I have been thinking about writing a lot recently. Because I have realized with sadness that a a month has gone by without so much as a howdy-do. But as I sat on my couch this evening, I also thought that I didn’t feel like I had anything to share. Sometimes I feel exhausted from the week and I don’t feel like I can do recreational thinking anymore. At least no thought longer than a tweet.
So I thought I would just describe my days for a week in excruciating detail to you. And then maybe you’d be like “ah yes, I’m not missing much.”
Sunday, Day 1
7:30 -7:59a. Wake up but try to go back to sleep because that’s not when I set my alarm to go off.
7:59-8:00a. Fall asleep.
8:00a. Alarm goes off.
8:00-8:10a. Get out of bed to hit snooze because I keep my phone a safe distance from my bed. But, significantly, I bring my phone into bed so that I can hit snooze later, if choose do so. Lay in bed awake anyway.
8:10-9:00a. Alarm goes off and I get out of bed because whatever. I set the water to boil in the kettle because I have this loose leaf tea I feel like is not acceptable to microwave water for. I prepare a bowl of left over pasta I made on a previous day (I don’t believe in the segregation of breakfast and dinner).
8:28a, while breakfast things are happening I send a disparaging text to my friend Sarah. Time stamp to prove it.
9:01-8:34a. I crawl back into bed, where I prefer to take all my calls. Talk to Sarah on the phone where she, saint of the world, heart of gold, sunshine herself, tries to cheer me up as I gloom all over the phone.
8:34-9:59a. I get ready for a reunion brunch that I’m having with classmates.
10:00-10:10a. I decide to try to take off my fingernail polish. This is harder than I expect. I am now in danger of running late if I can not match Google Map’s estimate of a 15 minute bike ride to the said brunch location, Trou Normand.
10:10-10:45a. No one is surprised to learn that I travel slower than Google Map’s estimate. BUT ALSO, there was a lot of red lights on Market Street. Also-also, the outside of Trou Normand looks like a bank. It’s name is engraved on the side of a stone building.
10:45a. I walk in all the responsible, on-time people look at me disappointedly. I order a cappuccino with almond milk from a waitress with the curly short hair cut that I always wish I had.
10:45-11:30a. The other half of the classmates trickle in. We order very expensive food. My original plan was to eat breakfast at home so that I wouldn’t have to pay for another meal (I had gone out a bunch yesterday and I would rather cook my own food anyway). But there was something with goat cheese on the menu so…plans were abandoned. I talk to the people on either side of me, politely smile at the people too far to for my refrigerator-hum voice to to be heard. There are 13 of us.
11:30a-12:30p. We eat and then spend a very large amount of time trying to figure out how pay a bill with 13 people. Vinita, the go-getter she is, takes charge of the situation.
12:30-12:50p. The slow goodbyes as people peel off.
12:50-1:35p. Since Vinita is in town from Hayward, I ask her if she wants to go to Dynamo Donut, which has been on her San Francisco bucket list for a while. She was already planning on it. She and two other women from the group take public transportation there and I ride my bike. I get there first!
1:35-2:15p. I order a gluten free carrot cake donut. Tastes great. Would donut again. We eat in the lovely outdoor patio and to the chit-chat shuffle. We decide to go to Bi-Rite for ice cream afterwards since that is on another woman’s bucket list. Since they are going to take public transportation there, I decide to ride my bike.
2:15p. I get there first again and wait in the depressingly long line for ice cream. A line which as it’s own ropes because the lines are so long. I think about how everything in San Francisco has a long line. I think about other ice cream shops I’ve been to with just-as-good ice cream. I think about my entire life in that line. I think about all my past lives too.
2:40p. The rest of the group shows up and I jump ship since I just had ice cream last night at Three Twins. We wait for the other people to order and finish their ice cream while sitting in the hot sun.
3:00p. We part ways, one to go back to Berkley, one to get cheese, and one to lay in Dolores Park. Vinita and I walk up Valencia Street to another bucket-item list: Samovar Tea House.
3:30p. We both get ice chai teas (mine with almond milk) because we’re both people who know what’s what. We sit in the tea house and I talk with for a long time. Because Vinita is a sincerely good person.
4:30p. We walk down Valencia some more and pop into a few shops, including this antique shop I like called Stuff.
5:10p. We circle back to one of the previous stores and I buy a coat.
5:30p. Vinita and I part ways and I make the short distance back to my apartment.
5:45p. I sit down to edit my friend’s resume she sent me, but realize she didn’t give me commenting rights to her document. So instead just let time disappear into the Internet/Facebook void. I watch a video about a village in Amsterdam for people with dementia and think about how progressive Scandinavia is. I read a depressingly long list of tweets and posts of people who have observed a lot of opening racist actions in Britain after Brexit and think how incredible cruel people can be.
6:45p. I feel fancy (jk) and fry two eggs over the left over pasta. Eat your heart out, Anthony Bourdain.
7:00p. I desperately just want to sit in bed and knit and listen to Snow Crash on audio book, but I feel too dirty from biking in the city. So I run some computer errands and pack up the old router our internet provider wants us to return since they’ve so kindly let us rent a new one with the promise of decent internet service. It is true, I can now open internet pages with honest-to-goodness pictures on them.
7:45p. I feel like this is an acceptable time to take a shower and carrier out said plan.
8:15p. I start writing this and it takes much longer than I think it will and debate going to bed instead of ever knitting. Over Messenger, Igor and I chat briefly about how I’m complain-y; Vinita and I talk about taking art classes during the free time neither of us has. She also suggests I go to this lecture on Accessibility on Thursday. I’d like to, but I also can’t imagine not working late very day this week.
9:00p. I draw the sketch I posted in this blog post.
9:08p. I look up the link for Trou Normand and realize it’s not “Trou Nomad” like I thought it was all this time. “Trou Normand is the northern French tradition of a small drink of brandy, usually Calvados, between courses to settle the stomach and reawaken the palate.” The more you know.
9:30p. I edited my friend’s resume.
10:08p. Went to bed.
Maybe this is a bad idea and I’ll stop after I couple of days….