How to Party when You’re Sad

I missed last week’s post. If this were a professional production, I’d have backlogs upon backlog of entrees so I could take off for a whole month if I wanted, but, no, this is a passion project and I scratch out a rant often the day it is due.

Last week, I was just too sad. Sadness makes me want to write around things rather than right through, and I hadn’t wound around and around the thing enough to make words of it. How could I write something appropriately playful for the Survival Guide? Not when my cousin is in the hospital. Not when my brother, who will always be my legend, has been calling and the homesickness in his voice makes him sound so small. Why should I write here when my hope is fluttering in the rubber balloon that traps it, when my mind is measuring too-small coffins?

What was missing was hope.

Since last week, I do have reasons to hope. I did learn that my cousin will get to go home. I did spend 3 days in the perfect outdoors of Yosemite. I did drink a lot of wine (there, there it is, I can laugh at myself again). Truthfully, I don’t think I could do anything resembling revelry without the hope.

And that is what partying is, that hope. That promise that everything’s going to be all right, tonight. Just like hope can be overbearing, can make us willfully ignore the smallness in voices that pleads, “I might not be alright. I might not be alright, and I might want you to hear me,” dancing can erase, drinking and talking and putting on our party clothes can overflow our worries with a blank white light. Maybe it’s okay to need that. Maybe it’s human to want to forget, to ignore.

Meet me there, have a drink with me. We can worry tomorrow.

A Primer on Concealable Flasks and 2 Alternatives

Disclaimer: I’m not really one to let moralism get in the way of partying, but I do have to say that if you can’t afford to buy a couple drinks at your local bars (and tip!) then, please, stay home on facebook and “like” pictures of all the people you wish would have sex with you.

On the other hand, I am not going to wager $20 cover on an event of dubious potential, expensive drinks, and no-reentry. If the music sucks, at least let me spike your weak fucking $9 cocktails with the whiskey I hid in my socks. Bonus for you, my sweet venue: if I look like I’m having fun, maybe other people will be tricked into thinking they are also having fun.

Anyway.

First, we have our classic bootleggers flask. This one has been vandalized with a sticker. If you are wearing actual boots, and I mean big, badass boots with buckles and shit, you may be able to get away with this one. Most likely, however, you will be caught and this will be confiscated, and you will be sad because it is made of actual metal and you probably paid some dollars for it.

The next logical step is the plastic flask. This one is black, so it can hide in a very dark corner of your purse. It is a little bit smaller, perhaps because the makers know you want to hide it. The advertising on the front claims it can hold 5 shots.

However, the makers of DisposaFlask are lying liars or else they are in cahoots with the people who pour weak fucking cocktails, because I’m counting a shot as a plastic liquor mini bottle, and it don’t add up. Technically, a shot in this country is measured at 44ml, but it’s much easier to divide by 50. The DisposaFlask is not labeled in ml or even oz so I did a quick science for you:

I’m rounding down to 150ml as a penalty for lying liar behavior. Also, and I’m just throwing this out there: look at that meniscus. (I just wanted to say meniscus in my head. Meniscus.)

That gives us 3 shots. This explains why I always finish off this flask feeling vaguely not drunk enough.

An 8oz flask does in fact hold nearly 5 shots.

Now, neither of the hardbody flasks are easy to hide on us squishy-body people, which is why the makers of Pocket Shot invented this delightful little packet.

The Pocket Shot is exactly the size of a regulation liquor mini, and it is definitely squishy. It will snuggle up to your skin and/or skivvies in all sorts of places. Squirrel away a few of these, and if security finds the one in your shoe at least they won’t find your nut-stash. P.S. they are fun for hookup partners to discover in your bra (true story).

The downside is that these guys are a little expensive, and of limited variety. I mean, I’m not against putting a plastic-encased mystery “W H I S K E Y” in my body, but you might want a flavor you can trust.

And so that brings us to… the DIY disposable concealable flask

What is that? Why, it’s a squeeze pouch. For babies.

Infantino makes a squeeze pouch “feeding line” (are they children or are they livestock??) so that yuppie parents can package up custom applesauces, vegetable purrée, and other goo for their toddlers to quaff. It will set you back about $15 for a box of 50 pouches. I will demonstrate in pictures how to alter this fine product to smuggle liquor in your underwear.

Wow. This photo grid is exciting. Isn’t it just ready to go up on a Pinterest board? This is How I Spend My Summer. But the branch clipper photo kind of says it all:

The elegant minimalism. The textures: pristine factory plastic, rusty blade, raw clipped edges. So much narrative implied in one photograph, and yet, the mystery. Congratulations, parents; I’m using my art degree to teach my friends and internet strangers how to repurpose baby products to get drunk cheaply at concerts.

Your DIY concealable disposable flask holds two minis. My confidential expert consultant says she can hide 4 of them in the crotch of her jean shorts. Impressive.

A final photo for your comparison. Enjoy.

The Night of the 10 Plagues in San Diego (Wildfires 2014)

I’m nowhere near the fires. I hope everyone is safe and doing okay.

Many years ago, I was sleeping or trying to sleep in my bed next to my large, sliding glass door that opens to a balcony overlooking the street. I heard a terrible crashing noise, like metal garbage cans falling off the back of a truck. My neighbors across the way had metal plates covering their driveway, and so I assumed someone had just come home very, very late. I fell back asleep.

Maybe an hour later my mom woke me up and told me the fish tank had broke. We had at least 8 fishtanks in the house at the time, so what did she mean “the” fish tank? I zombie-walked towards the hallway and by the time I stepped outside my door, my bare feet landed on wet carpet.

My parents had deconstructed their bed and my dad stood inside its black metal frame with a wet-dry vac. My brother was using the suction functions of the carpet cleaner. The 100 gallon fish tank in my parents’ bedroom now only contained 10 gallons at most, and its front plate of glass was missing down to the last 4 inches. It had separated from the wooden frame at the top of the tank, bowed forward, and shattered, emptying most of its contents. I could hear fish bodies slapping the remaining water.

That night we lost two fish. One had gotten stuck in a nook of the bedframe and was left unnoticed for too long, the other, my poor Ma stepped on. Later we would lose one or two more to the stress, but the remaining 40 or so survived. We spent some more time moving furniture and soaking up water with towels and suction devices, and my dad transferred the fish to new homes.

I wasn’t much help or maybe they wanted me to get enough sleep for school the next day, so they sent me to the guest bedroom downstairs so they could continue vacuuming without disturbing me. I woke up the next morning totally disoriented from being in the wrong bed. Then I looked out the window. The sky was orange. I wouldn’t be going to school.

When I stepped out of the bedroom, my parents already had the TV running with news of the Cedar fire. The timeline is fuzzy for me, but at first we had a very confident sense that we wouldn’t be evacuated, then the reverse-911 calls started happening, and then a vehicle drove through our cul-de-sac announcing the evacuation call on a megaphone.

As we drove away from our drenched house (the spread of the water was so bad that we eventually had to replace the floor/ceiling for that room as well as all the carpet for my parents room, the living room below it, and the stairs) our sense of hysteria crackled in the air between us. “Well, fuck. Let it burn,” we joked. We tried to cope with humor as we always do. “Floods, fires… What’s next?” I said, “Locusts?”

Our house didn’t burn, and not because it was dripping with fish water, but because hard-working firefighters prevented the flames from leaping the road and igniting the nearby Mission Trails Regional Park. We were able to return to our home in a few days. The fish, which (unlike the birds and dogs) couldn’t evacuate with us, were happy to be fed.

OK Hippies, You Win

I know, I know, I forgot to post last week. I was halfway to Mexicali when I remembered and I contemplated posting from below the border, but roaming data is something ridiculous like $15/MB.

Anyway, the fog of fever has cleared, and I’ve thought about my life choices. Namely, that binging on Del Taco after several days of dried figs, almond butter on whole-grain bread, and kombucha is not what my body needs.

That was after my trip to SF, where I spent a week with a vegan. My body promptly responded to the Del Taco feast with the “horizontal cold” in which I spent 36 complete hours horizontal. I used several of my coping mechanisms, in part because I had less than 2 weeks to heal up for Mexico.

I did it; I healed it like a champ, blew out the last of my snot the morning of, and hopped in a truck packed with people and camping supplies. I am not intending, by the way, to write much about my trip. Normally I’m happy to exploit the fuck out of my friends’ fun-times for my blog but this is an instance where I’m a little too romantic about the whole thing and will keep most of those memories to me, myself and my diary. I will say (again) I encountered two scorpions and killed one of them. Over and over again with a rock. Then I shook with primal bloodlust, murderous joy, and sadness for its death.

My friend Alexis found a live scorpion when she unpacked her luggage in America. She took a picture before killing it because she’s thoughtful like that.

The first thing I did when I got home from my treacherous camping trip was not, as I usually do, chuck my belongings in a discreet corner and procrastinate hygiene for a nap-crash. I shook out my sleeping bag and put it in the wash, I went into the pool to (remember what cold felt like and) buff out some of the dirt, I brushed all of my sister-wives length hair, I showered, I actually moisturized, I cleaned my room… Civilization was so much easier than everything I’d been through in Mexico that I might as well do chores.

And I ate. I did not stop by Jack n’ the Box on the way home. I made myself a plate of oranges, eggs cooked in minced garlic and onions, and baby bok choy. I ate carrots and prunes and drank water. I ate a spoonful of coconut oil. I ate hippie bullshit food, and I loved it.

For Mexico, I had packed garden burgers, Dave’s Killer Bread, and avocados. I didn’t do these things because I wanted to eat like a rabbit. 1. Garden Burgers are good cold and don’t spoil like regular burgers, 2. Dave’s bread tastes great even if it’s been sitting in the sun or if you massage it with your knee somehow whilst crawling into your tent, unlike other breads, 3. Avocados are the best food. Full Disclaimer: Katelyn helpfully packed me tuna salad + cracker snack packs, which I discovered contain FOOD STARCH-MODIFIED, which I discovered is actually sawdust, and which I enjoyed anyway. Other than that, I ate wholesome things, and people fed me wholesome things, like vegetables.

I don't know why I took a picture of my cooler before my trip, but I'm glad I did because this thing is the most badass motherfucking cooler and you need to know about it. I had the last cold beer in Mexico.

I don’t know why I took a poorly-lit picture of my cooler before my trip, but I’m glad I did because this thing is the most badass motherfucking cooler and you need to know about it. I had the last icy cold beer in Mexico, and it came from this cooler.

I’m beginning to understand that eating good food isn’t just helpful for [insert sappy body and health-related reasons that I don’t care about because I’m in my 20s], but also makes for better partying. If I’m always eating healthy then I’m basically in a perpetual state of detox and can tox’ it up that much more. In Mexico on the first night I drank probably 1 flask of Jim Beam (I filled it twice but I spilled much of it on the rocky trails and in my friends’ mouths) and a few Tecates and I woke up not hungover. Now, that’s just anecdotal evidence but, I’m convinced.

My granola crunchy friends aren’t just getting into healthy diets because the universe and everything and love. They have landed on a formula. They are giving their bodies nutrients instead of Taco Bell and are rewarded with endurance and energy. I was trapped in a vicious whiskey / crunchwrap / gatorade cycle just trying to survive ’til next Friday. Now I’m enabling my liver to handle more abuse, and I’m so excited for that.

Next thing you know I’ll be aligning my chakras and reikiking my (uh…?) and whatever to party harder. You win hippies. You win for now.

6 Party Coping Mechanisms

So…if you’re my friend on snapchat, you may have gotten this picture:

As I sat on the floor, pants recently removed, and flung my flabbergasted hands at my lacerated shin, Katie Siebert said frankly, “You are such a beautiful sad creature.”

“Beautiful sad creature, where did you pick that up?”

It turns out she got the phrase from me, but I’d forgotten. Back when I consoled her over a terrifyingly serious ear infection (read the whole story on her blog here) I had texted over a “wealth of coping mechanisms” that I’ve gained from the hilarious combination of having a sluggish immune system (born premature) and a creative/anxious mind.

I would never diminish the suffering of others, but I understand my own weakness for melodrama. I have to laugh at myself or else I’ll just spend the night intermittently sweating with a pillow over my head and snatching my phone up again for some more WebMD torture.

Turns out if there’s a lump sticking out of my shin a terrifying extra 1-inch, my reaction is mostly jovial. This is a battle wound. Also, I had taken 3 Ibuprofen before the concert in anticipation of wearing my improbable shoes.

Packing priorities: 50% necessities, 50% shoes

Also, I was still drunk. Still, the benefit of having physical injury over a communicable disease is I get a lot less crap from my doctor. Every time I get strep (like this time & this time) she acts like it’s my fault for being irresponsible with my health. But cut off part of my finger washing dishes? Now that was just an accident! Poor baby!

If I go to a concert and fall down the stairs (twice) the only person who is going to be mad at me is my daddy. “Wear sensible shoes!” he says sternly every time I show him the progress of my bruises. I think they look pretty cool.

I rely on my coping mechanisms when life’s got me bruised or battered, whether at parties or otherwise. Here are some more:

1. In general: Become a writer or an artist so that every bad experience is fodder for your craft. Like when you got drunk on labor day weekend and someone stole your wallet — Blog post!

maybe-theyll-give-me-the-fun-drugs

2. If you’re stuck having a conversation you don’t want to have: Opportunity to practice conveying boredom true and pure through your every molecule. Can you do it? Can you do boredom justice?

maybe-theyll-give-me-the-fun-drugs2

3. Girl, if some guy is bothering you: Enjoy the anger. Feel the rage. Let it build into a feminist fury. Launch into a diatribe he is ill-equipped to understand but that you felt impressive for saying anyway. Then let that on-top-of-a-mountain feeling carry you for the rest of your night of revelry.

4. If you lost your friends: Sweet, no one can judge me while I play 2048 in this corner over here.

because-im-gay

5. If no one is dancing with/except you: People who dance by themselves are fundamentally interesting. At their worst they are a little socially inept, but they could also be unhinged, weird, carefree. Even a total dweeb, if he’s truly lost in dancing and not checking for his peers’ approval, becomes legendary when he dances alone, silent, inexplicably powerful (think Napoleon Dynamite). People who dance by themselves are Fun people.

6. If there’s not enough alcohol at the party: Actually, this is truly devastating. This is not a time for Coping. This is a time to Do Something. My favorite is Pretend I’m going to Rescue the Party and Get Alcohol but Actually Abandon the Party for a Better One. If you don’t have parties double-stacked for that night, you could actually rescue the party, anoint yourself beer czar, and make people do stupid shit to get at your monopoly of booze.

The Curse

I am in San Francisco. It is fucking beautiful. It is the Curse.

Like all true San Diego natives, I bring the weather with me wherever I go. I went to England in the summer (which is actually a shit time to go, weather-wise) and it only rained once in three weeks: the day I was leaving. So, this morning it is sunny, 65 degrees and warming. My phone’s weather icon shows 53 degrees and cloudy, but it’s wrong: I’m in a bubble of perfect sunshine. Just as I was yesterday. Just as I will be tomorrow.

This is a Curse because it keeps us San Diegans naive about the world. We start thinking we can do things. We start thinking we could live in other places. Yesterday I started thinking I should live here. We walked out of the tenderloin. We walked through the Castro, and Haight Ashbury. We walked through the Farmers Market at the Civic Center where a yellow sign promised its daily presence (rain or shine!) and we bought and ate strawberries the size of apples. Then we went to the Mill, where racks of homemade bread filled up the place with that smell of racks of homemade bread. We went to the Rainbow, for which my only reference for similarity as a San Diegan is Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s also has a community board, but the Rainbow community board is actually used, with letters to and from the staff about BPA in receipts and why fruit ripens faster in bags. I waited for Katie to get out of the bathroom next to a bag of bat guano.

I didn’t think I was the kind of girl who could sit in a park and drink Kombucha, but we sat in Dolores park and I drank my first Kombucha. I thought to myself, this isn’t a bad fucking life. On a sunny Tuesday, parks back home are deserted but here, there wasn’t a person less than 10 feet away no matter where you sit. A man, possibly homeless, played “Three Little Birds,” which could have been irritating because it’s too obvious, but I thought to myself that he is self-regulating, he is getting a needed dose of happiness. He is soaking up this sun and pumping serotonin through his brain, dancing as he sits and singing along and pretending he is connecting with the people around him (they’re ignoring him).

At home we have plenty of crazies. I don’t see them often, because I don’t go downtown ever, but I know they’re there. These SF crazies don’t look at me twice just because I’m holding hands with a pretty girl. They look at me twice (rarely) because I’m a pretty girl, but not because I’m queer. I watch a man hold a fluffy white rose for another man to smell. A girl with buzzed hair smiles gently at me, knowingly.

I remind myself that every day isn’t like this. I remind myself grittiness is tasty in small bites, but I’ve never lived through a whole meal of it. I remind myself that back home I am disturbed by the crazies. San Diego perfect weather is relentless. San Francisco sunshine is just a little bit delirious. I know I can’t live here because in my heart of hearts I know how inconsolable I get on a “blustery” day. I know this, but the Curse tricked me into thinking I can do these things. So I am waiting in Katie’s apartment for her to get back with moleskin for my blistered feet, waiting for these 600 mg of Ibuprofen to kick in so I’ll go numb to my aching legs. It is quite lovely here, but I know it is only a vacation, and that I’m a San Diego princess, and goddamn why did I walk like 5 miles yesterday?

Trivia: n. unimportant details or information

I’m losing my patience for trivia worship. I don’t have a mind for holding facts — at least not facts about popular culture. I’m a goddamn encyclopedia for pet behavior and grammar laws, but I haven’t found my flock of fellow bird & word nerds, yet. If geeks are excited about counterculture, then why do I only ever hear them exchanging social affirmations? Do you know about this? Do you know about that? Do we fall on our knees for the same gods?

I am a bird nerd. I love birds. All of my snapchats are of birds.

Real eggheads study an obscure or challenging subject and revel in the love of knowledge. Media culture geeks are just like any insecure high-schooler who wants to be part of a clique that’s big enough for safety in numbers but exclusive enough to be “cool.”

Yes, we’ve decided that a certain amount of geekitude is cool. But, no poindexter is standing on a table, reciting arcane theorems and getting all the ladies at the parties. People are doing what they’ve always done, and that’s dish news and check that everyone knows the what-what of the happening, socially shaming people who can’t get with the program. What’s changed is that the never-ending internet has given us more what-what to sputter over our red cups. Almost anything goes as long as you have a little tribe of other geeks who are into your geek kink. And you do have a little tribe. You’ve seen them somewhere on Tumblr.

I understand, I really do, that having a common lexicon is a short cut to establishing shared experiences. But if you go on and on about Naruto, and I don’t know jack about Naruto, what am I supposed to do? Pretend I know what you’re talking about so I can skip on the noob history lesson? Change the subject? Point out that you’re a fucking nerd?

In a perfect world, I’d tell you I don’t know jack about whatever-his-face guy-with-a-rune on his headband (at first I thought it was blue-arrow-forehead child. Don’t act shocked, they’re both animated kids shows and I’m not a kid). Don’t give me a history lesson, I’d say. Instead, share an experience or an insight you gained from watching the show.

Do you really need to figure out which episodes we’ve both seen? Why can’t you just tell me what it all means to you? How it compares to your daily life? How it’s improved your relationship with your daughter? Why do I have to partake in this pissing contest that is proving I know enough about your geek fantasy to belong in your geek fantasy?

You just did a lot of reading. I will reward you with another bird picture.

This trivia spouting infects everything with a fandom, music appreciation included. Particularly, I don’t know how to react when a person knows more about my favorite band (Queens of the Stone Age)* than I do. I don’t know all the names of all the band members, though I’m certainly familiar with their discography. I can sketch out a list of songs for most albums with decent accuracy. Not that I care — I’ve just listened to R, Songs for the Deaf, Lullabies & Clockwork enough friggin’ times to know.

So, when this guy knows some obscure trivia (historical dates, formation of this or that) about my QOTSA and I yawn and pretend I know Josh Homme held this or that concert for his dead friend because I’m a bit embarrassed at my lack of expertise for my self-proclaimed “favorite”… when this guy goes off on some story I frankly don’t care about (don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed he’s retained so much information on his not-favorite-band), I’m realizing I need to just say: “Hey, thanks for teaching me something new, but what does it all really mean to you?”

When he gives me his baffled response, a “what” or a blank stare, I elaborate, “I don’t really care about the trivia. I care about the music. And I care about the music because of the band’s particular influence on my family, the way the shows I’ve attended shaped my understanding of rock and live performance and human appreciation for both. Tell me about an event you went to, how you felt, which beer you drank, how much sweat stained your t-shirt.”

I’ll tell you I first saw them when I was 17, with my dad in Austin, Texas. People there thought maybe he was robbing the cradle, because I dressed a bit too stylish and they didn’t know I was his daughter. I stood on my tiptoes to watch the longest drum solo I’ve ever seen, in a tiny venue called the Rose (it’s a lot like the Casbah, if you’re familiar with that), for “Feel Good Hit of the Summer.” I saw people smoking weed and carefully looked to my dad for an appropriate reaction, as I’d never seen the stuff before.

Don’t recite some band drama you picked up in your readings — some trivia that has nothing to do with you. Make it personal. Make it you. Bands are bands and some are better, but I’m not sitting in a spa with Josh Homme so what do I care if he wrote this or that song in this or that city? Unless, of course, *you* lived in that city.

Look he’s so cute he’s squinting. Don’t you enjoy all these bird pictures? They are like my children. Look at all these pictures of my children? I’m not boring you am I?

What I’m trying to say is, I coasted through my history classes because they weren’t *my* story. I’m much more interested in humans right in front of me than humans that are “popular” enough to make it to the books or the silver screen. I’m more interested in you. Tell me a tale, and make it one I can’t watch on TV. Tell me something I don’t know.

As media expands, these little clusters of allegiance to external narratives (Did you watch the new Game of Thrones? Are you into Attack on Titan?) might just fall apart. Lifespans of trends are shortening as the fire hose of popular media keeps pouring. We can’t keep up with everything. Certainly, established common ground makes us feel less alone. But I hope that the growth of communication technologies connects us such that we don’t need these superficial obsessions to lope along in a conversation. We could download in instants what someone else has already digested (here’s an emotion/dream/experience I had — let me transmit it to you in a microsecond so you know what I mean) and instead of validating that we’re on the same island of thought, examine and compare our reactions in the same moment. Make meaning, not just chase meaning laid out before us for us to follow like helpless human eyes scan a constantly flashing, changing TV screen. Quit worshiping trivia. Create your own legends.

*P.S. I’m going to the show in SF on the 17th! Will I see any other San Diegans there?

Go to Bro Bars

Go to bro bars. Order a Miller Light. No one will think you are drinking it ironically, so get that out of your head. Enjoy it, instead. Talk to strangers. Talk to strangers who ask if you don’t mind if they sit next to you. Don’t mind.

Spend the night listening. Spend the night believing you’ll be gleaning wisdom, or “stories of the people,” or perspective, or a new way to arrange the same sentences everyone says, always, everyday.

If you take out a notebook and write down what a person says to you, they will fall in love with you.

If you pull out a notebook mid-conversation to write what a person just said, they will fall in love with you.

Mean something to someone. Turn him down easy. Turn him down hard. Draw a puzzle piece that’s open on all sides. Explain these connections happen to you all the time, that you’re easy. Explain you understand it was special for him, but it was common for you. When you hug him goodbye, he will recite his phone number into your ear.

Listen.

Johnny Cash.

Basketball shoes.

Faggotron.

Take out a notebook. A bartender named Gregory will tell you, you don’t need to write a poem about him. Buy a lotto ticket. Win 4 dollars. Gregory’s dog does a trick — puts both big black paws on the bar and drinks water from a shot glass.

These places are quiet on Thursdays. These are the neighborhood places. There are regulars here, and you aren’t one of them. Not even close. Order another Miller Light. It’s half good when it’s cold.

Puddle of dead poultry and real post coming soon

Fuck. This. Week. My parents have been out of town for 6 days. Obviously I threw a party immediately after I dropped them off at the trolley station, even though I was instructed not to throw parties. This party went well, and this is measurable by the fact that I went home at 6:30am. No problems there.

The next morning I dealt with a family crisis, which I won’t divulge here but you probably know my family well enough by now to assume copious amounts of alcohol were involved. My weeklong drama continued into work, where all of our customers got blowjob pictures. Yay April Fools! I cleaned up that mess and arrived at my parents’ abode to feed the animals when I discovered a lake of raw chicken juice in the kitchen.

It didn’t take me long to figure out some sort of irreverent button mashing incident turned our working fridge into a display model, and to re-activate the freezing/cooling features I had to press the lighting and ice button simultaneously for 4 seconds (thank you reading the manual). What I don’t understand is why it’s so goddamn simple to convert a refrigerator from a working device to an ostensibly working device which will actually do nothing to preserve food and any bag of dead chicken bits contained therein will thaw in your unaware bliss. What I also don’t understand is how I didn’t throw up when I was mopping up the combination of dead chicken juice and whatever rusty filth had been brewing under the fridge since the last time we moved it.

So somehow Thursday vanished and Friday became Tuesday as my mind sought to just start the whole damn thing over. I did not post on time.

Because I’m just not pleased with the aesthetic result of juxtaposing my original writing with this preamble of excuses, I’ll “publish” it separately in a few moments after I’ve finished sprucing. Please stand by.

Whoops! Sorry I forgot to post

I have it all drafted up, all that’s left is to add in the pictures when I get home from work today.

My friend wrote to me asking where this week’s SD Survival Guide was and I almost quipped back, “What are you talking about, it’s Tuesday?”

Yeah, it’s been a crazy rollercoaster few days…

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.