Grumble grumble

Another work week vanquished, hurrah! Tim and I both feel like we just need to recover this weekend: sleep well, eat well, exercise, clean the apartment, hang with the hams. I have had a thoughtful week, in that I have been spending a lot of time gazing out the train window trying to identify my goals while listening to inspirational music. This week it's been the Dixie Chicks. Every couple of years I have a small crisis regarding my life direction. What do I really want, where do I really want to be, yadda yadda. I have no solid answers as of yet and have responded to the crisis by trying to present myself a bit better, in the hopes that my efforts would make me feel better. To wit, I have worn eyeshadow and liner every day--with red lippy-- and have been bringing pieces out of my jewel box that I haven’t worn in a while. Today’s arm candy: a blue plastic chain link bracelet with a seahorse charm.
I may stop in Fillmore St on my way home and check out the shops. I need a winter jacket. I found this adorable one at H & M a couple of weeks ago--grey with a little belt and just the right length, but not in my size. Of course.
The worst thing is I have not written a bean. In, uh, about six weeks.

Hillary

We went to Hillary Clinton’s rally in Oakland yesterday. It was exciting to see a little piece of history unfolding before us but she pushed our patience by making us stand in the street for two hours—with 14,000 other people—while one California politician after another made speeches and a gospel choir sang, I think, five songs.
There was an exciting few minutes when Mayor Hunky stormed on to the stage and shared a couple Bible verses (it’s worth noting that this is a man who slept with his best friend’s wife and when he got caught immediately went to rehab). I still think he’s dishy, though. A lot of people think he’ll be Governor of California before too long.
When Hill came on the crowd perked up but I still got the feeling a lot of the folks were fans of Bill and were making do with Hill cos they’re nostalgic for the mid to late-90s, when the US had low unemployment, cheaper gas, and we weren’t embroiled in a sticky oil war.
***
Coming home on the bus tonight I was victim to a sleazy jostler. I have experienced a number of these guys now. They use the movement of the bus as an excuse to lean against you, getting right into your space and lingering there without invitation. It is the perfect social crime—it takes you a while to figure out what they’re up to, no-one else really notices, and you feel prim and fairly ridiculous saying anything to the jostler. So these guys get away with it. Tonight’s guy stunk of cigarettes and BO. He kept checking his watch, really leaning down to see the face, and I noticed he had thick yellow fingernails, quite long, and a silver rose ring on one finger.
After he lurched off the bus, another creepy guy sat next to me. He wasn’t a jostler but he smelled like rotting peaches.

SoCal Sunday

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Tiring. I am especially tired today because I got up at 4am. This is not the sort of thing I tolerate well, being hamster-like in my personal habits and requiring large quantities of sleep and food, and, naturally, getting bitey if something comes between me and the sleep and/or food.
I was in LA this weekend and for once it was beautiful down there; the sky was blue, not the color of dirty snow. The air was crisp with the first hint of the winter to come and it was warm, but not too warm--I could drink a frappucino without getting cold, but I didn’t sweat while walking down the footpath. Ideal temperature. My visit had two purposes: 1. Visit my brother who was in a motorcycle accident and is in hospital feeling pretty miserable. 2. Interview a Kiwi celebrity for Next magazine. If you want to know who, you have to read the mag. (Note the shameless promotion, Brenda.)
Pulling off the two aspects of the visit required driving long distances on LA freeways in a borrowed black Jeep Cherokee, which was pretty terrifying/funny. To begin with I was nervous about taking up so much space, but I tell ya, sitting up high and looking like a badass is a tremendous advantage when everyone around you is driving as if they were escaping from an avalanche.
In the end, though, totally worth it. Caught up with the family, did my job, saw the Hollywood sign, paid a small fortune for empty carbs and coffee. I feel so American today.

My favorite kind of Saturday

Started the weekend gingerly with mugs of coffee, a bowl of toffee nut cereal and a couple episodes of Flip That House. I am just itching to tile a bathroom. We walked down to Fillmore St and did some browsin’ and lunchin’.
First up, Marc Jacobs, where I never buy anything, even though I lurve his clothes and if money was no object I would fashion myself after Sophia Coppola and never wear anything but cute Mary Jane heels on my tootsies. There are always bins of cool but fairly useless stuff near the cash register—-pens that look like lipsticks, mirrors inside clamshell compacts, leather bracelets, etc. Today there were also some fun little quilted wallets in metallic tones, so I swallowed my pride and took a bronze one to the counter where the beautiful retail people were perfectly nice although possibly a leeetle dismissive of someone dressed in Banana Republic and spending less than $30.
Then we had lunch at Harry’s Bar. Or rather, Tim had lunch and I had a plate of truffle-parmesan fries and a Bloody Mary. Well, it’s Saturday for frick’s sake. We checked out a sample sale further down the road but it had been pretty well picked over by the time we got there. I tried on a pair of Rock and Republic Jeans just for giggles—-they’re the ones Posh Beckham wears and supposedly helps design. My pair had pale blue sparkles on the bum. They were cute but the denim was surprisingly thin for something costing over two hundred smackers.
Tim took off to get his hair cut and I popped into Crossroads, a consignment store where every now and then you find a gem, and today I did. Hiding behind a pilled Ralph Lauren cardigan was a gorgeous little silk skirt by Marc Jacobs. It still had the tags on it—from Barney’s NY, thank you very much—and the original price: $258. I got it for $42. Ha! That adrenalin surge got me all the way home.

I left my crack in San Francisco...

Yesterday was our one-year American anniversary. On Sept 1 we landed at JFK, jumped on the subway and arrived exhausted and relieved at a hostel not far from Harlem. My first impressions of New York were of hugeness, a prickle of fear as we walked through a tenement neighborhood to get to our accommodation, and delight at eating my first proper bagel in years, topped with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers. It seems like more than 12 months have passed because it’s been such a changing time. We have really struggled to get to where we are now—content in a cute little apartment in San Francisco, stocked up with books and sourdough bread, spending happy afternoons wandering the neighborhood and evenings watching episodes of Flip That House on our satellite television.
(Last night’s couple did up a crumbling cottage an hour out of LA, fitting it out with hardwood floors, a smart green and red exterior color scheme, brand new kitchen, and a low-maintenance garden only to have it languish on the market for six months before they gave up and rented it out. The wife was pissed and her man—who she referred to disparagingly as “my tubby hubby”—was oblivious.)
When we landed at SFO a couple days ago, we were pleased to be coming into a stable situation, with all the organizing—finding a car, jobs etc—behind us. We jumped on BART and zapped into the center of the city, avoiding freeway snarls and saving the environment at the same time (Go Us!) but made the mistake of getting off a stop too soon and had to wander through the Tenderloin—crack central. Tired and disoriented from the flight, we trundled along with our suitcase, carry-on bags, laptop, and bright yellow bag of duty free wine. We may as well have sat on the pavement and quacked. Luckily it was 2pm and the drunks and druggies and homeless folk were mostly sleeping/recovering. Even so, a woman with a city library ID hanging round her neck was concerned enough that she came up and gave us directions (in our own city; humiliating). “I’m sad to say, but this is a drug dealer’s paradise,” she said, pointing us towards a safer thoroughfare where we might catch a taxi to clean and manicured Laurel Heights. “Don’t come here at night.”

The singing secretary

First day of September and it’s a beauty. We have had a slow-as-cold-running-molasses start to the day due to lingering sickness and jetlag but after I have dyed my hair (my roots are such a boring ash brown now; I mourn my teenaged natural highlights) we are walking down to Clement for a bit of time at Green Apple, best bookshop in the Western World, and at Office Depot. I have a weird fascination for stationery shops. From the time I was about seven or eight, in the days when I dreamed of becoming a singing secretary named Linda or Stephanie, I have loved paper and paperclips, staplers and glue pots, stickers and post its, and notebooks and pencil holders, and all that jazz. I think it’s because all that fresh blankness speaks of promise. Well, that’s why I like stationery stores now. When I was seven or eight it was the pleasure of playing with paper and scissors and such, especially brand new ones. I am hoping to buy a board I can use to do some plotting for my newest project. Tee hee.

Are they whingeing again, or just brutally honest?

From one of the best time-wasters ever, ananova.com:

Brits hate workmates
Nearly one in three Brits quit their jobs because they can't stand their workmates, according to a new survey.

More than 40% dislike at least one colleague, 20% hate the boss and one in 10 can't stand the person they sit next to.

And more than 23% of 2,500 Brits quizzed hate their "desk buddy" so much they find an excuse to move seats.

The poll, by recruitment site www.jobs2view.com, lists the main reasons for not liking colleagues as "laziness, talking too much and cliques".

It found that 27% think of quitting every day, and that just 24% find work important to them.