dead bird

this morning, i closed my front door behind me and found a dead bird at my feet. it was so brightly colorful that i wasn't sure if it were real or fake. i decided it had to be real because no one would manufacture a fake bird to look so awkward and deflated. 

once i decided it was a real dead bird, the questions started snowballing. they fell into two categories:

a. how did it die and end up exactly at my door? my apartment is on the second landing; there's a cement walkway and railing outside my door. on the other side of the railing is another house with a tree in the backyard. did the bird die in the tree and get blown to my doorstep? or did the bird die midflight as it was passing by? or did it know it was dying and was on its way to the tree to tell its long lost true love that she was the only one this bird had ever really loved and not a day had passed without this bird thinking of her, but then the bird died just steps from the tree, its body growing cold as the "she" went about her daily routine in the tree?

b. what does this mean for me? as in, what is the universe trying to tell me by leaving a dead bird at my door? or maybe a person put the dead bird there. either way, dead birds don't seem to be a good omen. since when is death of anything/one a predictor of good things to come?

it was still there when i came home. will it be there tomorrow morning or will the wind blow it away during the night? if it stays, will i leave it there indefinitely and get used to seeing a dead bird at my feet every morning? should i compost it?

Are Small Plates Scary?

a friend of my mom's took her out to lunch today. they went to a build-your-own-burger place, one of those trendy joints that seem to be popping up everywhere, where you're hard pressed to find a burger for under $10. i actually really like burgers, but I'm all about meat, not add-ons, so this kind of place is wasted on me. the concept was apparently a big miss with my mom, as well. 

"There were six steps," my mom said. "Each step had so many choices, and whenever you added something to your burger, the price went up a couple dollars."

faced with this overwhelming arrangement, what did my mom do?

she ordered sweet potato fries and a chocolate-raspberry shake. a magnificent lunch, if i may say so myself.

when i relayed this story to my roommate, his response was: "Well, Americans don't understand dim sum."

first of all, i took issue with his use of the word "Americans". i think he meant "white people." so i'm going to take the liberty of replacing his "Americans" with "white people". 

"What's so strange about dim sum?" i asked. "It's tapas; it's small plates."

"Yeah, but the concept of making a meal out of small plates is confusing to [white people]," he said. "We don't understand how you can have a meal without a main dish."

i disagree. i think dim sum is scary to white people because they're not familiar with the dishes and there's no written description of what everything is. it has nothing to do with the size of the plates.

what do you think?

Words/Phrases I Will No Longer Say

totally
you should totally ___________________  
sumpin' sumpin'
so-and-so loves him some ____________ 
my bad
awesome
cool/that's so cool
no way (but "NOOO" in mock or real horror is still ok)
get OUT! (but "shut the front door!" is ok)
you can't be serious/you've gotta be kidding/for real? (but "for realz" is ok, though i think it's got a fairly imminent expiration date)



i encourage you all to join me in purging your daily vocabulary of words/phrases you've used since junior high. it's time to freshen up our convos. i wanna hear more "shut the front door!" when i walk the streets. exception: i can still use words from this list in my writing if i can make it sound ironic.

Are You Smarter Than A Second Grader?

i volunteer in a second grade class in a SF public school during math time. apparently the big thing in education pedagogy these days is re-inventing the wheel, which means the kids are learning how to calculate multiple-digit addition and multiplication using means completely foreign to me, which means i am of ZERO help to them, master's degree be damned. today, after two months, i finally figured out addition:

  123
+456 

step one: how many hundreds do you have? 100 + 400 = 500 
step two: how many tens? 20 + 50 = 70
step three: how many ones? 3 + 6 = 9
step four: add up your totals from steps 1-3: 500 + 70 + 9 = 579
your answer: 579


does this remind anyone else of figuring out your tax forms?


now i just have to master multi-digit multiplication.
   

It's "freezing" in SF.

gasp! temperatures plunged to under FORTY DEGREES F over the past couple days, and the result is extremely boring conversations all around me whenever i go out. 
"OMG, it's so cold!"
"They say it's gonna snow tonight!"
"I can't wait until winter is over!"
And my least favorite small talk quote: "COLD ENOUGH FOR YA?" 
actually, no. no, it isn't. i know i've been enjoying this weather only because i haven't been held hostage to single digit temps + snow storms out east + elsewhere for months now. but there's a certain crispness in the air that we just never get here in SF. mostly we get soggy air. i'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but i like it when winter feels like WINTER.

Classifieds

every now and then i scroll through the part-time job listings on craigslist. here are highlights from today's classifieds:

• Water Cooler Superviso- (this posting simply says: "For only few hours weekly we are offering a one time opportunity.")
• Zombie Scriptwriters Needed
• Child and Grandparent needed to play on a playground for assignment!!!
• Scent Chemist Wanted
• Millwright/Rigger (i don't even know what this means, but the employer is requiring over ten years experience)
• Dog Wrangler
• GOT GOOD GENES?? WHY NOT SHARE?!
• LEGO Engineering Instructor (ooh, ooh, pick me!!!)
• Part-time Wine Samplers ("SKILLS: NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF WINE AND HOW IT INFLUENCES THE WORLD")
• VISITING ANGELS HIRING NOW!! (there's an angel shortage?)

Voicemail Poetry

i'm pretty behind, technology-wise. i have a cell phone, a digital camera, and my 250 MB mp3 player. i have DSL, but only because my roommate is a techie. if he didn't live with me, i'd probably still be going to the library to check my email.

recently, he's been playing with a google thingie that transcribes your voicemails for you and then emails it to you. apparently *listening* to one's voicemails is passe. the results have been entirely inaccurate, but surprisingly poetic. here is one example, reformatted to look like poetry.
 

My anyway. 

error. Do you have to. 

Doubt I'll see you. 

9 to noon, 

okay. I will be. 

But not good about it man.  

But. I am. 

Not that listening to live. 

It's.

you need me. 

I've been in the inner but either alright.

pretty profound, huh? here's the original voicemail, transcribed by me using my *ears*: "hi james, it's me. 8:21 AM. I'll see you after work today so I'll see you for lunch with Kelly, but I'm not sure about Mary. But I'm not sure if we're taking the bus home or if you can take Kelly and me home. Talk to you later, brother. Bye."

i think it's hilarious that Google voice wasn't even able to get the "bye" at the end.