1. “Not an Angel” — Basia — Lon­don War­saw New York
2. “Lost Time” — Maria Tay­lor — Lynn Teeter Flower
3. “Bad” — Michael Jack­son — Num­ber Ones
4. “Stop­watch Hearts” — Delerium — Chimera
5. “Through the Glass Darkly” — Annie Lennox — Songs of Mass Destruction
6. “Honky Tonk Hic­cups” — Neko Case and Her Boyfriends — The Vir­gin­ian
7. “Let’s Go Crazy” — Prince — Pur­ple Rain
8. “Fifteen” — Taylor Swift — Fear­less
9. “Sing Me Span­ish Techno” — The New Pornog­ra­phers — Twin Cin­ema
10. “Gone Are the Days” — Mirah — (A)spera

I live in San Fran­cisco, and I work in South San Fran­cisco: one a very cosmo, met­ro­pol­i­tan city; the other the birth­place of mod­ern biotech. And yet, we have the most del­i­cate and unsta­ble elec­tri­cal sys­tem. If the wind blows just right, the lights go out. If it rains, trans­form­ers blow up, and the lights go out. One giant WTF.

1. “Overnight Obser­va­tion” — ONJ — Soul Kiss
2. “Cir­cles” — Cap­tain & Ten­nille — Why do they always pop up? As if my silly Fri­day meme isn’t cheesy enough…
3. « Juste une étoile » — Isabelle Boulay — Nos lende­mains
4. “Alright” — Jamiro­quai — Trav­el­ing With­out Moving
5. “If We Could Start Over” — Celine Dion — Uni­son — OMFG, she’s on her way back to Vegas!!
6. “Wish­ing You Were Here” — Chicago — Chicago IX — Chicago’s Great­est Hits
7. “The Cap­tain and the Kid” — Jimmy Buf­fett — Boats
8. “She’s the One” — Saint Eti­enne — Foxbase Alpha
9. “Out­side Look­ing In” — Mary Chapin Car­pen­ter — Stones in the Road
10. “Waltz (Bet­ter than Fine)” — Fiona Apple — Extra­or­di­nary Machine — Where did you go, Fiona? Come back to us!

Is it really Fri­day? Every day this week, I woke up think­ing it was another day. Today I woke up a 6:45 a.m. think­ing it was Sat­ur­day, and I haven’t fin­ished my paper for my Soci­ol­ogy class yet. My heart raced a lit­tle until I con­vinced myself that it was really Fri­day … and I had to go to work on top of that. I love four-day work weeks, but some­times they fuck with my head.

We didn’t have class last Sat­ur­day because of the President’s Day hol­i­day, so it’s been two weeks that I have had this assign­ment. These reac­tion papers are really a piece of cake to write, espe­cially since I love writ­ing and I miss it a lot. I’m eager for the next assign­ment and topic. I mean, give me a topic and I can go all nar­ra­tive on it for pages. But if it’s an assign­ment, I will invari­ably wait until the last minute to write it. I’ve started writ­ing papers early in past, but they were always strained and kinda bland. Then, as the dead­line approached, I was filled with a kind of inspi­ra­tion and I wrote some­thing infi­nitely bet­ter … and keep in mind that “infi­nitely bet­ter” is rel­a­tive. I will never be a Kurt Von­negut or a Neil Gaiman, but I know I can craft a paper when I have to. And now that it’s offi­cially rec­og­nized that I’m bored at work, I feel less guilty about using my six-and-a-half hours in the office as my home­work time.

Oh my god, I could really use a drink right now. My boss just gave me my review from last year’s per­for­mance, and he voiced — out loud — every­thing I’ve been rant­ing about for the last year. I am in the void. The group’s projects are under­whelm­ing, we’re “heavy” aka over­staffed, and the com­pany doesn’t know what to do with me. They’re going to try to find a place for me. That should be heart­warm­ing. That should make me feel safe and secure; I have a job for the fore­see­able future. But, brass tacks, I have noth­ing to do when I come to work, they know it, and no one know how to fix it yet … or ever. I’m bored. I need intel­lec­tual stim­u­la­tion. I don’t want to roam the halls look­ing for some­thing to do. And yet, he admit­ted to me that it’s not worth his los­ing the tal­ent in the short term only to have to make up for it later on. So I have to keep my nose clean and show up every day. And try not to go fuck­ing stir crazy. The Secret doesn’t always work.

My god, it’s humil­i­at­ing. How am I sup­posed to look at these peo­ple? They’re sup­posed to help me look for stuff to do, make up new respon­si­bil­i­ties, extend cur­rent ones. I feel like a char­ity case. I don’t care about the review and the num­bers. I know I didn’t exceed expec­ta­tions. I know I didn’t per­form to the best of my abil­i­ties. My abil­i­ties do not lie in man­ag­ing peo­ple. They lie in pub­lish­ing and for­mat­ting and copy-editing … things that I can no longer do. I feel like I’ve been cast off, put down in the base­ment behind stacks of boxes, hid­den from view because no one knows what to do with me. How do I make a job where none exists? How can I repur­pose my career? How do I stay relevant?

I never thought I would cry at work … espe­cially over some­thing like this, but I’ve never felt so worth­less before.

1. “Tammy” — Debbie Reynolds — Oh my god, we’re not start­ing this way, are we? I can’t lis­ten to her any­more and not think of Bobbi Adler. “Light a match when you poopie-doopie.” Jesus.
2. “Love Will Keep Us Together” — Captain and Ten­nille — What a coin­ci­dence. You really have no idea how much I love this song. Really, you don’t.
3. « Je me sou­viens » — Lara Fabian — 9
4. “I Need More” — RuPaul — Red Hot
5. “Ashes and Wine” — A Fine Frenzy — One Cell in the Sea
6. “My Maudlin Career” — Camera Obscura — My Maudlin Career
7. “Tus ojos” — ¡Glo­ria! — Mi Tierra
8. “Mushaboom” — Feist — Open Sea­son
9. “Love Is Free” — Sheryl Crow — Detours
10. “Luck Be a Lady” — Barbra Streisand — Back to Broadway

So my car has been leak­ing like a fuck­ing sieve lately. It’s a wet­ter win­ter than we’ve had in recent years, and I think my sun­roof is plugged up, because every rainy day has left pud­dles on the floor. I mean, real pud­dles. It’s gross. It stinks. I can’t stand it any­more. So V and I drove down to Palo Alto to a shop that he used to use for his Jetta. My god, that was “fun.” We got up at 5 a.m., drove down in the rain, dropped the car off at the shop (which had a sil­ver VW square­back in the shop … awe­some … my par­ents had a red one when I was like six and it was awe­some … I left my crayons in the back seat, and they melted, and my mother yelled at me … ah, mem­o­ries), and hoofed it to Cal­train. Any­way, V trusts the place, and the guy was very friendly, so we’ll see what hap­pens. He seemed to know exactly what was hap­pen­ing. That’s always reas­sur­ing. I can’t stand car trou­ble. It sucks ass. So, because it’s Fri­day of a three-day week­end, I won’t have a car for four days, at least. That’s OK. I cer­tainly need the exercise.

Sat­ur­day, we’re going down to San Jose to the SAP Open. Another trip on Cal­train, even though we planned to take the train when we bought the tix. I like Cal­train, it just doesn’t run fre­quently enough on the week­end. That will be fun. I have really grown to like ten­nis. I kinda know how to keep score, but I under­stand the rules so it’s eas­ier to watch. We’re going to Indian Wells in March, which will be even bet­ter. We’re dri­ving down and stay­ing at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. We stayed at the Ace Hotel in Port­land for Christ­mas in 2008, and it was awe­some. It’s a quirky and unique hotel chain with just a few loca­tions in the US. The road trip should be fun. I’m look­ing for­ward to it. And we’re plan­ning to go to New York in August / Sep­tem­ber for his Grandma’s 75th birth­day and then for the US Open. Ten­nis all year long.

1. “Mosquito” — Vanessa Par­adis — M&J
2. “Out of Time” — Melanie C — This Time
3. “The Pocket Knife” — PJ Har­vey — Uh Huh Her
4. “Last Thing on My Mind” — Bananarama — Please Your­self
5. “Alfie” — ONJ — Indigo Women of Song
6. “Shower Scene” — Saint Eti­enne — Fin­is­terre
7. “Fascination” — Everything But the Girl — Eden
8. “Nobody Does It Better” — Carly Simon — Reflec­tions
9. “Hope for the Hopeless” — A Fine Frenzy — One Cell in the Sea
10. “Stacked Crooked” — The New Pornog­ra­phers — Twin Cin­ema

So, it’s Fri­day again, and it rained all night last night, and when I got to my car this morn­ing, the floor on the pas­sen­ger side was sop­ping wet again. Some­where in that damned sun­roof, there is a leak and it’s pour­ing water onto the floor. It’s dis­gust­ing, and it stinks, and I’m fed up. I did a quick cal­cu­la­tion, and if I got rid of my car I would save over $200 a month in expenses. Add that to the rest of the money that I am going to save this year, and it will be close to $2000 a month in cash … in my pocket. I don’t really know what I would do with all that spare change, but it sure sounds nice.

I have had a headache all week. It’s get­ting kind of old by now. Don’t really know how to get rid of it. Excedrin and Advil don’t work any­more. Nei­ther does sleep.

V has a marathon on Sun­day. He’s run­ning a half-marathon, but still, that’s pretty major. He’s run the course a cou­ple of times already, and he’s been able to get it done in the same amount of time both times … less than two hours, one-fifty-something. That is pretty awe­some. I’m impressed by any­one who runs a marathon, half or full. It’s a huge amount of work and train­ing and men­tal psych­ing. I am far too seden­tary these days to even con­sider run­ning around the block let alone a race. This is the first one, he’s run­ning a sec­ond one next month, another half-marathon in Oak­land. I don’t know how he does it, hon­estly. Makes me look like a lazy slob, really.

I made snick­er­doo­dles last night. They came out look­ing like sil­ver dol­lar pan­cakes. They spread out quite a bit while cook­ing, and they’re much thin­ner than I expected them to be. I was hop­ing for a lit­tle more puffy, but they taste OK, so what­ever. Not sure I’ll do that again.

I am so over this.

I would like to give pub­lic and sin­cere thanks to the City and County of San Fran­cisco for imple­ment­ing a Twit­ter ser­vice by which to report prob­lems found through­out the city. I have used this ser­vice three times already, and three times I have seen the prob­lems fixed within 48 hours. It’s amaz­ing to me. All of the issues I had were with road con­di­tions, small things com­pared to the over­all state of roads in the city, but they were men­ac­ing nonethe­less. The most recent of these was a small­ish pot­hole up against the curb of Lyon Street, just across from our new apart­ment. It was about two feet square, just big enough to roll one of your wheels in and not be able to get it back out. It looked like it had been there for a while because it was filled with all sorts of debris, includ­ing a banged up old orange street cone. One night, after park­ing just inches from it, I sent a direct mes­sage to @SF311, and within an hour, I had a direct reply with a case num­ber, and two days later, I woke up to the rum­ble of road equip­ment tear­ing up the street to fix the prob­lem, which looks a great deal worse than a sim­ple pot­hole. I should have taken pic­tures. In any case, it gives me a lit­tle bit of civic sat­is­fac­tion know­ing that I helped fix this irri­tat­ing prob­lem. I will be vig­i­lant and unafraid to tweet away any issues I see … within rea­son, of course. I mean, don’t even get me started on the Tenderloin …

In other news, I’m in a bit of quandary. Our new apart­ment is con­sid­er­ably smaller than Henry Street. I think I’ve men­tioned that. V made a sort of half-hearted rule about buy­ing new things, espe­cially when it comes to shoes. Yes, it was directed at me, and yes, I am ignor­ing him. His rule is that if we buy some­thing new, we should be pre­pared to get rid of some­thing old, in order to main­tain some ten­u­ous bal­ance that he thinks we’ve achieved. Ha, I say. I have 20-ish pairs of shoes, and they’re not at all orga­nized, and it’s messy, but what­ever. I wear them all. So, when I saw a sale at 6pm.com, for a pair of Keens that I don’t have yet, and for $30, I had to jump on that. They came in yes­ter­day, and I clev­erly wore black shoes to work so that when the new shoes came in (also black), I could swap them and wear them home with­out rais­ing too much sus­pi­cion. I don’t think he noticed them because for sure he would have said some­thing. But now I feel guilty for buy­ing them, or guilty for not telling him that I bought them. Like I need to come clean and admit an offense or some­thing. Like I’m doing some­thing wrong. Like his rule is ridicu­lous. He doesn’t read this, and no one else does, either, but I still feel like I need some abso­lu­tion. This is just as ridicu­lous as his rule.

One of my favorite songs ever, just for fun:

It’s over, we’re com­pletely moved out of Henry Street. Good-bye, farewell, see ya later. I don’t ever want to do that again. Seri­ously. Oh my god, I can’t really tell you enough how much I hated that whole expe­ri­ence. Not only the box­ing and schlep­ping across town in I don’t know how many trips, but the amount of junk that I have accu­mu­lated over the years and to which I have ascribed some sort of emo­tional value. It’s junk. Books, CDs, papers beyond belief, I don’t get it. I am mov­ing into a new phase of my life that is non-accumulative. I’m not buy­ing things I don’t need. I’m not col­lect­ing junk for the sake of any­thing. For my sake and san­ity, I will strive to be a min­i­mal­ist. Not only will it help my liv­ing space, it will help my bank balance!

And the books! Did I men­tion that I have more books than I know what to do with? Granted it’s not a library, but it’s so many. So many that I don’t know what to do with them. So many that I want to buy a Kin­dle just so I don’t have to keep them around. I don’t read as often as I used to, so it’s a won­der why I buy books at all. And that Kin­dle thing, as much as it’s still an abom­i­na­tion in my mind, is a pretty good idea for those of us who want to remain lit­er­ate but who don’t have space for it. I have to find a place for all these books. Like, some­where out of my apart­ment. Far, far away.

One of the strangest parts of the new apart­ment is my neigh­bors, as in, I don’t know them, I don’t see them, I don’t even really hear them, except when they open and close their doors. Our build­ing is three build­ings, three floors, six units in each, 18 total, do the math, all con­nected with lit­tle alleys between them, so from up above, the build­ing itself looks like an “M,” a “W,” or an “E,” depend­ing on your point of view. Our kitchen has win­dows that face onto that alley and look directly into the kitchen of the apart­ment next door. It was weird to wake up the first morn­ing, go into get break­fast and see some­one stand­ing there. I got a lit­tle self-conscious of my hair and my attire all of a sud­den. But then I real­ized that they weren’t look­ing over at us, even though I was look­ing over at them. I quickly averted my gaze and agreed to ignore them.

It’s weird. I feel like I’m break­ing the fourth wall when I do look over, and I can’t help being a lit­tle nosy. Plus, they have cats, and the cats see us and stare at us like we’re lit­tle laser points on the wall. And that freaks me out because I can see this black mass out of the cor­ner of my eye that is watch­ing me, and I don’t want to look because it’s not polite, and is this what city liv­ing is really like? Weird. Really weird. I don’t know them, and I almost don’t want to know them because it would totally ruin it for me. If we met on the street, would I have to be rude and not acknowl­edge them? Does the fourth wall extend out of the apart­ment and into the street? And since the win­dows don’t cur­rently have blinds or cur­tains, if we put up blinds or cur­tains, would it seem rude con­sid­er­ing the unspo­ken agree­ment of non-involvement? I just don’t know enough city eti­quette to know what the right answer is. I lived in flats for so long, and they were all so closed off from the neigh­bors, I don’t know. They were like lit­tle houses. I didn’t have to worry about stuff like this.

What­ever. Happy Mon­day. Happy February.