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components of a perfect day

1. going on a date with myself to the star trek movie. i sat in the theater and giggled with joy, gasped with satisfaction, felt thrilled by the visuals and like, “oh, yes that makes sense,” about the storyline. bravo! part of what made it so good was waiting for the right moment to see it, letting the anticipation build up to the point of near frenzy. i have to remember that i was taught, through our family birthday process, that anticipation is the best part of any truly special occasion.

my girl favi wrote something i couldn’t quite grasp, but which made me realize that spock might actually be the star trek character im closest to – virgo (me) and vulcan (him) are both logic based creatures. and he’s a mixed kid!! geek. out.

2. swimming outdoors because its 97 degrees out. the first pool i went to was closed, boo. the second pool was closing in 5 minutes, and they had no towels to rent. the woman saw my face and said – go get in. they let me swim and flip around for 10 minutes, it felt sooo good. i decided she was kind of an angel of my day, especially when she let me pat down with her towel after.

3. going to a graduation of new teachers at mills college. my sweet neighbor bong lau was graduating with his teaching degree – he teaches art. the whole thing made me so emotional! i cried through the first 3 speeches. the righteous energy, the commitment to doing such hard and needed work as teaching, the love of students and justice and imagination – it was inspirational and unexpected. almost everyone in my life commits themselves to teaching, sharing knowledge, fighting for justice. but it’s rare to just say it, to realize how many people are out there in different ways working to make things better against impossible odds.

4. the bbq! we have these bbqs on my patio, my neighbors are amazing at cooking and inviting folks over, and it’s literally hours of us collectively holding court for a wide range of hilarious, inspirational or super raunchy conversation. some of the content last night included: matchmaking, how happiness changes (one neighbor has a 3-year theory, that every 3 years your idea of happiness changes, and if someone told you what was going to make you happy in 3 years you wouldn’t believe them. this theory worked completely when i applied it to my own life…), how people develop their sexual preferences (my theory is that porn brings a lot of ideas into the bedroom that aren’t actually pleasing or logical), strawberries, my friend tommy’s new improvisation troupe, my friend valerie’s art space and pending choir, the andre ward boxing match (which some of our party went to briefly and reported back that it was aight), and a new friend and i talked about relationships and freedom, 1 upping each other with our openmindedness. then we realized we were talking over each other, which was because we were a virgo-sag match, both raised surrounded by people of the other sign. he is one of the latest adoptees to the buildings. folks come to one bbq, and see that it’s truly like some television version – 10 strangers find themselves in an apt building, diverse, funny, and with a penchant for meat on a grill and talking about love. irresistible.