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Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Non-Heroics Suppose you weren't feeling well and decided to stay home from work, but as the day progressed you found yourself feeling somewhat better, and decided to arrange to have dinner with a friend (let's call him MC) briefly in town... Suppose that friend suggests contacting another mutual friend (let's call her CM) to make it a sort of group dinner, with some logistical quirks: you live in the East Bay (and work in the West Bay, but you aren't at work today!), MC lives in the South Bay but works (temporarily) in the East Bay, and CM lives and works in the West Bay... Suppose there's a moderate likelihood CM couldn't make it, you determine meet in the East Bay, say, Berkeley, since it's convenient for the two of you... Now, suppose you meet MC at the appointed time (say, 5:30) to find him on the phone with CM, who has decided to meet you two after all and is just leaving home... Suppose CM eschews public transit in favor of her car (during rush hour) because she "prefers to drive"... Suppose CM arrives 45 minutes later and in the intervening time, while you two haven't gotten horribly hungry, you've elected to eat somewhere more than a leisurely walk away for your meeting place... Suppose CM has a lot of shit in her car (a rather long-lived Saab having required much maintenance as of late--and neither you nor MC has a car available, having both taken public transit to the meeting-place), it's a bit of a squeeze to get two people in... Suppose you were to take a detour across the Berkeley campus (after the guard at the gatehouse confirms it is indeed possible) and you find the gate in the middle of campus is down and will not open... Suppose CM puts the car in reverse and hears an odd grinding sound... Suppose she takes a look under the car and discovers that the front axle has completely rusted through and irreparably snapped in half... Suppose CM can appreciate the good fortune to have this inevitable event occur with two friends present, in an open but nearly traffic-free road, on flat land (instead of on the way down one of San Francisco'a notoriously steep hills upon which she'd been driving earlier, through heavy traffic, alone)... Suppose CM calls her parents (one of whom still has the vehicle registered under his name) and discovers that in their frugality, they had just the previous month elected to reduce her insurance to basic liability (i.e. no towing coverage)... Then suppose the three of you split up (montage-style) to watch over the car (while shuttle-bus drivers shoot dirty looks at you for blocking them), check to see if the nearby car-rental places are open (they aren't), and ask the university's parking and transportation staff for help (which they can't really provide, beyond the number of a local towing company... Suppose CM doesn't know whether to have the car junked out-of-hand or see about the possibility of repair, and none of you can think of a place to leave the car that doesn't require a local parking permit (without which the tickets will pile up heinously), not to mention what to do with all the tons of personal effects that have accumulated in the Saab... Suppose the tow truck arrives, you manage to get everything valuable stored in bags in the car's trunk, and the driver knows a neighborhood in West Berkeley that doesn't require perking permits... Suppose also that all three of you can't ride in the cab of the tow truck... Suppose as well that it is now around 8:00 and you're hungry and starting to feel sick again... Suppose you plan to leave everything in the car for the time being, meet up at the local interurban rail station after the car is dropped off, eat quickly (ah yes, dinner), and head for the airport in order to find a rental car company that's actually open, rent a car, drive up to where the old car is sitting, help CM transfer her belongings from the old car to the rental, and get dropped off at home afterward... Suppose that all that goes off without a hitch, except... Suppose also that MC's cell phone is almost dead and he is going to be separated from you and CM and this will definitely complicate matters if you don't get in touch after the car is dropped off... Suppose that at 9:00 in downtown Berkeley the only options for quick eats are greasy Chinese food and a spicy burrito shop (you choose the latter) and your stomach is crying out for antacids... Suppose finally that when you arrive at the airport, you discover that CM does not have a credit card with her and (while MC can have his credit card authorized for the rental) it's still illegal for CM to be added as a secondary driver if she cannot produce a credit card of her own, even though they're all the way over in the west end of the West Bay... (Time check: 11:00. Your planned bedtime: 9:30.) Suppose that after fifteen or so minutes of negotiations, it turns out that a VISA-linked ATM card can be accepted for imprinting... Suppose also that though she is less than a month shy of her 25th birthday, they will not waive the $20/day "underage" rental fee, which for financial reasons instantly makes it more appealing to rent for one night instead of a week... Suppose that the rental staff also manage to misprint the contract three times, requiring both MC and CM to drag out their credit cards for a re-imprinting each time... Suppose that leaving the airport at night is fairly difficult, given that there is no direct, marked route to the transit stop at which MC will be dropped off and what appears to be the right road turns out to be a choice between a freeway onramp (no!) or entering a one-way the wrong way (NO!), and freaks out CM beyond all necessity... Suppose "burbling" is a good description of your stomach's current state... Suppose that after recovering all valuables from the miserable old car, you zip over to a local 24-hr grocery store, stock up on generic (grocer-brand) antacids, and find yourself at home at midnight, with CM's eternal gratitude... Supposing all that happened yesterday...why does it feel like so long ago today? Thursday, July 25, 2002
But What's Really Funny... So I've just had two new roommates move in, completely cleaned out my room for the first time in a year, gone to the East Coast for a week (with only a few days' anticipation), started dating someone without any real reason, been on the radio, started dreaming for the first time in who-knows-how-long, won a free membership to a hip and inconvenient gym, embraced the joy of summer in the Bay Area, and gotten back in touch with a number of people I'd left by the wayside, and I still can't think of anything to write about. Wednesday, July 24, 2002
M 'n M Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey: Just two wigged-out semi-black oversexed popstars, or two halves of the same kooky coin? M In Men in Black II*, Michael Jackson has a cameo playing up to his alien-freakazoid reputation, wherein he begs for employment with MiB: "Please! I could be Agent M!" In the video for "Honey," Mariah's personal nickname for her "secret agent persona" was Agent M.** Tommy, Can You Hear Me? Michael: Currently accusing Tommy Mottola, chairman of Sony Music, of being a racist and sabotaging his last album. Mariah: Formerly married to Tommy Mottola, also sports a tricky relationship with the record executive. Recent Flops Michael's Invincible: Not well-received. Mariah's Glitter: Biggest punchline of the past 12 months. Psychosis Michael: Let's be charitable. The last 12 years have not been good to him. Mariah: A breakdown, said the publicist. It was just a breakdown. No more questions. "I'm Not Gonna Spend My Life Being a Color" Michael: You've heard it all. The joke is dead. Mariah: Her father is black Venezuelan. Her mother's Irish. She plays it both ways. Just in case you were wondering. Wholesome? Sleazy? Michael: Even in his heyday, the crotch-grabbing thing...it lost him some points. Ask the mothers of America. Mariah: Once you've committed to making a video wherein the main attraction is you washing a car with your boobs, you can never escape the "ghetto hoochie" moniker. Don't bother to deny it. Really. The Verdict Hmmm. I think I'll let Cintra do the talking. In short, falling to your own fame will tweak your brain. And these two? A binary star system: they orbit each other, everything else orbits them. *Not recommended. **Thank you, Pop-Up Video. Monday, July 22, 2002
Clear Signs the World Really Did End in the Year 2000 and I Am Now in Hell June 8, 2001: Suck.com* goes on permanent "summer vacation," proving that (at least on the Web) nothing good can last. August 16, 2001: I go to a job interview, completely blow it, and realize in the process that there is no way I would want to work there. Worse, I sense that I will be offered the job regardless. August 17, 2001: I am offered the job. August 22, 2001: Faced with the prospect of living with my parents or burning through my savings, I accept the job. January 14, 2002: On a whim, I attempt to audition for the Blue Man Group. After proving that I meet the physical specifications, I am asked to mimic basic drumming moves, whereupon I and the bored audition-holders discover that I possess no rhythm whatsoever. March 24, 2002: A Beautiful Mind wins the Academy Award® for Best Picture. Memento is not nominated. April 5, 2002: I turn 24. July 22, 2002: I am still at the job and completely uncertain of future plans. The worst of it, I think, is turning 24. Conversations with others experiencing the Terrible Two-Dozens have confirmed that it is a miserable and vexing age. No longer able to pass for "college-age" but still having to pay an extra $20 per day for car rentals, it's an uncomfortable squeeze: I'm a legitimate adult, but I'm not really prepared to run forward with it. My career ambitions are still uncertain and there really isn't any structure I can look to for guidance (excepting the shimmering dream of grad school--whenever adulthood gets too oppressive, there's always option of grad school!)...what's a boy to do? *Media and cultural criticism. Not porn. Friday, July 19, 2002
The 2002 Miss California Pageant, or Race, Politics, Religion, Family, Arias, and My Sister's Own Personal Hell Pre-Show: Miss Californias 1997 (a striking white woman in a long dress) and 1998 (a bleached-blond black woman in a knee-length skirt) come out on stage, smiling. They run us through all the program's sponsors, pausing to snark on the lack of an automotive sponsor back when they competed, and give us a brief outline of what is to come. They also introduce us to the contestants in what I think is called the California Distinguished Teen competition, but I don't really care, seeing as one of the girls is already wearing the tiara and they STILL try to make us wait a few minutes before confessing who won. Ten minutes of down time. Well, hey, they have to set up. OK, fine. My parents take turns explaining to me how over the past three days, during the preliminaries, the dance sequences were all the same each day--likely to give the contestants lots of practice for tonight, the big night. (I'll state right now that they also provided running commentary over the next three hours. Imagine watching what I'm describing while wearing headphones tuned simultaneously to NPR and the Golf Channel, and you'll get the idea.) (I'll also mention now that MsCA's '97, '98, and '01 did little performances to distract us while the stage was being set up behind the curtain, but I can't remember who did what when.) Then it begins. The contestants march onstage carrying candles as an instrumental of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" plays, culminating in a thunderous "Glory, glory, halleluuuujah!" as the young women take their places. I marvel. In this era of church-and-state controversies, where singing "God Bless America" is practically a political act, they kick it off with, well, a hymn. About holy war. Without any actual mention of America in it. Miss CA is not a public organization, and I am not in Kansas anymore. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only friend of Dorothy here, based on the vibes I'm getting from the male dancers--one of whom is twirling a baton--they're using to supplement the contestants onstage. Wow, there's a tortured metaphor chain. So yeah, there's a medley of tunes about the military, which refers at least to the army, navy (Sadly, "In the Navy" is not the chosen tune, but this is more than made up for at swimsuit time), and air force before my ears shut down. The Miss CA Dancers (about twenty women and five men, dressed in fatigues, some carrying what appear to be fake rocket launchers) do some pretty neat moves up front while the contestants (there are 51 of them, by the way) swing their arms, stomp their feet, and grin madly (all in sync) in the background. I picture their first pratice for this sequence being a fairly miserable affair, with no music in the background and stage directors shouting at them from all angles to put more gumption into what is really a silly-looking move when out of context. The contestants are all announced individually. My father notes that C (my stepsister, and the reason I'm here) doesn't wave, whereas all the other contestants do. My stepmother huffs that waving seems pretty corny to her anyway. This pretty much sums up everything you need to know about my family. Miss California 2001 appears, a vivacious woman with short blond hair who probably jumped and screamed when crowned last year. That would've been fun to see. (She won on her fourth try, and apparently that's not uncommon in pageant culture.) She's apparently our MC for the first couple of hours. Without skipping a beat, she starts off the show by announcing the top ten contestants--the semifinalists. Each of the first nine reacts pretty much the same way: widens eyes, hugs whoever's nearby, skitters up front, hugs some more. Then MsCA'01 is called over to the side of the stage. There's been a mistake! The second semifinalist announced was supposed to be Miss Greater Bay Area, not Miss Greater East Bay! MsGEB slinks back to the crowd of non-semifinalists as I hear myself gasp and say "How heartbreaking!" It truly is. A murmur runs through the audience. But the show must go on. They announce the tenth and final semifinalist, and my Demogra-Vision flashes on with the news that a) she's black, and b) the other nine are overwhelmingly blond. This is how I see the world. It probably drives people crazy to hear me. They jump right into the talent portion. #1: Aria. #2: Showtune. #3: Baton-twirling, to the tune of Ricky Martin's "The Cup of Life." My eyes start watering--one, because I fucking love that song (it managed to not get overplayed in this country), and two, because I'm happy not to see another singer. Here's the thing. Yes, it takes great talent to sing really well, but it doesn't really offer much to the audience in the way of a visual. You have a bunch of people singing two-minute voice-showcases, it all kind of blurs together. #4 sings a tepid song called "A New Life," with the tune brazenly ripped off from Carole King's "So Far Away." It's bad. I miss the showtune. And there are few musical styles I hate more than showtunes (reggae is one, but that's all the ammo you get). #5 is another aria. All right, already. Oh, wait, it's time for an intermission. Already. Intermission-talk from my parents: Blah blah blah, they should let all eleven announced finalists compete (the undeserving will get knocked out anyway), whose fault do you think it is, etc., etc. Too much speculation for me. How did I end up sitting between them? Twenty-odd minutes later, we're back. The executive director of the Miss California Scholarship Organization (I'll call him Mr. Miss for short) begins to make his way onstage, trips over a wire, and falls flat on his face. My stepmother had just told me about the parents' brunch they'd attended the other day, wherein Mr. Miss had made a joke about some of the staffers being from Nevada--he called them wetbacks and said it was OK "because they'd had their shots"--and she was royally pissed off about it. (She continued to talk through the night about alerting the media and asking my advice since I'd worked for Amnesty International and I'd tried to explain that we dealt with political prisoners, not tacky slurs, but...yeah.) So not much sympathy from us. I weighed the pros and cons of flinging my water bottle onto the stage, but relented after admitting to myself that I'd likely hit a judge or someone in the orchestra pit. Mr. Miss gave a short conciliatory speech about the mix-up. Whatever. Stage moms everywhere are fainting. The world is not otherwise over. Back to talent. Four more songs and a ballet performance. The last contestant, Miss Hi-I'm-Black-Please-Stop-Staring, gave a pretty rousing show of "Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtime, but Dad was whispering the whole time about how much better she was at the preliinaries, so I couldn't fully enjoy it. We are distracted for a while by a professional male tap dancer whose name I tried really hard to remember since he was damn good and damn funny, and he did impressions (including Savion Glover, whom I spent a couple of minutes explaining to my parents, Michael Jackson, Fred Astaire, and Michael Flatley). The swimsuit competition begins to the tune of "Let's Get Soakin' Wet" from the Queer as Folk soundtrack. I am beside myself with glee, as I wonder how many other people in the theater were aware of that connection. MsCA'01 is grandstanding like all get-out and it's as silly as the opening was pompous and I love it. As the Top Ten parade around in front (in swimsuits and high heels. WTF? This is so lecherous and undignifying--I'm glad to hear that C would rather have just done sit-ups onstage), the remainder of the contestants pose with inner tubes, floppy hats, rubber duckies, beach balls, and other beach accoutrements. The overall effect is cool, but I can't help thinking those not in the Top Ten are essentially window-dressing for the remainder of the evening. They somehow soldier on, smiling. Oh, is it time for another intermission? OK. (Half an hour passes. I hear later that someone fell off the stage and that had to be dealt with quietly.) Evening gown competition. Can we just skip this? It's basically the same as swimsuit (oh, my bad, "physical fitness"), with more clothes and different music. Miss California 2000 comes out on stage, a sunny-looking Asian woman who still appears bewildered by the incredibility of it all. I find myself wondering what happened to Miss California 1999, as she's the only winner of the past five years not to make an appearance. While we wait for the judges' results, MsCA'00 regales us with a story of how she was finishing her senior year at Stanford and her sister dared her to enter the local pageant (Miss Los Altos Hills--and by the way, I would really like to see a map of all the local jurisdictions that feed to MsCA, because it sounds more heinous than the worst congressional district: there are "cities" and "counties" and "greater areas" and damn, it's weird). She won, then won MsCA and then had to defer her first year of med school at UCSF, and she's just so sweet I wonder if we couldn't have just given her the title again, age limits and voting rules be damned. The results are in: MsCA'00 summarily dispatches five of the semi-finalists. They're kind of quick about changing gears, I notice. Interviewing begins, and it's basically what you expect. One question about the finalist's platform, one random. The only interesting platform question has to do with Miss Young Black Woman (she made it to the final 5! I like her!) and the ed-advocate nonprofit she and her mother founded. "We're in it for the money." A good answer, I thought, but everyone around me declared her sunk. The random questions prove more interesting, and what I'd heard is true--there is a right (wink, wink, nudge) and a wrong answer to each one. My favorite was [not completely verbatim, but the cadence was the same]: Q: How do you feel about the recent court decision that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional? A: It's horrible. Ours is a nation UNDER GOD, and it was founded as a nation UNDER GOD, and we will always be a people UNDER GOD, and how dare they claim otherwise! The audience cheered, just as they did on the cloning/stem cell research question when the finalist invoked God. I then picture one of them cracking, yelling "God, this sucks," and stalking offstage as the Pavlovian audience claps and cheers, oblivious to context. Is it time for another intermission? Oh, hey! Tap Guy is back! Tap tap tap tap slide-slap toe-tap. Tappity tappity toe-tap. Now I'm thinking about that episode of The Simpsons with Little Vicki and...oh, never mind. Mr. Miss has appeared. The five finalists are lined up. Everyone else (still smiling) in the background. Fourth runner-up: The black one! [Dammit! I liked her!] Third and second: Who cares, I couldn't tell them apart. I think one's a blonde, one's a brunette. First runner-up: Miss Greater Bay Area, whom you'll recall was nearly not announced, due to the earlier screw-up. She seems nice. But then, most of them do. Which makes the winner MISS CONTRA COSTA COUNTY! She who sang that insipid "A New Life" song. I instantly take points off for that. Otherwise, she's Barbie. Vaguely plastic-looking. Whatever. Good luck in October. The tiara is taken from MsCA'01, and it's all over. Just kidding. There's a coronation gala immediately following (scheduled for 10 pm to 1 am) and an awards brunch the next morning (9 am to noon), but there's no way in hell I'm recapping that tedium. Seriously, these young women deserve cash for what they've gone through all week--hardly eating, spending sixteen hours at a time in the theater rehearsing, no outside contact except for a designated half an hour per day in an area that seems strangely reminiscent of a petting zoo. The coronation gala = 0. The only remotely interesting item to report from the awards brunch was (apart from a very strong suspicion that Mr. Miss was drunk off his goat) that the fourth runner-up won Miss Congeniality. Yay, her! Thursday, July 18, 2002
Interim Almost done with my much-too-long recap of the Miss California Pageant (a carnival of political allusions, it appears). In the meantime, I am quite happy to report that 1) the They Might Be Giants concert last night was redemptive and thrilling, and 2) Six Feet Under leads the pack in terms of Emmy® nominations, including nine for acting! I know, I know, it's all about industry glad-handling, but dammit, I'm happy. Speaking of industry glad-handling, best line of the TMBG show last night: "Yeah, so we ended up winning a Grammy® for this song, 'Boss of Me.' I guess Sting's check didn't clear." I love me some snarky popstars, I do. Saturday, July 13, 2002
And Yet More 1. To anyone who tried to call over the past week or so while I was out and my answering machine was turned off, oops. 2. If you want to get to know the contestants for Miss California, here's your source. I'm just bugged by one thing: How does one become Miss Placentia? (OK, two things: Why?) Granola Boy Expansion Pack Addendum: That night (OK, last night), on a bowling date* with a guy** I'd met through an online personals system I'd formerly eschewed+, he casually mentioned that a friend of his who'd seen my picture surmised that I was some sort of tree-hugger because I was wearing a fisherman's hat in the photo. Oh, and I was kind of scruffy. Did I become some sort of soft-headed Californiite without knowing it? What's going on here? *Lessons learned: #1, a rum & coke at W will set you back $8; #2, the Yerba Buena alley doesn't hold a candle to Albany Bowl++; and #3, Dave's is pretty clean and cool for what looks like a dive bar (3rd St., just off Market). Oh, and #4 (not news to anyone who has ever driven around there), finding parking in Upper SoMa in the early evening is maddening. **On the plus side, he's tall. On the minus side, he smokes and he talks about astrology seriously. Guess the outcome. +I just happened to check for responses a few weeks back. It was a moment of weakness. ++(It's a working-class pastime--playing no music and shutting off the beer tap at 10 pm are not fun. And the point of black lights is that they should be functioning.) Granola Boy I was wandering out of the kitchen yesterday with a liter of soy milk in hand (I'd wanted to make a sandwich and...oh, never mind. I'm carrying soy milk. It has a long shelf life and I buy it in bulk. There's your background.) when my new roommate Dawn stops me and asks about the numerous bags of chips and pretzels sitting on the kichen counter. She's just moving in and we've agreed it's best to clear out old crap before unpacking her stuff. (Which I guess includes groceries.) "Oh, I think most of them belonged to Adam [who just moved out and is not missed]. Mine are just the no-salt tortilla chips at the back." She gives me a bemused look. "You're not one of those healthy people, are you?" Of course, I make the connection that healthy = bland = reflective of your entire life and requires a rejoinder, for decency's sake. "Oh, no, oh, no," I rationalize, "I only eat chips with salsa, and the salsa is all you really taste, and..." I notice her gaze has drifted down to my hand. I look at the soy milk. "I am not a healthy person!" I yelp, flummoxed. She laughs. D'oh. (So my stories are boring. Look, if you want excitement and salacity, read this.) Friday, July 12, 2002
CA>NY>NJ>NY>NJ>MI>SC>MI>NJ>NY>CA Wow. Eight days, three fabulous cities, a dozen long-lost friends, and a hell of a lot of logistics. Would summarize it now, but I have a bowling date tonight and tomorrow morning I'm off to see Chelsea compete for Miss California in Fresno. Excuse me while I grab a nap. Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Why, God, Why? What have we done as a society to merit this frightening expansion in cola flavors? For a while, there was regular and cherry, and it was fine and good.* Cherry cola was a benign aberration. Then along came lemon, and it was everywhere, and its horror was somewhat hidden by precocious-child-actress-turns-into-Academy-Award®-winning-model-turns-into-non-star-of-mercifully-euthanized-sitcom commercials. I recoiled in horror. Especially at the "diet" lemon colas. Citrus + aspartame = hork. Hork is not good. Now, based on the phenomal success (?) of this bold new entry, we get Vanilla Coke**+! And, coming soon, Pepsi Blue++! The madness must end! Do your part! Avoid these mutations! Have some water! Juice! Milk! Tea! Wine! We are not part of their CarboNation! *As a rule, I avoid cherry-flavored anything, since it invariably tastes more like a chemical miscalculation that real cherries, and of that I am not so fond. **Courtesy of the Vanilla Coke website, I now know that the flowing, Swoosh-y line that underscores Coca-Cola product names is called The Dynamic Ribbon Device. Ha ha ha ha ha. Also, Vanilla Coke is on the road, but sadly it chose to stop by San Francisco on the day of the LGBT Pride Parade. Sorry! Better scheduling next time! +Let me say for the record, however, that I have nothing against vanilla. It's a much-maligned and underappreciated flavor that should not be confused with "neutral." I was going to write an essay on this topic a while back, but...haven't...yet. ++Oh, come on! Berry?! Did we learn nothing from Crystal Pepsi? Freaky colors frighten the cola-loving public. And if it's such a big new development, why isn't it actually on the Pepsiworld website? This "we're promoting it, but not really promoting it" routine is rideeculous. Tuesday, July 02, 2002
More Infrequently Asked Questions...and the Answers That Love Them Q. Would you say this is "vague" or "ambiguous"? A. I'd say it's "not worth wondering about." Q. But does it sparkle? A. Until the reagents are used up, yes. Q. Am I a good time? A. You're a carnival of sensations. Q. What do you get when you cross a cow and a bull? A. More of the same. Q. How's that spelled again? A. A-T. What kind of moron are you? Q. I'm not a moron. A. Why would you ask how to spell "at"? Q. Leave me alone! A. Aren't you embarrassed enough? Q. There's no answer for that. Monday, July 01, 2002
I'm Just Trying to Add a Comments Function, and Maybe Use a Template That Works Well with It So please excuse any chaos you encounter. The Funny Thing About Friday Back to the scarifying conversation I had this past Friday morning: I could have retorted. I wanted to retort. But it really just didn't seem appropriate at the time. Now that I have some distance (courtesy of a refreshingly full and sleep-deprived weekend), I figure: hey, let's get snotty! (In jest, of course.) 1. "What? You're calling me a racist? Pretty bold move, homophobe." 2. "Yeah, you're right...there's no way I could live with a straight Chinese guy and consider it a positive experience. Well, if you ignore three of the past six years, that is." 3. "No, no, no, let's back up. Your race: unimportant. Your personality: deal-killer." 4. "OK, well, good luck with the other places you've been looking at. Oh, that's right...there aren't any, and your current lease ends in two days. Good move telling us off like that." 5. "Uh-huh...uh-huh...and what else did you imagine going on at the meeting?" Fiat Lux! My new office is so full of light! and so high-ceilinged! and so fashionably-located at the crossroads of the Financial District and Chinatown and North Beach! Hooray for my workload being so unheavy and meaningless that I have time to be effusive! |
