Parking in sf is a major pain. everywhere you go there’s a flurry of red curbs, meters, 2 hour zones, and hardly any spots are available. i’ve only been living here since march yet i’ve already received countless tickets. i’ve gotten tickets for parking in red zones, double parking, parking in driveways, parking over the allotted time limit, etc etc. i *think* i’ve paid almost a thousand dollars in fines so far. *sigh*. the only thing worse than walking up to your car and seeing a ticket on the windshield… is walking up to your car.. and realizing that it’s no longer there. yes, my car got towed yesterday. i parked it in a tow-away from 4-6pm zone, and forgot to move it by 4. so i had to get a ride to the Hall of Justice and 200$ later i got my car back. and the saddest part is… i did the exact same thing a few months ago. same parking spot and everything. dammit!

-v

the weather tonight is the worst it’s been in a long time and the rain is pouring down in buckets. standing outside in the yard, it’s hard not to shiver while i hold the shovel in my hand. right now, i’d rather be doing practically anything than this.. but my parents had called me, and now i’m out here digging. i scoop huge clumps of soil up with the shovel and try to place them in a nice little pile next to the hole i’m making. unfortunately, the rain is coming down so hard that digging is hardly possible. the hole is filling with rain and the mass of water tugs at the walls of my hole. minutes later i’m drenched and on the verge of giving up. i really dont want to dig this hole right now.. or later… or ever. finally i decide that i can dig no more and go in to tell my parents. i guess i’ll just have to leave the plastic bag outside for now….

Rewind 2 hours back. i’m sitting comfortably at work, typing away at my computer, still completely unaware of the cold weather that i would soon endure. the phone rings and i lift the receiver to be greeted by the crying of my mother. wtf? through the sobs i can barely make out what she’s saying. what is she saying? i’m trying to decipher it.. and… and… she’s telling me that… that… huh? what?…. oh. my kitty just died. the cat that i’ve had for 9 years now. the cat that i’ve loved dearly for so long. the cat that i’ve had since high school that continued to live at my parent’s house after i moved out. the cat that’s been sick for a year now… slowly withering away to just fur and bones. that cat that just collapsed today and died. i can’t believe that this happened. i mean, sure, i knew that this would have to happen sometime. but why? why does everything that we love so dearly have to be wrenched from us *like this*… with a gasp… and a shudder.

-vlad

so here’s the other problem w/ my friends having babies. i cant stand babies. no really. i am just so not down. they look really weird, like little alien creatures and are constantly projecting bodily fluids everywhere. unfortunately, this poses a huge problem when i go see people that have babies. see, there is no easy way (in fact no way at all) to tell someone that you find their kid gross. it just cant be done. no matter what, when dealing with parents you have to ogle their child like it’s god’s gift to mankind. and that’s really difficult for me to do. so, the parents show off their child to me and i pretend to be all excited about it and say how adorable it is blah blah blah… when really i just want to talk about anything else.

oh, and then, often they’ll try to get me to hold it. even after i tell them that i wont do it, they often try to insist and it takes a lot of persuasion on my part to get them to stop. the thing is, other than fear of being pooped on, spit on, or god knows what else, i’m also totally terrified of dropping the baby. i mean, shit, i drop stuff all the time… cups, phones, keys, whatever…. and luckily with all those things you can either buy a new one or just fix it. now, if i somehow managed to drop someone’s *baby*, somehow i dont think that it would go over very well. actually, i really wonder if that ever happens. i mean, people drop things. it’s a fact. people trip, fall, and drop things all the damn time. do people ever drop babies?? how often does this happen? would a baby survive this kind of disaster?

i dunno. i’m sure some day i’ll have one of my own, and i’ll finally understand what all the hype is about… but until then i’ll just have to keep smiling and keep my thoughts to myself.

my friend yana had a baby girl the other day. Yet another one of my friends to have a baby. so weird. i still am definitely at the point where i feel too young for my friends to be having kids. aren’t we still kind of kids ourselves? sheez. i guess not. not even close. we’re all adults now.. and everyone has to do adult things. work a career job, get married, pay for car insurance, what have you. i feel so unprepared for this and i’m not sure why. i mean, it’s not like growing up is something that happens all of a sudden over night. it’s not something dramatic that can catch you by surprise. no, it’s gradual… and slow. you have plenty of time to prepare for it, to ponder what’s going to happen, to get in the right mindset…. and yet, somehow it always still ends up being shocking. one day you look around you at what all of your friends are doing, and even at what you’re doing… and it just baffles you how everyone got to that point. someone must have hit the fastforward button on the video tape of your life, cause you shouldnt have gotten to this part yet. right??

-v

i didn’t vote today.

-v

halloween this year was tons of fun. we went to the castro as usual, but managed to get way more drunk than ever before. it was a fairly large group that we went with: sharon, chearon, mattie, nikki, kevin, erica, joey, veanne, robert, andrea, jamie, and tom but within minutes of leaving our house pretty much everyone got separated from everyone else. we spent the rest of the night running around, looking for friends, and being lost in all the chaos. we took the n-judah down there which was cool cause it was totally packed and everyone was hella partying, singing, and going nuts. as for what happened at the castro…. umm.. i really hardly even remember. somehow i managed to polish off a .75 liter bottle of smirnoff pretty much all by myself, and so the rest of the night was pretty hazy. i do remember at one point, after finally running into kevin who had missing all night, me and him slapping each other in the face over and over. errr, not sure why that happened… but he said that the next morning when he woke up his face still hurt! doh! then somehow he got separated from all of us again and spent the rest of the night alone and ended up passing out on the n-judah line later in the night. randomly, yan called me at like 5 in the morning, totally drunk, slurring, and hiccuping over and over.

anyways, all in all (i think) everyone had a good time. i guess on the news it said that there were over 300,000 people there that night!!

-v