Numero uno

Before I get into the "real" post, let's throw in this quiz. I found it over at Tami's last night.

Your Candy Heart Says "Cutie Pie"

You always seem to have a hot date, even though you never try to meet anyone. A total charmer, you have a natural appeal that keeps you in high demand. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: multiple dates with multiple people Your flirting style: 100% natural What turns you off: serious relationship talks Why you're hot: you're totally addicting

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

Any questions as to why I have only had a boyfriend on two VDs in my life? Didn't think so. Not that I need one since I usually end up with these obsessive types. Hmmm. Wonder why? After reading the comments at Neil's, I may have found my soul mate. (Look for TRO's comment. But not at work. Of course, this would require finding an SO. So maybe I should just stop by here to find the right "mate." Ummm. And don't click this link if you're at work.) On to what I started off wanting to say today.

In the past I have been guilty of putting the needs of others ahead of my own needs. It does not lead to a pretty situation for me. This I learned in a year of therapy. Knowing the right thing to do and actually doing it are two completely different things though. It has taken me nearly ten years from those therapy sessions to be at a place in which I feel comfortable in taking care of me. Because while others might, there's no guarantee that they will. In the end, I am the only person upon whom I can rely to make sure that I'm getting what I need out of life. (Of course this is all within the constraints of society as a whole. Because sometimes wanting something does not mean that you will achieve it no matter how hard you try. But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to accept the status quo either.)

I always make sure to take extra good care of myself for at least a couple of days out of the month. If I don't, the wacky hormones can make me do things that I might not otherwise. I also think of it as a public service when I sequester myself. Because I'm just as likely to say something that's completely cheery as I am to say something completely mean and cruel. Basically my super ego completely disappears.

This past weekend reminded me of a few things. First of all, I haven't been wearing skirts for a number of weeks. And as the woman at the dry cleaners pointed out, I own a lot of skirts. More so than pants. Because I often have a hard time finding pants that fit properly. And after weeks of rain and wearing pants, I was starting to feel downright frumpy. Wearing skirts always makes me feel good. So this week I have made an effort to wear some of my favorite skirts. And since the sun is shining, I'm pretending that it's actually summer.

So then I started thinking about the survival eating that I've been doing. That must end. And it ends tonight. Because what's a better way to tell yourself that you think you're fantastic than to make a special dinner? I made my list yesterday at work (They really shouldn't leave me alone for hours at a time.) and stopped at one of my favorite grocery stores on the way home last night just so that I wouldn't have to shop tonight.

On the menu are the oysters that have become an addiction at this point and a seafood dish I haven't made in some time. (I promise to take a better photo of it this time.) And because I love seafood so much, I think I'll be giving this a try as well. Because why just have one dish with mussels when you can have two? And what to go with all this seafood? Probably some couscous, a simple salad, and perhaps some French bread. Saucy food just seems to scream for bread.

Hope you all enjoy VD! I know that I will. (Please feel free to make the jokes.) And don't forget to get something nice for yourself. I always do because then I figure that I'll have at least one gift that I really like. The rest is just icing on the cake.

Oh, and don't forget to stop by and visit Hilly today. If you haven't guessed it yet, I think that every day is self-love day. But what the heck! Let's make it a holiday. I'm also digging the thought of these folks these days.

For Stacy

I had meant to post this earlier today but as soon as I arrived at work, the power went out. For something like five hours. But we're the folks who people call when the weather is bad so I started calling the customers instead from my work cellphone to schedule work. It's been insane to say the least. I am not really looking forward to the drive home. At least I don't have to go to Marin County where I hear that 101 is closed. I've also heard that a at least one bridge is closed as well. So the evening commute is probably going to suck. So let's think about happier things...

What happens when you start cleaning and organizing? You rediscover stuff.


In the height of my partygirl days, I loved these shoes. I loved them so much that I actually used to wear them to work. Yes, they are four inches in height. And no, I did not throw them out. Because I might wear them again some day soon.


I just might not wear them with this item in the future. Yes, it's a skort. And yes, it covers my butt. When I wore it, I also wore black opaque tights. Because it's wool.

And fitting with the mood I give you this.



I was a little flat at the end but overall I was rather impressed with myself. I usually do not sing in public because, in my mind, I sound absolutely horrid. What a surpise. Yes, I was no longer a mezzo soprano thanks to years of smoking cigarettes. And somehow I thought that because of this, my voice would be much lower than it actually is. No, instead hearing my voice on tape has given me a new faith. A belief that I'm not as bad as I thought I was in my head. (But I won't be playing it for my mother who will analyze it beyond belief.)

I grew up with a woman who has perfect pitch. I can hear when a song is off but I can't hear it in myself. So I have lived most of my life just believing the worst -- I am always off pitch. And this as a counter to the woman with perfect pitch who told me that I had a decent voice that just needed training. For some reason, I chose not to believe her. Maybe it had something to do with how often she called me a "bitch." Out of anger. Actually the real term was "manipulative bitch." And yes, I can be that person exceedingly well these days. I learned it and have become a pro at it.

So when my mother throws out those occasional positive pearls, it's hard to believe when one has been subjected to so much negativity. But the voice thing? I've heard it from other folks. Well, the most recent gave the proclamation that I was fearless. (Funny but my drawing instructor said the same. Something about how I wasn't afraid to be wrong but would go back to correct my mistakes. In really broad strokes, all around. Watch yourself next time that you are drawing. Most folks are timid with their strokes.) And maybe that whole drawing thing is really me. Because most of the time when I'm really me, I'm not afraid to step out there and to be different. And I'm always the first to admit when I have fucked up. And suddenly I feel a rant coming up in me. One that says that the arts must preserved in schools. Because how can kids like me find their way otherswise? Or at the very least, they need someone who truly believes in them. That they trust.

Tim and Veronica are not allowed into my closet

You have to watch the video until the end so you can see the metallic dress. That dress? There are still dresses hanging in my closet that are that length. And I am now in my 40s. I haven't worn them for years. They really should be purged. That's what I discovered in the closet portion of the Great Organization Project of '07. That I haven't done a closet purge in over a year.

I used to purge annually. The exceptions were party wear that still fit and that I felt good about. And suits. I haven't had to wear a suit in years but I have some nice ones. So I am keeping them just in case I should ever need them again. Same goes with formal wear. Everything else? If I haven't worn it in two years, then it goes. That way I have room to start shopping again. Or maybe sewing up the endless amount of fabric that I have collected over the years.

A lot of those short dresses and skirts? Never going to wear them again. Time for them to go. Because I checked the BMI recently and I am in that borderline land of still being underweight so I'm not in a rush to drop the pounds that I have gained over the last five years. Especially since folks have been telling me that the extra pounds look good on me. (Depending on the scale and what I have on, I have gained five to ten pounds in the last five years or so. And if you've met me recently, try to picture that. And know that when I was 10 to 15 pounds lighter than I am now, I was told by an agent that I could stand to lose five pounds or so. I didn't listen to him because I like food too much.) Bottom line, why force myself into something like a sausage or that I would need to pick up Spanx to wear? That's just sick in my mind. Those clothes are taking up valuable closet space. So this weekend I'll be bagging up the trash and donations.

Oh, and I like just about any song that has an Eastern rhythm. It's an addiction.



This, along with Shakira, started the addiction. Probably why I can merengue so well. My mother is jealous about how I can isolate my hips and shoulders. Thank you, jazz dance and belly dancing lessons. Of course, if I was still taking dance classes and going out dancing 2 to 3 nights a week, then maybe I'd keep those dresses and skirts. Because then maybe my butt and waist would be two inches smaller.

Things I learned this weekend

Overall this weekend was pretty slacker-ish. I did make a brief appearance out and about on Friday but not much else other than that. (And please don't make me talk about Friday because I'm still trying to get the picture of the 60-year-old guy trying to talk me into coming over to check out his HDTV out of my mind.) Besides procrastinating on completing report cards.

(1) I added a new word to my vocabulary -- "slut-tastic." Thank you, Mo'nique. And if Brooke didn't think that this word described her to a tee, then she is in need of serious help.

(2) The bad guys on British TV are really hot looking. I thought that Azazeal must have been a fluke but the hotness keeps coming. Suddenly a life of sin and degradation has now become appealing.

(3) I found a really cool dry cleaner over in Temescal. A dress, two shirts, a jacket, and a futon cover for only $35. OK. They do make you pay cash up front. If it hadn't been for the futon cover, I would have been out of there for under $10 though. Squeeeee!!!

(4) Do not open the car door after you have turned on the dome light. Otherwise you might forget that you have turned on the light. Because the light usually stays on for a bit after you close the door. This all would have been fine if my car then did not sit for two days with the light in the on position. Yes, I had to call for a jump start. The road service folks told me it would be a 30 minute wait. The guy showed up in ten. At least something's going right.

(5) If I fall asleep on the futon in the living room, I will awake to find a cat curled up next to me. They don't do this with the bed. There must be something magical about the futon. Or they've figured out that I am going to leave them next weekend while I head to Kate's wedding in SoCal.

And now I am going to meditate upon my closet. It seems that I have an interview -- what a surprise -- this afternoon.

Why can't there be more holidays?

I think I may return to work today a lot more rested than I have been. Well, temporarily at least. Seeing as I have to finish report cards this week.

Friday's shopping trip never happened. I never heard from Jade the entire weekend. Not surprising though. She's been known to do that.

I had agreed with my co-worker on Thursday that we should head out Friday night. (I really need to come up with a name for her as I have a feeling she will continue to be mentioned here.) After much debate Friday afternoon, we decided that there really was nowhere else to go but North Beach. That meant our usual dance spot there. So I finally got the dancing out of my system Friday night. As we were leaving, we were approached by these two Peruvian guys. They seemed to think that I was Brazilian. They also wanted us to go out salsa dancing with them sometime. I got the phone number of one of them. He tried to trick me into giving him mine.

"Why don't you call me to make sure you entered the number correctly?"

"One minute. I haven't quite saved it."

I fiddled around with the buttons and then called.

"Why does it say 'Private'?"

Hmmmm. Now how could that happen? Perhaps because I am smart enough how to block my number on my cellphone. Idiot.

On the way home, we noticed that my old fave bar was still open so we decided to stop in to say hi. The bartender gave us flak for stopping in at the end of the night. The owners were overjoyed to see me.

"We haven't seen you in forever. You never come to see us anymore. And my, don't you look sexy."

I now remember why I always prefered to go out in SF as opposed to the East Bay. The unadulterated worshipping. Suddenly I knew that I had to head back there on Saturday night.

My coworker had a date Saturday night. Their only plans were dinner though. We decided that after dinner that they would meet up with me in SF at the bar.

Well, of course I got there before they did. As I was enjoying my first drink, I noticed a guy making a beeline toward me. I groaned inside, fearing the worse. Shows how much I know. Turns out he was perfectly nice and fun to talk to.

It also tells me that I should wear pink more often. Because that also gives me an excuse to carry the cute little Kate Spade bag. There was that scary moment though. Some random woman approached us as we were talking to comment on how I was rocking the pink. She also pointed out that she too was wearing a pink shirt. And then she kissed me on my cheek. The guy asked if I knew her. Ummmm. Nope. Now that I think about it, maybe the pink is too powerful.

I this is around the point in the conversation when we started to discuss underwear color. (See number 1.) He seemed to think that since I was wearing so much pink, that my underwear should match. I explained that I did not own any pink underwear. So he offered to buy some. But it wasn't said in a sleazy kind of way. Because we had also just finished dissecting his lack of style on Saturday night.

The guy also knew some of the folks I know in the place, including a former bartender. Now the former bartender would have read me the riot act if there was anything wrong with this guy but he didn't. My friend also seemed to approve of him once she showed up.

Eventually my friend and her date left to check out another place.A bit later my phone rang. It seems my friend and her date had missed the last BART train and the first of the All Nighter buses wouldn't be coming for another hour. I told them to sit tight and that I would be there within a half hour.

The guy offered to walk me to my car. I told him that I needed to catch the bartender to settle my tab. It seems that I didn't have a tab though because the guy had already settled it. So off we went. Upon reaching my car, he asked for my phone number. What the heck. He then explained that he didn't believe in the whole "you have to wait a certain number of days before calling" thing. To me this said that I should expect a call on Sunday.

So I rescued my friend and her date from downtown, dropped them off, realized I was hungry and hit Nation's, and then headed home.

Around 2:00 Sunday afternoon my phone rang. It was the guy. It seems that he has a business thing in Berkeley on Tuesday afternoon. So we're going out when he finishes up. Argh! Now I have to sit around obsessing over what to wear. And trying to figure out a name for him if the date goes OK. But I can't call him "fill-in-the-blank Boy." Because he seems to be more of a "man" than a "boy." Wish me luck!

Fashion stylings continued

Remember how I said that music/sound is probably the second strongest sensory memory? Well, I ended up taking a trip down the memory road of fashion thanks to music.

The first major memory came through as I played "Gypsy Woman." The first time I heard the song in a club, I searched for it. Of course, I found it at Leopold's. (I cannot say enough times how I miss that place. Not that I ever did it, but you could go in there and try to sing a song that you heard at a club and the staff would tell you what you wanted. Try doing that in a music store today.) So I purchased the single and made a mix tape the summer of '91 before heading off to England for the summer. Most of the other folks there were uptight law students. And then there were the handful that seemed a lot like me -- from large urban areas, hip to the scene. London was like a homecoming of sorts for us. Our musical tastes? Our fashion sense? We fit in, even if we did not at our universities back in the U.S. And "Gypsy Woman" played in every club that summer along with The K.L.F. I was sporting a bob back then that I would tie back with headbands created from long scarves. I had these styling patent leather Oxfords with ribbon laces. One of my favorite dresses was this above knee one that was in a floral print of fuschia and black primarily. It had princess seaming that led to a fuller skirt. Oh, and long sleeves. Actually I have photos of myself in the dress. If I ever decide to post photos of myself, I know these will be some of the first. The dress still sits in my closet even though I have not worn it in years. I think that the London memories are why I have not gotten rid of the dress.

My next major fashion memories come from the late 90s. I was at real job #3 by then. (This was after I fled back to California because (1) I did not want to be a lawyer, and (2) I did not want to stay in Virginia.) They had a casual dress code -- jeans were allowed everyday, and shorts and tennis shoes were allowed on Friday. The thing is that I never knew when my boss might ask me to stop by some political fundraiser after work. Hello. There was always a chance of running into Gavin at one of these events. And he was still single back then. So most days instead of wearing jeans to work, I wore tapered stretch twill pants and loafers with chunky heels. This is also about the time that I started collecting twin sets and scarves. Some days I would wear a pencil skirt instead of the pants. In the warmer months, the loafers were replaced with sandals. And just in case, I always carried at least three other outfits as well as five pairs of shoes in the trunk of my car. These were also the days when I went out five nights a week.

This is why I was surprised by Saturday's quiz. Yes, recently it may seem that I have returned to my old partying ways but the pendulum is starting to swing back the other way. I spent two years working 10-hour days and many times six days a week. Often the weekend would hit and I would say to myself, "I'm going to go out and do something." By the time it was time to head out, I had no energy. Also my crazy work schedule made it nearly impossible to make plans with other people. I couldn't say, "Let's go to dinner at 7 on Thursday," because I usually had no clue what time I'd actually be leaving work. So except for the CL experiment, I rarely dated in those two years.

I like to look at the earlier part of this year as "making up for lost time." Now it's pretty much out of my system and I can settle down into a different kind of pattern.

So folks please don't worry too much. I guess to other folks I can seem a bit wild and out of control at times but really I have calmed down a lot. I mean I gave up hitching rides almost 20 years ago. And Jade no longer acts like Alice when someone hands her a mystery bottle and says, "Drink this." Ooo. I just had a really scary thought. Back then, I was the responsible one of the two of us. Now doesn't that really scare all of you?

Pt. Reyes was wonderful on Saturday, by the way. I got to meet Cookiecrumb and Cranky. Alas, poor Bean Sprout was at home. I also stocked up on honey and jellies for the family. When I stopped to get the honey, the woman said, "You really should just come by our store in Sebastopol." The jelly woman asked, "More of the pepper?" Oh, and I made a new friend. This time I spent more time chatting with the woman from Windrush Farm. She carries these beautiful organic wools. We got into a long conversation about knitting and what LYS's are still open. She then gave me her email address because apparently there is a knitting guild near me with which she thinks I should become involved. I guess this means that I should pull my knitting projects back out.

Now if I can find some other stuff to fill more of my free time...

Double dog dare me

I have been needing to go clothing shopping for some time. Now I am starting to think that it must be done in the next few days. Why? Because I have been reading blogs about what the latest offerings are -- skinny jeans, leggings, and formal shorts.

I see this all as a kind of challenge. Like the leggings? I guess they have always had a special place in my heart since that time back in the 80s when the dean at my college said that I had a kind of Audrey Hepburn quality when I wore them. (Leggings, turtleneck, ballet flats, trenchcoat. Occasionally worn under jumpers with the same flats. Or worn under skinny jeans that had started to develop holes.) How can one go wrong with Audrey? Skinny jeans were also a fave of mine at that time. Now I hear you. It's been many years since that time. Thing is I still wear the same size as I did then. Also years ago I was reading a book on fashion and my body type. Found out things that I already knew. I can wear any style of pants that I want to but have problems with skirts and dresses. Specifically if a skirt or dress goes past my knees, then it needs to be full. Straight, longer skirts that do not have a slit? I start looking like Olive Oyl.

So I am off to shop over the next few days and plan to have fun trying on all these wonderful creations. Because it's like y'all dared me to. And I (almost) never back down on a dare.

Now that I've scared all the men away

I think that perhaps the men read the title on my last post and thought, "What? Where are the tales of partying?" They were there. They just had to read past the title. Oh well.

Well, my time at the University is winding down. I have desperately wanting a certain t-shirt since May. Yesterday I received it. I also told the student who dropped it off that I would try to come back for visits. We'll see.


The front...


and the back.

Oh, and this was one of my purchases from Target. I couldn't resist since it was only $1. I haven't even checked yet to see if the thing actually works. But who cares because it only cost $1.


Doesn't everyone need a tabletop disco ball?

And finally, here is an update on the cats. I had pulled the boxes out of the closet so I could get the material I'll need for the school year out. Still don't know grade I'll be teaching. Either 5th or 6th. Wish they'd hurry up and tell me because I've never taught 5th so that will require a lot more prep time.


A rarity. B&N actually getting along.

I've been taking it easy so far this week but I'm hoping to make it into San Francisco for lunch today. The important thing is that I have to go into work early since I will be in no condition to work after lunch.