Feb
01
2007
Alright, enough whining already---and by whining, I mean my whining. Is there anything more irritating than a person feeling sorry for herself? Yesterday, after the afternoon's allotment of self-pity was over, I did what I always do when I'm feeling a little down in the dumps in a strange city, and went and spent a large amount of money on British chocolate. What, you didn't know that sugar and fat and artificial flavorings aren't bad for you when they're manufactured across the pond?
We've been having a little makeover here at Nothing But Bonfires---you know, a bit of lipo, some dental veneers, a few stabs of Botox, the introduction of cream blush. Fancy, isn't it?
Some months ago, I received an email from Sam of Sunday School Rebel detailing a dream she'd had about me. It was actually seriously awesome: in the dream, she'd been driving past a Sonic and had looked up and seen "Nothing But Bonfires" on the sign. Later on, she'd run into me---still in the dream, of course---and told me about it and I had, apparently, replied "Oh no, that's not good. There's a girl who works there who hates me."
I turned 27 yesterday and the world did not end. In fact, the world did the opposite of ending, because I found a cashmere sweater on sale at TJ Maxx which turned out---after various markdowns and clearance discounts---to cost $26. And I'm talking 100% cashmere! I know! What can I say? Sometimes the birthday gods are just smiling.
Hi! I am not dead! I have not forgotten that the Internet exists!
1. We live on a fairly busy city street, in an apartment on the first floor, and the bedroom is in the front of the building. As such, we fall asleep to a certain number of fairly expected noises: high heels tapping on the pavement, ambulances whizzing by, pimps shouting at their prostitutes, you know the sort of thing. A few nights ago, however, my slow slouch into sleep was curtailed by a weird, breathy, lilting sound, as if someone was playing a bootleg record of a Jethro Tull concert and kept getting the needle stuck.
It's 7:30am and there are two skinny white boys sitting in a van outside my bedroom window. Which, I shall remind you again, is on the first floor, facing the street. These boys have dreadlocks which I am quite sure were paid for on Daddy's credit card. They have been blasting reggae music from the open window of their van for the last half hour. And I do mean "blasting"; I have tried adding my own music to the mix to cover it up, but The Shins just get drowned in the face of such pounding rasta beats.
I wanted to tell you all about how much I'm loving my new job, how the people are so great, how it's just so much fun to have structure (and office supplies) in my life again, but I find that all my other thoughts are eclipsed by the fact that today is, apparently, Bagel Friday. Do you know what Bagel Friday is?
BAGELS COME TO THE OFFICE ON FRIDAY. FOR EVERYONE. EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
I took the ferry out to Alcatraz (1999). I zig-zagged down Lombard Street (2001.) I rode a cable car up and down the hills and got shouted at for wearing a Gap sweater by the hippies in the Haight (2005). I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge (last month) and gave a muffin to a homeless man rooting through the trash on Powell Street (last week). But it was this Friday afternoon that I finally had my ultimate San Francisco experience.
Internet, I was in an earthquake.
Every day I think to myself that I should have brought gloves for my walk to work, and every day I forget them again. It was like this my first year of university, when I'd get on the number 73 bus in the mornings after speed-reading the pages of Bleak House I hadn't read the night before, and sit on the top deck with my nose pressed against the window, watching people walking through London looking cold. Every time I got off the bus, I remembered I'd forgotten my gloves. And every time after that, I forgot them again.
