Friday Night Whine Fest; Or, Trainspiration

Have I told you that my commute is approximately 1.5 hours door to door? It's likely you've been made privy to this thrilling information because it seems like I can talk of nothing else. It's unlikely you've heard because oh, right, I never post.

My sorry excuse is that working+commuting+sleeping is not the perfect formula for inspiration or creativity. I may be inspired to, say, elbow somebody on the train in the teeth for letting their mouth hang open to release -- like rot in a tupperware long-forgotten in the back of the fridge -- their clammy, oven-baked morning breath. Don't they know the train is an enclosed, poorly ventilated can in which the air does not filter but rather hangs in thick sickly clouds of stench? Don't they know they have nostrils? Don't they know I have nostrils?

I may be inspired to squeeze tears out my bloodshot, I-woke-up-at-5:30am eyes. Tears my nose pushes up in protest of being too near what can only be described as sweaty human body crevices. (A phrase thinked up by none other than my brilliantly scornful sister). Tears of self-pity too for, well, obvious reasons.

I may be inspired to bow my head in resignation and trace my eyes over word after word on pages of worlds that are not a bleak screaming train with stained blue upholstery. Worlds that are light and open and make me feel like I'm breathing something more than oxygen.

I may be inspired to let myself have music, to surrender to, say, Arcade Fire the whole hour. To let my brain lift and dissolve into nothing but stars and clapping and harmony and orchestra. To look out the window and open myself up to the lights, to the world outside the train. I may be inspired to see that the great looming machinery, the many metal shades of gray and brown, the plumes of thick smoke twisting like flower stems into the sky -- that with the right music in my head, it's beautiful. (I'm telling you - listen to Arcade Fire.)

I may be inspired to stare at the heads and shoulders, the clenched jaws and watching eyes, the people who wait. Every day. Just, wait. Like this train ride is a pause, a time when the world moves, but they are still. Still and surrounded by hundreds of others squished in next to them, just trying to live. I may be inspired to hold my breath and thank the sky that I am mixed in with humanity, right where I want to be.

But am I ever inspired to write? Not so much.

Her Talks

Earlier this month I spent three days in Colorado visiting enough relatives to populate a small village. My mother is one of eight children: five sisters, three brothers. Now, the great thing about these eight is that they're all wonderfully clever. The perhaps less great thing is that they all know it. Don't get me wrong; they're a very fun bunch and there's always lots of laughter, but things reach a competitive level that leaves some of us caught in a crossfire, innocent bystanders in a repartee bombardment. It's like a perpetual game of hot potato, the potato being regular, joke-free conversation.

One of my aunts in particular, however, is quieter than all the rest. While her wit is sharp, she seems to keep it mostly to herself (or at least her immediate neighbor). I made this observation to her, wondering how she could have possibly ended up this way, so remarkably mild-mannered in a joke-eat-joke family. She hmm'd on that for a moment and suggested perhaps it was a result of being the third born and never having to speak for herself as a little kid because her two older siblings did all the talking for her. "Her's hungry," they'd say. "Her wants more spaghetti."

One day, as the story goes, the silent child spoke. I don't remember what she said, but the two older siblings ran into the house eagerly reporting, "Her talks! Her talks!" Now, let me just say that I don't know exactly how old these two were at the time... but somehow everyone overcame the apparent yokel vernacular and they've all grown up to be not only jokesters, but writers and, you might say, wordsmiths. In fact, "her" went on to recently place 5th in the AARP's National Spelling Bee (who knew there was such a thing?). As it turns out, her spells.

I sat with my thoughts this evening on my commute home, my mind coming to rest on this family that I love but have never known all that well. My aunts and uncles -- never the prominent figures in my life that they might have been had we lived nearby -- I've now begun to see as more than just relatives I've always known were there. Just, there.

I know that these faces have been present from my earliest moments, that their steady love has followed me patiently over the years. And I now know more than I once did that the love they carry with them through the world, the words they spell, sentences they string together and jokes they lob into the air, that all of it truly is somehow a part of me. Somehow woven into my bones and skin, into my own words and sentences, my own stories. I've long felt that a blood or familial relation does not mean a relationship, but I've come to believe more and more that it does mean, unmistakably, a piece of my identity.

Identity. I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y. Identity.

Eleven

Since today is November 1st and a crunchy new fall has officially begun, I'm going to introduce a personal challenge for this month.

Hold on, what? You mean it's not November 1st?! You're saying an entire week has gone by without my knowledge?

Well, crap. That's going to make this goal I'm setting much more difficult to meet. You see, I've become a real slacker in the blog-posting department. I mean, four for October? Pathetic. In the short lifespan of this blog the best I've done is a measly 10 in one month! So I've decided to set the bar just a touch higher and shoot for 11 in this 11th month of the year. That can't be so hard, right? I thought about promising myself some kind of prize if I make it, but I'm thinking that escaping the shame I'm sure to suffer by failing in the eyes of my beloved readers (that's you) will be reward enough. It's a good thing I'm getting an early start on the month instead of putting it off a whole week to do even the first post! Or, wait...

Anyway, I'm going to kick things off in triumph by drawing all ya'll's attention to what I find to be a delightful coincidence. Remember back in July when Holland won game after game and made it to the World Cup finals? I was there with a country full of pride and glowing orange. Pride for a team of underdogs that should not have gotten that far. Pride before it all, and pride after. I watched the games among the Amsterdam thousands, a tiny drop in an orange everything.

And then last Wednesday, where do I find myself? Crowded among orange-clad masses once again along Montgomery Street in Downtown San Francisco as the Giants, a victorious pack of misfits (and certainly underdogs), rolled by in cable cars to the hoots and screams of their enamored fans -- and may I say, seeing that beard in person was, in a word, exhilarating.

I mean, look at that guy.

While I was admittedly far more emotionally invested in the World Cup than the World Series (and maintain that the US has nothing truly like the national unity and spirit that other countries know in the World Cup), I still find it funny that in a span of four months I happened to find myself in these two cities as they cheered on their champions in orange.

So on that note, dear readers, I hope you'll be cheering me on (and, of course, reading) as I use these last three weeks of November to post my way to victory. One down, 10 to go. The odds are against me, but I just might pull ahead.

How does a parade sound to you all?

Make Believe

Happy Halloween, my pets. I'm clicking away at my keyboard with shiny red finger nails painted specially for the '60s housewife get up I sported on Friday. Black lace cocktail dress that belonged to my great grandmother and somehow fits me perfectly, with a curved neckline resting just beneath my collar bones, a high waist, and a layer of lace falling at my knee. Paired with a last-minute tailor-made plaid apron courtesy of my mom, black peep toe pumps (pain included), fake cigarette, luxurious feather duster, and of course, pearls. It came together deliciously and cost me a grand total of $13.

Dressing up is fun isn't it? Marching around in something that makes you feel like a million bucks but would never fly on a regular day. I secretly loved holding that cigarette -- so real yet without the poison -- bringing it to my lips and inhaling the make-believe. Filling my lungs with pretend. Meeting people at a Halloween party is sort of unlike any other social dynamic. You don't know what anybody is truly like in real life. They don't know what you're like. 

In a way I feel like I'm currently trying to put my life together the way I put a Halloween costume together. The image I have of myself living in San Francisco is so constructed that it's almost unrecognizable. I have this idea and to make it real I need a number of garments and accessories: a job, an apartment, a bicycle, maybe an iPhone, and Etsy shop, a favorite coffee spot. The costume is me living the life I want to live in the city I want to live in. It's like many Halloween costumes in that the idea is the easy part; you get all excited like "Yeah! It'll be brilliant!" and then realize you don't know how to make, say, a Marge Simpson wig or a Ghostbusters proton pack. The idea dissolves and you go with something you already have.

My friend Anne once told me to start acting and looking like the person I want to become, and eventually I'll just find my way there. Eventually it will no longer be a costume, but real. This is how we build our identity over time, isn't it? Some of it is organic, and some of it, calculated down to every detail. Down to fake cigarettes and red nail polish. At first it feels like you're playing dress-up, and then it becomes so comfortable and familiar you can't remember being any other way.

While I already have one element of my costume -- the job -- after a month I still feel like even that is somehow pretend, like I'm faking it or something. I walk through the Financial District every day and while I love it -- the industriousness of it all, looking up every block or so to where the buildings meet the sky -- I somehow feel like I don't belong, like it's a secret club and people notice me on the streets and think, what is she doing here?

Actually, though, building a new life for yourself is like a Halloween party also in that you really can be whoever the hell you want to be. It might take time, creativity, and 20,000 email responses to Craigslist room-for-rent ads, but in the end the costume is yours to wear. And if you really want, you can be something different every year. The people you meet may not know it, but you'll still just be you, whatever that is.

Sketchy

I'll tell you what, folks. The problem with my current situation is that I get up at 5:30am to commute to work, and by the time I get home in the evenings I have about 2 hours before I want to be in bed! Free time currently goes to (drum roll please): sifting through sales racks to boost my very meager business casual wardrobe, emailing people on Craigslist about rooms for rent, and blogging. Oh, wait.. no. Clearly not blogging, say the only two other posts from October almost over. Woe, guilt, etcetera.

But as it happened last night, some of my free time went to attending a super awesome cooler than I'll ever be monthly art event at the 111 Minna Gallery in downtown San Francisco. A good friend finally managed to get me to a Sketch Tuesday which is basically a bunch of established and emerging local artists sitting in a stylish urban space and making art while the rest of us stand around, drink cheap drinks from the full bar, and listen to the DJ spin tunes. THEN when an artist finishes something they'd been working on, they walk over with the piece and a piece of tape, and slap it up on a big wall with their name and a price (which ranged from one PBR to $45, though the max is supposed to be $30).

Anyway, I bought something that I love but cannot show you because it is waiting here in my lair (lair?) as an intended Christmas gift for one of my (many) readers, to remain unnamed. But when I bought it from the quiet fellow with glasses working away at his spot at the table, he revealed to me that he was this person:

Well, not that actual squid man on the escalator, but Josh Ellingston, the artist who illustrated this and two other fantastic scenes that are currently up in many of the BART stations around the Bay Area as BART's featured artist for 2010. I'd been seeing these for months and then lo and behold! I'm handing the guy $20 for something he'd just made with googly eyes. And he was so nice and you should totally go to his website and admire his work.

Another fave from the night was Mia Christopher. How quirky and charming is her style?! Check out her Etsy shop here. Watching her color in those tiny shapes with such precision was a delight.

 

And we were all ogling the work of Annie Galvin from 3 Fish Studios.

Couldn't you just cry? These postcards are similar to the absolutely lovely little pieces she was making last night. I didn't buy one, but I will be dreaming of them until I do. Especially the bottom left, and bottom right.. well, all of them. OH, oh.

I hope you also get to do something cool with your free time this week. In fact, it's almost over! Nice to see you, Thursday.

Swell Giveaway!

Anyone interested in a little Monday inspiration? Check out this awesome giveaway and interview with DIY star on Living the Swell Life! The artist/designer hails from Paper + Twine, and I don't know about you guys, but I'd love me one of these darling little notebooks.

All Aboard the Pubic Express

OK, I'm going to ask you to do something. Please scroll down and read the first sentence of the post preceding this one. Now, read this short email that I got from my mother today:

Have you ever been sitting on pubic transit...?!

You might want to take a different train!

Love, Mom

Folks, I consider myself a careful writer. Blog posts, emails, essays, tombstone inscriptions, whatever it is, I check it twice. I proofread diligently and yet somehow I managed to let "pubic transit" slip by me. PUBIC TRANSIT! Now, I realize most people probably wouldn't get their panties in a twist over something like this, but I live off catching other people's mistakes. (Well, I don't actually live off it because no one will pay me to be a copy editor, but you get the idea.) I can't very well go around telling everyone how they've erred if I can't get sentence #1 right.

Normally, when a mistake becomes apparent to me after a post has been published, I slyly make the edit, re-publish, and pretend nothing ever happened (kind of like when you accidentally let one go in front of your friends, cough conspicuously, and hope they mistook it for street noise). But this cannot be ignored. I mean, pubic transit. How many of you noticed that?! I am simply mortified, imagining you all throwing your heads back in the wicked cackle of a schoolyard bully. Me, my little baby blog with it's nice wood paneling and regrettably corny title, the laughing stock of the blogging community!

Of course it's a vain and lonely enterprise, writing a blog. People may have noticed my typo and laughed -- or, worse yet, hardly anyone has even read it. I am reminded of something my favorite blogger, Petunia Face, wrote in a post from the beginnings of her blog, which has since become the favorite and delight of many adoring readers.

"Blogging is a bit like going to a cocktail party where you don’t know anyone. You hang up your coat and stand there feeling a bit naked, hoping your dress is the correct attire. Nobody hands you a drink at first, there are no appetizers and you don’t really know what to do with your hands. All around people are laughing at other people’s stories. You feel fringe.

So you just open your mouth and start talking to the air. It feels funny at first, speaking into a void. You tell your stories and maybe someone smiles at you. Hands you a drink. A plate of bite-sized mushroom quiche even though you hate mushrooms so you just nibble around the edges to be polite. You keep talking and suddenly someone laughs. Someone else talks back. Introduces you to her friend. And suddenly you are not alone anymore, your words floating up into nothing. They are heard. You are heard."

Again, you may say the typo is no big deal, but if blogging is like a cocktail party, then such a mistake is like having a booger peeking around the corner of my nostril. Like having spinach in my teeth all night long, or walking out of the bathroom with my skirt tucked into my thong. Like any number of awful things when all you really want is for them to like you. When all you really want is to be heard.  And we all know that no one's gonna keep talking to the girl with a booger hanging out of her nose.

So readers, I hereby invite you to laugh with me (and please, not at me). The pube train is now leaving the station -- on or off?