Open Letter: To Giants fans who ride MUNI and BART

Dear you guys,

It's not what you think.

I know it's been a while. I know that usually I greet you with glares and scowls and am not very nice to you when you're yelling a lot on buses that I get stuck riding on game days. I know that when I left, we were not on the best of terms, because MUNI and BART were places of peace for me, and if I couldn't get my afternoon nap as I took my L car home from Berkeley every once in a while, I was quite a grumpy Gus.

I miss you.

On the one hand, I miss you because you were on streetcars, ergo streetcars existed. Holy mother of Baldr, I miss streetcars. I miss my smooth (well...) rides through the tunnels and around the curves at West Portal and down Taraval all the way to home.

But it's more than that. I miss you.

It's the impossible, I know: me, missing seasonal loud, orange herds on the MUNI? Who even am I anymore? But I do!

We didn't always have very much in common, you guys and me, or at least not while you were caught up in the spirit of Finland's national sport (seriously, it's baseball). But there was one thing we had in common: San Francisco.

You love her. I know you do. And so do I.

The sports here are college sports. Everyone wears red and white--I'm sorry, cream and crimson--and then the cars block up the streets between us and the grocery store, and college kids yell a lot and barbecue stuff, and frankly, I don't trust them with fire.

Look, this is hard for me to admit, but it really does feel wrong, the red and white thing. I'm not even sure what the Indianapolis baseball team is called. (Unless it's the Colts, in which case, I totally know it, but I thought that was football or something, and I can't keep ALL the sports straight. Like I said, this is difficult enough as it is.)

So while I'm apologizing, I've got a few more to get off my chest. About you guys, I mean.

• I'm sorry for all the times I said I was a Yankees fan just to make Giants fans angry. 
• I'm sorry for the times I was all "but why wouldn't you want to root for winners instead?" to Giants fans, because I know you guys won the World Cup or something last year (or something). 
• I'm sorry for the time I called it the World Cup in my last apology. I know very well that it's the Super Cup.
• Sorry. I know. World Series. Couldn't be helped.
• I'm sorry I pulled my hood over my head and slouched over like a zombie person in my seat to try and scare you. I'm pretty sure no one bought it.

Let us never speak of this again.

xoxo
Adriane

Bloomington: Unemployment is my favorite kind of employment

That's not entirely true, nor am I entirely unemployed, because I have friends who let me do little telecommuting things every once in a while, hallelujah! and so I can do SOMEthing to keep my mind from turning into a jellyfish (although how cool would it be to be all "you guys, I've got nothin but a neural net! Suck on THAT!").

Anyway, working is good, money is good, thinking is good. But I am, as my mother would (and often has) put it, a bit contrary at times, so I've also done as much as possible to move my brain in a mush-like direction, or at least to keep it fat and happy, as it were.

No one thinks you're clever, Apocalypse.

I've spent a lot of time on Instant Netflix, which you probably already knew or could have guessed. After finishing The Cosby Show, I began to watch the 90s X-Men cartoon from beginning to end, because aside from the first episode, which my brother and I can basically recite from beginning to end and a lot of Storm battle cries and Jean Gray actual cries, I don't remember that many specifics.

The specifics, as it turns out, all point to one conclusion: X-Men was a weird cartoon.

Not that this is a bad thing! There's a lot of good, hearty dark stuff thrown in there, a lot of salient plot points that I didn't think they'd actually put into the cartoon from the comics. Plus, of course, Jubilee's voice actor was Loonette the Clown on Big Comfy Couch, so ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

MARY JANE THINKS YOU'RE A LOOOSERRRR

But good, hearty dark stuff can just get so dark, and so I've sort of drifted away from X-Men for the time being. I tried moving on to the 90s Spider-Man cartoon, which I remember as being absolutely hilarious.

And sometimes, it is. But by the last season, it's just as depressing as X-Men, but with more of a focus on Peter Parker's internal angst. And guess which season I started with?

(I brought this upon myself. I should have known that Peter wouldn't be talking to his gargoyle friend Bruce in the Hydro-Man episodes. Stupid Hydro-Man episodes. Even my mom gets creeped out by the Hydro-Man episodes.)

Oh, hey, Hank is being judgmental, try to act surprised.

So I gave up on that, too. I tried to remember what other things I actually used to do with my time during the summer, and I remembered that Royal Pains exists (in spite of its blatant disregard for how thoroughly they developed the sexual tension between Divya and Evan in the first season, because apparently overarching plot lines and relationships on summer shows mean absolutely nothing these days). So I watched the entire summer season in two days and it oozed in and out of my brain very quickly, if we're going to get all graphic about it.

I dabbled in some other shows, most of which I've seen before. Psych, for example. NewsRadio, of which I never tire. I watched that movie You Again, which needed a million times more Betty White to be remotely worth the time I spent on it. Whatever.

But, dear readers, a ray of sunshine: TV is back.

Oh, hey, Martin is being judgmental, try to act surprised.

Or it's starting to come back, anyway. Doc Martin is back, REJOICE! It only ever lasts for what, eight episodes a season? But no one cares, because every episode is beautiful. Doc Martin is a perfect show. My heart broke and mended itself like... twice or something over the course of the first episode, in the best possible way. Everything else can suck it. And when does Lost come back? Just kidding, I'll never allow my heart to belong to any other TV show again, because they all end. Doc Martin is the last one. Ever. Full stop. If it ever ends, I'll probably go back to reading books; that's how much I hate the emotional ups and downs of the capricious world of television. No more shows.

Oh, except for one.

I don't quite know what to say about this.

America's Next Top Model has returned for its seventeenth cycle, apparently an All-Star cycle, and while the first episode was relatively lackluster considering what it could have been with so many past crazy diva types on it, I have high hopes. Between Lisa who peed in a diaper in cycle 5, Bianca who implored Saleisha to "check her thighs out in the mirror" in cycle 9, and Camille from the second cycle whose signature walk was supposed to make her famous, among other, ah... personalities, this cycle can't be anything less than ridiculous. And so, Top Model, you have my attention, which is, I think, exactly what you wanted, n'est-ce pas?

That concludes my TV adventures. I've also been playing video games; 1993's Eagle Eye Mysteries in London and the fourth edition or something of Oregon Trail are teaching me all the things I've forgotten since I last played them each a decade or so ago. Bless.

Eagle Eye Mysteries taught me that Hans Holbein was Henry VIII's court painter, and the British Museum is awesome.

Oregon Trail taught me that some people have too much time on their hands...

...and that some pioneers look like Robert Louis Stevenson.

In conclusion, you should all watch NewsRadio.

Bloomington: Attitude meets altitude

Don't start with me.

I'm trying to reregulate my sleep schedule, which has taken a turn for the worse since my husband started work. Currently, the pair of us wake up at 7, he goes to work at 8, and I go back to bed. Yesterday I spent 12 hours asleep total, and so here I am, blogging at 8:30 in the morning because I'm too tired to do anything else.

Wait no I mean stay on this page it's going to be full of quality.

Anyway, have I mentioned that Bloomington is flat?

It's hard to take pictures when there's so much sky.

I think I spent a lot of my childhood aware of the fact that San Francisco was full of hills. From the time I learned to walk, this was never in question. What I failed to understand was that other places are not the same as San Francisco. As you've seen thus far, my journey toward a full understanding of this has caused me considerable confusion, and I'm still not quite sure why anyone bothers to build cities where there is no ocean, for without ocean, there is no ocean, and will someone please explain to me why this happens but that is neither here nor there. I do miss the ocean. Every day.

Hills, on the other hand... I can live without 'em.

Aww, but just look how happy they are.

Or so I thought. At first, my legs were grateful for the break, especially with the amount of walking that must be done when I don't feel like paying bus fares (which is all the time. Hurrah, unemployment). Now, though, I am sitting and watching them jitter up and down on the adjacent chair, as if they think they're going anywhere today. The joke's on them, because no. I am tired and my exploding head syndrome has been acting up and I am sick of it. Adriane OUT.

P.S. This post was going to have lots of pretty food pictures but NO YOU HAVE TO WAIT I AM TOO TIRED.

P.P.S. I AM AN ADULT AND I CAN CAPS LOCK IF I WANT

P.P.P.S. xoxo

P.P.P.P.S. which reminds me, Top Model comes back next Wednesday! TEAM SHEENA 4LYFE!

Bloomington: Season 2, Ep. 11

There's one other thing that I've learned from sitting around the house and avoiding the 90+ degree weather, and that is that Mojovision was a really weird episode.

Ummmmm kay.