You are a fish.

"Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone." A quote Jaime told me this morning.
Great opportunities often seem to come wrapped up in great risk. I've been offered a promotion to the job I really REALLY want. Have wanted for about a year now. The only thing is it's only a six week temporary position and if they don't want to hire me on full time after that I can't have my old job back because it will be filled. So I have to leave the comfort of my secure job to go to a temporary job in a state with almost 12% unemployment and rising.
I discussed this at length with various people that I love and trust (and that I knew would be awake at preposterous hours) and they all said this sounded too risky and unwise. I listened and then found myself convincing them of the reasons that I should do it. That's the wonderful thing about advice. It's not so much in following the advice given, as realizing what you are trying to convince the other person of, and from there understanding what you already know you want to do.
I might not have a job at the end of September. I didn't sleep at all last night. I took the offer. I like high risk-high gain situations. I could continue to wade around in the comfort and boredom of my job or I could jump in and see what happens. If I fail then at least I can move on to something else and not be shilly-shallying around.
I felt the same way when I moved in with Connor. I could continue the relationship along it's path or move in with him and figure out whether this was a potential lifelong commitment or right away that he wasn't. Since it didn't work, some people say that was a rash mistake. But for me, finding out anything faster and then making course changes from there is always better. If this job is not for me and I find myself jobless, on to the next.
This job requires 14-16 hour days seven days a week. I won't get hired unless I "make it my number one priority in my life and put my entire heart and soul into it" as my boss told me. The three other people in the position before have quit or been laid off because it was too much. Too much as in they were leaving at 10pm instead of 2 am like the senior planners, and hence were not "performing well" or "commited enough".
I emailed my parents to say I was going to stop wading around in the kiddy pool and jump in the big waves to see if I sink or swim.

My dad wrote back. "Sink or swim? You are a fish."

To Fellow Writers

To all you writers out there:
This is your conscience speaking … I MUST WRITE … I’M A BADASS WRITER ... I MUST WRITE … I MUST WRITE … I’VE GOT SERIOUS TALENT AND WON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS BULLSHIT JOB FOR LONG … I MUST WRITE … I MUST GO FOR IT … MY VOICE IS UNIQUE … LIFE IS SHORT … I MUST GO FOR IT …

This was an email I received just moments ago from my friend's boyfriend. Best email my work account has ever received. So here's to remembering what our conscience is yelling all in Caps as it were, and that we do have an audience out there somewhere....

Mad Men

I just found out that Mad Men was based on my company, and the TV show even featured client work we've done as well as direct references to us. So I'm going to start some installments of what the real Mad Men life is like. Then eventually, I'll have to get over my hatred of TV and actually watch the show. Names have been changed so that no one comes across this in a google search and gets me fired....

When I clamber into the office I’m already a bit sweaty, my hair a bit wind strewn and my spirit already frightened like a pig to the slaughter. I take off my ratty sneakers and jam my stumpy meat sticks into some sexy pumps to give some oomph. They say the only different between try and triumph is a little umph. Hopefully that’s what these heels can do for me.
Sir Wordsworth, my boss, is already working away, looking fresh in his crisp pink shirt and cacky pants. He’s drinking one of his brands out of a large paper cup and wearing the other on his feet.
Despite the palatial dimensions of his window walled office; he’s squeezed himself into the very corner, with his back to the world and his desk taking residence in a window gap. This is the high-powered prince’s way of showing his humility. “Yes I demand to have the largest corner office with couches and chairs for the six days I’m in the office every month. Yes I will kick my assistant out of the office for typing too loud (that’s me and my clomper hands) but look at this admirable lack of hubris? I won’t take up too much space, I promise. I’ll be just as cramped as you guys out there okay? I won’t even look at my beautiful office. It’ll just SIT here okay??
Which is fine with me because I can pretend that he is an animal in the zoo. All I have to do is stare through the glass wall between us and giggle to myself about his quirky little habits. Hopefully he even feels like an animal in the zoo sometimes.
My desk is already piled with crap from his morning offload; books he doesn’t want, batteries, paper clips, pens that don’t work. “Throw this away!” He’s said to me before with a flourish of his well manicured hand.
“Annnnaaa!!” he calls to me in the needy and yet powerful voice of a spoiled British child. My heart begins to pound and I rush into his office, stopping short just at the door. “Yes” I say in a worried breath. He looks at me with his steely blue eyes, his nose sticking out in regal proclamation. “I’m going to send you an email!” He announces. I let my breath out and try to sound breezy. “Okay!” I say and scuttle back to my desk.
Moments later, “ANNNAAAAA!!!” Again the scared shuffle to his office. “Have you gotten my email yet?” I blink, wide-eyed and a bit terrified. Between the last time I went into his office two minutes ago and now, we’ve already exchanged five emails. Did I miss something?
“Yes…..” I say. His scary, “You’ve done something deathly wrong” face irons out into something bright and cheery.
“Okay great! I want you to send that book I told you about to Susanna Sneahbowwwwwl”
“Will do!” I say and run back to my desk! Now I have to figure out who Susanna is and what her address is because Wordsworth hates it when I can’t read his mind. HATES it. He told me so when I didn’t know about the meeting he’d scheduled in his head.
I try to translate the English to the American. Sneahhhbowwwwl? It couldn’t…no it couldn’t be. I pull up the companies’ worldwide contact list and type in variations of Sneah Snobo etc. After dabbling around for a bit I give up and go back into Wordsworth’s office.
“Umm….Wordsworth?” I interrupt in a mouse-like voice. He ignores me long enough that I think he hasn’t heard me. I begin to retreat to my desk. Just then he turns and asks me what I want.
“ Can you please repeat Susanna’s last name so I can send her the book?”
“She’s the CEO of our London office.” He says definitively and swivels back around.
“Oh great!” I proclaim and find the address for the London office. But again I need to know her last name so I can write it down too.
I go back in and ask him if he can spell her last name. He looks exasperated, “What is it exactly that you need Anna?”
“Um I just want to make sure I spell her name correctly on the package” I mumble.
He blinks, once twice, three times. I’m the zoo animal now. I gulp and let out a tiny audible snort. Animals in captivity will do that when under close scrutiny.
“Sneahhhhbowwwwl. Like. Litttttttrally. Sneaaaahhhboowwwl.”
“Ahh great thanks!” I say. Yup it was snowball all along. I curse myself for stupidity and prepare the package. We spend a couple hours on our respective sides of the glass and my heart settles into a normal beat.
Executive number two rolls in somewhere around 11. A smile is spread across his little face and shiny eyes. He’s swinging his imaginary golf club boisterously. As he passes the Creatives working away at the foosball table, he claps them on the back, spews out some jibberish sport’s talk to each of them. He passes by the ping pong table and deftly intercepts a ball in mid air, handing it back to the players with a laugh. It’s like watching the big popular football player on campus after high school spring break. All smiles for his fans and followers, crooning and glowing in their imaginary attention.
“Hey Bud!” He says to me as he passes. He spies Wordsworth, back from weeks away on business, resplendent in pink in the corner and his eyes light up.
“Wordsyyy!” He calls out and stampedes into the zoo. Wordsworth rises slowly with a cautious smile, “Duckey.” He replies and the two men grasp each other’s arm in a small manly brohahah of affection. They settle onto the couch in Wordsworth’s office for a bit to catch some footie as the Brit calls it. Within seconds the two of them are shouting my name simultaneously. I rush in and they continue to scream my name, as if “Anna” is a hilarious joke. I smile at their joke and wait.
“Can you believe the SHIT Duckey is drinking.” Wordsworth points at Duckey’s coffee cup with disdain. “I mean what is that, is that actually coffee, or is it toxic sludge? I mean that is just gawwwwdawful. Horrendous. Bloody disgusting.”
The Brit is not known to euphemize.
Duckey puts on his best British accent, “Ooooh so sorry I’m not 4 dollar coffee snob in my dashing pink blouse. Hmm hmm yessss look at me in my shirt, aren’t I prettily made up today?”
The Brit rolls his eyes. I watch the two animals display their pretty feathers and butt antlers for a bit. Do you think fighting stags really enjoy the fight more than the mating? They just like to have the female there for show, so no one knows how much they love their love trysts.
“Let’s bring Wordsworth around to meet everyone in the office. You and your “North America” travelling. This will be great. You can learn some names.” Duckey says excitedly.
Wordsworth is silent, unsure of the challenge.
“Or if you already know them, you can say hi, I mean they are your employees.” Duckey adds. I turn to my more stoic boss to see how he’ll respond.
Sir Wordsworth sticks his chin out, ready to stick up for himself against the little bug-eyed bully. “No! I will not be paraded around the office like some prize chicken!” He declares. And so they separate to their offices leaving me in a peace for a moment.

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.

"Yes everyone needs someplace beautiful"

I want to paint a picture of California.
The past weeks have been a whirlwind. I've gotten in lots of quality time with my new Stanford friends. Sunday was dinner and a movie, Tuesday was a concert. We went to see Joey Ryan, the one who sings, "California California." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS4ceXqjvy4

He’s a great live artist with a really rich voice and beautiful lyrics. Anna said it was giving her chills and I agreed. It's one of those songs that really enhances my sense of place. There were poems that did that for me in Washington and this song has done that for California. "San Francisco San Francisco, your red bridge over the sea, keeps me safe and warm and free." It's amazing how art can facilitate your bond with a landscape.

Anna and I were joking about liking him so much we wanted to bathe in his singer sweat-don’t ask. It turns out he's friends with Rainer so after he played, Rainer told him and he came over and said hi and asked me very seriously what "singer sweat" was. When I tried to explain myself Rainer cut in and said to him, "It's just because you are engaged." Thanks Rainer, I love to be the queen of awkward.

Thursday night we went to the Roller Disco. That involved gold lamé tights, afros, disco music, Jameson and roller skates. I think I broke my butt bone, pinky and wrists and it wasn’t because I was falling down, it was because everyone else was falling onto me. At one point I even bonked heads with one of the guys I was skate/dancing with.
At these events I met friends of Rainer and Peter's, a group of guys who know Rainer from high school (they all grew up in the city) and one of the guys Blake had a house party Saturday night.

His parents kept their San Francisco house and moved south so he and his three best friends live in a four story mansion in Laurel Heights which is perched high up above the fragrant Eucalyptus trees in the Presidio and to the other side, above Golden Gate Park. This house was to die for. The doors had beautiful paisley printed screens hanging from them, the ceiling had circular crown molding and paintings of birds on the inside like the Louvre. The carpets were plush and beautiful as were the sofas and chairs. They had a grand piano and a lovely bathroom with a chaise lounge and mirrors on every wall. I couldn't help it, I had to sit on the chaise lounge and pretend I was looking in on the set of a Vogue fashion show, set in some elaborately decorated mansion.

The granite island in the kitchen was almost the size of my entire studio. The top two floors hold bedrooms and the top room is a viewing room with windows all on one side. At night we could see the lights of the city below. In the basement they had hired a DJ and had a dance floor, a foosball table and a pool table. I stayed out dancing with strangers until four in the morning. At one point my foosball partner and I decided to try to scale the fence and jump into the “foliage jungle” below. We were unsuccessful on account of some evil rosebushes and perhaps not enough heart.

Most of the people there went to Duke together but some of them went to Berkeley or U Penn. Now I not only have a midget/ napoleon complex to contend with but I'm developing a non ivy-league/near ivy-leaugue complex...It was a really fun group of people though. The next day Blake invited me back over for a brunch feast. One of the guys, Oliver is an amazing chef and he made spinach and mushroom frittata, asparagus and potatoes, peach and raspberry bread pudding and tons of other unbelievably flavorful dishes. We drank mimosas and sat on the lounge chairs on the porch. The sky was bright blue and cloudless. By day we had an unobstructed view to the bright red golden gate bridge, the turquoise waters of the bay with the white foam marks of sailboats and wind surfers. Behind the bridge, the hills of Marin are turning brown with summer. Even this is lovely because the contours of the hills stand out in different shades of brown, geometrically like a Picasso painting. The trees are still lush green. The brown hills and green trees are quintissential California summer. We even looked through the telescope at all the kite gliders and windsurfers skittering across the water.

Speaking of beauty, back to Thursday night I was taking a cab across the city to the Mission to borrow some disco clothes from my friend Jaime. The sky was blue with pink clouds in big patchy splotches like Vanilla Sky, with architectural beauties reaching up in white contrast. As I got to the mission the landscape changed. There are more palm trees, the beautiful people walking by are more exotic and dark- skinned, the restaurants more ethnic; there is just more of a salsa-soul feel.

Then there are the peirs down on the bay where I play soccer. From here you can look up to Northbeach and Telegraph hill where the Coit tower’s Greek, arched windows glow yellow and illuminate the white of the tower against the dark sky.

And here in Nob Hill, when I wake up the dappled light streams in through the thick leaves of the cumquat tree and lines the hardwood floor with patterned reflections of the window. Birds preen themselves on nearby branches- accustomed to me. The orange cumquats are fragrant and their scent drifts in to me on a light breeze. It is wonderful. And if you’ve read this far I hope this makes you want to come visit.

Six Butts to the wind!!

How it should be

"All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to eachother, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling." Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a young poet

I've always tried to express why I like being single and have failed in this explanation. I don't like to lose my self-autonomy. I don't like to lose my self although I like to lose myself.
This, in my own words has come across to boys (they've told me) as selfish and showing an unwillingness to compromise. But wonderful, eloquent Rilke has the idea.
Until it's like two ships meeting at sea, it's not for me.
I found this quote in the wake of a hurtful conversation I had with Connor via gchat. There are reasons exes shouldn't be friends. There are reasons exes became exes in the first place.
I find it hard to be optimistic and at the same time realistic. I am either cynical and distrustful or naively, hopelessly romantic. I can be nothing in between. Connor may have set me back a bit towards the former this afternoon, like a swift kick to the stomach. I plan on becoming fully hopelessly optimistic in two hours of so. Nothing a warm chocolate cookie, a run and then roller disco can't cure right??