Misunderstanding

I saw this headline this morning:

"Family claims they did not deny gay server tip"

And I immediately thought, "well, of course they didn't. I'm sure it was a great tip. I wonder what it was? Something to do with love? With healthy eating? With maintaining great skin? Why would this article not be leading with the actual tip?"

Oh. Wait. Wrong kind of tip. Dammit. Now this is just a depressing story.

Then I got in the car mid-NPR and some guy is talking about "Sarah did this" and "Sarah did that." He said "Sarah arrived in Mexico in 1749." and I said aloud, "Who is this Sarah?" And then he said something like, "where he began his missionary work." Ahh. Not Sarah, then. Serra. Our friend Junipero. So much for that nice Jewish girl on her Mexican adventure. From what I gleaned from the rest of the story, I suspect the soon-to-be-converted native Indians might have preferred her.

The world of my constant delusion is more entertaining than the real one. Though it occurs to me that there are psychiatric hospitals FILLED with people who have said that very same thing, so maybe forget I said it? Pretty please?

Info

Eating my heart out

A few weeks back, I had the great pleasure of being included in Eat My Heart Out, which is a storytelling supper club, originally conceived in New York, and now brought West by its founder Eugene Ashton-Gonzalez, who is secretly from this coast, though I when I met him, I thought he was from the other. I think it was the tie that confused me.

EMHO is like the marriage of two things I've done in San Francisco before: Sunday Suppers, a multicourse dinner in a stranger's garage with a bunch of people I didn't know and, well, basically any storytelling event I've ever done. Other than that horrific story slam with a bunch of ex-con junkies from Chicago. It was nothing like that. (I realize that sounds like a joke, but it isn't. I actually did a story slam thing on behalf of Porchlight once where the other team seemed to be comprised of formerly incarcerated drug addicts. It was not delightful.)

Oh golly. I got all rambly up there. Let's try a new paragraph. EMHO takes those concepts and elevates them one step higher by having each course of the meal reflect the story that had just been told. This seems impossible to me, but then, I am not a chef. To weave this magic, the chef called each of the storytellers personally and discussed our stories with us so she could develop something delicious and thematically relevant. If you have the chance to go to one of these evenings, you should do it, because how cool does that sound?

Fight the power

Part of the curb along the median is a red zone. With the red as a background, someone has used silver spray paint to emblazon an important motto for all to see. From across the street, I believe it says "Unions!"

As I pass, and turn my head to look more closely, I discover that it actually says "Onions!"

I can offer no further illumination on this, but thought you would want to know that onions are not being left to fend for themselves in the complex modern world.

Info

Take two

In which I try to rewrite the thing I accidentally deleted and remain convinced throughout the process that the first one was better.

Remember waaaaayyyyy back on Friday when I was all worried about whether either of the fancy dresses I'd rented for Sunday's wedding would fit me? And, if not, how I developed a Plan B in which I would just wear the fancy necklace and a sheet?

First off, you should know that I've been obsessing about what to wear to this event ever since the moment I received the very grand invitation in the mail. It was weighty, all black and gold, and sheathed in more than one envelope. This wasn't a "modest gathering under my grandma's oak tree" type situation. It specified "Red Carpet Attire," which I took to mean I needed to acquire a floor-length gown immediately. I didn't. I checked with the bride personally. Yes. I was sufficiently concerned about my attire that I asked the bride whom I had never met what I should wear to her wedding, an event at which I was very nearly the least important person in attendance (I think my date might have been one step lower than me since he knew no one at all and agreed to squire me there as a kindness). She was very nice about it, to say nothing of helpful, which I think bodes well for my beloved friend of 24 years whose wife she now is.

Having gotten the requisite guidance ("pretend you're going to a nice New Year's Eve party"), I knew that I had one perfectly serviceable dress already in my closet. Nevertheless, a wedding in 1940s Hollywood nightclub seemed to dictate a little up-stepping. I decided to rent a dress, a thing I'd never done, but which a friend has done repeatedly and with great success. I scrolled though scores of available dresses, finally settling on the likely candidate as well as a second option, just in case. (They have "just in case" pricing for your second choice. It's like they've met a woman before. Bless their hearts.)

Having chosen the dresses, I then commenced to fret about whether or not they would fit me. You have a four-day rental window, so there's not really time to try it on and then opt for something else. Instead, I worried about this for about a month. I had a dream that I left for LA a day early, forgetting that the dresses were being delivered the following day. The rest of the dream was all dreamscape desert highway and panic. I made some calls from phone booths. My dreams and I are very old fashioned.

In short, the dresses loomed large.

Technical difficulties

And by "technical difficulties" I mean, "I am an idiot and I just accidentally deleted a lengthy post I had just written."

Rather than try to reconstruct it while it is still more or less fresh in my mind, I am going to go have a tantrum instead. I don't know. I'm just feeling more trantrumy than problem-solvey, I guess. We have a lot of ugly plates in the staff room. I may go break some of them.

In closing, AAAARRRRRGGHH.

Info

Kari Kiernan