sweeterthanbloodsuga's Xanga

Why I love the city

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:29:41 GMT

In just one day I witnessed:

+ A homeless man on a segway
+ At least 10 cop cars block traffic in front of my apartment when one of the cop cars backed into a parked car trying to chase a car going the opposite direction.
+ 3 men on in 3 separate incidents make catcalls about my chest when I was wearing an unrevealing, heavy sweater - all within a 2 block walk to the corner store
+ A group of gay people take pictures in front of every rainbow they saw on the street (I live in the Castro - THE gay neighborhood of all gay neighborhoods) in anticipation of Pride Fest this Saturday

It's never boring here. The first, second, and fourth incidents I listed all happened in front of my apartment today. If I want entertainment in this town and I'm feeling really lazy, all I have to do is look out my window :).

I love San Francisco.

A good night is...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:06:41 GMT

+ making up after your first fight with your boyfriend EVER (after 6 months? Not too shabby) and realizing just how much you really, really love him and how lucky you are he loves you just as much
+being the last one to get in the door at a sold out show
+seeing a band in a small club right before they move up to sold out auditoriums
+any drink made with blueberry anything
+getting money from the ATM and realizing that even though you're unemployed, you're not completely broke (yet)
+meeting and dancing with some great people visiting from NY
+taking silly pictures with your friends
+drinking a cocktail made with Dr. Pepper at a white trash themed bar
+a turkey, egg, and cheese crepe hot and fresh at 2 am
+getting a ride home from my friends

Yeah. It's been a GREAT night.

Scarlett Johansson's new album

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:58:20 GMT

Is ok. No, really, it's JUST OK.

I went into listening to it with mixed hopes. On one side, the jealous girl in me hoped it would suck because Scarlett Johansson already has a career as a gorgeous actress/model. The other side of me hoped I could prove the envious side of me wrong and get blown away by her talent.

The disappointment lies in the fact that I think her voice has great potential but lacks development. A lot of it I am sure a good vocal instructor could remedy in just a few lessons. It sounds almost like she kept the first recording of everything she did. I understand it's Tom Waits and he's known for his gruff voice, but you can't make an entire album of Tom Waits covers and do a half-assed job.

It's talent show battle of the bands quality, at best. I am left more disappointed now than I would have been if it had been a total bomb or a great success.

I'm pizza.

Mon, 05 May 2008 07:24:14 GMT

Tomorrow is Monday and I couldn't be grumpier. I've had this feeling all day. I didn't have time to laundry yesterday so I'm out of socks. Jason and I were running late. I felt like a blimp and couldn't find a shirt to wear under the dress I insisted on wearing. I wanted a breakfast burrito but we didn't have time to get breakfast. A million little things that normally would have rolled off my back piled on top of the rain cloud storming over my head and thundered down. Poor Jason. I really felt awful for being such a shit, but he seemed to understand. That time of the month. He got me a coffee and a cinnamon roll from the bakery on the corner while I had a private meltdown over my hair. Even when I'm feeling like a swarm of bees flew in my ear, he can make me swoon.

"You're like pizza," he told me.

Huh?

"Well there's great pizza that you love and can't get enough of, and then there's other pizza. Either way, you're happy having pizza, because even the worst pizza is still pizza, and that's better than no pizza at all."

I guess that makes him my ice cream sundae.

Work it, girl.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:16:01 GMT

I am looking for a new job. It's only been 5 months at my current job, but as much as I absolutely love my company and believe in everything we're trying to acheive, I'm starting to feel like working in Sales is toxic to my overall well-being.

I can't sleep at night because I'm up all hours thinking and worrying about work. How can I reach my targets? What am I doing wrong? Why aren't more of my prospects closing? Do I even like what I'm doing?

If there is anything I've learned from this experience, it's that I have an intense need to feel important, or at the very least usefull to my company. Sales is driven by numbers, so when my numbers are lower than my monthly targets the way they have been the past two months, my personal confidence sinks below healthy targets as well. Every day I get on the elevator and head towards my car, I feel like a monkey could do accomplish the same if it just knew how to speak english.

The truth is, Sales has never been my passion. I don't think I've ever woken up a single day of my life and truly felt excited to cold call people and ask them for money. The product I sell is amazing. I just don't know if I want to sell it anymore.

I don't know what I'm going to do. If I don't find another job soon with a comparable pay structure, I'm going to get fired anyway. I know I'm toast, but I can't just leave without having something else lined up.

I just wish I knew what I wanted to do...and that there were plenty of positions open for me to pursue.

I am a sap.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:51:56 GMT

Jason and I are going to a wedding in Orange County in May that my mom and stepdad will also be attending. Somehow I forgot to mention that last part to him until yesterday, after I ordered the plane tickets for us (I swear I told him before, but I do believe him that it's the kind of news he probably would remember). Needless to say, he freaked out a little. I guess I don't blame him; a weekend trip to So Cal to visit friends suddenly turned into Meet the Fockers in his mind.

I laughed and assured him it was no big deal. He's someone I'm actually proud to introduce to my family and friends (that says a lot), but this is by no means one of those official "meet the parents" kind of occasions. It's more like we're going to a party that it just so happens my parents have RSVP'd to as well.

Jason's reaction later in the night however, was what struck me as a perfect indication of how he feels about me. When I saw him last night, the first thing out of his mouth after hugging me hello was "I think I'll bring your dad a bottle of scotch, but I don't know what I should get for your mom."

"Oh, Honey, don't get my parents anything," I laughed. "Just bring yourself and that smile."

God I'm lucky to be so loved. If things ever take a turn for the worst in our relationship, I hope I remember to be grateful for times like this.

Live and Let Live

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:32:02 GMT

Horrific, unspeakable and practically unimaginably torturous acts against mankind happen every day in this world (and even this country), and I can't stop thinking about the damned emo kids in Mexico. It's not just because if I were 16 now I'd probably be one of them (and basically was back in the day), but because it seems like such an utterly ridiculous issue. It makes gang fights in Compton seem more sensible in comparison. These kids aren't fighting for their block or even a way of life. They're in essence fighting for, well, a trend which, like all other trends, will lose its popularity with the arrival of the next angst-ridden bandwagon. Today's emo is yesterday's greaser/rockabilly, punk, grunge, and hair metal.

Have we run out of things to fight about? This is not Israel vs. Palestine fighting over land and religion (and about a million other things). It's the punks, rockabilly kids, and metal heads against the emos, all of which sprung from the same scene: rock n' roll. Rockabilly and punk guys spend at least the same amount of time on their pompadours and mohawks as emo boys do on making their shaggy hair look perfectly disheveled. Tight pants have always been popular among the punk crowd (hence the 80 dollar variety available from Hot Topic and Dogpile).

Where emo differs, in essence, is that while punk rockers wear tight pants and rockabilly kids style their hair too, they do it with a sense of machismo that is far less prevalent in the emo scene. It's one thing for girls to wear mohawks and combat boots in the punk scene, but it's another for guys to wear makeup. Whether or not emo guys are gay, they look so "girly" to the rest of the world (and utterly irresistible to emo girls) that the other subcultures of rock (which is its own subculture) treat it like somebody peed in their rock sandbox. In the end, with new terms popping up like "emosexual," it's not a subculture they're rising up against; it's a deeply-rooted cultural attitude they're defending.

I've heard that some theorists see the recent media coverage of the controversy as a way to expose the US to Mexican life in a more realistic way so we will no longer see it as the land of tequila and sombreros. Intellectually though, I found myself wondering what makes these kids so ignorant about their own scenes, and furthermore, why do they take their scenes so seriously? For God's sake, in 4 years none of them will probably even care half as much about their current "ways of life." Some of them will probably go to college, some will start families, some will begin careers and some will remain stuck in high school. Is something that is a temporary means of finding one's self during a difficult period of personal growth really worth fighting and even killing over? There are people dying for much bigger issues. Why waste so much time worrying about how a group of people choose to express themselves?

¿No podemos todos conseguir adelante?

(Can't we all get along?)

And for the record, I was the kid in high school who liked and subscribed to elements of all of these subcultures. I listened to the Misfits, had a Smiths poster in my room, bought a Fugazi album as my first record ever, saw New Found Glory play a nearly sold out show, knew all the words to the songs on my Happy Days soundtrack, dated the lead singer of a ska band, spiked my hair, wore Doc Martin's, wore a 50's vintage party dress to my 8th grade dance, interviewed metal bands Norah and Converge for my first article ever, got lost driving to a Vigilantes and Unseen show, and put eye shadow on my band's drummer before the show because he requested it. I also really, really love underground hiphop, zydeco, and all of those bands and solo artists who don't really fit into any sort of category.

And I'm all the happier for not being so god-damned closed-minded. I can get along with just about anyone.

Oh, and by the way, I'm volunteering my PR/marketing experience to help my friend's lesbian theater company get off the ground. Yes, I am straight and completely in love with a man, but these ladies are amazing and don't get enough credit for being passionate human beings. I love those who love.

You're the pie in my sky

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:42:48 GMT

The night I wrote my previous post, Jason showed up at my door. He crawled into bed next to me and whined that he had never read anything I've written.

I keep my writing in the backseat of my car in a big red IKEA nesting box. It's like I'm begging for it to get stolen, as though it's my only hope of ever having my writing read by someone outside of the college classroom is was most likely written for. Some of it's saved to my computer, but a surprising number of pieces I've completed can only be found in that red box.

There are a lot of implications of the placement of my writing in that box, and the placement of the box in my car. If I truly hated it, I'd have thrown it away months ago, but if I truly loved it, it would be in my home. Instead, it stays in my car, riding around in the back seat like I'm its taxi and it's embarking on a very, very long trip to God knows where.

I'm selling my car soon, and as strange as it sounds, I am not looking forward to unloading that red box. Part of me wishes I could sell it as a set - a yellow car with a free red box full of something that's only meaningful to the person giving it away. I fear I may never do anything with writing. For all I know, I'm just the girl who majored in Creative Writing in college.

My co-worker Isaac and I talk about starting a Writer's Workshop, but I doubt it will ever happen. We work in Sales. We have 10, sometimes even 12 hour days. Our jobs are stressful and rarely leave enough time to get regular chores done, let alone write a well-crafted piece for review. He majored in Creative Writing too. Maybe this is just what it is.

As Jason curled up next to me, I lifted my laptop up from the floor and looked through my documents to see if there was anything even remotely ready to be heard. I found a story I wrote for my Short Stories class a year ago called "Dori's Wedding Day." It was 3 pages long. By the end of page 2, he was crying.

It was the most satisfying moment of my life.

It's been a long, long time my friends.

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:04:22 GMT

I stopped updating this with every intention of moving on to some kind of "more adult" blog. I made a Livejournal and decided that if I was going to ever have a Livejournal, I missed that boat a long time ago. I made a Blogspot but decided that being that my journal is really nothing but my personal meanderings and rehashing of personal events, I could not only care less if anyone else reads it, but I'm almost afraid of what would happen if someone else did actually read it.

So here I am, back where I started, using the same Xanga page I created when I was oh, I don't know, 17 or so.

A lot of changes have occurred since I last wrote. Major ones. Ginormous.

I'm doing the 9 to 5 thing (actually, it's more like 8:30 to 7, but who's counting), working in Sales for a Web 2.0 company in downtown San Francisco. It's still considered a startup, but if I disclosed who I work for, I'd probably get in some kind of trouble, so let's just say my company deserves to be #1 on the list of best companies to work for one day.

I got into a relationship with a guy who was completely wrong for me and learned that just because two people are nice and get along doesn't mean they make a good couple. He broke up with me at the San Francisco zoo. He was an actor. The most dramatic part was the 20 minute ride back to my house on the Muni sitting next to the jackass. I cried for two days. On the fourth day, I went on my first date with my now boyfriend Jason, a 27 year-old bar owner.

Jason and I are in love. It's that remarkable moment when you realize the other person's scent brings you comfort. It's not being able to take a lunch break without giving the other one a call to see how their day is panning out so far. It's the things you're willing to try for the first time because the other person makes you feel inspired and brave.

That's a short way to approach the major updates. My good friend also recently had a baby. This scares me.

Success!

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:18:10 GMT

Well, my weekend in San Francisco paid off, and I was able to knock off my two biggest stresses. I got a job and a house in the same day, both of which seem promising, so now all I need to do is figure out how to save up a good chunk of money before I make the big move in August. I'm coming to the sad realization that I might need to quit my nannying job in order to get another job with more regular hours and pay. I don't need something glamorous; just something that will pay the bills and leave something in my savings account for a change. Nannying is a great gig, but at an average of about $500 a month, it doesn't even cover my rent (my grandmother is helping me out on that front right now).

Between trying to sell my belongings and looking for a job to hold me over until I move, Craigslist has become my best friend. I applied for a Promotions position with Comic Con here in San Diego, which, if I get the job, will pay me $330 for one weekend of work, or 21 hours, but that's only a one weekend job. I need something that I can do throughout the summer. I've even considered telemarketing, as sad as that sounds. I don't care if I get people to buy stuff, as long as I have a base pay of $15/hr or more.

It's not going to be a fun summer after all, I guess, but hopefully all of this work will pay off. I'm still taking 2 summer classes - one in-class and one online - which take up their own chunk of time, but I figure that at least it means that I won't have much extra time to spend money. Isn't growing up fun?