Tag Archives: love

Sep 04 2014
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Dating, San Francisco

San Francisco Missed Connections: Tales of Two Muni’s Passing in the Night

imageI’d say I have about three to four missed connections on a daily basis, people who know that I know that they know that something special is going on between us but we’re too shy and across the street from each other to say anything about it. It can be heartbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s why craigslist missed connections exists. It is the number one way for you to mimic online the experience of shouting your love feelings into a well in the middle of the Idahoan prairie or putting a love letter into a glass bottle and then throwing it into the recycling bin on trash day.

Though I’ve never posted anything on the missed connections board before, I thought I’d go ahead and try it out here for tone and style. Also, I just want to get real here. Missed connections happen. If you think I missed you, please leave a note at the UCSF Flight Attendant Study Terrace. Then, let me find you. In the meantime, see if you’re one of the below:

Cuff links and cologne – w4m (Duboce Triangle)

You might not have seen me but I smelled you the second you got on the N Judah at the Noe stop. You sat next to me and I was enveloped in your cologne like a letter in an envelope. Your cuff links spoke to me like sprinkles. Your circle glasses reminded me of Mrs. Trelaway. Let’s go walk our dogs together.

Whole foods hottie – w4m (Portrero Hill)

Your hair has blonde highlights and your bulging biceps are tattooed. I saw you reach up to pull your hair back and it was like I was looking at Atlas reaching up to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. You looked back and your jaw line smote me. I could listen to you talk about cheese all night.

You brushed my bangs away and stole my heart – w4m (Inner sunset)

You looked down at me and smiled and I thought I knew you so I smiled back. Then you brushed my bangs away and I realized I had no idea who you were. Whiskey on your breath and confidence in your gaze, you engaged me in conversation, refusing to give me your full name so I could look you up on LinkedIn. I don’t have a job anymore, so I don’t care about that stuff. Your name was Pablo, and my name is yours.

T-mobile support line flirt – w4m (Inner Sunset)

I called to change some info on my T-mobile account. You told me your name was Devan and that you were in Florida. We chatted for minutes on end. I was eating cherries and you said you wanted some, and I knew exactly what you were talking about. You have my number…give me a call.

Sketch artist at coffee shop – w4m (Mission)

I was sitting at a coffee shop and you were drawing faces on your sketch pad. I think we are in love. If you think you know who I am, tweet at me.

Balding data architect with twinkling eyes and a penchant for recreational marijuana – w4m (SOMA)

We met at a company holiday party. We ate the shrimp. We laughed, we danced, and then the carriage turned back into a pumpkin and I went home to the Inner Sunset. You taught me to say that people “write Hadoop.” Nerd. If you want to take this where it needs to go, send me an email from my own account.

Magician with chestnut eyes – w4m (Colorado, summer 2007)

You were in high school and I had just graduated. You had very nice eyes and showed me a magic trick near the pool. Then walked away into the night. I kept the torn card for a long time. What are your secrets?

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Aug 02 2014
4 Comments
Wassup USA?

Where to Find the Man You Think You’re Looking For

Looking for love

Looking for love

Being single is awesome. There’s nothing better than the astronaut-like freedom of living life solo.

That being said, it’s nice to be with someone too. Relationships are the meaty part of life, and it can get boring out there in space without someone to inconvenience you and add layers of complication and richness to your life.

I’ve done some traveling this summer and have seen men of all different stripes and beard sizes. If you’re bold enough to think you know what you want and go out there and get it, I’ve compiled a very incomplete list of the different kinds of men and where you can find them. So when you’re ready to tie yourself down, you know where to get the man you think you’re looking for. Just remember, you probably don’t know exactly what you want. Also, this list is not comprehensive.

Flannel-shirt wearing meat-eaters with loud voices and future possessors of a beer gut: Chicago, Black Mountain (NC), some neighborhoods in Boston, your hometown

Fashion-oriented, well-groomed men with a cultivated taste in books, music and food: New York City, San Francisco (some parts) (Warning: these kinds of men spend too much money)

Men that say they love you and then leave you for someone who is the complete opposite of you: Eastern seaboard

Men who wear camouflage and wolf t-shirts without a sense of irony and carry a rifle in their truck: Asheville, NC

Long-haired hippie types who find no value in bathing, automatically think dirty things are more authentic, and know the location of every coffee shop in a 2 mile radius: Allston/Brighton, Oakland, Brooklyn

Backwards baseball cap wearing men with poorly designed tattoos who would rather blow $60 at a sporting event on hotdogs than go to a museum: everywhere

Thin armed software engineers who are “working on their facial hair” and love puns way too much to be sane: San Francisco and New York City (much smaller population)

Cross fit fanatics that work 70 hour weeks wearing blue dress shirts and khakis and party pretty hard on the weekends: Everywhere, but especially NYC

Men who not only make you laugh but will also laugh at your jokes: anywhere except the financial district of any city. Also, avoid self-righteous places like specialty bookstores and some religious institutions

Gentlemen with wild beards, a penchant for soft leather, country music and drinking whiskey outdoors: Nashville

Gentlemen with wild beards, a penchant for vegan food, bluegrass music and drinking whiskey outdoors: Asheville

The tall, broad-shouldered, kind-hearted, dimple-faced, aw shucks attituded man of your dreams: Your dreams

Human man that you will actually fall for “when you least expect it:” the last place you look

So there you have it – now go out there and get it!

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Jul 17 2014
1 Comment
Wassup USA?

This Actually Happened: Boy Playing the Banjo in a Tree for Tips

North Carolina Busking

North Carolina Busking

I had just purchased a terrible coffee with some not terrible chocolate covered espresso beans and was sitting outside in Black Mountain, North Carolina when a banjo started to play somewhere. It seemed to be coming from behind a tree, but I wasn’t sure so I continued to look towards where the sound was coming from. All of the sudden, I saw a jar of lowered from the tree itself.

At that moment, I realized something incredible was happening. A person was sitting in the tree, playing the banjo, and had tied a tip jar to a rope and hung it from the branches. I thought to myself that I must marry this person if they are a male. Maybe I could put my phone number in the jar and then he’d call me and we’d go have a secret beer after I escaped the Baptist camp and we could talk about feminism and how much he respects women and hates the idea that women must submit to men in any way shape or form and I would admire his jawline while he talked eloquently and with good humor.

Then I thought it would be better to look at the person first, make sure he was male and not too young or too old, and then proceed with falling in love.

I crossed the street to give the person a tip (which is the most effort I’ve ever made to tip anyone), and then looked up in the tree. Sure enough, it was some dude. Unfortunately, he looked high school age and like he was terrified of people. That would certainly explain the hiding in the tree at least.

I’m not into the underage thing so I moved on but still put that banjo-boy-plucking-in-a-tree experience in my back pocket. I’ve seen three camels in a truck, and I’ve seen a mad hatter biking down Market Street in San Francisco, but this was one of the stranger and more wonderful things I’ve experienced (and taken a picture of!)

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Nov 12 2012
3 Comments
San Francisco, Two minute read

Sacrificing to the Great Tree and Other Holiday Fun

I went shopping yesterday and apparently it’s Christmasandotherholidaystime. Unbeknownst to me, and wholly without my permission, Union Square was decked with an ice skating rink and a giant Christmas tree for retail shoppers to worship as they complete their obligatory paycheck sacrifices.

I should have guessed this season was coming from the dropping temperatures, the massive “Christmas cookie edition” of various magazines at the craft store that I went to a couple of weeks ago, and the fact my skin is feeling more and more reptilian. Still, it seems a little soon to start pumping out the holiday jams and tinsel-fying everything.

This is that special time of year when retail workers begin to go insane from overexposure to Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas” and too many renditions of “Jingle Bells.” It’s that time of year that means everything from “hope” to “believe” to “eat” to “shame eat,” messages that will eventually lead to “start over” “begin again,” and “diet.”  It’s the time of year when it’s impossible to buy clothing that doesn’t look like a Christmas ornament, clothes that will be unwearable outside of these 6 weeks in the future because their sparkles and colors of good joy and cheer are dead-giveaways for holiday merch.

Yes indeed, it’s holiday time. It’s time to spread the laughter, the belief, and the inspiration, whatever those words mean. According to Banana Republic, they mean it’s time to get new dresses that are covered in gold sequins.  But I believe they mean it’s time to be real and break down the barriers between our fellow humans.

I’m going to start by hugging everyone at work today, full of the holiday spirit. And I showered, so I’ll smell nice. Maybe I’ll put a mini-tree on my desk and invite others to place small but valuable gifts underneath it for yours truly. Anything is possible, because this is the time of year when miracles happen. I’m hoping for a bed miracle, in which I find a bed on the side of the street in perfect condition.

I will make my sacrifices to the great tree and see what happens. I advise you to do the same.

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Oct 09 2011
11 Comments
Anecdotes, Two minute read, Wedding

Bride’s Sisters Need Attention Too

Far right is getting married. She’s a few years older now.

I saw my (triplet) sister in a wedding dress for the first time about 30 minutes ago, via the pictures my mother sent of the shopping trip my she and my sisters embarked on without me.  I realize I’m in Egypt, but would it be too hard for them to wait an unreasonably long time so I could give them advice to ignore when I came home for Christmas? Is that really too much to ask? According to my mother, it is. And so I’m left living the experience in 2-D, alone in my room in Cairo, looking at the beads and white fabric and wondering what the what is going on.

Seeing my sister in a wedding dress was surprisingly weird and emotional even if I wasn’t present in the flesh.  And thus the news of  “my sister’s getting married” continues its slow journey from theory to reality.

She really is going to get married. There will be a color-schemed wedding with lots of friends and non-friends and food and drink. Her last name is going to change. Eventually she’ll go off and live with her husband and there will be a life together in a place no one knows (hopefully not Oklahoma), and I’m going to be moving in with them after I get back from Egypt (probably not true). Her life will be permanently altered in a way that I won’t be able to understand until I myself am married, and there’s always going to be that weird guy hanging around at our house or at her bungalow, apartment, or shack.

All I can say is that if this wedding dress picture experience is any indication for the future, I’m going to be a complete wreck at the wedding and will alternately be using her dress to dry my tears or begging her to explain what happened over the past 21 ish years that brought us to this point. Weren’t we going to be kids forever? Can I please move in to the apartment next to them/spare bedroom to be a part of their married life? Are honeymoons really just for the couples or can sisters come too? How big of a deal is this? Can I handle it? Can she handle it? Can the caterers handle it?

She probably doesn’t realize this, but her wedding is a big life change for all of us, especially her. I wish I could be there as she picks colors and doilies, but I suppose the random blog post is going to have to do instead. And yes, she’s probably mad about me blogging on this topic. But luckily she rarely reads my blog, so maybe she won’t find out about it. Let’s just keep it a secret between you and me, okay? I’ll let you know how the wedding goes. I’m co-piloting, by the way, so it will be in safe but emotionally unstable hands.

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