Whenever I drive over the Bay Bridge coming from Oakland into the city, I am always struck by how absolutely beautiful the San Francisco skyline is. It is one of the things I treasure about the city - and I have since the summers my mom would drive us from my grandparents in Fremont to the Esprit outlet in SF. I knew back then that the city of San Francisco and I had a vibe - one that would ultimately lead me to live there and revel in the splendidness of this great city.

I have traveled many places and seen many cities, and I have felt different vibes at each place. I have an affinity for New York City and would move there in a heartbeat. Chicago does it for me, as does Portland, Oregon. Boston - not so much...I didn't get a really strong vibe for the place.

Today, I sit in a hotel room after a day in downtown Charlestown, South Carolina. And I feel bad saying this because I just spent the past 8 hours with two women who couldn't stop gushing about this "wonderful" town, but I ain't getting no vibe from this town. None. What I am getting is a whole lot of nostalgia for grandparents since this town is full of old, white people. Oh wait, neither set of my grandparents was white. I'm also getting a taste of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon crap I thought I left behind when I graduated since this town is also full of young, white frat boys (sorry Reyes - but then again, you're not white). I literally got a taste of the seafood that is offered at every restaurant - and that stuff I can't really complain about. But really now, when you want me to fawn over a skyline, it better have more than four little church steeples dotting it. I need tall buildings and an Asian superman.

Off to the Carolinas for a week - and in case you didn't know, Michael Jordan went to UNC and Vince Carter too!

I call it the Katie Carson virus, which makes it sound like it's a bad thing, but it's not at all. You see, I'm talking to strangers - complete strangers. People I have no need to talk to. Every time I start doing it, a little voice in my head goes "Amanda, you're pulling a Katie. I can't believe you're actually doing this. You know you don't have to talk to this person." I was never a big fan of small-talk, let alone with people I don't even know. Now Katie on the other hand can talk to strangers for hours on end. Trust me, I've been a witness. I don't know if I've been hanging around with her a lot lately and something's rubbed off or if I am coming into my own and feel I have something to share with others. Like the guy in the DMV line - I felt like maybe we could bond in our misery so I started up a nice, little conversation. And then there was our waiter the other night in Burlingame - we ended up swapping favorite Haight locales to the amusement of Adrian who stared at me like I was a new person. I haven't gone full Katie Carson - I have no need to tell the Trader Joe's stockboy how yummy the Madeleine cookies are (I'm sure he already knows). But I'm getting there...and like I said before, it's not a bad thing.

Last night, Adrian and I drove down to Gilroy to hang out with my best friend from high school and her husband. They recently bought a house, so we were going to check that out as well as just visit. And the whole time we were there, listening to stories of house repair projects, taxes, and insurance policies, I could not stop thinking about how much I love my life. My live-in-an-apartment, travel-the-world-because-I don't-have-a-house-payment, tell-interesting-stories-due-to-all-the-exciting-things-I-do life. All my "wanting to get married" whining aside, I realized (again) that I don't want to turn into that domesticated housewife. At least not for awhile. But then a strange thing happened on the way home - my mind started playing tricks on me and I started to wonder if I was losing the race somehow. I went from bold and carefree to worried and confused. I'm 27 years old and I am not engaged, I am not married, and I don't have a house. My high school newsletter is full of classmates who are married and have children. I don't want to be like them, so why am I so concerned about where I stand in the runnings?

There isn't much that I find more amazing than a rainbow on a rainy day.

(...and Mark, no Castro/gay jokes are needed here)

People ride BART all the time - but I do not. I've probably ridden it a total of 5 times in my life. Last night, I rode BART from Oakland to San Francisco after softball practice and I don't know what it was, but I was scared the whole ride. Yeah sure, I had my book out and was trying my best to look like I did this sort of BART-riding all the time, but I was constantly checking out who got on and off..."Why is that guy sitting like that? Does he want my bag of clothes? Who's that girl? Does she have evil intentions? Man, look at those tattoos!"...etc. It didn't help that the girl who dropped me off kept advising me to only board a car that had a lot of people in it. Everytime people left my car, I freaked at the dwindling number of passengers who were apt to take down any sort of gunman or other vigilante. Then I started worrying that I had boarded the wrong train and I would end up in Fremont instead of San Francisco. When I heard the conductor announce that we were stopping at Embarcadero, I breathed a sigh of relief that my journey was almost to a close. I am not clear on why my ride was so stressful - I don't want to say that it's because I started the ride in Oakland and I was carrying two full bags of various enticing items. I want to say that it was because I don't like situations that are out of my control or that I'm not familiar with, but ultimately I think it was a small combination of both.

The last time I played softball on a co-ed team was 4 years ago and I have mixed memories about the whole experience. I played catcher and I hated it for many reasons, one being that I had to share a mask with the opposing team. Talk about gross. I'll never forget that when I came down with a major case of strep throat that summer and had to have an IV in the emergency room, I cursed that bloody mask and all its festering germs. I also think it's a funny dynamic to have men and women play sports together. Especially when there's the chance there will be girlie-girls on the team. In softball, guys want to hit a home run and win the game. Girls are content with making contact with the ball and not getting out (I speak of the girlie-girls here - the rest of us also hope to hit a home run).

So now I'm on a new team and I have mixed feelings going into it. I don't really know anyone except for the girl that I work with who invited me to be on the team. The games are on Friday nights...in the East Bay. But I'm excited to mix up my normal routine and meet new people - and to NOT play catcher. It should be fun and get this - the team is sponsored by a mathematics publishing house and so we're called the Exponents. How cute is that!! (Oh...that was my girlie-girl showing through...can't have any of that on the field...)

Let's PLAY BALL!

As of today, I have decided to ban the Sarah and No Name morning radio show on 97.3. I would rather spend my commute radioless than listen to another show filled with Sarah mispronouncing world leaders' names or acting like she's queen of the world. No Name - I'm gonna miss you...your SCU educated mind was entertaining and coherent, but it just isn't enough anymore. From this day forward, I vow to give my dusty old CDs more play time because there is nothing better than reliving those C+C Music Factory days.