Category Archives: Humorous

Mar 14 2013
14 Comments
Humorous, San Francisco

Dear Mom, Please Send Long Underwear

IcicleDear Mom,

It’s hard to find non gluten-free cookies here in San Francisco. My co-workers are weird. My college friends won’t let me eat their leftovers. My boyfriend’s in New York. I’m lonely and cold. Please send long underwear.

My house doesn’t have heat and it feel like the winter will never end. It’s hard to get up in the morning because the world feels like ice and my nose and heart are cold, and we already ate the good snacks at work and the next Costco shipment isn’t for weeks. I don’t want to buy a space heater because I’m afraid it’ll blow out the fuses in my room. Please send long underwear. Also, if you have a vacuum cleaner you don’t really want, you could send that along too.

A co-worker mentioned to me that San Franciscans seem to be more friendly, less judgmental, and happier than the people of New York City. I’m not sure if that means anything to you, considering neither of  us are from New York or have spent significant amounts of time there, but I thought that if maybe you’re talking to one of your friends who wants to know what San Francisco is like and has spent a lot of time in New York, that might be something you could say to them. You could also tell them that it’s really cold here.

My two thin jackets aren’t enough to keep the mild cold from sinking into my body and making a fool out of this girl that went to school in Boston. My friends make fun of me and I feel silly complaining about the chilliness.  I wrote a blog post about this already, but I’m not sure you knew how much this affects my life.

If this goes on for much longer, I’m going to go on a long underwear buying spree that’s certain to end poorly. I’m looking forward to seeing you in April, and to receiving long underwear from you.

Love always,

Emily

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Feb 11 2013
5 Comments
Humorous, San Francisco

What I’ve learned from speed-walking to work in San Francisco

Speed walkingSome people drive to work. Others bike or hop on the train, bus, light-rail, or ferry. Still others run, walk, scoot, or rollerblade. There are, perhaps, a few that cartwheel, skip, grapevine, ride a hovercraft, tesselate, or apparate.

But it is a small minority indeed that speed-walks to work. In fact, from what I can see, I’m the only SWLKR, making me the Bay Area’s foremost speed-walking commuter.

Speed-walking is like walking, except faster and dorkier. I like to keep my arms up and moving at a brisk pace to avoid finger swell, one of the foremost dangers of long periods of speed-walking.

As the Bay Area’s expert SWLKR, you probably have a lot of questions for me, and these I am happy to answer if you leave them in the comments below.

For now, I give you 10 tidbits, just a sample of the mind-juice I’ve squeezed from my walking grapes.

1. No one else speed-walks to work.

2. Speed-walking past someone is, by far, the most awkward way to pass someone. Especially if there’s a stoplight coming up. And they’re your co-worker. And you stand behind them because you don’t want them to see you in your tennies and backsweat. And then you walk at a normal pace so you don’t have to talk to them, but end up taking the elevator with them anyways.

3. Speed-walking up a hill makes one look just as foolish and out of shape as running on a flat stretch of land.

4. Speed-walkers get more love from the general public than other kinds of commuters. To date, I’ve gotten two thumbs up, countless smiles, and one (friendly) comment.

5. If you’re speed-walking, it’s a shorter step to running across the street to avoid waiting for a red light than if you’re just walking.

6. Wearing tennies, athletic capri pants, and a backpack in downtown San Francisco at 7:45 am in the morning is a great way to avoid fitting in with the corporate culture or getting respect from people who dole it out based on appearance.

7. Sweat still happens, but like most liquids, it dries.

8. People are often frightened by speed-walkers, the bizarre combination of quick but not-too quick movement that makes them think someone’s trying to sneak up on them but no it’s just me, your friendly office employee heading downtown to do some thought work.

9. There are three major hills I have to overcome as I head into town from the Richmond, but they don’t always pay off in beautiful views. Rather, the views come when you least expect them, like when I saw the Golden Gate bridge randomly yesterday and a rainbow today.

10. Beauty is everywhere. I saw a bird fly from a blossoming tree branch as two flowers fell to the ground and thought it was incredible. Then I realized what a romantic sap I was and that I probably shouldn’t share that moment with anyone.

11. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see something new everyday. And I think that’s the most important lesson of all.

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Jan 15 2013
16 Comments
Humorous, San Francisco, San Francisco weather

San Francisco: the 9th Circle of Hell

san_francisco_cold_winterDante sets out on quite the spectacular journey in The Divine Comedy. His buddy Virgil leads him through the onion-like trappings of the universe beginning with hell and ending in Paradise. He meets a whole pack of interesting characters on the way, and even talks to a girl!

Dante learns a great many things about the metaphysical world, but this blog post is mostly concerned with the temperature of the 9th circle of hell. For those who haven’t read it, this circle is not a fire pit with little devils poking bare-bummed sinners with pitch forks. It’s frozen solid, and at the very epicenter, Satan is frozen mid-waist, eternally munching on Brutus, Cassius, and Judas in his three mouths. It’s pretty gruesome but not unlike what’s going on in San Francisco this winter.

It’s freezing here. I’m talking walk-in freezer temperatures, the kind of environment conducive to housing animal carcasses and supermodels. At night, I wear all my clothes to bed and still wake up shivering. I go to restaurants and find them cold. I go to church and find it worse. At work, I huddle under a shawl like a widow and pray for the winter to end. My productivity suffers. How can I type if I can’t feel my fingers? How can I be a thought leader if my brain synapses are firing at the pace of cooled weed molasses (is that a thing)?

Some of you may be scoffing. Yes, the temperature is a seemingly mild 44 degrees, but San Francisco’s disgusting secret is that it never gets warm. Buildings are made out of Popsicle sticks and pipe-dreams, devoid of any kind of insulation that would make them inhabitable in temperatures below 60. Heaters were installed mostly for stylistic purposes, if at all, and it seems the average business owner doesn’t believe in turning them on for any reason whatsoever.

The chill sinks into the bones and stays there, making its home where once useful body cells now lie shivering against the walls in despair. In this rendition of hell, Satan is the Zynga dog eternally chewing on 3 members of the Big Four.

Dear Lord when will this end? How many techie geeks do we need to sacrifice? How many hippies? We have too many of both! What quantity of kombucha will save us from the never-ending ice? Just say the word and I’ll see if TaskRabbit can get it for You. Please oh please oh please.

Save us.

If you liked this blog post, you might also like: Notes I Took While Watching Your Date, Hi Everyone! I Changed My Profile Picture, or Watching Dogs Crap and Other Joys of Living in the City.

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Nov 14 2012
8 Comments
Humorous

Ovember: Let’s Ovulate!

This morning, as I was stirring my instant coffee, I finally deciphered the word Movember. Previously, I’d thought it was a call for people to move more, or perhaps a poor mashup of the word “man” and “November.” In my moment of insight, I realized the word was formed by cleverly taking the letter “m” from the word mustache and placing it at the beginning of November instead of  “n.”

This revelation was followed by a visit to the campaign website, where I learned that Movember is the month known formerly as November, “where men and women across the globe join together to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues. Men grow and women support a Mo (moustache) for 30 days to become walking, talking billboards, for our men’s health causes – prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.”

Suddenly I understood why some of my guy friends are growing out mustaches, claiming to support Movember instead of doing it without reason except for its hipster and ironic facial hair appeal.

Then I thought to myself, “This is all well and good, and men’s health is certainly important, but why can’t I raise support for the cause in an equally fun way with something only ladies can do?” So I removed the “n” and created Ovember, in which women have ovulation races.

Through a centralized tracking system on the website, millions of women across the country will be able to compare their menstrual cycles with one another in this action-packed month. The woman who increases hers the most will win a grand prize of twenty years of FLOW! feminine hygiene products, an Estonian brand known for its fiber quality that’s trying to break into the US market.

Women are encouraged to do whatever it takes to increase the number of menstrual cycles they complete in the month, including moving in with ladies who are master-ovulators, visiting various fertility pools, and praying to ancient gods.

Men who support the Ovulatrixes, which is what the participants will be called, are called Ovamen, and all the money raised from Ovember will go to purchasing fake mustaches to wear at Movember events.

Join me, ladies! Let’s ovulate!

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Nov 09 2012
16 Comments
Humorous, San Francisco, Travelling

Crucial Information for the Midwesterner’s First Time in San Francisco

First of all, I would like to congratulate you on making it out to this heathen city. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time and have some interesting stories to avoid telling your parents when you get back.

As you may have noticed already, San Francisco is not like the place you are from. Not only is it anywhere from 8-20x more expensive, but there is a very palpable cultural difference that reflects itself in everything from who people cheer for on Election Night to the kinds of music you won’t find on the radio station to the way people conceive the vast expanse in the middle of the United States.

Let’s begin with a few tidbits of information that will help make your time here as pleasant as possible.

1. Geography: Many San Franciscans have forgotten about the Midwest entirely, and are only reminded of it every four years when they watch most of it turn an accusing color of red and they boo. This is not a positive connotation. The red, for them, will stand for anger, ignorance, and obesity, three words that start with vowels. Some may even express fear at visiting the place you call home, as if the moment they stepped there, they would be accosted and forced to listen to country music  and believe in Jesus. Do not tell them that this is true. Avoid getting defensive, and merely laugh along with their bigotry. Then, make a note and send it back to your prayer circle to get something moving on the cosmic justice front.

2. Coffee: Be very careful of where you purchase your brown brew. Learn to identify the words “hand-crafted” or “hand-made” with “expensive” and “slow” and sometimes “too strong.” Be prepared to pay up to $4 for a brewed coffee that would have cost $1 at McDonald’s. If you’re not a true aficionado, it won’t be worth the money or the wait. Don’t feel bad about it. Just embrace who you really are and look up the nearest fast food restaurant on your smartphone. Do not ask a stranger.

3. Naked Flesh: Many/Most San Franciscans are horrifyingly more sex-positive than the average Midwesterner and lack a natural and healthy body shame. To make the matter more interesting, public nudity is lawful in some areas of the city (maybe all of it). It is possible, depending on your luck and the weather, that you will see nude flesh of varying quality as you mind your own business in the city, especially in an area known as the Castro. If this happens, don’t stare, don’t gawk, and don’t take pictures, weirdo. Just walk on by. If you’re with someone else who doesn’t see the nude flesh, do them a favor and don’t tell them about it. Let them live in peaceful oblivion and innocence.

4. Dogs:  San Franciscans love their animals. In many cases, the animals are their children and they are treated as such. You will see an astounding array of fresh pet food stores, dogs wearing various clothing items and political buttons, and  people taking their dogs out to eat with them at restaurants that encourage this sort of behavior. You can use this to your advantage by making it a conversation starter, “Do you have a pet? How much money do you spend on it, per year? Is that more than the money you give to charity?” And so on.

I hope this was a good introduction to the subject of Midwesterner travel in San Francisco. The topic may or may not be continued. It’s not really any of your business.

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