critical mass!

did the coolest thing on friday. met adam in oakland and we took the BART (like the T/commuter rail) into san francisco where we met adam's girlfriend, ellen, his friend ben, and theresa sharpe, who is a phd student in soc at berkeley, and whom i know because she worked with marshall on the union leadership project (weird!).




HUNDREDS of people on bikes were gathering at embarcadero in sf, many of them dressed in crazy costumes (the pictures don't really do it justice). a lot of scrappy anti-war protestors, and some people dragging carts with huge stereo systems attached to them. so, there was music, there were costumes, and there were a lot of people on bikes. it was very, very festive.

strange! theresa's friend from h.s. (in the pic, she's second from the left, in the bee costume) is also someone i met at the tea party last weekend! her name's diana. also in this pick, theresa's friend on far left (forget his name), theresa, bob (diana's friend), ellen, and adam. these are pictures from the start.

so, the hundreds of us biked all through the streets of san francisco, stopping traffic, ignoring traffic lights, and "woo'ing" and laughing and biking to hip hop music. pedestrians waved and smiled as we came down market st.; cars honked (both in appreciation and frustration); and streetcar drivers rang their bells and shouted encouragement.




the whole idea was to stop traffic. and we did, streaming up market, and van ness (two of the main drags in sf), getting to a tunnel in the middle of the city, whooping through the tunnel, and then back out. the other pictures are from when we were stopped outside of the tunnel. after the tunnel, i think we split up, rode around a bit more, and then adam and ellen and i took off for the delancy st. grill, a rather nice restaurant run by ex-cons. the food was fabulous, but we all felt a little out of place amid white table cloths after having spent the early evening in scrappy company.

it was just so much fun. i spent most of the ride balanced on the pedals (the bike i borrowed belonged to a really tall guy named nick. i am a really short woman named jess. but i made do), with my jaw hanging open, looking at the costumes. there was one guy dressed like a devil, and on his right shoulder, he had strapped a mannequin's head (dressed as an angel). one guy was ironically dressed as a gasoline pump. but it was all in good fun. exhausting, but fun.

yesterday (sat) i volunteered for girls inc. of the island city, tristen's org. they were having their annual summit. and it was so much fun! i spent the first 1.5 hours in the "sexual health" workshop with a bunch of hs sophomores. they were great - giggly and funny, but so honest and open. then i went along with them to the hip hop dance workshop. which was reeeeallly challenging, but reeeeaalllly fun. yessss! maybe i'll take a hip hop class........hm.....

ugh! get me out of the house!

yesterday, after the jobhuntingness of the morning (emails, calls, etc.), i needed to get myself outside. so, i grabbed my brand new "hikes in the san francisco bay area", by linda a. hamilton (not to be confused with linda hamilton, who i think was in the terminator), and hopped in the car.

i hiked at the huckleberry state park and wildlife preserve (see pics). it was beautiful. according to the brochure, this patch of forest is a relic of the ecosystem that used to exist all over the east bay but is now rare. it is extremely lush, thick and moist - nurtured by the foggy air coming in from the bay and sheltered from the scorching sun by the surrounding hills. the difference in temperature between forest floor and the drier, scrubby peaks, was about 10 degrees.






i was changing layers like a madwoman. but the vegetation was beautiful - twisty twining trees (looked like sweeping dancers) and tufty moss (looked like armhair). here are some pics to give you an idea of the terrain contrast....and me on my solitary hike.



today, i'm going to 'critical mass' in san francisco - the day when bikes take over the city. this is the 'halloween' edition. i think some folks are even dressing up. i might wear an orange hat. my friend adam rustled up a bike for me. should be a fun way to see the city (wish me luck!)

Hello, Batman.

Sooooooo i went to this really interesting panel/training with tristen today about afterschool enrichment programs. and i did a little networking. and then i met ruth, a friend of a friend of marit's, for lunch. she's very cool, and just moved here from nyc (she also needed a change).

during the course of the day, two weird things happened:

1. ruth's reeeallly small dog, belly, met a reeeeaaallly big dog (see picture).


2. a man in a batman suit walked by me on the street (kind of like this pic). the conversation went a little like this:


me: "hello, batman."

batman: "are you in the game?"

me: "um....no."

batman: "bet you wish you were, though."

later, when ruth and i were sitting at a cafe eating lunch, batman walked by us. about 5 people down the sidewalk saw him and got excited. they yelled "hey, batman!" batman turned, saw them, and took off in the opposite direction. the 5 ran around the corner after him, yelling "hey, batman! come back! we've got you!"

boy, i wish i was in that game.

arrrr, matey.

forgot! i did two fun things on sunday.
1) i went to a tea party!!! was invited by some people i met at the crazy party on friday. i brought zucchini bread and we all talked and i met a lot of people. AND i learned how to knit! did a whole (if short) scarf. very cool. so today i went out and started knitting ANOTHER (longer) scarf. sooo excited.

2) i went to tristen's pirate b-day party. which began with her friends in full pirate regalia (she loves pirates) at a biker bar in fremont, ca. then we went to a PIRATE HAUNTED HOUSE in fremont. it was hilarious. they had a huge light-up skull (10 feet in diameter) above one of the buildings - a beacon of halloween in the night. and it basically consisted of us running through various passageways and scenes with creepy pirates (actors) jumping out at us and yelling "arrrrgh!!!" or "aaaaaaahhhhh!" or "whuuuuuaaaaaaaahhhhhhhrrhhhrgh!" it was really fun. they even had one section that was set up like a ship's deck, and it swayed side to side while we tried to cross it.

so. fun social things with new people. hooray!

it's not my job.

today, i went to another berekely lecture, on the invitation of a friend. it was called "a social autopsy of the katrina crisis", which sounded fascinating. the place was mobbed, and i, of course, got there late. so the room was packed, and they had some chairs and a tv set up in the hallway for the overflow crowd. but the microphone hookup wasn't working well, so the sound was very quiet, and we could barely hear what the panelists were saying.

well, we sat there for about 20 minutes (i counted), while 20 of us sitting in the hallway were unable to hear a thing. they looked angrily at someone with a candy wrapper, making excess noise that detracted from the barely audible lecture on the tv (recorded from the room about 10 feet away). finally, i was so annoyed, that i got up, squeezed into the lecture room, and interrupted the speaker - "um, excuse me, could you please speak up? we're having difficulty hearing you out here." people kind of shuffled around, the speaker stood up to talk, and they continued. i took my seat outside again, and everyone kind of sheepishly whispered "thank you" to me as i sat down. but the sound didn't improve.

so, rather than anyone else interrupting again, people started coming up to me "could they turn the microphone on?" "maybe they should change the wires." and i looked at them and said "i don't know, why don't you ask them?"

it was so weird. a room and a half full of intelligent, outspoken academics, and no one can speak up and say "excuse me, we can't hear anything!" or "why don't we all take 5 minutes to shift around so the people outside can get inside and we can all continue?"

instead, everyone - inside the room and out - was thinking "well, it's not really my job to fix the sound. someone should be on top of that."

i went into the staff room and asked one of the staff members if there was a "media services" dept we could call. apparently not. the tv belongs to the dept and one professor (who was off teaching a class) is the only one who deals with it.

i couldn't believe it. shouldn't sociologists be aware of this kind of social stigma? or is it too "action-oriented" to be on their radar screens? one snarky grad student actually said to me "well, welcome to bureaucracy." welcome to bureaucracy?! that's a little fatalistic, isn't it? how disappointing.

in a slightly related story, i saw an older man, possibly drunk, fall down in the middle of the street today, and no one got out of their cars to help him (including me - though i was on the other side of the street, 4 lanes of traffic). how unfortunate. isn't it someone's job to help people like that?

houses.

when i was a kid, we'd go skiing several weekends a year in nh, vt, or maine - but usually nh. my dad is kind of a ski nut, and my mom is a house nut. there was a period of about 5 years during which she dragged us to open houses for various ski chalets on every ski trip we took. it was excruciating, after a hard days' skiing, feet still cramped from a day of exercise in a plastic case, and fingers still damp and chilly from the last run on the hill. to have to go look at houses with my family.

now, i feel quite differently. i love looking at houses, imagining who lives there, thinking up a story for each one.

the past two nights, when i've walked rudy (the dog) around our windy piedmont neighborhood, i've been doing just that. the houses in this neighborhood look like they're meant to resemble something. like, a fairytale house. or various european chateaus. you have the english tudos, the french chateaus, the german castles, the swiss chalets, the italian villas, and the spanish....whatever a spanish castle is. but it's not the kind of showy ostentation you see in darien, ct, or weston, ma. not the huge, cavernous houses with yards so spacious that you could call them "grounds" and hallways so large they echo. these houses are pretty small by those standards. they almost look like mini- villas, chateaux, manors, castles, etc. and then it hit me....this is like epcot center - you know, when you can go around the place and see 20 countries in 20 minutes - each with replicas of their native architecture?

it also kind of reminds me of "the village" from the old "prisioner" tv show. with the windy streets, and the strange, underlying "sameness" of the landscape, even though the buildings are different in basic style.

also- (halloween-appropriate)

watching "the scariest places on earth" on the family channel right now. it's the funniest show.

they take a family of "average" americans and put them in a haunted house (usually in europe - scotland, romania, etc.) for one night, strap cameras on them, give them walkie talkies, and set up cameras throughout the house.

all the candles in the house/castle are pre-lit. the family has to wander the house all night looking for ghosts. they have special thermal cameras and cameras that can detect "magnetic fields", so they can record paranormal activity.

each phase of the show is bookmarked by the time - "3:43 am: the olsons are not alone". and each title is read by a creepy high voice. funny thing is, i *know* it's the voice of that short weird lady who was the church organist in "sixteen candles", but they make her talk into an echo machine that makes it sound soooo creepy.

and they all talk to each other and scream periodically when a cabinet door shuts. and then everyone screams and runs around and the cameras (which are handheld) film all over the place.

oh, and it's hilarious. they make the families open "spirit portals" - some scottish guy on a tv tells them to "gather the tools you need (matches, blood - of course - and candles) and say the incantations". then they have to close the spirit portal at the end. it's hilarious. crazy americans running around european casles at midnight with cameras strapped to their chests and screaming bloody murder.

went to the craziest party last night

my friend jess h.'s friend scott lives around here. he recently decided to quit his job and take a trip around the world. but first, he would throw himself a party.

the location was an art studio/warehouse, that had all kinds of neat stuff in it - stairways, old fridges, bikes, chairs, signs - junk and nooks and passages and neat stuff.

the lead up to the party was an evite, and several emails that said things like: " does anyone have access to a gong?" (this is the pic from the evite)

here's an excerpt from the evite:


"The evening commences with several stout rounds of Karaoke for the Pleasure of Scott. Be prepared to be bad enough to win over the crowd.

Once we're good and surly, a gong shall initiate the Wrestling for the Pleasure of Scott. Who will be brave enough to challenge their opponent to mortal combat in the arena beneath the cold Pleasure seeking eyes of Scott? House rules apply, barring special considerations agreed upon by the combatants.

Throughout the evening, meretricious prizes shall be given away to those who most Please Scott, be it via Karaoke bravery, by Wrestling spectacle, by random luck or by sheer Pleasurableness.

There are also a few other suprises cooking up.

The evening will climax with the burning of Scott in Effigy."

true to his word, there was much karaoke. then, scott's friends, with costumes and stage names like "the marmoset", wrestled each other, while scott oversaw the events in a toga and roman leaf crown. the musical soundtrack was epic opera or rock music. at the end of each match, he bestowed gifts (old things that he didn't want anymore - old books, shirts, .....seeds).



at the end of the wrestling, scott threw t-shirt souvenirs of his party down from the stage onto the wrestling mats below and demanded that everyone dive to the mat to grab a shirt. here's a picture of the one i got. who makes t-shirts for their party?!

so, needless to say, i got up pretty late today, and was desperately in need of coffee. but...no coffee? yikes. who doesn't have coffee?! i kind of wanted it to be one of those gray days that you can spend inside under the covers or in front of the tv. but, it's sunny out (surprise, surprise), and i feel like i have to get up and get out of the house, so i don't waste it! maybe i will and maybe i won't.

birthday brother tim

today my brother tim called me at 8:30 in the morning. i was making breakfast. the conversation went like this (ps: it was his b-day):

tim: "hi my sistah."

me: "whatup, tim?"

tim: "jess" (pause) "mom got me the best present ever"

me: what was it?

tim: "CHARLIE THE COUGAR!"

"charlie the lonesome cougar" was a disney nature film from the 1960s chronicling the ups and downs of a cougar (named charlie) from cubhood to adulthood. various and sundry things happen to charlie - he meets a bear cub, he encounters an angry dog, he gets lost in a lumber mill and gets chased by lumberjacks (seriously). it's narrated by some crotchety guy who sounds like a prospector and says things like "looks like our friend charlie's in trouble" and "oh, poor charlie is a born loser" or "now, it's a well known fact that mountain lions and bears don't mix"

when we were kids, my brother loved this movie. loved it. we'd rent it from the library every week. i can't stand nature movies. especially animal nature movies. but i sat there on the phone this morning at 8:30 and listened while tim watched the movie at his place in brooklyn and narrated it to me. he almost sounded choked up. "ha, ha. oh, look out, charlie! oh, no!...i love this movie."

it was hilarious.

today, i also hung out in berkeley, had some meetings, and saw jesse at his track meet. go piedmont!
(pictures: a wonderful license plate for my friend MARAIS, a pic of jesse running his heart out, his mom tracy cheering her heart out for him, and some girl screaming at her boyfriend to "BRING IT HOME, BABY, BRING IT HOME!")

aggressive pedestrian.

i guess this is coastal culture shock. ever since i can remember, i have been a fast walker, impatient driver, and aggresive pedestrian. and i always felt like - if you're from boston, you might understand this - there's some kind of unspoken competition among fast walkers, impatient drivers, and aggresive pedestrians.

for example. say, you're waiting to cross the street at a crosswalk (in boston). everyone leans a little bit forward, just to see how dangerously close they can get to the road from the curb without getting clipped by a bus. and they wait for the exact moment when they can propel their bodies forward across the street. they may not have a walk signal (they probably don't). they will not run (other people need to look out for *them*. once you're in that crosswalk, it's yours, and no speeding car has the right to take it away from you until you've finished with it). and there is always that magical moment when the traffic abates, and they all rush to be the first to put a foot down on street pavement. who makes it first? who steps too soon, and has to take a step of defeat back onto the curb, to wait for the next traffic opening?

So, you can imagine that it came as a great shock to me when i came to the west coast and this competition doesn't seem to exist. people WAIT FOR A WALK SIGNAL. it's no longer a battle of wits between pedestrians and traffic (who has the best instincts about when to cross? who will take the first step?). here, it's a simon says game - you just do what the little blinking man tells you to do. where's the sport in that?

not only do they wait for a walk signal, they wait patiently. they don't look at the opposing traffic lights to see if the walk signal is coming sooner rather than later. they don't shift on their feet and look up the street for oncoming traffic, in case they can scurry accross without a signal. they just stand there patiently. and they DON'T jaywalk. i jaywalk everywhere. why? because the shortest route between two points is a straight line. the fastest way for me to get from one block to another is to cut a corner. those are the rules.

other things:

today, while walking around with marit and meg, we heard someone walking up the street singing "streetlight people" (you know, "don't stop believing! hold on to that feeeeeeeeling!". a favorite of the swinging johnsons). it was hilarious.

also had a meeting with people at the school arm of the ODC dance company in sf. which was really exciting and great. they need someone to pull together and coordinate their community outreach. i would LOVE to do this. but they have no money. typical. so, we have another meeting next week. what the heck? i have the time.

city day.

yesterday, i had a city day, and it was just LOVELY. at 10am, i had a meeting with kathy henschel, a friend of a friend of marshall's who spent her working life in management at an oil company, and her nonworking life singing in choral groups all over the bay area. she's given me some pretty good job contacts, so i called her when i got to town, and we got together yesterday for coffee at her house.

she lives at the top of san francisco. and i mean, the TOP. san francisco is basically one big hill in the center. she lives just about at the top of it. on a street at a 60 degree angle. it was frightening. but i made it and we chatted about her life (she's really interested in coaching and mentoring - something she did in her working life, and something she enjoys now cultivating the next generation of art patrons. we also talked about other people i could contact, and places i should check out, and she invited me to a violin concert at berkeley in a couple of weeks. all in all, it was a great conversation, and a great opportunity to further connect myself here.

on her suggestion, i went to the asian art museum downtown, which was beautiful. but freezing. i was there for over 4 hours, and by the end i was a human art-appreciating popsicle. the galleries followed the spread of buddhism from india across asia, also covering the influx of islam as well as the existence of earlier religions - hinduism in india and shinto in japan. it was really fascinating. but by the end, if i saw one more smiling buddha, i was ready to scream. and that would have been very un-zen (zen buddhism - meditation buddhism - is actually a lot different from tibetan buddhism, which is different from other kinds. why didn't i learn this stuff in school?!)

then i met up with marit! and her friend meg, who had come into town from tahoe to buy a car meg found on craig's list. so we all hung out together for dinner at this wonderful chill restaurant called "chow" in the haight districts of sf. (THANK YOU to olivia and juan for the lonely planet sf guide. it has been my BIBLE this whole time). THEN (if you can believe it, i hung out with MORE people), we went to meet their friend merce who was looking at an aptmt nearby, and wanted to know if i was interested.

well, it's gorgeous, but at $850 a month and no income, i think i'll pass for now. however, one woman who is moving in - ruth, a friend of merce's (follow me?), is very cool. she's teaching pre-school (you know, early childhood ed is a soft spot for me!) AND she just moved from manhattan, where she was involved in....DRAMA!!! so, i got her number and we need to hang out, because, as i said, i have no friends.

then we all went back to piedmont, where tracy graciously hosted marit and meg for the night. we watched 'notting hill' and passed out by 10.

it was not super exciting, but a packed, fun day for me. with a) job stuff, b) friend stuff and that's about all i need. tomorrow, i meet with some people at odc dance company. WISH ME LUCK!

being unemployed is kind of like vacation.

except without the whole "income" thing. today i took it easy (again) - had a horrid headache that woke me up at 3 am, and so i didn't sleep much. besides, my stomach is feeling a little achy. so, i did some job searchy-things in the morning (calls, emails) and then around 12pm I set off for Stinson Beach, one of my favorite places...

Everyone knows that Crane Beach is my favorite beach EVER. and in terms of sheer duneage, it wins hands down (i love dunes). but stinson beach is at the foot of a beautiful stretch of highland, right near Muir Woods - a national park with some redwoods. the air smells different on that stretch of marin county. it is sweet and spicy with cedar and the roads are so windy (meaning, they wind around, not that they have a lot of wind blowing) that i kept a tight hold on the steering wheel and gear shift. it reminds me a lot of the mediterranean coast - the windy sea roads of greece and the arid fragrant mountains of southern france.

the beach itself is also beautiful (although i'm not sure it measures up to the sweeping sandy slopes and whispery dune grass of crane's in ipswitch). believe it or not, it was in the high eighties and sunny here today (on OCTOBER 17TH!!), and so i had my suit on and almost went in the water. but instead waded a bit, and napped. and read anna karenina (i'm almost done. still.).

even though my stomach is achy, i tell you if they had had fried clams and beer, i would have bought 'em in an instant. i just love the beach. anyway, here are some pictures. tomorrow! a meeting with someone who is involved in the arts in sf. should be interesting. wish me luck and love to you all!

more volunteerism!

forgot to mention on the last post - when people here say "east coast" i'm pretty sure they mean "northeast" as in, something is soooo northeast (elitist, old-money, etc.). the mid-atlantic and southeast don't really count.

also - no crab rangoons here. what the heck?

so. today i volunteered in sf again. i am super volunteer. i hung out with sara shenkan, a new friend and all around very cool person who was a course assistant for marshall last fall. she was volunteering at the opening of the new de young museum. the museum had apparently been closed for 5 years while they demolished the old building (which had earthquake damage) and built this really cool new one. sara's friend molly works for the museum, so we helped out and i got yet another free t-shirt (two yesterday). sara's friend rebecca came, too, so we had a great time shuffling people around (the museum was free this weekend, and hosted loads of live events and activities. really fun, but a lot of cranky people waiting in line).

along the way, we stopped in a sub shop to get some lunch. while there, i witnessed a pretty funy family event. there was a yuppie-like famliy in the shop - a son, around 2ish, a daughter, 5ish, and mom (waiiting in line) and dad (hanging with the kids).

apparently, the shop didn't have something that the daughter reeeally wanted. so she immediately burst into tears.

her parents weren't biting, so she pulled a couple of tricks to get their attention:

"waaaaah! i'm not! i'm NOT EATING! I'M NOT EATING!"
(no response from parents)
"WAH! YOU (points to dad) AND YOU (points to mom) HURT MY FEELINGS!!!"
(no response)
"WAAAAAHHHHH!!! (to parents) I'M NOT...I'M NOT PLAYING WITH YOU! I'M NOT PLAYING WITH YOU!!!!"
(dad to the mom" i don't think she gets chocolate next time." mom:"no, definitely not. she can't handle it.")
"WAH. I'M NOT...I'M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!!!!" (it was sunday)

her parents were great - they totally ignored her tantrum. and it evenutally died down. never got to the super annoying phase. only the amusing kid phase.

in any case, it was great to get out in sf again today, to hang with new people again, and to do something worthwhile for this city. hope to do lots more. after all, i have the time!

bicoastal.

in california, people seem to use the term "east coast" as an adjective for certain types of people, organizations, events, institutions. but mainly for an attitude that is so "east coast". everyone knows what it means, and mainly californians use it to describe someone who is stuffy, pompous, elitist.

i've never thought about it, but i don't think people on the east coast think of themselves as a region - much less an identity. and we never compare ourselves to the west coast as a whole coast. it's more like, should the topic come up, we'll discuss california (something can be "so california") or seattle. but it isn't a point of reference. is that because we just assume that the two are incomparable? "california is a nice place. but i live in boston." period. does the coast mean more to the people who live here? is it a state of mind, and not just a locaation? i think to some people it is. and folks back home are just so used to things running on eastern standard - to being the standard - to think of their location as a state of mind.


in ANY case. i went to a fun party tonight where i didn't know a soul. well, i had met this guy, mike, on thursday at the sociology lecture with adam. adam knew most of these people, actually, since they go to school with him, but he couldn't make it to the party. so. i went. and chatted it up with the mostly male grad students. it was very weird. but pretty fun. and nice to know that i can do that - just walk into a party where i don't know anyone and make a bunch of new friends. "it's just like kindergarten" i kept telling myself. when i walked up to people on the playground, and, shyly looked for the right moment in the conversation to interject with "will you be my friend?" i remember ashley rose in particular being a little taken aback by this approach.

oh! and nealon was in town from sf. one minute i was talking to him on the phone and the next minute, he said "jess mele, i'm hopping on a train right now to come see you and help you at this party." so, then i had one friend. hooray!

another highlight, franco, some guy at this party, was "sooo california." he rhetorically asking about the dance music (hip hop) in that spaced out stoner voice of constant awe:
him: "i wonder why people like that kind of music so much.........(pause)...this black guy told me that it's because it's where we came from......and it's *in* us......it's in our soul..........and when we get alcohol in us, we just......"
me: "feel it?"
him: "yeah....you feel it. i think it's because it's dance music."

i can only assume he meant that the music was african-inspired, and since we all came from africa, somehow modern hiphop resonates with all of us. genetically or something. it was hard to follow, but pretty funny.

all in all, met some new people, got myself out there, and had some fun with nealon. so, a good night!

community service hurts

last night i called friend jess heinzelman from smith (a good friend of my good friend, amy christie), and she invited me to "hands on bay area day" a day of community service in san fran. so i drove over the bridge early this morning and met jess, her boyfriend dave, and her friend tristen.

our project was to work with some other teams to clean a park (god knows where - i have no concept of space in this city yet). part of the work involved hoeing (yes, with a hoe. a garden hoe.) the edges of the stone curb that bordered the grass of the park - it had become overgrown with weeds. let me tell you, hoeing SUCKS. it is hard, hard work. my arms are still aching from the exertion. oooowwwwwwwwwww.

but it was lots of fun, it was actually sunny, and i got to hang out with some new people. and that is always fun. here's a pic of our team! (jess on left, tristan in middle and dave on right)

i know this is awful, but i keep thinking "one day down" - as in, one more day wherein i've figured out what to do with myself. which i think is a little sad to think to yourself. but i guess i never noticed how much of a social person i am until i had no society in which to be social. what do i do with myself when i'm not running from one event or group or activity to another?

deal with myself, i guess. and that's hard work

already a little stir crazy

(PICS: my most excellent hosts, tracy - making cookies. i get cookies! - jesse, realistically playing video games, but still smiling for the camera, and caitlin, serenely reading)

so. sat in front of my computer with a myriad of spreadsheets out before me. forced myself to call several people who might help me get a job. scheduled some meetings for next week. walked around the room. looked at the ny times. walked around again. decided to exercise. changed. ran up/down stairs. ran up/down stairs again. did some exercises with my 5 pound weights in vain attempt to recreate gym-like atmosphere at home. did sit ups.

watched "what a girl wants" with amanda bynes and colin firth about quirky american daughter who goes to london to find her straitlaced noble father (hijinks ensue). cried at the end.

walked around the house. did email. walked around a little more. tracy's kids came home from school and i decided i *really* needed to get out. went to the bank. then the store. then home. then cooked dinner for an extended period of time, ignoring all directions, eventually finishing and ending with a stomach ache.

point: being unemployed is HARD.

oh, and i had a job interview today - phone interview. for one of those nonprofity, altruistic organizations that demands all of your time, and your soul and gives you very little compensation and no support. so, i'm excited that they wanted to talk to me. I'm frustrated that the world of nonprofits is being built on the backs of the young, smart, energetic - and will probably burn them out very soon without creating any institutional knowledge or culture to sustain the sector in the future.

but tomorrow i'm going to be hanging with a college friend (through my friend amy christie) volunteering to do good works in the bay area. so, it should be fun. we'll be painting things.

in the meantime, i'm still looking for a job and a life here. what no one tells you: transitions are not only hard; they take a loooong time. oh, yeah, and they make you break out like an adolescent.

new life, day one

wellllll i did sleep in a little. amazing how little motivation there is to start the day when you don't actually *have* to start your day - nothing to get up for, offically speaking (no job, no appointments). it's been so long since i've had this kind of down time, i almost didn't know what to do with myself.

but i got up, ate some cereal, read the paper. had a cup of tea. and eventually got my stuff together and followed tracy's directions to piedmont ave (where apparently there was...stuff).

found a yoga studio, and was told by a very chill woman named skylar (how appropriate) that they do have a work study program, and i could call for more information. hooray!

did some work on the computer, compiling a list of "job contacts" i need to call/email asap if i want to find a job. and a list of "friend contacts" i need to conatct asap if i want to keep my social skills. then i met adam reich for a lecture at uc berkely on the prison system and social inequality in the us. veeery "sociology". but it was great to see adam and meet some sociology types. and get to know berkeley a little bit.

then i came back and hung out with tracy, jesse, and tracy's daughter caitlin. funny. just like home!

watching "the warriors" on tv right now. and it's the famous part "warriors, come out to play-ay!" i'm giggling to myself. what a weird movie. not even very good. but now it's a cult classic, and not only is it being released on dvd, but there's going to be a VIDEO GAME of the warriors. which will clearly only be played by nerdy young men my age with some kind of nostalgia for both the eighties and street gang drama. for those of you who HAVEN'T seen it, it's a wonderful romp through nyc in the early eighties, full of vintage phrases like "can you dig it?" and crazy make-upped thugs in lower manhattan. oh, and the chief from carmen sandiago is the gang radio announcer.

i'll try to get more pictures up soon. the trip is over, but the adventure is just beginning! heheh.
(oh, and my parents sent me FLOWERS!! they're the best)

driving mr. tim

well, tim and i traversed most of the western coast yesterday (tues) and today (weds) all the way from seattle to san francisco. it was loooong, but quality time with my bro and one of my best friends (hint: both are tim). he really helped me out with the driving, especially today (told me he "loves" driving - scroll down for our fabulous "mt st helens" reinactment).

(pic: me and tim at mt. st. helen's in washington)

for those of you who don't know, tim is one of my best friends and definitely the funniest person around. i can tell a lame joke and he'll get it. i can see something strange and i know he's seeing the same thing and thinking the same comment in his head. those people are precious. together, we discovered a frightening fact: there is a very small difference between the voice of the guy from the b-52's and that of ethel merman. try it. try singing "there's no business like show business" as the guy from the b-52's. try singing "love shack" as ethel merman. it's eerie.

so, we decided we're going to have a "sing like the guy from the b-52's" contest. the only rule is you can't sing a stereotypical b-52's song. it has to be something different.

tim and i also explored the area - an extended tour up to mt. st. helens yesterday (i had only gone to the visitor's center myself, but yesterday we did the whole shebang, driving into the blast zone and to a peak just across the valley from the mountain. glorious) and san francisco today (i drove him to muir woods to see the redwoods, and then we kind of drove (like true massholes, we almost killed a couple of pedestrians when i "banged a left" at a couple of lights) around san francisco for an hour.

when it was all over, i drove him to the airport for his flight home to nyc and cried as i drove all the way back to piedmont. it was very sad.

this whole thing has led me to think alot about what home means to me and the kinds of things i find absolutely necessary for survival - of my spirit, that is. home is the people around you, those who keep your heart warm and glowing. this is pretty basic, but i only just felt (not knew, but *felt*) how true it is. and i absolutely can't live without those things (those things that make a home) in my life. so, i was feeling pretty sad when i rolled back into tracy powell's neighborhood in piedmont. not depressed or angry or frustrated. just a little sad. and maybe a little lonely, too.

but i am a very lucky girl. i was greeted to big hugs and effusive conversation by both my host and her son, jesse. jesse and i played some ping pong, and the three of us chatted about everything - the area, school, tv shows, films. it was a fun, enthusiastic, and brilliant conversation - brilliant with the nerdy humor and easy laughter that i think are necessities of home (at least mine). so, this is good. i have a place to stay and tomorrow i hunt for a job, but this is good. but, i still need your encouragement, too. send it to me! lovej

BELOW: mele reinactment of the eruption of mt st helens, may 1980 (note: this "film" was made before we learned at the visitor's center that the eruption actually included no "lava", but rather hot ash and rock).

SCENE ONE: it started out as a normal day at mt. st. helen's. The mountain appeared dormant.














SCENE TWO: then, the lava poured, and all hell broke loose - "hey, buddy, look out, the lava's coming!"









SCENE THREE: the lava flows dangerously, and many lives are lost - "AAAAH!" "OH, No!" (respectively)


















SCENE FOUR: some are left hanging on for dear life as the volcano boils behind them.







THE END

lazy day

last day in seattle and it's a gray and a little sad. but had a great time. hung out chez maddy until 2pm, and she made this amazing yam and kale peanut saucy wonderfulness for brunch. then to historic pike place market (where they throw the fish) and then we took a lovely ferry ride to bainbridge island...then rode the ferry back. picking tim up at the airport tonight at 8:45pm. can't wait to seem him, but hope he isn't too sapped from the journey!





tomorrow: to california!

seattle rocks

had so much fun at a party on saturday night - friends of maddy's from frisbee - and i wore my pink dress with pink cowboy boods. bummer. forgot to take pics. this town is so much fun! very cool people and kind of new englandy. hm....so much fun to hang with mads.

hm...maybe i'll move to seattle. it's kind of liberating when NOTHING is nailed down and consequently EVERYTHING is up in the air.

saw "you and me and everyone we know" last night with maddy and her friend andrew (who is very cool, by the way). the film was AWESOME. everyone should go see it. quirky, weird, funny, and strangely warm at the end. i really liked it. go see it. NOW!

tim was supposed to fly in this morning, but something went wrong at the other end, and i think he's stranded in jfk airport right now, sleeping, waiting for a later flight. poor guy. would have loved to show him seattle! but at least now maddy and i will have more time together - to...hang out and stuff. and get coffee. and maybe take a ferry (!!) to bainbridge island. i just love ferries. i'll be sure to take pictures.

driving, driving, driving.

SO SICK OF DRIVING. but i LOVE seeing the country. guess i just have to deal.

drove from tahoe to portland, or all day on thurs, but not before seeing emerald bay in tahoe. BEAUTIFUL. and the night before (weds night), went out and shuffle boarded it up at a local bar with marit and her friends. some fun pics...which i will post in a few.






drive to portland was LONG - 11 hours. and i was tired. mental note: never drive that long by myself again. it's dangerous. especially through the mountains of n. ca and s. oregon. in the dark. with lots of tractor trailer trucks. NOT fun. but i'm sure it's beautiful in the daytime.

hung out with sarah rigles and her husband robb before bed (12am ish). then had b-fast the next day with sarah. it was so much fun! we'd been friends in college, but, as she pointed out, mostly friends in a group. this must have been the first time we've ever hung out 1:1 and it was a lot of fun. she owns her own dance studio, and we chatted alot about the arts and education and community outreach. made me think - excited and a little scared, but it was really good brainstorming.

then 3 hrs north to seattle. but i stopped at mt. st. helens first - i'd done a report on the volcano when i was in elementary school, and remember being fascinated by the natural disaster. i was a serious/weird kid. i watched the 22 minute movie they showed at the visitor's center, all about the explosion in 1980. and the film ended with "now we must learn from the lessons of mt. st. helens" - communication was spotty, preparedness was low, coordination was lousy, and it all sounded like katrina. and i kept thinking - HAVE we learned anything? or are we so shortsighed that we never learn from these things? sheesh.

then made it to maddy yesterday (friday). hanging with maddy is good for my soul. honestly, she's a kindred spirit of the highest degree. we saw a show last night - bluegrass in seattle. this FABULOUS band called the clumsy lovers from vancouver, bc. their show was SO high energy, and they had a female fiddler who was whooping and kicking and dancing/fiddling on the bar. the whole place was jumping. a great, great show. i'm smiling just thinking about it.



(pics - maddy'n jess; maddy'n steph - a frisbee friend - and maddy'n jess again)

today has been pretty chill, BUT tonight we're going to a wedding party, and i WILL wear both a pink dress AND my pink cowboy boots. fashion rules be damned!

oh, and nicolas cage is a weirdo

he named his newborn son kal-el. which, as everyone knows, is superman's name on his native krypton. duh.

tahoe-ty

very cool ski town. another gorgeous day in tahoe today. connected with an old smithie friend - sara riggles - with whom i'll stay tomorrow night in portland, or. can't wait! wish i could stay here a little longer, but the epic trip marches on. after portland, up to seattle to visit maddy then back down (tim will be helping me with that leg) to piedmont, ca. where the job hunt begins!

this place *is* a little strange. everyone knows/dates/hangs out with everyone else. it's a little incestuous. like 90210.

yesterday i got a massage at lighthouse massage here in tahoe city, ca. it was amazing. absolutely the best thing i could have done for myself. nancy pate, the therapist (who is, by the way, fabulous), taught me all about how everything in our bodies is connected to everything else. for example, lately i've been clenching my jaw while i sleep (stress!), and nancy was explaining how when your jaw is tight, your hips also tend to be tight for some reason. and it affects headaches, lowerbackaches, everything. soooo interesting. and after 2 weeks of driving, my body needed some serious pampering. amazing how driving a stick shift gives me a particularly sore spot on the left side of my lower back. marit and i also went to a yoga class today, which was JUST what my mind and body needed. something relaxing but also energizing and healthy. so, this has been a wonderfully restful time.




oh, here are some pics! some of the lake and marina here, which really doesn't do it all justice. and one of marit hard at work at syd's bagel and coffee shop here in town.

MARSHALL! marit and i rented 'the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy' last night, and i FINALLY got all of your singing 'thanks for all the fish' references. what a revelation. cute film.

busted flat in salt lake

as dad and i blearily walked to our rain-soaked car yesterday (monday) morning for the drive to the airport (for him) and tahoe (for me), my heart SANK. ugh. a flat - front right tire. about time. we got about 50k miles out of them. went over to the firestone store and bought two new front tires. thank goodness john "no big deal" mele was there to help me handle it.

then took dad to the airport and i was off - across northern utah and nevada. it was a LOOONG drive. driving way to fast and getting way too slap happy (um..some of you may have heard from me during that trip. i was getting a little loopy. And called a few folks). was only able to take the two following pics: the salt flats in utah. breathtakingly bizarre. and the mountains of nevada. breathtakingly vast. though i accidentally caught this tractor trailer in the pic.




at one of the rest areas, i had a lovely conversation with an older gentleman in a cowboy hat. he saw my plates and asked "are you really from massachusetts?" i said, "yep." and he said "i had a buddy in vietnam who was from around there. i used to love to listen to him talk. you don't have the accent, though." (people usually tell me this. it used to be a point of pride, but now i kind of wish i'd given in to the dialect of my childhood - "idear" and "bubblah" and all that). we chatted for a while. he lives about 100 miles from an already remote town off of I-80 in nevada. 100 people in the town. but plots are being sold all the time - lots of people from california trying to get away from...other people. i think this is a little too extreme for me, though. i need to be able to walk to the corner store. i need to have a corner store.

finally - TAHOE! got my butt kicked at poker last night (hey, it was my first time playing!), and then went for two beautiful walks this morning. first up a huge hill (ouch), then through some meadows and forest. here's a pic of marit balancing stealthily on her favorite woodland beam.

and this one's of me - gleeful to be a) NOT in a car b) OUTSIDE! c) Exercising!

hm...maybe i can take some yoga classes while I'm here. hm...........




it is so wonderful to see marit here. (She moved from boston in april, and is my best friend leia's evil twin....i mean...sister). most of her friends are in similar situations - seasonal workers in their 20s, enjoying the outdoorsy atmosphere, but many of them are feeling stuck career-wise. they're talking about moving to san fran. hm...