1) "It smells like paint!"
2) The great thing about latex paint is that it peels off of surfaces.
3) Paint on your pants makes you look and feel like an artist.
4) Painting with rollers makes my hands and arms sore.
5) Fried chicken, bagel, granola bar, chips, pizza, pizza, pizza, chips, pizza, fried chicken, bagel, bacon cheeseburger, in that order.
6) "I can't park my Lexus in the rain."
7) Beeping at regular intervals agitates me.
8) Toasted Grain, Green Tea, Navajo White, and Falling Leaves.

Last week, Mariel, Cheryl and I took a short vacation to New York. We took a redeye Wednesday night and arrived at 6:30 Thursday morning. After taking a cab to my brother's place, we took a nap before heading over to 5th avenue so Cheryl could make a few somewhat exhorbitant purchases. Afterwards, we went down to SoHo to do some more shopping, where I got a cool jacket at Replay (which, incidentally, I didn't know was an Italian brand until just now). Later we had dinner at Ecco, a nice Italian restaurant. After being berated by my brother for considering staying in for the night, we headed out to Grace, a nearby bar, which, as Cheryl described it, was "like a neighborhood bar, but nice." As if drinking mimosas and bellinis in a bar in TriBeCa wasn't fancy enough, we topped it off by ordering tuna tartare, which was really tasty. Not being able to partake in the alcoholic drinks, I entertained myself by playing "Who wouldn't you date?" with Cheryl.

Friday we met my friend Kahn and our friend Naomi at the Metropolitan Museum. I met Kahn through a high school friend of mine, and even though we've been friends for 5 years, we realized that this would only be the 3rd time we have seen each other in person. It was also great to see Naomi because she had just gotten back from a 2 year stint teaching English in Japan. We wandered around the museum for most of the day (with Cheryl making sure we avoided the scary religious art) before heading back to my brother's place to grab dinner. We rushed out to Times Square to catch 42nd Street, an old Broadway revival, complete with tap dancing, sparkly costumes, strange enunciation, and probably some jazz hands thrown in there. After the show, we met up with Kahn and Scott, a friend of ours from college, at the Times Square Brewery (which I could have sworn was called "42nd Street Brewery") for dessert. After Scott and Naomi went home, the rest of us headed down to Apple, a bar near NYU. (Are we sensing a pattern here?) The atmosphere was suitably Asian for Cheryl, and we ended up staying there until it closed.

Since we got in so late Friday night, we had a late start to Saturday. I went running with my brother along the West Side Highway since I was missing my training run. When I got back, I called up my friends Lisa and Topu, who both recently moved to New York. We made plans to meet them and Naomi at Otto in Greenwich Village since Mariel and Cheryl were craving pizza. Because of some subway stupidity coupled with Sha Sha stupidity, we ended up getting there late, but we finally arrived. I count Lisa and Topu as two of my closest friends from home, but it had been almost 3 years since I'd seen them. We spent the next few hours walking around and I even got to see Lisa's store, Star Strings, which was very cool. For dinner, my brother treated me, Mariel, Cheryl, and my sister to a yummy sushi dinner. Mmmm...wild salmon. Afterwards we went to..........a bar! This was was the most bar-y of them all, and Cheryl was not so secretly bored. I still had a good time though.

Sunday night Mariel and I had planned to meet Naomi and go to a Central Park tag sale, but when we got there, the line was 1 hour just to get in. Instead, we checked out a crafts fair where Naomi's aunt had a booth. There was a lot of cool stuff there, but we had to catch our flight home, so we didn't get to spend much time there.

All in all, I had a great time. I was happy that I got to meet up with everyone I wanted to see, and I also had a lot of fun wandering around the city.

The End.

In a completely unrelated note, I recently stumbled upon this page, which is the personal page of some guy who apparently parties with hobbits and giants. It's all very strange. Some people are not like us.

In response to a dinnertime conversation with Yar and Jan concerning creme brulee torches and bad website design, I present to you: http://cremebruleetorches.shashachu.com. I think it's a thing of beauty. Oh, and make sure your sound is on.

Yesterday Mariel and I did the 7K run/walk for the 2004 Bridge to Bridge. We started about 20 minutes late because we couldn't find parking. They told us to park at the Embarcadero Center (the parking was free with our race bibs), but all of the parking structures were "full" when we got there, so we drove around the block a few times until the little "Full" light outside went off. After parking, we dashed out of the car and to the start area. There were quite a few stragglers like us, so we basically joined the crowd. After a few minutes, I turned to Mariel and asked, "Where's the start line?" After a few moments of thought, she answered, "I think we're already in the race." I didn't believe her until we passed the 1 mile marker.

It was a typically cold and overcast day in San Francisco, but once we got going we appreciated the cool weather. The route started at the Ferry Building, followed the Embarcadero for much of it, and ended up at the Presidio. We went at a fairly leisurely pace, even stopping at Pier 39 to use the restroom. We finished about 1 hour, 15 minutes after the start of the race. Afterwards we picked up our free Bridge to Bridge t-shirts and wandered around the finish area, picking up free stuff.

After a while Ozomatli took the stage. I had heard of them back in college but never really got into their music. Seeing them live really changed my mind. They put on an incredibly high energy show, which was good because that kept my mind off the cold. In addition to being fantastic musicians, they are a band that is committed to social justice and political activism. One of the band members was wearing a "Bush Sucks" shirt, and another made a statement about how we need to get Bush out of office. Their biography on their website describes how their last album was released on September 11, 2001 and instead of cancelling their tour, they kept playing, recognizing the power of music to bring people together.

The low point of the event was at the announcement of the winner of the men's 12K. The 2nd and 3rd place runners were both from Kenya and the announcer described how the finish was really close, and that the eventual winner passed the two Kenyans at the very last moment. When the winner came up to accept his prize, he told the crowd that he had a friend who won a silver medal in the men's marathon at the last Olympics and that he was glad to see an American up there because "we're always getting our butts kicked by foreigners." Then he went on to say how glad he was that an American won. There was nervous laughter from the audience, and his comments definitely made me feel uncomfortable. I won't even go into how nonsensical it is to refer to non-Americans as "foreigners" at an international sports event taking place in Greece. Besides that odd occurance, the event was a lot of fun.

Afterwards, we had lunch at the fru-fru Ferry Building before heading home. For dinner, I made potato leek soup and also squash and zuchinni, and Mariel made ribs before I fell into fatigue-induced delirium and had to go to bed. Good weekend.

In case anyone is as clueless as I am about the California ballot measures that will be up for vote this November, here are a few sites with objective information/analysis for each of them:

http://www.easyvoter.org/california/quicktools/index.html
http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/ca/state/prop/
http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc.files/nov98/pc/index.html
http://www.voterguide.ss.ca.gov/propositions/propositions.htm
http://www.electioninfo.org/

Rock the Vote!