The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

Since moving to San Francisco, I’ve gotten back into playing piano.  Partly it’s because I have more time, but it’s also a good break from writing.

I took lessons from the second grade through the end of high school.  I could play fairly well but hit a wall with Chopin, Gershwin, and Joplin.  Plus I never felt like I had a natural talent.  My sense of rhythm was never great, and I couldn’t carry a tune with my voice, that’s for sure.

When I first started playing again here in SF, I mostly played easy classical songs from the book MB had gotten himself.  They sounded nice but didn’t take too much effort.  Some were pieces I had played before, or which I learned quickly because they’re so easy.

Then around November, I decided to tackle Joplin again.  As a kid, I had played an easy version of “Maple Leaf Rag.”  Wholly unsatisfying.  When I started playing the original, I understood why my teacher had given that to me.

The original was HARD. For the longest time, I tried to learn it by sight reading it, over and over.  That was okay for the first two pages, but the third page was a bitch.  Finally, I tried MB’s technique: break the pages into measures, and learn the song one measure at a time.

Each day I’d tackle one small section.  I’d play a measure over and over, working my way backwards, so that I wasn’t playing the beginning again and again.  It took forever.  I’d be working out maybe four or five measures, and look up to see that 30 minutes had passed.  But it worked.  All that repetition helped me learn the notes and gave me the muscle memory.

Now that I had the notes down, I needed to learn the rhythm.  With classical, what you see is what you get.  But if you don’t play jazz correctly, it sounds stiff.  I was following the notes but couldn’t hear the song.

It took listening to a recording, as well as MB listening as I played.  He could hear the melody, then would hum it back to me.  Now I can play “Maple Leaf Rag” much better than I did back in the fall.  It’s still not perfect, especially that damned third page, but it’s much improved.

MB got me a swing practice book.  I learned “Rosetta” using MB’s method, and could hear the song somewhat but knew that I didn’t quite have it.  Yesterday, I finally listened to the accompanying CD.

Whoa, was I way off!  The way I played sounded almost nothing like the real song.  The real song is fast and fun and well, jazzy.  The way I play is slow and plodding, like a funeral march.  So I listened to the recording a couple of times, and played along with it.  Now it sounds like a damned song, even if a lot of the notes are wrong.

In a way, it’s like with writing.  I can stare at pages of words over and over, but still “hear” the same thing.  I need to throw the piece into a different editor, or read it aloud.  Then suddenly I hear whatever song there is trying to some out.  Sometimes, at least.

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Time for a weekend update (with your host, the Bad Luck Girl).

We didn’t have a chance to see Clash of the Titans, but we did go to WonderCon.  It wasn’t as fun as I expected since it was so incredibly crowded.  Getting through the aisles was almost impossible sometimes, especially near the “celeb” booths, like Brent Spiner (Data) and John de Lancie (Q) whom I now associate with Breaking Bad.

We also saw Adam Baldwin from Firefly.  He had this embarrassed smile as he sat there in his booth while people went nuts taking pictures.  I heard one middle-aged woman say, “Oh my God, he’s so gorgeous!”

Another highlight was this booth selling a magazine called Girls and Corpses.  Either it’s some fetish or a joke.  Either way, disturbing!  (Now I’m sure I’ll get hate mail from Girls and Corpses lovers.)

There were tons of photo ops but I only managed to get one:

That’s not me by the way, just some random lady having her pic taken with the alien.

In other news, I heard back from the Graywolf Press contest, and while I didn’t win, my memoir was one of the 15 finalists.  Yay, I don’t totally suck!  I’m also busy this week with a few deadlines.  I love deadlines!

As for my reading, I read the first Harry Potter, which was awesome, and now am reading Memoir of a Geisha for the first time.  It’s good in a trashy way.

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Today for lunch I was really craving a bagel with tuna salad, a staple in most New York delis.  When I lived on the Upper East Side, I’d get one from Pick-a-Bagel or the more expensive Sable’s, if I felt like splurging.

There’s no Pick-a-Bagel around here so I popped into a nearby cafe which makes a big deal about serving organic, fair-trade coffee.  But they also have sandwiches and, yes, bagels.

I said to the girl, “Could I get a bagel with tuna salad?” to which the girl replied, “Tuna salad. . .on a BAGEL???” like it was the weirdest fucking thing she ever heard.

“Yes,” I said.  “Tuna salad on a bagel.”

“So, like a sandwich, but with a bagel?”

“Yes.”

She bent over the cash register, trying to figure out how to ring me up.  “That’ll be $10.95.”

WHAT?

She explained that the sandwich platters came with salad, hence the ridiculous price.

“All I want,” I said, “is a bagel with tuna.  Like instead of a bagel with butter, imagine a bagel with tuna.”  I didn’t say “imagine” but really wanted to.

She finally figured it out.

I mean, I know it’s not so common around here, but you have bagels, you have tuna salad – voila, you have a bagel with tuna salad.

Voi-fucking-la.  Dumbshit.

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Sometimes MB eats my food.

Not the food right off my plate, but stuff I’ve set aside for later.  Like I’ll buy two bottles of juice, one for me and one for him.  He’ll drink all of his, I’ll drink half, and the next morning the rest of my half will be gone too.

Usually I’m okay with this.  I like that MB likes my food and drink selections.  But sometimes I’m not.

Some of you may have heard of Bob’s Donuts and their world-famous (at least according to the proprietress) apple fritters.  Their apple fritters are quite delicious.  While I like their cinnamon buns better, sometimes all I’m in the mood for is an apple fritter.

Although MB is skinny, he can eat a lot.  Like in one sitting, he’ll eat an entire pint of ice cream or a bag of microwave popcorn (which will make me want to eat microwave popcorn too, of which I’ll eat one bowl and he’ll eat the rest of my bag).

He can also eat an entire apple fritter at once although they’re about the size of two donuts.

One night we got two apple fritters, and I saw him eat his.  The next morning, I awoke to the sound of the Bob’s Donuts bag rustling.  My apple fritter! I thought.  Still half-asleep, I got up, went into the kitchen, and glared at MB.

“Are you eating my apple fritter?” I asked.

“No,” he said.  “I’m eating my apple fritter.”  Turned out the night before, he’d only eaten half.  “Accusatory!” he cried.

Since then, he hasn’t let me live it down.  Now whenever I give him a narrow-eyed look – did he leave the coffee maker on? did he use my towel instead of getting a new one? did he take my napkin? – he points at me and shouts, “ACCUSATORY!”

Lately there have been some unusually warm days, and we’ll leave the windows open to air out our place.  We’ve no screens so inevitably bugs come in.  There was one flying about, which bothered me, so MB used his method of snapping a towel at the bug.  It looks impressive: SNAP! and the bug drops down.  He hasn’t really hit it, but at the air around it, which shocks the insect.  Now you can squash it with a napkin.

So he did that with this bug, and while we didn’t see it flying around, we couldn’t find where it had fallen (later, I’d spot it on our bed, ew).  He set aside the fly-killing towel, which he’d taken from the kitchen, in case we saw it again.

That night after I did the dishes, I grabbed a new towel and was wiping down the edge of the sink when MB came in.

I recognized the look.  The eyebrow crinkle, the eyes at my towel, then back to where he had left the contaminated one.

“I got a new towel!” I cried.  Then I took a deep breath and pointed.  “ACCUSATORY!”

He had to laugh.  It was a sweet moment I’ll relive again and again, and never let MB live down.

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Took a break from the grind yesterday by hanging out with a blogging pal.

We arranged to meet in the Mission for lunch.  Normally I’d have taken a cab, but when ES was here, she got me to “practice” taking public transportation and so now I feel more confident.

I needed to get to a BART station, the closest of which is Civic Center.  But I wanted to avoid that area.  I should have just walked to Powell, but like a dummy I walked all the way down Van Ness, thinking I’d hit Market.  I would have eventually, but way out of my way.

At the Powell BART station, I bit the bullet and put $20 on a card (which seems to be the only option when using your debit or credit card – have I mentioned SF public transit sucks?).  As I was finishing, a homeless guy appeared out of nowhere and asked me for money.

Hello, you don’t do that to a woman by herself with her purse open!  You spring up on her out of nowhere, of course she’s going to dart away like a quarterback with the ball and you’re a 300 pound line backer.  As I walked quickly away, he said, “You’re fast!”  That’s right, mofo, get away from me.

As I was riding the BART, I realized that I could take it out to Richmond the next time I get a hankering for good Chinese food.  A whole new world! Don’t you DARE close your eyes.

My friend and I met up on the 24th and Mission platform, and walked to Papalote Mexican Grill.  Apparently it was on Bobby Flay’s cooking show, and I suspect the prices have been jacked up.  The burrito, while tasty, was about $8, which is steep for the Mission, and my friend said her small bottle of water was $2.50.  That’s movie theater prices!

I got the chili verde burrito with pork and it hit the spot.  I was glad there didn’t seem to be any rice.  Too much rice in a burrito fills me up.

Afterward, we walked down 24th Street, stopping at Dynamo Donuts.  Unfortunately they were out of bacon donuts (yes, donuts with BACON), so I made do with spicy chocolate and lemon pistachio.  I had the chocolate one this morning, and I have to say it wasn’t that great.  I expected it to be much richer.  Maybe the lemon one will be better.

Eventually we made our way to Dolores Park, which I’d never been to before.  It was such a gorgeous day just to sit and hang out.  At one point, another homeless guy approached us and offered to sell us – what? a homemade bong?  I wasn’t sure as I had turned away, but apparently that’s what he said.  For the rest of our time there, he wandered around, bothering people.

It was great to get out and get some sun.  In fact, I think I’m both a little sun- and windburned.  Should really invest in a hat.

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Today it’s back to work. Working on an essay with the theme of “family and friends,” due April 1. Want to send query letters to some agents for my memoir, four in San Francisco and a couple in New York. I pitched a couple of ideas to a magazine and am waiting to hear.

While doing some research on literary agents, I found this helpful list of “bad” agents, and one of them, Mark Sullivan Associates, was a place I briefly worked for in college! He’s on the list because, like other “thumbs down” agents, he charged up front fees. An agent really shouldn’t charge authors anything.

His reasoning, according to a discussion board, for charging fees is:

The book must be read carefully, and a written evaluation proving the agency’s attention and effort should accompany a contract or a rejection, in either case. We provide this.

You know who provided the written evaluation? Students like me.

He mostly hired graduate students, but he had no problem employing me, a mere sophomore. It was pretty thankless work. I’d have to read most of these giant manuscripts, and type up a page’s worth of evaluation. Needless to say, I didn’t do it for very long.

I remember the guy being kind of a jerk. He was one of those arrogant nerds, a know-it-all and full of himself. He had a Japanese girlfriend (from Japan) who I guess didn’t know any better.

So funny to see him on a worst agents list.

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I was all set to write a post about how I was all TCOB yesterday – canceling my New York tax appointment and scheduling one here, getting my tax stuff together, calling the NY jury duty place to see if I actually had to fly out there (I don’t), posting to The Nervous Breakdown -  but then I saw that the Oscar nominations are out.

I don’t know why, but I get completely insane about the Oscars.  Some years I refrain from following them because I get so insane (I’m the same way about figure skating).  Although the awards show is usually on a Sunday night, I’ll still stay up till two or three in the morning, watching the whole thing and getting completely and utterly wound up.

I think it all started with Stand By Me.  I saw it when I was 14 and fell in love with everything about it.  Gordie the writer (like me!), the boys’ friendship (nothing like gossipy friendships with girls), and of course River Phoenix.

Then I heard that the movie had been nominated for an Oscar, best adapted screenplay.  My parents already asleep, I stayed up and watched the whole show.  When Stand By Me’s category came up and the nominations were read, I got so excited, I started jumping up and down.  An involuntary high-pitched squeal escaped from my lips.

It didn’t win, but it was an honor just to be nominated.

For the 1997 Oscars, another movie-loving friend and I made it our goal to watch every single film that had a nomination, even if just for costume or set design.  I think we came very close.  Glancing at the list now, looks like I missed Gattaca, Kundun, Air Force One, and all the documentaries and foreign films.  Hmm, maybe I didn’t come close at all, but at least we covered all the big categories.

This year there are ten best picture nominations, up from the usual five.  I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I’m a traditionalist, at least where the Oscars are concerned, and plus, if I decide to follow the awards, that’s even more movies to catch up on!

“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9”
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”

I’ve only seen two of these movies! Avatar and District 9. I don’t know if I have time, or the patience to see the others. We’ve been wanting to catch The Hurt Locker, and maybe I’ll go see Precious on my own. However, I’m not sure I can bring myself to see The Blind Side. On that note, The Blind Side??? Really???

Let the insanity begin.

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Next memoir post is up.

In it, I finally leave my ex, going out for the first time without my wedding ring, moving into my own apartment in the city, and finally telling my parents.

Now it’s been almost five years since my ex and I split up.  I remember in October 2005, the day I received my final divorce papers was the same day that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s divorce was finalized.

I really felt a bond with Jen back then (Team Aniston!).  She also got married in year 2000.  Brad was also supposedly unfaithful, and left her for his mistress, who shortly afterward had his child.  I cried along with her in her Vanity Fair interview.

Last week People magazine’s cover story was Jennifer Aniston, 5 Years After Brad.  How ridiculous, right?  I mean, who cares at this point?  There have been a zillion other divorces since then that People isn’t talking about.  Why endlessly Jen and Brad, five years, half a dozen kids, and several bad movies later?

Because for a while, Jen and Brad were Hollywood’s golden couple.  Not only was Brad HOT, he could act but didn’t take himself too seriously.  Jen was girl next door-gorgeous, goofy and cute on Friends, and by God, she could act too.  They seemed fun and down to earth, a couple you could drink and get high with.

Then along came Angelina.  (Cue scary music.)  Pale, dark-haired, and kinda creepy (vial of Billy Bob’s blood, anyone?).  She was the weird, beautiful girl you made fun of but secretly wanted to be friends with, if only because she couldn’t give two shits about being friends with you.  How could Brad resist?

How could anyone resist?

Of course I perked up when I saw the headline.  Me too, Jen, five years later!  But unlike Aniston, I haven’t had every break up and bloat-mistaken-for-baby-bump splashed across the tabloids (just on my blog).  While I willingly look back on the past five years, maybe she doesn’t want to.  But, unless she holes up in a cave, she won’t have much a choice.

My memoir, like the tabloids, make a story out of the events of my life.  Joe and I were the nice and unassuming couple you made small talk with at the train station.  We were hard working and good to our parents.  I was the dutiful daughter-in-law, taking care of my sick mother-in-law and basically giving up a lot for the good of the family.  The dutiful wife betrayed by her unfeeling husband.

But there was a lot going on underneath.  Built-up resentment, withholding of affection, my feeling maybe that I had settled, Joe having an inkling of that.  I’m not saying it was my own fault, only that it was complicated.  Who knows what was going on between Brad and Jen before Angelina came along?  Only they know.  Only ever do the husband and wife know in a marriage.

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Now that I’ve been writing beauty articles for eHow, I’ve learned a lot about what is and isn’t effective, especially for hyperpigmentation (ie, freckles and age spots) and aging.

I’ve blogged about beauty products before.  I LOVE beauty products, especially skincare.  At its height, my utilization consisted of:

AM:

• Wash with Philosophy’ Purity face wash
• Moisturize with with anything with at least SPF 15

PM:

• Wash with whitening wash (Shiseido, Pola, or Kose Sekisho)
• Use serum with hydroquinone
• Use whitening moisturizer

Once a week or so:

• Use exfoliating mask
• Use whitening mask

Did the whitening products actually do anything?  Maybe at first, but I think I soon built up a tolerance.

Now I’ve streamlined my routine.  I use the same face wash morning or night, a moisturizer with SPF during the day, and a heavier cream at night.  I still do the exfoliating mask and occasionally a “brightening” mask.  I’m not sure what the brightening mask does except that it feels and smells nice.

(Please note that this is the right routine for me, someone with oily/dry combination skin.  If you have very dry, sensitive, or extra oily skin, you’d want a different routine.)

There have been some claims that using hydroquinone is bad for you, thought it’s still FDA-approved.  Whether or not the claims are true, I’ve decided to stop using it since it doesn’t seem to do anything for me anymore.

Supposedly some botanical treatments have a similar effect, but you have to be careful about which ones you choose.  Just because something contains “anti-oxidants” doesn’t mean it’ll do shit for your skin.

You have to look out for clinically proven effective ingredients, such as “retinoids (also known as retinol, retiny, or retinoic acid), alpha hydroxy acids, azelaic acid, growth factors, hydroquinone, kojic acid, peptides and salicylic acid” (quoting my own article, by the way).

Yesterday I was tempted to get this “all natural” serum to combat the freckles.  While it boasted vitamin C and green tea, I wondered if those ingredients have actually been proven effective.  I couldn’t remember so I decided against plopping down $50 for something I wasn’t even sure would work.

I’m quite proud of myself.  In the past, I’d have been suckered in by the packaging and wording.

Another thing I read was that you really don’t need so many products.  All you need is a gentle cleanser, a moisturizer with at least 15 SPF (some say at least 30), a good moisturizer for evenings, and a gentle exfoliating mask.  (It’s good to regularly get rid of dead skin cells to avoid pimples.)

Anything else is pretty much snake oil.

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MB and I had a lovely Christmas.

Christmas Eve MB made a yummy pasta dinner with a spicy puttanesca sauce and spicy Italian sausage.  Afterward we just bummed around.  Watched a few episodes of the Ghosthunters marathon, as well as The Empire Strikes Back and part of Return of the Jedi.  Too much TV! MB crashed around one, but I had had Vietnamese coffee in the afternoon so I was up till almost three.

In the morning, we called my parents.  My mom liked the Snuggie though it’s a bit big for her, and sounded happy and not worried for once.  My dad thanked us once again for the wine, then kept MB on the phone for quite a while, just chatting, which makes me laugh because he’s not usually a big talker.

I was also delighted to find out that my father is reading my copy of The Secret History.  I was surprised since he doesn’t usually read contemporary literature.  Such a good book!  He said at first it was boring, but now he’s very interested in unraveling the mystery.

In the afternoon MB and I saw Sherlock Holmes at the Sundance Kabuki theater.  It was packed!  I guess the movies is the place to be on Christmas Day.  The movie was fun but not amazing, not like Avatar.  Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law were great, as were the sets, but I didn’t find the storyline too exciting.

My popcorn was delicious though.  Splurge!

For dinner MB cooked up a couple of cornish game hens.  They were smoked but he also bisected them and fried them in peanut oil.  As well there was wild rice and shitaake mushroom stuffing and a lovely arugula and tomato salad.

Everything was yummy.  Those little hens have a lot of meat on them.  I was only able to eat half of one.

Later in the evening, we wanted some dessert.  We expected to find nothing open, but quite a few restaurants were, surprisingly.  We stopped at the Vietnamese place near us – where we get our evil and delicious cafe filtre – and MB got fried banana a la mode.  By then I decided to be healthy and just had some yogurt instead.

Today most places are open again.  I worked out – yay! – then we had lunch at Mel’s, this kind of cheesy, ’50s style diner on Van Ness.  The food was decent though.  I had pancakes, a fried egg, AND bacon – oink!  Now we’re back at one of our favorite cafes, Wicked Grounds.

I applied for a job this morning.  This art school is looking for a marketing writer.  The idea of doing marketing again isn’t ideal, but it’s writing copy as opposed to developing bullshit strategy.  I’m also going to apply for a temporary librarian job at SFPL.  That may be a better fit for me: it’s no more than twenty hours of week, and I’d be filling in at whatever branch needs a substitute.

Today I need to:

Revise Corporate Celebrations article – For my freelancing gig.  After several years of scheduling a variety of celebrations at my old company, I have plenty of material.

Revise “The Beautiful Girls” – For The Nervous Breakdown.  It’s about my junior high/early high school years, and the friends I had then.

Revise/submit “Buzzed: My Love Affair with Coffee in Nine Parts” – For another publication.

Getting to work!

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Between NaNoWriMo and feeling a bit under the weather last week, I didn’t get out of the house much.  I didn’t even get to the gym!  But by the weekend, I was feeling better so MB and I made sure to get out of the house.

Saturday afternoon we went to Wicked Grounds, cafe by day, S&M dungeon by night, supposedly.   There’s artwork up of people in various (tasteful, if there’s such a thing) bondage positions, and some evenings they have events like “bring your human pet night” and “steam powered vibrator demos” (I can’t imagine how that works).

As a cafe it was pretty nice.  There were lots of tables, and the chairs were super comfy, opulent and nicely cushioned, though I’m sure a bitch to clean.  The menu is rather limited though that may be because they only opened in September.  Regardless, my steamed hazelnut milk was tasty.

Inevitably some of the clientele was annoying.  When we came in, there was this couple at the counter, a kind of dumpy guy way too old to be wearing a backwards baseball cap, and his half-Asian girlfriend with her standard issue hipster-girl glasses and, get this, cat ears.  Why was she wearing cat ears?  Halloween is over!

I wouldn’t have cared about them except the girl gave us a very weird look when we walked in, like, What are you doing here? and then was hanging all over her boyfriend at the counter, getting in the way of other customers (like me).

Then later I felt like they kept staring at us, but all they wanted were the ropes hanging off our table.  She came over and took one without asking (how did she know we wouldn’t want to use them?), and then the guy showed her how to tie knots for the rest of the afternoon.

Also, the boyfriend made it very clear that he was chummy with the proprietress – who was super nice by the way – making comments and talking very loudly to her while she tried to work.  Yeah, yeah, you’re an insider, we get it.  Now STFU.

On Sunday we went to MB’s co-worker’s house warming party in the Haight-Ashbury area.  It seems to be mostly residential, except of course for Haight Street itself.  MB’s co-worker has a very cute apartment, nice and big with hardwood floors and good light.  It’s cool to see what places are like in other parts of town, though that would be a bit far for MB to get to work.

After the party, we walked on Haight Street a little.  It definitely has a different feel at night.  During the day, there are tons of tourists, but in the evening, all the druggy scrubby kids and weirdos come out.  There were people singing on street corners and the smell of pot everywhere.  I don’t think it’s that great.  I love street musicians but ones who are actually good, not some stinky kid pretending to be homeless while Mom and Dad sit at home in Palo Alto.  And if you’re white, you should not wear dreadlocks.  You really really shouldn’t.

We thought about eating in the area, but the only place we wanted to go, the Pork Store, was closed, so we just headed home instead.

Since next week is Thanksgiving, I’ll have to work double time this week with NaNoWriMo.  My book is moving forward though I’m not sure if it’s any good.  Trying not to think about that right now.

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