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We now have a coffee table. I bought it from a cute girl named Raquel for $10. The selling point? Raquel said that after having this coffee table she is never going back to coffee tables without wheels. That's right. This one has wheels. It looks kind of like a hospital cart. It's white and has chrome legs, wheels, and handles. I love it. My boyfriend does too, especially for $10.
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.: posted by Vera 
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I just went to the Safeway by Ocean Beach, the most underrated beach known to mankind, to buy some last minute moving supplies: packing tape and bottled water. As I was walking up to the entrance, there was a lady in front of me with long wild raggedy hair. "Cool hair," I thought. She had a withered but pretty face and was wearing a brown coat. Then I saw her look through the trash can in front of the Safeway. A minute later I saw her eating an apple. Then I saw her talking to her mirrored self in the storefront window. When I was done shopping, I saw her smoking a cigarette next to the shopping carts and look at the sky. I also saw her playing with some kind of electronic gadget, either a little tiny cell phone or a little tiny portable radio. I wonder what her deal is. Unemployed? Nuts? Homeless? All of the above? Anyway, she rocked.
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.: posted by Vera
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This morning I found a pinkish spot below my right eye, about 2 millimeters in diameter. Oh, no! Could this be one of my first "visible signs of aging," as seen in beauty product ads in magazines and on television? I don't even know what one would call that pink spot, other than "pink spot," but I sure hope it vanishes after a few days like a pimple would. Goddess of Beauty, please, please, please make it go away!
If you ask me, Aging is the single most devastating non-tragic curse this world has to suffer. Well, that and team sports.
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.: posted by Vera
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Here's a first: While browsing the 'net today, one of my unsolicited popup windows was the British Ebay. Weird. They can't be that desperate, can they?
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.: posted by Vera
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The other day, after contemplating the topic intermittently for a few months, I blurted out to my boyfriend over coffee: "I think that, in the absence of pity, a human cannot feel true benevolence towards his peers." His response: "There you go getting all German Philosopher on me again." We did end up having a discussion about this, in which my boyfriend opined that a human is incapable of feeling true benevolence, period. I maintain that she can, but only when, for whatever reason, she feels sorry for the other person. For those 0.4 people who read my blog: What do you think? Can we sincerely and unconditionally wish a non-family-member well when we don't pity them whatsoever?
Editor's Note: It's interesting that when I type in pity at thesaurus.com, one of the categories in which it comes up is Benevolence.
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.: posted by Vera
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I hate team sports. Football, Baseball, Basketball, you name it. And I hate the way they interfere with my life. I don't bother any athletes, nor do I bother sports fans. If they love sports, they can sit on their stupid couches or bleachers every weekend and watch their stupid games and eat their potato chips. I will leave them alone. At my last job I would sometimes overhear the words "Did you see the game?", and I would just roll my eyes and think "whatever." And I got only slightly annoyed by having to take detours to get to my apartment in Charlottesville, VA thanks to some UVa game. But this summer, I have now for the third time missed a Big Brother episode because of some NFL crap on CBS that went over their allotted time. Now I am not just annoyed but affirmatively pissed off. Much like I think that trucks should have their own roads far away from me, I hereby call for all sports games that may or may not conclude in their allotted time to have their own TV channels, far away from me.
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.: posted by Vera
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I bought a Hello Kitty plush doll at Walgreens today. This is how I described her to my boyfriend when I proudly told him of the acquisition:
She has wings and antennaes. She is wearing a bee outfit. And she has a ladybug on her ear. Everything about her is pretty great.
A few minutes later, my boyfriend asked me what I was thinking about. "My Hello Kitty doll," was my reply.
I think I need therapy. Or not. I guess shallowness is more benign than depression.
Oh, and if you are wondering why my boyfriend is the only person that ever gets mentioned in this blog: He is the only person I ever talk to. I telecommute, remember? Oh yeah. And I don't have any friends. At least not in San Francisco.
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.: posted by Vera
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To paint or not to paint. That is still the question. Our wild quest for funky furniture continues. Why must all furniture be so boring? I don't want anything that actually looks like wood, thank you very much. I like solid colors. I like to feel as if I am living in a plastic house, yes. Minimalist. Unnatural. I am seriously considering getting some ugly wood furniture and then painting it the right colors. That might be fun. But I am worried about a potential devastation of the carpet. What to do? I must research the costs and repercussions of home furniture painting. May our new place be as colorful as can be!
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.: posted by Vera
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This morning my boyfriend and I walked over to Javacat on Geary Boulevard to have our daily coffee and tea fixes. As I was munching on my bagel, I noticed the insulating sleeve around my paper cup. This is what it said:
Don't worry. You can still sneak out of the office for coffee.
Way to go. At a former job, I used to keep a pile of insulating sleeves on my desk. If I was still working in an actual office building and had that sleeve sitting on my desk, those delightfully manipulative words would probably make me get up and get coffee every afternoon. They're a guilty pleasure just waiting to happen.
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.: posted by Vera
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Burning Man 2002 is about to launch. I so wish I was going. When it comes to Burning Man, I sometimes feel like such a talker. A yapper. A lot of talk and no action. But I really do think that I will participate at least once in my lifetime. It feels like a part of me has already been there because it is something I have been looking for all of my adult life (that's eight years of looking!). Dlove hit on the nail my perception of Burning Man:
I have a pretty good eye for those people that I know would dig Burning Man. When I mention it, I can see the sparkle in their eyes; it's what they've been searching for all their lives. When they see pictures of it, they have a hard time believing that such a place exists. When they finally get out on the Playa, they take to it like a fish to water [...].
Yup, that's me.
Check out this picture from last year. The caption says Anemone wandering the playa at sunrise. Wait. Does that mean this is a person dressed up as an anemone who, due to the costume, doesn't walk but scrabbles around? Oh! I love Burning Man folk and their endless creativity.
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.: posted by Vera
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New apartment. New haircut. My boyfriend says I look like a little mushroom.
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.: posted by Vera
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Okay. Yesterday at Ikea, a red L-shaped couch was purchased, which will be delivered to our new Place With A View on Friday. Now what I really want is a bright yellow coffee table to go with it. Craigslist doesn't have any. The Yahoo Nationwide Classifieds don't have any. Ebay doesn't have any. So I finally resorted to a "yellow coffee table" Google search. And guess what kind of yellow coffee tables I got in return? Toy ones. Oh, and I have always wanted to live in a toy house. But I really don't feel like painting it bright yellow myself. Although I could use that kind of a hobby... In fact, for a while during my naive early twenties, I entertained the fantasy that I would one day own a furniture and appliance store that exclusively sold bright-colored stuff: Pink microwaves, baby blue fridges, yellow coffee tables, red couches, green toasters.
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.: posted by Vera
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My friend Patricia had the most brilliant idea: A techno opera. Oh! That would be so nice. While I believe that there may be some CD's out that could fall into that category, I doubt there are any out there yet that you can go see at the opera house with a curtain, costumes and everything. Wouldn't that be a treat? A futuristic opera with lasers, glowsticks and spacey outfits. For those of you out there who, unlike me, actually make things happen in this world, please put a techno opera on your agenda. Thanks.
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.: posted by Vera
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So, I am another step closer to my U.S. citizenship: I got fingerprinted at the INS Application Center downtown. Maybe in another twelve or so steps, I'll finally be an American. Many years ago in a French test, we were asked to describe our aspirations for the future. My answer was straightforward: Je voudrais devenir une américaine. It looks like I'm getting what I want this time.
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.: posted by Vera
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Woohoo, the Subastral Lilipad just had its first Google hit! This is what the lost person was searching for: Asian eyes look into hypnotic. Excellent.
I had always been jealous of other bloggers who mention the random searches that lead people to their sites. I was afraid that my site might not be googlable because my main page uses frames and a Flash detection script, and I thought that those annoyances might interfere with the crawlers. But no! Even my blog will be victimized by weird searches. This is good news. I think.
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.: posted by Vera
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 Like my new T-shirt? Me too. On a less supportive note, I am not going to the Blog Meetup tonight because I hate bowling.
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.: posted by Vera
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Last night was interesting. First we went over to my boyfriend's friend's cousin Josh's house who lives in Western Addition with his girlfriend. They have a very cool place with high ceilings and lots of thrift store treasures everywhere. Josh is a performance artist/DJ and in a strange-noise-making band called Neighborhood Bass Coalition aka NBC. One of Josh's wonderful hobbies is to hunt down obscure toys and other gadgets with buttons that have sounds attached to them and then re-wire or otherwise modify them into musical instruments that he can then hook up to his turn tables. Awesome. I hope to attend one of his band's concerts soon.
Then we went to Phuturo at The Top to see Hive spin. Yeah! I have been a fan of Hive's music for a while, particularly his first album Devious Methods and his mix Hip Hop 2023, and my boyfriend knows him personally from a while back. Look at me name-dropping. Anyway, if I, in the car on the way home, find myself "singing" jungle rhythms, it had to have been a good set.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just made a soup from the soup lady's souplog. I improvised/cheated slightly by peeling and cubing the potatos before baking them and by leaving out the bacon sprinkles. I have fun making soup in general, and the preparation of this one was pretty high on the entertainment scale. And here, in original soup lady style, are some reactions:
The cook: Wow, this is good.
The cook's boyfriend: Mmmm, this is so good.
Enough said. Yes, soup lady, it is indeed a winner. Thanks and I hope you start posting again soon.
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.: posted by Vera
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We found another apartment that we are very interested in. It is conveniently situated to make for the most spectacular view. Now there are four things that we would like to hear the landlords say before we sign the lease:
1. Your credit reports are immaculate and we want you to move in.
2. We have scratched the sticky residue from the For Rent sign off the window.
3. We have replaced the shower head.
4. We have removed the gigantic spider from the corner of the master bedroom.
We'll see.
Editor's Note (a few hours later): We put a deposit on the apartment. While we dropped off the deposit and our credit reports, we also took another close look at the place. The sticky residue was already gone. The shower head had been taken off and the rest of the shower seemed to anticipate a brandnew extremity. My boyfriend killed the giant spider himself with the comment "Its life and my life were inconsistent propositions." Finally, the landlady was impressed by my credit score, which, frankly, I am quite proud of myself.
Things are looking good. I am confident.
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.: posted by Vera
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I LOVE this blog! It's all about the future! When I was 18, I wanted to become a futurist. Then a career counselor talked me out of it and advised me to become a business analyst instead. They try to predict the future too! Riiight. Anyway, where was this major when I needed it? Oh wait. It's a master's program. I can still do it! Do I want to move to Houston though? Hmmm...
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.: posted by Vera
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My reaction to this slide show of flooded areas showed me just how protective I am of Germany and, really, all of Europe. I almost started crying.
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.: posted by Vera
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Only in America will people sue when they become victims of terrorism.
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.: posted by Vera
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"We are not going to go with the place," spoken to our prospective landlady, spelled relief for me this morning. We will not be moving into the cookie cutter building. Yey! I talked to our current landlady this morning, and she said that we can extend our stay for as long as we want to. Time pressure was really the only reason in my mind why we had decided on the Diamond Heights place. Well, that and the free rent. But we will not be sell-outs! So now we are still looking. I am so happy.
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.: posted by Vera
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We decided against the cute place. It had a very stained carpet and an irreparably dirty fireplace, one of the kitchen drawers was busted, the soap dish in the shower was broken off, and the landlord didn't seem in a hurry to fix any of these things. So we kept looking.
To me now there are three subject areas in which an apartment can be graded:
1. Location
2. The outside building/complex
3. The inside
I have resigned to not finding an apartment that gets an A in all three subject areas. I simply haven't seen one, and I have seen a lot of apartments in the last few weeks. These were our three finalists:
We, after excruciating hours of ping-ponging the pro's and con's of each place ad infinitum, decided on the Diamond Heights place. One of the reasons was that we can move in immediately and don't have to pay rent until October 1st! How could we pass that up? I am a big fan of a gradual move: We have from now until September 1st to move all of our stuff over. On the flipside, of course, it is in one of the larger, more homogeneous apartment complexes in the city, and we will just be two of the many "lawyers and computer people" (quoting the leasing agent) who also reside there. Then again, I have always wanted to live in Diamond Heights because I have a bit of a teenage past there that I am very fond of. I could just keep arguing and arguing with myself about this.
But the bathroom counters are huge! And it has a centralized and reliable management!
But the building is so cookie-cutter! We'll feel like drones!
But we'll be so comfortable in there!
But it has no character! How can we live in San Fransciso and have a place with no character?
But at least it's right in the middle of San Francisco! And our furniture will add character to the place!
See? It's not easy in this unusual San Francisco market where there are so many options.
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.: posted by Vera
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Thanks to a promotion at Blockbuster, I have in my possession a free copy of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I must shamefully admit that I have never read the books. When I was about 10, my mom used to take me to the public library to pick out books, and each time I was there, the lady who worked there tried to hook me up with either The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but I was never interested. "I don't do fantasy," I told her every time.
But now that I have the free movie, I watched it. I was quite riveted for a while. But I was very disappointed by the part when the ring fellows migrate through the tombs of Moria. What the hell was that? If Gandolf can make the fiery dragon go away by screaming "You shall not pass" (or something like that; please correct me), why didn't he use that wonderful magic spell on other mean creatures? Of course Gandolf dies right after this last fit of bravery. And as soon as the spectacle of Gandolf and the dragon is over, the orc arrows conveniently start zooming by again. Somehow they had paused their previously incessant fury for Gandolf's solo. How nice of them. But if this wasn't Hollywood, at least three more (if not all) fellows should have been dead by the end of the Moria stunt.
Aside from this predictable scene that I had seen two thousand times before, the movie was, again, quite riveting. I loved how trippy some of the scenes were via changes in a voice's frequency or sudden jumps in the characters' positions relative to each other, to name a couple of examples. Liv Tyler's glowing elfspeak was nice. Orlando Bloom as Legolas, the adroit archer, was very yummy, I thought. I want ears like that! And the dwarf was just too cute. Nobody tosses a dwarf!
But - and I am just stating the obvious here -- the torque of the movie lies in the visual effects. Why can't a movie ever be both visually and mentally stimulating? The line between good and evil in The Fellowship of the Rings is too clearly perforated. I want to see Frodo fall from grace! Maybe I will in the next installment of Lord of the Rings.
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.: posted by Vera
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The other day, I saw a vile bumper sticker, and this is what it said:
Abolish Southern California
Nice. How much more misanthropic can you get? And, just how do you suggest the abolition of So. Cal. should unroll? Blow the whole thing up? Lovely. Evacuate everybody to Canada, Montana, or, so much better, the Bay Area? Employ reverse terraforming and drop the land into the ocean? Donate it to Mexico, or sell it to Russia? Get a Life and Love One Another are my bumper stickers for you, dipstick.
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.: posted by Vera
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Technova did a sweet electro clash mix on my favorite radio show, Future Breaks FM, today. My favorite part was when he mixed in Me and my Rhythm Box, performed by Adrian in my favorite movie Liquid Sky.
my rhythm box
it's always high
so am I
do you wanna know why?
It looks like I will witness Technova spin live again tonight because I won tickets to Eyephunk Breaks.
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.: posted by Vera
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Last night we hung out in Berkeley with two of my boyfriend's friends from college. Among other things, oysters were eaten at a fancy 100-year-old restaurant by everyone but me. To me, oysters are like hardwood floors: One day, a group of rich and sophisticated people labeled them classy, and now everybody feels obligated to think that they are classy. I, on the other hand, think that oysters are the opposite of appetizing and hardwood floors the opposite of cozy.
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.: posted by Vera
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I got a very interesting book today. Searching for the Perfect Beat: Flyer Designs of the American Rave Scene. This part from the intro clung to my brain with barbed hooks:
Early on, promoters began sending groups of attractive, funky club kids to hand them [flyers] out by the exits at parties.
I'll say! I will never forget the cute girl with the pink wig and platform shoes who was standing at the exit of a Chemical Brothers concert in 1997, handing out flyers. The sight of her and the flyer she handed me left me thinking that there were very magical things going on somewhere that stupid me was missing out on.
I originally had this book sent to my friend Starrie for her birthday because I knew she would love it even more than I ever could. But after she kept raving about it - I quote:
OH MY GOD, I LOVE that rave flyer book so much. I wonder if you could ever understand how much. I actually used to have a lot of these flyers hanging on my wall in college [...] I especially love looking at the flyers for the parties that were happening right before I started going and heard about from others. Somehow by looking at the flyer I can get a vibe of the party and it makes me feel like I was there a little bit.
- I had to order another copy for myself.
This specimen in particular gives me goose bumps. Are you kidding me - Frankie Bones in a handwritten announcement? "Promotions by Heather Heart + Lil Lisa [...] Beep Tina"? That's too cute. What a snippet of history. I wonder what Tina is up to these days.
And here is the flyer of the first rave I went to:
The only thing about the book that rubbed me the wrong way was this statement:
A flyer by certain designers, like Klotz, Stimuli, Joel T., or Mars, gave a party the stamp of legitimacy.
One of the authors' names is Joel T. Jordan. Huh. Maybe I shouldn't assume, but if my assumption is correct, then I'm not into that sort of third person bragging.
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.: posted by Vera
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I love Big Brother. Overheard on my couch just now:
Chiara winning Head of Household is just wrong. Just when we were starting to hate her.
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.: posted by Vera
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I saw the cutest apartment on Henry Street yesterday. I want it, I want it! It's in a baby blue building, which, right off the bat, bodes well for aesthetes. It's in the Castro, a predominantly gay neighborhood with lots of trees and adorable buildings. It is ridiculously close to my gym. One of the bedrooms is very big with one of those huge tall windows, and one of its walls is painted blue! The other bedroom is smaller and looks out onto a wooden patio and some trees. There is a living-room with another one of those huge tall windows (as if one wasn't beautiful already) and an extra (!) room that leads into the kitchen. I thought extra rooms were extinct in San Francisco. The kitchen and the living-room are separated by a wall with two windows in it! How cute is that? And the bathroom is painted dark gray. I love these minimalist blocks of color. I want this to be the place we will settle into in a few weeks.
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.: posted by Vera
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Now I understand why everybody, even those who favor antitrust laws, always link to amazon.com when they mention a product that can be bought at amazon.com. I had been wondering for a while if it was politically incorrect and anti-competitive of me to always link to amazon.com, thereby contributing to their seemingly impending monopoly in the online media retail market. People boycott Starbucks, I thought, so why not Amazon? I even tried to link to other spots at which the products I advertise are sold. But Amazon does have an unrivaled selection, and when I saw that other bloggers also seem to favor Amazon for their product links, I concluded that this unfair and one-sided practice was socially acceptable after all. But now I understand that the root of all evil is what made it socially acceptable. While some of us might hesitate to keep linking to Amazon over and over, ignoring all the other online book and CD retailers, when money enters the picture, we just do it without thinking about it much anymore. Did I edit all of my existing Amazon links today after joining Amazon Associates? You bet. I never said I wasn't myself a victim of many of the social phenomena I discuss or ridicule.
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.: posted by Vera
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I am back in the Bay Area as of this morning. The trip was a blast. I am pretty sure that my boyfriend passed the bar exam. That's all you really need to know, but here is a more detailed travel report.
Monday, July 29th
We drove. On the 5. It wasn't very interesting. My boyfriend was sitting on the backseat, cramming for his exam, and I didn't even have anybody to talk to. We arrived in Ontario around 6pm and checked into the Sheraton, which is across the street from the Ontario Convention Center where the bar exam was administered. We ordered room service that night and went to bed nervous.
Tuesday, July 30th
I dropped my boyfriend off at the Ontario Convention Center at 8am. Afterwards my stomach turned over for about an hour. Then I was fine. My boyfriend, I am sure, was not. Later that morning I went to the Ontario Mills mall but didn't buy anything. I think. Oh wait. I bought this T-shirt. Oh yeah: And I finally bought some shoes for my boyfriend.
That afternoon I walked around memory lane a bit. I paid a visit to my alma mater but unfortunately none of my economics teachers were in their offices. Then I drove around the area for a while. I stalked the University Village where I lived during my junior year and saw other familiar streets, freeway exits, and chinaburbs. As much as I dreaded living in the Eastern San Gabriel Valley, I enjoyed this nostalgic visit. Everything looked so much better now that it was colored by memories.
That night I drove to Jessica's tiny cute studio in San Diego. Jessica and I shared an apartment during our senior year. It was great to see her. I also got to meet her boyfriend Jimmy who is very cool and incidentally lives in San Francisco. Thanks to Jimmy I am going to see Jessica again very soon because she is coming up to visit! I spent the night in her bed which was extremely comfortable. She and Jimmy crashed on the floor. Haha! Thanks.
Wednesday, July 31st
Late in the morning Jessica and I went to a coffee shop, which is something we loved to do when we lived together, and then she went off to work and I went off to LA. But really LA this time, not just the Greater Los Angeles Area. I took the Robertson Boulevard exit off the 10 because I had a 3 o'clock appointment at the Garden Sanctuary for my very first oxygen facial. How very LA of me. Getting my face massaged for over an hour and having pure oxygen blown into it felt great. Afterwards I felt delightfully dizzy and almost fell on my butt. My boyfriend that night testified that my skin looked great. I, however, didn't see much of a difference. But my skin sure felt good.
That night I was suppoded to hang out with my friend Colin. I had to cancel because my boyfriend needed me. Thursday night didn't work for Colin because he was leaving for Seattle early the next day. So we didn't get to hang out at all. Bummer! Colin is one of the coolest and funniest guys I know. He always made sure my economics classes were all giddy and giggly. An hour or more of giggling and catching up would have been awesome but it didn't happen this time.
Thursday, August 1st
And then it was August. I didn't really do anything that morning besides talking on the phone with various people and packing up all of our shit because we were getting the hell out of Ontario that day. After checking out of the hotel, I ordered tea at a Starbucks where I used to have coffee. I met my boyfriend for a burrito for lunch and then drove the relative short drive down to Fullerton where my friend Michelle currently lives. She hates living there just as I would. Hanging out with her was so fun! I hadn't seen her in three years.
Then I picked up my boyfriend from the Ontario Convention Center for the last time, and we headed west. We went to Culver City where Charlie and Patricia live. Charlie and my boyfriend have been friends for over 20 years, and Patricia is Charlie's girlfriend of five years. Charlie and Patricia have lots of friends and always have people over. That night, it was Poker Night at their house. My boyfriend and I don't play Poker, so instead we embarrassed ourselves by falling asleep on the couch. But a little later I was gregarious enough to get up and hang out in the gazebo for a while until we all went to bed.
Friday, August 2nd
We got up early in the morning to drive over to Gardena to pick up my cute bubbly red chair from Kitty's house. See, various pieces of furniture I own are still with various friends all over Southern California who borrowed/babysat them while I was in Virginia. Then we drove to Santa Monica where I had an appointment at the Shiseido Studio. My boyfriend walked over to the Santa Monica Pier while I was in Shiseido's hands. Why am I so obsessed about skin care? Because my skin started changing when I was 25? Anyway, if you are a girl in Los Angeles or New York City, you should definitely check out the Shiseido Studio. Everything there is free! They take photographs of your skin and magnify them ten times. Ew is right but it helps them determine your skin type. Then they print out a wishlist for your, but since they don't have any cash registers there they don't pressure you into buying anything. Nice break from department stores. You can also play with all of their creams and make-up, and if you're really nice, somebody might give you a free facial Shiatsu massage.
Because my boyfriend and I like to go to bed when we feel like it and not when Charlie feels like it, and because we didn't bring any towels and felt bad about using Charlie's and Patricia's towels, we checked into the Extended StayAmerica in Culver City. We hung out at Charlie's that night, and of course tons of people were over again. But eventually we found ourselves asleep in our comfortable hotel bed.
Saturday, August 3rd
I awoke to find that a hideous breakout had colonized my face. My skin was decorated with at least eight ugly red extrusions. I should have known that two facials in one week combined with lack of sleep and too much blistering Southern California sun would not agree with my sheltered skin. Gross. We went out for breakfast with Charlie and Patricia. I am convinced that, after seeing my face that morning, Patricia won't check out the Shiseido Studio after all, even though she was curious about it before. After breakfast, my boyfriend and I went to Melrose but it was too hot so we left.
In the afternoon Charlie and Patricia had a big barbecue that we attended. The grill spat out both beef and soy burgers, and there were lots of cool people there that I had never met before and some that I knew. I was especially fond of a boy named Justin and a girl named Tan Tan and kept following them around. They were all giggly and acted very junior high, it was so fun. I would like to encourage everyone to act junior high more often to keep the adrenaline flowing. And the whole time I was excited about Fly Away. Around 9pm we finally snuck out, changed into some more colorful gear, and drove over to Q-Topia on Hollywood Boulevard. We witnessed the butterfly release while still stuck in line in the back of the building, but at least we saw it. The butterflies were huge, but instead of the 10,000 that one source had promised there were only about 50 butterflies. Once we were inside, it was all smiles and hugs. I was wearing my pink wig and matching antennaes that had hair-like pink stuff sticking up and bopping around. People loved it. Overheard at Fly Away:
Let's go talk to the girl with the pink hat. (Editor's Note: Hat??)
How did you get your hair to stick up like that?
Hiii! I'm so-and-so, these are my friends so-and-so, so-and-so and so-and-so, and this is my friend so-and-so, and he just turned 18, and this is his first rave!
Me: Awesome! And?
Can you give him a massage?
See, this had never happened to me before, but two people asked for massages from me because of my outfit. I love that shit. This is exactly why I dress up when I go raving. All the aaah's and oooh's and big eyes from other ravers are priceless.
We spent most of our time in the drum'n'bass room where Sage totally rocked my legs to jelly. Yey for Sage! For a while, we also hung out with a 20-year-old guy named WJ (I think) who is from Ohio but now lives in San Diego. He was coo'. Among other things he told me that he wasn't going to school because he is "too stupid for college," at which point I went into this pep talk trying to convince him otherwise and blah-blah-blah. Afterwards I felt really stupid and cheesy about it.
The music stopped at about 4am. I so wasn't ready to stop by then but whispered to myself a few times that it was okay, and then it was. We went back to Charlie's place who welcomed us with open arms and big grins because he never sleeps. All but a couple of barbecue guests had left. The remainder took turns trying on my antennaes, and everybody looked awfully cute in them. We were finally in bed at the hotel at 6am.
Sunday, August 4th
We got up sometime between 9 and 10 because checkout was at 11 and we had to get back to San Francisco somehow. By 11:30 we were back on the 101 North. We stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch. At the Borders on State Street, my boyfriend was finally able to buy a book he had been searching all over LA and couldn't find. When we got back into the car, we found ourselves extremely tired. After a while we decided that it was unsafe to keep driving, so we got another very cheap room in a small town called Paso Robles and went to sleep in the late afternoon.
Monday, August 5th
We didn't rise until the alarm went off at 6am. We quickly grabbed our things and got in the car because I was supposed to be at work in a couple of hours. And now we are home.
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.: posted by Vera
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