Nervous breakdown

Lately I have not been feeling too good about myself, my personal life and my career. One day, over lunch with a friend, I launched into a tirade about my feeling depressed blah blah blah... I told him "You know I've been strong and steady for so many people for so many year, and if I have a nervous break down, you know what, dammit, I DESERVE it! " He nodded in agreement and comfort me to his best ability.

Later that day, he told me, "Well, I think if you still have the strength and energy to DEMAND your right to have a nervous breakdown, you'll be okay." I laughed at his insightful comment. You know what, he's right. I'll be okay.

Useful

I bought a curio at an auction couple weeks ago. It's a beautiful little piece. It is supposed to be a French Boulle, but I think the auctioneer just put this description in to lure unwitting customers. I called and boasted about it to my ex-boyfriend, but first I had to explain to him what a curio is. He asked me "Is it useful?". I said, "Well, I use it to store my useless items, so in that sense it is useful".

In love

Last night I met a girlfriend and her new boyfriend for a drink. I met her last Sunday for brunch and the first thing she said to me was "Guess what?! I'm in love!". I let out an appropriately excited shriek and gave her a congratulatory hug.

After we settled down, she proceeded to tell me about the guy. He's this and that and he's wonderful and terrific, etc.... Then she looked at me gravely and said, "And he is bald". I said "Well, bald is okay as long as he's good looking, but is he bald, bald or ring-around-the-head bald?" She said "The ring-around kind". I told her "Well, tell him to shave it all off, he may look better that way" and she said "But no! I love it!!". I said, "Oh my god! You ARE in love!"

Weimar Republic

Last week I met an old friend at a bar in downtown SJ. It's a German restaurant/bar complete with a polka band playing in uniform. My friend has a bunch of friends who are regulars there. It's kind of like Cheers for them. They call themselves Society of the Worthless Drunks. One time I was there, a friend of his commented to me how the band's uniform makes him feel like they are in the military. I joked back saying something about the Stormtrooper, the Third Reich and The Weimar Repulic. He looked shocked and told me that I was the first one in a long time he ever heard of talking about the Weimar Republic, or actually know what it is. As it turned out, his master thesis was on "Unemployment Benefits During The Weimar Republic". Talking about an oddball subject!

From then on, every time I talked to someone who is surpised by some obscure trivia that I know, I would tell him, "If you're impressed by that, wait til you hear about the Weimar Republic!"

Sandy

Last Saturday I attended an artist display at a gallery where a friend of mine was showing her work. This is Silicon Valley so the kind of people who congregate at any place tend to be fairly mixed so even at an art event to have plenty of technical geeky folks attending. One of men I talked to espoused some pretty obscure, yet ambitious plan. He was or at least that he claimed, working on a project that will redefine the Internet and its paradigm. It sounds quite strange, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

In any case, his name was Sandy. After he left, my friend and couple of other people were talking about him. My friend say, "Sandy, isn't that like a female's name?". I replied, "Yeah, but perhaps it's short for Sandford or SanDisk". There were silence and puzzled looks. To my surprise, no one there got the joke including another friend who works in computer field. I know, I know, the joke is pretty geeky, but hey, this is Silicon Valley.

Today, I went to lunch with several co-workers. I relay the same "Sandy" story and the reaction was vastly different. Everyone laughed whole-heartedly. They got it.

I guess I'm more of a geekette than I thought.

Specialization

For more than a month now, a building with a large lot in my neighborhood has been under fairly intensed constructions. I passed by it everyday on my way to work. There were men working busily blocking the road, redirecting traffic, digging etc.... So out of curiosity, one day I stopped the car, rolled down the window and asked one of them, "Hi, what are you building here?" He replied, "I don't know. We're only responsible for the digging"

Talk about specialization!

Costco

Have you ever noticed that one often goes into Costco with the intention of buying one or two items and always comes out with a sizeable dent in one's wallet? Last weekend I went in there intending to purchase exactly four items: toilet paper, dish-washing detergent, shampoo and bottled water. My bill came out to be $123.94. And I didn't even get water!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was one of only two that I did not spend time with my family. The first one was several years ago when I went to Montreal to visit my teacher. This year since I had just been home twice shortly before, I thought I'd stay put and relax.

On Thanksgiving day I went to the City (San Francisco that is) to have Thanksgiving dinner with some friends. There were six of us, two women and four men. It was very "Friends-esque", with a San Francisco twist. The men included a gay couple and a metrosexual. Needless to say the food was FABULOUS!

anonymous no more

Last week I called my friend J. up to ask him about some tax related stuff. We talked for a while and toward the end of our conversation, J. asked me in that knowing-yet-pretend-to-be-casual tone: "So tell me more about Dave Barry". I was astounded and exclaimed "What??!! How did you know about Dave Barry??!!". You see, although I haven't been very active with my blog, I had been blogging anonymously. My 2-hour crush on Dave Barry was made known here and no one I know knows about my blogging, except for Mr Lj.. He knew I was blogging, but had no information about where and what and I'd like to keep it that way. It's definitely more liberating to write about things when you're anonymous. Now, my identify has been revealed. Thank you very much J. for blowing my cover!

I asked him how he knew that this was me. He said that he looked me up in Match.com and googled my Match name and found my blog. When I signed up for Match, I thought about whether I should use the same name or something different and decided to use the same one think that it would be my online persona. In any case, I didn't think I would be found by someone I know, but I perhaps subconsciously, I wanted to be found. After the initial shock of identity uncovered, I felt a rush knowing that I now have an audience that knows who I am. I know J. will check back to see what I write about from time to time.

Now that he'd uncovered my secret identity, I would have to tell the blog world about him. J. is an old college friend. A real smart guy. He was of the type whose acquisition of straight A's seemed so effortless. You know, the type that you secretly resented, but had to be nice to because you would need his help with your homework and such. After college he went to graduate school in Berkeley and I remained and worked in SoCal. We lost touch.

Many many years later, one day, I got an email on my Yahoo account asking "Is that you?". The sender was J.. He did a Yahoo search and found my name. You see, I have one of those very distinctive ethnic names. I am perhaps the only person in the world with such a name and that was not an exaggeration. So it was not too difficult for him to be reasonably confident that it was me. I was surprised and very glad to hear from him. We were good friends in college. There is always a level of closeness that you feel toward an old friend although we haven't talked for quite a while. We've been in touch since that fateful email.

J. and I would share our life stories with each other every now and then. He is one of the friends that I only talk to about once every month or so, but whenever we talked, it would be for hours. He is fun and open. Someone I can talk to about virtually anything. And of course, with the change in my dating status, I'd talked to him about my recent foray into match.com, and therefore resulting in the aforementioned un-anonymity incident. That would teach me a lesson for being too open with you J.!

That's that for now. I will tell you more about J. when I have a chance. The lurid details will perhaps keep him from telling other friends about my blog and therefore provide some protections for my identify :)