THANK YOU Heath!

My friend Heather "Heath" S. sent me the sweetest, most heartfelt card. I forced Kate to listen to me gush about it and explain to her what everything meant, because I was seriously getting choked up while I was reading, and I felt like I needed to explain why.

So, Darling Heath, thank you so much. Your card came just when I needed it, and it was so special and detailed and beautiful and I can't really express how much it meant to me. So, thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

GORP Continued

Did I not mention before that our retreat was called GORP? It stands for Greenpeace Orientation Retreat in Pennsylvania, because the DC (original) group goes to PA for their retreat. We still called it GORP, although that acronym makes zero sense.

Anyway, today I stole tons of pictures from Kate and Alek and others, because I really didn't take many pictures while we were on the retreat. I was too busy feeling disgusting after not showering for three days. I didn't even wash my face. I know. (Linnea, you're probably so proud of me!) As always, you can also check out my flickr account soon for more pictures from my adventures. Today we went to Fisherman's Wharf and the beach, and I took over 100 pictures. Whew!To get back on track, I wanted to talk a little about GORP and my experience with it. Overall it was nice: We talked about our reading, and we did team building exercises that did not include trust falls (boo on those!). We learned a lot about Greenpeace too. Like I didn't know that when Greenpeace supports legislation they refuse to compromise! Turns out Greenpeace, besides being completely independent and international, is also a collective hard ass! We also learned a lot about each other, mainly through an activity Friday night where we had to draw "life maps" that described what led us to the GOT.

The life map exercise was pretty stressful on me, and it was even harder after watching other people present theirs and say things like, "I recycle, so I came here! (smile, giggle)" Mine was a little more serious. I didn't really feel comfortable sharing my whole life story, but I did feel like I needed to say some stuff that would be relevant to understanding who I am, especially to people I'm going to spend the next three months with. So I talked about LA and about being assaulted, and just kind of said, "Here it is, and I don't feel comfortable saying anymore." And you know? It was okay. I didn't cry or anything, and I was able to just state some facts and sit down. I was really proud of that, and I still am.

The only thing was that afterwards there was a time for questions, and a girl raised her hand and said, "So why did you leave LA?" and without skipping a beat (or thinking) I deadpanned, "Because I was sexually assaulted." I'm still a little miffed about her (idiotic) comment. See, the whole point was that we all sat and listened to everyone bare their souls. It was supposed to be a safe place with understanding people, and apparently I wasn't even important enough to listen to? Or I didn't satisfy her curiosity? Or she just wanted me to say it as clearly as possible? I don't know, but it was one of those moments where I was so emotional and shocked that whatever tact I have flew out the window and I responded with my exact emotion, which was clearly disgust.

Later in the car ride home, a friend in the program commented on how ballsy he thought my response was, and said that he too was shocked at her question. It was nice to have a few people come up to me without provocation and support me, but honestly didn't really need it. A year ago something like that would have crushed me. Now, I'm comfortable with the amount I shared, and I'm also comfortable with my reaction to the question asked afterward. I'm at a point now where I'm comfortable talking about my past without major anxiety or sloppy tears, and it feels really, really liberating.So I guess the best thing I got out of the Greenpeace retreat wasn't really about Greenpeace at all, but about me. Still, I'm so happy to be here and experiencing this, and as corny as it sounds, I can tell I'm growing and learning every day.

First Break in 40 Years

Edit: This was written Saturday, but posted today because I only recently stole pics from Kate.

We just got back last night from a retreat into the mountains of Northern California. I was expecting it to be a kind of sketchy, with trust falls in the middle of the woods, but it was actually very nice. The only reason I really wanted to come home was that I hadn't showered in three days, and it was becoming more and move obvious to the outside world.

When were looking over the ocean, which was about five miles away, and it was so beautiful with the clouds and the air ... you know, it was just so magical there, I can't even describe it in words. I started out the trip taking a lot of pictures, but I just got so frustrated that I couldn't fully capture it that I just gave up and hoped my eyes would do it for me.I really want to describe this place, but I'm having such a hard time! It was about 300something acres in Occidental, directly east of Bodega Bay, but at a higher altitude. And there were different barns and structures that we used for different types of meetings. We ate in "The Green Barn" and we slept in what we called "The Sleeping Barn." We had our lessons in a cupola called "The Sanctuary" that has huge windows on each wall that looked out over the valleys and trees, all the way to the ocean. There are residents there too, who all have their own little houses and lives, but also have a responsibility to take care of the property. There was also a pet llama on the property named Pele, with whom Kate was particularly enamored. At the last minute of our trip we got to feed Pele and brush him, which was pretty awesome.As for the training, I'm probably going to post about it later. Some parts were good, others not so good. As a whole though, I'm glad we all went and I do feel a lot closer to some people in the group that I didn't feel that close to before.

In Which I Fall in a Heap

First day of work. Long day. So tired.

Last night Kate came in around midnight, having missed her connecting flight and having to stay in Houston, where the airport features a statue of George Bush. Rebecca and I stayed up to help her get settled, etc, and I think I went to bed around 2. I woke up around 7:30, even though my alarm was set to go off at 8. We went to work at 9, and were done around 5:30. Sadly for us, though, we really needed groceries, so we walked to Whole Foods to pick up some stuff. This was also kind of hectic as we were piling four people's groceries in one collective cart. Okay for shopping, NOT okay for checking out. But I did get to use my ID to buy beer. Related story: The guy spent a long time looking at my ID, and I was actually getting kind of nervous, but then I realized it was a real ID and I was like, "Whoa, old habits die hard, eh?" He may have thought it was fake (Illinois ID in California = suspicious?), but whatever, he sold it to me anyway.

So we got our foodstuffs and dragged it all up the hill, and we all immediately got in our sweatpants and ate dinner. We were all completely exhausted and zombie-like, it was kind of sad. But we ate and our friendly landlord came down to look at our kitchen drain (which is completely backed up, oy). Oh! And we had to make brownies because tomorrow is potluck lunch at work! Talk about stressful! Plus, like half the people in Greenpeace are vegetarian or vegan or just picky or snobby, so we were kind of afraid to make anything. Brownies are kind of safe, we hope.

And on that note, we're going on a retreat this weekend, and today we had to say if we were vegetarian or vegan so that they could get food, and I said I was veggie, but that I was lactose-intolerant. The coordinators were then like, "oh, so you're vegan then." To which I said, "No. I'm lactose-intolerant." They kept being like, "It's the same thing," and I'm all, "Noooo, Dr. Spock, it is NOT." Whatever. I shall now be keeping my stomach status to myself.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I'm not dead, just dead tired. More later!

Obligatory Apartment Post!

We have now officially moved. Well, we moved a week ago, but there have been many events between now and then that have kept me from informing you all on the new digs. Now we're on Potrero Hill, which was originally settled by Slovenians - there's a museum and everything. Sadly, that is neither here nor there, so let's get to the good stuff!

Our home sweet home is delightful. We live below our landlord, a nice guy with two adorable daughters and a dog that I promise you looks more like a bear. Chris (landlord) also has a wife, whom we have never met, but we have asked two different women if they are Mrs. Landlord. One was the dog walker, and one was the nanny. Whoops.

We are also near a lot of cute little businesses along 18th St, and not too far from a Starbucks and a Whole Foods. On the subject of Whole Foods, can I just mention that our neighborhood WF is the largest in the city, and has a spa in the middle of it. It also has a "bistro" and a gelato bar. It is also, clearly, ridiculous.

Here's the view down our street:Nice, right?! And in case you don't stalk on Google Maps Street View like I do, here's our house:Our door is down some stairs behind that little gate on the left. The house is not only on a street-hill, but also a lot-hill (uh, like parallel and perpendicular, in this photo), so although at the front of the house we are under the sidewalk, in the back we're actually on the second level, and have sweet porch. Also, my room is under that bay window. Say hello. Actually, here's the view from my room:Sexy, right? Oh, and here's my rooms:I know what you're thinking, and yes, it is Ikea-licious. We also have another bedroom, a bathroom, a living/dining room (with cable TV praise Allah), and a kitchen. A kitchen that apparently has one of those "old" dishwashers that you have to pull out of the wall and attach to the sink to wash the dishes. I had no idea that this type of contraption even existed. It's like that time in a class when we were learning about Hi-Fis and the professor was deeply disturbed that no one in the class knew what a Hi-Fi was. The decor is not as random and entertaining as our old place, but we do have a picture of a woman's thighs decorating our bathroom:Oh yeah.

From the Road...

Here's the post I wrote while on the way to fabulous Visalia, California, as promised! I made it hope alive, and as you can imagine, the first thing I did was reconnect (hey-o!) with my wireless internet.

Right now I’m sitting in the Emeryville Amtrak Station, waiting for a train to Hanford. I’m going to stay with my doting grandma for a few days, watching Project Runway and Lost and being tucked in every night (I hope!). It feels kind of weird to be blogging at the train station, or on the train for that matter, but this excursion has been bug nuts so far, and I have to share it with you.

So I had to get here through public transportation, which is actually really nice in San Francisco. There’s a bus stop right up the hill from our apartment, so I got on the bus and rode it into the city so I could get on BART (public transit for the bay area). I get off the bus at the 16th and Mission BART station, and it’s kind of sketchy. I used to live in the Mission though (Ha! We already have an ‘old’ neighborhood!) so I was totally ready to cut a bitch if need be.

At the BART station, I was only mildly accosted by one bum while I bought my ticket, and I went down to the depths of the tunnels to catch the train. BART trains are kind of cool, in the sense that they were probably cool in 1970, but now the experience is kind of like the Carousel of Progress at Disney World – dated. The other annoying thing (besides the fact that I had to sit backwards the whole trip) was that there were no maps of the route. Especially considering that we were underground, wouldn’t it have been convenient to know where we were going? Like on the El how there are very clear maps above the doors that tell you what stops are coming up. And the driver (conductor?) would announce the next stop, but it sounded like this: “THE NEXT STOP IS garbledygoopwhispersblehhh…” So there I was on the People Mover, having no idea where I was going or what was going to happen next.

Finally we got to my stop, which I was sure I missed, or perhaps it never existed, and I was in Oakland! Just so you know, Oakland is PAST Emeryville. At least that’s how it looks on the map. I have no idea actually, so you can Google Maps that one yourself. Anyway, I went down (I guess across the Bay BART is above ground!) to the bus stop, and it’s like, way sketchy. This is like the Oakland that rap songs are about. And my bus stop was under the freeway. I was brought up in cities and I’m comfortable in most situations and stuff, but while I was standing at the bus stop under the freeway in Oakland, I was a little nerviosa. I could hear my grandma in my head saying, “Oh shit.” (Hi Jozia!) Naturally, I called my mommy.

Finally the bus came and I hopped on, hopeful that it wouldn’t drop me in the middle of some industrial factory cum housing project or whatever they have in gangsta-rap-worthy Oakland. Turns out, Oakland is not only home to totally sketch public transportation, but also enormous strip malls! We’re talking like one big box store after another, but they’re all connected, with a parking lot that stretches in front of the whole complex, for (and I’m not exaggerating here) over three blocks. I wish I had taken a picture. Actually, I’d have to have taken a video or something to capture the breadth of that beast, and I don’t know how to put videos on the interweb. Believe me though, it was shocking.

Then the bus crossed into Emeryville, which to me appears to be one part shipping yard, one part suburban DIY Mecca. Suddenly there was a huge Ikea, and Borders, and a freaking Banana Republic! Weeeird. I asked the bus driver how to get to the Amtrak station and he said, “Go up there and there’s a ramp.”
“A what?!”
“Go to that brown building and you’ll see the ramp.”
“Whatever.” I thought, and I got off the bus. Again, nervous and cloaked in the misty rain of the Bay Area, I called my mommy. Turns out by “ramp” the bus driver meant overpass. The overpass was crossing train tracks, so I figured I was at least close. The only thing was, there was no train station. I kept searching, but it just looked like these were tracks for commuter trains and I was really lost this time. There was a little building by the tracks with the Amtrak logo on it, and I figured I could at least go in and ask where the real train station was. Turns out I was in it!

Seriously guys, this is the smallest train station I have ever seen in my life. And it’s apparently totally legit! You can get trains from here that go all the way to LA! I have been in Sephora stores bigger than this place. I took pictures, just because it was so hard for me to believe. I’m sitting right now all the way on one side of the station. This is a picture looking to the other side. It’s probably about 20 yards away.And when the train comes, it’s literally right out the door. I think this is as close as a train can get to the station without barreling right into it. You don’t even go down one step to get to the platform. We are the platform.

Sidenote: A woman has been walking around the station (all 30 feet of it) talking on her phone for about 40 minutes. She just said, “I’m not coming home with a lot of cash, but I do have a lot of vitamins!” Ha!

Sidenote Part Deux: Now we’re on the train and the same woman is sitting next to me, still on the phone. She’s so funny to me. And named Trish. Anyway, she just said, “Ungh, I had two massages yesterday.” I thought, “Dude, if you just got two massages why are you acting so stressed out?” Then I realized she was giving the massages. Ha again!Okay, this is about four hours later on the train. This woman has been talking on the phone for about 3.8 of those hours, and she is a loud talker. I now know that she’s planning a trip to Disney Land, has a friend who doesn’t like to fly because “it makes her ears hurt,” and has some serious personal issues. She just said, “It’s okay if the tears come, no matter the container.” Like Gladware?!

Oh, the life of a traveler...

When Only Cake and a Nana Will Do

I'm at my grandma's house, having an alterna-funeral of sorts, in which we eat (a whole) cake and watch Project Runway. I wrote a really long (and entertaining!) post while I was on the train coming here, but I can't figure out how to get it from my laptop to my Treo to her desktop so I can publish it. Perhaps there is a trip to Panera to steal wireless in our future, or perhaps you will have to wait until Friday to read about my trip across the bay and inland to the magical utopia of Visalia, CA.

As for being here, I'm not sure there's much to say. The point of me taking this little trip was that I didn't have to say anything, or feel isolated on a metropolitan peninsula while my family was in the Skoke at my grandpa's funeral (Grandpa, I'd pour out some of this Diet Coke for you, but it's beige carpet). Anyway, I'll be here eating cake and yelping over the Lost premiere with my BFF Roger Rabbit until Friday.Until then, my sweet admirers...

Moving Day!

There were a few problems with our Arkansas St. apartment. One being that there have been six murders in the past 24 days, all of them taking place in our 'hood. Another being that our front door did not have a deadbolt lock. This was uncomfortable for us, but it was very upsetting for the parental units.

Somehow I became very proactive and got us an interview yesterday with a guy in Potrero, and the apartment he was letting was just what I had imagined when I decided to move to SF. It's bright and in a great neighborhood. We can walk to work and Whole Foods! Plus, we can see the city from down the hill, which I'm sure is going to be awesome at night. So basically I made this whole little schedule for us, with viewing the apartment and meeting this guy, and I made all these calls and now we're moving in - just a day later! I was a total grownup! Whodathunk?!

It's kind of stressful to be moving just six days after moving here, but I really think that we'll be super comfortable in our new place. I guess Potrero used to be kind of industrial, but is now becoming more of a community, and the family we're renting from is part of this group of pioneers. More later - wish us luck!

Rainy Days 'Til Monday

It is so biblical here. It has been rain non-stop since yesterday afternoon, and according to the forecast, it's going to be like this all freakin' weekend (and yes, that was a shout out to R. Kelly).

In fact, I was looking at the doppler fortune teller this weekend and it looked like this:I was trying to think of things Rebecca and I could do during our two week adventure before work, and everything was ruined by the massive sheet of rain that is attempting to drown us out of here. No trip to the zoo, no exploratory walks around the city. All we can do is try to stay warm/dry, usually by hanging out on the internet in our apartment. I even thought we could run away to my grandma's, where she could mother us and take us to Target (hi Grandma!), but then I realized it's probably rainy as frak there too, and how would we even get there?

So I don't have any new adventures to tell you about, or any new pictures to post. Unless you want to hear about/see me in sweatpants eating saltine crackers, looking out the window, pouting.

Welcome to Our Home

Here are some select shots of our apartment, complete with commentary. The most interesting thing about the place is probably the art. We figure each resident has added something of their own, because the thought of one person being responsible for the collective decorating is too much for Rebecca or me to take.The view of Alabama Street from our apartment. Which is orange, by the way. A picture will be posted soon, I promise.This is my room. The ceilings here are about 12 ft, I'm guessing. (I have 9 ft ceilings at home, and these are taller than that) But the walls in my room are completely beige! Ugh. There is a trio of Southwestern somethings over the dresser, continuing the strange decorating theme that runs through the house.The kitchen, obvs. There was a lot of food here when we moved in, so we're systematically figuring out what is still good and what is too gross to even ask about. I ate some preserves today that weren't poisonous, at least not yet!

For more pictures of the apartment and the strange artwork found within, you can visit my Flickr page at this address (There's also a link on the right side of this page). I'll be posting ALL my pictures here, even though some will be in the blog, so if you're the kind of person who watches DVD featurettes and/or stalks people, then this is right up your alley!

You should really check out the pictures I took of the decor (on Flickr). A piece I believe to be titled "Hey Seuss" is so far my favorite. We also have a Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory bobblehead. Oh YEAH.