el fin

I'm taking a break from the blog. Thank you loyal readers, for sticking with me for the past two years! I am hoping for some future inspiration but for now, Allison Wonderland is on hiatus.

happy halloween!

Have a Happy Halloween everyone! Today I'll be running around visiting customers in my Alice in Wonderland costume (that I bought years ago at an Alice in Wonderland specialty shop in Carmel).

I spent the day yesterday at the 5th Annual Brass Tax Halloween Sunrise Renegade party. It is hands down my favorite party of the year here in San Francisco. Most people roll to the party after being out all night; eyes red, makeup smeared, costumes disheveled and dirty. I took a saner approach and skipped all the other Saturday night revelry, slept for a few hours, got up at 3:30 AM, took a shower, carefully tied on a crisp white apron and headed down to the water to greet the morning and dance in the dirt to nasty beats with all the cracked out freaks in SF. This year's party was a bit mad; there were a rediculous number of people there (word of mouth is a powerful force in this town), but it was every bit as fun as the four previous.

Some Kodak moments...

whole night in whole foods

Because they are my biggest customer and I love them, I spent five hours last night at Whole Foods in helping in the process of installing all new fixtures in their Whole Body department. Northern California is the most lucrative Whole Foods region and they've decide it's time to upscale. This is a multi-day process involving taking every single product and tag off the shelves, packing it all into boxes, ripping up the existing fixtures and replacing them with new, shiny, more expensive and upscale ones, then putting all the product back in a new schema. This is no small undertaking, and they solicit the help of any willing sales reps to make things move along as quickly as possible.

My first instructions from the high-strung team leader were: "Take these products off the metro, put them in a tote and label them "NOT IN THE PLANO"." I see.

After a bit of jargon demystification, I determined that a metro is a rolling shelving unit, a tote is a plastic box, and a plano (or planogram) is is essentially a blueprint. I spent the next three hours packing yoga mats, DVDs, baby socks, body scrubbers, cosmetic bags, shampoo, soap, tea, incense, candles and transporting them to the back store room. Since I've been packing boxes since I was old enough to grasp small objects, I actually found the task enjoyable.

Present were about a half dozen sales reps, most of whom are hardcore career salespeople, or 'brokers,' who rep up to 40 different lines of product at a time. Some got competitive. One woman ran off when I started helping her pack the incense, accusing me of usurping her assigned task. I didn't realize there was a protocol; I just thought we were supposed to pack everything and figured I might as well make it as fun as possible by working with others. I guess I have a lot to learn.

Usually when I go to visit my Whole Foods accounts, I make a bee-line for the World of Good kiosk, straighten it up, talk to the buyer and then breeze out to the next store. I don't shop at Whole Foods (aka, "Whole Paycheck") so I am really rather unfamiliar with their product. My lord, not only has Whole Foods invented their own language, but they've spawned an entirely new generation of marketing as well. Selling a lifestyle of health, conscious consumption and cuteness has earned the retail giant a distinguished spot among the country's strongest brands.

What a learning experience. Retail is much more fun than high tech. Pass the Lumia Lavender Love Soy Candles.

Ooh, just a postscript. I picked up the latest album from my favorite singing/songwriting goddess, Fiona Apple. I've been waiting for 6 years for her to jar loose with more talent since her last album entitled "When The Pawn..." (full title: "When the Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King What He Knows Throws The Blows When He Goes To The Fight And He'll Win The Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters The Ring There's No Body To Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand And Remember That Depth Is The Greatest Of Heights And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where To Land And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right") and by god, it was worth the wait.

to whom it may concern

Blog writing is a strange thing. You're writing for an audience, but you really have no idea who your audience is. Aside from a few friends who leave comments or are otherwise demonstrative of their blog-following, I lack solid metrics indicating whether anyone, other than the blog bombers, is even out there. For me, the blog has become more of an exercise in writing (when I have time to actually think things through) or more recently, just a way to record events I want to remember later; sort of a faster alternative to a journal.

But it can't really be a journal, because then it would be full of personal musings, emotional outpourings and pseudo-adolescent fantasies. Despite the fact that I purposely made a cryptic URL for my blog so that no one could find me on Google, I've now been linked up through a few different sites and anyone who knows my last name, has a few minutes on their hands and is curious about me (for whatever reason) can stumble upon my little home here on the internet.

I could be mistaken for Miss Rodeo Nevada 1996, or more likely, a Stanford soccer player, but anyone who knows me at all can be sure they've hit upon the right Allison when they land here.

So, for better or worse, despite my usual open-book demeanor in person, I am more reluctant than some to discuss with whom I am currently exchanging bodily fluids. And I definitely don't get fan mail. Maybe it's time for a new approach?

Hurricane Stan pounded Guatemala and claimed the lives of hundreds. Among those most affected were a group of weaving artisans associated with Maya Traditions, an organization my company, World of Good, supports. My co-worker, Holly, was just down there a few weeks ago as part of her work for the World of Good Development Organization. (World of Good Inc. donates 10% of its profits towards World of Good Development Organization, the non-profit side of our business that is commited to building a stronger fair trade crafts movement in the United States, promoting clear transparent international standards for fair trade crafts, and investing in economic and social development projects in craft producer communities.)

The house Holly stayed in during her visit was destroyed. The school we helped build with last year's profits was damaged. Families lost children to the flooding river. The news was devastating to all of us. I suddenly felt very close to this group that had previously been a bit anonymous to me. In an attempt to bring some hope to their sometimes tenuous hold on life, we do our best to support them and assure a sustainable income. But sometimes Mother Nature has a mind of her own and no number of product orders can guarantee their survival. They will be ok. They will rebuild and carry on. In the meantime, we are supporting them in any way we can, if only to reassure them that our business relationship with them will resume once roads and other infrastructure has been restored. I feel a renewed sense of passion for what I do every day and a deep connectedness to the people who make the things we sell. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?

I'm exhausted. It's been a really emotionally taxing couple of weeks. I feel really lucky to be alive and to be living the life I do! And now, all I want to do is sleep. Some good news to report sometime soon, I am sure of it.

Mildred Oakley 12/02/1919 - 09/28/2005

Just a personal note today to honor the memory of my Grandma Mildred, who passed away from a major stroke on September 28. I saw her just about a month ago and she was looking and feeling good. We spoke on the phone a week before her death and she was coming around to the idea of moving up to the Bay Area to be closer to the rest of our family. Her death was not at all expected, and I've been grieving her deeply.

Grandma was born in 1919 in the dustbowl of Oklahoma. Her family basically lived the "Grapes of Wrath," moving to Southern California in search of work to survive the Great Depression. When her family relocated back to Oklahoma more than a decade later, she opted to stay put and, at the tender age of 19, married my grandfather Luther. With him she had two children (my mom and Uncle Frank, who lives here in the Bay Area) and lived in a track home in the then-newly established LA suburb of Sun Valley. Without a high school diploma, she landed a job as a catalog phone rep for Sears, where she worked for over 30 years.

After years in an unsatisfying marriage, she divorced Luther. In the early 60s, she remarried my step grandfather Jim, now the only living grandparent out of the five with which I was blessed at birth. Together they moved to California's Central Valley, where they lived in a ranch house on a 10-acre raisin grape farm that I've visited countless times since my early childhood. They lived there together until just recently when she moved into a nursing home after a series of small strokes.

We'd become close, my grandma and me, especially since my mother's death in 1998. It's inconceivable to me the pain of losing a child, and I think when my mom left, a piece of my grandma left with her. Through long conversations late into the night at the kitchen table, we grieved together and developed our own trust and deep bond. She had so many stories, so much wisdom to share. I loved her very much and will miss her sweetness, her wit, her no-nonsense honesty. Oh, and her lemon merengue pie.

Rest well grandma. You were loved.

I wanna be a cowgirl

Quick postscript re: my previous entry. Had a conversation with a friend from our Burning Man camp. He talked about how the infrastructure of Burning Man must evolve in order to handle the new pressures placed upon it, and that the people who spend their time making toilet signs and barking through bullhorns idle threats regarding the future of Burning Man riding on our compliance with the potty rules, seem to be missing the point. Cigarette butts, glow sticks and baby wipes may clog their filters or break their pumps, but here's a concentration of some of the most creative, ingenious people on earth. The next generation of portapotty engineering is nigh.

*****

On Wednesday, I thought the world was coming to an end. I had been dancing at Qool for a couple of hours. My friend Leni and I walk outside for some fresh air. We're standing there talking and we hear what sounds like a succession of explosions reverberating through the buildings downtown. We look up at the sky and stand listening. People spill out of clubs and restaurants onto the sidewalk, everyone looking a bit nervous and unsettled. We take turns speculating... fireworks? gun shots? We decide neither of us have ever heard anything like it before. We look at each other with alarm and run towards my car to flip on the news.

Nothing on the news, but the sound continues to intensify. Leni looks at me uncomfortably, "Let's get the hell out of here!" he demands. I start up the engine, we pull out of the lot and head west, away from downtown and the Bay. I try to remain calm, as much for my sake as for Leni's, who is in the passenger seat looking like he's about to hyperventilate. "OK, let's take a deep breath. It's probably nothing, but I think we're smart to leave. If the shit really is going down, I'd really rather be somewhere other than here, so let's just drive until we feel like we should stop." We drive a few blocks, adrenaline coursing through our veins as we weave around traffic, attempting to make a quick, smart escape.

Our flight instinct brings us to a fire station. "Do you know what's going on?" I ask a fireman standing in front of the house. "Fireworks at the waterfront." Leni tries to convince me if we are really under attack, it could be a government conspiracy and that we should be skeptical of the fireman's response. I roll my eyes at him and turn the car around. "Let's at least go check out the waterfront before we've driven all the way across town and nearly given ourselves coronaries."

As we near the water, the buildings become shorter and the view of the sky unobstructed. I see a flash. I hear more explosions. It's the Mega Fireworks show of the National Pyrotechnics Convention! We laugh nervously and decide to head back to the club for a celebratory "Yay! We didn't die!" jig. Disaster averted. OK, so there was no actual disaster, but attempting to avert it made for a fun outing and a good experiment to see how I might react in the case of a real emergency.

*****




Yesterday was the 2nd Annual San Francisco Love Parade. Over twenty floats, hundreds of DJs, thousands of people partying in the streets in front of City Hall (only in SF!). It was a gorgeous day (I think our Indian summer may finally have arrived). Started with pre-parade dressing up and fanfare at Angela's house. Took the bus downtown to the parade route, only to be dropped off a few blocks away in the middle of an anti-war rally. Danced for hours at the Space Cowboys Unimog and the Moonshine Saloon (where Mary and I spent one of our best nights at Burning Man this year). Someone licked my boot. Man, I love this town.

probably not the story you wanted to hear

Just like last year, I'm putting off writing in my blog because I keep trying to weave some magical story about Burning Man, and, well, I just don't think it's going to happen. My experience, once again, surpassed all expectation (I really try my best to have none) and left me speechless, utterly dumbfounded at the fantastical wonderland human imagination creates every year out there on that flat piece of desert in the middle of nowhere. There are too many stories to be told, too many interactions to recount, too many memories to keep precious.

Oddly enough, the one thing that did strike me with unusual force this year was my observations of the toilet cleaners. Every year they are there, working silently behind the scenes at odd hours to keep our Johnny-on-the-Spots clean and supplied with adequate toilet paper and seat covers. On the door of each toilet, someone from the Burning Man Department of Public Works has placed a gentle reminder (often in Haiku form), urging burners to think before mindlessly tossing our tampons, matches, baby wipes and other non-approved waste into the potty.

"If you drop a glowstick in the toilet, someone has to go in and fish it out with their hands. Do you want that job? We didn't think so."

In the wee hours of a particularly cold night, I stand outside the potty waiting for Mary to come out. A large truck is parked alongside the long row of blue plastic toilet-houses. The moonlit silhouette of a long, thick accordian tube stretches from the truck and disappears into one of the toilets. A man inside illuminates the inside of the outhouse with his headlamp and quickly works the hose as the contents of the toilet are sucked out and deposited into the truck's waste tank. My stomach turns. I watch him come out. He's wearing a Scream mask to hide his face and cocks his head to one side in silent acknowledgement of me as he exits. "Thank you so much," I mutter under my breath.

These guys have possibly one of the worst jobs on earth. Most of them are ex-cons, and graveyard shift toilet cleaner at a festival in the middle of the Nevada desert was the only gig they could get to begin the long road to rehabilitation and acceptance back into mainstream society. I almost want to cry. What a terrible, terrible thing to have to do. Without mindless morons making their lives even more miserable by carelessly dropping candy necklaces and cigarette butts in the toilet, I imagine it's a bit like purgatory. With them, I figure it must be hell.

Hey you, there's my PSA. Please respect the toilet man. If it doesn't come out of your body, don't put it in the potty.

stories to come... maybe

As usual, I'm having a bit of a rough time trying to articulate my experience at Burning Man. There is simply so much that happens every second of every day that attempting a summary of events is pointless. I feel too emotional to describe a lot of it. At least this year I have some notes on particularly unusual or wacky things that transpired, so I should be able to share some of it as soon as I have a moment and a bit more clarity.




I put together a photo album on Ofoto but will not be posting the link to my blog. If you would like to see them, please email me!

burning man or bust

I am off this afternoon to Burning Man. Will be back on Sept. 7 with a thick coating of dust and glitter paint, a lot of stories and photos to go along. Until then! Black Rock City HO!!!

carrying good karma

Sometimes I think I am the luckiest person alive. Those of you who read along during my travels may recall June of 2004, when, in two separate manuevers, I lost both my ATM card and passport, both of which miraculously found their way back to me.

This past weekend I went for a mini-retreat at Harbin Hot Springs, where I inquired in the front office about my favorite ring, which I'd lost in their dressing room four months earlier. They had it, neatly taped to a piece of paper in the Lost and Found box. I shrieked when I saw it; it's my favorite ring I bought in Calcutta on my last day in India and I was gutted when I lost it.

When I got home this time, I realized I'd left my prescription glasses. I called the next day and the sympathetic bespectacled man on the other end of the line not only informed me that they'd been found, but offered to mail them to me at no charge.

Today my purse was stolen while I was visiting a customer. As I often do, I carelessly set it down while I was running around the store. Someone must have noticed my lack of attention, grabbed it and bolted right past the security desk carrying my blue silk purse (from work, of course). I spent the next two hours in the security office, watching replays of the security video, cancelling my credit cards, calling AAA, the Toyota dealership, the locksmith and my roommates, trying to sort out what to do next.

I called my office to let them know that at that moment, I had no phone or access to my car- the lifelines to my job- and wasn't sure when I'd be back in business. In the background I heard our office manager let out an elated yell. Someone was calling her on the other line to let her know they had my purse and found the office number on my business card. We got connected, I cried, she delivered my purse back to me with everything present and accounted for aside from the cash in my wallet. While walking down the street, a car had driven by and hucked my purse out the window onto the sidewalk, at the feet of my new guardian angel, Marie. She had scooped everything together and tracked me down.

How is it that things always seem to come back to me? All I know is, small miracles like these just make me want to do all the good I can in this world to keep the karmic cycle rolling.

Thanks Marie. It's your turn to see fortune's smile.

you can take the girl out of New England...

I'd forgotten how much I love New England. It makes me so wistful and nostalgic. I went to college in Western Massachusetts and, aside from my 2nd class reunion in 1999 when my closest college friends and I got together and once more gossiped in the dorm halls in our pajamas and drank beer at Packard's, I haven't spent much time there since.

Since Boston is a two hour drive away from Smith and I didn't get my driver's license until senior year at the ripe age of 22, I didn't spend much time in the city during school and so it's still a pretty undiscovered novelty to me. S and G's wedding ceremony was held in the unmercifully non-air conditioned St. Steven's church in the historic North End. (With its charming old brick buildings, small network of crisscrossing narrow streets, Italian restaurants and slew of beautiful Catholic churches, it's surprising to me how little resemblance it bears to San Francisco's own Italian quarter, North Beach.) S looked absolutely stunning and it nearly made me cry to see the expression on G's face as she walked down the aisle towards him. God, they are so madly in love, it's written all over their every gesture and interaction.





The reception was held at the Lyman Estate, a gorgeous spot in Waltham, a western suburb of Boston. There was a huge greenhouse in the back, as Mr. Lyman was a plant enthusiast who liked to grow his own tropical fruit. (Coincidentally, he is the same Lyman who built the Lyman Plant House at Smith). I ate some grapes off the vine and pondered buying a key lime tree, the first I'd ever seen, so I could make my favorite desert back home. (A mutual friend of S's and mine, Kyle, reassured me I could find a key lime pie tree in San Francisco and thus should hold out.) The caterer duplicated S's Trinidadian family recipe for spicy pepper shrimp and her mom made the cake herself.

There were pre parties and after parties, and much silliness was gotten up to by the wedding crew.




I stayed with Heather, my dear friend from Smith who lives in Braintree, a southern suburb of Boston, in the home in which she and her father before her grew up. What a strange and wonderful feeling to be in such an old house with so much history. The longest I've ever lived anywhere is five years, and that was from birth - 5, so I hardly recall it. Since then I haven't stayed put anywhere for longer than two years. I think I'd like to.

On Sunday, a spectacular thunder and lightening storm lasted most of the afternoon and we spent the day talking and watching the storm from the front porch. In the middle of a downpour, we put on our bathing suits and merrily sloshed through the standing rain in the garden to pick tomatoes for a salad.

Now I'm back in my room in San Francisco. The summer fog lingers around like a cold you just can't shake. I'm jetlagged and exhausted and getting way too used to my morning Americanos. Two more minutes 'til tomorrow. Good night!

waiting for SuperShuttle

I'm off to Boston for Stacy and Gian's wedding. The happy couple are too wonderful a match to describe. I am going to cry, I just know it.

treasures and oddities

On my way to pick up my Burning Man bike from Valencia Cyclery, I wandered into Paxton Gate. Drawn in by a beheaded giraffe, stuffed and finished with a neatly-stitched seam along its mane, I was amazed, amused and befuddled by the store's collection of taxidermied animals, pinned bugs, penis bones, antique prosthetic limbs, strange plants and stuffed mice dressed in Victorian outfits. I felt like I was in the middle of a recurring nightmare I used to have about being locked overnight in a natural history museum.

While perusing the selection of stuffed wild cats and rhinocerous beetles, I had fond memories of afternoons over at my friend Aaron's house in high school. His parents were a devoutly pious, physically mismatched Portuguese couple (his mother resembled Julia Child and his dad, Richard Simmons) who bought a church that had been converted into a house some decades earlier. Thick velvet window coverings sealed the windows of the living room, lest the sun cast a damaging ray on the giant oriental rug covering the dark wood floor. An antique harpsichord dominated the center of the room and the eyes of a bear skin rug, stuffed peacock and mounted buck's head on the wall greeted visitors. Behind the bar, a freezer safeguarded Aaron's father's kill from numerous hunting seasons. Slabs of freezer-burned fowl and game stuffed every available shelf and drawer. The most disturbing thing in the entire house, however, had to be the life-size statue of the Virgin Mary standing, with palms gently together and head cocked slightly to the side, directly overlooking his parents' bed from behind.




In news, work is going fantastically well (big recent win, I sold to the company that runs the San Francisco Zoo gift shop, which runs another 15 major gift stores across the country, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium). It's requiring loooong hours and a lot of focus, but I've managed to retain some balance in my life and live it up on the weekends.

Last weekend I went to my friend Mark's 18th Annual Toobism trip on the south fork of the American River, about three hours northwest of San Francisco. We spray-painted our tubes, wore body paint and dragged several coolers of beer down the river with us. Some of the more fearless jumped into the river off a 40-foot bridge while some of the more immodest skinnydipped along the shore (you can guess for yourself if I was either fearless or immodest). The 80 of us camped out overnight and 13 of us stuck around to repeat the trip again the next day. Such a good time!

This past weekend I went to Sonoma for some R&R at my roommate Amy's summer house. The house belongs to one of her clients, the granddaughter of Gamble (of Proctor & Gamble). The house was beautiful and a great escape from the inpenetrable fog that has been hanging over San Francisco for the past few weeks (you may be familiar with the adage attributed to Mark Twain, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.") We chilled by the pool, fired up the grill, tossed a frisbee, bounced on the trampoline and soaked in the hot tub. Under Amy and Paul's patient tutelage, I finally learned how to dive. I was so happy and relaxed when I got up for work this morning, I even smiled all the way down the court house to reclaim my car, which had been towed from a rush-hour no-parking zone at 7AM. I kept smiling as I paid the $184 bail fee and even managed a grin when I saw the bonus $60 parking ticket awaiting me on my dashboard. Summer can just have a way of making everything feel ok.

well, hello there officer

Saturday night, my friend Dave celebrated his 30th birthday. Barbara and Scott made paper Dave faces on a stick; a concept that was not new to me but had so much more entertainment potential than I ever could have dreamed.




After a dinner of reasonably priced, passable Italian food on the patio at Bocce in North Beach, we met up with my friend Jason's devil-themed going-away party at the Buddha Bar in China Town; a musty hole-in-the-wall bar on the corner of Grant and Washington, next to dim sum places and schlocky souvenier shops, run by a crazy Chinese binge-drinker who takes cigarette breaks instead of orders when the mood strikes.

"When they said cheesy soft rock, I'm thinking like Culture Club or Madonna. This is not what I was at all expecting." - Johnny

After an hour or so of molesting Dave's paper faces at Buddha, Angela, Jen, Mattia and his friend Johnny and I split for Japancake, a party thrown by some fools from Pancake Playhouse, the Burning Man camp that whips up pancakes and churns out the cheesiest of soft rock hits in the morning both on and off the playa. When the breaks and progressive house stopped at 3 AM, the smell of fresh Krusteaz permeated the air and "Angel of the Morning" emanated softly from the speaker stacks. I slow-danced with my friend John, keeping the junior-high-dance requisite 12-inch distance between our groins and shiftily glancing around the room. Then, Whitesnake. I rolled around on the floor like Tawny Kitaen on the hood of the car in the "Here I Go Again" video.





*****

Two weekends ago I went to a renegade party on a hillside on public land in the center of San Francisco. To avoid arousing suspicion, we shuttle to the location on a bus with blacked-out windows, wear no glowy or flashy things and have folks on standby ready to pass on the "cut the record" signal to the DJ should any vehicles appear on the road below. There are several close calls and false alarms before the plug is finally pulled.

As the officer ascends the hill with his flashlight, most of the 150 of us duck to the ground and fall silent, convinced if we're quiet enough and hide, he'll go away. Some scramble into the trees. The officer comes up over the edge of our makeshift dancefloor, pans his light across our squinting faces.

"Whoa. My God. Oh my God." he mutters.
"Surprise!" someone (I think maybe me?) screams.
"Happy birthday!" someone else shouts.

We begin a united chorus of "Happy Birthday" as the officer stands there, dumbfounded. Mouth open. He laughs. We laugh. Party over.

Find your happy place

For the 4th of July weekend, my sister Erica, nieces Nicole and Jessica (12 and 8) and I hopped in my car and roadtripped to Disneyland, AKA, "The Happiest Place on Earth." It was our first family vacation together since we went to Hawaii in 1997 shortly after Jessica was born and I graduated from college.

After the long, remarkably pleasant drive down 101, through the beautiful oceanside towns of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, we arrived at the Hilton. Much to our amusement and glee, there was an Anime Expo going on at the adjacent convention center and many of the attendees were staying in our hotel. The front desk clerk assured us we'd chosen a good weekend- normally there were only pharmaceutical conferences and Kiwanis conventions that were not nearly so colorful. We were entertained daily by the lobby parade of outrageously adorned expo attendees. Erica and I gathered inspiration and mental notes for next month's Burning Man.



Enough people must have been scared away by the prospect of going to Disneyland on a holiday weekend that, aside from the complete mayhem for the nightly fireworks display, the crowds were managable. We were pleasantly surprised by the smooth drive down and the relatively short lines for the rides. We hunted for Hidden Mickeys and entertained ourselves checking out the demographic cross-section that makes up the crowd at Disneyland. Jessica asked before getting on every single ride whether or not it would be scary, and was sure to pre-confirm the intended seating arrangement before boarding (jeez, that kid can be a lot like me). We all watched aghast as one woman accosted Pluto in an attempt to get him to pose for a photo and had to be removed by his bodyguard. Favorite rides were Indiana Jones and a sneak preview of the new Space Mountain, which has been under construction for the past two years and is set to open officially on July 15. It's pretty much like I remember it from when I was 13, but the visuals are a bit more impressive. Anyway, it's damn fun!

(Unrelated aside: I also got a sneak preview of the new Harry Potter book that one of my customer's co-workers had cracked open. This is apparently a huge no-no in the publishing industry, so even though I don't give a hoot about it, I did feel quite priveleged while casting an illicit lingering gaze over a few of the volume's some-odd thousand pages prior to its July 16 official release.)

Speaking of work, this selling business comes naturally to me in some ways (meeting new people, getting excited about something I am passionate about) and not so naturally in others (learning not to take no for an answer). I am working hard, driving an average of 150 miles per day, visiting customers, prospecting for new ones (I just sold to a six-store chain based in Sacramento) and getting more and more excited every day by the wonderful things that are happening as a result of our success. Tomorrow night we're having a party to christen our new 3600 square foot office space and celebrate our big move out of our tiny space in the basement of the Bancroft Hotel where we have nearly gotten buried under the piles of new product that are coming in every day. Things are happening quickly and I'm loving every minute. Except for the ones when I feel really sleep deprived and have to keep ordering Americanos at Java Detour to keep my eyes open.




Jai was here for 10 days en route from the Philippines to Tennessee and will most likely be back for a few more days in August. It was such a joy to see him again. Went to Stacy's bachelorette party and had a lovely time partying with the girls. Spent a lovely evening at Eleanor's house in Davis (near Sacramento) for her engagement party; Barbara and I will be bridesmaids in the wedding. Lots of outdoor concerts, barbeques and summer fun when I'm not working. Heard from loved ones in London that all are well after last week's bombing disaster. Life goes on and on and on...

internet down, boo!

My internet has been down for over a week and my roommate is the only one who knows how to fix it. She'll be back in town Saturday. Right now I am in an internet cafe doing work so no time for blogging. New post coming soon.

The dick nicker

I came home from work today to find an empty box addressed to me sitting on the front porch. A lone piece of packaging tissue sat discarded to the side. Somebody stole my penis piñata, and I am not happy.

I mean, it's bad enough to open someone else's mail. But to bust it open, discover the contents are a worthless papier mache penis and *still* take off with it? Well that's just sick and cruel. I am hoping at her bachelorette party tomorrow night, the bride-to-be won't be too disappointed to learn she will be pummeling a second-hand penis piñata left over from a mutual friend's recent birthday party. With a little duct tape, a blindfold, a bite of her chocolate penis cake and a beer or two, maybe she won't notice the difference.

***

Yesterday I was working in the South Bay and pulled up at a stop light behind a black Trans-Am decorated with a variety of pro-America, pro-Bush, pro-Republican bumper stickers (including one for KRTY 95.3 Country Radio). The one smack in the middle read, "How did our oil get under their soil?" Is it just me, or does that sound like an anti-war rally slogan created by someone with intelligence and a sense of irony? I can't even begin to imagine the thought process this particular driver went through when selecting this sticker at his local carwash.

***

Last weekend, my friend Maureen and I went to the Brass Tax campout at Red, White and Blue Beach in Santa Cruz (the same kids who throw the annual Halloween Sunrise Renegade party). The weather was gorgeous. The beach was perfect. The moon was huge. The beats were booming. After the morning's pancakes and bacon, I even got to help my friend Tim deflate his giant inflatable gorilla by wrestling and climbing all over it. Good times!







***

This weekend is Pride Weekend in San Francisco. For those unfamiiar, 'Pride' means Gay Pride, though some years back the word 'Gay' was deemed too narrow a descriptor for the thousands of diverse Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered folks in this town, so the 'Gay' dropped off and the word 'Pride' took on a meaning of its own. There will be a colorful parade and countless parties as the Bay Area's proud, strong, house-music-loving Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered community and their friends get a little crazy.

Me, well I'll be observing straightness at my friend Stacy's bachelorette party on Friday and another friend's engagement party on Saturday. 'Tis the season.

Happy summer everyone!

Steve McQueen, eat your heart out

Despite growing up in the city whose hills were made famous in a car chase scene of the 1968 flick Bullitt coupled with my somewhat reckless city driving, I had never actually caught real air before. By my old apartment in Noe Valley, there's a steep section of Diamond Street four blocks long with no stop signs. When I lived there, it was a pasttime of mine to blast a favorite tune, start from a full stop at the top of the hill and accelerate quickly, rising up slightly after the dip at each intersection. I'd turn the car around and go back for a few more cheap thrills before turning right and heading the few blocks back to my place.

Yesterday I took the afternoon to play tour guide. My former roommate Helen's cousin Nathan and his friend Greg both work for MTV (Australia and UK respectively) and were in LA shooting the MTV Video Music Awards. After LA, they had a day in SF and I volunteered myself as their personal chauffeur and guide. (I consider it my civic duty to give foreign visitors the best possible impression of my city.)

Aside from a look at Adidas shoes, Nathan requested a drive around some of the hills from Bullitt. This has been a common request of me on previous tours of San Francisco, but not only have I not seen the movie, but I'd never researched which streets were involved in the chase sequence. This time I decided to do it right. Google to the rescue and we were off.

We started at Bullitt's house, a large multi-level building at the corner of Clay and Taylor that currently has a 4-bedroom flat for rent. After a brief daydream about becoming detectives and moving into Bullitt's old digs followed by a photo session involving Nathan and Greg smoking cigarettes and generally looking like badasses on the front porch, we hopped in my Toyota and began the chase.

Nathan readied the camcorder and demanded "Action!" As fast as my 4-cylinder engine could carry us, we gunned it up the steep ascent of Taylor Street to the blind intersection with Vallejo. As I felt the car rising up from the ground, I hastily prayed that the strained revving of my whiney Japanese engine would alert all in the vicinity to stand clear. As Alcatraz Island rose up over the pavement horizon, we lifted up off the street a good few inches before slamming down on the other side. An elderly onlooker on the sidewalk stood with his mouth agape. The camcorder jostled violently and then regained composure as we continued the chase, over to Larkin Street, sharp left on a steep curve where Larkin becomes Francisco (where, in the movie, the pursuing Dodge Charger loses a hubcap).

We escaped unscathed. Damn that was fun. Anyone want to come for a visit?

Recent good times...

Buy your own damn tart. Love, LUNA.

On the AM of my birthday, mere moments before I was set to be jolted awake by Morning Edition, my roommates Amy and Paul busted into my room with an early-morning rendition of happy birthday, arms loaded with 30 freshly-baked candle-lit cinnamon buns, 30 lottery tickets, 30 pink baby roses and 30 presents (all sorts of earrings, stickers and glittery stuff in a big basket).

An hour later, Guillermo, an Argentine waiter I met a few weeks ago, picked me up for breakfast at the venue of my choice. I opted for coffee and a lemon tart at a sidewalk table in the sun at Tartine, my favorite bakery in the Mission. As we're in line drooling over the display case, I notice he's looking a bit shifty and uncomfortable, glancing around the room expectantly and keeping a safe distance from me, seemingly making it clear to his imaginary onlookers that we are not there together. "Are you ok?" I inquire.

"I leeve in thees neighborhood. People know me here; I am easy to recognize. I feel bad to say thees, but I theenk it would be better for me to wait for you een the car." And so there he leaves me, standing alone in line to purchase my own birthday breakfast while he hides from witnesses to what I come to gather is an illicit morning affair. Fortunately the bakery is a relatively short walk from my house. Fortunately, he understands plain English when he calls to see if I'm coming back to the car and I tell him I would prefer not to speak to him ever again.



After work, I had dinner with a few close friends at my favorite Thai restaurant out in the neighborhood I grew up in; farther than most SF transplants normally dare venture. The place has multiple rooms with gorgeous handcarved woodwork and low tables with sunken wells beneath to place your feet. When you enter, you are asked to remove your shoes, which the neatly-uniformed shoeman whisks away in exchange for a small plastic claim token. After a delicious meal and a chorus of happy birthday over a single candle inserted into fried bananas and ice cream, we headed to Dividend, a small party thrown at little club called Nickie's BBQ. There was no meat, but plenty of friends, beer, chocolate cake and nasty breakbeats for me and my crew to shake down to. A friend garnished me with a tired-looking feather boa that has supposedly been handed down from one woman to the next on her 30th birthday for several years. It now hangs in my closet waiting for the next to come of age.

The birthday revelry came to an end and I am back into my routine, working hard and late, but enjoying nearly every moment. I got a new iPod-- it came as part of payment for my old car, which I sold to a guy I dated briefly (if you can call six months of tireless game playing and bullshit 'dating'). He failed to mention the inscription on the back: "Happy Birthday Mike... You Rock My World! Love, LUNA." He claimed he intended to place a sticker over it but was too busy to get around to it. We haven't spoken since the transaction, but at least my 30 GB of music has kept me happily occupied on my daily commute.

Working full-time for the first time in over two years has been quite a smack to the head, but I'm getting used to the early mornings, sleep deprivation and sacred weekends. Oh, just an FYI for all my friends in cyberland, I am rarely on email these days. This is quite a switch after 12 years of near incessant email monitoring. It's also pretty amusing to see how e-communication occurs among people who are online most of the day. Ideas are proposed. Discussions are had. Decisions and plans are made. And I have absolutely nothing to do with it. How refreshing! One last FYI, my domain expired temporarily and both my email and blog were down on my birthday.

Off to dreamland...

birthday blatherings

Just a fast post to mark the end of my 20s and the beginning of what feels like a whole new life. Today's my 30th birthday. I was born at 12:40 AM at UCSF hospital right here in San Francisco on May 26, 1975. I weighed 9 pounds and 11 ounces. I had bright red hair and big fat cheeks.

I spent my birthday eve dancing at Qool, my favorite mid-week clubbing happy hour. I started hitting up Qool in 2000 when I worked for Scient a few blocks away. The place is always filled with familiar faces and warm hugs from friends I've known for years. Definitely a good start to birthday festivities.

When I was 16, I went camping in Big Sur with a group of friends, my mom and grandparents. We tumbled down sand dunes onto the beach and fell asleep watching "My Blue Heaven" on a battery-operated VCR/TV combo inside the tent. When I was 21, I had ten shots and drinks, all of which I jotted down on a cocktail napkin that I still have stashed away somewhere. I recall an Alabama Slammer, a Midori Sour and a Blowjob. I passed out and woke up in the middle of the night with my eyes swelled shut. At 26, I rented out a club, hired my favorite DJs and danced all night. My sister surprised me with a giant penis cake.

A year ago today, I turned 29 while drinking whiskey with newfound friends and Punjabi millionaires at a casino in Kathmandu. Two years ago today, my closest friends threw me a surprise party and dressed me in a cowgirl outfit.

This year I am forgoing a big party and simply planning to fill my day with as much happy loving connections as possible. I'll have dinner with a few close friends. I'll go dancing afterwards with a group of people who make me smile and who are all a part of my life in some way or another. To me, this birthday feels like it should be about appreciating the people who've supported me into this new thrilling phase of life. I have yet to meet anyone in their 30s who hasn't told me it's been the best part of life. I can't wait.

And now, some birthday dreaming...

Bay to Breakers 2005

What do you call a race when most participants are trying to delay the finish rather than expedite it? That's the Bay to Breakers, the world's largest and silliest footrace.

Sure, there are serious runners who come from far-away lands and win money and stuff. There are also semi-serious folks who actually register for the race, carbo load on spaghetti the night before, arise at 6 AM, carefully pin on their paper number bibs, make their way down to the starting line, run the majority of the race, make it to the finish line, go to Footstock, claim their t-shirts and later look up their race results online. But even most of them are kind of freaky. A lot of them are naked. Or dressed in something creative, or weird, or just plain hilarious. This is San Francisco after all.



The rest of us fall into what I will call the "unofficial" category. We don't register. We stay out the night before the race. We wake up late, forget to have breakfast and instead have a bloody mary. We join the race when it's already almost passed us by. We push grocery carts full of beer, build mobile DJ booths out of plywood and synthetic fur, ride on floats, do keg stands, stop and start countless times to collect friends, take pitsops behind trees or just to watch the crowd go by. We dance to techno in the street and don't finish the race because by the time we're nearing the finish line, the police brigade is doing the final sweep through and the race course has been diverted to cut off the last half mile of the eight-mile course.

Now, not all of these generalizations apply to me. I was in bed by 11 the night before, woke up on time, ate three pancakes and did not do any keg stands. I even hosted fifteen friends in my house before the race. Just before 10 AM, two hours and a few bloody marys later, we headed down to join the mob passing one block from my front door just in time to ascend the dreaded Hayes Street Hill. We lost each other and found each other and lost each other again. I rode on a mobile toilet throne, lost my feather tights, missed a golf shot for free beer but made it up later by biting some guy's nipple (understandably, the demanded exchange for a beer skyrockets near the end of the race) and somehow ended up strolling hand-in-hand with Metal Man.



Oh it was a good day. Don't even ask about the inspiration for my costume. No, as one passerby inquired, I did not lose a bet. But I did end up coming in very handy at the end of the day when the port-a-potty TP supplies were exhausted.

More mortifying photos available here.

Do you think I've just ruined any chance I ever had to run for public office?