uh, i've been published

so there is this company called schmap, which publishes travel guides (they have an online and offline version). for many destinations, the photos are pulled - with detailed, limited licensing and individual agreements in place - via flickr. because the people, they know where to go (and take pictures), right?

right. well, they just published their san francisco guide, and they used a picture of mine for a restaurant review. that's right -- the picture i almost didn't take was destined to be my first foray into photographic publishing.

for the record, i've had my writing published several times. but...salad? huh?

my presidential weekend, and a quiz

i know, i know, i'm not talking about boston yet. soon, i promise.

this last weekend was half about working, half about fun. having been away a lot over this month, i had a backlog of both freelance work and errands. but i did plan in some fun, too. thursday on ba-scrappy there was an offer of free tickets to this chippie saturday evening at the warfield. i've never been to the warfield, but free tickets to someone billed as being a little snarky? sounds perfect.

well think again. that woman was seriously the most unfunny AND offensive comic i've ever seen. we stuck it out for about 20 minutes and then gave up because we'd already heard her use about every racial slur known to man (ok, maybe half of them) and used them to give the audience (or her ex boyfriends) shit. cursing and slurs made up the punchline to every single "joke" and while i don't mind a little fuck now and then, i don't think it works as a noun, adjective AND verb all in the same sentence.

so! we departed and began trolling around union square for a restaurant. ended up at a mediocre mediterranean place nearby, went to urban outfitters and scored some sweet, cheap shirts, and then i wanted some sweet, sort of cheap dessert. i was thinking ice cream since there was a coldstone creamery up the block.

as we approach the store i see a huge crowd. it's about 10pm so i figure this is because coldstone is the only place to get fresh ice cream if you're jonesing. but as we get closer we see a black limo off to the right, and that the people are in a bubble(!) shape around the entrance, and many of those people are holding up their cellphones. this is when someone says very loudly, 'bill clinton is in there!' and you know what? he was.

min pushed her way up near the front of the bubble and waited, as we all did, for clinton to exit. he gave his ice cream to one of the secret service agents, waved to us all, let a few pictures be taken, and signed a few autographs. then he got his ice cream back and headed down the street, right past me, maybe 4 feet away. actually on the way he smiled at us (min was back at that point). a couple of people yelled out, 'we love you!' and then he was gone.

once inside to get the ice cream, we found out he'd posed with the entire staff and given them a $100 tip. pretty nice eh? i miss that guy being in the white house.

sunday was more worky, but when i finished we went up to SF for the tail end of pride. that was ok - it would've been nice to go to an actual *event* rather than just mill about - but again, we followed it up with ice cream (this time at ghirardelli square) so really, just perfect.

now for the quiz. it's long (112 questions) but if you're a true harry potter fan that's nothing compared to the tomes rowling puts out. i accidentally deleted part of the auto-results but suffice to say i am severus snape and i can live with that because he is a real badass (but good guy) and that sounds right up my alley. plus alan rickman is just cool.

Severus Snape 88%

Hermione Granger 84%

Luna Lovegood 84%

Albus Dumbledore 75%

Remus Lupin 69%

Neville Longbottom 69%

Draco Malfoy 66%

Percy Weasley 63%

Sirius Black 63%

Ron Weasley 59%

Harry Potter 59%

Bellatrix Lestrange 50%

Oliver Wood 50%

Lord Voldemort 38%

Take the Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test

teach my feet to fly

as i prepared to start writing about tonight, these lyrics popped into my head:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

christmas is coming. reindeer everywhere. songs of joy, peace and praise were in the air tonight. and yes, i ended up wishing i had a river to skate away on. more on that later.

so, today. today i actually cooked. took beef (i'd previously cooked!), made a pasta kit and sauteed some mushrooms to create not-too-shabby beef stroganoff. my mom would be so proud.

around 315 i took off to visit 2 holiday fairs up in SF before going to oakland for dinner and symphonic escapades. i live in san jose. driving to sf - barring an accident - usually takes 45 minutes, hour tops. i got to sf at 520!! and no accidents, mind you. i'm quite happy that everyone's driving slower and safer in these torrential downpours, but apparently i need to start doubling my drive times in rain rather than adding 50%.

so, it's 520 and the first fair ended at 5. thanks! i tried to find the location anyway, just in case some folks were still there, but i couldn't find it so gave up by 530. headed over to the 2nd one, and wow what a waste that was. incredibly tiny, mostly scarves and stone jewelry. pretty, but not for me.

now it's almost 6 and i really don't need to have dinner until 7, but i head over anyway because i haven't planned alternatives. and hey! it's still raining! so it took me a half hour to cross the bridge. sweet. by the time i get parked and over to luka's, a mere 2 blocks from the paramount, it's almost 645. that plus the incredibly slow service meant i finished dinner about 730. had the roast chicken, which was pretty good. also the slow service gave me plenty of time to write. =)

i'd called ahead to try to find out how many tickets i had for the concert, and no one knew. thanks! turns out there were just 2, so at least i only wasted 1 ticket. i didn't mention this earlier, but i never really planned to sing, even thought it was a singalong. i know 2 pieces from handel's messiah and that's IT. so in perfect Moore tradition, i hummed rather than sang.

i ended up thinking about my parents a lot while i was there. during the intermission i wrote this:

sitting in a gilded palace, i am overcome with loss and longing for my parents tonight. knowing there was a time when both of them sang this production, and undoubtedly better than some of these guys. i wish so much that i could rescue them. give them the best medical attention, all the money they need, to return them to a time when they were as golden as this room.

i almost started crying when i wrote that, not just because i wanted it, but because i knew that even if i could move the earth for them, tomorrow the problem would just be something else. i love them, god i love them. they can be so much fun. but...i guess i hate feeling like the Really Mature One because often, i'm not that bright.

this was the first time, as an adult, i'd sat all the way through the messiah and i must say, it's a rather uneven bit of work. sections are quite beautiful and others rather dull. but there was one soprano who took my breath away, her voice was so incredibly delightful that again, i got misty.

i really ran the emotional gamut tonight, and i suppose i shouldn't have been surprised, since good music has been known to make me cry. nevertheless i felt a bit stunned by the amount of crying i did on the way home. FlagFloodgatesOpenEnabled. found myself thinking about things i thought i had resolved, and realized they weren't, which i've decided is my favorite tactic for torturing myself.

i still feel rather unsteady but since it's after 2am now, i'm going to interpret that as needing sleep rather than analyzing myself *any* further. 'night. :)