I feel like as I’ve gotten older, I can’t keep up with all the new hip food trends and restaurant openings like I used to. Instead, I’m finding out about them from my younger colleagues, who are anywhere from three to seven years younger. One of the latest crazes is poke, or raw fish served with rice, quinoa, or in the form of a burrito/wrap, which came by the way of Hawaii and/or California. Poke Works is near my office, and so one of them suggested we go next week. The “sushiritto” thing I learned about from Chris when he was on a work trip to San Francisco. I hate that he found out about a San Francisco food trend before me.

I wanted to see what the hype was about, so after looking it up on Yelp, after work today, I walked over to see if I could potentially get it for dinner tonight. As soon as I got to the place, I was appalled to find out that there was not only a massive line inside the shop, but there was even a roped off area in front where people were queuing up. In total, there were at least 30 people in line, and it was not even 6pm yet on a Thursday. I couldn’t deal with the line, so I left and went home, dejected.

I refuse to wait in a line unless I absolutely have to. Damn trends.

Another bonus of going down to Chinatown yesterday afternoon for a massage was that I realized that because it’s April, it means it’s mango season. Mangoes will be at their peak in Chinatown, as would fruit like jackfruit. As we walked along Canal, all I could smell was that wafting, sweet and rich scent of jackfruit beckoning. I haven’t picked jackfruit meat out of an actual jackfruit since high school, and I remember quite vividly how sticky and disgusting the process was. I had to have the fruit, though; it was cheap and smelled perfectly ripe. The innards of a jackfruit are like glue, and not polite white Elmer’s glue that washes off simply with soap and water, but the type of glue that persists even after scrubbing an abrasive all over your hands. It’s okay, I thought in my head as I made my half jackfruit purchase. I’m bringing this six-pound baby home. It will be worth it.

Well, I spent about half an hour taking out all the jackfruit meat and scrubbing my hands with salt and soap over and over. Chris washed the dishes and complained on and on about how hard it was to get the jackfruit stickiness off the cutting board and knife. “No more jackfruit in this house!” he exclaimed. “This is pleb work! I’m not doing pleb work!” I insisted I like jackfruit and that it’s tasty. “You can eat it, but no more picking it out in this house!” He yelled back.

Well, he obviously doesn’t like it as much as I do.

Because of the greatness of Chris’s company, we get a sizeable credit every month that his work covers for us to get massages. Since we go to a place we found in Chinatown that is only $36 an hour, his credit covers both of us plus an over 50 percent tip we give to the masseuses. I was never that excited about massages, but Chris loves them and looks forward to them each month, and of course, he drags me with him. And I know I sound like a brat when I say this, but most of the time I don’t really want to go. I’m just lazy on Sundays and want to stay in our neighborhood.

Well this time, I actually really wanted a massage, and I’d been really wanting one since the wedding weekend. When we went in today, my regular masseuse Lucy commented to me in Chinese that every time I come, my muscles are usually quite knotted and I seem like I’m under stress, but this time, they were especially knotted. “Every time you come, your muscles are more and more tired, but this time, they are the most tired!” she exclaimed while chuckling. I didn’t want to launch into a whole broken Chinese conversation about how I had just pulled off planning three days worth of wedding events, so I just laughed and said that I was really exhausted and that her work felt really comforting.

And then tonight, as I am writing this, I realize that my muscles are sore from all her work. She really did get all the knots out, but now I am in slight pain.

I have a lot of flaws, but one of the flaws that bothers me and probably anyone who will ever live with me is that I always feel like I need to be doing something. I know I get this from my mother, and I know she recognizes it, too, when she sees me. One thing that my friend and former roommate once pointed out to me was that just because I may be efficient doesn’t necessarily mean that I am having fun.

One day years ago when we were living together, I spent a whole Sunday out running many errands and then came home to reorganize and clean. When she came home later that night, she asked me, “How was your day?”, and I responded, “It was good. I got a lot of things done.” She said back to me, “Did you have fun?” And I replied, “Yeah, I was really efficient.” She then said, “Yvonne, that wasn’t what I asked you. I asked you if you had fun, not if you were efficient.”

I feel like I barely did anything today, and it actually felt good. Yeah, I did clean the bathtub last night, and I did sweep the floors and do the week’s grocery shopping, but today, I got the closest to doing nothing as I probably ever will. This weekend is the first weekend since the wedding that we have no plans, no visitors, and nothing on the schedule. And it feels so relaxing, which I rarely feel. This is a good feeling.

While walking during my lunch break the other day, I noticed a homeless man sitting at the side of a church, scattering seeds and feeding about seven or eight pigeons. Some of them were nibbling and biting around him, others were perched on his arms, shoulders, and knees, but all were attentively eating and worshiping his very presence. The homeless man seemed really happy and peaceful.

When I was younger, I used to look at homeless people doing this and think it was the filthiest and most disgusting situation. Why would any human being want to actually attract these disease-infested, rodent-like birds? They’re not even remotely attractive and everyone else who is sane wants to stay far away from pigeons. But now, I actually understand why a homeless person might want to do this; everyone wants to avoid homeless people like the plague. People blame homeless people for being homeless and assume all of them are just druggies and just wasted away all their money. No one wants to give them the light of day, so how do they get out of their suffering and misery? With the pigeons, they don’t care. They just want food, and if a homeless person can give it to them, that’s a win-win situation for both: the pigeons, who are avoided by everyone, get food and nourishment, while the homeless person, also avoided by everyone, gets some attention and tenderness… even just a simple touch from the birds. And that reminds them of their humanity when everyone else wants to deny it of them. Can you blame a human being for wanting some love and attention? We all want it, yet we don’t often get enough of it.

Last September, my boss got me a very generous gift certificate to Great Jones Spa as a bridal shower gift. I decided to save it for a couple weeks out from my wedding to get a deep cleansing facial, so I went to the spa today. I enjoyed my facial quite a bit, including the foot treatment that was very unexpected, but did I think it was worth $160? Probably not, but at least treatments over $100 include use of their water lounge.

I love water lounges. I generally spend most of my time in the hot bubbling water and a grand total of three seconds in the cold plunge. It’s a great way to relax and ease my muscles, especially after five days of intense workouts. What is not great to relax is when the water lounge is full of loud white uppity women who decide to talk and laugh loudly in a place that is meant to be tranquil.

As I am sitting on my long beach chair perusing a skincare magazine mindlessly while drinking herbal tea and snacking on rice crackers, I watched as one of the patrons (everyone here was white except me) stopped one of the Hispanic workers (all the workers doing the cleanup are Hispanic) and said to her slowly as though she could not understand English, “You work so hard. So hard!!” The worker smiled weakly and didn’t say anything other than a quick thanks.

I wasn’t sure that was really necessary. Did that white woman think she was doing a good thing by acknowledging the hard work of that Hispanic worker, who is one of many on the staff that works hard to ensure patrons like her a great spa experience? Does it make her feel better to know that we live in a painfully color-aware, class-ist society?

Every time I go to one of these places, even though I enjoy the experience, I always feel like I don’t really fit in. Seeing that exchange made me realize why. I don’t really fit with that uppity white woman, but I also don’t fit in with the Hispanic service worker. Great.

I remember when I first tried to read Shakespeare, I was about 12 or 13, and I couldn’t get through the play. I don’t even remember the name of the play, but I couldn’t get past the language. Then in high school, in class we read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth. I really enjoyed all three of them, especially Hamlet, and the old English language suddenly didn’t matter anymore and I was finally able to appreciate Shakespeare. Then, for my friend’s birthday, we went to see the Drunk Shakespeare version of Macbeth, and I thought it was a complete waste of money.

It was really hard to follow, and I don’t think you’d have to have read Macbeth to be able to not follow it at all. The references to modern day pop culture and life were a little amusing, but for the most part, it resembled very little of the Shakespeare I appreciate. In fact, I was waiting the entire two hours for the show to be done. It’s basically like paying $60 to see a bunch of drunk young adults dance, spar, fight, argue, yell, and sing random Disney songs with the occasional hint of Shakespeare quotations. I’m pretty certain that the people who are raving about it and rating it so highly on Yelp and Tripadvisor just love to pay too much money to watch a bunch of drunk people “act” and mumble and yell Shakespearean words and language. If I could get my money back for this, I would. Why would I pay to see a bunch of intoxicated people stumble around when I could do that for free any late night anywhere in this great metropolis?