Yesterday I just kept encountering people who made me feel sick about the world. Today I read about Corrine Crawford, a PhD student at Berkeley who -- by all accounts -- was goddamned brilliant. She was taken off life support on Tuesday.

After a bike ride on Sunday, she was hit by a 74-year-old who lost control of his car.

Sometimes I feel so sick, twisted, and full of hate and hopelessness and vitriol that I can't take it.

Priceless!

Yesterday at Milano Pizza, this guy was getting up from his table to leave and swinging his huge messenger bag everywhere. He hit Adam several times with it. When he finally realized it, he clapped Adam on the shoulder and said: "Sorry, man. I'm just that kind of person."

He reminds me of KFOG, our not-so-beloved neighbor, who before he (mercifully) switched apartments would serenade us not only with his radio station of choice but his super-loud, ultra-stoned cell phone conversations (I love you, man, I totally have your back). Then every time he'd see us, he'd smile big and say: "Hi, guys! Hey, sorry about the noise! Let me know any time!"

People, a smile and an apology isn't as good as thinking before you act. Sometimes I wish I could move to Alaska, where there are far fewer people, but I hear the cafes suck up there and it's cold sometimes.

Either Carl is on my phone twice in an evening, leaving me messages like "Where are you? ..." or he's ignoring my return phone call for a week. I don't get the inconsistency and I don't like it, so he can call me when he feels like it and we'll either talk or not.

I'm a lot of things, but I'm a consistent person. What's up with people that they can't be reliable?

Dumb and Dumber seek a screenwriter

Jesus, guys, come on.

Sometimes you just read an article that reminds you how ignorant Oakland can be.
I was very sheltered living off Piedmont, but to a large degree, the city of Oakland rings out with the loud cacophony of idiots.

Each July 4 brings windows breaking, sideshows, pistols firing in air. Who are these morons and how can I keep them as far away from me and everyone I love as possible?

Edith Delgado goes home

"'I took a lot of things for granted - like the air that you breathe and the stars in the sky when you're driving home,' Delgado said."

That's good, honey. I'm glad you can enjoy all these things, because there are three people who haven't for almost a year, and in fact never will again, courtesy of your little white Mustang and the tricks you found it could play.

I'm also enjoying reading about how you were an honor student at your continuation school, and how you were just the best bank teller in all of Redwood City.

I'm also really enjoying reading the online defenses posted by your friends, epistles that run along the lines of "all of yall talking shit yall dont think about what would had happen if she would had died to. yall wouldnt be talking shit about her like that but since she is in jail and cant do shit she got all this people talking shit like if yall know her. just like she did it that couldnt of been someone else to. so is nat only her fault so put urself in her position and think about what you been saying about her cuz that couldnt of been you going through the same shit she is going throuhg right now. so FUCK ALL YALL HATERS AND THINK B4 U SPEAK." (Link here -- I was particularly struck by the post from the girl who Delgado stabbed in the leg in school. Nice.)

Adam and I had a big old brawl over this yesterday. He finds Delgado as unsavory a character as I do, but he feels that, from what he's seen, justice has been served.

That's hard for me to swallow. Three lives gone and she spends less than a year in prison? Is that really the value of three lives taken through no fault of their own?

Anyone want a new bike?

My brother's selling it because he got YET another new one. Note he apparently lives in "Rancho Penisquitos", which I think is classic.

Holy shit. This is beautiful.

"Alan's Appeal"

The Army of Islam not only shows its inhumanity in the video below, but also shows it can't make movies worth a damn.

Story here.

Random coolness in LA

- Adam's dad saying: "Allison's a playwright." A playwright! That's awesome. And I guess in a way, I really am.

- Eating good Lebanese food and drinking slightly too much good wine with Adam's mom.

- Adam's dad handing me his iPod and showing me the picture we took at a free photo booth in London, on Oxford Street. Good times.

I used to think people were dumb

Now it's confirmed.

One day I looked into my rear view mirror
And a-comin' up from behind
There was a Georgia State policeman
And a hundred-dollar fine
Well he looked me in the eye as he was writin' me up
And said, "Driver, you've been flyin!"
"And ninety-five was the route you were on, it was not the speed-limit sign."

- Jim Croche

Valley weather

95 degrees throughout most of the weekend, cooling to a balmy 90 degrees on Sunday. Frigging great.

I would never answer this ad

Nebulous title, poor spelling. Does it pay well? Not likely.

Web Content SEO

---

Reply to: job-355506213@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-06-19, 1:17PM EDT


We are looking for SEO english writters to write content on various topics.
it will be a large project, with a long term relationship.

• Compensation: Prefer not to disclose
• Telecommuting is ok.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

"A lot of times, people are laughing on the outside and crying on the inside, and they don't let you know the reason why they're crying"

That's why I don't hold it in. You wind up doing stuff like shooting yourself, and your wife, and your two little girls.

This is so sad.

"He was blocked by his own excessively high standards"

Oh, Ralph. I understand.

Great Men of Genius

My thoughts on it:

It was a hell of a show. I know how exhausting it can be to hold the stage -- but imagine five hours of it. No wonder Daisey had a glass of water (though I never really saw him drink from it) and a sweat-rag (which I saw him use quite frequently) at hand.

It was big. A big, messy effort. Something on the order of Middlesex, or a P.T. Anderson film -- "Magnolia" comes to mind.

When something's that big, there will be flaws. And there were. Some geniuses entranced me more than others. I found myself not caring too much about Barnum or Tesla -- I wanted to hear more about Daisey's life. I did like Brecht's theories on the stage. And the Hubbard piece kept me riveted in my seat. I could've hung with a whole piece just on Hubbard himself, so personal and sharp was the way Daisey presented this final genius.

At times it was a big overhead shot, much like the type we discussed in Marilyn Abildskov's classes. It was perspective from outside, from above -- geniuses we probably didn't and now never will meet. Daisey brought them to us, and if we liked one more than the other, well, that's kind of how life runs, too.

What I dug was his energy, how he kept connected to the audience, how it was live in every meaning of the word. He said things like "like", "you know" -- made it seem like storytelling. Made it seem like a work in progress. Made it seem like you could be sitting around bullshitting with this guy over some beers. And isn't that the heart of storytelling in any form?

Finally, riding uphill feels good.

A minor rant

Contrary to certain opinions I've heard about myself, I am not child-unfriendly. I remember what it was like to be a kid. I knew who liked me, and I certainly knew who didn't. I also remember what it's like to be small in a very big world.

But the whole "they're just a kid" argument doesn't hold much weight sometimes. Particularly when some dude brings his kid into a coffee shop and lets the kid run around, grabbing stuff and screeching. And this isn't a little kid. The kid's got to be at least seven.

I don't think kids need to be locked in cages or led on leashes. I do believe they should be taught to think about their effects on others -- or else they'll grow up to be selfish adults.

A Craigslist wedding

So cool! Good luck to both of the newlyweds!

And a random note: During Great Men of Genius last night, I thought: I'm here with my husband.

Once your thoughts shift in that direction, you're basically married. Who needs a wedding?

Friends come and go. And there really isn't anyone you can count on for everything.

There's Friend A, whose life seems to have fallen apart over the last few years. In her frequent absences (even when she lived here, which she no longer does, I rarely saw or spoke to her), I would get so pissed at her flakiness. Then we would meet up, and I would remember her intelligence, charm, and grace. Then she would disappear again. Cue the same cycle.

There's Friend C, who took a powder from the Bay Area for more than half a decade. Now he's back and I speak to him less frequently than ever. He can be amusing, fun, and smart. He can also be phenomenally self-centered and unaware of the world around him. Maybe he was always like that. Maybe he's become like that. Does it matter?

These are both good people. Neither of them kill puppies for fun, at least as far as I'm aware. But my friendship with both seems to have revolved around a focus on them, and I'm pretty much done with that.

Piedmont Ave in the NYT!

In the Classroom, a New Focus on Quieting the Mind - New York Times

"Hopscotch" replaces "Alt"

I wondered what happened to Alt Coffee, that East Village oasis of dive coffeeshop and pinball I discovered in March.

This is what happened.

Now, I'm a hypocrite because I like gentrified neighborhoods. In fact, Adam and I were hanging out with his friend Dan a few weeks ago, talking about Portland, and Dan mentioned a neighborhood that was just beginning to gentrify.

"I don't know," Adam said. "We tend to like neighborhoods that are on the fourth or fifth wave of gentrification."

And admittedly, it's true. I like cleaner, more upscale places.

But Alt felt different. Okay, it was a place where punks shot up in the bathroom. It was a little rough around the edges. But to yank all that and turn it into Totland -- dude, come on. Like there aren't enough places like that in New York these days?

What is it about major life events that makes people lose their fucking minds?

Gawker lets this couple have it. I followed the link from this douchebag's pathetic argument: "[T]his mode of gift-giving is more environmentally friendly and economically efficient than the old-fashioned registry," he writes with regard to engaged couples hitting their loved ones up for cash. "Let's say you buy a friend a food processor off the Bloomingdale's registry. Labor, money, and energy are consumed as the food processor is wrapped, packed, shipped, and delivered. Then the happy couple must dispose of the packaging material—all that Styrofoam and nonbiodegradable plastic. This carbon-emitting process can be repeated dozens of times per wedding. By contrast, giving somebody cash, or resort credits, is a virtually frictionless transaction. The gift itself moves digitally. No funds are wasted on packaging or shipping. To be sure, jetting to Bora Bora involves burning copious amounts of jet fuel. But you can allay those concerns by purchasing carbon offsets for the environmentally conscious couple.

"So, young lovers, don't let the haters at Gawker get you down. Register for a safari in South Africa, a Caribbean cruise, five days at a dude ranch, or for cold, hard cash!"

Here's the difference: Gift-giving isn't just about the recipient. When I give a gift, I choose something personal that lets the recipient know it's from me -- usually something goofy, off-key, irreverent. I want the freedom to choose what I buy, not to mindlessly throw bucks toward your twin massages in Bora Bora.

Waking up in Venice

I'm writing about waking up in a Venice hotel room. The reality is so much less romantic than how it sounds. I've been reading Pat Craig's column on Great Men of Genius. Craig writes on Daisey's performance:

"But don't expect the warm, fuzzy memories of a (Garrison) Keillor -- Daisey's personal recollections are about things such as pleasant childhood yearnings for nuclear winter or the apocalypse, memories of a heavy boy in a skintight shirt on a life-size model of the Enterprise at the Maine State Fair, recollections of disabling college anxiety attacks, and the still-present bruises of finishing second in the Maine Science Fair to a girl with a hamster."

I can do this. I can take the personal and the painful to the stage.

I hope to get enough down to debut it at The Marsh next month.

Okay, the gloves are off

I'm declaring war on the trash in the world. All of you. I'm calling you out. Starting with the super-loud guy and his bitch and his mother, sprawled out and yelling, oblivious to the fact that it was quiet before they walked in.

Die, bitches. Die.

People's Cafe

I'd like to give a shout out to one of my favorite downtown Berkeley institutions: People's Cafe. This pretty and peaceful place serves up great food, free refills on coffee, and is a 5-minute bike ride from my house. I'm here pretty much every day -- and I want to support them because they're the best cafe close to where I live!

"Me and the dog"

Was just listening to Dave Morey over at KFOG talk about what he did last night. "It was so hot, and I didn't have anything else to do, so me and the dog drove over to Popeye's Chicken, and then we went and we sat along the BART walkway and watched the show (not sure which show he's talking about). Just me and the undercover cops. We could hear the crowd screaming. You'd think it would be loud along the BART walkway, but it's not. Then me and the dog finished our chicken, and we went home."

Do I like Berkeley again?

I've been going through this huge Berkeley-drives-me-nuts thing. But I spent much of the last two days away from this place, and you know, it ain't so bad! And I say that as someone who just came back from the notorious Berkeley Bowl.

“The plaintiff has decided to use his intimate knowledge of the District of Columbia laws and legal systems to exploit non-English-speaking immigrants who work in excess of 70 hours per week to live the American dream,” Mr. Manning says in court papers.

This jack-off wants something on the order of $70 million because of a pair of pants. Talk about exploitation. Talk about perverting everything that's supposedly involved in the American Dream. I really ought to stop reading the news.

Ain't fair

This dumb little bitch was responsible for three deaths. Her irresponsible driving changed who-knows-how-many lives. And today she was found guilty of three misdemeanors and spared state prison.

I'm feeling a bit sick.

Public Commons Initiative passes

And as could be so reliably predicted, outrage follows.

Seriously, is it really helping the homeless to let them lie out there and beg for their next quarter for pot or meth or booze or whatever? Should Berkeley really aspire to be that laissez-faire tolerant?

I agree most with this part:

"Street musician Diane Dejongh said she sees both sides -- that of the merchants, some of whom are her close friends, and the street people who aren't bothering anybody.

"'I'm very egalitarian,' said Dejongh, a guitarist who views street musicians as a vital part of any urban culture. "''m no better than anyone else. That said, I have friends who are shopkeepers and they're right to complain about some of these jelly-headed stoners who can be really obnoxious. Most of the people standing out here would stab their own sister or brother in the back to support their habit.'

"Dejongh said if police asked her to pack up her guitar case and move along, she would do so willingly but hopes authorities will apply discretion and not expunge all character from Berkeley's streetscape."

A personal argument for New Urbanism

I'm just now editing a story I wrote for Real Estate Southern California Magazine about New Urbanism -- in a nutshell, the concept of walkable communities modeled on an "urban village" (think Greenwich Village, or Berkeley, for that matter) concept.

Today I'd like to add my own argument for New Urbanist techniques.

Yesterday, I drove slightly less than 200 miles to go see Ellen Bass speak in Santa Cruz. Today I met a potential client out in Pleasanton -- a 60-mile round trip.

Nearly 300 miles in two days. My body feels unhealthy from so much time in the car. I hopped on my bike, bought tickets at the Berkeley Rep, and am now at the Peoples Cafe. I'm still tired. Part of it is the heat. But I'm sure a lot of it is all the damn driving. Cars, ugh!

Storytelling

I'm obsessed with the way people tell stories. I just dropped $111 on tickets to the Great Men of Genius marathon -- finally a chance to see Mike Daisey do his thing! Adam got them for half price, being under 30. Hey, that's cool.

I love this Bruce Springsteen video -- shot as if you were walking alongside him and he were making a series of confessions. More storytelling.

Read it like a rock star

Actually, Ellen Bass wasn't a rock star -- she was better than that. She's an incredible talent and has such a wonderful, clear, friendly energy. Seeing her was worth the drive to Santa Cruz. Phyllis Koestenbaum was good, too, if a bit wordier in her presentation. But I did like her work.

When introducing one poem, Bass talked about how it had been accepted for publication, but that the publication contacted her and asked that she find a more "universal" way to refer to her female "loved one of 25 years", as Bass put it.

Instead of getting angry and political, she said: "I understood."

Class act.

She concluded with this one, definitely one of my favorites. I teared up a bit ... and then it was time for the sucky drive back over 17 toward home.

Gate C22
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching--
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after--if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

Animal cruelty makes me sick

Another sign that Oakland's finest citizenry are gearing up for summer follies.

This Yelp talk thread makes me sad. Particularly the part about how much blood is all over our beautiful diamonds. It makes me sick that there are people who slave and die so we can flash our pretty gemlets.

Speakeasy Stories

I'm kinda bummed about not performing there as planned on June 21. It was just totaling up to be too expensive. Sherry Weaver, who booked me while I was in NYC in March, was sweet enough to let me know I could perform the next time I'm in NYC, so it's not a total writeoff by any stretch. Also, Hanh is going to be in town and Gourhan's having a dinner for her, and I wouldn't have been able to attend if I were in NYC.

Still ... sigh. But hey. It'll happen.

In other storytelling news, I saw Mike Daisey and his wife being interviewed (I think?) at Au Coquelet yesterday. I thought about stopping by and saying: "Hey, we've exchanged emails, looking forward to seeing you perform later in the week", but decided to let them be. Still, it was funny walking into the cafe and recognizing him!

I'm pretty much taking today off to go to Santa Cruz to hear Ellen Bass read. I love her work.

Lastly, I was amused by this article. It's been well documented that many brides are completely frigging insane. Then again, there's the other side of the argument: the people who insist on engaging (so to speak) with these bridezillas and then stressing about it. Ignore them, folks, they'll go away. As for me, I'm still wishing I could do it at Voodoo.

Seriously?

Hell yeah. Donuts and coffee for 10 ... for $175! Oh, HELL yeah!

My feelings about wedding traditions ... to a T!

And I speak as someone with something sparkly on my hand. Uh ... nail polish.

"In Berkeley, they act so friendly."

"'And it's supposed to be so, you know, Berkeley. But so many people I met there, they were weird. They asked so many questions. They were friendly, but they wanted to hear me say thank you for letting me work here,' he said.

"Erwin remembers one shopper at Berkeley Bowl asking where he was from. He said Cuba. She asked a few more questions. On the surface it was an ordinary conversation, coming out of ordinary, even welcoming, curiosity. But Erwin says there was also a strange undercurrent -- maybe a kind of pride over bequeathing this poor immigrant a spot in paradise. Indeed, at the end, the woman gestured around the store and said, 'You must feel very lucky.'

"'I'm stocking fruit -- do I have to feel lucky?'" Erwin recalls thinking. He felt that the woman, a middle-class Berkeleyite, didn't seem to be holding herself to the same standard.

Interesting.

I'm going to see Mike Daisey perform at the Berkeley Rep this week. I can't wait!

I was reading his blog last night and came across this article questioning today's solo performers. The article pissed Daisey off. I can see why.

Daisey writes:

"What pisses me off is the demeaning head-patting given to the solo form, here and elsewhere--few would make such a sweeping dismissal of another theatrical form, like the straight play. What Alexis experienced was 3 shitty solo shows, followed by one not-quite-as-shitty solo show. I believe in the old adage that 90% of everything is crap, and that's certainly true in solo performance--as it is in theatre, dance, painting and every other art form that I've learned enough about to know anything. There's nothing unique or interesting about bad art--it's tremendously democratic, and happens everywhere.

"I'm sensitive because I'm biased--I'm a monologuist, so it rankles me when my form gets tossed on a scrap heap. It dismisses work before it's even heard, but I'm no fainting lilly--I work against this bias every day, and that's all one can do. That doesn't make it right, however--if we dismissed forms based on the negative examples, I believe traditionally theatre would have been cancelled long ago, at least based on what I've seen. Shakespeare? Sucks. Downtown? Pffffft--I've seen at least four that sucked ass. Chuck it in the trash.

"Luckily, of course, it doesn't work that way--it's the great works that ennoble us, and make slogging through all the mediocrity and bullshit worthwhile. It's the only reason we do any work, to look for greatness, and when we find that work it illuminates us, and fills us until we are larger than ourselves."

When he estimates that 90 percent of art is crap, that may be an underestimate. But the stuff that shines -- it shines, and it can't be ignored.

I'm fired up. I'm working on my "longer piece" and my solo show/memoir, and I'm applying to MacDowell and Yaddo.

Time for a trip

Places on my mind as possible destinations in the next few months:

- Portland
- Costa Rica
- Toulouse
- Italy
- Budapest

Paris in the springtime

How much of a woody must the judge have gotten ordering Princess Motel 6 back to jail? If she gets raped with a toothbrush, let's hope for her sake it's a semi-clean one.

Talk about preaching to the choir

Taking place tonight (listing from SFist):

The Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition is sponsoring a panel discussion about how "greedy developers and sell-out politicians have been scheming throughout urban history to put down and force out working-class African-American, Immigrant, and Indigenous communities from San Francisco." 7:30 p.m. at Modern Times (888 Valencia, x 20th).

I don't really doubt that greedy politicians and schmucky developers (or vice versa) have something to do with displacing the working class. But seriously, I can just imagine who's going to be there, nodding their heads throughout the presentation in that we're smarter than everyone else Bay Area way. I don't need it. I'm going to have Chinese food instead.

Best of Oakland

It's out, and a ton of the best of the best are right on my former street, Piedmont Avenue. The Farm is way better than my old dark, dingy apartment with the nasty carpet and creepy neighbors, and our neighborhood is cute, with good parking ... but I do miss Piedmont.

It's my yearly tradition!

Dear Allison Landa,


Thank you very much for sending me your recent submission for consideration in The Best American Erotica series. I'm sorry to say I won't be using your work for next year's edition.

I appreciate your work, and would be happy to see your best work or suggestions again for future editions of BAE.

My next deadline for nominations for BAE 2009 is January 1, 2008.

The work you send for consideration must have been published for the first time between March 1, 2007 and March 1, 2008. You can send me more than one story, all in one package, if you like. I prefer getting everything at once rather than several seperate submissions, if that works for you.

Please don't send SASE's, or anything I would need to return to you. I need your email address on the cover letter to correspond with you, but please include your snail mail and phone as well.

BAE 2008 will be our fifteenth anniversary. I hope you get to take a look at this year's edition, as it will give you a good idea of what kind of literature I'm publishing.

Writers often ask me, "Well, what are you looking for?" The best thing I can recommend is to read a current edition of The Best American Erotica. You'll find the 20+ diverse stories that I chose among thousands of submissions.

You can find the latest BAE at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/0743289625/?tag=susiebrightcom

My second suggestion would be to encourage you to read a copy of my book How to Write a Dirty Story: Reading, Writing, and Publishing Erotica.

Yes, the title is tongue in cheek, but it's my frank discussion of everything I've seen in publishing over the past 25 years. It will give you a good idea of my taste and perspective in erotic lit.

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/0743226232/?tag=susiebrightcom

You can find these books at many public libraries as well.

If you have other questions about the BAE series, please don't hesitate to write. Again, thank you so much for your (hard) (wet) efforts.


Yours sincerely,

Susie
--

Susie Bright * POB 8377 * Santa Cruz, CA * 95061 *

Now THIS is a joke

Submit unpaid "pirate" jokes to a supposedly major comedian? You're an ARRRRRse!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Pirate Comedy Writer Needed for Major Comedian

---

Reply to: job-341057352@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-05-30, 4:39AM CDT


A new concept of a Pirate Comedian, who is currently in consideration for TV, will also be doing a touring comedy show based on Pirates.

Pirate jokes without AAARRRRRRR as the punch, will be accepted.
Jokes are reviewed and evaluated and paid, much like Jay Leno does.

Please submit your original and unique Pirate jokes as often as you like, but please do not duplicate your jokes. Similar jokes submitted by different writers will be considered as first come, first paid. Not all jokes will be paid, they must be approved.

If you submit many good jokes, you will be conidered for a staff position with the show.

This is for a major comedian, who is going to be on a major talk show in July, who wants to tour the USA, as a "pirate comedian."


With each e-mail sent, please include your full name, and phone number with your joke(s).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Location: Chicago
• Compensation: $20 a joke, to start.
• Telecommuting is ok.
• This is a part-time job.
• This is a contract job.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.

Overheard in Alameda

"International Boulevard. You know International Boulevard?"

"International HUH?"

"You don't know Oakland that well, huh?"

"You kidding? I get lost on Park Street."

Carole Migden, you are an idiot

Good to see you may be held accountable for driving like a retard. And the whole I've-got-leukemia thing? So convenient.

Paul Madonna is a genius

I was browsing through the new All Over Coffee book at Moe's yesterday.

Paul Madonna's concept is deceptively simple: art produced from one of a million and ten coffeeshops around San Francisco. He often incorporates what he hears around him, as well as what's going on in his head. It's gothic and dark and sometimes startlingly beautiful. Definitely something to check out.

Getting to your G-spot ... the medical way

This is creepy. Not only is this woman (girl):

- 22
- Married
- Four-year-old kid

But she's getting some sort of medical workup in the hopes of making sex not only better, but more efficient -- "like a man." Not to mention she's already had plastic surgery of some other sort. Lady, you are SO going to be used up by the time you're 30.

Then again, you live in Solano County. Not much hope for you as it is.

One last one for now

Supervisor Bevan Dufty, a true San Franciscan: Crashing with his baby-mama after breaking up with his boyfriend. Hell, I'm all for polygamy and bisexuality, just like any other card-carrying Bay Area resident, but he's kind of ridiculous.

But the good news!

The Washingtonienne is filing for bankruptcy! There is justice in this world!

I'm so happy.

When I see reckless drivers, I think: Let them kill themselves, but no one else.

Same with this idiot. He was diagnosed with TB and told not to travel. He didn't listen. Sometimes the selfishness and stupidity of people makes me sick and sad.

ROWE and the old library job

I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1996. After graduation, I went from working as a student assistant (for the best boss EVER ... I still call her my Santa Barbara mom) to working as the Cataloging department secretary.

It was horrible.

You weren't supposed to talk to your coworkers about anything but business. You were expected to be at your desk four hours in the morning, four hours in the afternoon, a prompt half hour for lunch, don't think about coming back late. I sat directly across from my boss -- and her office had a large glass window facing me.

It was an incredibly regimented, angry work environment. Six months into it I blew my cork and took a journalism job in Nebraska.

What would the library do with ROWE? Short for "Results Only Work Environment", ROWE means you can show up at the office at 2 pm, or leave at 2 pm, or not show up at all. Technology allows workers to get things done -- wherever and however works best for them.

How have I not heard of this before?

Would ROWE work at the library? I don't know the ins and outs of plugging remote workers into the library's proprietary database system, but I'm betting it's worth a try.

On Yelp

ME: These people make going out a trendy job. Reading their reviews makes me want to stay home, pick my nose, and eat it.

ADAM: I don't need Yelp for that.