Category: Not awesome

Categories
Being a girl Not awesome Self improvement Work

Menlo Park, 94025

Day 2 of my Realistically Regular Life: lunch.

My work friend Jonathan dubbed this my "sad-wich."

Trying to find the balance between “no money to spend on food” and “trying to eat healthy” is hard. Sure, I’d love to have piles of money to spend on fresh fruit and tubs of greek yogurt. The reality is that I have to figure out what’s already in the kitchen and how to put it together in the best combinations, to cut back on those daily trips to Safeway.

Some people can make eating on a budget sound glamorous and fun – I’m looking at you, Rachael Ray, traveling Europe and spending the equivalent of a tank of gas every single day and calling it a show. But really? It’s just another morning making another (lean) turkey and (2%) cheese sandwich with (zero WW-points) mustard.

Categories
Exercise Memoir Nature Not awesome

“Don’t they ever stop migrating?” -The Birds

This morning as I was leaving the gym, a bird attacked me and grabbed the back of my head with its talons. Then it flew up to the roof and sat there. The whole front wall of the gym is windows, so I’m wondering how many earnest morning bikers observed the whole thing.

When I got in my car the bird flew down and sat on the hood looking at me until I honked the horn. I mean, I assume it was the same bird.

Why would a bird do such a thing? Here are some theories:

  1. It was just in a pissy mood (maybe it’s not an early bird?) and I just happened to be there.
  2. It wanted to carry me away to feed me to its giant bird leader, who lives in a volcano.
  3. I got too close to its nest – but to that I say, the ONE bush outside the door of a 24 HOUR FITNESS is a stupid place to build a nest.
  4. Some kind of mass bird disease, or world takeover plan, a la Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

…Which inspired me to put this little trick together:

Which is actually more terrifying than the original incident. I mean, yikes. (The problem is, in 99% of pictures, I am smiling or having fun, so when I need a picture that shows some kind of negative emotion, like panic or terror, my options are limited.)

But this thing reminds me of the cover of the Aphex Twin album, Come to Daddy.

Again I say, yikes.

Categories
Exercise Not awesome

Spin class fail

I just failed to get into a spin class. I tried to sign up about 4 days ago but I didn’t realize I had to pay a dollar. (I rarely have cash on me at the gym, as I usually leave my purse at home and just take my driver’s license.) Then I went back to try again, but they had already filled the 10 pre-pay spots. They told me they would take 9 walk-ins. So I got there at 10 this morning for the 10:30 class, and they said they had already filled the 9 walk-in spots, but I could be #3 on the wait list. Then at 10:35 there was one bike left (for me!) and then some chick ran past me going, “I’m on the list!” Oh well.

I think I might have to update my gym membership so I can visit other clubs. This club is great but the class schedule is not. They have classes at 5:30 am (too early) or 9:00 am (too late, if I have to get to work at a reasonable hour. I wish there was something at 7:00, or even 8:00. But I saw that at other clubs there are classes I’m interested in, that I can’t get in Pacifica, plus they are at more convenient times.

So I’ll let you know how that goes.

PS. I don’t want you to think that I’m also failing at postaday2011. The last two days have been private entries, mostly because they’re just too boring and “dear diary” to subject them to other people.

PPS. Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I’m trying to make it a productive one.

Categories
Dollars Not awesome

A False Victory

photo from gentlemanredux.com

 This morning I paid $4.09 for gas, down from $4.13 the last time, and then $4.19 the time before that. I was kind of happy about it.

Drew says not to be happy about it; it’s a trick. Gas goes up to almost $5, then it comes down to $4.09 and we’re all happy. Then it goes up to $18, then it comes down to $14 and we’re all happy again.

He’s sort of cynical, I guess?

But he’s got a point. And even though I felt a moment of excitement when I saw the gas station by our house was down to $4.04, I also understand that this is pathetic. And I keep reminding myself of the days of under $4, under $3, under $2 even.

I’ve heard that it’s going to come back down for awhile; I’ve also heard it’s going to get near $6/gallon. Either way, I’m glad that my car has been getting good mileage. Having a 30-mile commute (one way) means lots of stops at the gas station and I definitely see it add up…

Categories
Being a girl Dreams Endings Not awesome Self improvement

Getting schooled

Sometimes, you make plans for something in your life – something you really have no control over. Things like hitting the lottery, or getting an unexpected gift from a wealthy family member, or winning a competition that over 1000 other people participated in.

Sometimes, even though people in your life tell you not to count your chickens before they hatch, you still totally count your chickens before they hatch, and you talk about how you just don’t know how you’re going to manage to find time to fly to New York City this summer when there’s so much other stuff going on.

Sometimes, even when you’ve told yourself not to count too much on something, you have still secretly let your hopes creep up until you’re expecting a final specific outcome.

Then, when that outcome doesn’t happen, you may be understandably let down. You may also be a little upset, although it’s hard to say where that should be directed. Probably at yourself for not taking the advice of everyone in the world, and just staying humble and unassuming.

Possibly you should just be grateful for the opportunity to learn a lesson…and a lesson during which no one was harmed or even seriously offended. Also be grateful for the blog post topic, since the only other thing you could think of to post today was (yet another) discussion of Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

Update: I’m not sad. Don’t worry about me. I’m not super bummed. Just reflecting on what I learned here.

Categories
Dreams Not awesome Work

Anxiety dream

Last night I had an anxiety dream about Opening Night of Snow Falling on Cedars (which is this Saturday).  In my dream, the theatre (which seats like 500-something people?  Maybe 600?) was almost totally empty.  Only 60 people showed up, because all the tickets were comps and stuff, so we had a lot of no-shows.  We closed the doors (?) to the side sections of the orchestra and the balcony because everyone fit right in a little clump in the middle. 

I was kinda in trouble.  A big part of my job is to pack Opening Night.

Then, it wasn’t actually Snow Falling on Cedars, I think it was like a janky version of Disney’s 101 Dalmations, and all these older patrons were yelling at me to turn up the volume and tell everyone to stop talking.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s going to happen.  But I will be checking the seating map today to see how many empty seats we have left.  And for the first time ever, I think I will check with the box office right before 8 pm to see how many will-call tickets weren’t picked up.

Categories
Awesome Books Fiction Not awesome

I hate when someone else gets the good idea first

There’s this guy who has set out to tweet an entire novel.  Here are the salient points.

  • He is tweeting 5 or 6 days a week.
  • He started on 1/11/11 and intends to finish on 11/11/11, so it’ll be 10 straight months.
  • It appears that he tweets more than once a day. (Looks like about 100-150 words per day, according to his website so far.)
  • It’s about a girl who lives on the streets in Berkeley, and she gets a cell phone and starts tweeting.  Apparently the point is that it will circle back around and be about the redemptive qualities of social networking.

Here are things I don’t like about it.

  • That I didn’t think of this first.
  • That he’s writing it day by day…I feel like if he doesn’t plan ahead and outline at least a little bit, how is he going to create a good story?  I suspect reading this will be a waste of my time.
  • I don’t really care for all the text speak.  I get that the medium is twitter, but it’s obnoxious to read all the 4s and 2s and Us and Rs and thxs, etc.
  • So, doing the math…there’s no way this thing can be much longer than 25K.  That’s not a novel.  So I wish he would stop calling it a novel.

This is a really interesting concept and now it’s something that I’m just thinking about, in the way you just let things marinate.  I think it could be a really amazing way to “publish” something.

I’m reluctant to put his website here, because I don’t want to give him any traffic, lol.  This is an awesome concept and I love the idea that the book speaks to social networking bringing about redemption.  So it bums me out that a) so far I’m not impressed with the writing or the story, and b) he’s hardly committing if it’s only 10 months and less than 30,000 words.

But, his website is tweetheartnovel.com, and you can follow him on Twitter and get all the text-speak updates if you want.  (I’m not.)

Categories
Endings Not awesome

RIP seagull (and maybe other seagull)

Yesterday I was walking from Bart to work, and waiting for the light to change at the corner of Grove and Larkin, across from the library.  There was some junk in the intersection, and as I stood there not really paying attention, two seagulls swooped down to eat the garbage on the street, and then a car zoomed through the intersection to make the yellow light.  I saw the seagulls look up and see the car, it happened so fast, and then the car took out both gulls.  One was smashed dead like that.  The other one flopped around for a little while.  This other woman and I just stared at each other.  Omg.

When I walked back past there that afternoon, the first seagull was practically a memory,basically  just some feathers in the street.  There was no sign of the second one.  It’d be nice to think it collected itself and flew away.  But I fear that the thuggish guys who hang out in front of the library released their pit bulls, and the dogs killed the second gull.

It was one of the weirdest things I’ve seen lately – it looked exactly like it looks in a movie when someone gets hit by a car.  The car itself never slowed, and I can hardly blame them, since who even knew you could hit a bird with a car?

So RIP seagull, and probably other seagull.  It’s the circle of life.  Except your life didn’t go to something noble like the food chain, unless the pit bull thing happened.  I suspect your bodies were just swept up by a street cleaner.

The scene of the crime
Categories
Awesome cars Family Not awesome

I promise this is the last “Dear Diary” entry for the year.

Okay.  So on Tuesday I was supposed to drive up to Davis to meet up with Molly (who lives in SF but was spending Christmas in Reno) and Liz (who until last week lived in NYC but now has moved back to Stockton).  I had made it to about Richmond when my car started making weird feelings again, and I got too freaked out that I wouldn’t make it to Davis.  Or that I would make it to Davis, but not from Davis to Lakeport.  So I drove back home, and Drew’s dad looked at my car, and he replaced all the spark plugs and two of the spark plug wires.  And now, I promise (this isn’t like after I changed the oil and “thought it felt better”), it is running like before again.

The funny thing is, when it was all shaky on the freeway, I was desperately trying to figure out how I could fund getting a new car, and I was like, “I’d be sad about losing this one, but happy to get one with no problems and less than 190,000 miles on it.”  Then after it was fixed, I was super happy and sentimental about it, thinking, “I couldn’t imagine getting rid of my baby!”  I’m a hypocrite?

Okay, so then I had my car but it was too late to meet Liz and Molly, and my brother was flying in from Colorado.  My dad was supposed to come down and pick him up but I called him and said I’d pick up Robb.  So then Robb and I drove up to Lakeport in the pouring rain.  My family – like, just the four of us – hung out for the first time in maybe like 8 years.  It was really nice, until I got kind of bored of the constant stand-up comedy routine and went in my room to read Catching Fire (the second book of the Hunger Games series).

Also, from being home on Christmas, to being home on the 28th, our bathroom was completely torn up.  They are fixing the floor and the entire bathtub area, so that was a surprise…  So then on the morning of the 27th I woke up to strange men’s voices in the hallway, my bedroom door not really shut, and all of my regular clothes (besides pajamas) in the dryer.

In the afternoon my high school best friend was throwing her sister a surprise bridal shower, so I went over there.  Her sister was completely surprised, which is always fun, and there were a bunch of people there I haven’t seen in years.  It was awesome.  But then there were snow warnings so I had to take off so I could get home without dying.

And that is basically my second Lakeport trip.  Here’s a slideshow, since I just learned how to make them.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

(And happy 1st birthday to my blog!)

Categories
cars Not awesome

Nightmare before Christmas

This is the kind of car that scares me.  It’s hard to make out every single sticker here, but rest assured, they’re all a little frightening.

Under normal circumstances I would have moseyed on around the front of the car to see if they actually did have a handicapped placard.  The parking lot was so full I didn’t get a chance to.