Last Saturday night I had a fever, but I went out anyways because it was Josh's art opening and he's a good guy.  There were beautiful girls there, with a few solid DJs, and just good people in general.  I was trying to dance my fever out of me, which worked for the most part.  At one point I went with the music and picked up my footwork, when all of a sudden I felt this sharp pain.  This cool guy named Joe had his dog with him at the art opening, which was like, a cool thing to do.  His dog was running around the place and every cool kid at the opening played with her.  Then the dog got real excited and bit me.  It hurt a bit, but everyone else was acting all cool.  I thought, maybe this is what people with dogs go through all the time.  I tried to keep my cool, my skin broke but my pants were fine, so I went about my business.  The cool guy Joe went on to play with his dog, and he was all like "yeah, it's ok, she's friendly and excited" or whatever it was that cool people say to you when their dogs bite others.  It didn't hurt much, but the pain also didn't go away.  Then I went on dancing, and the dog bit me again.  The dog bit a few more people too, but everyone went on goofing and drunk.  It wasn't until much later when my friend Kate said "you know, that wasn't cool how Joe just let his dog bite everyone like that" when I realized oh, even cool hip 20 somethings get bothered when dogs bite them.  Now, as nice and friendly of a hipster as Joe is, I'm gonna cool hipster friendly slap him in the face the next time I see him.  Not to hurt him, 'cause I like him, but you know, just to make matters right again.

my legs, this morning:
right leg

left leg



Last Saturday was a strange day.  Four people thought I was Filipino on four different occasions.  Nobody had ever said that to me before.  A bag lady at the Safeway came up from behind me and said "excuse me, ma'am."  I turned around, and she got terribly embarassed.  I told her it was ok, but she acted like she just talked trash about Jackie Chan or something.  She said "I said ma'am because your hair is very beautiful."
"Thank you."
"Many girls want to have hair like you."
"Thank you."
"I know many Filipino girls have hair like this."
"Thank you."
Pause.  Then she asked me, "Are you Filipino?"
"No."
"Oh."  She just looked super defeated, like she insulted both Jackie Chan and my mom.  I kept on smiling at her, but she was making a big deal out of her words.  I didn't know what to say, so I told her, "Well, my godmother is Filipino."
Her eyes came back alive and she said "Ooooh, so you half!"
I said "No no, godmother."
Pause.
Then she said "A quarter Filipino?"


Two weeks ago Alison and I did our regular walk to pick up kids from the Tenderloin school.  It was her birthday the day before; I offered to buy her ice cream.  The convenience store has nothing of her liking, but I got myself a triple chocolate drum stick.  It was big a delicious, for about 30 yards, until we walked by a free clinic and saw a man with a cane, slowly keeling over and eventually smashing his head on the sidewalk.  We went up to him to lift him up, but he was in too much pain.  He was in his 40's, unintelligible and barely conscious.  While Alison and another bystander went to get help, I stayed with the man.  There wasn't much I could do, he was in tremendous pain all over (it was the pain that led him to fall over).  I wanted to eat my delicious ice cream, but people kept on looking at me like I was this asshole, towering above a sick man with my ice cream.  I carefully re-wrapped it and put it down on the front steps of the clinic.  The guy was still unresponsive for the most part, I was finally able to get him up, but he was in too much pain to walk three feet to sit on the front steps.  I just held him in my arms to prevent him from falling over again.  A small circle began to gather around us.  I kept on looking over to make sure my ice cream was alright.
Alison sent the other bystander to our school, to tell our kids and co-workers that we were running late.  An ambulance claimed to be on its way, but was slow to show up.  An old guy walked by and declared "oh yeah, I know this guy!"  then proceeded to tell us his entire medical history.  Only in Tenderloin you can run into strangers that can recite everyone's medical history.  The fallen man was a stroke victim; his back was in constant pain, but couldn't afford an operation.  As a result he became addicted to methadone.
The helpful old man started slowly and surely hitting on Alison.  He wanted Alison to take him out to dinner, Alison smiled and played deaf.  25 minutes later, the ambulance still had not showed up.  I relayed all I'd seen to the helpful bystanders and had to go meet the kids with Alison.  I picked up my ice cream, which was still intact, and asked Alison if it was still good.  Alison said yeah.  I unwrapped it and took a bite.  Then I saw the corner of the front door of the clinic, out of the corner of my eye, and saw a chocolate stain.  I was sad and threw away may ice cream. 
A week later and it was still there: