits and a steady paycheck are nice. Too nice, holmes.

I spent too much time working for companies that could give a shit about my personal growth, and I'm done being underpaid and overfed with those jobs. I feel like the corporate life covers your entire world in the kind of clear scum you would find on an alien corpse. The kind of film that, upon any brief contact, sticks to your fingers and casts an oozey web of clear scum between your outstreached digits. Gross. And hard to toss off.

Imagine years of that film being all over you and then suddenly it's gone. The kind of ease of movement you are suddenly able to perform. It's amazing, and I hope it lasts for a while.

I just read the most amazing poem, and also had a very intense conversation with a close friend, and then contemplated the ways in which our lives are transacted over the internet. It's been a long day.

Table Tennis Should NOT be an Olympic Sport

2008-08-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

The Dave Eggers review continues with a re-read of his short story compilation I got a few years ago. "How We Are Hungry" is a beautiful book, and I mean on the outside. McSweeney's is fantastic for celebrating the art of the written word.

Anyway, there's a story in there about a woman who flies to Costa Rica to meet up with an old friend, who she's already planned on sleeping with during the trip. The narrator describes this attraction to her friend in classic Eggers style, but what struck me was this last bit.

She wanted to hold his shoulders; she wanted to go snowshoeing with him; she wanted to go to funerals with him; she wanted him to be the father of her children, and also her father, and brother; she wanted all this while also to be free; she wanted to sleep with other men and come home and tell [him] about them. She wanted to live one life with [him] while living three others concurrently.

First of all, Eggers is the master of using punctuation to help break up seemingly endless sentences. Secondly, I find this to be one of the most thought-provoking paragraphs I've read to date. Taken out of context it may sound a bit Oedipal. But trust me, it's pulling from an undertone of loneliness and need that seems to follow this character from her everyday life into a higher contrast within the exotic context of her vacation spot. And I can't say I identify with the specific situation, but there is a certain resonance that intrigues me. And, as I well now know, though-provoking mixed with a certain air of despair is always a good combination in my book. Don't care who agrees.

White Wine

2008-06-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, my thoughts on life as I know it now:

1) One must always have a chilled bottle of white wine on hand. Or two.
2) Obscure artwork is always good.
3) It is essential to live within walking distance to a liquor store. (See #1)
4) Oakland is pretty much the best and only place to live in the Bay Area.
5) Once you realize that something you have is perfect, it will cease to be so.
6) Numbered lists are gay.
7) While you think you may have friends, know that you are alone and only alone. Operate as such.
8) Those who are dead may be always gone, but should still influence your life in ways you don't understand.
9) Work is what you do during the day. Those hours need to pass somehow, but we seem to think that passing them while doing something miraculous is better than simply passing them. Adjust your meaning of "miraculous" to mean "passing time without working as if enduring torture". This broadens horizons without that feeling of selling out.
10) Fake tans are retarded. If you can pay to sit in a tanning bed, you have the money and the time to get a real tan. Do so. Please. The rest of us don't want to stare at your orange face and wonder how you got your teeth so white.

King of the Road

2008-06-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

I got into a conversation with my cousin tonight about our Grandfather. She had the fortune to live with him for a while, and was telling me about the kind of music he would listen to during dinner. I always knew Louis Armstrong was one of his favorites, due to a 6" tall figurine of the man himself that was always displayed in the living room of casa grandparents. But I never knew he loved Johnny Cash or Roger Miller quite as much as he apparently did. I suppose it would have been nice to sit around a bottle of wine with my grandpa and listen to any of the above...which is as close to missing him as I've come in a long time.

I wonder if he would be proud of me as I'm living my life as I know it now. I wonder what we would talk about with a few whiskeys in us and a spare moment during a family gathering. He died before I was old enough to know what I was missing with him leaving so soon. And now all we have are these memories and assumptions of a man who lived a life that we'll never have explained in retrospect from the one who lived it looking back upon the years past.

I remember him as very stylish. He would laugh about my sister and Mom and I traveling around, calling us gypsies. All of us grandkids were turkeys - he was aloof enough to be able to pass us all off as such but not so much that he wouldn't take us into his lap for a few minutes of quality time with the gramps. I think he enjoyed being a grandfather more than a father, which must have been interesting to watch from my mother or grandmother's perspective.

He was a player, I remember meeting his secretary - who I later found out was one of many mistresses he kept throughout his life. I can't figure him out - and really have no tools for doing so. I'm not one for dwelling on things that can't change, but it's compelling to think about how my life would be different if my grandfather hadn't died in the early 90's.

I do know that he drove across country to meet up with my grandmother and cousins when they all moved in with us back in the day. Pretty sure it was them being broke and needing a place to live while grampy died. What I wouldn't give to know what was going through his head when he drove from Connecticut to California during that trip. He obviously knew he was going to die, leaving a few daughters and 6 grandkids, not to mention his wife and perhaps a mistress along the way. Did he stop for a drink somewhere and talk to a bartender about it? He took the Buick, was always very intent on keeping that symbol of 1950's American success along with him. Did he chain-smoke the entire way, all the while hoping that the cancer would be quick and kind? Was he angry at the end? Tired? Was he ready to die or did he fight to try and keep going?

I know I'll never know him in the way that I know anyone now that I trust my powers of first impression. But perhaps I'll find him at the end of a Johnny Cash song.

And stuff

2008-06-18T23:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, I find myself completely uninspired to write for this thing most days. I blame TV, which I have sworn to swear off for the immediate future, an endeavor yielding 30% effectiveness. I have also decided to mellow out on the drinking, which has proven much more successful. It helps that I relegate my after work activities to the gym, I guess.

In other news, I am not going to be buying a house. I decided not to grow up quite so fast, especially considering my credit. A work in progress, my friends.

I'm re-reading Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I rarely read books twice, because there is just too much else to read that I have yet to get to. But this book is amazing. I first read it when I was 23 or so, and it's kind of enthralling to read it again from a slightly different perspective. Every once in a while when I'm reading it on the bart into work my iPod will shuffle upon a song I listened to heavily when I first read it, and it's like warping back into that point of my life in a major way. Cool. Dave Eggers is a genius.

Also slowly gearing up for the GRE. I took the verbal portion of the practice test available online and scored pretty high. I saved my pathetic math skills for last, so hopefully I don't completely bomb that part of it and panic about my lack of understanding of high school level math.

Mostly I'm looking for inspiration. I don't seem to have much of the creative gumption that I used to - although perhaps being content instead of deeply introspective is a good thing, eh? But I do feel a tad restless without a clear understanding of why or what I can do to scratch that particular itch. Feeling directionless without feeling useless is a new thing. I'm hoping academic pursuits will satiate.

Academic Pursuits

2008-05-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

There needs to be a sloughing off - I have many things to get rid of. The first of which is this nagging sensation that working towards whatever goal gets me a promotion and a job where I'm in charge of anything pertaining to a corporate project is a worthwhile endeavor.

I've been gone from academia too long. I want to throw myself into something that is solely aimed at my own personal growth. I'm just not driven by saving corporations time and money, especially since I'll never see any of that return on my investment. But spending my time researching and writing, teaching and fostering discussions? I'm not so idealistic that I don't know about the unique challenges that can arise from working in academia. But the whole thing just seems to have a purpose the way that other industries simply don't.

And frankly I'm sick of working while under constant task-based micro-management. Sure, have general rules or guidelines that I can interpret and work around creatively. But leave me the fuck alone to do my job. I want to be hired on the basis of my intelligence and be treated like it.

And while I'm at it, I want everyone who's going to bring drama into my life to leave me the fuck alone. I'm not 21 anymore, the thought of sitting on my couch alone on a Saturday watching reruns is totally un-terrifying.

GRE, here I come, you piece of shit standardized test.

I'm in love.

2008-05-04T23:49:00.000-07:00

With a bungalow built in 1910.

It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

I spent the weekend looking at craigslist postings for apartments. And I just don't think I can do it again. I'm sure landlords are people with feelings and whatnot, but I think they suck on principle. I throw my money away each month so they can watch their investment pay for itself. Tricky bastards. Next time I enter into a lease, I'm going to be the one getting the checks. Fuck that.

I'm sure there are other properties. I could settle for a loft with lake views.

Best part about it? The city of Oakland gives you a deferred loan if you're a first time home buyer. So I actually can afford a place that isn't hideous. And do whatever I want to it.

If I end up buying a house, I'm totally throwing the best housewarming party ever. And I'm registering at Crate & Barrel. Fuck that, my house will cost as much as raising a kid to like age 7 or some shit. Without contributing to overpopulation. I deserve some free shit for that kind of accomplishment.

I call horseshit.

2008-04-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to give myself an attitude adjustment. I think I need to grow up. Seriously.

I'll blame the fact that I'm a Taurus to my stubborn commitment to debauchery. Don't get me wrong - I still think hyperbole is the best way to party. But let me attempt to explain this idea via analogous sports cliche - if before I was the cheerleader for debauchery, now I'm more like assistant coach. I'd like to figure out the best way to use debauchery effectively but I also want to make sure the other guys get to play equal amounts of court time. You know, like productivity and moderation. They're sleepers.

I think it's more admirable to taper down than to come to a screeching halt anyway - so this works perfectly for me.

I've also become addicted to the idea that I'm settling down with myself. I think people spend too much time wondering who they will settle down with and not enough energy on the now. I'd like to offer a solution to this phenomenon. If we all put in as much commitment to ourselves and our own lives as we do to our potential or current mates, we would then all live much more functionally as couples. And we would be happier being single. Which, come to think of it, is why relationships would be healthier - chicken, egg...eh.

Solitude is nice. I'm going to rock it for a while. Not in quantity, but quality.

Yeah, I'm being a lame ass introspective freak right now. So what?

Perspective

2008-04-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. I'm going through some shit - give me a break.

So I've decided I can only obsess about my job for so long before I realize that nothing I ever do is going to change the fact that, at the end of the day, I still have to come home to the same old shit. Doesn't it seem like your job defines you in a way that ultimately ends up controlling you?

Mistake #1: Not taking a break in between jobs.
Mistake #2: Waiting so long before I quit a job I hated that I didn't properly prepare myself for entering into a new position in an entirely different type of company.
Mistake #3: Ever giving a shit about a job.

I kind of want to just concede the point. I give up. I was right all along - working kills your soul. Yeah! I totally called that, like 5 years ago! My worst fears have been realized! - Oh, wait...that still means I lose. Even worse - I knew about it a while ago and still let it happen. I think that means I'm basically retarded.

It's cool - it's nicer to be like, "corporate jobs suck" when you have a savings account populated by one than broke, from the back of the house at Denny's. There really isn't that much difference in the work, either. Which brings me to my point - it doesn't matter what I do. Sure, there's the pride in completing work you find meaningful. But at the end of the day, I'm doing it because I get paid to. And for someone who seeks out non-corporate employers, I have to deal with an awful lot of red fucking tape.

Whatever. I just need to file my taxes before April 15th. The older I get, the faster it arrives.

And by old, I mean being a work-a-holic.

New Job = Good.

2008-03-14T00:45:00.001-07:00

Weather = Beautiful. Weekends = Santa Cruz.

Decompression

2008-01-19T22:49:00.000-08:00

It's not often that the beginning of the year is also simultaneous to a major life transition for me. I usually consider the Holidays enough static around this time - but the build up to 2008 should have been a sign that something was up.

You know when something is tightening up inside - softly at first - and then gradually the tension increases so slowly that you don't notice? It was getting to the point where I was noticing. And drinking to make it go away. You always just think it's stress and not something telling you it's time for a change.

I resigned from the j-o-b this week. And have been explaining it to everyone since then. It's funny how I have ended up handling other people's reactions to me quitting more than I have my own this week. I needed a quiet weekend to decompress and think about shit.

I don't really have a plan. I don't really have an exit date. I don't really know if I'm going back to school or finding another job. I don't really know if I even want to leave Current. I just know that I feel better having resigned. I think it was time. The job was turning into something that I didn't want to be. I do wish I could stay, but I don't think that it's a wise decision to do so. I think I'm letting my feelings for my friends at work get in the way of that. I won't miss the work - I'll miss the people I worked closely with. I'll miss making sure their jobs are easier. I'll miss after-work drinks. And while those are very awesome things - they aren't things that should keep me at a position that I don't enjoy and that has no upward mobility to where I'd like to be.

Sigh.

At the end of the day, I think Current has taught me all I can gain from it. I think I've reached the ceiling there. I'm learning nothing new - just rehashing the same horrible problems with different solutions. Sisyphus worked at Current.

So now I just need to figure out a game plan....

X-Mas '07

2007-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Awesome. Absolutely awesome. Four-day weekend, lots of stuff to do, Dad's car key in hand. Wha-aa-t?

Saturday was wrapping presents, drinking wine before the sun goes down, opening presents, eating dinner with the fam - early Christmas-style affair. Quick exit home to meet up with Angie for more wine drinking and catching up. I obsessed about boys, Angie listened. And then she fell asleep - which must be a sign that my shit is tired. HA! We resumed hang-out sesh in the AM with a walk to breakfast and lounging on the couch. Sunday was mostly uneventful - laundry and cleaning ensued after Angie's departure. But some long needed Angie time was had - yeah!

Monday was ass-crack-dawn airport run to SFO with the fam. Oy. Waved goodbye and drove to the gym for a morning workout. From there headed to Maya's for some weed transacting and then hanging out at her pottery studio. I DJ'd while she handed pottery to people and we mostly just enjoyed the smell of clean and the sunlight. While I was there, I got a parking ticket and didn't even give a shit. Fuckers.

Next stop home and meeting up with Megan for some Christmas Eve drunken debauchery. We stopped by Safeway for supplies (necessary, but painful nonetheless) and picked up some champagne, beer and frozen pizzas. We put everything away and drove out to Ocean Beach to catch the Christmas Eve sunset on the Pacific. Epic.

We then went home and consumed pretty much everything drinkable in the house while Megan opened up her presents from her folks back in Texas. Pictures ensued, as did drunken girl-talk. We waited for Santa, but he never showed up so we passed out.

Thankfully, we were obsessive about drinking enough water the night before. Hangovers did not appear, which was good since we had to motor over to Los Gatos for dinner with Rena's family. Yum. Highlights - Megan setting her hair on fire after leaning too close to a candle; laughing about it for about an hour; prime rib by Rena's Mom; and the stoney drive back to SF.

We all decided to extend the weekend as much as possible by having a sleepover at my house so we could carpool into work together in the morning. Contrary to popular belief, sleepovers are totally still acceptable after age 13. Chatting and nominal wine-drinking ensued. As did a 15-minute commute into work. Excellent.

Work was s-l-o-w. Extended lunch and minimal productivity. Have a feeling the entire week will be more of the same. Work is low on my list of priorities right now. More fun with all of the aforementioned ladies is imminent and I can't wait!

It's been a while since I've had a few steady running buddies. Girl who can kick it and handle my level of intoxication when out drinking. Girls who can match it or give me a run for my money. Come to think about it, it's not just girls lately. (Slowing my roll, just as soon as I hit 30...) I'm pretty sure I can out-drink a large part of the male population at work now too. Word! Eye on the Prize. Point being, I'm digging this new groove I've stumbled upon. And I heart my drinkin' buddies.

NYE '07 may be looking good...

Epic Whiskey Drinking

2007-12-17T00:15:00.000-08:00

Oh, Jameson. You do me wrong sometimes.

I think passing out leaning against the side of a house on the sidewalk in the Sunset in the middle of the night qualifies as drunken debauchery. I don't know what it is when you do it twice. In the same night.

I am missing some pieces of yesterday.

And I think I might die - but that could just be the beginning of the hangover from the pitcher of mimosas I had this morning.

At least I wasn't drunker than Erin Mountain. And at least no one took pictures of me passed out on the sidewalk.

Videotape

2007-12-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

I'd like to write poetry in still-drying cement with you.

To spend a lazy Sunday not talking to you.

I know at some point I'm going to have to just come out with it. One of these days.

But until then, I'll continue with trying to make you laugh. It's the small pleasures.

It's such a naive little thing, this. At some point, it's going to realize that the world is not kind. And it's going to wilt and shrink and shy away. Because it's a lame metaphor.

Briana Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Sympatico)

2007-11-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'd rather take a torrent of endless hotels on an interstate of endless dusty roads with an endless array of simple faces passing me by. Is there a difference between asking an endless stream of truckers how they want their eggs versus asking an endless stream of executives how they want their budget? At the end of the day, if I need to drink a bottle of wine or smoke a bowl in order to feel settled, does that not imply that something is out of sorts?

What are we anyway, if not the pursuit of endless dreams?

It's hard to balance in a post-feminist world. If you have any sense of self, that is.

All I know is I'm losing my mind. This much is clear, if only this much. I guess taking stock isn't so great when you're at the point when you realize that you have absolutely no one to....

...and I struggle for the correct phrase here. I have never lacked for friends. I'm a social person. But there are only a small handful of people that you connect with on an intimate level throughout your life. I suppose I'm lacking those people. Perhaps I'm just in between. The limnal spaces are always the worst.

But if you have no one who can call you on your shit or with whom you can let down your guard....you lose something in day to day life.

In the search for sympatico, when do I stop to realize that I can't rely on these people? They come and they go, those. How do other people do it?

At the end of the day, all I really want is to be able to let go in the company of a kindred spirit. Fuzzy sunlit kindred spirit land with it's own soundtrack of acoustic guitar and gentle breezes.

Something that can slow down time for a minute and let you appreciate the subtle details.

All my plants are dying....

2007-11-19T22:38:00.000-08:00

There was a point in time when I had lots of plants all over my house and they grew and I re-potted them into larger pots and they grew more....

But now I can't seem to be bothered.

I think it's because I have cable. And because I left for a month and my cousin didn't water them and they mostly died then. I made a weak attempt at bringing them back, but I don't think I had a chance to properly bond with them before I went away and, therefore, wasn't especially worried about their brown, leafy demise.

But there's something to be said for one's ability to keep plant life alive. Houseplants are pretty hard to kill. You really have to neglect them. Point being, I suck at taking care of things right now.

I could blame my job, but it's not my job's fault that when I'm at home I can't be bothered to water my plants. I don't know what it is. But I'm reading into it and not necessarily liking the conclusion I get. Isn't there some sort of rule out of rehab that you can't start a relationship until you successfully take care of a pet? And that you can't have a pet until you successfully take care of plants? Ok, that may be from a bad Sandra Bullock movie. But the point is relevant no matter where you find it.

I think I'll go to a greenhouse this week (as I have the luxury of having a car) and pick up some new plants and pots and stuff and do some gardening. Word.

===

Thanksgiving approacheth and I have nothing to do on Thursday. (Except Project Greenhouse, apparently) I'm 50/50 between inviting the few people I know who aren't doing anything over for dinner or dragging those people to the bars and getting wasted. I was thinking about it the other day and I realized that this must be the first Thanksgiving I've ever been away from the Fam. I've missed Christmas once (depressing) but I think I made it to Thanksgiving that year.

It's not that Thanksgiving is this super-important holiday for me, per se. I don't even really dig all the food and whatnot. Mostly, it's about having the chance to hang with the whole family. And I'm pretty much solo this year. I'm planning to attack it with gusto and come out of it on Friday victorious. We'll see. I may just roll around at the bottom of a whiskey glass all day instead.

Disconnected

2007-11-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

It's red wine weather again. And stoned on a rainy Saturday afternoon weather. I've been needing an escape, as the vacation honeymoon has long since passed. Sometimes late at night the highway traffic sounds like the ocean. Sometimes the Bay Area feels too big for someone without a car. I miss being in school, meeting new people, drinking lots of beer while writing papers. And then I think about the feeling of being drunk alone in a strange city where no one is speaking your language. Wool-gathering weather. Hm.

I think too much.

I've been a hermit this month. Returning from a long trip makes you take stock. Like for some reason you have to examine the life you came back to and wonder why you bother when you could just cash everything in, pack a big suitcase, and go.

Home feels homier lately too. I think I always get more antisocial in winter, but I always feel like it's unnatural when the weather changes and I start to crave red wine and the couch.

San Francisco is a weird city. I feel like I see all of the shitty parts of it when I'm there. And I'm missing the quiet corners of the city that make it what it's famous for. I want to live by the ocean again. I always imagined living in one of those pastel houses by Ocean Beach when I was growing up here. Might be nice. I'd save money on the bart, that's for sure.

I think I'm going to have to get back to academia soon. The corporate world is getting to me lately. Maybe I'll go part time and take some classes at SFSU. What's the point of trying to work up to a different position if the end result is something I'm not really into? I hate having to play nice to a bunch of morons who have way too much money and absolutely no idea what they fuck it is that they're doing.

I heart my cousin. She's a peach.

Consummation of Grief (Bukowski)

2007-10-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the river
the fish cry
all the water is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines...
it matters little

very little love is not so bad
or very little life

what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this

I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

Homecoming

2007-10-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

I remember this routine: wake up to beeping, coffee, bagel, shower, BART, work-emails-meetings, beer, cigarettes, chatting, BART, music-home-sleep. Repeat. The key is to keep the work to a slow hum and to keep the rest at a roar. The further you get from a vacation, the harder this is - so it remains to be seen if I have the composition to keep it up. I'm hoping inertia will keep the ball rolling for me for a while.

Life. Is. Too. Short.

It's all prep for the following:

Saturday morning. Woken up by the dog - he's huge enough that the drool runs from his mouth in little rivers of saliva. Grab the leash and head outside to get coffee and breakfast. Come back home with a tired dog and some fresh bread and cheese. Grab dog, coffee, food and book. Head out to the back and load it all into the boat. Cast off for the day and tool around the canals until the sun sets.

I'm moving to Amsterdam. One day it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine. One of these days I won't be a stoned tourist watching people float by on their boats with their dogs. I'll be watching the stoned tourists from my boat. And yes, it will be flying the pirate flag.

Return

2007-09-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like your last day in a hostel. Not the last day before you move to another hostel in some other city, but the last day in a hostel of your trip. Game’s over, you have to head home. It always seems to work out that you meet the most people and the coolest people then – they’ve only just arrived and you're already packing your bags. You’ve got a long trip and the even more arduous slipping back into monotony ahead, while they get to spend the next week drinking sangria on the roof. It’s quite tempting to simply miss your flight, pick up a job at a local hostel washing sheets and to continue to live the dream. Which would be the quickest way to kill the vibe. The fact that everything is so spontaneous is what makes the whole experience seem magical. To introduce routine would just be blasphemy. And it’s interesting to note that all of my stays in various hostels throughout Europe kind of blend into one profound experience in the end.

In my conversation with a fellow Aussie traveler today, we observed that the only people who will actually listen to your travel stories are your fellow travelers. The people at home tend to glaze over when you start recounting adventures from the road.

So if you can’t talk in detail about your travels unless you’re actually traveling, it makes a good case for the phenomenon that traveling is really existence on another plane. Backpacking, to be more specific. Nowhere else in the world can you meet such a disparate group of people all united for the same purpose. Nowhere else can you break the barriers of social limits enough to chat up everyone who walks by you after you’ve had a few glasses of sangria.

The thing is, the beauty of it all, you can feel sorrow for leaving just as you’ve met some nice people. But the truth is that you can repeat the same feeling of kinship by association at any hostel in any city of the world on any given day. It’s an endless parade of interim friends just waiting for you to strike up a conversation. Always the same few introductory questions – where are you from, where have you been, how long have you been here, where are you going next? All associated with your travel. It’s not what do you do or who are your parents or who are you dating. It’s tell me where you’ve been – and tell me about it. Is it somewhere I’d want to go? Should I go there tomorrow?

And it takes all kinds – people who’ve quit their jobs to travel, people who travel because they’ve quit their jobs. 18 year old students, 25 year old girls moving away from home and looking for a job and an apartment, 60 year old retirees. Couples. Groups of friends. Solo travelers. People who just don’t have a normal existence. They live by a different set of rules. Going to any decent hostel at one point feels like coming home. Right, climb up to the top bunk in the dark because everyone is sleeping in the room. Wake up just early enough to not miss the free breakfast. It’s nirvana. It’s bohemian. And you never want it to end, but it’s able to exist solely because it has to at some point.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2007-09-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

Europe and new music. It's like a whole new world. At the end of it all, it's about experiencing new places; putting on new hats. Raindrops in Prague falling on my cheek as I look up to see a flying angel atop a Renaissance building. The sky moves faster here. More chances to see the sun peeking through a grey cloud. Some of the hats don't fit. Some of them do, but I don't like the way they feel.

Sometimes it's better to drink alone than with someone who doesn't hear the notes to a song quite the same way you do. Sometimes all you need is a few candles burning into the London night. Sometimes you need to escape to realize that all you want to do is go back. Sometimes escape is everything you needed to realize that going back would be the worst thing you could do. And sometimes escape plants you firmly in the middle of these two desires, and merely serves as escape with the false promise of perspective.

I know that I'm the only person in my world who I can depend on, but that to do so unequivocally would mean my destruction. Sometimes you need to depend on the unreliable, you need to trust those who don't deserve it. Sometimes you need to revel in the utter blackness of desolation - just to appreciate rising up again into the glare of the sunlight.

Sometimes you need a pilgrimage.

You can only enjoy the tapping and running of raindrops on a windowpane if you've been stuck outside in their downpour.

There are loves lost. There are loves found and then found to be false. And then there are loves that have merely been skirted. And these are the ones that stay with us in the dark. It is the promise of things not yet indulged, the temptation of love lost. Compare it to the sun shining behind a tree branch; it highlights that which is beautiful but also shadows that very object. Forever to remain an outline of shadow behind the light. Love is both shadow and light. But in this image neither rein.

It is a song that speaks to your soul on a train that shuttles past an endless montage of graffiti. It is the sun that teases to burn through the window at full force during this voyage but that is forever trapped behind the shadows of endless tunnels. It is the empty wine glass and the drip-drip-drip of the empty wine bottle at the end of the night. It is the mist that clings to the fire of a lamp post, creating a crescent of light onto a picture taken in the hopes of capturing the essence of a desolate street corner - trespass by a muse.

It is the opening of a new bottle even though you know it isn't necessary. It is reading a novel that is written in the very language of your soul, and reading it in a cafe in Old Town Prague while you sit beside someone who has no idea what the novel is about, someone who has no desire to listen to the subtleties enough to find out.

It is looking up at the unfamiliar star-scape and contemplating the thousands of miles of distance that create such a small disparity in the constellations. To be lost in a century when these differences meant more than simply boarding a plane and going home to the comfort of a familiar canopy of stars.

It is weighing the heavy against the light, desire against infatuation, life against living.

That's why I wear camouflage...

2007-08-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's the height of the tourist season - and San Francisco is suffering from camera-snapping congestion. What can you do but laugh at the hoards of people who are simply not from around here? Thank god I can come home and get away from it all.

Drink beer on the grass - check.
Visit innumerable shops in China Town - check.
Stay moderately stoned all day - check.
Eat some good food - check.
Make fun of tourists (and strangers in general) - check.

Not a bad Saturday.

I am in need of accumulating a list of sites to see in Europe. Top on today's list is Mont-St-Michel. I would love to take my own pictures of this place. Something about building a city on top of a tidal island seems very French to me.

It's a bit remote, but I kind of want to go anyway. But maybe it would be better to go in the winter.

Homeless people can be funny as hell sometimes. The bum who told us that drinking in public is illegal had a hilarious response to my statement that this particular action is illegal everywhere. He wasn't wearing any camouflage, but he also wasn't drinking in public. So, there you have it, folks.

Archives: It's hard to drink beer behind a helmet.

2007-07-23T22:38:00.000-07:00

The beginning of my debaucherous 27th Birthday Night Out. Sadly, the helmet didn't make it intact through the rest of the evening - although that's the one trauma that can't be blamed on me that evening.

Yes, I kind of like the look of the helmet on my head.
No, I don't see motorcycle riding in my future.
I can't even come out of a bicycle ride unscathed.

Bygones

2007-07-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

Two of my besties at work have moved on - either voluntarily or not. Work will no longer be the same. My hope is that one of them will hire me on and eventually get me out of the Current madness. Until then, I'm making a wall of fallen comrades - and they're the first two up there.

Sigh.

New Digs & New Jersey

2007-07-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Cosmic Robot has reminded me I have this damn thing - and that it's in serious need of updating. (Mostly his ass just wants me to post so his night of drunken shame is not first up for everyone's viewing pleasure.)

I moved! New casa is muy bueno. Smaller, closer to BART, cheaper, yet still with the goodness. I'm throwing a housewarming party Saturday next, so it's prep time this weekend putting the finishing touches on the new place to make it ready for party-hosting. I sense Ikea in my future, unfortunately. But there's this book case I've had my eye on for a while....

We've been here for about a month, but I don't feel like I've spent much time here yet. Still settling in and not having anyone over for drinks and dinner contributes. That, and I've spent a considerable amount of time on the weekends away.

First was Mat's 40th Birthday @ Stinson Beach. Amazing. Great weather, great food, awesome people - an all around good time. I had a moment on the beach of total and complete peace. It was a full moon, the wind had died down, I was smoking pot with CK and staring at the reflection of the moon on the water...best moment of the summer thus far - thanks Mat!

Then it was off to NJ. For the last time, thankfully. I caught up with the family and we threw a BBQ for the Dad and the Brother-in-Law and the Grandma (all June babies) and invited the handful of people we know in NJ over for some good eats and lots of drinking. Fireworks were lit, childhood stories were told, bla bla bla. Good times. Glad I never have to go back to NJ.

Also new - I'm over the job. Completely and absolutely finished with it. I work for a complete moron and I'm sick of over-extending and never being recognized for it. I'm officially a clock-watcher and a "that's not my job" sayer. Whatever. Current TV? Revolutionizing television and sucking the soul and ambition out of young professionals everywhere.

And on that note, I'm out. Pot is good for you, I think I'll smoke some.

Irony & Wine

2007-06-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

I made a semi-drunken promise to my very drunk friend Mat to blog about the last time we hung out. So - here goes:

In an attempt to bring the Thursday night drinks back to popularity, Mat and I have sent emails to the group the past two weeks. The first week it was me and one other admin. Nothing special. This week it was Mat and I. Common attendee? Yeah, I have nothing more to do than drink, apparently.

So we headed to a nice spot in the Mission called the Latin American. Nice place - odd decor and nice bar staff - just my thing. We had a few drinks - all the while Mat kept declaring he was only having two rounds. (To his credit, the rounds consisted of one whiskey shot and one beer) I sipped on his whiskey, but he had most of it. I had two beers. We bitched about work.

Then he decided that it was time to go - but I was just getting started. So I said we should grab dinner somewhere that I could drink wine. (Yes, I am a crafty motherfucker) We headed across the street to a tapas restaurant. I ordered a carafe of Sangria for us to share. Well, I didn't do most of the pouring - he kept refilling the glasses when they were empty (which was mostly his). Anyway, at the end of the meal, I was toasty but by no means drunk. Mat was wasted.

Awesome.

It's a nice switch from the norm - since I've spent many a night on Mat's couch hanging between passing out and vomiting.

I had to escort the drunky home to make sure he got back without a problem - it's only fair to make sure he didn't get abducted on the walk home. When we got there, we smoked some pot - which only made Mat more retarded. He could only open one eye, as he was seeing in double. Oh yes, I've been there my friend.

Then he had to vomit. Which was good. I told him he had to get the evil out.

I left to get to Bart only after I made sure Mat was going to pass out on his side so he didn't drown in his own vomit.

Fun times. Even more fun? Working with Mat the next day and laughing at how sad and hungover he was.

Yes, I'm evil. But I really only provide people with an excuse to drink the amount that they'd like to but are too afraid to do themselves. At least that's what I tell myself.

Word.

Blog

2007-05-31T00:52:00.001-07:00

It's been days since I've written in this thing. Mostly due to the fact that I've been drinking too much and...stuff. Angie came over and we had dinner at the sushi boat restaurant down the street. Much fun catching up and dishing about the past few weeks. Her boy is really glad he wasn't there, due to the extreme girl-ness of the conversation. I have to say, I miss that girl. It's fun reminiscing about old times - and about not-so-old times. Thankfully, she has not submitted to the married crowd yet.

The madre is in New Jersey this week, which is a nice break from the parent thing. I feel bad, because my Mom is pretty mellow. But she's still my Mom and living with her is weird sometimes.

I'm gearing up for a trip to the UK. It's time. I need a vacation. I now need to compose a list of other destinations - because while I'm there I may as well take advantage. I'm thinking I may have to hit up Germany for Octoberfest. I'd also like to see Prague. And I'd love to go back and explore more of Belgium and The Netherlands. Spain is on the list too, but I don't want it to get much longer - because I can't take as much time off from work as many more destinations would warrant.

I wish the weather would stop being so lame. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for foggy weather, it's nice thinking weather. But not in the last week of May. I don't want to be thinking too much in the Summer - I want to be drinking on a porch in the sunlight working on a nice tan. I want to be at the beach. There is a time and a place for damp, cold weather. It's the winter - or it's the Sunset. I'm in neither time or place, so I'm kind of pissed. I got spoiled in Santa Cruz. (As opposed to just never going outside in New Jersey) I forgot the Bay Area is much less temperate. Times like these I need a car so I can drive to the places where it's warm. Damn the lack of car.

Off to bed - I've been staying up way too late and coming to work far past 9. It has to end...

Epic Global Domination

2007-05-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

Some old SC buddies came over to play Risk today. It was the perfect day to sit around on the porch, drink cheap Mexican beer with lemon, and listen to hip-hop and the clackity-clack of the dice.

Erik, Jeff and myself - picture taken with Jeff's monkey arm holding my camera precariously.

More monkey arm shots with Jeff.

We played for hours - which is why we needed to light up the board with candles later on in the evening.

The game was starting to heat up. After dominating Europe and most of Asia (and Africa for a few turns), I fell to the Jeffster's evil card-dealing ways. He took out Erik and gained 4 more cards to trade in - which allowed him to sweep the globe with 50 troops in the middle of his turn. Needless to say, I seceded. That's too much dice-rolling when I know I'm going to lose.

Besides losing Risk, I didn't do a whole lot else this weekend. I had some wine with Angie and her new boy Jeff (different than the one pictured above) on Saturday. We subjected the poor guy to endless wedding slideshows, Vegas pictures, and a ton of girl chat. Poor dude.

It's that time of year where you can glimpse summer around the corner. I'm hoping for some sweet barbeque action at my house soon. It's also high time for another beach bonfire. Good thing my birthday's next weekend - I plan on inviting as many people as possible to come over and bring food and meat. Yes!

Just 5 more days of work before the next weekend. I can handle that, right?

Boo.

Vegas, Napa, Beyond...

2007-05-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

What a month. Weddings are exhausting when you're helping plan them. There is some fun involved, but for the most part it's expensive, stressful and emotionally draining. I don't know if I have the energy to detail the past two weeks in full. Perhaps I can mention the cliffnotes.

Vegas - what a scandal! Walking the strip with a group of drunk girls labeled with Bachelorette Party shirts was an interesting phenomenon. Going to a strip club with my Mom, cousin and sister was by far one of the most amazing experiences thus far - what a total riot. I always knew my Mom was cool - but now I'm pretty sure she's a complete rockstar.

Wedding - what do I say? The event itself was beautiful. My sister looked fantastic. I looked like a purple cupcake. This is my job as maid of honor. I was also responsible for keeping my sister calm the day before and the day of - not an easy task. The day before was ok - I just had to step up and keep the wedding party and rest of the family organized for the rehearsal. Then on to the day of - I don't know how many phone calls I got from people asking about random details. And then the whole my sister is crying and swearing and shaking and I have to apply her makeup and we've got about a half hour before the ceremony starts. And then she was fine - she got ready to walk down the aisle and settled into this nice calm. But the whole couple of days caught up with me and I started to lose it. I didn't really think that I was the crying at weddings type of person - but I guess I'm allowed to cry at my sister's, yes? My brother-in-law's family was really funny - they kept saying how I had presented as really strong and tough - but that I was a real softie after all. I told them it was only when I put on a dress.

I think what I'm glad about is the perspective the whole thing gave me. I tend to forget that my sister is a really big part of my life, because she's so far away, and because we're so different. But my family is really important to me - and I love them all to pieces. I need to stop working so much and start seeing more of them, it's so easy to take them all for granted and live my own life. I think for the longest time I was under the impression that it had to be one or the other - my life as my own or my life with my family. But I really need to work towards meshing the two together. I've been on my own for so long that I think I got way too cynical. Hm.

In any case, it's going to be nice to get back to my own life. I miss my friends. I sense drinking in the future...

Happy Saturday

2007-04-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

I drank some wine and decided to roll out to the lake. Chelsea and Donaldo told me I had to take my cell phone to make sure I could call for help if needed. Wow. I stumbled to the lakeside - and by the time I got there I had to pee something fierce. So I bend over by a tree - and almost fucking freak out to discover a jogger coming up on the right quick. My reaction - to fall down - is a good one. I end up freaking dude out more than needed, but at least I'm cool. Jogger passes and I pee on the tree. And then I stroll a little more and discover a sweet spot by the lake. Nice view of the reflections of cars driving by and the fountains. I lay down and ponder things. It's tempting to simply close my eyes and spend the night here with the smell of fresh grass and the sound of trickling water. So I spend about 20 minutes wishing I could be bohemian enough to just succumb and pass out in the grass. And I always catch myself in that near-comatose state. I turn my head all the way to the left and see a profile of green and white reflection. And I wish it could never end. I turn to the right and see more green - and I feel the itch of the grass on my back. My heart prays for another jogger to interrupt my thoughts. I eventually make it from lying, cushioned to standing, swerving. And I begin the long walk home. I want to stay and sing to the darkness. I want to scream that this is only the beginning. But I return to my house alone. I return to the end of time - alone. Listening to Lucero - and alone. As it should be.

river styx

2007-04-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

And now it seems silly that I held your eyes in such high regard.
I step from the car
after leaving a...goodbye...laced with fabricated hope.
I should have said "don't be a stranger",
I should have kissed you.
And I drive out of town trailing the ghost of you - of this place - behind me.
The exodus is reversed this time.
It is the same drive, only backwards.
Because I see the gauze behind those eyes that drowns and traps and sinks.
I see the dancing, as before, but now also
the bullets that snap like firecrackers around your feet.
I've been too many places to be dragged back under.
I drive, and in so doing, rise.
Rise like a phoenix from the ashes towards a horizon not strapped to sand.
Drive away from nights lost in the bottom of a glass,
and slow mornings spent with the waves and wool.

Slow Gurkin

2007-03-28T01:07:00.000-07:00

I have some friends that I wish I could talk to more and with whom I could speak more honestly. I have some friends who I wish would never leave. Some I wish could get their ever-loving shit together. But for the most part - none of them really know me. Oooo - I know - I'm so obscure. I'm not citing it as a positive trait. We don't all go through life play-acting at our loved ones, do we?

Bygones.

I'm upset to say goodbye to a friend tonight. Not just someone I met through work who doesn't matter - but someone who I connected with on a very basic level. And why is it that you always wait until the last moment you have before you notice how crucial someone is to your life? Or is that just me?

All I can hope is that the two of our lives have intersected in a way that resonates with each party. That the connection is one that leaves an impression on both of us. Because really what does everyone have - what makes us who we are - except the sum of our experiences?

How much heady introspection can I pack into one day? A lot. From morning until early morning next, apparently. Someone told me today that I'm constantly expecting people to change - to be different than - themselves. 1) Is this true? 2) Don't I just expect the best out of people? 3) Doesn't everyone?

I think I'm also prey to the beast of flawed perception. I can only see from this very restrictive peep-hole. And I expect others to also look through, because to look through is to meet me and to connect. Such is music a shared perception of emotion - and should thus be well used as an emotional rorschach.

And if you don't enjoy shivering in the cold night quiet, don't waste my time. Is that so irrational?

Cat Power - You Are Free. Good god-damn album.

16th & Valencia

2007-03-15T22:52:00.000-07:00

I got off work and headed to the Mission to meet my buddy tonight - and when I got there it was kind of a disaster. He was sitting at a table at this coffee shop talking to one of the regulars in that kind of circular drunk way. My arrival was kind of half-way recognized from his stupor of booze and god knows what else. I had a beer, smoked some weed and tried to get out of him why he was so fucked up (he's got tolerance of steel, my friends) and eventually just put him in a cab and sent the poor dude home. Which was actually kind of perfect, because my whole family is staying at a hotel in south city and my cousin is sleeping. I have the living room to myself and I'm sitting here digging the silence and drinking some wine. But I need to pull that dude aside and have one of those drunken-stoned let's talk about life type of evenings.

It's been family visit month so far in March. It's only going to get worse in April. My life is officially all about my sister's wedding right now. Boo.

I'm trying to figure out how I have time to move in the next month or so. My folks are getting serious about buying a house - which means I have to get serious about finding a cheaper place. Apartments should just fall in your lap. That would be sweet. You know what's not sweet - my Mom trying to convince me to buy a house. Wow. It's cute that she thinks I'm in any way ready or capable to do so. I think.

I have rediscovered Cat Powers - and by this - Nina Simone. Sweet.

So on to the small bits of social life I actually have left.

I had a small shindig at the casa. Works peeps. They brought the hookah and I cooked the food. Dave Simon brought his dog. Pics to prove I'm not all introspective delusion.

Dave Simon. Hookah. Intense Oakland sky.

Chelsea playing Prince of Persia in the corner. (No, we didn't notice the theme.)

Frank is intimidated by her skillz.

End social life.

White wine. Nina Simone. Waxing poetic on a blog.

You know what I want to do when I grow up? Go back to school and research odd phenomena like dead kid's myspace pages used as memorials. You ask why. I answer because what else is there to do? I may as well contribute to the philosophical and theoretical parts of society and teach or something. Instead of having meetings about establishing processes and streamlining workflow. What a waste of energy.

Onwards.

Pirates Rule.

2007-02-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

I want to tell kids who are just approaching theit first foray into the "real world" that it's not all it's made up to be. I feel like they deserve a warning for the next 5 or 10 years. But then I realize that a lot of the kids who enter the work force are completely useless and totally inexperienced. And then I figure that these shitbag kids will be making more money for doing less work than me right out of school. Why? Because they know some cock who went to the same fraternity as they did. So fuck those kids.

Seriously, I'm second guessing my decision to pass for a player in the corporate world. People at work are just slightly off kilter for me - all into renting Tahoe cabins for the snowboarding season and shit. Going to lunch at different restaurants because that's interesting. I feel like a character in American Psycho.

In any case, I miss being alone. I never have alone time anymore - sometimes I'm lucky to have a few hours on the weekend. Eh. It's making me very tense.

Enough bitterness. I'm actually not doing bad lately - I'm just stressed at work and it's bleeding into my world. I am enjoying the brisk fall weather - both the torrential rain and the crisp sunny days. It's good thinking weather. Red wine. Pot. Radiohead. Ruminations. Heater.

I've been needing a 40-on-the-beach-talking-about-life night. It's not Santa Cruz. I can't rock that anymore, which is sad.

Bygones. I'm content. Stressed, but content. This is all I ask for.

Bonfires and Crown Vics

2007-02-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

I took a road trip to Santa Cruz with Frank & Christine to enjoy the weather. We headed into town and stopped for coffee at Pergolesi, where we met up with Scot & Liz.

Then it was on to the beach for some bonfire action. Mid-February and spring in California, and I couldn't be any more ready for it to be here. We hit up Seabright beach with some sandwiches, wine, s'mores and fir'wood. Below, one of the neighboring bonfires - not the one with the 15-year old kids talking about penises in their ears. There were even some fireworks - we assumed in celebration of Chinese New Year.

Scot was the fire dominator.

The green dot below is the lighhthouse, Great Gatsby style.
Overall, a very nice break from the normal grind. I drank some wine, smoked some weed, talked some talk, made some s'mores. The weather was perfect - not too windy or cold. The fog rolled in and it got a little damp, but the fire was warm enough to take care of the chill.

We packed up, headed to the cars and went home - the car ride back out of town reminded me of riding in the back of Jeff's 5-0 Mobile. Hip-hop blasting in the car, all the windows down, Dan's arm crooked out the front passenger window with a lit cigarette and Jeff's arms flailing wildly to the beat while he steers over the 17. Me, stoned, in the back under a blanket, not able to hear the conversation in the front, and not caring because it's entertaining enough to read their gesticulation. The lights rushing by, streaking blurs with matching circles of reflection swooping past in a frenetic pattern.

Wool

2007-02-17T00:29:00.000-08:00

-On living with Mom - It's going to be nice to not constantly have someone to whom to compare myself. Not that it's a bad thing - it's mostly that I notice how I've inherited certain characteristics of hers and diverge completey on certain others. I notice myself noticing more often than maybe I should. And it's good to have a clear head to notice other stuff instead.

Wall Street

2007-02-08T00:32:00.000-08:00

Wow. I went to dinner/drinks with one of my bosses and a vendor we work with. A lot of history there, but the end result is that I spent a night out drinking with a VP level boss. This guy was a baller back in the dot com boom - back when there were too many around that everyone should have known it was short-lived. We talked some shop - a lot of shop - and needless to say it was an interesting time. All I have to say is that he turned my stereo up when The Mars Volta came on and I was like, "Waaa?".

My boss (and, on and off, the rest of the staff) is in the UK - so it's pretty mellow right now. I am really hoping for a UK trip on my horizon, but it's not looking good. Boo.

Work=Vortex

2007-02-01T02:06:00.000-08:00

Lame. I spend too much time bitching about spending too much time working. No more needs be written.

I'm going apartment-hunting in SF this weekend - it's time. Oakland is dead to me.

On a side-note, The Stone's "Beast of Burden" is a damn fine song.

On another side-note, I'm exhausted. My original hope was to compose something much more articulate but I've used all my words alotted for today.

Poker & Some Good-God-Damn-Fiction

2007-01-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

I love Poker. Even though most of the time I don’t win. See – it works out to be even most of the time. Last week I cleaned up – rolling out of the game with $45 is no joke. I got some dirty looks, but what the fuck ever. This week – I’m out the $20 I brought. So maybe the time before last I lost money, and maybe I’m down if you’re really keeping track. But I don’t give a shit. I like being able to drink a bottle of wine to my fucking head and playing poker with some cool folk. It makes my 12 hour work day that much more earned. Whatever.

I haven’t updated in a while – not sure why. I’m not exactly living it up lately, but I’m also just really burnt out. It’s taken me working 50+ hour weeks to even keep my head nominally above water lately – which is 10+ more hours than I’m getting paid for, unfortunately. But I can’t complain. I don’t work for Denny’s. I don’t go to school. I don’t have a husband or kids. So – points for me!

Speaking of kids – I have to go to a baby shower in a few weekends. WTF?! I don’t know why this is all of a sudden my life. Weddings, baby showers….bullshit. I call bullshit on this. I’m 26. Do people my age and younger actually get married and have kids with enough regularity for me to statistically have to attend this many of these things? Wow. I kind of thought my generation would live up to more than this. Let’s chain ourselves down to the daily grind at the same age as our parents – there’s the way to bridge the generation gap, people.

Doesn’t anyone want to travel the world and stay single anymore? If I meet that person I would consider marrying them in 10+ years - after we were done travelling the world and not having babies, that is.

I am reading the most excellent book. It's slow and it's hard to manuever. But it's poetry makes the effort worthwhile. From "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey:

At the window of her one-room shack Indian Jenny sips her bourbon and snuff and becomes more interested in the moonlit march of clouds. They come trouping in from the sea in mighty masculine columns, and, squinting, she leans bulkily forward to try to make out the half-remembered faces of this army - handsome, handsome and tall they were, an army handsome and tall and white as snow, stretching back over the horizon of her memory.

God damn if there isn't a more confusing, beautiful, powerfully written novel. And I'm only on page 61 of 628. I look forward to the rest of this beautiful mess. It will take me a while, but it's worth it - for prose such as this, it's worth it.

I'm now too drunk to type. So Briana is over and out.

New Jersey

2007-01-11T00:33:00.000-08:00

As the tears dry, salt trails make sticky cheeks.
I pour another glass of wine and it stumbles towards my lips.
There is no quiet here - no midnight echoes of crashing waves -
just the kind of heat that drowns
and the cacophony of small insects to accompany.

I try to outrun these silent midnight tears -
perhaps for a moment I find peace -
but they always find me - hiding at the bottom of the glass -
drag me again beneath the wake.
Drunk and hungry - lying in wait - they pounce
when the world is blurry through the looking glass.

No, I have no class.

2007-01-09T23:42:00.000-08:00

I have to say that, minus the empty downtown sprawl of Oakland, my walk home is pretty awesome. What it's lacking is a local business in which I can duck to take a pee. See, I have this problem of drinking too much and hopping on the bart to get home. I always pee right before I leave the bar - but by the time I've reached my stop in Oakland, I need to go again. What, I ask you, is a girl to do? I try to walk home - thinking I can make it the two miles to my bathroom. Sometimes I can. Other times I simply have to find a private tree. It's not as easy as it seems. I think I always end up exposing myself to someone - but I'm usually too drunk to notice.

What I'm asking for is simple - for the many establishments with bathrooms on my walk home to stay open just a few hours later. I'll settle for just one placed conveniently about halfway into my walk. This would be perfect. If it served beer or wine, even better! I would buy a drink after using the bathroom - pee again - and stagger home.

This way I can enjoy the reflection of lights on the surface of Lake Merritt and even stop to gaze at the fountains and how they make the reflections ripple in a cool way.

For the love of God a bathroom.

In other news, I just finished an excellent book by Paul Bowles - one of my all time favorite authors - called Up Above the World. I'm going to quote his modest poetry and call it a night.

She rose. "I've got to get something to put around my shoulders. The wind's blowing right on me."
He did not offer to go with her. As she hurried along toward the bedroom, she found herself marveling that she should be able to go on talking while Taylor lay unconscious. It seemed to help prove the truth of a suspicion she had long entertained: people could not really get very close to one another; they merely imagined they were close.

Good Times

2007-01-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

It's been a while...fer sure, dude!

2007-01-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

How do I put it? I wasn't feeling necessarily inspired to wax poetic on my quotidian existance. It would have gone something like this: my family has invaded my house and I've resorted to smoking cigarettes on the back porch and drinking by myself in the kitchen all alone. It may have been enjoyable to read about (in that "wow at least my life isn't that kind of shitty" way) but not very fun to recap at the end of a handful of dismal days.

However, I have rediscovered my groove. Thanks, in large part, to a fantastic Thursday night drinking session followed by an excellent drunken New Year's Eve. Shall I detail?

Thursday started out looking a bit mellow - Angie met up with Jesse, Fred, Kelsey and I at this horridly SOMA-esque "asian fusion restaurant/lounge" down the street from work. The high point was leaving. We then headed to Hotel Utah - where we talked some shop, ate some decent bar food, met up with a few more cats, and got harassed by the door man to buy tickets to the impending show. I was sort of interested in hearing the folk/indie thing slated for the evening, but I wasn't feeling paying $6 to do so. We bailed, found a cab, and ended up at Amber @ Church & Market. Smoking inside, cheap drinks, and pouncing on a booth occupied by a few fellow Current folk made it possible to ignore the entirely obnoxious hipster scene. I was coerced into taking something called a "stunt man shot". It's just going to sound retarded if I explain it, so if you are dying to know I'll make you take one with me one drunken evening. Angie and I ended up having to cab it home, since we decided we were having too much fun to leave for last Bart. I don't remember much of the evening past the cab ride, which means I drank just the right amount.

New Years went like this: Santa Cruz house party, beer bongs, champagne, kitchen dance party, hip-hop in Jeff's stalker van, toilet whiskey AND champagne, and passing out on the hardwood floor. Good times were had by all - here are the pics!

Day 1 with Madre

2006-12-18T23:21:00.000-08:00

All around - not too bad. The Madre came in at about 3AM - three cat carriers and four suitcases must mean she's planning on staying a while. I was stoned, half-asleep and completely retarded. But the house was clean & warm and she didn't seem to care about my state of mind (hmmm...).
We both woke up this morning to phone calls from my Dad - asking us for information he should already have and doesn't need to know - you know, can we maybe shoot for 10pm when making those kinds of calls, please?
I made coffee, we sat in the sun and talked about times past. Mostly we just bitched about Dad and then moved on to getting ready for the day.
She called tonight and asked if I wanted a ride from the BART - wow. That's kind of cool. Rides from the BART. I could get used to this.

I got home, opened some wine, VPN'd in to Current, put my headphones on and worked while she fell asleep to House, MD and The Antique Roadshow. I have to set my alarm and wake her up for work tomorrow. I'm revelling in the irony right now, it's pretty amusing.

In other news: I'm not a total loser who has fun hanging out with her mom. In fact, I enjoy other activities as well. Lots of different activities that don't involve mi madre.

What I'm really not into is the cats everywhere. It's creepy. I wake up, they're sleeping in my clothes basket. I look around when I'm on the couch and they're surrounding me. It's not a comforting feeling, trust me. Here's an example:

Those eyes say one thing, and one thing only: "When you go to work, I'm going to find your most precious object and pee in it."

Fuckin' cats.

Pizza. Cow.

2006-12-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

The weekend started - and will end - with cleaning. It's the beginning of a clean and (while at home) sober spell, since the madre is moving in tonight. Weird. I just need to get through Christmas without going insane - recently discovered to be more difficult upon learning that my Dad and brother are staying at our house for 10 days.
It helps that I got some drunk this weekend. Friday was Angie, wine and I. Chelsea made a guest appearance. Fun was had, it went something like this:

Saturday was a fairly stellar last-gasp party. Current peeps showed up - Good Times. Chelsea's Wyotech crew came by, Jagger bombs and Jack & Cokes were in the house. Dave Simon (Chelsea: "Dave Simon!") brought Sutro. The cow was attacked and disboweled:

I made pizza and kept losing my drinks - which is why I ended up mixing beer, wine and jack all night.

We now have to go Christmas shopping and then clean up the cow stuffing all over the house. No me gusta - I'm tired.

Next on the agenda: Civilized Dinner Party with Madre, anyone?

I have $2.00 until Friday.

2006-12-11T23:39:00.000-08:00

Two old-ass Budweisers in the fridge. Three cigarettes. No weed.

This is not good.

I don't know whether to vomit on my own face or cry.

And I have to wake up, get to work, pretend to not hate the world, and then go home and do it all over again.

I think I may have to drink the rest of those beers to get through the next hour. Fuck this shit.

My Mom is Moving in - and Other Depressing-ness.

2006-12-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

I hate weekends that suck. This weekend was kind of a downer. In a nutshell it went like this:
got my hair cut, took a nap in a crappy hotel room, went out drinking in Santa Cruz, got drenched in the rain, ran into some people I hate, got angry drunk because the scene sucked, and slept the rest of the weekend. Lame.

In other news, mi Madre is moving in this Sunday. Good because she gets to leave NJ for CA. Bad because I have to live with my Mom for an undetermined amount of time. Really bad because now I can't smoke in my house. Hey, at least I know where my priorities fall.

To boot, work is getting worse by the day with no end in sight. My social life is steadily becoming restricted to a small circle of work friends because I have no time for anyone else.

And Christmas is rapidly approaching while my bank account is steadily dwindling.

I think this all amounts to one thing: it's beer-thirty.

Fuck.

Wine, you do me right.

2006-12-07T00:05:00.000-08:00

So - true to form, I grabbed a bottle of red wine from the store on my way home from work last night with the intention of drinking a few glasses for dinner. Well, Chelsea got up in the mix and we got a little shitty. Ok, a lot shitty. Drunk-dialing, rolling on the floor, chain-smoking, shit-talking shitty. It was epic, and we have the pictures to prove it, people.

It starts out respectable enough...

And then we Warhol it up...
And then we drink some more, and eat microwave burritos. And then it's back to the pictures...
Oh, it gets better. We decide to go emo...
And then it gets hard to remember...
And this is the final picture...
3D glasses rule. And so stylish!

For the record, we took about 180 pictures. If I scroll through them really fast it's like a flip book of the evening.

Yes, we are total voyeurs. No, we don't have any shame.

Champagne of Beers

2006-12-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

Angie and I take turns taking care of each other. Friday was my turn to play sober sister...which I do terribly well drunk. She has this funny habit of not admitting that she's wasted - so I've developed (a wholly useless) system to test our level of intoxication.

"On a scale of 1-10, ten being the most drunk, what are you?"

She's always a 3 or 4.

Four strong vodka tonics later, she's still a 4.

We poll the bartender, who says she's a 7.5. She yells at him that he's lying and orders another drink - which he serves with water. Bartenders know most Asians can't hold their shit. Especially when they start hitting people and swearing a lot - a true sign that Angie is sailing smoothly past 5 on the drunk scale.

We try to convice Robin that she needs more beer, but she can't be persuaded. Then Angie smacks her to drive home the point. My eyebrows go up a notch and I start thinking of cutting the lush off...I try to drink her vodka tonic myself, but it's really strong and I hate tonic water.

She narrowly escapes hitting a pole on the walk home - I pulled her to safety at the last minute. She doesn't notice.

Bart train ride was uneventful - except for the throwing up. No, people, I don't know that drunk ass chick next to me with her leg draped over me and a paper bag under her chin.

We get home with the help of Oakland's Quick Cab Company and I tuck her into my bed - trashcan by her head.

Then I'm feeling kind of sober, so I drink some wine on top of the 6 or 7 beers and pass out on the couch.

She wakes up in my Miller High Life tee shirt - yes, I thought it was funny too - and we recap the night while sunbathing on the porch. Not too many places you can work on your tan in the first week of December - but my porch, Oakland, CA is most awesomely one of them.

It's ok - the last time one of us puked, it was me and she did me well.

Please let there never be a time when the two of us are disasters together.

However, if that does happen, we know Robin has our back.

PS: There are pictures, but I'm waiting for Angie to send them to me so I can post them (hint).

Meow?

2006-12-02T01:36:00.000-08:00

Three beers. This is the minimum number of beers it takes me to decompress from work. Until mid-way through beer #3 I am a catatonic freak-show. This is not good. I can no longer leave work, grab a drink with some friends and relax - unless I'm putting back a six pack or more. Which is fine - because as far as I'm concerned why drink at all unless it's to excess? But three beers? I suppose that this is what it means to be on the forefront of television.

And another thing: I've been experiencing an odd sensation as of late. It's best described as a burning sensation in my stomach and a constant twitch in my leg. From what I know about physiology, I'm suffering from stress. This is entirely and completely unacceptable. I'm too mellow to suffer from stress. My job is now harshing my mellow. This is distressing t0 say the least.

My only solution? Drinking more - and more often. And lots of downers. I swim every other day - but the endorfins don't last as long as they used to. So I've resorted to red wine, chain-smoking, whiskey, and pot to get me through the winter.

And now that I think about it - this job isn't half bad. An easy excuse to delve into complete dependency? Count me in!

Just don't ask me about work when I'm high. That's fucked up.

Lake Merritt

2006-12-01T01:05:00.000-08:00

I've decided that waiting for the bus from the Oakland Bart station is ridiculous. I'm walking from now on. Since it's always dark when I'm coming home from work now I've decided that watching the reflection of the lights on the water as I walk past is much more invigorating than sitting on a cold cement slab and avoiding the creepy dudes who drive up to me in vans asking if I smoke pot. The picture above does absolutely no justice to the view I have of the lake when I walk home. Have iPod, will travel.

And on another note - what is it about winter? Does everyone else become uber-introspective too? And why is this state of mind so incredibly fulfilling? I think I'm broken. Is everything more profound in the winter, or is it just me?

Winter = Content

2006-11-30T00:15:00.000-08:00

The absolute best thing about winter is being freezing ass cold and then walking into a warm room - preferably where there is wine to drink. Red wine. The sensation of your skin slowly warming up to the heat is, without a doubt, the best thing in the world. And any weather that makes me want to guzzle red wine and wax poetic is a damned good thing.

To further my point - I have opened my expensive bottles of Napa reds and consumed them all by myself and chain smoked inside my house while listening to whiny music. Before you judge me for drinking alone (and imply anything about my unconfirmed alcoholism) I should mention that Angie has been my enabler by telephone. I love Angie.

But what better time of year to perform such solitary indulgences?

I fucking love winter - you can hide in your scarves and the lighting is profound, like, everywhere you go. If only I had a functional camera and an endless supply of black and white film...I'd quit my job, drink wine all day, and live off my photography.

*Sigh*

...

2006-11-29T06:19:00.000-08:00

...and as the sun rises and I warm my hands around my coffee cup, I'm still trying to shake the sensation of existing between dreaming and awake.

I play the same song on repeat and smoke a few cigarettes to chase away the last strands of dream, knowing that I'll only be working to forget the feeling wrenched away from me when I woke up.

God damn it's cold.

Turkeys

2006-11-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

On my first morning back in CA, I wake up to sunlight shining into my room - and it never ceases to amaze me how fucking awful New Jersey is. It's not that there isn't sunlight - it's that it's not quite the same brightness and color over there - and it doesn't shine into your room and make it all yellow and pretty when you wake up. Whatever, it rained almost every day I was in NJ - and it was *cold*.

Thanksgiving - we cook and argue and then sit down and say we love each other and then eat and argue some more. It's awesome. My little brother was hitting the cider a little too hard:

Obligatory group shot. Only this time we get to include my Grandmother. We are all just glad she put her teeth in for these - not that she's smiling anyway. (Evil!!)

Thank God I took the camera from my Mom - my family does better making freaky poses than trying to look normal.

Best part of the week? When Chelsea got drunk on white wine and tackled our little bro. She proceeded to drunkenly tell him that, even though she acts like she hates him, she really loves him a lot. And then she wrestled him till he died. YESssss!

I just don't know if I can handle Christmas at my house this year. Good Lord, there isn't enough wine for that.

Fat Black Pussycat

2006-11-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

So I dragged my cousins to NY-City tonight. Fun times. I asked Frank to recommend a bar - so we head over to the East Village to "Fat Black Pussycat". I thought he was sending me to a leather bar. I was wrong. Out of all the bars we went to, this was pretty cool. I got lost going to the bathroom.

We had just enough time for three bars, one stop at a liquor store, one quick slice of pizza, and some drunken camera phone pics outside of Penn station.

There is a progression here, so I'll tell the story like a flip book.

I say, "Let's take drunk pictures! Yeah!" (metal hands)

So, Justin shows me what button to press on his "sidekick".

We like this one, so we think it should continue:

Chelsea and I are proud of our hats. Hey, the weather is colder than shit, we need hats.

Then we suddenly have a new friend whose name is 'JR'. Chelsea calls herself 'Shanikwa'. This makes me giggle.

Priceless. Penn Station, NY - I love you.

Then it's to the bathroom to pee - where we meet a lady with no teeth who hustles us for $2.00, a cigarette, and then some change before we escape. (Sidebar - the hustlers in SF could learn a thing or two from the ones in NY. It's colder, meaner, and bigger - they don't fuck around in NY, that shit is an art.)

On the NJ Transit on the return, more camera phone pics - we wanted to take advantage of the lighting and the 45 minute train-ride back to NJ.

Chelsea's shoes are the "converse" of mine and Justin's. Har-Har.

The night ends with us eating pizza and watching Poison Ivy 2 on HBO while the dog runs around getting into nasty dog trouble.

Fuckin' dog.

FIN

Dirty Jersey

2006-11-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

This is Desiree DARK (Of Waiting Until Dark fame) and Meghan (side-kick extraordinaire) - uh - and me. In New Jersey.

The story goes like this: I go to Fanwood Liquor and grab a few bottles of wine. Then I think to myself, "OK. Ten people at the party, 5 bottles of wine = 1/2 bottle per guest....We need more wine."

Then Meghan, Desiree, Chelsea and myself drink it all. ALL.

And then we say - "Hey, mamma, it's fecking cold outside. Let's go smoke."

New Jersey isn't so bad. If you're drunk, listening to the right music, staying inside your own house, and hanging out with THESE cats.

Oh, and because Chelsea was too loaded to realize her ass needed to be in the pictures - here is one where she actually made it into the frame.

Oh, and as for the "FUCK" sign, ask Ms. Dark, she made it.

*Sigh* I miss my NJ women.

Dovre x2

2006-11-18T03:10:00.000-08:00

I just have to add - that the D0vre club is my absolute favorite place to go. Where else can I take Angie to make eye contact with cute boys from across the bar...contemplating buying him shots so as to escape the weird straggling dude with red hair and creepy eyeglasses who won't stop talking to him. That last bit may make absolutely no sense - unless you were there with me tonight. But seriously. I bought a round of drinks the night before tonight (ie yesterday) on a line of credit with the bartender, Elvis. When I walked in tonight I reminded this most fabulous of bartenders that I owed him money. He proceeded to charge me for three drinks (the two I was buying tonight + only one of the two that I drank last night) because I, "Brought all my friends to the bar last night." I was just surprised that all my lame work friends behaved.

I just have to share that this bar is my new home away from Oakland.

And burritos are good.

And by home away from Oakland I mean the place makes me want to stay past closing - like a Tom Waits song - so I have to take a taxi home.

The Dovre Club is snuggly...and I love it.

Dovre

2006-11-17T01:38:00.000-08:00

I can't explain how completely amazing the Dovre Club is. If earth was purgatory, the Dovre would be heaven...err...I mean to say that last one without the 'if'. It should be more of a declarative sentence. The Dovre IS the afterlife. Every time I go there I want to fucking snuggle into one of those couches and stay forever. I'm always hopping off the Bart on 24th and trying to restrain myself from running over there. I can never quite recall the walk BACK to the stupid Bart - but tonight I managed to get home anyway.

Boo.

2006-11-01T00:48:00.000-08:00

If I stare at this for about two months and still completely love it, this might just have to be my next tattoo.

Oh, and you know what's scary on Halloween? Being packed onto the Bart train with 8 cars of drunk East Bay kooks in costume, going under the bay, and then stopping and starting....and stopping and starting...and stopping and starting...the...whole...way...through.

Old Hat.

2006-10-29T23:06:00.000-08:00

After too many $50 cab rides home from the bars in San Francisco, I decided to check out the local Oakland bar scene. We all need a local watering hole. And I desperately need something to do that doesn't involve going under the bay.

Angie and I checked out the scene on Yelp and came across a list of bars we wanted to hit, ate some burritos to buffer the liquor, and hopped on the bus to downtown Oakland. (Mmm, burritos!) Our first stop was the 19th Street Station - described as a nice British pub good for after-work drinks and smoking inside. What the reviews should have mentioned was that the place is closed on the weekends. Right. 0 for 1.

Second stop was Cafe Van Kleef, which we were relieved to find open, serving drinks, and playing music. Angie and I both reacted to the decor with something like, "This place is intense..." It's hard to see from the photo here, but the bar and surrounding area are just stacked tall with weird stuff. Kitchy, but with some old jazz and blues tunes in the background, it makes for a nice enough spot. We got hijacked by a drunk couple on their 2-year anniversary who wanted to chat with us about their diverse lifestyles and their four kids. I told Angie to drink her vodka tonic and we hightailed it to the next location.

Which brings us to....Radio.

Described as dark, red, hip and easy on the smoking ban, which made this my top choice. Dark, red and easy on the smoking ban it was. Hip? Hm. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but one generally needs a crowd (of hipsters or not) to be considered such. Otherwise, you're just another place with lots of unrealised potential. Whatever. The music started to suck after we had managed to get through 1.5 stiff drinks, so we chugged and moved on.

Once we got outside and away from the red lighting, we felt less drunk - which was a real downer. So we headed to the last location on our list, the Stork Club. I'd been to this place before and liked it so I was looking forward to going somwhere where I knew people my age would be - and where there would be decent music on the jukebox. The only thing we found alive outside the barred door to this place was a guy asking for Greyhound money in exchange for poetry. I offered him a cigarette and wished him good luck. It's always a story I don't need to listen to. And, after discovering that 50% of the bars on our list were closed, I wasn't feeling very giving.

So. We walked the long 2 miles back to my street and stopped by local dive Smitty's for a last drink. Smoking inside, cheaper drinks than we paid for all night, decent jukebox, and shuffleboard and pool made us wonder why we had ventured farther than the end of the block. A little rough around the edges, but it gets the job done.

The important part of the evening was some much needed Angie-Briana time; and we got enough drunken philosophizing, pining over lost boys and gossiping out of our system to last us until the next adventure.

Overall, we decided that the scene in downtown Oakland pales in comparison to SF or even SC. Angie had an interesting theory - that Halloween weekend may be to blame for the small crowds and closed bars. Perhaps everyone went to the city for the festivities that night instead? We don't know, but we don't know if we want to spend another night trying to find out. Maybe after the disapointment has faded. (Or after we have to split a cab home again...)

Reference

2006-10-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Excellent art from the musical inspiration for my blog name. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy.

Check them out here.

For those of you who didn't get the reference.

The artwork itself is by this amazing guy. I'm looking at that stuff closely - almost positive that my next tattoo will be something he's done.

This is not an exit.

2006-10-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

Having just finished reading American Psycho, I have some pseudo-intellectual garbage to spew. What better place than an illustrious and free blogspot page, I say? Props to Mat for giving me the link to his own blog three times and inspiring me to do the like.

So, the book is one of those that I've read enough about - and, of course, saw the movie on which it was based (and also read enough about) - that I came into it with a pre-formed opinion on how it was supposed to present itself. But nothing can really prepare you for that book. I knew how disgustingly graphic it was, but it was obscenely visceral, which I wasn't prepared for. Nothing can describe how bizarre it was to read that book on the Bart train into work with the SF Bay morning rush hour crowd pushed up against me.

I want to say it was a most excellent book - because it was. But it does not go gently into that good night. It's laborous to get through and it took me a while to finish. I had to keep putting it down for a few days to give myself a breather - it's just too intense and coked up. The last third of it was the worst, definetely not a world that I wanted to dwell in. When Patrick Bateman says somewhere in the middle that he's 26 I totally freaked out. And I couldn't ride in a cab without thinking about the numerous scenes in taxis from the book.

That book hangs with you like a surrealist painting does - just kind of drapes itself over you and takes some shaking off.

In retrospect, the movie does it justice - the book itself is fairly cinematic. But you can't duplicate the effect of a written work on the screen. Came pretty close, though. Directed by a woman as well, which I always forget.

A few things about the weird chapters about the pop musicians from the 80's. I didn't know what to make of these. They just sort of existed in between sections of plot and are, I think, more telling in their form and repetition than in their subject. Kind of odd breaks in the diagesis that seem to serve as gathering pools of thinly-veiled commentary on the commercialism of Bateman's world. Interesting, and some of them are more potent than others. And I get that they were supposed to be a device - and they were perfectly timed. But they left me with a vague sense of overdone-ness. Still not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

And there is point very near the end where the narrative slips from first person narration to third, only for a few pages. That is a totally perfect example of how this book works - Bateman descending even more so into psychotic madness and, for a page or two, all of a sudden his voice falters and then bounces right back at you. It's brilliant. And completely successful. I'm in awe.

I totally have to see the movie again.

Any book that makes me think this much about it after I've finished it is well worth the read.