Ocean Beach, ghettofabulous

Oh man I love Ocean Beach, CA. Not the one near San Francisco (too cold), the one in San Diego. The affectionately dubbed, “Berkley at the Beach”, Ocean Beach.

Yeah it’s a beach town with several of its streets ending at stair cases/maneuverable cliffs that lead down to little pockets of paradise. There is a dog beach, a great surf break, a pier for fishing, and numerous bars and restaurants. All of this is super cool, obviously. But what makes OB my favorite little beach town is the attitude. It’s lazy, happy, easy going and perhaps not the cleanest of beach towns. It’s main street hostel and laid back environment make it a hot spot for homeless youth. There is a lot of curious smoking action going on along its famous Sunset Cliffs. I’m not really selling it, am I?

Good.

Ocean Beach is not nearly as crowded with tourists, drunk ass spring breakers, or many inland San Diegans because of its “hippy” feel…and the fact that there is really only one way in and out. Sure, there are multi-million dollar homes, some gentrification and yuppie presence, but there are way more happy,  content, surf babies of all ages.

In my tenure in San Diego, OB is where I ended my stay, and also where I wish I had spent more of my time. This past weekend I went back to OB to (finally) witness its annual Christmas Parade. It was glorious.

The “floats” were flatbed trucks or gardener trucks jam packed with very happy folks.  There were clear winners such as the Big Lebowski float or the decked out fire engines. 

 
But there were way more OB style floats that just made me so happy I could cry (and that may have been Adrienne’s sherbet punch at work). There was a brigade of old VW bugs all lit up, a tween band playing Bob Marley in the back of some dad’s truck, a double decker bus that simply said, “we just wanted to be in the parade”, and a samba dance line all decked out in sexy Santa costumes. 

Kids in their pajamas, dogs with antlers, parents with red cups. It was just so stinking joyous.

Are you going to brog about this, honey?

Let me begin with a short disclaimer:

Everything that seems racist and/or derogatory toward Asian Americans in this post was inserted by a real live Asian American. Er, maybe not actually inserted but definitely inspired by…and not in that way, SHE MAKES THIS SHIT UP HERSELF, DAMNIT!

My friend Emily had her bachelorette party last weekend and it totally rocked. Literally, it effing, rocked! We went to the Bridge School Benefit in California http://bridgeschool.org/concert/index.php and jammed to the likes of Norah Jones, Santana, Dave Matthews Band, Arcade Fire, Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, Mumford and Sons and Beck. I highly recommend you go next year.

This is a concert that benefits The Bridge School for disabled children. The musicians who play are presumably not paid and since they only play about 5 songs each, they are so casual and goofy and seem to be incredibly comfortable. It was absolutely magical.

And on that note, aren’t old friends just magical? It’s been a rough couple of months emotionally for me and falling into the arms of old friends may have given me a new lease on life. I’ve met some amazing friends here in SLC that I know will become “old friends”  but for now, there’s nothing like a trip to good old California to feel loved…

Awesome funniness that went on:

Emily is a chemist who loves boba tea. She loves all tea actually. She’s also Taiwanese and finds the fact that she fits all Asian stereotypes absolutely hilarious. We all wore t-shirts that said something about love for Chemistry or boba. 

Numerous times throughout the weekend we would find that we had segregated ourselves: Asians in the kitchen, white folk in the living room,  Asians on one picnic blanket, white folk on another. Personally, I think the Asians found us white folk a bit bland…

Emily revealing that her betrothed has an alter ego, a black man named Devin…for whom he has an email address…

Sarah making Emily an awesome cropped t-shirt from BJU, and then Emily creating it’s tagline, “Here at BJU, we have short attention spans”.

The Starbucks barista who drew a picture of a beaker on Megan’s cup in honor of her "I heart chemistry shirt".

Dave Matthews telling us that we all look “Deeeeelicious tonight” and that “it’s not just the wine”.

The fact that we are so old we all fell asleep watching Bridesmaids, of all films, on the night before the concert.

Here we are in all our boba’d glory.

This Was All I Needed To Remind Me That I DON’T Want To Teach Adults

Last night I had to give a presentation in my English Language Learner Assessment class. I knew my lines, was passionate about the subject matter and was ready to blow my classmates minds!

Then I got up there and looked at the practically scowling faces staring back at me and completely choked.

Seriously, they were all looking at me with scowls on their faces. If they weren’t looking at me, they were texting, or looking at their watches or, and I just can’t believe this, they were actually talking in their small groups, talking OVER me!

It took everything I had not to walk right over to the prime talking-while-I’m-talking suspect and say, “HEY! REMEMBER WHEN I GAVE YOU MY UNDIVIDED ATTENTION DURING YOUR PRESENTATION?”

As I instructed them to work in small groups on my (super well thought out and awesome) planned activity I turned to our professor and said, “I don’t know how you do this”. She laughed and told me I’d get used to it and that it was the end of the day and so I should expect people to be tired.

As I wrapped up I asked if there was any burning questions. Blank stares. Then I asked if they all just had a burning desire to get the hell out of here and I FINALLY saw some life in their eyes as they shuffled out of the room.

Yeah, But She Really Doesn’t Look Spanish So…

If you can’t tell, I have Utah pride. I moved here with my feet (slightly) dragging and a verbal confirmation from Jim that we’d be outta here and back in sunny California within a few years.  BUT, Utah is pretty awesome. More specifically, Salt Lake City is pretty awesome. I’ve met wonderful people, I’ve met wonderful Mormons, I’ve explored the wonderful outdoors and I am able to own a home, damnit!

That said, I have seen reasons why the rest of the country thinks Utah sucks. These instances come rarely but when they do, they leave me so flipping shell shocked.

Instance 1 – (this is actually hilarious) When the lease on my Honda was up, Jim and I bought a used 4Runner. On the recommendation of the dealership, I called an independent insurance agent who could get a "killer rate".

In addition to her sounding like I was completely ruining her day by offering her my business, our conversation went like this:
 
Lady: Drivers license and Social?
Me: blablabla
Lady: Any accidents or tickets on your record?
Me: No
Lady: Do you drink alcohol?
Me: WTF? (that was in my head), Yes.
Lady: Well I can tell you right now you won't qualify for the company that gives the best rates. They only offer insurance to those who 100% abstain from alcohol.
Me: …

Can you discriminate based on a (legal) habit? I mean, it isn't like I have a DUI; I'm a law abiding citizen for crying out loud. I told my cube mate, "Welcome to Utah" she said. I told Emily, "Welcome to Utah" she said.

Instance 2 - I was having dinner with a few people, one of which had just adopted an adorable little Latino girl. He’s been pretty open about the process, heart ache and ongoing difficulties involved in adoption (not to mention the adoption of a child who is already 4). This particular day he was telling us about how he and his wife and their new little girl were out to eat and were getting all kinds of stares. He said it dawned on him that the starers (who he mentioned were Hispanic) were staring at him because his little girl is not white. I found it appropriate to then ask him if they were experiencing any other issues surrounding the fact that he and his wife are white, and the little girl is Hispanic. For example, are they interested in teaching her about her heritage?

“She’s not Hispanic, she’s Spanish”

“Sorry, Spanish. Are you guys being guided on how to go about preserving her heritage now that she is in a white household?”

“She doesn’t know anything about her heritage. She doesn’t speak Spanish, her mother never taught her anything. So no.”

“Yeah but, there’s research that supports the importance of non-white children adopted into white homes being exposed to their natural heritage”

“No, we’re not doing that”

“Don’t you think she might ask one day why her skin is different? Or, that her classmates might ask her?”

“Yeah but she doesn’t look Spanish, she looks just like my wife”

He then pulls out his iPhone and shows me a picture of a gorgeous, almond eyed, brown skinned little girl. Who looks nothing like his white wife.

Look, I genuinely like this person, but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated at this conversation. The tone it took was one that implied I had offended him. Meanwhile, another friend who is not white, has a Mexican husband (who was adopted by white parents, BTW) and biracial children is sitting there seemingly not offended or surprised that this conversation had turned to this tone.

I didn’t walk away thinking this person was racist or intentionally culturally insensitive. I walked away saddened that some people in this Wonder Bread White state literally do not see color. We have a big Latino population here…and if everyone could just get over it and step over to the West side of the temple, they’d be engulfed in all the rich culture it has to offer.

Maybe I’m Not The Sexy Scooter Queen I Thought I Was

I was scooting home yesterday in this beautiful, if not slightly dreary fall weather when an unfavorable altercation happened. Not that pocket pool was a favorable altercation or anything.

It is to my knowledge that when stopped at a red light, behind a long line of cars, you may not block any intersections. Am I right or wrong on this one? 

So, at a four way intersection, near a school mind you, I intentionally did not pull into the intersection, but waited for the red light (nearly a mile ahead of me) to turn green. The cross traffic had stop signs, we did not.

As I am sitting, waiting patiently, allowing cross traffic to continue I heard someone honking. I turned around, didn’t see any drama and then faced forward again. I heard some more honking and, “move that motorcycle!” Hmmm, I turned around again and through my dark, cool motorcycle blue blockers, still could not tell who the hell was yelling. 

The light a mile ahead turns green, I inch into the intersection. A white Oldsmobile, two cars behind me makes a screaming left turn. As he does this, his shot gun passenger leans out the window and says, “learn how to drive, bitch”! He said it just like Dave Chappelle says, “I’m rich, bitch!”

Um, WTF? Per usual I sat there, mouth open and promptly thought of a bazillion things I could have shouted back once they were out of sight.

My potential comeback options went from rational:

“I was simply obeying the law”

To confrontational:

“Why don’t you learn how to follow the law, bitch!”

To psychotic:

“DO YOU KNOW THE DAY I HAD TODAY MOTHERFUCKER?!”

I then started to cry, called my friend Steph and made her share a bottle of wine with me after work.

I Am Going To Try My Absolute Best To Explain That A Drugged Up Mormon Hit On My Friend Whom She Thought Was A Dude

An alternate title for this post is: Here’s Another Story I’ll Have to Remove From my Blog When I Become a Teacher

On Friday night the boys went up to Park City to have a Gay Dudes Unite where I hear there was cigar smoking and naked cannonballs into the hot tub. Anyway, not to be outdone, we ladies decided to hit the town…

A man I work with is the lead singer of a red-neck-y, classic rock cover band. He is the only Mormon in the band and thus needed a drinking following in order to please the bar owner. Enter widowed ladies. He had forewarned us about the “Hoochies” who are the young, Mormon neighbors of his that dance very seductively at his shows and then show up to church with their kids the next day.

Anywho, the band was actually really good! The booze selection, not so much. How do you not have wine?

So I am sipping on my vodka tonic when a sweaty, beautiful, young gal barges in between Andrea and Stacey shouting, “I AM SO THIRSTY!”. The thing is, there are maybe 30 people total in the place, needless to say, there were plenty of empty spots at the bar for Ms. Thirsty to stand at. Andrea and Stacey look at her with that “oh honey, you’re so drunk” look in their eyes and coax her to ask the bar tender for water even though she hasn’t ordered any alcohol all night. She indicates that she had brought her own “party substance” which we thought to mean a flask in her purse (sidenote: GREAT idea!).

A few minutes later, Ms. Thirsty is back, and has again wedged herself in between Andrea and Stacey. I continue my conversation with Steph but keep this sideshow in my peripheral. Ms. Thirsty has Andrea’s face in her hands, rubbing her eyebrows, her lips and then, SHE KISSES HER! Unsolicited, lips slightly open, kisses her. So now Steph and I are not only staring but also leaning in a bit closer so we can save Andrea should she give us The Look.  Ms. Thirsty glares at Steph, shouts “STOP LOOKING AT US!” and physically pushes her toward me. Now nearly the entire bar is watching this.

Ms. Thirsty thinks Andrea is a lesbian (is what I am thinking). Ok, that’s fine. I thought Andrea was a lesbian at first too (very few women in SLC have the awesome haircut that Andrea has, sue me). So I step in. Keep in mind that this is a shouting conversation as the music is very loud.

Me: “Is everything OK here?”

Andrea: (with a smile on her face cause she is so damn nice), “yeah it’s fine”

Ms. Thirsty: “You see, I’m biiiiiiiiiii”

Me: “Yes, and you think Andrea is a lesbian?”

Andrea: “Not exactly, tell her what you thought”

Ms. Thirsty: “IN KOREEEEAAAAA, you can’t tell the men from the women”

Me: “uh huh…”

Ms. Thirsty: “I’ve been to KOREEEEAAAA. In Korean drama, you can’t tell the men from the women. NETFLIX IT!”

Me: “Well Andrea here is a thespian” (she slam dunked her acting debut in Mid Summer’s Night’s Dream a few weeks ago)

Andrea: “She asked me if I was a man or a woman”

Me: …

Ms. Thirsty: “I am soooooo sorry! You are soooooo beautiful!” plants a second, unsolicited, lips slightly open kiss.

The girl is slurring her words, is bi-sexual, Mormon (I know this because she was a confirmed Hoochie), beautiful, not drinking (doesn’t even smell like alcohol) and had  been grinding on the dance floor with her eyes closed all night. She then goes to the bathroom with another beautiful woman. For a long time. When she gets out, she continues to pet and coo at Andrea. This girl is on something.

Turns out, Ms. Thirsty and her Beautiful Buddy are the sort of “bad girls” of the Hoochies group. And they, get this, grind up and SNORT their kids’ Adderall for a good time. WTF?

Now I just feel bad. What started out as what I thought was a Molly Mormon’s first night on the hooch and feeling out her suppressed sexuality turns out to be a complete train wreck. This girl needs some serious help! But you better believe I am going to see this band play again.