Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

While at three years, my favorite shoes aren’t as old as my favorite jeans, they’re still pretty worn-out. They’re especially bad on rainy days when the rain seeps in through some apparently invisible holes, and my feet get soaked.

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a pair from Zappo’s.  Bam bam bam, done!  No sales tax, no shipping costs.  Sweet!

But then I got a shipping confirmation saying that my shoes were coming from UPS.

Those brown shorts wearing bastards.

No, no, I take it back.  My experience with them has been mostly good.  I’ve loved every UPS delivery guy at my jobs.  They are always nice and friendly, and sometimes quite cute (those shorts!).  But while our area’s UPS guy is very nice, he doesn’t try very hard when delivering stuff to our building.

True,  delivering to our building, if you’re not the post office, is incredibly hard.  There’s no one to sign for shit.  Neither the super nor owner live in the building, and it seems the “manager’s” duties don’t include collecting mail.  So the guy will try the buzzers – once he didn’t even ring our buzzer and MB had stayed home from work to wait for him – and of course no one will answer because we’re all at work. He’ll leave notices, and then, seemingly, ignore the signatures and phone numbers left behind.

So that’s a long way of saying after two failed delivery attempts, I finally decided to pick up my package myself from the UPS center in Protrero Hill.

If you didn’t already know, San Francisco is spread out.  It’s not compact like Manhattan.  Plus there’s nothing like New York’s subway system (the Muni and BART don’t count).  The only option aside from cabs?  Buses.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve actually gotten used to riding the bus.  In New York I rode it regularly, especially living and working so close to 2nd Avenue, where there is one line to service the whole area.

Anyway, Monday night MB and I cabbed it. We thought it would just be easier and faster, and it was. Even UPS itself was empty. The woman looked at my ticket and asked, “Did you call to have your package held here?”

“Uh, no,” I said.  “I thought it would just come back here.”

Nope!  So I had gone there for nothing.

I planned on returning last night, but did not want to blow more money on a cab.  I’d take the bus, I decided ambitiously, and figured out my route.  I’d take the number 10 from the Cal Train to 16th and Rhode Island, then take the 19 from the same spot back to my apartment.

Easy, right?  Not so much.

First off, I had such trouble even FINDING the 10 going in the direction I wanted.  I finally did, after walking down a long, dark, and desolate block.  It was one of those “metal poles disguised as a bus stop” instead of a shelter that tells you how long before the next bus.  So I had no idea how long it would take, and judging by the dark and desolate street, I guessed a long time.

Luckily a cab drove by, and a five dollar, five minute ride later, I was there.  But did I say fuck it and ask the cab to stay?  No, I had to be a cheapskate and, after very easily getting my box (again the center was empty and the same very nice woman helped me), I thought, I am taking the bus if it kills me, and it nearly did.

Take the number 19! Google maps said. You’ll find it on Rhode Island and 16th! Well, I found Rhode Island and 16th, and there was no goddamned bus stop. I wandered up and down the street for a good 20 minutes, and finally spotted one but it was for the 22. I stopped in Whole Foods, where the woman said, “It’s right by that little Mexican restaurant.” Couldn’t find the restaurant.  Stopped in Starbuck’s and got the same spiel.  Found the restaurant! But where the hell was the stop?  There was only parking, and more parking, and – Oh crap there’s the bus!

I thought it would stop somewhere near the Mexican restaurant, but it did not.  It turned and kept going.  I followed it, and saw finally at the very end of the street, the stop.  Of course by then the bus was long gone, and I was thisclose to crying.

On the bright side, it wasn’t raining, and the stop was a real one with a sign telling me when the next one was coming: 12 minutes.  Not a long time, but it felt like the longest 12 minutes ever.

And after all that, I decided I don’t like the shoes.  Thank God you can return unworn shoes to Zappo’s for a full refund, and shipping via UPS is a billion times easier than receiving.

UPDATE: I ended up buying a pair from a shoe store near my job.  Same brand, different style.  I figure the sales tax I’m saving via Zappo’s will be spent on cab rides to UPS.  Plus the ones I bought were on sale anyway.

Call me obsessed but I can’t stop thinking about this.  I just read a couple of more excerpts from Chua’s “parenting” book, which I’ll copy and paste here:

After her young children presented her with handmade birthday cards:

I gave the card back to Lulu. “I don’t want this,” I said. “I want a better one — one that you’ve put some thought and effort into. I have a special box, where I keep all my cards from you and Sophia, and this one can’t go in there.”

“What?” said Lulu in disbelief. I saw beads of sweat start to form on Jed’s forehead.

I grabbed the card again and flipped it over. I pulled out a pen from my purse and scrawled ‘Happy Birthday Lulu Whoopee!’ I added a big sour face. “What if I gave you this for your birthday Lulu- would you like that? But I would never do that, Lulu. No — I get you magicians and giant slides that cost me hundreds of dollars. I get you huge ice cream cakes shaped like penguins, and I spend half my salary on stupid sticker and erase party faovrs that everyone just throws away. I work so hard to give you good birthdays! I deserve better than this. So I reject this.” I threw the card back.

Of course my initial reaction is, “Are you fucking insane?” But delving deeper, it’s obvious, as other commenters have stated, that Chua had just a flawed relationship with her own mother, and learned absolutely nothing from it. I show you I love you by throwing you big expensive birthday parties. You show me you love me by this card that you made. It’s not you I love but what you do.

Why are you throwing your daughters such expensive parties?  So you can throw it in their faces later?  So you can be better than the rest of the mommies?  If you’re not happy to do it, then don’t do it!  But of course she’s going to do it because then what would everyone think?

The other excerpt:

After her daughter’s beloved paternal grandmother Popo died, Chua insisted the girls write a short speech to read at the funeral. Both girls refused (“No please, Mommy, don’t make,” Sophia said tearfully. “I really don’t feel like it.”). Chua insisted.

Sophia’s first draft was terrible, rambling and superficial. Lulu’s wasn’t so great either, but I held my elder daughter to a higher standard. Perhaps because I was so upset myself, I lashed out at her. “How could you, Sophia?” I said viciously. “This is awful. It has no insight. It has no depth. It’s like a Hallmark Card — which Popo hated. You are so selfish. Popo loved you so much — and you — produce–this!”

First of all, “Popo” would be a MATERNAL grandmother, presumably Chua’s mother.  How awful to make her daughters feel like shit, to make her daughters question if they loved their grandmother enough, when it’s she herself who probably feels she didn’t love her mother enough, to do enough to make her mother one billion percent happy.

I work in San Mateo, which is lovely little town about half an hour south of San Francisco.  The funny thing about San Mateo is that while it’s small, there are a surprising number of Asian eateries.  Supposedly one of the best ramen places in the Bay Area is here (I’ve yet to try it), there’s decent Thai, and I frequently get lunch from the Japanese market on 4th Avenue.  But sometimes I want just some soup and salad, and that’s when Draeger’s Market comes in.

Draeger’s is kinda fancy.  Think slightly more upscale Whole Foods.  The food is decent (though a little expensive) and the cashiers are always super nice.  Once I bought something I thought was on sale.  It wasn’t.  The cashier guy could have easily just said, “Nope, sorry,” but he went to the trouble of checking where I got it from.  The sale sign was still up – although the end date had passed – and he let me have the discount.

But while the customer service at Draeger’s is impeccable, the customers themselves are fucking assholes.

Yes, I’m talking about you, white people of San Mateo, you – at least those of you who frequent Draeger’s – are FUCKING ASSHOLES.

(And I do mean WHITE PEOPLE.  I go to the Japanese market far more often than Draeger’s, and I’ve NEVER encountered rudeness there.  Maybe a little pushiness, but that’s very Asian, and I will take direct pushiness over a passive-aggressive sense of entitlement any day.)

Cases in point:

Two old ladies in SUVs almost ran me over. Both times I was NOT jaywalking and had the light.  One lady was making a left turn in the parking lot and didn’t even check the walkway.  One lady was pulling out of the parking lot, and although she saw me (and again I HAD THE LIGHT), she just had to make me stop so that she could go.

“You’re excused.” So it’s always a great idea when you’re big and fat to stand right into the middle of an aisle so that no one can pass by.  It’s also excellent to ignore someone like me when I’m clearly trying to get by.  It’s even better to say obnoxiously, “You’re excused!” after I say, “Excuse me.”

“I’m sorry I look younger than you.” Probably the biggest fucking assholes at Draeger’s are the 30-to-40-something year old women – overdone, over-make-up’d, trying-to-recapture-their-youth-with-too-tight-jeans-and-high-heeled-boots.  I don’t know if they’re big assholes in general, or big assholes just to me, but whenever I go to the salad bar, and they’re there, they either 1) elbow their way in front of me, or 2) give me dirty looks when I go around them, as though I’m cutting them in line, although because you can around the salad bar in a circle, there is no line.

Why?  Is it because I’m Asian?  An Asian woman who will surely (and easily) steal your rich white husband?  Or is it because we’re probably around the same age but I look five to seven years younger with NO make-up or plastic surgery?

Today really took the cake.  I wanted to get beef barley soup.  BFD.  One of these overdone women was checking out the beef barley soup, decided she didn’t like it, then just stayed there in front of the beef barley soup pot.  She saw me waiting.  In fact she gave me several dirty looks.

“Are you getting the beef barley?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for the tomato basil,” she said.

The tomato basil was right next to the barley beef and occupied, but GUESS WHAT JERKFACE, there was room right on the other side of the guy getting his soup.  But no for some reason you want to stand on THIS SIDE in front of the very soup I want, so now I have to wait because YOU’RE waiting, oh queen of all the Draeger’s soups.

“Can I squeeze in to get the beef barley?” I asked.

Big fucking sigh.  “Well, I guess so, if you give me some room to move.”

Are you kidding me?  “Look, why don’t you just relax?” I said.

Of course she had no answer.

Because along with being passive-aggressive assholes, these San Mateo fucktards are also giant pussies.  When you call them out on their dickish behavior, they never have any response.

And it’s not just San Mateo.  It’s SF-proper too, but San Mateo is much much worse.

Man, I miss a good ole New York “Get the fuck outta my way.”

Some of you may know that MB is semi-famous.  That is, he’s famous in his very narrow, very weird little world of his industry.  Sometimes people recognize him on the street.  He has over 5,000 followers on Twitter (I have 60).  He has been asked to autograph certain female body parts.

But he has about as many haters as he has fans.  He writes controversial pieces, is outspoken, and sometimes gets into it with certain people.  The haters don’t resist personal attacks, especially from under a cloak of anonymity, and so he’s always tried to keep me separate from his more well-known persona.

But apparently this hasn’t stopped the rumors.  One of his friends interviewed at a well-known place, and somehow MB came up in the conversation.  The guy interviewing asked, “Have you seen MB’s girlfriend?  She’s supposed to be an [industry] groupie.”

Me, a groupie?

For some reason, this cracks me up.  Number one, I barely understand what MB even does, and number two, when I think groupie, I think lithe young hottie in a barely-there skirt, trying to land the next Mark Zuckerberg.  Not an almost 40-year old who till fairly recently earned six figures and is making a nice little name for herself in her own industry (if I do say so myself).

To think that there are groupies at all in MB’s line of work is hilarious.  But I guess there could be in any field, not just entertainment.  Professors certainly have groupies, as do famous authors.  I remember a co-worker at my old company was VERY excited to ride in the elevator once with our CEO.  Keep in mind, we worked in pharmaceuticals.  PHARMACEUTICALS.  About as unsexy as you can get, and yet you’d think she had just seen Brad Pitt.

I wonder how the rumor started.  Did people just assume because of MB’s pseudo rock star image (an image perpetuated as a huge joke mostly by himself) that of course he’d be shtupping one of his fan girls?  Or maybe once someone caught a glimpse of me, saw that I was Asian, and assumed I was one of those trophy wives/girlfriends?

Who knows?  It’s actually not worth thinking about too much.  Just something highly amusing, and maybe for a moment I can pretend I’m a skanky gold digger.  Isn’t that every woman’s dream?

I should probably stop treating non-office days like the weekend.

Today I:

• Worked a TINY bit on an idea I want to pitch
• Went to the gym
• Ate lunch with MB
• Hung out in Union Square and read
• Got my hair cut (finally!)
• Watched a Harry Potter mini-marathon

It’s Tuesday!  NOT Sunday!

Then again, I do work on my freelance writing at night and on the weekends.

Okay, guilty rant over.

I like my hair so much better now, by the way.  The guy – my official new hair cutter – gave me a great razor cut and bangs.  My old hair dresser seemed to think my hair would not lie the right way with bangs, and he was WRONG WRONG WRONG.  My bangs are adorable.  I had also told my old hair dresser to just go for it and cut it short, but he barely did anything, and just a few weeks later, it looked absolutely awful.

MB loves my new cut.  He says I look younger with shorter hair and bangs.  I agree that I look blah with longer hair.  Plus it’s so much easier to care for now.