Whole Foods really is the shit. Their salad bar has everything you could ever want (nuts, eggs, tuna, turkey, et al.). It's the only place on Earth that has uncured, nitrate-free bacon. And they even have valet. Oh yeah. Luckily the only one in San Francisco is a few blocks from work...

Why is my green tea orange?



Why am I drinking green tea?



Why are weekends so short?

I went to a dinner party last night where everyone was drinking wine, listening to Marc Almond, and discussing things like the recent election and Bush's failures. I felt like I was in a strange movie. But then the girl next to me started talking to me about Food Network and I felt much better.



What was the dinner, you ask? Let me tell you...



Pureed spinach, chard and kale soup, stuffed squash and creme brulee. Anyone who knows me realizes it took all of my strength to control my gag reflex a few times, but I did, indeed, east a good portion of the vegetarian insanity.

Hospital terror threat? Oh, fantastic!

1) The thumbnails are used for scooping cocaine.

2) MJ's face, with proper care, will look exactly the same as it does now in 10 years.

Scary. I just cannot imagine what this face will look like in 10 years.

I've been taking a new shuttle route to work and the regular driver has sketched me out since my first ride. Something about drivers being too needy with conversation makes me crazy ... and a whole bunch of other things made me feel icky, too. But today sealed it. I was sitting directly behind him and glanced at his left hand. The thumbnail is about AN INCH LONG. That's crazy! I looked at the right hand, same thing, just the thumb. What is this about? Is there some medical condition that requires a person to keep their thumbnails long? What. Is. The. Deal.

I've been taking this customer training class for the past 6 weeks. It's very cheesy, with a poooooorly written book that concentrates on basic principles like "Greet" and "Help." Unfortunately, tons of people in this hospital seem to need that kind of stuff forced down their throats. Anyway, we had our graduation yesterday. Complete with slide show of awful pictures of us played to Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time." I startedlaughing hysterically when the music came on, but no one else was. No one even giggled! What kind of people am I working with?

Weird patient names:



Aurora Miracle

Bloemhard - Blo em hard. High school must have been tough. Or busy. Whatever.

I don't understand why every time Ben leaves his god damn crappy server turns itself off. What is the problem? I turned it back on yesterday and now it seems to be off again. Egads!

I wonder if all of the anti-war protestors spent as much time urging friends and family to vote as they did yelling about a war that doesn't even exist.

TJ's travel problems are nothing compared to mine this evening. I leave work, in the rain, at about 5:40 this evening two blocks down to the MUNI station. I swipe my little card that lets me on and go down to the platform, where a large group of people had already gathered. I could tell immediately that it could be an annoying commute. When the platform is full, it tends to mean that the trains are behind. And in fact, as the stupid little sign buzzed "NN 15 Min" I knew it would be awhile before I got home.



And I don't even TAKE the N train! That was just the NEXT train to come. So I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally the first train comes, and it's completely packed to the gills. Maybe 4 people got on. Rinse and repeat for the next two trains. Finally a J comes (which is the train I take). Maybe 20 minutes has gone by so far. Oddly, it was a 2 car train, which is unusual because the J is always a 1 car (because of the platforms at street level for people to unload, but whatever). So I hop on the 2nd car, and as the doors close I overhear someone who left saying "man I could barely breath on there."



And then I notice the smell. The rank, nasty, rotten, butt-nasty shit smell. And the heat. It's hot, and smells like poop. The air conditioner isn't working, and as I look around for where I'm going to stand, I can see why it stinks. Right near the joint that connects the front from the back, spread across four seats, is feces. Poop, smeared across the seats, with a man standing there guarding them (god knows how he could stand to be right next to there). I head up to the car ahead, which is totally packed, but I manage to stand sort of in a place where I got some of the fresh air.



And this is just the beginning. As some crazy homeless person starts yelling about how it stinks, the train lurches forward into the tunnel. Only to stop about 10 seconds later. We're about 100 feet into the tunnel, the platform can be seen out the back window. And we're still stopped. For 10 minutes. There's poop on the seats and the air conditioning isn't working. Eventually, the operator comes over the intercom and tells us that "both cars can't move because the 2nd one is having an air problem. They're sending another mechanic to have a look."



THEY'RE SENDING ANOTHER MECHANIC?!?!?!!?



The thought starts to occur to us that we may have to break out of this thing if it comes to it. There's still poop smeared on the seats. The homeless man, who smells like cooked sausages, has moved up to the front somehow and has started making goat or sheep noises or something. A lady, who was completely oblvious, comes along and sits on the fecalled seats. UGH! Someone tells her to get up, she does, and then sits on the floor right in front of them. WHY?



FINALLY the train starts to move... but only for about 15 seconds. Then stops again for another few minutes. Then we're off! Buuuutt... it's not over yet. As we head through the tunnel, the operator comes on again. Both cars are going out of service. The next stop will be the last. I don't care at all because I just want to get off the poop-mobile. The train pulls up to the stop, the doors don't open. Well, actually that's not true, one-half of one door (on a train that has 4 doors) clear near the back is open. But the stairs haven't gone out. Noone seems to care though, there's poop on the seats after all.



I leap off (literally) and walk the remaining 8 blocks or so home in the rain. It's strange, because as the throng of people headed down the block from the train with the poop on the seats, there's a sense of comradery among us. Like we'd been through a war or something. We'd survived. And here we were in the rain.



I love San Francisco. I really do.



(P.S. If you happen have a parking space for rent near the Church/20th area....I swear my car doesn't have poop on it, and would love a place to stay.)

Did you know that UCLA's med school is called the David Geffen School of Medicine? David Geffen! That's hideous.

Awwwwwwww, SNAP! It came today! 24 Hours of pleasure... I know what I'm doing this weekend.

Well, last night was definitely forshadowing... I just got to work at 11. I left my house at 8:50, though. How can that be? Well, let me tell ya...



So, I took the 9 bus up to Van Ness because I've been taking that mofo of a shuttle. When the 9:15 shuttle wasn't there by 9:20, the people I was waiting with remarked, "The traffic must be a nightmare." Ten minutes later we found out the traffic lights around Market and Van Ness were out. They fled, but I was determined to get on that shuttle, so they left a package with me that I was supposed to leave with the driver. But when 9:45 hit and that shuttle was MIA, I realized this was a lost cause.



So I had to bust a bitch up to the CPMC offices in the BofA building. Sixth floor, seventh, eighth? I didn't remember so I went to all of them. I got rid of the package and went to the Van Ness subway station, planning to take the N Judah to Duboce Park and walk up to Davies to grab that shuttle, but the fucking station was closed. Flooding. It was not even raining at that point.



Then I was off to Civic Center to try to grab the Bart shuttle, but I just missed it. Like, I watched it drive away. And after waiting another 10 minutes I remembered that the Bart shuttle stops running during mid-morning. I called a co-worked and, sure enough, I had missed the last shuttle. As a homeless man walked passed me signing, "Eat a dick, eat a dick," I lowered my head and trudged down into the subway station to wait for the N (but only after mistakenly going down into BART).



I finally got to Duboce and up the hill to Davies in time to grab the 10:45 shuttle. Two hours after I left my house I was here, at work, at an office that's probably three or four miles from my apartment.



More evidence for why I should never have to leave the house when it's raining or snowing. No good comes of it!

Why didn't the piece of shit fucking Van Ness shuttle come at 5:30? What the hell, that's the last one. So now I'm back in the office using nextbus to plan my torturous bus ride home.



And why do so many people have Veteran's Day off? I don't. I didn't even have that shit off in high school. We just had ridiculous essemblies where the choir sang songs like, "Tears in Heaven." (Don't laugh, I really did have to sing that senior year. "Tears in Heaven" in four-part harmony with a middle-aged woman on piano is sad.)

Holy crap. I've been waiting around for the "big storm" to start all day. So much hype (because it's the first real rain of the season - it only rains here between November and late Spring) but it's been pretty nice so far. Well, until about a minute ago when I heard some of the loudest thunder I've ever experienced. Should be a fun one.

Why do I care about the verdict in the farcical Winona Ryder case? I don't! Not one bit... But then why am I refreshing the Yahoo! News page every few minutes?

It's a Republican nation! Say hello to all the conservative judges Bush can squeeze into the next two years. And please, God, let his reign last only two more years. Although judging by the lack of unity within the Democratic party and the absence of a national platform, who knows what will happen in 2004.

Oh my God, how is it November? What is going on?



Anyway, Halloween? Halloween in SF is so predictable. It went exactly the same as last year. We go to the Castro with a big group, get separated after 20 minutes and then go off on our own before getting bored and leaving. There is always an insane number of people swarming the closed-off streets between Church and Castro, though. Kind of fun to check out costumes. My favorite was Monica Seles, until I saw the huge meat cleaver glued onto her back and then it disturbed me.



Speaking of costumes, Ben shocked me and actually dressed up, as a raver. Totally dead on. And me? I was a lesbian. Or an anti-war protester. Whatever. Pictures soon I'm sure.