Category: Being a girl

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Beginnings Being a girl Books Home improvements Sentiment Writing

Better late than never

Drew and I are in the middle of moving, as I keep mentioning. In fact we have given ourselves a goal of being completely out of here and living there by next Sunday. Which is slightly daunting.

This afternoon he went by the apartment and realized someone had left two pots of flowers on the doorstep. Since it doesn’t seem to be anyone that we know…I wonder if this means we have really sweet neighbors?

One funny thing that happened today as a result of being so far in the process, is that this afternoon I finished my other library book, and then I wandered around for awhile going, “What am I going to read now?” I had a few choices:

a) go in the guest bedroom and read a Cat Who book
b) read one of the (few) books (left behind) here that I have already finished
c) go out to my car and find something in the trunk

When Drew got home, he pointed out the Amazon box on the floor, under a box of ginger snaps, which I then remembered had 5 brand new books still in it.

See, every time I think we’ve got them all…

The other funny thing happened when we were unpacking all our kitchen stuff this weekend. We were pulling stuff out that we’ve literally never used. It’s mostly kitchen stuff, and, now that I think about it, it’s mostly stuff we didn’t register for, that we still liked, but just haven’t had the chance yet. For example, a sugar-and-creamer set…in a pattern that I totally adore, but we’re just not big coffee drinkers. (We should change that.) There’s also a wedding-style picture frame that we should probably use to display a wedding picture. One of these days.

A friend who was over helping us unpack suggested that it would make a good blogging project – to commit to using those things we’ve never used, and then chronicle that. So hopefully over the rest of 2012, I’ll be making an effort to get some of that great stuff out of its packaging and onto the table.

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl Friends Memoir Self improvement Technology

Facebook, right ahead!

First, I’d like to mention that Titanic is out in theatres again and I’m pretty psyched. I kind of really want to go see it. Titanic is an awesome movie, and I only hope that they didn’t ruin it by putting it in 3D.

Seriously. I just googled “Titanic screen shots” to find something appropriate, and every single picture made me think, “Oh, I love that part of the movie!” If you haven’t seen it lately (like, since it came out in the mid-90s) you should definitely check it out now.

In other news, I’ve been thinking a lot about what will happen on Sunday. Sunday is Easter. Easter means a lot of things to me, and I like it a lot. But this year specifically, Easter means my return to Facebook. And I’m no longer sure how I feel about that.

This morning on Sarah and Vinnie, Vinnie said:

“People say ‘That’s not real life.’ But Facebook IS real life. That’s where real life is happening. Every day I see people run to Facebook to post something important about their life. Or not important.”

Very apropos, since I’ve been thinking about how to handle this return to “real life.” I might have to do this in a list format.

On the one hand: I am starting to not miss it. I definitely don’t miss getting irritated by updates from people I don’t like. And I don’t miss having to keep up with everything that everyone posts.

On the other hand: It is a great way to keep in touch with people I don’t regularly speak with. Like far-flung cousins or old family friends. Also, sometimes we use it for work purposes.

On the other hand: I am enjoying the ignorance of not knowing certain things.

On the other hand: I don’t want to be “that guy” who has to tell everyone, “Oh, I don’t have a Facebook.” What’s next? “I don’t have a TV” or “I don’t have a cell phone”? (No, never either of those things.)

On the other hand: What if I have some piece of critical information to share? Drew and I are currently moving into a new apartment. It’s kind of exciting. But how is anyone going to know that without Facebook?

On the other hand: Who needs to know about that? Besides people who will come visit, who will probably ask me for the address beforehand?

On the other hand: Okay, so what if I had some other kind of news to share? And rather than sending mass emails or trying to text everyone, I just want to drop one Facebook post and be done with it?

On the other hand: Would I not be doing that just to get attention? And I certainly don’t want to go back to pandering for likes or comments. Also, isn’t that kind of why I have  a blog?

So, I guess I haven’t really decided anything. Except that I need to figure out when I can go see Titanic.

Categories
Being a girl Drew Memoir Travel Work

“Will Work In Seattle”

As I mentioned, this weekend I was at an arts marketing conference with NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theatre) in beautiful Seattle, Washington. It was gray when we arrived, and yet within 2 hours of being there, 3 separate native Seattlites (that must be what they’re called, right?) had commented about how great the weather was. On Friday and Saturday it was actually pretty clear and nice, for which I say to you, Seattle, YOU’RE WELCOME for bringing up the California weather, and leaving the Bay Area in rain.

I thought I would make some lists about this weekend, since I love making lists.

Things I learned at the conference

  • Doing post-show audience surveys (every show, every audience member) is very useful
  • Lots of theatres in NAMT are not non-profit (we are)
  • We should allow patrons to take their drinks into the theatre
  • People are greatly divided on “tweet seats” (I’m on the “opposed” side)
  • Lots of people get around discounting by raising the ticket price, and then cutting it in half, but really it ends up being about the same cost that it was originally – tricky!
  • Some people think you should give your patrons special treatment, not if they’ve been just a long-time subscriber, but you should use a more “What have you done for me lately?” approach

Awesome shows I saw

  • First Date – a new one-act musical, a co-production between ACT and 5th Avenue Theatre (loved it!)
  • It Shoulda Been You – a musical comedy at the Village Theatre, with a major twist right before intermission

How much I overpacked

  • Two tank tops (even though I used four, or something…that is definitely classic overpacking)
  • One work top
  • One long-sleeved non-work top
  • Two pair of socks
  • One pair of underwear (that’s technically not overpacking, that’s just good planning)
  • One book (I finished The Night Circus, read about 100 pages of The White Castle, but didn’t crack open Bright Lights, Big City yet)

What I missed about California

  • My own bed (well…sort of my own bed)
  • My own toiletries (the hotel stuff was all lemon-sage-scented, which is fine, but isn’t really my style…and there’s never enough conditioner, am I right?)
  • Wireless internet (the hotel wifi was all over the place, and impossible to get on in some places)
  • Free time
  • (And most of all) Drew!
Categories
Being a girl Theatre TV

The Original Team Jacob

KQED was showing a concert version of The Phantom of the Opera recently. Phantom was my first big musical, and consequently, I have a total soft spot for it. I’ve seen it four times, although we didn’t see it while we lived in New York. I think it’s the best show to start kids off on theatre – there’s so much spectacle, and so many stage tricks, and there’s something for everyone.

I wanted to check out the KQED concert, but I didn’t expect to be so totally sucked in. Despite it being a concert version (which means some things, like the chandelier, aren’t staged), they really got most of the show across, with the use of a giant screen that they could sort of use to cheat things.

We left in the middle of the show to go get dinner, but luckily when we came back it was still on, so I got to see the end. At some point it occurred to me that the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul are like a way better-written and more-likeable Twilight love triangle.

Think about it. The monster in love with the beautiful brunette for reasons no one really understands. The main female, torn between the monster she also has feelings for, and the childhood friend who is actually good for her. Meanwhile, she doesn’t really have a huge personality, or drive the story at all. The only difference is that in this case, Christine Daae is actually kind of smart, and manages to save Raoul while also choosing him.

I won’t dwell on this. It was just something I found amusing. I know you’re probably over the Twilight posts, anyway. =)

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In the meantime, I’m in Seattle for a work conference this weekend. I turned on the TV, and guess what’s on? The first Twilight movie! Yay…?

Categories
Being a girl Sentiment

Pick your artist

Remember when people used to do these memes all the time, on Facebook or on LiveJournal or whatever? I thought this one was kind of fun. So here it is!

(The idea is that you pick an artist at the beginning – here I’ve picked the talented and fabulous Barenaked Ladies – and then you answer each question using only one of their song titles.)

Pick your artist:
Barenaked Ladies

Are you a male or female:
I’ll Be That Girl

Describe yourself:
Falling For The First Time

How do you feel?
Some Fantastic

Describe where you currently live:
The King of Bedside Manor

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Long Way Back Home

Your favorite form of transportation:
In The Car

You and your best friends are:
Call And Answer

What’s the weather like?
Hidden Sun

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?
Life, In A Nutshell

What is life to you?
The Humor of the Situation

Your relationship:
Pinch Me

Your fear:
When I Fall

What is the best advice you have to give?
Everything Old Is New Again

Thought for the day:
Get In Line

How I would like to die:
Long While

My soul’s present condition:
Light Up My Room

My motto:
I Can I Will I Do

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Home improvements Memoir Writing

Airing My Previously Dirty Laundry

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to submit a newspaper column once a month. I slacked off in February (hey, there was a lot going on) and while this one didn’t run until today, I submitted it back on Feb 28th, so I’m cutting myself a break on that. I will do better this month.

I also resolved to write one short story per month, which I neglected to do, so TWO stories in March!

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AIRING MY PREVIOUSLY DIRTY LAUNDRY

I am not a particularly domestic person. When it comes to cleaning, I’d say I’m more of a planner than an actual doer. Right now, as I’m typing this, I’m noticing how dusty my computer screen is, but I have no immediate plans to wipe it off. Let me try blowing on it and see if that works…nope, not really.

I do have general good intentions, and I make lists of things to do, like “fold all laundry” and “clean all dishes” and “vacuum all floors,” but when the weekend rolls around I cross off maybe one and half things and then applaud myself.

Drew and I are halfheartedly looking for a new apartment. Halfheartedly because we don’t really want to move anywhere until the end of April, and everything we look at now is available for new tenants on Monday. So it’s hard to look seriously at anything just now.

One of the amenities we’ve agreed that we want is a washer/dryer in the unit. Having a washer/dryer in your own place is amazing, no doubt. But I think I have discovered the downside to having such readily available appliances: there’s never an excuse to not do laundry.

When I have to walk it outside (or down four flights of steps) (okay, onto the elevator), I can always fall back on an excuse for not doing it today. I’ll do it tomorrow, I just put on pajamas. Or I’ll do it this weekend, I’m kind of sick today and don’t want to expose the rest of the building to my germs. Etc.

But when the washing machine is just behind a door (and not even a sturdy exterior door – just a flimsy interior door!), then I have no excuse. Oh look, there’s one full basket of dirty laundry. Why am I not washing it right now? There’s no reason to wait. In fact, there’s all the reason to do it right now. I’m not doing anything. If I wash it right now I can wear my favorite sweater again tomorrow. (Not that I will.) (But maybe.)

Heaven help me if I had to actually wash things by hand…like, beat them against rocks in a stream, and then wring them out and hang them up.

And let me be honest: of all the chores, laundry is one of my favorites. (Doing dishes is the other.) Because you start with a pile of something dirty, and then, a short time later, you have a pile of something clean. That’s progress. You know what I hate more than anything? Sweeping. Because after you sweep a floor, all you’ve really done is discovered that you need to mop it.

Tonight I’m on a weird little cleaning kick, and I finally tackled that immense, intimidating basket/pile of clean clothes. I folded like a machine, and I stacked and then I placed on shelves. There were nigh on six towels in that basket-pile. When I was done, I fetched the clean clothes from the dryer from yesterday, and I folded all those. You want to know how long it took me? Seventeen minutes. That’s the equivalent of four and a half songs playing in the background. My commute is longer than that. I’ve taken showers longer than that. And now that intimidating pile is gone. And I feel invincible. I even looked around for more things to fold, but no dice – I got ‘em all.

So what’s next? Will I clean the bathroom? Wash dishes? Vacuum out my car? Grab a Swiffer and wipe down my computer screen? Who can say? Today, domesticity… tomorrow, the world.

Categories
Being a girl Books Dreams Fashion Food Friends Love Nonfiction Religion Self improvement Sentiment Writing

21 in 2 months

After yesterday’s post about how I have bought too many books since Jan 1st, a friend asked me to list them all. So here goes!

These are the ones I bought from Amazon with a gift card:

Cell by Stephen King – this is me collecting every Stephen King book
Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy – I saw this in the used bookstore I used to frequent when I worked at the Opera, and even though Erin said it was so-so, I’ve wanted to read it since then
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs – I want to own all his stuff because I think he’s a good role model for me
Naked, Drunk, and Writing by Adair Lara – I idolize her, and this is one of the best “how to” writing books I’ve ever read
A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs – collecting all the Augusten Burroughs books is a lot easier than collecting all the Stephen King books

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin – so good!
Touched by a Vampire by someone named Jones – from the used bookstore, about religion in Twilight…it looks like a joke, and that’s why I bought it, although I paid $7 for it, so who’s the joke on now?
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – love Sherlock Holmes!
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather – love these Barnes and Noble volumes!
A Widow for One Year by John Irving – love John Irving!
More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – I really liked the show at ACT, and I really liked the first Tales of the City, so I look forward to reading more

Oh! Here’s The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume I, near the foot of the bed. I was reading it about 6 weeks ago.

I shouldn’t count these since they were Christmas presents, but they are sitting out, so…

Etiquette by Emily Post – the 1922 edition!
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

This was also a Christmas present.

11/22/63 by Stephen King – one of his weirder premises, but I still enjoyed it!

Two major finds a couple weekends ago – two Stephen King books I thought were going to be difficult to get. But they basically fell into my hands!

Blockade Billy by Stephen King – $4.95 on the sale shelf at Barnes and Noble
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King – $2.95 at the used bookstore in Berkeley

Books 2 through 4 of the Underland Chronicles by the author of The Hunger Games. I love these books. I cannot recommend them enough. I also have the first one, but loaned it to Erin. I haven’t bought the fifth and final one yet, but I will when I finish the fourth one.

Gregory the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (not pictured)
Gregory and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins

Next to the bed! I’m about halfway through and really like it. I think I will read each book before the next season of the HBO series comes out.

A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin

So that’s 19 books that I’ve purchased since January 1st, plus 3 Christmas presents. But wait! I am currently awaiting two books from Amazon:

These are for next month’s book club – they’re both pretty short and we couldn’t meet for another 5 weeks, so we decided to do both of them. I am actually pretty excited about both, but I will probably read them in this order.

The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney – this book has been on my “to read” list FOREVER

So there you have it. Twenty-one books purchased in the first two months of 2012. Will the trend continue like this?

The thing of it is, I’m obviously not embarrassed or worried about this behavior. I love buying books and having books and reading books. I have no intention to stop buying them. I make no promises like, “I won’t buy anything else until I read everything I own.” There’s a Barenaked Ladies lyric,

I don’t buy everything I read,
I haven’t even read everything I’ve bought.

I identify with that.

Stay tuned, and I’ll give you a full breakdown of all of Stephen King’s works, and the few I still need to complete my collection!

Categories
Being a girl Books Nonfiction Religion

I will trade social media for books any day of the week.

I gave up Facebook for Lent. I wasn’t going to give up anything, because as usual it snuck up on me, but then my uncle made an offhand comment (a Facebook status, actually), that “I guess none of us gave this up for Lent.” And then I realized that would be a great idea.

My reasoning was that I have friends who I never reach out to anymore, because I rationalize that I know what’s going on in their life, because I just looked at 60 pictures they just posted of their latest vacation. But I’m not really keeping in touch with these people. So I’m going to attempt to communicate with friends and family via other methods – even if it’s just email – over the next 5 1/2 weeks.

In the few weeks leading up to Ash Wednesday, I had been getting tired of Facebook – of always checking it and of never really seeing anything new, but then checking it again anyway. I also feel like my news feed has devolved into people sharing not-funny pictures. Oh, and now I get to see all the weird, embarrassing articles you just read online.

I’m not complaining about Facebook. It is what it is and it’s great for some things. But I think this break comes at a good time.

On the other hand, I know I’m doing something right because I’m kind of dying to get back on there and see what’s going on.

I have been uploading things for work, but not looking at anything else. Which is hard. I have stopped myself half a dozen times from just lazily clicking on someone’s profile, from a comment they made on the work page, just to see what’s up. Oops!

But last night, while I was on a mini-cleaning frenzy, I looked down and realized there was an Amazon box of 4 books on the ground. I remembered ordering it, but couldn’t quite remember what the items were. Then I cast my gaze around…on the pile of books I got at that used bookstore…the other used bookstore…from that Amazon gift card…from that payday that I went to Barnes and Noble…and I realized, if I had 9 boxes of books (a conservative estimate) when we moved in here, I surely have 11 now.

How did that happen? In 2 months? Maybe for Lent, I should have given up buying books. But that’s just crazy talk. I’d sooner give up chocolate again.

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl cars Nonfiction Not awesome

A Dashed-Off Motorcycle Rant

Today I saw a motorcycle zoom all the way up a line of traffic waiting at a stop light, cut into the left turn lane (which was actually in the process of turning), weave to the inside of the lane, and then flip a u-turn and speed away.

Why are motorcycles allowed to break traffic laws and behave carelessly? It’s just a question I have.

The way I understand it is that at one point in history, the motorcycle engines were cooled by air, so that’s why they were allowed to weave between stop-and-go traffic – because if they also had to sit and wait (heaven forbid) then their engines would overheat. But – the way I understand it – air-cooling is not the case anymore.

It’s not the egregious speeding on open freeways that bothers me. It’s not the weaving through stopped traffic – I mean, we’d all do that if we could, am I right? But when traffic is traveling, but slightly heavy, I still see motorcycles cutting dangerously close to other cars, and that bothers me. Because if you cut in toward a car in front of me, and that car swerves a little and knocks you into my lane, and you end up flying into my windshield, I’m going to be traumatized for life, and possibly injured.

Okay. That’s all I wanted to say. Motorcycles, I think you look dangerous, albeit sort of cool. But not cool enough to make it okay for you to traumatize and possibly injure me.

Update: Open Letters, a (hilarious) tumblr of open letters to randoms, totally did a motorcycle one a month ago, LOL.

Categories
Being a girl Friends Love Memoir Nature Sentiment Theatre

Recreating an old photo

It’s been quite the busy weekend. Drew has been in Sacramento with his friends this weekend and is coming home tonight. I somehow accidentally scheduled myself full days so there has been hardly any time at home to do the chores/homework I was going to do this weekend.

Yesterday around noon I picked up Erin and took her with me to look at this apartment in Daly City. Then we went and had sushi, and then we both went home. Then we met up again in Berkeley to see Ghost Light. We both got there early so we spent some time in the most awesome half-price bookstore by Berkeley Rep.

Today, Erin, her 15-year-old sister, and I got manicures at this kind of skeevy place in Burlingame. We won’t be going there again. But my nails are pretty. Then Erin and I went up to Mill Valley to see A Steady Rain at MTC, picking up some In & Out on the way. The show turned out to be a one-act, which was the most happy surprise ever. On the way back home, we stopped to do something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile.

I have this picture of myself when I was really young (4? 5? I can’t tell kids’ ages) up on the headlands over the Golden Gate Bridge, with this security blanket I loved until my dog Kim ate it. And I’ve been wanting to kind of recreate that picture, with my other security blanket (replacement post-Kim), which is almost in pieces. And I know Erin loves adventures and taking pictures, and since we were on that side of the bridge anyway…

So here are the results from that!

It was quite windy.

But a freaking beautiful day today.

I tried to do a panorama view with this (free) app I have, but it was only semi-successful. I’m still learning.

Great weekend! And I’m SO GLAD tomorrow is off as well!