Dance for Pride
This afternoon I went to the Gay Pride party at Civic Center. Pictures speak louder than words, so here are some pictures of my three favorite people that shared the dance floor with me.
The candy raver
My best friend for the day, Kaj
The super hot DJ with the blue mohawk
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.: posted by Vera 
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Refactored clothing
Remember when Ariel got all crafty earlier this year and made a bus load of warmies of which I bought a pair? She got children's sweaters, cut off the sleeves and made them into leg warmers and then made the torso of the sweater into a hat.
I just did something similar. It didn't involve any sewing though, just cutting. I took an old fuzzy hoodie I don't wear anymore and cut off the sleeves to make leg warmers. Then I realized that I could still wear the rest of the sweater as a vest! It made for a rather cute ensemble, don't you think? Suddenly I find myself eyeing all the hoodies in my closet.
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.: posted by Vera
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Like, oh my God, is that a COFFEE SHOP?
You may know that there is a cute little country in Europe where you can buy marijuana legally.
You may also know that the places that sell marijuana in Holland are called coffee shops.
You may not know that I grew up about 30 miles from the border between Germany and Holland.
As you can probably guess, I grew up in a German-speaking environment. Coffee shops where I grew up aren't called coffee shops. They are called Cafés or Kaffeeläden. The word coffee shop meant nothing to me. Until in the early nineties I started hearing about the coffee shops in Holland.
I was by no means a stoner as a teenager. Oh no. I was much too well-behaved for that. But many of the people I knew were, you know, trying it out.
One of the first things I did when I came to the United States as an exchange student in 1993 was pose in front a New York City coffee shop. I had a stranger take a picture of myself with the words "coffee shop" in plain view hovering over my grinning, knowing head. I thought I was being so clever. A coffee shop! I'm SO SURE people drink coffee in there. Yeah right! I'm sending this picture to the stoners back home.
Ah, German tourists.
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.: posted by Vera
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He didn't pick me up; he THREW me up
V (talking to a Cute Boy At a Party): Blah blah blah blah blah hooping.
CBAP: You're quite good at the hooping.
V: Thanks. I get a lot of practice.
CBAP:
V: Every Sunday.
CBAP: You hoop Sunday mornings?
V: No, Sunday afternoons. Sunday mornings I sleep.
CBAP: Ah, sleep. I'd like to see where you sleep.
V: LOL.
[...]
V: All right, I'm going to go now. It was nice to meet you.
CBAP: Where are you going?
V: Home.
CBAP: Who's coming with you?
V: Nobody.
CBAP: Can I come?
V: LOL. I don't think so, buddy.
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.: posted by Vera
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Anniversary x2
Once again I missed my blog anniversary by a day. Yesterday the Subastral Lilipad turned two years old. Unfortunately, its design also turned two years old but I can't be bothered to care about that.
We have seen a lot together, haven't we, Lilipad? We started out in the Richmond. Then we moved to Twin Peaks. Then we moved to Potrero Hill, where we have been our happiest and where we are still now, a year later. This is post #698. Wow. That's a lot of posts. Remember the day we got comments? That was exciting. You rock, Subastral Lilipad. Thanks for always being there for me.
Also, today is my eight year anniversary of moving to the U.S. permanently. I lied in this post. I didn't come here on June 16, 1996 but on June 17, 1996. EIGHT YEARS! That's two sevenths of my life.
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.: posted by Vera
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In honor of a memory
Today I thought about the day I got my blue glasses. Not my last pair of glasses but the ones I had before that. I think I got them in February 2002.
After picking them up from the optometrist, my then-boyfriend and I went out for dinner. I happen to know exactly what I was wearing. Today I wore the same thing just because I could. In honor of the memory, you know? Do you ever do that? I do this kind of shit a lot, actually. It's called OCR - obsessive-compulsive reminiscence.
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.: posted by Vera
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No, not tonight
Last night for the first time in months and months and months I said no to dancing and partying. I said no to Breaktivism and no to Lightrhythm, which my dear co-worker Erin had personally invited me to, and no to hanging out with 109 of my closest friend from the SF underground party scene. Instead I hung out with just one person. One good old friend.
We ate amazing tapas at Andalu, and then we rented two movies and watched them at his house. It felt very liberating to say no to the party and yes to this.
For the last few months I have been a social energizer bunny. I have been making lots of new friends on varying levels of superficiality, burnt lots of calories dancing and hooping my ass off all over the Bay Area and beyond, have had plenty of fulfilling interactions, and have fallen into bed flushed and rushed and with the sun creeping under my covers at least once a week.
I think something changed yesterday. Maybe in the coming months there will be more nights that are quiet and early, and in return maybe the quiet I open my eyes to in the morning won't feel quite so empty and threatening.
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.: posted by Vera
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Rush
Sometimes, at about 3 in the afternoon, I'll have a mocha. And then next thing I know it's 5 o'clock, and then next thing I know it's 6, and 7 and 8 and 9, and I'm still at work, and I don't even care, I'm having so much fun, there's nowhere I'd rather be than in that cube by the wall, there's nothing I'd rather do than code away and debug and problem-solve and troubleshoot, and the music in my ears sounds better than ever, and I'm so happy and productive and content.
And then I wonder why I don't drink coffee more often. It's a most fabulous anti-depressant.
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.: posted by Vera
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Lingering
I am still connected to Moontribe through my shirt. I just realized that the shirt I am wearing right now is the shirt I put on Friday morning when I crawled out of my tent, and I haven't taken it off since. I wore it during my last few hours at Moontribe, then during the ride back home and then I slept in it all of last night. I think I'm going to take it off now.
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.: posted by Vera
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Moontribe Part II
I just got up from sleeping for twelve hours straight. I got back from the Moontribe 11 year anniversary last night.
When I first found out that this party was in the middle of the week instead of on a weekend (the full moon was at 8:20pm on Wednesday, June 2), I didn't think I would be able to go. But I asked for Thursday and Friday off from work and I got what I asked for.
Last year I went with Philo. This year I went all by myself.
This year I also did not lock the keys in the trunk of my car, and I had a tent with actual poles! That's progress.
I left Wednesday night right after work. The 5 1/2 hour drive went by really fast. I was driving straight towards the full moon for a good portion of the drive, which was really nice. "Yep, that's where I'm going," I thought to myself.
I arrived around midnight. I tried to set up my tent with my brandnew headlamp but quickly gave up. You need two people to do that. This is the only real problem with going to an event like this all by yourself. I went down to the dance floor and danced and hooped, and in the early morning hours recruited a nice man to help me set up my tent. Incidentally, his car had followed my car on the windy dirt road up to the spot. He had spotted the hoops in the back of my car and knew that I would lead him the right way.
Unfortunately I couldn't sleep. I had a warm tent and ear plugs, but my system would not shut down.
So I went back to the dance floor. The sun was out now. I ran into a surprising number of people I know, including quite a few from San Francisco. I stuck around for a "sick electro set" DJ Danny had "warned" me about, and then I went to the water fall, which I had missed out on last year, with a very nice boy.
After that I laid in my tent for about five hours but didn't sleep much of that. I got up at dusk and went dancing. I soon realized that I was too tired to dance. This is when the vicious cycle started. I went back to my tent and tried to sleep. But I couldn't. So I went dancing again. Then I realized again how tired I was and went back to my tent. But I couldn't sleep. This happened several times throughout the night. But we won't dwell on it. I think I did manage to doze off for a little while in the very early morning because at one point I opened my eyes, and it was light out.
In the morning I hooped my ass off for a while and finally met Christabel and then I took off around 10:30am, realizing once again that I was too tired to hoop or dance.
On the way back, which surprisingly went by really fast again, I had what is probably the best sensory experience of the entire trip. After about two hours of driving, I stopped for some caffeine. And as I slowly walked from my air-conditioned car to the convenience store with my legs aching from dancing and hooping for two days and the hot sun pounding down on me, my tired body felt better than I could even believe. Exhaustion can be a good thing.
Today, I am still very exhausted. Also, my voice is mysteriously absent.
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.: posted by Vera
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I am the freak I have always wanted to be
Screw a published article and a microphone at a conference and a raise. Let's talk about a real personal accomplishment.
The first time I came to San Francisco in October of 1993, I really admired the freaks. You know, the sad sad goths and the green haired ravers and the punk who kept shouting "fuck you!" Back then I tried really hard to be a freak myself by dressing a certain way, but you can only get so freaky by merely changing your look. [Or not. I still haven't quite figured that out.] I felt tremendous amounts of admiration for the San Francisco freaks I saw during my first trip, and I knew that I wasn't like them because whenever one of them as much as looked at me, I shat my pants.
But on Sunday I felt like I was one of the freaks I had admired from a distance over ten years ago. We were hooping at Union Square. That's all it took. Maybe it was the more conservative crowd that flocks to Union Square that made me feel like the counterculture. Maybe it was the outfit I was wearing - some old raver pants and a hat pulled low into my face - that made me feel like an underground bgirl. Maybe it was the stage-like part of Union Square that we were on and the stares of the crowd that made me feel like a street performer. Maybe it was the large caffeinated beverage Philo bought for me that made me imagine things.
All I know is that I kept thinking "I am finally the freak I have always wanted to be. I am fucking bouncing around in a hula hoop at Union Square with a boombox while tourists are staring at me." If the Vera from 1993 had seen me, she probably would have wanted to be just like me when she grew up. And how cool of an accomplishment is it to be able to say that?
Update: Jason sent me a picture from that day. Thanks, Jason!
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.: posted by Vera
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