Tuesday, April 28, 2009

pfft is the sound of the day

I had forgotten why I rarely allow myself to eat beans until today when I ate them for both lunch and dinner. Wait a second, I don't even think I ate them for dinner.

Beans, beans the magical fruit
The more you eat, the more you...

Beans aren't fruit, but you get the picture. Sometimes I feel as though I'm a 5 year old trapped in a 20 year old's body.

Monday, April 27, 2009

discipline

"I'll tell you once, I won't tell you twice.
You'd better wise up, Janet Weiss."

Though entirely unrelated to education, these wise words of Dr. Frank N. Furter resonate with me. Lately I've been feeling all too ignorant about, well, most everything. Some of this weekend's events were a real thorn in my side and made me realize I've got to spend less time on the Internet and more time reading, watching good movies, and improving my crafty skills. More sleep will be needed. More time will be needed. Where to find this time comes in the reorganization of exisiting time. There's a word for it, and the word is discipline.

Russian Hill

On Saturday my friend Mai and I met up to do some rummage/estate sale shopping. We're walking up Union Street from Van Ness, half-way up a very steep hill, when she says, "I don't know if this is a mirage, but does that sign up there say 'Ice Cream'?" I laughed so so so hard I could barely keep walking. The reason I laughed so so so hard was because I was also thinking that ice cream sounded really good right then.

Later we explored some cute shops along Polk and made our way to Nick's Crispy Tacos for a couple tacos and strawberry agua frescas. Getting it "Nick's Way" is definitely worth the extra 95 cents. One of the shops had some parakeets in a pretty antique dome-topped cage. I began to think I wanted to get myself some birds to keep me company in my room. Prone to following my impulses and regretting them later, I gave it more thought. This is what I came up with:

1. Birds are noisy.
2. Cleaning up bird shit isn't fun.
3. They shit a lot.
4. I have little space in my room for a large bird cage.
5. My room is an arctic tundra, which means that they'd probably die the first night I got them.

So for the time-being I've decided not to get birds. I guess I just really miss having animals in my life. What about fish?

After chowing down on our favorite tacos, we stopped into Loving Cup, a cute little dessert shop we came across on our treck up the hill. They specialize in rice pudding and fro-yo, but also have smoothies, coffee, espresso, and cupcakes. The fro-yo was absolutely scrumptious! You have your choice of vanilla, chocolate, or non-dairy and the price includes one topping. They put a disk of packaged fro-yo into this industrial drill machine, add the topping(s), and it comes out the bottom and drops into your cup. It's truly brilliant for the ingredients are mixed into each bite. I ordered chocolate with strawberries (because I neglected to see raspberries on the list) and the strawberries were blended up so tiny and perfect and infused the chocolate with so much strawberry flavor I was in heaven. Heads up my vegan friends - I will be taking you here soon!

Friday, April 24, 2009

homemade vs. packaged cupcakes

After alerting me to the fact that someone farted, my friend and classmate Elbert follows with a text saying "I only eat baked goods by Allyson". As if that wasn't enough to brighten up my day, he says "You're a budding Martha sans jail time."

I gotta get me some street cred, stat.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

learning to deal

Life brings disappointments. Recently several people cancelled on me at the last moment. Different groups of friends, various situations. "People have people problems," said my friend Jeramie in reference to tattoo appointment cancellations. This can be applied to less formal agreements too, and I get it. I get that people aren't bound by contract to arrangements made with others. Shit happens, things come up. I'm more understanding than some people think I am.

Sometimes I feel as though I take commitments more seriously than most people I know. I prefer my word to mean something. Disappointing people isn't what I like to do, because I know how they feel when they get that call, receive that text, read that e-mail. Now that's not to say I'm not occasionally guilty of the same. When it comes down to it though, a track record of not following through with plans really says a lot about someone.

What upsets me more than these cancellations themselves, however, is when friends wait until they are contacted to let me know they aren't going to make it. It's day of, I check in, and they say they can't make it and give some excuse (honest or fabricated), if I'm even that lucky. Sorry, but one doesn't decide they don't want to do x, y or z upon hearing from me. "I wasn't born yesterday," my mom likes to say.

Perhaps I need to learn to let these things roll off my back. Let myself be unphased. But I've tried it, and it doesn't work. Lower my expectationss for friends and family? Maybe that's the next thing to try.

Monday, April 13, 2009

let my modeling career begin - not.

I received a friend request on Myspace from a guy I barely talked to when I was in high school. He had already graduated. We haven't spoken but a few times here and there at parties (a few years ago), and this is what he writes:

"hey! havent talked to you in a while. may i paint you in a very couture pose? i would really appreciate a chance to :)"

Sorry buddy. No thanks.

back to life, back to reality

This past weekend was a weekend of absurdity. I went camping in Manresa Beach near Santa Cruz with Brittany and her friends Mike and Eden. Thursday night we left San Francisco, car loaded to the hilt with sleeping bags, propane, and enough bagels to last us a lifetime. Driving down Highway 1 in total darkness, two cop cars pull out behind us. Here we are with two missing seatbelts, several forties, and another item I choose to leave nameless. Brittany slows down, but to what MPH? There are no speed limit signs to be found. Two cars in front of us don't seem to notice the cops because they are quite a ways ahead of us, and progressing in distance. We figure the cop is tired of our slow speed because he pulls around us, in between our car and the speeding car in front of us. Then, all of a sudden, both cop cars pull over the two speeding cars, leaving us free to go on our merry way!

It was 9pm by the time we got to our campsite. Pitching a tent in pure darkness save two flashlights wasn't what Brittany and Mike thought possible, but I have faith in my tent pitching abilities. Ten minutes down and one tent up. Here's what our beautiful camp site looked like:


The next morning, though it was entirely too windy, we walked down to the beach and layed out on the sand for a while until a greyhound puppy that looked like a rat came running up to Brittany and licked her face. She's terrified of rats.


I found a sand dollar. I like sand dollars. I wish they weren't so brittle.




Upon returning to the campsite we had a visitor. A cute collie that I guessed to be about six years old came wandering up to me, lost. Brittany started freaking out yet again and Mike could care less, so I knew it was up to me to find its owner. I walked around our site and there was nobody to be found. The little dog didn't have a collar, so being the Detective Olivia Benson that I strive to be, I gathered evidence: (1) its fur was too clean to be a stray, (2) it must be well fed because it didn't eat or drink anything I offered it, (3) it responded well to words beginning with the letter B, and (4) it had partial cataracts in its right eye.

From this I was lead to believe that what had crossed my path was the world's first ever gender queer dog. Needless to say I wasn't in my right frame of mind. Also, I surmised that it should be named something starting with "B" so it would listen to me, which it already did so well. After trying out such names as Bumble and Britches, I settled on Beastie. Much to my chagrin, newly named Beastie then lifted its leg and pissed on a bush. My former gender queer dog now became male and slightly less cool.



Adding to the list of absurdities, I walked out of the bathroom the next morning to find a chain gang of orange jumpsuit-clad prisoners walking past me. I later learned they were day laborers from the Vacaville state prison working for $1 per person, per day. The chainsawing went on until sundown.

Monday, April 6, 2009

roommates

A few days ago I was laying on my bed, deep in thought and thoroughly enjoying life, when I turned my head to the right and found this beast hidden behind a picture frame on my bookshelf. My roommates and I have this running prank of sorts which involves hiding this creature, whatever it may be, in each other's rooms. The point is to be sneaky about it, never letting on that it was you who in fact hid it under their pillow, propped it up on their desk chair, or hid it on their closet shelf. The latter is how I first became aware of this running household joke. I thought it was a present for me, albeit an undesired present, from my roommate who had just gotten back from a trip to Thailand. Luckily my assumption was incorrect, but it sure would have beat being startled by this thing every once in a while.



Wednesday, April 1, 2009

such is life

Nothing lost, plenty learned. Just the way I like it.

Also, happy birthday Jenna and Dustin!!