I (heart) Panera Bread!

When I was a graduate student in New Hampshire, Panera Bread was THE PLACE for ladies who lunch. My friends and I would hit up this spot at the strip mall right outside of Portsmouth. I think their food is really tasty! If you are lucky enough to have one nearby, check it out! It's not even 11am proper yet and I am already dreaming of lunch.

www.panerabread.com

I feel the earth move under my feet

Last night, a 4.2 magnitude earthquake hit Oakland. Big whoopdy-do! I woke up briefly: My Mookie and I sat up in bed and "waited" it out. "Waited" is a HUGE overstatement--the very mild shaking was felt for MAYBE 5 seconds. When it stopped, I went to the bathroom and crawled back into bed mumbling something like "little tremblor." Ah, earthquakes are SO FUN!



WHAT?! FUN?! Let me explain: When I moved to the Bay Area, I was all like east coast earthquake pussy. I would think about the possibility of an earthquake and it would totally freak me out. Then, I experienced my first tremblor. I was sitting on the couch knitting and all of a sudden it felt like a huge hiccup--that's the best way I can explain it. I looked at Mook like, "What the hell was that?" And he said, "Earthquake" and told me to stand in the doorway with him, but there were no more tremblors, no after-shocks, just the beating of our hearts together. Mookie told me to remain calm as I felt his heart jumping out of his chest. I was freaked out, yet intrigued. Wow, I thought, I just felt the earth MOVE! It was kinda cool with a dash of salt-and-vinegar fear. I tried to imagine that hiccup more pronounced and thought, "yeah that would suck."

My original east coast fear has dissipated, replaced with a more west coast earthquake blasé. If it don't feel too intense, why even bother getting out of bed? It's just a little shake, rattle, and roll that's all. This leads me to another interesting thing about earthquakes: the first one I felt was like a hiccup, all subsequent quakes have felt more like a shimmy shimmy shake shake side to side--the way I've always imagined quakes to feel like. So the earth moves up and down AND side to side....SHIMMY SHIMMY YA SHIMMY YA SHIMMY YAY!


R.I.P. ODB

Jailbait

Fafi (brunette) is a cool French graffiti artist. Uffie, besides being French jailbait, is an electro rapper, gross that sounds awful, but her shit is tight. I promise!

Abuse of Power

I work for a large social service nonprofit here in San Francisco as a grant writer. Recently, my boss left the organization (let's call the organization "Doin Good in da Hood") to pursue bigger dreams. While I am happy for him, I can't say I am surprised he left and went on to "bigger and better things." He is one of those people who truly seem to have it all: smarts, looks, charm, and a seemingly nondysfunctional upbringing and well adjusted family to boot (which is probably a large part of the reason WHY he has all of these other wonderful attributes) Let's call him "Sal"

ANYWAY, Sal's been gone for a good month and a half now...SO WTF????



What the fuck, what, you wonder? Well, I just received a phone call from him. Basically he was using his charm and, I felt, abusing his good standing at Doin Good in da Hood (everyone loved him) to get me to write a grant for some OTHER organization! Now, I know there is the positive spin on this: maybe he was seeing this as a favor to me, a way to enhance my grant skills by writing a grant for a completely different organization. But listen to this: he called the freaking Executive Director BEFORE calling me. Hmmmm, very interesting. I mean, I suppose he called him to get clearance on his asking me to do work.

I am sorry, but my bitchy ass felt like screaming into the phone, "Listen, you're NOT my boss ANYMORE! You DON'T work here anymore! You don't owe anyone anything." I mean, this woman who needed the help was a friend of his and he used to help her write grants on Doin Good in Hood's time! In all fairness, I think the Executive Director knows the woman at the organization. ANYWAY, I realize this is getting terribly boring, so I'll end it. I needed to vent and this is such a great forum for that! A la Messieur Jerry Springer here is my final thought on the matter:

Some of the most cunning leaders have used an intoxicating mix of charm and abuse of power to get what they want...

Jeff Buckley's Death

Frozen blue voice with mud around it,
arise from the brown depths of the Mississippi,
this voice was
left behind, and
it drowned.

The drowning was foreshadowed,
in the words of a teenager,
angry and writing in her journal.
She misinterpreted his lyrics correctly.
Yes, there was a water theme in those lines
those moody lines of a cute, dirty white boy with a guitar.

The teenager, she lives in a cold place too
and she thinks she feels dead inside.
So

She is in harmony with his voice, naturally haunting,
coming from the thickness of Southern climate, the tepid mud of his final rest.
With eyes closed, the connection is closer, innate. She can see it all now

The way his life ends and how his words entombed.
All the nuances in the instruments, the inflections in his voice, the pattern of breathing:
they all came together somehow

And that gothy girl no one paid attention to,
the one even the poet feels embarrassed to have let enter,
Yes, that girl:
She foretold Jeff Buckley’s death
in a dirty beat up journal, tear-stained and all.