welcome to the best year of my life

Today I turned twenty-five. And I couldn’t be more excited.

Life is amazing right now. Bittersweet at times, but full of absurdity and laughter.

Things I’ve been doing lately that I plan to continue doing for the next 365 days include: spontaneous dancing, long runs followed by copious consumption of chocolate milk, saying yes, trusting people, smiling ’til my face hurts, concert-going, enjoying the wonderful people that are around me and making sure that they know it, laughing at everything worth laughing at, living for the sunshine, making friends and taking names, buying flowers any chance I get, tequila shots on Tuesdays, loving colors and shiny things, spinning/sweating my troubles out, crying when it helps, sending cards just because, making excuses to see friends otherwise far away.

I’ve also decided to start doing a committed job of chronicling my social/friend/dating life, because how many people get chased out of El Farolito at 3:30AM by a 4-foot tall, fedora-wearing, pony-tailed man expressing passionate love? Who ends up body slammed into the pavement while dressed as Slimer during Bay to Breakers without loosening the grip on a beloved, vintage gold clutch? Or is offered a job as a soccer agent by a cabbie? And who can not talk about times like when multiple random men at Peet’s offer to be the first to sign an immaculate neon pink cast?

Life’s a story worth telling. Here’s to telling it.

Happy things.

Better late than never. A list of what made me happy this Monday:

– The rain has left San Francisco for the time being. It almost feels like a real spring, and the rainless state of things makes me so thrilled I could burst.

– I met someone with a dashing collection of cuff links, including knots. And now I want to buy a pair of orange knots for all the men I know. Seriously.

– It’s almost time for March Madness.

– I’m going to Vegas this weekend… and for the first time will step foot outside of the airport. With some of my favorite people in the entire world.

– My love for running seems to have repaired itself. For awhile, I was nervous that I hated it a bit. Turns out, I was just restless.

– Reading SF Eater. It makes me hungry, and I really do want to spend all my money on never cooking again.

another Monday, another list

I am still battling my natural cynical tendencies to find things I love, as I’m sure that identifying “wonderful” will make me happier. Things that made this Monday bright:

– The fact that I can check my horoscope for Tuesday after 9PM (Pacific) on Monday on the Wash Post. It makes me feel absurdly prescient.

– Finding out that Vegas (talk about a city of lights) is in my very near future AND that it will most definitely include some of my lifetime favorite friends from the East Coast. I have never been to Sin City, save the airport, which I hated. But I’m optimistic that I’ll love this trip as if something is largely lurid and gold, the probability that I will love it is around 99%.

– An attractive guy at the corner grocery: tall (rare in this city), dark-haired, athletic, and frustrated. Another plus at the same place: plaintain chips, on sale [and only the tiniest bit stale].

– I’m digging these guys’ shirts. Maybe because they have a size called “marge” (and “smedium”).  Men that I know, beware, t-shirts are in your future.

– Spinning.

– This.

I love the internet

If it’s early adopterish, startup-related, or just means having the scoop before anyone else, I’m all over it. Naturally, social media + networks are a lifeblood as they = real time information and updates.

If it wasn’t for Twitter, I wouldn’t have seen screen captures of the Nexus One before it made on TechCrunch nor would I feel like I know Lance Armstrong. Facebook lets me keep tabs on people I would have long ago obliterated thanks to a short memory, with exceptionally poor recall of generic names. Flickr provides me with a look into what non-friends from my small town high school are up to, photographically (and, not surprisingly, not everyone is as talented as I’d hoped).

The other day, I got an interesting update (based on email contacts imported from my old university email account): “[insert prototypical Irish male name here]” has joined LinkedIn.

A professional networking site reminding me of someone I met in Paris and naïvely fell for immediately?

The story: After a single ridiculous night of dancing in the 18eme (a classier way of saying Pigalle), we exchanged rapid emails, I committed to flying to Switzerland to visit him, and in a short span of time, convinced myself I had a real future with a wonderfully-accented Irish lover. This brash attachment was hugely uncharacteristic (a tightly wound twenty-one with a real hatred for emotion or love of any variety) but somehow became the romantic dream I never knew I harbored.

After a few eager weeks, he put the kibosh on my Swiss rendez-vous with claims of being extraordinarily busy with work + sent a half-assed attempt at rejection.

I promptly blocked him out of my consciousness. Until last week.

Thanks, LinkedIn, for the update. And the unwelcome reminder of my former non-glory days.

two am. saturday night.

All I can think is that the guy I have an explicable attraction to, by all accounts, lacks a sense of humor. He is, based on mutual acquaintances, not at all amusing. Hilarious is, however, the number one quality I look for in friends, guys, life.

My rationale for continuing to pine for him, without a reason beyond his adorable face: “I’m so funny, I can carry it for both of us.”

Oh, okay, kiddo. Makes sense, you know, because I’ve got enough personality for two people?