Sunday, August 29, 2010

15 in 15 - A Meme From teh Facebooks

Memes are funny. By the way, for the uneducated English speaker, the term comes from the French word même, pronounced [mehm] not [meem], which means "same". You talk about a meme, and I immediately think of my college days, living in Isla Vista surrounded by sororities. Every Friday and Saturday night, it was like a live-action meme in process — dozens of bleached blonde, bulimic bleating girls all dressed in the same outfit but different colors, on their way to the party of the evening.

Not that I'm bitter about them or anything. Not at all.

That said, I've been "tagged" twice on Facebook for the following meme, and I suppose I might as well participate. Let's see if I can make something memorable. You make take it to your own blog as you like.




The rules: Don't take too long to think about it - choose fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, make your fifteen picks, and tag those friends you want to hear back from.)

The albums:

1. Trashcan Sinatras - Cake. The album that changed my music taste forever. Truly.
2. Kent - Hagnesta Hill. With songs that have lines like "Now I've found a way to make you smile / Pretending I am someone else / 'Cause I really missed your smile / More than I miss myself", how could I resist?
3. Mew - And the Glass-Handed Kites. There's a four-song set in the middle of this album that I could just listen to on repeat for hours.
4. R.E.M. - Automatic for the People. Songs that make me dance, and make me cry (in a good way).
5. The Smiths - Singles. The album/compilation that got me through my first real break-up.
6. Fauré - Requiem. I swiped this album from my favorite friend. Listening to it makes me forget ... most bad things.
7. Queen - Jazz. I actually am not sure if this the the album that was on repeat during the bike-riding portion of my youth, but it is the one with the defining song, "Bicycle Race". This album is here to represent pretty much the entirety of Queen's discography. If you don't like Queen, you don't like music.
8. Trashcan Sinatras - "Weightlifting". My favorite band makes a second appearance on this list. This album ... well, let's just say it helped me through a rough time, and kept me upbeat during a better time.
9. Turin Brakes - Ether Song. Wistful, moody. Plus a song about oral sex.
10. Jellyfish - Spilt Milk. High school, the Crustmobile, and everything that went with it. Steph knows what I'm talking about.
11. Dubstar - Goodbye.
12. Idlewild - The Remote Part.
13. The Cure - Show. There was a time when this album and the two above were on repeat constantly. I haven't listened to them for a long, long while. Maybe it's time to dust them back off, now that I'm thinking on 'em.
14. Paul Simon - Graceland. Pure pop perfection.
15. Radiohead - Kid A.

Hey, how convenient: now I know which CDs I have to take with me on my road trip in a week. Awesome.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Feeling Heated

My cell phone rang this morning just as my alarm was due to go off; it was my parents' number, and I had a moment of panic where I wondered who was going to the hospital today. I hate it when I get calls at odd or off hours — too early, or too late, or when I'm supposed to be sleeping. It leaves me shaky and takes a while to calm back down.

At any rate, this phone call was more excitingly newsworthy than horrible — the neighbor's house burned down, and all humans were safe.

So okay: yes, that was horrible for the neighbor (she's 80 years old and has lived in that house with about a million animals for over 30 years ... the only animal that survived the fire was one of her three dogs, unfortunately). And it could have been horrible for us: there's a fence between our houses, and some yard, but her side of the fence has (had) a lot of foliage and trees and a bunch of other pretty flammable stuff. But we all survived (I guess there was little chance of me not surviving), and three of my family members ended up on the news. True, my dad's clip had him labeled as "Kahled Labib", which is our neighbor's name, but still: family famous. Even my mom's damned hamster/dog was on there.

In other news:

Living in this city as long as I have, I've forgotten how to be hot. Hot as in 90 degrees hot, which is just about what the temperatures got to this Tuesday afternoon. It was sweating hot. I wore a skirt. My legs blinded people. No one wanted to move, but we all wanted to be outside. It was a minor miracle and now, two days later, we're back to humdrum fog city and already the memories of warmth fade away. Thirty-six hours of summer, that's all you get, San Francisco.

To celebrate (the weather going back to cold normal, and the failed plans for my evening), I ordered Chinese food and put on my Scottie Dog pajama pants. I love you, crab rangoon, sweet-n-sour pork, and chow mein. Love love boof.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Things Brighten

It's been a while since the last update.

The sun came out last week, burning away the fog for whole hours during the day and bringing Vitamin D back to the bodies of San Francisco's denizens. The window near my desk at work faces west, so every day I watched with joy as blue slowly appeared in the morning until it dominated the sky, and then with depression as the fog came back, long fingers shooting between the tall buildings of downtown covering the city once again in its gray shadow. It was a windy week, too.

Today, however, I woke up (granted, at 11 a.m.) to a cloudless blue sky, and plans to spend some time at Sunday Streets, which was going to be out along the Great Highway. Since I don't own a bike (and neither of us decided to rent one), I guess I didn't enjoy the experience to its fullest, but it was nice to walk along hand-in-hand and soak in the sunlight. The weather also afforded a rare spectacular fog-free view of Market Street and downtown from an apartment on Twin Peaks ... which, unfortunately, I neglected to photograph.

I did manage to photograph some of yesterday's shenanigans, which added up into a frickin' awesome day, all said and told. Despite the fact that it was oppressively dark for most of the morning, with a gradual burnoff into the evening. It started with brunch with Claire and her friends at Dottie's True Blue Café:

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Unfortunately, I didn't get any food shots until we were pretty much finished. I'm a bad food blogger. But the food was delicious, and just barely worth the 1 hour wait:

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Next I joined the Ceramics Crew for some goofing around at Leonie's place and exploring the Indie Mart. I bought a couple jars of buttons, and a gift for my nephew's birthday.

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Grr.



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The End is Nigh. Next year.



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Josh is wiggin'.



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Chuck is sexy.



My baby brother happened to be in the city, and joined us for a while.

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Daniel is excited to be in front of the Full House house.



Finally, I headed off to a coffee date, which turned into a movie date to see Inception at the Marina Theater. What a head trip ... it's probably a movie I should see more than once. A little predictable for the end, and while it's not getting me to question my own reality, it does provide some interesting food for mulling over, as far as the film's story goes. Hmm. I kind of also like the side focus, that future actions can be and are controlled by ideas seeded in the depths of experience.