Pillow, Anthony, Nanny, Grotto
Yikes, been a while since I last wrote. Lots happening, let’s just kick it off…
On Valentine’s Day, Adrian (he of Oasis admin fame, and resident of South Africa) visited SF on pretty much NO notice, but we still managed to get a lot of quality visiting/eating in. But one of our first stops was actually "Pillow Fight Club," a cacophonous, flash-mob, Chuck-offshoot event whereby nearly a thousand people all arrived at Justin Herman Plaza near Embarcadero before 6 p.m., mostly with concealed pillows (as the invite asked). When the clock struck six, the pillows struck everybody. I trashed my pillow in the first five minutes thinking the event would fizzle out soon enough, but it went on for a good 20-25 minutes. It was certainly a raucous fun event, although like most of these events, a one-off. You can really only do an effective flash-mob on the same theme one time, then it’s just boring.
Most of my time with Adrian was combining tourism with eating, so we visited Haight-Ashbury and had Ethiopian food at Massawa (as soon as I found out he had never had Ethiopian cuisine, it seemed to ironic for him to come here from South Africa to taste it for the first time), the financial district and the Vietnamese splendor of Slanted Door, the Mission and the grilled vegan heaven of Herbivore, the Castro and the Burmese served by the cute boys of Nirvana, and of course, Union Square and the vegan delights of Millennium.
When Adrian left, I settled in for a night of eating home and crashing early, until my phone rang and I was given three minutes advance notice that i was being picked up for a night on the town by Jeremy and some friends. Much to my surprise, we ended up at Dragon (the weekly gay Asian dance club) because their previous destinations had been taken over by the bears that had descended on the town for a special fat, hairy weekend. We figured skinny, smooth boys would be Bear Kryptonite, and we were correct. That night ended at 5 a.m., so my goal of chilling out quietly failed miserably.
On a few hours sleep, I had lunch Saturday with Anthony Rapp, in town to promote his new book and do an acoustic show at the Swedish American Music Hall. Once again, the bears made me nervous as every brunch place on my way to Nirvana was overflowing with lines onto the sidewalk, but apparently, Nirvana was too healthy for the bears, and I got my pick of tables. Anthony and I had the longest conversation of the time we have known one another, and it was certainly enlightening.
One of the things I discussed with him, since I don’t know many people who can relate, is that I have never been good at accepting praise for Oasis. It’s been ten years, and when people e-mail me to thank me for the site, sometimes in their late 20s now after reading it when they were teens, it is not something I let in easily. The e-mails sit in my in box, and some block prevents me from just admitting that what I created has had an effect. The strange part is that Oasis was wholly my own invention, it is not even like I’m being humble because I don’t want to step on other people’s toes. There are no other toes. (Although it i safe to say that without Jase Pittman-Wells playing designer/webmaster from the start, it might not have come to fruition). Anthony said it was "unacceptable" to not take credit for it.
Flash forward to yesterday (Tuesday), and I’m reading the piece the SF Chronicle wrote about Anthony and his book, which has been getting across-the-board great reviews. After reading the piece, I am actually recalling our conversation from Saturday, in particular the notion that I need to own my role in Oasis. In that very moment, the phone rings, and it is a previous contributor to Oasis, who started reading it in his teens and is now a college senior, specifically calling me to thank me for Oasis and the impact it had on his life. Now, e-mails are pretty common on this topic, but this is the first random phone call of this kind I can ever remember. So, when the universe conspires to help you, it doesn’t go for subtlety apparently.
In other news, some of you may know (although most of you don’t, as I don’t think I ever wrote about it here) that I was considering taking a job as a nanny to a friend’s baby when she returns to work in April. It came down to me and another professional nanny (25+ years or something), and they went with the pro. I’m such a flake lately that I like anything that has clarity to it, so getting the gig or not getting the gig both give me closure on that whole topic, so it’s welcome. The main ironic component is that I only threw my hat in the ring after she kept saying "You should be our nanny when I go back to work." After hearing that enough times, it started to sound like a good idea. But when it became real, experience ruled the day.
There is a job that I am applying for today that is really spooky because it’s both a writing job (which I keep swearing I won’t do anymore full-time) and one that I am actually nervous at the prospect of getting it, because it seems like it could be the first time in my adult life that I could have a job that pays me AND I think it doing great work for the betterment of society. The pessimist in me says this can only mean I won’t get it, since I am more apt to get jobs that torture me.
While I watch the last of my savings dwindle to nothing, I decided to look into subletting office space at The Grotto, which is a local writers community, where they rent a big space, chop it up into offices, and then all show up and do their work together. It sort of has that psychological pressure aspect, whereby you know (or assume) everyone else is in their office getting it done, and then they have communal lunches and such. It seemed like a good idea and I found a half-time sublet. But, what I didn’t know was that the Grotto moved. It used to be a 7-8 minute walk from my house, and now it would probably need to be a 20-minute streetcar ride. And since it is a sublet, I would be carrying my laptop back and forth to begin with, so it just seemed like I would be waking up early to work out, then carry my laptop downtown in order to boot it up and be able to work on my novel, and then commute back around rush hour. At the end of the day, the extra commuting seemed to make me think: perhaps you could… oh, I don’t know… boot up your computer at home after going to the gym and work on your novel? I mean, I like the psychological component a lot, but for now, it needs to just be about me getting it in gear on my own.
And, umm, that’s where things are at right now.
