Sumpin' Witty

Gravitate Towards Jupiter, Downtown Berkeley, CA Once upon a time, I walked into a bar/restaurant in downtown Berkeley, and handed in a resume. Just back from the obligatory, post-college-world tour, I was broke, over-educated, and inexperienced in any line of work other than serving food. I needed a job and my friend Joanna had taken me to Jupiter on my first night living in Berkeley. Of course I fell in love with the ambiance, who wouldn't love an old barn, with wooden beams running throughout and a beautiful brick courtyard with Christmas lights year round? And the pizza and beer were good, so good that I thought, wouldn't it be nice to get this for free during my shift rather than have to pay for it once a week? So in that moment where my resume passed from my hand to that of the manager on duty, Eryn Blackwelder, magic happened, and I proceeded down a path. There are those exact moments in time where you can trace back how your life would have been different if that ...

I've been living in my apartment in West Oakland for just about three years now. That might not seem like a long time to some people, but for me, it is. This is the longest I've lived in one place since first moving out of my parent's house ten years ago. Through college and the years immediately following college, I moved approximately every 10 months to a year. Always getting bored, needing a change in scenery, adapting to the ever changing flow of roommates. Several factors have played into me being so sedentary of late. I was too broke to move. After returning to the Bay Area from what has become known as The Great Mexico Debacle, I simply didn't have extra money to move.  I began living with my boyfriend, Jahsiah. We had only been together for one year before cohabitating, but let me tell you, it was a helluva year. Once you find someone you enjoy living with, that ever changing flow of roommates coming and going seems less appealing than the consistancy of comp...

In 2010 I attended my first, and hopefully not only, Burning Man . I won't go into the details of that experience, mainly because a lot of those memories are rather blurry and not for sharing on public forums. But one thing that I will always remember from that trip was the advice that my friend Sarah shared with me. She had been to several Burns prior, not sure how many, but she was savy. And Burning Man wasn't her only festival experience. So, she decided to share some important information with me. She informed me of FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, and the potenial dangers of suffering from FOMO. See, at something like Burning Man, there are over 50,000 other people doing all kinds of things that you cannont ever imagine. Theme camps, music camps, thousands of art exibits, all scattered around the desert. In one week, you have the chance to see as much of that as possible, or you can never leave the block you pitched you tent on. Either way, you will have an incredible, lif...

A little bit of poetry on this fine Sunday afternoon. It all feels so fake. Like I'm waking up for the first time to realize that all this is nothing more than plastic pawns on a cheap, cardboard chessboard. If it was carved from marble or mahogany, it wouldn't seem to bad. But this, it's all I can do to wait for that day when I hear "Pass Go, Collect $200", and then, just like that, Without waiting to say Sorry, Like a Hungry Hippo, I'm off! Down secret Chutes and up Hidden ladders. If I hurry, I'll be gone before you have the chance to sink my battleship. Careful! Don't break the ice or someone will notice I'm sneaking out, through the Ballroom, with the revolver, and Mrs. Peacock is on my ass! If I can just make it through this Candy Land of distractions and demons. One wrong move, and KeRplUnK! It could all be over before I know it. But like Magic Gathering, there are tricks up my sleeve. And I'm willing to take the Risk...