Frankly my dear...

I was miraculously not hung over when I woke up on Saturday morning but 7:00am was nonetheless surprising and unwelcome.  I considered combing my hair and putting on makeup but when I looked in the mirror, I saw Rhett Butler staring back at me.  All of the sudden, the words “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” became my mantra for the weekend.  

I fist-pumped the Lyft driver half-heartedly hoping that he would just let me stare out the window, but the round and jovial Arab man, like my mother, seemed to consider early morning drives to the airport prime time for bonding.  

“Where are you headed?”

“Kansas City,” I said in a quiet voice to indicate my predisposition to introversion.  He was undeterred.

“Oh wow!  Brrr!  What are you going to Kansas for?”

I was too tired point out his geographical error.  “I have a conference for work and also visiting a friend in town.”

By the time we arrived at SFO, the man had ascertained enough major bullet points of my life story to write my online dating profile and, as the half of my brain that was not participating in the conversation performed some checklisting, I had realized that I, in my 7:00am stupor, had forgotten to pack my one clean dress shirt, hair dryer, scarf and gloves.

Fortunately, Missouri was not as apocalyptically cold as I feared it would be.  Unfortunately, the AirBnB apartment was not as luxurious as I hoped it would be (no laundry, no hair dryer).  And interestingly, Kansas City was not the hustling metropolis I remembered it being.  I was supposedly in the heart of downtown and there was not a soul in sight nor a market, grocery store, or even a Walgreens within reasonable walking distance where I could buy the toothbrush and deodorant I had also forgotten (apparently the only things I remembered were my running shoes and the bag of custom-branded stress balls to hand out at the conference).  Standing on the sidewalk watching the midwestern wind rustle naked aspens, I shrugged my shoulders and thought of Rhett’s words...

That night I went out for burgers with my coworker and a friend, whose personalities are about as similar as a cucumber and a chili pepper.   Sitting between them at the restaurant, I realized the combination actually made for pleasant dinner table dynamics -- one literally screaming to accentuate especially interesting parts of a gushing stream of stories while the other piped in with periodic follow up questions and genuine laughs.  Everyone was enjoying themselves so thoroughly that, even though the meal had been my fourth that day, far be it from me to rain on anyone’s dessert parade.  Who gives a damn?  Let us eat cake!  As the three of us devoured a “Chocolate Bag” -- a $14 Kansas City delicacy filled with cream and berries -- I swallowed my guilt (and slight nausea, at that point) with an internal commitment to 100% healthy foods for the next 24 hours.   

But after a long morning run followed by a series of unplanned errands causing us to miss the first three quarters of the 49ers game, the fruit and granola bars were defenseless against my rising irritability.  I could feel the bristly fur growing on my knuckles.  By 2:00pm, it came down to a lupine transformation or the sweet potato fries.  There’s no bad mood a little grease dipped in barbecue sauce can’t subdue.  Screw it.  Rhett wouldn’t give a damn.  Plus, if I was going to be schmoozing with prospective clients all evening, I would need all the energy I could get.  

At the conference, we stood at a booth handing out wine and chocolate and stress balls to people in blazers and buttoned shirts.  I looked around me and saw a shimmery fog dissipate to reveal the futility of everything.  I made a silent promise to never grow up to be one of the people in that room.  I tried shielding myself from the reality that I already was one of the people in that room with another dose of my weekend’s apathy streak.  I didn’t really care about any of it.  That makes me better than them, right?  All the people, bustling around in their Marshalls khakis with their leather portfolios and little metal business card holders, they are below me because they take serious pride in the “PRESENTER” and “VOLUNTEER” and “FIRST-TIMER” ribbons stacked in a self-adhering rainbow below their attendee badges.  They wear those lanyards like Olympic gold medals.  I do not stoop so low as to take an interest in the keynote address.  I do not attend any educational sessions. I suppose I don’t abstain from the free breakfast buffet with the giant shiny platters of scrambled eggs and mini croissants, but I certainly don’t show up early to be first in line.  I, at the very least, acknowledge that this event is largely irrelevant to anyone outside the room.  I am at least aware that these smiles and handshakes and Grand Prize Drawings! may as well be featured on a Truman Show that we are watching about ourselves.  

So long as I withheld my damn-giving and maintained a layer of cynicism under my own Marshalls sweater, I was immune to my own mockery.

“Here is your invitation to the After Hours VIP party in Suite 32 on the 18th floor,” the dyed-blonde woman with the badge “Ashley, Event Coordinator” said to me with a wink.  I thanked her in a “Who, me?” flattered voice but, once she was out of earshot, I turned to my coworker with a sarcastic “Oooo!”   We started clearing(/eating) the leftover chocolates and putting away the stress balls and our “Enter Your Business Card For A Chance To Win!” bag from the table and my friend asked, “So what do you guys want to do now?”  It was still early and we’d already eaten plenty of free orderves...

Up to the 18th floor we went.  Of the wine and cheese we partook.  Yuck and guffaw with the pot-bellied midwestern conference-goers we did.  Not a single damn did we give.  (And I was really beginning to appreciate the adaptability of my new philosophy.)

For our last dinner, after days of fried and saucy indulgences, we went to a vegan place called Cafe Gratitude.  Each menu item was a sentence written in the first person.  I ordered the “I Am Fortified” with a side of “I Am Humble” and we spent the rest of the meal making fun of hippies.  But--perhaps it was the quinoa or the warm lighting or the flower and sunshine wall murals--but I actually walked out of the restaurant feeling sincerely grateful.  The lack of animal byproducts had magically rid me of my Rhett Butler syndrome and I found myself genuinely caring about and feeling glad for all the good things in my life.   

I was grateful for my friend who spent the weekend driving us all around Kansas City (Who knew that request-by-app-taxis don’t exist in Missouri?***).  I was grateful for the infinite patience and optimism of my coworker.  And when I landed back home to a 65-degree sapphire sky San Francisco day, I thanked all the stars and moons and vegetarian gods that I live in California.

And I’m grateful for Lyft drivers.  They are so friendly.

***NOTE.  Announcement for all hipsters travelling to the midwest: Sitting shotgun and fist-pumping the driver is not appropriate in normal taxis.  Such behavior can and likely will lead to awkward situations you will regret.

Graduation from 2013

Every year when my brother and I were little, my parents and uncles marked our heights on the wall at my grandma’s house.  I miss that.  I’ve realized most of my New Years resolutions these days are some variation of that ritual -- I tell myself I’m going to start filling out annual surveys about my thoughts on life or take a picture every day for a year or write a letter to my future self or keep a video diary… anything to keep track, to be able to get to the end of a year and say, “Look!  I’m bigger now!”  I have yet to complete any of these projects successfully, but I almost always end up throwing myself a therapy party this time of year to sit down and ask myself all the questions I used to roll my eyes at when my mom would ask me on my birthdays.  (“What was your proudest accomplishment this year?  Happiest memory?  Biggest regret?”)  

After a little calendar and photo album reminiscing, I’ve concluded that 2013, definitively, happened and that it was, on the whole, a good year.  I broke my personal record for number of street tacos consumed in a ten day period, I learned how to use a power drill and I swam in bioluminescent water.  I relived an entire 13-month relationship in one weekend when my ex came to visit and concluded that breaking up was, in fact, the right decision.  I traveled to Atlanta, Toronto, Baltimore, Chicago, Portland, San Antonio, Bend and Austin and concluded that San Francisco is, in fact, the best city in the US.  My best friend was accepted to an ivy league medical school, my teammates got married in a Redwood grove, and a person of unspecified relation to me had the cops called on him for pooping in the woods.  It was awesome.

Also friends’ hearts got broken, mom’s heart got surgery, and things got stolen (two laptops, two bikes and a wallet, but who’s counting?).  My friend Virginia got deported to Colombia after accidentally setting her host family’s house on fire and my friend Brandon “Collins” turned out to be a criminal with a stolen identity.  There were a few long nights enduring the view of spinning tiles on bathroom floors and a few long weeks enduring a knee injury and runninglessness.

But at the end of the year, I’ve certainly collected a few extra bullet points on my life resume.

Things I learned about life in 2013:

• Almost everything tastes better when chopped up in a massive bowl of spinach with greek yogurt, lemon, salt and a little balsamic.  That may sound weirdly healthy, but it’s actually just a sneaky way to take more bites out of something that tastes good.  (e.g. 1 Burrito = 12 bites.  1 Burrito cut up in a giant bowl of spinach = 40 bites.)
• The cheapest spinach is at Mi Tierra market on 16th and Mission.  
• Always wear a helmet.  Always lock up bikes with a U lock.  Never put bikes on roofs of cars.  
• The “I think we should stop seeing each other” conversation does not get easier with practice.
• Wearing basically the same clothes every day frees up a lot of mental space.
• A designated laundry “Purgatory” holder next to the hamper (not technically clean, but not quite dirty) is essential to life.  Giant lamp shades work well for this.
• There are few opportunities to repay your parents (i.e. moments when they need your love and support as much as you have needed theirs throughout your life).  Such opportunities should not be squandered, though they usually are.
• Proscuitto will definitely get stuck in your throat if you try to swallow it without chewing.  No matter how well your darts game is going, just stop and go clear your air passage.
• Witty intellectual Halloween costumes, even when based on trending pop culture or political themes, are rarely as good as easy-to-recognize classic ones.
• Never pay someone before they deliver your furniture.  
• If ordering multiple barrels of wine for a party, open one at a time. That way if people only drink a few liters, the other two are still intact (and potentially returnable for a refund).
• Happiness is biking from Golden Gate Park to SoMa at 10pm on a Tuesday night after a track workout and a few $2 Tecates at the Mucky Duck.

Things I learned about myself in 2013:

• Fine dining and high fashion are not luxuries I appreciate.
• Grocery delivery and non-stop flights are luxuries I appreciate.
• I am slowly becoming my mother.  
• I am addicted to agnosticism -- the dangerous tendency to relegate anything that is complex or difficult to understand to the realm of “Things that humans will never be able to fully comprehend.”
• If there is cheese in the refrigerator today, there will not be cheese in the refrigerator tomorrow (I am incapable of not eating all the cheese).  
• The thing I value most in a companion is the ability to be surprisingly honest, unfiltered and authentic.  But if they can also fix bikes, tell good jokes and/or love tacos, it doesn’t hurt.
• Running is essential to my mental and emotional well-being. I may have already known that in 2012 but it really hit home this year.
• I am more flattered by exclamations of surprise and disbelief than by direct compliments (think talking to a five-year-old: “No way! Can you really name all the colors?!”)
• I should not have pets.  Or plants.
• I should not be trusted near other people’s leftovers.
• If someone asks for my help on a project, I will commandeer the entire operation, go above and beyond all expectations and leave them feeling grateful but also uncomfortable with critiquing anything I’ve done (even if it was never really asked for).
• I have a mediocre singing voice and am not the least bit embarrassed by it.

I’m not going to mark my personal growth on the wall in my apartment (mostly because it’s painted green and pencil wouldn’t really show up) but I think it’s safe to say I’m older now than I was a year ago.  

Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what the actual Goal of growing up is… Becoming a Master Sage, I suppose.   So if nothing else, the lampshade laundry purgatory was a major step.