The second hardest, I think, was over the zillionty euphemisms and inappropriate scenarios we dreamt up for what would happen this afternoon. I had to take out a life insurance policy w USAA, and they’re sending a doc TO MY APARTMENT to do the physical. Alan won’t be here, so when he jokingly asked me “what if the doctor is young and hot”, I told him, “well then I’ll have to remember to shave my va-jay”. It got progressively more disgusting from there. I’m pretty sure it escalated until I shouted out THE ARISTOCRATS, and we did the Drew Carey finger-snap thing, and laughed until our sides ached.

(update: he was old, and chubby.)

But so anyway, Monday night, for no discernible reason, we simultaneously realized OMG WE HAVE TO MAKE AMARETTO SOURS TONIGHT FROM SCRATCH. Like divine intervention. I have no idea where we dreamed up this notion (who even drinks those?), but by golly, THEY ARE SO GOOD from scratch, and pretty simple to make. We killed the whole bottle. Yup, this is married life on Mondays, folks.

amaretto mondays!

moon

goth wine

Then from the minute I woke up yesterday I knew something was wacky. Class was agony, and I knew my afternoon would be spent self-flagellating with a gender-studies textbook for my midterm, AND I forgot my ID to go to the gym after class. When I got home I was already pissy, so Alan suggested a quick bike ride to take the edge off before we delved into our homework.

When we got to the basement and saw the empty spot on the wall where Alan’s bike used to be, we just stood there, agape. I mean. Stunned. For full minutes.

Once we came back to life, we retraced all of Alan’s actions since the previous Wednesday, to make sure he didn’t have some kind of PTSD moment and leave his bike hitched at the school and accidentally hoof it home. No bike.

We came back down to Haight Street and found an officer SO blase I wondered if he even has a central nervous system, which didn’t do much to ease my LIVIDITY about the fact that ONLY one of my FUCKING NEIGHBORS could have taken the bike — sorry, OR one of the guests to their obnoxiously raucous party on Saturday night.  Whatevs.

YOU’RE STEALING FROM A WAR VETERAN, COCKSUCKER. I HOPE IT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD.

my bike's new home

In fact, I think I’ll leave a sign to that effect on the newly-vacant spot on the wall in the basement, in case the thief DOES live here. Look out, passiveaggressivenotes.com, here I apparently come.

So instead of finishing our homework, we decided we’d earned a few beers. And Bryce, our new favorite odd duck, and favorite member of the Veterans club BY FAR, joined us. $2 Tuesdays at 440. By 9pm we were dancing to Madonna, flirting with Brad, and judging beard competitions, and all was well again with the world.

Bryce!

beard contests

they had official ballots and everything

reasons i love gay bars: the inexplicable shit on the TVs.

So anyway. Work tonight, class tomorrow, midterm on Friday, work on Saturday and Sunday, and then it’s spring break. I guess I’ll make it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some rotten produce to fling at the kid on the corner who’s been screaming emo songs circa 2001 outside my fucking bedroom door for a week.

symbiosis

]]> http://www.burnmybiscuits.com/2010/03/im-thinking-of-becoming-an-arsonist/feed/ 2 http://www.burnmybiscuits.com/2010/03/haight-street-wisdom-2/ http://www.burnmybiscuits.com/2010/03/haight-street-wisdom-2/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:18:03 +0000 Amy http://www.burnmybiscuits.com/?p=3572

earth view

So yesterday I was at the post office. I was dressed in plain skinny corduroys, with a striped, ripped purple tee and some converse. A hipster’s day off, one could call the look. Anyway, chick in front of me was wearing a coat, white tights, and the MF funkiest shoes I have EVER seen. They were pumps with all kinds of rich, 80’s bridesmaid dress colors in stripes and spots and contrasting levels of shininess. They WERE the party. Behind me stood a 70-year-old woman, thereabouts.

When the funky shoes girl got called to the counter, gramma behind me came really close to my ear and said, “Some shoes, eh?” I could tell by her tone she was not condemning the shoes. She wanted the shoes.

“Oh yeah. If I owned those, I would wear them every day. I would wear those shoes to bed.”

“Tell me about it. Sadly, I can’t think of a time in my life that could be described in terms of those shoes.”

“Meanwhile, I have a closet full of swanky heels I never get to wear in this city.”

“Oh I know, sweetie. These birkenstocks aren’t because I’m some hippie. They’re because my feet have flattened out like Sasquatch!”

Then we giggled like girls, and I got called to the counter.

Ya know, life really IS like Seinfeld. But only in the city. In the ‘burbs, maybe, everyone is too afraid ANYONE could be crazy and stab you in the face. In cities, perhaps especially SF, the distinction seems pretty clear. You can chat with the chick at the post office, because the crazy ones you should be scared of are the ones loitering outside the door waiting to ask you for your change, and smelling like they haven’t bathed since Seinfeld was still making episodes.

And it’s great, because people really come up with some zingers.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to the campus early to return my copy of Tropic of Cancer.

I’ve been meaning to pimp IAVA.org. If you’re a veteran, or will be at any point in the future, you need to hook up with these guys. IAVA is an amazing example of how politics in this country was intended to work. It’s a totally grassroots organization, started by one dude, that decided that vets need more representation in the government because their needs weren’t being met.

They address issues of education (see also: new GI bill), health (mental and physical), as well as issues surrounding the stretched-to-the-VERY-LIMITS VA system.

The magic of IAVA is that they exist almost completely on the internet. They have no central office (well, technically they do, but it’s NOT like the VA where they have a sketchy pad in every town), they have no mailing address, they have no weekly meetings. When Alan and I first heard about it, it sounded really spam-y. But the more we got involved, we realized that it NEEDS to be no strings attached to get things done. The beauty is THEY ARE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE.

So, if you’ve ever tried contacting the VA or anyone about the GI Bill, you know that A) you will never get through to a human on the phone and B) once you do, you won’t understand WTF they’re saying, BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW, probably. So, IAVA is there to answer your questions.

Like in this tweet, from founder and Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff:

Or these tweets, possibly his most important ever.

It is genius because HE GOES TO THE KIDS, instead of asking the kids to come to him once a week in a depressing church basement somewhere. He uses social media, WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE, to raise important issues that the talking heads on CNN will never address, because they have no idea those issues are going on. Dude is ALL OVER twitter, facebook, flickr, Ning, and anywhere else there is a veteran who feels like he’s all alone wishing he knew why nobody in this fucking country realizes that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are in their seventh and eight years respectively. They are making some seriously necessary noise on behalf of the kids who have been taught they are voiceless.

So what do they do? Well, right now they just did a west-coast tour, wherein Paul Rieckhoff met with facebook and microsoft, and several other companies to create job initiatives for veterans. He hosted a totally kick ass open bar event at a tequila bar downtown for SF Bay area vets to all get together and meet one another. And he’s headed down to LA on Wednesday, and San Diego on Friday you guys, so, Veterans (& SOs) be there or kindly be square.

And look out Texas: you’re next. March 16th.

Anyway, here. Watch this video:

coins. yeah, they're still doin' that.

CAN YOU GUYS TELL I HAD LIKE 26 FREE MARGARITAS?

oh, yeah, i'll do some tequila

TEQUILA! YOU TRICKED ME AGAIN!

idiot

okay but srsly let's take a picture

boys will be... adorable.

Mr. Bryce, lookin' dapper, as always

beatbox

The man himself - Mr. Paul Rieckhoff

?

the space

proof of an open bar.

set here, if you haven’t seen it by now.

THAT SAID. Men, I have issues with you today. I have issues with your movement. Maybe it’s because I just spoke this morning on the men’s movement, so it’s fresh in my mind. Maybe it’s because I never truly feel like I fit the female gender role. Maybe it’s because, stereotype of stereotypes, I’m on my period.

Look. Until men ROUTINELY go through what I just went through on what should have been a VERY SIMPLE BIKE RIDE, I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it.

9 miles. That’s here, to Ocean Beach, and back. The whole way through and back, every time I passed a man on a bench, I’d get a DAMN or a WOO or some kind of noise or SOMETHING, which, I get it, they mean as a compliment, but I’m sorry, it’s not a fucking compliment, it’s invasive, it’s intrusive, IT MAKES WOMEN FEEL DIRTY, and not the good kind of dirty.

THEN, I get to the beach. My Friday routine is: bike to the beach, weather permitting, lock up the bike, meander around until I find a cozy spot, and sit on the wall. Then, I wouldn’t quite call it “meditation”, per se, but I like to close my eyes for ten good, deep breaths. I try to find a tiny piece of zen, and when I start to feel cold, I steel myself for the uphill ride back, and off I go.

I found a good lookin’ spot. I sat. I became aware of some studmuffin over to my right. He was being obvious. He was trying to get my attention. I was trying to ignore him. Normal looking dude, borderline cute, even, in a stocky, Seth Rogan kind of way. Not uncute. But annoying. I was intentionally looking in the other direction.

After a few minutes I must have forgotten he was there, because I turned my head back in his direction, and GET THIS, he pretended he just HAPPENED to turn the GIANT viewfinder binocular thingy

ya know, one of these kajiggers

at me as I turned around, and said something SO LAME like OH HEY THERE as if it was completely accidental. I ignored. I was seething. But I ignored.

I forced myself to shut off and stop thinking about the douchebag. It’s been a rough day. When I finally decided it was time to go, I was walking back to my bike, and I noticed, but barely paid attention to, some dude laying on a bench. As I walked by, he piped up: SO WE MEET AGAIN. I turned at him and said, you just don’t fucking give up, do you? Then, I’m pretty sure he called me a cunt under his breath.

It was mean and I feel bad for being so rude, because it’s not his fault that he was the 5th (THE FIFTH) man to make a comment at (i say at because I don’t really feel like it’s directed toward me the same way it would be if it was intended to start a conversation) me while I was at the beach, but I also don’t feel that bad, because, DUDE, I fucking ignored you five times, don’t try six! I’m not here to talk to you! I don’t have to flirt back if I don’t want to! I’m in my fucking gym clothes! This isn’t fucking speed dating, I’m not sitting on a barstool at happy hour, I didn’t even make eye contact with you. ON PURPOSE.

And the insult to injury part? There was guy about two wall sections down, super cute, muscley, blond (like me). Dressed in workout clothes (like me), alone (like me), sitting on the wall (like me), eyes closed and clearly meditating (like me)… and ya know what? Not a single person bothered him. UNLIKE ME.

/friday night rant

So, I will impart these wisdoms unto you, gentle readers, so that you too may grow wiser.

Just now, I was laying around moaning about my hangover that i STILL have, windows flung ajar, allowing the incoming breeze to carry away the tequila sweat moist on my furrowed brow, and I overheard a female voice exclaim,

“And I heard, like, your tongue is like the fastest growing organ in your body. Isn’t that so like disgusting?”

I decided to fact-check this one. A google search yielded this helpful answer:

I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

Well, in terms of biking places / hills, 4 miles in SF is like 10 miles anywhere else. I would fling around a bunch of hyperbole to try to impress upon you the magnitude and sheer pants-shitting intimidating-ness of SF’s hill scene, but you just can’t believe it until you see it. Also, I’ve only had a bike again for two weeks. Save the TWO rides we went on in August before our old bikes were stolen, I hadn’t really been on a bike ride since I used to bike to work when I lived in Alaska in 2008. I told Alan he might have to carry me home, but I tried to stay confident and off we went.

I was right. The ride got super hilly over in The Mission, and I thought my fucking heart was going to explode. I made it all the way into the Bernal Heights neighborhood, but it turns out the park we were shooting for is at the top of the MF craziest hill I’ve ever seen. I put my foot down, we locked the bikes to a light pole, and up we tredged.

OH RLY THNX

broken teeth

this is URBAN SAN FRANCISCO, people. Not, like, rural mountain town. So bizzarro.

gravesite

disembodied cherub heads

the rig

So, I dunno how well you can se the setup there, but The Fry is girth hitched to Alan’s bike frame. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Especially with a dog who is hard-wired to be ALWAYS chasing something, even if it’s, oh, say, a car, or another person on a bike, or a pigeon. Anytime someone or something passes Fry he starts whining and whimpering like he’s being whipped, and he takes off as fast as his little legs will carry him. Or, I should say, as fast as his legs will carry him AND ALAN’S BIKE, because HUBS DON’T PEDAL when he’s hitched to The Fry. So yeah, the dog dragged him about 9 miles, plus all the running the little dude did at the actual park.

Unfortunately, he’s still being trained to be good at doing this, so he still doesn’t understand when NOT to charge into an intersection, what “FRY GO” means (he’s almost been run over a few dozen times), and that it’s much safer to run on the PARKED car side of the bike. The most hilarious thing by FAR though, is when he suddenly has to poop, but realizes that he can’t stop running, so he kinda scoots, which is like a half-squat, half run, half pooping. Like an augmented bunny-hop. It’s amazing.

Alan’s burnin’ through those breaks! That’s for sure.

He’ll get better. All things considered, he’s learning really fast. It’s hard to train him to understand what we’re doing, because it’s so dangerous, so there’s a lot of panicked yelling on our part, which Caesar tells me is the FAIL way to train a dog. We have to get better at remembering to bring treats and stuff. We’re trying to do it in shorter, calmer bursts, like yesterday: we were doing homework, the weather picked up in the afternoon, so we went 15 minutes out into GG Park, and 15 minutes back, tons of praising for The Fry.

(Which means that yesterday I: 1) Walked to school and back [a little over a mile], 2) Had a full, hour long weight routine 3) ran a 10-minute mile immediately after said weight routine and 4) and biked for 30 minutes in the afternoon for no good reason. NEXT TIME, RIDE TO BERNAL HEIGHTS, YOU WILL BE MINE.)

Oh the whole, he loves it. He’s definitely a worker dog, and he loves having a job like this to do. I have even heard a few slack-jawed yokels remark, THAT IS THE WORLD’S HAPPIEST DOG.

The looks we get from passers-by make it all worth it, though. The range goes from pointing and laughing, to incredulous stares, horrified gaping… I really think some people see it as cruel to the dog, but HoMahGah, spend a DAY trying to get this MFer all the exercise he needs, and we’ll talk about who pulls who on the bike.

So but so, I walked it up most of the big hills on the way home. It was rough. Anyway. Some more BH photoz:

woof

green

high on a hill was a lonely goatherd

treasure island

twin peaks

blue specks

me.

Tonight, the IAVA is holding an event at a tequila bar to which we have been invited. I have to play Army Wife. AT A TEQUILA BAR.

I’ll let ya know if I make it to class tomorrow.

click for large

You’re welcome to participate!

Today, I’m like, FORGET IT, it’s gotten sunny every day this week when it was supposed to rain, and GUESS WHO’S SOAKED:

this guy.

On a completely unrelated note, I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone the other day, and I told this story, which is, I realized while telling it, tear-inducing-ly funny, so I thought I’d tell you guys. It’s a hilarious tale of my in-laws inherent wackiness spanning over three years. First, some background on my Dad-in-law:

WoW

He’s a cop. A 6′4″, 300-lb, Super-Troopers-style cop named Ralph. Hilarious already, right? Well, he’s loud, he has a New York accent thick as molasses, and his most commonly uttered phrase wrt stories about his job is, “I would have arrested him, but I didn’t feel like filling out the paperwork.” Usually, it’s some variation, like, “I mean, I saw him start climbing out of the window of the patrol car, and I PROBABLY could have grabbed his foot, but then it would have been SO MUCH paperwork. He wasn’t getting far with the ankle cuffs on anyhow.” He’s abrasive, he’s the toss-you-in-the-pool-with-your-clothes-on guy at all the parties, he’s a gamer nerd, and he loves fart jokes. Great guy. Hysterically fun to be around.

Anyway, so two Christmases ago (I guess that’s 2007), we were visiting the in-laws, and Alan, me, and my sister-in-law Sarah were all in the kitchen cleaning up, and Alan asked if the dishwasher was dirty or clean (why can men never tell? It’s so OBVIOUS). I responded. Now, I have a tendency to talk WAY too fast, so when I tried to say, “It’s dirty. Ralph just loaded it.”, the sentence came out more like, “Dirty Ralph loaded it.” Sarah turned around slowly with eyes wide and asked with alarmed sincerity, “Dirty Ralph?”

And the three of us LOST it. Doubled over, wheezing, dying laugher. This has been Ralph’s nickname ever since.

Okay. Flash forward to Christmas 2008. We were buying gifts for the fam before we came home for our yearly Christmas visit, and Alan and I had been puzzling and puzzling over what to get Ralph. He’s a hard guy to shop for. He pretty much plays WoW and works. At some point, I had a brilliant idea:

“What if we got him a case of deodorant?”

“I GET IT – BECAUSE HE’S DIRTY RALPH! Also, how practical.”

Laughter ensues. Well, we did it. We went on like overstock.com or something and ordered him a case of deodorant. Christmas Day comes, big hit, we all have a good laugh.

FLASH FORWARD AGAIN, Christmas 2009, a whole year removed from the case-of-deodorant gift-o-rama. We’re at the house the second day or so, and Alan asks to borrow my deodorant. Since I sweat like a farm-worker 24/7, I use the $7/stick “medicated” kind which doesn’t fucking do anything, so I was like, babe, we have to go to King Kullen (supermarket) and get you some. Mine’s too expensive for us both to use all the time.

A few hours later, I’m in the living room, Alan goes down the hall to ask Ralph if he can borrow the car keys. Why?

“Oh, we have to run to King Kullen to pick up some deodorant for me.” Says Alan.

Ralph goes, “Oh, we have some extra in the hall closet.”

I overhear Alan open the closet door and say, with puzzlement, “Who buys their deodorant in bulk? God Ralph, you’re so weird!”

….. a few beats go by. Ralph catches on.

“I’M the weird one? For fuck’s sake, don’t you remember last Christmas?”

:Alan and Amy fall down laughing:

The three years of planning were worth it for just that one moment. I’m stifling a chuckle here in the library just thinking about how hysterically funny that moment was. I dunno why I didn’t tell you sooner.

Also, it’s almost Friday.