Listening to: TLC, "What About Your Friends"
Today at 8:21pm: Shooting bricks at the Mission Playground
At Raven Bar this weekend, it was mostly Nineties hip hop (an endangered commodity) and they played the videos along with the songs. Half the time, in-between dancing, I was just watching the TVs thinking about how I'd never seen the video for a particular track. Like the "What About Your Friends" video. Watch that thing, it's Nineties perfection. Of course, having Miley "Twerk" Cyrus stare out from the Youtube ads next to T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli wearing strings of condoms on their baggy pants -- worn to promote sex education and safe sex -- is just, well. It's something. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it.
- TLC : Condom Fashions Are a Political Statement (1992)
- VH1 Thought a TLC Movie Was a Great Idea But the Trailer Indicates Otherwise
I'm currently running around San Francisco for a few weeks, for various things. A houseboat trip, our birthday, a camp wedding, a roast/toast birthday. September in the Bay lined up nicely. The weather was wonderful too, for a second, and I was all like "I should come back!" Then on day three I waited forty five minutes for a bus, got on the wrong one out of impatience, and my trip from Nob Hill to the Mission ended up taking an hour and a half. Aha, that's why I can't do SF anymore.
Well, that was my line of griping until I got my hands on a friend's spare bike. It's a Public Bike and those things are beautiful. The Public Bike bells look like oversized Skittles and it's impossible to not want one. I may get one and I don't even own a bicycle. Ding ding.
Astride a bicycle, I can zip the three miles down Polk Street to Valencia in like fifteen minutes. After a summer spent using the heck out of New York's Citibike, I've decided bicycles are the only real way to get around. Anywhere. I used to love walking around in cities but now I'm just like, "bike, bike, bike" all the time. I was initially fearful of San Francisco's vaunted hills but with the right gear switching, it's not a big deal.
For our birthday, George planned a ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito for brunch. It was an inspired idea and clearly proved that wisdom comes with age. She also suggested we hand out Doublemint gum as favors, because well, that's what twins do. On Saturday morning, our really hardcore bike gang gathered at Sports Basement Presidio and off we went -- two birthday balloons streaming behind us. Well, after the delay of fixing my rear tire. Somehow I managed to blow the inner tube thing not fifty feet from the entrance. Whoops.
The overall ride wasn't hard, really it was a cakewalk, but it felt great. Obviously I like my accomplishments in small doses.
So far, this San Francisco trip has been all about being active and doing things outside. I've barely touched my computer, it totally misses me I'm sure. Between all the biking, tonight's basketball session, and a cardio dance class the other day, I'm freaking beat. I mean, my life is usually pretty sedentary -- and that's the way I like it.
About that dance class. My friend Palak started teaching Doonya: The Bollywood Workout at Metronome Dance Collective and we popped over the other day to check it out. Let me just say that I have newfound respect for all that hopping around. I was winded after fifteen minutes, wanted to collapse after thirty, but somehow found the strength to make it through to the end. I'm pretty sure I've never taken any cardio classes before. By design.
And the last dance class I took was I don't even remember when. So any (in)ability to pick up routines, make sure my hands and feet are approximately where they're supposed to be, stay on rhythm while trying not to fall over, all of it proved impossible. Still, I tried my best and it was super fun. But so sweaty. So so sweaty. Newsflash: Cardio workouts make you sweaty. Shocker! Anyhow, if you want to get your Indian dance on, pop over to Potrero Hill.
Semi-related, here's our other friend in these bhangra competition videos. She is superb. I don't even have to point her out because you can't miss her. She's the one that's the best.
Thankfully they now have a permanent location on 19th and Valencia. Please visit them because otherwise the Mission will be bereft of boba. And we can't have that. Their menu also features a horchata drink plus boba. Why has this not been invented before? Absolutely delicious. I've already been to Boba Guys three times this past week, and would have gone a fourth time tonight if they hadn't closed already.
That's another thing I forgot about San Francisco: Everything closes so damn early. We left Raven Bar around two, when we were barely warmed up. How are people supposed to get some proper birthday dancing in around here?! On the ride home, George and I kept repeating, "It's over? It feels so early. It's really over?"
