Many happy returns

I know the last few posts haven't exactly been rays of sunshine. Being referred to as an alien, let alone an illegal one, is bound to put a damper on things.

But, with all the b-day celebrations/happy stuff in the past 2 weeks, it's been hard not to feel just a little festive. It's been my sister's (30th) as well as mine (25 forever) so there has been a lot of joint action.

Let me see, there was...

-my first ball game.


-some kind of huge-ass BBQ at a friend's place north of the city


-a road odyssey to Vegas (more about that later)


-an Italian dinner that came very slowly, chased by many vodka-based beverages that were drunk too quickly...

...which was chased by a run-in with shore police at fleet week, outside a Thai "health" massage parlour. (Full story coming)

These few weeks have definitely love me long time!

And today, (actual b-day), great big huge American pancakes at the Millbrae Pancake House and possibly a wander around a lake.

In Vegas, I played the 1-cent pokeys a lot and the trick to them is getting a bonus round. Then you get a bunch of free spins, and lots more chances at wins. Well, I think in the great dodgy casino of life, everyone gets old, there's a lot of glitz, but the reality often smells funny. This year at least, has been a pretty huge bonus round.

Thanks for sticking round for it :)

Never have truer words been said

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

—Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen by Mary Schmich

This week, I'm sure, will be a front runner for Most Likely To Be The Suckiest This Year for me. Come New Year's Eve, when I'm looking back at what the hell I frittered my life on in 2007, this one's going to stand out in the for-God's-sake-don't-do-that-again stakes (it will join 'artistic broody guys' and 'cheap shoes'.

So, Monday 9.30am finds me checking some email and I read one from an Aussies in America group about maximum tourist stays being 6 months. I'm sure I have a 1-year visa, but run and check it anyway. Lo and behold, the email was true. There, like a stab in my side, is the red stamp with a date that's 10 days old.

I was completely blind-sided in every possible way. Frantic phone calls and emails and visits with lawyers fill the following days. I learn more about US immigration law than I ever planned to know. I was suggested to get married about 5 times. A few more, and it would be akin to a visit to the parents ;) After much research and thinking, the gaping, devastating, nauseous feeling slowly subsides to a low hum. The consequences, though not ideal, aren't as devastating as I initially thought.

But, it does remind me that I'm the most foolish fool that ever fooled, for trying to live in another country. My first years in Singapore were wrought with dealings with the immigration department as well, so this is not my first time. Dealings with immigration departments, no matter what country you're in, seems to be its own special level of hell. They have a separate button in the elevator and everything. I realise more ludicrous things have been achieved before, putting a man on the moon, Paris' "career'"for two, but not that many.

Avenue Q - It Sucks To Be Me

My theme song these days...

Truth and dare

These past 6 months, I have come to think about risk a lot. Not the game kind, the kicked-in-the-gut kind.

What I left and lost: My autonomy–hardest. My financial plan–easiest.
What I must give up. My sense of entitlement. My resentment for the weight I magically gained :p
Why I did this. What is it that I'm actually after: Like the Golden Gate Bridge on a foggy day, I know it's there, I just can't see the details right now.
Whether it's worth it: I would have been a lot more ambivalent about this yesterday, but after a good meeting today, I think it just might be.
Whether I'm being bold or reckless. Maybe.

A wonderful reader's survey in the New York Times, courtesy of Miss T, asking people why they take risks perked me up muchly. A big reminder that there's others in the same boat. That it does work out. Or even if it doesn't they still lived to tell the tale. And, that come to think of it, the risk of the Big Move doesn't come nearly close to #90's comment: "Being honest with people (and myself) in all of my relationships (platonic and romantic)."

As a truly huge fan of "keeping things nice" I realise I'd really rather move across the ocean again, or repel down the side of a cliff, than to break my vow of compliance and speak the truth all the time. Something just freaks out inside every time I think I endanger my relationships with the truth. Better a relationship based on a little lying than none at all, right? ...is my general line of thinking.

Retarded, but true, at least.

Crowded House in Oakland

So this post was going to be about finally seeing in person the soundtrack to my last 11 years, and how awesome that was. Little was I to know the Crowded House concert in Oakland wouldn't be the most exciting thing to happen that night.

Anyway, I need to go back to '96. Legendary Aussie band Crowded House breaks up just as they are reaching the height of their fame and I am at the wrong end of the country when they play their farewell gig on the steps of the Opera House. I console myself with their Greatest Hits album, Recurring Dreams.

It would be the first time of many that that CD would do the trick. Through heartbreak, homesickness, loss and disappointment across three continents, there wasn't much a good cry and those tripping melodies couldn't remedy. Singer/songwriter Neil Finn just has a way of making depression delicious again.

Having reformed earlier this year at the Coachella festival, Yen and I were excited to finally be able to see them in concert–we had been too young to appreciate them live the first time round. So it was with a mixture of awe and anticipation that we headed to the beautiful Art Deco Paramount theater. We were clearly a good decade or so younger than most of the audience, and two of the maybe five Asian people there, but we know all the words and no one was bloody going to stop us using them!

Standing in the nosebleed seats, I finally got to use all of them. Being part of the 3000-strong audience singing "Better be home soon" acapella, was really one of the most sublime magic kind of sparkling moments I've had in awhile. If it is even possible, I am even more in love with those songs now. It must be one of the great joys in life to have people sing back the song you wrote. Apart from the obvious, it must majorly rock to be in a rock band.

After tripping out of the theater on a high from that, things took a sudden turn for the worse. Actually we got snapped off our cloud nine so fast we got whiplash, because when we got back to the car, it looked like this:

Some thugs had smashed the back window and rifled through everything. A young couple two cars in front were picking through the broken glass in their back seat as well. We called the police, but Oakland is a really bad part of the Bay area and they have bigger problems than a few vandalised cars. Bizarrely they took my cash-less purse, but left my Coach handbag, made off with the parking change but didn't notice the iPod shuffle!

Not that we were really laughing. With no window the ride home across the Bay was bloody freezing. Then there was the excitement of calling insurance to file a report and Singapore to cancel my cards. We did feel slightly CSI when we fished the screwdriver they had discarded off the seat with a tissue and put it into a zip loc bag! Not that anyone from the police dept would care to print it or speak to us or give us the time of day or anything.

I slept as usual though. Fear is exhausting.

Hard Partying

So amazing what hours of primping can do...for other people. We, on the other hand, rolled out of bed like this.

Partying in SF is not so much entertainment as an endurance test. Firstly, no matter what weather it's like near your house, or how cute your new dress is, a cardigan/jacket/both is required to brave the squally winds and b*tch of a fog in the city. Then there's the inordinate stress of finding the place. As head non-driver, I am constantly struggling with different retarded GPS systems. After that whole palaver, there's driving round and round for a park. Shouting and cursing at every godforsaken imbecile who takes one ahead of us. Then, finally, after the stars have aligned and a human sacrifice made, a space is found and the whole car erupts in a self-congratulatory cheer.

Mind you, we're still two blocks from the place. There's still picking your way through the unusual streets–here a posh new office block, there an alley populated by various homeless people and surly old security guards (is there any other kind?). Once accomplished, belly up to some bar small enough to fit into the private rooms at Zouk.

Aaah San Francisco. How much do I love thee?

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