At yoga today

Today I went to Yoga to the People. The room is a huge and beautiful space. Exposed wood rafters make up the ceiling with support pillars coming down to the shiny wood floor. The walls are red brick with large old windows, square and four paned facing west to Mission Dolores Park and North to down town. At their tips, the sky scrapers disappear into the fog. A single palm tree swayed in the wind outside and a california flag flaps its colors against the milk white sky. Plants and white candles hang from the windows and line the floors. This practice brings inner focus on the heat and energy we create in poses that make me feel like an eighty year old man. The breathing washes away my many fears and anxieties and brings gratefulness for so many things. At then end, as she tolls the bells that resound in my half asleep ear, she reads a passage by Goethe:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

Small pleasures

Today I met up with Zoe and Vera and Marina for lunch at Outerlands. They say on their website, "Outerlands is a gathering place for sea goers who seek warmth, shelter, food, and fellowship. it is a retreat from the saltwater chill, or a place to hang your hat after a long day's frolic in the sun. it is a home for art and music." Outerlands is way out near the ocean, nondescript from the outside, but absolutely beautiful from the inside. It's made of rough pieces of wood recovered from the beach and from garages. The boards of wood are various colors of sun bleached gray. The counter has beach rocks embedded in the wood in a swirled pattern along with fragments of driftwood. The windows are wide and square, with views of the ocean. Sitting there with three of the most peaceful, kind-hearted, genuine, patient and thoughtful girls I know was an absolute delight. I was happy even before my organic local and unbelievable food arrived. We discussed food and we discussed plants. I took my shoes off and felt the round, comforting rod of my wooden chair on the arches of my feet. I felt the sunburn running along my legs from body surfing until my brain froze yesterday. I drank my cappuccino and watched with delight as my gypsy skirt billowed every time the front door let in the San Francisco wind, and I enjoyed the curiosity and good company of these girls. After lunch we stopped in a flower shop that looked like a log with a hole cut in the middle. We explored the white washed greenhouse in the back filled with succulents, and we made bird noises and giggled on the patio. Then we went to an organic health food store and contemplated every single kind of chocolate they had to offer. After that was the cookie shop where we were offered shots of milk with our cookies. We made plans for Yosemite, for more food, for more fun once everyone is back from visiting family and friends and far off boyfriends. I have been so grateful for these lazy summer days, playing on the beach, eating, hiking, being with friends. Despite the stress of not having a job and the fear of my future, things are pretty darn good.

Two years, two months and two weeks

Sorry I will start by saying this is poorly written because it came out in a gush.

It’s hard to believe it was over two years ago that I first wrote about what a twilight zone I work in. It’s amazing what you become accustomed to and what you will take as normal because it becomes your entire life. I don’t see it as bad that I let it be my entire life. 2009 was the best year of my life. I got promoted a couple of times and demoted once before the first promotion. I struggled and learned and was praised for great worked and cussed at for mistakes. My job was my entire social life, and I think that’s pretty lucky.

There were some pretty hilarious and entertaining times. There was the time my boss burst into the other executive’s office singing “Bake Sale Betty!” and asked his assistant to book a charter bus to take us to have fried chicken sandwiches at Bake Sale Betty in Oakland in the middle of the work day. The was the huge chrome dome buses with the vinyl floor, amps, bucket of booze and absolutely no seats, just a dance floor. There were the jello shots and summer beer before the bus ride that took us to a ranch in the hills of Marin where I reigned as the all-agency mechanical bull riding champion. The executives passed us blunts as we listened to the live band commissioned just for us. On the way back we turned the bus into the sweatiest, loudest dance club I’ve been in. As we barreled down through the hills on the curvy road, our night club music blared and we rolled from side to side, holding the roof to keep from falling over. Once we crossed back over the Golden Gate bridge and into the financial district, we kept our dancing going, the music just as loud as we stuck our sweaty faces out the window to smile at the grim expressions on office-workers’ faces as they lined up for their bus ride home. There was the Christmas party, climbing a statue with my boss Mike and setting off the alarms, dancing until five in the morning, thinking it was a good idea to put a cupcake in my jacket pocket to eat later. There was the next morning when Google sent us breakfast burritos and we sat around the kitchen table, eating, laughing, gossiping like college students hung-over, ashamed of each other but never ashamed to tell every juicy detail. Michelle passed around pictures of her making out with the French caterer who was later found on the internet in a sex scandal law suit. She even showed these pictures to the creative executive Jim, who it’s her job to assist. The executives languished over the details of the ex-model Lindsey making out with the female bartender that was licking spilled liquor off the bar, crying because someone called her “Jersey Shore” and dick grabbing every man with a wedding band. The new digital planner, (the guy who gets paid to tweet and blog and foursquare and facebook for our brands) told us all about the married, swinging finance woman and her bold inquiry to fuck in the photo booth. With all his shock and modesty, I reminded him how he tried to suck vodka out of my hair when he’d spilled it on me the night before. Then there were the late nights drinking wine and eating chocolate in the all-glass executive office, sprawling on the couches as the sun turned the sky over the bay pink, and the water deepened it’s blue. There was Peter, the president, making my day every morning when he sung “here’s to you Lindsay Robinson!” or telling me I had a smile as bright as the day, that no one in the world was as sweet and as good as Torts. His Linzer Torts. There were the dance nights with Adriana and her friends, the nights arm in arm with Melissa, where she was shocked that a man was peeing in the urinal in what she thought was the women’s bathroom. There was her explaining to us all the drinking games you can play with a turkey baster. There were brandy shots, limo rides from bars to expensive dinners on the agency, steak and endless wine and appetizers. There was cutting VIP lines, there were concerts at the Fox in Oakland watching from the VIP section. There was sitting between Mindy and Amy, two of the sweetest girls I know, and all three of us so happy, calling ourselves Love Row as we gushed about the men we were in love with and supported each other, laughed with each other, drank wine at our desks, watched YouTube together, played chat roulette on the work computers and blasting Peter’s favorite songs as he praised his three wonderful girls and went singing down the halls. Then Mindy quit and got engaged and Amy went to live with her boyfriend in LA. Dominique quit to move in with her boyfriend in New Orleans and Melissa quit and moved to Pittsburgh. Kate quit to move in with her boyfriend in Chicago. Lizeth and Megan quit. Courtney got laid off, Peter got promoted to BBDO Europe and occasionally sends emails from Moscow, Paris, Venice, Vienna and London.. Alexa quit because it stressed her out. Sarah got laid off. The other Sarah got laid off too. Danielle got laid off. Allie got laid off. Bernice quit after crying every day for four months. Marcus and Elizabeth got laid off. Jon Soto, the one who told me I was going to become a voice over actress and got me on regional television got laid off. In four months, I am the 28^th person gone. Our office was 70 people. It hasn’t been all bad, but there’s been a lot of bad.

My immediate boss Crystal openly admits to having “No moral scruples” and just wants to have fun. She cusses at me, slams doors and huffs and puffs and gloats at misfortune and gloats about her newly embellished title of “Deputy Head”. She tells people to fuck off if they schedule a meeting with me because they have to “fucking go through HER if they want use of my time”. She calls me on the weekends to scream at me and she comes to my house and follows me around, telling me what to do. She takes credit for all my work so that the new president thinks I am incompetent. She’s been setting that up for a long while. She and her sister are poison. When I got laid off she pulled me into her office, and with a mean smirk on her face she told me “Life’s a bitch my friend. Do you have any questions?” I didn’t. All I wanted to say was, “You should have written me a thank you note for the expensive wedding present I got you.” That and “You shouldn’t have made me clean up your cat’s shit and begged me at all hours of the night to come cat sit.” But mainly I’m mad at myself for getting taken advantage of like that. In my own house she told me I had a squirrelly face, a rodent face. She told me I had a mean spirit. She told me I "fucking sucked" at my job. Interesting that she steals my work then. Interesting that she is mean-spirited.

Some of my friends say I’m losing it. Some say my life is falling apart. Some say they are worried about me. Everyone wants to know what I’m doing, and frankly I have no clue. And I won’t know for a while. For right now I’m trying to pick up the pieces of this life that’s fallen apart and glue it back together into a totally different shape that is a better reflection of me. I try to remind myself that it’s better to be dangling naked in the wind, like underwear on a clothesline, freezing, and liable to fall, (end metaphor) but with a million possibilities in front of me, than it is to be safe and secure but unhappy every day and stagnant and know what every single day of your life will be like along that given path.

When I first took the promotion, I mentioned sinking or swimming. I don’t feel like I sank. Excuse the continuation of a cheesy metaphor, but I feel like I swam lap after lap after lap and then realized I was just in a pond and not the ocean and decided to jump out of the water altogether. No wonder I’ve spent so much time in the ocean these past two weeks…

I emailed my old boss Peter to tell him I was done at BBDO. He didn’t have to see this place turn sour when he left. He didn’t see the crying and deceit and carrying on, the rounds and rounds of lay offs, the quitting, the mass exodus and the crawling and scratching up the corporate ladder.

His email to me was incredibly nice. In it he ended by saying, “Lindsay Robinson you have the light. Burn Brightly my friend.” I will try to do that.

Happy Anniversary San Francisco

Yesterday was the first day of my third year in San Francisco.

Two years in the city and I'm on to my fifth move. I've got to try out all the neighborhoods I suppose.

Here is my current rooftop, taken on my last weekend at the bottom of Nob Hill, during a full moon at around 2 am, with plenty of prosecco in my champagne flute (that I broke later in the night) and my belly. The picture is taken while I'm wearing my bright pink velour suit, sitting on rainy pebbles next to the boy I've liked for a year. It's been pouring rain for weeks. It poured on us while we romped in the ocean, but then the sky cleared and the stars came out right above the sky line. Amazing to see stars and city lights all together.

And here is a picture Robert tagged of me on facebook titled "Right at home playing in the ocean" that no one can see because it's set to "private".

Anyway...feels like lots of big changes for year three in San Francisco, but really they are small changes....I think.

Hobnobbing

I'm supposed to be going to a pink party right now and I'm torn because I hate to miss out on anything outrageous that could happen but I'm so worn out from a day of WASP overload that I think I am going to spend the evening writing, eating cookies and drinking ice water.
Last night I went to Jaime's boyfriend Joe's band's concert.(whew that was a lot of 's) (Victoria is absolutely shocked that I've started going to concerts and I have Cug and her dragging me kicking and screaming to a concert last month to blame for this new music habit) Actually I have her to thank since music is one new richness I never really had in my life. At the concert I met a fellow named John who invited me to his Polo tournament/party up in Petaluma (Lower Napa Valley area) Who in the devil actually plays Polo??? I may be a white anglo saxon protestant to my very last strand of DNA but I am NO WASP and as proof of that, I always thought Polo was a game you played in a pool, I had no idea that it involves horses...
Jaime's friend and our fellow coworker Lindsey was very excited about the polo party and said we had to go because it would be so much fun and that it's an "uber-rich" circle of people that she knows of through a friend of a friend. Suddenly I had a sneaking feeling I was being used by Lindsey. I probably should have trusted my instincts on not going despite powerful persuasion.
The band that came on next was called the Pheromones and they were excellent. The guys are from San Diego and were not wearing any shoes, had cut off shorts, were playing crazy guitar behind their backs and just had a wonderful, lively vibe and looked really happy to be playing. Since I never got into the music thing as a teenager I am having symptoms of late onset, lead-singer teenage crush awe every time I go to a concert.
There were some funny/disturbing lines from the night that I think could be interjected nicely into a story:

"We should totally go and dominate this party in little dresses and bikinis" Lindsey in reference to polo tourney, in true fluff brain hobnob style.
"Your tiny height and husky, deep voice shocks me every time I talk to you." Joe to me.
"Please don't swear. When I first met you last year I imagined you had the book of Latter Day Saints or something in your desk drawer and you were sneak-reading verses to yourself during work." Joe to me.
"You went to UPS?? But doesn't it smell up there??" Some dude.
"Wait you all work together? How can that be? I thought Lindsey was a model, and no offense you but are not tall enough to be a model." Lindsey's friend to me.
"Hey....I just absolutely LOVE your dress." Strange dude to me. I was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt.
"So who do you think would win in a fight? That stuffed antelope or a labrador retriever?" -Joe to Jaime
"Oooooh I wish I had my own taxodermist!" -Jaime, with her little fists waving in the air.
"When I graduated from college you were still in diapers." Joe to me.

Anywhooo this is not a very linear blog post....Lindsey and two of her friends headed up into the ninety eight degree heat of the North Bay.
The house was in the middle of some sprawling, tree dotted meadows past horse and cow and goat pastures. The dude has 100 acres of land on which the polo field is situated. We arrived during the second chukker. I asked John the name of his horse and he said he hadn't decided which of five he was going to ride. I think horses have the most beautiful bodies of any animal. I don't think they find me as sexy as I find them because ever horse I've ridden has tried to kill me on mountaineous ravines or under trees. This reminds me of the time I was reading some women's lit. theory to Victoria about humans being the sexiest beings on earth and she retorted haughtily, "You couldn't pay a horse enough money to have sex with me!" So I kept my distance from those pretty beasts and their debonaire riders.
Spectators and revelers lined the course tail- gate style with their car trunks open. Ohhh my, was that a scene.
The backs of beautiful cars were lined with elaborately patterned blankets and moroccan looking cushions. One enormous white Arabian tent was supported by blue and white striped poles. Inside were cushion-lined benches and bamboo platters filled with grapes, cheeses and crackers. People had strung transparent white drapes between cars to make exotic shaded areas where they could drink champagne, wearing their fedoras and oversized sunglasses.
Lindsey felt incredibly uncomfortable and thought that everyone was acting frigid toward us and snubbing us. I thought I was rather astute at picking up on social cues but I was totally oblivious to any snubbing. I figured we were just strangers; no one knew who we knew or that we weren't part of the rich crowd, but I think Lindsey keenly felt some lack of money or status. I am amazed how many times in my life people remind me of Edith Wharton's Lily Bart. That book is just timeless.
Lindsey huffed about for a bit and proclaimed, "I didn't know it was B.Y.O.B. to the Fiing African safari." After we left Lindsey was talking about how incredibly expensive some of the girl's clothing was. I couldn't understand how she could tell. The other girls said oh yeah ooooh yeah you could tell from the detailing and the fabric...WHAT?? So they spent about half an hour fuming about that. Sigh..California girls....(if I may be so judgmental)
Maybe this is why I usually go to stranger's parties alone. I could have had a wonderful time, poor ruffian that I am. After that drove to Tiberon to sit on a restaurant patio by the water for bloody mary's and sunshine. (water for me, bloody mary's sound bloody awful) Most of San Francisco seemed to have relocated to that porch deck this afternoon. We saw the band that had a played the night before and they recognized me and chatted us up. (maybe because I was in the very front staring like a creepy groupy??)
Lindsey is a shocking human being worthy of writing about because she is the epitome of the twilight zone that is my office. She also leaves me feeling unusually cantankerous and condescended. But she's a character that should go into a story or novel indeed because I am so curious as to whether her brash confidence hides insecurity in her subtle cruelty or whether it is pure, unadulterated self-love that makes her the way she is.
Our name is the only thing Lindsey and I have in common. She's a full foot taller than me, lanky, and lean as a rail. She has short blond curls and bright blue eyes. She's the kind of person that makes me feel like some sort of strange ape or other species because I am so much freakishly shorter and denser than she is. She likes to call me "dahhling" and "sweetheart" in a rather diminutive way and says "You are pocket sized. I could actually just put you in my pocket." She hates physical activity and is a self-proclaimed "lazy ass". She's an ex model and her desk space is filled with beautiful black and white model shots of her, where the light frames her graceful and angular face. Next to her computer on her desk is a long, vintage, standing mirror that faces her. She's smart, funny and eloquent.All of this would seem to add up to someone with the confidence to be nice to everyone.
Instead she talks endlessly about the fancy dates she's been taken on, the incredible luck she's had with men, and the amount of men who have thought she is bulimic, but how much she really eats and how she's just naturally so thin that even if she gets sick for a week she's scary thin and finds it so hard to put the weight back on, how she makes more money than I do even though we have the same position, because she is more appreciated by her bosses (She's also been there two years longer) and how she wowed the executives on the first day even though she was so casual and had just thrown on a pair of manolos blaniks with ratty jeans and a gucci shirt.
She's a Californian but lived in Australia for a year or two, so whenever she meets someone new her American accent slips into an exotic blend of Australian and British accents. When people ask her where she's from she flutters her pretty blue eyes and purses her lips, "I've lived all oveaar. I've had no propeaa home."
The girls just honestly lives in a different universe.
She also loves to mention when she was my age daahhhling, and all these silly young girls her guy friend lives with, "They are like your age. Like 20 years old dahhhling." Even though she's all of 28. She can talk about herself for thirty minutes straight and as soon as I begin to respond her eyes begin to flit away carelessly before she briefly looks at me with an "oh you silly, tiny hominid, what do you know about life?" gaze of pity and moves on to something more exciting than my two cents. Oh mymymy, the people this world is filled with...What do I get in return for being narcissus' pond? A dinner date invitation from the thirty two year old polo player with the five horses. No thanks man, I was just a pawn....
So I took my short, silly, young, inexperienced self home to the beautiful solitude of my humble abode to rest my weary ears and bellicose spirit.

Granola girl's a sell out

I wrote this one before the last post...weeks ago I think.

This feels like an interesting crux in my life because a part of me still feels like the outdoorsy, nature loving slightly overly righteous environmentalist who disdains corporate life, city life and consumerism and wants to live in a way that makes everything in the world right. And yet I am not living that way at all. Sure, I don’t pollute because I don’t have a car, I recycle and compost, I donate to NRDC and I always bring my sustainable mug to Starbucks. But this is not enough. What I DO is part of the problem. I work not only for the evil corporations that I so vehemently despised in college, but I am also a city girl in every other way. Because I have to find cat food ads in magazines to assess for work, I read US Weekly, Glamour, People etc. every day. I go shopping with my friends. I have been encouraged to get more exposure to advertisements. I haven’t backpacked or kayaked since the summer.
And yet, I love my life. I am getting attached to the glamour of city life. Frankly, for now I don’t want to go back to wearing fleece and slouchy jeans. I love hailing a cab in purple high heels and a lace skirt and pretended for an instant that I am Carry Bradshaw. I love having chocolate cake and wine in beautiful French restaurants with six women who are bona fide city girls, or go to a Candy Wine bar with three gay couples and two married couples and soak up pomegranate glazed chocolate ganache.
I love working in an agency where our boss gets everyone to go out dancing until three AM and it’s acceptable for everyone from assistants to executives to be hung over the next day, and still work hard and yell happily and listen to loud music and laugh hysterically. A job that has “Rodeo Wednesday” with loud country music and beers in the kitchen at 3 pm where attendance in mandatory, and when it's done people take beers back to their desks. Where the flat screens play Sex and the City in the room with all the girls and Surfer videos in the room with more guys. (But leaving the TVs on all day is SUCH a waste of energy!)
There are all these beautiful little moments and rituals that are associated with the city. Where else could my commute be a chaotic and lively one mile walk downhill, through the heart of Chinatown, where I have to fight through hordes of Chinese people, silk scarves spilling out of shops and the distinct smell of bitter Chinese herbs mingled with fresh fruits and vegetables at the corner markets.
Or walking to the park every weekend through North Beach, where I can pick up an espresso drink and sit and watch every kind of person play in the park. Or my runs to the Marina Green, with the Golden Gate Bridge spread out before me and sail boats, fish smells and Frisbee players to the side of me.
Or the Laundromat. The ritual of lugging my dirty laundry out into public and having conversations with strangers while we mutually and unabashedly shove dirty socks and underwear into the machines. And tonight because it is pouring rain, the little Asian woman who speaks no English and runs the place came over and put a long plastic bag over my laundry bag so my clothes wouldn’t get wet and gave me a big grin, muttering to herself in another language.
Or getting a bouquet of roses from the grocer at Trader Joes to “start my week out right” and getting free mochas from the guy who serves me my boss’ coffee, or five salad punches toward a free salad at the gourmet organic salad shop where I get my boss’s lunch. Or meeting new people every single weekend. The liveliness and diversity of the city- ahh it is so glamorous, so beautiful and so addicting. This life is sweet even though it doesn't feel like it should be mine.