Haecceity.nu

I’m back from my just-over-a-week-long visit to New York and have realized that San Francisco is indeed growing on me, I actually missed quite a few things about it! But I will still always miss certain things about NYC, too. As a given, missing family & friends is assumed in this list post. :P
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So far, the new year hasn’t been good to me. I’ve been sick with the flu, so I’ve been stuck at home with a fever and cough and all sorts of other terrible symptoms—not fun. I’m hoping this isn’t a bad sign, though. I have a lot of things I’d like to do in the new year, and what better way to remember than to type them down into this blog that I rarely update?

So, here they are (in no particular order):

Design more things for fun and/or for myself.
The only design work I’ve done in the past year or so has been for clients, an internship, or my job. Thus, even the very act of opening an Adobe application feels like work to me. I’d like to put a stop to that, I want my creative process to be fun again and, well, more creative.

Take more photos and learn how to use a camera properly.
I’ve always been thoroughly intrigued with photography and I love taking photos. However, I have no idea what the ISO setting is for or what it does and I’ve only just recently learned what “HDR” stands for (it’s High Dynamic Range). I’d love to find a place to take a class in old school film photography to get my feet wet, but that may be expensive and/or hard to find, I’m not sure. (It might also be too time-consuming for me, who knows.) Either way, if I can’t do that, I’d like to either get a book on digital photography (I prefer this over googling for stuff the internet, don’t ask me why. I just like books.) or take a class. Or something.

Take belly dance or other type of dance lessons weekly.
I took belly dance classes for a little while while I was interning in Chicago, and I enjoyed it. Besides that I haven’t taken dance classes (I used to take tap, jazz, AND ballet!) since I was about 18 and I miss it profusely. I also feel horribly out of shape.

Be in better control of my Diabetes.
I make this resolution every year but to be honest I am horrible at keeping it. My A1C has been hovering around 9 for a while (normal is like 6 or 7, sometimes as low as 5) and I’d like to start getting that down to a better level. I want to take better care of myself because I’m sick of always feeling sick, you know? I’m hoping this bought of the flu is enough motivation for me to finally seek out the doctors I need (still need both a PCP and an Endocrinologist), get a new insulin pump (possibly, I think I’m due for a new one), and get back on track. To start I need a new log book that I can actually write things in, the one I have now is not only old but the boxes are too small to fit any handwriting into, so I’ll have to look into that.

Keep my apartment cleaner.
Everything seems to pile up around us, and it’s starting to get annoying. For instance, we have a pile of cardboard sitting next to the trash can right now that we still haven’t taken out to the recycling bin. Louie’s got a dirty clothes pile next to his bed. I have a pile of mail on my desk. Our suitcases still aren’t unpacked despite being home for almost a week after our vacation. Our entire apartment needs severe dusting and vacuuming of cat hair. Which, I suppose, means we actually have to get a vacuum. But you get the idea.

Go out more, with friends.
I spend all day at work without anyone to really talk to or hang out with. There’s no one at work I’m really friends with. Then I go home and Louie and I watch episodes of Mad Men or play World of Warcraft. Or we work. We don’t do much talking, we’re not very active. So, therefore, I feel kind of like I’m stuck at home all the time (despite the fact that we’re always going out to eat because we hardly ever cook at home). When I lived in NY, I’d go out with my friends almost daily. I love being with people, talking and sharing stories and just forming close bonds. I’ve felt really detached from my friends back in NY since I’ve moved here, I hardly ever talk to them and it’s hard to find a time to because of the time difference, especially with one of them going to school in England right now. I actually feel quite lonely and I definitely don’t want to feel that way anymore.

Explore more.
So, I don’t live in NY anymore. I don’t know this city like the back of my hand, but I’d like to. San Francisco is my new home, so I feel I should. I want to go exploring all the parts of the city I never get to see because I walk 4 blocks to my job and haven’t been much more west than Japantown (excepting a single visit to the Zoo once and Presidio one other time).

Sell my letterpress goods.
I’ve always wanted to have my own Etsy or private online shop dedicated to selling my letterpress creations (postcards, posters, greeting cards, etc). I hope to at least start that sometime this year.

and, finally…

Write more.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be blogging here, but that would be a start. I have a World of Warcraft healing blog I haven’t been keeping up with, too, and I still intend to start a design blog on my portfolio website sometime this year as well. I’d also, ideally, like to get back into writing poetry. My favorite form was always the haiku, which are nice and short and to the point, so writing those should be a good start to get back into it.

I realize that’s quite a bit to want to do in the new year, but I think I can handle it. Maybe. Most of it, at least.

When I lived in New York City, I went to the Ouidad salon to get my hair cut and styled—they specialize in curly hair, and I love and use their products every day. Sadly, there is no Ouidad salon or Ouidad-trained stylist in the SF bay area. :( I’m not sure where to go, so I’ve begun scouring Yelp and Naturally Curly for salon reviews.

Despite my lamentation that there’s no Ouidad stylists in the area, there seem to be plenty who are trained in the “Deva” cut, which is another method for cutting curly hair. I’ve never had a Deva cut before, but it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to try. It won’t kill me, right? (Though, depressingly, the salon that pioneered the Deva cut, Devachan, is ALSO based out of NY.)

I’ve found a few salons that do the deva cut and a few that don’t specify, so I’ll have to make some calls to confirm. Then I’m set to make an appointment somewhere for next weekend, after my birthday, which is when I get paid next.

So, as you’re probably already very well aware, I am a native New Yorker. I was born there, I was raised there, and I have a very biased opinion that it’s the best city in the world (though many non-natives also agree with this sentiment!) and I’m not afraid to tell you about it.

However, now I live in San Francisco—a great city in it’s own right, but certainly not the same and not very easily comparable to the place I still consider “home.” So much is different or “missing” here—buildings aren’t tall enough to blot out the sky, there aren’t enough people, the streets are too wide what a waste of space—and while that leaves me a tad homesick every day it’s not enough to make me say “Well, I hate it here, I hate San Francisco.” Truth be told, I quite like San Francisco. Though cliché, it does remind me of my trips to Europe—winding streets, steep hills, buildings that are not-so-tall. It doesn’t carry with it the quaint, beautiful oldness that European cities have, of course, but it’s still enough to be reminiscent of Paris or Florence. But is it better…?

No, it isn’t. I still think New York is better, sorry! No amount of convincing will make me think otherwise, I can promise you that. I have a superiority complex about it. ;)

I just find it funny that whenever I introduce myself to people, like the teacher of my letterpress class at the San Francisco Center for the Book, they always ask me how I compare SF to NY. Well, actually, my teacher asked me and then quickly said “oh, wait, please don’t go on about how NY is better!” It’s a good thing, too, because otherwise I would have.

So, if I encounter you on the streets of San Francisco you should probably avoid asking me that question unless you genuinely want to hear my sentiments. I think, though, that if Louie is present with me it’s best you don’t. He’s sick of hearing about it, I’m told.

So last week my company had an overnight trip to Healsburg, CA—which is about 2-3 hours north of San Francisco—to celebrate it’s 2-year anniversary. Healsburg is in Wine Country, so after the ride up we had dinner at a winery and partied.

The next day we went for a canoe trip on the Russian River. I shared my canoe with the girl who sits next to me at the office, and we did pretty well! We paddled 5.2 miles from star-to-finish without capsizing or getting stuck more than once. We also only stopped to take a break once. I think the total time it took us to do was 2.5 hours and we were in the middle of the pack—so not last to arrive to shore! It was a lot of fun and I’d totally do it again anytime.

However, the same day I got back home from the trip I was walking to my apartment from picking up some stuff at Walgreens and I ended up slipping on a crosswalk and falling on my ass, with my right leg sliding strangely underneath me. My pinky toe took all my weight as the rest of me crashed down on my leg, so it hurt the rest of my walk home (2 blocks!).

The next day it was bruised and swollen and it still hurts like hell. I think I broke it or sprained it or something, but there’s no way to tell which. :( Treatment is the same for either, anyway. I’m trying to be careful about walking on it but I do have to walk to-and-from work every day. Argh!

I hope it doesn’t take forever to heal.