You know what else is annoying? When you write up a brilliant entry and post it and then come back the next morning and check your weblog and don’t see it there. So apparently you just dreamt you wrote it, and now you have to “re-write” the whole thing all over again. What a process, man. My dream- versus my real-life needs to get it together already.

So, anyway, I guess that means I didn’t really write about meeting up with Elysium, photographer extraordinaire and all-around cool Canadian who was in San Francisco recently, so here goes all the various randomness that I remember off the top of my head. (Don’t you hate it when you decide to write things three weeks later, and thus forget everything?) [I just typed out this post and re-read it one more time, and that part about forgetting stuff was a big fat lie because, damn, is my memory good!, even three weeks later, as you will see. Freakin’ hell, man, how did this post get so long? Just how?] And, yes, I always seem to write about things at least three weeks later. This procrastination is a disease.

Clearly, Canadians think they’re
cool, and I don’t even mean weather-wise
Originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I always associate Elysium more with flickr than I do with Blogistan, which is just as well for you all, I suppose, since he’s the one who kept extolling the virtues of flickr and made me realize that flickr, too, has a community aspect all its own, just as weblogs do. So without his marketing, you wouldn’t be seeing photos around here once in a while – and definitely not that pretty banner I’m in love with, which comes from this photograph.

I was first “introduced” to Elysium sometime last year by HijabMan, so we bonded through our common love for HMan and his wild, ’80s songs-filled voicemessages. Telling Elysium that my father was a onetime Canadian citizen who keeps hinting that he’s going to move back to Vancouver when he retires certainly didn’t hurt matters either. Plus, my IM conversations always revolve around food and the weather, and apparently everyone can relate. It’s good to know I can easily forge common bonds with everyone this way.

Anyway, levity aside, Elysium is good people. We met up in the Mission district a few days into his San Francisco visit, for dinner at Bissap Baobab, this funky Senegalese place that I had been to once before last summer with SI and rehes.

As we began our walk down the street to Bissap Baobab, Elysium wondered, “Why are all these people just standing around?”
“Maybe,” I said pointedly, “they’re standing around waiting for their friends who are hella slow in showing up.”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think that’s it.”

So much for me trying to make a point.

And, man, was it cold for California. Our hands were freezing. [Clothing with pockets, this is what I need to be investing in, is what.] I agreed with E’s theory that this being-cold-all-the-damn-time thing must be genetic. Of course, I would like for it to be genetic, because that’s better than my father’s theory, which is that “it’s all in your head, Yasminay.”

Over at the restaurant, Elysium made the worst decision ever. It went like this: He skimmed the menu, closed the menu, sat back, and said, “You decide.”

Do you know what making me decide on food choices is like? It’s torture! TORTURE, I say! I mean, making food decisions for myself is bad enough, but having to decide for someone else, too, is nerve-wracking. And E was damn unhelpful, because every time I threw an idea his way (“Vegetables in peanut sauce?”, “Fish? Do you like fish?”, “Vegetarian stew?”, “What do you like better, rice or couscous? Dammit, help me out here!”) he’d just respond with, “You decide.”

In all honesty, though, this was my own fault, because I think I recall E making some sort of food decision and then looking at me for affirmation – “Right?” – which I immediately undercut with, “But that fried mashed potato appetizer did sound good.” So, of course, he put his menu away and left it all to me to decide. My potato obsession will be the downfall of me – thanks a lot for getting me into this, stupid Obsession With Potatoes (OWP)! ow, is right.

Here’s how you know people are cool: When they’re so nice and patient about the ten thousand hours (no, seriously, it was damn long) it takes for you to pick your food, even going so far as to ask about your day and then putting up with your impatient “Hold on, I can’t multi-task when I’m figuring out what to eat!” with a straight face. High-five to the friendly waitstaff also, who nodded understandingly at all my “I think I need another minute” requests.

As we sat around waiting for our food to arrive, Elysium tried to make sense of just what exactly I do with my life: “I don’t get it. You’re always out having lunch all the time. So when do you work?” Yeah, that’s a pretty valid question.

I made fun of his huge backpack and “carrying his life around with him,” just as I had with HijabMan back in September. At the end of the dinner, he actually made me pick it up, and all I can say is, I’m so glad I’m not the one who has to carry that bag around all day. Then again, unlike those guys, I’m the one without the laptop and the digital SLR, both of which seem like they would be fun investments.

E fished a bunch of different Canadian coins out of his pocket to show me. They’re actually pretty similar in size to US coins, I think. While I was looking at them, all intrigued, one of the waitstaff came by and stopped at our table, distracted by the shiny money. He picked up one of the coins and brought it close to his face, trying to read the writing on it. His face carried a comically perplexed expression. Elysium and I watched him in silence; I don’t know about E, but I was trying not to laugh the entire time.

“It’s… it’s CANADIAN!” the man finally exclaimed, all surprised as if he had discovered something so completely fascinating (and foreign) that it had never before been known to mankind. I tried not to burst out laughing. I think the dude took all the Canadian money, too. Maybe he thought it was part of the tip.

Walking back to BART, the following conversation transpired:

E, looking around: “Where are all the brown people?”
Y: “You mean, like, the South Asians?”
E: “Yeah.”
Y: “I think they live in the suburbs.”

And this is how I know Elysium is good at paying attention: When I made some sort of offhand comment about how I don’t travel on BART very often, E pointed out, “I thought BART was your friend.” Which totally sounds like something I would say, so I must have said it.

Downstairs, on the BART platform while waiting for my homebound train, I made friends with a short-haired girl who was intrigued by my headwrap. “I bought a whole bunch of pretty scarves so I could wear them as headwraps,” she said, “but my sister laughs at me, ‘cuz I don’t have enough hair!”

“Use multiple scarves and layer it up,” I suggested, amused, and then explained step-by-step. My train was approaching, so I quickly introduced myself and asked her name. Julia, she said. She was cool. See, I don’t understand why people tell me I would hate BART if I traveled on it everyday. BART is rocking.

Two days later was a Friday – jummah [Friday congregational prayers] at my favorite Oakland masjid that you’re probably tired of hearing me rave about all the time, but just deal. Elysium caught a ride to jummah with our lovely buddy, D; my favorite partner in crime – Princess Pretty Pants – and the Lovely L Lady also managed to make it, so I was super excited.

Afterward, while congregating in front of the masjid and then crossing the street back to our cars, we tried to figure out what to do about lunch. Once again, indecisiveness in action: Where/what to eat. W and F wanted gyros, PPP and the Lovely L Lady wanted pasta from Gypsy’s, and I didn’t really care what I ate as long as we all chilled at Julie’s Cafe, because Julie’s has patio heaters, dammit, and any place with patio heaters is the place to be. High-five to Elysium, once again, for patiently putting up with us.

Elysium and I got to Julie’s first, and took over a long table in the back corner of the patio. The line was out the door, so E suggested we wait until the line got shorter. This sounded fine in theory, except for the fact that, two minutes later, the line was out the door, down the entire length of the rectangular patio, and all the way to the steps at the street entrance. I amused myself by throwing disgruntled “This is all your fault” looks at Elysium and making pointed comments about how we COULD have already gotten our food and started EATING by now, but I think he is immune to guilt trips, which is just as well.

The rest of our group trickled into Julie’s, one at a time. “Where’s PPP?” asked W.

“She and L are getting pasta. They’ll be here.”

“Sometimes,” said W, twirling his favorite utensil with deliberation, “I just want to pick up my fork and stab her.”

“Your plastic fork might not work so well,” I pointed out, laughing.

W and his sister, F, with their jokes and sarcasm and mutual hostility towards one another never fail to make me laugh and brighten my Fridays. W, especially, is incorrigible, and his derisive comments have lately inspired me to insult him with the following: “You’re the worst Haji I’ve ever met!”

“I know,” he always says, laughing, looking far too pleased. “I came back worse from Haj than when I went!”

W and PPP traded barbs and insults all through lunch, including threats of stabbing each other. At one point, PPP put on her best mean face and said, “Do you know where I’m from?”

I started laughing. “Buddy, we know you’re from West Sac, so you’re dangerous and scary, but as of March 1st, West Sac has a reputation only for being home to the brand-new IKEA.”

“I KNOW!” she exclaimed, face falling. “I’m so mad about that! STUPID BASTARDS.”

However, as always, PPP and W managed to kinda sorta bond over their common obsession with hot sauce, so no stabbing occurrences were reported.

W and PPP – as well as the Lovely L Lady and I – are huge proponents of the “tough love” philosophy, which, to us, basically means that you make fun of your friends in order to show your love. Elysium was, I believe, a bit disconcerted by all this; I think I recall a comment along the lines of, “You’re so mean to each other!”

PPP tried to unsuccessfully explain, then finally gave up. “Tell him, Yazzo.”

I stepped in with the explanation. “If we love you, we will make fun of you forever.”

“Yeah!” said PPP approvingly.

Of course, this also led to PPP remarking, “Oh, but Yazzo is mean, though!” She then made me tell the story of the time I cussed her out in chemistry lecture during our freshman year of college. “You tell it better!” she said. This point is debatable, actually, because – while I have told the story enough times to be a pro at it by now – I’m actually not a very good storyteller at all in real life. This is why I have a weblog, kids.

No hanging-out session with Elysium is complete without a discussion about Canada, and I have to admit he did a good job of selling Canada to the Lovely L Lady. She’s all set to move, that traitor.

At the beginning of lunch, I peered over at L’s pasta from Gypsy’s and asked, “What did you get?”

“No- Noch-something? I don’t know how to pronounce it.”

“Oh, I know what it is!” I said. “I know how to spell it. But, yeah, I don’t know how to pronounce it either.”

Elysium came to our rescue with the supposedly correct pronunciation for gnocchi. “Yeah, people from Toronto KNOW these things,” I laughed.

Over lunch, we discussed Elysium’s less-than-stellar impressions of San Francisco, much of which, we decided, was based on the neighborhood where he had opted to stay. “Of all the places you could have stayed at,” said PPP, shaking her head, “you decided to stay in the crack capital of the world.”

“And it just so happens to be in San Francisco,” deadpanned Elysium.

Soon, PPP and L started getting antsy because they wanted to beat the 5 o’clock traffic to the Sacramento valley. I, however, had other ideas: “Let’s go get some gelato!”

[By the way: Gelateria Naia was featured on a Food Network show a little while back. Check Week 3, Episode 8 for videos of pretty-looking gelato. (Baji, I’m looking right AT you!)]

While we were walking down Telegraph, back to our cars, Elysium made some dig at my driving skills, which was laughingly echoed by PPP and the Lovely L Lady. “What are you talking about?” I said indignantly. “My driving is -” I paused, searching for the suitable word. “-AMAZING!” I decided.

Once at the gelato place on Shattuck, we had fun test-tasting ten thousand flavors before deciding on what to get. I went with my old favorites: stracciatella and chocolate orange.

I love the funky, bright orange and lime green walls at Gelateria Naia, as well as the decor. “Look,” I pointed out one of the wall prints to PPP, “there’s the kinda car we should have!”

“It’s Saif Ali Khan’s car from Salaam Namaste!” she said, delighted. (That stupid, damn catchy My dil goes mmmm song! Ahhhhh!)

Anyway, so we ate gelato, and Elysium took pretty pictures, and PPP made fun of his stalker paparazzi camera. E quite neatly sidestepped PPP’s incessant “You haven’t answered my questions! So where are you from? And what do you do?” demands. Evading PPP takes some major skill (even I can’t do that), so high-five to Elysium. [Clearly, I’m going outta control stealing HijabMan’s trademark high-fives for use in this post. Just you try to make me stop.]

Then we headed out to go our separate ways. I abandoned E at the Berkeley BART station because the thought of driving him back to SF in rush-hour traffic was too horrific (sorry, buddy!)

The Tuesday after that, I picked up Elysium from his hotel to drive him to SFO so he could fly back to his beloved Canada. And although he called me a “crazy driver,” I will be nice enough to mention that Elysium is a better navigator than HijabMan, I’ve decided. Also, for the record, I’m not a crazy driver, dammit. (Don’t make me run you over.)

I brought E a small bag of tangerines from my backyard tree, since he was dying for some Vitamin C and also because he’d always refuse my attempts to share chocolate chip cookies with him (seriously, what kinda friend repeatedly turns down home-baked chocolate chip cookies?). Anyway, he was a fan of the tangerines, even though he only took two – but he managed to sidestep a potentially hefty fine (up to $400 or something?) and smuggle them into Canada, which I think is the most awesome story ever. I was accessory to a successful smuggling, you guys! I’m going to tell my grandkids.

This post is about four pages too long already, but I have one more thing to mention before I wrap this up:

I am pleased to note that (I think) we sufficiently amused/traumatized Elysium with our constant usage of the words “crack,” “stalking,” and “stabbing,” which E later referred to as “the Yasmine vocabulary.” Actually, there was a point – mid-conversation with Elysium, during dinner in the Mission – when I realized just how often the word “crack” (and all variations thereof) spills from my mouth and, seeing the amused look on E’s face even though he was kind enough not to interrupt my sentence, I made a conscious effort to cut down on the usage. But it just wouldn’t work. So I am pleased to admit that if you know me only from the weblog or AIM, I use the words “crack,” “stalking,” and “stabbing” just as much in real deal life as I do on those mediums. That’s right, kids! Come to California so we can talk.

[p.s. As for the CA vs. CA debate, all the recent pro-Canada description over in the comment box of Anjum’s post was pretty damn awesome-sounding, I will admit that.]

>continue reading

S felt it was necessary to add to the glorious architecture, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

It’s a sad testament to my slacker tendencies that not only have I neglected to write about my Blogistan meetup with Anjum about a month ago, but she has updated about her first California trip a couple of times already, and then she was back in the SF Bay Area on a second business trip, and I still haven’t gotten around to writing about our hanging-out sessions from a month ago. Talk about major laziness, man. Stab me already.

But I had long ago promised Anjum I’d post my version of our meetup(s), so here it goes, in all its rambling glory thanks to hastily scribbled notes and bullet points, but organized into paragraph-form so late that I’m probably not doing it justice.

[Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out already, check out Flickr for some of the photos from our Berkeley/SF hanging-out sessions.]

TUESDAY, JANUARY 3rd: Anjum arrives in the Bay!

This is after about a week of us exchanging emails and phone calls. At one point, Anjum left me a voicemessage that ended with, “Umm, what’s going on with all the flooding out there?” I sent her emails warning her to bring whatever clothing she considered suitable for rainy weather, because it damn well wasn’t sunshine-y at this end. Oh, and in regards to phone calls – to be honest, I must confess I can’t recall even one single time I answered my phone when Anjum called. This was not deliberate; the reception around here sucks. But I bet it started to seem highly suspicious after the first, oh, four or five times.

The first thing that happened after I parked my car at the Oakland Airport (to pick up Anjum) was that I somehow set off my car alarm. You’d think, after owning the new car for four months at that point, I’d have learned all these fancy schmancy nuances regarding car alarms and such by now. Apparently not. The first week I got the car, I set off the alarm an average of three times a day. I guess setting it off just once in January (so far) was progress then. While I was pressing all the buttons on my keychain and cursing under my breath, a guy walking by called out, “Try locking your car, then unlocking it with your key!” So I did. And it didn’t work. But then the alarm inexplicably stopped blaring ten seconds later while I was still pressing the keychain buttons at random. So I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on my way inside the airport to wait for Anjum, who took a while getting out, but that was okay, because I highly amused myself by reading the warning signs regarding what one should absolutely positively not take on planes while one is traveling. Sadly, all I remember is the fact that paint-thinner is a no-no. Just don’t do it, kids.

While driving Anjum to her hotel in San Ramon, she glanced out the window at one point and exclaimed, “Palm trees!”
“Where?!” I said. “We have palm trees in NorCal?”
So we had a good laugh over that, because apparently there are palm trees around here, it’s just that I never notice them unless they’re as abundantly in-your-face as the palm trees in Southern California.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 6th: Jummah in Oakland, Hangingout session in Berkeley

PrincessPrettyPants picked up Anjum in San Ramon, and they drove up to meet with me and my sister in our hometown, where they jumped in my car and we raced through Highway24 to my favorite masjid for jummah in Oakland. While driving through Oakland, my sister turned to the backseat and asked Anjum, “So, how’re you liking California so far?” Anjum mused that California folks don’t seem to be in as much of a hurry as East Coast-ers, rushing around less.
My sister misheard rushing as washing. “You mean, like, hygiene?” she exclaimed, horrified.
I started laughing. “Not washing less, buddy, rushing less!”

Jummah [the Friday congregational prayers] were rocking, as usual. Afterward, we headed over to Berkeley for lunch at Julie’s Cafe (where PPP had wayy too much fun with the hot sauce), then to the Oddball store down the street (where I saw gems like this and this), then to the Berkeley Hat Co., where I was totally busted for taking photographs of – among other things – PPP trying on funky purple beanies with pom-poms attached. Somewhere in between, I saw a store display of children’s rain boots, and exclaimed, “I want those! Galoshes! That would be so awesome!”
PPP shook her head. “I never want to see you wearing a pair of those, you hear me?”
“Whaaat? I could totally pull it off!”
“No, Yazzo, even you couldn’t pull that off.”

Props to Anjum for putting up with our mass craziness, because when we crazy Cali kids hang out in a group, we are insane.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7th: Hangingout session in San Francisco

This was the best day ever. I invited my friend S to come hang out with me and Anjum in San Francisco – basically, because I had originally invited him to Jummah the previous day and we planned it out a week in advance, but he overslept on Friday and then sent me an apologetic text message (“Good morning, I just woke up looking at the time, I don’t think I will make it to the Bay but can I come up tomorrow or Sunday to make up Friday please”). I laughed at the sheer audacity of flaking out on people at the last minute through text messaging, then called S to yell at him, made him feel sufficiently guilty, and then graciously invited him to hang out with us on Saturday, because I am so kind and forgiving like that.

S drove down from Sacramento and met me at the BART station so we could take the train into SF together. He had never ridden the train before, and professed to feeling freaked out about this. I told him to suck it up. “Man up!” as Somayya says. Besides, he was wearing his Superman t-shirt, and Superman is not supposed to be afraid of measly things like trains. Once on the train, S busted out with his Treo and started photographing the interior. I told him to calm down with that a bit, since brown people taking pictures these days is cause for such drama, mygod. Then I took the Treo away from him and started checking my GMail, even though I had done that right before leaving the house. Once I figured out how the tiny keyboard worked, I teased him, “Oh, so this is why I’ve been getting text messages in complete sentences from you lately! I thought maybe you were just turning into me, or something.” I may never pick up my phone or return calls in a timely manner, but at least I’m famous for text-messaging in full sentences, with perfect spelling and grammar.

After that, we commenced bickering about phone calls – S accused me of never returning his calls, while, in my defense, I explained that if I’m in a “not picking up the phone or returning calls” mood (which is most of the time), I’m ignoring not only his calls but also everyone else’s. This cheered him up considerably. “Oh, okay,” he said. “So it’s not me, then. You just have psychological problems.”
“Yeah, I think that sounds about right.”

We met up with Anjum outside the Powell St. BART in San Francisco, and from there made our way down to Union Square. I was delighted to see how quickly S and Anjum got along – S, like Somayya, has a habit of making fun of people as a way of showing his love, and Anjum not only took it in stride with good humor, but she dished it right back, so that in no time the two of them were all making fun of one another as if they’d been friends for years. A recurring theme of conversation throughout the day was S’s Superman shirt, ironic because Anjum and I kept accusing him of being “SO SLOW!” Anjum, fearless East Coast-er that she is, would surge right ahead and cross the street in a split second, while S and even I hesitated and looked both ways and checked the lights and signals before proceeding. Clearly, we need to work on our jaywalking skills. Pedestrians need to take back the streets!

At one point, Anjum and I ducked inside the Mocca cafe not only to check out the pretty food but also for old time’s sake because this was the spot where Baji‘s sister, LB, and I had met up for chocolate mousse cake and a little bit of hanging out at Union Square back in September2004. However, we decided to move along to the Ghirardelli store for ice cream sundaes, but S and I were really in the mood for root beer floats, and no one seemed to have ’em.

We decided to skip the food for the time being and move on to a bookstore, where Anjum browsed postcards and I found a wombat book that would be perfect for DeGrouchyOwl. I was super excited about this, and had to take a photograph. As Anjum and S continued their own browsing, I wandered down to the lower level of the bookstore, where I was delighted to find the Glamour magazine article on WOMEN WHO BLOG. While I was skimming the article, Anjum and S came by, so I gleefully pointed out the article to Anjum, who had heard about it already, too.

“Blog?” said S confusedly.
“Yes, you know, weblogs,” we said. “That’s how we meet, through our weblogs.”
“What?! I thought you were two were related or something!”
We burst out laughing and explained about the weblogs a bit more, but S wasn’t feelin’ it. He just gave us Why would you do THAT? sort of looks.

At the register a few minutes later, while Anjum was paying for her postcards, S patted me patronizingly on the head. “It’s okay, Yasmine, you’re a nice blob.”
“A what?”
“Blob. Blog. You know. What you guys do. Blobbing.”
I rolled my eyes.

We wandered around some more. Anjum was on a quest to find a post office, of which there is apparently one in the Macy*s department store, of all places. Every time we went up and down from one level to another, S, who was quite comfortable chillin’ in one spot, kept asking “Why do you keep walking on the escalators?” to which I would retort, ” ‘Cuz I’m not a lazyass like you.” To which he told me how short I am, because this is his favorite thing of which to remind me.

While Anjum stood in line at the post office, S and I went off to amuse ourselves with the plethora of other stuff available at Macy*s: disgustingly expensive fresh-baked bread in animal shapes, Mango-A-Go-Go smoothies from Jamba Juice, and vending machines that dispensed quite another form of (eye)candy altogether: iPods and their accessories!

More walking: We ducked into Anthropologie, where I decided that any store that sells a pair of pants for $165 is damn overrated. Also, I got Anjum and S to take pictures of me with Anthropologie’s humongous shopping bags, which seemed almost as big as I was.

Back out to the street: we witnessed the cablecar turnaround, some street dancing, and a reminder about how much Jesus Christ loves us.

We stood waiting in the long line for our turn on the next cablecar, which took us to Fisherman’s Wharf, by which time we were hella hungry and dying for some food. S supposedly knew of a good clam chowder place, so Anjum and I just followed his lead. Along the way, we passed some monkeys who made me think of Baji, and an earring shop at which Anjum and I did double-takes, waffled, and glanced at each other uncertainly before deciding, “Alright, let’s go in!” So we checked out all the gorgeous dangly earrings to our hearts’ content while S waited patiently, then we went and got some clam chowder from Boudin’s and saw even more animal-shaped bread.

At the end of the meal, I offered Anjum some of the orange-flavored Trident gum that I love. She chewed it for a second and exclaimed, “This is what your car smells like!” I remembered I had been chewing it the evening I picked her up from the airport. Well, if my car had to start losing the new-car smell, as far as I’m concerned the next best thing would be for it to smell like oranges.

We walked around Fisherman’s Wharf for a while longer, taking pictures of each other taking pictures, checking out the lazy sea lions, marveling at the ships and ferries and the little white sailboats. Soon, I had to leave, so S and I said our goodbyes to Anjum, leaving her at the wharf because she wanted to stay for a view of the impending sunset.

S and I walked back to the cablecar stop, and I did some bread-watching from the street along the way. Also along the way, while I was walking along and in mid-conversation with S, a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk shoved a potted bush in my face while screaming, “YAAAAAHHHHHH!”

I jumped in surprise, then yelled, “What the hell!”
S was doubled over in laughter. So was the homeless man.
I was not amused. I punched S in the arm. “What kind of damn friend are you? That wasn’t freakin’ funny!”
“It was!” he gasped, still chuckling. “You totally didn’t see it coming. He made you jump!”
“Well, he freakin’ scared the hell out of me! God!”

We got on the cablecar heading back to Union Square. The car was crowded and I had no handhold, so I reached up and grasped the closest thing I saw – the wire above my head. “Don’t pull that unless you want to get off!” said the cablecar man quickly.
“Here,” said S, “hold on to this.”
I looked up at the metal bar he was gesturing to, and laughed. “Do you seriously expect me to reach that? There’s no way I’m going to be able to reach that!”
He offered his arm as a handhold, but I stubbornly stood my ground, and somehow we made it back to Union Square – with glorious views along the way – without me falling off the back of the cablecar. Then we descended the escalator at the BART station, got on the next train to the East Bay, and then drove back to our respective homes.

The end!