drama queen

 so my coworker wrote this email to the ops department. i'll let you figure out what i contributed to the email.

Hello,
 Our office has been way too cold for the last several months. Can we please have the temp adjusted to be slightly warmer (obviously don’t want it to get too warm either).
 “I’m so cold I want to cry but I’m worried the tears would freeze on my face.”-- Officemate Please let me know if there is any other information we can provide to help fix this situation.
 Thanks so much,

carpooling

since i started my new job, i've been able to start taking doing the casual carpool thing. save me money that i'd be spending on BART, and it's way faster getting to work. the driver saves money on the bridge tolle and time taking the carpool lane. the environment is conserved. everyone wins.

i usually hop in the car and space out on my ipod. that said, it's still an adventure each morning seeing who i'll end up riding with.on more than one morning, i've thought to myself "i'm going to die on the bay bridge with a bunch of strangers." some of the cars are pretty nice with leather interior. then there was the morning i got into the front seat of a beaten up modern volkswagen beetle. i settled in, looked up and saw that the glove compartment was partially held closed with a bit of wire, from the handle to the vent of on the dashboard. that was one of the mornings i thought i was going to die in a tiny car. sometimes the other passengers i wait in line with are a little odd. this one guy i've seen a few times always wears a photographer's vest, the kind with the millions pockets, and carries an over stuffed messenger bag that he can barely close. he looks like the unabomber. the other day he got in line, pulled a belt out of his bag and proceeded to put it on. i didn't understand why he couldn't have done that before he left the house. i understand if you are in a hurry, but if you can make it down the street without the pants falling down, you don't really need the belt anyway, right?

most drivers play NPR or something sort of talk radio in the car. last week, i got in a car, and i realized that the man was playing a "how to play the guitar" cd. kind of odd. especially when the cd refers extensively to the workbook you should be looking at for the chord progressions while you are PLAYING THE GUITAR, not DRIVING A CAR. he played it the whole 25 minutes it took to get over the bridge. in between chord progressions, the cd played the same 2 minute track of music that you were supposed to learn. what? i don't get it.

this morning i rode in the back of a convertible mini cooper. top down. which was kind of awesome, only i didn't wear a jacket this morning because it was such a nice day. i almost froze to death going over the bridge if it weren't for the extra sweater the driver happened to have in the backseat.

that's about it. i'll see you on the blog again in a few months. ha!

load 16 tons and what do you get?

well, i'm two weeks in at a new job. surprise!
yeah, i left my job at a smallish non-profit and now work at a large name brand corporation. if you want to know which one you can email me and ask. the funding picture had become precarious, and i'd been kind of feeling the itch to leave for some time and not sure what to do/where to go. a friend who worked at the corporation encouraged me to apply for a contract position, as that was how he'd gotten hired on full-time. so i did, and now i find myself in the umpteenth different job/career path. again. next i will join the circus. i feel pretty good about it though.
to say that it is a change is an understatement. my old job had 9 people in the whole organization. now, gosh, i have no idea how many people work at this company. way more than nine. i have a photo badge that i have to swipe at the gate on the ground floor to get past the front desk. i'm learning a whole new vocabulary and process for my job and it makes my brain hurt sometimes, but i've realized that i like figuring things out and it's fast paced, so it's been good to give my head a workout. i'm looking forward to getting to know my new coworkers, that's what keeps me entertained/engaged at work.

jellyfish addendum

talking to my quasi-nephew, ping (he's 6), the other day:

me: hey ping, what color are jellyfish?
ping: clear!

there ya go.

last week, i went to one of those after-hours museum events, where they keep it open late play loud music and serve booze, so you can drink with your friends and learn stuff at the same time.

i was in the aquarium section of the Academy of Sciences, and staring at this really cool tank of jellyfish. such intricate-looking creatures. these two dudes walk up next to me, and one says to his buddy something like, "oh cool they're like chameleons!" my eyes got really big at hearing this, because these particular jellyfish were translucent - there were lights in the tank that periodically changed colors to red and blue and green and such (like how some cheesy hot tubs have these lights that change colors).

i stood there a little longer to see if he realized what he just said. then i hear, "how do they know to change to the same color at the same time?" waited 5 more seconds to see if his buddy would say anything, which he did not. then i had to leave quickly to get around the corner to start laughing really hard and find my friends to tell them about it. oh man.

the parentals

i stopped by my parents' house the other day to say hi. still seems weird to say that, even though i moved out several months ago. anyway, they were in rare form.

my dad was in the backyard gardening. in a sombrero. the sombrero that chevy's fresh mex gives you when it's your birthday. said sombrero was given to my youngest brother david at least 12 years ago, because it appeared to be a child-size sombrero from the way it was perched atop my dad's head. it had ben gathering dust in one of my brothers' old rooms for a while. granted, it was cinco de mayo, so maybe he was feeling festive.

then when i got up off the couch to leave, my mom walked past me holding a perfume sample that she had pulled out of a magazine. while she was saying goodbye to me, she proceeded to rub the sample all over our poor family cat, bosco. i was floored - that can't be good for the cat. she said some thing like, "now when i pet her, she smells good." as far as i could tell, bosco had no smell. at least, no smell that needed to be covered by some random perfume sample.

lord only knows what else is happening at home. amazing.

fireside chats

i don't have a tv at my new place. i have one back in danville, but i haven't been particularly motivated to bring it over.

since the baseball season started, i've been listening to the baseball game most nights. switching between the a's and giants. it's been fun.  i putter around and make dinner with the game in the background. good times. feels very 1940's.

it's saturday night, i'm listening to the livestream of Coachella on Youtube (Bon Iver! Radiohead!), and i'm finishing up my notes for teaching at high school youth group tomorrow. this is an optimistic estimation. i will probably be up for a while still mulling things over.

writing an essay or story makes me commit words to a page and i stick by them; rather, it is that i can just put the paper down, walk off and not have to be there when someone reads it. my notes for public speaking are like an early draft of a story; and i always think of other things to say or add while i'm actually teaching and people are looking at me, i can't just stick to what i have done on the page, and that's when i start sweating profusely, if i haven't already been doing so. good times.

so it's about doubt, and wondering why God is silent with us sometimes, basically. it is infuriating when that happens, yes? among other feelings/adjectives. i have to say though, even though sometimes i wish otherwise, that i love following a God that is mysterious, one that i can't figure out or outgrow, than one that has just laid out everything for me in a checklist, so to speak. man, sometimes i'd really love a checklist, rather than feeling like i'm stumbling around in the dark. but where is the faith in that? i've got most of my notes, and who knows what i'll add in when it comes to me (hopefully not much) but this quote from anne lamott (who i think i love, among many reasons, because she writes about how bad she is at being a christian and i'm like, amen, sister)will make it in there somewhere:

"I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me--that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”

i saw and heard anne lamott read from her newest book tonight, Some Assembly Required, a memoir of her grandson's first year. she remains the only writer who has made me laugh out loud when i read her words.

as wonderful and inspiring as it is to hear her, which i have done so a few times now - it's great to be in the same area as her - i also leave feeling pretty chickenshit about my lack of writing practice. which sucks - i have only myself to blame for that.

life just seems to get in the way. not even good stuff like traveling, or like a really good date, or hell, i don't know, wrestling an alligator. it's getting home after work and being tired even though you sat in a chair all day. or paying the bills and fretting over debt. or freakin' facebook sucking you in and then suddenly it's super late and you need to get up way too soon to go sit in a chair again all day. it's numbing and hard to pay attention to what is going on around you - the ordinary and extraordinary that provide the material to write.

lately

not much to report. i got a cat. keep your cat lady jokes to yourself. seriously. not appreciated. also not true.

i named her rhubarb because i like both the word and the vegetable itself. especially in pies. anyway, she is super cute and it's nice to have some interaction when i get home to my place. i was sick with a bad cold early in march, and there's only so much netflix you can watch when you are laid up. seriously. also having this little creature keeps me from being too slobby. not just because i clean up after her, but i also can't leave a pile of clothes on the floor of my closet because she'd probably burrow right in and make herself at home. rhubarb is 2 years old and she came from a hoarder situation apparently, that's what they told me at the spca. and she was at the shelter for 2 months and then another month at the spca while they treated her being malnourished and an ear infection. she's had a hard go of it so far. it's been cool to see her relax more into the space here. the first night, she wouldn't leave the box and now she sleeps at the foot of my bed.

what you expected me to talk about work and other life details? i have to tell you, it's not that exciting. and who wants to hear me complain. rhubarb is way more fun.

i also got this sweet bike with this cool green paint job. my friend suggested that i name it chard, in keeping with leafy vegetables. chard... sounds like it would be a boys name. like one of sarah palin's children. ha! rhubarb and chard. together they are also known as 'tax refund'.

wondering when i will not feel like i am in a constant state of "in between-ness"

haven't been in the best mood of late. lots going on. saw this on dooce.com and i really liked it. makes me want to have my own dance party and start throwing stuff around too.

Mikhael Paskalev - I spy from André Chocron on Vimeo.

after mooching off my parents for most of the last 5 years and scoring sweet house-sitting gigs here and there along the way, i have finally secured a little studio in oakland to call my own. for a year, anyway. i look forward to using my car less, getting a bike, and not feeling like a loser mooching off my parents. and so on. thankful for having a roof over my head for the last few years, and wondering what this next season will look like.