This is (part of) San Francisco!!!!
How beautiful is this place? That’s one of the views from the Golden Gate Bridge looking at the East Bay Bridge and Coit Tower. I wanted to share a picture of it, because it really is a pretty city. I went picture crazy when my sister was here and took lots of pretty photos of San Francisco, so if you want to see them you can.

I am nostalgic because it looks as if I will be ‘moving on’ for a while. I have some exciting opportunities over the next few months, and I will probably leave San Francisco in the next three weeks. I don’t want to say anymore until I have plans “set in stone” but something is about to change. I am waiting another week or so to “make it official.” Oh, in case you haven’t noticed I am “quote” happy tonight. How annoying is that?

On another note: I just watched Waking Life for the first and second times today. (Yes, I had heard about it a few years back, and yes everyone told me to watch it, and yes I wanted to see it, but I still only saw it Sunday). I hope you all see it. It made me think a lot, even though I tend to do that anyway. And it reminded me of a sign that I saw on Morton St. in the West Village just after Sept. 11th. Someone had spray painted the wall of the corner store with the words YOU ARE ALIVE. And I remember thinking I won’t take life for granted. I will remember to live. And sometimes when I need to, when I feel like I am going through the motions, I think about that sign. Waking Life was like another sign. As sappy as that sounds the movie says a lot of things:

“It’s always our decison who we are.”
“Life is yours to create.”
“When you’re born you’re handed a box of crayons. It doesn’t matter if it’s an 8 pack or 16, it’s how you use the colors…”

This is nothing. You have to see this movie…
and ask yourself…
Did you remember to live today?

So today is Christmas, a very lonely holiday for a Jew. It’s also Hanukkah still, or that’s at least what my sister tells me, but I guess after six days, Hanukkah gets to be old news. I was all decked out in Christmas spirit because how many other days a year can you wear red and green like this?! and my sister and I went to volunteer at the SF Rescue Mission. Our leader Veasna didn’t speak English well and he had very little idea what he was doing. While I thought it would be satisfactorily fulfilling to help the less fortunate on Christmas Day, I felt pretty hollow. After one hour this was how we looked:

So we left as disgruntled volunteers instead of Santa’s little helpers. Next year I will find some nice old lonely person and feed them on Christmas because sometimes I’m the kind of girl who likes instant gratification.
Hope you have a happy holiday!

I read about this guy a couple of weeks ago. He’s one of the wacky people of San Francisco. He hides behind two branches and jumps out at you as you walk by. It’s really hard not to see these two branches sticking out once you notice him, but until you do, he can really scare the Buh-Jesus out of you. He scared me and my sister today, but neither of us screamed. Then we hung around and watched him freak out small children and unassuming tourists. It was sadistic and hysterical, and because it had happened to me, I was happy to laugh at others.

And that’s not all. We met the Iceman today. Some loony bin who jumps in the Bay and just starts screaming “It’s a beautiful day for a swim.” And then he crawlstrokes over to the pier, rambles on about nothing and swims away.

What a beautiful day for the crazies! Unless of course these guys are normal, and it’s all of us who are a little off our rockers!? What is normal anyway?

The Blackout in San Francisco was strange. Stranger than Blackout NYC 2003 because it was so random. While one corner of a street had power, the other 3 corners were black. There were patches of entire city that functioned normally and patches of city where nothing was working. It felt like there had been an earthquake. And no, I did not feel the earthquake today. But back to the blackout -not as memorable as Blackout NYC 2003, then again New York knows how to throw a party, even in a blackout.

In San Fran my house went dark. So we (people you don’t know and me) drove around town that night looking at the randomness of it all. There was no way to figure out why some places had power and other’s didn’t. That’s what made it so cool, you had to realize how unpredictable things really are and how quickly things can change. In the blink of an eye we had gone from light to dark!

Things keep changing quickly for me. It’s exciting and scary and it’s driving me mad with thoughts. But it’s good and kind of feels like a the tingly shampoo I use on my head, I think it’s called Botanica.

My sister is coming tomorrow. We are going to Alcatraz one night. I was obsessed with that place last time I was there (age 13). Did you know that every cell on Alcatraz has a view of the city, so that every day and night the convicts had to look back onto the beautiful scenery. TORTURE!

Okay. I will post more soon. I might go see this old college guy that I randomly ran into at a bar here…I had always wondered what happened to him and then there he was. It’s strange but things like that happen to me all the time in San Francisco. This place clicks with me somewhere, in some really strange but good way. Wow, I sound like a freak and maybe I am! I think I have morphed into some San Fransican hippy…Peace, love and does it really matter anyway?

It’s raining here, for the second day in a row. For some reason it always seems to rain on Fridays. Really, it always rains on Fridays.

But no snow. It doesn’t feel like Christmas in San Francisco without bitter cold and snow. And it definitely doesn’t feel like Hanukkah, but maybe that’s because I’m a bad Jew. The kind of Jew that doesn’t even own a menorah and couldn’t remember the name of the middle candle. Shamas. I think that’s it now. I refuse to look it up for no other reason than just because I refuse. My brother thought it was shofar. I am not that bad.

This is how you dress for winter in California:

and that man is my grandpa, who just might be the cutest man in the world. Seriously, isn’t he handsome? and look at his hair! Which is good for my siblings, because isn’t your mother’s father genetically the hairline donor? I think that’s how it works. Anyway, does he look confused in this picture?

Regardless, he’s got nice hair. Hair. Once again a subject on my mind. And my favorite musical. My hair is wet right now. Perspiration. I never shower immediately after the gym. That makes me a dirty girl I guess. I like to absorb my workout back into my body, replenish my skin, soak in the sweat. Then I douche (shower en francais) and relax. Lots of smelly hours later.

okay?

“Since you’ve been away, I’ve been down and lonely, since you’ve been away I’ve been thinking of you” Okay anyone know the song? Its one of the songs that left a permanent mark on my brain, the kind that, for the rest of my life, leaves me stuck with the words to a few lines, a song that hasn’t been played since I was ten, but now it’s embedded in my medulla.

I have had a fun few days. Took a trip. To Reno, Nevada..probably not the best town to visit if you’re not a gambler, but since I like culture, and most of the people there are foreign to me, I liked the experience. I could have watched for days. I even talked to one old drunk who told me that her daughter hated Jews.

Margaret also told me that she told her daughter that the jews were the chosen people. It was a strange conversation. Apparently the entire casino hates her because she frequents the bar looking for free booze and she doesn’t gamble at all. After 20 minutes I either had to pull off her wig or leave. So I left. But wouldn’t it be great to see what was under that hair?!!

Reno. It’s a scary place, like a town that should be destroyed. But my favorite part about the city, until you realize that this is also what makes the town so far removed from life, is that’s its surrounded by mountains. It’s like 5 minutes from California, not far from Tahoe (look on a map if you still don’t get it yet, please I implore you - maps are your friends), and it’s so small but grand in the scheme of life on the land, at least the land on the Nevada/California border. Anyway, I think too much. Oh, and I got to touch snow!

Uhm. Other than that there are other things. But isn’t that always the case?

Help me help playgirl

okay, so I am writing my latest sex advice column…and I need to know….

1. How many guys out there wear thong underwear?
2. Ladies - is thong underwear on a man a turn on or turn off?
3. Anybody ever try penis enlargement pills?

Inquiring minds want to know…

IS BEING HAIRY SUCH A BAD THING?

I am a hairy girl. I used to think it was a bad thing, but now I don’t mind it as much. I still tweeze, wax and pluck areas of my body that I would rather not have hair on/in/near, but in places that I’m okay with it, my hair flies in the breeze or gets caught in the trees. Like I don’t mind the hair on the low of my back, or the hair on my arms. I don’t really like the patches of hair on the back of a man. I don’t mind hair, but too much back hair can be a turn off. And I don’t like too much hair on the face, unless it’s a facial adornment like beard or goatee and it looks good. I don’t like hair that can’t be shaved on the face. Still I have it. Dark hair and lots of it.

I like what a boy in my life once said about me and my hair. He said that he liked it because it indicated that I have a high level of testosterone, which, to him meant good things. And to me too. I don’t want to be all estrogen. I’d have less internal conflicts.

Perhaps I ponder my hair more often than others do. While some people worry about losing theirs, I stare at the hair on the sides of my face and wonder why I have to have the beginnings of a beard.

I dont think enough people ponder the question of the attractiveness of hair. Is it sexy or disgusting? Or does it even matter?

This is why you should smile in pictures!

I’m just going to write right now. Literally and Figuratively. I moved out to San Francisco to produce a TV show that I didn’t really want to produce. And I dreamed that the job would go away, and one Saturday morning while I was getting some soy drink at Starbucks, the phone rang and the show went away. Poof! Just like that.

And that same weekend, I wanted to have some semblance of a romantic relationship. Something nice and easy. And that same week, the week of my birthday, the week I wanted this to happen, it did, and I met a really cute, really nice and really smart boy who was nice and easy. Just like that.

And then I had a relationship and no job, and a new life. A life so different than the one I had in New York. And I took time to figure out what that meant, and what I was supposed to do out west. Because I know I am supposed to be here. But what did I want to do for money? I didn’t want to be a Producer. I didn’t want to work 9-5. I wanted to be an artist, a writer, a free spirit. And that’s how I am trying to pay the bills.

Otherwise the city is beautiful, the weather is nice, I still haven’t been paid at all from the tv show that fell through, and my relationship is about to become a friendship.

Be careful what you wish for.

Oh, and I like my column this week..Hot Wax at www.steppinoutmagazine.com.
Waddya think?

So my friends, that is me…where I am now. Where are you?

I am a sex writer…and although I can say that freely..that’s not always the case..

Sex scares a lot of people…maybe they need to get laid more

This is from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/international/asia/30CHIN.html?th

There’s been a lot of talk about sex in China recently. I will be interested to see how people’s attitudes about sexuality continue to change across the world. We still have a long way to go in adjusting our attitudes in ye old U.S. of A.

I am all for open sexuality education. Lets talk about it. Everybody could use a little more of it. Abstinence only equals denial.