Category: Being a girl

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Being a girl Dreams Drew Exercise Food Friends Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Theatre

Connecticut & New York City, October 2011

So, Drew and I are back from our East Coast extravaganza. We had a great time, and I’m so happy we went, but I was also totally ready to come home. Which is just about the perfect balance, I guess.

I’m going to start with a Dear Diary overview of the whole thing, then fill in specifics after. I just can’t bring myself to start one, long, DD post of the entire week.

So: last Tuesday night I flew out of SFO on the red-eye to JFK. I got in Wednesday morning, and dropped by my old work to say hi to the people I know who are still working there (there aren’t many left!).

Wednesday afternoon I took a Metro North train to Waterbury, CT, where Megan (the bride), Dawn (the maid of honor) and Toni (the mother of the groom) picked me (the matron of honor) up. We did wedding party things, checked into our hotel, and then Toni and Ken (the father of the groom) took us girls out for dinner.

On Thursday, we had Megan’s bachelorette party in NYC. That deserves, and will get, an entire post.

On Friday, Drew drove up from NYC, where he had arrived late the night before. That afternoon, I had to call in to work for 90 minutes for an interview that I was missing, being out of the office. Friday night – rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Saturday was the wedding! Yay for the happy couple!

On Sunday, Drew and I drove back to NYC. We saw an off-Broadway show at Roundabout called Sons of the Prophet, and hung out with Joe and his bf. We had dinner at 5 Napkin Burger, which is always good. We stayed at their Hell’s Kitchen apartment, a luxury and VERY convenient!, and watched Bridesmaids.

On Monday we did some touristy stuff – Wall Street and the protestors, walked along the Hudson, saw the bull at Bowling Green, etc. Then we took our luggage and checked into our Queens hotel, which was in the same neighborhood where we used to live. We had lunch with Jared, our old roommate, and saw our old apartment. That might have been the weirdest part of the whole trip for me. Then in the evening we went to see Sleep No More in the meatpacking district (?).

On Tuesday, we went into Chelsea and I had lunch with Sara, an old coworker who promises me she’s going to come visit San Francisco next summer. I saw the people I didn’t see in the office on my first pass. Then Drew and I did Union Square, The Strand (18 miles of books!), etc, and walked up 5th Avenue. We intended to walk all the way to Central Park (40ish blocks) but couldn’t handle it, so we took the train. We did more 5th Ave, then Rockefeller Center, back through Times Square to the Marquis Theatre to see Follies. Then a late dinner with Kaitlin and Joe on 9th Avenue (at Whym).

Today we checked out of the hotel and took the train to Penn Station, where we got chopped salads for lunch (I miss them so!) and then took the train to JFK, where we were hideously early for our flight. Drew read The Hunger Games, and I called in for a second interview at work. Then a 6 1/2 hour flight and we’re home!

Our apartment is bigger than I remember. And I missed it. It’s really nice to be back.

Okay. I promise to be more interesting in the details. A whirlwind week! But everything went as well as can be hoped, thank God.

I miss things about new York. Other things I don’t miss at all. Bad smells, crazy crowds, the humidity. I definitely am happy that my home is in California. But I hope we can visit NYC again soon!

Categories
Being a girl Dreams Sentiment Theatre Writing

gambling debt / running from

I found this in some stuff from college. My sophomore year, I think? I’m not sure what it is. Maybe some kind of half-dreamed idea for a play? I like that my handwriting hasn’t really changed though.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Friends Memoir Sentiment

Liz’s Bachelorette Party!

Last weekend, we celebrated my friend Liz, who is getting married in November. Yes, her bachelorette party was a little early (like 6 weeks before the wedding), but it was one of the few times that the three of us (Liz, Molly and I) could get together.

First, we all met up at Molly’s apartment in San Francisco. Note the stellar SF parking:

Neither of these people is me, don't worry.

Then we got all dressed up to go out. Because I felt very underdressed, Molly loaned me a giant sparkly necklace.

Once we got outside to the sidewalk, we realized we were not underdressed, as it was not cocktail hour in the city, but rather, 5 pm. But we didn’t let that sway us.

First, a grungy man said “Are you three Charlie’s Angels? I’ll be your Bosley.” Then, a very young-looking (like 12 years old) man with super long hair walked straight up to Liz (who was wearing a tiara) (and had like a foot on him) and said, “Hey princess, I heard you were looking for a man like me.” Molly said, “Probably not, since she’s getting married,” and he very politely backed off, saying, “Oh, I guess it was someone else.”

On the bus, a man drinking a 40 out of a paper bag told me he liked my necklace, then asked another girl (who I doubt was older than me) if she was my mother, because we were both very pretty. Yikes.

Finally we arrived at our destination: The Cheesecake Factory. (We have good associations with this place, and Liz has a special fondness for cheesecake.)

See?

After dinner we jumped in a cab and headed to the Castro Theatre, where they were showing The Little Mermaid, but with a very special twist:

OMG! A sing-along! They also gave us a gift bag with: a paper crown, a plastic pearl necklace, a dinglehopper, a noisemaker (to clack whenever Sebastian talked), bubbles to blow, and a glowstick.

It was kind of wonderful. But dark. So the pictures are lit by glowstick.

Here’s a clip of the entire theatre singing along:

After the movie, as the credits rolled, Part of Your World started again, and the entire theatre began singing it as we exited…out of the balcony, down a couple flights of stairs…and you can’t hear the movie playing anymore, but every single person is singing out loud, and as everyone around us spilled out onto Castro Street, we all finished the song (a big finish), and then everyone clapped and cheered.

One of those moments where you just feel like people are good.

(My apologies to those certain people who have heard this story too many times.)

Then Erin picked us up, and we went to Martuni’s, a piano bar, where we proceeded to drink very colorful cocktails and sing along with the rest of the crowd. Right as we started to leave, he started Cee-Lo Green’s “F*** You” and so we stuck around for that one.

Then back to the Haight for late-night pizza!

And then back to Molly’s to eat chocolate and talk girl talk, and eventually fall asleep all over her studio.

All-in-all, one of the best bachelorette/slumber parties I’ve ever been to. Great job us for planning, and congratulations Liz on your upcoming nuptials! Parties are awesome!

Categories
"Other people" Being a girl Endings Self improvement Sentiment Theatre

Working hard, or hardly working

You know what’s underrated? The old-fashioned business letter.

I remember learning the format for these things in keyboarding class in high school. I sort of loved making my own letterhead (mine always had a strong Phantom of the Opera theme) and typing up important letters to important people.

We don’t really get to do that very much anymore.

I mean, even though I try to keep my emails nice and professional, I still get tons of work emails from people, using little punctuation or capitalization, and ending with that ubiquitous “Sent from my iPhone.” Like that’s supposed to excuse this mediocre attempt at communication:

“i see no thank you i do not have transportation but im sure other students will jump on this offer”

Also embarrassing is the email signature incorporating some song lyric or “Chinese proverb” that’s not really a Chinese proverb at all.

I got an email from someone the other day – it ended like so:

I’ve heard it said that people come into our
lives for a reason, bringing something we must
learn, and we are led to those who help us most
to grow, (if we let them) and we help them in return.

Also? No credit on that. So…plagiarism? (To avoid plagiarism myself, that’s from Wicked.)

Meanwhile, I gleefully typed this up this morning:

Not saying it’s perfect, but at least it’s not embarrassing. Simple pleasures…but pleasures nonetheless!

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Family Food Love Nonfiction Tomato

Making Mom Proud, or, A Very Beet Story

Over Labor Day weekend, my mom brought me a bunch of home-grown food: a zucchini, some beets (red and golden), cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, pears (not ripe yet), and a gallon Ziplock full of blackberries – my favorite!

I wanted to do something special with it all – I like the concept of “living off the land,” not that I’ve ever actually done it, and I’ve never cooked beets before.

So I dreamed up this menu for last night, basically using everything. On Wednesday night I cooked the beets so that I could refrigerate them all day. Beets, it turns out, are the most fun.

"What am I gonna do with these here beet greens?" Answer...nothing.

Meanwhile, the beets bubbled away on the stovetop.

Then I peeled them – and the skins came right off, just like the internet said they would.

Oh so satisfying.

Then into the refrigerator so that last night I could make beet salad.

Beet salad! Microgreens, beets, cherry tomatoes, and shaved parmesan. (Also penne with chicken, zucchini, and pesto.)

(Tonight! Leftover beet salad! Also, potstickers. And leftover rice.)

After dinner last night, it was time to make blackberry pie.

Yay mom!

Success, beezys!

Thanks, Mom! If you have more beets or berries you need to get rid of, you know where I am.

(Coincidentally, Jamba Juice has a “Berry Upbeet” smoothie that combines these two flavors. You’d think I would love it. But actually it tastes like berry, with an undertaste of V8. It’s okay, but it’s not going to become my go-to.)

Categories
Being a girl Drew Memoir My name Sentiment

Inspiration

Late at night is when I get my bursts of inspiration for cleaning. Tonight I went through two boxes of stuff my parents gifted me with months ago…and pared it down to the throwaways, the donatables, and the keepsies.

Example throwaway: notebooks from college classes filled with notes about the Puritans and protest theatre. (Two different classes.) Nothing really of note to keep here. Although Drew pointed out my copious margin notes: “Syche + Drew” and then one page where I apparently decided to practice signing my first name with his last name. As we pondered this, I said, “Whoops!” and he said “GAWD, you’re obsessed with me or something.”

Example donatable: Pretty tin box, that I remember always having, but don’t have any specific attachment to, and which I will be much happier giving away than moving two more times.

Example keepsie: A diary I kept around the time I was 5 and 6. My bffk (best friend for kindergarten) (well, sort of…I mean I guess she was my best girl friend, but I’d still say my two best bffks were boys) actually went through and wrote “I love Kelly” on most of the pages (she’s Kelly), but some of the pages still have my original journal entries. I present you with two of them:

If I'm being completely honest, these are still my top three fears.

And from later…I would say around 4th or 5th grade:

B) and C) don't really matter. Amirite, girls?

That being said, today I tried out a set of hot rollers that a friend gave me, and they worked great! And I spent much time looking in the mirror and admiring my pretty hair, and taking pictures of myself. So don’t worry about me, I’ve got plenty of self-confidence now. A generous amount. Maybe even too much?

Ah, the joys of being a girl. :/

Categories
Being a girl cars Friends Love

Riding in cars with boys (in other cars)

Last night, while driving home from Redding, Megan and I found ourselves tearing down the freeway at 70 mph, somewhere near Benicia, around 11:00pm. A car pulled up next to us and honked, and when Megan looked over, the driver made several “call me” motions. She just said, “What are you doing? Keep your hands on the wheel!” Then I passed a car and that Casanova car had to fall back, but a minute later they pulled up next to her again. Her new friend made more faces and gestures at her (nothing crude), and she just couldn’t stop laughing. The third time it happened, she pointed to her engagement ring, and he made a, “Okay, I’ll back off!” gesture and pulled away.

It was maybe the highlight of the drive home. Maybe not, actually, when I think about it. But it was a nice little few minutes.

But here’s my question: What was he trying to achieve? What would be the ideal outcome of that scenario for him? Was she supposed to scribble her number on a piece of paper? Gesture for them to get off at the next exit so we could all hang out? Take her top off? I mean, I know it’s just having some fun, but really, what did he want from her?

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Exercise Nonfiction Self improvement

Tips For The First Spin Class

Yesterday I finally attended my first spin class. This is what I said to my co-workers as I was leaving work to head to the gym:

“It sounds fun! I mean it can’t be that hard, right?”

At least I sort of knew at the time I was going to have to eat those words later – but I did think, how hard can biking be? It’s just biking. It’s not like I have to jump around waving weights around my head. It’s just legs.

Well, I was wrong. It’s not just legs. And it is hard.

Here are some hints, if you’re thinking of attempting this for the first time:

1. The seat is not comfortable. This is probably because you’re supposed to be up off of it for most of the class. If, like me, you sat out some of the standing-up sections, be prepared for a slightly sore behind the next day. (I ended up wadding up my towel and awkwardly stuffing it underneath myself at one point. It helped, moderately.)

2. When you sit on the bike for the first time, and it spins really easily, and you’re like, “This is awesome”? Look down. That little knob puts more tension on. You’ll spend most of the class with it tightened. Get ready. Enjoy the no-tension while you can.

3. An hour of watching Law & Order flies by. An hour of spin, not so much. At some point (for me it was 10 minutes in), you’ll start to think the clock might be broken. It’s not.

4. Related to #3, the first half hour is a lot slower than the second half hour. Stick it out.

5. When your badass intructor says, “Remember, everyone can go at their own pace at any time,” he may be talking to you. You’re allowed to ease off on the tension if you’re dying, and as long as you’re still pushing yourself, you’re still good.

6. It seems to me that this is the kind of thing where you show fast improvement, especially at the beginning. I found the standing up portions difficult in the first half hour, but much easier in the second half hour. I’m excited for my next class, to see how much easier the entire thing will be. (#WishfulThinking?)

7. If you find yourself plotting ways to get out of the room before the hour is up (my best plan was to fake losing a contact, then scoop up my keys and bolt for the door), just stare at the tramp stamp on the girl in front of you and keep going. You can do it!

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Books Drew Friends

Girls dressing like boys

I started reading the Alanna books recently, by Tamora Pierce.

I remember reading the first book when I was a tween (or so), and I remember liking it, but also, the only thing I could remember was that she was dressed like a boy, and couldn’t go swimming with the other boys, and also, when she “becomes a woman” things get awkward.

But I’m reading them again now on the insistence of a reader friend of mine, who recently handed me an oversized gift bag filled with Tamora Pierce books for 12-year-olds. But we like them because of their strong female protagonists, who make smart, level-headed decisions.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the illustrator for this edition of these books does a great job getting in the feeling of the book, the horse, the cat, the purple fog that is her magic, whatever – but CANNOT seem to capture a facial expression.

Behold:

This just cracks me up. I have to get Drew to make the face on the cover of the third book, and get a picture of it. It’s perfect.

I also noticed that they’ve redone the books (a couple times) with more badass covers. Like so:

Darker, and “cooler,” and possibly more representative of the actual feel of the books. I guess maybe I’m paying more attention to stuff like this, as I get more comfortable and familiar with my job.

Got a great YA novel recommendation? Leave it here for me! (It definitely doesn’t have to be fantasy.)

Categories
Being a girl Friends Nonfiction Sports

Words With Friends, And Friends

Words With Friends is a dangerously addictive smartphone game, although unlike games like Tiny Wings, Angry Birds, and Peggle, I don’t feel as bad losing hours of my day to it. Because it’s just Scrabble, but over the phone.

(Also, it helps that you have to wait for the other person to play their turn, so you really don’t lose hours to it the way you can to Tiny Wings, Angry Birds, and Peggle.)

So angry!

So, I started playing Words With Friends basically the day I got the phone. I still have the free version, which means after every turn I get to see an ad. Which is a little annoying, but so far hasn’t inspired me to shell out the $1.99 or whatever it is for the ad-free app.

When I started playing, I started of course with the people closest to me – coworkers, friends I talk to every day, etc. But then as I sat there waiting for those people to play their turns (sometimes it takes hours!) I started scrolling through the list of “Facebook friends who are playing!” Then I casually started games with some of those people – the people who I thought would be cool about playing, and wouldn’t be all, “Who’s this beezy?”

When those people didn’t respond instantly – I mean, what good is being connected to WiFi everywhere I go, if people are too busy living their lives to play online Scrabble with me?? – I started games with more Facebook friends. I was now into the tier of friends with whom I rarely have a conversation, although I enjoy looking at their pictures and updates, and we consistently wish each happy birthdays.

Now I’m deep into the second game with one such friend, and it’s crossed my mind a couple times that it’s a strange – but pleasant – situation, and due entirely to technology. Without Facebook and (essentially) anonymous online gaming and smartphones, I would never have kept in touch with this particular person after college, even though I liked her and thought she was cool. (Maybe too cool for me?)

But does this lead to something? More friendship? Actual phone calls? Backyard BBQs? Godmother status to each other’s children? I doubt it. Maybe some texting about the game, that leads to more personalized birthday Facebook messages? Possibly.

It’s not like I’m in a position to be looking any gift friendship horses in the mouth anyway. So I’m just being grateful! We finished one game and she did start a second one, so I guess she’s not looking to get rid of me.

In the meantime, this is my second proudest moment of all of my Words With Friends games so far (name blocked, just in case he doesn’t want that announced):

Second Favorite Moment!

And this is my first! I fought for this victory – this was my first game with this particular guy. Since then, in our second game he CRUSHED me, and we’re now in our third game where I’m hoping to redeem myself.

FAVORITE Moment!

Seriously, I figure the next step in taking advantage of technology is to start playing with strangers…hint, hint.