Alex’s Neighborhood

 Just popping in to say hello.  I finished a midterm paper that is due midnight tonight (in a couple of minutes!), but I totally had that done by 9, so don't worry for me.

Although it is worrisome that I feel entitled to a reward after finishing something I was supposed to do anyway.  It's been painful to wake up at 6am to make the 6:55 train to SF, in order to make it to the elementary school for tutoring at 9.  I just finished a 6-pg paper in one day (I HAVENT LEARNED FROM MY UNDERGRAD YEARS), but really, I've been reading my books and outlining it for weeks, so it wasn't that bad.  I have two weeks' worth of papers to grade for CW101.  I have to give feedback for a WS, that I've also procrastinated on for the past two weeks.

Instead of working on all of that grading tomorrow, I want to get a manicure (that I never get but like once every two years).  I want to get new tops that don't scream "hongry student."  I want to get new shoes that are pretty but don't need to be broken in (HATE breaking in shoes!  did I ever mention that I walked around the city with A with my new flats, and my heels were bleeding and I had to get all McGyver and shit with scotch tape at a convenience store in North Beach?).  I also want to/need to get a pore extraction, bc the pores on my nose look like strawberry seeds.  Not exaggerating.  I think my pores got bigger because of an extraction last summer, like my pores became addicted to the extra squeezin and lovin they got THAT ONE TIME.

So I'm a little tired but happy.  Happy that I'm busy enough to not miss Texas so much.  I've always liked it here, but talking to loved ones over the phone/Skype isn't the same.  I think everyone should just pack up and leave and mosey over to California.

Just kidding.  There's no money here, statewise.  My school's having yet another furlough weekend, shutting down offices on Friday and Monday.  And yes, I'm sure I'm going to a "real school."  I have loans to prove it.

From looking at how frequent my blog gets updated, one would assume that I'm busy with work/school (I haven't even started work yet), but really, I just don't think I do interesting things enough.

But stories accumulate over a couple of weeks, so here I am.

1. I just got Wendy's for lunch, because I had a craving for their chicken nuggets and baked potato.  This is a bad idea since I woke up at 3 in the morning with an intense desire in my stomach to puke.  I talked to my mom about this sudden indigestion problem, and she thinks I ate too much, too quickly.  She could be right; she mailed me a container or seasoned perilla leaves this week, and I ate that shit with Korean ribs and rice without chewing last night while watching a biography on Celia Cruz.  Salsa music makes for excited eating, apparently.
   
   
2. I got lost on the way to Wendy's, which isn't a big deal, but this reminds me of the time I got lost on the way to Palo Alto for a Monday drinking night last week.  I missed ONE TURN and ended up driving around for an hour while talking to A on the phone for directions.  I never made it, because I started crying and wanted to go home, mostly because I was frustrated about being lost and also because I had a big poetry workshop the next day (and I didn't feel like I was ready).  Sometimes I have my good days and my bad days when it comes to adapting to the Bay Area.
   
   
3. About that poetry WS--I went into it with no expectations of anything.  I took 4 poems (others have usually shared from 6-13 poems), because I still don't pump out large amounts of shareable writing/revising's where the money's at, and that takes me a while too.  To my surprise, my prof had really great comments for me.  He gushed like he'd never gushed before in our class, so that felt pretty unbelieveable.  But of course, that nicey-nice feeling of accomplishment tanked in 30 minutes when I was back on the BART train, being cold and missing everyone.
   
   
4. Yes, I miss home, but I've been forcing myself to go out at least once a week (I know, but throw me a freakin bone here).  It's hard to eat delicious food when you know your final bill is like 20 bucks.  And no, I didn't have to get that delicious 9-dollar mango-mint margarita at that tapas place, but it tasted like smoothies and I felt the tequila within 5 minutes of drinking it.  So worth it.
   
   
5. Went to a FOF's birthday party, where I witnessed a lot of making out between friends.  Texans don't do that, do they?
   
   
6. Hearing Californian boys talk makes my skin crawl, but I'm getting used to it.  They all talk very effeminately, but it's because I was raised in the south where men afix swinging balls onto their trucks and they can't get through a conversation w/o saying GAY 6 times.  Being here just makes me reorganize gender roles I've assigned to men and women, even though I talk a big game about equality.
   
   
7. Oh, and the undergrads at SFState dress funny and their hair's all ugly.  This makes me sound like a crotchety old person, but what can I say, I am my mother's daughter.
   

what I've been up to lately:

1. I slept from 11pm-9am after wolfing down a bowl of instant cold noodles, which I'm guessing included 3 tablespoons of MSG in it.  My eyes are understandably bloated and resemble dried apricot halves this morning.  I also have a weird, sodium-induced hangover as I type all this out this morning.
   
2. I've been so tired at night that I get this close to not showering before sleep, even after having endured an hour back on a dirty, smelly train with other tired, smelly people.  I hop into the shower, with grand plans of shaving my armpits and actually using my expensive conditioner, but in 5 minutes, there's only enough time for a half-assed scrub of my hair and a swipe of baby soap for body wash.
3. No matter how much I try to write during the day (waiting for class to start, waiting for train to come, on my long weekends in coffee shops), something always happens to me at night, with writing.  Usually, I'm a good sport and I get out of bed to start writing, but last night, I thought it was a brilliant idea to start dictating my ideas into my phone before sleeping.
   Not so brilliant.  I played it back this morning, and it goes something like, "...we have these fights.  Over the fact that I assume that I'd still love him if he only had one nut and that he wouldn't feel the same if I had one boob."
   
4. I have a hotel party in San Jose to go to this Saturday.  This is much fancier and more brag-worthy than staying in, watching the A&M vs. New Mexico game while finishing off the junk food section of my pantry.
   This is a problem, because I don't have anything fancy to wear (I mean "fancy" as in it doesn't involve blue jeans or muumuus).  The last get-together I went with these people, they were glitzed out and and the girls were all legs, and I was sitting stumpy in my jeans and tank top-cardi routine.
5. Don't tell my parents this, but after I graduate with an MA from SFSU, I might a) not pursue an MFA from there and try for somewhere else (which isn't a bad thing, really) OR b) get a "real job" in some corporate setting and pursue an MFA later in life, before age 30.
   The reasoning behind this is that I am starting to see that MFA programs really want people with more experience than just having been out of school.  This seems critical, whether it's about me being a better writer or about me becoming a more experienced human being (which makes one become a better writer).
   
6. I was gonna chill and eat kettle chips in bed all day (since I'll be doing laundry soon anyway), but I think I should write.
   

I've had a busy week, with the beginning of school and taking care of missing paperwork/getting forced into classes/doing lame administrative stuff one does when starting school.

It's even messier here than it ever was at A&M because California is broke and so is the CSU system, so they're off on "furlough days" twice a month when the whole university shuts down.  This is an annoying but sad fact of life, but I won't be complaining when I get my 5-day Labor Day Weekend rolls around.  Seriously.  We're out from Friday to Tuesday (9/4-9/8).  I told A that we should have a super-secret rendezvous in Las Vegas bc from OAK to LAS is $178, roundtrip, but I think he still has school AND I should save that money for groceries instead of jetsetting then arriving home to scrape pennies together for measly Hamburger Helper.

The two-hour commute to school and back, 3 times a week, isn't horrible.  I sometimes daydream what it'd be like if I lived in the city, like the Mission (good food but scary at night) or the Sunset (boring but mostly residential).  I guess living in the East Bay is a sacrifice I have to make to not be greeted outside with a lungful of urine stank every morning.

I do love the city, but I also like being able to sleep in a relatively new townhouse instead of dealing with a crap apartment that's falling apart while living with a roommate in a shoebox studio, because you know that's all I'd be able to afford in the city.  That's why my master plan involves luring A out here so we can be cramped together in a $1200 studio.  When we fight, we'll probably retreat to our respective corners of the room, and I'll weep silently for a minute until he gently nudges me and says, "There, there."  Oh boy, can't wait!

My roommate is away this weekend to see his gf in Chicago, and I met another person this weekend whose bf is in Chicago, and I actually met her for the first time at her own going-away party.  She is going back to patch things up and is going telecommute for half a year from there.

And her roomie, who invited me, also used to be in a long-distance relationship, but her bf just moved to the bay area once he got hired here.

I'm starting to see a pattern!

It could be that a lot of people who work here are transplants, who moved bc of work, school, etc.  But I think it has more to do with the fact that everyone was coupled up before they graduated college, and now, as yuppies, they still want to stay with their sweeties, even though they're half a country away.

We're all so damn hopeful and positive about LDRs around here.  It's only been around 2 months since I've been here, so it hasn't been very hard on me and A.  We haven't started school yet (well, he's just had one class so far), so all we do is call throughout the day and Skype for 3+ hours, talking and browsing online/play videogames.  I guess we just pretend like the other person's with us, unwinding for the night.

But once school starts, I know it'll get harder.  We both have night classes, and that means I'll probably have to annoy other passengers on the train back home with my cell conversations.  As cliche (and usually DOOMED) as long-distance relationships are, I know that being apart right now will make things easier on us later career-wise, so I'm willing to suck it up and make kissy faces at my webcam when I can while he keeps playing Madden '10.

me:  Running a household for one and budgeting is surprisingly hard.
A:  Yeah, but as long as you keep track of everything and eat at home often, you'll be fine.
me:  But I'm not used to this budgeting thing; it actually takes time and mental energy. I'm just used to eating/buying what I want, when I want.  The only activities I'm used to putting mental energy into are TV and writing.
A:  ...TV?
me:  Yes, I'm really good at watching TV for a long time, back to back, without breaks.
A:  ...

I'm serious.  I've been known to finish first and second seasons of Mad Men in one sitting while knitting at the same time.  Third season's premiere is this Sunday!  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT.

Warning:  I am about to pop off on political matters, so if you like Fox News or think you should pay directly to a private insurance, GTFO immediately.

*****

Several of my neighbors on Vox do the "Things on Tuesday" thing, but I'm gonna call this "Things on Thursday" bc A) I am so angry right now and B) alliteration.

It's been a while since I've taken to blogging when I'm pissed off about political/worldly worries but hope my friends get a couple of chuckles out of this (the roommates, G, Kiki, etc.)

Hating:

1. Michelle Malkin.  To say that she's just another hateful conservative talkinghead would be simplifying things.  I am more upset with her because she is Asian.  When A and I first saw her as a guest on a cable news channel, we both said aloud, SHE HATES HERSELF.  As in she never outgrew that self-hating period that all Asian teens go through (your parents are strict as shit, people in high school are still "ching chong chang"-ing to you, nothing fits right bc your ass doesn't exist and your boobies are still MIA).  I want to shake her and scream, JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE BUYING YOUR BOOKS DOES NOT MEAN THEY LIKE YOU.
   
   And when someone called her "an Asian Ann Coulter," she replied, "I'm not Asian, I'm American," and something else about how she likes Ann Coulter (O RLY).  When will she get off the crazy train and realize the white conservatives don't give a dick about Asians?  (I know this for a fact, bc I have a close white girlfriend, and after visiting her house a few times, she later told me that her mother blamed my people for taking all of the white people's good jobs in the US.  WTF.  Maybe if y'all were better at math or science, you'd have those jobs instead!  My friend is radically different from her mother, thank goodness.)
   
   
2. Misogynistic commenters on Reddit.  These freaks make Eminem look like a fucking feminism activist.  Okay, it's obvious I need to just go to sleep and, by tomorrow, I'll be back on Reddit, cooing at funny cat pictures and "we need universal healthcare" stories, but there are so many bitter dudes who sound just like the bastard who killed those women at an LA Fitness.  It's like, Dude, I can't help you if you don't know how to talk like/to a normal fucking person instead of talking down to women like we're 75% human.  Let ME help YOU by you learning how to not troll on the intarwebs and by me giving you a second chance.
   
   Yes, you love bacon, cats, and some other more intelligent topics, but you also love women-bashing, so you are no better than Digg.  OH SNAP YES I WENT THERE
   
   
3. The lack of universal healthcare in the US and the fact that scared, elderly white people are duped into helping out big companies while screwing themselves over.  What good is private insurance when they fucking dump you as soon as they find out you have a disease on a list of red flagged diseases (that are coincidentally very costly diseases, btw) and then the insurance company rescind their policies?
   
   It's ridiculous that when my dad needed a colonoscopy a couple of years ago, we found out it was cheaper for him to fly all the way to South Korea for ~$1000, roundtrip, and get his tests and treatment there (if necessary) instead of staying in the US for a checkup.  My mom also had to fly back to Korea for cysts and things, and in her case, it was also cheaper for her to fly to another damn country and get it taken care of.  Both are okay today and neither had serious, deadly problems.
   
   So how are the people WITH private insurance any better off than my parents, legal citizens/residents who run their own business and do not have access to affordable healthcare, if covered workers get dropped by a company for not mentioning a previously existing condition that really meant diddly-squat?

I know I need to chill out and go running instead of reading more ugly things online, but I sometimes feel like there is nothing I can do to help fix this lemon of a society.  I can help through personal contacts and through my own actions and words, but shutting out politics, religion, and TV out of my life seems to be easier.   Except just because I don't read/hear it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

To round things out, here's a list of good things:

1. I am seriously in love with La Roux.  I know I'm late on them, but they are super catchy and put me in a better mood.  I've also rediscovered Poses by Rufus Wainwright.
   
   
2. I've heard back from a journal, so three of my poems will be featured in the 13th issue of Breadcrumb Scabs.  They are on their 8th right now, so they are still fairly young.  This is a third, small lit journal for me, and my goal is to get published by a national magazine before I graduate.  I think it's doable if I work hard and my personal/family life keeps on suffering from being far away from Texas.  Just kidding.  Partly.
   
   
3. My 2nd-yr anniversary with A is just around the corner, and this means a steak dinner over Skype.  But this also means I have to make my own steak, and I'm not very excited about that part.
   
   I think I love steak enough to try grilling my own for once.
   

Today I self-diagnosed myself with hypoglycemia (or, I guess, with just WEAK ASSERY) after almost blacking out during my morning run and WebMD-ing this shit because I don't have health insurance.  I also prescribed myself lots of healthy snacks throughout the day if I have been scant on meals.

To help you better understand what happened this morning, I must rehash an old story when I did black out in Europe when I was in the 10th grade, going on 11th.

I was on a trip to Europe with my art class and another European history class that teamed up with us for the summer 8-day trip.  It cost a lot of money, but after convincing my parents and my grandparents (who foot the bill) to let me go on this trip and a year later, I landed at the da Vinci Airport, but not without the usual fuss I have to deal with when I travel.

I'm very prone to motion sickness (ex: August 2008, Grand Cayman--I had to sit out from snorkeling because I was busy throwing up and making a BM at the same time on the small snorkel boat, NOT MAKING IT UP.  When I told A after exiting the bathroom, he laughed.  A lot.).  As soon as we landed in Italy, our student group had a packed evening--gelato-eating, Spanish Steps-visiting, and LOTS OF WALKING.  I did none of those activities very well that night, bc it was kind of hard recovering without lying down and drinking water to make up for all the throw-upage and dehydration.  Naturally, I didn't eat dinner that night either.  Still had a hard time keeping food down.

The next morning, I started feeling better/cheery and showed up for some cornetti and coffee, except I DUMPED THE HOT COFFEE ONTO MY LAP.  It was a shame, bc I was in my new cream-colored eyelet skirt, and I was serious as death about looking good for my photos that afternoon ("I'm in Italy!"), so I ran back to my room and whipped out a sheet of Shout! and went to work during breakfast hour.

Keeping up with my food log--no dinner the night before and no breakfast that morning.  Min + not eating = she will go fucking Liz Lemon on you.

Before lunch, we were scheduled to go see the Colosseum and the Forum, and I wandered around the Colosseum just fine.  Didn't feel sick at all.  It was getting kinda hot, but that's a Mediterranean summer for you.  We saw our share of stray kitty cats and three different kinds of columns, so we moved onto the Arch of Constantine.

We rested and listened to the guide tell us the story behind the arch.  I don't remember what he said, but when the guide was finally done talking, we moseyed over to the Forum.

There is a hill from the Arch to the Forum, and from my memory, it was as tall as a freaking building, but in reality, it's probably at a very reasonable incline and grannies and grandpops from all over the world didn't have trouble with that hill...  but this is where I started seeing black spots.

I didn't feel very well.  I was slowing down, and I felt jittery for no reason.  I couldn't feel my face by the time I stepped to the side, in the shade, and that's when my bf at the time yelled at me from 5 yds away to pick up my pace.

What a fucking prick.  I couldn't see him or my two own hands by then, but as soon as I got my eyesight back, I wanted to jab at his damn eyes with my bare hands so he could understand what I was going through.

To a person who is blacking out for the first time, it's sorta freaky to not be able to see while also being in a place one's not familiar with.  Everything happened at a slow, warbled pace, because no matter how much I wanted to do what others were instructing me to do, it was hard to focus on what they were saying.

By the time my idiot ex realized something was wrong with me, so did a couple of the school's patrons who happened to be doctors.  All of a sudden I was being shoved a peanut butter cracker into my mouth and they told me to keep chewing.  I had cottonmouth, so it felt like chewing on 5 saltines while blindfolded.  I also remember not being able to taste anything except for the fact that it was salty.  The peanut butter taste kicked in later when I could also start seeing again.

They gave me a bottle of water to wash everything down, and by then, blots of black and white turned into trees and recognizeable faces.  This is when color returned to my face from a pale yellow to pink again.  I returned to the rest of my group and hung my head in shame when everyone asked me if I was okay.

The rest of this trip went alright, excluding the fact I lost my passport at a train station, but that has nothing to do with why I see spots when I don't eat well, so whatevs.

SO TODAY before running, I forgot to eat breakfast and, during the night before, I had a super early dinner at 5pm, so that means I didn't eat for 17 hours straight.  And ran a mile outside when I start having flashbacks to when I got sick in Europe.  At first, I was going to walk it off, and the further I walked away from my house, the sicker I felt, and that's when I was like, Uhh I should probably go home and eat something.  I also was tempted to hang around on some neighbor's stoops until I felt better, but I decided that I'd rather pass out while walking home instead of hanging outside like a creeper outside of someone's house.

I told A this whole story, and he said that I might have diabetes.  Except this hasn't happened to me in 5 years, and both instances of feeling faint was preceded by me missing out on meals.  We both decided that I am just a big weenie if I don't happen to eat proper meals.  Until today, I thought everyone else also felt really lightheaded and nauseous if they didn't eat on their regular schedule, but apparently not?

I also had a friend in middle school who claimed she had hypoglycemia and got to nom loudly on pretzels in class.  Deep inside I always scoffed, BITCH YOU LIE, but I am compelled to believe her now.

I was on my way back from a Korean meetup (more details on that later), and I was listening to one of the really great podcasts from The Poetry Foundation.  The ones I've subscribed to are Poetry Off the Shelf and Essential American Poets.  You might like some others, so you should check it out.

Only through POTS, I was able to discover David Trinidad.  One podcast featured "Red Parade" by Trinidad, and listening to it made me think, "Of course!  This is what the host was talking about."

So read David Trinidad, love him, and also subscribe to POTS if you like this kind of thing.  Even though it's 1:30am already, I can't go to sleep, bc I'm so excited about writing and the possibilities in words, like the carbon atom to organic chemistry.  Okay, enough babbling!

"TCB" was added to our regular vocabulary after visiting Graceland in 2008, so now I just throw it around every single chance I get.  Getting groceries?  TCB!  Vacuuming?  TCB!  Fulfilling my second boba craving for the weekend?  TCB!!!  (I just looked up "the king tcb," and did you know that The King has a Myspace page?)

Anyway.  So without my mom or A here to run the laundry, to cook food (which also includes actually driving out and having to SHOP for food, btw), and to vacuum, I've declared Sundays as "Domestication Sundays."

I know, I know--it sounds wack!  But I spend 15+ hours in my room sleeping, eating, writing, and browsing online (that alone HAS to be 5 hours), and it makes it so difficult to get anything done here if my room's a dusty, cluttered mess.

Having had to purge useless stuff out of my life before moving here has been helpful to keep my clutter to a minimum...  and by "minimum," I mean that already there are 7 anthologies of poetry that I have on rotation on the floor next to my desk and the contents of my purse, including a day old, half-eaten pastry that I am afraid to throw away (because that's a waste of $1.75), are still on the floor.

But my carpet has been vacuumed, computer/desk dusted, laundry folded/hung, fresh sheets tucked in hospital corners, and I have perishables in my fridge.  I am keeping my shit together, so far so good.  We'll see how I keep this up once school starts and after I hear back from part-time employers...  and then it's back to living with dust in my eyelashes and Chinese takeout for dinner!