1 year of SDSurvivalGuide

This Saturday will mark the 1 year anniversary of SD Survival Guide.

I’ve worn a few 2-dimensional identities in my life — the kind people use when they’re trying to describe you to a friend. They’ve varied from “Anthony’s girlfriend,” to “redheaded lesbian” and at least one unpublishable moniker in-between. Slowly, over the past year, “writer” has been taking over.

For that, I am calling this a success. The encouragement and feedback I receive make my fucking day, ya’ll, because I constantly think about how happy I would be if I had an audience for a book, and if I could write one that is worthy of them.

Many of you lament that you’ve gotten behind in my posts, so this week I hope you enjoy an excerpt from each one. And pretty, pretty please write me a comment, text me, or send me a snapchat with any thoughts about my writing.

Simulation

Cutesy post introducing SD relationship with the weather: Hypo-manic with fear, we discuss rain and sun and fog in a tone that is easy to confuse with eagerness. Oh, we’re not pleasant or easily amused; we’re terrified.

Nausea-filled regret at first post + epic tale of misogyny: Trapped in a bar stool between smokers, a railing, and his body, I felt like a cornered animal. Even as I chewed him out for what must have been at least 20 minutes, he stood alternatively with his face so close to mine I could feel his breath or with his crotch against my leg.

Attempt to draw in San Diego Googlers using keywords: There’s sort of an ennui in happiness and stability, and this is not the best town in which to forage for chaos. In this heaven, we’re a bit oblivious to evil and all the fun it brings.

Party story about violence against inanimate objects: The bear arm results from the potent combination of three things. Me, alcohol, and unrequited lust.

Examining appropriation of LGBT culture: I thought of the trendiness of swinging, straight couples hunting for that perfect bisexual woman who will love both of them in a harmonious triad, and 1-dick-per-relationship policies. I thought of dudes who ask me to sleep with their girlfriends, but insist that they at least be allowed to watch.

Party Monster Kill Switch + I freaking love Sour Cream: “Fluffy bear got me through a lot of hard times, too.”

Thrift shopping primer for San Diegans: I still thrift primarily to impress people at parties. I try to be selective, but having a conversation starter is more valuable to me than closet space.

My embarrassing familiarity with hangovers: But then everything is too loud so I sit in a dark room. Everything is too dark so I move to a dimly lit room. My blood is uncomfortable.

The “Gay Gambit” + map I found: “Gossip Gril is Vagina Stronghold?” I said, unimpressed. “More like where I go to remember I hate lesbians and cigarettes.”

I wanted to remember how bad I am at math and make it about alcohol: Ok, I lied, sometimes we feel poor and we drink piss water. Can I find a drink that doesn’t cost more than my student loans?

Blaming orange juice for my problems: I’ve been living off gatorades and cheese-foods since Monday. Cheese comforts me. Katelyn, I said, I want something like chicken fingers or macaroni n’ cheese. Something little kids eat.

Carpe diem for stupid people: I just want to know, how is throwing on a trucker hatt, getting smammered, and drooling on a young woman while she gyrates against your crotch seizing the day?

Reviewing a little SD rave: It felt like being in a kindergarten where you’re allowed to eat the crayons.

What is our civil duty to interfere in bad situations?: Pro-tip: pretending to be my “boyfriend” in order to “rescue” me from some asshat is going to annoy me almost as much as the dude telling me I’ve got pretty teeth 10 times in one night.

I fell in love with a stripper: “No,” I said in her ear, “I don’t care if he gets off. I want you and he has the money.”

Lame short post b/c I procrastinated getting ready for SCA War: Each fight could represent their last day on earth, so at night we party.

Katelyn told me to blog about pocket cheese: . After getting off work at 7 and taking your pre-party nap and laboring over your costume, there is no time for food. You can’t chop a salad, you can’t toast a sandwich and juice a carrot. You have to eat on the go. So we have this thing called “Pocket Cheese.”

Saga of my christian-phase closeted love-triangle: I hadn’t had an orgasm since I found Jesus.

Some 35-year-old said something I didn’t like, so I blogged about it: Ah crap. I’m that stubborn young woman who doesn’t like to be told what to do with her life and doesn’t have respect for people’s personal beliefs.

I got the slut strep: How do you tell your doctor that you may be responsible for spreading a nasty disease with a Jameson fueled make-out binge? (Forgive me, for there was a dimly lit bounce house on premises.)

An ex-boyfriend said something I didn’t like, so I blogged about it: An expired apology is one that is so old in respect to its crime that it’s completely missed its window and should stay in a deep basement to rot with the rest of your baggage.

I got the slut strep AGAIN: I can barely stay awake, and when I do manage, I’m confused and vaguely nauseous.

Artsy thing I wrote about a warehouse party: She liked me. I shouldn’t have been surprised; wives always like me, come on to me, kiss me. Yet, she focused on me so quickly, when my irises were just starting to quicken again.

I missed Pride because I was sick and I examined my coping strategies for FOMO: Do you realize how many strains of new and exotic viruses are flying in from around the country, world even? No thank you, spawn of swine flu.

Audio interview (I procrastinated so I never transcribed it): For my very first local celebrity profile interview, I’m featuring a very close friend and source of my inspiration, Xanadu Rocketship.

Buncha theme ideas for parties: I have been throwing theme parties since I was 7. I would plan for my next birthday just as soon as the last one passed, brainstorming ideas in my journal.

Almost missed a deadline for a post, but my brother called and I was inspired: Other people don’t sound like themselves on the phone, but I just hear my brother in the hot piece of plastic against my ear. He mentions how the Illuminati or maybe the overlord lizard-brains are monitoring our call, trying to intercept it, how he’s been really into conspiracy theories…

I attempt to forgive myself for not knowing enough about pop culture: Due to my delusional escapades as an alien princess, a Christian, a heterosexual… my connection to reality is a bit flimsy.

I learned that Sprint has tricksy awful sales-hobbits: Katelyn needs a new phone as well, because it never seems to work when I need her immediate attention and dammit why doesn’t she ever text me back?

I spent 3 hours making an OkCupid manifesto: You are meeting a stranger. Off the internet. You do not need to invest heavily in this date.

Benefit of being a writer, life lessons are now blog fodder: But when I checked my bank account Monday and discovered my wallet was stolen I wasn’t sure if I felt more like a victim of crime or a victim of my hangover.

6 monthiversary is an excuse to analyze keywords!: I know there’s plenty to do, I know there’s stunning and quirky and intelligent and sexy people in this city. I am making it my mission to connect these people together.

Delirious with new technology: I’m relentless. I won’t stop. The smartphone eats my dreams. I don’t need to sleep. I have 7 years of technology to absorb.

Sometimes I kick people in the butt and I have to leave the party: Now I’m no stranger to butts in my face, but I don’t like stranger butts in my face, and this guy didn’t even know my name.

Boobs: There are basically two ways to be a feminist at a party. One is to stand up for your beliefs and counter any bullshit the best you can, whether through reasoned quips or belligerent screaming, as is necessary. The other is to realize you are outnumbered, down another drink, and to instead store up your dismay and upset for an angry blog rant.

I struggle with coming up with something so you get to read my diary: If only, if only, I can become such a celebrity that people will want to read my diary.

Cutesy post about tourists: This weekend I met a woman from Chicago who awed at the mountains, and yes they were very effective at blocking my cell reception but I stopped cursing T-mobile and also spun in a slow circle. Ok, yes, I’m looking at them. Wow.

Lame last-minute blog post about Halloween costumes: I’m down to 15 minutes before I need to start assembling my own costume, and I realized if I really do want to provide a service through this blog, I can at least share some last-minute, cheap and lazy, DIY Halloween Costumes that I found / imagined.

I’m so full of myself I ask people to tell me something I don’t know when they say I’m beautiful: Make yourself memorable with a fraction more thought given to the compliments you choose…

I often leave parties without saying goodbye and why you should do it too: Immediately a man I didn’t know put his arm around me, people were dancing barefoot in the backyard to no music at all, and worst of all, I realized, everyone was dry as paper. Sober.

An introvert said something I didn’t like so I wrote a blog post about it: Yes, the Eysenck test divides emotional instability by introversion/extroversion. But I won’t accept cherry-picking the emotional problems you identify with as a valid “diagnosis” of introversion. Perhaps, like I did, you have a secret extrovert inside of you who is trapped by feelings of moodiness and pessimism.

I played a game of Cards Against Humanity and I was bored so I wrote a blog post about it: In general, just realize that nobody is paying attention to you because this game is designed for narcissists.

Got lost. Doesn’t matter, had waffles: As you probably already heard, I scooped chicken and waffle alike with my hand shovels into my mouth bucket, and then wiped all with individually packaged moist towelettes, and felt sated and warm.

Too much upworthy pissed me off: If I don’t know the person too well, such breaches have me reaching for the “hide” or even “unfriend” buttons. Facebook only lets me see you in one-dimension, and the one you’re giving me is ugly.

I whine about not wanting to go to work: I know that when I have to go back to work, the night previous I will be a restless mess of reluctance. I will do something pathetic with my time, like watching cable television and playing solitaire on my iPad. I don’t know why, but I waste every moment that is my last, simultaneously berating myself for not doing something more valuable with what I still have.

Bar story about a guy being nice to me: The “wrong” bar and my general lowered expectations for birthdays should have set me at unease, but maybe I just feel like I can do anything in a pair of Jeffrey Cambell’s and 1000 square inches of electric-grape leather. Maybe I could even accept free drinks from strangers.

Mean Girls don’t actually exist: I find it immensely rewarding to get people to come out of their shells, even if it is a shell made out of gender shenanigans.

Cigarettes are like little puke torpedos: Luckily drunk-sami became a smartphone photographer so I’ve managed to reconstruct memories of Jenga and flogging.

Don’t read this when you’re drunk; trust me I’ve tried: I’m beginning to identify two major structures in which a party group can operate. I’ll call them the Creatives and the Nostalgics.

Another attempt at Google traffic, but it’s actually a decent read if you ask me: Those kinds of conversations, about how SD is so nice and the weather is fucking rad, are immensely boring to me.

Thank you again for reading (I fucking mean it) and please tell me in the comments below which posts are the SD Survival Guide “must reads.”

“What did I do last night?” A Detective Story

by Sami

My little brother — cosmic-cowboy hole-in-the-brain child of the same kooks that made me — was in town last week. I’d been hesitant to take him out since the last time I’d had drinks with him in public our parents found me sleep-standing against a wall and him shouting fuck tha’ po-lice.

But Katelyn makes a good drunk wrangler (we call her The Handler) and I figured if things started going to shit I’d make use of the zipties I inexplicably had in my purse.

I took him on a test run to a beach shindig where I didn’t know anyone (seriously, no one — the host found me on Facebook and just invited me, like some sort of party talent recruiter). His standby favorite, Steele Reserve, was only available in a three pack so we were playing with fire, so-to-speak. Indeed, with a literal flaming blade he did burn his hair. Yet, he struck down the beach with such furious precision that I was sure he had the beast, his party-monster, tamed. (I can’t speak for mine, however…)

The next night I took him to Fashion Whore, where two of our mutual friends were modeling. My brother asked if he was dressed well enough, and yes the holes in his pants look less like trendy distressing and more like he’s been living in a Berkeley co-op for the past 3-4 years (he has), but his screen-printed and studded leather jacket is a masterpiece. It should be placed on the shoulders of a little girl, photographed back-stalwartly-turned to the camera, and used as his next album cover for Butch Nasty and the Blackout Kids.

Brother + friend dropping Magnums.

I’m not sure if the designers are geniuses or just sewing seashells to women’s clothing they got at the thrift store, but the event felt larger than the artsy-craftsy charm of its pieces. May Star is not short of brilliant for organizing this one; the U-31 crowd was thicker than the usual ~~Ruby Room~~ Merrow group and I’m not the only one who enjoyed watching my friends strutting (and dipping, and gliding, and dancing, and vamping) on the runway. Good show.

I think because my brother spent most of our bar excursion outside to smoke — out of sight, out of mind — I felt comfortable enough to quit monitoring his alcohol intake. And mine. By the end of the fashion show I’d made it through the better part of the third iteration of my “whiskey coke” (Pro Tip: A plastic flask extends the life of an $8 drink). I left it unattended with at least a finger left of pure Evan Williams, so when the busboy swiped it I felt like the universe owed me a drink. A friend of mine was completely neglecting some sort of Red Bull poison, and by the time he left I was basically obligated to finish it. The universe decided to teach me to watch what I ask for, and also provided a full vodka soda. I mumbled something about being a garbage disposal and downed both.

We made it back to a friend’s house, and I don’t remember much there. Luckily drunk-sami became a smartphone photographer so I’ve managed to reconstruct memories of Jenga and flogging.

What no one remembers is if I knocked over all of the Jenga pieces on accident or on purpose.

The rest of the evening I pieced together by various clues. “Babe, why was there a towel by my head on the floor where I slept?” I was apparently making spit noises and giggling, like a giant frothy baby. Solution: towel. I also found a pillow in the bathroom and glimpsed a memory of a puke-filled toilet bowl through the camera-shutter flashback that is my recollection of traumatic happenings. I’m not much of a ‘vommer,’ be the urge from alcohol-intake or flu, always choosing to bunker down with my suffering over the violence of becoming a projectile-mechanism for my own stomach soup. I’ll do anything not to succumb to the porcelain gods’ demands for sacrifice.

Cigarettes, however, are a poison that my body won’t accept. My accusatory finger began pointing like a dowsing rod. Clearly I had an accomplice, since I know full well what cigarettes do to me. I wouldn’t stick another of those emetic sticks in my mouth after half a clove produced an embarrassing wet arc on the Brass Rail smoking patio. I wouldn’t…

Oh, right. I totally would.

Straight Girls Pt. 1 “Mean Girls” as seen by a notorious Toaster Taker

Consider this a letter to my fellow humans of the feminine persuasion. Dudes, let me know in the comments if this was at all valuable to you. Frankly, I wasn’t thinking of men when I wrote this. I could write a book on this subject (Straight Girlz), so let’s go ahead and call this Part 1. This has less to do with the “straight” part of “straight girls” and more to do with women in general, but through my personal perspective as a kissing bandit. I have probably smashed faces (and other…) with maybe 3 bonafide lesbian chicks. The rest have been varying levels of bisexual or straight. So very many straight women. I swear I don’t specifically target them. They’re drawn to me — outgoing, harmlessly femme; I think they feel safe and welcomed. Not just the ones that kiss me, but the ones that befriend me also surprise me with their warmth and trust. Often women will tell me “I don’t normally get along with other girls” or “I prefer hanging out with guys.” How do I manage to break down social barriers and engage women on deeper levels? Am I just appealing because they project or sense a level of desire in me (as a lesbian) that they find familiar from men? Is it just my pretty hair? Or am I managing to do something else… My friend wrote to me about her recent experience (anonymity preserved for work reasons):

Oh. Surprise, surprise. I finally kissed a girl that I liked it.

??

You accidentally a word. Not sure if you finally liked kissing a girl, or one finally liked kissing you

haha…I kissed a girl…well…and it worked out anyways it didn’t tweak my usual “that doesn’t work” reaction Sexuality is fluid so maybe something changed for you

I dunno. There might be a few girls I can kiss and it would work out. I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot. I’m definitely not anything beyond heteroflexible.

I wanted to know what was special about this kiss. Why, when she’d always asserted that this wasn’t a thing for her, did she have a successful experiment?

I think bubbly, friendly, outgoing girls maybe sometimes work for me. I know the first time I managed to successfully kiss one without it tweaking me was similar in that respect. Girls who are a bit oblivious to the fact that I may not actually be bi…and are just super friendly/warm and bubbly, I guess.

You don’t want to be targeted maybe?

I think part of it is that for the most part I don’t trust women, in general, because so many of them are so catty…and this personality type tends to be fairly opposite the catty persona that I feel comfortable with it? I mean, this girl, she heard I didn’t feel well and immediately took me downstairs and hooked me up with cough drops and was just super sweet. The more I learn about her…she is a straightforward gal…so, someone I would get along with easily.

Women in general are nice at the core. I don’t know why they catty front has to be prevalent

This doesn’t account for your basic nerd/lezzie girl types I tend to get along with just fine, as well, of course.

It’s interesting to me that you operate with so many categories

Ok, I started to get a little rude. Really though, women need to STOP acting like their problem with other women is other women. If you categorically cannot get along with an entire gender, it might be something you’re doing wrong. My friend rocks for taking my criticism in stride.

Haha! I think I do nowadays because I used to just think it was women, in general, that I didn’t get along with. Then, as I got older I noticed there were certain personality types/traits that I got along with a lot better. I grew up, though, with mostly boys for friends. I thought a lot of girls were just plain mean.

Her younger self’s perspective is one that I see perpetuated even by women my age and older. I’ve come to realize that since our society evaluates women strongly on a rubric of “niceness,” failure to perform to the gender is read as “mean.” Saying it like it is? Mean. Standing up for yourself? Mean. Setting clear and firm boundaries? Mean. This analysis is further muddied by the fact that “mean” is also willfully taken on as a strategy by women who see its value in power plays. If a woman (nice) is expected to be docile, and gentle to the point of weakness, then the opposite (mean) is brassy and cruel to the point of strength. Your popular “mean girl” will be perceived as mean both because she is rated on the mean-nice scale and because she draws her ideas of power from the anti-feminine ideal: act like a man to game the system. Then of course she (the popular girl) overcompensates in other stereotypically feminine roles (make-up, clothes) and we hate her for being a hypocrite. You really can’t win. How do I pull people out of this overwhelming network of social scripts and assumptions so I can have a decent conversation, or even make a friend?

Women are obsessed with being nice, at the expense of being fake. Since the opposite of nice is mean, fake-nice comes across as mean

there you go fake nice=mean at least, that’s how I feel about it disingenuous can’t trust people like that

Thing is, it’s not actually mean. It’s just fake. Get real with her and the fakeness stops

that’s a good observation .. “Get real with her?”

I really struggled to explain myself here. It’s not something I had consciously analyzed before. I just…do the me…and the friends…happen.

Maybe most girls are just nicer to you because you are cute so they want to be seen with you.

Haha sure but it’s still fake-nice until they realize I’m going to be real with them

Maybe I just prefer dealing with women who are real from the beginning…and don’t know how to deal with fake nice.

She makes an excellent point. It’s not her fault if women observe her naturally open and interested nature and throw a wall up in her face. She is fair, genuine, and very used to managing expectations and relating to people (she deals with young-ish ones for a living). But I want to deal with fake nice. I find it immensely rewarding to get people to come out of their shells, even if it is a shell made out of gender shenanigans. Or maybe I’m a jerk that just likes to poke people out of their comfort zones.

Just see it as insecurity. Validate them and the insecurity goes away. Unless it’s insecurity matched by ego/arrogance. Then sometimes you have to call their bluff

That probably explains the difference I run into between the women I get along with and the ones I don’t in a nutshell. Validate them? Like, “Wow, I really like those shoes (if I genuinely do),” you mean? And what’s up with the “calling their bluff?” What do you mean by that?

Well, like, it’s never something you can do verbally per se. But you can disengage from their bullshit. You have to direct the conversation in a way, don’t react with the script that we all know

And after you call their bluff, you have to be nice for real I typically will kinda zone out when the fakeness is gushing. Then I chime in with the conversation I want to have. Faker will typically get a bit unsettled by this. I look for an opportunity to mitigate her fears. Get her on my sailboat and give her a life preserver

LOL…I guess that makes sense. I am constantly redirecting student conversations from where they want to take them back to the class concerns in ways that kind of broadside them. I use humor and self-deprication to move them back in the right direction…maybe a mild insult that gets their attention without really insulting them. Kind of the same thing? Make it more comfortable to have a real conversation?

Sure, stuff like that, as long as it’s recoverable. Kinda like hey I know what you’re doing and knock it off, but I understand how you feel I do it too

We hinted at a few strategies. Let me elaborate:

Disrupt the script – do something unexpected
Refuse to play the game — you don’t have to prioritize being “nice” over all else. I, for one, get more out of life with “honesty.”
Being “fake-nice” will often get misread as “mean” because most women know exactly what you’re doing, at some level. Even if they don’t feel like you’re being mean, they’ll often balk at your apparent insincerity (and they may not even understand why they don’t like your demeanor)
…Regarding getting along better with teh menz, they may not see life through this same lens and so they interpret “nice” as just plain “nice.” So maybe that’s why you get along better.
Extend olive branches. Make the effort to truly connect. Show that we’re all on the same team here. If you “don’t play the game” but also skip this step, then you’ll fall into the category of “girls don’t like me because I don’t act like a girl WOE is meeeee”
Use the “benefit of the doubt” both to show that you will be considerate to her point-of-view, but also to allow yourself to believe she doesn’t hate your guts already
In other words, be “actual” nice
Don’t assume that girls are mean and awful and it’s not in any way your fault you get along with boys better. YES it’s a systemic problem but the only way we’re going to get around it is if we do actual work to relate to each other like human beings and not “mean girls.”

Thanks for all the insights. I might understand women when I’m ninety.

didn’t know I had them til you asked! Give me more insights on getting girls in the kissing mood!

Be super nice and helpful and welcoming?

Will try that haha

Guys don’t totally suck (I learned on my birthday)

(Hey guys, I got Prismacolors for my birthday! Enjoy the new doodles.)

I can’t say the last 7 days were uneventful — I had a birthday and 2013 became 2014 — but there isn’t a whole lot I’m willing to share on a website with my real name on it (Summary: lots of booze & bangin’). I do have a little story for you:

On my birthday, I discovered that the place I always think is Redwing but is not Redwing is also not Livewire. Nope, it’s Nunu’s. But, you can’t blame Kateyln for taking me to the wrong, “U-shaped bar with booths,” because that, Livewire is. Eh, it’d work. Never expecting much for my birthday, I put up check-in on facebook like my bat-signal and waited to see which friends would show.

I really mean I don’t expect much for my birthday. It’s the 27th of December, and I’ve spent most of those in a car ride to grandpa’s house in SB. My parents made the day special by letting me have the newspaper first and sometimes we’d pick up In’n’Out. As I’ve gotten older, my birthday has become less of an addendum to Christmas in a bad way (hello child, you are getting a COMBO present and it is clothes!!), and more of an addendum to Christmas in a good way (combo present: DSLR!!!). First off, no one forgets my birthday checks. Also, I haven’t completely abandoned my childhood fantasy that all the lights and tinsel are put up just for me.

The “wrong” bar and my general lowered expectations for birthdays should have set me at unease, but maybe I just feel like I can do anything in a pair of Jeffrey Cambell’s and 1000 square inches of electric-grape leather. Maybe I could even accept free drinks from strangers.

The first person to show up was Katelyn’s bestie. She brought me a wrapped gift that was very obviously alcohol.

Yeah, no, that had to go straight to the car. The two girls left me in the bar to attend to my whiskey and a PBR tall can. I finished the former and took taxes from the latter. Just standin’ here by myself, looking gorgeous and bored. Twiddle thumbs.

Two dudes approached me and the first one said, “Hey, Sarah?” Close enough, and with my face-blind-ish-ness I assumed he knew me. We very quickly established he did not. I’m really good at talking about myself so I slipped in seamlessly that it was my birthday. (I’m lying; I announced it without context like a proud 5-year-old.)

He immediately offered a birthday shot. The way he did all the talking, I figured he was trying to wing-man for his shaggy-haired friend. I thought I knew what was going on there. Whatever, I could take his alcohol and reject his friend. Leather. 6 inch heels. It’s my birthday.

And then something kind of magical happened. The three of us took our shots of bourbon. My friend Marina arrived. He saw I wasn’t alone anymore, and told me he was glad to meet me, he’d be over by the pool table. He was glad to meet me. Past tense. As in he just bought me a shot and would be leaving me alone. I gave him a big hug I was so pleased.

I don’t want to undercut the rarity of these kinds of occurrences. I don’t want to dismiss the damage my gender faces at the hand of institutionalized sexism and asshats. I’ve certainly seen my fair share of bullshit. But something about that moment felt very….normal. Like it happens every day. Like 2014 is going to be different for me.

It’s the serenity that I felt that I treasure most. I know I’ll have to continue sharpening my skills of graceful rejection. I know someday some guy is going to put his hands on me and act like I was asking for it. But this little moment, this freely given shot, makes it worth it to keep my heart open.

Thank you, Bryan, wherever you are, for giving me something special for my birthday.

The Other Holiday Hangover — the dread of going back to work.

You know what my mom said the other day?

She had just opened a gift of those coffee-bomb things you put in fancy espresso makers. She said, “I can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow.” Ostensibly to use the things, but also because she is a freak that loves working.

My dad always says, as an example of how the two of them are so different, that his favorite day is Friday, and her favorite day is Monday. I’m more like my dad. It doesn’t matter what my job is, at some level I will always hate it.

I currently actually really like my day job. I get to tell people what to do, show up in my pajamas, and feel like the hero on the daily because I’m the most technically proficient person on staff.

But, every morning, it’s still a fight between the tattered, flimsy bits I call my work ethic and this unknowable dread…

It’s worse after a weekend, and worse still after a holiday. The longer I spend time away from work, the longer this dread builds inside of me. It’s as if I forget that work is something I must do, and I start believing that vacation could be permanent.

I don’t know if “normal people” (or at least people like my mom) have a different perspective on work but I suspect they do. I don’t think everyone has a gremlin living in their cupboards, like an evil Doby the house elf, that just wants to be set free. I can only guess that my resistance to a normal work schedule began with public school, when my teenage internal clock fought the 7:55am start time. Getting up in the morning to a day that doesn’t belong to me feels like prison.

I could try to take ownership of my work, so that I might look forward to it more — but I feel my true work will always be my writing. I have to barricade space for that, or else I’ll be spending my mental free time structuring Trello boards and writing Gmail filters. Such things can be rather addictive unless I tell myself that I hate them.

I know that when I have to go back to work, the night previous I will be a restless mess of reluctance. I will do something pathetic with my time, like watching cable television and playing solitaire on my iPad. I don’t know why, but I waste every moment that is my last, simultaneously berating myself for not doing something more valuable with what I still have.

At my core, I don’t want to work a goddamn day. I only want to write. And maybe that’s it, only my life’s passion won’t fill me with this mysterious dread. As I point my head towards something that isn’t my dream, my body recoils at the very thought of spending time on anything else. When I’m still foggy in the morning, and my sense of responsibility hasn’t set in, I struggle to talk myself into the reality that my heart hasn’t chosen.

But maybe, if I chose writing as my job, it would become just that. Maybe, I would learn to hate that too.

My friend Katie says I need to take more selfies, so here’s a particularly festive one. Enjoy (what’s left of) your holiday!

How the Grinch Stole Facebook

My goal here is not to insult my friends. I’ve refrained from writing private letters of direct criticism because giving unsolicited advice is for pretentious douchecanoes. I am not intending to create an anonymized naughty list for you to find your name in. I will remix attributes from several friends so that what you will see is an amalgamation, and if you find yourself in any of these descriptions it is only because these behaviors are universal — they sprout out of primal social needs.

But really, sometimes my friends piss me off.

Isolated from complex human subtlety by the frame of the screen, my Facebook friends become tiny caricatures of themselves, or a blown up facet or two of their personalities that, in real life, is much less clumsy. Because of this, it is quite possible to love — and I mean really love — a friend in real life, but hate what they become in my news feed.

First, stereotypes.

A buddy might be good company over a Lagunitas IPA… But, contextualized by an endless stream of Buzzfeed, Upworthy, and Jezebel posts, they become a loathsome stereotype. Their photo is a square sticker signature slapped onto readily-available asshole personalities. Facebook posters generally expect their friends to be kind and understanding. They do not realize that when they like some sexist meme or other, I don’t see someone who has a complicated appreciation for both feminism and its seedy counterpart, in an ironic sort of way. Bah! Humbug! There is nothing festive about misogyny! I am not amused.

There’s the trope of the gay guy who calls women bitches and thinks vaginas are gross.¹ It’s supposed to be cute because he’s non-threatening and mince-y. In my newsfeed, I have seen a good friend use the c-word. “Um,” I want to say, “just because you’re ostensibly lower on the privilege totem pole than straight women doesn’t mean you get to call them cunts.” I should assume this person is adopting the stereotype for the sake of humor, but on the sterile screen, the words echo hatred like an angry red zit.

If I don’t know the person too well, such breaches have me reaching for the “hide” or even “unfriend” buttons. Facebook only lets me see you in one-dimension, and the one you’re giving me is ugly.

Then, there are my sad friends.

In real life, they are clever and strong. They match self-deprecation with wit and laughter. They feel terribly about themselves, but muster up bravery to face the night. We commiserate about our human weaknesses, and wash the bitter taste away with fun and alcohol.

On Facebook they are whiny children. “Help me” sad post follows help-me-sad-post and they cry into the little box that asks: “What’s on your mind?” I see selfies described with words like “ugly,” “awful,” “not cute.” A flurry of comments reject the insecurities. Fine, I won’t disparage fishing-for-compliments if it’s effective for you, but I’m still always turned off by delusional postings. As in, your selfie is hot, please don’t lie and say it’s not.

And, of course, the over-sharers, in both senses of the word.

I won’t delve too much into the TMI tribe, because I’m probably just the asshole here for not giving a feel when your boyfriend is borderline abusive (and you think it’s more appropriate to cyber-whine than dump him). But I will just say if “some people” did something and they “know who they are” I am pissed at you for not giving me the whole story.

The other over-sharers seem think if they create a trail of links to “funny” or “amazing” internet “articles,” we’ll be gobbling them up like James Woods a la Family Guy. I’m sorry, but your fluffy internet photoblogs about 18 Little Whatsits that Insert-Anthropomorphic-Verb-Here or yet another slapdash rant on how Celebrity Epitomizes Insert-Hyperbolic-Adjective-or-Trendy-Social-Activism-Phenomenon-Here don’t have me bending over exclaiming “Oooh! Piece of candy.” Go play show-and-tell in Reddit where you can at least learn from your downvotes.

I feel like the Facebook Grinch.

Every Who down in Whoville liked Bitstrips a lot
But the Grinch who lived just North of Whoville did not!

The Grinch hated HuffPost! The whole Facebook feed!
What’s the point of this insatiable, selfish human need?

It could be that Upworthy talks down to us, like we’re kids
Or that when I’m in a public place, I’m not trying to watch vids…

The crux of it all is that I’m guilty. I am at once in-narcissistic-love with my Facebook persona and sick with the shame of self-promotion. If I am cringing when my friends post pictures of their lunches, how annoying is my stream of blog links, proud-of-myself check-ins, and hungover affirmations that I have so much party in my life?

We are not professional content finders and writers. Our news feeds are not as carefully curated as The Electric Typewriter. Our editing tools are too basic and imprecise. Facebook filters out 90% of babies-doing-baby-things for me (thank you!), but still shows Upworthy posts on the mobile browser. I blocked it! I totally blocked it already!

We’re scrap-booking together living, breathing yearbooks of human experience, as best we can.

As sappy as it sounds, there is something beautiful about that. What, perhaps, is insane, is that we’re expected to create and consume in this way every day. I’ve always felt squicky about nostalgia. Perhaps I’d be more comfortable if Facebook news feed browsing was relegated to an annual tradition, like an actual yearbook. We could submit content year-long, but it would disappear into the void until it unlocked like a time-capsule. Hmmm….yes…

Fantasies aside, this Grinch’s heart grows three sizes when she thinks about what Facebook represents despite its limitations. Yes, it’s a little bit of amateur-hour. But this mixture of the anxious, the banal, uplifting hope beside crushing failures, daily life and life events — this mixture is as raw and snotty-nosed and breathing and shitting, laughing, sighing as “the real world.” We’re creating human records and they are exactly that, human.

So, please acknowledge my posts when I please you and I’ll do the same for you. If I come across something I don’t “like,” I guess I’ll just keep on scrolling.

¹To be fair, there is a trope of the lesbian who hates men and says dicks are gross, and while I’m not that way, I’ve heard such sentiment out of the mouth of babes, and I didn’t put my clothes back on and drive away.

You’re not introverted, you just have problems

Based on Eysenck’s personality theory (I didn’t make this up) — click for larger view.

I don’t think I took much issue with the idea of a person calling themselves introverted until an infamous comic told me that (as an extrovert) I’m basically a predator trying to steal energy juice and don’t take it personally, it’s just that interaction is expensive and introverts don’t want to spend it on something wasteful. Excuse me, but sorry for annoying you with my friendship.

A few of my introvert-identified friends also took offense to this comic, so it isn’t just obnoxious-extrovert-me who doesn’t get it.

I strongly identified as an introvert when I was young (years 5-19). I had the “running monologue” in my head at all times. I needed copious amounts of alone time to “recharge.” My bedroom door was always closed, and I taught my brother to knock so I could be alone with my books, drawings, and thoughts. Of course, during most of this time I also “hated humans,” suffered severe major depression, and had general anxiety disorder.

Now that I identify as an extrovert, I find that I’m not sure if I love myself or people better. I default to a sense of contentment or even happiness. Alone time is not painful or anything, but no longer all that necessary. Oh and that running monologue goes away when I’m around people.

It has been my belief that I was a “false introvert” and that aligning myself with that personality type was a source of unhappiness for me (or just indicative of my crippled emotional state), and that is why being an extrovert feels more natural and comfortable.

So, for personal reasons, when I meet an unhappy introvert, I suspect that they are not introverted. They just need therapy. Happy introverts (and it seems like they do exist: study 2001) can carry on, this isn’t about you.

Introversion/extroversion is frequently tested on the Eysenck personality questionnaire, which just seems to allow a lot of people to self-select for social anxiety disorder if you ask me. You’re asked to rate how well you identify with personality statements, which are testing for both introversion/extroversion and emotional stability.

If you’re emotionally stable, you can be on the more sociable/carefree/easygoing side of things, or you can be on the more thoughtful/calm/peaceful side of things. There’s not really a huge difference in the “introversion/extroversion” personality traits, except that extroverts are “more social.”

Non-emotionally stable people are divided into two groups, which seem to be overly-social verging-on-being-a-sociopath for the extroverts (“I would like other people to be afraid of me”) and severe anxiety for the introverts (“I fear for the worst” and “I am very moody”).

Extroverts, of course, are the strong majority. So much so that introversion was considered for inclusion in the DSM-5 (Psychology Today 2010). In other words, for a hot minute we were going to call introversion a personality disorder. There’s definitely a trope of “I am an introvert, therefore I have a social disadvantage.” In an extroverted, highly social world, this feeling makes a lot of sense.

However, humans are and always have been social beings. It doesn’t make sense to me why this commonly accepted test focuses so much on sociability. You have to admit that even introverts are decidedly social, suffering when there is a lack of human interaction, otherwise the world would have a lot more hermits.

While I don’t doubt that introversion/extroversion are legitimate ways to describe a personality, the fact that there is not a reliable standard to measure, and that the accepted standards center too much on “being social,” you end up with a strong dividing line in the types of people who consider themselves an introvert. Some focus on their inability to be comfortable in social situations (Eysenck introverts). Others prefer a more nuanced understanding of introversion (focusing on communication and relationships styles, preferences for certain types of activities and ways of relating with the world).

Further muddying the conversation about introvert v. extrovert personality types is the idea that it is a spectrum, and fluid. This of course has to be considered, because most human attributes work this way. Still, what this means is that people can self-define their own style of introversion, and I have seen so many custom definitions that the dichotomy frequently fails to be relevant.

What I am seeing is a lot of self-proclaimed introverts excusing their anxious behavior on a tenuous label. “Big crowds are just too much for me, because I’m an introvert,” or, “I just can’t keep up in conversations because it takes me longer to process in social situations…and extroverts have no filters.” I’m seeing people I care about diverting attention from overcoming their social anxiety by excusing it due to introversion.

If you are terrified by a crowded party, overcome with worries and insecurities, frozen by your inability to talk to people…. you can’t ask me to respect that as just a part of who you are. No one should be expected to cope with that lifelong. I will give space and I will assist people who are struggling with anxiety, but I’m not doing it because I accept the anxiety. You’re not introverted, you just have problems.

Yes, the Eysenck test divides emotional instability by introversion/extroversion. But I won’t accept cherry-picking the emotional problems you identify with as a valid “diagnosis” of introversion. Perhaps, like I did, you have a secret extrovert inside of you who is trapped by feelings of moodiness and pessimism.

Unrelated journal entry & I went to a Goth Club in LA (predictably, somewhat of a disaster)

I’m struggling to write something Survival Guide appropriate. I could relate my venture to Los Angeles, where I went to the wrong Goth club, spent too long in Hollywood traffic, went to the right Goth club, dropped my lover in a fountain, and spent 3 hours going up and down Sepulveda Blvd trying to get to a hotel room that never was.

I could give the diary entry that followed that night, but to be honest it’s too dark. Maybe it was the Goths, or maybe it was because a San Diegan in LA with only scraps for a plan and too much whiskey is destined for shame, baby. Oh, lord, haha my shame.

Because I don’t want to disappoint anyone who may be keeping track of the fact I promise new content every Thursday night (tricked you today by posting last week’s work to Facebook!) I’ll give a more innocuous diary entry. I thought this one was appropriate because I refer to my “audience” a.k.a. my friends <3

Also… 91 degrees — that was in September! Yesterday, I learned that what I have been experiencing this week in the form of “weather” is called, “blustery” and that some ~~masochists~~ people out there enjoy it.

Welcome to Sami Brain:

9/8/13

My face catches, little gestures of sadness, unfinished frowns. Lately. I’m grieved that I spend no time on my book, grieved that I have no discipline. I have nothing to say. When will the words come pouring out? I can draw myself puking black but it doesn’t make it so.

I’m stretched. So thin. I don’t know who I am. I can borrow other people’s words. Gather them in a little brown book. Publish them to twitter. I can become a filter for the firehose. That’s all anyone every wants these days. Discernment.

How do I produce reliable opinions on subjects? Are all prophets just bullshitters? I stared at my words written in red ink, and I didn’t recognize them, just as I didn’t recognize my face in the mirror when I was young and concrete was so cold it ached inside your lungs are fibers* your bones are glass.

If only, if only, I can become such a celebrity that people will want to read my diary. Then, maybe I am being productive. Gathering a fan club, generating mythos, larger than my ego, 50 feet tall, a giraffe of a girl. I will be so desirable, you will all read my diary. Whatever I write, you’ll eat it up like I eat pussy. It’s not that I want people to worship me, it’s that I’m lazy. I prefer to craft my audience to my existence than my writing to an audience. Love me as I am and let me be as slowly and lightly as I like. I don’t want to filter my firehose.

Anyone reading this would add so much more melodrama than I actually feel. I am just a little tired, a little hungry, a little naked and bored. My insides are immovable and I won’t feel better until the rocks come out of me. Stress and fucking, I suppose. I don’t think it was the cheap food. I feel instead pounded like a slug of clay into a hard lump.

I’m so close to the finish line. I am chewing on ambition like an overworked piece of meat that I’ll never be able to swallow. My mother will offer her hand (to me, as a toddler) and I’ll spit out the soggy, heavy chunk.

*Reference to a poem I wrote in 2008 or 2009. I’m not sharing the whole thing because I’m pretty sure the only people who like poems are people who write them, and then, only their own poems. When I read my own poems I am convinced I am a genius, and when I read other people’s poems (except Matt Steele’s or Rachel Dexter’s) I am pretty sure they are talentless puffs of cotton candy or that I am an asshole who doesn’t appreciate poetry.

Anyway, since you’re not living inside of me with me, and you can’t read my mind, you might benefit from a little context. Here’s the excerpt:

this slick demon
sucked air from my
tiny fibers were my lungs
scrambling like fingers toward a pale

It goes on, and basically it means I should have listened to the doubts telling me to dump my boyfriend.

San Diego on Smartphone

I have become a tourist in my own town.

I knew I was on the path to this. Start a blog about San Diego. Start paying attention to San Diego. Why don’t I just start a San Diego fan club?

No. I hate this place, remember?

But now I have a nice camera in my pocket at all times. I’ve been starting to notice that places are beautiful. I’ve been starting to take picturesque landscapes of the shoreline. Who am I?

Or just pictures of half eaten tacos. By the way, this was a stunning fish taco. (OB Pier)

I am Sami 2.0. I am evolved. I am smartphone.

Late at night I poke my thoughts into a 5.41 x 2.69 x 0.37 inch glass and aluminum and plastic box.

“I am now learning from my magical endless home screen that if I want something explained to me like I’m a dumbass, go to Huffington post. Huffington post now relegated to my ‘after 1am feed'”

I show my friends things they already know. “Look, I can just talk into it, and it becomes a text message.” Yes, we know, Sami. Our iPhones have been doing this for years. This is what it is like writing a blog about San Diego, to San Diegans. They all have a vague sense that they already know what I’m telling them, but they endure me because they like me or maybe just because I’m pretty.

“I can feel myself getting smarter. The singularity is near.”

I’m relentless. I won’t stop. The smartphone eats my dreams. I don’t need to sleep. I have 7 years of technology to absorb.

“Flow (SwiftKey) should have a drunk sami mode. If it weren’t so goddamn noisy in this bar I’d yell at the microphone thingie.”

Every pretty thought is a potential status update. Every interesting encounter, a photo opportunity. I am now taking a LOT of pictures of lizards.

Pet Kingdom is my favorite zoo in San Diego and yes that is a real alive lizard.

Pet Kingdom is my favorite fish/reptile store in San Diego and yes that is a real alive lizard.

“LTE is a lie.”

(Well, Tmobile LTE is a lie. My friend with Verizon informs me that his network is shiny and perfect nyah nyah.)

Smartphone isn’t all joy and wonder. I find myself getting angry with less than perfection. Smartphone severely disappoints me. The future was supposed to be limitless! Why wont it share my 3rd party contacts with 3rd party apps? Why does it prioritize the LTE network (0 bars) when there are perfectly well-functioning 2G or 4G networks nearby? Why do I live in a hobbit hole in La Mesa?

“Smartphone is crawling into my psyche. Head explodes with thoughts as soon as it hits the pillow. Resorted to half a xanax, sublingually.”

Yeah, anyway, I am going to be weird ’til I figure out all this new technology.

What to do when your wallet is stolen

If you’re here from the Google and just want step by steps for what to do when your wallet is stolen, skip to that part of the post here.

Remember how I said I wanted a trainwreck date? I think maybe I’m the trainwreck date. If I had any shame, I would have been asking myself what I could have done differently, what went wrong, how this could have happened….

New rule: avoid hardwood floors as a surface for sex.

Of course, I’m now only physically battered (hardwood floors) and the emotional bruising has healed. But when I checked my bank account Monday and discovered my wallet was stolen I wasn’t sure if I felt more like a victim of crime or a victim of my hangover. It’s hard to distinguish despondency from the rotten feeling in my insides after one rum pineapple, two Long Beach Iced Teas, and one Audios Mother Fucker.

New rule: don’t drink anything blue.

I wish I could say all that drinking fogged my memory, but it did not. I remember very clearly turning into an annoying foam troll, scooping up bubbles and blowing them at angry people. Now I realize they didn’t want soap in their drinks, but at the time they just seemed to be enemies of fun. When a woman said to me, “Do you not SEE this?” indicating the phone and pack of cigs she held aloft the bubbles like Simba over the Serengeti, I replied, “Do you not SEE that you’re already elbow deep in bubbles?” My date thought I was fiery or something. I am just embarrassed.

New rule: stay out of the foam pit.

Anyway, when your wallet is stolen, you are going to be making TONS of phone calls.

Call your bank and cancel your card(s).
Call the police (look up the local non-emergency number online and be prepared to leave a message).
Call the credit bureaus and set up a 90-day fraud alert.
Call an identity theft protection agency.
Call the DMV and set up an appointment for your replacement license.

Here’s how I handled it:

1. I called my bank.

My bank had already frozen my card, because apparently my purchasing habits algorithm conflicts with spending $25.19 at Taco Bell and then renting a hotel room. OK, first of all… TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS AT TACO BELL? I love taco bell but I don’t even know how to spend that much money there. Even the most decked out supreme crunchy space saucer wrap thing is less than 5 dollars. Either my crook had friends, or she bought two party packs and an XL Mountain Dew and contemplated her life choices over 24 tacos.

My pickpocket spent $25 on Taco Bell and rented a crappy hotel room, among other things. CRIME SPREE LOL.

My bank also transferred me to the identity theft protection service they offer, but I took down the number to call them back so I could think about my options.

2. And then I called the police.

It’s important to make an official report, because, hmm, I’m not sure why but it was pretty exciting to have the police calling me every couple of hours over 3 days trying to get through my wall of bad reception and general unavailability. Nothing makes my hair prickle quite like hearing “This is the San Diego Police Department calling for [my real name].”

3. I put up a fraud alert.

My bank instructed me to call the credit bureaus and put up a 90-day fraud alert. Equifax will notify Experian and Trans Union for you, so you only have to call the first one. I’m starting to feel like the person who stole my wallet was an opportunistic miscreant and not a skilled criminal, because it looks like she tried to buy something from Boost Mobile and frantically reversed the charges. Or maybe it’s some sort of off-the-grid cell phone trick only the pros know about. Anyway, the fraud alert will protect me from people trying to open up lines of credit in my name.

4. Should I sign up for identity theft protection?

Yes. Yes I should. The anxiety told me I have to do it, because people out there might try to personify me to uh….well…get into bars underage? Get speeding tickets under my name? Um. Not quite sure what they can do with my driver’s license but CNN tells me to be very afraid.

Anyway, it’s only $13 a month and I might as well try it for awhile.

5. This one’s IMPORTANT. Make an APPOINTMENT with the DMV

The Tuesday after Labor Day @ the DMV was a horde of sweating unhappy people. They spilled out of the overcrowded building onto the hot sidewalk. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, I thought, why did I think today would be a good day? Staff didn’t even try to harass me for bringing in my iced chai latte, which I’m pretty sure is verboten.

At 3pm I got through a 3 person line at window 22 to check in for my appointment. At 3:10pm I wandered back inside to look for a chair. At 3:20pm the woman who let me sit next to her gave me a murderous glance when my number was called. At 3:30pm I was back in my car with my temporary driver’s license, feeling like I had cheated at life.

So yeah, make an appointment in advance by calling the number on their website.

In conclusion…

All told, I’m not too shaken by this whole thing. All I really lost was the $30 cash and the cost for replacing my drivers license, as my bank should refund the charges. I amuse myself by thinking that someone out there got wasted in a hotel room full of gorditas.

San Diego Survival Guide

Sami navigates and examines being young, gay, and weird in San Diego. Updates (every other) Taco Tuesday. Now with more activism.

Category Archives: Journal