[8 things i enjoy in my life right now]

It’s been almost exactly a month since I moved to San Francisco; and as I sit in my chair with the sun coming through my window and my chai placed next to me, I think it’s appropriate to take a second and reflect on the past month and what I enjoy and have been enjoying since I moved here.

1.) Walking through the city – I have no car (though I will in about a month) so I generally get from point A to point B with my short, little legs. Unless I know that there is a large hill between the two points in which case I opt to take the MUNI. Either way, my legs have been getting a work out! My calves are happy as is my butt (I think), and I’ve been able to observe the city from it’s most natural vantage point. I’ve also become faster at walking and am definitely in better shape. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost weight too.

2.) The SF Public Library – I finally got a library card, and it’s a cute one too since the design was drawn by an 8th grader! And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve never been to a library, but I’m not going to lie – I walked into the Chinatown library and felt like a kid in a candy store when I realized that all of those books were at my disposal AND I don’t have to pay for them.

3.) The Hipsters – All the hipster clothes and hipster hats. And the glasses and back packs and shoes. I don’t think I can be a hipster, but it’s all so glorious!

4.) Cheap Chinatown Produce - I can get bok choy, a bag of snap peas, 3 red peppers, and 3 onions for $5. In Safeway, it costs me $5 to get 3 red peppers. Chinatown produce ftw.

5.) Having girlfriends to come home to – I was fortunate enough to have roommates that are also my girlfriends. I’ve known them since day one (well, actually day 30, because we didn’t hang out much in the first month) of undergrad, and we lived 2 doors down to each other. Although we spent less time with each other as they went abroad and we got spread out on campus, it’s nice to be back living with them again.

6.) The Artsy Atmosphere – It’s partly because it’s summer, but also because it’s San Francisco. So much art, music, and performance here.

7.) Washington Square Park – Read here.

8.) Friends, friends everywhere! – Basically starting Thursday night, we always have someone visiting or sleeping over. Or sometimes we even bump into them on the club. So many people to meet, so many people to talk to, and so many people to catch up with!

Happy 4th of July!

["i like asian girls"... and you're an ass]

I don’t date. In all honestly, I don’t know how.

To further aggravate the issue – I dislike small talk (unless it’s a part of my job) and I know very well that I can be quick to judge men. You can’t dislike small talk when you meet people. And you really shouldn’t judge people as well.

I have great hopes for myself…

But now I’m in the great city of San Francisco living with two girlfriends from college and they have decided that after a month and a half of being single, it was time for me to start meeting people.

*sigh* I suppose one cannot wallow forever…

To humor them, and to humor myself, last Friday night we went out to one of the 20 bars that is in a 3-minute-walk radius of our apartment (we got lucky with our apartment). The bar had a funky crowd of all ages and had a live band playing covers from the 80s and 90s.

After about 5 minutes, my roommates and I were approached by a tall, white (his race is somewhat relavent, I promise) man, probably in his mid-20s. He was hardly remarkable looking and more or less your typical white guy (TWG) next door.

And this is the conversation that followed:

TWG: Do you have gum?

Roommates and Me: No, sorry.

TWG: Hi I’m [insert typical white guy name here].

Roommate and I introduce ourselves. Every time he talks to us, he feels the need to put his face really close to ours. Ew

Some drunken (on his part, since my roommates and I were not drinking) banter back and forth about the band. I also find out that he is a Mechanical Engineering student. D’oh. It seems I cannot catch a break and will be stuck with Engineers for the rest of my life.

TWG: Cassie
Confirming my name?

Me: Right.

TWG: See? I remembered. Aren’t I a good doggie?

Me: *blink blink*

TWG: I’m easy to train

Me: …

TWG: Do you have a boyfriend?

Me: [sadly] No.

TWG: I like Asian girls.

Me: [long pause - both shocked and awed by what just passed through his mouth.

Finally...] Yeah, we’re nice…

TWG: Do you want to go to [insert random Thai restaurant] sometime and have a drink with me?

Me: Excuse me?

TWG: Can I have your number?

Me: Um… I don’t think that’s a good idea.

He’s clearly forgotten about my roommates – who are not Asian, by the way. 

TWG: Do you not like White guys?

Me: [Are you fucking kidding me?] I don’t discriminate…

TWG: Then why not?

Me: Well, I’m new here.
Lame, I know. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him “Because ‘I like Asian girls’ is a line that I hear often, but one that never works on me. And thus I now whole heartedly believe that you are a drunk jerk’”

TWG: So? We can still exchange numbers!

Me: Well… How about if we see each other again then we can exchange numbers then.
Even more lame. Even he knew it was lame. I also remember him saying that he lived around my neighborhood – which means that the chance of me seeing him was actually pretty high and thus I placed myself in a very awkward position.

Luckily, at this point, the cover band that was on break started playing again making normal conversation impossible. AND our guy friend (big black man) that we had been waiting for finally showed up.

image from fatkidatcamp.com

Really? My very first night out in this new city to celebrate my singledom had to result in a  guy hitting on me because I was ASIAN? It’s happened to me before, but usually I was conscious enough that the guy didn’t have to tell me that they were interested in me because I was Asian. But for a guy to just flat out tell me?

What happened to “Hi, I think you’re beautiful. Can I buy you a drink?” (for the record, this has never happened to me. I just watch too many movies)

This is why I don’t like dating and I just want a guy I who I can sit in bed with and read.

This is going to be a long summer…

[god and two randos from the park]

Today I bought furniture, ate cherries, and talked about God with two random kids in a park.

Excuse me while I crack myself up.

Now, for many, this seems like a very possible schedule. For me – not so much. Mostly the “eating cherries” part because as much as I like cherries, I rarely go and buy them myself. I’ll only eat them if they magically appear in front of me. But these were “1 lb of cherries for $1 Chinatown cherries” so I had to.

Ok, that’s sort of a lie too.

The talk about God is probably the least likely thing to happe on a normal day for me.

So after my 5 hour saga of driving to Emeryville (Hooray Ikea, Target, and Ross), I returned triumphantly from my trip having bought my full room’s worth of furniture for the same amount of money my roommates paid for a single mattress. Feeling good and quite Charlie-Sheen about myself (um… duh, WINNING), I decided to sit in Washington Square Park and bask in my glory (er, the sun), popping cherries into my mouth like it ain’t no thang.

20 minutes later, I was approached by two young Asian-American kids, one female and one male, asking me if they could join me.

My first thought was, “are they going to try to convert me into Christianity?”

And sure enough, they tried!

Well, not so directly. But they did mention very early in their introduction that they were in SF for 7 weeks for a Christian thing. But I was feeling so victorious from my morning’s shopping that I didn’t care why they were talking to me. Plus, I was working on “Project Alone and Independent” where I learn to live by myself again – and that definitely included talking to random Asian-Americans who flew out to SF for 7 weeks to spread the word of God.

The girl was a 20-year old kid from New York who found god relatively recently (like in the past two years) and the other was a dude from Wisconsin (I didn’t know Asian-Americans existed in Wisconsin) – probably 19 – who “was forced into Catholicism” (hey, his words, not mine). They were in SF for 7 weeks on a mission to work in the city and talk to random strangers about their faith and Christianity.

Dude… That takes balls.

What was even more impressive was that they had never been to SF, much less the west coast, before.

Okay, honestly though, what was MOST impressive was that I ended up exchanging numbers with the chick from NY.

Say what?

Now, if this was me about 3 years ago, I’d been freaked out that two random strangers sat down next to me to talk about God. Today, however, I decided entertain both them and myself by conversing with them for an hour.

This was the first image that Google Images gave me of "god." Is it okay if my God was young, tall, dark and handsome?

I openly admitted to them that I was spiritual and that I believe in a higher being. I disagreed with them, though, that God was an external being that is your friend. I am of the “God = I AM” train of thought, so ultimately God is me.

And then they asked me if I go to church (because apparently they missed the part where I told them that I wasn’t Christian and that Buddhist and Shintoists don’t go to church) and seemed both amused and pleased that I had recently had a conversation with my roommates about accompanying them to church on Sundays (true story – both the amused and entertained part and the going to church with the roomies thing).

Honestly, I think what happened was that I was feeling great from this morning and then felt sorry for the kids because they reminded me of my freshmen (both in HS and in college) who were lost in this new place they had never been and suddenly had to make friends. So I agreed to be their friend. Unfortunately they’re both underage so I can’t be a “drinking friend,” but at least the next time they want to be reminded that Buddhist and Shintoists don’t go to church, they know who to turn to.

I’m not going to lie – it was sort of fun trying to explain my views of religion and spirituality to these two kids without going all Liberal-San-Francisco-Leftist on them. They’re lucky that I was nice. They’re going to find some interesting people during their 7 weeks here; many who are not shy about their lack of faith in God.

All in all, it was an extremely successful day and perhaps the official start date of Project Alone and Independent – maybe I’ll call it PAI for short. Actually, I could just call it PAIN. Hahahaha.

I hope those two kids survive SF. I really hope they do.