Recessionistas

We've all seen the news and know what scary times we live in. And I keep wondering when I"m going to feel it specifically. This week we had lay offs that made it feel like we were in a slaughter house. No one knew it was coming, but suddenly people were in the large conference room and then gone. Just gone for good. People who are the heart of this agency, people who never complain or frown, or show frustration when things get tough, people who took their kids out of school in LA to move up here for the job a mere month or two before.
This summer we hired so many people that every office has six people and we had to stick desks in the halls. Some people who were hired four months ago still have to sit on the couches in the reception area. As the economy was crumbling all around us, we were hiring as fast as we could. People who are good at their jobs and reach the executive levels are rarely good at managing a business, clearly.
In one department everyone had to take a 25% pay cut. In another department they had a meeting where they were told they needed to work 30% more. (They already work until 11:00 pm). People are crying today and the tensions are high. But we are still having Rodeo Wednesday. Our beer man just arrived. They're setting up for the band, spreading tables with western style table cloths and setting out food; setting up the ping pong table for beer pong. The timing is odd but maybe we need this.
I was not unaffected by this. In addition to my duties I now have to be a receptionist for half the day. About a month ago everyone was congratulating me on my "promotion" to being a planner which meant I was a planner and an assistant. Now I"m an assistant and a receptionist. After a year of busting away at planning and being told I'd get promoted I feel as though I've been demoted.
I don't know whether the planning work will fall away. My ad. strategy was just picked definitively by the clients and is being executed creatively. My boss said it was some of the most creative work he's seen in the planning department in a while. And now I have to pick up old food and dishes from client meetings, load and empty the dishwasher, direct calls etc.
I keep reminding myself: I should be happy I have a job. I should be grateful in these times for what I have. And I am. But the 13 hour days are tough. Tougher when they are followed with a demotion instead of a promotion. I'm that much farther away. We all are.

Summer time!

I've had a most wonderous past week. Kathleen was visiting, which was ridiculously fun and it didn't feel as if we hadn't seen each other in a year. We were back to the same old theatrics, heated arguments about who is more insane, melodramatic and neurotic, great conversations and a lot of laughter as we went cafe hopping in North beach and got drunk on Cappuccinos. She arrived at 1 am last friday at the same time I was arriving home from a ridiculous foray of dancing at a club.I got kicked out twice for stumbling outside and ran back in, indignant that I should be told to "cool off" The second time the bouncer told me to stand on the other side of the ropes so I made a second mad dash inside. He came in and found me in the crowd five minutes later and dragged me out. I mouthed off to him for a good fifteen minutes, getting very close and yelling up at the huge black man about discrimination of all things. He kept trying to get away from me unsuccessfully but finally conceded that if I come back he'll buy me a drink.
I made Kathleen stay up until 4 / 7 am her time with me. While she wildly gesticulated, told stories and threw my water glass on the ground, I ran around like a maniac and gave myself two huge bruises from falling into the watery, glassy mess.
I may just have another recruit to live in San Francisco.

Sunday night I hiked the coastal trail with the firefighter and made dinner with him at his place that overlooks the ocean and seal rock and the swaying palms. This weekend I went to a baby shower in Berkeley and baked in the sun and contemplated whether I should move to the peaceful, hippie filled town with gorgeous gardens and tropical march weather. Last night I went dancing and flirted with gorgeous men from Nigeria until one of them told me he'd love to pull on my long hair. The old man from work was there and the crush continues because he is so outrageously funny and wonderful to talk to.

Today I played soccer on a 70 degree day and we lost 6 to 7! Then I went hiking in the Berkeley hills and then had to bail on frisbee in Golden Gate Park. I'm relishing my first moments alone in nine days.... ahhhhh apartment cleaning time.
Oh! Also I went to a long client meeting and the was introduced as a Planner (One level above me) and the client liked my strategies and picked them as the ones to turn into ads. The SVP congratulated me on my contribution, which consisted to a good degree in eating seven cookies in the six hour meeting. But it was really nice considering I've been working 14 hour days for the past month in anticipation of this meeting.
I also got to be an actress in a zoo ad that is hilarious. I am a worker walking down the street while a polar bear dances and tries to get my attention. I got to spend Friday in the sun out where the ferries launch, pushing and hitting a polar bear and watching penguins and giraffes do feed birds sadly or attempt to give a flower to a friend. They are hilarious ads and will be on TV soon. The tagline is "The Zoo misses you"
Another soccer game tomorrow night; another date, a ping-pong tournament at work and then a trip to D.C. Loving the whirlwind.

Taking a dating Hiatus

I went out with the firefighter/DJ again today. We went to the Academy of Sciences and had a great time. He told me he had dinner plans and dropped me off around five. I took a quick nap, ate some pasta and threw on some really dorky pink poka dot rain boots with my pants all bunched on top, a bright aqua rain jacket with the hood on and headed to the internet cafe with my computer in arm. I mere two blocks from my house I looked to my side and loe and behold there was the same said firefighter/ DJ!! I thought about saying hi, but realized in the same instant that he was A. with a girl and B. I looked like a total tool.
Sooo I ran as fast as I could back up the hill and took a bus OUT of my neighborhood, all the way to Pacific Heights to use the damn internet. When he said he had dinner, I thought maybe it was with a girl, because, well of course the dude can date all he wants.. But this is a BIG city, why did he need to take her out two blocks from my house? This is MY neighborhood!! He lives on the other side of town. That is not even smooth!
Wow the last three guys I've gone on dates with have been really fun and then horrendous. The first one sprung it on me that he is NiNeTeEn years older than me, the next said he didn't want me to eat because he didn't want to think of me pooping and the last one wasn't even smooth enough to hide two back to back dates! The funny this is that every single one of these guys has mentioned marriage. They've all asked me if I want to get married, how many kids I want, etc etc etc. The firefighter was making jokes all day about who was going to teach our kids to sky dive if we were both afraid of it, how maybe I'd beat him running once he was older and I was still young enough, how we would remember our first picture together forever etc etc. I said "is this how you flirt with all girls?" Yes, apparently so...
So I have officially decided to stop dating. It's getting truly ridiculous and not even worth it for the stories.

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.

In my element, sort of...

Tuesday night I slogged through the rain to go to my coworker’s concert. When I got there the only other person I knew was Alper, the Turkish art director who is scary at first with his long dark curls in his face and somber accent, but who is actually incredibly sweet and thoughtful. I was sitting at the bar talking to him and it suddenly dawned on me how incredibly comfortable I was here. Even in Boulder, the night life often feels like something where I must rise to the occasion, bolster my spirit against the music and the noise and all the people. I have to tone down my senses so that I don’t get overwhelmed. And sometimes when I was kayak guiding or rowing I felt like the girly one; always trying to prove to people that I was tough enough and had enough character and grit. But here I was talking to this Turkish guy who I don’t really know and feeling completely at home. I didn’t call anyone in advance to make sure friends were going or that I didn’t arrive too early, I just started walking across town; able to look up the street names and know the way to a place I’d never been.
I’m not overwhelmed by the city anymore. My senses aren’t being overloaded; I’m not emitting stress signals. Its so funny thinking back to when all of this seemed like the twilight zone. I felt like the fly on the wall observing a strange alternate universe; or a journalist, let in only in order to write satirical articles and snicker contemptuously. And I always wondered when I’d be spotted; the freak in the room; the outsider that crept in and was trying to hide in the crowd. But I didn’t really want to hide or acclimate, I just wanted to watch in disbelief and stand apart. But here I am, and this is my world.
In San Francisco’s night life I feel the way I do in water. My insides and the outside surroundings are fluid, interchangeable so I don’t feel any friction on my skin when I bump up against the world.
My other friends/ coworkers arrived and Candy gave us all hugs and kissed before going on stage. She was wearing sequined jewels and dark makeup around her eyes, a huge feathered mask on the back of her head, a shiny dress, short moon boots and shiny black leggings. They were high energy, dancing and singing. I’ve been to her concerts before and they are down right hilarious. It’s really as much a stage act as it is a “band” One of their songs goes on about just wanted to “uh uh uh dance”, not wanting to know about the guy’s day job, his five year plan, his future, his past, his dog or his mom. “I just wanna know if you can uh uh uh Dance, you and me, on the dance floor. Uh.”We bounced and bobbed around and stayed for an after-show of Guinness book world records. One of them was Candy’s boyfriend, a creative producer at another agency (I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who isn’t in advertising) who was going to set a record for naming a band for every letter of the alphabet. He was in his mid forties with a thin mustache. During his stage time he stripped down to a white wife beater, pulled of his belt and started beating a box on center stage with his belt whenever he couldn’t think of a band quickly enough. Very strange and funny.
The kitchen conversation was the same as it is any given Tuesday or Wednesday. Who’s hung over, who got tagged in the chest with a donut in the street, who went where after the concert. And this isn’t the irresponsible young-ens. There is a direct correlation with age, prestige in the company and hung over-ness and staying out the late-ness.

Happy Anniversary San Francisco

One year ago today I pulled into my new yellow house by Golden Gate Park, with the snows and mud of oregon still stuck to my tires, with the driver's side door crushed by a Seattle bus. With hopes of becoming a writer; hopes of finding a place that felt like home; that fit as well as college did. Hoping for that sigh of relief I felt when I first arrived in Tacoma, "aahhh this is where I belong." I arrived hoping my relationship would strengthen and heal by bridging the gap of distance. I didn't get all that.

It felt like a tropical vacation one year ago today. The red flowers on the aloe bushes were in full bloom; the cherry trees were already emitting spring fragrance. It's beautiful again today. My hopes are the same today. Become a writer, make this feel like home, have good relationships- with new friends and friends I have yet to meet. I'll probably have a warm chocolate chip cookie tonight in my favorite haunt-Border's Book Store's Seattle's Best Cafe (what a mouthful) to celebrate.

Happy Anniversary San Francisco. We make an okay team. And P.S. I love you.