POLO SHIRTS == not cool

“I don’t like polo shirts,” I declared once to a friend who was wearing a polo shirt.

He made a pained face and said, “Are you trying to be mean?”

“No no, I just don’t like the design.”

And really that’s all it is. Regardless of the body type underneath the polo shirt, it brings up images of how it’s used wrong. And it’s not that I am commenting on the person and how the polo shirt fits on person. Rather it’s the whole concept.

Perhaps it’s the combination of the collar, the thoughtless amount of buttons and the shirt. To me, it conveys sloppiness. Like it’s an abbreviated dress shirt without the full line of buttons and shortened sleeves. And the material, oh the material. The typical material of a polo shirt is made out of this rough-feeling cloth. A texture of sorts like an attempt to be poor sandpaper.

But in all, probably it’s the stereotype of the shirt. That it’s often worn by people who pull it on to look professional with khakis. The nerds. The geeks. And perhaps, I am projecting upon them…that I don’t want to be them. The outcasts. But I am in the working world…where sometimes clothing really does define who you are and which group you are belong.

I still don’t like polo shirts.

The ending of SATC

Spoiler to the ending of SATC. Which happened a few years ago. And you should have already seen it.

To my horror today, I discovered that Carrie actually was considering marriage at the end of the series.

To Big.

For some reason, when I first saw the series finale, I thought she was going to be an independent woman in NYC. Now happy with who she was. Loving herself despite all the desire of other women around her to have everlasting companionship.

In these past few years, it’s strange how many of us consider to have learned lessons from the series. To try not to always wear nice, expensive shoes to parties because they might get stolen, but if that happens, we should expect the host to replace them. To dump the guy if he does something so miniscule such as getting frightened by mice and squealing like a little kid. But in the end, we’re supposed to be independent and decisive, not always pining…well maybe a little…but living the life…and being fabulous.

Like that 80s song…

Really, do we know what love is?

At some point in our lives, our nosy relatives and friends freely give away advice. Some to tell us who we’re right with. Sex and the City taught us one way—to fight for our own. And all the other chick flicks. Just wait and he will come.

But it’s not that. I have sat through my friend’s breakups. Listened to their troubles. I have heard of happiness and…the boredom. And the fleetingness of pickiness. The string of dates that end up in an awkward goodbye. And to some, it becomes a free dinner on a Saturday night.

“He annoys me,” a friend told me recently. Then she added, “He’s too green. How can I be with someone who doesn’t know what love is?”

But there are so many times we encounter what if? and could have. And that’s why some start looking the other way. “Until something better comes along” or as Joe finely put it “Until something comes along.”

There is no such thing as fate. If there was, we wouldn’t keep moving away. We wouldn’t make decisions based on pickiness. We would have stayed because it was meant to be. It’s like success. Being at the right place at the right time. And the right person.

The neighborhood chase

He was part of that neighborhood boy gang. My sister and I had just moved to the area, the newbies on the street and also, the only girls around their age in the neighborhood.

Back in the early nineties, we actually went outside to play. Our parents forbade television during school nights and so we had to come up with our own devices for entertainment. My sister and I would play in the “river”—the stormdrain that often had flowing water after rain. The playground in the private elementary school across the street that we didn’t attend. And the secret passageway through shrubs, only big enough for someone our size.

Then there were the boys. They were annoying on bikes and the things that boys do.

One time, all three of them (plus the youngest brother of one of them who was 5 years younger) chased my sister and me into our garage. We closed the door on them and laughed in relief.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang. My dad answered and said that it was for me. He went back to the dinner table while my sister and me went to the door wondering what it was.

The younger brother stepped out from hiding and held a plastic bat. One that couldn’t have done anything. My sister and I screamed and we slammed the door shut. After that day, we avoided the boys and even as we grew older, we always regarded them as the bullies of our street.

So earlier this week, I heard from my dad that one of the boys—the chubby one—had just died. Not from natural causes. It was sad as I heard the story from my parents. I never really did exchange any words with any of the boys. Even though we were in the same grade through elementary school, middle school and high school. But childhood is childhood, not predicting the future…at alll.

I don’t lose information

Whenever I hear a friend lose their phone and their cries of agony as they try to recover numbers, I hold my tongue in. They moan about how they didn’t charge their phone and now the battery is almost dead. They borrow a phone and call it, hoping that someone hears it. Silent or not?

I am super-anxious about losing such information because I am a caller, not person who receive calls. And so every time I hear the loss, I immediately go to my computer and anally enter the numbers, names into my address book. The address book that syncs automatically with my ipod. And the address book that I sync up occasionally with my yahoo address book. Oh that reminds me that I should do it again.

And I charge my phone regularly. Two bars of battery? That means that I should find a charger soon.

Even as much as I can be messy, every time I walk out my door, I immediately stick my hand in my bag to make sure I have 3 things in my bag. My wallet. My phone. My keys. And on other events, my camera.

In some way, that saves a lot of grief.

Or in some way, I am just lucky…

Hookers on Friday

Movies about Hookers

In the dark parking lot of Rainbo Bread on 16th, they projected several films. I walked there after grabbing dinner at home, trying to think of something to do and found this film fest on Laughing Squid.

I had expected the crowd to be…a closeknit tribe, all knowing about the films made. But surprisingly, there were wanderers of all sorts. A man carried a cardboard box of snacks. Bread, sliced fruit, etc. As he walked by, I could smell the baked goods, but like everyone else, I shook my head politely. Don’t take food from strangers especially in a dark parking lot.

We stood in a group—of about twenty or so—watching the film on wall of graffiti. A film satire about technology for the hooker—a gps device that could be embedded in the hooker’s shoes so that she could find friends and protect herself if ever needed. Then a film about sex workers in South America. And another about the trade between United States and South Asia. And yet another about a prostitute that was progressive and bought a new wave of thinking.

It was all interesting standing there at 9:30 pm in my flip-flops. Most were in couples. Some curious. Some knowing. Many had arrived by bike or foot. Holding hands or hands to their sides. The hipster outfit. The outfit from a fancy dinner—a girl hanging onto the guy.

The film editing was somewhat awkward and clumsy. Shots that lingered too long and cuts that should have been more smoother.

Eventually I did leave…adding another experience to my book.

Mr. Ted

Visit ted.com if you haven’t already.

It was designed by the firm where I work. I arrived after I could get on the project.

Like many people, I never knew what TED was besides the “discount” united airlines version. At first, it seems like a site with little engagement. A bright red logo and lots of white. But on closer inspection, it’s a site subtlely laid in media and commentary. And the content is all well thought-out accentuated with high-quality videos. There’s little forgettable commenting.

And check out the navigation. Oh yeah.

Chubba fingee

I never liked chubby fingers. If you asked me, what I find the most appealing (physical) aspect of the opposite gender, it’s the hands. Specifically fingers.

A friend rationalized my reasoning for me. If someone had chubby fingers, they obviously had some health issues. Overweight. Ungainly. Pleasantly plump. And perhaps, I can rationalize my superficiality.

But right now, I have a chubby left pointer finger due to my allergic reaction to an insect bite conveniently on the inside of my pointer finger. The typical folds I have in my fingers leading to my usual double-jointedness are gone and filled with tautness. All is replaced by this finger that can barely bend at 45 degree angles and itches like crazy.

Early this morning, I stumbled out of bed groping for my Benedryl cream and smeared it all over my finger. Then I curled back into a ball with my finger spread out, far away from my right hand. The right hand that so desperately wanted to rub and scratch that annoying itch.

Smash the pumpkin

In late May, the Smashing Pumpkins concert in late July went on sale. I tried to get tickets, having my sister try to buy them on her computer exactly at 10 am.

Unfortunately, by the time she was able to click the buy button, the tickets had sold out. Nothing left.

I was dismayed, but hey I only liked a few of their songs during the nineties era.

And fortunately, I wasn’t that deluded to go on craigslist to buy tickets. Unbeknownst to many people (and myself), the concert was lackluster and overly gratuitious. Their weeklong stint could not have possibly been worse according the SF Chronicle article.

I told a friend about this and she seemed to have been all-knowing about it—saying that of course she knew that the members of the band weren’t really there. And that the band wasn’t real.

And so the search continues for the next greatest concert to attend.