when i first moved to san francisco, in 1997, i had never eaten any ethnic food in my life. well, i guess that isn't true, because i grew up on military bases in germany, and ate a lot of german food, which is technically ethnic. i had also eaten homemade italian, and homemade mexican (old el paso), but taco bell was my only experience with mexican. i hadn't ever had chinese, indian, thai, etc.
right now, as i eat fake-meat orange chicken from the local chinese place, i'm reminded how fucking nuts i went over sesame chicken when i first got to SF. we (me and tuggy) used to order it ALL THE TIME and it was so incredibly syrupy and disgusting and ghetto and i loved it so much. it would not be long before i also learned to love indian food and authentic burritos too. i have my friend brendan to thank for the indian food, and also for the fact that i finally learned to type with both my hands instead of hunting and pecking super fast with one.

what if i legally change my name to elly jonez?

last night i tripped out, out loud, to my religions class about how taoism is a feminine religion because it is about the potential of the void, and the earth. does this mean empty chairs are taoist, because they are about the potential of being sat in? does this mean artwork about empty chairs is a feminist statement? discuss.

today is a very warm day in san francisco. it doesn't happen often - it's even warm in the shade. people are going around in flip flops and skirts. in cafes, and on the sidewalk, if i squint, i can pretend i'm in brooklyn or even the dean and deluca on broadway. i'm definitely steeped in some kind of nostalgia or just a skewed sense of time and space. i also am stuck remembering a week that was like this in 98 or 99 and i was just getting to know xep and eric and the evenings were balmy and we were all amazed.
i'm sitting around on the couch in a slip and cropped pants, all the windows are open, KCRW is playing, and i'm geeking out hard on fun work things on my new laptop. life is fairly simple and pretty great.

ok, i have just finished episode 22 of veronica mars, the season finale. now perhaps i can go on with my life. and yes, i am talking about television in my... no.. no i won't say it. horrible. oliver hooked me up with the whole season of veronica mars, and i watched episodes every time i had a spare moment, and sometimes when i didn't actually have a spare moment. but now, it is over, i have watched them all, and i am free. free to do what, i'm not sure, but i feel relieved.
goings on:

we've been researching and testing various open source content management systems at work, in preparation to migrate our huge 10 year old legacy site into one. our situation is somewhat unique, and we are understaffed in that nonprofit way where everyone is just good at/used to chaos, so the vetting process has been a little nebulous and stressy. we've looked at a few, but plone is the current focus of our attention. i have been working on setting up the templates using the wacky plone-specific templating language (DTML). it has been immersive and compelling, but causes me to feel a little spacy and out of it after focusing on it for a while. i've really been enjoying the whole process of CMS research and investigation, though it makes me nervous to be making such an important decision - one that will affect the daily activities and workflow of almost everyone at my workplace. my boss is in the shit right alongside me and helping a lot with technology sanity checks. still, it's a huge undertaking and it's consuming my mind.

i am trying this new thing where i force myself to work only during specific hours of the day, and actually work when i'm working, instead of getting distracted by everything and sitting there stressing out instead of working. this is based at least partially on having read this article about a four day work week on alistapart.com. i've only conciously done this for one day (today), and it went very well, but then i checked workmail at 10pm and got momentarily involved with a task. oops.

i've been reading a feng shui book that oliver left here, and now i'm thinking about the "eight point system" all the time, and looking at the different feng shui "points" (money, marriage, career, etc) in almost every room i'm in, and trying to interpret the meaning of the items located in them. i'm probably doing it wrong, because i've been trying to use feng shui as a system of divination instead of a proactive system of spatial organization. i want to learn about people's personalities and motivations based on what areas of the house they store their clutter. this is mentioned in the book, a little, but i'm pretty sure i'm reverse engineering it somewhat. but, maybe not. i don't actually know, because i've only read part of this one book. but, i'm already busy recalibrating my world view to include feng shui. this is slightly concerning, because i know i've only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to taoist divinatory practices, and don't know if my mind can contain many more arcane astrological systems of interpreting space and time. actually, i'm sure it can, and that's actually what i'm worried about.

i especially liked the advice in the book about bed placement: do not place your bed with one side against a wall, "unless you want to be alone." the context of the statement kept it from sounding like a threat, and instead it just seemed like simple advice. if you need to be alone for a while, push your bed against the wall, no problem. i smirked as i read this... in my bed.. which has one side against a wall.

my 'survey of world religions' class requires a 10 page paper on "whatever we want, as long as it is related to religion," due very soon. i pressed my instructor for some further guidelines and he suggested we write about something we'd "want to talk about at a party." ai yi yi. my idea is to write about taoist concepts in contemporary art. i'm excited. i need to get started. i also totally want to go to the party where talking about taoism in contemporary art happens. i will be sure to wear my black turtleneck.

also, it has been hot, and sunny, and i have been drinking lots of tasty coffee and wearing sandals and feeling mostly okay, if a little wound up and stressed out at times. i've been having small amounts of concern and ennui about how utterly un-radical my life is these days. i feel impatient about it, but i also know that this is just that time, the time when you do the same thing every day for a while, and you have some peace, and you get some boring ass saturn return logistical shit in order so that you can kick ass later, when it really counts. i'm not really 'hibernating' as much as just getting my ducks in a row and gently enjoying every single beautiful day and every painfully dull but absolutely glorious moment.

...

and! i can't stop wearing my new shirt!!

and, i've noticed that monday night is often more relaxing than the weekend for me. i think because i usually feel good from getting work done, and, i don't have to worry about how monday is coming soon.