Moschino Cheap and Chic

I'm returning this most lovely dress today. It is a responsible decision but one I am so so sad to make.

(It's special and silk and Moschino and so will probably not be worn much. It snaps up the side with tiny little snaps, which, if I eat too much and then dance, will come unsnapped. That means either its too fussy, or likely that i would replace it with a zipper, which runs me to the dilemma of altering the nature of this incredible Italian dress, and the concept as the designer saw it, which is controversial in my mind and heart. --probably no one else's but it is to me.)

I adore the print. it's in celedon and black. the dress makes me feel so dainty and femme, it's such a party dress. and it has pockets.

All I want to do with my life is travel and fall in love.

ready go:

-Sometimes when i leave my house and walk through the streets past the bakeries and shops and restaurants I pretend I'm in Italy or Paris. {It doesn't really feel like spain, but its okay.)

-My mom has lately been expressing her desire for me to be settled and today it made me realize just how much I don't want the life she wants for me. The idea of buying a house right now is absolutely the last thing I want. I don't even want to sign a cell-phone contract right now (because it commits me to being in the US for two more years). While I want to plan things, and agree that I want stability to help me cry less, the idea of being in the same life and place for the next 20 years makes me want to cry more. I don't want that life yet. Maybe in a few years I'll feel differently but now all I long for is adventure, and someone to have it with and to count on.

-my camera doesn't like to work on command any more, and how I wish it did lately. There are so many things I would like to have pictures of to post here:

-last night on my way home at 11:00pm people were camped out in a line in front of the apple store downtown. this morning on my way to work at 10am it had become two and a half blocks long up Stockton to Union Square. really?? a boy took a picture from market street up. I wished I had a camera that worked with me.

-I actually really like living here. Really. Yesterday was a lovely day spent walking around North Beach. I ate lunch and spent the afternoon in a cafe doing some office work I brought home, sipping soup and a glass of zinfandell with a salad and my schematic. I'm really sad to leave my new apt in two weeks.

-I'm terribly nervous I won't find a place to live by the end of the month and dreading having to move again. This time I will try to ask for help. As it turns out I have a pretty hard time with that.

-I have not cried in two days and I consider this an accomplishment.

-I have yet to meet boys who I feel compare to the boys I've known for so long, who care for and about me, and encourage me with their words and hugs and give me hope in finding a husband. As much as I hate on Escondido, Praise God for the boys that hail from it and their continued presence in my life.

-wow, I got unexpectedly asked out tonight and while i would really love to go out and talk and get to know him better, really really ache to have good conversation with someone, I'm just not attracted to him. I wish I could be better at casually dating.

-I love it when things are cleverly named (like Extreme Pizza's menu, or my Dogwood martini at Blondies)I had a fruit tart and tea tonight at a dessert and coffee shop so cleverly named "Tart to Tart." It was delicious.

man.

I know I am a strong girl, but sometimes I just feel so weak.

g is for goodbye.

oh how i have so many thoughts right now, if i had the time and energy i would write about them all, but i havent. For now i will, of course, write a little list in my fashion lest i forget these things on my heart.

-tonight is my last night in what has been my first home in San Francisco,

the beginning of my adventure, where I fully believe i did not come to or happen to "find myself" but believe rather that it is because i already know who i am, that i know (and knew) this is where I needed to be. While the company has been with mixed feelings, living with each of them has helped me to who I am now and where my mind and heart are, and for that i am very thankful. So much has happened for me while nesting within these walls, and leaving is bittersweet.
[THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO SAY HERE.]

-tommorrow night will be my first night in my new north beach apt,

and I will write again, i feel full of hope and very forward looking. tonight i got a little excited after picking up my new keys.
[this will be taken care of in the next few days]

-a conversation i had tonight and one i had friday night made me thankful for my kind friend who cares for and wants the best for me. tonights words gave me food for thought and put fridays into realized encouragement.

-it also only solidified the lonliness i feel in missing people who understand me. I have made good friends, but i am pained by how they shut me out and weep over how little it seems they really get me.

-i ache for someone to know and love me.
[that sounds so shamefully weak right there but it my at this moment honesty. so much so that i contemplate deleting every few seconds. I swear i dont always feel that statement, but i do right now.]

-i listened to a secret song of mine tonight, and realized that it gives me such hope. that others do not know it's significance to me lets me continue to think of it as what it is to me, plus it's precious words remind me of what i hope for.

-i fear he will never love me.
(i wish i could make these words in the smallest font known to man, as that is how it sits in my mind, but in the spirit of right now honesty, and for my own history i will leave it.)

i'm so tired and have to work early, and move all day. i'm already far past irresponsible on sleep, as well as on this move, and am still very anxious about. i'm hoping that i'm tired enough to finally get some sleep, and cant wait until i'm all moved tomorrow and will actually be able to sleep without all the worry.

I'm lost and weird without you here

sam brown, explodingdog.com

and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

.
she tries she wins and
i don't play but sometimes
i almost get lost figuring out where
my own worth comes
from Him not him and hot
tears and sweet coffee poured
into my cup and out
of the emptiness which
has a shape i know precisely
and chose repeatedly not to
fill my time and heart
wasted on pain not bread
where exactly is the tether
these days

HEROS

my graffiti will be with a can of spray paint. keep your eyes down and looking for it. can: heros. among other things.

Poem Store

I bought this poem from a kind boy on the Haight Street Fair sidewalk today for four well-spent dollars:


its blue but not sad
rather japanese named
after the battery and
assult charges the
ribbon doesnt ever
end but it does get
twisted and is soon
about to break
the bank of making
a living with antiquity


I don't know his name *(I do now, he is Zach Houston), just cloudsoftoday@yahoo.com which he wrote by hand at the bottom of the white label on which my poem was so quickly created. If I did know his name, I would become his fan and follow him, purchasing poems periodically. I tried and wanted so badly to take a picture of him and his little "shop," but my camera wasn't working properly. He had a small typewriter and a stool and on the case for his typewriter he had a sign: "the Poem Store." He was just setting up as I walked by, and said he would make a poem for me about whatever I wanted, I set the topic and the price. Being that I am in love with Courier and having such an affinity for typewriters, I asked for a poem about his typewriter. Minutes later I had this precious little paper filled with charming words in my sweet Courier by a boy with a beard and a typewriter.

I think it is my favorite purchase in a very long time; it makes me delightfully happy, and helps to alleviate the pain of my irresponsible sunburn. Thank you Sir.

listen to this

Of COURSE I have suggestions! I was asked by Jen if to only buy three CD's this month, what should she buy, this was my reply:
(granted, they are tailored to her, but truth is still truth)


1. Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight
2. Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs
3. Delta Spirit: Ode to Sunshine

Also excellent is:
Last years' Shins album, Wincing the Night Away, if you don't already have it, I would call that number 4 to buy --if you like the Shins.
Stars: Heart --an oldie but a greatie
The Cave Singers: Invitation Songs
The Snake The Cross the Crown: Cotton Teeth
Ray Lamontagne: Till the Sun Turns Black
The Magnetic Fields: I
Loney Dear: Loney, Noir
And The Weepies dropped a new album but I haven't bought it yet, I've only heard one song, but I love that and am SURE the album will be excellent.
And of course, Vampire Weekends self-titled full-length, man it is good and dancey.

so fresh and so clean clean

There is a new scent of clean to me. Well, two. With part of my tax refund, I treated myself to a helping of products from The Laundress, which I have been longing after for over a year. Gwen and Lindsey are women after my own heart who have created the most beautiful laundry products, specially formulated to care for your garments, get things clean, and look beautiful all together. I bought their Whites Detergent, their Signature Detergent, their Wool & Cashmere Shampoo, Stain Solution, a Wash and Stain Bar, and a small bottle of Crease Release.
Tonight I washed my whites, and they are so clean and smell so fresh, a new scent of fresh clean since I usually use 100% fragrance free detergents.
I also handwashed my cashmere; my scarves/pashminas, (man I love them) and my favorite argyle sweater. The cashmere shampoo is cedar scented, for obvious reasons, and I can't tell if its the wet cashmere, or the wet cashmere with cedar scent to it, but it smells like wet dog, but like clean wet dog. Like Rosie used to smell after she had been bathed, or while she was being bathed. I'm so excited for them to be cleaned. I watched The Laundress gals' video on how to best handwash your cashmere, and felt like such a pro.
I also made carrot soup tonight, it was SUCH a productive evening.
I am so in love with my new detergents, and with The Laundress in general even MORE now.
HOORAY for CLEAN!!

Chester

Tonight after work, Lara and I walked down to the Mish for a Belgian beer at Frjtz on Valencia. It turns out they took Affligem away, which was the very best thing they had going for them (it was even on DRAUGHT!). Now they are just pretty inside. Anyway, while very sleepily walking home, I found this little bird confusedly hopping on the windowsill of a shop on Valencia, and repeatedly trying to fly into the window. So I tried to pick him up, and he let me! He was so tiny and sweet, soft and weighed nearly nothing, and the very best part: HE LOVED ME!! He didn't try to fly away, and I walked four blocks until we found some nice trees to put him in on 16th at Church. I had to practically force him into the tree he wanted to stay with me. I wish I could have taken him home and loved him forever, little Chester.

I am so dead tired. Tomorrow is girls day to Sex and The City!!

Muito bem obrigado

I watched City of God, finally, after having it sit on my dresser in it's red paper dress for nearly two weeks, and WOW. Intense: yes. Beautiful: YES. Interesting and captivating, brilliantly cut and beautifully shot, poignant and stingingly harsh; I couldn't help but LOVE it tremendously. I love the way it's told, broken into stories and the perpespective and how it pulls at you. Very well done. I can't WAIT for City of Men to come in July. WOW.

I immediately emailed Johnny, of course I couldn't help but think of him, our little Portuguese director-to-be, film-lover. How I hope he loves back.

Added bonus: all in Portuguese meant I got to hear and train my ear to that tricky rhythm and accent of the language that I'm not getting from the book or from not having anyone to practice speaking with.

SEE IT. And let's go to Rio, but not to the projects please.

12K = 7.3 miles

Thank you San Francisco and ING for ripping off competitive runners and thank you competitive runners for paying the high price and making Bay to Breakers possible, you guys are the best.

Wow, those Kenyans are fast, and lean and have amazing legs. Wow, what is it with old men and the idea that it's okay to walk 12K on public streets naked? Wow my calves are soo sore from walking across this perfect city and running part of the Hayes Street hill in flip flops. Wow, really "How about in thirty seconds you and I will be making out?" is your LINE?? Yeah, lets wait that thirty seconds and SEE if we're making out, really.


Hippies. (kerry, ali, krista, julia, simona, natalie)





For someone who hates and is very uncomfortable with chaos, I love the chaos that is Bay to Breakers. I love that it is the cities biggest public party and that 80,000 people are walking/running the streets, spanning the entire length of this great city in a solid mass for hours. I love how creative people are with their costumes and floats, and how I walked into some random house on Fell and used their bathroom without them knowing, and then walked right back out again, that everyone who heard the heavy thud mourned for the group who's keg fell off their float as they turned the corner onto Hayes. I love the sense of community involved in one 12K long Sunday Funday, and that the whole city gets up at 6:30am to do it.
Peace and love man, peace and love.

Gimme your hand and lets jump out the window

It makes me happy how many people love and use Dolores Park like me.


These kids were having a paper airplane contest! Or at least they were lining up and throwing them repeatedly. Awesome:


Just a few days ago I was lamenting to my mom how I'm tired of being cold, and out of nowhere it's 90 degrees in the city and I'm sweating, thank you very much! For a few days it has been the most beautiful weather, though it began to turn a bit today, of course, because I finally got to not be at work all day. I left work at 2pm, and headed straight to Dolores Park and read outside. The Shins made for a perfect soundtrack, and when exhausted Delta Spirit lent a dancy hand, both only adding to elevate my mood, man I love The Shins. How I love it here. Dolores Park is the best, and it's mine. I love how everyone uses the parks here, and am glad to live so close to Dolores Park. It was a lovely day.
Tomorrow: Bay to Breakers!

She's my Man

Article in the SF Gate

Lara and I walked off the train at Castro Station after work tonight to hear thumping bass and loud music, more than a passing car at 10:30pm. Upon walking up and out, we found the party in the street. The block of Castro St from 18th to Market was closed off, and there was a DJ spinning techno beats and the entire community out partying in the street --dancing, drinking, kissing, and celebrating the California Supreme Court's morning ruling that gay marriage is constitutional.
Posters and stickers and signs with catchy phrases and statements like "Liberty Justice and Marriage for All" echoed the stenciled grafitti all over 18th st sidewalks and their plea to "End Marriage Gay Shame."



If we weren't so exhausted from working late and the thought of being back to work at 8am the next day wasn't looming overhead, we would have dropped our things off at my house and come back out to dance in the street to bad music, but instead tackled the issue at hand:
Well where does the 24 pick up if the street is closed, and how to get home??

Oh Elizabeth

Sometimes the weight gets me down. I composed this potent prose of my lonliness, unsastisfaction, and musing (as this space is typically reserved for) but out of pride, trepidation, and yes hope, have left if off the page in wait of what the morrow brings. I sit here under the covers of my bed with 2 extra blankets to comabt the cold, letting Amos Lee cry for my heart and becoming emotionally involved in Eat Pray Love, and will say only this: my life is a tortured series of dichotomies as I wait for one or another to finally come to fruition and rule the roost. In perfect form I am torn between the ideas that this is what I love and what I hate about everything right now.

Um, Oak and Baker? Well, there are the shoes...

Hah! Yesterday was Annie's last day at Stonestown, so the 3rd floor went out for drinks after work, and then ladies to Rye. We left Carine's car parked on Oak, a sweet spot, perfectly parallel parked in front of a pair of shoes on the sidewalk (oh this city)and headed out. This morning Carine and I went to get her car, walked up Oak to Baker and her car was not there, but the shoes were now in the gutter, and the signs lingering on posts above the street read: "No Parking 7am-9am Tow Away mom-fri." You must be joking, right? HAH, nope. Bus back to Castro, train to Powell, Cab to Bryant, $280 and a few photos to commemorate the ridiculousness of the event and Carine was finally headed back to Walnut Creek to shower and change for work tonight. So I guess I'll forgo that pretty blue top from Savvy for now, I gave that money to the freaking Man instead. DANG!

if you're feelin' what I'm feelin' come on

A twist on the list for the last one-and-some happy weeks:

I am a dance machine, and it has been awesome.
Sat night at Bubble Lounge for Evanne's Birthday and champagne:


-which lead to later dancing at Maggy Magarry's, my new favorite place to dance in the city. Except that it was sooo hot inside, becuase it was so hot outside!! I didn't even take a sweater, and I wore a little black dress! Amazing.


Kickball was the very right decision. I wait excitedly for Wednesdays! (but still feel like puking a little when it's my turn, or everytime they kick the ball when I'm shortstop.)


Sometimes I miss the sun and lazy sports attitude of San Diego, and while I understand that this is still be a Giants game, and therefore less fun that a good ole' Padres game. I will have to wear a sweater, coat and scarf instead of watching from the lawn in a sundress and flips, and there will be no Swinging Friar or Pennysaver Push, it will still include a tofu hotdog and crappy beer for way too much money.
BUT HOW GOOD ARE THESE SEATS? 23rd row, lower box. I could definitely get used to baseball games like THAT, but MAN I wore so much clothing and was still very cold.


And a very good fireworks show made up for the fact that both my cities teams suck this year and played a game that showed it.


LAST weekend: Bar Golf in North Beach for Ali's Birthday! OH MY GOSH.


AND IN BETWEEN, LESS HAPPILY:
*I lost my glasses after Kickball last week, in the melee that was the night. SUCK. I called Bar None twice and they didn't find them, and I can't get an eye apt until next Thursday, and am realizing HOW MUCH I need my glasses. [plus, no vision insurance money for the lenses for another 6 months means I won't be replacing my Prada frames. :( ]
*And I left my beautiful Roberto Cavalli snake heels on the M Train on the way to work on Monday. DANG IT!! I called immediately after getting off the train without them and filed a claim and asked that they be grabbed, and posted a Craig'sList lost and found but to no avail, I have not heard of them. I bet their at a Cross Roads somewhere by now.

SO INSTEAD:

Remember these?


They're coming to me in the mail in 3-7 days. HECK YES.

Thank you, please come again.

I JUST HAVE TO SAY:

*I had such fun the last two nights it should be illegal.
*Friday night kereoke at the Mint with David P = the best. I was doubtful when I walked in, but quickly proven wrong.
*Last night I danced sooo much, got very hot, and woke up this morning with a head-ACHE.
*There was a small part of me that wanted to finish the golf game, but Maggie Maggerry's was so stinking awesome with their most amazing band and dancing that I hoped we'd never have to leave.
*I wish I had taken pictures, because everyone looked so great. I don't know why my camera wasn't working.
*We could have maybe won, I could have drank much more, but am so glad I didn't.
*I am excited for kickball to start wednesday.
*I am sad and excited for my friend, but happy at how I got to catch up with the girls I'm missing so much because of it.
*I am ALSO excited for Lara to come work at my store starting tomorrow!
*I STILL need to do laundry and grocery shop, and did NOT make it out to the ballet BUT:
*Photos are up and can be viewed at kerryalpen.com, under SEE.
*my computer has been acting up, and it makes my life slower, and full of frustration.
*I miss pub-quizzing, and wish other people were loyalists and commitment freaks like me.
*I need a haircut, and still want to cut it AAALLLLL off short. At this point, why not? It's not like I have anything that matters what I look like coming up if it ends up being that bad, right?
*I laughed out loud a lot today, while alone in my room: Reading David Sedaris, and looking at Sheila's photos from our trip.