(kitty delayed) whiteboard wednesday: comfort and joy

so sorry to keep you waiting, but i’ve been so caught up in being a kitty parent that i wasn’t able to get around to posting yesterday! so without further ado:

now that has to sound kind of silly: “cable cars stop for a reason.” i’ve actually had this thought prepared since just before christmas, but life got in the way (sorry).

on the 23rd i had the good fortune of christmas caroling with a friend i haven’t seen in a couple of years, as well as a big group of singers from lamplighters. here’s what made it even more awesome: we went on the powell cable car. i’ve been on the cable car a few times, but i’ve never caroled on one! so we took off, sang a couple of carols, and then we STOPPED! right next to union square! seems we had a bit of a cable car calamity. the car in front of us either had some sort of mechanical problem or there was an accident – we’re not quite sure. but we were frozen dead on the rails. so we did the only thing carolers can do in that situation – keep on caroling! in the end, it turned out to be better than taking the car all the way down the line, because we generated quite a crowd, spreading a lot of holiday cheer.

so … my thought for you today is, cable cars indeed stop for a reason. something may happen in your life, and you may think it’s downright horrible, but there’s always a flip side to that problem, and it could be a very wonderful flip side indeed. i’ve had a few stopped cable cars, and i’m realizing more and more that those cable cars are leading me down the right line in my life.

magical ukuleles and the simple pleasures in life

warning: this blog is going to cover a TON of random shite, so i’d suggest that if your eyes are weary or your concentration skills leave much to be desired you read this in sections. i’ll even break it up for you!

part ein:

i hardly expect you to have noticed, but i just changed my tagline from the very long sentence about a mezzo-soprano’s perspective to the very simple and philosophical “musik und liebe” (and who could notice, with that tiny font). for those of you who aren’t familiar with the german language, the phrase means “music and love”, the two things that are most important in my life (and the two things that could potentially conflict at some point in my life, depending on what direction i want to go). these two words have been stuck in my head for the past year or so (funny, because that’s also about the length of time i’ve been with my lovely boyfriend). i even put them on my graduation cap!

well, now i’m going to take it one step further. after many years of searching for the perfect picture to ink onto my body, i’ve settled on these three words instead. i’m thinking i’m going to put them on my lower neck/upper back, in a deep purple. i laid it out a few months ago.

the plan is to drop into godspeed tattoo in san mateo (where my friend kate, who i believe has reached a total of 9 tattoos, got her last few pieces done) sometime next month and at least talk to an artist and get a quote, and then i can decide whether or not to take the plunge. by the way, the first comment on this entry will be from my mom, who will scream at me in agony and urge me not to get a tattoo. sorry …

part zwei:

this dome is fantabulous.

(yes, i took this picture. i took it with my iphone 4. whatah!!! don’t ask what that means – it’s a random sound of awesomeness) my friend andy dropped in for the weekend for my joint birthday party with kate (see part drei) and somehow we ended up wandering around the westfield shopping center in san francisco (which somehow i have only seen from the outside) and happened upon this dome a few floors up. giddiness ensued. ah, the simple pleasures in life. domes and curvy escalators.

andy and i were actually in that part of the city because i felt it terribly important to take him by the water feature at the yerba buena gardens. yet another simple pleasure – walking behind a wall of water.

and before THAT … i put tasty foods in my belly at mifune in japantown. sushi for breakfast (doesn’t that sound like a band name?). the sushi actually was not very impressive, but the tenzaru soba i always order there was epic. and then the two men sitting at the table next to ours suggested that we get the milk sake – definitely a good choice (much better than the japanese beer we were going to get). speaking of the men at the table – that day was extremely weird. i was chatted up by some random guy at chevron while pumping gas (gee, that could be innuendo if you really tried hard to make it so), and then the two guys at mifune became a part of our lunch (yum), and then another random guy started talking to me in the parking lot at kate’s and even offered to help me loosen the straps on my bike rack, which i was removing from the top of my trunk, anticipating a trip to the car wash (which was glorious). sooooo weird. it must have been the giants hat. it’s the only explanation. never have i had that many random people be so chatty with me in one day.

part drei:

kate and claire’s second annual birthday bash. last year we did a masquerade at the karaoke place we regularly frequent. this year? a wicked blend of rockband, apples to apples, pictionary, dueling piñatas, and fooooooooood. we actually ended up having too much food – can you believe that? first it was chill, just a few of us grazing on chips in the kitchen, and then suddenly all the guests descended upon kate’s condo, ready to party like mad! we branded our birthday celebration as a rockband party, but rockband ended up playing a very small role that evening. spotlight: boss’s granddaughter singing very softly but rather well, and then picking up the drums with no trouble at all. made my day.

dueling piñatas. it was an idea that popped into my head when kate’s boyfriend suggested that we get a piñata. we strung up two piñatas on a tree and had two teams: mine and kate’s. the objective was simple: whichever team broke open its piñata first was the winner. my boyfriend controlled kate’s piñata (to throw her off) and vice versa. kate and i went first on our respective piñatas, and then we let everyone else join in. look what happened!

by the way, we had our eyes closed. the blindfolds were too thin, and therefore pointless, so we went on honor and did our best to keep our lids squeezed shut.

then a huge apples to apples game ensued, while kate retired to the bedroom with a posse for pictionary, and eventually we all joined her in there on her bed (mmmmmmhhhmmmmm) and i discovered that i’m actually quite good at translating clues into pictures. all in all, our party rocked. hard core.

part vier:

i know you’ve been waiting for the magical ukuleles. i’ve been waiting for the magical ukuleles! some of you know of my passion for the dresden dolls and singer amanda palmer. i’ve been ripping out her songs in the car all weekend. major happiness. in fact, i was driving my friend andy to the greyhound station in the city (when i picked him up on friday, i was reminded why i hate driving in the city) and was singing along to “the perfect fit”, which is one of my fav dresden dolls songs, and i was so psyched because i introduced such a beautiful bit of music to someone, and you know what he said to me? he told me that the song was even better because i was singing along to it (no offense to amanda palmer)! punk cabaret pride.

so, i’ve been anticipating the arrival of “amanda palmer performs the popular hits of radiohead on her magical ukulele” and she put up the digital download today. get this: she’s only asking 84 cents for 7 songs. that covers the money she has to give to radiohead and to paypal. anything beyond that is a donation for her fabulous art. now of course i was a good person and paid much more than 84 cents, and i encourage you to do the same. i haven’t listened to it yet (review for another post) but i’m excited! i don’t consider myself to be partial to ukulele, but i like the idea of covering one genre in a very different style, and it’s amanda palmer, so i’m jazzed. anything to support a fellow musician. this is also a huge step for her because it’s the first solo album she’s done without her former record label, roadrunner records. it’s all self-promoted (with help of the viral nature of the internet, of course). i HAVE to buy “no, virginia” (the last dresden dolls album, which i have somehow neglected to own until now, even though i was well aware of it – i even recently downloaded one of the songs from the album for my ringtone), and i also have my eye on her photo book, “who killed amanda palmer?”, which features some very short stories by neil gaiman. yeah, i’m on a bit of an amanda palmer rush right now. which brings me to …

part fünf:

i’m realizing more and more that i really need to suck it up and write my own shite. i think that could be a huge element that’s holding me back. sure, i could cover dido and lady gaga and dresden dolls/amanda palmer, but really, i’d rather be singing my own material. when andy made that comment in the car the other day, my mind set off on a crazy whirlwind of ideas and anticipation, considering what i could do as a singer-songwriter. he wrote to me on facebook today,

Do you have a video and/or MP3 of you singing The Perfect Fit? If not … could you please make one? : )

Cause it made my day when you sang it in the car.

now that would be ten times better if i was making someone’s day singing my own music. and i can see myself being a sort of quirky, strange, regina spektor/amanda palmer type, if only i could get past this barrier of not having my own songs! two problems:

one – i pretty much fail at writing music. i wrote a “lux aeterna”, and i’m pretty pleased with it, but it’s still not complete, and i’ve been doing it in small chunks over about 3-5 years. not very effective. i don’t know if i’d work best writing lyrics first, then music, or vice versa, or all at once.

two – i don’t know how to play the piano. or guitar. so i’m without a way to accompany myself, and an effective tool for throwing together some chords for a song. this is something i think has been a major roadblock for me in general.

so, at some point i need to learn one or the other and make a real effort at writing a couple of songs, and getting people to hear them, because i would love to do what amanda palmer is doing: using the internet to spread my voice. i have no idea how it’s going to happen, but i’m full of glee just thinking about it. help?

for now, i’m just chilling in belmont, working at my awesome new job as a web content coordinator, and singing away.

many hugs.

bike tour of san francisco (first installment)

yesterday i found myself embarking upon the longest 28-mile bike ride ever … and it was an absolute joy! get this: we (my friend gregory and i) started around 10:45 a.m. and finished at 6 p.m., and in the process experienced many wonderful parts of the city that i like to call home (even though i don’t live in it), san francisco.

at the end of the ride, an intriguing little idea took out his little index finger and started poking my brain incessantly. “you could write a book about cycling through san francisco!” he screamed at me. i’m sure it has been done. in fact, i’ll google it right now … *zoooooooooom*

*vrrrrriiip* … (don’t ask what that is – it’s a new sound effect i just created on the spot) i found a few things:

• Short Bike Rides, San Francisco
• Mountain Bike! San Francisco and the Bay Area
• Bay Area Bike Rides
• Bay Area Biking

the list goes on. however, if i were to write a san francisco cycling book, i’d want it to be more like a san francisco tour guide, featuring cycling as the mode of transportation to get to the various sight-seeing destinations. riding through san francisco yesterday featured the city in a light that i hadn’t experienced before. i was able to see so much in one day (i’m a big fan of just wandering around a city and letting it soak in, rather than going to particular locations and having to go inside each one, and spend a ton of money) and remained relatively unscathed (walking around san francisco can be a bit of a pain after a while – yesterday i escaped with a scraped up arm – more on that later).

the book would have different modes of touring, some geared toward the length or difficulty of the ride, others geared toward the type of experience the tourist would like to have (best food, best churches, best history, etc.). last night i was thinking it would be fun to do a “perimeter of san francisco ride” or maybe pick a particular street that has a lot of interesting spots and have a “______ street ride.”

today, you’ll get a very random taste of san francisco through the ride gregory and i took yesterday. so let’s vroooooom-vrrrriiip over to lake merced and get started!

isn’t it gorgeous? we rode from the north to lake merced, and followed a fairly smooth (littered with the occasional pedestrian, wandering child, and rebellious tree root) path around the lake, and wound back north so that we headed toward the great highway.

and then catastrophe struck! the sand denied me passage, and the lip of the ramp to the sidewalk wasn’t too pleased to see me either, and down i went in an epic wipeout, my bike pinning me to the ground like a helpless creature and … okay, it wasn’t nearly that cool, but i ended up with a pretty sweet battle scar!

great highway

now, if this were my novel book about cycling through san francisco, i would include a tidbit here about the history of the great highway, why it’s so fantastic to visit, and what makes it a fabulous ride. unfortunately, all i can tell you is, well, it’s not much of a highway, you have to sync up with the traffic lights (which are all synced themselves) or you’ll get stuck at a stop sign every 15-30 seconds (luckily, this is only an issue if you’re in an automobile – bikes can take bike highway that runs alongside), BUT it takes you to all sorts of nifty places. here’s a list of a few of them:

• san francisco zoo
• ocean beach
• beach chalet
• cliff house
• historic dutch windmill

now if this were a proper san francisco cycling guide, i’d have plenty of entertaining information about all these places, but instead, i shall just continue.

we did make it to the windmill, which i had only ever seen from afar, and it made for a very quaint and delightful resting place. i was even asked by a tourist to take a picture of her and her boyfriend/husband (now if people could only learn that they don’t need to demonstrate how to operate the shutter. the majority of the general public understands that clicking the big button on the right will take the picture).

golden gate park

after a brief respite at the windmill, i followed gregory into golden gate park. now, you have to plan on having a few days if you’re wanting to see all of golden gate park; we just took a brief cycling stroll through it. next time i ought to pay attention so i can actually tell you where i went and how to get there! in fact, it would probably be best if i team wrote this gregory, but i will trudge along on my own.

just the concept of golden gate park is amazing. it’s like a little slice of nature,pre-human destruction, plopped right into a city. seriously. you can stand in golden gate park, look through the trees, and discover that you’re in a jungle surrounded by a concrete jungle. it might as well be a city within a city.

(by the way, that’s not the whole park)

i can’t even begin to note everything we saw in the park, but it pretty much comes down to waterfalls and patches of sunlight. i’ll leave it at that.

green apple books

somehow we ended up at green apple books (horrible sense of direction, and very limited knowledge of the city), which is pretty much the most epic (i believe this is the second time i’ve used epic in this post) new and used book store on the planet (don’t take my word for it). it’s almost a quest to find every little nook and cranny  in the store. lots of staircases. if you’re looking for a book, green apple probably has it (i mean, that’s the impression i got being in the place – the shelves never end). overall, it was a very random stop, but a great addition to the ride.

presidio

five minutes later we’re up a hill (welcome to san francisco) and at the presidio. we pretty much just breezed through (other than a bathroom break) so i’ll let you research the place yourself.

fisherman’s wharf

we passed through the marina and on to fisherman’s wharf, which is a huge tourist attraction (as evidenced by the insane number of people there yesterday). it was a game of “dodge the tourist”! or maybe “hit the tourist” would have been better? 25 points for americans, 50 points for europeans, 75 for children, and 100 for fellow cyclists! just kidding. i actually get a rush being in a large group of people. in the past i didn’t care much for fisherman’s wharf, mostly because i don’t care for seafood, and especially the scent of seafood. yesterday, however, i was feeling this energetic vibe, walking my bike through a babbling mush of people. that’s one of the things i love about san francisco: its rhythm.

pier 39

the next-door neighbor of fisherman’s wharf is pier 39, a place i’ve frequented much more than fisherman’s wharf because it isn’t nearly as fishy (take whichever meaning you want for that). honestly, i’m over it. we rode right on by.

embarcadero

now this is a street! i’ve walked embarcadero from market to pier 39 many times, and i’ve decided that biking is infinitely better. the typical walking trip along embarcadero goes something like this:

• pleasant stroll
• oh look, a restaurant
• okay, still going
• oh look, an empty pier
• oh gee, another empty pier
• okay, we’ve been walking for 20 minutes and all we’ve seen are empty piers
• ooooooo teatro zinzanni
• hhmmm my knees hurt
• oh crap, my shins are killing me
• feet, you really need to stop throbbing
• oh thank god we made it

in contrast, cycling along embarcadero is wicked cool: the scenery is constantly changing, there’s a wide open space to ride, and you get to play another game of “hit the tourist”, i mean, “dodge the tourist.” i don’t quite know how to explain it, but it was a pleasure.

ferry building

welcome to the ferry building, home of overpriced speciality food stores. speciality food that i want to gobble up!!!

market st.

from the ferry building we cut over to market. market can be pretty sketchy, so at least on a bike you can breeze through and forget about it. the thing i like about market is that i know once i find market, i can find the freeway.

now somehow from here we ended up in the civic center part of town, then grabbed muni (where i had the distinct pleasure of putting my bike on the front of the bus, which i have never done before) to go up a hill (yeah, we’re wusses) and ended up back in golden gate park.

46th avenue

and it was on 46th avenue, somewhere around noriega i believe, that i almost got blown over by the wind (would have been a great way to explain my battle scars). EPIC WIND! it just came out of no where (well, not quite no where – it was quite windy) and gave me a little more than a friendly push. but i was victorious!

creepy san francisco men

what guide to cycling through san francisco would be complete without a mention of creepy people? there i am, finally sitting after a day of riding, enjoying food in a little place on the corner, when this guy just decides to plant himself against the outside wall and stare at me through the window for two minutes. he and i even made eye contact for a good twenty seconds, and he didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he was watching me watching him watching me eat. gotta love a good creep.

and this concludes my 28-mile tour of san francisco. i will have you know that i cracked my jaw tonight after watching iron man 2. that does have something to do with cycling – i just haven’t figured out what yet.

tightwads of san francisco unite!

it’s common knowledge that san francisco is a seemingly impossible city to inhabit, and somehow, over 800,000 people do so every day. at the moment, the closest i come to living in san francisco is going to school on the peninsula, and that is a far cry from really living in “the City”. while the prospect of living in frisco is quite daunting, it has been a dream of mine for many years, and i’m not about to give that up without a fight! after all, who would want to give up the opportunity to live near an alleyway that reeks of urine, run into every werido that has ever been conceived, and spend his/her life savings for meager shelter and bread on the table? okay, i kid. those of us who live in or near the City know that san francisco is blessed with culture, a diverse population, people who are willing to fight for what they believe in, and, heaven forbid, a unique sense of community. there’s something to say for being a part of san francisco. wander through that urine-coated alleyway, and i guarantee that at the other end (or a few streets down from the other end) you’ll find something meaningful, whether it be a little slice of sunshine, a person who gives you a nourishing laugh, or some new discovery.

as i mentioned above, coming up with the means to be a part of the san francisco experience is a huge task. rent of course is the major concern, but after that comes food (believe me, i have food on the brain almost 24/7). matt (my boyfriend, who is moving here from kansas as i type!) and i have considered writing our own ramen cookbook (while i haven’t looked, i’m almost positive it’s been done- how could there not be a ramen cookbook?!). maybe i’m just spoiled by good home cooking, but eating ramen every day, let alone once, does not excite me, but the stuff (it’s not food. it does not deserve to be called food. it has not aspired to the level required to be called food) is dirt cheap, so any way to encoroporate it into a somewhat healthy (ramen, healthy? ha!) meal is welcomed. i’ve found in the last couple of weeks while cooking on my own that there are actually rather cheap methods of feeding oneself. pasta is a big factor. dishes with cheese are wonderful as well, and it’s pretty affordable to encorporate vegetables (only mentioning vegetables here because i’m a bit anti-fruit – other than squash, which are, contrary to popular belief, fruit, and apples, i just don’t like fruit. the end) into your diet as well. at the moment i have a limited number of dishes i can cook affordably, so i’m working on expanding my food repertoire.

however, at some point i’m going to want to get out of my on-campus apartment and catch some entertainment, and have someone cook food for me, and that’s where broke-ass stuart comes in. broke-ass who?! broke-ass stuart. yeah, i had no idea who he was either, until matt and i wandered into the virgin megastore on market st. while we were killing time before his appointment at academy of art university. turns out, broke-ass stuart wrote a charming and witty zine with tips on finding cheap food, alcohol, shopping, and sights in san francisco, and eventually published it as a book, a book that ended up in my hand at virgin. purchasing the book required around nine dollars from my wallet (a discount on the regular price of $12.95). i figured that if anything, i’d get a good read out of it.

my guide to cheap things sitting on my not-so-cheap computer

turns out, i got my nine dollars of entertainment out of this book. first of all, to my delight, there’s a quote from oscar wilde before you even get to the table of contents!

It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.

after the table of contents, there’s a crude map of the City, followed by a muni/bart map (always helpful). then comes the introduction. i knew one paragraph into this intro that i would enjoy the rest of the book. and then of course he hits the nail on the head in the second paragraph.

What makes this city so fucking great is that everybody here has a little bit of freak and weirdo in them.

and then in the third:

If U.S. cities were people, San Francisco would be the weird art school kid who felt like nobody else understood him. Whether you live in the Mission or the Marina, there’s a reason why you chose San Francisco — you chose it because there was something about this city that spoke to you and made you feel like this was home. And you know what that means? You’re just as looney as the rest of us, whether you like it or not.

hmmmm, and you wonder why i’m attracted to san francisco? i’ve been a professed embracer of the weird since the 90s (yes, i’m that young). after living in sacramento for over a couple of decades, there’s something about the atmosphere of the bay area that has called me to join it. but back to broke-ass stuart.

he really is a delightful read. unfortunately, i don’t know when i’ll be able to implement any of his suggestions, as i rarely get to the City (one of the woes of college life – too busy studying to go anywhere!). the book is divided into neigborhoods, with sections for food, bars, shopping, and sights and entertainment. the bars section will go mostly untouched, as i’m not a heavy drinker, and don’t go bar-hopping. however, there may be that odd night when i want to score some free or cheap hot wings, in which case i may grab a beer. i may have to start carrying this book around, as well as a highlighter, so i can keep track of the places i like if i ever utilize the guide.

may i suggest that you do not read the book late at night. i covered chintatown, the sunset, golden gate park, the marina, and the castro last night, and by the time i went to bed i was starving. here’s a sampling of the things he enticed me with:

Make sure you get their wonton appetizer; it is the bomb.

You’s is often teeming with people (which is always a good sign), and their pot stickers are of a freakishly huge size.

An island of Mediterranean food surrounded by an ocean of Asian restaurants, Sunrise Deli has quite possibly the best falafel, shawarma and kebabs in the whole city.

How does a good hot pastrami sandwich sound right now?

They also have gourmet milkshakes. What the fuck is a gourmet milkshake? What’s next, a gourmet corndog?

We ordered the De La Hoya/Mayorga fight on pay-per-view and for some ungodly reason we also decided to order 100 Buffalo wings.

I don’t know what it is about their nachos that make them such a wonderful guilty pleasure. Maybe it’s the fact that the cheese and chili come from a machine that hums and dispenses as if it were giving out soft-serve frozen yogurt. Or maybe it’s because of the time that I saw the belly of the beast, where I found two plastic bags, one cheese and one chili, put through ringers that help squeeze out that sweet manna that makes you loathe yourself after eating it.

fooooooooooooooooood. not to mention the mecca of shopping.

maybe one of these days i’ll actually get to one of the restuarants he mentions in his book, and then i’ll do a little review. actually, i have been to one already, but not in san francisco.

Find a friend with a Costco card. Go to Costco. Eat as many samples as you want. Go home satisfied. Repeat.

for now you’ll just have to do with pictures and descriptions of my weird cooking concoctions. coming soon: two slight variations on grilled cheese.

ciao and cheerio.