50 days left

in this awkward and loathesome situation. Damn them! I was going to blog about something happy, like the Haight Street fair or a past performance with the SFGMC. But, now I must vent my frustration so as to not explode at my asinine roommate and illogical landlord. Last night was horrible. I come home to find my friend asleep on the couch, which is fine by me. She hasn't been spending the day at the house and just needed a place to stay until Sunday when she could move into her place. I didn't think it would be terrible if she spent a few nights here considering both of my roommates girlfriends basically live with us. No, I get a call from my landlord at 2 in the fucking morning asking me who clogged the toilet. I responded that I have no idea as I'd been at work and school and rehearsal all day. Then he proceeded to interrogate me about my friend staying on the couch. I began to him that she had only been here for a couple of days when he interrupted me to tell me that she had better be gone in 15 minutes or he would have her arrested for trespassing. Apparently, when I have overnight guests it's a violation of my lease. He waited until 2 to tell me this instead of waiting until morning or telling me earlier so that she could have some place to go. My blood curdled with outrage. Luckily, one of our friends was up late so she went over to his house. After dealing with the police (who came because of a noise complaint) I spoke to him about her stay and he informed me that I would be paying for the utilities that she used. Wonderful. It would not surprise me at all if the guy was a Republican despite being Muslim. Then, I slog back into the house to go to sleep only to discover my roommates having a row about who cleans up after whom and blah blah blah. I explain the story to them only to discover that my straight roommate has sent our landlord a slanderous text message alerting him of my friend's presence and saying something about these gays being "pigs". Wow. At that point, I don't even care. He's allowed to have a bigoted and hypocritical opinion of me if he wants anyways...I could have pointed out that it's not me who leaves refuge like tuna cans, shrimp tails, and used pasta sauce containers in the sink instead of the trash (which he keeps moving around and refuses to take out) but, I only thought of it later. This situation is ridiculous. It has begun to ruin my already arduous summer. I only have to get through June and then parts of July. Whoo...

Beach Party and subsequent emotions

So, I was having an okay time. It was slightly too cold to go topless so, I was walking around in a tank top trying basically trying to do what I did at the other barbecue: be happy and make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. Despite squabbling amongst the intern team, I'm pretty sure everything else went alright. I even found out that this young man whom I find particularly attractive thinks similarly of me. Always good news, I suppose. I met with my friend who has been having housing troubles afterwards so that she could have a place to crash tonight but, her girlfriend called her at the last minute to spend the night. Another good thing for me, I guess. For some reason, after the whole beach party deal I just wasn't feeling it. Life in general, I guess. But, today will be a better one because I'm going out to brunch with my roommate and meeting up with my long lost twin. Today's the Haight street fair as well. I'll have fun.

Dealing with it

Always with the stress.
My friend's room situation has gotten a little bit better. She has a storage facility now and is continuing to look for another place. I'm worried for her and want to be able to do more but, both of my roommates' girlfriends essentially live here and I can't have anyone frequenting our couch be it me or someone else. I am however pushing that by giving her a place to stay as much as I can.
In other news, the intern team at LYRIC has essentially fallen apart. But, not in the way I've predicted. It seems that there was a deepening social rift between two of us that I thought were fine. I feel horrible that nothing could be done to save one from the wrath of the other but, I guess my facilitating skills are something that need to be worked on. Even though it's not my arena to control. Still, I don't like to see my co-workers and friends screaming and yelling or getting screamed and yelled at.
Oh, one positive resolution is that the "Topless" issue has been resolved. Apparently, were going with Quid pro quo on this one: I will NOT have to police the beach with a LYRIC dress code. Good for me and most of the folks out there. I still can't help but feel slightly uncomfortable for those of us that don't feel comfortable (legally or otherwise) being topless on the beach. I wish it were otherwise. But, (to be utterly superficial) at least I get to work on my tan...
I'd really like to see the issues that I have resolved. Other than these specific, immediate ones I'm also worried about: housing, school, work, LYRIC, the Trumpet, Money and other as of now unforseen events that will most likely rear their ugly heads in the future. I'd just like to not think about for right now and enjoy myself at the beach.

Stress I don't need

Last night I get a call from my friend right as I'm getting off of work. Apparently, she's being evicted with NO warning. As in, she has to be out by 6am or her landlord (a disgusting faceless apartment complex) will call the sheriff's department. There is a long, sordid process of questionable legality that lead up to this result but the long story short is that I have to help her move. And so begins my wonderful night. It all starts with us packing her shit into a van that was supposed to be back at Home Depot at 8:30. Of course, we didn't get it back until later but her mother was kind enough to remind us of the fact every 5 minutes or so. Then, we tried to move all of the stuff into my room but, lo and behold my landlord in his infernal douchebaggery is here and won't let us. I can see why, though. She has A LOT of stuff. So then we call her old roommates to see if we can store the stuff at her old apartment. It takes us a while to get everyone on the same page but, ultimately the old roommate draws up a contract saying we have to have her stuff out by 10pm the next day. So we unload the stuff at her old apartment and her mom takes the van back to Home Depot. It's around 9:30 by this point. We get the stuff up to the seventh floor of her old apartment amid the horrible EEHHHHHHH!!!! noise that her elevator emits and try to ignore the dirty looks her old roommates are giving us. Then, we get a call from her mother saying that my friend has her car keys in her purse. Effectively stranding her mother at Home Depot. We eventually finish up and take a taxi out there. Only to discover that NOBODY has the keys. I can't handle it. I simply cannot. Finally, I say to my friend that I need to go to work in the morning and have to leave to get my 5 hours of sleep beforehand. I feel horrible doing this but, there's really nothing I can do. I call her as I get to my house. They found the keys and everything is supposed to be alright. But, somehow I get the feeling like there is going to be a lot more to this series of unfortunate events before it is finally resolved.

Accomplishments

I just wanna put it out there: I got an A- in Counterpoint! Yay for me. I'm feeling like that damn extra credit essay paid off. Even though, it's a minus that means that I am guaranteed my 3.8 G.P.A. this semester. Which I'm somewhat proud of. I wouldn't have minded a 4.0. If only I cared more about History...
But, anyways. today was quite alright. Went to work for 6 hours, then came home and had a pretty good work out session. Then, I went to a LYRIC workshop thingie and got paid $25 to participate. Definitely worth it despite the clunkiness of facilitation. It also made me think even more about what I'm going to say to my supervisor tomorrow about the unpleasantness we had regarding dress code at the beach party. Privilege and Oppression are interesting dynamics to consider. After hanging out with a couple of friends after the workshop, I decided that it would be a good idea to come home and go to sleep. And now I'm blogging, you ask? Well for some reason my body decides to procrastinate on things it should have been doing 3 hours ago. And because I have been checking my SFSU grade printout to see if they've been posted religiously, I discovered an hour ago that I actually did as well as I hoped I would. Hence the title of this post. All in all I'd have to say that today was an alright day. This working only A.M. thing is definitely working out for me.

I've seen the City Lights

shining in the daytime. Yes, it's true. I've finally been to City Lights bookstore of my own accord.Yes, my friend and I went to all of the tourist spots today: North Beach, China Town, Fisherman's Wharf. Somehow these places seem a little less than accessible when you don't spend exorbitant amounts of money on food and meaningless trinkets. We still had fun, though. It will be my last day of fun before I start working Monday through Friday. Still, it won't be that bad.

Privilege and Pride

I've just gotten off of work with LYRIC. Today was one of those informative, yet stressful days. During a discussion about the upcoming beach party, it was brought to our attention that we should make suggestions to everyone in attendance to keep all articles of clothing on at the beach. This immediately raised the question: Why? I feel that at the beach, on a nice day it is perfectly acceptable to go around topless. However, gender confines prohibit those of us who are Bio-female or Female perceived to do so by Law. I understand coming from a professional perspective that perhaps I, a LYRIC staff member, should set an example. What I do not understand is why my comfort level, which is no less valid than anyone else's, should be compromised. I bring up this point only to be attacked by a gender neutral person in attendance who said that I "would use my privilege to sacrifice the comfort of a co-worker" Which, obviously was not my intent at all. Disregarding that words had just been put in my mouth, I proceeded to point out that while LYRIC is trying to make it a safe and comfortable space for everyone, which means I am not going to be going topless despite my desire to do so, it still exists within a society where that is the way it is. It's unfortunate that some of us can't express the way we would like to but, does that mean that everyone should be made to feel uncomfortable? If the issue had been approached in a different, less aggressive way, I would have totally seen it hir way. But, ze had to go about it in hir usual confrontational way which is generally not conducive to conflict resolution. I feel that we did come to an agreement (not necessarily a compromise) but, I also feel that I am being censored in my expression which is exactly what ze says ze is trying to fight against. It's sad that the community must feel divided on the simple issue of attire. It's also sad that now we must police our attendees into adhering to a dress code. So much for community building, eh?