i might be in a movie!!

... and not the one filming in taunton, either.

next friday, february 8th, i am going to be an extra in a film about harvey milk, starring sean penn. as far as i know, jenn is doing it too!

it's filming in the castro. i get to wear 70's clothing and participate in a "candlelight vigil" for harvey milk. i'm keeping my fingies (yes, i spelled fingies, sound it out) crossed that i'll be close enough to a camera to be caught on film. i'm hoping that my fabulous 70's-esque wardrobe and my beard that looks like the one my dad had in the 70's will make me more camera friendly. i'm gonna be famous!! or at least have fun trying to be!

what i'm reading

so i went to the library tonight and went with 3 (hopefully) fabulous non-fiction choices, and i'm super excited to read my new books:

my first five husbands... and the ones who got away by rue mcclanahan
yes, that's right. i'm currently reading the blanch devereaux auto-bio, and then i cannot wait to emulate her! love her. my favorite golden girl ever.

death in the pot: the impact of food poisoning on history by morton satin
from athens, to the middle ages, to witch trials, food poisoning may be responsible for more deaths than we know! can't wait to read it and then eat tainted spinach!

crashing through: a true story of risk, adventure, and the man who dares to see by robert kurson
the true story of mike may, blinded at age three. this man broke world records in downhill speed skiing, joined the cia, and was a successful entrepreneur, inventor and family man. in 1999, a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore his vision. this is the story of the choices he made. can't wait to read this!

i also recently finished haunted and stranger than fiction by chuck palahniuk. i recommend both, unless you have a weak stomach.

please make all my dreams come true

so by now i'm sure many of you have read on perez about a possible new kids on the block reunion. i am just hoping against all hopes that this dream of mine will someday come true. soon. omg i would just die. die. seriously.

my roommate was watching tmz tv tonight and they were talking about the possibility of a reunion, so of course i had to gush about how i really wished it would happen. the conversation went a little something like this:

me: oh my gawd, i really hope they get back together, that would be A-MAZ-ing!!!
roomie: are you serious?
me: um, yeah, i love new kids!
roomie: oh jake...

i encourage everyone to check out the crazy nkotb fan pages that some people crazier than me have set up on myspace. i even saw a girl with NKOTB tattooed on her arm. for reals.

anticipation

i start my new job in the morning! i'm a little nervous but i think it will be fun, and i look forward to getting to know my new officemates better. i'm wondering how i'll adjust to a desk job. i've never had one before, i'm a little nervous that all that sitting around will tire me out in the 'i'm yawning a lot because i've been sitting in this same spot all day' kind of way. i guess i'll just have to wait and see, and start moving around a lot more outside of work. if the damn rain would let up i could ride my bike, but i haven't seen a dry day in quite some time.

yay for income!

hungover but loving dinos

i went out to jade bar last night to celebrate my roommates boyfriends 30th birthday. we had the whole mezzanine for the party, and monica is awesome so it was open bar. i had a ton of fun and made a new friend named alice. since it was open bar i obviously drank more than someone my size should ever drink in a night, and people just kept handing me shots. how could i say no? well now i wish i had said no to at least a few of the drinks since its 7pm and i'm still wicked hungover.

oh! another reason monica is awesome: goody bags! filled with candy, stickers, and dinosaur-related items! which prompted me to have an entire conversation with my new friend alice about how much i love dinosaurs and how t-rex may have actually been a scavenger and not the predator you see in jurassic park and about dinosaurs relation to birds. i really love dinosaurs.

one more thing. alice thought my accent was canadian. i don't know what that's aboot.

oh taunton!

remember the taunton dam crisis a few years back? taunton is about to be famous again! oh my hometown...

martin scorsese has chosen taunton, boston, and medfield for the settings of his newest film "ashecliffe", starring leonardo dicaprio, michelle williams, ben kingsley, and michael ruffalo (who i have an unexplained mini-crush on). the movie is based on dennis lehane's (who wrote mystic river) novel "shutter island".

according to the mayor of taunton, "shooting in Taunton will take place in the Whittenton Mills buildings, owned by the same developer as the Whittenton Mills dam that was at the heart of the dam crisis in 2005."

love it.

read more about it here.

i have a job!

i just accepted a job here. what's especially awesome is that they were my #1 job choice!

i'm going to be a case manager with 55 clients. i'm basically a rep payee, even though it's not my job title. for those that don't know a rep payee receives social security and/or SSI payments for peole who can not directly manage their own money. i'll make sure their rent gets paid every month and then work on a weekly budget with them.

i'll be in a union too!! seiu local 1021. they support edwards for president. i'm in love with them already.

i start this monday. i'm extremely excited. i really liked the atmosphere, the vibe and the people in the office. i think this will be really good for me :)

attacked by boba

so sunday night i was in berkeley, walking to the bart station. i crossed the street halfway and stood on the median, and a big silver pickup truck stopped to let me cross the rest of the way. i wish i had let the truck go because after i crossed in front of it, the person in the passenger seat started pelting me. at first i thought that i was being hit by tiny rocks in my back and side, but when one of the tiny rocks stuck to me i realized that i was being assaulted with boba.

boba is the new spitball, apparently. watch your backs, you never know if you'll be the next victim of a boba attack. and honestly, picking sticky boba that's been in someone else's mouth off of your jacket while the truck-drivin' offenders speed away laughing at you is not fun. stop the madness!

i can't even begin...

i have no words for this horrific crime. i'm lucky to have met dan, and to have bonded with him over hair. he was so positive and caring and did not deserve what happened to him. you can read what i cannot express here. hopefully, the bpd will do their fucking jobs and find the person who took dan's life, though i've never been sure that they even know what their jobs are.

A memorial service for Daniel Yakovleff is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Knowlton Memorial Hall on Route 44, next to Ashford Town Hall. The family has asked that donations in Daniel's name be made to Joshua's Trust Gifts and Contributions, P.O. Box 4, Mansfield Center, CT 06250.

never believe anything you hear on fox

it's no secret that bill o'reilly is a douchebag. now you can do something about it! go here and demand that bill-o stop insisting homeless veterans don't exist. as if john edwards was lying about the homelessness epidemic hundreds of thousands of veterans are faced with.

read more about it here.

and really, sign the letter to bill.

the man we call burning

i'm going to burning man. i bought my ticket today. i had to wait in an electronic "line" for 4.5 hours today. which basically means i kept the burning man ticket window open while i job searched and emailed resumes. i've wanted to do this since i can't even remember when, and now i am. yay! and yay for credit cards!

job search

i am so tired of looking for a job. will someone please hire me already? i'm adorable, i can make people smile, and i think i'm pretty good at some other things, too. now i just need someone to realize this and pay me for it. any takers?

librarians

i got a library card today!! now, i have a request for the several people i know that are studying to become future librarians: please don't treat your library customers like they are idiots whose only purpose is to ruin your life.

i was treated this way today by the woman sitting behind the information desk. silly me, i thought the information desk was where you went to get information, not a bad attitude from someone who could barely bother to look away from the computer screen.

but anyway, i am really excited to have a library card. screw netflix, free dvd rentals, here i come!

insomnia

ah, insomnia my old frienemy.

so i know that i have sleep disorders, i've been diagnosed with sleep apnea and often will only be able to sleep around 4 hours a night. what i sort of forgot about though, since it hadn't happened for a loooong time, was my insomnia. see, before i moved here to sf and didn't have a job (which, not surprisingly, leads to not having money), there was a certain herb smoked on a nightly basis that relaxed the body and the mind, allowing sleep to happen. now that i haven't had the dough to support my habit, i remember why i felt like i needed to smoke every night. because i do need to. since being here, every night that i don't smoke... i don't really fall asleep. sometimes i do in the wee hours, right before the sun comes up, but that leads to me sleeping in for most of the day and frankly, i have better things to do.

while i'm spending all this time not sleeping though, i've been having flashbacks of other times when i wasn't sleeping. i can remember being in middle school, it seems like every time i slept at my nana's house, i would be awake for hours, sometimes falling asleep a hour before it was time to wake up. sometimes i would sneak into her bathroom and steal her tylenol pm. other times i would just stare at the red numbers on the digital clock and make up math games with the numbers (nerdy, i know). sometimes i have these 'flashbacks' of lying awake in my bedroom at my parents house. i'd stare at this one glow-in-the-dark star that was above one of my windows and try to focus my thoughts on it as a way to make myself fall asleep.

in college, i tried so many different medications for sleep. some made me really mean and i still wasn't sleeping. i tried ambien. it was magnificent. at first. then i needed to take more and more pills to fall asleep. it got to a point where i was taking 4 pills before bed and not sleeping, which really messes you up, if you've heard those ambien stories. luckily, unlike some people i know, i did not get behind the wheel of a car or chat online with someone else's friends and have my child find me at the computer at ridiculous hours and have to put me to bed.

once i started smoking herb on a regular basis, i had no trouble falling and staying asleep. sure, the sleep was interrupted due to the sleep apnea, but i didn't know because i was sleeping. which i'm not doing now. i've been trying this homeopathic pill called calm's forte but i'd probably be better off just banging my head against the wall until i pass out. the bottle recommends taking 1-3 pills 1/2-1 hour before bedtime. so i took 4. i took them 5 hours ago. then i tried to sleep and couldn't. so i read a bit. then i took 3 more. then i tried to sleep again. not happening.

i think the most serious side effect of insomnia may be that it leads to ridiculously long, rambling blog posts that don;t get proofread before being posted. so, yeah. insomnia.

note to self

don't ever drink alcoholic beverages while on your laptop, lest the beverage end up in your laptop and then you need to borrow your old laptop back from your sister. yeah, don't do that.




damn.

the silly's

so i've learned something about myself since moving here, and it's probably something that was present in my life before moving to sf, but i've just really started noticing it since i've been here. it is this : i heart giggling.

i don't know if it's living where i'm living, with who i'm living with, but i feel like i've giggled more here than i've ever giggled in my life.

and i like it.

balls

you know who has some serious balls? this guy:

89% of precincts reporting in new hampshire... gravel has 357 votes, and pledges to keep on keepin' on. balls. not even enough votes to get any percentage points and he's going to keep campaining, taking only enough time off to recover from a respiratory infection. balls. old balls, 77 year old balls, to be exact. i do like gravel, but the man is going to kill himself campaigning.

he did kick dodd's ass, as far as i'm concerned.

yoko makes me cry

i'm kind of an emotional person, in a way that i find to be very strange. i find that my emotions like to creep up on me and take me by surprise... and they're never around when i want them to be. for example, i didn't cry at my nana's funeral. i fully expected to, i had tissues ready in my pocket... just didn't happen. it doesn't mean that i didn't love my nana or that i'm not experiencing a huge void in my life since she's been gone. all it means is that i didn't cry.

as for my emotions sneaking up on me here's today's example ... just sitting on the muni looking through this week's guardian, i turned to page 3 and my heart jumped in my throat, my eyes filled with tears, and i had to shut the newspaper to stop from doing that sobbing noise that happens when you get all ferklempt but you're still trying to breathe. all because of this...

i guess peace really gets my emotions all worked up. or the thought of peace actually happening just evokes such strong feelings in me that i have to start crying on the muni.

when i finally pulled myself back together, i reopened the guardian to page 3 and saw this at the bottom...

it just figures, though. of all the people i admire that i've never met and will probably never meet, yoko has always elicited the most emotional response from me. well, specifically, the dynamic relationship that was john and yoko has always gotten me a bit choked up. i've stopped trying to understand it, and nowadays i just roll with the yoko tears. it makes me happy to know that if i ever need to release something and i can't do it on my own, all i have to do is watch some yoko videos online and i can cry like a baby. i kind of love it, now that i've accepted it. i urge everyone to imagine peace in 2008... and get in touch with those emotions, it helps.

good day sunshine

the weather was gorgeous today. it rained for four days straight but when i woke up today it was beautiful and sunny, so i decided to take a bike ride along ocean beach. best idea i've had all week. i was getting so stir crazy from the weather. sure, i went to berkeley last night but it was dark out. today i got my first dose of vitamin d from the sun in a while, and it felt sooo good.

i stopped about here to turn around because the road was getting sandy, i was riding toward the highway, and i thought there was no more bike path. turns out there was a path about 1/4 mile up the road, i'll have to do that next time. i looked across the road and realized where i was and contemplated getting mauled by a tiger, but decided against it for today.

anyhoo... it was an awesome 7.5 mi bike ride with spectacular views. i felt so lucky to be able to do that, i'm so happy to be here. i probably looked a little silly on my bike with a huge grin, talking to myself about how gorgeous the views were. yay san francisco.

i did kind of forget that getting back home was uphill for quite a stretch, which left my legs a little rubbery for a few minutes. i hope to get more and more used to the hills on my bike, as i get used to using those muscles and they get stronger.

biggest sandwich ever

so i hadn't really planned on blogging about food. that was until i made this ginormous delicious sandwich today for lunch. i took one look at it and thought, "gawd, people have to see this thing". it was rather difficult to eat, but so yummy and well worth it. if you would like to enjoy your own ginormous sandwich, follow these simple layers, in order:

1 slice toasted sprouted whole wheat bread
1 slice almond cheese
sautéed green peppers and onions with s&p
1 slice toasted sprouted whole wheat bread
alfalfa sprouts
plum tomatoes, sliced with s&p
garden vegan gardenburger
ketchup / catsup
1 slice toasted sprouted whole wheat bread
plate

i suggest doing simple stretching exercises with your mouth before attempting to fit the sandwich in, as pulled muscles or cramping may occur.

dessert suggestion (what i had): good karma vegan chocolate peanut butter fudge rice cream.
yum.

ocean beach

so i live about 20 blocks away from the beach. awesome, i know. in the final days of '07, while vanessa was visiting, we decided to go to the beach for a walk with our deliciously healthy smoothies from nearby judahlicious . they were yum-city. anyway, so we're walking on the beach, watching dogs play, avoiding the tide as it nearly soaked our feet several times, examining dead jelly fish that have washed up on the beach, awing over the fact that there are sand dollars all over the place... and then we came across this:


now, i'm not a marine biologist, or whoever it is that studies sand... but i'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be purple. i have absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back this up, but our semi-logical conclusion was that it's some type of pollution. now, if it's from the oil spill in november, or if it's from some other type of pollution, i don't know. what i do know is that the sand is not supposed to be purple. this made me sad . what made me happy again was seeing this gorgeous sunset:

i think that ocean beach is probably one of the better places to watch the sun set here... and now i can better understand why my neighborhood is called 'the sunset district'. also, there were lots of birds and they were really cute, so i took pictures of them while they posed for me:

big pimpin'

today i wanted to share with you all a little bit about my bedroom ... oh la la! up until recently, i had been sleeping in the same bed, on the same mattress, since i was twelve. i got rid on my bed when i moved, so i definitely needed a new one asap when i got here. well i went to ikea, and there in the bed section, staring me in the face, was the most badass bed i had ever seen. so much so that while i was laying on it, testing it out, someone came up to me and said "wow, that bed is so badass"... and i was all like, "i knoooooow". well, ikea didn't have my bed in stock that day, so for two weeks i slept on the floor on the mattress pad. it was well worth it, though. i'm totally in love with my new bed. check it:



yes indeed. that would be a round bed complete with mosquito net. love it!

cock us!

i've composed several haikus, inspired by tonight's caucus in iowa:

barack wins tonight
is this how the trend will go
i still want dennis

what if kucinich
supporters chose edwards
clinton would have cried

thirty four percent
iowa hearts huckabee
mitt loses money

it's about gee dee time!

with technology and the internet being as it is, i should have had a blog approximately 7 years ago. but technology and the internet have never really been my "thing". i bought my first digital camera three weeks ago, and having finally crossed that technological path i figured, "why not start a blog?"

i am finally happy to present to you, 7 years behind schedule, my blog.

i'm feeling a bit self-indulgent in creating this... the nerve of me, thinking people will want to read about the fantastic wonderfulness that is life in san fransisco!

i suppose life is jaketastic is an attempt to capture my life as it is right now and keep it suspended in cyber space for me to look back at. i guess it's a way for me to back up my memory... so i can see where i was at at whatever time in my journey.

in upcoming posts on life is jaketastic, look for:

• life updates!
• pictures!
• things i find interesting!
• queer fabulousness!
• and more!!!