metropolis devoured: a tribute to my san francisco

It's on like Donkey Kong...

2011-01-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

D espite my general leaning toward original content, I would be terribly remiss if I didn't make a remark on the same quote that every single San Francisco politico with internet access has shared, tweeted, blogged, or favorited in the course of the last twenty four hours:

"It's on like Donkey Kong." - Chris Daly

My first post in this blog, and the very reason for starting (and stalling) it, was made from Chris' campaign office in 2006, where I lost any appreciation for pizza that I may have previously had (though somehow not for cheap Chinese food from the questionable hole in the wall across from the campaign office on 16th Street.) Somehow my appetite for local politics remained - a surprise to me, too.

Since then, many things have changed, so it's comforting to know that I can always count on some to remain steady. Chris has always been, and will always be, the most passionate and human person in this grown up local political world, and he will always be the biggest show in town. Just see for yourself:

H1Nwhaaaat?

2010-11-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

The space under my desk at City Hall is filled with all kinds of treasure: boxes upon boxes of old crap. While preparing for last month's statewide earthquake drill, I realized there's no room for me to actually get under the desk, so I cleaned it out. I found all sorts of stuff left over from other decades and residents: a personal vacuum cleaner, Christmas tinsel, cube accessories, pens (my most exciting find, by the way... don't get me started on the plight of public servants and their office supplies), and... this:

Naturally this immediately went up on Facebook. But wait! My friends are talented. So today I wake up to this:

I think #2 is absolutely the most appropriate banner for the Disaster Divas show (forthcoming).

A lot of things happen here...

2010-10-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

My apartment building behind the tree, my Alma Mater lit up in the background.

A testament to the inherent creativity of nature and the cooperative environment of a branch: 3 different types of moss.

I recently got a Nikon D5000 DSLR so my recent creative efforts, however few, have been of the photographic nature. As usual, I'm hoping to have more time after the election to build on the basic common-sense skills that come out of the box. Check out what I've got so far at my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleventhletter.

Photo: what we have in common with sake...

2010-08-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

click for full size

Window display of True Sake on Hayes street.

Photo: prime seating...

2010-08-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

click for full size

Prime seating found outside of Master Automotive on 7th and Folsom.

Because we all love boobs...

2010-07-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my partner in crime and I walked 40 miles in the Avon 2-Day Walk to raise money for the treatment and research of breast cancer. It was an amazing experience, and I want to wholeheartedly thank all of my generous donors who gave to such an important cause. I like to think that I am involved in the business of getting women elected to political office, so as far as I see it, the first objective is to shut down the disease most responsible for claiming the lives of women.

Check out my photos from the walk on Facebook.

A rose by any other name...

2010-07-07T16:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm guessing that by now y'all know that California is a state rich in political consultants who need to earn a dime just like you and me. Therefore, every election cycle we are bombarded by information (and dis-) about a billion state propositions, not to mention the local ones. Oh wait, is it the other way around... we like props, so consultants grow here like weeds? Well, either way. Propositions. We have many.

There will be some fun ones this year. Several heavy hitters address issues like medical marijuana, electoral redistricting and climate change. You'd think, who'd vote for pollution? These props are a done deal!

But in our odd, beautiful Californian reality, the meat of the props matters less than their packaging. Given how (relatively) few people do their research, and how many vote-by-slogan, attractive packaging can make all the difference.

Case in point, Prop 23 seeks to reverse AB32... with the clever - and seemingly unrelated to the environment it seeks to abandon - proposed title "The California Jobs Initiative".

The proposed title didn't work for Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, who decided to instead go with the title "Suspends Air Pollution Control Laws Requiring Major Polluters to Report and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming Until Unemployment Drops Below Specified Level for Full Year". Doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as well, but at least it tells you what kind of meat you're eating.

Humility...

2010-07-04T12:19:00.001-07:00

A simple man chanced to encounter a god and asked, "What is a million years to you?" The god replied, "A second." The man then asked, "What is a million dollars to you?" The god replied, "A penny."

The man thought himself clever and asked, "Then, may I have a penny?" The god replied, "Sure. Just a second."

Earthquakes are not new to San Francisco.

2010-06-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Today's 3.3 magnitude earthquake in San Francisco generated a response on my Twitter feed that I was frankly quite surprised to read: What do you actually do in an earthquake? I'd expect this from the Canadians, whose 5.0 caught many by surprise last week, but my own home town in earthquake country? I'd be betraying my profession if I didn't address at least some of the questions that seem to have folks concerned. Please keep in mind that this advice is regional in nature, and not all earthquake-prone regions have the same hazards, such as tsunamis. The durability of your building will also depend on the building codes of your country, and I am speaking strictly from building codes and seismic safety standard enforced in the US. If you're reading this from elsewhere, google your country's seismic safety building codes and see if there is a provision for life safety.

What do the numbers mean?

An event usually produces several different magnitude results that get reported during different phases of the event. The first numbers reported are based on a small and easily accessible number of seismic devices and are meant to get a quick picture of the magnitude out to the public. Later the results are recalculated using a larger number of sensors and the magnitude is often downgraded. Earthquakes are measured using several different models. The local magnitude scale (better known as the Richter Scale) is widely used, but becomes less and less precise with larger magnitude earthquakes (6 and above). The USGS uses the moment magnitude scale, which is an extension of the local magnitude scale, to accurately represent the size of earthquakes. The equation that calculates magnitude using the moment magnitude scale contains constants that make the results consistent with magnitude values produced by earlier scales, including Richter.

What do I do during the earthquake?

It's the same thing you heard in elementary school: drop, cover, and hold on.

In the event of seismic activity, however minor, one should immediately become aware of their surroundings. Because the performance of your building will greatly depend on the type of building material and what it's standing on, take into consideration the type of structure you're in and what sort of topography it's built on.

The first thing you should do is locate a sturdy table and get under it. If your table is from Ikea, like mine, I'd highly recommend getting under the table AND grabbing a large pillow to protect your head and neck. Thanks to modern building codes, our buildings are built to a "life safety" standard, meaning they may not be operable after an event, but they are generally built to not crush inhabitants.

The "triangle of life" (which advocates laying down next to a large object) theory does not work. Here's a Red Cross paper explaining why: http://www2.bpaonline.org/Emergencyprep/arc-on-doug-copp.html. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, here's the gist: the evidence for using the "triangle of life" theory is mostly anecdotal and relies on many false assumptions about earthquake mechanics and hazards. It also relies heavily on photographic evidence from events in places where building codes are nonexistent. We have building codes. Even historic buildings have mostly been retrofitted to modern seismic standards.

The majority of injuries sustained during an earthquake are from falling objects and debris. You aren't getting under a table because the table will protect you from your collapsing house because your house is built to NOT collapse (though structural damage and lean may occur). You're getting under the table to prevent the light fixture, which is heavier than you think, from falling on your head. Same with that plant in a terra cotta pot on top of your bookshelf.

In the absence of a table or other similar surface you can get under, go and stand next to an interior wall, away from windows, bookshelves, light fixtures, or other objects that have the potential to fall. Grab a pillow of one is available to protect your eyes, head and neck.

Be aware of aftershocks and remain in a safe place in the building until it's OK to move. Aftershocks may not happen immediately and may not be as strong, but can still shake objects loose and create falling debris. There's no way to determine when aftershocks will happen, so just use your common sense and don't run out of the building the moment the shaking stops.

And if you are experiencing a significant earthquake while located near the ocean or the bay, move to higher ground as soon as it's safe to do so.

Things NOT to do:

Do NOT run outside. Unless you want to get knocked on the head by falling debris.

Do NOT attempt to stand in a violent earthquake. It'll throw you down anyway, and might injure you. Get down on your own.

Do NOT stand in the doorway. The doorway is not a safe structure in modern buildings. You'll get knocked by falling debris.

Do NOT use the "triangle of life" technique.

Resources that will help you get prepared:

Many people didn't actually feel the quake this morning. Props to your building engineer. Some mistook it for a passing train. If you want to know for sure, register your cell phone with Alert SF and they will send you a notification. I found out about the quake when I got the text. The USGS has a notification service as well. I generally avoid redundancy, but in this case I think registering with multiple services is a good idea.

Take simple steps to make your house safer. Secure bookshelves to the wall, make sure your heavier frames are on hung on closed hooks, secure heavy objects like pots and vases with earthquake putty or museum clay, and take other steps suggested on the Earthquake Country website.

Have a kit. You maybe be without essential services for 72 hours, and you'll need to be able to rely on your own resources. Go to 72Hours.org to learn what to put in yours.

If you live close to the ocean or the bay, take a look at the Tsunami Inundation Map to learn if you're in a tsunami risk zone.

Keep tabs on the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management. DEM is always engaging in opportunities to get preparedness tips and other relevant information out to the public. The website also contains all the most recent plans, updates to the 72Hour website, and plans for future exercises.

Alrighty. Any questions? Please feel free to ask via comment.

Don't get caught in a bad hotel...

2010-05-11T14:26:00.001-07:00

Go Pride at Work!

In the age of the internet, no good deed goes unpunished...

2010-05-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

4 years ago I was in a movie. I can't act, but I was in a movie. It pissed off a lot of people who were actual aspiring actresses that I was just some chick plucked out of a Buffalo Exchange on Haight Street (I apologize for nothing). But that was ok. My dear readers, I think y'all know by now that I am pretty used to inadvertently pissing people off. Maybe I should change the title of my blog to "Pissing People Off Without a Clue". But I digress.

So I was in this movie. It's a zero-budget piece of genius about a household of nubile co-eds and one thousand-year-old killer puppy. It's also why I can now safely say I should never run for office... especially in Germany, where it seems to have found a home in a totally obscure cult niche. However, I may be a celebrity there. Who knows? I am kind of reluctant to find out.

We did one screening party at the DNA lounge, promoted it for a short while, and then I promptly forgot about its existence until a friend from Chicago came to visit and a bottle of wine later the movie was in my DVD player. Like a fine wine, it may have gotten significantly better with age. The creator/writer/director of the film pointed out, "It certainly couldn't have gotten any worse."

My interest in Puppy revived, I googled it. Lo and behold... I found myself on IMDB! That's right, I have an IMDB. Something about that just isn't quite right, you know? Somewhere in the world a unicorn just chipped his horn.

I will leave you with this. Do yourself a favor and don't try to guess what I am laying in, or for that matter, next to.

More civic by the tweet...

2010-05-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

Confession time: I get a little teary-eyed for civic engagement. Stop rolling your eyes. I know we've all heard that one before... after all, this is San Francisco, where volunteering is not just encouraged for college application purposes but is mandatory in most high schools. Still. Every once in a while when I need a big hug for the civic soul, when a middle school kid on a passing bus chucks a greasy McDonald's wrapper out the window and at my Ralph Lauren pumps, when I see another blighted corner, forgotten, with trash strewn among a tangle of rusty pipes and bearing an eerie glow slightly reminiscent of a superfun site in an 80's movie, when another doorway smells like a urinal... I check out Mr. Clean. Mr. Clean SF that is.

Mohammed is in the Department of Public Works leadership, and from his division's work on more efficient curb ramps to making public spaces truly available to the public, he helps this city be a little greener, a little more pleasant, a little more livable. And we can all use a little of that in our day.

Mr. Nuru, my apologies if this is super creepy of me.

March...

2010-03-13T13:06:00.001-08:00

There is nothing better than where we are today.

The Stigma of the "Girlfriend" Role

2010-02-16T01:48:00.000-08:00

If you know me in real life, or you've read my blog once or twice, you've probably gathered that I am a typical self-styled progressive girls' girl. I would rather slit my liberal wrists than forsake a gal pal evening; if a lady friend calls me up for an event, I go, no questions asked. Having lost a few "former besties" to their relationships with their significant others, which I find to be an infuriating display of disloyalty, I like to say that I at least try my damned hardest to put my relationships with females - although, it would be more appropriate to say friends of any gender who I am not intimate with - first. I find nothing more easy to commit to.

This seems like a simple approach, doesn't it?

But as we all get older and take on grown-up responsibilities - such as taking part in professional organizations, pursuing our independent interests, or even making time to clean our apartments before they get so filthy we decline eating indoors or doing our laundry before we are forced to wear that ridiculous last-resort shirt that we keep meaning to put in the goodwill pile, but don't, because of exactly these situations, to work - our schedules become tightly packed, and we wish the day grew longer proportionately to the amount of tasks we try to cram into it. We run out of time, and we have to prioritize.

So, assuming that I don't have a fundraiser or a schmoozy happy hour to attend, do I spend my Friday night with my friends, or with my boyfriend? I got one of those a while ago, and January marked our first month of very unexpected cohabitation. What I can honestly say on that topic is that it hasn't been boring, but it has been a huge learning experience.

Despite the fact that I am a completely monogamous and committed woman, I often find it difficult to own up to my relationship status. All I have to say is "I have a boyfriend. We live together." It's pretty simple... but, there is always a but. I find myself avoiding the conversation about my personal life like the plague, going so far as changing the topic completely abruptly and very conspicuously once asked. (I should footnote that even in single times I don't experience the may-I-holler phenomenon, thus I am in no way pussyfooting around the relationship status topic with a potentially interested individual. Nope. Just regular ol' individuals.)

One might conjecture, am I ashamed of my boyfriend? Hell no, he's a total keeper! Not only is he a babe and a sweetheart, but just today he burst into the living room to inform me about the ironically similar-sounding names of the Shoah (pr. shō-ä), the Hebrew word meaning calamity but now commonly used for the Holocaust, and the Showa (pr. shō-(w)ä), a period of Japanese history under Emperor Shōwa which literally means "period of enlightened peace"! That's the kind of stuff I live for.

No. I am embarrassed for myself, because even though this falls into the completely irrational category, I have always equated a woman being in a relationship with a man as a show of weakness. (Incidentally, any other gender permutation in a relationship is A-OK, so this just further underlines that the problem is me, not you.)

Is it the time when I grew up? The 80's and 90's, when women were seriously making a break for it, and the way my best friend the television capitalized on the phenomenon got really stuck in my head?

Is it my upbringing by a single mother, my heartbreak when my first college best friend started to spend time exclusively with her boyfriend, the disappointment I've felt in subsequent close girlfriends who have ditched their lives, their dreams, their passions, their friends, when a new dude showed up on the scene?

Probably all. What I know is this: I am learning for the first time how to reconcile my own personal stigma of the "girlfriend" role with the fact that I am, in fact, a girlfriend. And I should probably be really explicit about this if I plan on remaining one, which all my natural instincts tell me to cease and desist immediately, but luckily my more important organs have decided to learn to ignore.

The cohabing is a new chapter in my life, and a new topic on my blog as well, since this is the first time I've talked about personal relationships here. I am going to do what I always advocate for others to do: I am going to own my actions and choices.

I am officially expanding my list of interests to: disasters, politics, women's issues, food, and my relationship. Stay tuned. I promise I am not going to write anything squishy-mushy, but I MAY post a video of myself dancing with an upside-down mushroom-stuffed chicken, if you're nice.

The Wunicorn...

2009-12-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

A Wunicorn is an unprotected wireless network so rare that you doubt it even exists, though you hear stories that long ago there were happy herds roaming the neighborhood, unabashed, unafraid. It shows up when you've moved into a new apartment and can't get an appointment for a cable installation for 7 days because of the holidays. It will show up in strange corners of the room, usually those blocked by boxes, and its presence will be so fleeting that if you don't immediately run over to it with an offering of a macbook, it will surely disappear. The Wunicorn loves to taunt. At times when you do manage to catch it, you've caught but a mirage, for as you whisper gently, "Take me to Gmail, creature," it won't respond to your pleas. But times like these, my friends, when I am riding upon the mythical Wunicorn, oh, they are so good. So good.

Your mama may not be on Twitter, but your water is...

2009-12-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

You're waiting for the morning commute bus to work, thankful that leather gloves don't interfere with your touchscreen, and you suddenly want to know what the City is up to. Is that you? Ok, don't answer that, you'll probably make me feel bad... let's just pretend you are just really interested in the Public Utilities Commission and think about them every time you see the catchy "I ♥ SF Water" logo. You're in luck! They're now on Twitter as SFWater, along with the Bay Bridge, Public Health, and a score of other gov't agencies and NGOs. I am compiling a little list which you are welcome to peruse: http://twitter.com/kayvasilyeva/officially-sf.

On an end note, I hope I still have friends after I hit the "Publish" button...

Such a Bittersweet Day....

2009-12-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

I rarely promote events on my blog (for that matter, these days I rarely blog), but there are two events coming up shortly that those of you who read this, and are in San Francisco, should pay attention to.

This Friday, December 4, my home organization SFWPC is hosting is hosting the annual San Francisco Woman's Holiday Party at the premiere nightclub and lounge venue Lot46. This is a great event every year, full of champagne, friends and colleagues, policy wonks and the Usual-Suspect electeds.

Then next week, on Thursday December 10, a couple of San Francisco-based artists, photographer Geoffrey King and historian (and a trusty progressive woman-at-arms) Sunny Angulo, are debuting their brand new book project, Such a Bittersweet Day (published in SF).

The book chronicles the journey of the marriage equality movement following the fateful passage of California's Prop 8 in 2008, and 100% of the net proceeds from the main edition will go to organizations fighting for civil rights and healthy communities. This is a great present for all the progressives on your holiday list. Geoff and Sunny will be signing the books at the launch party (info here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173058721393&ref=ts).

Keep calm and carry on, and don't forget to buy locally.

Yours truly will be busy over the month of December moving into a brand-spanking new apartment with giant living room windows facing my favorite sunny corner of Alamo Square, so if you see me with a huge smile on my face, pat me on the back.

Stimpack dollars at work...

2009-11-12T11:03:00.000-08:00

Thank you, "Elizabeth" (who has not yet created a Google profile, so sadly I can not stalk her and make her my new best friend), for creating this awesome Google map of stimulus package money at work in San Francisco. Interactive maps, pertinent user-created content, trackable information... I'm all over this!

View Recovery at Work in San Francisco in a larger map

2009-11-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

'Twas the Monday before elections, and San Francisco had finally hit its summer. The office was languid, melted slightly by the weather outside, and my coworker had somehow decided to torture me with photos from his trip to Corsica some time ago. As three of us were drooling over photos of lush mountainside olive groves, the following conversation took place:

K: I would love to have an olive tree.
D: I would love to have an olive grove.
J: I... would just like to own land in Corsica.

Ok, I clearly need to "think bigger".

When good women do nothing...

2009-10-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Edmund Burke may have said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Yesterday, at the 3rd Annual San Francisco Women's Policy Summit, which convened more than 170 public sector representatives, nonprofit leaders, and advocacy partners with the unifying cause of promoting policies that increase the status of women, Campaign Boot Camp author and advocate Christine Pelosi wisely closed the Summit by saying, "DO something, don't just be something." And my boyfriend once paraphrased the introduction to The Life of the Mind as "Don't just jack off to your brain."

Thinking is great. Thinking begets ideas, theories, plans. But those ideas need to have an actionable aspect, and those plans need to be carried out. 2010 is going to be a tough year both locally, with important Supervisorial seats up for grab in San Francisco, and on the State level, with constitutional reform and ballot initiatives aimed to fix - and some to further cripple - our fragile economy. Anyone who's ever purported to care about the state of our existence needs to be ready to act, and furthermore, to give.

It takes roughly $2.5 million for a statewide initiative to qualify for the ballot.

It takes more than $15 million to win.

Here's where I'm going with this: A FOURTH ballot initiative seeking a California constitutional amendment requiring parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period before a minor can obtain an abortion was filed at the California Attorney General's Office this month. Parental notification initiatives were defeated by California voters in 2005, 2006 and 2008, but moneyed right-wingers are still attempting to sink Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice providers by exhausting their funding streams with excessively repetitive ballot initiatives. They may not win (if we do our job right), but they will make sure that money that can be used to provide services is instead spent on politics.

So I'm just saying, be prepared to act and give, and give as generously as you can. If you're constructing your budget for 2010, don't forget to work in your future political contributions. Men, too. We appreciate it more than you know.

I will leave you with this the following quote that my colleague Heidi Sieck has just posted on Facebook (I almost hate to say it, but it's a great tool for exchanging ideas):

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other" - Secretary Madeleine Albright, 1:15 PM 10/27/09 at the Women's Conference

I really like maps...

2009-10-15T11:14:00.001-07:00

Virtual maps, vintage maps, maps of population proportion, maps of the "old world" the way the old world saw it, topographical maps, simple linework of jurisdictional divisions (we have a number of those in our city alone! police districts, fire/emergency districts, supervisorial districts, water districts, etc., and all with different borders), maps that illustrate a region in a book.

Sidenote: I don't understand why some books - fiction and non - fail to include these when they mention specific placenames in a region. I know it's not hard to look them up on my phone which is usually 3 inches from my hand at any given point in time anyway, and maybe I should be better at geography by now, but they just can't hurt. Plus they are visually stimulating and a map in print always lends gravitas to the text, saying, "Look, these cities are a travelable distance, I didn't just make it up because I figured you wouldn't know any better."

I also really dig collaborative approach theory lately, as well as framing the future success or stagnation of global states in a geopolitical context. I've started to form a "big picture" for my (hopefully) future graduate studies: that true cooperation, not just political like-mindedness or similarity in social and economic goals, are necessary for states to succeed in the long term, to form a symbiosis of sorts. So when I stumbled across this video while randomly seeking some inspiration on the TED website, I thought, Perfect!, but also, "Damn, someone already wrote my thesis, and he did it in under 20 minutes." Oh well. I'm sure there's something out there for me still.

PSAs on sex: How fathers are more afraid of their daughters than their daughters are of them

2009-08-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia, which is to say that I'm absolutely certain it must be true, .gov domains are "restricted for use by government entities in the United States", so I am understandably perturbed by all the abstinence-only education commercials produced by 4parents.gov. Alright, I get it, it's a "national education campaign", and everything is done by the books. But this is San Francisco, and I'm watching CNN on a Sunday afternoon, and I don't want to see a hokey commercial featuring a dad who is advised, via telekinesis, by his teenage daughter that he doesn't need to talk to her about the "parts" of sex, because that's too hard. Instead, she implores him to tell her to wait, because that's all she really wants to hear.

Well, let me tell you, once upon a time in the 90's I was a teenage girl too, and back then pretty much all well-meaning parental guidance promptly rolled off my back during an exaggerated eye roll. But talk to me about sex, as in, actual sex? I would pull off my headphones and temporarily put away my precious CD player for that.

Unfortunately I can't find the commercial on youtube. This makes me question if it was just a figment of my imagination: if it can't be found on the internet, does it truly exist? Which comes first, the event or the twitter update? I'm getting off-topic. I can't find the actual commercial, but here's a great clip by public-service studmuffin Henry Rollins about how much this website sucks:

SFWPC's Summer In The City 2009

2009-07-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

My friends came by SFWPC's annual summer fundraiser, which took place at 5A5 Steak Lounge this year. We chugged champagne while I ran around taking pictures, and they snuck off to trivia night at Edinburgh Castle after taking this one with me:

Rosie, Holli, Aimme and me

2009-06-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

Something I have in common with fierce Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: we both fractured our elbows in 2009. That makes us like blood sisters, right?

I am now obsessed with tamarind...

2009-06-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Cooking classes are a popular "tourist attraction" in Thailand. I am usually not one for conventional tourist attraction, but you will see from my future posts full of vacation photos that I basically did every typical tourist attraction available, because they're so damn cool over there. I mean, who doesn't want to ride an elephant, drink "twig whiskey" with old men who never quite got right after a few decade of opium, swim with 50 different kinds of tropical fish in a shallow coral reef, and see a real, practical application for gold leaf? More on these later. This post is about my love affair with food and how I got to make a whole bunch of it from scratch, using amazingly fresh ingredients. There was also a small gang of cats roaming around the house where the cooking class was held, which was a big bonus for this crazy cat lady in training.

John is prepping his ingredients

breafast: pad thai

spring rolls (fried & steamed)

tom kha gai soup with oyster mushrooms

cashew chicken stir fry

green chicken curry

red chicken curry with thai eggplant

yellow chicken curry stir-fry

papaya salad

who let me play with fire?

Decision Day 2009

2009-05-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

In the face of today's sad news regarding Prop 8, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, we are still lucky to have a silver lining. A loss just means a better organizing opportunity; people who will fight like they've never fought before. And the bright hope of our future electeds:

Commissioners Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman, candidates for the Supe seats for Districts 6 and 8, respectively. Photo courtesy of Kip Williams.

All adventures start with a full plate...

2009-05-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

I can talk food for days. Literally, days. I think it's my favorite subject, above and beyond, because unlike politics it tends to garner only the most positive of reactions, and while I don't mind cooking up a nasty look every once in a while, I'd much rather be cooking something with lemon grass and turmeric.

On my recent vacation to Chiang Mai, Thailand (which I am still planning to write about, but you know how it is, I tend to drop the ball on long-term blog projects), I took a Thai cooking class in a little open-air bungalow. Before the class, the instructor took my partner and me to the produce market, where my eyes went buck-wild and I turned into a trigger-happy camera-holder. The market was insane. Fresh produce, vivid colors, pungent scents, strong flavors, you name it. Check out some photos:

the market

tom yum soup

tom kha ingredients: lemon grass, slice of thai ginger (galangal), chilis, kaffir lime leaves, corriander, slice of turmeric

closer look at the tom kha bundle

chilis and thai eggplant bundles

fruit: rambutans, mangosteens, som (thai oranges), young coconuts

lancet fruit, dragon fruit, asian pears

thai eggplant, thai ginger, chilis, turmeric, herbs

tiny hot chilis

msuhrooms, beans, and heart of palm

Hopefully soon I'll have time to post photos of all the food from the cooking classes. Stay tuned!

This is what "vacation" looks like...

2009-05-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

SFWPC's May 19, 2009 Statewide Special Election Endorsements

2009-04-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Tthe first thing I imagine couples' therapists will tell you is that you need to learn how to compromise. I don't really know, thought: my idea of therapy is skewed, much like my legal expertise, by the Law & Order franchise. How this applies to the May 19th Special Election? Two things: 1) Our beloved state of California is in a pickle with something like a $40 billion budget gap, and 2) Ain't no one happy 'bout it. So, begrudgingly, the Dems and the Repubs birthed a series of ballot propositions aimed at closing that gap by "shuffling some of the funds around" with predictable cuts to human services. Unfortunately money does not grow on trees. We all wish it did.

Three typical responses to the props: 1) YES to all; we need to solve the damn problem; how's this for compromise? Dems aren't happy with the terms, but yes, that is quite possibly the best we can do under these circumstances; 2) NO to all; we will not accept cuts to vital services; go back to Sacramento and rework the deal to somehow find money for the budget gap elsewhere; and 3) YES to some; NO to others, because 1D & 1E provide a negligible slice of pie, but impact the lives of many severely.

The San Francisco Women's Political Committee, which I am on as a Board Member, recently went through a round of membership votes on the endorsements and this is what we propose:

Check out the full text of our reasons for supporting and opposing, brought to you by the immensely eloquent Frances Hsieh, our Endorsement Chair.

1 Struggle 1 Fight

2009-03-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

Unless you've either been living under a media-proof rock, or you're not from San Francisco/California, you must have already heard of the amazing effort undertaken by some incredibly dedicated activists from the LGBTQ community to make their voices against marriage inequality HEARD. They are on a six-day march from San Francisco to Sacramento, enlightening minds and hearts along the way. Every day they meet folks who haven't been clued into the incredible injustice done by the passage of Prop 8 this past November, and every day they make more friends who join the fight as ardent supporters. They are doing a kick-ass job getting word out into the media and attracting the support of everyday regular folks like you and me.

Thanks to today's wonderful technology, they are keeping a Twitter to update us along the way: who they meet, where they go, the struggles they face. Please do yourself a favor and check it out, it's truly inspirational... and you know I don't say this a lot! This is like Three Cups of Tea inspirational. You go, guys.

http://twitter.com/1Struggle1Fight.

Don't call it a comeback...

2009-03-25T00:11:00.000-07:00

It's really tough to return to blogging after being "away" for so long. Have I forgotten how to do it? Did I ever know, to start with? Too much has been happening to catch up my remaining readers. I wanted to blog about Nov 2008 elections, but as those of you who know me would venture to guess, I was too busy working. Then I started a new job, acquired a distracting new romantic interest, broke my elbow, and underwent a series of adventures. Somewhere along the way I started wearing ties every day. As some of you may know, I usually need a new "thing" every so often. As if I didn't have enough to worry about. See:

What a toolbox.

Until I find a worthwhile training-wheels topic that won't take too much time to research, I'll leave you with a promise that I will try to not be absent for a half a year again. And this: While all hard liquors (80 proof) have roughly the same amount of calories (avg. 65), distilled products such as rum, gin, vodka, whiskey, and my beloved scotch contain ZERO carbs. Isn't that good news? Ok then, drink on my dear readers, and do it on the cheap: the Yelp Guide to Special "Offers".

Afghanistan's top woman cop murdered September 27, 2008...

2008-10-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing about the unfortunate death of Malalai Kakar, the top-ranking female police officer in Afghanistan, because the fact is I'm not a skilled enough writer to properly express my disappointment, and I didn't want to settle for just a blurb. But now it's been over a week and I still haven't gotten anything together, and something is better than nothing. In sum, Malalai has reached heights previously inaccessible to modern-day Afghani women, and that alone made her a Taliban target. She worked in a city recently overrun by the re-emerging Taliban, a considerably dangerous environment for men, let alone those relegated to second class citizenship (women, minorities, foreigners). At some point (why don't online versions of publications date their stuff??), Marie Claire ran this excellent article on the "top cop":

Malalai heads for the squad room, where she removes her burka and straightens her uniform. She wears a crisp navy-blue safari shirt with the sleeves rolled up and matching canvas pants gathered in folds around her hips, held up by a thick black belt. Clearly, the Kandahar Police Department never planned on providing a uniform for someone with a 24-inch waist. Against her bone-thin, five-foot frame, the 9-mm pistol strapped to her hip looks comically large.

Kandahar is, hands-down, one of the world's scariest cities. In spite of the U.S. and NATO street patrols, the Taliban seem to be everywhere. "They come out almost every night now," says Malalai. "They're responsible for drive-by shootings, bombings at police posts, and the daily mortaring of a NATO base outside town." Residents are on edge. Foreigners keep to themselves and live behind high walls with armed guards. Police at checkpoints look jumpy, and men with submachine guns wander the hotels. Nearly everyone on the street carries a weapon.

Malalai became a police officer, just like her father and brothers, to ensure that women would have a chance at a fair and just system of law enforcement - or access to it at all.

As a female police officer, Malalai is able to speak directly to women who are victims of violence. Recently, she started investigating a spate of suspicious murders and cases of abuse involving women in Kandahar. "These are things that I do that men just won't," she says. "I remember this one case, when I knocked on the door but the children would not let me in. From under the cover of my burka, I told them I was their long-lost aunt. They opened the door." Malalai (who says she often wears a burka to disguise her identity) searched the house and found a woman and her son chained by their hands and feet. They'd survived for 10 months on crusts of bread and cups of water. The woman, a widow, was handed over by her in-laws to her brother-in-law after her husband passed away. The brother married her and divorced her, a major taboo that guaranteed she would be a social outcast for the rest of her life. When she went to pick up her belongings, the brother-in-law forced her and her son into a cage and held them captive.

"The Taliban may threaten me," Malalai says. "But because of stories like rescuing this woman, the women and children love me."

The Taliban did more than threaten her. On September 27th, a spokesperson for an extremist Taliban movement which targets government officials gave the following statement:

“We killed Malalai Kakar. She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”

This just can't be tolerated.

Other relevant articles: Trailblazing detective pays with her life [The Star]

Kandahar’s Only Policewoman Walks a Tough Beat — Veiled [ABC news]

The Hidden Half: A Photo Essay on Women in Afghanistan [Mother Jones] (read the comments)

Time to let go of our antiquated agrarian nostalgia.

2008-10-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Slate has an interesting article up about American perceptions of what is "real" American and what is not, the Alaska vs. Hawaii argument. Read the full article here. I agree that there's a certain amount of romance left to the country lifestyle, but it's time to stop pandering to one demographic more than the others. Go where the voters are!

... Alaska leans Republican while Hawaii leans Democratic, and the GOP long ago intimidated the media into believing that only Republican strongholds represent the "real America." These Republican strongholds are usually sparsely populated, and I suppose the media's been sold on the idea that because the United States started out as an agrarian nation, rural areas are somehow more authentic than urban ones.

But if it's really true, as Palin said in the debate, that Americans are tired of "constantly looking backwards," then perhaps it's time we noticed that, as Rachael Larimore points out in Slate's "XX Factor" blog, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in metropolitan areas. We city-dwellers make no claim to being more "authentically American" than Alaskans or the inhabitants of any of this country's many other big open spaces. But we are, by dispassionate numerical reckoning, more typical. And while most people probably don't think of Hawaii as an urban state, 70 percent of its 1.3 million inhabitants live in and around Honolulu, the state's biggest city. In Alaska, by contrast, only 42 percent of its 670,000 inhabitants live in and around Anchorage, that state's biggest city. So if either of the last two states admitted to the union has any claim to being more characteristic of the nation as a whole, it's Hawaii, not Alaska.

2008-10-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Palin, a "master... of nonanswers"? Why, Andrew Halcro, you don't say! Tomorrow's much speculated upon Veep debate should be interesting, although already predictable: everyone's going to hit on the fact that she's vague and noncommittal to her answers, that Biden struggles to make an impact when compared to his press-ready opponent, that we didn't learn anything new from either candidate or their positions. I learned a thing or two about "feminism" this past weekend at the Women's Policy Summit and I'm looking forward to seeing how she shines as a feminist, though I do think it's unfair that a woman running for office can't just openly say that she isn't one.

Debating the debate... and then what?

2008-09-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last night my sweet buddy Erik came over to my place with two bottles of Barefoot bubbly, and we successfully managed to distract my poor roommate from her night of quiet reading with our own drinking game (drink every time Obama says "optimism", drink every time McCain says "experience"), but after a while we just decided to drink liberally. The whole thing was pretty painful. I was excited to hear a lot more about foreign policy topics, since that was the theme for the debate, but if you watched it, you will have noticed that the topic du jour was only marginally touched. So on this, the sad day of Paul Newman's death at 83, I'd like to quote another actor-activist...

The result is another frustrating piece of American media that is at once far too polite, and at the same time, dismissive of an American public's need to know anything beyond jingoistic self-aggrandizement.
- Sean Penn, via HuffPo (Read the full post)

Food for thought, or just a better way of wording my frustration...

Palin on Couric: like nails on a chalkboard...

2008-09-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

These days, one can't turn a corner without someone pointing out the flaws in Republican Veep hopeful Sarah Palin's thought process and logic. It's a familiar echo from 2000 and 2004 when the people rallied behind a momentous outcry, "Really? THIS GUY? Really? But look at what he said..." which is when young idealists either learned or failed to learn that people vote predictably along party lines, not based on "best choice". So it does just about as much damage to point out the obvious lack of information displayed by one Gov. Sarah Palin in public, like in this interview with CBS's Katie Couric:

But it's still kind of fun.

I am loving her incredibly noncommittal vague answers, and that when asked for a more thorough explanation, she repeats her originally vague response. I love that she points out McCain's "track record of leadership" as a positive toward new regulations, even though his "track record" is proven to be anti-regulation. When pressed on the moratorium on foreclosures, she doesn't give a single actual answer, and instead opts for a long list of political buzz words (phrases that momentarily stun the listener but when looked at closer, mean nothing): "see these amendments implemented", "leadership qualities and pragmatism", "multifaceted solution", "comprehensive long-term solution". Just who preps this woman before her scheduled public appearances? I've watched enough of the West Wing to know that's an invaluable position she might consider hiring for...

For our joint masochistic pleasure, here is another clip from this interview that I just can't bear to embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Km8L3FBWI Palin shows her unwavering support for Israel... no matter what! And don't get me wrong, fellow Jews, US aide to and alliance with Israel is as important to me as it is to anyone, but where do we draw the line? When do we say, "If you're going to bring this down to good guys vs. bad guys... literally... maybe we might be better off without you pigeonholing our area of the world?"

What we really should be asking, and where we should be pointing fingers, is "who is responsible for this current economic clusterfuck we're in?" No more of this "let's find a solution together" bullshit, because that obviously has had no merit. And to McCain supporters readily pointing out his 2005 co-sponsorship of a bill for increased Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac regulation? Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, my friends, for his attempt to reform the government’s involvement in lending three years ago actually gave the institutions a free year sans regulation and the ability to further "exploit their subsidies". Last I remember, "exploit" is not a favorable phrase. Maybe they're "bad guys", and we should let clear-sighted Sarah Palin clue us in. You see, she is an expert in "bad guys"...

Battleground Colorado...

2008-09-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Full article: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/battleground-colorado/

New citizen Fernando Torres is among the many reasons for Democratic optimism. He will cast his first vote this year, and says Obama will get it because he believes he is more in touch with the struggles of working class voters.

And then someone mentioned I dress like this anyway...

2008-09-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

About to go check out "Boots and Beers", a fundraiser for Nebraska's amazingly handsome Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Kleeb. I am going to be profusely outnumbered by boys in tight jeans but I will always take on any and all opportunity to dress up in a little plaid.

Edit: Annnnd the verdict is, the man of the hour was extremely gracious! Paul Hogarth did a great job organizing and I walked away with a few new acquaintances and some really good political gossip. I mean, so so good.

The Twitter experiment...

2008-09-22T10:34:00.001-07:00

On Friday, everyone's favorite photog Luke Thomas (who sadly insists on calling me Fay, although I would be honored to share a name with a tropical storm... it seems somehow eerily fitting!) urged me to try Twitter, so I'm going to roll with it for a month and see if it has any positive or negative impact on my life.

An example of positive impact would be, perhaps Beth and I would finally become BFFs? Just kidding.

Negative would be: my social circles will collide and implode, and everyone will see through my cool exterior into the inner nerd who spends way too much time online, and will no longer want to be seen with me. Just kidding, hopefully.

Thusly, please add me on twitter and help me do this little experiment to see if yet another online gadget will motivate me to get my iPhone sooner (really, I just want to be able to sit alone in a bar with my scotch and soda and Google Reader things):

kayvasilyeva

My 2008 campaign favorite:

2008-09-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna lie: I play favorites like a mean teacher. While there are plenty of great campaigns this election cycle - both local and statewide (No on 4, No on 8), all very important - as well as wonderful progressive candidates, there is one who I stand behind particularly strongly, and no, folks, it's not Ross Mirkadreamy. After two years of nervous giggling and shuffling like an overdressed schoolgirl around The Beast, as of last Friday's Rickshaw Stop fundraiser, I now have a new political crush. Unfortunately he's taken, and by the impossibly elegant Karen Zapata no less, but after watching our dear John Avalos hit the dance floor and display some serious levels of funk, I was positively infatuated.

John is also one of the hardest working advocates for labor and families in San Francisco, a familiar face to anyone who's ever been to a union rally or protest against the unfair treatment of our janitors, nurses, hotel workers, neighbors, brothers and sisters.

John is also as witty as he is a good dancer, and if you managed to miss the Rickshaw Stop event, then you missed this gem:

"I thought I knew a lot about District 11... We have artists, we have writers from Latin America or known in the Latin American world, here who are just pushing a broom in San Francisco. We have musicians, we have youth activists, we have incredible teachers, the most incredible people. And we also have foreign policy experience in District 11, because believe it or not, we can see the top of the hill of Daly City from our houses!"

If previous electoral cycles have made you politically cynical whatsoever, please pay attention to John's run for Supervisor in District 11... it's bound to be an inspiring campaign and an even sweeter victory. Better yet, sign up to volunteer and DONATE TO THE CAMPAIGN (any amount makes a difference, and if you are a San Francisco resident, your contributions are matched 100% by Public Financing!)

The return of Eugene...

2008-09-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

A while ago one of my very good friends enlisted. He's now gone through boot camp and is starting officer candidacy school. Let's all appreciate his handsome mug.

Quick catch-up...

2008-09-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

Took a brief blogging hiatus to catch up on real life, friends coming back to SF for the holidays, a whole lot of beach time, surfing, and transitioning into my role as an SFWPC Board of Directors member. But now I'm back and I have a lot of catching up to do.

While my smarter econ-savvy friends are paying attention to important Dow-related news, I've been obsessively following hurricane coverage although I don't have much of a personal connection to our glorious South, mostly, I'll admit, because Anderson Cooper broadcasts from thigh-deep floodwater in fly fishing pants (at one point, a lost golden retriever ran/swam up to him, wagging his tail excitedly, and the two bonded... further proof that all creatures big and small love Anderson).

Here's a great article of very moving personal accounts from the scene, which include a docile lion. Can't go wrong with a docile lion. And a guy who said this:

"I drink beer and chase women, gamble, cuss," Jones said. "You can't call that religion. I'm either too good, the devil won't have me, or I'm so bad the Good Lord won't take me. That's a good toss-up."

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Jones.

Huge photos that don't even begin to convey the devastation of the "short - but eventful - life of Ike"

Carry on!

When Christmas comes late...

2008-08-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Ever since the PPP gave Musharraf a 72-hour deadline to publicly resign on August 16th, I've been breathlessly awaiting Monday Morning to jump on Google Reader and eat up all the commentary from my favorite and most respected foreign affairs and region-centric blogs and think tanks. Monday Morning arrived, the formal news of the resignation arrived, but no good post yet! I am worse than a child on Christmas, refreshing the tool compulsively until it crashes my browser... c'mon J Foust, write something meaningful that I can be in awe of!

Edit: Ahhhh. I can now breathe a deep sigh of relief: the bloggers did not get sucked into a vacuum, or rededicate themselves to their regular jobs (god forbid!). Troy via AM; b via MofA; Resignation speech liveblogged.

Meanwhile, some bad news about the recent surge of violence aimed at soft targets: "yesterday three female aid workers for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and their Afghan driver were shot dead by gunmen who opened fire on their vehicle near the capital Kabul." Please read this post by a coworker of theirs, it's unreal. Umm. My Big Brother The Marine is back Stateside, working off his last two months for the mil'tary in SanD. Still wanna go, Mac Attack? Huh huh?

John Avalos endorsed by SF Democratic Party

2008-08-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

Congratuations to John Avalos, a progressive, a family man, a champion of labor, and an all around great choice for office, for winning the SF Democratic Party endorsement for Supervisor in District 11. I look forward to seeing John conduct his politics not as-usual for the next 4 years.

Volunteer for the Avalos campaign;

Donate Online;

...and check out John's Campaign Blog.

Bill Gwatney's murder highlights mental health issues and firearm control in one fell swoop...

2008-08-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

We may never learn the exact reasons why Timothy Johnson (now dead) fired three fatal shots into Arkansan Democratic Party chair Bill Gwatney, but judging from the items seized from his home, we may have a good enough idea. The article states that "police are not discussing the product of the search", but they clearly speak for themselves: prescription anti-depressants and 14 guns owned by the "quiet loner known mostly for his passion for guns" who had little social interaction outside of a gun club, where he spoke only when spoken to, and even then only about his "hobby". A former co-worker notes that he was visibly distraught when fired from Target for writing batshit insane graffiti (ie: "This hall is too *** **** narrow", WHAT??) in his building's hallways, and that police were called, but there are incidentally no reports out there of someone telling the cops, "Oh by the way, this lunatic owns a shit ton of guns. Might want to check on that."

Johnson was characterized by neighbors as a quiet man meriting little to no recognition, and Target released a statement saying that he had no prior incidents during his two-year employment, so who could have seen it coming? There's a sister somewhere in the wings. She knows nothing.

Did you know that you can't join the military within one year of going off anti-depressants? Or the Peace Corps, within 8 months. But you CAN own 14 guns and all the ammo you can afford, as long as your prospective targets are domestic. Other victims of medicated gunmen? Virginia Tech students and faculty. Remember Columbine? How about the Omaha Killer who "just want[ed] to take a few pieces of shit with me"? Shortly before that, Lee Eisenberg took members of the Clinton campaign "hostage" at her New Hampshire headquarters demanding better access to mental health care.

The red flag continues to be ignored.

Here in SF it looks like we have more important fish to fry, what with our most important Battle for the Board and all. Last night's DCCC candidate endorsement meeting (still waiting on SweetMelissa do post about it; till then her previous post will have to do) went on until an unusually late hour (making me especially glad that I went to a yoga class, instead; I bet DCCC meetings don't end in 10 minutes of peaceful breathing exercises), but unfortunately made no mention of Bill Gwatney's untimely passing earlier in the day. So on behalf of SF's busy dem party, rest in peace, Chairman. May this tragedy shine some light on the two contributing factors to truly senseless violence and incite some much-needed dialogue on gun control.

P.S. Check out what this self-described "gun nut" and his gun-nutty continguent have to say on the topic. Don't want to? Let me digest it for you: regulate those over-medicated hissy fit queens, not our precious guns.

Toys courtesy of your friendly neighborhood defense development fund...

2008-08-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge fan of traditional military procedure and behavior (hence my ever-growing interest in all things COIN), but I sure do love the concept toys and prototypes developed by and for our national defenses.

Don't you feel that much safer knowing that someday you could have a convenient folding submachine gun-slash-flashlight (the MagPul FMG9), about the size and weight of a textbook, to take with you on long walks in the dark?

I know I do.

See?

And that our guys will have superior secret-stealing methods, aided by optical camouflage technologies such as the invisible rain coat?

But my favorite, by far, is the 360-degree-spinning, sideways-driving, parallel-parking?-No-problem! two-passenger vehicle, the spectacular HURRICANE. You know, I will always be a Wrangler girl at heart.. and if these babies were street legal (or, you know, produced for consumers at all), I'd be having so much fun right about now.

P.S. I've been adding really good articles on the South Ossetia war to my google reader, which you can also see on the side-bar of this blog. Check 'em out.

Librarian refuses to remove children's book on gay marriage in CO...

2008-07-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

A Colorado parent unprepared to deal with the modern realities of gay marriage and the availability of information to their child seeks solace in the conservative comfort of a local librarian, but instead of accomplishing their goal of getting an "inappropriate" children's book on the topic pulled from the shelves, gets their ass handed to them by a hip old librarian/writer/blogger who respectfully reminds the parent that gay couples pay taxes too. Hilarious and admirable. It wouldn't be so bad for schools to introduce similar material that normalizes same-sex marriage to young kids... after all, this ain't religion.

That was the longest and possibly run-on sentence ever.

That's it. I'm hungry.

2008-07-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's been more than a half a week since my oral surgery and I still can't eat solid food. I was prepared for the pain, I was prepared for the swelling, I was prepared for eventually dealing with stitches coming out... but no one told me I wouldn't be able to eat solid food by the end of the weekend. And frankly, I'm surprised. I bounce back fast my injuries.

Two years ago on my first day in Caracas, Venezuela, I slit my left hand open between my pinkie and ring fingers on a broken tequila glass (which, truth be told, I probably broke and kept dancing with). At 5am I was stitched up with thick black wire, wrapped up in gauze, and (still drunk) ushered out of the emergency room by my Venezuelan girlfriend. I think we went to eat arepas afterwards instead of going home. Judging by the amount of time we spent partying during my visit, I don't remember my hand injury derailing any fun.

Two days ago I managed a carnitas taco. Yesterday, a piece of juicy quesadilla and a quarter of a burrito. Then I accepted my bruised jaw for what it was, stopped forcing my teeth to touch, and returned to my diet of canned french onion soup with soggy croutons. Joy of all joys.

I'm so hungry. Surrounded by marinated steaks, magnificently crispy toast, and freshly baked cupcakes, I've had about enough. Teeth, give me back my life!

Reporting live, from squirreltown...

2008-07-24T16:00:00.001-07:00

So I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus while a) mourning the move my best friend from college is about to make for grad school (two hours away, people... versus the three blocks we've been living from each other the past 4 years!) and b) recovering from a really nasty wisdom tooth extraction. Adults aren't meant for this. Where is my goddamn vicadin? I really can't wait to eat solid food again, and the smell of warm corn tortillas wafting in from the kitchen is making me near-livid. I would probably sell my soul for the ability to eat a grilled cheese sandwich right now, and for bacon? Your soul.

My face is lopsidedly swollen since two of the three offending teeth went without a fight, leaving their lone lower right brother to render me weak as a kitten with boatloads of pain. Now I am confined to a diet of liquids, and not even the fun kind of liquids, which makes me a very cranky individual.

Somebody get me a scotch and some bacon, quick, and I'll fake it till I make it.

Looking for backpack-sized cocktail shakers...

2008-07-17T11:10:00.001-07:00

Last night over cocktails at NOPA, where we observed a romantic May-December couple who really needed to get a room, one of my oldest girlfriends and I decided that in October, us two city girls will abandon our oversized leather bags and petite blazers and hit the Grand Canyon for a 5-6 day trek.

Will keep y'all posted.

"So I decided to... find out what exactly had transpired in his pants."

2008-07-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

This article deserves to be shared widely not only for its sheer brilliance on the topic of ethnicly and culturally relevant medical/mental conditions, but also for its use of the phrase "so I decided to try and find out what exactly had transpired in his pants" in all seriousness. Please proceed to Harpers: "A mind dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves" by Frank Bures. Yes, penis thieves. And yes, seriously, read it - it's long but entirely worth it.

My brother is not a morning person...

2008-06-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

Mac Attack, about to start his shift. Or whatever he does over there in Iraq.

Bloggers rights here and abroad...

2008-06-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan has no free media. No big surprise there, I hope. 25-year-old Nasim Fekrat of Afghan LORD champions the next best thing in Kabul: blogging. Yes, folks, blogging is good for more than just trash-talking gossip and exposing your crippled emotions to the world wide web. Some have thought above and beyond the personal blogging model and use online publishing tools to freely distribute useful ideas, scientific research, informed opinion, and independent news from the ground.

A blogger writing in a (re)developing country encounters many daily obstacles: electricity outages, lack of computers, lack of internet access, lack of transportation, government intimidation, you name it. That is Afghanistan. We are not surprised (although, with initiatives like Nasim's, we are hopeful).

Halfway around the world in New Hampshire, where - and please correct me if I missed something - freedom of expression on the Internet is still in effect, autism awareness blogger Kathleen Seidel faces intimidation tactics from a lawyer who doesn't like what she has to say. Following an in-depth exposé detailing the financial gains of the anti-vaccine attorney versus the impact of the cases he litigated on the medical community, Ms. Seidel was hit with a subpoena demanding 4 years worth of financial records, taxes, personal communications, research notes relevant to her blog, and other material listed here (pdf). Ms. Seidel won a self-drafted motion to quash the subpoena and the judge found the attorney's actions to be "an abuse of legal process, a waste of judicial resources and an unnecessary waste of the time and expense to the purported deponent", stating also that he has set a dangerous precident for the future silencing of bloggers.

In this case, the attorney thought he could get one past Ms. Seidel and intimidate her into silence. But while Ms. Seidel, armed with an extensive history in research as a professional librarian, was able to resolve the subpoena issue in her favor, many bloggers without the right resources would have simply acquiesced and deleted their statements (or online presence altogether) for fear of legal consequences.

Meanwhile in Kabul, Nasim says of his blogging workshops: "in order to build this country, we need to inform people", and Reporters without Borders supports his mission to enable citizens to share real, independent news.

We here in the States need to be more of an example.

The price of vanity...

2008-06-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, when I first spread my wings and took off from the old college nest atop Lone Mountain a brand new honors graduate, I was advised to apply for some kind of a management position with the city's 311 call center to get my foot in the door, so to say, in the world of city governance. I thought about it but decided I'd spend the majority of my time being utterly annoyed by people who are too lazy to Google their own damn answers (any means that reduce the necessity for plain folk to think for themselves are a bad move for a government in my book, and if I wanted to get all conspiratorial here, are the first step towards brainwashing), so I declined.

Now, I find myself curiously surprised that this service is not only used at all, but is actually popular enough for the Mayor's office to expand its budget. It's a service easily replaceable by two things that at least 85% of its users have: five seconds of their time and a computer. Operators at 311 don't have any magic tools; they have the same Internet that lives in your computer. Their "special training" doesn't go any further than learning how to navigate the city's ridiculously designed and poorly coded website, which any citizen could use with swiftness if the city chose to implement a more efficient search function. Even without that, poke around links for 20 minutes and you'll find the same exact answer they'll give you, without leaning on city resources. What, you don't have an extra 20 minutes to find the number for the Department of Public Works to fix a tipped-over newsrack, Dean? Or, I don't know, how about lifting it back up yourself, if you can?

Chances are, Dean could very well fix the problem himself. But with the veritable Mayor chirping "Oh, don't you worry your pretty little face, the city's got it handled!" at every news camera to increase his popularity and media presence, Dean sees an alternate solution: don't take any responsibility for fixing your environment, because you don't have to. Cheers, Mister Mayor. You really do make this city so much better.

...

Fucking prick.

Local seafood ups and downs...

2008-06-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's time to debunk the pearl of wisdom imparted on us by elementary school teachers everywhere: you can't judge a book by its cover, widely interpreted to mean that you don't know what something will be like until you personally experience it. Fact 1: if you let your publisher slap an ugly or cliche cover on your precious work of art, you likely did not have the straight common sense to create a masterpiece to begin with. More relevant to my experience this weekend, Fact 2: if you're in a restaurant full of people you would not normally eat with, stop right there and walk on out, you should not be eating there. Don't even bother giving the very vague menu a second chance, just cut your losses and move on.

On Saturday my lovely roommate and I decided to head out of town for the morning/afternoon, concluding our day in Sonoma's hills and fields with a lunch in Bodega Bay. Maybe it was the fact that we were completely starving that made us overlook the fact that The Tides was full of old folks, who generally tend to have a palate for bland food... maybe it was the grim but peaceful grey bay sprawling under our window, with a lone bird perched atop something that looks like it was once part of a boat. Maybe just bad judgement. Maybe we wanted to give our spoiled-by-eating-in-San-Francisco tongues a break. Bad decision! The wooden fish decor should've tipped us off. Say, what kind of a crab sandwich can you get for $22? Let me tell you: two pieces of sourdough bread, topped with a shredded crab/mayo mixture, a slice of tomato, and melted with cheese. A total waste of fresh crab, if you ask me. Crab cakes? Kind of burned, and served with a giant pool of the oiliest marinara I've ever had, a wilted leaf of lettuce, and a $13 price tag.

What was I expecting from a place that has children's menus printed on a fish-shaped cardboard? Or a place that has so many kids in it, to begin with...

I bet this place rocked back when it looked like this...

So, lesson learned, we went back to the good ol' city, a box with half a crab sandwich and one and a half crab cakes went into the fridge to most likely never be eaten, and I went to pre-game at Fresca in Noe Valley for a sea food experience that doesn't involve giant dollops of mayo, people asking for cream soda, or noisy children. Young adults and real adults alike were dressed up in that casual SF way we all know and love (meaning, I changed out of my flip flops and did something special to my hair, so consider me ready for public), sangria was not too sweet and being poured liberally, and food came out at the perfect time: just as the pitcher was getting empty.

If you're a pescaterian, or just a lover of ceviche like I am, you won't be disappointed with the variety on the menu. The plates that seem small when they come out are actually deceptively filling. When they say "jumbo", they mean jumbo. You can get a sampler of 3 to 5 different ceviches, each with its own distinct sauce that compliments the fresh and delectable protein: coconut milk with jalapeno, chives and Andean corn for lobster and crab; squid ink sauce, cilantro and rocoto aji for prawns and halibut; jalapeno, soy, white truffle oil, and Andean corn for the hamachi.

Andean corn is a biodiverse and sustainably farmed crop brought to us by the Slow Food movement. It's larger, meatier and more starchy than the sweet corn we usually eat in the States, with a texture and taste that don't interfere with a strong tasting sauce, but provide a much needed solid balance. The rocoto aji is a type of "very hot" pepper native to Peru and Bolivia, and a staple ingredient in all traditional and modern Peruvian kitchens. Together with cilantro, ever present in Latin cooking, the three ingredients form the base of all Peruvian cuisine.

The devil's in the details, folks, and a good restaurant will always remember this... not try to compensate for volume with whipped mayonnaise. So lesson for today: if you wouldn't want to be friends with your co-diners, quickly find an alternate solution to your hunger.

P.S. Rest in peace Tastespotting, you provided me with hours of amazing gastronomic day dreams. May you sleep well in internet heaven, nestled in the soft bosom of every other lost internet phenomenon. However, please welcome Food Gawker to the scene; FG, please live up to the shoes you're here to fill.

Oh Hillary...

2008-06-07T13:38:00.001-07:00

Where was this months ago? http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/07/clinton.unity/index.html

Election day wrap-up...

2008-06-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and I finally have down downtime at the ol' corporate office to write about the way Tuesday night managed to capitalized on "progressive" disaster. Basically, could it have gone worse? Maybe. But not by much. Many of my devoted readers (all 10 of you!) don't pay quite as close of attention as I do to news coverage of local politics - and god bless you for that, you're much better off - so here is the important recap: Despite all the extremely hard work the Senator, her staff, and hundreds of volunteers put into the campaign on the phones and on the streets, the simple truth is that voters don't really care about who they are electing; they, quite sadly, care about superficial things that will not have any impact on a politician's legislative record. Like "Oh he's a nice guy" - so?; or "I heard she's mean!" - once again, so? Oh, and Prop F failed while Prop G won, and most people who aren't "on the inside" still had no clue what they were voting for, they just remembered the two months worth of cleverly shot Prop G commercials that ran on cable.

I myself took on a Liberty Heights precinct, at that point mostly for the benefit of physical fitness. They don't call them "Heights" and "Hill street" for nothing, let me tell you.

Around 6:30pm I took over the Senator's list and began phoning retires in Marin County. By 7pm, they were all too busy watching the news for Barak Obama coverage to talk to me very much, and at that point I'd been at it for 15 hours (an actual figure, not an exaggeration) and started the count-down to scotchy scotch scotch time. At 8pm I promptly put on mascara and some blush for the cameras that I would later make all possible efforts to avoid, grabbed a couple of cups of ice, and began pouring the 15-year highland.

I even offered a drink to Supervisor Peskin, who declined, saying that by that time he was at capacity. I won't relay the actual words he used. Who declines a scotch from a tired girl but bouncy hair?

The rest of the night involved nervously watching election results trickle in with DCCC members Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman and drinking more at the El Rio in the presence of everyone I know. Typical.

A farewell to Eugene: It's been a great long drink with you, my friend!

2008-06-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

If I've been absent from updating for a little too long, it's all thanks to the second election to come down upon Californians this year... and it's not the last. We sure do love to practice democracy around here, don't we? It keeps us all occupied... and keeps our streets abundantly littered with colorful, absurd, and sometimes printed on recycled paper with soy ink campaign propaganda. If you're a frequent voter like me, you'll get a good 10 pieces a week - so the lesson to be learned here is keep your opinions to yourself! I kid, I kid.

The second item taking precedence over my social calendar is much more sad. May 26th marked the last week before bootcamp for my dearest friend Eugene, who's leased his very able (although after this week, well-saturated with Tennessee whiskey) body to the Army for the next 3 years, where he will be a proud officer making 18-year-old boys give him twenty or something. You'd think that for someone like me, a dedicated civilian (that's right, I'm dedicated to being a civilian) who nerds out to COIN blogs all day long and has Big Brother Marine imparting his sage wisdom on me from Iraq (do they have wifi in the barracks now?), it'd be no big deal. But I'm already missing the way he'll knuckle his way through my freshly-curled hair 5 minutes before we catch a cab to go out, destroying all my "getting ready" efforts in one fell swoop; the way he teases me about my love life; the way he gets drunk on Jack and makes incoherent comments until I catch up on enough Glenmorangie to understand what the hell he's talking about...

Basically, it's been a great few years in SF with you, buddy. I hope to catch you on the flip side, and long before that, your break before Officer School. You be well out there, you hear!

Featured flaked by Erik and myself, the very handsome future Officer Eugene.

Things Younger Than McCain

2008-05-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that Republican nominee for America's Next ~~Top Chef~~ Commander-in-Chief is older than dirt... but did you know he's older than duct tape? Penicillin? The area code? The polio vaccine? THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE?? You get the idea.

Telling you something you already knew...

2008-05-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

The increasingly small town of San Francisco (seriously, don't you just feel the borders shrinking every time you run into people you don't particularly want to have run-ins with? I do...) lacks any notable access to actual drunk, blundering celebrity and celebutant messes, so "writers" who would otherwise be moderately successful gossip bloggers in LA and NYC turn their undivided attention to the next best thing we have to offer in terms of people-whose-names-you-might-recognize: people running for, or holding, local office. You know, those guys who have a hard enough time trying to get anything done thanks to financial impediments, the ever present red tape, the bureaucratic tangle? Yea, them. Now they have to watch what they wear, too, lest they be caught looking or acting not at 100% by someone who can't see much further than their own nose.

Newsflash. This isn't Gossip Girl. this is a city facing some tough decisions in the near future.

Not the last year of the crazy run...

2008-05-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

San Francisco used to be a fun town; SFist.com is absolutely right. Then everyone who used to have fun got older, grumpier, and less enchanted with roving groups of drunk glitter-clad disco queens (or leopard-printed kitty cats, or beer pong cups made from red garbage cans, or folks who are just wholesomely and delightfully naked), and decided to take on a personal mission to put an end to all the festivities. In response, I'm going to take on a personal mission of my own to support all such activities and not bitch when my cokehead neighbors blast disco music at 8 in the morning on a Sunday... because it's the Sunday, and they're entitled.

We can have the pill for free, and they can't have a teenage crush...

2008-05-13T11:24:00.001-07:00

I can never possibly claim to be a member of the PC police, what with my eternal and unstoppable potty mouth in full effect all day, every day, but I do advocate for framing the actions of others in the context of their culture, especially when dealing with a series of conflicts. In that case, loud testimony on the subject of who is right and who is wrong is most often useless; one must ask themselves: What do I hope to accomplish? and What can I stand to give up in compromise? Generally, in order to accomplish a long-term goal, one must give up their short-term preaching.

Our country's (and the West's, in general) constant strife for cultural dominance in the world is not something I always agree with (especially due to the ever-present air of embarrassing disrespect for others), since it leads to the extinction of the kind of diversity that challenges us to re-examine morals and ethics in the first place... but the fact that honor killings are still happening, right under our nose and with our aid, really make me question if cultural extermination is always so inappropriate. I know that's a strong statement coming from someone with my background (please see: Shoah) but in order to appease my slightly wounded feminine sensibilities, it has to be said. The fact that it's 2008 means absolutely nothing.

That said, I am not at all a fan of the way we as a country are going about things right now, so I urge you to not stick that statement in between the lines. I might rewrite this later to include a little more informative content when I'm less pissed, although I don't see how I will be, considering the topic.

The thin veil of ineptitude will soon be ever so slightly lifted...

2008-05-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

Coming in on the heels of San Jose, San Diego and Fremont (the parking lot with a mayor beat us in the tech race, my friends), San Francisco will now be using the technologically-forward and user-friendly site Crime Reports, according to Fog City Journal. This tool is so, so, so long overdue. Can I add a few more "so's" in there? Please let me elaborate. During my City Hall internship my senior year of college, one of my tasks (aside from being on receiving end of many angry phone calls) was to track the efficiency of San Francisco's current crime mapping system by comparing the number of crimes that show up on the map to the number of crimes sent to me by various precinct captains. Over a long period of time, my only conclusion was... wrong, wrong, wrong! In addendum: the script was constantly buggy, and you really can't find a less user-friendly application.

My only problem with Crime Reports is that it STILL doesn't let you export raw data into a file, but at least it'll graph the data for you. I guess this is a heads up to all the future interns who'll be keying in data by hand from the site: Have fun, guys.

TasteSpotting, you devil...

2008-05-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

This post is strictly for me and my foodie brethren. As I sit on my couch on a less-than-warm Saturday afternoon, watching Iron Chef America and sifting through the recipes on my new favorite website, TasteSpotting, I could find no better way to crawl my way into the weekend.

I've already made two recipes found on this site (the french onion soup and something else - can't remember now) and they were both magnificent. Oh, if only there were more hours in the day to spontaneously play with the contents of my fridge.

"Food" and "crime" can only happen on Mission & 23rd...

2008-05-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to get past the irony of this (hey, I list puns as a hobby, OK?) so I might as well get it all out because it's not even remotely funny. Two days ago, an armed robber walked into the new Mission restaurant/bar Beretta, held it up, and went on his merry way with a sack of cash bearing dollar signs (probably minus that last part). I sure hope he used a BERETTA, because otherwise this situation is just all wrong.

Well, Beretta happens to be on my social calendar for tonight, since most of my roommate's Bourbon & Branch cohorts have migrated back to the Mission and we dilligently follow the trail of tasty cocktails they leave in their wake. So here's to hoping that lighting doesn't strike the same spot twice.

On the high seas...

2008-04-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the official opening of the San Francisco Bay for the boating season (always the last weekend in April), and they could not have had better luck with weather: gorgeous, warm sunshine that makes sailing bearable without a heavy water-proof parka. Now, I'm a newbie to the marvelous world of seals and choppy waters and boats that seem like they're about to tip over, so I wasn't there.

But I did go out on the Bay the day before on the charter yacht Ruby under the heavy supervision of Captain Josh, who sold us Anchor Steams, gave us sandwiches, and told us to hold on to the railing, all in all making sure that we got back roughly in the same condition we departed in. Captain Josh is an interesting character, the boat ride is fun as hell (especially all the tipping and sliding sideways), the music is 90's hip hop, and overall it's a great way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon. Also, hands down, most interesting view of the San Francisco industrial piers that you can hope to get. Maybe I am a sailing kinda gal after all.

Captain Josh

Taking the internet a little too seriously?

2008-04-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

When the Main Independent Journal first decided to poll its readers on their preference for D3 State Senate candidates with a simply-scripted widget, I knew it would be trouble. Throwing around the results of poorly conducted unofficial polls that leave no room for an accountability audit is like wasting perfectly good tequila on an already roaring fire. Lo and behold: evidence that the Leno camp, full of paranoid glory, cheated by removing cookies and voting multiple times. A pol cheating on an internet public opinion poll to skew the results, to further infuriate his opponent? Oh no! (Very tempted to write "oh noes" here, btw.) Who could have thought?! Just how threatened must one feel to resort to throwing out nonsense like "In the 'is she really still here?' category" about an online tool with fictional results (provided by similar online tools)?

From the real world, here, where real results and not internet media scares drive campaigns: Carole is getting plenty of positive responses, plenty more than her termed-out opponents... from real people, each with an address and a voter ID and a voice. Not guys that have nothing better to do than vote all day on an online poll.

There is no actual candy at CandyBar, bummer.

2008-04-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

I keep putting off my "review" of CandyBar SF in hopes that it'll take the negative cues it's getting from eye-rolling neighbors and patrons alike and leave. Then I wouldn't have to write something negative, which I really don't enjoy doing about a fledgeling business, especially of the around-the-corner nature. But I can't help it. I admit I had some strong preconceived notions about what a dessert lounge would be like in my down-to-earth haven where everyone mellows out once the lights dim in our local haunts, but I really tried to put those aside and enjoy the menu. And you know what? That's not easy to do in this place. As soon as my party and I sat down, a manager told us the kitchen was closing (it was 11:20!) and that we'd have a limited amount of time to drink our $8 beers, followed by an embittered rant about how the permitting process for our neighborhood is so difficult and that CandyBar could only obtain one that lets them stay open until midnight on weekends.

According to their business statement, they aim to be an "after dinner dessert lounge" where folks who aren't satisfied with the limited sweets menus at NOPA, RNM, and Solstice could come after their meal and relax with a night cap. This is a great concept that I would have absolutely welcomed to the 'hood for those nights when you just want to relax with a small circle of friends for a thinktank vs. graduate blog discussion (I am on the grad. blog side, fyi). I envision: comfortable chairs, dim lighting that's easy on the eyes, unusual desserts, and creative cocktails made with soju and sake since they are allowed under a beer/wine license.

Instead you get a cranky crew working under glaring 200-watt lighting, constantly having to apologize for its booze selection and hours; stiff blocky chairs; ultra-industrial decor that reminds me of a pricey bathroom showroom; food you can find anywhere else (Chowhound sites "conflicting elements" when it comes to taste); and subsequentally, you and your friends leaving with an agreed "Let's go get a real drink somewhere."

So go ahead and stay at NOPA, RNM or Solstice for dessert. Nothing about this place is really worth it.

Neighborhood stuff...

2008-04-03T11:28:00.001-07:00

Ever since I wrote about Minibar, a barbershop-turned-another-bar on Divisadero (a very appropriate parallel to how the street's changed over the years), I've been on the lookout for something that seems like a perfect new hangout. Well, I guess I haven't been looking that hard, since I keep missing its very unassuming storefront-like location. Is it even open?? I want a beer, already.

Meanwhile, Bar Crudo has applied for some kind of a license. I'm assuming (hoping?) it's to sell booze, but it may be something building-related. Will they let neighbors dine in sweat pants? I hope so.

Taking the place of the corner-staple Bars & Stools, which kindly let neighbors park in its driveways after business hours, is Plant-It Earth, a hydroponic/organic gardening supply company. Sadly, I have a feeling that something with "organic" in its name is going to be less forgiving about our parking shenanigans.

2, 4, 6, 8, Carole's gonna dominate!

2008-04-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

Alright, alright, I'll bite. The CA Democratic Party Convention in San Jose, 2008, was the most blatant, shameless display of the kind of dirty politics that laymen always accuse politicians of. And rightly so! Here you have a situation where the accomplished Senator's main opponent pledges to run a "clean campaign", putting on that big used-car-salesman smile of his in hopes that the gullible masses will believe him (and golly gee, they do), then promptly turns around at an advantageous time and starts slinging(1) dirt(2). Such dirt that if you look at it closely, you'll notice contains only quips from obviously biased sources and out-of-context headlines - things that usually appeal to insiders who know the full story, but get distributed to the general masses who have better things to do than think critically. But what's more important is what the fliers don't contain: a union bug, despite the tradition of Democratic Party candidates standing in solidarity with organized labor. It looks like Mark, whose campaign is run by a consulting powerhouse that should have known much better, has no problem turning his back on such a solid relationship.

The smear campaign against Carole is focused on several things - ethics, compliance/transparency, and her personality - although if I were in Mark Leno's shoes I wouldn't go around calling the kettle black on all three accounts. Leno supporters will balk at the idea of "stealing an election" or "member stacking", but that's exactly what his campaign did at the CDP when uninterested and unformed delegates from the entire state of California overturned the endorsement of the regional caucus. When asked, many of the Leno supporters hawking their non-labor-printed fliers and clipboards said that Carole has at some point personally offended them. You know what offends me? That, according to Leno, someone from Los Angeles is better suited to make decisions about which of our candidates the party should support. While I'm at it, why don't I let some sorostitutes from the Marina choose my Supervisor for me, too?

Speaking of ethics, which was the topic of choice for the Leno campaign when attacking the Senator, what was the situation exactly? Whichever version of the story you choose to believe, let's at least agree on the facts - tangible, untouchable, balanced facts - surrounding the case. There were issues with Carole's financial filings, which she never denied or attempted to mask. Her solution was to defer the decision about the fines and campaign funds to the court, the most transparent solution possible. The court affirmed her that her actions in regards to her campaign funds, which have been exaggerated both in the media and by the Leno campaign spin doctors beyond any recognition, are justified. So, to recap, we have some uninformed Leno folks going around telling anyone who'll stop to listen that the Senator's actions are unethical... meanwhile, the courts say they are. Who shall we listen to?

For a more organized write-up on this topic, check out Chris Daly's article in the Fog City Journal.

Dangerous things...

2008-04-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

More from my unamused big brother. His sentiments: "We basically have more people than work...it is SOOOOOO distrubingly comfortable here".

Outside Lands: SF's own Coachella

2008-03-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

I've been on the fence about buying the 3-day pass that's currently available for a new outdoor music festival set to take place in the park this summer because of the site's inticing half-promise: "Pending availability single day tickets may be released at a later date." Just tell me if they will be, or won't be! I clearly have committment issues and really can't justify an entire weekend of boozing and partying anymore.

I should do the smart thing and buy the 3-day ticket and resell it later, if the single day tickets become available, but even that's too much commitment for this girl.

So far the bands exciting me are: Radiohead, Jack Johnson (I know, I know!), Wilco, Cold War Kids, The Cool Kids, and The Coup, but if they got Kaiser Chiefs/Fratellis/Black Keys on the lineup I'd be much more motivated to commit.

Please stay tuned for a review of the CDP convention, which is going to take some time since I keep getting distracted with real work.

On my way to the CDP Convention...

2008-03-28T16:07:00.001-07:00

Tonight I'm planning on reliving my college "glory days", by which I mean I'm going to drink and dance until 3am and then wake up at 7:30 for class. Except for the class part. Instead of dragging my sleepy self up an absurdly steep hill (now I get why I was in much better shape two years ago!) for lecture, I'll be fighting my cravings for some kind of a very unhealthy fast-food breakfast - because that's what driving down 280S/101S does to me - on my way down to San Jose for the CA Democratic Party Convention. Why so early? I have to be there by 10am, which in my case means that I need to aim for 9am, in order to make sure all my credentials for the voting process are in order.

I will be there as part of Team Carole, since you don't need to be a nice and gentle person to be an effective legislator in my book. Come on people, it's not like she's running for Prom Queen. So she's a little abrasive. Let it go.

Getting a little political in preparations for the CDC...

2008-03-26T16:27:00.001-07:00

A note to those who need to be reminded: if you are in the news, any news, and lie about the circumstances of an event which was filmed, you will get caught, and rightly and embarassingly so. So please take a lesson from Senator Clinton's fumble and save us, the watchful general public, the secondhand embarassment.

Also this - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25brooks.html - Great article that can be summarized as: Lady, when will ya quit?

Mac-Attack in Iraq

2008-03-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

My big brother Mac (pictured here with a kitten, aww) has been sent back abroad, Semper Fi-ing all the way back to the Al Taqqadim Airstation, 70 miles west of Baghdad. He's a chopper mechanic and, from time to time, takes some awesome pictures when he isn't setting things on fire and/or surfing the 'net for porn (kidding, on both accounts!) Until he commits to getting a blog, I'm going to post some of them here.

Sticks & stones can break my bones, but don’t call me a bad actress.

2008-03-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Just kidding. You can – and should. And I should sit here and take it. See, a few years ago I got involved with an indie horror movie project (Puppy!), where I displayed a wide array of previously unused skills (or lack thereof). I had no idea I wasn’t a very good actress since I’d never tried it before, although I probably should have figured that I would’ve already tapped into that talent if I had it. Anyway, I’m all about new experiences so off into the movie-making land I went. Now, this wasn’t a craigslist thing involving phrases like “gay for pay” or “cheesy motel decor”, so don’t go getting all excited. This was a legitimate situation of a complete stranger approaching me in a shop and asking me to audition at his house in the dark and woodsy lands of Marin county. Don’t worry, I brought a friend. There are also no nipple shots from yours truly, although if you are into that sort of thing, the rest of the actresses had professional adult film industry body doubles.

That said, my role was pretty major, my name rolled in the credits second after Alice Cooper’s daughter Calico, and I will take a good deal of responsibility for why the movie bombed. I felt pretty bad about ruining these nice people’s project, so I tried to be as cooperative as I could be during the chaos of voice-overs, post-production edits, and standing in the middle of the street on a cold March night covered in sticky fake blood, but apparently my good behavior on-set does not translate into the overall quality of the movie and let’s just say the critics did not go easy on my under-acting (I was originally really afraid of over-acting).

My first reaction: “Wow, someone actually watched this thing??”

Immediately followed by: “ :( I suck.”

Rightly so. At least I tried... even if I didn't exactly give it my best shot. Getting criticized on the internet is less than fun times, but even so, one must remember to take it in stride.

I should stick to my usual pen-and-paper medium of self-expression (click to enlarge):

Sugar Skull 1

2008-03-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

(Click to enlarge). My first venture into illustration in a long time. I bought all these markers, paints, pens and illustration paper back before Christmas but never got around to using them until this week... I'm so bad with personal deadlines.

Candy Bar SF ???

2008-03-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

On my way to the faraway land of non-metered parking in the Western Addition this morning, I passed a glowing new venue being refitted for - wait for it - yet another beer/wine only bar in the neighborhood (there are two more within a half a block), whose claim to fame is going to be sweet foods. It's a wine and dessert bar with a ridiculously Marina name to match: CandyBar SF. How quippy and adorably Chestnut Street. I'm all for new businesses filling up the empty store fronts in my neighborhood, but I'm really hoping this doesn't attract the Alembic kinda crowd that now overflows into my favorite little low-key Upper Haight bar, ruining it with massive amounts of pretense and douchebaggery.

(edit): In other gastronomically adventurous news, I can't believe I didn't catch this earlier when scanning the EaterSF site, but pricey yet tasty Bar Crudo is opening a brand new location way too close to home, my home that is.

Also coming soon: Minibar (a former barbershop space converted to probably another beer/wine only location) & live jazz cafe On the Corner (I saw the owners exiting after a walk-through this weekend and they say they're expecting to open in a week, but didn't mention the live jazz).

In other news, I've been busy winning Pig & Whistle trivia with my college buddies a eating up the crazy insightful awesomeness that is my favorite COIN blog, which everyone should put on their blog roll immediately. You can not read this stuff anywhere else, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, maybe you can, but the trio that writes for AM does it with so much finesse.

P.S. I ate 30 oysters today and it felt great. Props to human beings for being able to consume entire colonies of other organisms. 5 dozen fresh raw sweetwaters split between 3 hungry friends disappeared like there was a black hole at our table, followed shortly by Manila clams in a wheat beer broth and a grilled cheese sandwich that's still making my mouth water... in short, if you haven't been to Hog Island, you should go.

Via AfghanLORD: Women in Afghanistan

2008-03-07T12:40:00.001-08:00

A fantastic article on the current status of Afghan women and minors from one of my favorite Central Asian blogs. I have deep respect for the author for pursuing independent reporting in country where media is so strictly controlled by a fundamentally misleading government.

Everything I need to know I learned from Google Reader.

2008-02-19T16:32:00.000-08:00

For whatever meta- or otherwise physical reason, when big changes happen, they comes in throngs. The media is ablaze with things to talk about. My google reader addiction is growing.

2/12: The assassination of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh via headrest bomb.

2/17: The Republic of Kosova breaks from Serb rule and declares independence.

2/19: "Old as dirt", ailing, and mostly incapacitated Fidel fucking Castro fucking resigns. Whoa!

Now, for a moment, let's go back to my growing addiction to Google's answer to every disorganized blogroll, the brilliant and user friendly Google Reader, which now consumes much of my free time and prevents me from writing anything original. That's OK, there's so much out there that's written already... so check out these blogs, which are now among my favorite reads:

Abu Muqawama
Afghan LORD
Foreign Policy Watch
The Ghost of Patrick Henry

Caturday.

2008-02-16T22:23:00.000-08:00

vs.

A story about identity tangles

2008-02-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

So a Jew, an economist, and guy learning Arabic walk into a bar... stop me if you've heard this one before. Wait, nevermind, that was actually me and two of my friends last night. It's Tuesday night and after some roast chicken and a bottle of wine, my friend and I decide we're not ready to call it quits yet. We meet a third friend and stand at a street corner trying to decide on a bar. My friend says, "Let's go to the dirtiest bar we can find." No problem. The dirtiest bar (not in a cleanliness sense, by the way) is actually right in front of us! It'll remain unnamed, you'll see why later.

I used to go to this bar a lot... when I was nineteen. Now, there's a silly law that says that at eighteen you can sign up to die for your country, but you can't be in a bar (or most adult stores, for that matter), so like all resourceful city girls, I worked around it. Kids will be kids, right? Or something like that. This was long ago, so I completely forgot if I ever mentioned my age to him.

So my comrades and I are in this bar, and the co-owner/bartender remembers me really well since we used to chat often when I was a frequent patron. He asks me if I'm married yet, naturally much to my friends' bewilderment, and then says "You must be 27 by now, or 28?"

"23."

"So you were what, 19, when you started coming here?" He does't seem amused, and I suddenly remember that he thought I was 23 five years ago. That's when I pull a brilliant line:

"I started aging in reverse once I hit 25. I don't think being over 25 is very becoming."

I'm such an agist.

Tomales Bay

2008-02-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

Oysters with Kay

2008-02-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

Anyone else's weekend go by way too quickly? Can we hear it for the four day work week? Yea, unlikely. I think three days would be a perfect amount of time to collect and regroup mentally: one day to play, one day to be productive, and one day to do absolutely nothing. I think I'd be a lot more industrious during the work week if I knew I had a day of total rest to look forward to during the weekend. But while we of the M-F nine-to-fiver ranks have a mere two days to get done everything from laundry to house keeping to catching up with friends at a bar to finally getting to cook a decent breakfast, there's always this difficult choice to make: do I do nothing and decompress, or do I do something to make good use of my free time? Unfortunately, something usually wins out over nothing.

As my "something" this weekend, I decided to get the hell out of SF. Sometimes you've just had enough, you know? This was probably heavily influenced by the crowd at Big Foot Tavern on Polk the night before and their general insistance to act with pretty heavy douchebaggery - you know the kind, if there's a narrow spot or a doorway, they have to stand there and refuse to move - and women pushing 30 who still throw up in the bar bathroom. C'mon ladies, get it together.

I rant and rave about the California coast quite a bit. To me there's nothing that can even come close. What can I say, I love it. It's so close to home but has a completely different look and feel. Tomales Bay is home to some of the best oyster farms that cater to the Bay Area, specifically Hog Island Oyster Co, which I could also go on about for days (the Ferry Building location, the outdoor seating, the $1/oyster happy hour, the grilled cheese sandwiches??). Anyway, my cohort and I ended up in Tomales Bay, and we wanted to eat some oysters since it was a gorgeous day, and we found ourselves at the farm:

The best part? While restaurant oysters can run $2.50 per a tiny itty bitty single, even more if you want the fresh specialty ones, buying a tray of clusters and shucking them yourself is dirt cheap (by oyster standards) at $10 for a dozen.

... and also fun, if you have a hidden talent for shucking, like me. Also I'm excited that this time I didn't slice my hand open, but then again, I was also not using a kitchen towel for a glove like last time.

Go city girl, go! Observe the deserted "picnic area" behind me. Just moments earlier it was infested with Marina types, couples wearing matching Giants t-shirts and Hog Island sweatshirts, throwing a football around for all of 15 seconds and calling each other "babe" constantly (ie. "Babe, can you take a picture of me walking to the trash can?" I kid you not.)

Fresh air + drinking = I'm 23, back off.

2008-02-05T15:17:00.000-08:00

The past two days have shown me massive signs of hope. I feel good, I feel blessed... do you think I'm talking about Super Tuesday? No! Okay, that's exciting too, but what I'm really down for right now is this beautiful weather that's showing a glimmer of change to the grey, depressing, windy downpour we've all been dreading every day we leave our cold apartments, trying to find a cab or hoping not to miss the MUNI, sharp needles of cold rain forcing us to squint into a bad day.

No more. We've had enough.

In honor of what I hope is the return of a decent existence without the constant threat of wayward umbrella corners, I'm compiling a list of bars with outdoor patios where you can sit under a heat lamp and pretend the sun is actually warm while drinking a crisp microbrew or a spicey bloody mary.

Zeitgeist - a no-brainer. Some friends, a deck of cards, a giant purse full of miscaleneous items to weigh your cards down with, and some BBQ. Definitely can't wait to resume all that.
Mojo - they have a nice back yard covered with plants, perfect for a big glass of hef. But my backyard is next door and has lounge chairs and I could drink beer out of bottles for much cheaper. I'll probably still come here, though...
El Rio - I'm not that likely to stray so far from my home grounds for a beer, and if I was going to Bernal during the day time I think I'd go elsewhere, but this is an outdoor option, although mostly occupied during evenings.
Thee Parkside - the outdoor patio has its own bar. Oh reaaaallly...
Zazie - tucked away in Cole Valley, whose tangled streets are great for walking off a serious buzz in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, easy to get to, but, unfortunately, sometimes infested with children.
Frjtz (the Hayes Valley location) - good for both food and beers, and a convenient walking distance away.

John Avalos for Supervisor is live on blogger @:

2008-02-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

SF Auto Return: fuck you twice, the police impound edition.

2008-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

I guess the full story is appropriate here now, because otherwise I would lose all rights to bitch at - easily - the worst people in this universe: impound lot office monkeys. So a police officer who a) had a difficult life or b) was born with a stick up his ass kindly towed my car. For the record, I'll admit that the reason for the tow was legitimate: a friend who was driving my car neglected to mention his suspended license and blah, blah, blah. My license however is fine, and I would've just gone to get my Jeep if that was made an option, but of course the more they tow, the more they earn. Also I hear from the friend that the officer found this situation funny.

Since this was a moving violation, my car went to Pier 70, the Police Impound AutoReturn, which I of course didn't know.

Now, a tow from a driveway and having to deal with AutoReturn are pretty aggravating, but a police impound lot is a whole different animal. It takes above average pride in really sticking it to you, and in comparison, regular AutoReturn seems like a kitten with a ball of string.

The Police Impound lot is in the middle of nowhere, tucked away on the rough side of the industrial pier row in Potrero Hill, past an old, worn-down and rotting wood gate. On Pier 70, it's the IUD-shaped road in front of Irish Hill and "Building 117". It doesn't look too confusing from the aerial map, but to quote my friend who once worked for Google, "Google StreetView wouldn't go there." Then there's a metal gate which "customers" aren't allowed past, and beyond that, who knows what happens? There's some smoke stacks. I keep looking for good maps of the pier to see where the impounded cars actually are and it doesn't look obvious at all from these photos. The police impound isn't even listed on the port authority site as using the area.

Then it takes them an hour or more to "get your car ready" (without further explanation). Meanwhile, it's pouring rain, there's no indoor waiting area, and the office monkey sitting in a tiny kiosk tells you that he doesn't know anything any time you ask him a question. Observe:

"Why do you need to get my car ready?"
"Need to take things out of the car."
"... What things?"
"We are helping another customer right now." That word again, customer. I do not think he knows what it means.
"But... I am the only person here."
"Helping another customer."
"Can you tell me how long?"
"No."

An hour and a half. That's how long. When I finally see my round headlights come up the hill, my car is screeching and squeaking. Turns out the ever-competent city employee was driving with my emergency break on. Really? Seriously? On top of everything? Anyway. Fuck this place. Bring an extra helping of whatever calms your nerves, otherwise you will want to shoot someone. I can't believe how much like a Yelp review this sounds.

SF Auto Return: fuck you and your caring.

2008-01-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

Idon't want to actually get into the whole story that precludes this picture, but those of us who are unfortunate enough to have visited this godawful place (where I'm convinced karma goes to die) can definitely appreciate the irony. I'm pretty sure that it was only by slim chance that the second I saw this sign, rain didn't start pouring down. Although I did hear thunder crackle - but maybe it was a minor brain spasm.

2008-01-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Sunset's former supervisor, Ed Jew of Burlingame, was stripped of title and office in 2007 following two investigations and multiple charges brought against him: one for failing to comply with residency requirements for his position, and the second for accepting $40,000 in FBI-marked bills as a bribe to help the awful tapioca/desert cafe Quickly set up shop in another location in his district. The news comes out now that the lawyer Jew hired to represent him in the federal bribe case was also the lawyer who initially brought the case to the FBI. What is going on here? Is there only one lawyer in this town who happened to print enough business cards for the year?

Conflict of interest issues notwithstanding, Jew's current representation wants to throw out the judgement in the federal case because his former representation was understandably compromised. Although ethically speaking, I would be uncomfortable if my attorney was directly responsible for the charges being brought against me, Ed Jew really made his bed (having been told, before a witness, that Gruel had prior involvement with the case)... so why shouldn't he be forced to lay in it? If you watch as much Law & Order as I do, you'll recognize this as a common last-ditch effort to toss out or reduce a major charge - but what's kind of scary is that this is San Francisco, and our motto is essentially "Casos Vigesimos Damus" (we give twentieth chances) *, and you have to shoot a cop, unprovoked, while he is trying to offer you a cupcake, and then make a hat out of a baby, in order to get set to the slammer.

* And yes... I did have someone translate that into Latin. Doesn't that show my blogger dedication??

Shooting for success.

2008-01-20T15:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hanging out with the Avalos and Daly clans at a kiddy birthday party, where Sarah handed me a 2 month old child and I promptly freaked out. Let this be a lesson to all: do not hand me your babies, I don't know what to do with them. Adam shot John (and I assisted), surrounded by community members and friends as well as solo, and overall we had an extremely productive day all over the district. This was all made possible by the return of the sun, so hell yea, welcome back warm weather! I am about to go grab my bike and hit the park.

10:30pm edit: Today, however, was as opposite of "productive" as you can get without spending an entire day in bed. Since my post this afternoon, the roommate and I made plans to watch a movie at AMC1000 and hit the gym two blocks up Van Ness - all good and healthy intentions, keeping in mind our Hawaii trip coming up fast at the end of March - but instead we just spent 6 hours in the theater. Go us.

Is a krama the kaffiyeh of 2008?

2008-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

My world-savvy partner - I wouldn't call him a hipster, but let's just say he wears high-tops and skinny raw jeans - has recently started sporting a Cambodian krama as a scarf, although traditionally the garment has many other uses such as carrying your babies and cushioning your head when you nap. Will the krama slowly begin to replace the kaffiyeh, a hipster favorite, as the accessory of the year?

2008, you're not so great.

2008-01-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

We are only 17 days into the new year, and San Francisco's already seen this year's true colors: murderous blood-red. Really though. Already two people have been gunned down in the general vicinity of the 24th@Mission BART station and my favorite taqueria - just 2 of the 6 murders reported by murder-victim-clearinghouse blog SF Crime - and MUNI is running amok hitting pedestrians and vehicles left and right, most notably dragging a man (who had tripped while attempting to board) underneath it for two blocks. Across the bay, a 10-year-old taking piano lessons was hit by a stray bullet which bisected his spinal cord. Really though.

Winners never quit (even if they don't always win).

2008-01-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

What has progressive goldenboy and tireless (but, seriously, if you know anything about him, you know that "tireless" isn't even CLOSE to what he is) progressive philanthropist Andy Blue been up to lately? After Quintin Mecke's 2007 run for Mayor of San Francisco, where he scored second place (never mind the percentages), Señor Blue has picked up a new gig:

My TL, Your TL, Everyone's TL.

2008-01-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

This morning, walking past one of my favorite bars on the way to work, I saw a large pile of human excrement in one of the doorways and immediately knew who it belonged to: Rita, a creepily under-developed homeless crackhead who looks to be about 12 years old and constantly pulls clothes off her body for loose change. She likes to hang out on that corner, vacantly staring from her 4-something feet of height, and I've even seen her get shoved into a cop car several times... but like the fog, Rita returns, not exactly a welcome addition to your day but also no longer a surprise. I've had several run-ins with Rita myself and, unfortunately, I've seen her naked or partially naked too many times to take whatever problems she's carrying seriously.

I also saw two bullet casings on the ground at Jones and O'Farrell. I pushed them around with my toe for a minute but then decided that police evidence does not equal street souvenirs for Kay.

Home, Sweet home!

2008-01-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

And already, all I can think about is my next meal. My trip to Chicago padded me nicely with a few extra pounds since food there is amazing and very filling, but it wasn't too bad since we got to take in all of downtown and the surrounding areas on foot. I love cities where you can walk and walk until your scenery completely changes. But there's still almost three months until a Hawaii wedding (not mine - no worries!), and I'm glad Dine About Town happens in January and not March. Dine About Town is a nice deal but never saves me as much money as I expect it to, since the $31.95/Dinner rate is a prix-fix menu and I always end up wanting additional things off the menu, mainly fancy appetizers, since those are kind of my thing. But most people have far more self control than I do when it comes to food: this is perfect for them.

So far on my radar are Aziza (Mediterranean), Baraka (French), Cassis (French - this one for the beef stew), Le Colonial (Vietnamese), RNM (American, and even though I've been here a few times I'm always too suaced up to remember specifics), Supperclub, and AsiaSF, which I can't believe I still haven't been to. Plus AsiaSF's got a lot more variety for their prix-fix menu than other restaurants.

In the meantime, to keep my brainmatter from slowly turning into a polenta-like substance, I've decided to take Farsi classes in order to keep people on their toes.

Chi-town with Kay, a reprise

2007-12-31T11:04:00.000-08:00

I'm now a few hours away from making the trek to the airport with my carry-on only (mission accomplished!) for my very short stint out of town, and you'd think in a situation like that it wouldn't be difficult to pack as few things as possible, but my winter coat weighs 15 pounds. Naturally I'm already missing all my friends and spending NYE with them, but sometimes you just have to leave your self-designated nest and take a chance on something else. That said, I'm a big baby, and knowing that the neighborhood cafe-next-door won't be next door for the next 3 days makes me feel terribly displaced. I guess this place just grows on ya. Like a beautiful financial parasite.

3 pm. JW and I are sitting in an empty terminal, drinking beers and eating smuggled sandwiches from a neighborhood market - a last hurrah to what I'm leaving behind for now. Basically what we'd be doing on any afternoon off work. So far so good.

11 pm Chicago time. we landed 15 minutes early thanks to the weather, which gave me 15 additional minutes to undergo a complete transformation from casual-Monday-to-airport-friendly clothes to something more NYE appropriate. let me tell you, i now know how a truck stop hooker feels. not doing that again.

1 am. we ALMOST made the midnight call - missed it by 10 minutes and spent it watching fireworks over the lake in the cab instead - then i proceeded to promptly jump out of the cab and stomp around in the snow like a little kid. Mission accomplished!

Benazir Bhutto assassinated

2007-12-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

This is an irreversible step backwards.

21 June 1953 - 27 December 2007

Bhutto was described to be very personable, and her campaign drew crowds of supporters because she gave them the face time they wanted from a public official. It's very unfortunate that the price she paid for momentarily abandoning the confines of her bomb-proof vehicle in order to interface with her supporters was so steep, especially given the multiple requests for increased security she sent to President Musharraf. Bhutto was well aware of the possibility of an attack - she had been attacked previously by bombers in Karachi - but did not tolerate Musharraf's policies of routinely ignoring her security requests, which amount to a basic intimidation technique.

Christmas with Kay

2007-12-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

After hanging out with a couple of fellow Jews, I spent Christmas Eve (well, technically, 2am-5am on Christmas day) watching A Mighty Heart, the story of the kidnapping and execution of Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl, also a Jew. Naturally the movie leaves out actual footage of the execution. That would be far too personal and disrespectful. The internet, it turns out, leaves out nothing.

Since the video footage appeared on the internet in 2002 (yes I know, old news), the FBI has been persistent in removing all instances of it. Again, I understand the reasons for this, given how Pearl's widow and her child could potentially be exposed to reliving the horrifying event over and over. But after about 40 minutes of searching under various keywords and browsing non-English sites, I found it. No sound, but the right video all the same, just as chilling as you'd expect it to be. The footage doesn't include the actual beheading, just the aftermath. I instantly tried to imagine being in the service and watching similar footage of, say, a colleague. Not sure if I could stomach that.

Following that, I spent the rest of my time awake browsing Afghani execution videos, both stonings and beheadings. I'm about as wholesome as Jewish girls come during Christmas.

Chi-town with Kay

2007-12-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

This time next week, minus the time zone difference, I'll be in the air, an hour away from Chicago. Who flies on New Year's Eve, you ponder? Jonathan and I do. And if we happen to get stuck in the airplane, I hope they have a full stock of those tiny airplane-sized bottles of booze, because one way or another I am putting on my pretty dress and getting drunk in another state.

Operation Chicago with Kay is going to take some preparation. First of all, we're landing at 11pm, and I'm going to have to do everything in my power to fly with carry-on luggage only. Second: train or shuttle or cab or private car? It's NYE and I don't want to get stuck in traffic, and trains generally don't. But I had this image of jumping off the empty plane (a week before the flight, tickets are $94 one way) the second the doors open, wearing my gold bubble-hemmed party dress with fishnets and tall heels, getting into a black car, and arriving at my destination with a black duffle in tow like a true jetsetter (on a budget, that is). So maybe it'll be a gold party dress on the train. It's NYE, anything goes, right?

Problem three. I don't know where my luggage is. Problem four, I KNOW I'm going to forget to charge my iPod, so I'll probably have to play sudoku and bother Jonathan the entire flight there and back (this one is less a problem and more a prediction, so, uh, don't forget to pack those nerves of steel, JW!) solved! I charged and updated my ipod - how proactive of me.

Five. I never know what to pack for weather different than my own.

Six. I often forget my toothbrush, hairbrush, or any styling products that aren't already on my head.

Seven. Phone charger. I never take it with me. I hope my phone can handle 3 days without a charge, but I'll probably be transit-mapping and yelping my way around town so that's doubtful.

Eight. In bouts of compulsion, I always end up buying something when I go away, even for a few days. So I have to somehow allow room in my luggage, which is going to be overhead only and so very tight for space to begin with. It'll probably be shoes. Hopefully boots. Mmmm boots.

These are just eight of the ways I present a challenge to myself on a daily basis. Will do some kind of an update in a week because it'll probably be some kind of a hilarious blunder.

Restless and ambitious, hungry for the world

2007-12-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

I still spend my weekends trying to figure out what my next step in life is. Sometimes I wonder if I'm rushing things as usual, and if I shouldn't perhaps just sit back and let the next opportunity avail itself, but what can I say? Commitment issues. The only thing I really love at the moment is where I live, and that's only because I created every square inch from the bare walls up, and when I come home to nap on the couch after a long day of earning money and being everyone's go-to bitch, I know I'm home. This weekend I mostly read about the CIA, clicked through their website for career options for about an hour, drew sugar skulls and contemplated a possible new tattoo, and walked around the neighborhood collecting stories. But I'm not organized enough to be a tool of the state, I think my everyday-business boss is sufficiently fed up with my visible tattoos as is and wouldn't appreciate me sporting a colorful new skull, and all the stories are kind of personal and I'd prefer to keep them to myself... so I am back at square one.

After work I decided to commit to 5 serious sugar skull pieces, planned out a general theme, and hit the art store for micron pens, color markers, pearl paper and paint pens. Then to Green Apple Books for an adequately rustic home for my sugar skulls - either the pages of an old copy of a novel I really like, or an old medical science journal, or, if I'm really lucky, an old illustrated volume of natural history. I rummaged all three stores, feeling paper and flipping through pages, and left with two different sizes of illustrated local plant guides, but I never got around to using them because I also left with a copy of this:

And I haven't put it down since. Work - what work? As cliche as it feels to say this, this writer gets me, and in her memoir she addresses every single concern I could ever have - as well as every fascination I've ever had - with the Company. Now I doubly, triply don't know what steps to take further, because her memoir is both encouraging and discouraging in equal parts. I'm only half way through, but I already have a million questions I'd want to ask Lindsay, starting with whether or not, ultimately, it was worth it. I anticipate the answer would be a firm yes for the sheer experience, and that in the end, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something really extraordinary.

My biggest reservation is that I really don't enjoy making sacrifices in my personal life (of which there would be plenty), and I think I am much more of a "see the forest for the trees" kind of person than a "see the big picture" person. But the comfort of my stable, warm personal life is growing more and more outweighed by a total lack of real adventure.

Enough about me though. This woman, Lindsay, addresses all the romanticised ideals of the Company which, unfortunately, yours truly somehow managed to grow up on, but still insists on going through with it despite the harsh reality that a lot of Company work is unexciting, unfulfilling, and very woman-unfriendly. She describes it as an itch. It is an itch. And itches need to be scratched.