Mirror on Fear

One thing I’ve realized after almost 4 months in a new place is that no one here really knows me at all.

When people don’t know you, they can’t tell you when you’re doing the wrong thing for yourself because they don’t know what the right thing is, they can’t promise you that you’ll eventually get what you want because they don’t know what you want, and they can’t assure you that you have the strength to survive because a) they’ve never witnessed your strength and b) they probably don’t care that much if you survive.

When people don’t know you, they cannot provide an informed commentary on your life, but they are also not biased. They don’t know about your limitations, and they will not limit their expectations of you based on their assumptions.

If you are hyper-analytical, you can learn a lot about yourself from these people as they trying to learn about you. Ultimately, they have very little direct insight, but they are like mirrors, reflecting back your image, backwards.

1.

Me: I know it’s morbid, but whenever I leave my bike outside, I emotionally and mentally prepare for it to be gone when I go back out.
Her: Oh, right…of course..because?…locks don’t really work?

2.

Him: They were doing the kind of daring, dangerous things that kids do.
Me: I don’t think I was very daring when I was kid–I never did anything reckless.
Him: Really? Like nothing?
Me: Yeah, not ever things like jumping off high places in the playground.
Him: So, all the other kids were doing it?
Me: Yeah.
Him: And even after you saw that all the kids had done it and didn’t get hurt, you still thought you would get hurt.
Me: Yes, even though everyone had done it, I thought I would be only one who got hurt.
Him: Well it’s good you didn’t–that’s a good way to get hurt.
Me: What is?
Him: Thinking you’re going to get hurt.

Growing Pains

Having worked for tech and internet start-ups for the past four years, one thing I’ve realized is that developments happen much faster than they did before the digital age. If you’re a company, this means that you’ve got to build a strategy that is flexible enough to adapt to changes, and proactive enough so that you’re ahead of the curve.

As a regular everyday person, this also means that you need to prepare yourself to get a text message from your mother that reads “omg” much sooner than you thought could be possible. My aunt, who once asked me to trade BlackBerry cases with her because she thought mine was “hipper” insists that the phrase, “omg” has been around since the 70s, which I can’t confirm or deny because I wasn’t born yet.

One thing I can confirm is that watching people adapt to technology is a fascinating experience, particularly because each channel of communication has its own language. I’ve heard countless stories of people who started IMing with their parents and would laugh because IMs always got signed, “Ok, I’m going to bed now, Good luck tomorrow, Love, Dad.”

There’s something really beautiful about these liminal communication phases; they serve to highlight the very best of each medium. They mark, too, the tremendous steps we’re taking technologically everyday. I particularly loved this moment that occurred when video-chatting with my mother for the first time.

When I was in NY, I downloaded it for her and we sat at the dining room table “practicing.” (“Mom, since I’m sitting right here, I’m going to hang up now. Don’t worry–you’ll still be able to see my face.”) Now that I’m back in SF, we tried the real thing for the first time.

Here’s how it started:

“Mom,” I said. “We’re on video chat…you don’t have to type anymore…you know, because, we’re speaking.”

“I know..but you’re volume was low, oh, well, nevermind I get it now. I just wanted to type it!”

Why exactly this makes my heart swell, I’m not sure. Maybe because as human beings, we want to record historical moments. If the historical moment is the inception of a new mode of communicaton — do we talk about in our new language, or our old one?

There are going to be a lot of hybrids between new and old as the world grows more and more digital. The burden is on us to draw meaning, rather than confusion, from the ambiguity.

Exiled State of Mind

My parents have been pretty supportive of my move to San Francisco and both (despite the fact that they miss me–I think??) encouraged me not to me not to take an opportunity in NYC this fall in favor of staying here and digging deeper into the Gold Coast.

However, I have noticed my mother slipping in a few arguments here and there for why it is a good idea for me to return home.

There was the time I mentioned that I needed to get some boots fixed but had yet to find a shoe repair place.

“They probably don’t have shoe repair places there,” she told me. “You’ll need to send your boots to me, or come home.”
“What do you mean they don’t have shoe repair places here?” I demanded. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, people just don’t get shoes fixed in San Francisco,” she explained. “Because they walk less.”

Then there was the time when I called her up to tell her that I was really convinced that I needed to get breast implants. Instead of the usual, “Do you know how dangerous/painful that is” or “You’ll lose sensation!” or “Sorry you inherited my worst trait,” she simply said, “Ok. But you need to come back to New York to do it. This is where all the best plastic surgeons are.”

Normally I find these arguments amusing, and good for both reminding me that I have a “home” to go back to and convincing me that it’s healthy not to be there now.

However, I was just in NY for the week and despite being more miserable than I’ve been in months, I’m suddenly finding myself homesick.

Yesterday in the office kitchen, I blurted out to a crowd of people, “You know what I miss about New York? Being around other people who want to kill people for no reason.”

“I’m sorry we’re not angry enough for you,” one girl told me. Only in San Francisco (and maybe the Midwest) will people apologize for sh*t like that.

A day later, and still unable to find anyone who would join me in irrational and relentless fury and/or frustration, I called my mom for a solid gripe session.

After she had her turn, I moaned, “I can’t write my blog anymore. I mean, I just don’t know what to say.”
“Well,” she explained. “There’s just not as much material there is New York.” This time, I was totally receptive to the case she was making.
“YES.” I cheered. “That is the problem. You know the only thing to write about here? They don’t label the stops on the BART. How am I supposed to know when to get off if the only place they label the stop is on the wall behind the other train. It’s a disgrace.”
“They don’t really want you to take public transportation,” my mother guessed. “They say they’re all green, but what they really want is for you to drive a car.”
“I know. UGH.”

The truth is, there’s too much to write about here, and no way to censor it for public consumption in a way that makes sense. My sarcastic sense of humor is ill-equipped to describe it, and I don’t know how else to communicate.

But if there’s one thing I learned after 23 years in New York, it’s that when the going gets tough, the tough start criticizing cities in other states. And…we’re back!

Poor Man’s Guacamole

Yesterday I walked into my new kitchen to find two avocados with a little note that said, “Eat me.” I checked in with my roommate. “What’s wrong with the avocados?”
“Nothing, they’re just going to go bad if someone doesn’t eat them.” He is a 23 year-old boy, and he never eats dinner because he’s too lazy (and works at one of those fancy SF companies that serves amazing lunch). He has conceded that if I cooked him dinner, he would eat it, but otherwise sticks mostly to beer and bananas, although he is perfectly good at grocery shopping. (See above: avocados.)

I was going to just flat out eat his avocados when I realized that was not the right thing to do. The right thing to do was to offer to make guacamole. He agreed that if I made guacamole, he would eat it, but observed that we didn’t have any of the ingredients for it except avocados.

After reviewing what the missing ingredients were, (tomatoes, onions, flavor?) I decided that dumping salsa into mashed avocado and then drenching it in Louisiana pepper hot sauce would produce something that passed for guacamole.

My roommate went to get chips and Yerba Mate caffeine infused beer (true story.) Everything tasted better than it looks in these pictures.

It’s So San Francisco: Wedding at the Rock Climbing Gym

After trying rock climbing in the wild two weeks ago, I followed my rock climbing friends to the indoor gym today. I was well-convinced that the most absurd part of the day would be the part where I willingly walked through the door of the rock climbing gym.

However, 2 and 1/2 hours later, I’d learned to tie knots, belay, done 4 climbs, and was at a wall on the second floor when something even more absurd walked through the door of the gym: an entire wedding party.

A bride, a groom, 4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsman–plus a photographer scuttled in. My two friends and I halted everything and hung over the balcony watching with jaws dropped. “Omigod,” I was muttering over and over again. “This is so San Francisco.” But somehow, as usual, my curiosity overcame my total and complete disdain.

I yelled over the balcony, “Are you getting married here?”
“No!” The beaming (and really, she was) bride called back. “We just think it looks really cool!”
“Wait, is this a photoshoot–or the actual wedding?” Sooo San Francisco…
“We just got married!” She gushed. “But we just wanted to come here because it looks cool!”
“Omigod,” I whispered. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.”

I shouted out to her,”You should come up here to toss your bouquet over.” She jumped and laughed and her brides jumped and laughed and they all said, “yes! yes!” She added, “you have to come down here and try to catch it.”

“Of course!” I promised her, then turned to my friends: “I would rather than die than stand in the lobby of Mission Cliffs trying to catch a wedding bouquet.”

I was saved because the entire party ran over to the downstairs wall and began a photoshoot involving bouncing on the cushioned floor and holding the ropes. We were still in total shock to the point of not being able to climb. “Really? They just want to hold the ropes? I mean, I’m having fun here and I think it’s a cool place,” I conceded. “But, the walls don’t actually look that cool.”

We were about to get back to it when the group started to exit. Then, the climber next to us who was also leaning over the balcony to watch the spectacle suddenly called out, “Hey! Keith!” He ran down the stairs to greet a friend of his who just so happened to be one of the groomsmen.

“Ok,” I declared, louder this time. “This seriously would only happen in San Francisco.” Just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder, the bride, followed by two of her maids, made a break for the women’s locker room.

“She’s peeing?” I sputtered. “Seriously? God, San Francisco. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Imagine being the naked person in the shower when the bride runs into trying maneuver her train so she can pee in the locker room,” my friend mused.

“I guess. But I’m starting to get the feeling that crazier things have happened.”

How (do) I Make Decisions (?)

MFA or Job?
NY or SF?

The Gchats:

The Good/Bad List:

The Free Association list:

The Free-k Out:

I Like What You’re Reading

While reading all those important industry newsletters this morning, I learned that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the number one Kindle Bestseller. No surprise– that book is everywhere. A co-worker concurred, “I see people with that book on BART and MUNI all the time.”

“But,” I realized suddenly. “It’s selling for Kindle. We can’t actually see if anyone is reading it! In fact, in a few years, we’ll never be able to gaze at the cover of anyone’s book on the train again!”

Checking out what people are reading definitely used to be one of my favorite subway activities (ranked just after crying shamelessly and making faces at strangers’ kids.) I’ve gotten into countless conversations with people about books

My favorite began when a man who saw me cruising the scene exclaimed, “my book is better than his!” Another memorable time was at 4am on the 1 train when a young editorial assistant saw me dozing off over Everything Is Illuminated and starting ranting about what a hack Jonathan Safran Foer was and revealed the selling price for film rights. (“Disgusting!”)

Even here in SF, I’ve made two female friends on BART using visible reading material as the jumping off point.

I have to say that the idea of not being able to look at other people’s books is even more sad to me than not holding the book, having the book, taking notes in the margins or whatever else it is that people are all in a tizzy about. I had the sudden urge to scream, “Stop the e-Book train! I want to get off!!”

But for some people, like my dad, the purchase of his iPad has lead to buying and reading books that he never would have otherwise. He reported to me from Cape Cod that he can read on the beach now, because he doesn’t have to worry about getting the pages wet, or collecting sand in the bindings. (Clearly, unlike his daughter, he no fear about spilling the ocean on his iPad.)

I was happy to hear that he was reading–at the end of the day, his story was inspiring both for the publishing industry and his personal growth. Then I asked what he was reading. A few solid non-fiction titles–and Shit My Dad Says.

I laughed, running out of time before I could ask him if he knew that the book was based on a Twitter stream, or if he remembered a similarly themed book on the same topic that was a major element of the Cape Cod experience a mere 11 years ago.

It was a green journal filled with natural recycled paper. I wrote down all the absurd things everyone said, and every few days, would gather the group to read the quotes out loud. As time passed, I continued to read from the beginning–the quotes getting funnier everyday.

Then there was last year, when I came back to the house to my father demanding that I pull his quotes from my blog. (His loss–my step-mom is now famous for her quote, “A booty call is better than no call at all.”)

And of course, there’s this year. I only see Cape Cod through my dad’s Facebook posts, because I’m in California working for a company that makes books for the iPad. My dad is in Cape Cod with his own iPad, reading books about Shit Someone Else’s Dad Said.

[Try to make sense of it all here.]