Sunday Undies

Yes, just what I always wanted. To lay my head down on a soft bed of cheese and bell peppers! Oof. Saw these in the dorm decor aisle of my local Target. Let’s not take college life so literally, designers. I may have known somebody, not me of course, that once slept on the floor with a pizza box as a pillow after they had their first shot ever, which was followed by several more, all of which were tequila and which took said person 10 years to get over and be able to handle the smell of tequila again (but thank goodness she did, because a margarita goes with carnitas like peanut butter goes with jelly only! much worse for you and therefore more awesome! WORD), but it certainly was not what I that person aspired to when they picked out their dorm decorations at Target, for heaven’s sake.

My local Target is, if you did not guess it from the title of this post already, no longer in Glendale! But in Serramonte/Daly City (because there are two there, one on either side of the 280, nutty. Kind of like there being two Denny’s, one on either side of the 5 in my hometown, Redding, only better)!

I moved to San Francisco April 1.

You remember my old view?

I do not know how I lucked out to top it, but I did! Check it out! Suck it, old view!

Actually, this doesn’t even really do my new view justice, as to the left you can actually see the entire bay, including the Oakland Coliseum when it’s game night. I will have to post another shot at some point.

Anyway, I am happy. Relatively speaking, let’s not go crazy here. I’m still at a law firm. But the hours are generally better (except this weekend, when a partner cancelled my traveling plans, sweet! But still, generally, better), and Penny is here. And my parents are only a 3 hour drive away.

AND, most importantly, I’m living in San Francisco.

I still love LA. I remember marveling when I first got there at how Everyone. Drove. Everywhere. There was no dragging groceries home on the bus or up a hill. And I love to drive! I am excellent at it. It is one of my few life skills, along with (a) painting my own nails and (b) cleaning the crap out of anything. For those of you who know me in real life and are shaking your heads, please note, I KNOW! I am EXCLUDING parking along with anything else that requires spatial skills, you jerks.

But Northern California is where I’m from and who I am. Which doesn’t mean you can’t live somewhere you’re not from and be happy. It just means I’m also happy to be back. Go Giants!

I’ve been thinking, though, that moving is good to shake things up, but it doesn’t change who you are and how you react to stress. It’s easy to fall back into old habits. I miss this blog because writing here and the comments were an inspiration to me, somehow making me accountable to the world.

So! I am going to launch, here, my little private campaign I’ve been doing here and there, less successfully than I think I will do if I make it public. It is not an important campaign, there is no cause except my own happiness involved. It is just to do ONE thing, each day, that is different. Today I refused to work more than 3 hours (tomorrow’s gonna suck, y’all!) and started making grapefuit-tarragon infused vodka, which I actually had bookmarked to do forever ago and was reminded of when one of my favorite bloggers, Notmartha, also started.

Anyway, all of this is just to say, hello! To nobody at this point, really, but hello from San Francisco! Go Giants!

And I will leave you with this picture of an emu drinking beer, taken from Tinsley Island:

Cheers to new starts!

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Well, I think my gift/shipping cost ratio was about 3:1 but I’m finally done with my Christmas shopping.

And man, I am so emotionally drained right now. It is at times like these I wish I were a dude. Why does Christmas shopping have to be such an existential exercise? Maybe some women don’t feel that way, but I feel like there is this crazyass sweet spot of cost, showing you know the recipient, being creative in the way you want to contribute to his or her life, AND not accidentally offending someone that you have to hit, or else you are a Christmas-gift-giving failure and THAT IS A LOT OF PRESSURE.

Let’s take even my mother for example, since she doesn’t read this, unlike many of my gift recipients (if they have realized I started blogging again). Gifts I have considered for my mother in the last 24 hours:

• spices for Indian food (actually got her those from Spice Station this afternoon);
• salt and pepper mills, except I already bought her the spices so I really can’t pay $90 per spice mill, you ridiculous people at Crate & Barrel/Williams Sonoma, and also will my dad eat milled salt? my dad has eaten the same breakfast for 35 years and has probably eaten Morton’s iodized salt since birth, and, dammit, maybe I would have thrown caution to the wind but a quick text to my sister reveals my mother has a pepper mill already that goes unused;
• actually, this list is making me relive the pain of the last few hours but if you imagine many variations of above and factor in shipping time frame, I think you get the gist (In case you are in suspense, I will tell you that after finding that most of Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel’s bread mixes and whatnot were already sold out, I went straight to the awesomest source without a 50% mark up because of the name (looking at you, Ina Garten and Thomas Keller), King Arthur Flour, and bought my mother a lovely assortment of bread and scone mixes that I know she’ll love and not be offended by in the slightest. BOOYAH!).

Hm, and now I have no idea where I was going with this. Except that I am glad that’s over and I’m ready for the fun stuff about Christmas to begin! Apparently, based on that photo, I have been ready since mid-November in Hong Kong!

Hope you are having a stress-free holiday season so far, as much as it can be! And if you already celebrated your winter holiday, like Hanukkah, hope it was happy!

p.s./update:

After I published this entry I remembered the second half of this post was about how in a relationship I am pretty sure I have a 12:1 thought:text/email ratio and dudes are 1:1. I am grouping this skewed ratio with the 3:1 ratio in personal appearance spending between the ladies and dudes and crying UNCLE. Except that I’m not really. And won’t ever. Which is probably why I lost steam and couldn’t remember where I was going with this two paragraphs ago. Enh, oh well!

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I’m really not sure what inspired the gentleman who, until this evening, has quite literally been a gentle man, a Sikh, I think, who says “hello friend” and who runs my local convenience store (Oh yes, I am doing my grocery shopping at convenience stores. Did I say changes are afoot? Well, they are slightly delayed.) to suggest that I purchase a penis enlargement pill for my boyfriend (I suppose he assumed I had one) for his birthday (if I did, his birthday would be in September).

I had never before noticed the wide variety of manhood enhancement offerings hung on tiny hooks near the ceiling next to the phone cards. Or I had only subconsciously registered them, the way you vaguely process your spam until something jumps out at you that connects with real life. And usually you laugh.

Which is what I did. Laugh. Uncomfortably. And tried to extricate myself from that conversation with my non-organic half-and-half produced by GMO cows and two times the price of Trader Joe’s half-and-half as quickly as possible.

I am still trying to decide what to make of it. Weird.

In other news, I went to UniqueLA this weekend, which was great and inspiring except: (a) it gets more overwhelming every year, (b) I realized three of my favorite crafters were at the Renegade Craft Fair instead, and (c) you know who you can buy Christmas presents for at a hipster craft fair? Fellow hipsters, that’s who.

Finally, when do you think you are too old to rely on your parents? Not for money, although goodness knows in this economy lots of people have had to and there’s no shame (just unnecessary guilt) in that. Or not even just in this economy; coming up with a down payment can be brutal. I mean, I am still single, and even when I have had a “serious” relationship I don’t want to rely entirely on my partner for support. And my friends are awesome but they all have their own lives and I have to be selective in when I elect to burden them with my problems. I am 33, almost 34. Is there some point where I have to stop asking my parents for emotional support and advice?

I try to support my parents as well. I think I lent a hand in convincing Dad to go to France with Mom, a dream of hers. I know I’ve supported Mom through challenging conversations and ordeals. I know I was there for Dad as much as I could be during his heart surgery. But the bulk of the supporting comes from my parents.

Is that not OK any more? When am I too much of a big girl to ask for support? Is 40 the line? Or are they always Mom and Dad?

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