ugh

it was so much easier to avoid v-day before the advent of spam.

incidentally, my inbox assures me that YOU can have BETTER TASTING CUM!

not exactly what i picture as the ideal v-day gift.

the question is this

if a couple of of cute chicks show up at a Berkeley open mic and sing whaling songs with gusto, will we be praised for our perpetuation of classic folk songs, or lynched for our appalling lack of PC?

because let me tell you, i can sing a whaling song with gusto. and swagger.

additionally, which t-shirt should i wear?

• There's a whale of a difference between me and Shamu!!!
  
• Nuke the Gay Baby Whales for Jesus
  
• Screw the whales, they can save themselves
  
  
  or should i just make one up myself that says "THAR SHE BLOWS!"?
  
  note: i am being semi-facetious.

HELP, SEND MEN WITH BALLS

the where i've lived meme, via jbsegal

Washington, DC: 1967
Bowie, MD: 1967-1987
Herndon, VA: 1987-1990
Falls Church, VA: 1990-1991
Vienna, VA: 1991-1992
Charlotte, NC: 1992-1994
Berkeley, CA: May 1994
Pacifica, CA: 1994-present

i was just thinking about this the other day. i can't believe i've actually been here more than ten years! the mind, it boggles. and yet... yes,there are days i yearn for Virginia, its green hills and muggy summers and frequent power outages...

but other days here in Pacifica, i feel like i've found my home. i can look at the ocean all day long. the weather almost never gets too hot. (the apartment does, but that's a physics issue.) i'm 15 minutes from one of the most beautiful cities in the world. i can buy any weird-ass ingredient for any weird-ass ethnic food i can possibly imagine. i mean, i can get four different varieties of ginger (ginger, galangal, sha ginger, and rhizome), each of them in at least two forms except for "rhizome powder," which is so obscure it doesn't have a real name and you can only get it in the occasional Thai market, and only dried and ground.

i can buy fresh turmeric root if i hit the Monterey Market on the right day. i can grow kaffir lime on my balcony (and my tree is sprouting lovely young tender leaves as we speak, because February is spring here). i can buy mushrooms the east coast has never heard of. i can decide i'm too cold on the coast, where it's foggy and 40 degrees, and drive over the hill in five minutes to be in sunny, 80-degree weather. and i can work for the company that makes my favorite game of all time and get paid crazy good to do it (not that i get to keep any of the money, but one day... ONE DAY i will be out of debt again).

who the fuck am i kidding? i may never really get comfortable with bay area culture -- to put it bluntly, hippies make me wanna gotta fondle the pope, nothing personal -- but i'm trapped here by my career, my palate, and my metabolism. a place more ideal for me could not have been created, unless they'd put it in, say, VIRGINIA.

and, well, if there were any decent BBQ. because california BBQ is like... i don't know... budweiser.

maybe i should solicit paypal donations for replacement burners for my gas grill.

maybe i should put the wine away and go to sleep like a sensible girl.

maybe i should go down to the fishing pier, climb over the security fence, and hang out at the end, watching the surf pass beneath me. motherfucking bastards, what were they thinking fencing it off? that was my favorite place to go and think at night. just because there were some mexican guys who camped out there in tents so they could fish 24/7. i mean, honestly. yeah, they pissed on the pier. so put up a damn porta-john.

ok, clearly i'm in rant mode. time to stop. m signing off. whiskey. tango. foxtrot. over.