Category Archives: I am a sap

A July Like Every Other July

Written by serene. Posted on July 28, 2010. Filed under Friends, I am a sap. 3 Comments.

A calm July would make me nervous; birthday months are for tumult and upheaval, right?

A much-needed reunion with my much-beloved friend who has known me longer than anyone else became my grounding strip, the thing that plants my feet back on the ground.

Our reunion started with a late night Denny’s trip to reconnect to our awkward 17 year old selves on those restless Albuquerque nights where the only thing we could legally do at midnight was drink too much coffee at Village Inn and talk about new loves.

Our 31 year old selves on a quiet Portland night blended talk of work and life and dreams and history, with yawns as a reminder that we are not as sprightly as we once were. It was perfect. There is nothing more refreshing than spending time who remembers what you were like as an angry 15 year old kid, stomping around awkward high school halls with everything to prove and nothing to lose.

And now, after a whirlwind trip, a renewed clarity brings a spring to my step. I won’t pretend to know where I am headed, but I know I have my people behind me. I love my people. You all are my breath and my grounding strips and my blood and the thing that I think about in those moments of panic.

Thank you.

Cumpleaños

Written by serene. Posted on July 15, 2010. Filed under I am a sap. 1 Comment.

As of today, I have been alive 11,319 days. I am old.

A birthday is looming in my future. These last few days before a birthday usually bring up strange emotions. Last year, it was ambivalence. 29 was unadulterated excitement. 2007 was peaceful. This year could be described as purposeful.

I’m feeling mortal these days. I hear the sirens call out around me and I read about people younger than me dying and it invigorates me to do more while simultaneously striking fear in my bones. It’s a perpetual state of conflict, I suppose. I close my eyes and feel myself falling, wondering where I am going to land. I feel in flux.

Truth be told, 31 slips off my tongue easier than 30. I am embracing my age. I feel a tiny bit wiser with every crack of my hip bones in the morning. I find the youth of my co-workers amusing rather than revolting (this means that I have finally matured). I feel a calmness finding its place in the new baby wrinkles in my smilelines. This getting old thing is alright; if nothing else, it means I have more time to do all the stuff I need to do.

I need to love another dog. I should learn how to cook a decent tamale. I want to dip my toes into the clear blue of the Mediterranean. I want kiss under the stars and wrestle in the mud. I want to buy skates and try out for roller derby. And I want to see you, whoever you are.

P/30

Written by serene. Posted on April 1, 2010. Filed under Culture Club, I am a sap. 3 Comments.

Knowing that someone has the potential to succeed is beautiful, but when you get to watch that person come into real success, it feels like the world is right and the stars have aligned and fate feels a little more believable. When I caught wind of Patrick Tafoya’s restaurant being written up by the San Francisco Chronicle and local food critics writing glowing reviews, it seems as though his world is on the verge of changing forever. I always knew he would make it big. And now that he is really, truly, tangibly successful, the world has righted itself.

I have an admittedly misguided pride in his success. I see his burgeoning fame through a prism of memories: I remember trying to encourage his interest in cooking while he was a server at the Courtyard Marriott in Albuquerque, I remember driving a U-Haul of our belongings from Albuquerque to Portland so he could attend culinary school, I remember quizzing him with flash cards covered in measurement conversions, I remember moving to Santa Rosa so he could move up the kitchen ranks.

(Note: this is about all I will offer publicly. The words aching to spill out are best saved for a therapists couch.)

Lucky for him, he seems to have met his match in his wife Christine. She seems to offer equal parts creativity, ambition, and drive. It is clear from concept, design, website, and a robust Facebook marketing mechanism that this is not his endeavor alone. There is an organic coherence between concept and menu, website and interior design; working in tandem has clearly worked out well for them.

For some of my oldest friends, you should also take a moment to be excited. You probably also remember him as a culinary student or a server, or maybe you encouraged us to move to Portland to follow his dream, or maybe you were even there at our wedding. And in this moment of collective pride, I gladly extended the same warmth and well-wishings to my other successful friends – the web guru in Albuquerque, the photographer in Las Cruces, the tech-whiz in Albuquerque, the teacher in Indianapolis, the instructor in Manhattan, the whip-smart SLP in Tukwila. The list goes on and on.

Before this gets too tangential or sentimental, just do me a favor and drop into P/30 if you happen to be in the North Bay area. And in the midst of a kitchen rush, with tickets stacking up and  a mob of four-tops waiting to be seated, look up to the chef and give him a polite wave for me.

Anniversary photo post.

Written by serene. Posted on March 30, 2010. Filed under I am a sap, Photography. No comments.

Where: Alexis Hotel, downtown Seattle
When: Last Week
Why: To celebrate a one year wedding anniversary. Well that, and I’m a sucker for a nice hotel.


Mi familia

Written by serene. Posted on March 28, 2010. Filed under I am a sap. 3 Comments.

My beloved, lifesaving, hero of a Grandpa turned 78 yesterday. He beat his oncologists diagnosis of terminal lung cancer taking his life within the year. He still has the spunk and sharpness that I expect from him. Though he has no hair and lost considerable weight, his stubborn Careaga ways have beaten all the odds, with the panache and swagger that I have come to expect.

(Technical side note: He is not in remission, but his tumors haven’t grown. That’s all I care about.)

To celebrate, I wanted to do something big. Like, BIG. A 78 year old man has next to no material desires, but I knew I could offer something big and wonderful to him: my brother. Ever since I walked into his house on Manzano Street in Albuquerque as a virtual stranger back in 1993, my Grandpa insisted that my brother would come back into my life. He somehow mustered a strong enough optimism to counter my perpetual forlorn attitude after all my attempts to reach out to him failed. And what do you know, he was right.

I must admit this reunion is hardly mine to claim. Big, huge props must be given to my brother for being willing to entertain the idea that he had an unknown Grandfather and that he would be worth meeting. I’d like to think that all my stories about how amazing and wonderful and powerful my experience was with Grandpa and Lee warmed him up to the idea. Yesterday all of the efforts came into fruition.

The reunion was an experience too beautiful for words or pictures or a synopsis. Let’s just say that those years of being apart quickly dissipated. I watched them search each others faces across the table, and nearly burst into tears when I saw Justin’s hand reach across the table to him. We sat at a table in a suburban strip mall burger joint that resembles hundreds of thousand bland suburban strip mall burger joints, but there was serious healing happening amongst the tacky wall decorations and cacophonous sounds of NCAA tournament cheering.

Inevitably, the missing link – our father – came up in conversation. Grandpa hadn’t heard from him in a year. The last I talked to him was on an uncomfortable Skype call while I was in Denmark. Justin had a passing interest in seeing him, if only to punch him in the shoulder. I blew off the lack of news like I always have: he can pick up a phone, I could care less, he knows where I am, etc.

But, as always, my facade was a lie. I do care. To find my father, I turned to the most reliable of sites for him: New Mexico Corrections Department website. A quick inmate search lead me to him.

To be in my family is to ride a wilde rollercoaster. We are all flawed people. And I’m sure that most people can relate, as the image or idea of a perfect family is but a myth. But regardless of where we live or how we fail or hurt each other, I’d like to think that there will always be someone in my family that cares. I guess tonight I get to be that person for my father.

Busy bee

Written by serene. Posted on March 16, 2010. Filed under Culture Club, I am a sap. No comments.

I’ve been too busy with finals to properly thank you all for lifting my spirits about my hair-tastrophe. (Oh, sleepless nights make me think I’m soooo witty!)

Anyway, this is not a proper gift, but I figured I’d share a song with you all that should inspire the fiercest of booty-shakin’.

File under: Vanity is overrated

Written by serene. Posted on March 7, 2010. Filed under I am a sap, Whining. 5 Comments.

I am not vain, I swear. I really don’t care much about my appearance, just as long as I am comfortable. But I have had a lingering feeling that my long hair was boring. I decided to get it dyed. Being a poor college kid, I thought I’d get it done on the cheap at the Gary Manuel Aveda training salon.

My tale of woe begins yesterday, as I walked in for my appointment. I was immediately told that my hair was too dark to be done within the alloted 2 hour appointment. I was then told my wish of getting teal was also out of the question, as apparently there is some boring rule that one shouldn’t venture two shades outside of their normal color? All I knew was getting dark brown streaks was not exactly what I had in mind.

But whatever, I decide while I was in a chair and had two hours to kill, I’d let her play with my hair. Apparently this student was utterly clueless and uncreative. I kept saying “..but I look so plain…” and “this is not at all what I want” without any success. She was apologetic, saying that she just wasn’t sure what to do. Two hours later, I walked out looking like a Stepford Wife.

I woke up this morning with the resolve to get it fixed. There was no way I could give a presentation in my class tomorrow looking like a Martha Stewart Living subscriber. (No offense if that’s your bag, but I find that brand of normalcy utterly repulsive)

Living in Capitol Hill paid off, because I found a place open on Sundays that appeared to be up for the challenge. I would go get it fixed at a quirky little joint up on 15th. I would come home prancing with renewed confidence, even if I am finishing this weekend with a lot of hair chopped off. Sadly for her there wasn’t a lot to work with, so I ended up with even less hair and a bruised ego.

Vanity is so lame. I mean, honestly, who cares if I look bad. I will still give my presentation tomorrow, I’m pretty sure my husband will still find me attractive enough, and I have plenty of hats and scarves to disguise the errors in my judgement. If nothing else, at least it is Girl Scouts cookie time. I swear to you – Thin Mints can cure the most wicked of broken spirits.

Big Pun

Written by serene. Posted on January 11, 2010. Filed under I am a sap. 14 Comments.

“I ain’t a player, I just crush a lot.”

What rang true in 1997 still rings true today. It’s as if Big Punisher crawled into my head/heart space, and whittled my modus operandi down to a simple phrase played over a run-of-the-mill generic 90s beat. (Though I will be the first to admit that I wish the words came from a more attractive man, given my predilection for crushes. Go ahead – call me an asshole.)

I can trace my crush developing behavior to middle school, where my shyness coincided with four middle school transfers in three years. This unfortunate turn of events made sad, dorky love to my personality neurosis, creating an insurmountable distance between Crush du Jour and myself. I would punish myself, walking by Crush du Jour and get a thrill from the sinking stomach drop feeling, not so different from the feeling you get when you are on a wild and jerky amusement park ride. Or, Crush might have asked me some inane question about lunch or class and I would melt into a mumbling puddle of incomprehensibility.

I was, and still am, a sucker for that shit.

It may be somewhat alarming that I still continue this behavior. I think it’s healthy for me, because adult me develops crushes on people that I actually have an interaction with, rather than people I think I know, like 14 year old me. The nature of my crush has also changed – it has developed more into an admiration with a dash of lusty thoughts. They are never destructive to relationships, and they give me a blast of excitement in a normally predictable day.

I refuse to think I am alone in this tendency to crush a lot. So, come up and tell Auntie Serene a crush story, so I don’t feel like such an idiot.

HHG

Written by serene. Posted on January 1, 2010. Filed under Culture Club, I am a sap, Nerdy. No comments.

In the perpetually swelling and inspiring nerd universe there is a demigod named Neil Gaiman. The man wields words like swords and has birthed some of the most important cultural texts (Coraline, The Sandman, Fragile Things, et al.). The meringue on this bespectacled nerd pie is that he once graced the stage of The Colbert Report. Trust me when I say this man walks hallowed ground.

Anyway, he once said something truly inspiring worth sharing on this dawn of a new decade:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t to forget make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I cannot muster the energy for resolutions, for a variety of reasons which are not interesting enough to share, but His Holy Gaiman definitely inspires me to muster the will to surprise myself this year. Here’s to you, here’s to the continued expansion of the nerd universe, and here’s to surprises.

Boner List

Written by serene. Posted on December 13, 2009. Filed under Culture Club, Friends, I am a sap, Nerdy. 1 Comment.

It’s cold, sucky, and generally unpleasant. Here are things that are the antithesis of all that nonsense.

1. Y: The Last Man.

A plague kills off every man on the planet, except for one schwing-worthy Yorick Brown. This may appeal to every comic-reading, feminist-identifying, or generally rad girl you know. Or anyone else, really. It’s also in TPB volumes now, so you don’t have to worry about paper-cuts, or ruining your bookshelf alignment, or whatever excuse you weirdos have for not buying single-issue comics.

2. Amanda Blank, I Love You (2009)

Especially this track:

3. Asa’s 8:36 photo project.

He’s one of the raddest people I barely know. No, seriously, when I have had the chance to watch him in action it’s pretty amazing how he can hold a crowd with his wit; plus he seems really genuine and nice. AND he is a great photographer. Flattery aside, his photo project feeds my insatiable curiosity about what people do when I’m not around. Plus, he lives in my neighborhood, which means I get to point at a photo and yell “dude, I was JUST there” and not feel alone.

4. MOTHEREFFIN’ NACHOS.

No words necessary. Just bask in the crunchy, salty, spicy goodness contained within a plate of this badassness.

5.  Alie and Georgia booze videos

Yeah, I don’t drink anymore, but Georgia is one of my favorite bloggers. She’s wicked smart, and pretty too. Sales pitch aside, their video project seems to be on the verge of blowing up. Go watch it now and say you knew about them before they got all kinds of press.