A strange shifting of worlds: last Sunday I woke up in my brother's apartment.  One sister was sleeping beside me.  The other was on the floor beside the bed, looking at a book (she had fallen asleep on the couch so we left her there, but waking in the middle of the night she had apparently decided she would rather sleep on the floor).  I got up, made them breakfast, and took them to the Exploratorium.

Today (Sunday) I woke up in my own bed, squinting at the sunlight, in a house with cupcake-frosting-smeared floors and sixty fading gold balloons.  We had a party last night, and I got around six hours of sleep.  I shuffled into the kitchen, where my roommates and our out-of-town guests were eating leftover M&Ms from the party.  We attempted the Sunday NY Times crossword, cleaned a little, read aloud funny snippets from blogs and from the paper, debriefed on the party and told each other about what had gone on in the rooms we had not been in, and later went out to brunch.

Conclusion: There are different kinds and levels of adulthood.

Second conclusion: I love my sisters, and I want to be a mother someday, but at the moment I am happy that I am 23, and that I stayed up until 3:30 am last night dancing in my kitchen with a bunch of unknown Germans.

The day after a party is always a letdown.  I am groggy and out-of-sorts, even though I had a wonderful time.  My apartment is now a perfect metaphor for my mood.  I went to a movie by myself this afternoon, because I couldn't be bothered to call anyone and make plans, and when I came home, all the balloons had fallen down.  (Backstory: we rented a helium tank yesterday and blew up 75 gold balloons and an assortment of balloons of other colors, some of which have been popped or sent home with party guests or punctured this morning in order to inhale the helium and talk in strange voices for 10-15 seconds a pop.)  Once clustered in two rooms, the balloons have now made their way into every room in the apartment, where they float, discombobulated, between two inches and eight feet off the floor.  As I sit in my bed writing this, a balloon hovers next to me, golden string making a circle on my sheets.  If I touch it it rebounds, bouncing up before settling back just above the bed.  It has a little life left in it, but not much.

My sisters are here.  They came in tonight, and it was such a flashback to the way things used to be, when people were there at the gate to meet you - but this time I was there, watching their faces as they saw me, watching them come running down the corridor (what do you call the thing that connects the plane to the terminal? I want to say gang plank, but I know that is not right). 

Nick and I took them out to pizza, and Vivien said the greasy food made her mouth itch, but all she really needed was to be hugged and jollied out of her attempt to make herself upset.  I said, "Does this ruin EVERYTHING?" and pulled her onto my lap, and she said "No!" and laughed, and we played with her hair and examined the results in the restaurant mirror.

She keeps saying, "I am SO EXCITED to be here!"

When I put them to bed I got in between them and we all snuggled and read a book.  I'm glad they still like to be read to, even though they are both old enough to read chapter books now.  I hope when we are all old they will still let me read to them.

After singing to them, I kissed Vivien goodnight and she said, "Goodnight Mom."  Then she cracked an eye, half-asleep, and giggled, "I mean, Felicity."

The cat does not know what to make of the girls.  He hovered around, anxiously, always just out of reach.  Vivien really wants to make friends with him; Merlyn is a little more wary.  Vivien keeps trying to approach him and play with him, and Merlyn keeps saying, "Leave him alone!  That's not the way to handle it" in her best older sister-ish voice.  Now he is sitting on the pull out sofa bed, having made himself a nest in the covers, looking weary and resigned to his fate, whatever that is.  Poor Simon: so put upon.

Just bought another year for this journal - guess that means I should write more.

I have become scarily addicted to political blogs.  I hate them, and yet I love them.  They all cover the exact same stories and issues.  They refer to each other constantly.  Basically their whole purpose for existing is to refer to each other.  They repeat themselves.  They blow everything out of proportion.  They bicker like children.  They are ruining American democracy, and maybe saving it too: at least they are talking about the issues, sometimes.  Good or bad, I am addicted. 

Another new addiction: the Sweeney Todd soundtrack.  Can it really be healthy to spend an hour every day in my car singing about cannibalism?

I signed up to be an Obama precinct captain, as I may have mentioned, which means that I am responsible for contacting likely Democratic and independent voters in a couple-block radius to see who they are planning to vote for, and as election day nears, to get Obama supporters to the polls.  Only my precinct is not actually near my house.  Also, 80% of the people in it are over the age of 80 (there's an assisted living center smack dab in the middle).  I

 tried to make calls tonight after I got home and had dinner, but it was 8:30 so I didn't want to call any older people who might be asleep already.  Calling only people under 65 meant I could call 1-3 people per page (18 to a page).  I do not have a good work schedule for this.  But I will try to devote myself to it this weekend. 

One of the women I talked to said that she was undecided, even though she lived Obama better, because she did not want to get too attached to a candidate and be disappointed.  I laughed, sadly, and said, "I'm bad at that."  I really hope I am not disappointed this time.  The Clinton machine is on the attack, and that scares me.  Why does the lowest common denominator always win?  (but it hasn't won yet - and I am going to tell myself, at least for the next 12 days, that it won't win this time)

Other than that, I am taking a newswriting class at City College of San Francisco, one night a week.  The teacher has been in journalism and editing for over 20 years, and he has lots of good stories.  His experience is both an asset and a drawback.  He knows all of the reporters in SF, and at the San Francisco Chronicle - which is cool because he has the inside scoop, but unfortunate because he is unable to separate himself from them or be critical of their work.  We were discussing an article in class yesterday, and he seemed to take criticism of it personally, and rather than admit it might not be perfect, he finally suggested that an editor might have changed it - as if we were criticizing the reporter and not the work.  Institutional thinking - the press defends itself.  I'm interested to see how he critiques our writing, as that is the real test.  I hope he can teach me to be clear and concise.  Obviously, my conciseness needs some work.

My room is slowly disassembling.  (Not really: being stripped of its frippery is a more accurate description.)  In three days, I will get on an airplane and a stranger will start sleeping in my bed.  Only briefly.  One month, even less.  I will only be out of the country for a little over two weeks, which is not so much time if you think about it.  But I'm leaving work for a month.  I'm putting all my odds and ends in boxes to shove into them into the utility closet.  I am preparing to say goodbye to normal life for a little while.

I have been panicking, the last couple days, because I was on the verge of getting sick, sick in a really nasty way that would have made it almost impossible to get on a plane on Saturday.  I didn't realize how much of myself I have hung on this trip until it became endangered: The pieces of me that have been living in London all this time.  The pieces of me that feel right and well only when sitting with Rawaan and Annie, as we gaze at each other in mutual adoration.  The pieces of me that hate going to work every day.  The pieces of me that love watching movies on airplanes. 

The danger seems to have passed.  I am still on a knife's edge, though I think now everything is okay.  And of course, it would be okay anyway.  Even if I had to push my flight back, I would still go.  Even if I didn't go, all of those pieces of me would survive.  They've survived the last year and a half, or longer, and they will keep surviving, waiting for their turn.  But I really do very much hope their turn comes on Saturday.

Work is ridiculous.  I want to say, it will be over soon, I will be gone, but I have a terrible feeling that even though I'll be gone it won't be over, and it will haunt me all through the month of December.  Maybe I am just overwhelmed right now though.  They won't be able to get to me when I am half a world away, unless I let them.

Oh, I finished NaNoWriMo!  Last Sunday.  I reached 50,000 words (plus 90 or so) and have not touched it since.  I have a lot of novel left to go, and I do want to write it, but I haven't had time.  Maybe on the airplane.  Maybe in Rawaan's garden, giggling and smoking shisha and scribbling away.

On Saturday I helped high school seniors with their college admissions essays: a boy explaining how being in jail taught him that he wanted to go to college and be a children's attorney; a girl pondering whether there was a word in her native language for bisexual.  I got home tired (I have a cold which has wiped me out all weekend) and starving, and missed "Thriller" while I was eating.  I am a little, but not a lot, disappointed; I have no regrets about the matter.

I am hormonal and have a head cold, and wrote a very general and rather angry post on Friday.  Like many general and angry posts, it contained some truths and a lot of over or under statements, so broad as to lose any real meaning.  I blame the head cold, and too many editorials/articles/etc. which refer to my generation as one entity, as if everyone between the ages of 18 and 25 has the same worldview, the same motivation or lack thereof.  I admit in responding, I was guilty of the same generational-ism.  That cannot possibly be a real world.

In other news: I went to a pumpkin carving party today.  I have a slight complex about pumpkin carving, due to the fact that my pumpkins usually come out with one enormous mouth (having screwed up the teeth or jagged edges or whatever was supposed to make the mouth interesting) and unevenly sized (and placed) oval eyes.  In short, they continue to look like a five year old carved them.  This despite the fact that my mother, the artist, is able to pick up a knife (a regular knife, not one of those special pumpkin-carving saws) and create lovely and creepy faces without template or forethought.  Pumpkin carving is a yearly reminder that I am not artistically inclined.  This year, I caved, and used a pattern.  Now I feel inadequate in a whole new way!

(I'm kidding, mostly.  I love carving pumpkins.  Even though I suck at it.)

NaNoWriMo starts on Thursday.  I am all geared up, though I keep making plans for social engagements after Thursday, without really meaning to.  Still, I have confidence that I will keep pace: I have a 10 page scene-by-scene outline to keep me chugging along, and a goal of finishing before Thanksgiving which requires 2,500 words a day.  Now I just have to hope the cold goes away, all of my friends cancel on me, and my characters and narrator cooperate once I actually start writing.  This process is so different from how I normally go about writing I'm not quite sure what to do with myself, or how it will go once I get started.  Usually I start with characters and get to know them very well, writing about them, trying out different narrative voices.  I don't discover the plot until much, much later, and it grows out of the characters, and expands slowly, internally.  In this case, I started with a plot and fit characters into it; granted I changed parts of the plot to fit the characters better, but the overall structure remained the same.  I now have a description of every scene, but haven't written a word - I have no idea how the voice or characters will actually sound when I start writing.

Luckily, it doesn't matter much.  This is not supposed to be good.  I have to keep telling myself that, because I keep forgetting.  I'm sure when I am actually producing 2,500 words a day, it will become much easier to remember.

Tomorrow a thoroughly San Francisco juxtaposition of events will take place in Dolores Park.

First event: The culmination of an anti-war march.  Marchers will have a “die-in” (I believe this involves lying on the ground in the park and pretending to be dead) to remind apathetic citizens of those who have died in Iraq.  The protest is time to coincide with protests across the country (and perhaps the world?)

Second event: A re-enactment of the dance from “Thriller” (Michael’ Jackson’s epic zombie/werewolf/whatever battle), timed to coincide with “Thriller” re-enactments all over the planet (and thus break the World Record for most people re-enacting “Thriller” at one time).

On one side of the park: committed activists still willing to lie their bodies on the ground (granted, there will be no tanks) to protest an unjust and unnecessary war, even though they (and everyone else) knows they will probably not make any difference.  On the other side: a bunch of hipsters who have watched the Thai prison re-enactment of the “Thriller” dance one too many times, most of whom cannot remember when Michael Jackson was not scary.  In all: a lot of privileged white people with too much time on their hands?

I am feeling cynical, and a little guilty.  I want to protest the war, and believe that it will make a difference; but the “die-in” feels like a stunt, the ridiculous name feels like mockery rather than reverence.  I want to join in the “Thriller” dance because it is ridiculous, and funny, and why not spend a Saturday afternoon laughing in the park, coming together with hundreds of strangers to be publically weird; but juxtaposed against something serious the ridiculousness loses some of its appeal, I am reminded of why older people rant about my generation.

This could end up being a really long post.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, given what feels like a constant bombardment of Baby Boomers declaring that the “problem with the ___ generation” (they all have different names, but they basically mean 18-29 year olds today) is that we aren’t angry enough, we aren’t out on the streets protesting, we are too quiet, we are too distracted, we are too cynical, we are too complicit with the system, we are too accepting of authority: we are too content.  This argument makes me angry, because all the things that we are supposed to be angry about are things created by the Baby Boomers.  They have the money and the numbers and the power; why don’t they stop the war?  I also feel (as others have said before me) that it misses a fundamental point about the modern world, and political change: things are different now than they were in the ‘60s.  What worked then won’t necessarily work now.  We have to try things our own way.

So what’s our way?  That’s where I get stuck railing against Baby Boomer commentators.  Because I don’t have an answer.  Protesting the war doesn’t help?  Well should we all go dance “Thriller” instead?  Hmm, maybe not.  The old paradigm for youth movements feels broken and useless.  So what’s the new one?  The typical answer is the internet.  But I have yet to see internet political organizing accomplish anything of significance.  Mostly what I see online is a lot of in-fighting, a lot of obsession with scoring points off the other side, a lot of recrimination, and attention to things no one outside the Beltway could possibly care about.

Maybe the truth is that our generation is not politically mobilized.  Maybe it’s because we have to fight so hard just to get by, to get a job, to get ahead, that we don’t have time.  Maybe it’s because despite everything truly frightening happening in the world right now, none of it hits close to home for most young people; the Baby Boomers reacted to the imminent threat of being shipped off to Vietnam; to police beating black people in the streets; to women being raped and prosecuted for making decisions about their own bodies.  Maybe our lives are actually too comfortable.  What did the Baby Boomers really win?  They ended the draft, so that the children of middle class white parents no longer get shipped overseas.  They ended overt, brutal discrimination, so now minority groups have only the shadows of structures to swing at.  In short, they made the problems invisible.  And now they yell that we don’t see them.

This does not really serve as a valid excuse to dance to “Thriller” in the park tomorrow, because I do see the problems and I still don’t know what to do to fix them.  Most likely, I’ll just lurk around the edges, take a few pictures to illustrate the weird wonderfulness of this city, feel guilty, laugh, and then go home.

I think the reason that I don't post very much anymore is that it is hard to describe what is good about my life now. 

I can write that we revived Sunday Night Trivia this week, and all of the teams were named after themes that teams might be named after (for instance "Numbers" "Smart Women" "Themes") (so meta!) except for one team, which was named something obscene, and we laughed a lot as we madly answering questions, but it doesn't quite convey the atmosphere of the evening.  

I can describe the Lit Crawl on Saturday, which was San Francisco's answer to the pub crawl - themed readings all up and down Valencia St. in bars and bookstores.  I could tell about the skeezy guy in a beret who read some "creative non-fiction" mocking a Vietnamese prostitute, or the enormous gay man who read about his attempt to become a porn star, while practically straddling the microphone stand.  I might even be able to describe the atmosphere: the hipsters crammed in beside the aging lights of high San Francisco culture, the hushed poets and the tattooed middle-aged women who did way too many drugs in their youth, all cradling beers and spilling out onto the sidewalk. 

I can't describe though, the rest of the night, wherein we spent literally hours laughing at and about the people unlucky enough to sit on a couch we dubbed "The Awkward Couch" because everyone who sat on it ended up staring awkwardly off into space, not talking to the people beside them, or talking to say, one of the people, while the third sat awkwardly on the other side.  I realize that I just described the night I said I can't describe, but the point is, my descriptions don't do it justice.  It sounds boring, and kind of mean, to sit and make fun of a couch (and it's inhabitants) all night.  But somehow it was fun (and we did talk about other things as well).

Mostly, I can't describe a normal night at home, when Alex, Mel, and I sit around our kitchen table with mugs of tea and discuss the cat, San Francisco politics, our houseplants, our friends, our love lives or lack thereof, names of characters from romance novels, presidential politics, food, NPR, strange news stories, college, work, the death penalty, homelessness, law school applications, the cat some more, things that make us angry, and various and sundry other topics which may or may not actually interest us or anyone else.  It sounds mundane, to sit around our kitchen table and talk, but I spend most of the time laughing.  There are so many jokes I can't explain.  So many conversations I can't even remember the details of.  But all combined the experience is so good.  I am so happy being there, being part of ridiculous conversations, drinking tea, laughing, or discussing soberly, or mocking ourselves.  Most of my nights are like that now.  So I don't write, because there's nothing to say exactly.  I went to work, I came home; we had tea and talked about all the things we always talk about.  I went to bed. 

Maybe I'm floating, not moving anywhere, but times like these feel rarer than they should, feel precious.  I want to savor it; soon enough it'll be gone and I'll be forced forward again.

One year ago today I started my first real job.  A year is so much and so little time; it is only a fraction of a lifetime, yet an eon compared to all previous jobs I have held.  A year is a solid figure, not like three months or seven months.  A year is a commitment.  I am here now, I know my way around;  I have no excuses.

This is not where I thought I would be a year ago.  Or rather, I thought I would be on the cusp of something else, when in fact I am still right in the middle of what I was then beginning.  I don't even remember my original timeline, but I think it had me departing sometime this fall.  About a year of work seemed right.  And now I have a happy life here, I went to Ikea this weekend (and triumphed! ha Ikea you tried to break us down but you FAILED!) with one of my roommates, and I love my roommates, and I love my apartment, and my job is okay, it is okay.

This weekend I went to a volunteer orientation for 826 Valencia, a program that offers creative writing classes and tutoring and other fun programs for disadvantaged kids.  I applied to volunteer there when I first moved here, and had enormous stretches of empty time.  I was hoping to make friends.  They contacted me two months ago: are you still interested in volunteering?  Now I have very little empty time, but I am still craving creativity, an interest in words that I have recently been filling with crossword puzzles and online Scrabble games (fun, but not quite the same because even when the words fit together they are separate and solitary.  They share letters but not purposes.)  So yes, of course I am still interested.  I just have to find the time.

I applied to a writing internship, at a local weekly newspaper.  I didn't hear back; since it starts in a week, I assume that means I didn't get it.  I will persevere, try again.  If I could trust my own motivation, I would just go to part time and spend one day a week writing.  Maybe that is the experience I really need: to go to places in the city and sit and write, and listen to myself, and produce something I am willing to send into the world.

But one year.  One year of sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen.  One year of tables and graphs and copy edits and meetings.  One year of lunches.  One year of driving home squinting into the sun.

I forgot July 25th this year.  (The day my father died, 12 years ago.)  I didn't even think about it; it was Rawaan's last day, and we spent it making truffles and running around preparing for guests, putting together packages.  Life goes on, and on.  I think Dad would have liked the truffles, the excess of chocolate involved.

It's been a strange couple of weeks.  A strange couple of months.  I am alone again, but I'm not lonely yet.  Recently: My car window was smashed.  I got a check in the mail from my insurance company, not because of the smashed window, apropos of nothing in fact.  I went to Orange County, and Seattle, and spent two nights in different hotel rooms, my head on strange pillows, blinking at the television instead of sleeping.  I went through old journal entries looking for writing to submit with an internship application, and thoughts of all the things I have not recorded recently, and how I wish I had.  There is nothing quite like the moment.  But then again, some moments it is better not to remember in great detail.

Our cat (my new cat, my roommate Alex's cat from before we moved in together) Simon only loves me when we're alone.  If no one else is in the house he lets me pick him up and hold him.  He doesn't squirm or protest.  He pushes his face into my hand, and cuddles up.  If, however, there is anyone else nearby, he runs when I approach.  He will sniff my fingers, but if I move them closer he bolts.  He's like that boy (or girl) who whispers sweet nothings when there is no one to see, but when his (or her) friends are around, makes fun of you.  Though it's possible that person only exists in movies.  And anyway, Simon doesn't have friends, just other people he dislikes as much as he dislikes me.

Last week I started to write an entry and wrote quite a bit - and then suddenly I hit the wrong key and it was gone.  But just now when I came to update, it asked me if I wanted to restore my entry - and here it all is back again!  So I am going to put that under a cut.


Anyway, now a week later.  I am moving tomorrow.  I am meeting Erica's parents in an hour (they are in town on vacation).  I am a little stressed, but in the way that I can step back and look at myself being stressed and laughed.  Tomorrow night I will be living with two dear friends.  I will go to sleep in a different room and wake up there, and eat breakfast at a table with chairs instead of sitting on a stool (there is no table for eating in my current apartment).  In between I just have a 20 item To Do list, a brunch, and a lot of heavy lifting to get through.  No problem.

Moving is always a little sad - the actual act of packing makes me sad, I think because I associate it with leaving.  Enough now, when I am not leaving anyway, but rather becoming closer to people, I feel an unaccountable sadness creeping in.  One minute I think I have too many things - so much junk - and the next I think how easy it is to pack up my whole life, and how I have no roots anywhere.  (Maybe I am sad about other things though, and I am just projecting it onto moving.)

I should go, pack, etc.  Also get dressed for brunch.  Eek.

Sometimes I hate my body.

I am taking the GRE tomorrow.  I have been studying for weeks.  I have memorized math formulas.  I have written practice essays.  I made flash cards.  But it may not matter now, because today I have a cold.  A wet cough, blocked sinuses, runny eyed cold.  I can barely concentrate on my work screen.  I have to stop and blow my nose every five to ten minutes.  If I don't drink water constantly, I start coughing.  Not exactly ideal test taking form.

Maybe it will be fine.  I am ready for this test, I think I can do well.  I am just not sure I can do well with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton, and blurry vision from my leaking eye (for some reason, only the left one is watery.)  It's too late to cancel or reschedule.  My only option is to go and take it, and try to judge at the end of the four hour ordeal, if I did well or not.  If I don't think I did well, I just cancel the scores, swallow the $150 fee and pay another $150 to take it in a few weeks, hoping that next time my body cooperates a little better.  If I think I did okay, whatever the actual result, I accept the scores, and (if I am wrong) have to live with low scores which will be sent to all schools, along with whatever scores I get later, and which unfortunately can't be explained with a little asterisk and a footnote saying that I was coughing up phlegm at the time.

I know that this is not that big a deal.  It will be fine.  I will get into grad school, no matter what happens tomorrow.  It is the lack of control that bothers me, I think.  I am brought low by something so random, so stupid, something I would complain about a little but shrug off if it was any other week.  This is the moment when I want to be a brain, floating in a jar, when I want to be free of fleshly encumbrance.  (This is hyperbole - mostly.)

Good words I learned while studying for the GRE: meretricious (tawdry), prolixity (verbositing, wordiness), mulct (defraud someone), palimpsest (a parchment that was erased and used again).


In the my-life-is-actually-really-great category: we found a new apartment!  On the very first try!  It was so easy, and quick, and it is in a perfect location (just off Haight on Fillmore, within one block of three Thai restaurants, three Indian restaurants, three cool cafes, a Walgreens, a health food store, many bus lines, and in easy walking distance to a number of neighborhoods I love.)  Plus, it has a big, sunny kitchen, and a deck!  And a big living room!  and it's cheap!

Also, tomorrow night after the test, I am going to see Meshell Ndegeocello, who (though I cannot pronounce her name) I have loved since high school.

And next weekend, Erica is throwing me a Talent Show.  At a real coffee shop.  With commemorative T-shirts.  If you are going to be in SF, and have not yet gotten the memo, you are required to come (and ideally, perform.)  It's a benefit for Action for Hunger, which helps people in Darfur.  And there will be pie.

I am tired, and happy.  Work is busy busy.  I am taking the GREs in less than two weeks.  I am moving on July 1, into a new apartment, as yet hypothetical, with my friends Mel and Alex.  This as-yet-to-be-discovered apartment will be full of people, and food, and NPR, and giggling fits.  So many good things.  I have no idea what I am doing, about work, or how long I am going to stay, or any of that, but I am telling myself it will work out.  I want to be here, I want to live with my friends, and maybe when things calm down I can devote myself to a job search.  Or maybe I will just hold out where I am a couple extra months, and leave a little later to travel.

My mom thinks I should take up Rawaan's offer and move to Dubai, and get a job in journalism, where I can gather experience, and become a Middle East correspondent, and then spend the rest of my life traveling and writing.  Which sounds pretty good to me.  (Though she also wants me to move to Portland, so there's some kind of internal dissonance...or just what she wants for me, and what she wants for herself, which is understandable - and of course I want both too, to be here and gone.)

My weekends are full from now until late July.  With wonderful things, so wonderful (besides the GRE).  Concerts.  Dinners.  The Talent Show (oh oh oh baby).  Travel.  Rawaan.  Many other visitors.  Camping.  Moving.  This summer is going to go so quickly.  It feels almost over already.  If I take a deep breath, it will be September.

I looked up reification today, because it is one of those words that I ought to know what it means, and generally pretend to know what it means, and nod when it is used in a sentence, but could not actually define.  It turns out reification is a type of fallacy, as when you treat an abstraction like a reality - such as discussing the government as if it was a person who could want things, or hate you.

This makes me sort of sad, because if I had to guess what reification was, outside of any context, I would have guessed that it had something to do with ruler-worship, or lifting something up - to reify in my mind evokes the image of a throne.  (Obviously, somewhere in the back of my brain I equated reify with deify, except I substituted a king for a god.)  To find out that reification is actually a bad thing is rather disappointing.  (I am ignoring the fact that my false version of reification would probably also be a bad thing, implying the creation of hierarchy, etc.)

I applied for a job, a really exciting job that paid well and would have been doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, in the field I wanted to be doing it in.  Today I got an email saying I did not get it.  I didn't even get an interview.  I actually felt qualified for this job, unlike the vast majority of jobs I look at.  If I can't even get an interview for this one, why even bother applying to any others?  Which leaves me with the question: stay at my current job, so that I can stay in San Francisco, apply to (and presumably be rejected from at least a large percentage of) many other jobs, so that I can stay in San Francisco, or run away and be fancy free and lonely for a while?

I woke up today with a sore neck, for no reason I can figure out.  Not just a little sore, really sore.  So sore that I can only move it gingerly, if at all.  So sore that I have been fantasizing about Vicodin all day, and wincing and making faces and grabbing at it whenever I turn my head, or tilt my neck forward or back.  I have the 22 year old body of an old woman, new aches and pains every day.

This is entirely too morose an entry.  Last night I had dinner at Elizabeth and Priya's, with Erica and Mel and Alex and Priya and other wonderful people.  After dinner we sat around and the musicians among us passed around guitars and sang along, in harmony, their own songs, old songs everyone knows.  Erica sang a song she wrote (not about me) called Straight Girl, and lots of assumptions were made around the room, and I had to hide behind my scarf.  I sat there (over the course of the night, not at that particular moment) and thought, I am so lucky, to be here with good food and friends making music.

As my little sister Vivien sat on my lap Sunday afternoon decorating her birthday card for my mom (which included the words "Sometimes we want to never stop hugging and kiss you" or something to that effect), she said, "I'm learn things very quickly."  She said this matter-of-factly - she wasn't bragging, just stating the truth.  I dread the possibility that this will change someday, that she will blush or deny how smart she is.  When do girls learn that it is uncouth to be confident?  I blushed a little for her, and then stopped myself, and said, "Yes, you do.  You are very, very smart," and I kissed her head, and signed my name to the card.

I'm back in San Francisco now, after a weekend at home with my family.  Life is busy and lovely.  Yesterday it was so hot, I wore a little dress and went to get a drink at a bar with an enormous patio, rows of long wooden picnic tables like an outdoor cafeteria, and everyone buzzing and laughing and drinking too-strong drinks in the sunshine.

Stumbled upon this article today, about what it takes to establish a certain phrase as "characteristic" of a person.  When I was young - maybe eight or nine? - I went through my favorite books at the time, the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, and I counted all the times each character used one of their characteristic sayings.  For instance, the main female character was Princess Eilonwy, who used similes such as "that's like asking someone to dinner and then telling them they have to do the dishes" to illustrate her feelings, and was prone to telling the main male character, Taran, that she was not speaking to him (and then continuing to speak to him).  What I found was that, in the five books, Eilonwy actually told Taran she wasn't speaking to him only three or four times - but it was used in such a way that it was integrally tied to her character, and I would have said it was something she did constantly.  Each of the characters had some sort of phrase or tic, but what I found in my study was that these were actually used quite subtly - sprinkled in frequently enough that the reader felt they defined the characters, but not so often that they couldn't get things done.  Amazing that I could see and understand this at eight or nine, but I still struggle, in my writing, with not making caricatures, with giving characters room to breathe as well as to talk, to be people and not just collections of phrases.

So, about a month ago I posted in here that something had happened that was surprising and good, but I wasn't ready to talk about it yet.  I'm ready now.

The something was, I hooked up with one of my friends.  One of my female friends.  Erica.  Erica was not a very good friend then, she was someone who I thought was wonderful, and wanted to know better, but was too intimidated to call, and therefore only saw in group settings.  We were at a bar, and we held hands and cuddled on the bench and drank a couple beers, and then we made out on the street outside, and walked home holding hands, and... well, so forth.  But two days later, as I was in the first flush of confusion and wonder, she told me that she was seeing a boy.  Then she told me, later, tearfully, that the boy didn't matter; the real problem was that she had been hurt before by girls who she thought were interested, and who then decided they were Straight, and didn't want to be with her, and she liked me too much to take the chance that I would hurt her that way.  And I, being surprised and confused, could not promise her that I would not realize, later, that it was a mistake.  So we left it at that.

Fast forward to last week.  We had been hanging out, Erica and I.  Mostly in groups, or in public places.  I had been thinking about her a lot.  Realizing even more how incredibly smart and cool and funny and interesting she is.  I had a dream in which she snuck into my apartment and woke me up one morning, and when I woke up for real I was sad and thought about it all day.  (To be clear, this was not a "friend" wake up dream.)  Then I found out she had gone to Maine for a week, and was very sad I would not see her.  That night, as I was writing in my journal about all of these feelings I had been having, I suddenly wrote: "I have a huge crush on her" and realized that it was true.  This was last Tuesday I think.

So I wrote her a letter.  I wrote her a long letter telling her how I felt, and explaining why it had taken me some time to get there, but that I was ready now, to commit to... I suppose to not hurting her.  I don't know where it will go, but I know that it is not just a whim, or something I am trying, that I care about her.  I sent the letter to her house on Friday; she came back from Maine last night.

I was... nervous, to put it very mildly.  She got in late, and I sat in my bedroom eating Ben and Jerry's and trying to think of anything else.  Around midnight, it occurred to me that she probably wouldn't even look at her mail, she would probably just go to bed.  I forced myself to go to bed, and slept badly, dreaming of awkward interactions, rejection, and so on and on.

This morning my phone rang at 7:30.  It was Erica.  She said, "What's your apartment number?  You need to buzz me in."  She was outside.  When she came to the door, she had flowers (enormous pink lilies which are now sitting beside me as I write this, perfuming every breath I take) and breakfast.  We got to the breakfast... eventually.  It was like the climax of a movie.  She said she found and read the letter at 6:50 this morning, and a half an hour later she was at my door with flowers and food, and we were kissing madly in my front hall.

I have been giddy all day.  Smiling this enormous ridiculous smile.  When it first happened, last month, I was concerned about what it "meant," about me, my identity, my future.  But now I am not concerned.  I don't feel any different.  I am still attracted to boys.  I just think Erica is incredible, and beautiful, and sexy, and she makes me happy, and I am going to go with that as long as it is true.

An article by Gary Kamiya that expresses and elaborates upon much of what I was thinking about Virginia Tech and Iraq.  Go read it.

Life continues on, apace.  No final life decisions have been made yet.  We are submitting a proposal for a project that would involve reforming the San Francisco juvenile probation department.  If we get it, I will quite likely stay for a while.  I won't know until June, probably.

I have been studying for the GREs, regardless.  I signed up and paid for the test, so now I am committed to taking it, and I would like to do well.  I expect I will go to grad school someday, even if not next year.  It is frustrating to remember that I was once good at math, and not to be good at it anymore; not only have I forgotten the formulas, but my brain does not seem to work that way anymore.  In contrast, I rather like studying for the verbal ability section; mostly it involves reading lists of words, and occasionally rolling my eyes at the "tips" (for instance, one of the tips for the reading comprehension section is, when they ask you to draw an inference, the answer should not be directly stated in the passage, it should be inferred from something in the passage.  In other words, if they ask you to draw an inference, draw an inference.)

I saw the San Francisco Choral Society perform Bach's Mass in B Minor on Sunday afternoon, in a large, white church.  I liked the Gloria, the Counter-Tenor, the final prayer for peace, very much.  I thought about this article, for which the Washington Post conducted an experiment, and placed Joshua Bell (one of the foremost violinists in the world) outside a Metro stop on a weekday morning, and watched to see if people could appreciate True Beauty while on their way to work; and what is True Beauty anyway, if no one stops to notice it?

On the drive home, the western sky was incandescent pink with dusky purple lows.  As I neared the city, the pink deepened without darkening, becoming one of those shades you don't expect to encounter in nature, which make you remember how flawed and confined your view of nature really is.  Waiting on the freeway off-ramp, the sky above San Francisco was jewel blue, so rich and lovely that I thought, "I want a wedding dress that color," before I remembered wedding dresses are supposed to be white.

On the Writer's Almanac (a short daily radio piece by Garrison Keillor) yesterday he talked about the longest running newspaper columnist of all time, Herb Caen, who wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle for 60 years.  I found this in one of his columns from 1940: "It's the indescribable conglomeration of beauty and ugliness that makes San Francisco a poem without meter, a symphony without harmony, a painting without reason -- a city without an equal."

Every time I try to sit down and write something distracts me.  On Sunday it was dim sum and the St. Stupid's Day Parade, which was a wonderful excuse for young and old alike to wear their Burning Man/Oregon Country Fair/Berkeley Day/mismatched/political/bizarre/naked costumes.  On Monday, our Seder: 12 people (4 wrong-half-Jews and 8 gentiles), a Haggadah aimed at young people (including songs by Lou Reed, Billie Holliday, and Bob Marley, along with the normal prayers), and lots of food.  It was stressful, and amazing to see it all come of, a real Seder, with the (mostly) full ritual and all the right courses, and a Seder plate, and a shank bone.

And now I must go, before finishing my description of our Seder, or anything else.  I am called away from the computer once again, for friends and more charoset, etc. etc.  And off to Seattle tomorrow, for Family (hurrah!), and more charoset (hurrah!) and more craziness. Crazy craziness.  Next week, when I come home, I am going to barricade myself in my room and write reams, about everything that is going on in my life and in my head.  Or just watch Anne of Green Gables.  One of those two things.

Part Four:

In my first Spanish class, this evening, we learned that "quiere" means both "to want" and "to love."  I am sure this is an observation that has been made a thousand times, by people who understand the Spanish language, and all language, better than I, but here goes anyway: is wanting and loving the same thing?  And why does the idea that the two might be inextricable bother me?  Perhaps because wanting is "selfish" and love is "unselfish."  Maybe one (in English) signals a base desire, while the other is nobler, more abstract.  Maybe I associate love with sacrifice, with giving not taking, but that can be wanting to.  Wanting for someone else.  I want (desire, need, long for) more precision in language, not less.  New languages confuse me.

Part Five:

I waited for the bus for a half an hour after class, in the Marina district, where the yuppies congregate in their designer clothes and high heels and pretty hair.  Small groups of handsome men walked by, and couples, and people laughed inside bars, and bent over their coffees in glowing restaurants.  I felt very small and frumpy and alone.  I blame the bus, which was supposed to come every 15 minutes.

So the loveseat is, as far as I know, still in Nick's car.  Instead, my room now contains a loveseat futon, and a desk, both of which Elizabeth and I found on the street, and carried back to my apartment.  So much for the loveseat: I am going to tell Nick to leave it on the sidewalk, and maybe someone who will really love it will pick it up.

Besides the furniture-finding, I saw M. Ward perform, and watched Casino Royale, and checked books on Panama out of the library.  "It looks like you're writing a research paper," Elizabeth said as I described my Sackful O' Books, and I said, "I sort of am."  It turns out I had not yet told her of my Panama!Novel! plans.

M. Ward is from Portland, and wore a baseball cap over his curly hair.  He was preceded by a woman named Victoria Williams, a middle-aged woman who looked like someone's mother and sounded like a small child, and waved her arms about.  He sang all the songs I most wanted him to sing: what do you do with the pieces of broken heart/and how can a man like me remain in the light/and if life is really as short as it seems, then why is the night so long? and I'll Be Yr Bird.  I didn't feel well and watched most of the show alone, in a table at the back of the room.  We got there early, and were standing near the stage, and it was too hot and pressed in, and my stomach hurt, and I couldn't see, so I was happy enough to sit at a table and watch the small figure on the stage, and lean my chin on my hand, and stretch my legs out.  Somehow sitting alone at a concert that I attended with friends felt different than going alone; I was secure in the knowledge that out there in the crowd I had People.  Having People is important.

I've moved.  I am taking a short break from unpacking madness.  I have wonderful friends, who made it possible, and I ache all over, and I am exhausted, and happy, and have a new place to call home.  My room is large, with the added bonus of an enormous walk-in closet where I can store pretty much everything.  It has an arched ceiling, like a sunrise, and my new roommate left me two pretty bedside tables, a dresser, two large bookshelves.  This morning Elizabeth texted me and asked if I wanted to come for breakfast, and I could just roll out of bed, get dressed and go; their apartment is two blocks away from me.  There are two cats here: Cinder and Dove.  They drift in and out, and sniff things.  My new roommate, Kat, is an avid baker, and owns every kitchen appliance known to man.  Her boyfriend, who is living here for the moment (but is leaving to travel for a year, which is why they are renting out my room) helped me move in, set up my internet for me, and just offered me means to hang things on my wall: molding hooks and wire, heavy two sided tape.  They put up a new shelf in the kitchen to free up cabinet space for me.  Mel gave me a pineapple as a housewarming gift and my whole room smells of it.  I have extra room on my bookshelf, for expansion, and a whole wall which could hold a couch, or a desk, or both.  This is good.