Laundry/Sick Day

You know you're an adult when you stay home from an evening obligation because you're geting sick and then spend the night doing laundry and cleaning because that's the only time you have to actually get stuff done.

Songs My Future Man Will Deserve #3

I'll Stand By You - The Pretenders


Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes
Come on and come to me now
Don't be ashamed to cry
Let me see you through
'Cause I've seen the dark side too

When the night falls on you
You don't know what to do
Nothin' you confess, could make me love you less

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

So, if you're mad, get mad
Don't hold it all inside
Come on and talk to me now

Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too
Well I'm a lot like you

When you're standing at the crossroads
And don't know which path to choose
Let me come along
'Cause even if you're wrong

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you

Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you

And when, when the night falls on you, baby
You're feelin' all alone
You won't be on your own

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you

I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
Yeah

Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you
Won't let nobody hurt you

I'll stand by you
No, no, no, no, no
Take me in, into your darkest hour
And I'll never desert you
I'll stand by you
I'll stand by you

Songs My Future Man Will Deserve #2

Good Hearted Man - Tift Merritt


Swore that I was living free
Boy, you couldn't talk to me
And the pride that kept me
Didn't know no company

Early morning subway train
Feeling lost and runnin' late
Well he held the car
He gave his seat to me

And I can't find nothin'
Feels so fine as lovin' a good hearted man
Oh he can sooth me, free me
Oh I'm going to marry that good hearted man

I told him that he better go
?Cause I was crazy and impossible
That my love was broken
My dreams had run all wild

Patient as the easy rain
Oh he never turned away
Callin' "Hey sweet woman
You know you're not a child"

And I can't find nothin'
Feels so fine as lovin' a good hearted man
Oh he can sooth me, free me
Oh I'm gonna marry that good hearted man

Good hearted man, now the night makes sense
Because your tenderness, it's shelter in me
So trading in that hard headed kid for a woman I can give to him
And it ain't easy but I'm gonna do the best I can for that good hearted man

You know there just aint nothin'
Feels so fine as lovin' a good hearted man
Oh he can sooth me, free me
Oh I'm gonna marry that good hearted man

Oh and I'm grateful, grateful
Got to say thank you to a good hearted man

Songs My Future Man Will Deserve #1

Head Over Feet  - Alanis Morrissette

I had no choice but to hear you
You stated your case time and again
I thought about it

You treat me like I'm a princess
I'm not used to liking that
You ask how my day was

You've already won me over in spite of me
And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet
Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are
I couldn't help it
It's all your fault

Your love is thick and it swallowed me whole
You're so much braver than I gave you credit for
That's not lip service

You've already won me over in spite of me
And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet
Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are
I couldn't help it
It's all your fault

You are the bearer of unconditional things
You held your breath and the door for me
Thanks for your patience

You're the best listener that I've ever met
You're my best friend
Best friend with benefits
What took me so long

I've never felt this healthy before
I've never wanted something rational
I am aware now
I am aware now

You've already won me over in spite of me
And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet
Don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are
I couldn't help it
It's all your fault

Black Walnuts

I had a beautiful moment today.

At the dinner gathering after my father's funeral, we had a traditional family potluck. When dessert time came, I chose a brownie and sat down to enjoy it. I took a bite and tasted something I loved but couldn't quite recall. After a few moments, I realized that the brownie was made with black walnuts. Black walnuts, as opposed to English walnuts, have an extremely unique taste. Wildman Steve Brill says:

Black walnuts have a strong, rich, smoky flavor with a hint of wine. Use them any recipe that call for nuts, but unless you’re featuring the black walnut's flavor, use it sparingly, or it will overpower everything else. I often combine one part black walnuts with three parts commercial (English) walnuts.

A lot of people don't like them, but they grow everywhere here in Missouri and we used to pick them up off the ground to eat them. I'm not even sure you can find black walnuts in SF. Anyway, it was just one of those moments in which I found immense joy in being from the Ozarks and felt a real sense of coming home.

Soundtrack of My Soul #7

Life Ain't Always Beautiful - Gary Allan


Life ain't always beautiful
Sometimes it's just plain hard
Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain't always beautiful
You think you're on your way
And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggles makes you stronger
And the changes make you wise
And happiness has its own way of takin' it sweet time

No,life aint always beautiful
Tears will fall sometimes
Life aint always beautiful
But it's a beautiful ride

Life aint always beautiful
Some days I miss your smile
I get tired of walkin' all these lonely miles

And I wish for just one minute
I could see your pretty face
Guess I can dream, but life don't work that way

But the struggles makes me stronger
And the changes make me wise
And happiness has its own way of takin' its sweet time

No, life ain't always beautiful
But I know I'll be fine
Hey, life ain't always beautiful
But its a beautiful ride
What a beautiful ride

A Book About Memories: Year of Fog

Just finished another Michelle Richmond book, The Year of Fog. It talks a lot about memory, both very technical aspects and some of the softer sides. Some quotes I liked:

"That's the great thing about kids. I mean, when was the last time you were so excited about something you actually wet your pants?"

~~~

Requoted from Walker Percy's Moviegoer:
"To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."

Stuff from Books: No One You Know

Just finished reading Michelle Richmond's No One You Know. Quick read, suspenseful and moving, and filled with a few great quotes. Here are some I like:

A requote from Graham Greene's The End of the Affair:  A story has no beginning or end, arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

~~~

Every story is an invention, subject to the whims of the author. For the audience on the other side of the page, the words march forward with a certain inevitability--as if the story could exist one way only, the way in which it is written. But there is never just one way to tell a story. Someone has chosen who will emerge as the hero or heroine, and who will play the villain. Each choice is made at the expense of an infinite number of variations. Who is to say which version of the story is true?

~~~

Sunrise had a way of putting an end to intimacy; the vulnerabilities men displayed in the middle of the night seemed to disappear with the moon and stars.

~~~

The seed of every relationship's demise is always apparent, even from the very first moment. If you look closely at the beginning, you will always be able to see the end.

~~~

It's just a story. You can take it or leave it. Stories aren't set in stone.

~~~

There is no such thing as a perfect ending, no such thing as an infallible narrative map. Arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. Every story is flawed, every story is subject to change. Even after it is set down in print, between the covers a book, a story is not immune to alteration. People can go on telling it in their own way, remembering it the way they want. And in each telling the ending may change, or even the beginning. Inevitably, in some cases it will be worse, and in others it just might be better. A story, after all, does not only belong to the one who is telling it. It belongs, in equal measure, to the one who is listening.

Lovin Lovett

A little in love with Lyle Lovett right now.

If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

Chilean Miners See Light

For whatever reason, I am far more affected by this event than I would have ever expected. Maybe its because we were in Chile when the mine collapsed, or because I fell a little bit in love with the Chilean people and their spirit...I don't know exactly. But I do know that I am watching - riveted, along with the entire country of Chile, as every last miner is brought of the dark shaft they've called home the past two months. Mucho amor, hombres inspiradores.

Last night was silent. No cars on the streets. Every Chilean was sitting in front of the TV set and waiting to see the first face emerging from the bottom of the earth.

Hope was what we all were feeling. Only hope.

A technological device, a system designed to lift human beings that are at the bottom and bring them up is a powerful image. It is what we would like our socioeconomic system to be able to do with the poor. What we have been watching is somewhat linked to that dream, I think.

Of course, the most impressive moment was when the capsule Phoenix 2 appeared up there. Then it gradually went down and gently, tentatively, with shyness touched the floor of the hard rock.

Technology + poetry = humanity.

The first miner, Florencio Avalos, appears--like a newborn. His kid and wife are there. He hugs them. He looks fine. After 68 days under the Earth, his eyes, with sunglasses though, are the first to look up at the stars.

And we feel, with old Dante, that on this night in Chile, love moves the sun and all the other stars.

Sometimes, after all, life is as it should be.

 Read more:  http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/13/fontaine.chile.miners/index.html?hpt=C1

Wisdom from Reader's Digest

My wonderful mother gifts me with a subscription to Reader's Digest every year. As silly as it may seem, I actually really enjoy it. As a kid, RD was one of those things that came in the mail that was actually interesting to me. Finding that little thick rectangle in a stack of bills was always a reward for fetching the mail. So I read it. Still.

A quote from a recent issue I just had to share:

"The only reason to be in a long-term relationship with another adult is to have someone to laugh with. That's it. Because you can always hire someone to put in windows."

Feeling the Pam Houston Tonight

Just needed to get lost in my favorite female author for awhile. Thought I'd share some of the quotes that spoke to me. (I've posted some of these long ago here.)

"I wanted her to see that the only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves. "

"Life gives us what we need when we need it; receiving what it gives us is a whole other thing."

"The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up."

"The Universe has a plan to make sure we don't ever stop learning, not only in our minds, but also in our hearts."

"She's felt so bad for so long she don't know good when it's bubbling right out of her. And even when she catches up to it, she's waiting for whatever bad thing is about to happen next."

"If I had a daughter, I would tell her what a funny thing love is, how it never looks the way you think it's going to, how no matter how old you get, it is love that keeps surprising you. How in the songs sometimes it involves beaches and champagne and chocolate-covered roses, but in real life it is just a prematurely balding man standing in a drought-dried field telling you that he loves you, and that you should do whatever on earth you want."

"She wasted so much time trying to act perfectly, trying to guard against the loss, always fearful of making the mistake that would lead to it."

"I thought about all the years I'd spent saying love and freedom were mutually exclusive and living my life as though they were exactly the same thing."

"In every assumption is contained the possibility of its opposite."

"You wonder why there's no word for the opposite of lonely. You wonder if there's a difference between whatever might be truth and a performance that isn't a lie. In your life right now, you can't find one."

Coach Wooden, RIP

I first learned about John Wooden when my college basketball team was on a trajectory of consecutive wins in 2000. As we passed 70 consecutive wins, we started targeting Coach Wooden's record of 88 wins in a row with the '71-'74 UCLA men's team. We surpassed the record for DIII (SUNY Potsdam men's 1987 team hit 60). We surpassed the record for NCAA Women's Basketball of all Divisions (Connecticut made it to 70 wins in a row in 2003, after we ended our streak).


NCAA Record Book

We lost our 81st game, against the small religious school across the street. Sports Illustrated was there to report on our streak. And we lost. But we made it far enough that only one team in NCAA, any Division, had more consecutive wins than us. And that was Coach Wooden's 1970's Bruins.

When my team won their fourth national championship, we got these beautiful rings that had a big "81" inscribed in the side. I would look down and see that 81 and feel connected in this crazy way to my former coach, to Coach Wooden, and to the principles they both demonstrated.

A few of my favorite Wooden quotes:

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

"Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there."

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."

And, ironically, it was John Wooden who led me to believe that maybe it was time for me to quit basketball during my junior year:

"What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player."

A couple of weeks ago I took off my ring for a league basketball game, and when I went to put it back on I couldn't find it. Given that I played off the bench, I'm not exactly sure about asking for a replacement, but I've got to say I've missed that ring immensely.

And today I miss it more.

Rest in Peace, Coach.

SFist's Reasons to Love San Francisco

I'm very much enjoying a new feature on SFist called 7 Reasons. Two of the first three posts are about why San Francisco is amazing.

I concur.

Embrace the Good

"It's not fate versus free will. It's fate and free will."

"Every day God puts something good in your life. Embrace it. And let all the other stuff fall away."

~Crazy wise religious guy on Flash Forward

Remember This. Write it Down. Don't Forget.

If you have been hurt or wronged it is not your responsibility to attempt to rectify the situation.

A lovely piece of advice from Dating is Miserable.

SF's Commitment Issues

Great article in 7x7 about dating in SF. It doesn't get into much detail, but I appreciated this insight:

Opening yourself to love means “accepting your place in human history.” Whoa. Could that be the real reason for San Franciscans’ inability to settle down? Are we so attached to the idea of being exceptional that we just can’t fathom settling—which would mean, in this case, settling down into the great ordinary mass of humanity? Is long-term love (as opposed to sex and romance) just too ordinary for San Franciscans?

I think there's something to this.

The people who work their asses off to get here and succeed are frequently very extraordinary people. Maybe we have unrealistic explanations about what love and commitment is supposed to feel like, supposed to be. Maybe we won't find it until we're willing to accept that sometimes the extraordinary is something that find everywhere, in everyone, right in front of our eyes.

Thought on What Women Want

 From Cougar Town

There is no end to what a man must do for a woman
~Ellie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grayson:
How can I still not understand what women want?

Jules:
Women just want a guy who respects our independence, but also wants to take care of us.
We want a guy who's secure, but also gets jealous.
We want a guy who truly listens to us, but also wants us to kinda shut up.
Like yesterday, when you were being a little mean to me, but you weren't being too mean, that was so hot.


Grayson:
It sucks being a dude...women want an everything man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Everything Man"

Runnin', runnin', runnin' just as fast as I can
Trying to be your everything man.

You want me to want you, but not every day.
You want me to beg when there is nothing to say.

You want me la la la la but there's always a hitch.
La la la la la when you act like a bitch.

You want toughness and sweetness
and softness and meanness
wanna make me the master of this inbetweenness

Runnin', runnin', runnin' just as fast as I can
Trying to be your everything man.

Witty Irishmen

I had the incredible opportunity last night to hear Rory O'Driscoll of Scale Ventures speak about the venture capital industry. Phenomenal speaker. The man is effing brilliant -- he kept throwing out references to macroeconomic concepts in relation to his work and he always had a couple of answers to each question depending on how you looked at the issue.

A couple of gems stuck with me:

"Relying on people to do the right thing for other people is not a scaleable process."

"You don't need to cap your upside going in. Life will cap your upside for you."

"You know I'm not lying now because we're talking with money."

Brilliant Man.

Told You I'm Not the Only One

Even SF Weekly thinks SF is a tough city for women looking to date men.

This week they featured an article about a pick-up artist who tried to teach SF women how to pick up men in the city...and found it more difficult than he expected.

Read for yourself: Girl Game

Some favorite excerpts:

...being a single, straight woman in this city can be an exercise in frustration and humiliation. All around the city, successful single women complain about not being able to find quality partners.

Although there's no hard data to prove it, anecdotal evidence abounds.

One possible explanation is that in San Francisco, men who aren't gay, married, or damaged by a previous owner are decidedly cagey when it comes to dating and relationships. "Men are more timid here to ask women out," says Emily Morse, a local radio show host who regularly discusses sex and relationships. "They also seem to think dating just isn't cool."

------------

"I've never had as much trouble finding people to date as I have here," a woman wrote. It was the first response to an SF Weekly tweet calling for women fed up with the dating scene in San Francisco and willing to subject themselves to a pickup artist's workshop. "I moved to the city after a nasty breakup, expecting to casually date people," she continued. "I couldn't even get laid at first."

Plenty of other responses zoomed in, many including pointed complaints about male-female relations. "I've never seen so much dating down in my life," a woman wrote, referring to how many couples she knows that seem to include a smart, attractive woman and an average, barely tolerable guy.

------------

In San Francisco, though, women have to deal with a lot of ambiguity. "We don't even know what it is," Valencia said of some men she has encountered around the city. "Is it gay? Is it straight? Is it a friend Is it a foe? Is it looking for a job? Is it looking for a place to crash?"

Another contributing factor to the dating doldrums: "There's no pressure to grow up here," she says. "The way I act now is pretty much the same way I acted when I was 24. It's culturally reinforced here. Nobody cares that you're in your late 30s and have roommates."

------------

But as someone who has lived in New York City, she has noticed that in San Francisco, men are not very bold in approaching women.

"Here, there are all these group get-togethers," she says. "Men prefer to see women a few times before asking them out." And, as in any other city full of young, ambitious people, San Franciscans seem less interested in settling down than in exploring their options.

------------

Maybe it was because we were out on a Wednesday. Maybe we had chosen the wrong bar. But that particular scenario — having just a couple of attractive men to fight over, finding out they're gay, then hitting on them anyway — seemed a perfect representation of what it's like for a single woman in San Francisco.

------------ 

Valencia said her mother has a theory about men. "A good guy is like a good bra," she used to say. "He should uplift and make you look beautiful. He should fit really well. He should flatter you and never poke you in the wrong place or make you uncomfortable."

------------ 

Dating's hard! (said in an incredibly whiny voice, of course)